Song of the River (2 page)

There she cut out Gull Wing’s heart and gave it as a gift to the Grandfather Rock.

Four Days Later

THE NEAR RIVER PEOPLE’S WINTER VILLAGE

The child was Day Woman’s fourth. The labor should not have been so long, so troublesome. The old woman Ligige’ worried about what this might mean. Had Day Woman broken taboos? In all ways she seemed to be a respectful person, yet in the past two years all luck had left her. Her firstborn son drowned while fishing with his father; another child, a daughter, was born dead.

Before those deaths, the old woman Yellow Feather said she heard a raven call at night, and, of course, such a thing meant death. But Yellow Feather was neither aunt nor grandmother to anyone in Day Woman’s family, so why, when Yellow Feather heard the call, did death come to Day Woman’s children?

Some elders said the problem was Gull Wing, Day Woman’s husband. Ligige’’s own husband would not hunt or fish with the man. Everyone knew he was careless with animals. He did not cut the joints of wolves he killed, and he laughed when any man placed the gift of a bone in a dead fox’s mouth. But if the gift was not given, how would the fox know he was respected? Why would he return the next year to give himself again to The People?

Everyone believed something would happen, and it did. Three days before, two of the village hunters—Fox Barking and Sleeps Long—had returned from a visit to the Cousin River People’s Village. Gull Wing, Fox Barking’s brother, Day Woman’s husband, had also traveled with them. He had been killed by a bear near the lake called Grandfather. The bear had dragged away his body, and they had been unable to find it, so had nothing—not even bones—to bring back to the village.

No one was surprised. A man like Gull Wing earned his problems.

The night she began her mourning, Day Woman’s child decided to come into the world, and now, three days later, it was still trying—three days, when her other children had come so easily that Day Woman had laughed at the pain.

Ligige’ settled herself into her own thoughts, resting on her haunches, her arms clasped tightly around her knees. She wished she could take some of Day Woman’s pain. She slipped one gnarled hand down to her own belly. It was as soft and shriveled as it had been in all the years since the birth of her last child. That child had died, as had all her children, but she had Day Woman, a good niece, always bringing food, things to delight an old woman’s tongue, things that were taboo for the young, like the delicate meat of the red-necked grebe, that clumsy bird whose flesh might slow the feet of child or hunter. But why worry over such a thing for an old woman? Old women always had slow feet.

As Ligige’ remembered the pain of losing her own children, she decided that if this baby died Day Woman might choose to follow it. Counting this little one, Day Woman would have three dead children and a dead husband. Wouldn’t she rather be with them than with Sok, the one son who still lived? Of course it was hard to say. Sok was a large and healthy boy. Fast in running, strong in throwing. The village men said he would be a good hunter, a gifted warrior.

Maybe Day Woman would decide to live a while and watch this boy grow up, then when he was a man, caught in his own life, she would go on to the dead ones. After all, those who are alive can always decide to become spirit. The dead have no more choices left to them.

Ligige’’s head nodded, and she turned herself toward dreams, her eyes moving to see those visions that squeezed under the smooth inside skin of her lids. She sighed, almost smiled. Then Day Woman cried out, a scream that woke Ligige’ and made her skin rise in bumps from her neck to her wrists. Perhaps there was more than a child trying to find its way out. Perhaps Gull Wing’s disrespect had cursed Day Woman’s womb.

Ligige’ pushed herself to her feet and turned toward the door, ready to run if something horrible came from the bulging pink flesh between Day Woman’s legs.

Day Woman screamed again. Ligige’ saw the glistening black hair of a baby’s head. She breathed one long breath. At least the thing was a child. If it was deformed, it would not be the first such baby she had delivered.

Day Woman squatted, legs spread, supporting herself with a babiche rope hung from the birthing lodge poles. Her face twisted. She pushed, groaning with the effort, and Ligige’ knelt between her niece’s knees, cupped her hands around the vulva as it stretched wide to allow the baby passage into the world.

The child’s head came, then the shoulders. Ligige’ caught it, eased it to the nest of moss Day Woman had spread under herself.

“Ah! You are blessed!” Ligige’ cried. The child was a boy, his small penis jutting out from his body in announcement. His voice rang in a strong cry.

