Brother Wind (27 page)

He saw the first group of men coming, and suddenly the uneasiness was gone, and he was again Raven, shaman, able to read men’s thoughts through their eyes, to know their hearts by the sets of their mouths, to understand their wants by the tightening of their fingers.

He stood up and stretched his arms out toward them, smiled, and stepped up on a small rise of ground he had found before Ice Hunter’s sons had spread out the trade goods, a hillock so small that few people would notice it, but something that gave him more height. Though it seemed a foolish thing, Raven had found that the man whose eyes were highest often had the advantage in trading.

Most of the River men brought dried fish to trade. Fools, Raven thought, though he was careful to keep a smile on his face. What did he need with fish? He already had enough for the journey home. While here they would eat from Dyenen’s caches. Why worry about providing food for themselves?

The last of the River men had a girl with him, his hand tight around her upper arm. She was young, but with the curves of a woman. This time Raven turned away, sure his face would show his displeasure. A daughter traded for a night of favors by a father wanting furs or spearpoints was often worth less than nothing. In a man’s bed, the girl would either be like someone dead, or she would fight, kick, gouge. Either way, the brief moment of release was not worth the struggle.

Then Raven asked himself why he should care. He was not here to trade the goods laid out before the River People. That was for White Fox and Bird Sings to do. His trading would be with Dyenen, and for something far more precious than those things brought in by a hunter or made by the hands of a woman. What Raven wanted in trade, he would give anything to get—anything except his life. But that was something Dyenen could never know.

Until Dyenen came, Raven would watch, would see what the River People seemed to favor. Already, White Fox had approached the father and daughter. The father pointed toward a pile of obsidian, then picked up a small piece, no larger than a man’s thumb. He pulled the girl toward White Fox, spoke to him, but White Fox shook his head. Again the father spoke, moving close to look into White Fox’s eyes, but White Fox backed away, again shook his head. Raven held his smile in his cheek as the father reached beneath his caribou skin parka and pulled out a fistful of bear claws. White Fox held up both hands, and the man, still gripping his daughter’s arm, again reached into his parka and this time brought out a medicine bag, made from the skin of a flicker.

Raven drew in his breath. What man did not know the powers of the flicker, a small bird never seen on the Walrus beaches? White Fox smiled and began bargaining. His words, spoken in the River People’s language, were just loud enough for Raven to hear as he dickered for more nights with the daughter.

Finally the deal was made. Three nights, the first tomorrow. The daughter stood with head down, lips pursed, but as the two turned to leave, White Fox called out to them, stopped the girl with a hand on her shoulder, and as she stood, face averted, White Fox slipped a shell bead necklace over her head. The girl looked at him, made a quick murmur of surprise.

With a gesture of impatience, the father reached for the necklace, shaking his head at White Fox, but the girl clutched the beads with both hands. White Fox said a few words so that soon both father and daughter were smiling, both laughing. And Raven, too, laughed his admiration for White Fox’s trade. For a necklace of shells White Fox had bought himself three nights’ pleasure, and who could say? Perhaps more would come after that, for nothing more than a few words of praise for the girl’s comely face and young body.

Near evening, as White Fox and Bird Sings were gathering trade goods into bundles, Dyenen came. Raven called to the men, told them to roll out the skins, display the trade goods again, but when Dyenen saw the traders begin to unroll their packs, he gestured for them to stop.

“I will come tomorrow,” he said in the River language, and White Fox called up to Raven: “He says he will return tomorrow.”

“Good!” Raven called. He patted the basket of Kiin’s carvings he kept hidden under his birdskin cloak.

Dyenen walked slowly up to stand beside Raven, the two saying nothing as Bird Sings and White Fox worked. When all was packed away, Dyenen left, and Raven, Bird Sings, and White Fox returned to the lodge given them for their stay with the River People.

Three River People women were there waiting with Bird Sings’ wife, with food and bedding laid out. Dyenen left them alone, and the women brought bowl after bowl of fish, meat, and roots, until they could eat no more. Bird Sings’ wife then settled herself close beside her husband, looking up at the River women with hardness in her eyes. The River women went to stand between White Fox and Raven, their lips curled in smiles, eyes boldly darting to the faces of both men.

