Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon (13 page)

THEY WERE WATCHING HIM AGAIN. THEIR GIG-
gling took his thoughts from his work, and his knife slipped, gouging another piece of wood. Samiq closed his eyes and arched his back to ease the strain in his shoulders. His grandfather had given him an old ikyak frame from which to make 

an ikyak of his own, one, his grandfather said, made the right way, in the manner of the Whale Hunters, an ikyak the sea animals would respect. 

Samiq tried to keep his thoughts from the man who had first owned the ikyak frame, the hunter who had shaped the jointed keel, the gunwales and deck beams. He had been skilled, that ikyak maker. The frame was solid, the joints well-fitted. But Samiq could not help wonder whether the man had been a good hunter, one who had brought meat for the village, or if he had cursed this ikyak frame with his laziness, with disrespect. 

Most of the framework was still good, even the joints where the deck beams met the gunwales. The Whale Hunters used baleen lashings to hold joint to joint, and where wood rubbed against wood, they inset small plates of whale tooth ivory into the framework. 

"See," his grandfather had told him, pushing at a piece of wood with a fingernail, "water softens the wood, peels it away until the waves can pound it into nothing. Ivory keeps the wood from wearing." 

Yesterday Samiq had painted the frame pieces with ochre, blood red, mixed into a paste and spread on with a piece of hard-bristled hair seal skin. The ochre protected the wood from the rot of wetness, from the scalding salt of the sea. 

The wood frame of a Whale Hunter's ikyak was, Many Whales told Samiq, like the bones of a whale, jointed so it could move in the sea, so it would shape itself to the waves, bend with the swells. The First Men's ikyan were poorly made, he told Samiq; the First Men's ikyan were stiff and awkward. 

Many Whales' words settled into Samiq's chest like splinters and seemed to rub against Samiq's heart each time he breathed. So Samiq told himself that if a Whale Hunter boy went to the First Men to learn to hunt sea lions, perhaps he would have to learn to use the First Men's ikyan. He would without doubt have to give up his large awkward lance, and instead learn to use the finely balanced barbed seal harpoons of the First Men. 

Samiq slipped one end of the curved deck beam into its socket in the gunwale. A good fit, Samiq thought. Snug, but not so tight that the joint would snap if a wave bent the ikyak. 

Fat Wife had agreed to sew the sea lion skins Samiq had cut for the covering. At least when the ikyak was done, Samiq would be able to get away from the young girls for a time, even if Many Whales would not allow him to go beyond sight of the beach. 

He looked with longing at the ikyak he had brought from his own village. It lay above the high tide line, the craft made in the manner of the First Men, without the top ridge or the pieced keelson of the Whale Hunters' ikyan. He could take it, now, go back to his own village, to his own people. To Kiin and to his mother, to his baby sister Wren. But then he would disappoint Kayugh and Amgigh. To help his people, he must become one of the Whale Hunters. And for this year at least he must please Many Whales and even Fat Wife. 

It would be easier if Fat Wife were more like his own mother. Then he would be able to talk to her about the First Men, about his family and his village. Then he would not feel so alone. But Fat Wife seemed to want Samiq to forget the First Men. She did not want him to sit as First Men sat; she did not want him to talk as First Men talked. She had even insisted on making Samiq a new parka, though when she finished he could see little difference between it and the one his mother had made him. 

Many Whales had laughed at Samiq's seal harpoons, at their fine slender points, their light bone foreshafts. But when he inspected Samiq's throwing board, the old man had merely grunted, and Samiq held a smile within his cheek, knowing that the throwing board was as fine as a man could make. It had belonged to his grandfather, Shuganan, and was given to Samiq because it was the exact length of Samiq's forearm, from the tip of his longest finger to his elbow. 

The throwing board was an extension of Samiq's arm and allowed him to throw a spear or harpoon much farther than he could without it. Nearly the width of Samiq's hand, it had 
a hook at one end that socketed into the shaft of Samiq's spear. The spear lay in a groove the length of the throwing board. Samiq held one end of the board, allowing it to extend, horizontal to the water, back over his shoulder. When he threw, a hard, sidearm throw, the board followed the arc of his arm, but the spear stayed horizontal, finally connected to the throwing board only by the hook at the end of the board. 

Samiq's throwing board always aimed his spear true and the hook in the end never slipped. Many hunters more gifted than Samiq had poorer throwing boards. "Perhaps it is the power of the many kills your grandfather made with it," Kayugh had explained to Samiq. And that was the explanation Samiq gave to Many Whales. 

