Call Down the Stars (26 page)

Too bad that when she escaped the Walrus Hunters, her journey had not brought her here. It would have been better to find herself a husband in this village—rich with all the things traders can bring, and not as far from the River People as Seal’s village. But then, had she come here, she would not have Uutuk.

K’os rubbed the strip of sealskin between her knuckles, then placed it on the inside of the seam and stitched carefully, making sure the needle did not pierce completely through the outer layer of the boat cover. It was meticulous work, and sometimes she had to stop and stretch her fingers, they grew so numb, but finally she was done.

She straightened and arched her shoulders, then started checking the remaining seams. When her eyes needed a rest, she would stop and focus on something distant or again study the iqyan on the boat racks. The First Men iqyax marked with River colors seemed to draw her.

You are lonesome for your own people, she told herself, but then decided there was another reason the markings caught her attention. She had seen them before. But where?

Suddenly she knew, and the knowledge was like a fist to her belly. Not on an iqyax, no. On the sheath covering of a hunter’s bow, on a trader’s pack, on the side of a River lodge. Cen’s ownership mark. Her heart hammered into her ribs. Even if he had given the iqyax in trade, the new owner would have painted his colors over Cen’s, and what were the chances that two men would choose the same mark of triple circles and slashing lines?

She would have to convince Seal to leave the village, and leave soon. Cen would have nothing but evil to say about her, and there was always the chance that he had discovered she was the one who had killed his wife Gheli.

Cen should be grateful. Gheli had been a fool, trying to hide who she was merely by changing her name. Gheli or Red Leaf, what difference did it make? She had been the same selfish woman, but Cen had known only the good part of her, had no idea that his wife could kill. K’os should have told him, but when had Cen ever believed anything she said?

So now, did Cen hold a debt of revenge against her? What would happen if he killed her?

K’os snorted out a laugh. A foolish question. She knew what would happen. Seal would take Uutuk as wife.

Even a child could see the lust in Seal’s eyes every time he looked at the girl, especially when he thought K’os was not watching. Why else would Uutuk shrink away from the man every time he was close to her?

K’os shrugged her shoulders as if she were in a conversation with herself. Yes, if she died, Seal would take Uutuk. But that would not necessarily be so terrible. Surely in death K’os would have enough power to change Seal’s luck, add some hard times to his life. Of course, she would not wish bad luck on Uutuk, but the girl was young and could get herself another husband, a River hunter who would take her to Chakliux’s village.

Who did not know that spirits could enter dreams? If she were dead, K’os could whisper her wishes into Uutuk’s ears, and the girl would carry out the revenge K’os planned, not only on Seal, but on Chakliux and Aqamdax.

So death was not the worst thing that could happen to her. Why worry about Cen? How could she hide from him when they were both in the same village? She had changed some, not enough. Even with the tattoos and her hair cut into a fringe across her forehead, even in First Men clothing, he would recognize her.

K’os lifted her chin, set her teeth. She seldom played the part of hare, changing from flesh into earth to fool her enemies. Most often she was wolf.

“You speak our River language well,” Cen said.

Daughter lowered her eyes in politeness, but could not keep a smile from her lips. She leaned close to Qung and translated the compliment. Cen began to laugh, and Daughter looked up, confused.

“I understand what he says, child,” Qung told her. “After all, I am a storyteller, and a gift of languages is one that every storyteller should seek to own.”

They sat in Qung’s ulax, eating fish, dried and smoked and dipped in seal oil. It was a flavor of Daughter’s childhood, of her first days in K’os’s ulax, and the taste set her at ease with these new people.

She had slept long into the morning, woken to find Cen and his son waiting. She knew K’os and Seal would have work for her, but how could she turn away too quickly from Qung’s hospitality? K’os would understand, and Seal’s anger would not last for long.

She listened as Cen spoke about the journey he had made to his son’s village and then to this beach, but finally she picked up her sax and stood.

“I must find my mother. She will have work for me.”

Qung reached up and clasped Daughter’s wrist, pulled her down again to the floor mats.

