Brother Wind (37 page)

Hard Rock pulled in a quick, harsh breath. “The man is dead. Do you wish to bring another curse on us by using his name?”

“There are things I know that you do not know, things the spirits reveal to one who honors them,” Waxtal said. “I have brought you walrus—good for meat, hides, and oil. I have lived with the Walrus People. My daughter is wife to a Walrus People shaman. I know how they hunt; I know what honors a walrus. I have brought you meat and you accuse me of bringing a curse. The curse you have is Samiq’s curse. You think his curse will leave you? You say his spirit will go the way of all spirits—to the Dancing Lights? You know nothing, and when one who can help comes to you, you turn him away.”

There was a rising murmur among the men. In one corner of the ulaq, Red Feet’s brother and father raised their voices in anger. In another corner, Crooked Bird, husband to Speckled Basket, raised hands in a plea for understanding. But Waxtal ignored them all. He turned his back to them and climbed to the ulaq roof hole. At the top of the climbing log, he looked down at them. “You do not need to live with the curse. I know how to lift it. I gave you the walrus and asked nothing in return. Yet when one of your hunters breaks taboos, you blame me for his death. I will give away nothing more.

“Decide what you have to trade. If it is a good trade, I will tell you how to lift the curse.” He raised one hand and held it out toward Red Feet’s father. “Decide now,” Waxtal said, “before this becomes a village of women and children.”

That night, Kukutux saw it as she slept, saw it large and rolling in the surf, and woke with a start from her dream. The vision carried the fullness of life, but she was not sure what she had seen. Another man, dead?

She sat up and shook her head. “It was not a man,” she whispered and fought to remember the image that had filled her mind. No, what man had the shape of a fish? What man had skin the color of mountain cranberries?

She lay down again and turned her cheek into the soft fur seal pelt she had arranged under her head. She patted the spear lying beside her.

You are safe, she told herself. Go back to sleep.

A
FTER HER DREAM,
Kukutux could not stay away from the sea. It was as though some voice called her, and the pain that had been with her since the deaths of her husband and son seemed to deepen.

“Why are you here?” she asked herself, moving her head so the words would flow out with the wind and be carried above the hearing of the men who squatted in the lee of the ikyak racks, the women who waded out in the shallow ebb tide to pry chitons from rocks. “Why are you here when there is much for you to do in your ulaq?”

She reminded herself of the crowberry heather, now, under the long days of summer, growing quickly on the hills. It was time to throw out the old heather that lay on the ulaq floors, replace it with new. She thought of fish she could catch, of the suk she was making. She should walk down the beach, gather chitons from rocks farther from the village, leave these close rocks for the old women and children. She might even find a few sea urchins left by the sea otters that now crowded the kelp beds just offshore.

But something kept her on the beach, watching, as though she could see beyond water and sky to understand the dream she had been given.

Finally she made herself turn, made herself walk back to her ulaq. It had been four days since Hard Rock and Dying Seal had brought the dead Red Feet to the village, four days of mourning. They had made the burial, piled the rocks over Red Feet and what remained of his ikyak, but hunters still spoke in soft voices, as though afraid to attract the attention of spirits. Who could say? One of them might be the next man killed during a hunt.

The women followed their husbands with fear-filled eyes, finding excuse to watch beach and sea from the tops of their ulas, even in cold, even in wind, as though by watching they could keep away those spirits that might bring death.

Perhaps it is only what I feel from those around me, Kukutux thought. Perhaps it is their fear, their worry, that brings me to this beach.

The images of her dream returned—something red in the sea. A man’s body? Another Whale Hunter killed? Some worrying voice entered her mind, wailed out against fears too large to be contained by words.

At the top of the ulaq, Waxtal yawned and stretched. He had meant to get up and greet the sun with the Whale Hunters, but his bedding furs were warm, and for some reason his bladder had not pulled him early from his sleep as it often did. He blinked in the brightness of the day, in the white fog lifting from the beach. He scraped the grit from the corners of his eyes with a fingernail and flicked it into the wind, then shivered and ducked back into the ulaq to get his suk.

