A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  Derek let it run till it reached the end of the line, then he started to bring it in a second time. He was sweating. His face gleamed, and there were dark patches on his shirt.

  “I have seen that on certain animals,” Ulzai said. “Water comes out of their skin in hot weather or when they have made some kind of big effort.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You certainly are unusual people. What does it mean? That he is working?”

  “Yes.”

  “When a man uses a spear, he knows at once whether or not he has the fish. He may have to wait a long time before he has a chance to strike, but he doesn’t have to work as hard as this man is working.”

  I was listening to a natural ice fisherman. What could I say to a person like that? He would never understand the pleasure that Derek took in fighting the fish. Though it didn’t look like pleasure at the moment.

  The fish surfaced. The dark back shone. I caught a glimpse of a ragged dorsal fin. It dove and resurfaced again.

  “Come on, baby,” said Derek. He lifted the pole and took a step backward. “That’s it. I promise you, I’ll be grateful. I’ll give you praise. You won’t be sorry you came to me.”

  The fish thrashed. Derek took another step toward shore. “That’s it,” he said again.

  The fish floated just below the surface of the water. I could see it: a long, narrow shape like a cigar or a torpedo. It was almost motionless.

  Derek changed his grip, going hand over hand along the pole, until he reached the tip. The butt dropped in the sand in back of him. He took hold of the line. The fish struggled weakly. Derek pulled it in and grabbed it, his fingers going behind the gill cover. He lifted. The animal twisted. It was half a meter long with a tan belly and a dark brown back. The fins were spiny and the mouth was full of teeth. Derek pulled out the hook. He was grinning.

  “Another chapter for the book I’m planning to write. Fighting Game Fish of the Galaxy. I think I’ll lie about the weight of the line.”

  “Ulzai says that kind isn’t very tasty. And it has a lot of bones.”

  “Damn.” He lifted the fish higher. “I promised that I would give it praise.”

  “You could throw it back,” I said.

  “It’s exhausted. I’ve just done a lot of damage to its gills. If I let it go, it’ll die. I’ll have increased my karmic burden, and I won’t have dinner.” He shook his head. “As long as it isn’t poisonous, I’m going to eat it.”

  “It is not poisonous,” Ulzai said.

  “Good. Take care of the fishing pole, will you, Lixia? I have to kill this fellow.”

  “Okay.”

  He walked up the beach. I went to retrieve the pole. By the time I had it, the fish was dead.

  We went back to the clearing. Derek roasted the fish. It had more bones than a northern pike and even less flavor. Derek ate most of it. The rest of us made do with bread and dried meat.

  When we were done, Derek said, “I told the fish I would praise it. That’s a promise that has to be kept. It was handsome. It fought well. It kept me from hunger. I’ll remember how it looked, leaping out of the water. And in time”—he grinned—“I’ll forget what it tasted like.”

  Ulzai made the gesture of agreement.

  “That was good praise,” said the oracle. “And more than I expected of you. Most of the time you seem lacking in respect.”

  “I am an intricate person,” said Derek. He used an adjective that was usually applied to metalwork or embroidery. As far as I could figure out, it had two connotations. It meant either an impressive technical achievement or something that was ornate and overdone.

  Nia woke me the next day at dawn. By sunrise we were back on the water.

  Derek and Ulzai paddled. I watched the river. We glided past islands and sandbars and a lot of floating debris. Clouds appeared sometime after noon. Cumuli. They loomed through the summer haze.

  “Another storm,” said Ulzai. “I know a place on the eastern shore. A stream runs into the river. There is a cave.”

  “Aiya!” said the oracle.

  “Are there any spirits in the cave?” asked Nia.

  “I have never seen any. I have camped there many times.”

  “Okay,” said Derek.

  The river wound toward the eastern side of the valley, and the main channel ran almost directly under the eastern bluffs. The riverbank was steep here, overgrown with green and yellow bushes. Above the foliage was a high wall of stone.

