The Curse of the Viking Grave (14 page)

“We're going to have trouble with those, too. Looks to me like they're so rusty they'd break into a hundred pieces if they got one good bang.”

“I fix,” said Peetyuk, anxious to redeem himself after Jamie's rebuke. “We take sticks and put along sides. Then wrap tight in wet deerskin. Skin dry and shrink. Make hard cover, very strong, not bend.”

Awasin nodded. “That will do it. But first we must get these things back to the Eskimo camps. Each of us can carry one thing, and if we are careful, nothing will be broken.”

 

They did not linger at the tomb. But before they departed Awasin collected the small pile of gifts from the flat rock and placed them in the entrance tunnel. Then he and Jamie rolled several big boulders over the opening.

Half an hour later they rejoined the two Eskimos on the far ridge. Kakut and Ohoto glanced at the things the young people were carrying, but made no comment. Get
ting lithely to their feet, the Eskimos led the way back to the kayaks and canoes.

Late that night, when the camp had gone to bed and the four were alone in their tent, Peetyuk volunteered some information.

“I not tell before, but last week some people talk, talk about you take stuff from Koonar grave. Some people go Elaitutna tent and he make drum dance and call spirits. People hear strange voice, very deep, speak words nobody know. But hear three times name ‘Koonar.' Elaitutna listen with eyes shut. He shake all over. Then Elaitutna fall on floor like dead man. After a while he wake up and say is very bad take things from Koonar grave. He say make Koonar very angry, give us bad luck.”

As Jamie listened to this recital he had a hard time trying to suppress the skepticism he felt. Nevertheless he held his peace until Peetyuk stepped outside the tent for a moment. Jamie turned to speak to Awasin then, and he was startled by the expression of uneasiness on the Cree youth's face.

“What's the matter with you?” Jamie snapped. “
You
don't swallow all that stuff, do you?”

Awasin looked unhappy. “I do not know what to think. We too have medicine men, Jamie, and they can do things you would not believe. I do not know if Koonar's ghost spoke to the people, but I do not like this talk about bad luck. The Eskimos may not want to help us now, and if they do not we cannot hope to find the canoe route eastward to the coast. That would be very bad luck for us, I think.”

Peetyuk's return forced Jamie to swallow the sharp retort which sprang to his lips. He contented himself with a mild comment.

“Uncle Angus says everyone makes his own luck and I believe him. We'll make out all right so long as we don't get scared by a lot of mumbo-jumbo. Now let's forget it and turn in. There's plenty of work to do tomorrow.”

 

CHAPTER
15

Interlude

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING THE
boys and Angeline began preparing the Viking relics for the long trip to Churchill. Peetyuk got the frame of an old kayak from one of his Eskimo friends, and from it they took several long stringers with which to splint the sword.

They were busy fitting these splints when the tent flap was pushed open and old Elaitutna shuffled in. It was the first time he had visited them and they did not quite know how to receive him. However, he ignored their awkward attempts at a welcome and, going straight to the sword, squatted down beside it.

Delicately he touched the heavy haft where several greenish metal rings hung loosely around the remains of what had once been an ivory or bone handle. Then he barked a command at Peetyuk, who hastily brought out the dagger, the helmet and the stone pot.

The old man gave the dagger and helmet only a perfunctory glance, but he looked at the stone casket with such concentrated attention that the youngsters began to feel uneasy. Jamie moved forward, intending to pick out
the metal armlet to show to the
angeokok
, but the old man stopped him with a fierce gesture.

Then Elaitutna fumbled in a skin pouch which hung from a lanyard over his shoulder and clawed out a small packet of dried skin. It was so black and filthy that the youngsters could make nothing of it. The old man thrust it toward the casket and mumbled a few phrases before stuffing the black thing back into the pouch. Then he got to his feet, uttered a harsh burst of words, pushed open the tent flap and vanished without a backward glance.

“Now what the heck was all
that
about?” Jamie asked.

Peetyuk's reply was subdued and hesitant. “He very angry man. That thing he take from pouch is very strong charm. When he hold it up he say to pot: ‘Bring no evil to me. Not my fault someone dig up your bones. Fault belong Kablunait and Itkilit—white men and Indians.' Then, when he go out of tent he say we are big fools and all Eskimo who help us they bigger fools.”

Peetyuk was badly upset by the visit, and Awasin too was much disturbed. Jamie tried to dispel the effect of the visit.

“Look, you fellows. We're not going to let that old geezer scare us, are we? Maybe he talks to ghosts, and maybe he doesn't. But we're not doing anything wrong. Archaeologists dig up graves every day all over the world, and nothing happens to them. Nothing's going to happen to us, either.”

