Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  He had misjudged his air, allowed the stored breath that expanded his lungs to hiss out between his teeth when the iqyax finally turned. Now his lungs begged for new breath.

  There were currents within the wave. They caught Cen and fought to tumble him and his iqyax, to break their bones. Ignoring his lungs, Cen thrust his paddle against those currents, and managed to keep himself straight most of the time. Just when he thought the water was brightening—as though the sky were reaching down to show him that he did not have much farther to travel—the wave slapped the bottom of his iqyax and thrust the point of the bow up into the breaking curl so quickly that Cen could not react.

  It turned him end for end and hurled him down toward the bottom of the sea. He lost his paddle, so he clasped the edges of his coaming, drew up his knees until they touched the underside of the iqyax’s deck, and in that way he held himself within the craft.

  Pain knifed his ears, and he saw blood rise in curls around his face. The wave thrust him up again, and the pressure eased. His hands, clenched into tight fists, were bruised by the force of the water, but that pain was nothing compared to his lungs, now aching so badly that it seemed as if someone had reached inside his chest and shredded them.

  Ghaden’s face burned into his mind, then again he saw Daes, heard her voice as though she welcomed him into death.

  “Daes,” he whispered, and released his last small bubble of air. It rose past his eyes to join the froth of the breaking wave and was lost there.

  He drew in a great mouthful of water, knew for an instant the relief of that drawing, and then he was choking, taking water into his lungs, his belly, coughing and breathing until his whole body shook with spasms.

  Then, suddenly, all things were calm. His lungs, as though satisfied with the water that filled them, no longer tried to draw in more, and the iqyax steadied within the wave. Even his ears stopped throbbing, although thin trails of blood still curled before his eyes, red as fireweed blossoms.

  The beauty of the water gripped him, and he was grateful for seeing the sea from inside, as if he had been granted the eyes of an otter in compensation for his death. And why not? His friend Chakliux, that man of otter foot and otter wisdom, had made Cen’s iqyax.

  Then, as though the iqyax knew itself as otter, it shuddered and thrust its bow up, nose toward the sun. It climbed within the water, finally breaking out into the dawn, sliding sideways down the back of the wave, like a river otter on ice. It landed on its side, then righted itself, bobbing in the wave’s choppy wake.

  All this Cen saw as though he were watching some other man caught in the sea. But then the water he had swallowed thrust itself out of his lungs and belly, up his throat and through his mouth and nose, burning like salt on raw flesh.

  He gagged and choked and retched, his hands still clutching the coaming, his fingers so cold and stiff that it seemed that they had taken the grip of a dead man, and so would ever remain bound to the iqyax.

  He brought up the contents of his stomach, fish and bile and more sea water, then was finally able to draw in a breath. He realized that even more than the cold and the water, his own fear had filled him, and now as it drained from his body, his fingers finally relaxed, and he began to shake.

  For a long time, he could do nothing but sit and battle down his dread, try to lift himself above his pain. He was rock, then animal, and finally man, able to catch his thoughts, twist them together like one who makes a rope from many strands, and in that joining finds strength.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Traders’ Beach

  TWO DAYS AFTER THE storm, hunters brought pieces of broken iqyan to the Traders’ Beach, and a young man was sent to the Walrus Village to tell the families that Dog Feet and He-points-the-way had died in a storm. The sea had swallowed the bodies, as the sea often does, and though they had little hope of finding the remains, Dog Feet’s brother and several older hunters from the Traders’ village went out to search shores and inlets.

  Though Daughter begged Ghaden to stay in the village, reminded him that none of the wreckage seemed to belong to Cen’s iqyax, Ghaden went with the hunters. For all the days they were gone, the skies remained clear and the sea calm, as though all the summer’s anger had been spent in one storm.

  When the village’s four days of mourning had ended, life continued as it always had, traders coming and going, women fishing and gathering and sewing, men hunting and repairing their iqyan.

