Song of the River (5 page)

Yes, Chakliux thought. Found by his mother. He knew the story well. How could he not, being Dzuuggi?

“But we need peace,” Wolf-and-Raven said. “I have spoken to your grandfather, Tsaani. He agrees with me. Snow-in-her-hair will not be your wife. I cannot force her. I do not know the ways of your village, but here a woman is not given as wife against her will.”

“It is the same in my village,” Chakliux said quietly.

“We ask you to stay. To hunt with us and fish with us, to spend this year with us, so our people will see that you are not a curse. The young hunters need to understand that if they choose to fight, they will kill good people—men just like themselves.

“For now, you will live with your brother. Your mother’s husband does not want you in her lodge until he knows you are not cursed. Your brother, though, is a strong hunter. He and his wife say you are welcome in her lodge.”

“His name is?”

“Sok. You have seen him. His wife makes the pattern of the sun from pieced skins on his parkas and boots.”

Yes, Chakliux thought. He knew the man. He was strong-looking, not tall but big. His voice was loud and he laughed often. He seemed to be a man who sought attention, who enjoyed the envy of others. It was strange to think of him as brother.

“For my daughter’s sake,” Wolf-and-Raven said, “I wish you were animal-gift. For myself, I do not care. Animal-gift or not, we need you to stay in the village, to bind our people together in friendship. Too many will die if we become enemies.”

The man’s words washed through Chakliux like clear water. If there were men in the Near River Village who hoped for peace, then there was a chance.

“I will stay,” Chakliux said.

He lowered his head so Wolf-and-Raven could not see doubt darken his eyes. He had a brother he did not know, a mother who seemed aware of nothing beyond her own needs. Why had she claimed him now, when she had once left him to die under cold and wind and the teeth of animals? Why take away his honor as animal-gift?

But should she say nothing? He was not animal-gift. He was only a child thrown away, a curse.

Then Gguzaakk’s voice came to him, spoke in his heart, reminded him why he was in the Near River Village. He must discover how to turn people from hatred to understanding. It did not matter if he was animal-gift. It did not matter if his foot was a sign that he carried otter blood. If he could not bring peace, then many people in this village and his own would die.

Chapter Two

THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE, TRADERS’ BAY

(PRESENT-DAY HERENDEEN BAY, THE ALASKA PENINSULA)

Aqamdax looked out over the ice-covered inlet, north toward the sea, then east toward the land of the River People. Perhaps next summer her mother would come back. It had been four years since she left with the trader, but she had promised Aqamdax she would return, and each summer Aqamdax waited and watched.

The wind cut hard from the west, forcing Aqamdax to step forward and brace herself against it. There was no one else on the beach so she called out her words, placed them on the wind, and prayed the message would find its way to her mother.

“You left me in He Sings’s ulax,” Aqamdax said, lifting her words like a song. “His throwing board is strong. His seal harpoon is cunning, and there is food enough for everyone. His wives still hate me, but I do what I can to help them.

“For two summers now my blood has followed the moon. Soon I will be wife. Come back and share my joy.”

She would have said more, but from the edges of her eyes she saw that He Sings’s second wife had come to the beach. The woman walked toward her, bent with the wind, her mouth opening and closing like a fish’s mouth. She was dragging her youngest daughter by the hand. The child was howling, but the wind pulled away the noise, so Aqamdax knew of her protests only by seeing her face.

When Fish Taker drew near, she set her hands at the center of the girl’s back and pushed the child toward Aqamdax.

“I told you this morning, you must take care of her. How will I finish my husband’s parka if this one is forever crawling into my lap?”

“She was asleep,” Aqamdax told the woman.

“She woke up.”

Fish Taker turned back toward the sod-roofed ulas, leaving the girl with Aqamdax. The child was not yet to the age of remembering, but she could talk and walk. Aqamdax knelt down beside her, turning so the girl was in the lee of Aqamdax’s body, shielded from the worst of the wind.

“Little Bird, why do you cry?”

“I want eat,” she said. She raised a mittened hand to wipe at the mucus running from her nose, then hiccoughed out a sob.

“Here, I have something.” Aqamdax pulled a strip of dried fish from the sleeve of her birdskin sax.

