Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  “So Daughter became evil, like K’os.”

  “Oh, I did not say that,” Qumalix replied. She sucked at her bottom lip as though considering something and finally said, “Perhaps there is a story about Daughter you should hear. I could tell you now, if you like, here in this ulax, or we could go to a place where we can see the beach and the water and the sky.”

  Yikaas looked into the dark corners of the ulax, at the earthen walls that rose warm and thick against the wind, but suddenly he wanted to be outside. He slipped on his caribou hide parka and waited as Qumalix pulled on her sax. The sax was made from many cormorant skins, the feathers shining black and sleek. Qumalix was unmarried, and so wore her hair long and loose rather than bound at the back of her head, but when she put on the sax, she tucked her hair into the collar rim.

  She led him to a sheltered place in a valley between two hills, a walk that took them beyond sight of the village. They sat down behind a hummock of grass, and the blades of that grass cut the wind so it came to them in tatters, too weak to pull away their words.

  When Qumalix began to speak, it was still light; clouds stretched across the sky in strips like storyteller strings ready for quick fingers to twist them into animals, people, and birds. Yikaas watched as the wind pulled the cloud strings into pictures, and when the day dimmed into night, even the stars seemed to hover close.

  Yunaska Island, the Aleutian Chain

  6440 B.C.

  DAUGHTER’S STORY

  “You cannot expect them to like you, Uutuk,” K’os said. “Look at you. You’re still a girl, but you know more than most women. Even their grandmothers do not know how to use plants like you do. Your fingers are quick with a needle, and your voice is the voice of a storyteller. When the young women are with you, they feel like children. Can you blame them for leaving you out of their games?”

  K’os’s words fell soft on Daughter’s ears, and again gave her a place in the world. K’os handed Daughter a cup of yellow root tea and said, “Give this to your grandfather. It will lend him a little strength.”

  Over the winter Water Gourd had grown weak. Many days he was not strong enough to climb into the wind and sit at the top of the ulax to visit with the elders. They missed his wisdom, they told Daughter. What other man knew so much about life yet gave his advice with such a gentle spirit?

  He took the cup from Daughter’s hands, and she held her breath until he managed to raise the tea to his lips. When he had finished, she leaned close to take the cup, and he whispered into her ear, speaking the language that they alone shared.

  “I have had a good life, Daughter, but I am old and soon will leave you to go back to our people. Do not cry for me. I have been honored as an elder. Seal and K’os have been generous to me, and you have been a wonderful daughter. I have nothing more to ask for.”

  “You could ask for another summer,” Daughter said to him, her thoughts suddenly selfish, wanting the grandfather to live, though he was ready to die.

  They whispered as they spoke together so K’os would not hear. She had tried to learn the Boat People’s tongue, but never managed to remember more than a handful of words. During the past few years, each time she heard Daughter and Water Gourd speak that language, K’os grew angry, so now they used it only when they were alone. But K’os had her own small ways of revenge. When Water Gourd did something to displease her, she spoke to Daughter in the River language, which he did not understand. Sometimes K’os went for days without using the First Men’s tongue. But Water Gourd only shrugged off her obstinacy, and ignored her anger.

  Usually they lived together happily. Seal had recently made another ulax for Eye-Taker. She was a strong woman, blessed with many children, a new baby almost every two years, so now there were eight, too many for the small ulax where Daughter and K’os and the grandfather lived. But K’os was still Seal’s wife, and with his trading and hunting there was always enough food.

  Though Daughter was thankful to have K’os and the grandfather, there were times when she wished she were more like the other girls in the village, with uncles and aunts and cousins living close. Of course, they had Seal’s family and Eye-Taker and her children, but Daughter had come to realize that that was not the same as having blood ties. K’os had honored the grandfather with a River name—Taadzi, which, she explained, referred to the deadfall trap River men used to capture an animal called the lynx. Lynx were known to hold great spirit powers.