  The storm had brought some bounty to their inlet, and children helped the old ones gather kelp bulbs, which the women would stuff with meat and bake, or dry and grind for medicine to help bones heal. The young women collected driftwood to use for cooking fires and hunters’ hats, iqyax frames, and ulax rafters.

  Daughter did more than her share of work, starting her days too early and staying awake long into the nights. She walked the beaches, a pack of driftwood heavy on her back, waiting with hope and dread for Ghaden, afraid of what he would find, but needing him to return to her.

  K’os seemed to observe her own strange kind of mourning, at first singing for Cen as if she were his wife, insulting Seal with her tears and even slashing her arms as a wife might do. But on the fourth day she had risen from her bed with clear eyes and new strength, so that when Daughter was near her, she could feel the humming of some power move the air like the quick beat of duck’s wings.

  That day, K’os joined Daughter on the beach, helped gather driftwood and kelp, but K’os kept her eyes on the inlet, pausing to watch whenever an iqyax came into view.

  At first Daughter thought that some dream had come to K’os and told her Cen was still alive. Though Daughter waited mostly for Ghaden, she found herself straining to see if any incoming iqyax carried Cen’s bright markings.

  Finally, Daughter had asked K’os if she thought Cen was still alive. K’os had laughed, ridicule in her voice, and said, “How could any man survive a storm like that? It came too quickly. Did you hear what one trader said about the village near the place they found the remains of the iqyan, how many of the ulas were damaged?”

  “But what if the men were on shore and the iqyan were merely swept out to sea?” It was a hope that Daughter had heard some of the younger women express.

  K’os shook her head. “Even if they had time to get to shore, I heard the chief hunter say that where it hit the hardest, women found driftwood at the tops of the foothills. They might have lived, but there is little chance. When Ghaden returns, we should leave this place and go with him to the River villages. Cen’s family needs to know what happened. Perhaps they will find some comfort when they hear that Ghaden has taken you as wife. Perhaps Cen’s wife will rejoice that she has a new daughter.”

  Thoughts of a journey to Cen’s village seemed to pull K’os from her mourning, so Daughter did not mention her doubts about their welcome. Best let K’os find happiness where she could. But Ghaden had told Uutuk that Cen’s wife Gheli had never even met him and seemed to have no desire to claim him as son. So why would she want Uutuk? Better for Daughter to put all her thoughts on Ghaden’s safe return to the Traders’ Beach.

  Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula

  602 B.C.

  A loud voice cut into Yikaas’s words, and he began to regret that he was telling his story mostly to men. Women were more polite as listeners, and men were more quiet when their wives and mothers were with them.

  “So Cen lived,” one of the River traders called out to Yikaas.

  “He lived,” Yikaas said.

  Several men started a hunters’ chant, a song of victory sung in River celebrations, but they were interrupted by a rude shout that echoed down from the top of the climbing log. Yikaas recognized Sky Catcher’s voice, but because the man spoke in the First Men’s language, he had to wait for Qumalix to translate.

  “He has questions,” Qumalix said. “‘If Cen is alive, why do we have to hear about the women? Tell us about him. Where is he? Why has he not yet returned to the Traders’ Beach?’” Qum
alix smiled an apology and said, “Sky Catcher’s words, not mine.”

  Yikaas stalked over to the log, shielded his eyes against the gray light coming from the hole in the roof of the ulax. “You have been listening, then?” he asked.

  Sky Catcher’s voice was still belligerent when he spoke, and Qumalix leaned close to Yikaas to tell him, “He said that it has stopped raining and that he has better things to do than listen to stories about women.”

  Yikaas went back to the storytellers’ place to continue his tale as though he had not been interrupted, then Qumalix met his eyes and said, “He’s rude, but he’s right. These men don’t want to hear about K’os and Daughter. They want to know what happened to Cen. Tell them that story.”

  The men sitting close enough to hear Qumalix murmured their agreement, and so Yikaas lifted his voice to ask the others in the ulax what they wanted.

  “Make the Daughter part quick,” one man called out.

  “Tell us what Ghaden found,” said another.

