The Storyteller Trilogy (15 page)

She pushed past him, but he caught her sleeve, pulled her back.

“Do not touch me,” Yaa said. “I might have some curse.”

River Ice Dancer laughed.

“It does not matter to me if you catch my curse,” Yaa said.

River Ice Dancer let go, but he leaned his face close to hers and said, “I think you are right. You do have a curse. You must have after Da … you know, that dead one, died in such a way.”

Yaa smiled. “You almost said her name. You almost cursed yourself.”

River Ice Dancer shoved her hard with both hands, but Yaa was ready for him and braced herself so she did not fall.

“Were you in the lodge when she died?” River Ice Dancer asked.

“She died outside,” Yaa said.

“Did you hear anything?” He did not give her time to answer, but instead lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think your mother did it. She’s the ugly wife. She’s the one who killed her.”

His words clogged Yaa’s throat until she began to choke. Her mother was a good and gentle woman. She would never hurt anyone. In anger Yaa looked into River Ice Dancer’s eyes, in anger she drew back her fist.

River Ice Dancer raised his top lip into a sneer, then spit full into her face. Yaa hit him as hard as she could. The blow landed in the center of his nose.

River Ice Dancer screamed, and it seemed as though his cry released a flow of blood. It poured from his nostrils down over his mouth and chin.

“My mother is good!” Yaa yelled at him.

She turned and ran, and did not look back until she got to the cooking hearths. Her heart beat so hard she could feel it in her eardrums, and her fist ached, but the joy of what she had done flowed through her.

She found a place for herself in the group of children waiting for food. Five hearth fires were arranged in a large circle at the center of the village. Beside each one, large caribouskin cooking bags hung on tripods, and the butts of heavy green-wood roasting sticks were driven into the ground. Hares and ptarmigans, dripping with fat, were skewered on each stick.

Several of the grandmothers gave the youngest children bits of meat, but the older children were ignored. The women were too busy cooking for the families in mourning.

Yaa thought of the meat the women had already brought to Brown Water’s lodge, but knew she would get little of it.

Suddenly a dark shape hurled at the children. Yaa’s first thought was of River Ice Dancer, then of spirits, but as the children around her began to scream, she realized it was only a dog. He was dragging his tie rope as he ran toward the cooking hearths. The women, armed with ladles, started after him, each trying to keep him away from her own lodge, from her husband’s dogs.

The dog flung himself at a large male tied nearby. The two animals twisted and yelped, each going for the other’s throat in a tangle of white and dark fur.

Most of the children followed the women, hooting calls and cheers, but Yaa stayed behind. For a moment there was no one at the hearths. She darted forward and grabbed a roasting stick with a fat hare skewered on it.

The stick was hot, but Yaa held on tightly and ran. She sped through the shadows of the village, holding the hare as close to her body as she could, switching the stick from hand to hand until it cooled.

She did not slow until she came to the black spruce that marked a narrow animal path, hidden under the tree’s drooping branches. She scuttled under the spruce and, waddling in a crouch, finally came to the den she had found several years before. She picked up the stick she always left at the entrance and poked it inside. The den was empty.

The entrance was so narrow she had to slide in on her belly, but once inside she could sit up, squatting cross-legged, her hair brushing the arch of rock and tree roots at the top of the den.

She took a long breath, then sank her teeth into the hot meat. She swallowed, her stomach too empty to wait for chewing. She felt the meat slide down, settle in comfortable warmth just below her ribs.

“I wish Ghaden was here with me,” she said, just in case Daes was listening. “There is enough for both of us. We could have a feast.”

Thinking of Ghaden made her throat tighten so she could not swallow. She turned her thoughts to River Ice Dancer, to the satisfying crunch her fist had made against his nose. She laughed, then her throat opened and she was able to eat.

C
EN PUSHED HIS WAY
into the thick brush that grew on the riverbank, then crouched down until his heart slowed. There was no sense in hiding. The soft snow made his tracks easy to follow, but when he rested, he felt safer away from the river. He inhaled the clean smell of the willow around him. The yellow bark was changing to the gray-green of spring, and leaf buds had begun to swell, though the snow had not yet melted back from each thumb-sized bole.