  Daughter had never seen a lynx, but K’os owned the brown-and-yellow-speckled hide of one, given to her by Seal after one of his trading trips. Daughter had studied that hide, stroked its long, soft fur, and she tried to set an image in her mind of what a lynx looked like. Finally she decided it must be a kind of boar—an animal she remembered from her childhood with the Boat People—though with a softer, more beautiful pelt.

  It seemed to Daughter that K’os was a generous woman. She made clothing for the elders, and shared the abundance of meat that was given to the grandfather in appreciation for his wisdom. During the days when the grandfather was outside speaking to the elders and Seal was away hunting or trading, K’os even shared her bed, for she was willing to give what a man needed, even if he was not her husband.

  “Someday you’ll give the same joy yourself, Uutuk,” K’os often told her, and then went on to explain how men liked to be touched and how a woman could get what she wanted, trading pleasure for many things.

  When Daughter was with the other girls of the village, they sometimes spoke of the ways of men with women. None of the girls had yet come into their moon-blood times, and none had bedded a man, so they knew only what they had managed to glimpse or hear. During this giggling and foolishness, Daughter pretended to be one of them, to know little and wonder much, and she did not tell them anything K’os had said to her, for she had learned as a child that the ways of the village were not K’os’s ways, nor were K’os’s ways always accepted. It was better to be quiet; it was better to hold what she knew within herself, because once words left her mouth she could never hide them again under her tongue.

  One night when the grandfather was asleep and Daughter was sewing by the light from the whale oil lamp, K’os came and sat down beside her.

  “I’m worried about your grandfather,” K’os said. “I have a small amount of caribou leaf, a plant I brought with me when I came here from the River People years ago. It’s a strong plant, with many powers for good, and I have saved it for someone special. Now is the time to use it. Otherwise I think he will die before summer.”

  She crouched beside Daughter on her haunches and opened the River otter medicine bag. She pulled out the familiar packets of plant medicines, each tied with colored sinew. Finally she brought out one so old that the hide packet had become brittle. K’os cut the knots and dumped the contents of the packet into her hand. The caribou leaves were merely dust, so light that a breath would take them away. She divided the powder between three wooden cups, handed one to Daughter and told her to mix it with oil and smooth it over Water Gourd’s face.

  They kept a sealskin of fat in a storage niche in the ulax wall. The sealskin was turned hair side in, and the summer before, Daughter had stuffed it full of seal fat cut in strips, all meat removed. Over time, the heat from the fat rendered out the oil.

  Daughter got the sealskin, opened the neckflap, and tipped the skin to pour out some oil. She used her fingers to blend in the caribou leaf powder, then went to the grandfather, to his sleeping place at the back of the ulax, pulled aside his curtain, and began to smooth the oil into his face. He snorted a little, but did not awaken, and after a moment, he even smiled.

  His body had grown gaunt over the years, his face pinched and lined, and his eyes had sunk deep into his face. He had never agreed to have his skin tattooed, nor did he pierce his lips for labrets. Instead, he wore long, thin mustaches that hung down over his mouth, the custom of the Boat People, whose faces came to Daughter like ghosts in a dream, scarcely remembered.

&nbs
p; K’os had had her own cheeks tattooed, and even the tops of her thighs. Often she and the grandfather argued about the tattoos that Daughter should receive, the lines across the cheeks, the circles and triangles to beautify her legs. Daughter wished for those tattoos, so she could be like the other girls in the village, but the grandfather said they would only make her ugly, and when she became old the lines would blur under her skin, become a darkness that would never wash clean.

  “He is an old man and will not live forever, Uutuk,” K’os had said when Daughter complained. “When he dies and his mourning has passed, then we will begin your tattoos.”

  Daughter thought of K’os’s promise as she smoothed the oil into the grandfather’s skin. Gladly she would stay like a child, skin unmarked, if the grandfather would have more years of good health. She lifted small prayers of hope, and reminded herself that the other girls said the tattooing hurt, and that sometimes a woman was left with scars, ridges that marred the smoothness of her face and legs.

