by Sue Harrison
“Look!” Cen said. He pulled out his sleeve knife, held up his hand, and drew the blade across his palm.
Yehl looked at him with wide eyes. He leaned forward and thrust a fingertip into the blood that ran from the cut. He rubbed his finger and thumb together, then brought them to his mouth. At that moment, two young men burst into the lodge, both with hands full of amulets.
They stopped, both breathing heavily as though they had been running.
“How many are you?” Yehl asked.
“Many,” one said. “The whole village. All the warriors and behind us, the elders.”
“Good,” Yehl said, and pointed with his blood-tipped finger. “Have you ever known a spirit to bleed?”
The young men had no answer, and Yehl smiled at Cen, a sly smile, as though they were conspirators.
“Ask the elders,” Yehl told them. “See what they think.”
The men passed the question back to those behind, and soon the answer came: “Spirits do not bleed.”
“Then,” said Yehl, “it is time to welcome my friend Cen, who has returned to us. Tell the women we will have a celebration tomorrow. All day there will be feasting. All night we will eat and dance and be glad.”
Cen put his knife back into its wrist sheath and clenched his fist to stop the bleeding. He sighed. He would rather not have a celebration, but how can a man refuse hospitality? He knew Yehl from years of trading, knew him well. During the feast, Yehl would give Cen new clothes, amulets, weapons, everything he needed, but how could any man accept such gifts without giving in return? He had nothing but his iqyax, his torn and tattered chigdax, necklaces, a few weapons, a few water bladders.
Aaa, he would have to give up his iqyax. The thought was a weight in his chest, but he kept his sadness within and set a smile on his face, listened to Yehl plan the celebration, listened and pretended to be glad.
The feasting lasted three days, and when it was done, Yehl had Cen’s iqyax and Cen had new clothing, new weapons, and enough food to get him to Chakliux’s village. He left the next morning, paused for a moment to stroke the iqyax and thank it again for its strength. Even as he walked the beach, he began to pick up good dry pieces of driftwood, strapped them to his back with thoughts of keelsons and iqyax ribs. He had the winter to build himself another, and though it would most likely not have the same spirit as the iqyax Chakliux had made him, it would be a brother and he would treat it well, hoping for its favor as he traveled to hunt or trade.
Though Cen was still not as strong as he had been, he made good time, and arrived at Chakliux’s village six days after leaving the Walrus.
The children ran to meet him, recognized him and began to call out his name in joy, though some asked questions about his lack of trade packs, disappointment strong in their voices.
So perhaps somehow the people of Chakliux’s village had not heard that he was dead. He puzzled over that until the first women came out, gathered their children to themselves, and held amulets over their eyes, huddling back into the entrance tunnels of their caribou hide lodges.
“You heard I was dead,” he called to them as he made his way through the village to Chakliux’s lodge. “I am not. The storm sent me far into the North Sea, but I lived, and I have come back.”
He called the words over and over like a song, like a chant, but still the women kept their children away from him, as though he carried a curse. When he came to Chakliux’s lodge, he stood outside and bellowed the man’s name.
“Chakliux, my friend, come out to meet me. I have come a long way to spend time with you and your wife.”
He waited, but there was no response, and the women’s voices behind him had begun to rise in a high ululation of fear. He might have to cut his hand again. He hated the thought of that. The cut was healing nicely, thanks to Yehl’s young wife and the medicine she had given him. It was scabbed over and had begun to itch furiously, especially at night. He did not want to start again with a fresh cut, but better that than death at the hands of men who thought he had come as a spirit to curse them. A spirit could take abuse that a man could not.
“Chakliux!” he called again. “Aqamdax!”
“Cen?” The voice was so quiet that he barely heard it, and he turned to see Aqamdax standing behind him. “Cen?” she said again. “Are you spirit or man?”
“Man,” he said. Then, lifting his chin toward the women who stood at the entrances of their lodges, he added, “Though you would not know by listening to them.”