Day Woman laughed, drew in a quick breath as the afterbirth passed, then laughed again. “Another son,” she crowed.

Ligige’ handed the baby to his mother. Day Woman put him to her breast, and though most newborns did not seem much interested in eating during the first day of their lives, this child opened his mouth wide over his mother’s nipple and sucked. Day Woman grimaced at the sudden letdown of her milk, then again laughed her delight.

Ligige’ wrapped the afterbirth in birchbark and tied off the birth cord, then sliced it with her obsidian knife. She took the afterbirth outside, walking carefully with the birchbark packet lifted high so no hunters would cross her path and risk losing their power. After she had buried it, she returned to the lodge.

Day Woman was asleep. The child rested on her chest, birth blood dark on his skin. Ligige’ gently picked up the boy and carried him to the bark basket where she had placed ground squirrel skins softened by her own rubbing. She pulled a caribou bladder of water from the lodge poles and, removing the carved antler plug, squeezed a little water into a piece of scraped caribou hide she had softened with fat. She wiped the blood from the baby’s face, used a fingernail to flick mucus from his tiny nostrils, then rubbed his chest and belly until they were shiny and pink. She rinsed the hide and smoothed it over his legs down to one foot and the other, then she stopped.

Her belly ached in dismay. The last three toes on both feet were webbed together, and the boy’s left foot was bent so the sole pointed in. She flexed the foot down, forcing it until the baby began to cry. She had seen such a deformity once before. The parents had decided to allow that child to die. With a foot twisted so, how would he keep up with The People when they followed the caribou or traveled from the winter village to their summer fish camp? And what of other mothers, those women carrying babies in their bellies? Just by seeing this one, they might pass his deformity to the children in their wombs. Could such a child be allowed to live? How would he ever find a wife? How would Day Woman find a husband when her time of mourning had passed? Would a man want a woman whose son might curse his own unborn children?

Ligige’ looked over at Day Woman. She slept in quiet happiness. It would be better if Ligige’ put the child out now, but Ligige’ was not the mother. The decision was not hers. She wrapped the baby in several ground squirrel skins and laid him on the packed mud of the lodge floor far from his mother’s arms. It would be best if Day Woman did not get used to holding him, and best for the child if he did not carry memories of his mother with him to the spirit world. Perhaps, then, he would not call her to leave the living.

Ligige’ walked through the sleeping village to her brother’s lodge. He was a respected elder and, more important, Day Woman’s father. From the time he had been a young man, he had dreamed visions. He would know what to do.

The voice was soft, a sound that seemed like an owl’s call. It told Tsaani to prepare for death. He shuddered in his knowledge that owls speak only in certainty, and he wondered if the bird meant his death or the death of someone else in the village. His own death would not be a terrible loss—after all, he was an old man. He had enjoyed many nights of stars, many days of sun. But most likely the owl’s call was meant for his daughter Day Woman.

How many women survived a birth labor of three days? Her loss would not be as terrible as losing a hunter, yet she was a young woman, still capable of bearing children, and she was strong. Unusual among The People, she had no fear of water. She was the one who waded deep into the river to repair the fish traps, and once she had saved a child nearly swept away in the fast current of high spring floods.

It was said that their family carried the blood of the Sea Hunters, those men who lived out on the islands of the North Sea. But who could know for sure?

The call came again, and this time, Tsaani realized it was not an owl’s voice that beckoned him from his sleep, but that of his sister Ligige’. Tsaani pushed himself from the mound of pelts that was his bed and wrapped a woven hare fur robe around his bare shoulders. It fell in soft white folds to brush against the tops of his feet.

“I am awake, Sister,” he said. “Come.”

Ligige’ came in, and by the dim glow of the hearth coals, Tsaani could see the pinched, worried look on her face.

“My daughter?” Tsaani asked, careful not to mention her name. If she was dead, he did not want to call her spirit into his lodge. Why remind death that he was an old man?

“Day Woman is well. It is the child.”

“Dead?”

“Alive, strong, and a boy.”

It was good news, but he knew his sister had come in sorrow. “What then?” he asked.

“The child is crippled.”

“How?”