  Ulzai pointed. I saw a notch in the cliff. A stream emerged from the bushes that grew below the notch: a thin sheen of water that ran over yellow rocks, then vanished into the river.

  We landed south of the stream, unloaded the canoe, and pulled it up on the bank. Birds wheeled above us, crying.

  “What a lot of work,” I said.

  Derek made the gesture of assent. “One of the many reasons I am not entirely in love with pre-industrial technology. Though there are plenty of people on Earth who could make a better canoe using traditional methods. Maybe the problem here is a lack of the proper materials. Maybe we should introduce the birch tree.”

  “Aluminum,” I said. “Plants scare me more than factories.”

  “You are doing it again,” said the oracle. “Using words we don’t know.”

  I made the gesture that meant “I’m sorry.”

  Ulzai said, “Come on.”

  We picked up our bags and followed him up the bank. The stream ran next to us in a ravine full of bushes. I couldn’t see the water. I heard it: a faint gurgle. The birds kept crying. I looked up. A flock was chasing a single bird that was obviously of a different species. The bird that fled was the size of a gull. The members of the flock were—comparatively speaking—tiny.

  The big bird fled toward the cliff. The little birds followed, swooping and screaming.

  I tripped.

  “Watch where you are going,” said Derek in back of me. “Or you’ll end up in that ravine.”

  We reached the cliff. Vines grew on it and overhung the entrance to the cave, so I didn’t see it until Ulzai pushed through a patch of greenery and vanished. We followed him into a shallow space, five meters deep at most. I glanced around. There were no dark holes, no signs of an inner cave. I set down the bags I carried.

  “We’ll get wood,” said Ulzai. “Before the rain.”

  Nia was right. He did like to give orders. A pity he was on this planet where the men had no chance to organize anything. He would have been a natural for disaster relief.

  We went out. The sun had vanished behind a wall of clouds. The valley was dark and the sky was darkening rapidly as the clouds spread.

  I gathered an armload of wood and returned to the cave. Ulzai was back already. He had a fire going, just inside the entrance. Smoke drifted up through the leaves of the vines. They were fluttering. The wind was rising.

  “This will be worse than yesterday,” said Ulzai. “Look at the sky in the west. It is a color between black and green.” He laid another branch on the fire, then looked up, frowning. “The worst weather is in the spring. Nia is right about that. This time of year it is not likely that we’ll see the black dancers. The clouds that hop and spin.”

  Tornadoes. I had seen one the first year I lived in Minnesota. I still had nightmares about the damn thing. They scared me more than tidal waves or volcanoes. Maybe because they were unpredictable.

  Derek and the oracle came in. They dropped their wood next to mine in the back of the cave. The oracle said, “It looks terrible out there.” He rubbed his neck. “Aiya! I am tired.”

  “How is your arm?” I asked.

  “That isn’t the problem. Now it is my belly. It was grumbling all night. I could not sleep, and I still feel queasy.”

  “The fruit,” said Derek. “I wondered if it would get to you.”

  Nia returned. “The rain has begun. Big drops. When they hit the rock, they make a mark as wide as my hand.”

  She added her wood to the pile and sat down
. “It has been a long time since I’ve been on the plain. And usually this time of year I’d be north of here with the herd and the village. I think—I am not certain—the storms are worse along the river.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ulzai. “But I am not certain, either. I haven’t spent a lot of time on the plain.” He paused. “There is a question I have been wanting to ask.”

  “Yes?” said Derek.

  “I do not want to ask you.” Ulzai looked at Nia. “Tanajin told me that you are a smith.”

  Nia hesitated, then made the gesture of affirmation.

  “She said that you belong to the Iron People.”

  “Yes.” She paused. “I used to.”

  “Are you the woman we heard about?”

  Nia said nothing.

  “She was a smith, and she belonged to the Iron People. I don’t remember her name. I am not certain that Tanajin ever told me. But she did tell me the story.”

  “What story?” asked Nia.