  “Where’s Cen?”

  Yikaas shrugged and lifted his hands. “What choice does a storyteller have but to please those who listen?”

  He laughed, and the men laughed with him. Even Sky Catcher settled himself on one of the notches cut partway down the climbing log and perched there, hands on his knees, as if ready to listen.

  “So concerning Daughter and K’os,” Yikaas said, “it is enough for you to know that K’os is anxious to start her journey back to the River People she had left so many years before, and Daughter is a good wife, worried about her husband’s return.

  “But before I tell you about Cen, let me talk a little about Ghaden.”

  There was a murmur of agreement, although Sky Catcher grumbled out complaints. Qumalix scolded him, and the two began to argue. For once Yikaas was glad he did not understand much of the First Men language and so did not need to hear Sky Catcher’s opinions about his stories.

  He pressed his lips together and considered where to start. Finally he raised his voice above Sky Catcher’s bickering and said, “Though Ghaden loved his father, he was also angry with him because Cen had never taken Ghaden to the Four Rivers Village and sometimes went years without seeing him. But as Ghaden searched for Cen, he forgot his anger and remembered only the good things …”

  The Bering Sea

  6435 B.C.

  GHADEN’S STORY

  The mist lay so wet and heavy that it slowed Ghaden’s hands on the paddle and dimmed his eyes as if they were cauled by age. The men had kept their iqyan close to the shoreline, twice leaving the sea to poke among heaps of driftwood beached by the storm, but they found nothing. Ghaden’s thoughts moved as slowly as his hands, and he saw his father’s face again and again, in the waves, in the sky, even in the grasses as they moved in the wind.

  His first full memory as a child was of Cen smiling at him during a serious discussion about some broken toy. A spear, yes, that was it, carved from a stick that Cen had sharpened and hardened by charring in the hearth fire. Ghaden had taken the spear outside. In the innocence that allows a child to think he is capable of all his father does, he had truly believed he would bring back a hare. But his first effort at throwing had ended with the spear sunk deeply into a tussock of tundra grass. To his horror, when he had attempted to pull the spear out, he had stumbled, fallen against his little weapon, and cracked the shaft.

  Even now, as a man, Ghaden could feel the sorrow he had known at the loss of that spear. When he had taken it back to Cen, expecting to be scolded, Cen had merely grunted, then whittled Ghaden another. Ghaden had made his first kill with that spear, though by then Cen had left their village.

  Months later, Cen had returned and stolen Ghaden and his older sister Aqamdax. He took them to the Cousin River village, a village that had eventually been destroyed in the battle between the Cousin River and Near River People.

  Somehow during that battle Cen had disgraced himself. Ghaden had heard the people discuss how Cen had run even before the fighting began. Ghaden had always wanted to talk to him about that, but how does a son bring up his father’s cowardice? Ghaden wanted denial, or at least an honorable reason for Cen’s choice, but what if Cen had no reason other than his own fear?

  When Ghaden’s mother Daes had been killed, and Ghaden had been knifed and left for dead, Cen was blamed. At the time, the people of the village had nearly taken Cen’s life in revenge, but Cen had stood before them all, asked if his son Ghaden still lived, and, grabbing a knife from one of the men who held him captive, had cut off his own finger as a sacrifice for Ghaden’s recovery. How could a man who had the bravery to do that be afraid of battle?

  Cen was no coward, and he would have faced the storm in strength. If anyone could have survived, Ghaden assured himself, it would have been his father.

  A shout from one of the other men pulled Ghaden from his thoughts. The hunter used a paddle to point toward the beach, and Ghaden saw another heap of broken wood. The tide was low, but there were few rocks and the sea broke gently against the shore, an unlikely place for anything to wash up, but in a storm any beach could become treacherous.

  One of the men was Dog Feet’s oldest brother, a Walrus trader with perhaps eight handfuls of years. The others—three of them—Ghaden knew only as First Men hunters, and he was even unsure of their names, but they were so skilled with their iqyan that by watching them, Ghaden had added to his own abilities.

