Song of the River (65 page)

Chakliux fought one man then another until he lost track of the sun and no longer felt his pain. Finally there were no more to fight, and he heard the cries of victory, the ululations of the women, then affirmations that the Cousin River hunters had fled.

As the women found husbands and sons dead, mourning songs drowned out cries of celebration, but Chakliux’s weariness was so great that at first they did not pierce his heart. He stared up at the sky, saw that the sun was still high. How could so much have happened in such a short time? Surely they had fought for years. Surely it had taken them longer than one morning to destroy themselves.

K’os counted out the days on her fingers. Three to walk to the Near River Village, though the men, being hunters and not slowed by women and children, should make it more quickly than that. Another day to prepare weapons and complete plans. One day to fight. Perhaps two? She counted two. Another day to celebrate and take the spoils, divide the women and children. Then what, four days to return home? With women and children hindering them, with their wounded, yes, probably four. That made one more than two handfuls. She should not be worried yet. It had been only one handful and three more.

She squatted beside her fire and stirred the coals. The village seemed too empty without the men, and for some reason, K’os could not stay warm. It was as though the wind, knowing the women and old ones were alone, blew harder. She dug through the bundle of furs she stored for making boots, leggings and parkas, found a large wolf pelt, turned it fur side in, and wrapped it around her shoulders.

She had intended to sew a parka while the men were gone. She would make it beautiful to celebrate their successful battle. She would wear it to honor her revenge against Fox Barking and Sleeps Long. They deserved to die, as did their wives and children. And what about that woman who had left Chakliux on the Grandfather Rock and tricked K’os into raising a cursed child? She, too, should die.

But though K’os had planned to sew, her fingers were too full of nervousness. They dropped awls and needles, tangled sinew thread. She had cut out the pieces of the parka, had even dyed the caribou hair she would use to embroider a pattern on shoulders, cuffs and chest, but that was all she had done.

She heard a shout just outside her lodge, raised her head. It was a woman’s voice. Some child had probably managed to hurt himself. Or a woman had foolishly dumped hot broth on herself. K’os dropped the wolf pelt from her shoulders and went to get her medicine bag. She had goose grass for burns, though the dried stems were not as good as juice taken fresh from the crushed plant. She had yellow violet leaves mixed into a goose grease salve for scrapes, cuts and bruises, and she knew how to make birchbark casts for broken bones.

More shouting, a scream. K’os sighed, then smiled. She got a good price for her work—usually some charm highly valued by the one who was sick or hurt. Later, K’os would wear it often, or better yet, destroy it and leave the remains in plain sight at the refuse pile at the edge of the village.

She took out several strings of beads, fastened them around her neck, then picked up her medicine bag. Why make them come and get her? Why not go now? People who lived in the same village should help one another.

“Listen,” Night Man said. He propped himself higher against his backrest, flinched at the jostling to his shoulder.

He had good ears, far better than Aqamdax’s. She crawled into the lodge entrance, heard the thin sound of voices, women crying.

“Stay here,” she told Ghaden, who had followed her, then she went outside.

She could see nothing, but again she heard the voices. They seemed to come from the south side of the village. She went back into the lodge.

“Something has happened,” she told Night Man.

She pulled on leggings and boots and her outside parka. Ghaden began to struggle with his parka, but Night Man shook his head at the boy. “Stay,” he said. “If you go, Biter will go, and he could cause problems if someone has been injured.”

“Do you think the men have returned?” Yaa asked.

“If they had, Star would be here to tell us,” Aqamdax said, but did not miss the look of dread that passed over Night Man’s face. If the men had returned, it was not good. There were no celebration cries.

“I will be back,” Aqamdax said, and hurried outside. She ran through the village, joined other women who also ran, and, when she saw the group of men, she, too, lifted her voice in mourning.

Only six hunters had returned: Fisher, Runner, Sky Watcher, Take More, Man Laughing and Tikaani. Each of them showed some sign of injury. Tikaani lay on a travois; he was so pale Aqamdax thought he was dead. Star and K’os were huddled beside him. K’os looked back over her shoulder and saw Aqamdax.

“This man, we must get him to my lodge,” K’os said. She raised her voice and spoke to the women. “Take the others, each to a lodge. Check their feet and hands for frostbite, give them water and food, wash any wounds and let them sleep. I will come later and bring medicines.” She turned and looked at the men standing beside Tikaani’s travois. “Do any of you have strength enough to get him to my lodge?”

