Brother Wind (5 page)

Samiq stood up, pulled the throwing stick from his right hand, and, clasping the stick with his left, flung it as far as he could. He squatted beside the ikyak and closed his eyes.

What is a man if he cannot hunt? he asked himself. Would Kiin have left Takha with me if she had known I could not hunt? Better for him to have Raven as father.

“You have no more respect for your grandfather’s throwing stick than that?”

The question startled Samiq, and he looked up to see his father Kayugh. Kayugh squatted beside him and placed the throwing stick at Samiq’s feet.

“What good is it to me?” Samiq asked. He held out his right hand, fingers curled like a bird’s claw. “How will I feed my family? How can I teach Takha to hunt? Why should Three Fish call me husband if I cannot bring meat for her and our sons?”

“So what then?” Kayugh asked. “Will you take Takha to Raven? Will you send Small Knife back to the Whale Hunters?”

Samiq looked at his father, saw the anger in Kayugh’s eyes. “What good am I to Small Knife or to Takha?” he murmured.

Kayugh shrugged. “Then I will keep your throwing stick,” he said. “Your grandfather Shuganan did not make it so that you could throw it away. Your foolishness will curse your hunting far more than the wound on your hand. You can paddle your ikyak, can you not? But I will go now and tell Small Knife that he no longer has a father. Perhaps he will decide to take Takha back to the Whale Hunters with him. Then you will not have to worry about either son. It is good that Kiin and Shuku went back with Raven. At least you have no concern about them.” Kayugh stood, then said, “Or perhaps your worries about yourself are so large there is no space to think about others.”

Samiq jumped to his feet and faced his father. “You have never cared about me. You cared only for Amgigh. I would give my life to bring him back. But I cannot. I promised myself I would raise Kiin’s son, train him as Amgigh would have. That is all I can do for Amgigh, but now how will I do that?”

“Do not ever think that Amgigh was closer to my heart than you,” Kayugh said. “Perhaps you are not son of my flesh, but you are son of my spirit.”

Kayugh walked away then, back toward the low earth-and-grass mounds that were the First Men’s ulas. Samiq turned and watched him go. Though now a grandfather, Kayugh still carried himself with the sure and powerful walk of a hunter. Then Kayugh, as though knowing that Samiq watched him, turned back and called, “There is more to being a hunter than the skill of arms and hands. Do not forget the spirit. Do not forget the heart.”

Then he left Samiq alone on the beach.

C
HAGAK LOOKED UP
from her sewing as Kayugh came down the climbing log into the ulaq. “You found him?” she asked.

“He is on the beach.” Kayugh went to his weapons corner. He sorted through a basket filled with spearpoints and took out a fine obsidian blade, black and nearly translucent, one of Amgigh’s best. Kayugh held it for a moment against his cheek.

Chagak had carried the pain of Amgigh’s death like a stone in her chest for this long moon, and now as she saw the sorrow in Kayugh’s face, her throat tightened and tears burned her eyes.

Kayugh spoke from the weapons corner, his voice thin, almost like a boy’s. “Do you think, wife, in raising our sons that I favored Amgigh over Samiq?” he asked.

The pain in his words reached into Chagak’s chest, squeezed her heart, so that for a moment she could not answer. She wiped the palms of her hands over her cheeks and closed her eyes until she stopped her tears, then she walked over to Kayugh, leaned against his back, placed her hands on his shoulders.

“There is no better father than you,” she said. “Ask your children. Ask Red Berry, ask Wren. Wren is still only a child, but she knows. You were fair to both sons, but they were different, as all people are. You did not favor one son or the other just because you treated them differently.”

“Samiq thinks …”

“Whatever Samiq says, remember he has lost more than any of us. Not only a brother, but Kiin and her son Shuku, and the use of his hand. You know that sorrow not only twists the heart, but also dims the eyes. Only the very wise can see good in the earth when they are grieving.”

Kayugh nodded, laid the spearpoint back in the basket. He stood and pulled Chagak into his arms, held her tightly against his chest.

In a small voice Chagak asked, “Do you think he will hunt again?”

“Samiq?” Kayugh asked, his mouth close to Chagak’s ear.

She nodded.

“Yes,” Kayugh said. “I do not know how, but he will.” Kayugh pulled away, looked down at his wife. “Do not doubt your son,” he said. “He is just like you. He will not give up until he has found a way.”

