by Sue Harrison
Daughter saw a flash of disappointment in Cen’s eyes, but it was quickly gone, and Ghaden said, “Sometimes I pretend to be a trader. It is worth the hardship to spend time with my father.”
Cen laughed, then said to Daughter, “Your mother is here with you?”
Most wives did not travel with their trader husbands. There were always women in each village willing to be wife for a little while, and what woman wanted to leave her ulax or her children for long nights on cold beaches, for long days on tundra trails?
“She likes to travel with him,” Daughter said. “But this is my first trip. My mother is a River woman, and she brought me because she hopes to find me a River husband.”
Qung snorted. “A River husband! What foolishness! A First Men husband is far better.”
Daughter bit her cheeks to keep from mentioning White Salmon, and she carefully kept her eyes from Ghaden. She had already said more than what was considered polite, and her thoughts were still too full of White Salmon to think of another man as husband. Besides, Ghaden’s River face was strange to her, his long hooked nose, his heavy brow. But she supposed any woman would get used to her husband’s face, no matter what he looked like. After all, the stump of her grandfather’s arm, shriveled as it had been, did not bother her. What was a large nose compared to that?
“Your mother is River,” Cen said, his words quiet as though he were speaking to himself. “How did she get to the First Men islands?”
“That is something she never talks about,” Daughter said. “But once one of the other women in the village mentioned that she was slave to the Walrus Hunters. Perhaps she ran away from them, or perhaps they traded her to the First Men.”
“When you were still a child,” Cen said to Daughter, “there was much fighting between two of the River villages. Women and children were taken as slaves. Perhaps she is from one of those villages, and if she is, then I might know her.”
“Her First Men name is Old Woman,” Daughter told him, “but among the River people she was known as K’os.”
When Daughter said the name, she was handing a sealskin of fish to Qung and did not see the look on Cen’s face.
“K’os,” Qung said. “I have heard that name before.”
She glanced over Daughter’s shoulder at Cen, then pursed her lips into a puzzled frown. Daughter turned to look and saw that Cen had jumped to his feet and was walking toward the climbing log.
“You know her, Cen?” Qung asked.
He stopped and turned back, tried to laugh, but the laughter came out as though it were a curse. “Once,” he said, “a very long time ago, she was nearly my wife.” He lifted his chin and spoke to Ghaden. “Do you remember her?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ghaden said. “When I was living in the Cousin River village, she lived there then. My sister Aqamdax was her slave.” His words were bitter.
The line of Cen’s jaw tightened, as though he had clenched his teeth, but he thanked Qung for the food, then made polite excuses to leave. “Ghaden, come with me,” he said. “I have things for you to do. Perhaps there will be another time for storytelling.” Then as though he had just remembered that Daughter was still with them, he added, “It has been good to hear about the Boat People.”
They left, and Qung, shaking her head at all the food that still remained, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Men are always too busy to sit in one place for a long time.”
When they were outside, away from Qung’s ulax, Cen told Ghaden, “Uutuk is beautiful, but stay away from her. If she is like her mother, she will bring you nothing but bad luck.” Then, looking at Ghaden with eyes flat and cold, he said, “You have trade goods to set out, nae’? Trade quickly. We will not remain in this village as long as I had thought.” Then he strode away toward the chief hunter’s ulax.
Ghaden had heard tales about K’os, whispered things. She had killed her own husbands, they said. When he had returned to the Near River village with Chakliux and Aqamdax, they had agreed to stay only if K’os—slave then to the old woman Gull Beak—were sold to another village. Chakliux’s brother Sok had wanted to kill her, but Chakliux still claimed the woman as mother and would not have her blood on his hands.
She had also lived in Cen’s village—the Four Rivers village—and Ghaden had heard rumors that Cen had forced her to leave. Ghaden had never been to that village, though Cen lived there with his wife and two daughters. This year he would go, Ghaden promised himself, and meet those two sisters he had never seen.
