by Sue Harrison
K’os’s anger made her voice shrill. “If we choose to stay in this village?” she said. “What choice do we have? You know I can’t go to Chakliux’s village. At best he would make me spend the winter by myself in the forest. At worst, he will kill me. You think Uutuk will stay with a man who cares so little about her family?”
“You’re safe here,” Ghaden said. “The people won’t let you starve. In the spring, my wife and I will come back and share your fish camp before you and your husband return to the First Men’s islands. If Seal wants to stay another year and visit other River villages in the summer, I will go with him to speak for him.”
K’os’s thoughts tangled together, and she could not decide what to say. Ghaden was right. The Four Rivers People would not let them starve, and if Ghaden brought meat, how could she and Seal protest that he was not taking care of them? She lifted a hand to rub her forehead as if trying to push her thoughts into straight lines. The older she got, the more slowly ideas came to her, as though her mind, like her hands, had become stiff and misshapen. She was an old woman, and her helplessness made her angry.
She grasped for an idea that teased from the edges of her thoughts. Finally it came to her, whole and shining. “Didn’t you say that you wanted to wait for Gheli? You told me that you planned to promise her your help now that she must raise your sisters alone.”
The words caught him. K’os knew he had spent much time in Long Wolf’s lodge with his baby sister. He would be a good father to Uutuk’s children, and she had been surprised to find herself glad for that. Now, even though Uutuk had a husband, K’os seldom thought about grandchildren, but babies grew into useful children, and more useful adults. Someday her grandchildren might have to take care of her, and she would be glad they had a father who taught them to live respectful lives.
“You’re right,” Ghaden said. “I want to find Gheli, but I can’t wait too long. I need to get back to Chakliux’s village in time to take Uutuk on a caribou hunt.”
“Go with the Four Rivers People,” said K’os.
He shook his head. “I’d get a smaller share here, and I need enough to feed all of us, perhaps even Gheli and Daes.”
K’os knew he was right. He needed to hunt with Chakliux. It would be an easier winter for her if Ghaden brought a good share of caribou meat. Of course, with her medicines, she could get herself and even Seal through the year. People were always willing to make trades for something that eased pain or healed sickness.
“Then let me help my husband with the trading,” she said. “You need to find Gheli. Then you will feel free to go to Chakliux’s village and see if he will include you in his hunt.”
She stood and pretended to have a stiffness in her knees, reached out as if to balance herself, placing a hand on his back. She knew where to put pressure to make him wince. Red Leaf’s knife wound still held pain within the scar. She pressed and he flinched.
She put a look of concern on her face, then hissed, drew in breath over her teeth. “The wound from the knife?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice tight. “As you well know, K’os.”
She dropped her hand and caught at his sleeve. “What do you remember about that time?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
She did not think he would answer her, but her purpose was to bring into his mind a remembrance of Red Leaf’s attack, however dim that memory might be.
To her surprise, he turned and looked into her eyes, said, “I remember everything, and I remember it well. My mother lying over me, the pain of the wound, the caribou hoof rattlers on the killer’s boots.”
“Do you remember the woman Red Leaf?” K’os asked, and glanced away as Ghaden made the sign for protection at the mention of her name.
“I remember her,” he said. He flexed his shoulder, and he seemed to be looking at something far beyond the lodge walls. He left without saying anything else. A puff of cold air blew in from the entrance tunnel when he closed the inner doorflap.
“Good,” K’os said to herself, holding the word under her tongue. “Remember well, Ghaden. Remember well.”
Later in the day, Uutuk came to K’os, her eyes full of tears. “My husband is leaving the village with one of the chief hunter’s sons. They go to tell Cen’s wife of her husband’s death. They also go to look for Cries-loud. Ghaden is worried that something has happened to him.”
K’os spoke in a soft voice, as though she were trying to comfort her daughter. “Why do I see tears?” she asked.
Uutuk sank to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and began to sob.
“Cries-loud went and has not returned. What if the same thing happens to my husband?”
“I have known both men since they were children,” K’os told her. “Ghaden is strong and wise, but Cries-loud is full of complaining. Even the smallest task is large for him. Ghaden will be safe. Cries-loud is probably safe as well. Most likely he just stayed with Gheli to help her through the mourning. Remember what Ghaden said about his sister Yaa? She has not given Cries-loud any children. Perhaps he likes Gheli’s daughter and wants to spend time with her, even ask for her as second wife. He could probably get her without much of a brideprice now that her father is dead.”
As she spoke, K’os pretended to be busy with the needle and caribou hide she had in her hands, but she glanced often at Uutuk, and when the girl stopped crying, K’os said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to go with him. Any husband who takes a wife on a journey like this only wants someone to carry their packs and prepare their food.”
The next morning, K’os and Uutuk walked with Ghaden and the chief’s son, Bird Hand, to the edge of the village. They watched until the brush that lined the trail hid the men from their sight, then they went back to Seal, helped him with the trading. But as the people came, K’os planned, and by the end of the day, she had chosen the man who would first taste her poison.
His name was Ptarmigan, and he was old, with a cough that wheezed from his lungs at nearly every breath. K’os had already overheard two women in the village complain about providing him food.
