by C. S. Bills
Chapter 20
The next day, Attu gathered everyone together to discuss what to do. Fall was rapidly cooling toward winter, and there wasn’t a moment to lose.
“We need to start filling the meat caches.” Rovek said. He glanced at Senga.
“I will still give more meat back,” Senga said. “I will learn to hunt the seal soon. For now, fish.”
It was true. The man had fished continuously since he could walk again, both repaying Rovek for the meat he’d stolen and bringing home so much to Veshria it was as if two hunters were fishing for her. Even Kossu had been grudgingly pleased with his mother’s new man. Kossu was busy hunting for Chirea now, and he was relieved his mother, younger brother, and sister were being well cared for. Fortunately, the women had their own system to handle the food and Veshria could trade for other meat, so they ate more than fish.
“Father, I need you to consider other options for our defense,” Attu continued. “Take Soantek with you. Have Soantek fly over the areas with a bird before you search them, to save you time. He can report back to you what he’s seen, and you can decide if you want to explore the area on foot as a second hiding place for the women and children, or a place we might be able to lure the enemy to their deaths, like Martu did with the tuktu when the thieves attacked his Clan near the fire mountains.”
“How many such places should we look for?” Ubantu asked, and then answered his own question. “As many as we can find, to the north, south, and east...” he paused, thinking again.
“Yes, because we won’t know which direction the thieves will come from.”
“I will help them also,” Suka said.
Attu had wanted Suka with him, hunting and building up weapons with Kossu, since Suka had proven as good at making bows and arrows as he was with building skin boats. But Suka also had a unique way of looking at things. Sneaky wasn’t the right word for the way Suka thought, but like his story telling, with its elaborations making it better than life, Suka could see possibilities and solutions where others could not. Having him with Ubantu and Soantek was the best use of his skills.
“Good,” Attu said.
“What do the rest of us hunters do?” one of the men asked.
“Hunt as much as possible.” Attu turned to include the women in the group. “Your hunters will bring in as much meat as they can. We need you to dry as much as you have time to, as well as gathering as many nuts and late seeds and roots as you can, and we need you to clean and preserve every stomach and intestine. We’ll fill them with water and store them in the caves, also.”
“I’ll take charge of that,” Yural said. “We already work hard to gather stores for winter. But we’ll work even harder.” She drew the other women off to the side of the group, where they began planning. Attu heard something about taking turns watching children while some went out gathering. He knew his mother would help the women do their best to prepare. As he watched, Yural looked to Nuka, but the Elder had turned away from the group. She began coughing, and Yural put an arm around her to support her thin frame as the two walked away with the other women.
Chonik poked Ganik in the ribs with his elbow. Ganik glared at his friend, but stepped forward as Chonik continued to encourage him by pushing his shoulder. “What about wood?” Ganik asked, shrugging Chonik’s hand off. “We will need much wood.”
Attu couldn’t help but grin at Ganik’s concern. Ganik had learned the lesson of how much wood his Clan burned the hard way. “And?” Attu hoped he knew Ganik’s answer, but he wanted the boy to voice it for himself.
Ganik turned to Chonik, and Chonik nodded. “Chonik and I will take charge of the wood gathering. We’ll get the little ones to gather kindling, and Chonik and I will pile wood on old nuknuk hides to be dragged to the caves.” Ganik looked to Attu. “Grey Wolf will help us pull. All right?” Ganik was eager to get his approval of the plan.
Could it be this boy is starting to grow up into a true Nuvik? Attu looked around and realized everyone, including the two boys, was waiting for his reply.
“Excellent idea,” Attu said. “You can begin at once, and I will check on your progress each sun.” Ganik and Chonik grinned and headed away from the group to start gathering wood. Tingiyok joined them. The boys listened to the Elder, then Chonik ran off to his mother’s shelter, and Ganik ran toward Tingiyok’s. Attu knew the Elder had offered his use of the iron stone ax he’d gotten from the Nukeena.