Soon after Biter’s death, Ghaden had taken a young woman as wife. Three years later, she had died in childbirth. Since then, Ghaden had considered taking other women, but none had filled his heart, and so he had been content to stay in Chakliux and Aqamdax’s lodge, to provide meat for widows and elders.
Sometimes his father teased him about taking a Four Rivers woman as wife and coming to live in his lodge, but Ghaden’s spirit was with the people at Chakliux’s village. They had few enough hunters as it was. Besides, how could he leave Yaa? She had been both sister and mother to him since Red Leaf had killed his true mother, Daes. How could he leave Aqamdax and Chakliux, or even Sok? No, he would stay in Chakliux’s village, someday take another woman there as wife.
Uutuk’s face was suddenly bright in Ghaden’s mind, and he found himself thinking about the stories she had told. She did not speak like a storyteller but more like a mother telling tales to a child, and truly that was a gift any man would treasure in his wife.
No, Ghaden told himself. She was K’os’s daughter. Was he such a fool that he could not understand the danger in that?
When Cen saw K’os, she was wearing a First Men sax. Her back was turned and her hair had begun to gray, but he recognized her. There was strength in the set of her shoulders, grace in her movements, and who would not know the cunning needlework of her sax? Cut like a First Men garment, it was decorated in the manner of the River People, with bird beaks and shells and fringes of brightly dyed sinew.
She was working on a trader’s boat. The sewing basket at her side was one that Cen had given her, and the thought that she still owned it clutched at his heart. Sometimes she came back to him in dreams, as young and beautiful as when he first knew her, when he wanted nothing more in his life than to have her as wife.
Long ago, he had heard rumors that she had been sold as slave to the Walrus. He had avoided their village for that reason. But then she had begun to visit his dreams so often, he had decided that she was dead. He had not allowed himself to mourn, but instead rejoiced that there was no chance he would see her again.
She was evil beyond anything and anyone he had ever known. He shuddered to think of her raising Uutuk and wondered what horrors lived behind that girl’s dark eyes.
As K’os worked, she lifted her head once in a while and studied the iqyan. Surely she had noticed his, and he doubted that she would have forgotten the colors and symbols he used to mark his belongings.
For a moment he shifted his eyes out to the inlet, a sheltered bay, perfect for a village, good fishing in calm waters, and easy access to the sea. Fog had begun to move in, fingers spreading up the valleys and into the hills that rose behind the bay.
As trader, he wore the clothing of the villages he visited, partly because it was usually the best choice for the weather, partly so the villagers would accept him as one of their own. The First Men’s sax was a comfortable garment, loose in the shoulders for paddling, and the birdskins easily shed rain. But he had worn caribou hide pants for too many years to be warm when wearing only the long-skirted sax. The air was damp, and he felt the chill of it in his hips and knees.
He sighed and looked again at K’os. She bound her hair like a First Men wife, in a tight knot at the nape of her neck, and as she worked she raised a hand to twist several strands back into the bun. The gesture was too familiar. Suddenly he could feel the warmth of her hair lying over him as they lay naked together in his lodge. He could taste the woman smell of her.
Cen th
ought when he had found Gheli that K’os had lost her power over him, but how could he deny that there was still some part of her lodged in his heart? He was suddenly angry that he had so little control over what he felt. A man old enough to be a grandfather should not act like a young hunter, his lust ruling his mind.
He had been too long away from his wife. Perhaps there was a First Men woman who would trade favors for oil or dried caribou meat. If so, he needed to find her.
His disgust prodded him into movement, and he crossed the beach to the iqyax racks, purposely kept his back to K’os as he pretended to study the boats.
“I see you found yourself a First Men husband,” he said in the River tongue, though he directed his words at the iqyan.
“And you, have you found a new wife?” K’os asked, as though she had been waiting for him, as though they spoke often and there was no greeting or politeness necessary between them.
“A new wife?” Cen asked, puzzled. Then he tilted his head back and nodded. Of course, when K’os had left the Four Rivers village, Gheli had been sick. He had to admit that K’os had been good to them, had given Gheli many different kinds of medicines, but K’os must have believed that there was no hope.
