by C. S. Bills
Attu struck the killing blow with his club, and the three stood, marveling at such a fast kill after the hole was made.
“Usually the sound of our chipping scares the game away for half a day,” Rovek remarked. “I’ve never seen this happen.”
“It is smaller than most. Perhaps it was too young to know to be afraid of the sound of men chipping the ice.”
“I think the sound of the water crashing into the ice and rocks at the mouth of the bay probably blended with our sound, and it didn’t have warning of the danger.” Attu looked at the animal. It was small, but they would all enjoy the more tender meat of the kill. The first nuknuk taken out of a fresh hole belonged to all who had helped in the strenuous and dangerous work of chipping it out. “Young one,” Attu spoke the words over the animal, “I am sorry your life was cut short, but know your body will feed many, and many of our women feed their own young as your mother fed you. Your meat will provide their milk. You have died with honor. May your spirit rest now, to be born next spring in the body of another nuknuk.”
The other group of hunters out on the ice gave a shout, and Attu, Suka, and Rovek moved with Attu’s kill to join them as they pulled a nuknuk from the water, dead by Soantek’s first strike.
Ubantu grinned at Soantek’s large kill.
“We eat well tonight, my brothers,” Soantek said.
The sun was resting on the ocean’s ice-jumbled horizon as the men grabbed one of the two ropes tied to the nuknuks. “Soantek has an idea for trapping the thieves in the ravine to the south of camp, if they attack from that direction,” Ubantu said. “He told me about it as we carved out our ice hole.” The others listened to Soantek’s plan as they walked in single file back to camp.
“It’s a good idea,” Attu agreed after Soantek had outlined his plan to use small landslides of rocks from the top of the ravine to the south to create a way to block the thieves, trap them if they tried to sneak close to camp through the pass. “It would be like them to come that way, like Toonuk thought they used the caves to get as close to the Tuktu as they could before they attacked.”
The men sat around the fire later that evening, discussing the best ways to set the rocks so a few tree limbs levered in could be moved and cause enough rocks and debris to fall.
“The ravine is really the only clear path to our camp from the south, except for the shoreline. And I can’t see the thieves maneuvering their sleds along that ice jumble.” And we were on the point in my vision. I didn’t see the thieves coming along the shore.
“What do we do if they come from the east or north?” Rovek asked.
“The forest is thick to the north. They’d need to come on foot,” Ubantu said. “We’ll post extra guards there, but if I were a thief, I would use the speed of the sleds. And that’s what Attu and Keanu saw.”
The others nodded.
“If they come from the east,” Ubantu continued, “I was thinking of using the large rock pen the Tuktu hunters built to keep their tuktu herd together, the one up against that steep wall of rock?”
“With some extra rocks placed at the south opening to hold the thieves in, it might give us enough time to surround them.” Tingiyok’s eyes lit up at the plan.
“Some of us need to hunt again, next day, but the rest can start on the traps,” Attu said. “Take the bigger boys and girls with you. They can carry small rocks and tree limbs, too.”
“Attu?” Yural walked up to where the men were sitting. “Where is Rika?”
“With Meavu in her shelter. Why?”
“Elder Nuka is asking for her.” Yural turned away, but not before Attu caught the look of concern in his mother’s eyes.
“The nuknuk are swimming into the bay in large numbers,” Tingiyok said a few days later as the men walked out to the holes to hunt. The traps had been set, and there was little else they could do besides keeping guards posted all the time and continuing to stock more meat in the caves.
“Your idea of making the holes over the deep rocky part of the bay worked well,” Soantek said. “The sunset fish like to hide in the rocks, and the nuknuks come to hunt them.” He looked to Ubantu, who nodded briefly but said nothing.
Attu could see nuknuks sunning themselves on the ice chunks in the ocean beyond the bay. They were taking advantage of the late morning sun shining low in the sky. He’d killed seven of them in the last three days using the same breathing hole.
