Brother Wind (55 page)

In a lodge at the edge of the village a young mother had died. No one knew why. She was repairing a fish trap in the river, then she was dead. Her sister had died also, only three days later, a pain in her side growing so strong that she could not bear to stay in the world of the sun. Her husband said he had heard her dead sister calling her in the night.

Dyenen could not remember so many unexplainable deaths in such a short time. What good was a shaman if he could not protect his people? No one was starving, no one was breaking taboos, yet people were dying. And what had changed in the village; what new thing had come that might cause that dying? Nothing except the woman Kiin.

A small voice, like one of the voices Dyenen kept in his throat, came into his mind. It spoke from the far corner of his thoughts in the thin voice of a child. “Raven lied. The woman he gave you is not Kiin. The children he gave you are not Kiin’s children. You traded the safety of this village for the hope of a son. For yourself. Your own selfishness. You have had all things in life—good wives, a strong village, a good lodge, enough food, beautiful daughters, the respect of men in your own village and in villages far from the river. You have had all things except a son. Yet you could not be happy with what you had.”

Dyenen, walking between the lodges, answered the voice in anger “Is it wrong for a man to want a son? A son hunts. He brings meat for the village and children are fed. Is a man terrible because he longs for a son? Besides, I have powers. I have learned much. I need someone to teach so the knowledge I have gathered will not be forgotten.”

“You have taught someone already,” the voice said, and it spoke in the Walrus language, in the harsh and strange sounds of that tongue.

“He learned little. He did not understand what was important,” Dyenen said.

“Then you did not choose wisely.”

“How can a man know what is in the heart of another man?”

“Your son would be different?”

“He would have my blood.”

Then the voice was silent. But Dyenen’s anger grew until his chest ached with the fullness of it. He went back to the lodge, found his new wife there feeding one of the babies. The ivory bird was lying beside her, no closer to being finished than it had been the day before.

A man sees what he wants to see, Dyenen told himself.

“Do not lie to me,” Dyenen said. “I have ways of knowing the truth. You have heard me speak to spirits. You have seen them move this lodge. You have heard their voices. If you do not tell me the truth, I will call all the spirits here tonight. They will stay with you. I cannot say what they will do to you while I am gone.”

The woman’s face blanched, and she held her hands out to him like a child asking to be held.

“Who are you?” Dyenen asked.

“I am Kiin,” she said, but her voice was small.

“Who are you?” Dyenen asked again. “Kiin.”

“You lie!”

“I am Kiin!”

“No! Take your babies and leave our village. Go back to Saghani.”

“I do not know the way,” the woman said. She wrapped her arms around the boy in her lap.

“You cannot stay unless you tell me who you are,” Dyenen said.

Finally the woman said, “Kiin is dead. When Raven promised her to you, he did not know she was dead. I was his other wife.” She lifted her chin, set her lips into a hard, thin line, then said, “I was his first wife—more important than Kiin—so he gave me instead.”

“And these boys, are either of these her sons?” Dyenen asked. He pointed at Mouse and Shuku.

For a long moment, the woman looked at the boys, Mouse nursing at her breast, the older, stronger Shuku standing, taking quick steps from one side of the lodge to the other. “One of her sons is dead,” she said. “I told you that before. The other boy Raven brought you.” She lifted her chin toward Shuku. “He is my son. This,” she said and lifted Mouse from her breast, “is Kiin’s son. He is the one who should be trained as shaman. He carries his mother’s powers.” She fingered the ivory ikyak carving that was sewn on the baby’s parka. “See? His amulet is one of his mother’s carvings.”

“Mouse looks like you,” said Dyenen. “He looks as if he is your son.”

“Kiin was my younger sister,” the woman said. “I look like her; she looked like me.”

It is possible, Dyenen thought. Men often marry sisters. Besides, the boys were his now. They had found a place inside his heart. He did not want to give them up, and the woman seemed to be a good mother to them.

Dyenen thought about his village, about the lies Raven had told him. The woman was not Kiin, and yet they had called her Kiin, and so had misused the power of that name. They had insulted a woman who was a gifted carver, had called the anger of her spirits—the spirit of her soul, the spirit of her name. It was no wonder people had died.

If he fasted and prayed, if he told the dead Kiin he would honor her with chants and songs, he would honor her son and her sister, in that way he might be able to lift the curse from his village and still keep the two boys.

