Brother Wind (50 page)

The boy was Shuku, Kiin’s son!

For a moment Raven could not think, could not speak. Suddenly he was choking on the fish that was in his mouth, choking and coughing, until Lemming Tail left the baby and came to slap both hands against his back. Finally his throat was clear. Raven took a shuddering breath and stood.

Again he looked at the baby. It was Shuku, without a doubt. How had they come to have Shuku? Had Kiin returned to the Walrus village and given Lemming Tail her son? No, someone would have told him. Had Shuku been found alive by one of the Walrus hunters? No, again someone would have told him. But what if Shuku had been found by one of the Ugyuun? Perhaps before they left that village, the Ugyuun father had decided to keep his own son and had given them the found child, Shuku, instead.

No, Raven thought. Kiin must be alive. She must have been with the Ugyuun People. Somehow Lemming Tail had found out and taken Shuku … Why had she not told him? But Raven knew the answer to his own question. Lemming Tail was not stupid. She would have known he would trade her to the Ugyuun for Kiin. So why take Shuku at all? Why risk Raven’s anger? Did she think Shuku would carry the spirit powers of his mother, enough power to blind Raven’s eyes, to ensure safety with the River People?

“Strange spirits,” Dyenen muttered, pointing at Raven’s throat and chest.

“So,” said Raven, his voice weak from the choking. He cleared his throat and asked, “These babies, this woman, you like?”

Dyenen sat very still. Finally he said, “All things are good, but I want to see her carve.”

While Lemming Tail dressed Shuku, Raven asked Dyenen, “Did your men bring my packs? Kiin’s carving tools are there.”

Dyenen pointed to the far side of the lodge. “Your packs are under the caribou skins. My wives know they are yours.”

Raven sorted through the packs until he found the one that contained the knives he had packed: a woman’s knife with a dulled blade for smoothing, a crooked knife with a small blade for details, a burin, and a pointed drill. He had been careful to pack old knives. Kiin had been carving for a long time. Her knives should look well used.

He also picked up a basket, something that had belonged to Kiin. The basket was full of wood and ivory and also held a few carvings she had already begun to shape. He took the basket and tools to Lemming Tail and set them beside her. She held both boys on her lap. Mouse was nursing, but Shuku still slept. Raven fixed his eyes on Shuku.

The sight of the boy’s face made Raven uneasy. What spirits were working here? How could something like this happen? He had many questions for Lemming Tail. The woman had better have good answers.

“Carve,” he had said to her.

“The babies eat,” Lemming Tail answered.

“Mouse eats,” Raven said and took the child from her. The boy reached for his mother and began to whimper, his mouth stretching wide as his cries rose into a howl.

“I will take him,” Dyenen said.

Raven handed him the baby. Dyenen took a small piece of fish, placed it on Mouse’s tongue. The baby closed his mouth, opened his eyes in surprise. He stopped crying, stuck his hands into his mouth, took out the fish, looked at it, then sucked it off his fingers.

Raven watched as Lemming Tail took the carving knives from Kiin’s basket. Her hands trembled, and Raven hoped Dyenen did not notice. But why worry? Even the real Kiin, having to carve to earn a husband, would be afraid.

Lemming Tail sorted through the pieces of ivory, and with each movement of her hands, Raven’s chest tightened. Sweat prickled under his arms. He had the pieces arranged in order. If Lemming Tail was not careful, she would spoil their plans.

But no, she pulled out the right piece—a long sliver of walrus tusk, barely shaped, brown and discolored on one side. For a moment she hesitated, the crooked knife poised above the tusk. Then she sliced away a thin curl of ivory.

Raven had made the woman practice this during evenings they camped. It was not difficult to do, requiring only a steadiness of hands and patience, but Lemming Tail was not a woman of patience, and Raven had endured her complaints. He reminded himself of that whining as he watched her work. He needed to push away remembrances of nights spent together, to push away regrets that he would never again have the woman under him in the sleeping robes.

Lemming Tail blinked twice at him, and Raven leaned in front of Dyenen to block his view. Raven spoke to the baby that played in Dyenen’s lap. They had not counted on Mouse to help distract the man, but the child made things easier, and by the time Raven was again settled beside the old man, allowing Dyenen a clear view of

Lemming Tail, she had a different piece of ivory in her hand, one that Kiin herself had shaped, the beginning of seal or sea lion.

