Brother Wind (47 page)

Small Plant Woman hovered beside her, patting her back, stroking her hair as though Kiin were a child. She put her arms around Kiin and rocked her, sang a lullaby, a First Men’s song, something Kiin had once sung to Shuku.

For two days, Kiin did what Small Plant Woman told her, digging roots, finding berries, catching fish, gathering sea urchins. The sorrow in her chest seemed to slow her mind, as though she walked always in fog, the gray hiding the sun, the earth, and all things beautiful.

The night of the second day, Eagle came to her, the man glancing often at his wife, as though he found the words he needed to say by looking into Small Plant Woman’s eyes.

He spoke first of hunting, as though Kiin were a man, then of sewing, as though he were a woman, until even Kiin’s sorrow could not hold back her smile.

At last he said, “I will take you to your family.”

Kiin looked up at him, lips parted, but could find no words.

“I do not know where the trader and his wife took your son, but if I take you back to your husband at the Traders’ Beach, then perhaps he will help you find the boy.”

Again Kiin opened her mouth to speak, but could not decide what to say. She had thought often in the past two days of returning to Samiq, but what if, in finding Shuku, the Raven had traveled to the Traders’ Beach, had found Takha, taken him as well, or worse—had fought Samiq and killed him as he had killed Amgigh?

Tears came to her eyes, and she could not blink them away. I cannot stay here, she told herself. The Ugyuun do not need another woman to feed.

Kiin licked her lips and swallowed, rubbed one cheek against her shoulder. “When?”

Eagle shrugged. “Tomorrow, if the sky is good. Small Plant Woman, you want to come? You and Kiin could paddle your ik; I will go in my ikyak.”

Small Plant Woman looked up from her sewing. “Yes,” she said. “We will go together to find Kiin’s husband and her other son.” She reached over to pat Kiin’s shoulder. “Then your tears will be for happiness.”

The Kuskokwim River, Alaska

R
AVEN GLANCED AT LEMMING TAIL
. Mouse peeked out from the neck opening of Lemming Tail’s parka, and the Ugyuun baby was a bulge that curled around Lemming Tail’s side.

“You are Kiin; Mouse is Shuku; the Ugyuun baby is Takha,” he said.

“The Ugyuun is Shuku,” Lemming Tail replied. “He looks much like Shuku, only bigger.”

Raven shrugged and asked, “Is he much bigger than Mouse?”

“Some, but what two babies are the same size?”

Raven nodded, thrust his paddle deep into the water, and directed the trading ik toward the mouth of the river. The water where sea met river churned, and Raven braced himself with knees widespread as he paddled.

“The current is strong,” Lemming Tail said.

“Paddle. I told you it would not be easy,” said Raven.

Lemming Tail pushed forward onto her knees so she could drive the paddle more deeply into the water. When they entered the river, the current was as strong as their paddling.

“We should walk,” Lemming Tail finally called out.

“White Fox, Birds Sings, and I had no trouble.”

The woman made no answer, only pulled her paddle up out of the river water and set it across the top of the ik.

“Paddle!” Raven bellowed.

“Let me out. I will walk.”

Raven roared out his anger. “There, see? A place with sand. We will leave the ik there. Then we will walk.”

Lemming Tail put her paddle back into the water and, thrusting it against the mud of the river bottom, helped Raven push the ik into shallow water.

Raven was about to climb out of the ik when a voice came: “Saghani, be careful.” In the thick willow and alder brush of the riverbank, Raven saw Dyenen. The old man pointed to a welling of clear water in light-colored sand at the edge of the bank.

“See how the water comes up there? It is from below where there are spirits that would draw a man down.”

Lemming Tail stared at the old man, her eyes following the red and blue embroidery that marked the shoulders and arms of his white fur parka.

“This is Kiin?” the old man asked, speaking in the River tongue.

“Yes,” Raven said, but kept his head down as he searched among his supply packs.

Dyenen leaned over, carefully chose a place to set one foot, and reached to grab the bow of the ik. He pulled it close to the bank and offered a hand to Lemming Tail. She looked back at Raven, then climbed from the ik, clutching Dyenen’s hand.

“Your son?” Dyenen asked and pointed with long brown fingers to Mouse.

