Between Two Worlds (18 page)

If Angulluk never traded me to a
qallunaaq
again, it would be good for our future. Still, longing rose in my chest.

I missed Marie, too, and considered walking out to the ship. But I had work to do.

As if knowing I was thinking of her, Marie came to
my igloo that day, along with Mitti Peary and Cin, who’d grown larger than her brothers and sisters; she’d had more to eat.

I left off my work for a while and went out with them. As Cin romped with her former pack and we ran alongside, I said, “Marie, Cin belongs with her kin. You should give her back.”

Mitti Peary looked at Marie. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“But I love her!”

“Does she still howl at night?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mitti Peary said.

Marie crossed her arms and set her mouth. How pale her skin looked in the new sunlight.

“Billy Bah, the other hunters have said no. Now I’m going to talk to your husband,” Mitti Peary said. “The weather would make it easier now to search for Lieutenant Peary. Could you help me persuade Angulluk?”

I looked away, angry. “I cannot tell Angulluk to go after Peary,” I said. “We have suffered enough doing that. Besides, he’s thinking only of hunting now. The village needs food.”

The sunlight showed the frown lines around her eyes and mouth; she looked older than she had before winter. After a while, she took Marie’s hand and they went off in search of Angulluk.

Later, in the igloo, Angulluk told me he’d given in to her. “I’m building up a supply of cartridges.”

“But how do you expect to get to the fort? There are still huge snowdrifts blocking off the way north.”

“The sea ice. It’s still hard.”

“It could crack open and you could drown,” I warned.

“Perhaps. But right now, the conditions could be perfect. There’s sunlight and the ice is solid and deep.”

We argued about it for a long time.

“You won’t find anyone to go with you,” I said.

“Qaorlutoq will come, if I ask him. And Mitti Peary has persuaded Duncan to go.”

I caught my breath. “Duncan! Why?”

“She’s promising him a new rifle,” the Fat One answered.

“What a feeble group,” I said. “You, the orphan boy, and a sailor. Not one of you knows Musk Ox Land well. Or enough about traveling on sea ice.”

“We
can
get there,” Angulluk replied. “Duncan will have a compass and a stove that gives out far more heat than our lamps.”

How could either man want to go on a dangerous trip, much less with each other? Despite Angulluk’s outward calm now, I’d seen the way he’d acted around Duncan on Christmas Day. Our hunters did not fight when there was a disagreement over a woman; instead, one would generally leave the community and join another. But accidents happen when emotions run high and people aren’t thinking clearly; and neither man could be in his right mind now if they were planning to go off on such a journey.

There was nothing more to do than go to sleep and hope that he would have a change of heart. Fortunately, the next day, word came that the herd of musk oxen had been spotted in the valley. So our men made plans to hunt. Angulluk wouldn’t have time to go to the ship to tell Duncan and Mitti Peary that her mission needed to be postponed.

Angulluk said to me, “No need for you to come, Eqariusaq. I’ve arranged for a woman to mend and dry my clothes, and to cook for me.”

I felt a pang; some man from the village was loaning Angulluk his wife. In return, Angulluk was probably promising use of his rifle another time, with the expectation of large game shared by the village.

“I see,” I said. I wanted to know who the woman was, but according to custom, I held back. I’d find out from other women anyway.

The sun was high enough to blaze brilliantly the day they drove out. It was the first warm weather, the finest yet of the spring season. With the search for Peary postponed, the hunt, and the new sun, I should have been content. But as I thought of Angulluk, a sob rose. Why should it bother me that another woman was taking my place? The brief exchange would mean little to him.

I looked out to the
Windward
, so clear and bold against the horizon now, with the yellow stripe standing out on its hull; it seemed to beckon. In a few moons, the ice would melt and set the ship free. Duncan would sail away,
perhaps never to come back. The urge to see him came over me, though I was uneasy about visiting him without my husband making the trade.

As I walked out to the ship, a mass of small black eider ducks flew overhead. The first of the season! I waded on through heavy wet snow. When I climbed onto the deck, crewmen were washing clothes in buckets. Duncan rushed over and grabbed my hand.

“Your search for Peary will have to wait. My husband left on a hunt. I’ve come to visit.”

“Let’s go to the fo’c’sle.” He left his clothes in the bucket. Sailors watched as we embraced.

How had I not noticed before the extraordinary color of his eyes, green flecked with brown? The winter’s darkness had hidden them.

I looked around to make sure Mitti Peary and Marie weren’t nearby. Then I went inside the sailors’ quarters.

Duncan and I spent a stolen, secret hour. We’d had many playful nights, but this was like gulping water after a great thirst.

Heavy feet came toward the bunk. “Duncan! Come out!” It was Captain Bartlett.

Duncan held me tighter.

“I know the Eskimo girl is on board,” the captain said, “and that your laundry is freezing in a bucket.”

“I’ll be on deck in a shake or two, sir.”

A wave of fear passed through me. What would happen to us?

“Billy Bah,” the captain continued, “Mrs. Peary wants to see you. You’ll find her in her cabin.”

Captain Bartlett marched off and the door slammed.

“Thank you for coming to talk to me, Billy Bah.” I stood near Mitti Peary’s doorway and she did not invite me to sit down. Pacing about the cabin, she said, “The day is a fine one and yet Angulluk is not here. I expected him.”

Without apology, I told her about the hunt.

She looked down from her great height. “When he shows up, let him know he is to set out with a search party. Immediately.”

“No. The air is warming and it’s too late to start a journey over ice. Wait until some of the deep snow melts. Then someone can go by sled on land.”