“What do they call you?” he asked the woman.

“I am Lemming Tail,” she answered.

“Lemming Tail,” Dyenen said. “I will keep you as wife, and I will keep your sons.”

The Alaska Peninsula

K
UKUTUX WATCHED AS THE IKYAN TURNED
toward shore. “The men go in,” she told the other women. Suddenly the iks were full of shuffling as women retied packs, pulled up fishlines.

The women paddled until they came to the inlet where the ikyan had turned, then moved their iks into shallow water. When they came to the gravel beach where the men had landed, the women paddled ashore, then carried water bladders and sealskins of dried fish up to the campsite the men had chosen.

Kukutux picked up the roll of sealskins she used to make a shelter for Waxtal and herself. As she walked to Waxtal’s ikyak, she noticed tracks in the gravel, paths through the ryegrass.

She hurried to Waxtal’s side. “There are people here,” she said, leaning close to her husband as he bent over the hull of his ikyak.

“Get me sinew and awl,” Waxtal told her as though she had not spoken.

“There are people here, other people,” Kukutux said again, this time more loudly. “Is this the Ugyuun beach?”

“I told you I need sinew and awl,” Waxtal said again, raising his voice. He laid his hand over a thin cut in the ikyak cover. The cut did not penetrate the sea lion hide, but it was long, and might split if the ikyak bumped against rocks or came into heavy seas.

Kukutux shook her head in irritation but went back for her supply pack. She found awl and sinew, then returned to Waxtal.

Walking with head down, she nearly ran into Dying Seal.

“Kukutux!” he said, his voice holding both surprise and laughter.

Kukutux did not think of politeness, of apologies, but instead looked at Dying Seal and said, “There are people here. Other people.” She pointed at the paths in the grass and the footprints in the sand.

“We are near a village,” said Dying Seal. “Waxtal calls them Ugyuun. He says they are First Men.”

“Then we have eight, ten days until we reach the Walrus village?” she asked.

Dying Seal shrugged. “Ask Waxtal.”

Kukutux opened her mouth to ask another question, but Waxtal called to her, his voice angry, so she turned away from Dying Seal and went to her husband, handing him awl and sinew as he berated her. His words ran like rain over her head.

As if they were rain, Kukutux ignored them.

She is not a worthless woman, Waxtal thought as he looked at the shelter his wife had erected. It was good, watertight and with room enough for a man to stretch out full-length to sleep. But in many ways Kukutux angered him. The one time he had hit her, she had hit him back, hard. Since then he had let his anger out only in words. Sometimes words were not enough.

Waxtal was standing with Hard Rock and Dying Seal. The two men were discussing whale hunting. Waxtal curled his lip. What was whale hunting compared to ruling spirits? What was whale hunting compared to carving? Who, in their children’s children’s children’s time, would remember the names of Hard Rock or Dying Seal? But they would look at Waxtal’s tusks and remember him.

“You know these people?” Hard Rock asked, turning back to Waxtal.

“The Ugyuun?” Waxtal asked. “I have traded with them before,” he said.

Hard Rock grunted, a sound that always irritated Waxtal. The man was stingy with words, as though his thoughts were too important to share with others. Hard Rock could blame Samiq for the curse on the Whale Hunter village, but as alananasika Hard Rock was responsible for what happened to his people. Perhaps he did not spend enough time fasting, enough time apart from his wives. Perhaps the whales sensed his impurity and would not give themselves to Whale Hunter harpoons.

Waxtal pointed to the path that led to the Ugyuun village. He stepped aside to allow Hard Rock and Dying Seal to lead, but when the low mounds of the Ugyuun ulas came into view, Hard Rock slowed his steps.

“You go first,” he said to Waxtal.

Even Hard Rock sees me as leader, Waxtal thought. What is alananasika compared to shaman?

Dying Seal pointed at the shabby ikyak racks, and Waxtal turned his head to say, “They are a lazy people and do not have much, but some of their women are beautiful.”

Seeing three Ugyuun men behind the racks, another two sitting atop a ulaq roof, all doing nothing, Waxtal nodded his head, as if in agreement with his own thoughts. An old ulaq had been left to rot, good rafters with bad, the roof and one wall caved in. The ikyak racks were falling down, propped up with sticks and rocks.