“I not know what people do other places,” Peetyuk stubbornly replied. “But I think it bad thing wake up dead men in
my
country. Elaitutna, he say it very bad.”

Although he was exasperated by Peetyuk's attitude, Jamie had learned not to show his impatience. He was trying to find some way to ease his friend's fears without antagonizing him, when Angeline unexpectedly came to his rescue.

“What Jamie says is true, Peetyuk. We are doing nothing bad to Koonar. It will help the Eskimos and I think Koonar would have wanted that. And I do not think everyone agrees with Elaitutna that we are doing a bad thing.”

Jamie snatched gratefully at this support, even though it came from a source of which he did not entirely approve.

“Elaitutna's only one man. Let's go talk to Ohoto. He's the best hunter in the camp and everyone looks up to him. We'll explain exactly what we intend to do, and maybe he'll take our side.”

 

To the youngsters' great relief Ohoto agreed that the removal of the weapons from the grave was no great crime, particularly since the sale of these things to the white men in the south might enable the Eskimos to obtain guns and ammunition. But Ohoto had reservations about the stone casket. He told the young people that according to Elaitutna it reputedly contained the arrow that had killed Koonar and—grisly thought—some of the blood Koonar had shed through his death wound.

Peetyuk shuddered visibly as he translated this, and even Jamie felt a twinge of unease. He mastered it firmly.

“I just don't swallow that,” he said. “How can Elaitutna be sure what's in the casket? Maybe the arrowhead is
there, but all that stuff about blood is more than likely something he invented to scare us. I think he wants that casket for himself. Whatever he has in mind, we're going to take it with us. I'll carry it myself and I'll look after it. None of the rest of you even need to touch it. Tell Ohoto that, Pete. Ask him if he'll still help us.”

There was a moment's silence after Peetyuk had translated this. Ohoto looked hard and long at Jamie before replying slowly.

“He say,” said Peetyuk, “maybe you foolish, but you brave too. He say he help us. He show us way to Big River when time to go.”

“What about you, Pete? Do you feel okay about it now?”

“Maybe I foolish too, Jamie. But I just as brave as you. We take stone pot!”

 

During the next ten days the weather rapidly improved. Summer had already begun in the Barrens, where there is no real spring as we know it. Winter ends with a roar of thawing rivers, and almost before they are clear of ice the country is inundated by a wave of living things who have no time to waste if they are to raise their young before the return of the frost.

Gulls, wading birds, ducks, geese, and small land birds seemed to appear almost instantaneously and in such numbers that the sound of their myriad voices made an unending chorus that never ceased, even in the middle of the night. But then, there was no longer any real darkness
at night, for the sun barely sank below the horizon and its glow never left the sky.

The herds of doe caribou had long since disappeared, hurrying north to the fawning grounds. Most of the herds of bucks had followed them at a more leisurely pace, but there were still many loitering bucks scattered across the plains.

On sandy ridges exposed by the melting snows arctic foxes, dun-colored after the loss of their white winter coats, barked and yapped outside their burrows. At the mouths of larger dens on higher ridges, small brown wolf puppies scuffled with one another and crawled over the bodies of their patient parents.

Everywhere the muskegs were alive with mouselike lemmings. On stretches of drier ground, golden ground squirrels sat up like posts and whistled at each other and at the rough-legged hawks that spiraled overhead.

The dead land was dead no longer. The Barrens were vibrant with the brief burst of summer life.

 

During this period the boys and Angeline were busy making ready for the journey to the coast. Despite an increasing display of animosity from Elaitutna, the majority of the Eskimos remained well disposed to the young travelers and were ready to lend them a hand with their preparations. The older hunters pooled their memories of the Hudson Bay country in order to help Ohoto decide upon the route to be followed. Kakut and Bellikari agreed to collect the cache which the boys had left on Little River,
and to keep the boys' dogs for them through the summer. Kakut, Ohoto and two other men would journey south to Thanout Lake that coming winter as soon as ice and snow made sledding possible. They would bring the dogs with them, as well as the surplus possessions which the youngsters would be unable to carry with them to Hudson Bay. On their return journey to the Barrens it was hoped that the Eskimos would have a good load of rifles, ammunition, tea and flour purchased with some of the proceeds from the sale of the Viking relics.

