Song of the River (7 page)

Blueberry ducked her head, but her smile pushed her cheeks into full, round balls. She left, and Tsaani turned to Wolf-and-Raven, gesturing for the man to take Tsaani’s cushioned seat at the back of the lodge. Wolf-and-Raven sat down. For a long time he did not speak, and Tsaani knew he was gathering power into himself. Whatever the man had to say was important, and probably not something Tsaani would be happy to hear.

Finally Wolf-and-Raven said, “I have come about the dogs.”

“Your dogs are well?” Tsaani asked. He had given Wolf-and-Raven a fine, large-boned bitch. She would whelp soon.

“My dogs are healthy. But I hear there are other dogs in the village—many—that are dying. It is said they have been cursed. You are supposed to be the one with power when it comes to dogs. The People cannot survive a hard winter without their dogs. How will we hunt? Who will carry our supplies when we follow the caribou? What will we eat in a starving winter if we lose our dogs?”

“You do not have to tell me the importance of dogs. I am usually the one who reminds you to hold them in respect.”

Wolf-and-Raven straightened his shoulders and filled his chest with air, but Tsaani saw the man was more wind than muscle, holding his breath to increase his stature like a dog ruffling his neck fur before a fight.

“When Chakliux came to our village,” Wolf-and-Raven said, “he came not knowing who he was, but he spoke for peace between our peoples. I decided he should stay with us and work for peace. Now I think he may have brought a curse. If our dogs die, we will be weak. The Cousin River men will take us easily.”

“Tell him to go back, then,” Tsaani said. “If he has caused this, then make him leave. What is so difficult about that?”

“Some of The People still believe he is animal-gift. They saw him swim at the Cousin River Fish Camp. Some say he himself is an otter.”

Tsaani shrugged. “You are shaman. You should know who is right.”

Wolf-and-Raven’s face darkened. Tsaani had known the man for many years. He was not one to make decisions. But if he wanted the honor of being shaman, then he must also take the responsibility.

“If you do not yet know what is right, then why are you here?” Tsaani asked. “Go home to your wife’s lodge. Make prayers. Do what you need to do. You are shaman. You know this. You do not need me to tell you.”

Wolf-and-Raven looked at Tsaani; in anger he met Tsaani’s eyes.

“Or are you a child?” Tsaani asked softly.

Wolf-and-Raven jumped to his feet. “Watch your tongue, old man,” he said, his words short and sharp like the yips of a fox. “I know more of spirits and chants than you do. We already see that your prayers are not strong enough to protect our dogs. Be grateful I am here to fight this curse.”

Wolf-and-Raven walked to the entrance and threw back the door-flap. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “Keep Sok away from my daughter. He visited my wife’s lodge tonight. Snow-in-her-hair deserves better than to be second wife to your grandson.”

Tsaani stood and went to the door. He tied the flap back into place against any wind that might arise during the night, then went wearily to his bed. He lay down and rolled himself into his bedding furs.

“Sok,” he whispered into the night. “Why do you always make everything so difficult for yourself? You have a good wife. If you think you need another, choose some widow, someone who will be grateful for your protection yet young enough to make sons.”

But as sleep closed his eyelids, Tsaani saw Snow-in-her-hair, the graceful sway of her hips as she walked, her full, round breasts. Tsaani felt his loins tighten. “Ah, Sok,” he mumbled. “Ah, Sok….”

Chapter Three

“S
O SOMEONE HAS DECIDED
an old man should not be allowed to sleep?” Tsaani called out, but he got up from his bed and untied the doorflap. “Ah,” he said when he saw Fox Barking. “You, too, are out in the night?”

Fox Barking came inside, but Tsaani did not offer him his padded seat at the back of the lodge; he did not even stir the hearth coals. Tsaani turned toward his bed and sat down in the furs. “How is my daughter?” he asked.

“She is good.”

“Sok was here, then another man came, now you. Why are
you
here?”

“To speak to you about your daughter’s son.”

“Sok or Chakliux?”

“Her true son, Sok.”

“According to my sister, Chakliux is as much Day Woman’s son as Sok.”