“He asks if Mouse is your son,” Raven said.

“He is Takha,” Lemming Tail answered.

“Takha,” Raven said, “though we sometimes call him Mouse.”

Dyenen laughed. “Good. A child with two names is a child loved.”

“The other son nurses,” said Raven and gestured toward the bulge in Lemming Tail’s parka.

Dyenen pointed toward a path that ran just inside the trees. Lemming Tail pushed through brush until she was there, then she waited, watching through the spaces between trees and shrubs until Dyenen and Raven had pulled the ik out of the river and tied it in place.

“It will hold until I can send men down to bring the packs,” Dyenen said.

“It is good you are here,” Raven answered. In the Walrus tongue he said to Lemming Tail, “Dyenen’s men will come for our packs. Thank him. It would have taken me a long time to unload all the packs and carry them to the village.”

“I would have been the one to carry them,” Lemming Tail said.

Raven leaned over and whispered into her ear, “You are Kiin. Kiin does not complain.”

“Is there anything you want to take now?” Dyenen asked.

“This only,” Raven said and reached into the ik, untied a pack. He pulled out the lynx skin medicine bag Dyenen had given him.

“I can carry something,” Lemming Tail said.

“Here.” Raven handed her a pack of food. She set it on her head, balanced it with one hand, the other arm around Shuku strapped under her parka.

Dyenen held out his hands, but Raven said, “Your men will carry. Show us the way.”

Dyenen and Raven pushed ahead through the trees, leaving Lemming Tail to follow.

“He is old, but he is not ugly, and he is strong,” Lemming Tail whispered to Mouse as he watched from her shoulder. She began to hum a song, something she had heard once, long ago, something about furs, food, and a village of many lodges.

After they had walked for a long time, Lemming Tail began to call out questions to Raven. “How much longer? How much farther?”

Raven did not answer her. Instead he directed his words to Dyenen. Raven hoped Dyenen did not sense the rudeness in Lemming Tail’s voice. On their journey back from the Ugyuun village, she had been no problem, and Raven had let himself hope she had begun to change, for once appreciating the good things in her life.

When they had stopped at the Walrus village, Raven had been sure Lemming Tail would spend all her time with her friends, but to his surprise she had said she was tired. She needed sleep because she wanted to leave the next day. She told him she had said goodbye to all her friends and did not want to cry tears of parting twice.

Raven had shrugged and let her stay in the lodge. He had spent his time gathering supplies and trade goods, repairing the ik, and checking his harpoons and knives. His parka was torn, so he gave it to Lemming Tail to repair, expecting a sharp and angry reply to his request, but she had smiled and promised to sew it quickly.

Even so, they were two days in the village, days when Lemming Tail asked that no one be allowed to come into Raven’s side of the lodge. She had much to do to be ready.

They had left in early morning, and Raven had not had to drag Lemming Tail from their bed, had not had to chide her for her slowness.

They had launched the ik with no one on the bench to offer songs or prayers, though as Raven took the first strong strokes with his paddle, he thought he saw those two old ones, Grandmother and Aunt, on the beach. He laughed. Why think such a thing? The two old women were so weak they seldom left their lodge.

And now he was finally here, and if Dyenen believed that Lemming Tail was Kiin, that the babies were Shuku and Takha, he, Raven, would have all the power any man could want.

As they broke into the clearing of the River village, Dyenen heard Lemming Tail draw in her breath. His chest tightened and he looked back at her, hoping her reaction was one of joy, not despair.

When several of his hunters had run into the village to tell of Saghani’s approach, Dyenen had put on his finest parka. He had washed carefully and smoothed oil over his face, chest, and hands. Under his parka, he wore a necklace of bear claws and caribou bone, all from animals he had taken in his youth. What would be better to remind the spirits that he had been a skilled hunter than such a necklace?

For days, Dyenen had prayed; for nights he had lain awake trying to think of ways to please this new wife, a young woman with spirit powers of her own, a woman who might not be impressed with his position among the River People. After all, she was of the First Men and the Walrus. Why find any importance in another tribe? Had he not seen his own daughters turn down offers from men of other tribes, hunters who had much to give a good wife?

