Song of the River (51 page)

The old man laughed. “No,” he said. “I told you I am Cen, your father, Cen.”

His father? No, his father was dead. He had died while Ghaden stayed in the shaman’s lodge, while he was getting over the knife wound.

“My father died,” Ghaden said.

“One of your fathers,” the man told him. “I am your other father. Your first father. When your mother decided to stay with the River People, you got another father.”

Ghaden tilted his head, stared at the man. He did look a little like Cen. Just a little, and his voice was Cen’s voice. When Ghaden closed his eyes and listened, it was like Cen talking. He had Cen’s trader packs. Even the boots he wore looked like Cen’s boots, though maybe not exactly.

“Why do you have caribou hair?” Ghaden finally asked.

“To make me look old.”

“Why?”

“So I could sneak close to the village and take you to live with me.”

“Why?”

“Because I am your father.”

“Brown Water will be mad.”

“Do not worry about Brown Water. I will protect you from her. How could I let you grow up with Brown Water when I want to teach you to be a trader like me, and to hunt and to paddle a trader’s boat?”

Ghaden stuck his thumb in his mouth, spoke around it. “I want Biter. I want my Yaa.”

“I will get you a dog. A better dog than Biter, bigger and better.”

Ghaden shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, then got up and went to where they had laid Aqamdax. He sat down beside her, his back turned so he could not see the old man who said he was Cen. Ghaden wound his hand into Aqamdax’s hair. He would wait for her to wake up, then they would leave these old men and go back to their own village. The next time Yaa said they couldn’t take Biter with them to the den, he wouldn’t go either.

“Leave the woman.” A man’s voice. He spoke the River language.

Aqamdax lay with eyes closed. She knew Ghaden was beside her, could feel his small hands stroking her head, clutching her hair. He shuddered now and again, as though he were trying to hold in tears.

“I will not leave her,” another man said. Though his words were River, his voice held the accent of a trader, a man who spoke many languages, each leaving some bit of itself, like a stone holds the colors of the seeds and dried berries ground on it. “She was my wife’s daughter. I will not leave her.”

Aqamdax’s eyes almost flew open at his words. His wife’s daughter? Her first thoughts were of her own father, drowned in the North Sea. Had she left the earth and gone to live in the spirit world? Then she realized her foolishness. This man was a trader. Probably the one who had brought her mother to the River Village. Perhaps Ghaden’s father.

Slowly, she opened her eyes to narrow slits, tried to see through the fringe of her eyelashes. Yes, there were two men. They were squatting on their haunches near their packs. Her pack, too, was there. Though it was difficult to see the men clearly, they seemed to have the white hair of elders, but held their bodies erect like young hunters. Who were they? Why had they attacked her and Ghaden and Yaa?

Yaa! Where was she? Had they killed her?

“How will you bring her? She is too heavy to carry. She will only slow us down. They will find the other one and come after us. A good tracker will soon see the signs we left to guide us back through the trees.”

If I lie still, Aqamdax thought, they will leave me. Then I can go for help. But they will take Ghaden, and what if our hunters cannot find them?

She turned her head, opened her eyes and smiled at Ghaden. He smiled at her, a wide smile.

She raised her head, clenched her teeth against the pain and sat up. The whole side of her face ached.

“I will go with you,” she said. The words were slurred, and she raised her hand to her mouth. Her lips were swollen, crusted with blood.

Both men looked startled. One stood, came toward her. Even in the shadows of the forest, she could see that the white in his hair had been sewn in, like embroidery, that it was … caribou hair. His face was wrinkled and dark, scarred as well, but his eyes were the eyes of a young man, his teeth white, his lips not yet thinned with age.

“I am Cen,” he said, speaking in the First Men language. “I have no knife.” He held his hands out, fingers open, in the greeting Aqamdax had seen so often. The words, in her own language, were like a gift, but she warned herself that just because a man spoke her language did not mean he was a friend.

“I will go with you and my brother,” she said, and reached to pull Ghaden into her lap.

“You can walk?” the other man asked. “We cannot carry you. As soon as it is dark, we will leave.”

“Where are you going?”

The man squinted his eyes into slits, and Aqamdax wished she had not asked.