“You think I’d live without a woman?” He turned to look at her as he asked the question.
She had changed more than he thought she would. For years she had remained the same, her skin unlined, hair dark, eyes bright. Her life, after leaving the Four Rivers village, must have been difficult. Deep lines scored her cheeks from her nose to her chin. Folds webbed out from the corners of her eyes, and her skin still carried the scabs and sores of sea travel. Of course, even Uutuk’s face had been marred with sores, and they would heal, but where Uutuk’s cheeks were unmarked like a River woman’s face, K’os had taken the tattoos of the First Men. Blue lines, nearly black, crossed the flats of her cheeks.
The wind had pushed up her sax, exposing a bit of her thigh, and there, too, he saw the marks that proclaimed her a First Men woman. Still—though she looked older, and in spite of the tattoos—she was beautiful. No man would pass her without looking again to enjoy that face, and he supposed that for a First Men hunter, the tattoos enhanced her beauty. He had a sudden and foolish urge to pull the sax down over her leg, a possessiveness that should belong only to a husband.
She’s not mine, he told himself. She has never been mine, and I do not want her.
“But why would I need a new wife?” he asked. “It’s difficult enough for a trader to care for one, and to find a woman who is loyal even when her husband spends long months away from their lodge.”
“I didn’t think you would want to raise Daes without a mother,” K’os said. “I’d have been a good mother to her. You know I did not kill my young River husband. You above all people know that.”
He took a step toward her, squatted, squinting his eyes against the grit the wind blew into his face. “I still think you killed him.”
She smiled at him. “You’re wrong. How terrible for me that you convinced the Four Rivers People I did.”
“If I had convinced them, then you’d be dead. As it was, they only asked that you leave.” He raised his hands and spread them wide. “It seems that you’re doing well. I met your daughter Uutuk. She’s a fine young woman, and she speaks well of you and your husband.”
“Be glad for me, Cen,” K’os said. “I’m old, but my life is good. Tell me about the Four Rivers village and your family. Have you found a husband for Daes? She must be past the age of marrying.”
“She’s promised to a hunter, but she still lives in my lodge. Her mother says she’s a good worker, and she helps care for her younger sister.”
“So you’ve given Ghaden another sister,” K’os said. “The last time I saw Ghaden, he was just a boy. He must be a man now. Is he married? Does he have children of his own?”
Cen did not answer, but instead turned back to his iqyax. It was one thing to speak about his daughters, who lived far from this Traders’ Beach, beyond the reach of K’os’s wickedness, another to think about Ghaden. Surely he had changed enough that K’os would not recognize him.
Cen ran a hand over his iqyax and K’os said, “It’s by far the finest on the beach. Where did you get it?”
“In trade,” he said. “There’s a River hunter who makes iqyan in the way of the First Men.” He faced her, met her eyes and said, “He has the gift of the sea otter.” He looked down at his feet, just a flick of his eyelids, but he heard her hiss, and knew that she understood that her son, Chakliux, had made the iqyax.
K’os took a few quick stitches in her husband’s boat cover. With her eyes on her work, she said, “So you found another wife.”
“Your medicine was stronger than you thought. Gheli is alive.”
Disbelief, anger, hatred twisted her face, each like a dancer’s mask falling off to be replaced by another, but finally she smiled. “I’m glad. For you and for Gheli. Now tell me about your new daughter.”
Cen shrugged. He wanted to be done with this conversation. K’os was like a deadfall trap, ready to catch and crush anyone who was not wary. “She’s a baby,” he replied. “What is there to say? She cries and she sleeps and she eats.”
Before K’os could ask another question, he walked away, flexing his shoulders, brushing his hands through his hair, like a man in the tundra during the moon of flies and gnats.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE MORNING TRADING WAS slow, and after a time Ghaden asked if he might go with several of the First Men out into the inlet to fish.
