Brother Wind (17 page)

Waxtal looked up at the woman. She was Hard Rock’s first wife. Waxtal remembered her from long ago, when the Whale Hunters and the First Men were preparing to fight the Short Ones. She had been beautiful, though loud and sometimes rude. But what Whale Hunter woman was not rude?

Even now, though most of the men and women of the Whale Hunter village were thin, their eyes dull with need of meat, Many Babies’ face was still sleek and round, her hair shining with oil. She squatted beside the fish, and Waxtal could see that it was the catcher’s share, the head with meat and belly fat still attached.

“I caught it,” she said and pointed at the fish with all the fingers of both hands. “I did,” she said again, and her words were broken with hard breathing as though she had been running.

Hard Rock looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “Good,” he finally said.

“Ha! You say ‘good’!” said Many Babies and coughed out a harsh laugh. “You do not know how hard I had to fight for my share—my share of a fish that I caught!”

Hard Rock cut his eyes over to Waxtal, a look that Waxtal understood. Why did women argue over things not worth argument? Why did they cry for things not worth tears?

“Who tried to take it?” Hard Rock asked, his words coming slowly.

Many Babies pressed her lips into a small circle, and Waxtal could see what she must have looked like as a child, her smile hidden behind a pout. “Kukutux,” she said in a tiny voice.

Waxtal cut off another chunk of the dried meat Hard Rock had given him, chewed it slowly, and tried to remember a Whale Hunter woman named Kukutux, but he could bring no face to his mind.

She must be one of the younger women, he thought. One who was a baby or perhaps not yet born when the Short Ones came so many years ago.

“Perhaps Kukutux needs the food. She has no husband,” Hard Rock said.

Many Babies set her mouth into a frown and drew back her lips to show her teeth. Waxtal looked away. It was not good to be here with Hard Rock when he and his wife were fighting. If a man’s face always brought remembrance of embarrassment, why spend time with that man?

Waxtal stood. He picked up the harpoon head that lay on the floor mats between Hard Rock and himself. “Remember. Three more,” Waxtal said. He did not want to leave without the other harpoon heads, but more than that, he wanted the trade completed before Hard Rock could talk to Owl or Spotted Egg. Who could expect those two, barely more than boys, to see the worth in Hard Rock’s broken harpoon heads? And Waxtal did not need Hard Rock to think that he was trading out of pity.

Hard Rock raised one hand toward Waxtal. “Wait, do not go,” he said, then turned to Many Babies. “I will see that Kukutux is punished. Even if she needs meat, she cannot take what belongs to someone else.”

Many Babies nodded, and raising her chin she said, “She can have my share. What is one fish to the wife of the alananasika?”

“Yes,” Waxtal said. He opened his mouth to praise Hard Rock’s strength, his honor. But Many Babies, lowering her voice so her words were almost a whisper, leaned toward her husband and said, “Kukutux needs a husband. Perhaps one of these traders will give something for her.”

The words were cold in Waxtal’s chest. What trader wanted a woman in his ik? Someone to feed, someone who would want beads and feathers? Someone to complain in hard weather, to whine during long days of paddling? Then he saw the smile on Hard Rock’s face, the sudden straightening of the man’s shoulders.

“Kukutux is a good worker and a young woman,” Hard Rock said. “She will give some husband happy nights and many sons.” He laughed, and Waxtal joined his laughter.

“Ah, a Whale Hunter woman!” Waxtal said, but he remembered Samiq’s woman Three Fish, who ate as much as any man and did less work than most of the women. Owl and Spotted Egg might leave him here if he took a Whale Hunter woman for wife. And how could he bear to live in this ruined and cursed village? Who did not know that a curse like that could enter a man’s soul, could bring illness or death? As a trader, he had some protection. He did not belong to this village, to this island, but if he lived here, even though he was not a Whale Hunter, could he expect to remain untainted?

Waxtal closed his mouth on his laughter and smiled at Hard Rock. “What man does not hope for the blessing of a Whale Hunter wife?” Waxtal said, the words coming warm from his mouth. “But it is difficult for a trader to have a wife with him. Dangerous. This Kukutux, has she no father, no uncle, to worry about her safety?”

“Everyone in her family is dead,” Many Babies said, and she moved to sit beside Hard Rock as though she were one of the men.

“Perhaps then her family is cursed,” Waxtal said, his words careful, slow.

