Brother Wind (31 page)

When Dyenen had talked about every packet, he put them all back into his lynx skin bag. Raven replaced his own packets, though not with the same care Dyenen used. Both men stood, and Dyenen said, “So the trade is done. Medicine for medicine. Each day I will teach you more, other ways to use the packets. I will show you the plants, where they grow, what they look like. Soon you will know as much as I do.”

Raven looked down at the old man and slowly shook his head. “You think old women’s medicine, herbs and plants, are a worthy trade for my carvings?” he asked. Without giving Dyenen a chance to answer, he continued, “I know you have power. I have seen it. I came to your lodge. I heard voices. Yet you were alone inside. The lodge was trembling with your power. The hunters say you call animals. The hunters say your power brings fish, caribou, beaver. None of that have you shared with me.”

Raven turned away from the old man and began following the river back to the village. The old man said nothing, and Raven did not look back to see whether he followed.

When they came to the first lodge, Raven turned and was surprised to see the old man close behind him. Raven had not slowed his pace, had not worried whether Dyenen could keep up with him.

“I will give back the carvings,” Dyenen said and held his hands out for the lynx skin bag.

“A trade is a trade,” Raven answered. “I said I would give you the carvings, and I will, but I expect something more for what I have given.”

“I have nothing more.”

“You are shaman of this whole village. Do not tell me you have no power.”

“What is more powerful than the earth?” Dyenen asked. “What is more powerful than the plants that grow from the earth?”

Raven bent over, picked a brown shoot of joint grass just pushing up from the spongy soil. “You would tell me that this is more powerful than the wolverine, than the bear or wolf?”

“I would tell you that each power is different,” Dyenen said.

“I am not a fool,” Raven said. “I know there is power in the medicine bag. I will stay and learn the secrets of this power from you. But I also know you have the power of animal calling. I know you have the power of spirit voices. Maybe I was a fool to think you would understand the power of my carvings and accept them in trade for all your knowledge.”

“I have given you the most powerful knowledge I have,” Dyenen said.

Raven clenched his teeth, felt them move in their sockets. “The voices, the animal calling, those things I want. What do you want? What in trade can I bring for those powers?”

“I have all things I need. There is nothing you can give me.”

“Some men have everything they need,” Raven said, “but no man has everything he wants.” He fixed his eyes on Dyenen’s eyes.

Dyenen turned away. “I am content,” he said.

Then Raven remembered something. Dyenen had no son.

“And you do not wish for a son,” Raven said slowly.

The old man stopped, turned his head to look at Raven. “You think I could not trade for a boy?” Dyenen asked. “You think there are no River families who would give me their sons?”

“A son of your loins,” Raven said. “A son by your own seed.”

Dyenen laughed. “You cannot give me that.”

“You are right,” Raven said. “No man can offer such a thing, but a woman can be traded—a woman with spirit powers, a woman who has the gift of sons.”

The old man stood still, his chest moving in slow, long breaths. “You know such a woman?” he asked.

“Yes,” Raven said.

The old man raised his eyes to Raven’s eyes. And as though he saw truth there he said, “Tell me about her.”

D
YENEN STROKED THE WALRUS CARVING,
felt its spirit spread into his hands. At first he had not believed Saghani. Who would? These carvings made by a woman? But there had been only truth in the man’s eyes as he spoke of Kiin, of the twins she had birthed: two sons, healthy and strong. A woman like that, could she not give him sons? He was old, but not too old to have put a daughter into Far Sky’s womb, not too old to enjoy a woman in his bed almost every night.

“If this woman is honored among her own people, she might not want to come to this village,” Dyenen had said.

Raven lifted his hands, spread his fingers. “Her father gave her to a man who is worth little, lazy and a poor hunter.”

“If she has such power, why does she stay with him?”

“He gave much, in furs and weapons, to her father as bride price.”

“And the husband would be willing to trade her? Does he not know the value of her carvings?”

“He fears her carvings. He does not understand them. He has offered her to me before in exchange for trade goods.”

