The Storyteller Trilogy (116 page)

K’os got up, brought out her river otter medicine bag and took a packet tied with red-dyed sinew, bound with four knots. “It takes only a little,” she said. “It will make your stomach cramp and you will vomit, but there is little pain. If you took only a pinch the first day, then a little more the next…” She pretended to consider, then nodded. “Yes, that would do it, and Cen would believe that you were sick.” She offered the packet to Red Leaf. “Do you want it?”

Red Leaf reached out, but, like a child playing a game, K’os pulled the poison away. “You think I will give it to you for nothing?” She saw the sudden weariness in Red Leaf’s eyes.

“You said I have nothing that you want,” Red Leaf answered.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” K’os told her. “You said you have wolf pelts.”

“I do. If you want them, they are yours.”

“For something like this,” K’os said slowly, “it might seem that a few wolf pelts are not enough. Would you give me your daughter?”

Red Leaf met K’os’s eyes. “I would feed her the poison myself rather than give her to you,” she said. She stood and pulled on her parka. She stopped before she went into the entrance tunnel, said to K’os, “Do not forget she is Cen’s daughter as well as mine.”

K’os tilted her head as though conceding defeat. “Wolf pelts, then,” she said, “but I will keep the poison here. Tell me when you are ready for it.”

“Tomorrow, I will bring you the pelts,” Red Leaf said.

K’os held in her retort until Red Leaf was gone. But then, as though the woman were still in the lodge, K’os said, “You think Cen will stop me from taking your daughter? You think he will turn down that good woman, Sand Fly, when she offers to care for the child? You know that though she is a grandmother she has kept her milk by nursing the babies of this village through the years. How sad that while Cen is away on one of his trading trips, Sand Fly will become sick and die. Then who better to take the child as her own than a wife who has none?

“Ah, Gheli, there are so many ways a woman can get herself a daughter.”

L
IGIGE’ SAT IN THE
wind, held the frozen baby in her arms and waited for death. The dogs huddled close to her, but their warmth was not enough to pull away the cold that numbed her. Ravens had taken Star’s eyes, left pink hollow sockets. Foxes had shredded her tongue, reaching into a mouth left open by death. They had not touched the baby. It was beautiful, hair and eyelashes dark against its white and frozen flesh. It was a daughter, and Ligige’ grieved for it and for the child’s father. Chakliux had lost too many children: his first son; then Aqamdax’s son—though not of Chakliux’s flesh, the boy would have surely been his own—and now this one, a small and perfect daughter.

Whoever had killed Star had killed her with a knife thrust into her throat. Star’s hands were bloody. She must have staggered away, clutching her neck. When she fell, the killer had slit open her belly and ripped the child from her. There were legends of giants—nuhu’anh—who ate people in winter. Perhaps a nuhu’anh had done this thing. Surely there was no one in the village who would kill like this. But then a quiet voice of reason came to Ligige’, spoke in whispers she did not want to hear. A nuhu’anh would have eaten Star and the baby. What nuhu’anh did not kill to eat?

Ligige’ looked up and saw a dark form moving toward them through the snow. She was afraid, but she did not call out. Her dog, growing deaf in his old age, was curled into a tight circle, nose protected by the thick fur of his tail, but Snow Hawk growled.

“Go now,” Ligige’ said to her. “There is no need for you to fight. You have pups coming soon. We are old, my dog and I. Leave us.”

Snow Hawk stood as though she understood Ligige’’s words, but then she moved to straddle Ligige’’s legs, as if to protect the old woman and the dead baby. The dog’s courage pulled away some of Ligige’’s fear. She took a sleeve knife from her parka and held its fragile blade up into the wind.

“The baby is yours,” she called out, “and the woman here beside us, but I will not yet go with you, nor will these dogs.”

“Ligige’?” It was a man’s voice, no surprise, surely most nuhu’anh were men, but the voice was not as harsh as she would expect.

“Ligige’!” he called. “Ligige’!”

Then Ligige’ saw his face. It was Night Man, and in her relief, Ligige’ felt suddenly very old, very tired.

“I have been looking for you, and for my sister.”

Ligige’ tucked the baby into her arms. “You have found us,” she said softly.

Night Man crouched beside her. “You are hurt?” he asked, but then he looked down at the baby in Ligige’’s arms. She followed his eyes to the blood. The sound in his throat was first like something strangled, then rose into a scream that cut through the snow like a blade.

They gathered in Star’s lodge, around the dead woman. The baby was beside her, naked, still marked with blood. Star’s parka was pulled down over her gaping belly, but otherwise she lay as death had left her, without eyes, without tongue. Each old woman who came in begged to clean the body, to sew shut the eyelids, to tie the jaw, brush the parka, at least find her death boots, decorated with carved beads and porcupine quills. Surely she had death boots waiting for her. Did not every woman? Did not every man?

But Night Man kept them away, bared his teeth at them, pointed with rude fingers, and shouted to tell them where to sit.

Aqamdax ignored Night Man as he directed her to the far side of the lodge. Instead she sat next to the body, a sister-wife giving some shield of privacy, as though Star were merely relieving herself on a hunting trip and needed shelter from men’s eyes.

