Call Down the Stars (7 page)

But to Yikaas’s surprise Kuy’aa leaned close and whispered, “I know him. His name is Sky Catcher, and he’s a storyteller from a First Men village a day’s journey west of this Traders’ Beach.”

Sky Catcher spoke, and though Yikaas could not understand his First Men words, he heard the belligerence in the man’s voice, and felt a sudden urge to protect the girl who had been telling them such a good story.

Yikaas hoped that she would translate Sky Catcher’s words, but she did not. She answered him in a respectful voice, and their conversation went on, Sky Catcher’s harsh comments, the girl’s soft answers, until several River traders in the ulax spoke out to protest.

“What does he want?” one asked.

“Tell us what he’s talking about,” said another.

Finally Qumalix held up one hand, palm out, a request for silence. She lifted her eyes to the River traders and said, “He claims that he likes my story well enough, but that he has never heard of the Boat People. He wants to know if they are First Men or even River, and if not, he asks why I talk about them rather than tell stories of people we know, like Chakliux and K’os or Aqamdax—those people whose stories have come to us from times long ago.”

Yikaas had to admit that he had wondered the same thing. Since Qumalix was from the Whale Hunter islands, he had expected her stories to be about First Men, not Boat People. But still, he was not rude enough to interrupt and ask as Sky Catcher had.

“If you will be patient,” Qumalix said, “you will see how the stories of Daughter and Water Gourd fit together with those about Chakliux and his family.”

Sky Catcher asked another question. Qumalix answered, then said in the River language, “He wants to know if the Bear-god warriors are River people.”

There was a murmur of agreement from other First Men, but the River traders raised their voices in outrage. “We’re not like that. We would never attack a peaceful village. Perhaps the Bear-gods are First Men.”

Then one of the First Men traders called out, “We have heard your stories about the Near River and Cousin River people. They almost killed each other off. How can you claim to love peace? Besides, we First Men know how to build good boats. We would never make boats like those the Bear-god People used.”

The argument grew worse, words flying. Men stood to shout at one another, and women screeched out insults. Yikaas huddled where he was, angry at all of them for interrupting a story he wanted to hear, angry most of all at Sky Catcher, who had started all the foolishness.

Kuy’aa pushed herself up to her feet and hobbled to the climbing log. Yikaas sighed and got up to follow her. Surely the storytelling had lasted long enough so that the sun had set, even on this short summer night, and he didn’t want Kuy’aa to wander around the village alone, lost, as she looked for the ulax where she was supposed to stay. But to his surprise, once she had ascended several notches on the climbing log, she turned back to face the people and, setting two fingers at the corners of her lips, blew out a long, shrill whistle.

The arguing stopped, and mouths dropped opened in surprise as the people realized that the whistle had come from an old River woman.

“Be quiet!” she shouted at them. Then she lifted her chin toward Qumalix. The girl still stood in the storyteller’s place, her hands clenched together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Tell your story,” said Kuy’aa. “Those who do not want to hear it can leave.”

There was a mumble of agreement among the River traders, and questions from the First Men until someone translated Kuy’aa’s words. Several men and one woman left the ulax, among them Sky Catcher, but the others settled down and urged the girl to continue.

Yikaas wondered if she would after so much arguing and rudeness. She rubbed her fingers against her eyes, and he saw the tiredness in her face, but she started to speak, at first so quietly that he could hardly hear her. Her voice trembled, and Yikaas lowered his head, embarrassed to look at her, but as she spoke, her words grew stronger.

Soon Yikaas was caught again in her story. Once more he was Water Gourd, an old man trying to cheat death as he and Daughter drifted north on a sea that seemed to stretch to the end of the earth.

The North Pacific

6447 B.C.

Water Gourd fished two days without a bite. Each morning was gray with fog, the sun little more than a patch of brightness, scarcely strong enough to coax away the night. When a fish finally did take his hook, Water Gourd’s fingers were so numb with the cold that at first he wasn’t sure he had felt anything at all, but he bent quickly and set Daughter in the bottom of the boat, shushed her protest at being taken from the warmth of his lap.