“Your mother told me that you can stay here as long as you like,” Qung said. “Besides, you promised me stories about the island where you lived as a child, before you became one of us.”

Ghaden lifted his head, and Daughter saw his surprise.

“You’re not First Men?” he asked.

“Does she look First Men?” Qung said.

Ghaden stared at Daughter and smiled, half of his mouth lifting as though he were hiding a joke. She felt her face grow hot under his gaze, and she covered her embarrassment with words.

“I come from a village far over the sea,” she said, and looked at the floor, at Cen, anywhere but at Ghaden. “We named ourselves for the boats we made. I was very young so I have little memory of the village or my people. But my grandfather said that we were attacked by another village, by their warriors. He and I hid in a boat, and during the night, a storm came and took us out into the sea. I remember the long journey, and that each day seemed to grow colder, but eventually we found the First Men islands.”

“Your grandfather is no longer living?” Cen asked.

Tears gathered in Daughter’s throat, and she had to cough before she was able to speak. “He has been dead for five years now,” she said. “But I hold his wisdom and his stories here.” She laid a hand at the center of her chest, over her heart.

“Since you promised us stories,” said Qung, “now would be a good time.” She raised her eyebrows and looked at Cen. “Nae’?” She smiled as she said the River word.

“Yes,” Cen replied. “Now would be good time for a story about these Boat People. Do you remember their ulas? Do you remember their island? Do you know how many days you were in the boat?”

Qung began to laugh. “A trader’s questions, without doubt,” she said.

“And what is wrong with that, Aunt?” he asked. “I am a trader.”

Qung filled her mouth with a piece of fish and cut her eyes away from Cen, an insult but given in jest. She flicked her fingers at Daughter and said, “Begin, begin. We are listening.”

Daughter bowed her head for a moment, thought about where she should start. With the Bear-god warriors’ attack, she finally decided. Cen and Ghaden should enjoy that story. Men seemed to like tales of fighting. She told them all she could remember, then answered their questions. She repeated stories that her grandfather had taught her about their village and their people, the men and their fishing. Cen had questions about outrigger boats, but Daughter could not remember them well enough to explain.

Finally she said, “Perhaps it would be better if you asked my mother. She is good at describing things and could probably make you a drawing in the sand. The boat rotted long ago, and I was a child the last time I saw it.”

“You said your father’s name is Seal?” Cen asked.

“Yes.”

“I thought I knew most First Men traders, but I do not remember him.”

“He does not make many trading trips. It is a long way to our island. Have you ever been there?”

“No. There are too few villages between here and there. The distance is not worth a trader’s time.”

Ghaden leaned forward as if to draw Daughter’s eyes, and he said, “But my father has been to the Tundra People’s villages, where the sun disappears for the whole winter and dances in the sky all summer. He has traded with the men of the Caribou villages, with Walrus and River and First Men.” It was a gentle boasting, and it warmed Daughter’s heart toward Ghaden.

“And are you also a trader?” she asked.

“No, I am a hunter,” he said.

Daughter saw a flash of disappointment in Cen’s eyes, but it was quickly gone, and Ghaden said, “Sometimes I pretend to be a trader. It is worth the hardship to spend time with my father.”

Cen laughed, then said to Daughter, “Your mother is here with you?”

Most wives did not travel with their trader husbands. There were always women in each village willing to be wife for a little while, and what woman wanted to leave her ulax or her children for long nights on cold beaches, for long days on tundra trails?

“She likes to travel with him,” Daughter said. “But this is my first trip. My mother is a River woman, and she brought me because she hopes to find me a River husband.”

Qung snorted. “A River husband! What foolishness! A First Men husband is far better.”

Daughter bit her cheeks to keep from mentioning White Salmon, and she carefully kept her eyes from Ghaden. She had already said more than what was considered polite, and her thoughts were still too full of White Salmon to think of another man as husband. Besides, Ghaden’s River face was strange to her, his long hooked nose, his heavy brow. But she supposed any woman would get used to her husband’s face, no matter what he looked like. After all, the stump of her grandfather’s arm, shriveled as it had been, did not bother her. What was a large nose compared to that?