“They’re afraid, and I am, too. Ghaden told us you were dead. He was here only a few days ago, he and his wife and her father, on their way to the Four Rivers village to tell …” She stopped and clamped a hand over her mouth.
“To tell my wife and daughters that I’m dead,” he finished for her.
“And you’re not.”
He almost laughed. “No, I’m not.”
She was wearing a caribou hide parka, the hood flung back to reveal the dark head of a baby on her back. She also carried a little girl, straddling her hip. Cen smiled at the child. “They have grown much,” he said.
“Especially this one,” Aqamdax replied, and set her daughter down. The girl stuck a finger into her mouth and slid behind her mother, clasping the furred edge of Aqamdax’s parka.
Cen noticed that she was otter-footed like her father, and somewhat unsteady on her feet. He crouched to his haunches and reached in under his parka for a necklace of fish bone beads, held it out toward the girl on the tips of his fingers. “And your oldest, your son Angax?”
“Is with his father. They’re hunting birds and should be back soon.”
“Little one, this is for you,” Cen said to Aqamdax’s daughter. He moved his hand to set the necklace swinging.
The girl sidled out from behind her mother and took a tentative step.
“You remember Cen?” Aqamdax asked her. “He is father to Ghaden.”
“Uncle?” the little girl asked in a small voice.
Aqamdax cocked her head at Cen.
“Yes, Uncle,” he said.
At the confirmation, the child darted forward and grabbed the necklace, then retreated behind her mother.
Aqamdax and Cen began to laugh, and soon the women of the village had joined their laughter, coming out from their lodges to crowd around Cen as he told the story of his survival.
When Chakliux and Angax arrived home, the boy proudly carrying a brace of ptarmigan, Cen was sitting beside the hearthfire, leaning against a woven willow backrest, his belly full and his feet warm.
Chakliux came bursting into the lodge, his mouth full of laughter.
“We wanted to surprise you,” Aqamdax told him as she stood on tiptoe to stir the soup that was hanging over the hearthfire.
“Even before we got to the village, the children ran out to tell us,” Chakliux said.
Chakliux had eight, perhaps nine handfuls of summers, yet he still looked like a young man, little gray in his hair, his belly firm and flat. Aqamdax, too, still looked young, though she had the fuller breasts and wider hips of a woman who has birthed and suckled children. They were happy with one another, and their joy together made him long for Gheli.
As Aqamdax plucked and cleaned Angax’s birds, Cen retold his story. Chakliux listened carefully, sometimes asking questions, things a storyteller would want to know, and so Cen understood that Chakliux wanted to add this tale to those he already told.
When his story was finished, Chakliux asked the question that Cen had expected. “This is a good story,” he said, “one that the people should hear often. Do you think that someday you might give it to a storyteller so it will not be forgotten?”
Cen smiled at him. “Today, it is given,” he said. “It’s my story, and I will tell it again, but both of you may also tell it whenever you wish. I know you’ll tell it well.
“I can’t stay but just this night,” he added, wanting to avoid any celebration. “My son thinks I’m dead, and now most likely my wife and daught
ers do also. I need to go to them.”
Chakliux rubbed his hands together and held them out toward the fire. “I’ll travel with you,” he said. “You don’t want the Four Rivers People to think you’re a spirit and try to send you back to the spirit world.” He began to laugh, but Cen opened his hand and showed Chakliux his wound, explained how he had convinced the Walrus Hunters that he was alive.
Then he said, “You told me my son came here and his wife and her father.”
“The three of them,” said Chakliux.
“Four,” Aqamdax said, and knelt beside her husband, handed him the baby who had begun to fuss. “Hold her while I put the birds into the boiling bag,” she said. “The wife’s mother came, too, but would not stay at the village. She’s First Men and afraid of us.”
Cen blew out his breath in sudden anger. “When I left to go on this trading trip, my son had no wife. This woman, her name was Uutuk?”
“Yes, Uutuk,” said Chakliux.
“A good woman,” Aqamdax said, “a good wife to your son. You’ll be glad to have her as daughter.”
