Brother Wind (46 page)

Then other voices were speaking, words jumbled together, coming so fast that Kiin could understand little of what was being said. Finally they took her to the chief’s ulaq, guided her with careful hands down the climbing log, and there Broken Tooth told her how he had traded his son, a child of ten moons who still held to the ways of a new baby. The Raven had given ten seal bellies of oil and five of dried meat, but then Broken Tooth showed Kiin that he still had the baby, the boy staring at the ulaq roof as he was held out toward Kiin.

“They must have come back and taken Shuku instead of my son,” the man said. “I did not mean for that to happen.”

“Here,” he said. “You choose. My son or the oil.” But at his words the screams began again and would not stop.

The Bering Sea

L
EMMING TAIL KEPT
the Ugyuun baby under her parka all that long day of paddling, but the child’s wriggling almost made her wish she had chosen to keep the first baby.

“Think of your place as shaman’s wife,” she said into the wind. “It is worth a few days with a struggling baby.”

Finally Raven called out to her, pointed at a long sloping shore, and paddled the ik toward land, where they would spend the night.

Lemming Tail helped Raven beach the ik, then turned her back on him and walked to a sheltered place of thick boulders. At Raven’s protest she called out, “You want me to have two sons. I must feed them both. Are you not man enough to unpack a belly of oil and some dried fish? Are you a little boy who needs a mother?”

Raven spat out several insults, but dragged the ik farther ashore and untied a seal belly of oil, another of dried seal meat. He took what he needed for himself, then squatted beside the ik and ate.

“You can bring me nothing?” Lemming Tail called.

“Are you a little girl who needs a father?” Raven answered.

Lemming Tail leaned back against the boulder and checked both boys. Each suckled, hands cupped around a breast. The Ugyuun baby glanced up at her, his eyes wet with tears. He shuddered and looked away, but did not release his hold on her breast.

“Greedy,” Lemming Tail said. “You will get used to me. Remember, you drink my son’s milk. Do not take more than your share.”

Suddenly she jumped up, jerked the baby away from herself while urine dripped from inside her parka onto her leggings.

“You stupid child!” Lemming Tail screamed. “Did your mother teach you nothing? I told Raven he was foolish to take an Ugyuun boy. You are older than Mouse, yet you still wet your mother’s parka!”

She pulled the baby roughly from his carrying strap and set him on the ground. She ignored his cries as she carried Mouse, still nestled at her breast, back to the trading ik, found a bundle of sealskins, and pulled one out of the kelp twine that bound the pack. She peeled off the parka, set Mouse beside the ik on the beach, and went to the edge of the water. She waited until a wave washed close, then dipped in the sealskin. She used it to wipe off her breasts and leggings, then to wipe the urine from the inside of her parka.

Shivering, she slipped the parka back on over her head, picked up Mouse, and went back to the Ugyuun baby. He had curled up on the sand, bare rump up, his legs, clad in sealskin leggings, tucked under his chest. He had soiled himself. Lemming Tail snorted, then bent over him, used the wet sealskin to wipe his buttocks, and left him there again as she walked down the beach to a tide pool, where she rinsed the sealskin.

She looked for Raven but did not see him, so she shrugged her shoulders, took a food pack from the ik, and brought it back to where she had left the Ugyuun baby. She pulled out smoked fish, a strip of dried seal meat, and a container of berries mixed in fat. She gave Mouse a piece of dried fish, took one for herself, then reached over to shake the Ugyuun baby.

The baby moaned, hiccoughed a sob. Sighing, Lemming Tail picked him up. She turned the baby to face her, loosened his parka hood, and gasped.

“Shuku!” she exclaimed. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and opened them again. “No,” she said, laughing. “My eyes play tricks. You are bigger than Shuku.” With the tips of her fingers, she felt at the baby’s neck. There was a braided sinew cord, and she pulled it out from beneath his parka. An ivory carving—half an ikyak—dangled from the cord.

For a moment, Lemming Tail sat very still, forehead furrowed, then she said to the baby, “How did you get to the Ugyuun village? Is your mother there?” Her eyes narrowed. “If your mother is there, what do you think Raven will give for that knowledge?”

The baby hiccoughed again, reached for the chunk of dried fish in Lemming Tail’s left hand.