“I do,” Sky Watcher said. Then Take More, an elder, slumped to his knees.

“Bring him as well,” K’os said, lifting her chin toward the old man.

Aqamdax leaned down beside Star, helped her get Take More to his feet. On the way to K’os’s lodge, Aqamdax saw one of Yaa’s friends and asked her to tell those in Star’s lodge that the men had returned. “Tell them I am in K’os’s lodge with Tikaani and that I will come home when I can.”

The girl ran off, and Aqamdax wished she could have been the one to go. How would Night Man react, hearing that his brother was wounded? She needed to be with her husband but did not want to leave Tikaani alone with K’os.

Aqamdax helped Star settle Take More on pelts K’os had laid out on the floor, then the two of them removed his outer parka, his boots and leggings. The man had several gashes on his arms, another across his forehead, but none seemed infected. He opened his eyes, looked at both of them, croaked out a request for water. Aqamdax got a water bladder and held it so only a trickle went into Take More’s mouth.

He roared out a protest, and Aqamdax told Star, “This one is just tired.”

“I cannot see right,” he whispered. “I see two of all things.”

Though K’os was working over Tikaani, she asked, “Did someone hit you in the face or head?”

“The back of the head,” Take More said. “For a whole day I did not know anything. They had me on a travois with Tikaani.”

K’os lifted her chin toward Aqamdax. “Put your hands on the back of his head. Touch with your fingertips.”

Aqamdax did what K’os told her.

“Do you feel a lump or a sunken area?”

“A lump,” Aqamdax said, and made a circle with her thumb and forefinger to show K’os how large it was.

“You will see better tomorrow, at least by the next day,” K’os told Take More. “Stay with me tonight. I have a tea Aqamdax will make for you.” She thrust her hand into the medicine bag and drew out a packet, tossed it to Aqamdax.

“Only a pinch. Heat it to boiling, then let it cool. Make him drink it all.” She laid out several packets of powdered woundwort leaves and told Aqamdax and Star to skim fat from her boiling bag and mix it with the powder, smooth the fat over Take More’s cuts.

She turned back to Tikaani and worked over him for a time, probing with her fingers, cleaning wounds. Finally she looked up. A smile on her face gave Aqamdax hope, but K’os said, “He is dead. A belly wound, not an easy way to die, at least the first few days.” K’os looked at Sky Watcher. “You should have left him, saved your strength,” she said.

“He was my mother’s cousin,” the young man answered. “He fought well. I could not leave him.”

“Are any more of our hunters coming back?” K’os asked him.

“No. We are the only ones left.”

At his words, Star raised her voice in a hard wail of mourning.

K’os whirled toward the woman. “Shut your mouth!” she shouted, then she lowered her voice and asked the young man, “And how many Near Rivers died?”

“Many,” he said.

K’os tipped back her head and sang out a chant, strange words mixed with laughter.

“Did you know any of them?” she asked. “A man named Fox Barking, another named Sleeps Long, did they die?”

“I do not know,” he answered.

Take More said, “I fought Fox Barking. He is still alive, but cut here.” He drew a finger down his forehead and over one eye to his jaw. “Sleeps Long is dead. I killed him.”

“Hah!” K’os screamed out. “I celebrate your bravery.” She reached into her medicine packet. “Put this into the tea you are making,” she told Aqamdax. “It will taste better and will relieve some of Take More’s pain.”

She went over to Take More, began to check his wounds, finally nodded as if satisfied. “There is nothing serious here,” she said, then pressed her hand to the back of his head. “Even this. I have seen worse.”

“My son Chakliux. Did you see him?” she asked Sky Watcher.

“He is alive,” he said. “I saw him as we were leaving. I thought he would kill us, but he held back the hunters, though some were angry. I could hear their shouts. Still, they did as he said.”

K’os sucked in her cheeks, said nothing for a long time, and when she spoke again, Aqamdax saw blood froth at the corners of her mouth.

“You are so proud to drag that one home,” she said, and lifted a foot to prod Tikaani’s body. “Are you proud enough to carry him to her lodge?” She nodded toward Star. “Let his mother and sister prepare him for burial. I do not have time. My work is with the living. Besides, if any of our men deserved death, he did. He was the one who planned the attack against the Near Rivers.”