“Don’t worry,” Tingiyok said to Attu as he returned to the group. “They’ll be careful with it, and it will make their work go much faster. Besides, being able to carry around an iron stone ax will keep Ganik interested in gathering wood for several days.”
Attu chuckled. He could see Ganik strutting around camp, ordering the little ones about, iron stone ax in its hide sheath tied around his waist. He’d have to tell the women to keep an eye on Ganik. The boy could be bossy with the littler children.
“And I told him I’d work with all the dogs. I’ll rig up some harnesses like the Tuktu use on their animals. It’s time Warm Fur and Dog learned to pull like Grey Wolf.”
“Good.”
“What if they don’t come?” Veshria spoke the Clan’s fervent wish aloud. “They didn’t attack us last winter.”
“Then we will all thank the spirits!” one of the women called from the back of the group.
“And we’ll have the most well-stocked food caches and the most prepared Clan to ever meet a winter,” Ubantu said. “We’ll have nothing to do and will all grow lazy and fat next spring.”
Some lips popped and many chuckled at Ubantu’s joke, but several also reached for their spirit necklaces, praying the thieves wouldn’t come.
I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I hope they do come this winter, Attu thought as he walked over to speak with Keanu. At least we will have faced them then, and it will be over, one way or the other.
That evening around the fire, Attu saw Senga and Soantek deep in conversation with Bashoo and a few others. He joined them.
“I was just telling Senga what happened to the Nukeena and how they were able to get Raven women to become part of their Clan.”
“Did the Nukeena take all the women?” Senga asked.
“No,” Soantek laughed. “There are many more Raven women where those came from. Far to the south. But they are hidden, in a bay like this one, to stay safe.”
“The Tuktu never go that far south,” Senga said. He seemed disappointed.
Attu and Keanu worked out a plan to continue training Tishria in mind blending with the animals. Keanu and Soantek would work with all of the dogs, and Tishria and Soantek would both learn more about the acceptable way of entering an animal’s mind and having it work for them. Attu encouraged them to plan for as many possibilities as they could, and soon, whenever the dogs weren’t hauling wood, they could be seen running from camp, turning, moving up hill or downhill, and then returning. Soon they were bringing back objects as well. Attu could tell the dogs were enjoying the training as much as the humans. “They get dried meat or a nuknuk bone when they follow our directions,” Tishria told Attu.
“It’s all about trust and control,” Keanu explained one evening as she sat with Rika and Attu at their fire. “The dogs trust Tishria most. She has a way of entering their minds almost like she is another dog. She can think like them. I’ve never seen such a complete bond like this before without the person going too far, like you did with birds and then with the whale fish. But then again, I only knew one person who could mind blend with animals before you, Attu, and that was me.” Keanu grinned at Attu. “But if the thieves’ dogs are willing, we will be able to turn them when they come. And Tishria seems to know just how to make that happen, at least with our three.”
“Senga is missing.” Ubantu met Attu as he and Suka were rounding the bay back from the next day’s hunt.
“Who saw him last?”
“Veshria. She said he was going out in his skin boat to fish early this sun and said
he’d be back shortly after sun high. I was just going out to search when I saw you.”
“And now it’s almost sunset.”
“I’ll stay here and direct the other men so we all don’t search in the same area of the bay.”
“Suka and I will head to the area by the rocks, to the north of the bay, where we’ve been catching fish lately.”
“There’s his skin boat,” Suka said as they neared the rocks. A damaged boat was wedged among some of the rocks clustered in the deeper water.
Attu and Suka searched the rocks but found nothing else. “Let’s cut back toward shore,” Attu said, and they paddled toward the beach, taking the most direct route, as Senga would do if he’d been thrown from his craft and had swum for shore.
Attu leaped from his skin boat, lifting it above the waves at the shoreline. His heart sank as he saw a broken paddle moving in and out with the waves.
“It’s Senga’s. I helped him make it,” Suka said.
“If he made it to shore alive, there should be tracks,” Attu said. “It’s low tide.
Tingiyok, we need the dogs to track for Senga. North shore of the bay.
Attu and Suka walked up and down the beach, looking for tracks.
