Song of the River (53 page)

She had finally returned to K’os, to the woman’s anger, her sharp words and slapping fingers. K’os cut Twisted Stalk’s woven mat into strips, then told Aqamdax to feed it to the fire, but Aqamdax saved part of it and hid it in the entrance tunnel, later used it to pad her own bed.

Today, there would be no children outside. Even the dogs were curled close to the lodges, tails covering noses, snow mounding over them. She walked lodge to lodge, remembered the stories some of the women had told her about people lost in snowstorms, some not found until spring. Who in this village would even notice she was gone if such a thing happened to her?

Star did not allow Ghaden and Yaa to be with Aqamdax, shielded their eyes with her hand if they walked past her or met her at the village hearths. They were not even allowed to come when K’os planned a storytelling. Star claimed it was because Aqamdax was slave, but Aqamdax thought it more likely that the woman feared she would steal the children, take them back to the Near River Village.

But why should she return to the Near River Village? No one there wanted her. Not Sok, or Red Leaf; perhaps Chakliux, but if he had cared for her, why hadn’t he come after her?

Aqamdax turned and walked backward into the wind. She ran into the next lodge, tripping over a pile of wood and driving snow up under the back of her parka. It was too cold to do such a foolish thing, she told herself as she got up and brushed out the snow before it could melt. She fought her way through the village and to the tree that stood just beyond the last lodge. She stopped there in hopes that she might find a limb broken off by the wind, but there was nothing, and branches that had once been within her reach had been taken by other hands for other hearth fires.

The path that had been easy to find in the morning was now buried, but even in the snow and wind, Aqamdax thought she could see the dark edge of the forest. She walked toward it, pulling her hood so tightly around her face that only her eyes showed. Her toes were like pieces of wood and her fingers ached with the cold.

As she entered the forest, the wind pulled a strange song from the trees, and Aqamdax wrapped her arms around herself. The First Men were not a people of forests. Who could tell what spirits hid in those gnarled branches? Who could say what amulets and songs would appease them?

Aqamdax opened her mouth and chanted her thanks, a praise song for the trees, something she made up as she sang. Then she heard a cracking above her head, a sound that vibrated through the earth. She pressed herself against a tree trunk, looked up through the branches. The top of the tree tipped and fell, breaking away lower branches, moving slowly as though in a dream, and flinging snow into Aqamdax’s face when it hit the ground.

Biter scratched at the side of the lodge, and Yaa made a face at the dog. He had not been out all day, so she was sure he had to go, but the storm was fierce, and for some reason the wind seemed to scare Ghaden. Star ignored the dog, as she always did, as she had since she and Ghaden had screamed at each other over the dog’s right to stay in the lodge rather than be tied outside like other dogs. Often Yaa felt as if she were mother to both Ghaden and Star, though Star had the face and body of an adult.

There were good days when Star took care of Ghaden, fed him, made clothes for him. She taught Yaa to sew caribou hair into patterns of leaves and flowers on her clothing. Then she would suddenly become as whiny and fretful as a child, arguing over small things and pinching when she couldn’t get her way.

Star’s mother, Long Eyes, was worse than Star. She sat all day, rocking side to side and singing a song with words Yaa could not understand. Long Eyes left the lodge only twice a day to visit the women’s place, and once a month to spend four or five days in the moon blood lodge. Those were the best times, if Star was also good. The worst times were like now, when both women were in the lodge and Star was behaving like a child, screaming out her demands, sometimes even trying to curl herself into her mother’s lap. It was a curse, Trail Climber had told her. Something that happened to the mother when her husband was killed by K’os’s son. That son was gone, had left the village in shame, and everyone was forbidden even to say his name, but the hunters in the village were preparing to seek revenge, were going to attack the village where this son now lived.

They even had new weapons, Trail Climber had told her, but had whispered that Yaa could tell no one, not even Ghaden. She had promised, then had asked Trail Climber if Star had also changed into this strange woman-child at the death of her father. Trail Climber told her that Star had always been that way, spoiled and expecting more than others had, but that she became worse after her father died.