Lemming Tail kept her head bent over the work. Her hair was loose from her dancing, and it fell around her face and over her hands so that much of what she was doing was difficult to see. Finally, she again looked at Raven, again blinked twice. Raven stood, stretched, said to Dyenen, “We should walk. We need to go outside, see the stars.”

Dyenen shook his head. “I want to watch,” he said.

And when Lemming Tail looked up at Raven with questioning eyes, he could only shake his head and hope that she could think of some way to make the switch. The difference between this piece of ivory and the next was too great to risk changing the pieces while the old man was in the lodge. For a long time Lemming Tail remained with her head down, until again Raven said to Dyenen, “You see she does carve, though you cannot expect the woman to finish one carving in an evening.”

“So we will watch for the night,” Dyenen said.

Lemming Tail looked up at Raven, and Raven said to her, “Dyenen says he will watch for the night. However long it takes you.”

“Tell him I need to feed my son—my sons,” Lemming Tail said.

“She needs to feed the babies,” Raven told the old man.

“Why?” Dyenen asked. He wrapped his hands around Mouse and bounced him on his lap. Mouse giggled. “This one eats fish,” Dyenen said. “The other one sleeps.”

“He says they are not hungry,” Raven told Lemming Tail.

Lemming Tail set down her carving tools and cupped her breasts in her hands. “I ache from too much milk,” she said.

Raven merely pointed, said nothing.

Dyenen threw back his head, mumbled something Raven did not understand, and handed Mouse to Lemming Tail. Lemming Tail gathered the baby to her and scooted away from the men, leaning back against one of Raven’s trade packs.

“So we shall walk?” Raven asked and felt the lift of his heart as the old man pushed himself to his feet.

“And we will talk as trader to trader?” the old man asked.

“Yes,” Raven answered and led the way from the lodge out into the cool night air.

L
EMMING TAIL NURSED MOUSE
and at the same time tried to rouse Shuku from his heavy sleep.

“What did you give me, old woman?” she said aloud. “He sleeps too much. The old man, he will know something is wrong.” She leaned over Shuku. The boy’s breathing was so shallow that for a moment she was afraid he did not breathe at all. But then she probed the soft skin of his neck and felt the beating of his heart. She sighed her relief, picked up the child and coaxed his lips around her nipple, pressed her breast until a trickle of milk leaked into his mouth.

“Eat, baby, eat,” she said, and finally, Shuku began to suck.

She scooted with both boys in her lap over to her carving tools. She hid the shaped ivory in the bottom of the basket and took out a third piece. The head and eyes of a seal looked out at her. She used the blunted woman’s knife to smooth the ivory, gently pressing the edge of the blade down the chest.

“This is not so difficult, Kiin,” she said. “You made us believe you had special spirit powers. Ha! I can carve as well as you.” But her knife slipped and gouged the ivory, and Lemming Tail closed her mouth, bit her bottom lip, and worked more slowly.

“She is beautiful as I told you,” Raven said.

“Yes, Saghani, but the one child. He sleeps too much. Is he sick?”

“No, he is bigger and stronger than Takha.” Raven looked up, his eyes drawn by the many fine lodges of the River village. The old man began to speak again, and though Raven told himself to listen, listen carefully, his mind wandered. The shock of knowing that Shuku was Shuku seemed to settle over his thoughts like a layer of fog.

“Saghani … Saghani?” The old man’s hand moved close to Raven’s arm, hovered there as though he would touch him to get his attention.

“I am sorry,” Raven said. “I did not hear you. My mind wanders. It is not an easy decision I have made to give up this woman and her sons. She is worth much to our people.”

Dyenen nodded, but said nothing. He directed their steps in a circle around the village, slowing when they came to full food caches or meat-drying racks.

When he finally spoke, Dyenen said, “It is a good place for children to live.”

“Yes.”

“A woman would find many friends and never be hungry.”

“Yes.”

“We agree, also, that when I die, the two sons go back to the Walrus People, and the woman, she does what she wants. But whatever sons she gives me, they stay here with the River People.”

“Yes.”

“So then, the trade is set.”