“Fish,” he whispered to her, and she was quiet.

The nibble came again, and Water Gourd tensed his arms, ready to snap the line and set the hook, knowing that if he moved too soon, he would scare the fish away. For a long time, he felt nothing, and the fear that he had not moved quickly enough settled in his stomach like a rock. He was suddenly dizzy, too long without food, too weak, and he wondered whether he would be strong enough to bring a fish in even if it did swallow the hook.

Thoughts of death again blackened his mind, and he shook his head to drive them away. What fisherman gives up after one nibble? He jiggled the hand line, lowering it slowly and then jerking it up, allowing it to fall again. Suddenly the line was tugged so hard that it nearly jumped from his fingers.

He cried out and began to sing one of the chants fishermen use to charm fish. It was a song for nets and not hand lines, but at least the fish would hear his Boat People words and know that he was a man who honored the sea and those who lived in it.

The fish was strong, and as it sped away from the outrigger, it began to pull them. Water Gourd held tightly to the wooden hand grip and contemplated the strength of his line. He interrupted his song to speak to it, begging it to hold, to stay strong.

“Strong,” Daughter echoed from where she sat in the bottom of the boat. Then she looked up at Water Gourd and asked, “Fish?”

“Fish,” Water Gourd told her. “A big fish.”

“A big fish,” she said solemnly.

A shadow moved in from the sea, changed from shadow to fish, swam until it neared the boat. Water Gourd’s breath caught so hard in his throat that he nearly choked. It was huge, that fish. Surely too large to catch. Should he hang on, use up what little strength he had, or cut the line?

He had stone and wood for another hook, but what good were they if his line was too short to be of use?

Suddenly he was angry. No, he wouldn’t cut the line! If the fish would not offer itself as meat, then it should leave them alone, let them catch another who was willing to be eaten. Surely it had recognized his song, knew they were Boat People and that Water Gourd would drop its bones into the sea so the fish could live again.

It pulled the line under the boat and came up beyond the outrigger, then dove again, carried the line down so far that Water Gourd had to extend his hands into the waves. The fish turned and rose so quickly, releasing the tension on the line, that Water Gourd fell backwards into the boat. The fish jumped and Water Gourd saw it, blunt-nosed, green and black against the misted sky, the mottled skin as shiny as wet rock. It was a fish he did not know, one he had never seen before, nearly as large as a man. Then, as the fish slipped into the water, twisting, the line suddenly went slack.

Water Gourd cried out at the loss, but quickly wound the remaining line back onto the hand grip.

“Fish?” Daughter asked.

“He was too big,” Water Gourd told her.

“Fish,” Daughter said again and began to cry. “Fish, fish, fish.”

“Be quiet,” he said.

He looked up into the gray sky, and wondered whether he were already dead. Was death this: riding forever in a boat that went nowhere? Without food, without water, and all the while watching a child die? Had he been a terrible person to deserve such a death? Had he not respected the small gods and the large ones, the spirits that lived in the grass and earth and sea?

He remembered times when he had been selfish, had taken more than his share of food or attention. How often had he demanded that his wives do something more than necessary? He remembered waking them in the night to satisfy his needs, for food, for sex, when they had already been up many times with babies. He remembered complaining about food prepared and clothing made.

But wasn’t that what women were for? And didn’t men work as hard, risking their lives to feed those women and their children? How could a few minutes in the middle of the night even begin to compare?

And what about Daughter? What had she done that was so terrible to deserve a death of parched mouth and empty belly, of bleeding sores and cracked lips?

But finally he decided that they were not dead. How could they be? In death a man would see spirits. He would see others who had died before him. Where were Knot Maker and Long Head? Surely they would be here in their own boats, for they, too, had been lost on the sea.

He was alive, and so was Daughter. The fish had taken one hook. Well, then, he would make another.

A quiet voice spoke from within his head. “You need bait,” it said, no more than that. No other wisdom.