During bad times, Yaa reminded herself of the three handfuls of days it had taken her and Biter to find the Cousin River Village. She remembered the howling of wolves, the bear tracks. She had not known the night sky was so wide, the stars’ light so feeble against the darkness. When they ran out of food, she had eaten berries that made her so sick she could walk only a short way before resting, and when Biter had caught a ptarmigan, she did not even have the strength to make a fire. She and Biter had eaten it raw, slept, then started out again. They came to the Cousin River Village that evening, Yaa so weak that she had to lean on Biter just to walk.

When Yaa remembered that, she was grateful for Star and Long Eyes, for the warm lodge they shared with her and with Ghaden, especially on storm days like this one.

“Star,” Yaa said, seeing that Biter’s scratching was becoming more frantic, “I have to let Biter out.”

Star looked at Yaa with empty eyes, but Ghaden gripped Biter’s fur.

“He cannot go into the bowl like you,” Yaa told him. “If he goes inside maybe Star will get angry and tie him outside.”

She did not want to remind him that the Cousin River People often ate dogs, more than the Near River People did, especially dogs that did not have golden eyes. She saw the knowledge in Ghaden’s face. He released his hold, and Yaa whispered, “Go to Star. Climb into her lap. You might distract her enough for me to let Biter out.”

“He will come back?” Ghaden asked, looking up at the crust of snow that had formed over the smoke hole.

Yaa, too, looked up, told herself she would have to clear the snow away now, and also during the night, if the storm did not stop.

“Biter’s too smart to stay out in this storm,” Yaa told Ghaden, then waited as he climbed into Star’s lap and used his fingers like a comb to stroke Star’s hair. Yaa crept to the entrance tunnel, opened the flap for the dog, crawled after him to the outside doorflap, broke the snow away from the edges and let him out. She waited for a moment, then called him. She peeked outside, could see that he stood with his nose pointed up, as though to smell the wind, then he turned and followed her back inside.

“Stay away from the tunnel. Don’t go out,” Star said when Yaa returned. Ghaden was sitting in front of her and had her hair combed down over her face. Yaa found a shell comb from one of Star’s baskets and crouched beside him. She motioned with her head toward Biter, and Ghaden crawled over to the dog, wiped the snow from the dog’s fur.

Yaa pulled the comb through Star’s long, thick hair. “I’m right here,” she told Star. “Don’t worry. We won’t go outside.”

The men sat together in the hunters’ lodge. Those with wives grumbled of too much time spent listening to children whine and women complain.

Tikaani looked at his brother, Night Man. He seemed to be a little stronger, able to stand now and hobble across the lodge if he braced himself with a walking stick. Though his legs were not injured, the wound in his shoulder had not yet healed, and it had spread its poison through his body, leaving painful lumps at his groin, the backs of his knees and under both arms.

It was a poison that even K’os was not able to stop, and she blamed its power on the Near River People, told the men that they must destroy that village or the poison would spread from Night Man to every Cousin River hunter. In the autumn, with food and wood plentiful, it was something to think about, killing those Near Rivers. The warriors honed their skills with spears and spearthrowers, with knives, and also with the new sacred weapon K’os had won for them through her cunning.

But now there was more to think about than revenge. Now, the village food caches were nearly empty. With the poor salmon runs, they did not have enough food to get them through until spring, even though their caribou hunting had brought them more meat than usual. The hunters’ lodge was also nearly out of firewood, though he knew K’os had a large supply brought to her by the hardworking First Men woman he and Cen had captured from the Near River Village. She would not be slave for long, that one. Already the children looked forward to hearing her stories, and elders also made one excuse or another to listen.

Storytelling was a good diversion for children, but young hunters lost patience listening to old men. What good were their stories? Could they fill bellies or warm lodges?

Black Caribou was speaking, his tale long and rambling, but finally he finished, and before another old man could begin, Tikaani interrupted with a riddle.

Black Caribou narrowed his eyes, but Tikaani ignored him.

“Look! What do I see?” Tikaani said. He glanced at the old men who looked at him in surprise. Did they think it strange that a young warrior would speak? Hard times called for new ways. “Look! What do I see?” Tikaani said again. “There are no tracks under it.”