“One foot is bent. He might learn to walk. He will never run.”

“Nothing can be done?”

Ligige’ lifted her hands. “A baby’s bones are soft. If the foot was bent and held in place, it might help, but it might not.”

“He could draw bad luck to his mother, or worse, his brother. Even the whole village.”

“Yes.”

“If he is allowed to die, his mother might decide to follow.” Tsaani spoke softly, almost to himself. “She is young. It would be a bad thing to lose her.”

Ligige’ raised her brows in agreement.

“What does the mother say?”

“Nothing. She does not know. She sleeps.”

“Has she fed him yet?”

“Yes.”

Tsaani hissed, and Ligige’ chided herself for her carelessness. She should have noticed the deformity at birth. Milk was as strong as sinew rope, binding mother to child.

Tsaani turned his face toward the top of the lodge. Behind him the hearth smoke rose, as though carrying his prayers. “Bring the child to me,” he finally said, “but try not to awaken the mother.”

As his sister left, Tsaani turned to watch the smoke in the darkness, then he went to his medicine bag, a river otter skin, the tail, legs and head still attached, the belly full of dried plants, each with its own gift. He found a pack secured with one knot. Cloudberry leaves, dried and crumbled to a fine dust. He untied the knot and carefully shook a small portion of the powder into his cupped hand.

Tsaani scattered the powder into the coals, then spoke slowly, laying his words one by one on the smoke as it rose. He asked for wisdom, for strength, not only for himself but for Day Woman and Ligige’.

By the time his prayers were finished, Ligige’ was again scratching on the caribou hide doorflap. He went to her, but made her stay outside. Why chance a curse being carried into his own lodge?

He unwrapped the child. Under the light of full moon, he could see the boy was strong, his head and face well-formed, his shoulders wide. Carefully, Tsaani slipped his hands down the child’s legs. The bones were straight, but as in all babies the soles tipped inward. He pulled gently on the right foot, flattened it against his palm. He pushed, and the baby, with surprising strength, pushed back. Then Tsaani placed his hand against the bottom of the left foot. Although the foot flexed slightly, it remained tipped on edge.

Tsaani took a long breath and let it out in a sigh. “This child’s foot is bent like a bear’s paw flipping fish from water,” he told Ligige’. “His mother must have watched a bear catching salmon.” Why did women never learn to honor those animals that demand honor? “Did you notice that his toes are webbed?” he asked his sister.

Ligige’ nodded. “That is not a curse,” she said.

“Yes, but the foot …” Tsaani shook his head. When he spoke again, it was with the quivering voice of an old man. “I will take him to the Grandfather Rock. When Day Woman wakes in the morning, the child will already be gone.”

Day Woman called out to Ligige’. Her breasts ached, she said. They were full of milk. Where was the child?

For a time, Ligige’ pretended she did not hear. She was sewing a birchbark container. It was as long as her arm, wrist to shoulder, and as big around as a man’s thigh. She had pinched the container together at the bottom and whipped it shut with split spruce root. Now she was sewing up the side, punching holes in the overlapped bark with a birdbone awl and securing the seam with long stitches that crisscrossed each other all the way up. It would be a useful thing to hang on her back when she went to the woods to gather plants.

“I need my son,” Day Woman said, and using the birthing rope that still hung over her, she pulled herself to her feet. She shuffled to the child’s birchbark bed with its nest of ground squirrel furs, then stifled a cry.

“Do not call for him,” Ligige’ said quietly. “The spirits took him. It was necessary.” She explained about the baby’s foot.

Day Woman gathered the ground squirrel furs to her breast and sank to the dirt floor.

“I have spoken to your father,” said Ligige’. “He offers prayers. The child’s spirit is safe. I have promised to stay with you during these days when hunters cannot risk their skills to the powers you hold.”

“I may choose to follow my son,” Day Woman said.

Ligige’ snorted. “You are young. There will be other babies.” But she lowered her eyes as she spoke so Day Woman would not see the pity there.

Day Woman moaned and asked, “How will that be? I have no husband.”

“Your husband’s brother, Fox Barking, says he will take you.”

“He has agreed?”

“Your father went to him last night. He has agreed.”