“No,” said Cen. “They lied to you. Even Ghaden lied.” His words were bitter. “His wife I can forgive. I know that she doesn’t realize what she has done by bringing her family with her, but Ghaden knows.”
“Cen, you’re tired,” Chakliux said. “You’re worried about things that aren’t important. Her father Seal is a boastful man, but he treated both Ghaden and Uutuk well.”
“Her mother is K’os.”
Cen’s words were like knives, and it seemed as if they slashed the caribou hide walls, gave entrance to a fierce wind. The fire flickered and sputtered, and the baby began to cry in hard, breathless sobs.
Cen saw the questions in Chakliux’s eyes, the disappointment, and he braced himself for the man’s anger, but when Chakliux finally spoke, he said, “It’s good that I’ve decided to go with you to the Four Rivers village.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAKLIUX’S STORY
CHAKLIUX AND CEN TOOK seven days traveling to the Four Rivers village. As they walked, Chakliux tried not to think about the caribou hunts that he was missing. The men had planned to leave any morning that the sky promised several days without rain. Of course, Sok would provide for him, but a man preferred to feed his own family. How else could he share with those who were old or sick? How else could he truly join in the celebrations once the hunts had ended?
When his regrets became too great, Chakliux reminded himself that his own loss in missing the hunt was nothing compared to what Cen had suffered.
Cen’s eyes still bothered him, tearing so much at times that he could not see well enough to continue walking. If Chakliux spoke while ahead on the trail, Cen did not even realize that he had said anything, and if Chakliux were walking behind, Cen had to turn and watch his mouth to make out the words.
The sea had taken much from the man, and Ghaden in his foolishness had only made Cen’s life worse, and not only Cen’s but perhaps the lives of all the River People. K’os had many reasons for revenge.
With Uutuk as his wife, Ghaden would never be rid of K’os, and what River village would welcome them? He would have to live with his wife’s people, at least until K’os died, and she was a woman who never seemed to grow old, as though the evil within kept the years from marking her.
As the days of travel passed, Chakliux’s anger at Ghaden grew, so that at the end of an afternoon walking, his otter foot aching, he could scarcely keep sharp words from flying out of his mouth, though Cen did nothing to offend.
Finally, on the last day, Chakliux began to fill his head with stories, thinking most often about Cen’s tale of survival, humming the story under his breath as he walked, giving the sea its due, but also praising Cen for his ingenuity as he fought for his life.
The story seemed to pull away Chakliux’s anger. When he and Cen stopped that night to rest and eat, Chakliux could smile without fear that bitter words would slip out in foolish whining.
“If we get an early start, we’ll be in the Four Rivers village by midmorning,” Cen said. He folded a bit of caribou hide into a square and softened it on the edge of his sleeve knife, then pressed it against his right eye. “It’s worse in bright sun,” he told Chakliux.
“My wife makes an eyewash of the mouse ears plant,” Chakliux said softly. “Perhaps some woman in the Four Rivers village will have some.”
Cen pulled the pad away from his right eye, switched it to his left. Neither man said K’os’s name, but Chakliux knew they were both thinking about her, a woman who knew medicine, but could not be trusted.
“There’s an old grandmother named Two-heeled Fish,” Cen said. “She knows something about plant medicine. Even if she doesn’t have any mouse ears, perhaps she can tell us where it grows.”
Chakliux was building a fire, and he grunted his agreement. When the kindling caught and the flames began to lick at the larger branches, he pulled dried meat from his pack, set a basket of fat and dried berries between them. He ate enough to pull away some of his tiredness, then cut spruce boughs to make a lean-to shelter and a mat for them to sleep on, then gathered firewood for the night.
They slept, Chakliux waking now and again to keep the fire burning, and in the morning they ate again, then started out. Chakliux thought ahead to what he would say to Ghaden, but Ghaden was no longer a child who could be scolded for foolish decisions, or for holding the truth away from his family. So when Chakliux reconsidered his words, they seemed futile.
