Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  The intense quiet of the night had always felt vaguely reassuring to Alaana. A heavy blanket of snow lay over the land like a gentle hand pressing down from the heavens, muffling all sound. With her kinsmen all safely abed, she could rest easily. The silence meant no white bear prowling; it meant no storm blowing on the horizon, no unwelcome visitors in the dark.

  But on this night, like so many others of late, she could draw no such comfort. She pulled her parka close, scouring mittens against the tiny ice crystals that had settled upon her face. She must go inside soon.

  Alaana took a moment to settle into the intense one-pointedness of mind necessary for receiving messages on the wind. Concentrating on her memories of Old Manatook, she created a perfect image of the old shaman’s face — the bristly white beard and hair, the broad sloping nose, the glittering abyss of his eyes. And she listened. But as so many times before over the past three years, there was no whisper from her teacher carried on the spirit of the air, no trace of the one she sought.

  And yet something was out there — silent for now, but a distinct presence nonetheless — hanging over them as inexorably as the towering masses of ice that marked the tundra itself. Something circling the camp, stalking them in the endless night. Preying on them.

  Alaana snapped to attention. There it was again. Cutting through the great silence, another howl. The shifting shadows across the ice field revealed nothing; the thin slice of moon had hidden itself behind the clouds.

  There were many different cries of the wolf in the night — the wail of hunger, the call of a lonely male in search of a mate, the fierce growls of a cockfight. But the coarse braying that haunted the arctic gloom this night possessed a much richer timbre and a harsher tone than she had ever heard.

  The howling this night, she decided, asserted a chilling note of triumph.

  An uncontrollable shudder rattled Alaana to the core. She turned and trudged back toward the village. As she bent at the entrance tunnel of Higilak’s iglu she realized how very tired she was.

  Alaana had come to live with the old woman three years ago, at the age of thirteen, upon the sudden disappearance of Old Manatook. Her own family had enough strong sons, but the old shaman’s wife had no one. In the absence of her husband, Alaana thought it important for Higilak to have someone to listen to her stories and keep her busy with mending and cooking.

  Old Manatook had departed on one of his mysterious visits to the north, never to be seen again. It was widely believed he was dead, swallowed by a sudden storm or a tricky stretch of ice floe, or perhaps fallen victim to some ranging predator. His wife waited patiently in their iglu, alert for any sign of him. It was well known that the spirit of the dead must invariably return to its home on the way to the other world. But Higilak’s vigils were so far in vain. Manatook’s spirit had not returned.

  While some chose to believe he had run off, having foreseen the thinning of the herds, Alaana could not believe the old shaman would have deserted them simply because times were growing hard. Old Manatook had always been an excellent provider and with Tornarssuk, the polar bear, as his spirit guide an excellent hunter as well.

  The old woman was still half-awake, keeping the spirit vigil.

  “Manatook…?” Her voice was a frail whisper, withered by time. In the dim glow of the soapstone lamp Alaana could see her face, lined with worried expectation. “Oh, it’s you,” she added. “For a moment I thought maybe…”

  “You should be asleep, Old Mother,” said Alaana softly.

  “I’m no good at sleeping alone. Manatook was always so warm at night.” She sighed. “A good man. So warm in the bed and always so gentle.”

  Alaana straightened the sleeping furs on her own pallet. “It may be easier,” she suggested, “if you separate the dolls.” Higilak still slept with her matrimonial dolls in the bed beside her, a pair of palm-sized figures bound face to face. In earlier days the love medicines in their pockets held a sweet fragrance, but all that was long since faded. At least, to anyone besides the old woman.

  “That, angatkok, is poor advice,” returned Higilak sharply. “If he were dead his spirit would surely have come to visit me already.”

  “Sleep now,” whispered Alaana, “I will know if he comes.”

  ***

  Shrill voices cut through troubled sleep. Alaana’s eyes snapped open. These cries in the night, so frightened and desperate, left no doubt some new horror had been visited upon the village.

  “Hurry! Come!” they shouted. “Murder!”