“Why waste what we have?” one had said. “He cannot even fish anymore. His coughing scares everything away. Surely he will die this next winter, and all the meat he has eaten this past year might as well be thrown into the river.”
“He’s not even wise or able to tell good stories,” the other had said. “If he could do that, he’d be worth his food.”
“The chief hunter should have given him to the wind last winter. There are too many soft hearts in this village.”
K’os had smiled at their words. Two women who thought as she did, and a man no one would miss.
When Seal decided to take a nap in the afternoon, a rest from trading, K’os brought him water and food, and when he lay down, she rubbed his head until he was snoring. Then she took out her otter skin medicine bag and found the red sack, full of the good whale hunters’ poison that seldom purged the bowel or the belly, but stopped the breathing, slowed the heart. She dipped a long stick into the sack and pushed out enough powder to fill a small wooden cup. She poured the contents of the cup into a full water bladder, then strapped the bladder under her parka with her medicine bag.
Ptarmigan lived with a daughter, but she was a woman of busy mouth and meddling eyes, her nose stuck into other people’s lodges most of the day. K’os did not have to wait long until she saw the woman leave Ptarmigan’s lodge. K’os walked easily, rubbing her eyes, as though she were outside only to escape the smoke of the lodge fire. She circled the village, her eyes always on Ptarmigan’s lodge. Twice she walked past it, but the third time she reached up and scratched against the lodge cover. When no one answered, she went inside.
She clasped the medicine bag in her hand, had ground fireweed ready for tea in case someone other than Ptarmigan was inside, but she was lucky. The old man sat alone, rocking and coughing, his back to the door, his hands stretched out to catch the warmth that came from the hearth coals.
He did not hear her until she was nearly upon him, though she called his name as she entered. When he saw her, he jumped, then laughed at his foolishness, but the laughing made him cough, and soon he was gagging in his need for breath. K’os knelt beside him, turned him so his back was to the fire and the smoke would not enter his mouth and nose so easily.
When he stopped coughing, she took a bladder from a lodge pole, held it as he drank so he would not spill the water with the shaking of his hands.
“I am K’os,” she said.
He nodded, and when he was able to speak, he said, “I remember you and your young husband.”
He laid a hand against his neck, and K’os knew he was also remembering the knife wound that had killed River Ice Dancer.
“I did not kill him,” she said.
“You would have been a fool to kill him,” said Ptarmigan, then began another bout of coughing.
She rubbed his back until she felt him relax. The coughing stopped.
“Your daughter asked that I bring you medicine,” she told him, and hid a smile at the surprise, then joy that filled his eyes.
“My daughter?”
K’os held up one hand to stop him from speaking. “Yes,” she said, and pulled out her water bladder. “I need a cup.”
He pointed to a jumble of bowls and stirring sticks not far from the hearth. She shook the bladder, chose a bowl, and filled it. He took it from her hands with pathetic eagerness, but she did not relinquish her hold. He would spill it before he got it to his lips.
“It will make you tired,” she said, “so drink and then I will help you to your bed.”
He turned his head toward a pile of sleeping mats that lay unfolded on the floor. He opened his mouth to say something, but K’os put a finger against his lips and pressed the cup to his teeth. He drank.
“More?” he asked when he finished, though by his face she thought the drink must be bitter.
“Perhaps tomorrow I will bring you more,” she said. “First we need to see if it helps you.”
She hauled him to his feet, and he leaned on her as they shuffled to his bed. He sat on the sleeping mats and coughed for a long time, but finally he was quiet. K’os helped him lay down, then she pulled a cover over him. He closed his eyes. Then she backed away, taking in the lodge, where she had sat, where she had walked, to be sure she had left nothing behind. Though she wanted to watch, to see if she had given him enough poison to bring on death, she crawled into the entrance tunnel. She opened the outer doorflap and peeked outside, waited until no one was passing, then slipped away.
She walked to a nearby thicket and cut some willow, though the thin autumn bark was not much good for anything. Seal was still asleep when she got to the chief hunter’s lodge, the bouquet of yellow-gray branches in her right hand, the bladder of poison in the left. She hid the bladder under a pile of her belongings, then went outside to sit in the chill autumn sun. She pulled her parka hood snug and chopped up the useless willow, made a show of saving it in small sealskin packets. Those who passed watched and smiled, and K’os saw the satisfaction in their faces. It was always good to have someone in the village who understood plant medicine.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
GHELI’S STORY
GHELI MADE A LONG mourning, eight days in all, twice as many as she needed, though as wife, her private mourning would last at least another moon. She could not ask for longer. One of them—she or Daes—would have to get a husband, both of them if possible. She did not want Cries-loud to worry about them. He needed to return to his wife.
Of course, Gheli’s tears were not only for Cen but also for Duckling, whom Daes had so foolishly taken back to the village, thinking that Gheli would follow. Now Daes understood why Gheli could not follow, and somehow that understanding had softened the girl’s anger.
You should have explained everything long ago, Gheli told herself. Daes knew you were hiding something. Why do you think she learned to be such a good liar, even about small, foolish things?