“A long way,” he finally said, then spoke to the one called Cen. “You know the choice you have. If you take her, you are responsible for her.”

“I want them both,” the man said, then went to his pack, untied a water bladder and pulled out dried fish. He thrust them at Aqamdax. “Eat and be sure your brother eats. We will not stop until morning.”

The thought of food nauseated her, but she forced herself to take a bite, then gave the fish to Ghaden. “Eat,” she told him, and prayed he did not refuse.

“I want Yaa. I want Biter,” he said in a small voice.

“Ghaden, you have to eat.” He stared into her eyes, watched as she took another bite, then he, too, ate.

How could the dog disappear? It had been with him, only a little ahead of him, then the path turned and Biter was gone.

How does any animal disappear? he asked himself. Ground squirrels, foxes, even ptarmigan in snow? They have holes, safe places, hidden dens.

Unlike most of the black spruce that grew at the edge of the village, the branches of those at the sides of the path grew to the ground. He lowered himself to hands and knees, pushing aside grass and branches, peering into the dark recesses under the boughs. The tree at the corner, where the path turned toward the women’s place, was the largest. Its branches were a jagged circle that extended out almost the length of a man’s body from the trunk. He lifted up the largest branch. There was another, smaller, growing under it. He lifted this branch, then caught his breath as something shot from under the tree.

Chakliux reached for his sleeve knife, whipped the blade from the sheath before he saw that the animal was a dog. He dropped the knife before Biter, in his eagerness, could impale himself on the point.

“Where were you?” Chakliux asked, then lifted the branch again, held it up as the dog wiggled back under the tree and into a dark hole that seemed to dip down beneath the roots.

Chakliux followed the dog, pushing himself into the hole. His shoulders stuck, the earth like hands, holding him. He kicked hard with his strong right leg, once, twice, then found himself in a den, his hair caught painfully in a tangle of tree roots. Gradually his eyes adjusted until he could see Biter and something huddled beside him.

It moved, and he heard a small voice, Yaa’s voice: “Biter, now everyone knows where our secret place is. You bad dog.”

Chakliux carried her as he had once carried Ghaden, but this time, Biter was at his heels, snapping at anyone who came too close. By the time they were at Brown Water’s lodge, a troop of children were behind him, the older boys asking questions, one of the girls crying. He called at the lodge entrance, then went inside. When she saw him, Happy Mouth cried out, began a high screaming lament that Brown Water stopped with a quick hand over the woman’s mouth.

“Do not invite death,” Brown Water said, and tucked her fingertips against the girl’s neck. “She is alive.”

Happy Mouth rolled out sleeping furs, and Chakliux laid the girl down. He held Biter away from her face as Brown Water and Happy Mouth checked her arms and legs, lifted her parka and palpitated her belly and chest, then finally ran quick hands over her head.

“Here,” Brown Water said, her fingers probing over Yaa’s left ear.

Happy Mouth pressed her own fingers in the same place, and Chakliux saw Yaa wince. “It hurts?” Happy Mouth asked the girl.

“Yes,” Yaa said in a tiny voice.

Chakliux, kneeling behind the women, felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Ligige’.

“Best Fist came and got me,” she whispered to him. “Where did you find Yaa?”

“Out by the women’s path there is a large spruce. Under it—”

“I know the place,” Ligige’ said. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“No.”

Yaa lifted her head, struggled to see past her mother and Brown Water, her eyes seeking out Chakliux. “Ghaden?” she asked.

“He was not there.”

She fell back against the bedding furs, closed her eyes. “I should have … he wanted to bring Biter. They took him.”

“Who took him?” Chakliux asked.

“And Aqamdax,” she said.

“That woman,” said Brown Water. “That woman took him. I knew she would. We should send hunters after them. She can’t be too far, a woman with a child.”

“No,” Yaa said, but Brown Water had lifted her voice, was telling Chakliux to speak to the elders, was asking Ligige’ to find young hunters.

“No!” Yaa said again, and then she suddenly sat up, cupped her hands over her mouth and began to retch.

