Song of the River (59 page)

The thought of K’os made Tikaani uneasy. He needed to visit her more often. Since Ground Beater’s death, he no longer found the joy he once had in her bed. Perhaps because he was now recognized as chief hunter, he did not have to prove himself worthy of the honor by claiming the old chief hunter’s wife. Then, too, there were many mothers anxious for him to know their daughters. This summer he must take a wife. Why take K’os? He must choose a young woman who would bear him strong sons. He could still spend any night he chose in K’os’s lodge. Perhaps even this night….

He again studied the arrowhead in his hand. Night Man had carved a piece of caribou antler into a shaft as long and nearly as big around as his smallest finger. He tapered it to a point at one end and thinned it at the other so he could bind it to the arrow shaft. He had cut two vertical slits about half the length of the antler beginning at the point, one on either side of the shaft, then fitted a thin sharp edge of slate into each slit.

The arrowhead was light and strong, easier to make than knapped chert or obsidian heads.

Tikaani watched as Three Furs shot several arrows at their target. The man’s aim was true, and the new arrowheads easily penetrated the caribou hide. Tikaani sighed. Three Furs was a good hunter, but Night Man should be the one here with Tikaani, trying out the new points. Night Man was the kind of hunter any village needed. Strong and loyal, with a good mind. He deserved better than what he had—a living death and a Sea Hunter wife.

Little more than a year ago they had so much. Their father, Cloud Finder, was strong and alive, honored in the village. His sister Star had two young men who wanted her as wife. His mother had been full of laughter. His brothers Caribou and Stalker were both promising young hunters. Now only he himself was left whole and unchanged.

No, not unchanged.

Someday, he would find Chakliux. He would take great pleasure in being the one who killed him. In dishonor Chakliux would die, and he and Star and K’os, they would dance on his bones.

THE NORTH SEA

Chakliux awoke with the burn of salt water in his nose. He inhaled before he could stop himself, choked and panicked. When he realized he was upside down, he began to tear at the drip skirt that held him to the iqyax, then gathered his wits enough to pull the string that freed his paddle. He was still choking, his lungs starved for air, but he swung the paddle down and back, turning his body to gain momentum. The iqyax shuddered but remained inverted.

Again, he struggled with his drip skirt, but then he asked himself how long he would live outside his iqyax in the cold of the North Sea—even if he was able to swim free. Better to die now, better to take in that next mouthful of water.

His chest heaved, and darkness edged his vision. Then he saw Aqamdax, not her bones but her face. She opened her mouth to speak, and her voice came to him as clearly as if she were with him, in the water, in the cold.

“Look, I see something.” She held up one hand, and he saw the knotted sinew on her wrist, the shape of an otter head in a design of knots.

Like an otter, he twisted his body, thrust back, then forward, with his paddle. He felt the iqyax turn, rise beneath him, respond to his movement, lift him from the sea. He drew in a long breath, partially air, partially the water that streamed from his head and face. He gagged and choked. Vomited water. Choked again. Inhaled. Filled his lungs. Filled his lungs. Was alive.

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

K’os called and the boy came to her. He was young, eight summers, perhaps nine. A fine, strong boy and Fire Eater’s only son—in a lodge of girls, the only son. She dangled the charm before him.

“It is something I made for you,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes. A smart one, this boy, and that was why she had chosen him. A promise, he was, for the whole village. A boy like this might well be chief hunter someday. He had already been taken on a bear hunt, a rare honor for one so young. His first kill had not been a yellowlegs—that small, weak bird that was first-kill feast for so many boys. A lynx had been stalking him and his youngest sister, and the boy had killed it, earning himself a new name.

“Lynx Killer,” she said to him, speaking in a voice that would flatter—the voice she used when she spoke to men. “Lynx Killer, I have had a vision. You are to be the next chief hunter, after your cousin Tikaani. The spirits told me to make you this charm.”

He tilted his head, reached for the caribouskin pouch that dangled by its drawstring from her fingers.

She pulled the pouch away before he could touch it, then she smiled and allowed a rift of laughter to lighten her words. “It must be earned,” she told him.

