Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  Yaa said nothing.

  Cries-loud watched her for a moment, then asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I just ate. You know that.”

  He strode over and stood behind her. When they were young, he and Yaa had been nearly the same size. It gave him pleasure now to look down on her, to see how small she was compared to him. Her neck suddenly seemed so fragile, a pale V of skin between her dark braids. He stroked a finger down the part at the back of her head. She jerked, suddenly still and alert, like an animal, frightened and wary.

  Her reaction angered him. He had never hurt her, had never set his hand against her, even when they fought.

  “What are you doing?” he asked again.

  “Counting,” she said. “You made me lose my place.”

  “Counting?”

  “We’re to have a mourning for Ghaden’s father. You heard Chakliux say that, nae’? I want to give a share toward the feast that will follow.”

  Cries-loud grunted. There were better ways to use their meat, but how could he refuse to give for a feast that Chakliux would most likely host?

  “Go talk to Dii, see what she plans to give. Be sure not to give more. I don’t want to shame my own father.”

  He saw Yaa’s face turn dark. He had insulted her. Every wife knew not to outgive her husband’s father, unless the man was old and unable to hunt; then the son’s gift was also considered to include the father’s.

  She set the food pack down and left the lodge, did not look back or speak any politeness in leaving. For a moment, Cries-loud thought about going after her, forcing her back into the lodge until she acted as a respectful wife should, but then he sighed and sat down. She was more trouble than she was worth.

  He pulled several arrow shafts from a sheath. He had tied them together so that as they dried they would keep one another from warping. He loosened the bands and studied each shaft, holding it horizontally to sight along the length. Each was straight, so he found a bit of sandstone to smooth the remaining rough spots.

  He heard someone in the entrance tunnel, set aside his work, and stood, sure it would be Yaa. But it was his father’s wife, Dii. Like all tunnels into winter lodges, his was slanted down, then up to make a small valley. That way cold air would settle into the lowest section and not get to the heated lodge. Some tunnels were tall enough for a man to stand in a crouch, but he and Yaa were young and did not mind crawling, so when Dii came into the lodge, she was still on hands and knees.

  She jumped quickly to her feet, brushed her palms against her hips, and set her mouth into a grimace. She had good teeth, small and even, scarcely worn from the chewing of hides all women must do. With her pointed chin and large eyes, she reminded Cries-loud of a fox ready to attack, and it was all he could do not to lift a hand to the sheathed knife he wore hung at his neck.

  “You’re not very kind to your wife,” she said to him.

  “Is she whining to you?” he asked.

  He liked Dii, though she seemed more sister than stepmother. When she had first come to them as Fox Barking’s widow, he had seen the strength in her, and that strength had only grown since she had married his father. It could not have been easy being wife to a coward like Fox Barking, but Dii had always presented herself on her own merits. She was a good wife to Sok, though not as talented with needle and awl as Cries-loud’s mother had been. But what husband would complain about that when his wife had been given the gift of caribou dreams? To his knowledge Dii had never been wrong when she told the hunters where to find caribou.

  But she was also a woman who almost always took Yaa’s side in any argument. Cries-loud wished she were more like Aqamdax, who turned her head at harsh words, as though they had not been said. He thought of Ghaden’s new wife. She was First Men like Aqamdax, and so perhaps was more quiet. How could Cries-loud fault the man for wanting a woman like that? He would trade Yaa any day for a soft-spoken wife, had even considered throwing her away and taking several of the oldest women in their village as wives, hoping that in their gratitude, they would live without complaining. But then how would he get children? Old women were no good for breeding. Of course, in all the years they had been married, Yaa had had no luck in making healthy babies. They had lost three sons and a daughter. Some curse was in her.

  “You know your wife does not whine,” Dii told him, and he had to think for a moment to remember what he had said to her to get that response.

  “What then?”

  “She’s sad. That is all, and worried about what to give for the feast that will follow the mourning.”

