by Sue Harrison
She reminded herself that she was justified in doing so, that her mother had twice convinced her to stay, even after the last fish was dried. Of course she could not tell them that Gheli would rather stay alone in a lean-to than live in her husband’s warm winter lodge. Who would ever understand that?
Soon the old women would begin their whispers: Gheli was not quite human. Hadn’t she come to them in a storm? Hadn’t Cen dug her out of the snow like a ptarmigan in winter? Maybe she was tired of her human husband and wanted to go back to being bird.
Daes had heard those stories whispered before, and she could give no better answer to her mother’s strangeness, but she knew that Gheli was not bird. Surely a daughter would see things through the years, feathers in the soup, a hint of claw or beak. But there was nothing, and if Gheli wanted to be rid of her husband, why was she so happy when he was in the village?
When Cen was home, Gheli was full of singing, always smiling, and even made small jokes, but when he was gone, especially on trading trips, she grew gaunt, her mouth sucked in as though she were drying up from the inside.
Daes continued to walk, making soothing sounds to keep Jump with her, for he had begun to stop for any reason, a ground squirrel, a branch across the path, even the sound of a bird. Daes decided to lighten his pack, adding a roll of bedding to her load, but finally she saw the village, the trail of lodges strung out along the river, another group making a V to the first as though the lodges were geese ready to wing south for winter. She held her breath, wondering if someone had already claimed their lodge, but it was there, the gaping hole of it on the river side of the village. A log cache sat high on legs next to it. Her mother kept the lodge cover in the cache over the summer, away from greedy animals and the rot of rain. Even most of the lodge’s domed roof poles were still in place, though one was split and would have to be repaired.
Jump ran ahead of her, his tail wagging. He ignored the challenges of other dogs tied beside other lodges and ran inside the circle of stones, the base of the lodge. In spite of Daes’s demands that he come out, he sat down as though he belonged there. What dog was allowed into a lodge, even one without its lodge cover? Finally in exasperation she went in after him, untied the bundles on her back and those on Jump’s, then dragged him outside. As she tethered him, he lifted his howls into a dog song of celebration and set other dogs to yipping.
Children were the first to gather, hands over ears at the dog noise, and they were the first to ask about Gheli.
“She decided to stay a little longer to fish, but didn’t want my father to worry about us. If she isn’t here in a few days, I’ll go back for her myself.”
Daes had not thought ahead to what she would say when asked about her mother, so she found herself glad at her answer. How could her mother object? Would she want everyone in the village to know that they had argued?
“Has my father returned yet from his trading trip?” she asked one of the older boys.
“Not yet,” he said. “Maybe he’ll be gone for the winter.”
“Maybe,” said Daes, but she did not like to consider the possibility. She and her mother would not have enough to eat, unless Daes was claimed as wife; then it would not be a terrible winter, even for Gheli.
Daes studied the village, noticed that things seemed quiet. “The men, have they left yet to hunt?” she asked, and in her anxiety, the words rushed too quickly from her mouth.
“What? What did you say?” the children shouted, but the boy nearest her said, “A few went to hunt bear.”
Daes sighed her relief. Women did not go with men on bear hunts. There was too great a chance of a curse. She wanted to ask about Bird Hand, but thought she should not. Better to keep her mouth closed and listen at the village hearths. The women would soon tell her everything, one way or another.
Their lodge was tall, and though the cover needed little repair, it took Daes the rest of the day to secure it in place over the lodge poles. Once or twice several of the older boys stopped their play to help her, but if her mother had been there, they would have been able to do the task in half the time.
When she had finished with the cover, the sky was still light enough for her to gather firewood, fallen branches in the nearby forest. She brought back enough to get her through the night, adjusted the smoke hole flaps, and started the fire. When it was burning well, she took all her water bladders, those she had brought from their fish camp and others that she found in the cache, and went to the river to fill them.
It was the time of evening when trees and lodges are dark, but the sky still holds some light. She was crouched on her toes at the edge of the water, on a bit of sand that sloped gently into the river, when she heard two voices, that of a man and a woman, both teasing.
In the darkness at the river’s edge, Daes knew she was well hidden, so she filled the bladders quietly, smiling as she listened. The two were laughing softly, whispering, but Daes was unable to hear well enough to tell who they were. Surely not husband and wife.
They were suddenly quiet, and Daes thought perhaps they had moved downriver, away from the village. She filled another bladder, then heard an explosion of laughter. She knew that laugh. It was Crane, a great hulk of a girl, too long of leg and arm. Even her neck stretched out like a crane’s neck. She was a good lesson to all mothers for caution in naming. Daes’s thoughts went to her baby sister, and with some satisfaction, she pictured the child growing short and squat, waddling and murmuring like a duck.
Aaa, it was good for a woman like Crane to find a man, even if just for a night of play. Perhaps that would be enough to fill her heart for all her life, or even to give her a child. Then most likely someone would take her as wife. After all, Crane was gifted with common sense, and not terrible with her needle.
