Tsuga's Children

by Thomas Williams

  Bren tested Arn’s blade on his thumbnail. “That’s a knife,” he said. “How it fits the hand!” Bren’s hand was the size of Arn’s own, the first Arn had ever seen that was the size of his own. It was as if he sat across from himself; yet this boy was another person.

  Bren handed Arn’s knife back, hilt first. “That is a beautiful knife,” he said, the word for beautiful, “yodehna,” sounding hard, really meant, like steel in his young voice. Arn felt the same about the spareness and usefulness of a good tool.

  “And yours is sharp and strong,” he said. “I’ll bet it can clean a deer without spilling guts.”

  Bren nodded seriously. “It has. Only one, though, so far.”

  “Mine has cleaned only small game,” Arn said, “so far.”

  “Ha,” Bren said appraisingly; there was approval there, for that honesty. Bren was dark and sturdy, like his uncle, Amu, but his brows came down closer to his eyes, as though he looked at the world with more judgement and suspicion.

  “Well,” Amu said. “Will you come to our winter camp while we wait for Tsuga, or will you try to find your way back through the northern mountains?”

  Arn and Jen looked at each other. In the fair and kind words of Amu they had found, after what had seemed an age of lostness, authority and reason. Here was this strong, big person whose presence, though he was shorter and heavier, reminded them of their father. And Tsuga, of whom their father always spoke with reverence—could the Tsuga Amu spoke of be that same man? And what might he tell them? Both had seen, all their lives, their father’s yearning for something beyond where he could go. And now maybe they were there, and Tsuga might tell them more than how to get home again.

  And there was the old lady, who had spent so many days sitting so quietly before their fire at home. They had seen her once, just for a moment, in the black archway.

  “The old lady,” Jen said, puzzled by something she thought she ought to know.

  “An old lady?” Amu asked.

  “Yes, in the arch, there. We saw her.”

  “In the Cave of Forgetfulness? You saw Ahneeah?” Now there was wonder and awe in Amu’s voice. “Then my best advice for you is to come to our winter camp and wait with us until Tsuga comes, Jen and Arn. Yes, that is my best advice for you.”

  “Ahneeah…” Bren said, and in his voice was a long sigh of mystery and reverence.

  Old Snaggletooth had finally finished his smoked venison. He licked his lips, scraped juices from his chin with a finger, then licked the finger clean, a lick for each side and a lick for the bottom.

  “Only Tsuga has seen Ahneeah as an old woman,” he said. “We hear her voice in the wind and thunder, feel her tears in the winter rain that freezes on our shoulders. The People are not allowed to see Ahneeah as an old woman.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Ahneeah,” Jen said, “but just the old lady who stayed at our cabin.”

  “A story! A story!” Snaggletooth said. “There is an old, old story! Tell me, children—did she take her moccasins with her when she left? Did she? Did she? Tell me, now!”

  “No,” Jen said. “She left them there. And it was so cold the woods were all ice.”

  “Ice like a knife! Ice of iron, ice of steel! And a cave of many passages, in and back, and only Ahneeah knows the way! Yes, that is a story!”

  11. The Winter Camp

  Without saying anything more to each other, Jen and Arn knew that they would go to the winter camp. Before they left, Amu, Bren and Snaggletooth climbed the ledges to the great evergreen’s massive trunk. Each pressed his right hand to the tree for a moment, in silence, and then they were ready.

  They walked to the south across the meadow, west through deep woods, then around to the south again, then toward the east for a long time until they came to another, smaller meadow. Here the air was warmer, the grass not as frost-burned. As they came over a rise, the roofs of hogans rose into their vision—square log houses, their rafters covered with sewn skins. Jen and Arn had never seen so many buildings, so many people. The cold mist had disappeared, and the winter sun slanted across field and hogan, lighting with gold the southern edges of grass, buildings and the people, who, seeing Amu’s party approach, stopped their errands and tasks to watch. Beyond the hogans was a river not quite as broad as the one at home, flowing more shallowly, with white water in stony places along its banks.

