Brother Wind (11 page)

“Some men do,” Ice Hunter said. “Others live for years alone, without a woman, until they find the right one for their lodge.”

Raven smiled. “You think your son might go with me?”

“Which one?”

“Either. They both speak the River People language.”

Ice Hunter shrugged. His wife padded softly to his side and handed him a bowl of dried seal meat. Ice Hunter held the bowl toward Raven and waited while the man took three good-sized chunks. Ice Hunter set the bowl on the floor between them and took a piece of meat, cut a slice from it with his sleeve knife, and put the slice into his mouth, moving it to rest between his right cheek and teeth.

“I cannot answer for either of my sons,” said Ice Hunter.

“If they go with me,” Raven said, “they can have a double share of the trade goods. I go more for learning than for trade. I have heard stories of the River People shamans. I want to understand their ways.” He took a large bite from one piece of seal meat and tucked the other two pieces up inside his sleeve.

Ice Hunter stuck a finger in his mouth, fished the softened meat from his cheek, and began to chew.

Raven pointed with his chin toward Ice Hunter’s jaw. “I gave you medicine,” he said.

Ice Hunter shrugged.

Raven mumbled something, scooped the rest of the seal meat from the bowl on the floor, then stood. At the entrance tunnel of the lodge he turned back and said, “Ask your sons if they will go with me.”

Ice Hunter nodded, but said nothing until Raven had left the lodge. Then, looking at his wife, he said, “If he is such a great shaman, why does he steal our food?”

Ice Hunter’s wife crouched beside him and placed a bowl of broth into his hands. Ice Hunter drank the broth quickly, leaving the last of the warm liquid in his mouth, his left cheek bulging with it.

“If he is such a great shaman,” his wife said, “why do your teeth still ache?”

“I have hunters coming soon,” the Raven said to Kiin. “Where is Lemming Tail?”

“With Shale Thrower,” Kiin said. “Do you want me to get her?”

“No. She is better there,” the Raven said. “Her mouth is forever full of words.”

Kiin kept her smile hidden. The Walrus language, spoken as the people of the Raven’s village spoke it, always put strange pictures in her mind.

The Raven pointed at Kiin with one long finger. “Whatever you hear today—say nothing.”

“If my mouth fills with words,” Kiin answered, “I will swallow them.” She could not keep a smile from her lips.

The Raven frowned and looked at her from narrowed eyes, but Kiin busied herself at the food cache, taking out meat that would please whatever men would come to the lodge.

Finally, the Raven broke the silence, said to her, “I plan a spring trading trip to the River People. They have many villages north of here.”

Kiin nodded, but asked no questions.

“We will leave as soon as the ice is out.”

Again Kiin nodded.

“They have furs from inland animals: caribou, bear, wolf, and others.” He paused as if waiting for Kiin to answer him, and when she said nothing, the Raven asked, “Is there something I can bring you?”

“Animal teeth for carving, and …” For a moment Kiin paused, unable to remember the word she wanted.

“Yes?”

“I have heard they have … trees.” She stopped, thought for a moment. “Yes, trees.” She lifted one hand up above her head. “Tall, very tall. They grow like the willow and alders that are here, but the wood is stronger.”

“Lemming Tail has told you this?”

“Yes.”

“Against she is wrong. There are places like that, with many kinds of trees, but the River People’s trees are like ours.”

Kiin shrugged. “Well, if you see any different kind of wood, bring it. Only small pieces—to carve.”

The Raven grunted, nodded his head, and again Kiin went back to setting out food, chopping hardened fat into dried berries, mixing in sandwort greens she had cooked and allowed to sour.

It seemed strange to Kiin that at one time she had carved only because she could get goods in trade for her carvings. Now the carving was a need, something as important as her songs—something that brought peace to her, so that she could lose herself in the work, as though she slipped into a world apart from that of Lemming Tail, the Raven, and the Walrus People.

A scratch at the dividing curtain called Kiin from her thoughts, and she looked up to see White Fox, Ice Hunter’s oldest son, enter their side of the lodge. He carried a cooking bag that filled the lodge with the rich smell of ground squirrel stew.

Kiin took the bag from White Fox and hung it from the lodge rafters over the oil lamp so the food inside the bag would stay warm.

