Brother Wind (8 page)

Ah, well, he thought, at least she understands the power of my walking stick. Waxtal chuckled. Wisdom never comes without pain.

“T
HESE THREE CARVINGS
and a sea lion stomach of oil,” Waxtal said.

The older trader, the one with black tattoo lines across his cheeks, picked up one of Waxtal’s carvings and turned it in his hands. “You made this?” he asked.

Waxtal nodded.

“Someone told us that your daughter carves.”

Waxtal snorted. Who else but Samiq would tell them that? he thought. Samiq was a fool. He should forget about Kiin. Better for Kiin to be Raven’s wife than to belong to Samiq, especially now that Samiq’s hand was crippled. But perhaps the traders had visited Raven’s village sometime in the past and seen her there.

“She is wife to a shaman—Raven of the Walrus People,” Waxtal said. “You have visited his village?”

“Perhaps,” said the trader.

Waxtal cleared his throat and tried to remember the traders’ names. Every man liked to hear his name spoken. The older was Owl, yes, and the younger was also named for something about birds.

“These are not her carvings but your own?” the younger trader asked.

Heat spread up from Waxtal’s throat and burned across his cheeks. “They are my carvings,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

Owl walked over to his ik and, sorting through several packs, finally pulled out a driftwood carving. It was a seal. The carving flowed with the wood’s grain, and Waxtal could see no knife marks on it—as though the sea itself had formed it.

“Your daughter is Kiin?”

Waxtal nodded.

The trader extended his hand, the carving on his palm. “This is one of hers,” he said.

Waxtal reached for it, but when his fingers touched the carving, the wood seemed hot. He drew back his hand.

The trader raised his eyebrows. “Here,” he said. “You can hold it if you want.”

The pulse of Waxtal’s heart suddenly beat hard at one side of his head, at the insides of his wrists and knees. There was some spirit here that he did not understand. Something in the wood of that carving. He turned his head to spit, but his mouth was dry, so instead he coughed. He turned back to Owl and said, “I have seen my daughter’s work before! Who do you think taught her?”

The trader shrugged and placed the carving back in his pack. “We are going to the Whale Hunters.”

“So you have said,” Waxtal replied.

“Then you know we do not need seal oil except for our own use. Whatever seal oil the Whale Hunters need for food, they take from seals they kill themselves, and who burns seal oil when they have whale oil?”

“Whale Hunters like carvings.”

“Why trade for your carvings,” the trader asked, picking up one of Waxtal’s wooden animals, “when they can have your daughter’s?”

Waxtal laughed. “You think they would take something made by a woman above something a hunter carved, Owl?”

“Who will tell them a woman made it?” the younger trader asked and smiled.

“Three carvings and two stomachs of oil,” Waxtal said, his voice a growl.

“Someone might think that is not enough,” Owl said, and before Waxtal could make another offer, both men walked away.

W
HO COULD TRUST THE MAN?
Kayugh thought. But what harm was there in doing what he asked? Now that Amgigh was dead, they needed someone to make their spearheads and knives. Better to have Waxtal making weapons than carving. What harm to lend him the basket that held Amgigh’s andesite points?

“I will give them back,” Waxtal said. “But I will learn more quickly if I have these to study.” He paused, then raised his eyes to look into Kayugh’s face. “You know I will never be as good as your son.”

For once there was an honesty in Waxtal’s eyes that Kayugh could respect. “Perhaps his gift will come to you from these stones,” Kayugh said and handed Waxtal the basket.

“Three carvings, two sea lion stomachs of oil, and this,” Waxtal said. He handed Owl the basket of spearheads. The man sorted through them, occasionally holding one up for his brother to see. “They are good,” the trader finally said, then quickly added, “but the Whale Hunters might have better.”

Waxtal shook his head. “They do not, nor will you find more like them. The man who made these was once my daughter’s husband.”

“She left him for the shaman?”

“No,” he said.

“So then he sold her to the shaman?”

“So then,” Waxtal said, “he is dead.”

The trader raised his eyebrows. “You would trade these?”

“For three tusks,” Waxtal said.

“One.”

Waxtal reached for the basket. The trader’s fingers tightened.

“Five stomachs of oil, four carvings, and the basket of spearpoints for two,” the trader said and set his mouth into a firm line.

“For three.”

“Two,” the trader said.

