Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  Yehl asked something, and Wolf Head said, “He wants to know what happened to your husbands.”

  It was a dangerous question. A woman who was widow might carry some curse from her dead husband to a new husband, and K’os had been widowed twice, three times counting River Ice Dancer, but why bring up a young man who had shared her bed for only a few nights? She spoke slowly, carefully.

  “My first husband was given to me when I was a girl. My father chose him because he was an honored elder. He was very old, but he lived a long time after we married and died in his sleep, full of years and full of honor.”

  She waited while Wolf Head translated, then she continued. “As I told you, my second husband Ground Beater was chief hunter of our village. He had traveled to another village to trade. While there, he stayed with an old woman in her lodge. She was careless with her fire and during the night the lodge burned, killing my husband, and the old woman and her husband as well.

  “Not long after that, my village, the Cousin River village, was destroyed by the Near River men. I was taken slave, and have been slave ever since.”

  Again she paused, and waited for Wolf Head. Yehl nodded, gave trader signs to say that he had heard of the fighting between the Near River and Cousin River villages. Who had not?

  K’os lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Many of us were taken as slaves,” she said, “though now the villages are at peace, and most of the slaves have been adopted or taken as wives. But who in the Near River village can trust me? I was wife of the chief hunter. They fear I seek revenge. So I am still slave.”

  Wolf Head held one hand up as though to stop her words. This time when he spoke to Yehl, he spoke for a long time, so that K’os began to wonder whether he translated what she had said or made up some story of his own.

  Her heart thumped hard in her chest, pulsing in her wrists and at the sides of her neck. She was angry at her fear. This Yehl would be easy enough to control. Why worry? Wolf Head didn’t want to kill her and risk a curse. He would leave her here. Her heart slowed, and she nearly smiled. No. Be still, be silent, she told herself. All your dread was foolishness, but do not tempt Wolf Head with a smile.

  Yehl watched the slave woman as the River man spoke. Wolf Head’s words were broken, and his accent was strange. More than once Yehl had to ask him to repeat what he had said. Yehl wanted the woman, but he tried to keep all evidence of that wanting from his eyes. She was old, perhaps beyond the years of bearing children, but any man could see that she still held the beauty of her youth. Her hair was thick, and her skin smooth. She kept her hands tucked up the sleeves of her parka, but once or twice as she spoke, she used them to emphasize her words, and he had noticed that they were misshapen, the knuckles swollen, the fingers twisted. Most men would be put off by those hands, but his own mother’s fingers had been the same way, gnarled and bent and often painful, even when she was a young woman. She had still been able to sew and do all the things a woman must do.

  If this woman could sew, if she truly had made the parka, as Wolf Head insisted, then she would be worth much, as slave or as wife. There seemed to be nothing to worry about in her husbands. One had lived to be a very old man, and that was good. The other was chief hunter of his village. Perhaps she had brought him bad luck, but more likely the bad luck had come with the old woman whose lodge had burned.

  Finally Yehl interrupted Wolf Head’s blathering to ask, “What do you want for her?”

  Wolf Head seemed surprised by the question. When he did not answer, Yehl said, “She is old. I cannot give you much.”

  “Three sealskins of oil, and the split hide of a walrus,” Wolf Head replied.

  “The parka comes with her?”

  “For that I need another sealskin of oil.”

  “I will give you the oil for the parka,” Yehl said, “and though I am sure, as you told me, that she made this parka, her hands worry me. Perhaps she made it long ago, when she was young.”

  K’os saw the consternation on Wolf Head’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “He thinks you did not make the parka.”

  “Tell him to give me an awl and needles, a woman’s knife, and skins to sew.”

  Wolf Head made the request, and Yehl spoke to one of the older women who had crowded in at the back of the lodge. She brought K’os a needle, knife, and awl, handed her a sealskin. Before she began to sew, K’os slipped off her own parka, gave it to Wolf Head.

