Allan and the Ice Gods (17 page)

great lumps of flesh and blubber upon certain rocks that rose out of

the water, which they purposed to drag away after the ice had formed.

Whilst they were still engaged upon this task, there came terrible

snowstorms and gales, so that they must abandon it, and after these a

thaw, with more gales, had prevented them from coming to the rocks.

When at last the weather abated, they went there to find that the

whale’s flesh had become rotten during the thaw so that it was useless

and must be left where it lay. Now, when everything was frozen, Wi

determined to fetch this flesh, or as much of it as they could carry,

and place it in the great rock hollow, whither the wolves would

certainly be drawn by its smell. Having planned all this, he called

the chief men of the tribe together and told them what must be done.

They listened very doubtfully, especially a party of them led by

Pitokiti the Unlucky and Whaka the Bird-of-Ill-Omen, who said that

wolves attacked men, but never had they heard such a thing as that men

should attack the host of the wolves in the dead of winter when these

were fierce and terrible.

“Listen,” said Wi. “Will you rather kill the wolves, or be killed by

them with your women and children? For know that it has come to this,

the brutes being mad with hunger.”

Then they wrangled for a long time, so that the matter could not be

settled that day and must be put off till the morrow.

As it chanced, that very night, the wolves made a great attack upon

the huts, a hundred or more of them, scrambling over the snow banks

and rushing past the fires, so that before they could be driven off, a

woman and two children were torn to pieces, while others were bitten.

After this, the elders accepted the plan of Wi because they could see

no other.

So, first of all, the strongest men were sent to the mouth of the

gorge, where they dragged together loose stones of which there were

hundreds lying about though many of these they could not move because

the frost held them fast. These stones they built into a wall with a

broad bottom and twice the height of a man, filling in the cracks with

snow, which soon froze solid, but leaving a gap in the middle through

which the wolves might enter, also other piled-up stones wherewith it

could be closed very swiftly. Then they went down to the seashore and,

crossing the ice or, if it was broken, wading through the shallow

water, came to those rocks on which the whale’s flesh was stored, and

scraped the deep snow off the heaps.

Now, however, they found themselves beaten, for, notwithstanding the

covering snow, the frost had frozen the outer lumps of flesh and

blubber so hard that they could not move them; therefore, their labour

lost, they returned home, Whaka announcing loudly that he knew all the

while that this would be so.

That night Wi and Pag talked long and earnestly, but, though they were

wise, they could find no plan to overcome this trouble. Wi thought of

lighting fires upon the heaps to thaw them, but Pag pointed out that,

if they did this, the blubber would catch fire and all be burned. So

at last they ceased talking and Wi went to Aaka, who now had changed

her mind and slept in the cave because of the cold and the wolves, and

asked her counsel.

“So when Pag fails you, you come to me for wisdom,” she said. “Well, I

have none to give. Seek it of your gods, for they alone can help you.”

As it came about, the gods, or chance, did help, and in a strange

fashion. In the darkness toward dawn a great noise was heard out in

the sea, grunts and growlings, and when at last light came, Wi saw a

whole troop of great white bears crawling away through the snow mists.

When they had all gone, calling Pag and some others, he made his way

over the ice to the rocks where the whale’s flesh was piled up, and

found that with their sharp claws and giant strength the bears,

scenting food now that the snow had been removed, had torn the heaps

open and scattered them so that the centres, which were not frozen so

hard because of the protection of the snow, lay exposed. Much they had

eaten, of course, but more remained.

Then Wi said to Pag:

“I thought that we must leave the pit unbaited and try to drive the

wolves into it as best we could, but it is not so, for the gods have

been good to us.”

“Yes,” said Pag, “the bears have been very good to us, and for aught I

know the gods may be bears, or the bears gods.”

Then he sent to summon all the men of the tribe before the exposed

flesh turned to solid ice. They came—scores of them, many with hide

ropes which they made fast to great lumps of meat, and others with

rough reed-woven baskets. Setting to work, before night fell they had

carried tons of the flesh into the rock pit, which was round and may

have measured a hundred paces from side to side, where they left it to

freeze so that the wolves could not drag it away, or eat it easily.

That night, watching by the moonlight, they saw and heard many wolves

gathered at the mouth of the pit and walking to and fro, filled with

doubt and fear of raps. At last some entered—though only a very few

of them—and were suffered to go away unhindered when they had gorged

themselves. Next night more entered, and next night more, though now

they could make small play with the flesh because the frost had turned

it into stone. On the fourth day, Wi called up the tribe and, before

sunset, sent all the younger man, led by Moananga, into the woods,

making a great half-circle round those places where they knew the

wolves had their lairs, ordering them to hide there, several together,

so that they might not be attacked, and not to stir till they saw a

fire burn upon a certain rock. Then, with shoutings, they were to

advance, driving all the wolves before them toward the mouth of the

gorge.

So the men went, for now they knew that either they must conquer the

wolves or the wolves would conquer them.

Then it was that Pag behaved very strangely, for after these man had

started, he said:

“This plan is of no use, Wi, for when the wolves hear the shoutings

they will not run toward the gorge, but will break and scatter by ones

and twos, this way and that, slipping through the drivers or round the

ends of the line before it closes.”

“If you think that, why did you not say so before?” asked Wi angrily.