“Samiq?”

Samiq took a long breath. It was Three Fish. Why must she treat him as though he were a boy who needed watching?

He stood. “I am here.”

Three Fish smiled. “I brought you food,” she said and held out a basket of dried fish.

Samiq sat down cross-legged on the ground as though he were Whale Hunter, not First Men. “I am not hungry, Three Fish.”

“How will you hunt if you do not eat?” Three Fish asked, and she squatted beside him. “Eat,” she said again, and held a piece of fish out toward him. “Eat, then I will tell you something that will make you happy.”

Samiq reached for the fish she offered, realizing too late that he had reached with his right hand. He looked up into the sky, ground his teeth to hold in his anger. But Three Fish merely took his hand in hers, laid it on her thigh, and put the fish into his left hand.

“You will hunt soon?” she asked, studying his fingers.

Samiq snorted. “How?”

Three Fish looked at him, eyebrows raised. “You ask me?” she said. “I am a woman. I do not hunt. If you have a question about sewing or cooking, ask that. Then I will tell you.”

Samiq bit into the fish. “You spend too much time with my mother,” he said. “You begin to talk like her.”

Three Fish laughed. “Good.”

She turned his right hand one way, then another, took a fish from the basket, and ate it still studying his hand. “The fingers hold tight?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then what is the problem? Your arm still works, you can still throw the spear.”

“Look,” Samiq said. He picked up his throwing stick, pressed it into his right hand, and showed her the curled finger that lay against the bottom of the stick.

“It must lie straight?” Three Fish asked.

“Yes, or I cannot aim, and the throwing stick wobbles.”

Three Fish continued to eat, and finally when she had finished the last piece of fish, she said, “Wait. I will be back.”

She took two running steps toward the ulas, then turned and picked up the empty food basket. “Are you still hungry?” she asked.

Samiq held a smile inside his cheek. Three Fish had eaten all the food, except for the piece of fish still in Samiq’s left hand. He held it up for her to see. “I have food,” he answered, then watched as she left. Three Fish was as wide as any of the First Men hunters, nearly as tall as Big Teeth, and she ran slowly and awkwardly in the sand of the Traders’ Beach.

Samiq took a bite of fish. He stood and stretched, then walked the length of the beach. It was good that their ulas were protected from the North Sea by the arms of the bay, but sometimes he wished he could see the open water. Better to tell if whales or seals were swimming. But now what did it matter? How would he teach the men to hunt whale with his hand crippled as it was?

Now that Amgigh was dead and Samiq could no longer hunt, what did the First Men have? Three hunters—Kayugh and Big Teeth, nearly old men—and First Snow, Red Berry’s husband. Red Berry’s two sons were still only babies, and who could count Kiin’s father Waxtal as a hunter, the man now bringing in only two, three seals a season? Small Knife, though still a boy, was better with the harpoon.

Perhaps Hard Rock and the Whale Hunters had been right when they blamed the curse of Aka’s fire and ash on Samiq. Perhaps he had brought curses to the First Men as well, so finally they would have no hunters and be forced to live on the fish and berries the women brought in.

And what about Kiin? he asked himself. She will be waiting for me to come for her. What will she think when I do not come?

He pulled the throwing stick from his hand and held his fist up toward the gray of the sky. “What about this?” he cried into the wind.

“How can I hunt with this? What good am I if I cannot bring meat for my people?”

Suddenly Three Fish was beside him. “Look,” she said, her round flat face creased with a smile. “Look, Samiq, this.” She waved a narrow piece of birdbone before his eyes and pulled his hand toward her. She straightened his forefinger, then tied the bone to it with thin strings of twisted sinew.

“See,” she said, then turned toward the ikyak rack. “Where is your spear?”

“Wait,” Samiq said, holding her back. Who could say what curse would come to a weapon if it were touched by a woman? He picked up his throwing stick and ran to the racks where he had left his spear. He fitted the stick into his hand and set the butt end of the spear into the ivory hook at the top of the throwing stick. He pulled his arm back, made a strong sidearm throw. It was not a perfect throw, but the spear flew straight, no short awkward arc, no high erratic path.

“Three Fish!” Samiq called, his voice lifting into a shout.