Fox Barking squatted on his haunches and pushed back the hood of his parka. The parka was beautifully made, narrowing to a long point front and back, with black-tipped weasel tails hanging from the shoulders and wolverine fur sewn around the hood. Fox Barking did not deserve such a parka, Tsaani thought. Most of all, he did not deserve Day Woman. People said that Fox Barking had been brave to marry her, but Tsaani did not agree. Fox Barking was a lazy man and a poor hunter. He took Day Woman not because of his courage, but because she worked hard and was good to look at.

Fox Barking was a thin man with hands too large for his arms. It seemed to Tsaani that they had grown that way to clasp and hold all the things Fox Barking wanted but did not need. He held those hands out now, palms up, and asked, “Sok was here?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he come?”

Tsaani turned his head against Fox Barking’s rudeness. Even a child knew better than to inquire about a man’s conversations.

When Tsaani did not answer, Fox Barking said, “Do you know about the dogs?”

“I know,” Tsaani said.

“Do you know about the daughter of Wolf-and-Raven?”

“I know she will make some man a fine wife,” Tsaani answered.

“Sok wants her,” Fox Barking said, “but her father will not allow her to be second wife.”

“Do you think Sok will throw away Red Leaf?”

“No,” said Fox Barking. “A man might throw away his wife, but two sons and a good lodge? No.”

“Sok does not need another wife,” Tsaani said. “He wants too much. He will break his back carrying all the things he wants. When I die, he will own my dogs. I have already given him many of my hunting songs. If he uses those songs wisely, he will be a powerful man. Perhaps then he will be worthy of two wives.”

Fox Barking rubbed his hands together and leaned down to hold them near the hearth coals.

“It is dark. You should be in your wife’s lodge,” Tsaani said, but Fox Barking made no move to leave. “I am an old man,” said Tsaani. “Stay if you like, but I must sleep.”

He rolled himself in his bedding furs and turned his back on Fox Barking.

The trader’s lodge was merely a summer tent. The caribouskin covering was secured by a circle of rocks, then banked for warmth with spruce boughs and snow. A small fire burned fitfully at the center. Its warmth was swallowed up before it reached the lodge walls, but Daes was not cold. She pressed herself against Cen’s body. She knew his lovemaking would be quick, but it was better than what she endured from the old man, who was slow and sometimes wept when he could not become hard enough to enter her. It did not matter, she told him, and that was true. He was a good man. He had offered her a home when she had nothing but the curse of a child in her womb.

No, it did not matter, not with her old husband, nor with this trader. She had died more than four years ago, when her First Men husband had drowned. Daes raised her head from the furs of the trader’s bed to be sure her son, Ghaden, was still lying in the nest of mats on the other side of the hearth fire. He was awake, his eyes open, but he was quiet, bundled warmly in woven hare fur robes. Daes thought she could hear him hum some quiet River People song. He was a good child, but she did not love him as much as she loved her daughter, Aqamdax. How could she? Ghaden was Cen’s son.

Cen pulled her down beside him. “The boy is fine,” he told her, then looked over at the child as though making sure what he said was true. “He will be a good trader, someday, but before then I will make you my wife. When your old husband dies, I will claim you,” he said, “and someday I will take you back to visit your people.”

“Yes,” Daes whispered. “Yes.” Of course she would be his wife. She would be anyone’s wife if it meant she could get back to the First Men and to Aqamdax. Once she returned to her own village, she would never leave it. Until then she would be whatever Cen wanted her to be.

For a time, Fox Barking spoke of Sok’s greediness, his selfishness, but then the man suddenly seemed to change his mind. He praised Sok’s hunting skills, his dogs and his two young sons. He said Tsaani should pass on his wisdom and his place even before his death; he should give Sok all his bear hunting songs. Who could say, perhaps if Sok was chief bear hunter, then Wolf-and-Raven would beg him to take his daughter.

Though Tsaani lay with his back turned, at first he grunted a few answers. What else could you do with a man who did not understand rudeness? Finally Tsaani was silent, even though Fox Barking began to speak about the village dogs and the curse that had been brought to them all by Chakliux. When Fox Barking still did not stop talking, Tsaani drew his breath in through his nose and made snoring noises. Then he heard Fox Barking get up and leave, but not before he rummaged through Blueberry’s food bags.

At least the man did not leave hungry, Tsaani thought, and tucked his laughter into his cheek as he drifted into dreams.