For a long time Dyenen sat and thought. He had much in skins and pelts, land animal furs that would have much value among the Walrus People. Perhaps the woman would be happy at this River village. It was a good village; the women would be kind to her.

“Does she like to carve?” Dyenen asked.

Raven raised his eyebrows and let out a short laugh. “Why would she not like to carve? But she must hide her carvings from her husband. She brings them to me, trades them for food for her sons and herself—food that her husband cannot provide.”

“I would let her carve. I have wives enough to do the work of cooking and sewing, gathering wood for the fire and tending the dogs. You think she might come? Her sons, being born together, must have great powers. I will send furs to trade for her and for her sons.”

“If I bring them, I will expect something for myself,” Raven said.

“The secrets of the spirit voices, the animal callings?” Dyenen asked.

Raven smiled. He stood. “Yes.”

Dyenen stood also. “It is agreed,” he said. “When will you bring her? This summer? Next year? I am an old man.”

“I will leave tomorrow,” Raven said. “I will bring the woman and her sons to you within this moon.”

“No,” Dyenen said. “I told you it would be a moon and another half moon to learn the secrets of the medicine packs. I must do as I promised.”

“I release you from your promise,” Raven said.

“How can one man cut the ties of another’s promise?” Dyenen asked. “If I cannot keep promises to you, why should the spirits believe my promises to them?”

Finally, Raven lifted his hands in a gesture of goodwill and, shaking his head, left the lodge. Dyenen followed him outside, and with the walrus carving in his hands, watched as the man walked between the clustered River lodges back to the traders’ lodge.

Dyenen smiled. Unlike Saghani, he had not had to divulge his secret—he understood the Walrus language just as Saghani understood the River People’s tongue. There was an advantage to age—the years of experience that provide wisdom in dealing with the young, those who believe age gives nothing but brittle bones and stiff joints.

Yes, Dyenen thought, at worst I will lose the furs I send as bride price. At best, I will get a woman who understands things of the spirit. A woman who might, with the power of her born-together children, give a son. And all for a little knowledge, knowledge that was not even something of the spirits. How foolish of Saghani to think that the voices he heard and the shaking lodge skin were something of great power. They were tricks, taught to all River People shamans, passed from shaman to shaman. And the calling of animals—yes, that required prayers, chants, but were these more important than a man’s knowledge of animal trails, of the cycle of years that all animals follow?

Lynx live best during abundance of hares; bears’ numbers increase after years of many salmon; caribou follow ancient paths in cycled years of tens and twenties, waiting for the slow-growing plants they eat.

So Dyenen would give this knowledge to Saghani, and Saghani would think he had all power, but what power was greater than the power Dyenen had offered Saghani that morning—the knowledge of medicine? What man, when he was sick, would not trade all the spirit voices on earth for medicine that would push the sickness from his body? What kept a village of people honoring their shaman? The knowledge that he could help them conquer the powers of sickness.

Raven crawled into the traders’ lodge. Yes, he would trade Kiin. He would be sure she made him many carvings before he returned to the River village, carvings enough to last him through years of trading.

Each time he came to the River village, he would see her and trade for more carvings. Besides, the old man would not live for many more years. Dyenen would give Raven the secrets of his power, and then Raven would build his own village into something large and strong, ready for the time when the old man died. Then Raven would return to the River People and claim Kiin again as wife.

All he had to do was find another child, a boy the same age as Shuku; trade something for the child, and bring him to Kiin. Who, of the River People, would know it was not Kiin’s son?

But where to find the child? He would have to be a First Men child, a child that carried the smooth skin and round head, the long eyes of the First Men, but what mother would give a son to a trader?

When the answer finally came, Raven laughed aloud. It was so simple. An Ugyuun mother, of course! They always had more children than they could feed. A few seal bellies of oil, a walrus belly of meat. Any Ugyuun woman would give her soul for food. Why not give a son?