Lemming Tail gave him the fish. Mouse dropped his piece of fish and tried to pull himself into his mother’s lap, pushing against Shuku with one hand and one wide little foot.

“Mouse, no,” Lemming Tail said. “You can both sit here.” She picked up the dried fish Mouse had dropped, brushed the sand from it, and settled the babies, back to back, each with fish.

Leaning her chin against Mouse’s head, she said, “If I tell him I have Shuku, we will go back. The Ugyuun People will hate me for stealing this child, and Raven will take no part of the blame. If Kiin is not there, Raven will be angry with me, maybe even angry enough to leave me with the Ugyuun.

“And if Kiin is there, if the Raven can make her come with us, he will trade her instead of me to the River shaman. Then Kiin will have the honor of being a shaman’s wife, and Raven might yet decide to leave me with the Ugyuun.”

With an arm around each baby, Lemming Tail stood, again looked up and down the beach for Raven, then set the babies on the ground and used sealskins to make a windbreak for them. She tucked them inside, then set out food on a mat for Raven.

When Raven returned from walking the beach, Lemming Tail met him with a smile. She gave him dried fish softened in seawater, and seal meat chopped fine and mixed with berries and fat. As he ate, she rubbed his shoulders, until finally he set aside his food and took her there on the sand, and did not ask about the babies until they had finished.

She said, “The one you brought from the Ugyuun People, he is better than I thought. He is not as good as Mouse, but then he is not your son as Mouse is.”

“I know well whose son Mouse is,” Raven said. “I do not need any more of your lies.”

Lemming Tail turned her back to the man, took the babies from their shelter, and tucked them under her parka to nurse. She lay down on her side, moved the babies so that one supported the other, and did not reply to Raven’s accusation.

Herendeen Bay, the Alaska Peninsula

“I
AM STRONG ENOUGH NOW,”
Samiq said to his father. He squatted on the beach sand and stroked the fingers of his right hand, the index finger tied to a birdbone, the other fingers curled into his palm.

Kayugh shook his head. “Remember how quickly Raven moved, even after fighting long and hard with your brother.”

“I had never fought with knives. Now I have. Each day Small Knife and I, we fight.”

“With knives?” Kayugh asked.

Samiq laughed. “With wood, shaped to the size of a knife, but blunt.”

“You tell me this so I will say you should go to the Walrus People, so I will agree you should fight Raven for Kiin?”

“I tell you this so you know that I am going.”

“You think the boy Small Knife can prepare you to fight the shaman Raven? He has powers beyond the strength of his arms. Have you prayed? Have you fasted?”

“Yes, always I pray,” Samiq said. “And I will fast.” He looked beyond his father, called out.

Kayugh glanced over his shoulder to see Small Knife.

“Watch,” Samiq said to Kayugh, then asked Small Knife, “Did you bring your weapon?”

Small Knife’s eyes slid quickly to Kayugh, then back to Samiq. “I have it,” he said quietly.

“I told your grandfather about our fighting,” Samiq said.

Small Knife looked into Kayugh’s eyes.

“Show me,” Kayugh said, and backed away to give the men room to fight.

Samiq untied the bone that straightened his forefinger, then took a short, knife-shaped stick from his waist packet. He pried up the fingers of his right hand and let them spring back to hold the knife tightly, then he crouched, facing Small Knife, both men with arms out, legs bent, circling.

Small Knife made the first move, springing in to slash his wooden knife in a wide arc toward Samiq’s stomach, but Samiq jumped back, avoiding the blade. Before Small Knife could regain his stance, Samiq lunged in. He caught Small Knife’s right forearm. The boy lifted his knife toward Samiq’s face, slid the blade across Samiq’s cheek, leaving a red welt.

Kayugh crossed his arms over his chest and watched. He was surprised at how quickly Samiq moved, perhaps more quickly than Raven, but who could say for sure? Once the knife was secure in Samiq’s hand, no one watching would have known the man was crippled. If Samiq could keep Raven from knowing, perhaps he had a chance. Samiq was strong, and it was not difficult to see that the fight with wooden blades was lasting longer than a fight with real knives, but still Samiq had allowed Small Knife’s blade to touch him on cheek, arm, and knee. A welt from a wooden blade was nothing, but what if each wound were laid open, bleeding?