But each day, Samiq was left standing on the beach, watching as the young men of the village went to hunt sea lions or seals. And during those days, he remembered what Kayugh had told him: 

"Do as the old man says. Show interest in his words and stories, and after he has taught you to hunt whates, come back and tell us. We will become as the Whale Hunters, only greater, for we are better sea lion hunters." 

Yes, Samiq told himself whenever his spirit ached to see his own island, to return to his own ulaq, Kayugh has treated you like a true son. Now honor Kayugh as true father. Learn to hunt the whale so you can teach him, so you can teach him and his son Amgigh. 

Samiq laid his knife on the ground and inspected the ikyak. He had tied each joint with stiff ribbons of baleen, had set the ivory rub plates into their sockets and glued them with a mixture of powdered kelp and his own blood. Many Whales would have difficulty finding reason to reject this framework. Perhaps today, Fat Wife could start sewing the covering. 

The whispers of the girls stopped as Samiq picked up his knife and walked toward Many Whales' ulaq. But soon he heard someone hurrying behind him. Samiq turned and saw the girl called Three Fish following him. Her two friends 
hid their smiles behind their hands and huddled together, watching from the beach. 

Three Fish was tall and wide like all the Whale Hunters, and her smile showed a mouthful of broken teeth. How could she be a good wife if even in her youth her teeth were chipped and broken? How many seal flipper boots would she make, crimping the soles with her teeth, before she had no teeth at all? 

"Where are your friends?" Samiq asked the girl. 

Three Fish giggled and flung her arm back toward the two girls. "They think you are a giant and will eat them," Three Fish said and giggled again. 

Samiq did not answer her. He felt a wariness in talking with any girl of the village. Though he had little experience in the things of the sleeping place, he knew the three girls behind him had been taken soon after their first bleeding. Among the Whale Hunters, any man but father, grandfather, or brother had the right to ask favors, although a married woman could be given only by her husband. These three were eager to share his bed, and they spent much time following him, flipping their aprons as they walked. And although Three Fish brought little desire to Samiq's heart, the other two, Small Flower and Speckled Basket, were not ugly. 

But during the first day Samiq spent with the Whale Hunters, Many Whales had said, "No night walking. Night walking will make grass grow between your toes, and you will curse yourself forever with the sea animals." 

Samiq had been puzzled by the strange warning, and asked Crooked Bird, a young man of the village, what Many Whales had meant. 

"No visiting," Crooked Bird had said and then laughed, his laugh opening Samiq's mind to the possibility that Crooked Bird did not like him. "No sleeping with women. You are not yet a man." 

Then Samiq knew that if in Many Whales' eyes he was a boy, to all the Whale Hunters, he was a boy. A man hunted whales, and Samiq did not even have a proper ikyak. 

So there was one strange comfort in Three Fish's giggling, and the thought came to Samiq each time he heard her laugh: someone sees me as a man. 

Fat Wife was sitting in the large central room of the ulaq, the room lit by whale oil lamps, these lamps burning more cleanly than the seal oil lamps of the First Men. 

Samiq waited respectfully for Fat Wife's acknowledgment, and when she looked at him, he squatted down to speak. 

"I am ready for the cover now, Grandmother," he said. 

"You have completed the frame?" Fat Wife asked. 

"Yes." 

"Sit then, and I will speak of something Many Whales has told me. Perhaps he will tell you himself, but perhaps not. It is something you should know." 

Samiq settled himself on the floor mats, cross-legged as was the custom of the Whale Hunters. Fat Wife laid down the basket she was finishing, and Samiq noticed how crude her work was compared to his mother's. The image of his mother sitting with a basket inverted on a basket pole made a heaviness in his chest, and Samiq brought his thoughts back to Fat Wife, her greased hair drawn back tightly from her round face, her small eyes glittering in the light of the oil lamps. 

"We are a great people," she began in the Whale Hunters' now-familiar litany, the beginning of any plan or story. "You are more than a boy, but not yet a man. In the village of the People, to be a man, you must hunt the whale. But since you already hunt the seal, you will not go with the boys, learning slowly over the years." She leaned forward, looked into Samiq's eyes and said, "Many Whales will instruct you." She settled back and adjusted the mat that was folded up over her knees. "It is a great honor." 

Samiq, unsure of what to say, finally replied, "Yes, Grandmother, it is a great honor." 

Fat Wife smiled and reached out to pat his knee, and Samiq forced himself not to recoil. Among his own people, touching was limited to a man's wives and children. But then, Samiq told himself, Fat Wife did not see him as a 
man. He felt his face color, and he hoped Fat Wife did not see. 

