Song of the River (23 page)

“But we do not know what the Cousin River hunters have told their people,” Dog Trainer said. “Perhaps they will say that Chakliux stole the dogs, that there was no fair trade, and that he killed the elder and their hunters to get the dogs for us.”

Chakliux felt the elders’ eyes on him. What Dog Trainer said was true. Cloud Finder’s sons probably believed he killed their father. Was it fair for this village to suffer because of something between people of the Cousin River Village?

“I will go back to them,” Chakliux said. “I will tell them what happened.”

“No,” Sok began, but was interrupted by his stepfather.

“What about the dogs?” Fox Barking asked. “You traded away all our goods for those dogs. You cannot take them back.”

“If he does not take them back,” Dog Trainer said, “the Cousin River People will know they are here. They will think we killed to get their dogs.”

“Wait,” said Sees Light, grandfather to Blueberry. He pointed at Chakliux with his chin. “This man is now husband to my granddaughter. Do you think, if he returns to the Cousin River Village, they will allow him to live?” He paused, but the men were silent. “What if he had not returned here with the dogs? What could the Cousin River People say about that?”

“So where would he be?” Sok asked.

“Perhaps he went to the Walrus Hunters to trade this golden-eyed dog to them.”

“What good will that do us?” Fox Barking said. “We sent Chakliux to the Cousin River Village in hopes that a golden-eyed dog would break the curse which has come to our own animals.”

“She has four pups, does she not?” Sees Light asked. “How many of you have females with new litters?”

Several men muttered, nodding heads, raising eyebrows, Fox Barking among them.

“Perhaps some of the females will accept a new pup. These pups, if they live, still give us a chance to break the curse. If the Cousin River People send men to find Chakliux, we will hide the pups. That will not be difficult. They are small.”

“And Chakliux?” Sok asked.

“He was a curse among us,” Sees Light said. “We are glad he returned to his own village. We are glad he never came back.”

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

“So you let him get away?” said K’os, her voice as smooth as ice. “He has the dog and the pups, and he is not injured?”

The man swallowed and said, “He killed my father.”

“So the old man is dead, but my son, he is safe?”

“He will not be safe,” Tikaani snarled.

“He killed River Jumper and Stalker and Caribou. Night Man is almost dead, and you expect me to believe you will kill Chakliux?”

K’os laughed, and knew Tikaani thought she laughed at him, but her laughter was for the ingenuity of her son. He was more resourceful than she had thought. It had turned out to be a fine game. Better than she had hoped. Who could believe the old fool Cloud Finder and her crippled son had any chance against River Jumper and four of the village’s best young hunters? Of course, Chakliux did have the dogs.

“The female dog is not hurt?”

“I do not think so. I did not see the pups.”

K’os shrugged. “Pups die easily,” she said.

“It was the dog that killed my brother Caribou. She attacked him.”

So perhaps it was not skill but luck that had saved Chakliux, K’os thought. Or power. The idea bothered her. He had been her joke, a terrible, terrible joke….

She thought back to when she was young. She was beautiful now. Then she had been beyond words. Every man in the village had wanted her. The young hunters … ah, their bodies cried out for hers, but her father saw only the honor he would gain by giving her to an elder.

Name Giver’s gifts had been wonderful, but he was like a dried-up old stick. K’os had wanted someone young.

She remembered the morning her father told her his decision. She had peeked out the doorflap, saw Ground Beater and River Jumper outside. They had set up a target of caribou hide, stretched taut around a frame of saplings, and were throwing blunt-tipped practice spears. Like boys, like little boys. She had watched from behind the doorflap, coughing once so they would know she was there. Then her father’s hand had jerked her away.

“You think because you are beautiful that you can have every young man in the village,” he had said to her. “You think because you found an animal-gift child you should have anything you want. You are no better than any other woman. You must have one husband; you must make sons to honor that husband. I have chosen Name Giver.”