Aqamdax ate well in the chief hunter’s ulax, but had not forgotten the summer after her father’s death, before He Sings had agreed to feed her and her mother. Now she always carried dried meat or fish, even hid some in her sleeping place.

Little Bird reached for the fish, but Aqamdax chewed off a chunk, warmed it for a moment in her mouth, then handed it to the child.

“We should go back to the village,” Aqamdax told her. “It is too cold on the beach.”

Aqamdax hoisted her to one hip, then walked up the slope of the beach, over the path worn into the snow. She carried Little Bird to Give Spear’s lodge. Give Spear was an elder, and never worried if someone chose to sit in the leeward shelter of his ulax. Besides, he was one of the few hunters in the village who had never come to Aqamdax’s bed. Even if Give Spear’s wife saw Aqamdax sitting outside his ulax, there should be no trouble.

Aqamdax squatted on her haunches and pulled Little Bird close to her. They sat, leaning against one another, and ate. Little Bird chatted in half-formed baby words that Aqamdax could not understand, but the girl did not seem to mind if Aqamdax did not answer her.

Aqamdax let her thoughts go back to the night before. She had not been surprised to hear someone scratch at the curtain of her sleeping place. Many hunters came to her in the night, though only a few had courage to enter He Sings’s ulax when the man was home from one of his many hunting trips.

Salmon, Aqamdax had thought. He visited her often. But when she pulled back the curtain, Day Breaker, He Sings’s oldest son, was there. Her breath caught so suddenly in her throat that she had not been able to say anything to him, only to open her arms, welcome him into the warmth of her fur seal sleeping robes.

He had taken her quickly, thrusting hard into her body, and she had been glad to feel the power of his need, but that was not what she remembered as she sat with Little Bird.

She remembered what he told her when he left her sleeping place: “Give me a son,” he had whispered, “then I will take you as my wife.”

THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

That day, their hunt had been to stand and look, to watch out over open hills, away from thickets of willow and alder that crowded the riverbanks.

“You will see steam rise, as if from water boiling,” Tsaani told Chakliux. “On a day of fog or snow you will not see it, but on a still, cold morning like this, it will be there, coming from the ground, and you will know a bear is waiting, warm in his den.”

This kind of hunting needed different songs, different prayers than what Chakliux knew, but during the moon that he had lived with his brother, Sok, Chakliux had learned much. His grandfather had even given him two of his bear hunting songs, a gift as precious as anything Chakliux ever hoped to receive.

But for all their looking, they saw nothing, and finally decided to return to the village. The men quarreled, snapping at one another like unfed dogs, all with eyes averted from Chakliux, ashamed that he had seen their defeat, yet angry also, muttering under their tongues that he had broken their luck.

A good way to bring peace, Chakliux thought bitterly. A good way to turn young hunters from dreams of battle. Then suddenly, Tsaani stopped. Chakliux looked at Tsaani, and Tsaani pointed with his chin toward his dog Black Nose.

Her paws pranced a nervous rhythm against the ground, and she whined high in her throat. Tsaani knelt beside her, and Chakliux saw her tremble.

Tsaani was old, but still he hunted, mostly because of his dogs, Black Nose and Long Tail and the newest one that he had never really given a name, except Dog—as good a name as any, Chakliux thought. All three animals now stood stiff-legged, the fur on their necks bristling.

To Chakliux, it seemed the two males were always at each other’s throats, trying to steal food from one another or competing to mount Black Nose, but when Tsaani took them hunting, they worked together, as though each dog knew the other’s thoughts. Tsaani told him they had taken down black bears larger than a man.

Tsaani motioned to the hunters behind him, moved his head in a jerk toward a mound of snow-covered earth that bulged from a hill to their left. The men crept up on bent legs, moving their feet in quietness. Long Tail began to dig into the frozen earth near the edge of the mound, flinging chunks of snow and dirt back between his legs as he dug.

A low growl rolled into Black Nose’s throat. Tsaani laid his hand against the top of her head and tightened his fingers over the dome of her skull. He had trained her to remain quiet on hunts until the men moved in to kill, but she was pregnant with a litter and more difficult to control.