The man began to laugh, a deep laugh that made Daes hold her breath in glee. It was Bird Hand’s father, she was sure. Chief hunter of the village and already with three wives! Surely he did not want another. Was Crane so foolish to think that he would take her? Was she so desperate that she would be satisfied to have a man use her and then pretend nothing had ever happened between them? What about the chief hunter’s second wife? She was a jealous woman, unable to do anything about the first wife, and satisfied to have her sister be third wife, but what if the chief hunter brought Crane into their lodge? The thought made Daes’s throat swell with laughter.
Crane and the chief hunter were very quiet now, without doubt into the serious work of mating. Daes would not hear any more from them until they were done, and the wind was too cold, blowing down the river, and her belly was too empty to stay longer. She filled her last water bladder, gathered the bladders into two bundles connected with a short braid of babiche, and slung them over her left shoulder. She smiled in the darkness. She had enough to keep her mind busy for the evening. She might as well return to the lodge.
In the morning, she would go to the village hearths and see what the women had to say about the caribou hunts. If the men planned to leave soon, then she would go, too, and let her mother worry about getting herself back to the winter village, but if it would be a while, then perhaps after a day or two of rest she would go back and help her mother carry the remaining packs of dried fish to the village.
Satisfied with her plans, Daes pushed her way along the river’s edge, past willow brakes and brush, until she came to a little clearing. As always, when she filled the water bladders, her own bladder seemed to fill itself as well. In the darkness, she jerked down her caribou leggings and pulled up the edges of her parka, began to release her water. She was squatted on her haunches when she heard Crane’s voice again. Daes made a face. She did not need them to stumble upon her. Crane was the kind of woman who would make a joke for the whole village out of such a thing.
They stopped short of where she was crouched, and Daes was able to pull up her leggings and adjust her parka without letting them know she was there.
The chief hunter was saying something to Crane, words of e
ndearment, clear enough for Daes to hear. She covered her mouth with both hands to hold in the sound of her breathing.
“Aaa, two fine, fat pups, they are,” he said, and Daes knew his hands were on Crane’s breasts, “and here the mother.”
The words were a blow that knocked away Daes’s wind. Yes, of course, his hands were on Crane’s breasts, then on her belly, but how did Daes know that? Would a father make love with exactly the same words used by his son? The voice was not the chief hunter’s, but Bird Hand’s, deepened by his lust.
Daes moaned, did not realize she had made a sound until she heard Bird Hand say, “Listen, I heard something.”
In quietness she held her breath, and even the blinking of her eyes seemed to make noise, but finally Crane said, “I don’t think it’s anything, just the river.”
Daes heard them walk away, and she crouched again on her haunches, pressed her fingers into the corners of her eyes until she had pushed her tears so far down her throat that her lungs shuddered with each breath.
Daes did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were woven with images of Crane and Bird Hand finding her by the river. For some reason she had no clothes, and stood before them naked while they laughed. When she woke in the morning, she lay exhausted on her sleeping mats, playing what had happened over and over again in her mind. Finally she convinced herself that Bird Hand had used Crane only for a night of pleasure, that he would never want her as wife.
If Crane’s father were someone important, that would be different, but he was not. He limped badly from a leg broken years before, and seldom hunted but relied on others to provide for him. Crane’s brother was still a boy, and her sister, beautiful to look at, as Crane was not, had yet to have her first moon blood time. Perhaps Bird Hand thought it worthwhile to take Crane just to have the best chance of claiming the sister once she was a woman, but that could be several years yet.
No, Daes told herself, she had nothing to worry about. But she took special care that morning, combing out and braiding her hair, carefully brushing the dirt and grease from her summer parka and leggings. When she went to the hearths, she did not go as most girls would, empty-handed, but brought a packet of dried blueberries and made a show of offering it to the chief hunter’s third wife, Wing—Bird Hand’s mother—for the cooking bag she was stirring.
Wing looked surprised at the gift, hesitant to take it. Such berries were usually saved for feasts.
“It will add flavor to the stew,” Daes told her, and the woman nodded as though still unsure of what to say. She dumped the berries into the broth, and Daes hurried away, brought back several armloads of wood, stacked them near the fires.
“Where is your mother?” Wing asked, waving a hand before her face as a gust of wind changed the direction of the smoke and set several women to coughing.
“Still at fish camp,” Daes told her.
“You returned alone?”
“With one of our dogs.”
“You left your mother with the baby and all her fish to carry?” another woman asked.
It was Crane’s mother. Daes wondered if she knew who Crane had been with the night before, and if she worried that Daes would take Bird Hand from her daughter. She should worry, Daes thought.
“I brought most of the fish back with me,” she said. “My mother was concerned that someone might claim our lodge if my father had not yet returned from his trading trip.” She held her hands out, palms up, and added, “You see she was right. He hasn’t yet returned.”
“A trader was here several days ago,” one of the women said. “He had heard that Cen was at Chakliux’s village.”
That was good news. Daes did not want to face a winter without her father in the lodge. She remembered a year he had spent away trading. That hungry winter, her mother had slept both day and night, so Daes had done all the work and felt as if she lived alone like some old woman.
“How many days does it take a man to walk from Chakliux’s village to ours?” she asked.