Could he change what Ghaden had done? And even if he could, would it be for the best, now that K’os was already among them? Perhaps Ghaden should stay with his wife and her family just to be sure that K’os did as little harm as possible. The best thing might simply be to remind Ghaden what kind of woman K’os was. Did Ghaden know that K’os had killed Chakliux’s first wife and baby? Most likely not. And if not, then Ghaden’s decision to marry K’os’s daughter was partly Chakliux’s fault. But what man wants to speak of things so painful or bring that remembrance into the happiness of his new family?
Cen was leading the way, but when the trail widened, Chakliux took several hurried steps to walk beside him.
Cen gave him a tight smile and said, “We’re nearly there.”
For a time Chakliux didn’t say anything, but finally he asked, “How much did you tell Ghaden about K’os? You once lived in her lodge, nae’? Was she your wife?”
Cen sighed. “In my heart, at that time, she was my wife,” he said, “but I didn’t pay a brideprice for her, and one day I found her with another hunter. Then I knew that she would never be content as one man’s wife.”
“Did you tell Ghaden?”
Cen shrugged. “I think I did. At least I warned him about her when we were at the Traders’ Beach and I saw that he was interested in Uutuk.”
“Did you ever tell him how K’os helped start the fighting between the Near River and Cousin River villages?”
“No, but he lived through those times. He should remember. He knew Aqamdax was her slave. He saw how she was treated.”
“But he was a boy. Who knows what children understand?”
Then Cen lifted his arm toward the sky, and Chakliux saw gray plumes of smoke above the trees.
A sound came to Chakliux’s ears, a thin keening. “Listen,” he said to Cen.
Cen cocked his head, and with a bitter look said, “I hear nothing.”
“Most likely it’s only dogs,” Chakliux told him, leaning close and speaking loudly enough for Cen to hear. “They’re wailing as if they’re about to be fed.”
The path widened, and the trees thinned, all their lower branches taken by women for their hearthfires. The keening grew louder, as did Chakliux’s discomfort. Not dogs, no. Not dogs. The ululations came from each lodge, and he needed no one to tell him that they were mourning cries. Finally even Cen heard it.
He looked at Chakliux, shook his head. “Those aren’t dogs,” he said, and he broke into a ru
n, holding his side as if the jolting gave him pain.
Chakliux followed as quickly as he could, limping, hindered by his otter foot. Cen did not stop until he came to a large lodge at the river side of the village. He threw back the outer doorflap and made his way inside. Chakliux followed.
K’os was hunkered at the back of the lodge next to a body covered in caribou hide and tied in a fetal position.
“Why are you here?” Cen demanded. “Where is my wife?” He thrust a finger toward the body. “Who is that?” he asked, and his voice was terrible. “Where are my daughters?”
Chakliux easily recognized his mother, though she had cut huge jagged hanks from her hair and scratched her cheeks until blood oozed. She looked old, and that surprised him. Her hair was graying, and her face was lined, her neck roped with slack flesh. She opened her mouth, and he saw that she had lost a few teeth. Strangely, her face was still beautiful, the bones defined, the eyes large and clear.
She stared at Cen, then let out a long hollow wail and crossed her arms over her chest.
Finally she screamed, “You are dead!”
“Where are my children? Where is my son?” Cen demanded.
Chakliux realized that they would get no answers until he could reassure K’os that Cen was not a spirit who had come for revenge.
“Cen is not dead,” Chakliux said.
K’os looked at him, first in surprise, and then he saw the hatred slide into her eyes.
“You!” she said.
“He’s not dead,” Chakliux repeated. “Who is this one that you mourn?”
She tore her eyes away from Cen and glanced at the bound corpse. “My husband Seal,” she told him, lifting her chin. But then her eyes were again on Cen. “How did you live?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later. Where is my wife? Where is Ghaden? Where are my daughters?”
K’os pushed the hair back from her face and stood. “You see that we all mourn here,” she said. “Some illness has come to this village as a curse. The people say that we have brought it, but if we brought it, then why is my own husband dead?”