He ran to her, squeezed her against his chest. Three Fish pulled away, but Samiq said, “I do not care who sees.”

Three Fish, her face flushed, looked down. “You will crush your sons.”

Samiq stopped, eyes wide.

“Takha is here,” she said, stroking the bulge of the baby under her suk. “Your other son is here,” and she patted her belly.

W
AXTAL STARED AT
the chunk of driftwood. “It has not been a good year for carvers,” he said and threw the driftwood down in disgust. “If I had ivory I could carve all winter, then go to our daughter’s husband Raven. He would trade for my carvings. Look what he gave for the poor animals Kiin made.”

Blue Shell looked up at him from where she sat sorting grass beside the oil lamp. “Take the day, go up the beach to the North Sea,” she said. “Who can say what you will find? Perhaps the spirits will see your need and send a walrus tusk.”

Waxtal looked up at her and scowled. “A woman thinks it is easy to walk to the North Sea. A woman says, ‘Take the day. You will find a walrus tusk.’ Any hunter knows even in an ikyak it is not an easy trip. There are strong currents and hard winds. What other hunter would go with me? They see little value in walrus tusks. No spirit has opened their eyes to what a carver’s knife can do.”

Blue Shell bent her head over her work.

“Besides,” Waxtal said, “no one could expect me to go out in this wind with this suk. I need a parka. It is colder here than on our island. I should dress like the Walrus People do, with a hood to cover my head and fur leggings. Kayugh and Samiq have parkas, but my woman is too stupid to make one.”

“If you want a parka, I will make one,” Blue Shell said quietly, “but I cannot make a parka from birdskins. Kayugh and Samiq have furs from Kiin’s trading, but we do not. You will have to hunt. You will have to bring us fur seal skins or caribou hides.”

“A woman thinks it is easy to hunt …” Waxtal began.

Blue Shell took a long breath and continued to sort her grass.

Samiq laid the feathered practice spears at his feet. He had sharpened the tip of each shaft and hardened the points with fire. He picked up the nearest spear and set it into his throwing stick, but before he threw, he turned to Three Fish. “When will the baby come?” he asked.

“I have missed two bleedings,” Three Fish said.

Samiq nodded and threw the spear. It was a good throw, but short. “I am glad Takha will have a brother or sister,” he said. He did not give voice to his fears: the child would be born in early spring, a hard time for all people, especially mothers with new babies.

Two sons, he thought—Small Knife and Takha. No, three. Shuku was his. If Three Fish had a son, he would have four.

Samiq reached out, brushed fingers over Three Fish’s cheek. “You are a good mother to Takha and to Small Knife. You will be a good mother to this new baby.”

Three Fish smiled, her lips pressed together over her teeth.

“I will hunt,” Samiq said to her. “Even if I have to start again and learn like a boy. Our children will not starve.”

He did not let himself think about their meager supply of seal oil and dried meat. Instead he reminded himself that their bay was full of fish. The women caught pogy in the kelp beds each day. There were sea animals also, harbor seals and otters. Besides, the women had put in a good supply of roots and berries. Kiin’s carvings had brought them furs for winter clothing. Their ulas were strong. They would not have to burn much oil to stay warm this winter.

“It will not be an easy winter,” he said to Three Fish, “but we will live.” He set another of his practice spears into his throwing stick. “Watch,” he said. “See the clump of ryegrass there?” He threw. The spear flew without wobbling and struck the grass.

“Another whale,” Three Fish said.

But Samiq, afraid some spirit might think he was proud, said, “Perhaps a harbor seal. Whatever animal takes pity on men who need meat.”

S
AMIQ LAY AWAKE
long into the night. The joy he had felt earlier that day when Three Fish told him she carried a child seemed somehow bound to the light. When the sun set and night closed over the ulas, the fears he had pushed to the back of his mind claimed his thoughts, and he saw Three Fish, Takha, and the new baby sick and dying for need of food.

“You are leader, chief hunter of this village,” some spirit whispered in the darkness of his sleeping place. “You are responsible for your people’s needs.”

Samiq tried to form plans for hunting and fishing, but ideas slipped away from him like half-remembered dreams.

“In the morning,” he finally told himself, whispering aloud so bothering spirits would hear and let him sleep, “then I will go out in my ikyak and let the wind and sea tell me what I should do.”