“I don’t see anything,” Suka said. He scanned the grassy area above the beach and into the trees.
“Let’s search the water by the rocks again,” Attu said. “In this fading light we might have missed him. He could be floating in the water still. Tingiyok will search this area with the dogs.”
Attu turned back to his skin boat, his heart sinking.
“We took the dogs to track, but they just kept running east into the grass by the river,” Tingiyok said as the others gathered later around the fire. “I think they were picking up the old scent of our last hunt together.”
“I just kept seeing a rabbit in their minds,” Soantek said. “So did Tishria.”
“We searched the caves and the rocks to the north, too, just in case Senga made it out of the water but was injured, and fell unconscious there,” Tingiyok said. “If he couldn’t walk far, we thought he might try to reach the caves, to get food and water, and start a fire to signal us. But he wasn’t there.”
“I hate to say it, but Senga must have gotten too close to the rocks and fallen out when his skin boat crashed into them,” Ubantu said. “Maybe he hit his head or got sucked under.”
Veshria moaned and covered her face. The women rushed to her side, spirit necklaces in hand, and began the wailing chant for those drowned.
Attu walked to where Veshria sat with the other woman. She stood and motioned for him to follow her away from the others.
“Veshria, I am so sorry,” Attu began. “We looked everywhere, I-”
“Senga is drowned,” Veshria said. “He couldn’t swim well yet, and in the near-freezing water his knee would have gotten stiff and...” her voice trailed away. Then Veshria’s body stiffened and the look she gave Attu made his flesh crawl. “I am bad luck, a bringer of death,” Veshria said, her voice now a mere whisper. Attu started to protest, but Veshria stopped him. “And now no man will have me,” she continued. “The poolik I lost will never have the chance to be born to me again.”
Veshria turned from Attu, and before he could stop her, she ripped her face with her fingernails, leaving trails of blood following her hands to her sides. Then Veshria turned back to the other women. Someone gasped as they saw what Veshria had done to herself. But Veshria said nothing. Yural looked at Veshria’s blank stare and then to Attu before turning to sit beside the grieving woman. The pain in his mother’s eyes was almost as deep as Veshria’s. Attu turned away, his heart so filled with anguish he couldn’t breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Rika asked Attu later that evening as Attu twisted in his furs, unable to sleep.
“I just don’t understand,” Attu said, turning to face his woman in the dark. “I heard Attuanin. I saved Senga. But why? Only to have him drown and break Veshria’s heart again?”
“I’ve been wondering that, too.”
Attu slid closer and held Rika in the darkness for a long time. Still, even after her whiffling breath brushed his cheek, Attu lay awake. And when his thoughts turned by habit to Attuanin to seek guidance, he turned them away again. He felt angry at his name spirit for allowing Senga to drown, for allowing such pain to come to Veshria. I was counting on Senga’s help. I was hoping we could turn the thieves using the dogs, and then Senga could try to reason with them while we kept them at a safe distance. I was hoping not to have to kill more men...
But now Senga was gone, and they had no alternative but to fight. And Attu felt certain that if they did, some of his own men would die.
Chapter 21
The first snow fell. It was a heavy snow, and cold settled in around the Clan. Winter came much earlier than it had their first year in their new home, and the bay froze solid in only a few days. Little wind blew as the deep cold came, so the bay turned into a solid block of smooth ice. Attu and the other hunters pulled out long-unused bone clips, restringing them onto new sinew and strapping them to the bottom of their foot miks to keep from slipping on the ice.
“This ice is so thick, we’ll surely have good hunting,” Rovek said as he, Suka, and Attu finished the hole they were making, widening it so the body of a full size nuknuk could be pulled out.
“The nuknuks would never be able to break through this ice,” Suka agreed. “With the ice this thick, they’ll be tempted to use these holes instead of swimming all the way back to the open bay to get a breath.”
“Look how the ocean moves so restlessly outside the bay,” Attu remarked. “It’s like a giant poolik trying to sleep, tossing and turning and fussing, never settling down.” He looked out over the bay and felt his own thoughts, just as restless. Senga was gone. Attu still couldn’t believe it.
