Brother Wind (26 page)

From the edges of his eyes, he watched Owl and Spotted Egg, watched and waited as the two men slowly lowered their knives, stood listening. Then finally, Waxtal said, “I was given a vision.”

For a time neither man spoke, then finally Spotted Egg said, “Come with us to the beach.”

“This is a sacred place,” Waxtal said. “I cannot leave without many prayers.”

“Pray then,” Spotted Egg said, his voice low and hard. “We will wait for you beside your ikyak.”

“I have many things here,” Waxtal said, spreading his hands palm up over his hunter’s lamp and tusks.

Owl made a rude noise at the back of his throat and picked up the carved tusk. Spotted Egg reached down and jerked the fur seal pelt from under Waxtal, then picked up the other tusk. “Come soon,” Owl said, and the two men turned their backs and walked away in long easy strides.

Waxtal closed his fingers over the emptiness where his tusks had been. He stood, adjusted his suk, then squatted down again. He tried to remember some song or prayer, a blessing for the sacredness of the earth, but he could think of nothing except the cold that seeped up from the ground. Then he remembered a song of thanksgiving, something First Men hunters sang to animals they had taken. He opened his mouth, but instead of thanksgiving, his words came as a request for protection, something sung in a wavering voice. As he sang, pictures came into his mind, and he saw Owl and Spotted Egg with his tusks, taking his ikyak to leave him here on this beach with no food, no oil. He saw his tusks given in trade, to someone who would steal the power meant for him.

So Waxtal ended his song, scooped up his hunter’s lamp, and ran until he caught up with Owl and Spotted Egg. He followed them to the ikyak.

Kukutux stood and stepped back, flexed her shoulders. She tilted her head to see her basket from all directions, to check for the smoothness of the stitches, the slope of the sides. “It is good,” she said aloud, then pressed her fingers to her lips. “It is good you are alone,” she said. “It is good that no one else heard you praise your own work.”

After eating her fill from the cache, she had stayed up late to work on the basket. It was a large basket, and now, nearing the second night, she had almost finished it. She had eaten twice this day, and again she was hungry. She smiled, thinking of how many days she had been happy to eat one poor meal. But what would Owl and Spotted Egg think when they returned if they found an empty cache? She must bring in some food, if not sea urchins, then clams and ugyuun stalks.

She pulled on her suk and, snuffing out all but one of the oil lamps, left the ulaq. She went back to her own ulaq, now dark except for the small square of light coming in through the roof hole. But she knew the ulaq well and found the large slice of gray slate set in its place against one wall.

Kukutux rummaged through the storage cache and brought out a gathering net. She strung it on her arm, picked up the slate clam scoop, and left the ulaq. She hefted the slate to the top of her head, held it there with one hand, and walked to the clam flats. The morning had started out with much fog, but the day had warmed until now it was good to be outside, a day for gathering and fishing. Several women were at the clam flats, each of them bent over their shale diggers, scooping out sand to uncover small, fat clams. Many Babies was there, and She Cries. Many Babies came over to Kukutux and pointed to a section of beach near the high-tide line.

“Dig there,” she said. “No one has tried there yet.”

Kukutux merely smiled and shook her head. “Save it for another,” she said, knowing well that whoever dug there would find little. She walked near the edge of the water, ignoring Many Babies’ protests, and heard She Cries say to Many Babies, “Why should she dig at the high-tide line? She wants clams, not stones.” Then Many Babies was quiet.

As though the spirits favored her, Kukutux found many clams, even when most of the other women had few. Kukutux had nearly filled her carrying net when she heard Speckled Basket cry out, “Traders. I see their ik.”

The words were like rocks in Kukutux’s chest, and she looked up, shading her eyes. Yes, Speckled Basket was right. It was the traders’ ik. “An ikyak, too,” Kukutux said.

“The same traders or different ones?” Speckled Basket asked.

“The same,” Kukutux said.

“You should go back,” Many Babies said to Kukutux. “You are their woman now.”

Kukutux turned away from Many Babies’ words and continued to dig. Why should Many Babies tell her what to do?

But She Cries said, “You should go. They will wonder where you are.

