Song of the River (6 page)

Tsaani was an old man—so old he had lost track of the summers he had seen, fourteen handfuls at least. Since Stars-in-her-mouth had died during the winter, he was the oldest person in the village. His sister Ligige’ had three or four summers less than he did, though sometimes, when she was in a sour mood, she claimed to be the oldest.

He heard the doorflap open, then his wife’s soft steps. He was particularly glad he was not a woman. A woman could not eat the bear’s head or rib meat, could not even call the bear by name. The animal was too sacred. At least there had been fat enough for each family to have a share, and the old women could eat the bitaala’, the long fatness that rests between a bear’s stomach and liver. That would quiet any old woman’s complaints.

They were a problem, those old women. He remembered a time when they had kept their mouths shut except to tell stories or give advice, but the old women now! Of course, they were led by Ligige’, whose mouth had been noisy since she came from their mother’s womb.

Tsaani opened his eyes to look at Blueberry. He had taken her soon after her first moon blood time, less than a year ago. She had not yet swelled with child, but Tsaani was in her blankets often, hoping to give himself a son in his old age. It was his only true sorrow, that his sons and all but one daughter had died in childhood.

Blueberry smiled and raised her eyebrows at him. “Someone thought you were asleep,” she said, speaking with the politeness of wife for husband, the young for the old. “Sok is outside. He asks for you.”

“Tell him to come inside,” Tsaani said. It would be a good way to end this day, a time to discuss the bear hunt, fixing it in his mind with words.

Blueberry crouched to call out through the entrance tunnel. The People were still in their winter camp, in the stout winter lodges. Each was a circle dug into the earth, four, five handlengths deep, roofed with double layers of caribou hide sewn together in lapped seams, then greased to keep out water. The roof had an opening in the center, its flaps propped with sticks that could be moved to keep out rain or direct the hearth smoke.

Tsaani allowed his eyes to linger on the curve of Blueberry’s back where it narrowed into her hips. He had been alone many years after his last wife’s death, relying on Ligige’ to take care of him. It was good to have his own wife again, to know joy in his sleeping robes. It was also good to be away from Ligige’’s sharp tongue. There had been times when Tsaani thought it might be easier to do the women’s work himself rather than live with his sister.

Sok stepped into the lodge, his eyes respectfully averted from Blueberry and lowered in the presence of his grandfather, but Tsaani saw the smile that twitched at the corner of Sok’s face, and he felt the same smile in his own mouth. What man among the hunters today would not smile? A bear during the Moon of Empty Bellies. It was a favorable sign, especially after a third summer without many salmon.

Sok sat across from Tsaani, the hearth coals warming the space between them. Blueberry picked up her birchbark sael and left the lodge. She would probably go to the cooking hearths at the center of the village to bring back something in case he or Sok was still hungry. Though he did not think he could eat more, he would try so Blueberry would know he appreciated her efforts.

In politeness Sok did not speak, waiting, Tsaani knew, for him to begin the conversation. The warmth of the hearth fire and the fullness of his belly made Tsaani’s eyes turn toward sleep, but finally he asked, “Your belly is full?”

Sok replied with raised eyebrows and laughter.

“You should be ready for more,” Tsaani told him, and motioned toward his wife’s empty place on the women’s side of the lodge.

When Blueberry returned, she offered her sael first to Tsaani, who saw with gladness that she did not bring more meat, but had gone to their raised storage cache and brought back cakes of dried berries and hardened caribou fat. He took a cake and held it up so Sok could see. Sok grunted his appreciation and took two. Blueberry’s cheeks dimpled, and she looked back over one shoulder at Tsaani, like a child seeking a father’s approval.

Tsaani nodded his head at her. Blueberry was a useful woman. She had been well-named.

Blue-head Duck had told Tsaani that a trader had come to their village that day. The river ice was strong—would be strong for at least another moon—so the man had come on foot, over the frozen rivers of late winter. He might have some small thing that would make a woman happy, especially if Tsaani offered him a bear claw.

“Black Nose?” Sok asked as he bit into the berry cake.

“The wounds are not deep,” Tsaani replied. “Do you have any goose grass?”