  Five or six people scurried about a wrecked tent, but as more voices added to the clamor the entire camp quickly became roused. The dogs, already miserable and restless in their hunger, yapped wildly at the commotion.

  The tent had collapsed – the thick whalebone support beams scattered about, the thin driftwood posts shattered. When the furs were pulled away they found what was left of poor Takio and his young wife Netsilik. Their bodies had already frozen solid.

  Alaana could not look upon the shredded parkas without feeling the lethal edge of three-inch claws; it was impossible to gaze at the ruined flesh and shattered bone without sensing the heartless intelligence and efficiency of the hunter wolf. The work had been hastily done, the bones cracked but only half the marrow sucked out. Such blatant waste indicated the wolves still felt some trepidation at attacking within the confines of the camp. But that fear, Alaana suspected, was quickly fading away like mist rising off the ice fields in the spring sun. There would be no stopping them now.

  Takio’s decapitated head had been knocked to the side, the flesh devoured off the cheeks. Alaana could not bear witness to such carnage without envisioning a snarling snout dripping ropey streams of fresh blood and saliva. The man’s buttocks and legs, which would have represented the most succulent cuts of meat, had been carried off.

  The couple had two small children. There was no sign of them.

  Alaana stooped to inspect the pink traces pressed into the snow, finding tracks unlike any she had ever seen before. Impossibly large, each was almost the size of a polar bear paw yet they clearly bore the sharply elongated features of the wolf. The sight sent a shiver up her spine that dwarfed any the deepest chill of winter had ever invoked.

  “How many?” asked Alaana of the man beside her.

  “Three,” Aquppak replied sharply. “Three inside the camp!”

  Alaana bristled with anger. The implication was clear.

  The wolf pack had at first limited their raids to the outskirts of the camp, digging up whatever long-forgotten caches of salmon or old meat they happened to ferret out. Then the precious winter stores, buried deep in the ice, had been raided, leaving the Anatatook with depleted reserves. The men had set traps, deadly pitfalls baited with fresh blood and snares of heavy sinew, but the wolves had consistently and expertly avoided them time and time again. Such clever beasts.

  As the long, dark winter wore on, the wolves grew bolder and their attacks more incursive. The first killed was Kiligvak, grandmother to twelve in the village, who had wandered too far beyond the tree line alone. Nothing was found of her except a tattered amautik among a bloody drift of snow.

  Next came Igimara, a boy of ten who was the youngest son of the village headman Tugtutsiak. Igimara had decided to try the woods in search of what small game he might find. The large game had found him. Chased down and killed on the smooth ice, there were no tracks to betray the identity of his killers but the fetid scent of wolf hung thickly over his mangled body.

  There had been no further attacks for seven sleeps. Alaana’s people had settled into the great white silence of the winter snows, in desperate hope that Igimara would be the final victim.

  “They hunt us in our beds!” This came from Uatchiaq, second brother of Tugtutsiak. He was renowned for his curly black hair and his ability to spot a seal in the water a full two hundred paces away. “The snow will not stop them. The cold will not stop them. Once a wolf has tasted human flesh it will never stop killing. If we d
on’t answer this threat, we’ll all be dead before the thaw.”

  Alaana sniffed at the snow beside the shattered tent. It smelled of rank wolf piss. The wolves had been marking their new territory.

  “We must end this,” said Uatchiaq. “Run and wake Kanak. Perhaps we can track the wolves to their lair before the wind wipes clean their trail.”

  Stooping once more, Alaana noticed a dark shape out of place amid the clutter of the ruined house. She snatched up a rough patch fur which bore the unmistakable tawny bristles of a grey timberwolf. Yet the inside surface of the hide was carefully tanned and processed as if for use as a garment. It could not belong to Takio or his family. Wolf hide was never used for clothing by the Anatatook because it was such bad luck. Alaana sniffed at the scrap and snapped her head back from the sour musk of wolven spoor. The scent was fresh. How could that be?

  A hand grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. Alaana dropped the scrap of hide as she turned toward the angry face of Uatchiaq.