Yunaska Island, the Aleutian Chain

K
UKUTUX CARRIED ANOTHER SEAL BELLY
of oil to the top of the ulaq and handed it to Spotted Egg. She shook her head. The foolishness of traders. Why haul all their trade goods into the ulaq two days ago only to carry them all back out again today? She went down the climbing log and picked up a bundle of baskets, sized so that each one slipped inside the next. She tossed them up to Spotted Egg.

Perhaps the traders were worried that the Whale Hunter people would steal their trade goods. How could two men stand against a village? But if they worried about that, why leave the trade goods in the trading ik this night? Kukutux shook her head. Who could understand traders?

The carrying and lifting were not easy. Kukutux’s left elbow had begun to ache, and she wondered if Old Goose Woman had any ugyuun root Kukutux could make into a poultice, something that would draw the sharp spirits of pain from her arm.

Ah, well, she told herself, be thankful the traders have not taken their anger out on you. But then a quiet thought came to her: there was still one night. One night before they left. Kukutux lifted a seal belly of dried fish, shifted it up to her left shoulder, and climbed to the top of the ulaq.

You have been through worse things, she told herself.

When all the trade goods were out of the ulaq, Kukutux took her gathering bag and walked the beach. It was not yet low tide, but the water had begun to ebb. Perhaps she would find something fresh to add to a meal of dried fish. She used a walking stick to turn over small rocks and poke into crevices between the boulders that guarded the shallows of the Whale Hunter’s wide beach. She found a few sea urchins—not enough to satisfy even a child—but she went back to the ulaq, and when she saw that Owl and Spotted Egg were not inside, she took the urchins to the old man, called to him through the curtain of his sleeping place.

“Do you pray?”

The old man cleared his throat. “My praying is done,” he said, and peeked out from the side of the curtain.

“I have these,” Kukutux said and handed him the gathering bag. “They are not much.”

The man’s eyes opened wide, and his mouth split into a smile. “The others, Owl and Spotted Egg, they are leaving?” he asked.

“Tomorrow, if the sky is good,” Kukutux said. “Do you need water?”

The old man let the curtain close, but returned quickly with an empty water bladder. She took the bladder and gave him a full one. He nodded and said, “Tell me when they have left.” Then he let the curtain fall between them.

Kukutux stood and sighed her relief at the empty ulaq. She hated the stacks of trader’s packs that had cluttered the room. Soon the traders, too, would be gone, but first she must feed them. She went to the cache and pulled out all the food packs that Owl and Spotted Egg had left.

She set out dried berries mixed with seal oil, dried seal meat, smoked fish flavored with crumbled ugyuun leaves.

When she was finished, the traders had still not returned, so she went into the sleeping places, checked to be sure she had emptied the ulaq of what belonged to Owl and Spotted Egg. Of all the things the traders had brought into the ulaq, only a few packs of food and the old man’s walking stick remained. Then she remembered the tusks. They, too, were gone. She felt a sudden sadness close down over her heart. Did the old man know? Should he know? What if the tusks were the source of his powers? Was it right that the traders take them? She walked to the old man’s curtain.

“Your tusks are not here,” she called. “Have the traders taken them?”

“They are in this sleeping place with me,” the old man answered, his words muffled as though his mouth was full.

He is eating the sea urchins, Kukutux thought. “Good,” she said. She turned away from the curtain, but the old man called to her.

“Thank you for the sea urchins. I was hungry.” He paused, then said, “You have seen my tusks?”

“You said you had them,” Kukutux answered.

“I mean, have you looked at the carvings?”

“I saw that there were lines made on one,” Kukutux answered.

“Come in, look.”

Kukutux glanced at the roof hole, then told herself it did not matter if the traders found her in the old man’s sleeping place. She would tell them she wanted to be sure the old man had nothing that belonged to them. She pulled aside the curtain, rolled it up, and tucked it into the grass thatching that covered the ulaq walls. Then she crawled in beside him.

The old man held the carved tusk across his lap, his hands stroking it as a mother smooths her baby’s skin. Kukutux looked around the sleeping place, checking for packs, trade goods, but the sleeping place was bare except for a few furs and grass mats.