Happy Mouth grabbed a bark sael and held it under her daughter’s chin, but Brown Water turned to Chakliux. “You know that Sea Hunter woman as well as anyone. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“Her husband threw her away this morning,” Ligige’ said. “She came to me after. She had a pack of trade goods, and she was looking for Ghaden and Yaa.”

“You told her where they were?” Brown Water screeched. She flung one arm back to Yaa’s bed. “Look what she did to our little daughter.”

“She might have decided to leave the village,” Ligige’ said, ignoring Brown Water. “She might want to return to her own people, but I do not think she would hurt anyone, especially a child.”

Brown Water pressed one finger into Chakliux’s chest. “You and your brother, this is your fault. Go find her and bring back Ghaden.”

Chakliux looked past Brown Water to Ligige’. “She did not say where she was going?”

“No.”

“I will find her,” Chakliux said. “Take care of the little daughter.” He pulled a sinew string of smooth shell beads from his neck. It was one of the gifts he had planned to give Aqamdax. He handed it to Happy Mouth. “For Yaa,” he said, “when she is feeling better.” Then he left the lodge.

“I found it. It is mine,” River Ice Dancer said.

“We all found it. We were all together. It has to belong to all of us,” said Black Moon.

The four boys stood around the iqyax. It had been nestled inside a bark cache set high in a tree.

“It might be my uncle’s,” Carries Much told the others, but they hooted out their derision.

Carries Much shrugged his shoulders.

“Did your uncle say he had an iqyax?”

“He never talked about it,” Carries Much said. “But he knows how to make them. So does my father.”

“Do you see their mark on it?” Black Moon asked.

Carries Much ran his hand over the smooth walrus hide cover. “Maybe that,” he said, and lifted his chin toward a series of white circles near the pointed bow.

“Maybe that,” River Ice Dancer said, his voice pitched higher to imitate Carries Much.

River Ice Dancer was the oldest of the boys, several years older than Carries Much, and larger than all of them. “It’s mine,” he told them again. “I’m going to keep it.” Suddenly he lunged out and grabbed the front of Carries Much’s parka, twisted his hand into the fur until Carries Much began to choke. “And if anybody tells his uncle or any uncle, he can count himself happy to be dead.” He released Carries Much so suddenly that the boy nearly fell to the ground.

The other boys laughed nervously, then Black Moon leaned down and offered Carries Much his hand.

“I think I’ll put it in a different place,” River Ice Dancer said. “If we find a tree with some good-sized branches, that should be rack enough for it. Just to keep it off the ground.”

He set his right shoulder under one side and lifted. “Here, help me. Black Moon, you get on the other side. Stone Thrower, you take the back. Carries Much, go home to your mother. You might need to suck on her teats.”

She wouldn’t leave without talking to him, Chakliux told himself. Their friendship had been too deep … but perhaps only to him. He was brother to her husband. Why should she think Chakliux would want her once Sok in anger threw her away?

Perhaps she only pretended friendship. As storyteller, he had something to offer her. He had told her tales from Caribou traders, even shared stories the North Tundra men said were from people who lived so close to the rising sun that they lit their cooking hearths from its flame.

But whatever had been between them, whether it was true or not true, if Aqamdax had decided to return to her own people and take her brother with her, how would she go? She would have to follow the river to the sea, then walk the shore. She could take birds with nets and fish with a handline, but her brother would slow her down. He was too old to carry far and too young to walk any great distance. Surely she knew it was too close to winter to make such a journey. Surely she knew someone would come after her, if only to get the boy back.

Then a thought came that pulled his breath from his chest, as though someone had sunk a fist into his belly. She might have taken his iqyax.

With the iqyax her brother would be no hindrance, and she could paddle wide around the Walrus Hunter Village, where the people might still want to kill her. So then, he asked himself, do you sit here and wonder, or do you go and see if your iqyax is still there?

He stopped at Red Leaf’s lodge, took spear and throwing board, another knife and a bladder of oil. It was foolish to think Aqamdax would have taken the iqyax, he told himself, but he should go and oil the cover, remove it and store it in a dry place for the winter. By the time he reached the storage cache, it was nearly dark.

He climbed up into the tree, then called out his anguish, a warrior’s cry.

Chapter Thirty-seven