To please Kiin, Dyenen had had a man skilled with drawing and dyes paint pictures on Dyenen’s lodge to tell the stories of Dyenen’s life. He had asked several women of the village to make her a fine parka and leggings, and they had used caribou skins worked until they were so smooth and soft that Dyenen’s calloused fingers could hardly tell he was touching them. He had made her a bed platform next to his, filled it with the softest fox and hare furs. He had made sure all the oil in his food cache was fresh, that there was much meat on the food platform he shared with two other men of the village. And he had told his four other wives that they would accept this new wife as a shaman, with the honor given to a shaman, for though she might not claim such an honor for herself, her carvings were proof of her powers.

Saghani had not lied. The woman was beautiful. Her eyes slanted up from a small nose, her brows slanted also, like a bird’s wings. Her hair was long and smooth, oiled until it shone. Her parka bulged with her babies, so he could not tell her shape, whether she was slim or thick, but even if she was too thin, if she bore him sons he did not care. Besides, her hands and feet were plump and well shaped. Would her body not be the same?

Dyenen looked at her and smiled. Kiin’s eyes were wide, her mouth open, and after a few moments of staring, she began pointing and jabbering, asking many questions. Dyenen waited politely as Saghani answered her questions, sometimes in error, but Dyenen did not interrupt, reminding himself that Saghani still did not know he spoke the Walrus tongue. Dyenen was glad to hear Kiin speak the Walrus language so well. He had only a few words of the First Men tongue. He would ask her to teach him during the long winter evenings when they were together in his lodge. How else would a man learn the language? The First Men were not traders. Most seemed content to stay on their small islands, hunting sea animals. Even their stone knappers made knives and harpoon heads flaked only on one side, which meant they did not have the knowledge of heating the stone before they worked it, a knowledge that had belonged to the River tribes for as long as their storytellers could remember.

Then Raven was asking questions, drawing Dyenen from his thoughts.

“How many people in this village?” he asked.

“Twenty tens in summer,” Dyenen answered, and waited as Raven told the woman Kiin what he had said.

The woman looked at Dyenen, did not hide her eyes in shyness or modesty, but looked into his face and smiled. Dyenen felt the fear in his heart leave as easily as if it were ice melted by sun.

That night they ate together, Dyenen and Lemming Tail and Raven. Raven watched Lemming Tail carefully, caught her eye if she did something considered by the River People to be impolite. Once she almost walked between Dyenen and the hearth fire, but Raven caught her and pulled her outside through the narrow entrance tunnel, saying over his shoulder to Dyenen as they left, “I should have told her the ways of your people. They are different from our own.”

Outside, Lemming Tail turned on him, drew back her lips, showed her teeth. “I am a child that you drag me from the lodge?”

“You have rude ways,” Raven said.

“You should have told me these things before,” Lemming Tail said. “I am not stupid.”

“Would you have listened?”

“Yes. I want to be a good wife to Dyenen.”

“Then listen now,” Raven said. “It is rude to walk between the fire and a man or woman sitting in the lodge.”

“They should keep their cooking fires outside like the Walrus People, like the First Men.”

“Do you listen or do you complain?”

“I listen.”

“Women do not eat the meat of a bear.” Raven waited for Lemming Tail to speak, but she said nothing.

“Women do not touch a man’s weapons.”

“That is no different from Walrus,” Lemming Tail said.

“Good, then remember it. Women eat when a man is finished eating unless invited to eat with him.”

Lemming Tail nodded.

“Women live apart in a separate lodge during their bleeding times.”

“All these things the Walrus People do.”

“Good,” said Raven. “Then remember that the Walrus and the River were once one people. Their difference lies in language and in animals hunted.” He laid one hand over his chest. “In the heart, they are the same.”

Lemming Tail took a long breath. “I will remember.”

“Good. Then come inside and be polite, and if he asks you to carve, remember what I told you. And remember what we have planned when we show him the babies.”

Lemming Tail lifted her chin and made a strange smile, something Raven would remember later that night.

When they had finished eating, Raven motioned for Lemming Tail to clear away the food. “Where are his other wives?” she whispered, but Raven, frowning, motioned for her to be quiet, and when she walked past him, Raven grabbed her ankle and squeezed hard, leaving the marks of his fingernails in her skin.