Song of the River (20 page)

Snow Hawk walked with her ears flat, neck fur bristled. He had left the sled—it would only slow them—and carried a small pack with few supplies.

Chakliux had taken Cloud Finder’s sleeve knife from its sheath and placed it in the man’s right hand, but when he was finally ready to leave, Cloud Finder was already dead.

Chakliux threw River Jumper’s spear far into the dark of the night. He did not fit it into his spearthrower before he threw. Why risk that the spear would carry River Jumper’s evil into Chakliux’s own hunting supplies, to his thrower and blades and spears. But he did not want to leave the weapon for those who followed. He had traded away all but one of his own spears at the Cousin River Village, so decided to take Cloud Finder’s spear with him.

He told himself the Near River could not be far. Chakliux wondered whether he should walk the river ice or follow the animal trails through the snow and brush of the banks. He was less likely to be seen in the brush, but the trees would slow him. He would not reach the village by morning, and in daylight his tracks would be easy to follow. If he walked the river, he might arrive at the village by morning, before they could catch him. Besides, there was a good chance the other men would stop for the night. It was a dangerous thing, walking in darkness.

Yes, Chakliux decided, they had probably stopped for the night, and sent River Jumper ahead to scout out Chakliux’s camp. Perhaps by the time they decided to see why River Jumper had not returned, Chakliux would already be at the Near River Village.

Snow Hawk growled, but Chakliux told himself that dogs did not know everything. Perhaps she only growled at the wind.

He pulled his parka hood close around his eyes, still felt the aching cold of the night air against the bridge of his nose. “The winter grows old,” he thought, remembering River Jumper’s riddle. His mother had sent them. Perhaps she had even been the one who urged their old shaman, He Talks, to offer Chakliux as husband to Wolf-and-Raven’s daughter. Even if Day Woman had not realized Chakliux was her son, it would take only a whisper to the right person for someone in the Near River Village to discover who he was—a curse given back to the Near River People. She might have been the one who had Tsaani killed.

But why? Perhaps she needed to know she could still control the young men, could make them fight or die at her whim.

Until Gguzaakk’s death, he had been blind to the immensity of K’os’s depravity. Gguzaakk had tried to tell him, but when did a man listen to what his wife said about his mother? Those were women things, a foolishness that men did not trouble themselves to understand. Even after Gguzaakk and their son had died, he did not want to believe….

“My mother,” Chakliux said aloud, so that Snow Hawk cocked her head and looked up at him. “My mother.” He spat out the words, flinging them away.

“My mother is Day Woman,” he said to the night. “My people are the Near River People. I am a hunter of the Near River Village. Not animal-gift, not Dzuuggi.” He whispered it to the green light that spread undulating fingers into the north sky. Then he turned and said the same words south toward the Near River.

A hunter. What man needs to be more than that?

The night cold seeped into his joints, making his steps stiff and awkward. His knees groaned like trees in wind. He stopped to break the ice balls from between the pads of Snow Hawk’s feet. She sniffed at the front of his parka.

“Not yet,” he told the dog. “Not yet. Soon.”

Then he saw the thin edge of darkness against the snow, the trees that marked the winding path of the river. The sight gave strength to his legs, and he began to walk more quickly. Snow Hawk seemed to sense his excitement and broke into a run, but he reached out, grasped her tail, slowed her to a walk. In cold like this, he could not risk running.

They worked their way through the brush until they came to a path made by animals, a gentle incline to the river. The river ice was solid beneath his feet and covered with a hard crust of wind-polished snow. Chakliux removed his snowshoes. The snow was hard enough to hold him without them. He strapped the shoes on his back and began to walk. The ache of his otter foot eased. It was good to be on the river. Even Snow Hawk moved with more assurance, as though she had followed the river before, as though she knew where it led.

Chakliux looked up. In summer, at this time of the night, the sky would be light, but now the sun still hid its face, ashamed, the elders said, at allowing the winter to stay with The People for so long. By the time he reached the village, the sun would be up, traveling its curve in the sky. He had a long walk yet, but was close enough to hope that if Cousin River men were following, they would turn back rather than risk facing Near River hunters.