Water Gourd had scoured the boat well enough to know there was nothing edible lurking among the shells and ballast stones, but he searched again. There was nothing, not the smallest, hardest bit of fish bone, not even a smear of sea urchin eggs.

Water Gourd looked at his feet. Surely a man would not miss a little toe. And the pain of cutting it off would be quick. He took a long breath, released it. He had bait.

Before night fell and clouds darkened the moon so that Water Gourd could not see his own hands, he had finished another hook. He picked up his knife, settled one bare foot hard against the wood of the boat, and prepared to cut.

But that voice came again, louder this time, and said, “The girl’s toe would be better. It is smaller and so will not hurt as much when it is cut off. Besides, any fish would come more readily to the soft flesh of a baby than to the hard, callused toe of an old man.”

Water Gourd considered the advice, and thought that it was probably right, but either way, with his toe or Daughter’s, he decided it was better to wait until morning. He did not want to fish at night when he could not see what had taken his line, and a fresh toe was more likely to attract fish than one that had sat with its blood hardening all night.

Morning then, Water Gourd told himself. Perhaps his mind would be clearer after sleep, though each day without food seemed to muddle his thoughts a little more.

“I will sleep first,” he told the voice in his head. “Decisions always come more easily after sleep.”

In the morning, Water Gourd studied Daughter’s little pink feet. Her skin was shriveled by the salt water that always seemed to lie in the bottom of the boat no matter how much he bailed. The toe was so small he knew it would come off quickly. His own feet were hard and bunyoned, crusted with calluses. A toe, even his smallest, would not yield easily to a blade.

He stuck his little finger in his mouth and bit. The pain was not terrible. He bit harder, until he tasted the salt of his own blood. Still, not terrible. Certainly he could bear the pain of losing a toe. But what if the wound drew spirits of illness? Everyone knew that each opening into the body could allow evil spirits to enter. The nostrils, the ears, the mouth, the anus, the hole in the end of a man’s penis, even the tiny needle dots that let tears come from the corners of the eyes. And, of course, all cuts. How many times in his long life had he seen a person grow sick, burn with fever, and die, simply from a tiny cut in foot or hand?

What protection did he have in this boat against such spirits? He could not burn sacred grass. He could not have the herb doctor mix medicine for him, or the spirit-chanter sing. And if he died, so would Daughter. Without him, there was no chance for her survival.

On the other hand, if he took Daughter’s small toe, he himself might be able to offer chants for protection, and if Daughter died, he would still live. With her gone, life for him would be easier. She wouldn’t take a share of the water he melted from rime ice, and he would have her body for bait.

He tied the new hook tightly to the line, then gathered her left foot into his hand. She curled her toes and turned to look up at him, smiled, and reached to lay one hand against the side of his face.

It will be quick, Water Gourd reassured himself. He took his knife from its scabbard. Daughter sighed and snuggled back against his chest. He leaned down, set the foot in place against the bottom of the boat, and chopped, hard.

The stone blade caught for a moment on the bone, and the pain screamed in Water Gourd’s head. He cried out, could barely make himself finish the cut. Daughter looked at him, her eyes round in horror. She began to weep, and Water Gourd reached into the growing puddle of blood, found the toe, old and bent and hard, then pressed a pad of rags against his wound.

“It ached every time it rained anyway,” he said. Then he rocked a little, turning his mind from the pain. He looked down at Daughter’s two small perfect feet and was glad.

Two days passed. Water Gourd did not catch a fish with the first toe or the second, though they bit at his line, nibbled until the toes were nothing but bone. Finally, as he prepared to cut away another toe, Daughter held her little foot up to his face. She was very weak, and he knew that he would lose her soon. A baby could not live so many days without food. His own mind was nearly gone, lost in foolish dreams. The second toe had cost him too much blood, and the water he made from rime ice was not enough to soothe the raging thirst that came with the blood loss.

“My,” she said to him in a soft, tired voice and lay her hands over his knife, shook her head. “Not your. My.”

He had heard old women whisper that babies carried wisdom from the spirit world. Perhaps Daughter knew better than he did. Perhaps his old flesh could not catch a fish.