  Dog Feet’s brother had already turned his iqyax toward land, and Ghaden followed. When the sea was shallow he loosened the spray skirt that made a watertight seal around his coaming and jumped from his iqyax before it ran aground.

  The sea was cold against his bare feet and ankles, but it felt good to stand after such a long time of paddling. He looked up into the sky, tried to make out the position of the sun, but the mist was too thick. The color of the light that squeezed down to them let Ghaden know that the day was near its end, and that they might be wise to consider staying on the beach for the night.

  One of the hunters, now in shallow water, held up a stringer of fish, kelp greenlings he must have caught sometime during that day of traveling, but Ghaden did not remember seeing him trail a handline.

  “I am hungry,” the man called out. “Will you eat with me?”

  Each of the others held up something, a pouch of dried fish, a net of sea urchins. Dog Feet’s brother, standing atop a foothill that browed over the gravel tide flats, called, “There is iitikaalux here.” He pointed to several tall, thick-stalked plants that towered above the grasses.

  Uutuk had given Ghaden a belly of smoked fish and another of seal oil, and her mother had added a packet of dried fireweed leaves for tea. He pulled the storage packs from his iqyax, and Dog Feet’s brother—striding down the hill with the iitikaalux bundled in a sheaf of grass—cried out his readiness to eat. But suddenly the man’s voice broke, and he made a sound as though he were choking. He ran to the heap of driftwood and began digging through it, wailing as he worked.

  The others, still out on the sea, dealing with the undertow of waves and the few rocks that studded the shallow water, did not seem to notice, but Ghaden heard the despair in the man’s voice and felt his own heart clutch within his chest. He dropped his packs and hurried toward Dog Feet’s brother.

  When Ghaden saw the arm, he added his own groan of agony, and began throwing aside the driftwood. Days in the sea had bloated the body, turned the skin as white as the underbelly of a fish. When Ghaden saw the body’s left hand, the smallest finger missing, he was sure it was his father. But then he realized that the finger and much of the hand had been eaten away. He looked at the chigdax, still mostly intact, and knew the man was not Cen. Dog Feet’s brother turned and retched, and when he was heaving up nothing but his own sorrow, he managed to choke out, “It is my brother. I know his chigdax.”

  Ghaden squatted beside him, placed an arm over his shoulders, and helped him to his feet, drew him to where the wind blew away the stench of the dead.r />
  When the others beached their iqyan, they lifted their voices together and sang the mourning songs as best they could without women to make the high ululations that reach beyond wind and sky to the dancing lights where Dog Feet would hear and know that he was honored.

  They made a burial of stones. Dog Feet’s brother laid one of his own harpoons over the body so Dog Feet would have weapons in the spirit world. Ghaden gave a sleeve knife; one of the other hunters offered a handline and hooks, another a hunter’s lamp.

  “He will be glad for your gifts,” the brother said, forcing his words past a throat that sounded raw with pain.

  Afterward, as Ghaden sorted through the rubble of driftwood at the water’s edge, he found nothing that belonged to Cen, and so although he mourned Dog Feet he felt relief that he could still cling to some hope.

  They made their camp far enough from the burial that they could not see the mound of stone, and so that any spirit lingering, called to the beach by Dog Feet’s death, would not easily see them. They set out food but ate little, spoke little before rolling themselves into sleeping furs for the night.

  Ghaden woke often, plagued by dreams of death and drowning. The next morning, Dog Feet’s brother had traded sorrow for anger, and his loss had sharpened his tongue.

  “Your father, too, is dead,” he told Ghaden, “and so is He-points-the-way. No man was better in his iqyax than my brother. If he is dead, then all are dead.”

  Ghaden, his spirit still possessed by his dreams, was convinced by the man’s words. So that day on the sea, Ghaden sang mourning songs, and in his thoughts laid stones, one by one, over Cen’s body as they had over Dog Feet’s, and when after three more days they found two paddles drifting, Ghaden was not surprised to see that both belonged to Cen.