  “The winter camp of the People,” Amu said. “It is not our only winter camp, but we are here for the running of the shandeh.” Glancing at Arn, he evidently saw that the word meant nothing to him, so he spoke with his hands: “Little winter fish.” South of the hogans were tall racks of saplings slanted to catch the sun’s light, and on the racks were impaled hundreds of small fish about the length of a man’s hand, each split so it looked like two fish, the flesh open to the light and air.

  At the riverbank the fishermen had set their nets in semicircles, some men on the far bank pulling the lines taut against the current. At tables made of hewn logs, others cleaned, filleted and salted the little fish. But as Amu’s party came into the camp, all the people except the net-holders left their tasks and gathered in front of the largest hogan.

  “What have you there, Amu?” asked a stocky gray-haired woman. Putting her thin filleting knife in a leather holster at her waist, she wiped her hands on her cloth apron as she came forward from the rest of the people.

  “Two children from beyond the mountains,” Amu said. “They do not seem to be Chigai.”

  The stocky old woman came closer and looked at Arn and Jen. She smelled of fish, and when she wiped her wiry gray hair away from her forehead with the backs of her hands, her palms sparkled with small silver fish scales. “Where are their people, then?” Her voice was deep for a woman’s, as if it came from a barrel.

  “They say they came alone, past a waterfall and through a cave, and they say they saw Ahneeah as an old woman.”

  The stocky woman blinked, but showed no other emotion. “See how the girl’s eyes are the color of the sky,” she said. “Yes, they are strange children. Tsuga will want to talk to them when he comes. Will they stay with us?”

  “Yes, I think they have agreed to stay.”

  Such was the authority and power of the woman, Arn and Jen felt they shouldn’t speak directly to her at all.

  But even as he listened, Arn was trying to decide just how many people stood there in the yard before the hogan. He remembered his dream when he had first entered this valley, but there were even more people here—real people. A hundred? And each looked different—in age, in height, in complexion. Each was a whole other person, part of this camp, of this people. In the dream he had been outside, just looking on, and he had felt lonely then.

  “Bren,” the woman said, “you will stay with these children and be their host.” She turned to the people. “Now we must go back to work. The shandeh will tell us when we may stop to rest.”

  She looked at Snaggletooth, and he, bent over so far he had to cock his head to look up at her, smiled rather guiltily. She said, “So, Ganonoot, you wandered off again. Where shall we find you next? In the Cave of Forgetful-ness?”

  He laughed, like the cackling of a bird. Several of the people laughed with him, or at him. “I’ll be there soon enough, and when that time comes I won’t have to walk!” he said.

  “Unless you fall into a woodchuck hole and disappear, you’ll live to tell us more stories.” The people laughed at this, and Snaggletooth did a little shuffling dance and bowed to them.

  As the woman turned away she drew her filleting knife and a thin sharpening stone from her sheath. Others did the same, and the musical ringing of many stones against knives sounded as the people went back to their work.

  Bren didn’t seem too happy with his new responsibility. “Come on,” he said gruffly, and they followed him to the edge of the camp, past the drying racks, to a hogan set somewhat apart from the others. Jen had noticed a girl following them, a girl about her age, and when Bren pulled the bear
skin away from the door the girl had caught up with them.

  “Hello,” the girl said. She wanted to smile, but the smile flickered on and off, as though she didn’t dare.

  Bren sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “This,” he said, “is my cousin, Arel, who is a pest.”

  “Bren thinks he’s grown up already,” Arel said, laughing. She was a thin little girl with a pale, almost sickly color in her face. Her hair was cut short, like Bren’s, and she wore the same kind of buckskin tunic and trousers Bren wore, but fine beadwork, in black and white, checkered the cuffs and lower edge of her tunic. She turned toward Jen. “My father told me your name is Jen, and your brother’s name is Arn, and I could stop working, which was scraping fish guts and bones off the tables (ugh!), and be company for you, if you want.” She scowled out of worry. All her expressions seemed to flicker on and off.