  “The woman who loved a man. The Iron People tell it. So do the Amber People and the People of Fur and Tin. She is a famous woman! Are you the one?”

  “Do you mean to cause trouble?” Nia asked.

  “No. Why do you think I agreed to help you? Tanajin is the ferry woman. I am not.” He paused for a moment. “Do you think it is easy for me to spend three days with other people? There are so many of you! And those two are peculiar.” He glanced at me and Derek.

  Nia made a barking noise. “There is a woman to the east of here. She thought she knew me. She tried to kill us.”

  “When Tanajin first heard your story, she said to me, ‘We are not alone. We are not the first people to have done this thing.’ ” Ulzai frowned. “I do not entirely agree with her. In the story they tell about you, you chose to treat a man like a sister or a female cousin. It was not an accident. You deliberately set out to do something offensive.”

  By this time the cave was dark, except for the light cast by the fire. It flickered on the walls. The eyes of the people around me gleamed: red, orange, yellow, and—most startling—blue. Thunder rumbled outside. Rain fell.

  Nia said, “I will not argue with a story that has been told over and over. Let people believe what they want to believe.”

  “It was different with us,” said Ulzai. He looked around. “I brought a jar of beer.”

  Derek found it and handed it over. Ulzai drank. “I have never told the story to anyone. I do not want to be famous on the plain.”

  Nia barked again. Ulzai gave the jar to her. She drank.

  He hunched forward, staring at her, ignoring the rest of us. “It is not true that men like to be silent. We learn to be silent. Who is there to talk to in the marshes? The spirits. The lizards. The dead folk who wander at night. It is possible to see them. They are dim lights over the pools. They never speak. Neither do the spirits. Or if they do—” He glanced at the oracle. “I cannot hear them. I am not holy.”

  “I am,” the oracle said.

  “Tanajin told me.” He looked at the fire. After a moment he rubbed the side of his face, running his hand along the lines of white fur. “I have kept the story in me for winter after winter. It is like a stone in my belly. It is like a bad taste in my mouth. It aches like an old wound in the time of rains. I do not understand it. I do not see what else we could have done.”

  Nia sighed. “Tell it then. I warn you. It will not help. Words are less use than you think.”

  “Maybe,” said Ulzai.

  The oracle said, “Can I have some beer?”

  “What about your stomach?” asked Derek.

  “Beer is good for the digestion.”

  Nia gave him the jar.

  Ulzai scratched his head. “It’s a long story.”

  “We have time,” said Derek. “That storm isn’t going to end soon.”

  “You two.” He glared at Derek and me. “Keep quiet about what you hear. And you as well, o holy man.”

  We made the gesture of agreement, all three of us.

  “First of all, I have to tell you about the People of Leather. I used to belong to them. So did Tanajin. They live in the marshes where the Great River goes into the plain of salt water. Their houses are not like any I have seen in other places. The marshland is flat and when the river rises, the land is flooded. All of it. The people build their houses on top of frames made of wood. I do not know how to describe these frames. They look something like the frames that people use to dry fabric or fish. But they are much bigger and solider. On top of each frame is a platform. On top of the platform is a house. The walls are made of reeds and branches woven together. The roof is made of bundles of reeds. The bundles are thick. Not even the heaviest rain can get through.” He paused for a moment, his eyes half-closed, remembering. “There are no trees in the marsh, only reeds—though they can grow taller than a man. The houses rise above the reeds. They are taller than everything. A man can look up and see them, even at a distance. At night he can see the cooking fires on the platforms.”

  Derek leaned forward. “If there are no trees, where do you get wood for the houses?”

  “The river brings it. When the river gets to the marshes, it spreads out. The water moves slowly then. The river drops whatever it has been carrying. There are sandbars at the entrance to the marshes and a great raft of wood. The raft fills most of the river, and it is so long that a man can paddle for days, going upstream, and never see the end of all that wood. There are more trees than anyone can count tangled together. Most are worn by the water. They have lost their bark. They are as gray as sand. They are as white as bone. But they are not rotten. They can be used.”