“Do we choose?” White Fox asked.

“Ask them if they can stay,” said Raven.

White Fox asked, and the women giggled, nodded their heads. One met Raven’s eyes. He smiled and, remembering White Fox’s lesson, reached beneath his parka, took out a necklace of long birdbone beads. As the woman clasped the necklace, Raven grabbed her wrists and pulled her over to the mound of furs that was his bed. Then, turning his back on the others in the lodge, he pulled off her leggings and rolled her over to lie beneath him.

D
YENEN CAME THE NEXT MORNING
—early, even before White Fox and Bird Sings had unrolled the sealskin packs, even before the women had gathered at the outside cooking hearths.

In the early sunlight, the man looked older, weaker than he had the evening before. The long edge of his nose was sharp, almost as if some stone knapper had honed it. His eyes were set deep into his face, with lids that looked as thick and heavy as the curtains that hang over sleeping place doors. He was a tall man, though not as tall as Raven, and wore a stiff robe of long brown fur, something musty with age.

In bold familiarity, Raven reached out and touched the fur. He was surprised by its softness.

“Musk ox,” the old man said, and at his words White Fox called out the same words, the animal carrying the same name in both languages, a name that did not sound like either a River People or a Walrus word but something spoken by others, perhaps those hairy men with tails that storytellers said lived at the edge of the world.

White Fox came to stand beside Raven and Dyenen. Directing his words to White Fox, Dyenen said, “Tell your shaman that I have come to trade. Tell him that I have furs, caribou parkas, and the best fish spears, even a few flint spearheads made by the men who live along river flats far to the south.”

Raven pretended to listen to White Fox as the man translated, then held his hand out toward the bundles of trade goods Bird Sings was unrolling. “Much was traded yesterday,” Raven said, “but we have some things left. Pelts, seal oil, dried walrus meat. We have necklaces and feathers from seabirds, shells and obsidian. All these things we will trade for your pelts and spearpoints.”

White Fox repeated Raven’s words, and Dyenen grunted back an answer, then waited until Bird Sings had finished arranging the trade goods. The old man spent a long time looking at everything. Now and again he would turn to Bird Sings and ask a question, and Bird Sings would answer. Raven did not watch, but instead squatted down on his haunches. He drew a handful of dried fish from inside his parka sleeve and began to eat.

When Dyenen had finished looking, he came back to Raven, squatted beside the man. Raven handed him a piece of fish, and both men, saying nothing, ate. Finally, Raven stood. Dyenen, licking his fingers, slowly straightened to stand beside him.

“Your women make good meat,” Raven said, and waited while White Fox translated his words.

Dyenen nodded. “It is better when warmed over a flame.”

Yes, Raven thought as White Fox repeated Dyenen’s words. He had seen the River People hold the skin side of a dried fish over the fire, waiting until the skin wrinkled and writhed in the heat. He had tried it himself and found it to be good. The flame seemed to bring out the oil in the fish and to soften the flesh. But who had time to build a fire or wait for the women to bring the cooking hearth coals to life? When a man was hungry, he should eat. That was the way of the Walrus People.

“So,” began Dyenen, “a man might see things that would be useful. A man might have something to trade for those things.”

Raven sighed as the old man continued. Perhaps he had been foolish to pretend he understood nothing of the River People language. The trading would be long and tedious, hearing everything said twice. The River People always spoke in careful circles. Their long speeches reminded Raven of a wolf following the trail of a caribou, looping back and away, back and away, and finally circling wide before the attack.

“Does he want to trade or not?” Raven asked, breaking into the long tangle of words coming from the old man’s mouth.

“Yes,” said White Fox, his eyes telling Raven to be cautious, to honor politeness.

Yes, Raven admitted to himself, he must be careful. He took a long breath and forced the impatience out of his mouth, away from his tongue.

White Fox and Dyenen finally came to an offer of goods for goods. Then Dyenen said, “I also have a wolfskin.”

White Fox looked quickly away, and Raven knew the man was shielding his eyes. White Fox had hoped to get a wolf pelt. Walrus women would give much to have wolf fur for parka ruffs. White Fox shrugged. “I have fur seal pelts,” he said to the man.