Hard Rock frowned. “She is one of the strongest women. She carries no curse.”

“She does not even cough,” Many Babies said.

Waxtal pulled at his long, thin chin whiskers, raised one eyebrow, and turned to Hard Rock. “This is true?” he asked.

“It is true,” Hard Rock said.

Waxtal shrugged. He opened his hand and looked at the harpoon head. “I will show this to Owl and Spotted Egg,” he said. “I will speak to them about Kukutux, and then we will decide whether or not to take a woman. She would have to ride in the ik with them, since I have only an ikyak. If they do not want her …” He shrugged.

“Two bellies of oil for the harpoon heads, you promised,” Hard Rock said.

“Yes,” said Waxtal, “for this and three more.” But he felt a shrinking inside as he thought of telling Owl how much he had promised for a few broken harpoon heads.

Waxtal climbed from the ulaq, stood at the top for a moment, and looked down toward the beach. A young woman was carrying a slab of halibut meat in a net bag strung from her arm. She was tall and thin and moved with quick grace, her feet small and brown under the edge of her birdskin suk. As she passed the ulaq, she looked up at him, her dark eyes large in a too thin face. She looked away, and Waxtal felt the blood rush to his loins. How many nights since he had been with a woman?

He looked at the harpoon head in his hand, focused his eyes on the broken barb until his thoughts left his needs. He was glad he had asked Hard Rock for a woman. Another man would only have to see the bulge at his crotch to know that Waxtal could be easily bought with the promise of a woman.

He watched as the young woman climbed up a ulaq. Waxtal brushed his hand across his hardening man part, then heard Many Babies’ voice rise in a wail of complaints from inside Hard Rock’s ulaq. Waxtal shook his head. What woman was worth the misery?

Chagvan Bay, Alaska

K
IIN STOOD ON THE SHORE
until Raven’s trade ik and White Fox’s ikyak were only small dark spots on the blue water of the bay. She looked away as White Fox’s wife pulled her hair over her face to hide her tears. Kiin held prayers in her heart for the traders’ success, but if she hid her eyes from other women, it was not because of tears. There had been too many days of packing and preparing food, of carving and listening to Lemming Tail’s complaints, too many nights in the Raven’s bed, for her to feel sorrow at this parting.

Soon the other women turned back to the lodges, but Kiin walked out on the tide flats, using her walking stick to find sea urchins between rocks and in tide pools.

When she had filled her net gathering bag, she cracked open a sea urchin and used her thumbnail to scoop out the orange eggs. She popped her thumb in her mouth and smiled. The winter had been long; it was good to have fresh food again. But now it was time to return to the lodge. Her breasts, full of milk, ached with the need to nurse Shuku.

“You should have brought Shuku with you,” her inside voice told her. “He would have been no trouble strapped under your suk. Then you could have stayed away from the lodge and Lemming Tail even longer.”

“Shuku was asleep in his cradle,” Kiin answered.

Besides, now that he was a year old, he was more difficult to carry, bouncing against Kiin’s back, struggling to free his arms from Kiin’s suk, crying for more than his share of sea urchin eggs. But Kiin smiled. No mother had a better son, she thought, and ignored a sudden and painful remembrance of Takha.

As she walked back through the village, she began to hum a song, a lullaby sung by First Men mothers. In one moon the people would leave this winter village to make a salmon camp on the Walrus People’s river. Salmon camp was a good time of year, with songs and dancing, beach fires and much to eat. This year she and Lemming Tail might be there alone without the Raven, but that would not be terrible. They would have less work to do without his demands.

When she ducked into the lodge’s entrance tunnel, she heard Shuku crying, and she shook her head at Lemming Tail’s laziness. How many times in the two moons since Mouse had been born had Kiin cared for him while Lemming Tail visited other lodges? How many times had Kiin nursed both babies? Lemming Tail should do the same, especially since Kiin was gathering food.

She pulled aside the curtain that divided the lodge, and said, “You could not feed my son while I was gathering food for you?”

Lemming Tail sat on the sleeping platform, her legs thrust out flat before her, her back against the lodge wall. Standing beside the bed were three of Lemming Tail’s brothers. The men wore furred parkas and leggings. An ivory labret pierced the skin beneath the eldest brother’s lower lip, and its weight drew his face into a grimace. He held a feathered hunting lance, point up, as though it were a walking stick, but the other brothers carried no weapons and stood with their arms folded across their chests.