But she leaned forward again, now patting his cheek, and said, "You look much like your grandfather, but wider, stronger. Perhaps someday I will find out what Seal Hunter mothers feed their sons to make them grow so strong. Do you know?" 

Samiq tried to think of some plant or animal eaten by his people that the Whale Hunters did not use, but he could not. In eating, all seemed the same. "I do not," he finally answered, wishing he could tell her, wanting to please her. "But when I return to my people, I will ask," he added. 

But Fat Wife quickly pulled away from him, frowned and narrowed her eyes. She lifted her head and said, "You are no longer a Seal Hunter. You are one of us. Many Whales has decided to give you a new name—Whale Killer." 

Samiq's eyes widened and he could not keep the dismay from his voice, but he spoke softly as though he reasoned with a child, "My name is Samiq. It is a name honored among the First Men." 

"Kayugh has given you to us!" Fat Wife said. Her eyes were intense as she studied Samiq's face, and Samiq was suddenly very tired. He remembered his mother's words, often spoken when the clamoring of many people filled the ulaq: "I need to speak to the sea." And now he said the same words to Fat Wife, but did not miss the smile on her face as he left the ulaq. 

KIIN PULLED ANOTHER STRAND OF RYEGRASS 
from the pile at her side. Each day, after she and Qakan beached the ik for the night, Kiin worked on baskets. It gave her something to do, some reason to keep her eyes from Qakan's mocking face, to pretend she did not hear his complaining. 

Qakan had brought the grass from their father's ulaq—stolen, probably, Kiin thought, from the dried grass their mother kept in flat layers in a corner of her sleeping place. Each time Kiin touched the grass, felt it smooth against her fingertips, her spirit seemed to see her mother weaving baskets. But Kiin pushed the ache of memories away. She was here now with Qakan; she was not a child who could climb on her mother's lap and hide from the fears of each day's living. 

Sometimes she paused in her work and stroked the whale tooth shell, sometimes she touched the necklace that Samiq had given her or the carving from Chagak, but then her fingers went again to the grasses as she twisted and held the strands with one hand and bound them in tight stitches with her weaving needle. She smiled when she remembered Qakan's fear of the carving she wore, his mumblings about the trades he could make for it. But who was fool enough to touch one of Shuganan's carvings without permission of the one chosen to be the carving's owner? Not even Qakan would take that chance. 

Kiin had just finished the circular bottom of another basket when Qakan came from the beach. It was a good beach with cliffs that blocked the wind on one side and talus slopes that led to the mountains on the other. Kiin turned away from 
Qakan, hoping he would ignore her, but he ran to her and grasped her arms. His eyes were bright with a look that Kiin had come to dread, and she tried to pull away from him, tried to turn so that if he hit her he would not strike face or stomach. 

"I saw a whale. It is a good sign for us," Qakan said, and he let go of her arms and bent over, hands on knees to catch his breath. 

He is too fat to run so hard, Kiin thought. But then something in Kiin's spirit whispered that the whale might be some message from Samiq, and she bent down to ask Qakan, "Is it s-s-still there?" 

Qakan nodded and Kiin took several running steps toward the beach, but he called after her, "Wait for me, Kiin." His voice held the whine that was a sign of anger to come, and so Kiin stopped and looked back at him. "You will see it better from the cliffs," he said. 

Kiin turned from the beach and began to climb the layered rocks that led up to the cliffs. She did not look back. She knew Qakan could not keep up with her, doubted that he would even try to follow her; he was too lazy to run so far. 

At the top of the cliff, Kiin shielded her eyes, straining to see the whale in the waves. 

"You did not wait," came Qakan's accusing voice, his words broken with hard breathing, but when she did not turn he asked, "Do you see it?" 

"N-n-no," Kiin answered, but there was an uneasiness in her spirit, something within whispering a warning. Qakan had come too quickly. He had run, and Qakan did not like to run. 

"I did not lie. I saw a whale," Qakan said, and the strange tone of his voice made Kiin look back at him. He was crouched low, squatting on his heels. In his eyes, Kiin saw the truth. 

There was no whale. He wanted her here, on the cliffs, but not to see a whale. 

Kiin had run out on a narrow extension of the cliff top, and now that Qakan was behind her, she could not get around him. 

She tried to keep her eyes on the sea, but something seemed to pull her head back toward Qakan, to see what Qakan was doing. 

Qakan smiled at her, his crooked smile, so much like their father's smile. "I could push you off the cliff and you would be dead," he said and laughed. 