  “Show the women this one,” she said. “Who else would make a slave’s parka but the slave herself?”

  There was nothing fancy about it, no shoulder tufts of fox fur, no insets of frost-whitened gut, no beads, no feathers. But anyone could see the quality of the work; anyone could see how well it fit her.

  Several Walrus women studied the parka, turned it fur side in to check the seams. Finally the oldest raised her eyebrows in grudging admiration. K’os bent her head over the sealskin as the old woman spoke.

  “She says it is a good parka, a fine parka,” Wolf Head whispered to K’os.

  K’os did not answer. She worked as quickly as she could, punching holes with the awl. Then she knotted the sinew thread around her needle and made her seam, the stitches small and even and tight. Without speaking she handed the sealskin to Wolf Head. He gave it to Yehl. Yehl looked at it, then glanced at K’os. His eyes stopped on her breasts, on her waist and the small bulge of her belly, peaking up from the drawstring of her pants.

  He is mine, K’os thought, and she smiled at him. He nodded to the old woman, and she gave K’os back her parka. K’os slipped it on over her head, passed her hands quickly over her breasts. He would take her as slave, no doubt. A slave cost less than a wife. But once she had won her way into his bed, there would be no end to her power.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula

  602 B.C.

  YIKAAS WAS SO CAUGHT in his story that for a time he continued to speak over the words of those around him. Then he realized that the comments were not the usual murmurs of approval storytellers expect. Women were whining, old men complaining; two young mothers, babies tied to their chests, got up and left, shaking their heads as if to empty their ears of his stories. A Sea Hunter man raised his voice in rudeness, shouted out something that sounded like an insult.

  Yikaas looked at Qumalix, lifted his hands in question.

  She spoke to her people, listened to their replies, and when she finally turned to Yikaas, she said, “They are tired of your story. They do not know the people you talk about, and they do not like K’os.”

  “Of course they don’t like K’os,” Yikaas said. “She’s selfish. She’s evil.”

  Qumalix shrugged. “So they do not want to hear about her. She makes them angry.”

  “Sometimes stories do make people angry,” Yikaas said. “If we don’t hear about evil, how will we understand what is good? Besides, your story about Daughter ends with K’os.”

  “I am glad to learn about K’os,” Qumalix said. “But that is because I am a storyteller, and the more I know, the better my stories become.” She stretched a hand out toward the people sitting in the lodge. “My people say they have learned enough about K’os. Perhaps it is time to talk about Chakliux or Sok. They seem to be good men. Why not tell us their stories?”

  An old Sea Hunter woman stood. Her face was as lined and brown as tree bark, and she spoke in a reasonable voice, without whining, without complaining. When she had finished, Qumalix said to Yikaas, “This old woman is known for her wisdom, and she has raised three strong sons. She says it is good to know and to understand a little more about a woman like K’os. But she also says that her ears are heavy with hearing about one so wicked, and now she would rather have another story about Daughter.”

  Though his heart burned with anger, Yikaas was polite, and he took his place with those who listened. But as Qumalix spoke about Daughter, her words were only words, and he could not lose himself in the story. Instead his mind strayed
back to what he had told the people. His voice had been strong, his words well chosen, yet they did not like his story.

  Maybe the fault was not with him but with the Sea Hunters themselves. Perhaps their minds were like the minds of children, and they needed simple stories that were easy to understand, stories like the one about Daughter.

  He sighed and turned his thoughts back to Qumalix’s tale, but still he found nothing good in it, and finally when he had listened long enough so that his departure would not seem impolite, he rose quietly and left the lodge.

  He walked down to the inlet, crouched on his haunches, and stared out at the water. An eagle was perched on a sandbar, tearing at a fish it held in one claw. When it finished eating, the bird spread its wings and lifted itself into the sky until it disappeared into the clouds.