The Raven smiled at the man. “Tell your wife I will bring her something in my next trading trip,” the Raven said. He motioned to the sleeping platform where he sat, and White Fox sat down beside him.

Kiin filled two bowls with stew and handed them to the men. They ate without speaking.

When his bowl was empty, the Raven wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Kiin lifted the dripping caribou-scapula ladle from the cooking bag and raised her eyebrows. The Raven nodded. She took his bowl and filled it again. She looked at White Fox, but he shook his head, settling his empty bowl into his lap.

The Raven tilted his bowl and used his fingers to push meat into his mouth.

“I plan to trade with the River People, those who live in that village at the mouth of the Great River,” he said as he chewed. He licked his fingers, and when White Fox said nothing, he continued, “I need men to go with me. Your brother says he will go.”

“He speaks their language,” White Fox said.

The Raven shrugged. “So do I.”

White Fox frowned, and the scar that curved from his eye to his chin pulled taut.

“But not as well as your brother does,” the Raven added.

“We will get a share of the trade goods?”

“Everything except what I get for my wife’s carvings.”

White Fox nodded. “How long will we be gone?”

“Only two moons, maybe less,” the Raven said. “It is not far to the River People.”

“You say my brother plans to go with you?”

“Yes.”

“My father?”

The Raven shrugged. “Who can say? He has a new wife. His bed holds more interest than trade goods.”

White Fox smiled. “If my brother is going, then I will go,” he said.

“Good.” The Raven held out his bowl, and again Kiin filled it. White Fox nodded toward his bowl, and she filled his as well. Then she went to her basket corner and sat twisting sinew until White Fox had eaten and left the lodge.

“Your brother White Fox is going with me,” the Raven said to Bird Sings.

Bird Sings, Ice Hunter’s younger son, had come to the Raven’s lodge after White Fox left. He also brought food—a thick fish soup that often earned his wife praise in the village.

Bird Sings raised his eyebrows and frowned. “To the River People?” he asked.

The Raven nodded and held his bowl out to Kiin. She filled it again with the soup.

Bird Sings pointed toward the bowl. “Blackfish—fresh,” he said. “My wife catches them all winter, you know.”

The Raven nodded and raised the bowl to his mouth.

“I will come if I can bring my wife,” Bird Sings said.

“Would she prepare our food?” the Raven asked and belched his appreciation of the soup.

“Yes.”

“Bring her.”

“Then I will go.”

“Good, I will tell your brother.”

When Bird Sings left the lodge, the Raven went, too. Then Kiin helped herself to the fish soup. Shuku woke from his nap, crying and cross. Kiin took him down from his cradle, settled him on her lap, and used her finger to scoop some of the soup into his mouth. He bit down hard on her finger, and Kiin snapped her thumb against his lips. His chin quivered, and Kiin hugged him to her until he pulled back to smile. He pointed at her basket corner and began to babble in baby words.

“The Raven had hunters come,” Kiin said, speaking to her son in the First Men language. She gave Shuku several more mouthfuls of soup, then sat on the edge of Lemming Tail’s bed and turned Shuku toward her to nurse.

“He tricked them, but that is how he does all things,” she said aloud to Shuku. Then Kiin remembered her promise to the Raven to swallow her words, and so she said nothing more to her son. But she could not keep herself from wondering why the Raven would plan a trading trip in early spring, when people had less food, less oil to trade. And why would the trip have such importance that he would lie to White Fox and Bird Sings to get them to go with him?

Then came the whispering of her spirit’s voice: “Whatever his reason, the Raven does nothing to help anyone except himself.”

And even with Shuku warm against her, dread settled like ice in Kiin’s heart. She wrapped her arms more tightly around her son and rocked him as he nursed.

Yunaska Island, the Aleutian Chain

K
UKUTUX WOKE FROM HER SLEEP
and knew it was morning. Men and women were outside, greeting the sun. Their greeting songs should be to the mountains, Kukutux thought. Did they think the sun was stronger than the mountains? How could they forget that the mountains’ ash had hidden both sun and moon, had even blanketed the sea?