“And you will tell me the secrets of your animal calling, the chants and prayers and times of fasting,” Raven said. “You will tell me how to call spirits so their voices can be heard in my village and their presence felt in the walls of my lodge.”

“All things are not as they seem,” Dyenen said. “We see stars each night, but who knows what they are? Some men say they are the fires of the dead, others that they are the spirits who created this earth. The women call the stars one thing, the hunters another. When I agreed to the trading, I agreed to tell you what to do. I cannot say what the spirits will do.”

“What man does not understand that?” Raven said, again finding himself annoyed at the old man’s many words.

“We should return to the lodge,” Dyenen said.

“When will you teach me?”

“Tomorrow we begin.”

Raven nodded. “How long will it take?”

Dyenen started back toward his lodge. At the entrance tunnel he looked up at Raven. “Four days here with me, and after that, the rest of your life.”

Raven said nothing. Four days here. He would have to keep the old man away from Lemming Tail and the babies. They could not expect Shuku to sleep for four days.

Inside the lodge, Lemming Tail was smoothing the carving with a bit of lava rock. She held up the ivory, turned it so the men could see. “It is something done quickly, but still …” she said, and Raven translated her words.

“Especially for something done quickly,” Dyenen said, “it is good.”

He offered Raven more food, but Raven shook his head. Dyenen took a piece of fish, ate it, and went to the babies, leaning over them. Shuku still slept but Mouse was awake, his hands busy as he went from one thing to another. Finally the boy crawled over to the old man, pulled himself up, and looked into Dyenen’s face. Dyenen chuckled and put Mouse on his lap. He spoke to Mouse for a long time in the River language before finally setting him down close to his mother.

Dyenen went to Shuku, picked up the sleeping child, stroked his face, arms, and legs, and laid him again on the fur robe where he had been sleeping. Then Dyenen left the lodge, saying nothing to Raven or Lemming Tail.

Lemming Tail lifted her eyes to Raven. Raven shrugged. “He says he will train me for four days, then the trade will be made. You will stay?

Lemming Tail made a slow smile. “I will stay.”

Raven pointed at Shuku. “Where did you get him?” he asked.

“From the Ugyuun,” she said and glanced toward the entrance tunnel.

Raven squatted on his haunches and bent his head to see into the tunnel. Dyenen was not there. “He is gone,” Raven said.

Lemming Tail bit her lips.

“He may be outside,” Raven said and moved to sit close beside her. “Speak quietly.”

“But he does not understand the Walrus language,” Lemming Tail said.

“Never judge another by what you are.”

Lemming Tail laughed. “So, that is your wisdom?” she asked. “How else can we judge? What else do I know but myself?”

Anger, as sharp as a needle, thrust up inside Raven’s chest. He clasped Lemming Tail’s wrist, held her hand still.

“I am carving,” she said.

Raven’s lips curled in a smirk, and Lemming Tail, her face coloring, looked away.

“What happened to the Ugyuun baby?” Raven asked, his words nearly a whisper.

“I exchanged baby for baby,” Lemming Tail said. “Shuku was sitting outside on a lodge. I saw him and switched.”

“And did not tell me it was Shuku?”

“I did not know it was Shuku. He was wrapped in a parka with a hood. I was afraid someone would see me, so I moved quickly. I took one baby from under my parka and put the other in. We were a long way in the ik before I looked at his face.”

“Where is Kiin?”

“How should I know? You were the one who told me you found her ik. You were the one who said she was dead. She said she was going to the River People to find you.”

“You should not have made her leave the lodge.”

“It was not me,” Lemming Tail said, and snapped her wrist from Raven’s grasp. She held it up, pointed to the red marks his fingers had left on her skin.

“You deserve more than that,” Raven said.

“You have given me more than that,” Lemming Tail answered, her words changing from whisper to shout. “You are selling me here to an old man, to live with people I do not know. The whole village smells like fish. The dogs—they could hurt Mouse.”

“Come back with me to the Walrus village,” said Raven, and his lips curled when Lemming Tail turned away. “Then do not pretend you are being punished,” he said. “Kiin was punished. For nothing. She was a good wife. A strong woman. She would have given me many sons. You are sure you did not see her at the Ugyuun village?”

“I told you I did not!”

“Then how did Shuku get there?”