“How?”

His voice was hard, held no respect, and a spark of anger burned in her chest. Too bad the child would not live long enough to know her true powers, though perhaps as he died he would begin to understand. Surely, as his spirit rose from his body, he would know who killed him. She smiled a sweet smile, tender, as a mother smiles at her son.

“You know the stand of black spruce that hunters call seven sisters?”

She saw his surprise.

“You wonder that I know such a thing, knowledge that is for men only,” she said. “I am the healer in this village. There are certain things a healer must know to hold the power needed to make medicines. Do not worry. This is not taboo for me. I am different. Ask your cousin Tikaani. He will tell you.”

The boy nodded slowly, but his eyes never left her face. “I know the seven sisters,” he said.

“Go there. You are to tell no one where you are going or why. Go there, if you are brave enough. Then sit down and close your eyes. Wait, and the spirits will tell you what to do. Take water with you, but no food. Take your knife and your spears. Once you leave the village, if you see someone and they ask you where you are going, only raise your spears and say, ‘I hunt.’”

“My father will not let me go there alone.”

“You are not alone. No man is alone when he goes on such a quest. Besides, your father already knows that you go. He has already given you his blessing. Go now, do not wait. Get your weapons and go.”

She watched as the boy ran back through the village toward his mother’s lodge. The woman was at the cooking hearths. K’os had seen her there only moments before, and he would have no trouble with his father. She walked back through the village, past Lynx Killer’s mother, her dark head bent toward the woman next to her, the two covering their mouths and whispering together as K’os dipped a bowl of meat from one of the boiling bags.

When K’os came to her own lodge, she lowered the hood of her parka before crawling into the entry tunnel, then she stood, smiled at Fire Eater. The man was lying naked in her bedding furs. She set aside the bowl of meat she had brought from the hearths, laughed and said, “Perhaps you will want to eat later.”

He joined her laughter.

She pulled off her parka, boots and leggings, knelt over him, lifted his hands to her breasts, then straddled his torso. “I saw your son,” she said. “He told me he is going hunting.”

A shadow passed over Fire Eater’s eyes, but she raised up and slid herself down over him. “I told him not to go far,” she said.

Ghaden arranged the pebbles between the two lines he had scratched out in the snow. Lynx Killer ran past him.

“Lynx Killer!” Ghaden called out, but the boy did not stop, did not even look at him.

Ghaden felt his disappointment well up into tears. Lynx Killer was the one boy in the village who almost always talked to him, even though Lynx Killer was nearly old enough to be a hunter. Ghaden lowered his head over his pebbles. He rubbed his fists across his eyes. What would Lynx Killer think if he saw Ghaden cry over such a silly thing? He blinked back his tears and swallowed them. They were salt in his mouth; they burned his throat.

He returned to his game. Each pebble was a caribou. They were crossing a river and would soon head into the hunters’ trap. He was not sure how hunters caught caribou, but the Cousin River boys talked about caribou hunts all the time. Aqamdax said if Night Man got stronger, they would go on a caribou hunt themselves, but Ghaden didn’t think Night Man was getting stronger.

“Ghaden!”

Ghaden looked up. It was Lynx Killer. The boy held several throwing spears in his left hand and had a hunting knife in a sheath on his right leg, bird darts and a dartthrower in his right hand.

“I am going to hunt. That’s why I couldn’t stop and play. Sorry.” His words were quick, spoken as though he was out of breath. Ghaden raised up on his knees and watched Lynx Killer run through the village until the lodges hid him from Ghaden’s eyes.

It was a good place, this Cousin River Village, Ghaden thought. Especially since Aqamdax came to live with them. Old bone man couldn’t get them here. He didn’t even know where they were.

Ghaden looked down at his caribou game and drew in his breath. A bird dart lay across the pebbles. Lynx Killer must have dropped it. If Ghaden hurried, he could catch him before he left the village.

He jumped up, then looked back at the lodge. He should tell Yaa, but she was at the cooking hearths, so was Star. The old grandmother, Long Eyes, was inside, and Aqamdax and Night Man, but he didn’t want to disturb Night Man. He would run fast and be back to the lodge before they knew he had left. Ghaden untied Biter’s rope, and the dog followed him.