His laughter made Kiin shudder and she moved away from the edge of the cliff. "I-I w-w-will bring you much in t-trade," she said and fixed her eyes on Qakan's hands, ready to move if he moved. 

"So will Kayugh's furs." 

"I-I-I wi-will bring more," Kiin said, trying to move without seeming to move. 

Qakan shrugged. "Perhaps," he said. "But remember what I told you about the Walrus People." His face was still red from running, but he spoke easily now, without pauses for breathing. He broke off a stem of grass and began to chew the end of it. "The Walrus People place a high value on a woman who has had a child. So, you see, you will not be worth much." 

But Kiin ignored Qakan's words. She knew he spoke only to distract her. 

He moves slowly, she thought. I could jump over him. . . . 

Kiin looked out toward the sea and said, "W-wait, I think I s-see something." When Qakan looked, Kiin turned and began to run, but Qakan lunged toward her, and as Kiin jumped, she caught her foot on a fold of his parka. 

She stumbled and Qakan grasped one of her ankles, pulling her down beside him. The fall knocked the breath from Kiin's chest, and she could not speak. 

"You are afraid of me, Kiin," Qakan said and began to laugh. "Do you think I will kill you?" He crawled to her side, then straddled her and sat on her chest, pinning her arms with his knees. 

A gust of wind rose from the drop of the cliffs and blew Kiin's hair across her eyes. Qakan reached into his parka and pulled out a long-bladed obsidian knife. Kiin gasped. 

Amgigh's knife, the one he kept carefully wrapped in the weapons corner of his sleeping place. It was one of a pair, Kiin knew, and Amgigh had taken the other with him to the Whale Hunters to give to Samiq. 

"Your hair is in your eyes," Qakan said. "Let me fix it for you." He grabbed a handful and cut it close to her scalp. 

Kiin's breath had returned to her body and she began to try to wiggle free, lifting her legs to hit Qakan in the back with her knees. "The s-s-spirits s-see you. They know you t-took Amgigh's knife. They-they s-see what you do-do to me. They will k-kill you." 

Qakan laughed, his smile bringing up one corner of his mouth. "Not for a woman without a soul." Again, he laughed and his whole body shook with the laughter. 

Qakan grabbed another handful of her hair, his knife poised to cut. 

"C-cut m-m-my hair," Kiin said. "It w-will grow back. But n-n-not before we r-reach the Walrus People." 

Qakan frowned and loosened his grip. Kiin took a long breath. 

"You are right," Qakan said. "The Walrus People like long hair on their women." He moved his knife close to her neck. "Do you remember something else I told you about the Walrus People? Do you remember?" He pressed Amgigh's knife to her skin, and Kiin felt the sharpness of the blade. She held herself very still, but suddenly Qakan rose up and dropped down hard on her chest. Again, she could not draw a breath, could not speak, even when Qakan leaned back and pushed one hand between her legs, his cold fingers thrusting into the warmth of her woman parts. 

She bucked against him, nearly throwing him from her chest, but he caught himself and taking both hands, grabbed Kiin's hair and jerked her head up, then slammed it against the rocky ground. 

The pain made Kiin cry out and Qakan laughed. 

"You w-w-will be c-c-cursed, Qakan, I am w-with child," Kiin said, her teeth clenched. 

"You lie," Qakan said and slid one hand into the neck of her suk. 

Kiin writhed against his touch, but Qakan raised the knife and hit her hard across her face with the tang. The blow opened a cut on her cheek and blood began to flow into Kiin's left eye. 

Qakan leaned back, slowly moved one hand up the inside of her thigh, and the shift of his weight released one of Kiin's arms. She put all her strength into a punch aimed at Qakan's belly, but Qakan turned as she moved, and Kiin saw that he had a rock in one hand. At the same moment as the punch landed, she felt the impact of the rock above her left temple. 

Then darkness. 

Qakan laughed. Again he raised himself and dropped hard on Kiin's belly. But Kiin only groaned; her eyes rolled back in her head, showing the whites beneath the partially closed lids. 

He looked at the rock in his hand. There was blood smeared on the edge of the stone. Kiin's blood. Woman's blood. 

He threw the stone over the cliff, waited to hear if it would hit the water. It will mean good luck if it hits the water, Qakan told himself. But he heard only the clatter of stone against stone. 

Kiin's fault. Kiin could even curse stone. 

He lifted the shell necklace she wore. It was a gift from Amgigh and Samiq, something, Qakan knew, that Kiin treasured. 

He gripped the necklace until the shell beads pressed dents into his hands, then with a hard twist he broke the strands of sinew and dropped the necklace to the ground. 