It was the last offer. Waxtal could not doubt the hardness he saw in the man’s face. He had the four bellies of oil from Kayugh’s cache, and if he took one from his own food cache … He thought of the winter, long and without enough food. We have no babies, he told himself. And I will hunt yet before winter comes. Blue Shell can fish. We will have enough.

“I will bring the oil,” Waxtal said.

CHAGAK PULLED
the sea lion stomach from the storage cache. It had been three days since the traders left, and all the men, even Waxtal, were hunting. Today perhaps they would return. And bring sea lions, she prayed, then lifted her head so her breath took the prayers up out of the ulaq. Perhaps the wind would take those words the many days’ journey to the sacred mountain Aka. Or to Tugix, if Aka had no power after pouring out its anger in smoke and fire.

She picked up the sea lion stomach, then realized that her hands were covered with oil, not just the little that always seemed to coat the outsides of stomach containers, but enough so that it dripped from her fingers. She pulled out another container of oil and another.

She heard someone at the top of the ulaq and turned to see Kayugh’s daughter Red Berry descending the climbing log. Red Berry’s baby son was a bulge under her suk, the other boy, now with more than two summers, straddled her hip.

“Mother, what are you doing?” Red Berry asked as she set Little Flat Stone on the floor.

Chagak reached into a basket of dried cod and handed the boy a chunk of fish. “Wren is in her sleeping place,” she said. “Go and share your food with her.”

The boy scooted into Wren’s sleeping place, and Chagak smiled at Red Berry as they heard the children begin to chatter.

“What a mess,” Chagak said and held up her hands dripping with oil.

Red Berry pulled off her suk and laid her baby on it on the floor. “Did one of the oil containers split?” she asked.

“I think so,” Chagak said and leaned into the cache to pull out another container. “Not a good year for this to happen,” she said. “We have so little.”

“The traders, they probably gave us poor containers,” Red Berry said. She squatted beside Chagak and picked up one of the seal stomachs. “This one is not full, Mother,” she said. “Look. But it is sealed well.” She ran her hands over the sides of the container. “No splits. It is good. But they did not give full measure.”

She set it down and watched as Chagak picked up another. “Red Berry,” Chagak said slowly, “this one is not full either, and it is one I filled myself.”

One after another, they lifted the containers. Finally Red Berry found the one that was leaking. It had a split stopper. “But none are full,” Red Berry said. “Do you think the traders took what we would not trade?”

“They were never here alone.”

“Who then?”

Chagak shook her head. Who? Then the sea otter voice came, something soft and pulling at Chagak’s mind. “Waxtal,” the sea otter said. “Who else is foolish enough to steal what is already his?”

Chagak closed her eyes and waited until she could speak past her anger. “It was Waxtal,” she finally said. “Blue Shell told me that he wanted those ivory tusks the traders had lashed in the bottom of their ik. He must have stolen our oil and traded it for the tusks.” She bit at her lip, and for a long time sat without speaking. Finally in a quiet voice she said, “Kayugh gave him your brother’s greenstone spearheads.”

“Amgigh’s?” Red Berry asked.

Chagak nodded. In her mind, she was suddenly once more a young woman. The softness of Amgigh’s baby breath was against her skin. Then the years moved and she saw him as a boy running, and then as a young man, head bent over the beautiful spearpoints he knapped. And in that moment, she felt the loss of those spearpoints more keenly than any amount of oil.

The men returned from their hunt that day. After speaking to Chagak, Kayugh sought out Samiq and his son Small Knife, Big Teeth and his son First Snow. So few hunters for a village, Kayugh thought. And now they would be without Waxtal. But what man could be allowed to stay in a village where he had stolen another hunter’s oil? Then Kayugh remembered Big Teeth’s words: “Waxtal eats more than he brings in.”

“What about Blue Shell?” Samiq asked after the men had heard Chagak’s story. Kayugh was proud of his son. A leader must think of all things, not only the punishment, but also the consequences of that punishment. Would it be fair to hurt a wife for what a husband had done?

“Wait,” Big Teeth said. He left the lee of the ikyak racks where the hunters squatted out of the wind.

Kayugh saw him go into his own ulaq. While Big Teeth was gone the other men said nothing, each keeping to his own thoughts.

When Big Teeth returned, he squatted beside Kayugh, flexing his long-boned arms, cracking the knuckles of both hands. Samiq asked his question again: “What about Blue Shell?”