  Jen was thinking, This is a girl. Like me. She couldn’t stop looking at Arel, but then knew Arel really needed to know if she was welcome, and said, “Yes, yes! I’ve never talked to a girl before. I’ve never even seen a girl before today.”

  “You’ve never? You’re the only one among your people?” Arel was perplexed, scowling again in that strange way that contained no anger. “You’ve never seen a girl before?” she asked, her curiosity now beaming out of her pale face.

  They went inside the hogan and sat on skin rugs around the embering fire pit in the center. The smoke rose slowly to a round opening in the ceiling. Around the walls were hewn shelves holding bundles of clothing, wooden canisters of food, and racks where clothing dried.

  “I don’t want to just sit around,” Bren said. “If we don’t have to work, we ought to do something.”

  “Arn, have you ever seen a boy before?” Arel asked, and Arn shook his head.

  Even Bren was curious about this, so in turn Jen and Arn told them about their cabin, their mother and father, and the farm in the wilderness so far from any other people. Occasionally they would have to use hand language when they didn’t know a word, but this happened less and less as they spoke with Arel and Bren.

  It was the animals that excited Arel. “You kept animals? Were they prisoners?” she asked.

  Jen was surprised to have to answer that she guessed they were. They were kept in pens, or harnessed, in Brin’s case, to the plough or sledge. But she’d never thought of Oka as a prisoner.

  “But she escaped!” Arel said.

  In turn, and Bren became more interested in the telling, they told Arn and Jen about their own lives, how in the spring they planted corn in the south-sloping fields, pruned the fruit and nut trees, gathered the wild food and hunted game. They could never keep anything that could move, and know that it wanted to move, as a prisoner. But once an animal was killed, then it became food and skin and bone for them to use.

  “Except the Chigai,” Bren said. “They have prisoners.”

  Arel shuddered at the word, but Bren seemed more curious than anything else about the Chigai.

  “We saw them come to the place where the tree is,” Arn said. “We think they killed two children.”

  “You saw it?” Arel said.

  “We saw the children on the stone, and the knife. And they carried them away.”

  “Amu and I saw blood on the stone,” Bren said. “And the ashes of their fires.” The Chigai, Bren told them, kept the shaggy cattle in great pens, and were never hungry. No one was sure whether they actually killed children on the altar, but some said they did kill the children to pacify the spirits of the cattle they imprisoned and slaughtered.

  “How could they do that?” Arel whispered, shivering, her face drawn down as if she had been crying.

  They were all silent. Jen was hurt by it, by that reality. The brave children; it was an ache, a bone ache so deep she couldn’t find the place to touch it.

  “There are many among the People who want to live like the Chigai and never be hungry,” Bren said.

  Arel looked at him quickly and was silent. Jen saw that this was important to them both. Bren, too, was silent and thoughtful for a long time.

  And in that silence both Jen and Arn had time to think of home. They thought of Christmas and the tree, their father so gravely acting the part of the Stag, then his smile as he divided the maple-sugar doll among them. They thought of their mother, so warm and happy in the light from the hearth. Then they saw the small cabin locked in ice, their mother’s eyes full of tears, their father sleeping the sleep of his sickness. Would they ever hear their voices again?

  Arel saw this sadness and took Jen’s hand, her thin hand pale against Jen’s. “Tsuga might help you,” she said. She squeezed Jen’s hand, a shy little squeeze like the flutter of a bird’s wing.

  Bren shook himself and jumped to his feet. “Let’s do something,” he said. He looked at Arn in the speculative, challenging way he had before. “Can you run?” he said. “Can you shoot and throw? Can you wrestle?”

  Arn knew he could run, shoot an arrow from a bow and throw a stone, but he’d never wrestled. He knew he could do some of these things, but not how well because he’d never been able to compare himself to anyone like himself. And while he was worried about how he might do, he was suddenly so full of joyful anticipation his thoughts of home faded.

  Bren looked at Arel and then at Jen. Arel said, “It’s all right, Bren. I’ll keep Jen company. You can go play.”

  “Play!” Bren said. Arel was laughing at him again, and his dark eyebrows went even lower. “Play!” he said. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he turned and left the hogan, Arn following.