“Three,” Dyenen said and held up three fingers.

White Fox laughed. “One,” he said.

“Three.”

White Fox shook his head and stood up, walked away.

“Two,” Dyenen called after him.

“One and two grass mats, woven by the Seal Hunter women,” White Fox offered, turning back to the shaman.

Dyenen lifted his head to look at the sky and noisily sucked his teeth. “Yes,” he said, “if I can choose the pelt.”

“Bring the wolfskin. We will see,” White Fox answered.

Dyenen stood, extended a hand, palm out, toward Raven. Raven nodded and watched the man walk back to his lodge.

“You did not show him the carvings?” White Fox asked Raven.

“I will,” Raven answered. “He is a good trader, but you are better.”

White Fox did not acknowledge the compliment, but as the man returned to the trade goods, he walked with shoulders back, head high.

You are a good trader, yes, Raven thought. And I am better. Tonight I will have the secrets of this shaman’s power, how he holds his place over these River People, and I will have it for a basketful of wood and ivory.

The chanting came from within the lodge, Dyenen’s voice and yet another voice, high and like a woman’s. For a moment Raven stopped outside and listened. Two people inside, maybe three, he thought. He waited. The sky had begun to darken, but still there was light enough to see the village, the white-gray smoke rising from each of the many lodges—three tens at least. And ten, twelve people in each lodge.

He had never seen a bigger village, nor a village that had so much food, especially at this time of year, before the birds had laid spring eggs. The winter caches, platforms raised on poles higher than a man’s head, were still packed with meat and fish, dried berries and fat, and it had not been an easy winter. How did one man hold so many people together in peace? How did he empower his hunters to feed them? Was he a caller, a shaman who could bring in caribou, bear, or moose so his people always had meat?

Raven had come alone. It had not been an easy decision. What was more important, to have the freedom of speaking to Dyenen, one on one, of trading, shaman to shaman; to have the freedom of making his trades without White Fox’s knowledge of what he was doing, or to have the advantage of hearing without the old man knowing that he understood? In some ways the decision had been made for him. White Fox was enjoying his evening with the River girl, the woman he had traded for. Why interrupt? Why have the man’s resentment like a dark cloud over this trading session with Dyenen?

Again Raven heard the voices, the high singing words of a woman. Speaking in what language? Not that of the River People, not even Caribou. Then another voice, a man’s voice, a young man, someone strong—a hunter?—speaking also in that unknown tongue. Then Dyenen’s voice, the voice of a man growing old, but not yet feeble. For a long time Raven stood outside the lodge. When the voices stopped, he waited for the man and woman to come out, but no one came, and from inside the lodge, there was only silence.

So, Raven thought, these people are like the First Men, sitting together sometimes a whole day without speaking. It was a custom that always made Raven feel as though his muscles would soon jump through his skin. He laid his left hand against the lodge and raised his right hand to scratch at the caribou hide door covering, a custom of politeness among the River People. The voices began again, and this time, Raven, one hand still pressed against the lodge cover, felt the lodge tremble as though the old shaman spoke not to people but to the lodge itself.

Then Raven had had enough of waiting, enough of wondering. He scraped his nails against the caribou skin, once, twice, and Dyenen called for him to come in. Raven lifted the door flap and crawled in through the narrow entrance tunnel. There was a fire in the center of the lodge, wood smoldering, the smoke making an uncertain path to the smokehole overhead. The smoke burned Raven’s eyes, and he blinked away the irritation, waited until the tears cleared, then settled himself on his haunches beside the fire. Suddenly he realized that he and Dyenen were the only ones in the lodge. There were no others, no people to own the voices Raven had heard.

“You are alone?” Raven asked, without the politeness of a greeting, without the raising of hands or the offering of food.

“You speak the River language?” the old shaman said.

“Some, not well.”

“Better than you led me to believe.”

Raven smiled. “Three days I have been in this village. Quickly I learn.” He shrugged and then remembered that the River People did not shrug shoulders but instead held hands out, fingers pointing up. “In ways of politeness I have ignorance,” he said.