Suka must have seen the look on Attu’s face, because he began his teasing. “You sound like an old woman, Attu,” Suka said. His voice rose to a higher pitch. “That ocean’s mother should not feed it dried berries,” he whined, sounding remarkably like Elder Nuka, only peevish like she never was.
“How do you always know when I need cheering up?”
Suka raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He paused, looking out over the ocean beyond the bay. “But you’re right. I can’t get used to the ocean not freezing even in this cold.” He turned back to his work chipping away the ice, but not before he glanced at Attu to see if his joking had helped. Attu let his smile convey his thanks, but then he grew thoughtful. “I am worried about Elder Nuka.”
“We all are.” Suka stopped chipping and settled down by the hole, adjusting his spear and rope. “Rika said Nuka’s cough is getting worse.”
Attu moved to ready his gear for the long wait beside the hole. Suka said nothing more, but his look told Attu he was also thinking of Elder Tovut and Elder Nuanu. Both had succumbed after sickness entered their lungs.
Rovek moved to set himself up beside them. “The Nukeena showing us this bay was a blessing from the spirits,” Rovek said. He piled his ice chipping gear into a hide bag, folded it up, and sat on it, pulling out water and a piece of dried meat to chew on from inside his parka. “The rocks keep the ocean waves from disturbing the bay ice. How could we have hunted the nuknuk if we’d tried to settle along the coast and assumed the ocean would freeze in winter like the Expanse used to?”
“We’d have had to move farther north by now,” Suka said. “This bay is the best place for us.”
“Even with the threat of the thieves?” Attu asked. “Sometimes I think we should have turned south instead of north off the ice, or even followed the others to hunt tuskies.”
“Tuskies? Never. No. It’s best...” Suka cut himself off as they all caught a flicker of movement in the water of the hole.
“So soon?” Rovek whispered.
Attu shook his head in the slight hunter’s movement, signaling for quiet. He’d been tying his spear ro
pe to his side when the water rippled, and now he moved his spear up to the striking position in a slow movement, imitating the shadow of a small cloud passing over the sun, or a sweep of thick snow moving across the ice.
Suka gave the tiny hand signal for “steady,” and Attu flicked his eyes at his cousin. They all waited, breathing slowly and quietly, bodies still. The ocean groaned in the distance as the ice chunks moved. A sharp wind picked up, blowing loose snow across the bay and ruffling the fur around Attu’s parka hood.
They waited.
Attu watched the sun sparkle on the open water in the hole. He reminded himself to look under the water, deeper, to watch for movement. And as he did so he became aware of little details at the edges of his vision. Rovek blinked, a snow swirl formed behind Suka. Attu held his hands steady on the spear, his raised arm firm and strong. He concentrated on each breath. His tendency to wander in his thoughts could mean he’d miss his only chance. Attu pushed himself to be in the Here and Now, to continue to see all, hear all, and to be prepared to move quickly to spear the nuknuk if it decided to use this breathing hole. The hole had miraculously appeared so conveniently where it was now hunting. That should arouse the nuknuk’s suspicion. Will it use the hole, anyway?
Attu kept his thoughts tightly under control. He knew better than to allow them to slip, or they would go to the animal and either warn it or spark its curiosity. Neither was permitted. The Gift was never to be used to call animals to be killed in the hunt. Attu studied the water in the hole, thought only of the pattern of the water, watching for a change in the pattern signaling a rising nuknuk.
Attu’s heartbeat quickened as he thought he saw a shadow moving under the ice near the hole. He steadied himself, flexing his hand muscles slightly to make sure his fingers hadn’t gone numb. They hadn’t. He was ready.
The water broke as a nuknuk’s whiskery snout poked out, its nostrils flaring.
Attu’s arm flew forward with his spear, plunging it into the water at the precise angle to take the nuknuk in its meaty side. Suka and Rovek jumped to assist him, and the three of them pulled the thrashing nuknuk out of the hole.