He did not see the overflow until it was too late. He heard it first—the brittle song of the ice beneath his feet. The water must have oozed up through a crack during the day to flood the ice, then froze to slush. A man who walked through it would get wet, and unless he acted quickly, his feet would freeze.

Chakliux had known hunters who had done such a thing, remembered their suffering. Usually, even if toes and heels were cut away, the rot brought a slow and painful death. Those who survived, like old Net Maker, were crippled, a burden to The People when they moved to fish camp or followed the caribou.

But sometimes the ice gave warning, as it had for him, a voice that would save a hunter if he listened well enough, if he kept walking and did not stop. He quickened his pace, setting his feet carefully and pushing Snow Hawk ahead. It was a large flow. Many were only a few steps across, but this one spread the width of the river.

Then, ahead, he saw the clear dark of solid ice where wind had swept away the snow. Ice—or a crack where water shone through. Ice, he told himself. Ice, not water, then took two quick steps and jumped.

Ice, solid, hard. Ice under his otter foot. But his good foot, the foot he had pushed with as he jumped, broke through on that thrust and was wet, soaked and cold.

Snow Hawk was beside him, nosing his parka, a high, thin whine coming from her throat. He looked down at the dog, then knelt to break the snow from her feet. As he worked with her front feet, he held his mind blank, as if he could change what had happened by refusing to think about it. He set down one front paw, lifted the other. Both paws were dry.

If you do not stop, you will die, he thought, the words coming to him as though spoken by someone else. And it is not a good way to die.

“A man always has his knife,” Chakliux answered. “I can live without a foot.”

Besides, what choice did he have? If he stopped, made a fire, dried his foot and boot, the men from the Cousin River Village would catch him. What chance did he have against them? They would kill him, take Snow Hawk and the pups, and there would be no hope of peace. Many men would die, women and children also. What was his life compared to so many?

“We go, Snow Hawk,” he told the dog as he set down her front paw and pulled up her left rear foot.

The dog whined again. Chakliux ran his fingers over the thick fur that padded the foot. He lifted the other back foot and then again, both of the front.

“You, too,” he finally said, and gently squeezed each of her back paws. They were wet.

Chakliux walked until the slope of the bank grew shallow, then he led Snow Hawk up through the brush to a clear place, the snow scoured into a hard shining crust. He cut spruce boughs and willow, used his sleeve knife to break branches open to the dry heartwood. He started a fire and fed it carefully, then rummaged through his pack. He had a few hare pelts. He took off his boot and wrapped his foot with the pelts. He set the boot near the fire and watched the water steam from it.

Snow Hawk hunched herself into a ball and began to lick one of her back feet. Chakliux took a piece of caribou hide from his pack. He used it on her other foot, rubbing until the fur felt dry under his fingers. When both feet were dry, he pulled her pups from the sling and let her nurse them, then he put them under his parka again.

He turned his boot, moving it closer to the fire, rubbing it as he had rubbed Snow Hawk’s feet, then he ate, sharing his dried meat with the dog. He ate quickly, then rubbed his boot one last time. It was not dry, but he did not want to wait longer. His foot at least was warm; perhaps walking would keep it from freezing before he arrived at the Near River Village.

He rewrapped the foot in a hare pelt and tied it snug at his ankle with a length of babiche. As he reached for his boot, Snow Hawk growled. He pulled the long knife from its sheath on his calf, moved his head slowly to look at her. Her ears were pricked forward.

“Men, not wolves?” Chakliux asked softly.

Snow Hawk lay her head again on her paws, her eyes open wide to stare out into the darkness. Chakliux stood and moved in a slow circle, looking away from the fire until his eyes adjusted to the night. He saw nothing.

Working quickly, he scored the hardened snow with his knife and dug into it with both mittened hands.

Snow Hawk lifted her head to watch as he mounded the snow into a heap and covered it with a hare fur blanket from his pack. Yes, he thought. It could be a man. If you believed it was. He fed more sticks into the fire, then picked up his and Cloud Finder’s spears and backed away. He stepped carefully into the tracks he had made when he came from the river, until he reached a dense cover of brush. Snow Hawk stood as though to follow him, but he commanded her to stay. She lay down, nose pointing to the place he was hidden.