Attu had thought to pray about how he’d been feeling; taking so many nuknuks seemed wrong, even if they did need to stock the caves. But when he quieted his spirit, he found himself still angry with Attuanin – and with himself for his anger. He’d never felt this way before, unsure at such a deep level about listening to the spirits and relying on Attuanin for guidance, something he’d been so sure of just a moon ago. It was like how Attu had felt on the Expanse when he realized it was no longer solid beneath him. And Attu hated that feeling.
“You are quiet today, Cousin,” Suka said, interrupting Attu’s thoughts. “What’s wrong?”
“The nuknuk hunting has been too easy lately,” Attu said to Suka as they neared the first hole. “Do we need to store up this much food? What if the thieves don’t come?”
Attu slowed his pace so the two could talk without being overheard. He couldn’t share his anger at the spirits with Suka. It was too personal and would be too dangerous to speak of. But I can share my doubts about what feels like excessive hunting. “Each time I take a nuknuk my family doesn’t need for food, something stirs in my spirit,” Attu said, looking to his cousin to see if he understood.
“You feel guilty,” Suka said.
“You too?” Attu searched his cousin’s face. Suka wasn’t joking. “I explain to each dead animal why we’re taking extra food, and I know it’s the right thing to do, but-”
“We are Nuvik and Nuviks believe a true hunter never makes extra kills just to store more food than he might need for the next moon, even if the game is plentiful. It’s the right way to believe, most of the time,” Suka said, “but this is an unusual time for us. We don’t have any choice.”
“But that doesn’t help the way I feel.”
“I would be disappointed in you if you felt any other way.” Suka grabbed Attu’s shoulder in a brief grasp of encouragement.
“There’s no alternative. We have to build the snow houses.” Attu picked up the block he’d cut and placed it at the edge of the circle they’d brushed to the bare earth.
“Not to build them would be more than foolish. It would be dangerous. We can’t live all winter in hide shelters.” Rika slid the ice block knife along the edge of the packed snow. “But I understand how you feel. It seems childish to think that way, but part of me wants to believe that since the thieves attack us when we’re living in snow houses, if we don’t build them, they won’t come.”
“The only alternative is to move into the caves, and we need to keep their location a secret.”
“Can you imagine the paths we’d make to and from those caves if we moved into them now?” Rika carved the last side of a snow block and Attu moved to lift it into place, one more piece in the curving base of the circular snow house.
“They are ready if we need them. No one is venturing into them again, except Rovek and Tingiyok to check on the supplies. And they both know how to cover their tracks. No, I’ll lift that,” Attu said, moving to stop Rika from lifting a large block. As Rika bent over, small bright eyes met his. Nuanu smiled from her snug spot riding in her mother’s hood. Attu grinned back at her, making a funny face. Nuanu laughed, her arms flailing up and down with delight.
Attu turned so Rika could see Gantuk. “Is he still well covered?” Attu asked. The women always knew if their pooliks were snugly in place in their hoods, standing or sitting in the carry pouch built inside. But Attu struggled with not being able to see Gantuk or Nuanu when he carried them.
“You worry like an old woman,” Rika teased. “He’s fine.”
“Suka says I think lik
e an old woman,” Attu mumbled.
Rika shot him a glance.
“I’m glad to carry our children, even if Suka does tease me incessantly about it,” Attu added and he lifted another block as Gantuk laughed at his sister, who was waving the hide string of her mother’s hood back and forth and babbling about it, “but I find I start walking with my back bent forward to make sure they don’t slip out.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” Rika said. “You’ll make your scar hurt from the added weight of the baby.”
Attu said nothing, but turned away to cut another block, keeping his thoughts tightly to himself. Rika didn’t need to know the scars from the ice bear attack hurt every time he carried one of their pooliks on his back, bent forward or not.
“Attu,” Ubantu called from across the camp. “Making progress?”
“Yes,” Attu said.
Ubantu walked over to them. “Yural is finishing up the inside of ours. She likes to arrange things herself.” Attu’s father grinned at Gantuk, stuck his tongue out at the boy, and crossed his eyes. Gantuk laughed and kicked his feet inside Attu’s parka hood. Attu winced, but said nothing.