  Yikaas wished he could as easily leave his memories of the storytelling. The wind blew sand into his face, scoured his skin like the Sea Hunters’ criticism had scoured his heart. He felt as though he were a little boy, unsure of himself, and he not only doubted his stories but also began to wonder if Kuy’aa had been wrong in making him Dzuuggi. After all, she was an old woman. What did old women know? They did not hunt and so learned little from the animals. They seldom traveled to other villages. What was any woman’s life but the lodge she kept for her husband and the children she gave him? How could you expect to gain wisdom from that?

  He heard a scraping in the sand behind him, and turned to see that Kuy’aa had followed him to the beach. He was disgusted with her. Couldn’t she see that he needed to be alone?

  “Why are you here?” he asked, and his voice was rude.

  She looked at him as though he were a naughty child, her eyes as hard as limpet shells. Slowly, she lowered herself to sit in the sand beside him, and the wind blew the sparse white strands of her hair back from her forehead.

  “I came to talk to you about your story,” she said.

  “They don’t know anything about storytelling, those Sea Hunters,” said Yikaas.

  “You’re sure?” she asked. “How strange that they know nothing about storytelling when they’ve been listening to stories all their lives. They must be very stupid.”

  “I’ve been telling stories all my life,” Yikaas said. “I know more than someone who has only listened.”

  “And you are so old,” she said.

  “If you have nothing more to offer than ridicule, then I waste my time here at this village,” he said. “I know my way home. I don’t have to wait until the traders are ready to return. I’ll go alone.”

  “That would be foolish. You would miss all of Qumalix’s stories.”

  Yikaas scowled at her. “Why should I listen to her stories? She doesn’t want to hear mine.”

  Kuy’aa was quiet for a long time. She pulled a shaft of beach grass from the sand and began to shred it with her thumbnail. “You’re wrong,” she finally said. “Perhaps some of the Sea Hunter people do not want to hear you, but Qumalix does.”

  “She told you that?”

  “What storyteller does not want to hear new stories? Old stories comfort us, and new stories teach us. We need both, but I think there is something here you do not understand. You and I, we are storytellers, and we listen so we can learn. The people listen so they can live the stories. Your tales of K’os are good, but who wants to become K’os? Would you?”

  “Of course not,” Yikaas said. “K’os is a woman. What man wants to become a woman?”

  She chuckled. “What if all things were the same about K’os, except that she was a man?”

  Yikaas was not so quick with his answer. He found a stiff strand of beach grass, set it between his thumbs, then blew against it until the grass whistled a long, clear sound into the wind.

  He looked up to see Kuy’aa smiling, and in his heart he felt a stirring of anger at himself, at the child who lived too close within. He dropped the grass and watched as the wind caught it, made it dance across the beach.

  “No,” he answered. “I would not want to be K’os, even if she were a man.”

  “Now do you understand why the Sea Hunters do not want to listen to your story?”

  “But they need to hear about K’os.”

  “Of course they do, but there are many ways to tell a story. That is both the problem and the joy of being a storyteller. And that is why I’m here. To tell you how to make your stories better.”

  “I’m a good storyteller. Better than Qumalix.”

  “Yes, you are a good storyteller,” the old woman said. “I will not argue with you about that. But do not ask me to say that you are better than Qumalix or any other storyteller. How can storytellers be compared one to another?” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “We are all different. If a storyteller touches your heart, then his stories are the best for you. That’s why one storyteller is good for one person, and not for another. You can’t change that, so why worry about it? But if a storyteller closes his ears to other’s stories, how will he grow?

  “Each of us sees the world through different eyes, and that’s the greatest gift any storyteller can bestow—the gift of vision, and the growth that comes in understanding that vision.”

  “So is Qumalix still telling her stories?” Yikaas asked, interrupting Kuy’aa.

  She glanced at him from the sides of her eyes and sighed like a mother with a child. “People were tired and hungry,” she said, “so the storytelling is over until tomorrow. But I hope you will come back with me then.”

  “To hear Qumalix?”

  “No. The people have asked me to tell the stories of Chakliux and Aqamdax. Will you come?”