Gripped by the need for sleep, he closed his eyes, but after a moment he jerked himself awake. He needed to get as far from the village as he could. He tightened his right hand on a short stabbing knife. What remained of a throwing spear was slung over his shoulder. If they tried to take him, he would kill at least one of them.

After the River People let him go, Cen had cleaned his wounds, but he knew he still smelled of blood. Wolves are more dangerous than the River People, he told himself. What pack would hesitate to attack something wounded? He had hung amulets around his neck, the amulet his uncle had given him at his birth, and others he had bought in trade from villages as far away as the Great River. Perhaps they would be enough to deter animals.

He wished he had an amulet from the First Men, Daes’s people. They had power, those Sea Hunters.

The River People had kept him one whole day, making him wait at the center of the village until the elders decided he could go. Fools! He would never kill Daes or his own son. It was hard enough to leave the village without knowing whether the boy would live or die. But why risk that the elders would change their minds or that some other person would be found dead? Whoever had killed Daes and the old man was one of their own.

During the day he was captive, Cen had been given nothing to eat. Without food, the cold had sunk deep into his bones, but during any distraction, he had moved gradually closer to the hearth fires. There was no chance he could steal food, but the warmth eased his pain, and he was able to inhale the steam that rose from the cooking bags. Shamans said the spirits themselves lived on the smoke from burning fat. If the spirits could, perhaps men could also.

When they finally untied him, small boys and their dogs chased him from the village. Before he had reached the edge of the trees, he had fallen twice, had felt the lashes of the boys’ sticks across his arms and legs, had been bitten once on the hand, again on the ankle, but finally they had turned away, allowed him to go the short distance to his lodge. There he found his packs had been scattered, most of his trade goods and weapons taken, and the shaft of his one remaining spear broken. They had left him a handful of dried meat that he stuffed into his mouth even before using his fire bow to relight the hearth.

His warmest blankets and robes had been taken, but they had not touched his sacred bundles or flicker skins. His best parkas were gone, the heavy one of wolf skin and the lighter ground squirrel parka. The hood of the ground squirrel parka had been pieced from tiny patches of fur taken from ground squirrel heads, each head fur only the length of a little finger.

Whoever had taken his parkas had left him an old parka of wolverine fur. It was weak with mildew, would fall apart on his body if he did not move carefully, but it was warm.

He had melted snow in a bag on a tripod and drunk the icy water. Then he went to the back of the lodge, lifted an old moldy mat he had purposely put in that place. He had thawed the ground there with fire, staying awake his first night in the lodge to keep the coals burning until the ground was soft enough for him to dig into it. He had made a hole, buried a bag of meat and berry cakes, a small supply of obsidian in a grass basket.

Cen went back to the fire, hunkered over it, allowed himself two berry cakes. The stump of his severed finger throbbed, and each breath tore into his chest like a knife. His left wrist was swollen almost to the width of his hand. He packed snow around it, and over his face, hoping to bring down the swelling that nearly closed his eyes. Pain muddled his thoughts, but he forced himself to decide what he must do next.

Most of his trade goods had been taken, but because of his injuries, there was still too much for him to carry.

He was strong, able to pull heavy loads on a sled made from his lodge poles. He had carved wooden braces that allowed him to lash the lodge poles together into a sled, and had faced several of the poles with strips of ivory to make runners. Now he could not pull a sled. It was difficult enough to walk. He had to leave everything, even the lodge, taking only food and his amulets.

Cen had gathered what he would take and wrapped it in one of the mats they had left him. He secured the bundle with several of his lodge pole bindings, then he had curled around his fire and let himself sleep. Why not? If they came for him, what could he do?

He had awakened when his fire burned low. He put a coal in a hollowed knot of wood, slung it around his neck, then strapped the pack on his back. It was still night when he left the lodge, though he could see the first edge of dawn above the trees.

He had taken short breaks, ate, once even slept, then forced himself to continue.