  “Aiya!” said the oracle.

  Ulzai frowned at the fire. “Now I have forgotten what I was going to say.”

  “You were talking about your people,” I said.

  He made the gesture of agreement. “The women live in the houses, high above the reeds. The men live in boats. That is what every boy gets when it is time for him to leave the house of his mother: a boat with a carved prow and a set of spears, a knife for skinning and a cloak of lizard skin. Those four gifts are always the same.

  “The boy gets them. He says farewell to his mother and to his other relatives. He paddles away. He does not return until he has killed a lizard. A big one. An umazi.”

  “What do you mean when you say, he returns?” asked Nia.

  “I know the people here on the plain would not approve of our behavior. Our gift is leather. The men hunt the umazi and cut off their skins.

  “But the skin is good for nothing, unless it is tanned, and the women do the tanning. They are the ones who have the big vats made of wood and iron. They are the ones who have the urine. Where could a man possibly get enough urine to fill a tanning vat? And where would he keep the vat? Not in his canoe and not on the islands, which are often covered with water.

  “When a man kills an umazi, he brings the skin to his mother or to a sister if his mother is dead.”

  “I have never heard of such a thing,” said the oracle.

  “It is done decently. The man waits till the big moon is full. Then—at night—he goes to the house of his mother. He ties up his boat. He climbs onto the platform. She is inside. The windows are covered. The door is fastened. She makes no noise at all.

  “He lays down his gift. The raw umazi skin. He gathers up the gifts she has left for him outside the door. He goes. Nothing is said. They do not see each other.

  “This must be done. Otherwise we have no leather, and we are the People of Leather.”

  “Hu!” said Nia.

  “This is what you did?” asked the oracle.

  Ulzai made the gesture of affirmation. “Until my mother died. My sisters were dead already. I had no female cousins. That is how it began.”

  “How what began?” asked Derek.

  “I am a good hunter. No man killed more umazi than I did. My mother had more skins than she could handle. She gave away half of what I brought her.


  “Sometimes at night I’d bring my boat in to the home channel. I’d drift below the houses in the darkness. I’d hear the women singing. They would praise my skill and her generosity. You have to understand, it was good to listen.”

  “You should not have been there,” said Nia.

  “I like praise,” said Ulzai. “She died. I had no close relatives in the village. There was no one to bring my skins to. They were useless to me. All my skill as a hunter was useless.”

  “Aiya!” said Derek.

  “Get more wood,” said Ulzai.

  Derek obeyed. Ulzai put two branches on the fire and watched until they caught. I listened. The rain was still falling.

  He lifted his head. “Sometimes, when a thing like this happens, the man—the hunter—gives up hunting. He goes deep into the marsh and lives by fishing. He becomes ragged. He forgets how to speak. I have seen men like that at the time of mating. They try to force their way back into the area close to the village. I have faced two or three. They do not shout insults like ordinary men. They growl and make grunting noises. They draw their lips back and show their teeth. One raised his spear, as if he planned to use it against me. In the end he did not. He made a strange noise—something like a groan—and ran away.” Ulzai added branches to the fire.

  “Other men look for another woman. Maybe there is a distant cousin who has no brothers. Maybe there is an old woman who has outlived all her relatives.

  “But it is not easy to come to an agreement. The two people cannot speak. They cannot look at one another. The woman does not know who visits her, leaving the lizard skins. She has no idea of the right gifts to give him. A mother would know. So would a sister.

  “Often the woman is afraid. The people in the village gossip when a woman who has no relations sets up a tanning vat. They ask questions. They have ideas. It is never good to attract the interest of your neighbors.”

  “That is true,” said Nia.

  “I was not willing to give up hunting. I didn’t want to become a crazy man. I came into the village on dark nights. I stopped my boat under houses. I listened to the women talking. No one heard me. No one saw me. I am good at what I do.