Without looking at the women, Kukutux went to the edge of the water. She lowered her gathering bag to rinse the clams, then washed her scoop, sluiced off the water with the edge of her hand, and settled the scoop back on top of her head.

As she walked toward the village beach, small spirits wove worries into her thoughts. What if the traders did not like the food she prepared? What if she did not have enough clams to satisfy them? Then she thought of sleeping places and the needs that seemed to rule every man’s life.

“What will I do if one of them wants me for his bed?” Kukutux asked aloud. She waited, as though the wind would answer, as though the bothering spirits would carry wisdom as well as worry. When no answer came, she spoke for herself, and in a strong voice said, “Hope for a son.”

The Kuskokwim River, Alaska

R
AVEN TOOK THE FOOD
offered him and nodded his thanks to Dyenen’s wife. She was an old woman, her back humped, her vision dimmed by the white caul that covers the eyes of the very old.

“My traders call you Saghani,” Dyenen said, speaking in the River People language.

Though the words were polite, Raven could feel the old man’s uneasiness. Dyenen sat with his back rigid, his right hand caressing the bulge of his sleeve knife.

What child did not know the stories of times long ago when River and Walrus People were one? What child had not heard the stories of the anger, the killing that had driven them apart, one tribe following the rivers, the other finding a place on the shores of the North Sea? But why let the anger of men long dead destroy the living? So Raven pretended not to notice the old man’s nervousness.

Even with the anger that divided them, River and Walrus had always been traders, setting aside their battles to visit one another’s villages and exchange goods. Raven himself had made trading trips to the River People, so he understood most of Dyenen’s words, but he turned toward White Fox and waited for the man’s translation. It was best if Dyenen did not know that Raven understood.

What did the storytellers say? Knowledge hidden is a strong man’s power.

White Fox repeated Dyenen’s words, and Raven nodded his head slowly, and slowly said, “Saghani s’uze’ dilaen.” Saghani—Raven. Yes, it was his name, yet he would not limit its power only to a name. Long ago, in his vision quest, he had become raven. He had flown; he had looked down on the earth, had seen the smallness of the men beneath him. What man, after seeing such a thing, could be the same?

The shaman laughed, shook his head, and looked at the other River hunters gathered in the lodge. They, too, laughed, raised hands with fingers spread to show their approval that Raven would attempt to speak their language.

The shaman’s wife, reaching out to ladle more food into bowls, turned her head to laugh with foul-smelling breath into Raven’s face. Raven forced himself to smile at her. Then to push her away, he thrust his still-full bowl toward her and said, “Good!”

White Fox repeated his word in the River People’s language: “Ugheli.”

“Ugheli!” Raven shouted out, which again brought a roar of approval from the River hunters. But the shaman narrowed his eyes, and Raven saw that quick moment of doubt, so reached over and slapped the back of his hand against White Fox’s arm, pointed with his chin toward a River hunter who was speaking, then leaned close to get White Fox’s translation of the man’s words. They were nothing important, those words, only an inquiry as to which hunter had provided the meat the shaman’s wife served, but Raven nodded his head, lowered his eyes as he listened to White Fox’s words, as though there was some importance in what the man said.

The old shaman moved his eyes quickly toward the River man and back again with some satisfaction toward Raven.

Enough, then, Raven told himself. No other River words will come out of my mouth until I decide Dyenen must know I speak his language. The old man has used his years well. Wisdom guides his eyes. Raven pulled a necklace of wolf teeth from around his neck and handed it to the shaman.

“Dyenen, in honor of your wisdom,” Raven said. He did not wait for White Fox to translate, but instead stood and removed a string of shell beads from his neck. He left the circle of men who sat around the fire coals at the center of the lodge, and, careful to walk behind each man so as not to give insult, went to Dyenen’s wife. The old woman was standing at the back of the caribou skin lodge, near the door, so that she could go quickly to the outside cooking hearth for more food. Raven draped the necklace over the old woman’s head. She showed no surprise, only reached up to stroke the necklace with one crooked finger. Raven tried to look into her face, to see something that would give him an idea of her place in this village. Was her advice eagerly sought or taken lightly? Did the hunters treat her with honor or with tolerance? But the cauls of her eyes did not let him see into her soul, and so he earned nothing with his gift, except perhaps an extra bowl of meat.