“A strong man like your father, paddling upriver?” said the chief hunter’s first wife, an older woman, but still with some of the beauty of her youth. “Four days with portages, maybe five.” Then she asked Daes, “Long enough for you to go get your mother?”
The question made Daes uncomfortable. “Perhaps,” she finally said, “but who knows when my father started out? It would not be a good thing for him to come tomorrow and find me gone. Who would welcome him? I can reach my mother in two, three days walking, but with the baby it will take us much longer to return.”
Several women nodded, but Bird Hand’s mother said, “A good daughter would go now. We will watch after your father. You’ve already set up the lodge and brought fish, nae’? Then he has food to eat, and he can always get more from the hearths.”
Daes turned her head as though she were looking back at her lodge, at the job she had done in tying the cover in place, in stacking firewood, but she was really turning so Wing would not see the anger in her eyes. What right did she have to tell Daes what to do? Did she know where her son had been last night? What if Crane got with child, would Wing want Crane for a daughter?
But Daes willed her anger away, and by the time she spoke, her eyes were soft. “I think I’ll take the day to gather wood, and in the morning, if my mother has not yet returned, I’ll go back for her. Though she was the one who told me to come, she’ll most likely be glad for my help. And I’m already lonesome for them, my mother and my sister.”
Then the women at the hearth urged her to eat and eat well, for the journey ahead would be a difficult one, and the journey back even more so, a heavy load of fish on Daes’s back.
So for that day, Daes gathered wood, made large stacks at the sides of the lodge, but stopped often, looked upriver and down, hoping to see her mother coming, so she would not have to go after her; hoping to see her father, his iqyax laden with treasures from the First Men and Walrus Hunters, gifts for a good daughter.
The morning broke cold and dark, the belly of the sky so heavy that Daes knew it would rain. She thought about staying another day, but then saw herself returning with her mother, Daes laden with most of their fish. What man would not want a woman like that, who would do so much for a mother who foolishly stayed too long at fish camp? Why wait because of a little rain?
She was ready by midmorning and left thinking that the day would grow warmer as the sun climbed in the sky, but even by the time she reached the last lodges in the village, the rain had gathered strength and changed to ice, dancing around her feet as she walked.
Jump was by her side, the dog joyous at promised adventure and a light pack. She held him back, slowed her steps, hoping that she might see Bird Hand before she left and have opportunity to tell him what she was doing. But everyone was inside, save a woman here or there, sent out to feed dogs or get wood. These she hailed and told where she was going, in the hope some word of her unselfishness would get back to Bird Hand.
Then she was out of the village, ducking under low-branched spruce to follow a trail that led through the woods. Many women would not consider taking such a journey alone. And though Daes reminded herself that she had just made this same trip safely a few days before, thoughts of wolves and wolverine filled her mind.
She comforted herself with quiet words, saying that surely her mother had left fish camp and that they would meet this day or the next on the trail. At each turn of the path, she expected to see her, at the top of each hill, at the far side of each tundra clearing. But though Daes walked through that whole day and well into the evening, she saw nothing but her own dog and a few hares, one already mottled white, preparing for winter.
Her feet ached, and her shoulders, and even her eyes, for watching so hard. She began to walk in anger, stomping the soles of her caribou hide boots into the orange needles that lay over the path. Next year, she vowed, she would be Bird Hand’s wife. She might even have a belly full of his child. Then it would not matter how foolish her mother was, Daes cou
ld leave fish camp when she wanted.
She had brought dried fish with her, so during that day of walking, she had not bothered to hunt, but when Daes finally stopped for the night and built herself a fire, she began to wish for fresh hare. She filled her belly with fish, then pulled grass to make a bed, rolled out a caribou hide to sleep on, but the ground was wet, and her stomach rolled and complained for want of roasted meat. Jump lay close beside her, the smell of his damp fur filling her nose. She dreamed of dogs, of nursing puppies at her breasts, as women must sometimes do to save a dog or two in starving moons of late winter. She awoke hungry, and the next day, as she walked, she watched for hares. Finally she killed one, caught it in the head with a good throw of her walking stick. It was a fine, fat buck, long of ear and still in his brown summer coat.
That night, she and Jump feasted, and Daes slept without dreams.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ON THE MIDDLE OF the third day, when Daes came to her mother’s fish camp, it looked as it had when she left. Fish still hung on drying racks, the lean-to tent was in place, and her mother sat beneath a tree with Duckling on her lap. The baby cooed and reached out a hand when she saw Daes, but Daes could only stare. Finally she ripped the pack from her back and called her mother all the vile names that came into her head. When she had screamed out all her anger, she bent, chest heaving, and tried to remove Jump’s dog packs. But he backed away until she stomped her feet in frustration.
Gheli rose, careful to keep a firm hold on Duckling. “I decided to stay a little longer,” she said.
Daes stretched her mouth into a firm line and closed her eyes against the sight of her mother and the fish camp.
“I thought you might need help carrying the rest of the fish,” she said slowly, as though she were speaking to a child who was not quite old enough to understand. “We need to leave soon. I don’t want to travel in snow.”