  When Daughter had finished, she brought the rest of the oil back to K’os. “There is some left,” she said. “Should I do his neck or hand?”

  “Did he wake up?” she asked, ignoring Daughter’s question.

  “No,” Daughter told her, but remembering the old man’s smile, she also smiled and wondered what he dreamed about. Did he turn young again in his sleep, enjoy women and have success in hunts?

  “Well, you will have to wake him. He must drink this tea. One cup now, and the other tomorrow.”

  Daughter set down the oil and took the tea. “Let him sleep until it cools,” K’os told her, “then wake him and make him drink it all. I will leave you to do this, for I must go to Eye-Taker’s ulax. Seal has a sax he wants me to repair. It is his best, and he does not trust Eye-Taker’s needle.”

  Daughter turned so her back was warmed by the oil lamp, but the cup was shielded from its heat. She was glad she had reason to wake the grandfather. Their best times together were when K’os was away, but since last summer, he slept so much that those times did not come often.

  He told wondrous stories of the island where he and Daughter had once lived, and on occasion, he would even speak about Daughter’s true parents, her beautiful mother and her strong young father. Daughter had given them First Men names so she could pretend they were a part of this village, that she had others here besides the grandfather. When the village girls were mean to her, the names helped, as did the grandfather’s stories.

  She dipped a finger into the tea. It had cooled, so she carried it carefully to the grandfather’s sleeping place. She opened the grass curtain and knelt beside him, called to him in a whisper until slowly his eyes opened. He stared at her as if he were seeing someone else, but then he smiled.

  “I dreamed that we were in our village, Daughter,” he said in a voice clouded with phlegm. “Your mother was there and your father and that lazy woman, my niece. We were having the feast of moon promises, and one of the women was pledging herself to a young hunter as wife. There were chestnut cakes, Daughter, and I had lifted one to my mouth. You woke me just as I was going to take a bite. Do you know how long it has been since I tasted chestnut cake?”

  “I’m sorry, Grandfather,” Daughter said.

  “No need to be sorry. I will go back to sleep and eat all the chestnut cakes I can hold.” Laughter crackled in his throat.

  Daughter lifted the tea so he could see it. “Mother left medicine for you. She says it will make you strong.”

  “She had you wake me from a good sleep to give me this?” he grumbled. “What does she know? Sleep and good dreams, those things make an old man strong.” But he propped himself up on his elbow and leaned forward to drink. When he had finished the tea, Daughter set down the cup and tucked her hands behind his head, laid him gently back on his sleeping mats. The grandfather closed his eyes, but then he opened them and looked at her. He blinked and whispered, “Where is K’os?”

  “She went to Seal’s ulax.”

  The grandfather smiled. “Then perhaps I have time to tell you a story.” He spoke in the language of the Boat People, and his voice seemed stronger. “Have I ever told you about the time when I was fishing far from shore and a storm arose?”

  He had told Daughter the story many times, but she held her eyes open wide to show her interest. “If you have, Grandfather,” she said, “I have forgotten most of it. Please tell me again.”

  He reached out to clasp her hand, and she settled down beside him and listened as he told the story.

  K’os curled herself around Chiton’s body and leaned forward to touch the tip of her tongue to each of his nipples. His wife had just given him a new daughter and was still living in the birthing lodge.

  When K’os went to Eye-Taker’s ulax, Chiton’s sister and aunt were visiting there, and they told K’os about the birth. K’os had stayed only long enough to get the sax, then pretended that she needed to return to Water Gourd. Instead, she went to Chiton’s ulax.

  As she had hoped, he was alone. She had congratulated him on his daughter, but he scowled and said, “Every man wants a son.”