Now again he heaved himself to his feet and pushed through the brush to the bank of the river. He walked until in his exhaustion he could no longer think, until his feet were like things that did not belong to him and he could not feel the ache of the bones in his wrist. Then suddenly he was on his knees and could not remember how he had fallen.

He forced himself to stand and turned his mind toward Daes. She had been a good woman—too good to die in the Near River Village, where she had no one to mourn her.

Anger gave him strength. His steps were again firm against the snow. He would have his revenge, and in that way Daes would be mourned. She did have a daughter. Daes had spoken of her often. Cen thought he remembered her. She had been a girl of ten, twelve summers then. By now she was a woman and probably had children of her own.

He should go and tell her that her mother was dead. Cen fixed the image of the daughter in his mind. She had looked much like Daes. Yes, he must go to the First Men, must tell them about Daes, about Ghaden. Perhaps some of the hunters would be willing to help him avenge his woman’s death.

The day after the burial ceremony, Chakliux went to Blueberry. Without Tsaani, the lodge seemed empty, cold.

Blueberry did not look at him. With her head lowered, she motioned toward the back of the fire, toward the place where Tsaani always sat, but Chakliux did not want to assume an honor that was not his. Blueberry brought him a bowl of warm meat, the broth dimpled with melted fat and flavored with sour dock leaves. Chakliux raised the bowl to his lips, pushed meat into his mouth with his fingers.

“Good,” he said. “Very good.”

She looked at him then, and he saw that her eyes were swollen and red, that she had cut her hair so it stuck out in uneven tufts around her ears.

Chakliux’s chest ached with the young woman’s pain. “I share your sorrow,” he told her.

Blueberry scowled. “Why?” she asked. “Your grandfather’s death has given you a wife. You think I do not hear the women’s laughter? You think I am proud to be given what Snow-in-her-hair did not want?”

Chakliux could not answer. During the short time he had lived in the Near River Village, he had often visited this lodge. Blueberry had seemed to be a quiet woman, not one to throw insults.

It is her sorrow, he told himself, and said, “I do not pretend to be what your husband was, but I have always been a hunter. I will bring food to the lodge. You and your children will have enough to eat.”

“Those children,” said Blueberry, “will they be otters or people?”

Chakliux, suddenly angry, said, “No one will force you to be my wife.”

“You think I will displease my husband, dishonor him by refusing to do what he asks?”

“How does it honor your dead husband when you treat his grandson with scorn?”

She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment, there was a scratching at the doorflap. “Come!” Blueberry called, anger still loud in her voice.

Sok came in. For a moment he crouched at the end of the entrance tunnel, watching them both. Blueberry turned her back on the men and went to the woman’s side of the lodge.

Sok curled his lips, and as though she were not there, he said to Chakliux, “It is cold in here. What happened to the woman who owns this lodge? Can she not keep a hearth fire going?” He picked up several pieces of wood, fed the fire into a blaze, then motioned for Chakliux to sit beside him.

Chakliux sat on his haunches. “Let her mourn,” he said in a quiet voice.

“She does not want to be wife again?” Sok asked.

“Not to me.”

“Young women are often foolish,” Sok said, but he spoke loudly, turning his head to direct his words toward Blueberry’s back.

“There is food,” said Chakliux, and nodded toward the boiling bag.

Sok picked up a bowl and filled it, then squatted beside his brother. For a short time, he ate, then he said, “It does not seem right without our grandfather.”

Suddenly Blueberry turned, her face dark, her teeth clenched. Rudely, she raised her arm to point at Chakliux; rudely she spoke, using his name in boldness. “Chakliux, there is something you should know. Your grandfather was the one who chose to leave you. He was the one who took you from your mother and left you to die. Do you know that?”

“I know,” Chakliux said softly.

She stood, mouth open, then grabbed a woven hare fur blanket and wrapped it around herself. “He did not think you should live,” she said. “He wanted you dead. So why would he tell me I must be your wife?”

She flung the last words over her shoulder as she left the lodge.