  “Of course I will come.”

  Her pleased look brought a grudging smile to his lips, and he thought she would say more. She was usually a woman of many words. But she only said, “I’m hungry. Help me up.”

  He stood and offered his arm, held her until she was steady on her feet.

  “Are you coming?” she asked.

  “Later,” he told her, and watched as she tottered away, awkward as a puffin on the sand.

  Again the earthen lodge was full of people. Again Yikaas took one of the honored places reserved for storytellers, and as Kuy’aa began her stories, her voice carried him to times long ago. Once again he was captured by the tales of Chakliux and Aqamdax. He became the man who was animal-gift to the River People, and he found himself filled with Chakliux’s wisdom, with his strength.

  It was nearly dawn when the old woman completed her tales. By that time new people had come and others had left, but the lodge was still full. Yikaas could see the light of Kuy’aa’s stories in the faces of those who listened. They had earned wisdom and new ideas. A fair exchange for a night of lost sleep.

  He could see that Kuy’aa was tired, and he went to her so she could lean against him. He helped her up the notched log to the top of the lodge and down the slippery grass thatching of the roof.

  “You need to sleep, Aunt,” he told her.

  “How can I sleep, boy?” she asked him. “Chakliux and Aqamdax still dance in my head. I will walk for a little while in the wind, and when I am ready, I will sleep.” She lifted her chin at him and reached out with a wrinkled hand to stroke the wolf fur that rimmed his parka hood. “Go back and listen. Qumalix is the next storyteller. This time see what you can learn from her. Listen with a true heart, then come and tell me what you think.”

  She turned and walked away from him, and he watched to be sure that her step was steady. When she reached the path that led to the beach, he climbed up the roof of the lodge and let himself in through the square opening that was smokehole as well as entrance.

  Qumalix was in the storyteller place, and she was telling the same tale—the one about Daughter. But Yikaas had promised that he would listen, and so he took a place in the lodge, not one of the storytellers’ seats, but a cramped, dark niche near the climbing log. He listened not only as a storyteller but also as a man so he would learn without prejudice, so he woul
d hear without jealousy.

  Soon her voice pulled him away into another place. He forgot that he was sitting in a Sea Hunter lodge, listening to a Sea Hunter woman. Instead, he became Daughter. He became Water Gourd, and he saw the world anew.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Yunaska Island, The Aleutian Chain

  6447 B.C.

  DAUGHTER’S STORY

  DAUGHTER PULLED THE OTTER pelt more tightly around her shoulders and made herself as small as she could. They were out of the boat, and for that she was glad, but by some magic, the old woman had taken them inside the earth, and Daughter was afraid. By another kind of magic, the woman had made fire on a rock, and now she was doing something to the grandfather’s arm with knives and cutting stones.

  Daughter allowed herself a glance at the thick layer of earth above them, and she wondered if they were dead, she and the grandfather and this old woman. She had seen the death rites for one of her aunts, how they put her in the ground. Had someone given them death rites and buried them?

  The floor was covered with grass, cut and scattered. Daughter had dug one foot through it and found hard-packed earth underneath, like the floor in her own father’s iori. It gave her some comfort, that floor. To have dirt under her feet, not boat, not water.

  As small as it was—a circle of flames dancing above a rock—the fire threw off a good amount of heat. Daughter, so long in the cold of their boat, shivered at the warmth. Over the stone, the old woman had hung a skin bag full of water. She had put all kinds of things into that water, though none of it seemed like food, unless dead people ate dust and leaves rather than fish.

  The woman dipped into the bag with a bone ladle much like the one Daughter’s own mother had used, then she lifted the grandfather’s head and pressed the ladle to his mouth. The grandfather moaned, but though his eyes were closed, he drank. Suddenly he gasped, choked, and turned his head away. The old woman pinched his nose shut, and when he opened his mouth to take a breath, she poured the rest of the liquid down his throat. He gagged and choked again.