  “Once long ago when I lived with the River People, I had a son,” K’os told him. “I was a good mother, gave him everything, sewed all his clothing and got him a beautiful wife. But when another village attacked our own, he betrayed us and went to live with our attackers because they were stronger, and he knew they would win. When nearly all our men were killed and our village was burned, I was sold as slave to the Walrus Hunters, and my son did not lift a hand to help me. Only by good luck did I come to this village, where once again I am wife and mother. If I had to choose between my son and my daughter, I would choose my daughter. Be thankful you have a healthy child. Daughters are good luck, and sometimes sons are not.”

  He did not reply, merely turned his back on her and grunted. She went to him, stood close. He was wearing only an otter skin breech-cloth, and she slipped her hands around his waist, tucked her fingers under the edges of the otter skin.

  “I have a wife,” he told her, but he turned to face her and knelt to slip his hands under her sax. She pulled the sax off up over her head, then moved his hands to her breasts.

  “Why should I give you my seed?” he asked. “You are too old to make children.” His fingers strayed to the band of the woven grass apron that hung from her waist.

  “I make no claim to be young,” K’os said. “But I am not ugly.” She cupped her hands around her breasts. “Are these the breasts of an old woman?”

  “You must have some medicine that keeps you young,” he told her. “Though it does not work for your hands, and perhaps not for your hair.” He pulled several gray strands from the bun at the back of her head.

  She smiled at him. “It is good medicine,” she said. “How else do you think I have kept that old man Taadzi alive so many years? Whatever hunter I choose will keep his youth for a long time. I cannot give you children—you have a wife to do that—but my medicine will make you strong.”

  “I am strong,” he said, and scowled at her.

  “I only meant that I would help you stay strong,” she told him. Then she said, “Enough talking.” She pushed him back toward the curtained niche that was his sleeping place.

  He clasped her arms, laid her on the furs, and fell over her. “It has been too long since I had a woman,” he groaned, “and all that waiting just for a daughter.”

  The grandfather’s words suddenly stopped, and Daughter, crouched with her eyes closed so she could see the story, waited. It was the most exciting part, where the storm waves had torn the outrigger from the boat, but she supposed that he had fallen asleep.

  The longer he lived, the more easily sleep came to him. What had K’os told her? Life was a circle, and old people move toward that time when they were infants. They sleep as often as babies, and sometimes, like babies, their thoughts and words are garbled. Of course, the grandfather’s mind was clear. No one in the village doubted that he was still the wisest
of all the elders.

  Daughter opened her eyes. To her surprise, she saw that the grandfather was staring at the top of his sleeping place. In curiosity, she bent close and looked up. There was nothing but darkness.

  “Look, what do I see?” she asked, and waited for him to supply the rest of the riddle. Riddles were a River People game, but K’os had taught them both the joy of those word puzzles.

  When he did not answer, Daughter clasped his hand. “Grandfather?”

  A groan came from his throat, and suddenly Daughter was afraid. She slipped an arm under his shoulders and slid into the sleeping place so that his head was on her lap. She placed the palm of her hand on the center of his chest. His heart had always been strong, but now she felt only a faint fluttering.

  “Grandfather!” she shouted at him. “Grandfather, don’t leave me! I need you.”

  Daughter grabbed pelts from his sleeping place—any she could reach that were not tucked under him—and rolled them into a ball that she placed under his head and shoulders. She slipped away and grabbed a water bladder from the rafters, filled a cup and tried to make him drink. He choked, and she wiped the dribbled water from his chin, told him she would get K’os. Surely K’os would have medicine to help him.

  She did not realize she had forgotten her sax until she was outside and felt the bite of the wind against her bare skin, but she did not go back. She ran to Eye-Taker’s ulax, and without pause for politeness, started down the climbing log.

  “My grandfather …” she gasped, trying to catch her breath.

  “Where is your sax?” Eye-Taker asked her. Seal looked up from the spear shaft he was smoothing and frowned.

  “You should protect yourself better,” he said. “Wind spirits will get into your belly.”

  One of their sons farted, and the other children began to laugh. Daughter shook her head at them, and her eyes flooded with tears.