Finally, the two backed away, both men drawing in long breaths, and Kayugh held up his hands. “You are right,” he said to Samiq. “You are good. There is a chance you can take Raven; especially if he does not know about your hand, and so work to knock the knife from your fingers. But you must spend more time in prayer before you go. A man’s inner strength must be as great as his outer strength if he is to succeed.”

“I will pray,” Samiq said.

Kayugh nodded.

“And if he knocks the knife from your hand?”

“Try,” Samiq said and held his hand out to his father. Kayugh reached out and pulled against the fingers, but each was locked in place. He shrugged and turned away from Samiq, then turned back quickly, before Samiq could react. Kayugh kicked up, his bare foot meeting Samiq fingers with a solid hit. The wooden blade remained in Samiq’s hand.

Kayugh smiled.

“I heard your mother talking today with your father,” Three Fish said. She and Samiq were in the ulaq, and Three Fish was nursing their son.

Samiq bent over her, rubbed a finger along their son’s cheek. They had named him Many Whales so that the name could be spoken once again in hope and respect. Samiq sat down beside his wife, and Many Whales, his mouth still on his mother’s breast, pointed at his father. Samiq reached over and cupped the boy’s hand in his own.

“She asked if you will fight Raven,” Three Fish said.

“What did my father tell her?”

“He said yes.”

“Do you think I should?”

Three Fish looked at him, eyes meeting eyes. “It will make no difference if I say no.”

Samiq looked down.

Three Fish stroked one hand over their son’s dark hair. “You already have a wife and a son.”

“Yes, a good wife, a fine son,” Samiq said, “but Kiin is also my wife. And I made promises to my brother. I told him I would take care of Kiin and her sons.”

“We have Takha,” Three Fish said and looked over at the boy sitting in the basket corner, playing with three baskets and a heap of smooth beach stones. He piled the stones in one basket, then dumped them into another.

“You are a good mother and a good wife. You are my first wife. Whether Kiin is here or not, you will have the same place in my heart.”

“I want Kiin back with us,” Three Fish said. “My father had two wives. When his first wife died, I mourned for her as for a mother. I know it will be good for Takha to have Shuku. Their power is not complete without each other. I just do not want you to fight.”

“I will pray. I will plan. If I do not succeed, at least you and Takha and Many Whales will be safe here. Small Knife will hunt for you.”

“He is a man. Soon he will take a wife, live with her, hunt for her father.”

“I will ask my father to go to other First Men villages, to bring you back a husband to live here and train our sons. Three Fish,” Samiq said and reached out to turn her head toward him, “I must fight. How can I say I am a man if I do not?”

For a moment Three Fish’s eyes flicked down to Samiq’s right hand, then up again to his face. “You are a man,” she said. “Let it be enough that I tell you so.”

Samiq smiled, a smile he might give a child. “Three Fish,” he said, “I will fight.”

“When?”

“Soon, after fasting, after prayer.”

Three Fish lowered her head. Finally she said, “Will a woman’s prayers help?”

“Yes,” Samiq said. “Pray.”

The Alaska Peninsula

“H
OW LONG?” KIIN ASKED.
Her voice was thin, broken.

“Ten days.”

“Ten days!”

“Soul Caller said that your spirit left you to follow your son. He was not sure you would come back to us.”

Kiin struggled to focus her eyes. The woman speaking beside her—what was her name? Small Plant Woman. “But I am here in the ulaq, sitting.”

“You were like a woman sleeping, with eyes open, doing as I asked you to do, but with no understanding of what was around you.”

Kiin pushed herself slowly to her feet and walked in unsteady steps from one side of the ulaq to the other. “It is morning?” she asked Small Plant Woman.

“Yes.”

“Would you let me take your ik and follow them?”

Small Plant Woman stood up, wrapped an arm around Kiin’s shoulders, and walked her back to a place beside the oil lamp. “Kiin,” she said softly, “if I thought you could find them, I would let you go. But you cannot. You do not know where they went.”

“They went back to the Walrus village.”

“That is a long way. Too far for one woman to go alone.”

“I came this far alone.”

“And you almost died, you and your son.”

Kiin felt the tightness of tears in her chest, building up until she could no longer hold them back. She sank to her knees and covered her face with both hands.