The women of the village had laughed at her, at the little woven grass apron Kukutux had made to cover her nose and mouth when the ash was still falling. They laughed, yet they wore grass aprons to cover their genitals, a protection against those spirits of disease that enter through the openings of the body. They laughed, but now, even after much of the ash on beach and rock had been taken by wind and sea, they were still coughing, as though they could rid their chests of the spirits they had breathed in. And how many children, how many babies, had died from the ash? Even Kukutux’s son had died, though she had covered his face as much as she could.

“Kukutux!” The voice broke into her thoughts. “Wake up!”

The sleeping place curtain was thrust aside, and She Cries bent over her, pulled against her left arm, so that Kukutux was forced to her feet.

“Just because your husband is dead, do you think you can spend your days in bed?” She Cries asked.

Kukutux jerked her arm from She Cries’ grasp.

“You did not see me sleeping my days away after your brother died, did you?” She Cries asked. “I was left alone, without husband or children, just like you. And I had my mother to worry about. What good is an old woman to bring in meat or oil? You are better off than I was, but still I did not waste my days sleeping. I found myself another husband.”

She Cries continued criticizing until finally Kukutux raised her voice to ask, “What do you want, She Cries? Why are you here?”

“Wind Chaser asked me to come and tell you good news.”

Kukutux walked over to the food cache and pulled out a grass bag filled with dried fish. She offered a piece to She Cries. The woman settled herself cross-legged on a floor mat near the oil lamp, and Kukutux squatted on her heels beside her.

“You should eat some,” She Cries said, holding out the piece of fish Kukutux had given her.

Kukutux shook her head.

“I do not pity you, Kukutux,” said She Cries. “Every woman in this village has lost husband or children, mother or father. Yet you are the one who carries the scars of mourning.” She pointed with her chin at Kukutux’s arms, then tilted her head and said, “You should not have cut your hair. How do you think you will get another husband now that you are so ugly? And with your arm, too.”

“I am strong enough,” Kukutux said. She cupped her left elbow with her right hand. “And my hair will grow back. I had a good husband. I have chosen to honor him. I do not care what you think, or what anyone thinks.”

She Cries snorted. She took several bites of fish, then said, “How can we help you if you do nothing for yourself?”

“I did not ask for your help,” Kukutux said.

She Cries blinked, lifted her chin, and said, “I did not come to argue with you. Wind Chaser told me to tell you that something good has finally happened to this village.” She patted her belly. “I carry a child. A son, I am sure.”

Kukutux made herself smile. Almost she opened her mouth to ask if it was Wind Chaser’s child. Who did not know that She Cries, in trying to find a husband to replace Kukutux’s dead brother, had slept with nearly every hunter in the village? But why exchange rudeness for rudeness?

“I am glad for you and for Wind Chaser,” Kukutux said. “I will hope with you that the baby is a son, if that is what you want.”

She Cries raised her eyebrows. “You know his other wife has given him only daughters, and all of them but Snow-in-her-hair are dead. I have promised him a son. Snow-in-her-hair will be a good help. She is nearly old enough to marry. Wind Chaser says Red Feet’s youngest son wants her.”

“He is still a boy,” said Kukutux.

She Cries shrugged. “Old enough to hunt. And Wind Chaser says he will make the boy come live with us. Then we will have two hunters in our ulaq.”

“Good,” said Kukutux. “You will not want for meat.”

She Cries drew herself up to sit very straight. She was a small woman with tiny round eyes and thin legs. She reminded Kukutux of a kittiwake, that quick and sharp-beaked bird.

“Even if that happens, do not think we can help you,” said She Cries. “Wind Chaser says that since your brother is dead, you are no longer my sister. He says we owe you nothing, but Wind Chaser is a good man. He says you may still fish with me in my ik, and also that he will give you a widow’s share—double portion—from his next sea lion. But do not ask for more than that.” Again she patted her belly. “I must have enough food to keep this son strong and healthy.”

Kukutux wanted to tell She Cries to leave her ulaq, that she did not need meat from Wind Chaser’s next sea lion, but then she remembered something her mother had once told her “The foolish woman cuts off her own thumb to punish her hand.” And so, Kukutux thanked She Cries, then sat and listened in politeness as the woman berated her for all her many faults.