Chakliux wrapped his arms around his legs and did not let himself feel the cold seep up from the ground into the bottom of his wrapped foot. The hare fur was not enough to keep his foot from freezing, but for a while it would be all right. Especially if he stood now and again to shift his weight.

Like all young men, from the time he was a baby Chakliux had been set out naked for a few moments during freezing nights to harden his body. He knew how to fight the cold. He moved his fingers and toes, pulled his parka ruff close around his eyes, and let his mind drift to other things.

He had tucked his spearthrower up his left sleeve. It seemed warm against his skin, as though it were lending strength to his body. Chakliux had made the thrower himself—as most men did—to fit his own hand. He had carved a hollow in the underside so it lay comfortably against the pad of flesh at the base of his thumb. His first finger extended under the thrower and up into a hole; his thumb curled over one side of the thrower, his remaining three fingers over the other.

The spear lay in a groove at the top, the point aimed at the target. The weapon was held with the arm raised, hand extended back, opposite the direction the spear would be thrown. With the thrower, Chakliux could cast his spear farther and with more force.

The night passed slowly. Finally Chakliux turned to look toward the eastern sky. Was it his imagination or had the sky lightened? He stood, then saw the sudden snapping of Snow Hawk’s head, heard the growl. Chakliux’s fingers tightened on his spear, and he reached down to pull his obsidian knife from its sheath.

Their spears came quickly, two of them, slicing into the fur-wrapped snow at the side of the fire. Snow Hawk leapt to her feet as four men entered the narrow ring of firelight.

Night Man and Tikaani, Caribou and Stalker—Cloud Finder’s sons. For a moment Chakliux nearly called out to them, but then he remembered that he had seen each of them at his mother’s lodge. Were they acting on K’os’s instructions? If so, they might think he had killed both River Jumper and their father.

The four men advanced slowly toward the fur-wrapped bundle. Chakliux wished he had taken time to make it more lifelike, a mitten or a bit of hair sticking out. Snow Hawk stood, still growling.

Night Man prodded the bundle with one toe, then groaned and pulled the blanket away from the heap of snow.

He lifted his voice and called out, “Chakliux, we came because that hunter you killed said you planned to kill our father. We mourn both men. We will kill you and anyone who claims you as friend!”

“Even this dog will die,” the brother named Stalker said. He turned so his back was toward Chakliux, lifted his spear as though to thrust it into Snow Hawk’s chest.

Snow Hawk growled and crouched, teeth bared.

“Cloud Finder, my friend,” Chakliux whispered. “Forgive what I do.”

He pulled out his spearthrower and fitted the notched end of his spear into the flat chip of ivory that held it in place. He raised it over his shoulder and threw. The spear landed with a quiet thud in the center of Stalker’s back. The man sank to his knees with a groan. His brothers moved slowly, as if they could not believe what their eyes told them.

Chakliux fitted Cloud Finder’s spear into his throwing board and threw again. His throw was high, taking Night Man in the right shoulder. Night Man cried out and spun, then fell writhing.

Snow Hawk began to bark, her yips high and frantic. “Shut your mouth, dog!” Night Man shouted, pain edging his voice. He pulled the spear from his shoulder, then fell back with the weapon still in his hands.

Chakliux knew as soon as he threw that he had aimed too high, but he had hoped the spear would wedge itself into the bone of Night Man’s shoulder. It had not. Night Man had dislodged it too easily.

Night Man stood, using the shaft of Cloud Finder’s spear to push himself to his feet. He coughed and gagged, retching into the snow. He spat, then tried to speak, but could not. For a moment Chakliux wanted to turn away, to run. They were boys, all of them. They had come, probably at his mother’s urging, thinking to protect their father, to kill and find honor in killing. Until this night, Chakliux had never killed a man. It was not like taking an animal for meat. What animal taken did not give itself willingly? The People made songs and dances, praises and prayers. The animals’ spirits understood and accepted such things as gifts, then they returned the next year to give themselves again, and to receive again.

In killing a man, what was gained? Were gifts given? Were children fed?