“For my own reasons. Hearken, Wi. All the women call me a wolf-man, do

they not, one who changes into a wolf and hunts with the wolves. Well,

that is a lie, and yet there is truth mixed up with this lie. You know

that, soon after I was born, my mother cast, or caused me to be cast,

out into the forest where she was sure the wolves would eat me, but

afterward my father found me and brought me back. What you do not know

is that this was ten days from the time when I was cast out. Now, how

did I live during those days? I cannot tell you who have no memory,

but I hold that some wolf suckled me, since otherwise I must have

died.”

“I have heard of such things,” said Wi doubtfully, “but always set

them down as winter-fire tales. But why do you think this one to be

true? Perchance your father found you the day that you were cast out.”

“I think it to be true because, in after time, when she was dying, my

mother whispered this tale into my ears. She said my father, who

himself was killed by wolves not long afterward, told her secretly—

for he dared not speak of the matter openly—that when he came upon me

in the forest whither he had gone to seek my bones and, if any of them

could be found, bury them, he discovered me in such a nest as wolves

make when they bear their young, and saw a great gray wolf standing

over me with her teat in my mouth, one that had lost her cubs, mayhap.

She growled at him but ran away, and seizing me, he also ran and bore

me home. This my mother swore to me.”

“A dying woman’s fancy,” said Wi.

“I think not,” answered Pag, “and for this reason. When for the second

time I was driven out by the women, or rather by Henga’s father, whom

they persuaded that I was a bewitcher and unlucky, having nowhere else

to go and all hands being against me, I wandered into the woods that

there the wolves might kill me and make an end. The day began to die,

and presently wolves gathered round me, for I saw them moving between

the tree trunks, waiting till night fell to spring upon me. I watched

them idly, caring nothing, since I had come there to be their meat.

They drew near when suddenly a great gray she-wolf ran up as though to

seize me, then stopped and sniffed at me.

“Thrice she smelt, then licked me with her tongue, and leaping round,

rushed at those other wolves, snarling and open-jawed, her fur

starting up from her back. The dog-wolves ran away from her, but two

of the she-wolves stood, being hungry. With these she fought, tearing

the throat out of one and mauling the other so that it limped off

howling. Then she, too, went away, leaving me amazed till I remembered

my mother’s story, after which I wondered no more, being sure that

this old wolf was she that had suckled me and knew me again.”

“Did you see more of her, Pag?”

“Aye. Twice she returned, once after five days, and once after six

more days, and each time she brought me meat and laid it at my feet.

It was filthy carrion torn from some dead deer that she had dug up

from beneath the snow, but doubtless the best she could find.

Moreover, although she was thin with hunger and this was her portion,

still she brought it to me.”

“And did you eat it?” asked Wi, astonished.

“Nay, why should I who had crept into that hole to die? Moreover, my

stomach turned at the sight of it. Then you found me and carried me

into your hut, and I have met that foster mother of mine no more. Yet

she still lives, for more than once I have seen her; yes, this very

winter I have seen her who now is the leader of all the wolf people.”

“A strange story,” said Wi, staring at him. “Surely if you have not

dreamed it, you who slay many of them should be more tender toward

wolves.”

“Not so, for did they not kill my father, and would they not have

killed me? Yet to this wolf I am tender, as I shall show you, for in

payment of what I would do, I ask her life.”

“And what would you do?” asked Wi.

“This. Now, before the fire is lighted, I will go down into the forest

and find that wolf, for she will know me again and come to me. Then,

when the shouting begins and the brutes grow frightened, she will

follow me and the all the other wolves will follow her, and I shall

lead them thither into the trap. Only her I will save from the trap,

for that is my bargain.”

“You are mad,” said Wi.

“If I come back no more, then call me mad, or if my plan fail. But if

I live and it succeeds, then call me wise,” answered Pag with a low

guttural laugh. “There is yet an hour before the lighting of the fire

when the edge of the moon covers yonder star. Give me that hour and

you shall learn.”

Then, without waiting for more words, Pag slipped down the rock on

which they were standing and vanished into the gloom.

“Without doubt he is mad,” said Wi to himself, “and without doubt this

is the end of our fellowship.”

Presently, waiting there in the cold frost and watching his breath

steam upon the still air, Wi’s mind went back to this matter of Pag.

Now that he came to think of it, it was very strange that all the

people believed Pag to be a companion of wolves. What was accepted by

all, he had noted, was generally true. If one person smelt a fox, he

might be mistaken, but if everybody smelt it, surely there was a fox.

It was certain also that Pag never had any fear of wolves and would go

down into the forest when they were howling all around as quietly as

another would walk into his hut and take no harm; whereas from bears

or other wild beasts he would run like the rest.

Further, now Wi remembered having heard the tale told in his youth

that, when Pag was cast out by his mother shortly after birth, for

some reason that he forgot, fifteen days went by before his father

went to seek his bones to bury them. Yet he found him living and

strong, because of which—so ran the tale—the people held Pag to be

not human but a monster sprung from one of those evil spirits that

might be heard howling round the huts at the dead of night.

So perhaps what Pag said was true. Perhaps his father had found him in

a wolf’s den and seen her suckling him. Perhaps, too, since these

beasts were known to live many years, especially if the spirit of a

dead man were in them, as Urk and other aged ones declared happened

from time to time both in the case of wolves and of other creatures,

such as the great toothed tiger, food had been brought to him by that

same wolf when he was cast out for the second time.

Well, he would learn presently; meanwhile, the moment drew near when

he must light the signal fire.