“Your mother is River,” Cen said, his words quiet as though he were speaking to himself. “How did she get to the First Men islands?”

“That is something she never talks about,” Daughter said. “But once one of the other women in the village mentioned that she was slave to the Walrus Hunters. Perhaps she ran away from them, or perhaps they traded her to the First Men.”

“When you were still a child,” Cen said to Daughter, “there was much fighting between two of the River villages. Women and children were taken as slaves. Perhaps she is from one of those villages, and if she is, then I might know her.”

“Her First Men name is Old Woman,” Daughter told him, “but among the River people she was known as K’os.”

When Daughter said the name, she was handing a sealskin of fish to Qung and did not see the look on Cen’s face.

“K’os,” Qung said. “I have heard that name before.”

She glanced over Daughter’s shoulder at Cen, then pursed her lips into a puzzled frown. Daughter turned to look and saw that Cen had jumped to his feet and was walking toward the climbing log.

“You know her, Cen?” Qung asked.

He stopped and turned back, tried to laugh, but the laughter came out as though it were a curse. “Once,” he said, “a very long time ago, she was nearly my wife.” He lifted his chin and spoke to Ghaden. “Do you remember her?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ghaden said. “When I was living in the Cousin River village, she lived there then. My sister Aqamdax was her slave.” His words were bitter.

The line of Cen’s jaw tightened, as though he had clenched his teeth, but he thanked Qung for the food, then made polite excuses to leave. “Ghaden, come with me,” he said. “I have things for you to do. Perhaps there will be another time for storytelling.” Then as though he had just remembered that Daughter was still with them, he added, “It has been good to hear about the Boat People.”

They left, and Qung, shaking her head at all the food that still remained, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Men are always too busy to sit in one place for a long time.”

When they were outside, away from Qung’s ulax, Cen told Ghaden, “Uutuk is beautiful, but stay away from her. If she is like her mother, she will bring you nothing but bad luck.” Then, looking at Ghaden with eyes flat and cold, he said, “You have trade goods to set out, nae’? Trade quickly. We will not remain in this village as long as I had thought.” Then he strode away toward the chief hunter’s ulax.

Ghaden had heard tales about K’os, whispered things. She had killed her own husbands, they said. When he had returned to the Near River village with Chakliux and Aqamdax, they had agreed to stay only if K’os—slave then to the old woman Gull Beak—were sold to another village. Chakliux’s brother Sok had wanted to kill her, but Chakliux still claimed the woman as mother and would not have her blood on his hands.

She had also lived in Cen’s village—the Four Rivers village—and Ghaden had heard rumors that Cen had forced her to leave. Ghaden had never been to that village, though Cen lived there with his wife and two daughters. This year he would go, Ghaden promised himself, and meet those two sisters he had never seen.

Soon after Biter’s death, Ghaden had taken a young woman as wife. Three years later, she had died in childbirth. Since then, Ghaden had considered taking other women, but none had filled his heart, and so he had been content to stay in Chakliux and Aqamdax’s lodge, to provide meat for widows and elders.

Sometimes his father teased him about taking a Four Rivers woman as wife and coming to live in his lodge, but Ghaden’s spirit was with the people at Chakliux’s village. They had few enough hunters as it was. Besides, how could he leave Yaa? She had been both sister and mother to him since Red Leaf had killed his true mother, Daes. How could he leave Aqamdax and Chakliux, or even Sok? No, he would stay in Chakliux’s village, someday take another woman there as wife.

Uutuk’s face was suddenly bright in Ghaden’s mind, and he found himself thinking about the stories she had told. She did not speak like a storyteller but more like a mother telling tales to a child, and truly that was a gift any man would treasure in his wife.

No, Ghaden told himself. She was K’os’s daughter. Was he such a fool that he could not understand the danger in that?

When Cen saw K’os, she was wearing a First Men sax. Her back was turned and her hair had begun to gray, but he recognized her. There was strength in the set of her shoulders, grace in her movements, and who would not know the cunning needlework of her sax? Cut like a First Men garment, it was decorated in the manner of the River People, with bird beaks and shells and fringes of brightly dyed sinew.