“I know who planned the attack,” Sky Watcher said, then he lifted his head and spit full into K’os’s face.

She screamed curses, but the man ignored her. He hoisted Tikaani’s body to one shoulder and followed Star and Aqamdax from the lodge.

THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

Blue-head Duck was dying. The wounds on his body were shallow, not enough to kill, but at some time during the battle, someone had cursed the man’s heart, and he had fallen as though hit by an arrow, clutching his chest in pain, though there was no blood.

“You must lead this village now,” he said to Chakliux. “There is no one else. Tsaani is dead. Wolf-and-Raven is dead.” He spoke the names as though he, too, were dead and did not have to worry what their spirits might do to him. “Sok does not have the wisdom.”

Blue-head Duck paused, took a long breath, lay his hand over the center of his chest, winced, and Chakliux wished he could share the man’s pain.

“We do not want Fox Barking. A man who is too lazy to provide for his wives should not lead a village. We do not want Dog Trainer.”

A moon before, Chakliux would have smiled at Blue-head Duck’s words. Everyone knew of the rivalry between Blue-head Duck and Dog Trainer. Dog Trainer would have been a good leader, wise and strong enough to stand for what he believed to be right. But Dog Trainer was dead. Chakliux looked away so Blue-head Duck would not see the knowledge of that death in his eyes. He would know soon enough. Let them compete with one another in the spirit world.

“I have asked the people to meet tonight. I will be there. They will listen to me.”

Chakliux nodded and did not express his doubt. Why would they listen to a man who was dying? Most of the men acknowledged Chakliux’s part in saving the village from complete destruction, but many hunters and most of the elders had died. When the Cousin River men had seen they were losing, they set lodges on fire, killing two old women and several others: Blue Flower and No Teeth; New Grass and her baby; the sister-wives Brown Water and Happy Mouth. Half of the young hunters had died in the battle—and most of the boys, including Sok’s son Carries Much.

Chakliux could not allow himself to remember his nephew’s face. When he did, his sorrow was like a wound in his heart, and he could do nothing but cry out his anguish.

They had enough hunters to keep their village strong, to supply food for the winter, to fish, but only a handful of the Cousin River men had survived, and of those, Tikaani and Take More had been dragged away on a travois. Chakliux had persuaded the Near River men to let them go. Perhaps that was foolish, but how would their women survive if there were no men to hunt?

Chakliux left Blue-head Duck’s lodge and walked into the woods, past a group of young men practicing with bows and arrows captured in the battle. He found a rock at the base of a large spruce, sat down on it, drew his feet up, away from the cold of the still-frozen ground.

He called to his mind all the faces of the Cousin River men he had known. Although they were the ones who had started the battle, he mourned as much for them as he did for the Near River People. It was probably also a Cousin River hunter who had killed Tsaani and Daes. Why did people do such stupid things?

He leaned his head back against the tree trunk, thought through all the stories he had been told, Cousin and Near River, North Tundra and Caribou, the First Men stories he had heard from Aqamdax and Qung. He heard them again as though he were a child, learning all things for the first time. He listened, and the words were like a poultice for the wounds of his body, and those larger, deeper wounds that pierced his soul.

Sok took his place among the hunters. With so many killed in battle, the circle of men was small, but its smallness made him feel larger, more important. They would choose a leader tonight. Who else could it be but him? Blue-head Duck was dying—Chakliux himself had told Red Leaf. Sleeps Long and Dog Trainer were dead. Chakliux would not be chosen. How could a man with only one good leg lead his people? How could a person who had been raised in the Cousin River Village carry the respect of the Near River hunters? No one wanted Fox Barking. Who could trust the man? The oldest person in the village was probably Ligige’, and she was a woman. Who would listen to her?

Sok had worn his finest parka, had brought both his wives, as well as Cries-loud and the infant son born to Snow-in-her-hair. Red Leaf’s face was dark with charcoal, her hair chopped short in mourning. He, too, carried the pain of his son’s death, but the boy had died bravely, and what father could not find solace in that? He would name Snow-in-her-hair’s child Carries Much, and in that way call the boy back to live with them. Perhaps Red Leaf would find comfort in that, though the two women were often sharp with one another, using words like men used weapons.