Again Qakan lifted himself from her body and again slammed himself down on her. A groan, only that. She was weak. She would never defeat him. He stood, looked down at her. What was she compared to him? He squatted beside her and reached out, pushed his hand up under her suk. But then he remembered her words. She was with child. 

A lie. When did Kiin ever tell the truth? But perhaps . .. 

It would be his child, of course. His child. He stood, kicked at Kiin to see if she would open her eyes, but she only moved her head, side to side, muttered something, her words garbled as they always were. 

Yes, Qakan thought, let his father laugh at him. Let Amgigh and Samiq scorn his hunting skills. Still he was a man, more a man than either of them. And in Kiin's belly perhaps there was proof of that. 

He lifted his foot and pressed it down against Kiin's breasts. He could not remember that she had had a bleeding time during their journey. Perhaps she was telling the truth. Why not tell the truth if it would spare her a beating? What a joke on the Walrus People. Yes, a child, but his child. Child of a brother. Cursed, yes, they would be cursed and would be giving him gifts for that cursing! 

Qakan laughed, a laugh that came up hard from his throat, clattering like the rock he had thrown from the cliff. He looked out toward the sea. His stomach growled. He looked at Kiin. Her eyes were still closed, her breathing shallow. He could carry her down, but it would not be easy. Besides he was too hungry to wait for her to wake up. And the wind was rising, bringing spray in from the sea. The cliffs were always too windy. 

He shrugged. Tonight he would have to get his own food. But that would be good. He would eat. Eat! Kiin hoarded all the fish she caught, giving him a few this day, a few the next, as though he were a child. Tonight she would not stop him. Tonight he would eat. 

He left Kiin on the cliff. 

When Kiin awoke it was night. She tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in her back forced her to roll over first, then push herself up. 

She pulled her suk close around her. Her face and head hurt, but there was no pain between her legs. Then Qakan had not taken her, had believed her when she said she was with child. Perhaps he even thought the child was his own. 

 
Perhaps that was why he did not take her. No man would wish to curse his own son. 

She was relieved, but with the relief she felt fear. Qakan had easily overpowered her. Did that mean that her soul was weak? Perhaps Qakan was right in saying that her spirit was slowly slipping from her, perhaps with each word she spoke. 

She stood but her head began to throb, and dropping to her hands and knees, she vomited. She vomited until there was nothing left in her stomach, then she lay back on the ground and closed her eyes. 

I will stay here until morning, she thought. But then I will go some place to hide so Qakan will not find me. 

For a long time, she did not move, but finally she began to notice rocks pressing against her back and legs, and she sat up, slowly, so her head would not spin. She cleared a place on the cliff then pulled up handfuls of grass to make a padding for her bed. 

She sat down on the mound of grass and watched the sky. Clouds shifted and moved like sand ripples over the sliver of moon. She rubbed her eyes, pressed her hand carefully to the cut on her cheek, but then something beside her bed caught the moon's light. Kiin reached out. It was the shell necklace Samiq had given her. Qakan must have ripped it from her neck, but since it was knotted between every shell bead, only several of the smallest beads were missing. 

She grabbed her amulet and felt for the carving Chagak had given her. It was still there. 

Then a voice came to her. Perhaps her spirit spoke, or perhaps it was the voice of the cliffs or the sea, "You must fight Qakan. Qakan will harm too many people if you do not. You are the only one who truly knows how evil he is." 

"No," Kiin answered, speaking the word aloud. "No, no, no." She would hide, would find places in the cliffs, in the hills. He would never find her. 

But again, the voice came, "You must go back. You must go back." 

Again Kiin told the spirit no. Her voice, clear and loud, did not break on the word. "Why should I care about Walrus People?" she asked, flinging the question out to the cliff, to the sea, to the moon. "Why should I care what evil Qakan brings to them?" 

For a time there was nothing, but then the answer came, soft like a grandmother's voice, rising from around her, from the shell necklace warm in her hands, from Chagak's suk, fur smooth against her skin, from Shuganan's carving that hung at her neck: "Because they are people." 

"They are not my people," Kiin said, but then bowed her head, suddenly knowing whatever spirit spoke, whether spirit of moon or wind or sea, that spirit was right. 

"Tomorrow," Kiin whispered, singing the words so they would not catch in her throat, "tomorrow, I will fight Qakan again, and if I win, I will go back to my own people, and if I do not, I will tell the Walrus People the truth, no matter what Qakan does to me." 

She curled her legs up into her suk and lay back on the grass. The wind caught in her hair, buffeting like a ptarmigan trapped in her mother's bird nets.