  “No wolves?” scoffed Uatchiaq. “No wolves in the taiga?”

  Alaana said nothing.

  Three sleeps ago she had held a spirit-calling in the karigi, an elaborate ceremony designed to persuade the wolf pack to let the village alone. But the vision trance was hazy, with Alaana consistently distracted by the growling of her empty stomach, and she had been unable to contact any wolf spirits. She finally concluded there were no wolves in the taiga. The people had taken heart in this announcement, eager for any sign that the pack had moved on. Alaana had actually come to believe it herself, but now she knew better. She had failed the Anatatook yet again.

  Failure and more failure. Alaana choked back her crushing frustration. How was it she had such weakness in her, and why should all the others have to pay the price?

  It was the dead of winter, and there was no food. The migrating caribou had gradually drifted out of reach of the Anatatook settlements, with this current season the worst yet. The main herds ranged farther south, offering the Anatatook hunters with less opportunity for meat than ever before. And it was all her fault. She was angatkok, the shaman, and it was her responsibility to placate the spirits of the caribou with her drum and her songs, to appease and honor the souls of the animals so that they might offer themselves up to the hunters, and bring them within range of spear and bow.

  No doubt her difficulty influencing the animal spirits was a direct result of having the wind as her spirit guide. Sila the stormy, the ever-changing Dweller In The Wind, was feared by men and beast alike. Then again, she was a woman, and there were no female shamans. It was said the presence of a female soul made the spirits uneasy.

  Raised in times of plenty, Alaana had never known such hunger and despair. The entire Anatatook camp lay on the verge of panic. The men had separated themselves from the women in hopes of bringing about a successful hunt. The women curtailed all unnecessary activity, sealing themselves in their tents, not daring to brush their hair or adorn their appearance in any way lest they further offend the spirits. Three new mothers had yet to name their babies in case they would not be able to keep them.

  If only she’d had more time to train under Old Manatook things might have been different. Alaana sang the songs to call the caribou to the hunt but the barrel-chested beasts either did not hear or refused to obey. She appealed to Sedna, the Mistress of the Sea, but to no avail; the seal did not come. Whether as a result of her inexperience or her female gender, the turgats turned a deaf ear to her impassioned pleas. Her people were starving, and it was all her fault.

  “Take up a spear, Alaana,” added Uatchiaq coldly. “You’re coming with us.”

  CHAPTER 2

  THE WOLVES OF WINTER

  The four Inuit trudged forward, crossing the dead plain that separated the Anatatook settlement from the distant woods. Their tedious progress was made possible only through the grace of bulky snowshoes. The winter storms had piled the drifts high and arctic winds had blasted them into uneven shapes. The jagged tongues of ice made the frozen landscape treacherous to the unwary ankle, even despite the wide pad of a snowshoe. And yet the recent snows aided their cause as well; the fresh wolf prints stamped deep into the new drifts glittered sharp and clear in the starlight.

  Alaana was grateful there was no wind to hinder them. She thought this perhaps a token blessing from Sila in support of their cause.

  Kanak led the way across the snow-covered icefield, sniffing at the trail with the tenacity of a half-starved huskie. Observing the strict silence of the hunt, their advance seemed to Alaana as an almost comic dance of slow movements acted out in careful silence.

  The long, dark night of winter was only half passed. The orange glow of the sun would not be seen again until at least one more full turning of the Moon. It was impossible to follow the trail more than a few paces at a time by torchlight, but Kanak’s sharp eyes were up to the task. He was well-known for his ability to read the floes for any indication they might crack, telling at a glance the thickness of the ice merely by the differing shades of cool blue. That skill would not be needed this night. The mid-winter ice was several inches thick, and sure footing was the least of their worries.

  Kanak bent low to the trail, grim determination chiseled across his stony features. Careful study of the wolf prints told him the size, weight and speed of their quarry. Where the tracks were jumbled and many, he tested the firmness of the ridge of snow between the sole pad and toe depressions, picking out the softer ones as the most recent.