The words were like rocks falling into her stomach. She had pleaded with him, but he would not change his mind. K’os had curled herself into her sleeping robes and cried until her father left the lodge in disgust. Spitting out angry words, she had cursed Name Giver. Why would an old man want a young woman? There were widows in the village. What about Three Birds? She was not ugly. What about Morning Woman?

Later, K’os had walked to the Grandfather Lake, Chakliux strapped to her back. She did not want to see the other young women of the village, their smiles hidden behind raised hands, eyes snapping their delight when they heard K’os would be wife to Name Giver. At the lake, she cried out her anger to the Grandfather Rock, offered gifts, even promised to give Chakliux back to the Grandfather spirits if, when she returned to the village, old Name Giver was dead. The lake and rock did not hear her. Name Giver lived, and she became his wife, given by her father in exchange for the promise of dead caribou and dried fish.

Name Giver could do nothing in her bed. K’os told her mother and father, and asked them if she could throw him away, return to her mother’s lodge, but they told her she could not. They said it was because of the honor she would lose, but K’os knew they did not care about her honor, only about Name Giver’s gifts.

Worse, when Chakliux first tried to stand, K’os noticed the deformity of his foot. It was one more anger to add to those that plagued her life. She decided that Chakliux was not animal-gift but only a child someone had thrown away. By asking careful questions of men who came to trade from the Near River Village, she had found she was right.

One day when Name Giver was visiting another elder, Ground Beater had come to K’os’s lodge, and she had talked him into her bed. Afterward, as she lay in Ground Beater’s arms, rejoicing in the fullness that warmed her body, he told her he was to marry Three Birds. She had exploded in angry words, had driven him from her lodge.

That was when K’os began to visit Old Sister. Old Sister was a healer, wise in the knowledge of plant medicines. She taught K’os the plants and herbs that would ensure Name Giver’s health. She taught those that should be avoided. Each day for nearly a year, K’os visited Old Sister. Each day, she learned until Old Sister had nothing more to teach her.

How sad when a strange sickness came to the village. K’os made many medicines, but for some reason, they did not help. She cut her hair in mourning when the disease took Old Sister. She comforted Ground Beater in his grief when it claimed Three Birds. She wore the rags and ashes of a widow when Name Giver himself succumbed.

Since then many things had changed. K’os turned her eyes to Tikaani. He was little more than a boy. His chest had not yet filled out, nor were his arms thick and strong, but his well-muscled legs foretold the man he would be, and she had still not tired of him in her bed.

“Go back to the hunter’s lodge,” she told him. “We will have our revenge, but it will not be something for you to do alone. Wait. I will tell you when the time is right. Then the Near River Village will be a ruin and the Near River People will be food for ravens and foxes.”

K’os went to the uncles first, then to the cousins. She told them that Stalker and Caribou were too young to be dead because of the selfishness of her son and the greed of the Near River People. Night Man lay in his mother’s lodge, nearly dead, his shoulder festering. It was a miracle Tikaani had gotten him back to the village. River Jumper had been one of their best hunters. Now who would feed his children? Then there was Cloud Finder, a man of wisdom, an elder revered by many.

K’os hung her head in shame, knowing that her son had killed him. What could she say to Cloud Finder’s young daughter, Star, who still lived in his wife’s lodge?

It was her fault, K’os told them. She had brought Chakliux into this village, thinking he would bring honor and power to the people here.

She invited the men to come to her lodge, and by allowing each to think he would be there alone with her, she knew they would come.

She worked hard in preparation for their arrival, filling boiling bags with meat and water, carrying them to the village hearths to cook, guarding them so others would not take a share. She ignored the clacking tongues of the other women when she pushed their greedy ladles away from her meat.

When she saw Ground Squirrel’s angry red cheeks and the pinched whiteness of Owl Catcher’s face, she taunted them, saying, “Do not worry. Your husbands will be in your beds tonight. This food is for those families in mourning.”

Then they left her alone, even helped her keep the children from the food.

When the meat was hot, bubbling in its own juice, rich with fat and flavored with dried berries, K’os carried the boiling bags to her lodge, hung them from her lodge poles and waited for the men to come.

THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

Chakliux sat down on the caribou hide floor of Red Leaf’s lodge and rubbed his otter foot. It had ached since the fight with Tikaani and his brothers, but today the pain seemed less.

Red Leaf came into the lodge, her arms full of firewood. He stood, took the wood from her and piled it near the entrance tunnel as she removed her parka. She looked down at his foot.

“It still bothers you?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I have something.” She held up a small packet. “Ligige’ gave it to me. It is something the Sea Hunter woman told her about. It is called sixsiqax. Ligige’ said fresh leaves are better, but she had only dried. I soaked them in hot water.” She nodded toward the back of the lodge in the general direction of the village hearths. The women there always kept a caribou hide full of hot water, heated with rocks pulled from the edges of the cooking fires. “Sit down,” she told Chakliux.

He sat and Red Leaf knelt beside him. She layered the wet, warm leaves over his foot. They seemed to draw the ache from his bones.

“Sixsiqax?” Chakliux said. The word was harsh in his throat, unfamiliar to his tongue. “A Sea Hunter name?” he asked.

Red Leaf shrugged, then asked, “Where is Sok?”

“With the dogs.”

“What happened with the elders?”

Chakliux knew she would not ask Sok such a question, but she was more bold with him.

“They are pleased about the dogs.”

“They should be.”

Red Leaf waited, and Chakliux knew she wanted him to say more, but women did not need to know what happened in the elders’ lodge.

“What do you think about our young men?” Red Leaf asked. “Some of them want to attack the Cousin River Village.”

“They are foolish,” Chakliux told her.

For a long time Red Leaf said nothing. Chakliux waited. She was a woman who spent much time at the cooking hearths hearing and telling. She would not be silent forever.

Finally she said, “There have been no deaths since you left our village, of dogs or people.”

“So do the women think I killed my grandfather and the Sea Hunter woman?” Chakliux’s throat felt tight as he asked the question.

“Most have decided the trader killed them,” she said. “Most think he is dead. He was badly hurt when he left our village. Some of the young men thought you were the killer, but Blue-head Duck told them that if you were, you would not return to this village.”

Chakliux took a long breath. “I am not the killer,” he said.

“Now that you have brought the dogs, no one in the village thinks you are,” Red Leaf said, but she looked away as she spoke the words.

Chakliux nodded. He knew that she did not tell him the whole truth. There were those still afraid of him.

“Some of the women say you will leave the village. Some say you will stay here and take Blueberry as wife. Others think you will throw her away.”

“Some women talk too much,” Chakliux replied.

Red Leaf picked up the parka she was making. She began to weave a sinew thread through holes she had punched with an awl. “If you do not take Blueberry, do you think Sok will?” she asked.

The question surprised Chakliux. It was something Red Leaf should not ask. “I do not know,” he answered. “Ask your husband.”

Red Leaf snorted. “Blueberry is better than Snow-in-her-hair,” she said, then held up the parka so Chakliux could see the intricate sun design on the back. “But neither is good enough to make a parka like this.”

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

K’os invited not only uncles and cousins who were already hunters, but also young cousins still considered boys. She needed the young ones, perhaps more than those who were experienced hunters. Each man seemed surprised as he entered her lodge—first to see her husband, Ground Beater, then to see others, among them their fathers, sons or brothers.

K’os laughed to herself as she watched each face, the change from eagerness to embarrassment, then the darkening of skin that told of anger. It would do her purpose well, that anger.

She acted the part of wife, serving each man a bowl of meat, the elders’ flavored subtly with the root of the tall, purple-flowered plant she had found herself, something Old Sister had not even known. They would hardly notice its thin, sharp flavor, but it would make them calm, relaxed. They would sit quietly and do nothing as she worked on the young men, building their rage.

The hunters ate in silence, glancing at one another from the sides of their eyes. Stay angry, K’os told the young men silently. Stay angry. Slyly, she sought the gaze of each hunter, raised her brows, pursed her lips. Her husband was watching, she was sure. He knew far too much. How sad. It was not a good time to go through mourning, but some things could not be helped.