When their lovemaking was finished, Cen wiped himself on the furs of his sleeping place, adjusted his breechcloth and slipped on his leggings and parka. He watched Daes as she dressed, his eyes dark, soft. She could not look at him. Once, she had believed he could fill the emptiness of her first husband’s loss. She had been foolish, but her pain had been so great she would have done almost anything to escape it. She had given herself to Cen, breaking the taboos of her mourning. In punishment, she had conceived.

She had known she could not stay with her people, so she had left the village. How else could she protect her daughter from spirits angered by what she had done?

Too late, she had discovered the hardships of a trader’s life. How could she stay with him, chance the storms, travel the rivers and tundra, all the while caring for a child? She had asked him to take her to a village where she could deliver their baby, had pleaded that he find her a husband, a hunter, who would care for her.

In sorrow, he did so, and left her, but came back each year, sometimes twice a year. She had told him it was best for their son. Finally this summer, Ghaden was strong enough to make the journey to the First Men Village. This year, Daes would not let Cen leave without her. She laid her hands against his back, stroked his wolf fur parka.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I will be glad to become your wife. Then we will return to my village. I will see my daughter again. You can build a lodge there, and when you are not trading, you will have a warm place to stay, and a wife waiting for you.”

He turned and looked into her eyes. “Tell your husband he must die soon,” Cen said.

“He will not live through another winter,” Daes told him, and felt a sudden sadness, knowing her words were true. “But I will go when you say. If you want me to come now, I will come.”

Cen narrowed his eyes, tipped his head and stared at the caribou hide walls. “From here,” he said, “I go upriver to the Rock Hill Village and beyond. By the time the ice breaks, I will be back. Be ready to go with me then.”

“Go away,” Tsaani called, and in his need for sleep did not regret his rudeness. “I have had enough people in this lodge. Go away, and do not come back until morning.”

Tsaani turned his head toward the doorflap, but the lodge was so dark he could not see. Even the hearth fire, where the edges of old coals should glow red, was dark.

You did not bank the coals, old man, he told himself. But he was sure he remembered doing it—pushing ash over the embers to slow their burning through the night—right after Wolf-and-Raven left. Maybe you dreamed it, he thought.

Blueberry would have to borrow fire from her mother’s lodge in the morning. Ah, well, it would do little harm, since her mother would know it was Tsaani and not Blueberry who let the fire go out.

He looked one last time toward the hearth, then saw an edge of light, and another, then darkness blocked the light again. Tsaani’s heart thudded, moving from the slow pace of sleep to the quickness of fear. There was some spirit in the lodge, something between him and the hearth.

The bear, Tsaani thought. The bear. Had Tsaani showed disrespect? Had he forgotten some song of praise? Had he eaten meat without gratefulness? No. He had done all things in honor. He had cut off paws and head; he had sliced the bear skin in strips so it would be used by animals and birds for food and bedding, and not wasted. All this was done in respect, following the ways of Tsaani’s grandfathers and their grandfathers.

Then he saw that the bear had the head of a person. It had hands and feet, and the dark fur was only a parka.

Tsaani’s heart slowed in relief, and he sagged back against his bedding furs, but then anger came to him and he said, “Why are you here? Why do you come to an old man in the middle of the night? You may not need sleep, but I do!”

The one who stood over him did not speak, and when in the black shadows Tsaani finally saw the knife, it was too late.

Daes crouched outside the entrance tunnel of Brown Water’s lodge. It was the middle of the night. She should not be outside in clothes she wore only on best occasions. Brown Water hated her. She was always telling their husband he should throw her away.

I should have asked for my own lodge, Daes thought. Happy Mouth and her little daughter, Yaa, would have come with me. Let Brown Water do all the work to keep her own lodge.

But it was not an easy thing for a woman to build a lodge when her husband no longer hunted. Where would she get the caribou skins, especially when Brown Water claimed anything of worth that came to their husband? Besides, why do the extra work? In a moon, maybe two, she would leave the River People’s village and return to the First Men.

Daes bent her head to listen. She could hear her husband’s snores, but there was no noise coming from the women’s side of the lodge, and Brown Water usually snored louder than anyone. Brown Water was waiting for her to return. She would accuse Daes of being with Cen. What defense could Daes offer? The best thing to do was wait for Brown Water to fall asleep, then crawl into their husband’s sleeping robes. Daes would claim she had come back early—that Brown Water had been asleep—and if she awoke later to wait for Daes, she was foolish, because Daes had been in their husband’s bed most of the night.