  Outside in the winter sun, Bren said, “Leave your pack there, inside the door. And you won’t need your parka as long as the wind holds from the west. Then we’ll see if you can run.”

  Without his pack and parka Arn felt light and free, though his boots were much heavier than Bren’s moccasins. Carrying his unstrung bow in his left hand, Bren ran. Arn followed, running behind easily, even thinking with great pleasure that if he knew where Bren was leading him, he might pass him. They ran around the perimeter of the camp, past the fishermen and the fish cleaners, circling over the meadow, the hogans always on their left. Soon the thought of passing Bren had gone. Arn gasped through his mouth. His throat hurt; each breath felt as though he were being jabbed in the throat by a stick. But still he followed. When they came back around to Bren’s hogan Arn was afraid Bren would start around again. He would follow, but he saw himself having to stop, even to drop to his knees. But Bren did stop, breathing hard himself, and said, “Your boots are too heavy for running and you haven’t eaten enough in the last few days.” He took several long breaths. “But you can run.”

  Arn’s face was warm, from the running but also from pride in what Bren had said—that he could run.

  “Now we’ll go to the bowyer and see if we can find you a bow. Here, can you pull mine?” Bren put the end of his bow in his instep and bent it as he pushed the loop of the string into the nock, then handed it to Arn.

  The bow was carved of hickory, thin but wide in its limbs, thick enough at the grip to feel secure in the hand. Arn placed three fingers on the string, as his father had taught him, and drew to his cheek. The pull was heavier than the one his father had made him, but he could hold the string against his cheekbone for a few seconds without his arms shaking. Then he let the string slowly back.

  Bren nodded as he took his bow. “I draw to the ear,” he said, “but some say it’s better to draw to the cheek.” He turned as abruptly as before, and Arn followed him.

  * * *

  Jen and Arel went to Arel’s family’s hogan, which was much like Bren’s. Amu and Arel’s mother, whose name was Runa, were working with the others, so the hogan was empty. The dirt floor had been swept smooth and there was no fire in the large hearth. Two small windows were bright but not transparent because they were made out of animal skins scraped so thin the light came through. Arel had noticed where the stitching had been removed from the red fox fur b
order on Jen’s parka, so she went to a wooden chest with leather hinges and found needles and thread. The needles were much thicker than the ones the Traveler brought at home. Then they went outside where it was brighter and worked on the sewing. It was hard because the stitching holes were smaller than the needles, so they had to press each stitch through with a bone palm thimble.

  “The animals,” Arel said as they took turns pushing the needle through. “I know an animal, like you said you know Oka. I’ve never told anyone because we’re not supposed to know them.”

  “Not supposed to know an animal?” Jen said.

  “I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t help it. His name is Mask, and he’s a raccoon. His legs were broken and he didn’t want to die.” Arel was shaking as she spoke, in fear at having done what was not supposed to be done. “Can I show him to you, Jen, and you won’t tell? I’ve always wanted to tell somebody about Mask.”

  They put away the needles and thread, and Arel led Jen across the meadow toward the southern forest. They ran and then walked. A brown rabbit ran ahead of them in panic before it veered off and hid in the taller grass of a gully.

  At the edge of the forest Arel stopped and looked guiltily back. No one was in sight. She led Jen into the green shade of the pines. “Mask!” she called. “Mask, I’m here!” She sat down on the moss. “He’ll come if he heard me.

  Sometimes he’s so far into the woods he can’t hear me, but if he hears he’ll come.”

  They waited quietly. Jen felt there was no hurry to ask or tell anything, that they would in their understanding of each other get around to all the things she wanted to tell or to find out. Then Jen said, “He’s nearby.”

  Arel said, “I know that. How did you know?”

  “I can feel him thinking. He’s worried about me being with you. I’ll bet he’s so close we could see him if we looked carefully.”

  “I know that too, Jen! I didn’t think anyone else could do that!”

  They looked very carefully into the shadows, into the low bushes that grew between the trees, then higher into the trees. Arel said, “I see him, Jen. Look.”