“Yes,” Sok said. “My wife dried some last summer. It is not as good as fresh, but …” He lifted his hands and looked at the lodge walls as if he could see through the caribou skins to the snow outside. “I will bring you some, tonight if you like.”

“No,” Tsaani answered. “Bring it tomorrow.” He paused and ate his berry cake, waved away Blueberry when she offered him more from the basket. Sok leaned forward and took another.

“Black Nose is a good dog,” Tsaani said, “but she has never done such a thing before.”

“Many hunters now hope to get one of her pups. It is good she was not killed.”

“This was not her day to die. The great black one, he gave himself to us. When a man and his dogs are respectful, a bear knows this.”

Sok shifted as though he were uncomfortable with Tsaani’s words. Twice he opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Had Sok done something to break this good luck that had come to The People? Tsaani wondered. Sok was a hard man, harsh in his training of dogs and in the way he treated others, but he acted only as he had been taught. Who would expect anything different from someone raised by Fox Barking?

“Another dog has died,” Sok finally said.

“Another? Yours?”

“Mine. The young male, black with white blaze.” Sok trailed a hand down the center of his face.

Tsaani shook his head. The best of Sok’s young dogs. Two of Sok’s were dead, male and female, both from the same litter. And three other dogs in the village had also died in the past moon. One was old, though strong, but the others were like Sok’s dogs, young, and with no sign of illness.

“There is some curse,” Sok said.

“This is a village of careful people,” Tsaani answered. “Every man respects life; every woman observes taboos. What curse could we have? What have we done? Do you know who might have caused this?”

For a long time Sok said nothing, then he spoke quietly, so quietly that Tsaani saw Blueberry, sewing as she sat near the lodge entrance, turn her head to hear him more clearly. “There are few changes in our village. Only Stars-in-her-mouth has died, and she was not a woman to love dogs. So I do not think it is the lack of her prayers. It seems to be something that happened this past moon. During that time, we have lost five healthy dogs and have had several pups in two different litters born dead. Maybe we should not have allowed the healthy pups of those litters to live. Maybe we should have killed them all.”

“How many pups are left from both litters?”

“Five.”

“Who has them?”

“One was given to me and one to my mother’s husband. Another to Sleeps Long. Two went to Blue-head Duck.”

“Go to these men,” Tsaani said. “Tell them they can each have one of Black Nose’s pups if they will kill these other dogs. You also will have one of Black Nose’s pups.”

Sok nodded.

“We have had these problems for this past moon, you say?” Tsaani asked.

Sok looked long into Tsaani’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. He stayed for a time, speaking with Tsaani about the hunt. Finally he stood and turned to the entrance tunnel. He paused to raise the last of a berry cake toward Blueberry. “Good,” he told her.

She dipped her head in acknowledgment as he left, then came over and stood beside Tsaani. Tsaani slipped his arm around her waist. Without speaking they went to Blueberry’s sleeping robes. She slipped off the loose caribouskin dress she wore in the lodge and stood before her husband in nothing but leggings laced to the center of her thighs. Tsaani dropped his woven hare fur robe and guided her hands to his breechcloth. She knelt to untie the thong, and Tsaani slipped his fingers through the smooth dark river of her hair.

A moon, he thought. When did Chakliux come to us? A man like Chakliux—a man raised as Dzuuggi—if he carried a curse, could destroy a whole village. But then, today they had taken a bear. Surely that was a sign of good luck.

Yes, Tsaani thought. We would not have taken the bear if we carried a curse.

The happiness of the hunt returned to him, and so he pushed away all thoughts except those which celebrated the joy of his wife’s small and cunning hands.

Sok walked through the village. It was dark, and the caribouskin cover over each winter lodge glowed yellow, lit from within by hearth fires.

He had not told his grandfather the one thing that pressed most urgently in his mind—his desire for the woman Snow-in-her-hair—but at least old Tsaani would begin to think about the problem of having Chakliux in this village. It had been such a foolishness, finding this brother. Sok had not even known he had a brother. Why would he? No one spoke of the dead. Why risk calling their spirits? Why remind the ones who loved them of their loss?

Sok had hoped by allowing Chakliux a place in his wife’s lodge that he would gain Wolf-and-Raven’s favor, but the man seemed to treat him no differently than he ever had. At least he had not forced Snow-in-her-hair to become Chakliux’s wife. And after Chakliux, Sok should seem like a good choice.