“I will take her,” Big Teeth said.

“She is welcome in your lodge?” Samiq asked.

“Yes.”

“Who will go with me then?” asked Samiq.

Kayugh stood, then Big Teeth, and according to age, First Snow and Small Knife. Samiq looked at Small Knife, then glanced at his father Kayugh. Kayugh saw the question in his son’s eyes. Was Small Knife too young to be a part of this? But boy or man, he was a hunter, bringing in seals and sea lions. How many times had Kayugh held praise thoughts for this young man whom Samiq had brought from the Whale Hunters? Kayugh caught Samiq’s eyes and nodded his head.

“Then we will all go,” Samiq said.

They went to Waxtal’s ulaq. At first, Blue Shell tried to bring them food, but when they refused, she huddled into her storage corner, stacks of baskets and mats pulled close around her as though she were a child playing the hiding game. And thus they sat, no one speaking, no one eating, all with eyes on the flames of the oil lamp as they waited for Waxtal.

When he finally came in, his clothes brought with him the outside smell of wind and grass. He looked at them, first in surprise, then with a sudden flicker of fear. But he stood straight, eyes searching the ulaq until he found Blue Shell. “You gave them no food?” he asked in a high voice. He went over to where she crouched, gripped his walking stick with both hands, and lifted it over his head. Blue Shell covered her face with one raised arm, but Big Teeth stood, grabbed the stick as Waxtal swung, and twisted it from the man’s hands.

“No!” Big Teeth said.

Samiq stood and said to Waxtal, “You have spearheads that belonged to one who is dead. I need them for my hunting. Bring them here, now.”

It was a good beginning, Kayugh thought. If Samiq had asked for the oil, Waxtal could laugh, blame Chagak, even his own wife. But no one had the spearheads except Waxtal himself.

Waxtal drew in a long breath, and Kayugh saw that the man’s hands trembled. “Why would I have your brother’s spearheads?” he asked.

“You borrowed them. You wanted to learn to knap stone,” Kayugh said.

Waxtal licked his lips, then sucked in his cheeks. “Oh, yes,” Waxtal said. “Yes, I gave them back.”

“No,” Kayugh said, looking over at Samiq. “He did not.”

“Yes …” Waxtal began, but Big Teeth cut in, his words hard. “You say Kayugh lies?”

“No, no. I gave them to Chagak.”

Kayugh pressed his lips together. He did not want to bring Chagak here. “She would have told me,” he said.

Waxtal shrugged. “She does not like me,” he answered, his voice a whine. “She is still ashamed that she was once wife of a Short One. She is ashamed that she gave herself to the ones who killed her own people.” He laughed, a harsh sound. “And she is ashamed that she bore …”

Then both Kayugh and Samiq were beside the man. Samiq’s clawed hand was twisted into Waxtal’s hair, his fist at Waxtal’s face. “Kayugh calls me son,” Samiq said, and his words squeezed out from clenched teeth into a whisper that made Kayugh’s skin rise in bumps along his arms. “I need nothing more than that. Nor does my mother. Where are the spearpoints?”

“He traded them.”

Then all the men were looking at Blue Shell, the woman standing now in the midst of her baskets and grass mats. “He traded them,” she said again. “The spearpoints and oil and some of his carvings.”

“Woman!” Waxtal bellowed. He jerked from Samiq’s grasp and lunged toward his wife, but Kayugh and First Snow were beside him, and Big Teeth went to stand next to Blue Shell.

“For what?” Samiq asked, his words coming between breaths as though he had been running.

Blue Shell moved from her corner and went into Waxtal’s sleeping place. She came out holding a walrus tusk that was nearly as long as she was tall. “This and another,” she said.

“You have broken my vow,” Waxtal said. “You went into my sleeping place when I was not here and broke promises to the spirits. Now what will I carve? You have cursed the ivory with your hands.”

“You have cursed it with your lies,” Big Teeth said to Waxtal.

Then Samiq said, “You are no longer part of this village. You are not First Men. Take your ikyak and leave us.”

Waxtal looked into Samiq’s face, pursed his lips as if to spit, but Kayugh opened his fingers to show he held a sleeve knife, point out, in his hand. “Take your boots and hunter’s lamp. Take your walking stick. Nothing more.”