  “I told her to see what you would give.”

  Dii’s laugh was as harsh as a dog’s bark. “You insulted her. She knows what to do about a mourning feast. Why do you treat Yaa like that? She tries her best to be a good wife.”

  “She seems more mother than wife.”

  Dii sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, and Cries-loud knew that she could not disagree with him.

  He waited, said nothing more, hoping that his silence would make her decide to leave.

  Dii looked into his face. “You act like a spoiled child,” she said. “Perhaps that’s why Yaa finds it so difficult to be wife rather than mother.”

  She turned then and left, but her words lingered like a slap burning red on Cries-loud’s face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CRIES-LOUD PULLED SEVERAL throwing spears from his weapons cache, hung a pack of dried fish from his belt, and left the lodge. He did not want to be there when Yaa returned, her mouth full of advice and caution. He walked through the village with his head down, ignoring any greetings given to him. For a quick moment the remembrance of someone long dead came to him, a hunter named Night Man.

  Night Man had been husband to Aqamdax before she belonged to Chakliux. There had been some good in him. After all, he had bought Aqamdax from K’os, made her wife rather than slave. But he had suffered long from a wound in his shoulder, and the poison finally seemed to affect his mind, so that he had even killed his own son, drowned the infant shortly after it was born, though Aqamdax had claimed the baby was strong and whole.

  Cries-loud remembered Night Man walking through the village, grunting insults in payment for cheerful words. Had he become like Night Man? The thought made Cries-loud call out a greeting to an old woman at the edge of the village. She was on hands and knees, scraping a hide she had staked out on high, sandy ground. She looked up at him in surprise and stammered a blessing for hunters. Her words lifted his heart, and he told himself that his only problem was Yaa.

  Suddenly he turned back, called to the old woman. “Grandmother, would you tell my wife that I have gone hunting, that I might not be back until tomorrow?”

  “Do not forget the mourning,” she said.

  “I will be here for that,” Cries-loud replied, but he shook his head in wonder. Were all women only mothers?

  The familiar lodge, the good smell of his sister’s cooking, Chakliux’s voice all soothed Ghaden’s spirit, and though he was trying to prepare himself for a day of mourning, some of his sorrow lifted as though it were no more than smoke. His arms tightened around Chakliux’s daughter, the little girl snuggled on his lap.

  “Tomorrow,” he said to Chakliux, “I’ll get Uutuk and bring her here.” He nodded at Seal. “Her father will go also and stay with his wife until she gathers the courage to visit us in this village.”

  “Tell the woman that I am First Men,” Aqamdax said. “Tell her that I have found the River People to be good and generous.” She smiled at her husband.

  “What name has your wife chosen for herself?” Chakliux asked Seal. He framed his words carefully, in politeness, so Seal would know he did not expect to be given the woman’s true and sacred name—a name that would too easily carry curses back to its owner.

  “Old Woman,” Seal said, giving the name as the First Men word Uyqiix.

  “Tell Uyqiix she is welcome in our lodge.” />
  Seal grinned, a wide smile that showed the gap where he had lost a dog tooth when as a young man his iqyax had slammed into a rocky shore. Uutuk had told Ghaden the story, made it into something funny, and the thought sent a stab of pain into Ghaden’s chest. He missed his wife.

  Chakliux’s little daughter looked up him, pressed a small finger at the top of his nose, as though trying to smooth out a wrinkle. “Smile,” she said. She looked much like Aqamdax with her round face and full lips, but her eyes were those of her father, and, most surprising, she had been born with an otter foot, the only one of their children to carry that sacred mark. Now with two summers, she was able to stand if someone set her on her feet, but she could walk only a few steps before falling.

  As always, Aqamdax seemed to know what Ghaden was thinking. She crouched close and clasped the small turned foot. “She will have some difficulties in life, but that is the way of all gifts. If gifts were easily owned, we would not work hard enough to find the best way to use them.”