Sok, a short-bladed knife in his hand, reached forward to slash the air just ahead of the dog’s nose. She dropped back to her haunches. In anger Tsaani clasped Sok’s wrist. What dog, trained to fear, reacted with courage when courage was needed? Sok’s dogs, if Tsaani had allowed them on this hunt, would now be cowering behind the men rather than digging quietly into the den.

Sok glared at Tsaani, his eyes flashing. Chakliux stepped up from the group of men, stood behind the dog and placed both hands against her back. Black Nose again rose to her feet, her muzzle thrust forward, her ears flat against her head.

Chakliux looked at Tsaani, motioned toward the den, then shook his head. Tsaani understood what he meant. There was something wrong. Black Nose did not growl without reason. It was strange, Tsaani thought, how well he hunted with this grandson, even though he had known him only a moon.

Tsaani signed for the hunters to circle the den. Suddenly Black Nose jumped, and a roar more like bear than dog came from her throat. Chakliux lunged to clasp the scruff of her neck but missed, falling forward before he could catch himself.

Suddenly the side of the hill erupted. A bear burst through the earth so that both Long Tail and Dog were flung back toward the hunters.

At first the men did not react. Even Tsaani, in all his years of hunting, had never seen an animal come from the earth in such a way.

Power is working, Tsaani thought. For a moment, he wondered if they should leave the bear. Was there some sacredness here that men had no right to destroy? Perhaps one of his hunters had broken a taboo or treated something with disrespect.

Tsaani’s thoughts slowed his hands, but Black Nose leapt toward the bear. Tsaani held his breath. The bear would rip open her belly as she jumped. But her quickness seemed to take the animal by surprise. She sank her teeth into his throat and hung by her jaws, a long swath of white against the bear’s black fur.

The bear shook his head, flinging dirt and mud from his face, then swiped at Black Nose, ripping his claws into her back. Blood stained her fur, and Tsaani moaned. Despite her wounds, the dog did not release her grip, and soon Long Tail and Dog also attacked, lunging in to bite the bear’s back legs.

The bear rolled his head and swatted at the dogs. He swung toward the circle of men and dropped to all fours, Black Nose still clinging to his neck. The bear turned on Chakliux, who was on hands and knees where he had fallen, his spear and throwing stick on the ground beside him.

Chakliux grabbed the spear and scrambled to his feet, favoring his weak leg, his clubbed foot. Sok moved to stand beside his brother, both facing the bear. Sok gripped his spearthrower and pulled back his arm. He threw, and the spear pierced the bear’s right shoulder, a deep wound.

The bear slapped at the spear, then gripped it in his teeth and broke the shaft, but the spearhead and bone foreshaft were still embedded in the shoulder.

Black Nose loosed her grip on the bear’s neck and scooted out from between his legs. The bear lunged at her as she ran, but caught nothing more than a tuft of fur. She circled to join Long Tail and Dog in attacking the bear’s hindquarters.

Tsaani threw his spear, then the other hunters also threw. The bear reared up one last time on his hind legs, the spears bristling from his head and sides, then he fell forward to lie still.

The hunters cried out when the bear fell, but when Tsaani went to the animal, they were silent. He gave a command to his dogs, and they backed away.

The hunters would butcher and skin the bear where it lay. How could a hunter expect to take more bears if he dragged one over the ground to the village as though it were nothing more than a woman’s pack being moved to fish camp?

For a time the men stood in silence, the quietness like a prayer of thanksgiving, but finally Tsaani raised his voice, first in a hunter’s singing chant, then in the ancient blessing: “We honor you who have honored us with your life.”

He stepped forward, took from his sleeve a sacred jade knife and carefully slit the bear’s eyes. If by some oversight, one of the hunters broke a taboo as he butchered the carcass, it was better the bear did not see. Using his long-bladed hunting knife, Tsaani cut off the bear’s paws to hold its spirit within, then motioned for the other hunters to join him.

When the butchering was done, they would eat the head meat and the tender, fat flesh around the first few ribs. The rest they would share with their families, but they would leave the hide here at the den, so no woman would be tempted to touch it and in that way destroy her husband’s hunting luck.

Tsaani groaned in pleasure. What was better than a full belly and a good wife? He leaned against the backrest Blueberry had woven from split willow. It creaked as he settled his shoulder blades into its mesh. He closed his eyes and let himself remember the hunt. It had been a good day.