THE NORTH SEA

Though his chigdax had shed most of the water, Chakliux was cold, his hands stiff, his fingers numb. He untied a bag of dried fish from the deck of the iqyax and ate. The food strengthened him, and he looked out again over the ice, east then south. He blinked twice before he allowed himself to believe what he was seeing. Though ice still blocked his way, the shore was close. Surely, if he was patient, he would find an open lead that would allow him to beach his iqyax.

Winter had scoured the inlets and beaches into new shapes, but he thought he recognized a few hills that were just south of the Walrus Hunter Village. Soon he would be back at the Near River Village.

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

“Biter! You stupid dog turd.”

Ghaden had run through the village, Biter at his heels, but as they passed the last lodge, ignoring the jeering daughters who belonged to the woman Grebe, a hare had cut across the path. Biter jumped after it, disappearing into the brush before Ghaden could even react.

He followed the dog a short distance, called him, but Biter didn’t return. Finally Ghaden returned to the path, to the laughter of Grebe’s daughters. He held up Lynx Killer’s hunting dart and asked if they had seen him. The youngest girl said that he had walked north from the village and disappeared into the spruce forest just before Ghaden and Biter came. She was giggling, even as she told him.

Ghaden ran down the path, into the dark of the spruce. He and Aqamdax had walked through a lot of woods on the journey from the Near River Village, but that had been mostly leafless willow and birch, the low brush that grew close to the river.

This was different. The trees were so big they blocked out the light. The ground was spongy with melting snow, and he could feel the crunch of the spruce needles under his feet. How far should he go? He looked back often. Finally the path’s opening was only a tiny brightness in the dark of the trees.

He listened, hoping to hear Lynx Killer walking, but the only sound was that of the wind pushing through the spruce boughs, the tree voices talking softly, like old women sewing around a winter hearth fire.

He’d better go back. He’d never find Lynx Killer, and besides, Biter might catch that hare and take it to the lodge. He liked to be there when Biter did something like that. After all, Biter was his dog, and when he brought back meat, Star was always a little nicer, not so apt to do the small mean things that plagued his days—pinching, a foot thrust out to trip, angry words about things Ghaden did not understand, and worst of all, the quick sharp slaps with a willow stick across his cheeks and hands, something that she also did to Yaa, though Yaa was better at holding in her tears than he was.

Those things did not happen when Aqamdax was in the lodge, but she could not always be there, and, of course, there were those days when she had to be in the women’s lodge, five long days of Star’s willow stick and of different women coming to help care for Night Man. Sometimes even the tall, strange K’os came. When Ghaden saw her, he always tried to hide.

He knew she was good, though she did not look like a good person. She brought Night Man medicine. She had medicine for Star, too. After Star took K’os’s medicine, she was quiet, often smiled, though she would forget to give Ghaden food when she was like that, and afterward she slept for a long time.

He turned back down the path, walked a short way and stopped. If Grebe’s daughters were still outside, they would know he had not gone very far. Maybe he should sit down and wait. Maybe Lynx Killer would come back this way, or maybe Biter would sniff out Ghaden’s trail if he was still and allowed his smell to stay in one place for a while.

Ghaden crouched on his haunches. He thought about being old enough to hunt like Lynx Killer, to have his own spears and bird darts and a hunting knife. His right leg began to ache. He and Biter had been wrestling the day before, and Biter had jumped on him, left two dark bruises on his thigh. Ghaden stood, stretched the leg, then saw a tree with a wide low branch. He climbed to the branch, settled himself back against the trunk. He closed his eyes. It was still too cold for mosquitoes or flies, and the ground was not yet soupy with melt water. It was a good time of year.

During the past moon, they had all been a little hungry, but no one was starving, and maybe Biter would catch that hare. Then they would have fresh meat in the stew … and soon they would go on the spring caribou hunt. That would be good. Then they would eat until their bellies almost burst. That’s what Lynx Killer had told him. They would eat and eat and not be hungry for a long, long time….