  Ghaden nodded and made his sister’s wisdom his own by telling himself that her words also applied to his life with Uutuk. Would he appreciate her as much if he had no worries about her mother or father?

  The doorflap was thrust aside, and Yaa came into the lodge. She hung a boiling bag from a lodge pole, dipped her head in greeting. Ghaden closed his eyes at the good smell of fresh caribou meat, then complimented her on the food she had brought, but the smile she gave him in return was forced and stiff.

  “My husband is a good hunter,” she said. Then her mouth tightened in embarrassment, and she added, “He decided to spend the night hunting. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow.” Her voice took on the timbre of a child’s. “I hate to see him go alone.” She looked at Ghaden, and he felt the urgency in her eyes.

  “I could go …” he told her, but Chakliux interrupted.

  “How would you find him?” he asked. “And even if you did, what would you tell him? That after a summer away from your village, on your first day back, you suddenly decided to leave your family again and go hunting? He would know that Yaa sent you.” Chakliux lifted his head and let his eyes rest for a long time on Yaa’s face. “Young men sometimes see their wives as ropes which bind. A wise wife will see that there are no knots in that rope.”

  Yaa turned her back on them and pretended to fuss with the meat she had brought, but Ghaden could see by the rigid way she held her shoulders that she was angry.

  “Aaa,” he said, “I return to my village as hunter, and before half a day passes, I am merely a knot.”

  Even the children laughed, and Yaa’s shoulders sagged, as though her anger had left so suddenly that there was nothing else to hold her straight.

  “I worry, that’s all,” she said, the words so soft that Ghaden could hardly hear them.

  “I understand your worry, sister,” said Ghaden, and set Chakliux’s daughter from his lap so he could stand up. “But as a hunter I can tell you that though a man is flattered by a little worry, he is insulted by too much. If a wife doesn’t believe he can take care of himself when he hunts, then she must also think that he’s not a very good hunter.”

  Yaa whirled, a stirring stick in one hand, gravy from the meat dripping to the floor mats. “You know I sing the praise songs as loudly as any woman when my husband brings meat back to our village.”

  “So does a mother praise a son,” said Ghaden.

  She gritted her teeth, and Ghaden caught her wrist, lowered the stirring stick back into the boiling bag. “Be a wife, Yaa,” he said. “Just be a wife.”

  Cries-loud walked until dusk, walked without stealth, paid little heed to the path he followed. He brought the faces of every unmarried woman he knew into his mind, considered who would make a suitable second wife. He could not throw Yaa away without bringing the anger of Chakliux and Aqamdax down on himself, but if he took a second wife and provided another lodge for her, he could live at that lodge, with that woman. How could anyone protest?

  This time he would choose carefully, and not allow himself to be lured by a woman’s face or body. He wanted someone who saw his strength and wisdom as greater than her own.

  Since the Cousin and Near River Peoples now lived as one, Cries-loud seldom thought about enemies, and so continued to walk without caution, breaking branches that were in his path, making no effort to step on soft ground to muffle his passing. He did not even smell the smoke of a hearth fire until he stopped to build his lean-to shelter for the night. Then he suddenly realized his foolishness. He licked his fingers, wet the insides of his nostrils, and sniffed until he was sure that the fire was small and burned just to the west of his campsite.

  He walked carefully then, crouched as though he were stalking an animal, his hunting knife in one hand. He heard one of the voices before he saw the glimmer of the flames, bright in the darkening forest. Women’s voices. That was always a good sign. Men intent on raiding villages did not usually bring wives with them.

  Cries-loud lay flat on his belly, slid closer until he could see that the camp had only one small lean-to, and that there were two women, no men. Suddenly he realized that they were Ghaden’s women, his wife and her mother. They spoke the First Men language, words he did not understand, but there was a familiarity about one of the voices.

  They sound like Aqamdax, he told himself. The accent she still gives to the River language, the depth of her voice, the music in the rhythm of her words.