Lemming Tail smiled at Kiin and reached for the bag of sea urchins, but Kiin slung the bag over her arm and went to Shuku’s cradle. He hiccoughed and held his hands out to her, tears like clear beads on his cheeks. Kiin tucked him close, and he laid his head against her neck. “You could not feed him?” Kiin asked again, anger making her words rise into impoliteness. She pulled up her suk and cradled Shuku in both arms so he could suckle.

“I am first wife,” Lemming Tail said. “What more should I do than take care of my own son, my husband’s son?”

“I was gathering food for us, for you,” Kiin answered.

One of Lemming Tail’s brothers stepped toward Kiin, but Lemming Tail rose to her knees and reached out to grab his wrist.

“Let me tell her,” she said. She turned to Kiin and said, “I have decided you will not stay in this lodge. When my husband returns, you may come back. If he wants you. But remember, my baby is Raven’s son. Your baby belongs to a man Raven killed.”

Kiin ground her teeth to hold in her anger. “Who told you this?”

Lemming Tail shrugged. “Who does not know that Raven killed your first husband? And you told me yourself that Shuku was your husband’s son.” Lemming Tail licked her lips and laughed. “You think Raven will raise a son who might someday decide to kill him to avenge his own father’s death?”

Kiin looked at the baby in her arms. “My son would not kill the Raven,” she said, but even as she said the words, she heard her spirit voice whisper, “How can you answer for your son? You do not know what he will be when he is a man.”

Lemming Tail’s brothers laughed, and the eldest said, “We will let Raven decide what he wants when he comes back, but now we are here to see that our sister has no problems with you. Take your son and leave.”

Kiin shook her head. Lemming Tail must know that a woman alone, without ik or lodge, and with a baby to care for, would soon die. But then Kiin’s spirit whispered, “No, Kiin, you know you can go to the Grandmother and the Aunt.”

I cannot, Kiin thought, and fear grew hard and brittle in her chest. How could she go to the Grandmother and the Aunt? If she lived in their lodge, her thoughts would soon enter the Aunt’s dreams, and then she would know Takha was alive. How could Kiin take that chance?

“The Aunt already knows Takha is alive, Kiin,” her spirit said, “and she has done nothing.”

“She does not know,” Kiin said, and realized she had spoken aloud, that Lemming Tail and her brothers were staring at her. Kiin’s embarrassment and her fear suddenly changed to anger. She turned her eyes toward each brother.

They looked away, blinking.

“The Raven will punish you,” Kiin said.

The youngest of Lemming Tail’s brothers shuffled his feet and looked down, but Lemming Tail said, “What? My husband will punish me because I try to protect him? What more can a wife do than to protect her husband?”

“And if I do not go?” Kiin asked.

“That is why my brothers are here,” Lemming Tail said.

Two of the men moved toward Kiin, but she said, “Do not touch me or my son. I will go, but I will take what is mine.” She went to the basket corner and took the largest basket, one she had woven herself from split willow root.

“Nothing here is yours except your son,” Lemming Tail said.

But the oldest brother looked at his sister and said, “Let her take what is fair. Some of the food, the oil, sleeping furs. What if you are wrong and Raven is angry? Do you want him to know you made her leave with nothing?”

Lemming Tail spat out angry words at her brother, but Kiin turned her back on them. She found a strip of dried seal meat for Shuku to chew on and set him on her sleeping platform, then she filled her basket, taking furs and sealskins, dried fish and meat, needles and awls, carving tools and carvings, and a parka and leggings she had made for herself in the manner of the Walrus People. As she packed, she planned.

For a day or two, she could stay with Shale Thrower or perhaps Ice Hunter and his new wife, but it would not be comfortable. The women would be afraid Kiin was asking for a place in their husband’s lodge as second wife.

Then Kiin’s inside voice said: “It is time to return to the First Men, to your own people.” The thought pushed away all Kiin’s anger and even her fear. Return to her own people! The words danced like a song in her mind. But what if the Raven decided to follow her? She must not lead him back to Samiq or to Takha.

Kiin put a large roll of twisted sinew into the basket, closed her ears to Lemming Tail’s protests as she took a second roll. Then suddenly her thoughts cleared and she knew what she would do, something so simple that she almost smiled.