“Here, let me take him.” Ubantu pulled Gantuk out of Attu’s hood and settled him in the front of his own parka, face out, tying his belt around his waist more firmly, so Gantuk could stand inside his grandfather’s warm garment and watch what was going on.
Attu sighed with relief at having the weight off his back. Rika glanced at him, but said nothing.
Together, Ubantu and Attu stacked the blocks, building up the slanting walls of the snow house while Gantuk jumped up and down, reaching out his small mik-covered hands and patting the blocks in imitation of his grandfather.
Attu tried to enjoy what was normally a special time for his Clan, building new snow houses. But with every block he put in place, Attu found the dread in his spirit building as well.
Chapter 22
Attu sat beside Meavu that evening in the newly built group snow house. Meavu had Tovut on her lap, and the poolik was watching the nuknuk lamp flames, putting his hands in front of his face and looking through his fingers at the way the light changed.
“I feel like we should be doing something more to prepare ourselves, but I can’t think of anything else we can do,” Attu said.
“This waiting is hard on all of us,” Meavu agreed. Her face looked drawn in the lamplight.
“Are you all right?”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
“Waiting to see if the thieves will attack us feels worse to me than when the ice bear was following our Clan across the Expanse,” Attu admitted. “I was still suffering from the Rememberings and the pain of my wounds from when the ice bear attacked us. And we all knew it was only a matter of time before the one following us would attack and probably kill at least one of us before we could kill it.”
“I remember.” Meavu shifted. “This waiting feels as bad to me as when I was held captive by the Ravens, waiting to be their totem sacrifice.” She looked at her boy. “Almost,” she added, picking Tovut up and hugging him. “But now there’s even more at stake.” Tovut squirmed to get out of her arms. “He’s a wriggly little fish.”
“Tovut grows strong,” Attu said, sensing his sister’s need to change the subject. Tovut pulled himself up by Meavu’s hands and began bouncing on her legs. She let go of him with one hand and brushed his hair back from his face. Tovut balanced well with just one hand, babbling and reaching for his mother’s other hand again.
“He said his first word today,” Meavu said, her face brightening as she met Attu’s eyes.
“He spoke? You mean he was playing with sounds and something came out that sounded like a word?”
“No. He spoke.” Meavu looked away from Tovut toward the fire, a small smile on her face as she remembered.
“But he’s still too young to-”
“I was with Suanu, and Brovik was playing with Dog,” Meavu interrupted. “Tovut kept crawling toward them, and I kept picking him up and getting him out of the way of their wrestling. Tovut was frustrated and wiggled to get out of my arms. He squirmed and leaned toward them, reaching both his hands out to them and grasping with his fingers, you know, the way pooliks do when they’re crawling toward something and it’s still too far away, but they grab for it anyway?”
Attu nodded. “And?”
“He said, ‘Dog.’”
“Surely he was just imitating-”
“He said it several times,” Meavu insisted. “And when I let him touch Dog, he grabbed the dog’s fur and wouldn’t let go. He kept saying it over and over again. ‘Dog,’ just like that.”
Tovut’s knees bent and he collapsed onto his mother’s lap. He looked up at her, and his little brows drew together. “Dog,” he said. “Dog, dog, dog.” And he looked around expectantly, as if his words would make Dog appear.
“That is remarkable,” Attu said, and the two of them stared at Tovut as if he had just displayed the most incredible Gift. Then Attu had an idea.
“Elder Tingiyok,” Attu called across the snow house. “Could you bring Warm Fur over here?” The dog had been sleeping under some furs near Tingiyok and stirred at her name. Tingiyok stood, and Warm Fur followed him across the snow house. When the light from the nuknuk lamp showed them both clearly, Tovut began jumping up and down on his mother’s lap again.
“Dog!” he cried. “Dog, dog, dog!”
Lips popped all around them as the others heard Tovut’s cries.