  No, it was more than that. One of the women, the older, not only sounded familiar, but looked familiar, the way she held her shoulders, the way she used her hands. Then he knew. K’os! The mother was K’os!

  In his surprise, he stood, and both women started. Each grabbed a knife, and Ghaden’s wife also leaned forward to clasp a fist-sized rock from the edge of the hearth circle.

  “I am Cries-loud,” he called, “brother-by-marriage to Ghaden of the River People.”

  K’os sighed her relief and slipped her knife into a sleeve sheath. She leaned close to the younger woman, said something Cries-loud could not hear. The woman dropped the rock, but kept the knife in her hand.

  “Tigangiyaanen!” K’os said. “Welcome. Are you alone? Did Ghaden send you?”

  “I am alone, hunting. Ghaden is well. He plans to come for his wife tomorrow.”

  He waited, thinking K’os would translate the words to the young woman. After all, Ghaden had said she was First Men, and it had seemed that the father, Seal, had not understood the River language, despite his claim to be a trader. But the young woman also called to him, and her words were in River.

  He stepped out from the brush, and she asked K’os something in the First Men language. He did not remember K’os speaking First Men, and wondered how she had gotten this daughter. She had left their village years ago, long enough, he supposed, to have a daughter. But Cries-loud knew she had been barren, had no children, save Chakliux, whom she had found, not birthed.

  During his trading visits to the Walrus Hunter village, he had noticed that she no longer lived with them, but he had supposed they had traded her to someone or that she had died. A slave’s life was not easy, and in a hard winter, slaves were the first to go without food. Somehow, by trade or by escape, she had gotten to the First Men.

  “You wonder how I managed to return,” K’os said. “Don’t look so surprised. Your face has always reflected your thoughts.” She lifted her chin toward the young woman. “My daughter Uutuk, Ghaden’s wife. I see he didn’t tell you that I’m her mother.”

  “No, he did not,” Cries-loud said, “and I see that you made no haste to come to our village.”

  “Uutuk will go, but I’ll stay here. I’ve had my share of nights in the forest alone. I’m not afraid. Since you are surprised to see me, I will guess that Ghaden didn’t give you my message.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “I told him that I wanted to speak to you.”

  “Me? Why?” He crossed his arms over his chest, lay his right hand casually
on the sheath of his sleeve knife. Who could say what a woman like K’os would have in her mind? After all, he had been one of the men who sold her to the Walrus Hunters.

  She pursed her lips to point at his knife. “You have no need of that. I’ve changed much since I left this village, and in truth have more reason to thank you than to resent you, but I’m not fool enough to think that Chakliux will believe that. I hope that when he gets to know my daughter, he will see how good she is and know that I’ve changed.”

  “So what will you do?” Cries-loud asked. “Stay here until Chakliux decides you are welcome? A woman alone or even with her husband will have a difficult time living outside a village in winter. Besides, your husband is a First Men hunter. How will he get enough meat to feed you? There are no seals in this land, except the few that come upriver in the summer, but beyond that nothing.”

  Uutuk was crouching by the fire, patiently feeding sticks into the flames. She raised her head and said to Cries-loud, “Ghaden plans to winter in a village named Four Rivers.”

  Unlike most new wives, she spoke boldly and did not keep her eyes lowered, but studied his face, as though to set it in her memory. She stood and wiped her hands on her sleeves. Though K’os wore River clothing—a lightweight ground squirrel parka and caribou hide leggings—Uutuk wore a feathered sax. Cries-loud could see her calves when she stood, and so knew she wore no leggings, though she had wrapped strips of hide around her feet, secured at her ankles and over her instep with lengths of babiche.

  “A good place to go,” Cries-loud said.

  K’os turned her head, smiled at her daughter. “I taught Uutuk our River language, and also our customs. She will have no trouble living in a River village, and I have no doubt that Ghaden is hunter enough to provide for all of us.”