He turned and went back to his place beside the River People shaman. He picked up his bowl and began to eat, catching snatches of conversations between the hunters. Though he understood much of their language, they spoke too quickly for him to understand everything. Besides, the thin walls of the caribou skin lodge seemed to let words escape outside into the wind, where they tumbled like willow leaves in a storm. As though hearing his thoughts, the wind suddenly increased, pushing in one side of the lodge wall and forcing the fire’s smoke from the roof hole at the top of the lodge back into the faces of the hunters.

The River People men did not seem to notice, but Raven’s eyes met those of White Fox and Bird Sings, each man pulling himself more tightly into the warmth of his fur seal parka. How could the River People live in such flimsy lodges? Raven wondered. They were nothing more than a double thickness of caribou skin stretched up into a dome over bent willow and held to the ground with sharpened sticks and a circle of river rocks. Raven longed for the sturdy earthen walls of his own lodge, the sweet thin smoke that rose from his oil lamps, so much better than the thick, throat-clogging smoke from the wood burned in every River People lodge.

One of the River People hunters waved the smoke away from his eyes and laughed, saying loudly, “Spring wind. It is good to get away from the dark winter lodges, no?”

Other hunters laughed their agreement, and though Raven almost joined their laughter, he remembered to look at White Fox for a translation. When White Fox had finished, Raven, too, laughed and tried to think of some compliment to give the River People’s spring lodges. He thought of one good thing, something he enjoyed in spite of smoke and cold—the brightness of the skin walls. So he raised his voice above the din of the River hunters and said, “What Walrus hunter does not appreciate the brightness of a River man’s spring tent?”

White Fox leaned against him and said in a quiet voice, “The tents belong to the women.”

“Tell them what I said,” Raven answered.

“It is an insult,” White Fox whispered. “You are asking me to call these hunters women.”

“Tell them what I said,” Raven told White Fox.

“Insult them?”

“No, explain. Tell them what I want to say, and what I said instead.”

White Fox spoke to Dyenen, his words slow, deliberate. As White Fox spoke, Dyenen’s face first darkened, then he began to laugh. He nodded his head and laughed again as White Fox finished his explanation.

“Good,” Raven said quietly to White Fox, then widened his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, allowing himself to smile as Dyenen, in turn, explained to all the men what Raven had said. The men, too, laughed, then laughed again when White Fox explained that the Walrus men owned their lodges.

Raven watched Dyenen from the corners of his eyes. There was no trace of caution, no shadow of worry in the old man’s face. Good, Raven thought. Let him think his power puts him beyond my reach. Let him laugh. Let him think I am a fool. What man hesitates to trade with a fool?

R
AVEN WALKED THE LENGTH
of the trade goods White Fox and Bird Sings had laid out. The skies were clear, promising no rain, so they had displayed their goods outside on a ridge of ground that rose at the back of the village. Raven reached into one of the grass bags and took out a strip of dried meat. The rich heavy taste filled his mouth and nose, but he was no fool; walrus meat was too strong for the River People. Even their hunters were raised on the soft flesh of fish, the fine-grained meat of caribou. White Fox had protested at the bags of walrus meat Raven insisted they bring, the man saying, “They will not eat it. You know most River men do not like the taste.”

Raven had laughed. “All the better for us,” he had said. “If they wanted it for food, we would have to sell it bag by bag, traded in equal measure for fish or caribou meat. Now we can sell it piece by piece as medicine for power, something to be ground up and taken with water or eaten in small amounts before a vision fast.”

White Fox had smiled and Raven had laughed, but now that assurance seemed to have left him, and Raven felt as he did before every trading session. He held his body taut against the doubt that churned his belly and made the edges of his head throb. He reminded himself that each trading began this way, with Raven’s eyes newly open to flaws, as though he were seeing the trade goods for the first time, the seal fur pelts that could be thicker, the baskets that could be more evenly woven, the wooden bowls too thick or too thin, the edges of the dried meat—were they beginning to show the white powder of mold? So he looked away, told himself all things were good, better than what these River People had to offer, these men whose breath and clothes and skin stank of fish.