“All winter, Angulluk and the others have been making excuses. First it was too dark to travel, then too cold, too snowy, too ice-locked. And now it’s too warm.”

It was no wonder they’d all turned Mitti Peary down. Angulluk should have, too. I raised my voice. “The fort is
very far away
. You’re risking Angulluk’s life.”

“I won’t give up on finding Lieutenant Peary,” she said. “Have your husband come to me.” Then, her tone warmer, she added, “Marie is playing with the dog on deck. I know she’d like to see you.”

I left her sitting on her berth with her head in her hands.

In Cin’s pen near the pilothouse, Marie, supervised by Charlie, was pouring milk from a can into a bowl. Such a waste of valuable food!

Marie climbed out of the pen and took my hand. A pale afternoon sun hung in the sky. “Mother won’t let me go out on the ice anymore. She’s afraid it will crack. Can you take Cin for a run?”

“All right.” I stroked Cin’s head. I was glad to see no one had sawed off her teeth in a while. I took off her leash and soon we were running on the wet ice. Cin rolled in the shallow pools surrounding the
Windward
, then shook herself.

I took her back to Marie when the low sun told me it was time to leave. I did not say good-bye to Duncan. It was what I wanted.

Marie gave me an extra-hard hug. “Visit me soon, Billy Bah.”

As I walked, I looked back at the sun setting beyond the dripping
Windward
. I glowed with happiness. It felt so good to have come to Duncan on my own, and I wished I could be with him always; I pictured us in a cabin in Maine, surrounded by snow-covered evergreen trees.

But I still loved Angulluk. He’d be angry if he knew what I’d just done. Looking about me at the sound, I felt helpless. The ice was shrinking toward land. If Angulluk, Duncan, and Bag of Bones
did
attempt to find Peary, they would be in great danger.

In the next few days, I made Angulluk a pair of rabbit-fur mittens. He’d be surprised and slide his hands into them with pleasure, and I hoped the gift would bring us together. I knew that I preferred Duncan’s company. He spoke gently and never bossed me. Still, maybe I could be content with Angulluk, as I had been until he’d started trading me to Peary’s crew. But what if he found out I’d gone to Duncan?

One morning, a boy came with the news I’d been waiting for. “Angulluk is driving his sled in!”

I put on my furs and ran down to the beach with Tooth Girl just behind me. Angulluk and his hunters came slowly nearer, their sleds laden with the skins and bloody meat of musk oxen. Angulluk shouted, urging the dogs on. His group had separated from the other villagers; there were no women with them.

Bag of Bones carried shaggy skins on his shoulders. The sled he dragged was empty, broken, and his dogs walked loose beside him. But he wore a big grin.

I ran up as Angulluk called out the traditional “We have arrived!”

We rubbed noses. “You are a great hunter! I made something for you, something for a great hunter to wear.” He smiled at me.

Bag of Bones set down his burden and cracked his whip to keep the dogs away.

The dogs snarled and snapped. The men whipped
them and pulled and staked them far from the meat. By the time the dogs were tied together, nearly all the people had gathered.

The four hunters stood together. “As you see, we killed five large musk oxen,” Angulluk began.

There was much cheering. Enough food for everyone for some days.

Every hunter had a chance to speak.

Bag of Bones, arms flailing, described each shot and each harpoon thrown.
Kiiha!
How he’d changed! He was becoming brave, even distinguished. I looked forward to hearing the stories again at the feast. Food was more delicious when it was brought in triumph.

Like emotions, spring weather can change unexpectedly. Only days after the feast, the melting snow froze, and the harbor ice was as hard as boulders. Angulluk’s new mittens served him well.

One cold morning, he announced, “I think I can go after Peary and find him.” He raised his chin. “The ice is solid.”

Blood pounded in my head. “Do not risk it.”

Of course he marched off to the ship. Was he trying to prove his bravery to Duncan? The thought that Angulluk and Duncan could both die on a journey was more than I could bear. Qaorlutoq, too, was becoming dear to me. I wanted to protect him, like a mother.

Navarana’s vision of the woman—wise and free—came to me. Women often trekked with their husbands on hunting trips. Why couldn’t they also help search? I had as sharp an eye as anyone. And if the Fat One was just playing a trick on Mitti Peary, I wanted to know.

The morning they were to leave, as Angulluk picked up his wrapped rifle, I crouched between him and the
entranceway. “I don’t like waiting for you. This time I’m coming with you.”

“You’re staying here, stupid woman.”

“If a boy in old dog furs can go, so can I.”

His eyes flashed. “No.”

“I will not stay behind.”

In the lamplight, he smiled. To my surprise, he said, “Dress yourself, Eqariusaq. Get more seal meat. We have to finish packing!
Qaa, qaa!
”

Angulluk and I crawled out to see Bag of Bones and Duncan coming to meet us.

Duncan wore the blue wool cap I knew so well, an old fur coat, heavy wool trousers and socks, and
qallunaaq
boots. When he saw me in all my furs, a large bag over my shoulder, astonishment lit his freckled face. “You’re coming?”

“Yes.” Not that I looked forward to such a dangerous journey. Or being with both men.

On the beach, Angulluk went over the trek as we tied snowshoes to our feet. We’d walk north on the ice of Payer Harbor, keeping close to shore. It would take most of the day to get to the place the
qallunaat
called Cape Sabine. Then we’d go inland and find a sheltered camp for the first night. Traveling on foot, carrying our food in shoulder sacks, would be difficult. I wished we could have gone by sled, but a sled wouldn’t be much use if the snow in the interior was deep and uneven. And Angulluk didn’t want to risk shattering our one sled on rough sea ice.