Many hunters would not even look at her now. They worried about the bad luck she had gathered by refusing Chakliux. Well, Sok would still take her, though Chakliux would have to find another lodge to live in. But why worry? He could always return to the Cousin River People.

Chakliux had spoken to him several times about the anger building between the young men of both villages, but Sok could not worry about such foolishness. It had always been that way, as long as he could remember. A fight between two hunters, a few angry words, what was that? And if there was a true attack, one village against another …Sok could not keep the smile inside his mouth. When did a man have a better chance to prove his worth? Snow-in-her-hair would be proud to have a husband who was also warrior.

If Chakliux was so worried about the villages fighting, then he should go back to the Cousin River People and warn them. He should tell them that this village was the home of strong hunters. If the Cousin Rivers began a fight, they would not win.

Sok walked with his head bent, his eyes seeing only his thoughts, and so he nearly ran into the woman Daes. Both gasped out their surprise, and the woman mumbled an apology.

Sok nodded, then, curious to know what she was doing outside at night, her three-year-old son slung on one hip, he slipped into the shadows near a lodge and watched. She walked quickly toward the brush at the edge of the village where the women relieved themselves.

Why take the child with her on such a cold night? Sok wondered. He should be asleep. Perhaps Daes’s sister-wife Brown Water did not allow the child to urinate in the lodge. Most mothers saved their children’s urine in wooden troughs. Old urine was good for many things: washing grease from hair and fur, setting dye colors on scraped hides. Daes was third wife of an old man, and everyone knew his first wife, Brown Water, was a woman given to anger and foolish demands. But perhaps, if Brown Water demanded such a thing, she had reason.

Daes had come from those men who live on the sea islands far to the west. The boy, being Sea Hunter, might have some power in his urine that Brown Water did not want in her lodge.

Storytellers spoke of times when the Sea Hunters and The People traded often, even exchanging wives and children, but there were also stories of fighting and hatred. Why trust men who were sometimes trade partners, sometimes enemies? It was best to leave them alone. Men like that were not quite people themselves.

This Daes had been lucky to find herself a husband at all. She had been brought by a trader, her belly full of child. Sok had never understood why the trader had left her. The child was his, even the old women said so, but maybe the trader did not want a Sea Hunter wife, being only part human as she was.

He had come back once or twice since the boy was born. Now the man was here again. Sok smiled. Maybe Daes was more human than he thought. Perhaps she was sneaking from Brown Water’s lodge to be with the trader. Why not? She was a beautiful woman. He would not be surprised if the trader welcomed her into his sleeping robes.

Sok thought for a moment of Snow-in-her-hair, and his desire for her was like a fire in his loins. He was a respected hunter, and until Chakliux came, his dogs had been the healthiest in the village. Even old Tsaani asked his advice when he needed medicine for his animals.

Sok’s power, his hunting skills, should be enough to satisfy Snow-in-her-hair, especially if Tsaani gave Sok his bear hunting songs and passed his luck to him. That day would come soon. Sok was Tsaani’s only true grandson—who could count Chakliux?

Then Snow-in-her-hair might be willing to be his second wife. Sok would give her as much honor as a first wife. He would even give her caribou skins so she could have her own lodge. What woman would want more?

Tsaani slept the dreamless, heavy-armed sleep that came each time he spent himself on his young wife. When Blueberry prodded him, Tsaani, thinking she wanted more, awoke with laughter in his mouth, but then he heard what she was saying and saw that she scrambled to get into her clothes. Someone was scratching at their doorflap.

Blueberry blew into the hearth coals, adding sticks to feed the flames, then let in the one who waited. It was the shaman, Wolf-and-Raven. Tsaani, his woven robe thrown quickly around his shoulders, told Blueberry to go to her mother’s lodge, to stay the night and return in the morning to prepare food.

“Wait,” Tsaani called, and did not look at Wolf-and-Raven’s face. The man would not be pleased to have Tsaani waste time speaking to his wife, but Tsaani did not care. He did not want Blueberry’s father to think she had displeased him and been returned to her parents. He found a small ptarmigan foot amulet, handed it to Blueberry. “For your father,” he said. “To thank him for his daughter, who is such a good wife.”