Waxtal called to the Ugyuun men, called and greeted them with open hands. “We are from the Whale Hunter people. We journey to trade with the Walrus tribe, but we need fresh meat. Would you be willing to trade sea urchins for dried fish? Bird meat for sealskins?”

The two men on the ulaq slid from the roof and joined those on the beach. One man carried a bird spear in his hand. The others kept their hands tucked up their sleeves.

The hair in Waxtal’s armpits prickled.

“You said you knew them,” Hard Rock whispered.

Dying Seal stepped forward, held his hands out, repeated Waxtal’s greeting.

The tallest of the Ugyuun men also held out his hands, and the other Ugyuun men followed, one by one.

Waxtal took a long breath, then stepped forward, ahead of Dying Seal. “We come not as traders but to trade, and to ask if we may spend the night on the beach there.” He turned and pointed.

“You are welcome to stay, but we have little to trade,” said the tallest Ugyuun.

“Water?” asked Hard Rock.

“Yes, we have water.”

“Sinew?” asked Dying Seal.

“Some. What do you offer in exchange?”

“Oil,” Waxtal said and ignored the look of anger on Hard Rock’s face. They had enough oil to get to the Walrus village. What did Waxtal care about oil beyond that? He would not return to the Whale Hunters’ island with the rest of them. He and Kukutux would stay—and that would be two fewer people for Hard Rock to feed.

Perhaps if the Whale Hunters did not have enough oil for the return journey, they would choose to be part of Waxtal’s village, giving him the power of shaman over more people. Or perhaps they would leave some of the children. He would be willing to take She Cries’ stepdaughter as second wife. Most shamans had at least two wives. If they killed Samiq, the Whale Hunters would owe him a wife anyway, a wife and much more. And if they wanted something in exchange, he would give them Blue Shell. He almost smiled. An old woman for a young one.

“We will trade some of our oil,” Hard Rock said. “And dried fish. Sealskins, a few. Whalebone harpoon heads and beads.”

The man who seemed to be leader of the Ugyuun raised his eyebrows and looked quickly at the men beside him. Several of them nodded.

“We will go back and get what we have for trade,” said Hard Rock. He and Dying Seal turned, but Waxtal, lifting his chin to point at the Ugyuun village, said, “I will go with them.”

Waxtal knew that Hard Rock would not bring much oil, but he did not want to go back with them. Why be loaded with sealskins and dried fish? Why carry baskets and water bladders? Let Hard Rock and Dying Seal carry what must be carried. Waxtal was the trader. He would do what he was good at doing, and the Whale Hunters would have more than if he had let Hard Rock or Dying Seal speak.

He felt the anger in Hard Rock’s stare, but turned his back on the man and followed the Ugyuun.

Inside one of the Ugyuun ulas, the men squatted on their haunches near an oil lamp. From the dim edges of the room, a woman came, a beautiful young woman, her suk one that Chagak herself might have made, so intricate was the stitching, so beautiful the feathers.

As Waxtal’s eyes adjusted to the light, he studied the inside of the ulaq. It was neat and well-ordered, something that surprised him. He had been once or twice in other Ugyuun ulas. All things were usually jumbled together, and the smell of rotting floor heather and the stink of old fish had been as heavy as smoke. But this ulaq smelled of fresh heather, of ryegrass newly woven, of meat cooking. The oil lamp wicks were trimmed, and even from across the width of the ulaq, he could see that the curtain over the food cache bulged with what was inside.

“I am Eagle. This is my wife, Small Plant Woman,” an Ugyuun man said. “Welcome to my ulaq.”

Waxtal nodded, then reached for a stick of dried meat from a bowl the Ugyuun woman was holding before him. “Your lodge is good,” Waxtal said. “You have had a good summer for hunting.”

“It has been a good summer,” the man said and smiled at his wife. She placed one hand over her belly, and Waxtal wondered if she carried a child. He lifted his eyes to the shoulder of her suk, to a piece of ivory sewn there. As soon as he saw it, his stomach tightened and his mouth grew dry. The carving was a murre, wings spread.

It was one of Kiin’s. Who would not recognize her work? Each carving was so … so … what could a man say? Complete. As though the knife knew what was necessary, what lines, what curves—and then stopped there.