The old men did not look at him. Some moved their jaws as though they had to chew on his words, to tear them into pieces to understand the hidden meaning.

Finally Night Man spoke, drawing the old men’s eyes. “An empty food cache,” he said.

“An empty food cache,” Tikaani repeated, proud of his brother’s quick mind.

“I have food enough,” said Black Caribou.

“For you or for the whole village?” Tikaani asked. “Because if you have only food for yourself, then that is not enough.”

“For myself and my wife,” Black Caribou answered in a smaller, less boastful voice.

“It is because of the fish,” another of the elders said.

“The Near Rivers, their curse,” said one of the young men. “Chakliux, that one.”

Some agreed; others lifted voices to disagree, and though Tikaani might have welcomed the debate at another time, today there were more important things to talk about.

“How will we gain revenge if we die before summer?” he asked.

The men were silent.

Finally Black Caribou said, “Tikaani is right.”

“So then you will go out in this storm and hunt?” Night Man asked, and lifted his hand toward the top of the lodge, where the wind cried out against the warmth of their fire. “Even our wood supply is running low.”

“The women are lazy.”

Night Man shrugged. “They worry about their own lodges first. What else do you expect? They think about their children.”

“Who do they think feeds their children?”

“I will go out to hunt,” Tikaani said. “Once this storm ends.”

“You expect to find anything other than hares?”

“I have no problem eating hares.” He looked at Black Caribou’s soot-stained face, at the other hunters in the lodge. They were thin, but not yet starving, at the stage of hunger that brings irritation, not lethargy. Still it was a difficult time to get men to hunt. The women’s traps had taken all the small game close to the village, and the caribou had traveled south to their sheltered winter feeding grounds. What hunter wanted to spend days in the snow only to bring back women’s meat—hares, ptarmigan?

“So who will come with me?” Tikaani asked.

He waited but no one spoke.

Finally Night Man said, “I will go.”

Tikaani nearly refused the offer, but then saw the pride in his brother’s eyes. “Good,” he said. “Night Man and I will go.” He waited again, sure that Night Man’s offer would shame other hunters into joining them, but the men kept their heads lowered, eyes averted.

“There is nothing to hunt,” someone said. The words were whispered so Tikaani could not tell who spoke. What good was a man’s pride if it kept him from taking hares in a time of little food? And who could say? Even a man out looking for hares sometimes found a caribou.

“When the wind dies, when the snow stops, Night Man and I will go,” Tikaani said. “It is good for our women that there are two hunters in this village.”

The wood was heavy, and her hands were numb, so sometimes Aqamdax did not realize she had lost her grip on the branches until they fell at her feet. She dragged the tree top, and cradled the smaller broken branches in her left arm. At the edge of the woods, she stopped, looked out into the white of the storm. Without the trees to catch a portion of the wind and snow, she could see nothing but the next step. Even the prints of her snowshoes had been filled, as though she had never come to the woods, as though she had stayed warm and safe in K’os’s lodge.

The lodges of the Cousin River Village were spaced farther apart than those of the Near River People, and she was afraid she might have the poor fortune of walking between them, walking through the village and beyond. She wished she had counted her steps from the last lodge to the edge of the woods.

Ten tens, she thought. Surely no more than that. She tightened her grip on the branches, ducked her head against the wind and began counting. After each ten steps, she stopped, but every time saw only a curtain of white. The wind seemed to suck the air from her lungs, but she went on until she had counted ten steps ten times. There was nothing. Only white, snow, wind.

“You are not far enough,” she said, speaking the words aloud, thinking the sound of her voice would give her courage, but the wind took the words before they could come to her ears.

She did not realize she had sunk to her knees until she leaned forward and felt the snow against her face. She closed her eyes. Perhaps if she rested, only for a short time …

No. Had she forgotten the many River stories of people lost in storms who had slept themselves into death? She lifted one leg, planted her foot on the ground, dropped the wood to push herself up, hand on knee, then picked up the wood and continued to walk.