Angeline took on the task of repairing the clothes and soft gear. She had so much help from the Eskimo women and girls that she found she was hardly allowed to do anything herself. However, the women encouraged her to learn how to make waterproof Eskimoan skin boots. Peetyuk's mother was particularly attentive to Angeline, and whenever Peetyuk appeared she addressed remarks to him which made him blush and sidle off. Neither Angeline nor the boys could understand what the Eskimo woman was saying and Peetyuk refused to translate, but it was not too hard to guess the gist of the remarks.

“Looks like Pete's mother's made her choice of a daughter-in-law,” Jamie announced innocently to Awasin one morning. Peetyuk, who was sitting nearby oiling his. rifle, pretended not to hear, but it was impossible to ignore Awasin's reply.

“You are right, Jamie. And do you see how my sister is sewing clothes in Eskimo style? I hope Peetyuk will be a good husband. If he starves her, I will have to beat him, for a brother must look to his sister's welfare.”

This was too much for Peetyuk. Jumping to his feet, he sprang roaring at his two friends, but they were ready for him. Catching his arms, they wrestled him to the ground. Jamie sat on him while Awasin, with great solicitude, felt Peetyuk's forehead.

“He is hot, Jamie. Love fever, I think.” He raised his voice and shouted. “Angeline! Come quick. Peetyuk is sick. He is calling for you!”

Angeline had been sewing in one of the Eskimo tents. Now she flew to the travel tent. One look at the tableau on the ground showed her she had been tricked. She said not a word but grabbed the water pail, and before any of the boys could blink an eye she had doused all three of them with a stream of icy water. Whereupon she turned and tramped off to the Eskimo tent without a backward glance.

Spitting and gasping, the boys struggled to their feet.

“Anyway,” said Awasin when he had got his breath, “Peetyuk is cool again…for a little while!”

 

As June drew to an end the atmosphere in the Eskimo camp began to undergo a subtle change. Although most of the Eskimos remained friendly and helpful, they began to show symptoms of uneasiness when they were in the presence of the three boys. Awasin was quick to notice this, and one evening he queried Peetyuk about it. At first Peetyuk was evasive, but finally he admitted that there was trouble brewing.

“Is Elaitutna. He say bad things going to happen to us, and if we stay Eskimo camp bad things happen to Eski
mos too. He tell people we never get to Hudson Bay. He say Koonar not let us carry his things to strange land. He tell Ohoto he never come back alive if he go with us.”

“The old devil's just jealous,” Jamie burst out angrily. “He's run things here for a long time, and look at the mess the IhaImiut are in. Just because it looks like we can help them when he can't, he's out to stop us.”

“I think we should talk to Ohoto again,” Angeline said quietly but firmly. “You are angry, Jamie, and that will not help anyone.”

Several Eskimos were with Ohoto when the youngsters entered his tent, but these people quickly found excuses to get up and leave. Ohoto himself seemed subdued and uncomfortable. However, when Peetyuk explained why they had come, he showed relief.

“I am glad you know what is happening,” he explained through Peetyuk. “I did not want to tell you myself, and that made me unhappy, for there should be no secrets between friends. Now I will tell you the rest. Elaitutna had another spirit-talk and most of the People were there. At the end of it Elaitutna said Koonar had cursed you and had warned all the People to have nothing more to do with you. Now the People do not know what to do. Some even say I should not go with you; but I am not a sick old man who is afraid of spirits. I
will
go with you as far as Big River. And I think it would be well for us to leave as soon as we can, for the People are listening more and more to Elaitutna. They are growing afraid, and frightened people can do strange things.”

“How soon can we go, then?” Jamie asked anxiously.

Ohoto wrinkled his heavy brows. “We cannot go until a strong wind comes to break up the rotten ice in the big lakes. I hope it will come soon. I do not trust Elaitutna, and if anything should happen to your canoes in the meantime you would never be able to make the trip.”

“He wouldn't dare do anything!” cried Jamie, but there was no conviction in his voice.

Later that night when they were back in their own tent, the youngsters found it hard to go to sleep. They discussed the situation until well past midnight without finding any solution. Finally Angeline went outside to light a fire and boil the kettle for a mug-up of tea. When she came back her eyes were gleaming with excitement.

“Listen,” she said. “The north wind is coming. Already you can hear it, and the sky is growing dark with clouds. Perhaps it will blow hard enough tonight to break the ice.”

By the time they had drunk their tea the wind was rustling through the camp, and its hopeful sound finally lulled them to sleep. When they woke at dawn they found a full gale blowing. As they scrambled out of their tent they met Ohoto coming to waken them. He greeted them with a smile.

“Eat quick,” he told them, “for there is much to do. The ice will go today, and tomorrow we will go too.”