The wind was cold, too cold for a man to wash in the stream, but without a woman in the ulaq, he did not want to use a night basket for his urine, did not want the bother of emptying it every day or storing urine as the Walrus People did so it would ripen and could be used to wash oil from fur and grease from hair or set dye colors so they would not run or fade.

He scratched his belly, then slipped on his suk and went back outside. He scanned the beach, saw Kukutux walking toward the ulas. Then she stopped and looked toward the sea, her face like a mask, set, unmoving.

He followed her gaze and saw nothing. He remembered what Hard Rock had told him about her, that Kukutux’s eyes were like the eyes of an eagle, seeing farther than most people could see, that even as a child she had always been first to see hunters returning, had always given first warning of storms on the far horizon, or schools of fish swimming towards the Whale Hunters’ beach.

So he waited, his eyes on the sea as were Kukutux’s, and then he, too, saw something in the surf, rolling and bumping, so at first he thought it was a log brought as driftwood to the beach. Then he saw the red color, felt the quick beating of his heart—a man? Owl or Spotted Egg, their ik overturned? The currents might bring them here to this beach.

But no, it was too large to be a man.

As Waxtal watched, he suddenly knew what it was, and as though he were again young, he ran to Hard Rock’s ulaq, and up to the roof hole.

He took a long breath and called down.

“I am Waxtal. Is Hard Rock here?”

Hard Rock himself answered, his words mumbled as though he had something in his mouth. He came to the climbing log, looked up at Waxtal. One of Hard Rock’s cheeks bulged with whatever he was eating, and for a moment the man chewed, then finally in rudeness asked, “What?”

Waxtal smiled and said, “The Whale Hunters have been good to me. I have decided to give you a gift. In these last four days of mourning I have been calling something to this beach. It will be here soon. Use it as you wish.”

Then he went to stand beside Kukutux, who still stared out at the water, she and the other women who were on the beach.

“I called it,” Waxtal said, his words soft as he moved his mouth close to Kukutux’s ear. “I called it.”

She took a step away from him, and then another. “Why?” she asked. “What is it?”

“The walrus,” Waxtal said.

“Red Feet’s?” Kukutux asked, then clamped her hand over her mouth.

“Do not worry,” Waxtal said. “I will not let his spirit harm you.”

“You called it?” Kukutux said, her brows drawn together, her lips tight. “Why?”

“A hunter should have his last kill—to give to his family,” Waxtal said. He shrugged his shoulders. “You think it will not lift his wives’ sorrow to know that their hunter still cares enough about them to send meat?”

Two women left their gathering bags and called the men at the ikyak rack, then Hard Rock was beside Kukutux and Waxtal.

“It is the walrus,” Waxtal said and watched as the men waded into the water. Three of them carried sharpened fish gaffs, another a walking stick, others ikyak paddles.

“They can touch it?” Hard Rock asked.

“To bring it ashore,” Waxtal answered, “but someone must pray over it and say the proper Walrus chants before it is butchered and divided.”

“You know the chants?” Hard Rock asked Waxtal.

“Yes.”

Waxtal watched the men drag the animal ashore, then turned to Kukutux. “Go to that ulaq where the people mourn. Tell them to come here, to see what the spirits have given them.”

Kukutux climbed up the ulaq, called down into the smoky interior. There was no answer, so she called again, waited until she heard a soft voice, then looked down into the wrinkled face of Most Hands, mother of that one who had died. “There is something on the beach you should see, Mother,” Kukutux said gently, using words of politeness to show her concern.

But the old woman answered in a harsh voice. “How can I be mother,” she asked, “with all my children at the Dancing Lights?” She turned from the climbing log and moved back into the shadows of the ulaq. “I will not go to the beach. Let me stay here. Perhaps the spirits will have pity and let me die.”

Again Kukutux heard the soft murmur, no doubt the voice of Pogy, Red Feet’s first wife, mother of his little son. Or perhaps that of Fish Catcher, Red Feet’s second wife.

“Even if one of your children sent you a gift, even if now that gift is on the beach, you will not come?” Kukutux asked. She knelt so she could press her face down into the roof hole, so her words would carry to all the people there.

The old woman turned slowly, and in the dark Kukutux could see the red of the woman’s eyes, the lines that tears had left on her cheeks.