Gheli sighed and helped Daes tie the knots on another caribou hide pack. Because they had no dogs, Cries-loud was making a long, narrow travois that she and Daes could take turns pulling. Cen had once told her that the next village was a twelve-day walk from the Four Rivers village. She did not know anyone except Cen who had been there, but he said they were a good people, generous and full of laughter. They lived so far from other villages that they did not raise their young men to fight, only to hunt. It would be a good place to live, and according to what Cen had told her, she could get there by following rivers.
Each night during her mourning, she promised herself that the next day she would ask Cries-loud to return to the village and tell the people that she and Daes were dead, killed by wolves. She would give him some of their clothing, shredded and bloodied. But what were the chances that she would ever see him again once he left her?
She had not realized how much she had missed him. In many ways he reminded her of Sok, and also a little of her father, dead now so many years, but he was quieter than either of them, given to sitting without speaking, some bit of wood in his hands that he would whittle away into nothing.
He seldom talked about Yaa. Who could have guessed that Yaa—so good with children even when she was a child herself—would be unable to have babies of her own? As a girl, Yaa had been forced to grow up much too fast, working hard for her mother’s sister-wife, a woman who lived with anger wrapped around her tongue. At least Yaa had gotten herself a good husband, but Gheli wondered if she was wise enough to keep him. When Cries-loud did speak of her, it was with sadness, as if he were never able to please her.
Gheli knotted another braid of babiche. Other than fish, they had little to take with them. She wished she could sneak back into the Four Rivers village and get what she needed from their cache and lodge.
She was kneeling outside the lean-to when she realized that her son was standing behind her. He squatted down beside her, knees apart, leaned forward to look into her face.
“I’ve been thinking about something,” he said. “You know if I don’t soon return to the Four Rivers village, Ghaden may come looking for me. Today is a good day to travel.”
Gheli felt her heart drop within her chest, and she blurted out, “Perhaps some summer before I die, you will visit this new village. Your sister will have a husband by then, and their children will need to know their uncle. Perhaps even Duckling would be willing to come with you. She would be old enough to help you by then. Maybe cook your food and carry your packs.”
She saw the pity in his eyes, the sadness there. He smiled at her. “Yes, watch for me. One summer I will come, and perhaps I will bring Duckling.”
Her tears surprised her. Long ago she had left this son, thinking she would never see him again. Once Cen had spoken about him, telling a story of a good hunt he and Cries-loud and Ghaden had made when Cen was at their village. After the story, Gheli had left the lodge, making the excuse that she needed to bring in wood, but she had needed only to hide her tears. At least she had found out Cries-loud had survived to become a man. Now she would lose him again, and since she knew the depth of that sorrow, the loss would be all the harder the second time.
Her throat closed, and she could not talk, but Cries-loud seemed to understand. He reached to clasp her hand and said, “I think we should tell the people that you are dead. We can ask Daes if she wants to go back or if she would rather go on with you to this new village.”
Gheli nodded and finally found her voice. “You can say it was a wolf kill. We can shred some of our clothing. The women of the village will recognize my work and know that you carry one of my parkas.”
He stood, and she said, “I will get you food.” Then her voice broke.
“Mother, why do you cry?” he asked. He lifted her to her feet and used a fingertip to wipe her tears. “How long does it take a man to go to the Four Rivers village? Two days, that’s all. I’ll be there a day and then come back. Five days,
and I’ll return.”
“You will …”
He laughed at her surprise. “You think I’d let you go alone to this other village? Yaa can wait for me a little longer, and my father will share his caribou meat. I’ll ask Ghaden to tell them that I have decided to hunt by myself and will return before winter. Go get Daes and ask her what she wants to do.”
“She’ll go with me,” Gheli said.
“She’s a woman grown. She will do what she wants to do.”
“I’ll go with her,” said Daes, and Gheli looked back to see that the girl stood behind them. “But what about my baby sister?”
“You can’t take her,” Cries-loud said. “How could I convince the people that you’re dead if I take your daughter when I leave to mourn?”
“Let Long Wolf’s wife keep her,” Gheli said. “She’s a good mother to her boys. She needs a daughter to help her do all the work sons make for a woman.”
Her words were firm, but her eyes burned with tears. Forever, she was giving up children, all for the sake of a husband who had long ago thrown her away. What a fool she had been when she was a young woman, killing to get what she wanted. She had lost almost everything. And what hope would she have as an old woman with the spirit world close? Surely, Tsaani and that first Daes were waiting for her, and River Ice Dancer, also. Someday even Sok and Ghaden and K’os would be in that world of the dead, and all of them would want revenge. Even Cen.
She sighed, hoping to lift her heart back into its place. What good would it do to fret about the dead? she asked herself. She could not change what she had done. She would live as best she could and try to find joy in small things. What other choice did she have?
GHADEN’S STORY
Ghaden stopped and lifted the straps of his pack to flex his shoulders. He had walked hard for two and a half days, following Bird Hand. The man seemed to know where he was going, but twice they had backtracked. Finally they were at the place where the river divided.