  Aquppak followed close behind, pacing the hunter’s steps with deliberate care. At sixteen, he was the same age as his childhood friend Alaana. Tall and strong, Aquppak had grown so easily into the role of manhood. He was perhaps a bit too impulsive when it came to facing the brown bear or the charging walrus, but he’d proven himself steadfast in the face of the unexpected. Their friendship had dwindled away as Aquppak took his place among the adult men and Alaana among the women, but she couldn’t help admiring the promising young hunter’s steely nerve and quiet confidence.

  Lastly came Uatchiaq. He carried a long antler bow and a handful of ivory-tipped arrows fitted into a sealskin cover. If the party reached the wolven lair before the moonlight was gone, his arrows would quickly find their home in a grizzled neck or breast.

  Preferring not to chance giving themselves away, Kanak ordered the torches quenched at the tree line. The others stayed carefully in line behind him, panting in rough chorus with the exertion. They paused for a moment at the edge of the wood to take a brief rest and unfasten their bulky snowshoes.

  Alaana had slept very little of late and the warmth generated by the hard work of marching through the drifts in her thick parka now weighed heavily upon her eyelids. She wished she could close them for a few minutes, but they had no time.

  The going was even slower among the somber arctic conifers of the taiga. The scattered dwarf pines enveloped them in a bristling, unwelcome embrace. Having tracked the migrating herds farther and farther south in recent years, these were unfamiliar surroundings for the Anatatook. Alaana kept a keen ear out so they wouldn’t fall prey to some wandering beast themselves. But the thinly wooded area was deathly still, as if the soul of the forest had fled and taken all the lesser creatures away to the spirit world. Foul things were happening in this place.

  The many competing tracks of snow hare and fox obscured the wolven trail. Kanak had trouble keeping them on course in the dark, and frustration and uncertainty replaced the determination on his face. Aquppak occasionally ventured a suggestion to which Kanak paid no heed. The veteran tracker would only listen to loose twigs and trampled branches, as he scouted the ground. Alaana noticed that twice they passed the same thick-bellied pine at a cleft in the trail.

  All doubts of Kanak’s abilities were forcefully dismissed as they came upon a small clearing where several shadowy figures could be seen. Kanak had circled back intentionally, maneuvering them so they would make their approach from the high ground. He signaled the others to group
together on a narrow ridge of ice-rimed rock where they could observe the action below without being seen. Plucking a few caribou hairs from his mitten, he floated them on the air to test the wind. He nodded with satisfaction. The sensitive snouts of the wolves would not find them on the ledge.

  Alaana could make out four large wolves below an overhanging ledge of rock that formed a cave entrance. The wolves had made their lair next to an abandoned camp site complete with the remnants of an ashy hearth. The murky moonlight was uncertain and the deep shadows of the wood were eager to swirl and obscure. No, she thought, there were six figures there. Four wolves and two men. Men and wolves together!

  “How many do you see?” she asked.

  “Six at least,” whispered Kanak. “Two wolves and four men.”

  “Four men?” repeated Alaana, squinting into the failing light.

  As they watched in amazement, one of the timberwolves stood on its hind legs and began to shake and dance. No, thought Alaana, it was not dancing. The beast tossed its shoulders back as if shirking off a cloak. A moment later a thick gray wolfskin dropped to the ground and the man beneath, now naked and shivering, moved toward the cave. He reached for a parka from a small pile beside the entrance.

  “How is such a thing possible?” hissed Kanak.

  “Are they men or beasts?” demanded Aquppak, a bit too loudly.

  Uatchiaq was unable to answer either question, nor pose one of his own. He was panting furiously, letting out a small sob with each exhalation, his eyes bulging with terror. Muttering senselessly, he shoved Kanak aside. He began scrabbling backwards along the incline, sending lines of dirty snow trickling down the ridge. In his panic, the long bow had been carelessly discarded.

  Alaana threw herself at Uatchiaq. She stilled the man’s cries of terror by pinching his face tightly between thumb and forefinger and drawing it close to her own. By force of will she dissolved Uatchiaq’s fear with her eyes, projecting a pair of deep black pools of quiet calm. “Be still,” she said.