“Well, toss me to the tooth fish,” Suka said, bouncing Nipka in his arms as he joined Attu and Meavu with Tovut, who had grasped Warm Fur’s ruff in his hands and pulled her to his face where he was drooling all over her. Warm Fur stood still, but did not look pleased with this poolik’s behavior.
Steady, Attu mind spoke to the pup.
“She’s fine,” Tingiyok said. “She won’t hurt him.”
Meavu gently removed Tovut’s hands from the dog, and Tingiyok led Warm Fur away from the poolik’s reach.
“Dog, dog, dog!” Tovut hollered, frustrated by having Warm Fur taken from him. He began crying.
Nipka added a lusty cry to the moment, drowning out any sound Tovut was making. “Now why couldn’t you talk like Tovut, instead of bellowing like a moose?” Suka made his apologies and left with Nipka before she made them all deaf.
The next evening, the Clan sat around the nuknuk lamps in the group snow house. Chirea sat beside Kossu, and Attu watched the two of them as the others talked, thinking about the time when he and Rika were newly bonded. Soantek was answering a question Yural had asked him about his old life and how the whale meat was dried and the oil rendered for later use. The Clan listened. Babies were jostled and shared around the group. Chirea took her turn at holding Nipka. The young woman brightened when she held the little poolik, who was trying to pick off some of the colorful ornaments Chirea wore on her woman’s garment.
“I wonder if Chirea misses her Tuktu Clan,” Attu mused aloud.
“Of course she does,” Rika said. “But she loves Kossu more. And in the fall, she will have a child. Her homesickness will subside.”
“Another baby?” Attu’s thoughts slipped to a dark place where he, and he alone, was responsible for the safety of every man, woman, and child in the Clan. So many babies... He sighed and pulled himself back. Wrong thinking got him nowhere.
“Good,” Rika said. “You stopped yourself from thinking it’s all on you.” She slipped her arm through Attu’s and looked up at him. “Besides,” she added, “you will be busy worrying about the birth of your next child.”
“My next child...” Attu turned to Rika, pulling her to him and searching her eyes. He found his answer there. “Another child. Attuanin has blessed us with another child? And our twins will be less than two years old when he or she is born? Elder Nuanu spoke true. I will be the father of many sons and daughters...”
Rika tightened her hold on Attu and Attu held her, his heart a swirl of emotions like trysta
spirits on the Expanse, dancing in the blowing snow.
“Keanu is having her baby,” Meavu called to Rika from the entrance tunnel of their snow house. Rika grabbed her things and left.
A short while later, Soantek ducked in. “I bring no evil,” he said. “I’ve been kicked out of my snow house. Yours is farthest from ours, and the women said I must wait here.”
Soantek looked mournful.
Attu put another hide near the nuknuk lamp. “Have a seat.” Soantek sat for a short time; then, restless, he stood and began walking in a circle around the nuknuk lamp.
“Let’s go to Farnook and Suka’s snow house,” Attu suggested. “Maybe his stories can help the time pass faster.”
Soantek looked his thanks at Attu.
Farnook sat beside Attu with their pooliks while Suka was doing his best to keep Soantek involved in a bone tossing game. It was like the children’s game, but involved betting. It seemed to be working, at least for the moment. Soantek was winning.
Farnook laid her hand on Attu’s arm. “You look preoccupied.”
“I am. I was thinking about Senga again.”
“It just doesn’t seem right. I was sure he would help us when the thieves came.”
“I felt it in my spirit. I sensed it when Attuanin spoke to me and said to save him. Now I see Veshria, and I wish we hadn’t saved the man. That makes me feel guilty.”
Attu searched Farnook’s face. “Did I hear Attuanin wrong? Is this my fault? Saving Senga and then having him drown has caused Veshria even more pain. She has not spoken since the day of his death. She said she believed she must bond with Senga because the spirits wanted her to. Did she hear wrong, also?”
“Attu, you can’t know what she heard or why she made her decision.”
“I know she said Rusik died because she had taken the root that killed her unborn child. And I know that is not what the Nuvik believe. But for whatever reason, Veshria bonded with Senga, and look what happened. How much grief can one woman take?”