Cen had shrugged his permission. Why keep Ghaden with him when one man could easily handle the trades? Besides, it would be good to give a few fish to Qung, especially if they decided to leave the village in the next day or two.
Ghaden caught several pogies, the delicate-flavored, green-fleshed fish so prized by the First Men, and Cen told him to give them to Qung, then come and take his place so Cen could spend some time on the ulax roofs talking to the elders. Often the best trades were made because of friendship. But by midafternoon, Ghaden had not yet returned, and finally Cen left his trade goods and went to Qung’s ulax.
Ghaden was there, beside Uutuk, across from Qung, the three with their heads bent together. Playing some game, no doubt, Cen thought. Ghaden was always lucky with casting bones, and more than once had won some hunter’s prized treasure.
Traders had to be careful about their luck in games. Good luck usually twisted itself into bad trades. But when Cen squatted beside them he realized that Ghaden was showing the women the scars left by the brown bear that had killed Ghaden’s old dog Biter and nearly killed Ghaden as well. So, his son had been telling stories to storytellers. Why not? It was a good tale, and the boy told it without boasting, save about his dog. But there was too much sadness in the dog’s death, and the pain in Ghaden’s voice when he spoke of what had happened always tore at Cen’s heart.
He saw this same pain on Uutuk’s face, and suddenly felt as protective toward her as though she were his own daughter, so his voice was harsh when he spoke to his son.
“You sit here when I asked you to come and watch over our trade goods? I guess you would rather be a woman and stay in the ulax all day.”
Ghaden’s jaw tightened, but he got to his feet and pulled on his parka, then left without speaking except for a word of politeness to Qung.
Uutuk offered Cen a water bladder and then fish, gestured toward the mats, and asked him to sit down. He remained standing and waved away the fish, but lifted the bladder to his mouth, squeezed out a stream of water, and, when he had drunk his fill, wiped his hand across his lips.
Qung shook her head, rousing herself as though she were waking from a dream, and looked at him from slitted eyes. “You have not changed much, Cen. You still have more words than necessary. Your boy tells a good tale.”
Cen opened his mouth as though to reply, but Qung held up one hand to silence him. “You have no reason for worry. He will never be a sto
ryteller. He has the words and the gift, but not the desire.” She struggled to her feet, and Cen leaned down to offer his hand. When she was standing, she lifted one finger and wagged it in his face, began to scold him as though he were a child. “Do not make him into a trader. Hunting is in his hands and his heart. If you have not yet realized that, then you are more foolish than your words.” She turned her back on him and busied herself with women’s work.
Cen had no answer for her, so rather than stand there trying to decide what to say, he left the ulax. He paused when he was on the roof and looked out toward the beach. He saw Ghaden pulling packs into place, arranging trade goods. For what little he had given the boy, Ghaden was a far better son than Cen deserved. Too often he had left Ghaden in the care of others, too often depended on Ghaden’s sisters and their husbands to teach him and take care of him.
Cen had never even asked Ghaden to come to his own lodge in the Four Rivers village, but that was because of his wife Gheli. She was a shy woman, strong in many ways, but unsure when it came to her own worth. Cen saw the dread in her eyes every time he talked about Ghaden. And why not? He was the son of the woman Cen had loved above all others. Gheli, as fine a wife as she was, could not drive the dead Daes from Cen’s heart. He wished he had not given Gheli’s daughter Daes’s name. She had grown into a fine woman, tall and strong like her mother, but too often Cen found himself comparing her with that first Daes, seeing his daughter’s shortcomings rather than her abilities.
As he watched his son, Cen’s heart seemed to grow until it ached in the tight spaces of his chest. Finally he turned his eyes away, looked off into the foothills, and thought of other things besides good sons and strong daughters.
K’os ran her hands over the sides of Seal’s trading boat one last time. The seams were as good as she could make them. Perhaps the boat would get them to the River People’s villages, but her stomach knotted when she thought of that journey. More than once Seal’s stubbornness had brought them trouble.