“From Red Feet?” the old woman asked, and Kukutux heard a quick shushing, a plea against the use of the dead man’s name. But the old woman looked away from the roof hole and said in loud, sharp-edged words, “What do I care if he comes back? What do I care if he takes all of us to the Dancing Lights?”

The soft voice answered, “My son is young. He needs years to hunt. He needs summers in an ikyak, winters to learn the stories of our people.”

“What do you know?” the old woman said. “You were only his wife.” She climbed to the roof hole. Kukutux offered both hands to help the woman from log to roof. Pogy also came, her son in a carrying strap slung at her side, and Fish Catcher, her belly big in pregnancy. They followed Kukutux to the beach, the old woman last, clinging with one hand to the back of Fish Catcher’s suk.

When Pogy saw the walrus, she lifted her voice in mourning, cried out as though it were the first day of her loss, and when Kukutux moved to put an arm around her shoulders, she pushed Kukutux away.

“I do not want it. I do not want it,” she said.

But Red Feet’s mother tottered out onto the beach, walked up to the walrus, the red-and-brown animal larger than the largest man. She planted her feet solidly beside it and called out, “My son’s last kill. It is mine, as was his first kill. The meat is mine and I will share it with no one.”

Hard Rock left the gathering of men, went to the woman, bent down, hands on knees, to look into her wrinkled face. “Grandmother,” he said, “you cannot eat a whole walrus. Share it with all the village so your son will be able to hold his eyes forward in pride among the hunters of the Dancing Lights.”

The old woman sighed, then lifted her hands and dropped them to her sides. “I will share,” she said, and she stepped back from the carcass.

Hard Rock turned to the women on the beach, many already holding butchering knives. “The shaman says there must be prayers.”

“He is not shaman; he is trader,” Most Hands said, squinting at Waxtal.

“He called the walrus to our beach,” Hard Rock said.

“It is a gift!” the old woman screamed. “It is from my son. It is a gift.” She lifted one curled hand toward Waxtal. “He did not do it!”

“He has great powers,” Hard Rock said. “He talks to spirits. He …”

Then Waxtal was beside Most Hands. Lifting a necklace of bird-bones from his neck, he draped it over the old woman’s shoulders. “I spoke to your son,” he said. “In the days of mourning, before he went to the Dancing Lights, I listened to what he told me. He wants you to have this necklace. He wants you to gather berries and sea urchins to help feed his son.” Waxtal looked over his shoulder at Pogy standing with the baby on her hip. “He wants you to have this walrus, you and his wives and the people of this village. He asked me to call it here for him. I have done that.” He cleared his throat. “My powers are only the powers of a shaman,” he said, “so the calling took four days, but now the walrus is here and the meat is for all of us to use.”

The old woman clasped the birdbone necklace with both hands, stepped away from Waxtal, and said in a quivering voice, “You take the hunter’s share.”

Waxtal smiled, and the smile made a shiver come to Kukutux’s arms. Was the man as powerful as he claimed? Could he talk to dead men and yet not fall under their power to pull him into the Dancing Lights? How else would the walrus have come except by someone’s power?

But in Waxtal’s eyes, in the set of his teeth, the smoothness of his words, she saw only greed. Even now, as she stood under the curve of the sky, it seemed as though all things—the sea, the beach, the ulas, even the ikyan on their racks—were pulling toward Waxtal, as though he had the power to take them into his soul, as easily as a man drinks soup from a bowl.

Waxtal walked to the edge of the waves, reached down to cup water in his hands, then carried it back to the walrus and splashed it over the animal. Again and again, four times, he carried water. Then, calling to the women, he said, “I need something from the sea, mussel or clam.”

One of the women held up a jointed chiton from her gathering bag, the dark shell curled almost into a circle.

“Good,” Waxtal said. He took the chiton and put it into the walrus’s mouth. Then he began a chant, something in a language Kukutux did not know, the words too harsh to be the Caribou tongue spoken by Owl and Spotted Egg.

When the chant was finished, Waxtal reached out to one of the women, who gave him her butchering knife. Waxtal bent over the walrus, made the first cut, working to get the knife through the thick hide, cutting a few strokes, then stopping to hold out his hand toward another woman and continuing with a fresh sharp blade, slashing from neck to anus, along the belly.