When everyone was in Star’s lodge, Aqamdax saw what a small group they were—without Chakliux, Sok and Snow-in-her-hair, without Sky Watcher and First Eagle, and now without Star. Long Eyes sat alone near the entrance, wrapped in a hare fur blanket, her hands busy twisting sinew, her eyes on her work.

Aqamdax felt Star’s presence. Perhaps her spirit still clung somehow to that poor body, lingering to be sure her child would follow her to the place of spirits. Aqamdax’s people, the First Men, knew that place to be what the River People named Yaykaas, those dancing lights that colored the northern sky. But the River People seemed to have only vague ideas of where their dead went. Some believed one thing, others another. None of them honored that maker spirit the First Men knew to be above all things. Not a good way to live, she thought. How would their spirits know where to go when they died?

Perhaps that was why Star seemed to be with them. Or perhaps she only wanted to be alive and did not think beyond that to the new life she should be living.

Aqamdax had slung Carries Much in a strap under her parka. She unfastened the strap and pulled him onto her lap. She should have brought his cradleboard, but when Dii had found her in the storm, brought news of Star’s death and assurances that Ligige’ was alive, Aqamdax thought of little else but joining the women in Star’s lodge to prepare the body.

In her hurry she had forgotten the cradleboard; she had forgotten to bring food and a dry parka for Ligige’. But Twisted Stalk had brought an extra parka, and other women had food. Perhaps it was enough that she was here, watching over her sister-wife’s body.

Ghaden sat with the men, Biter beside him. He would have rather been with Aqamdax, but she sat close to Star, so perhaps it was best that Night Man had made him stay here. When his first mother, Daes, had died, Ghaden had wanted to die, too, so he could go with her to the spirit world. But he did not want to go with Star—mother yet not mother—and he tried to hold his thoughts on other things so she would not be reminded that he was here, a son nearly a hunter who could go with her.

At first everyone was quiet, as though they were waiting. But finally one of the old women began a mourning song, then others joined. Those songs always made Ghaden shudder. He clamped his teeth tight together and told himself that a man did not shake at the sound of mourning.

At least the songs were familiar, a sign of things being done in respectful ways. Not like this death. What animal would have ripped the baby from Star’s belly and not eaten it? He heard Cries-loud and Squirrel whispering about nuhu’anh, but nuhu’anh were too terrible to think about. Anyone from your own village could be nuhu’anh and you wouldn’t know. They would look ordinary and live ordinary lives, but in the cold days of winter would become nuhu’anh, then kill and eat people.

Ghaden was sitting on the side of the hearth opposite the women. Though Aqamdax hid most of Star’s body, Ghaden could still see her hair spilling out over her hood. He moved so he was sitting on his haunches, his knees raised. He remembered his first mother sitting this way, and Aqamdax did also. He crossed his arms over his knees, lowered his head to his arms, and hid his eyes.

When he had come into the lodge, he had looked at Star, had seen that her eyes were gone. Did that mean that she was blind now as spirit? Would she try to take someone else’s eyes before she left the village? His eyes began to ache. He thought of himself as Star was now, with pink hollows where his eyes should be, small, toothless mouths, open as though Star were trying to swallow up as much as she could before she was wrapped for burial.

“I am a hunter,” Ghaden told her in that voice that lived in his head. “Hunters need their eyes. Find someone else. Some animal. The old men say foxes see better than we do. Go get yourself fox eyes.”

Almost, he could hear Star’s voice arguing back at him, but his conversation with her was interrupted by Night Man’s shouts. The women stopped their mourning song, and Cries-loud moved closer to Ghaden. Biter growled, and Ghaden reached out to clamp a hand over the dog’s mouth. Why draw Star’s attention? She might decide she wanted Biter’s eyes. Then how could he hunt?

“You see this woman, my sister!” Night Man was shouting, and he repeated the words again and again. “You see this woman, my sister! You see this woman, my sister!”

Faster and faster he spoke, until the words no longer made sense but were like a healer’s chants.

Then his voice slowed and changed, and Ghaden realized that Night Man was saying, “You see this child, my sister’s daughter.” Then those words, too, were spinning away from Night Man’s mouth, whirling into the hearth fire, scraping against the inner wall of the lodge like a knife taking flesh from a hide.

Finally Night Man spoke normally, sometimes shouting, but at least in words that Ghaden could understand.

“You see them. They are dead. Not killed by a storm or by an animal. I hear some of you whisper of nuhu’anh. What nuhu’anh kills but does not eat? What nuhu’anh would be frightened away by an old woman and her dog? I have left these two, my sister, her child, as Ligige’ found them. Look at my sister. See her throat. We all know the mark of a knife. Look. See the cut.”

Cries-loud was brave enough to rise to his feet so he could see Star’s throat. The hunters around him did the same, but Ghaden stayed as he was, his arms around his knees, and when Biter also stood, Ghaden grabbed the babiche braid that circled the dog’s neck and jerked him down again.

The men began to mutter, and Ghaden could hear the fear under their words, the anger. He wanted to block his ears, but he sat very still. Star was here with them. Couldn’t the others tell that? Why draw her attention?

“Do you remember the woman who was Chakliux’s mother?” Take More asked. “She died in that same way—by a knife.”

“Sok’s wife, now dead, did that in trying to escape,” Man Laughing said. “You think she came back to kill Star?”

“Who can say? There are stories about such things,” said Take More.

He looked at Aqamdax, and Ghaden knew Take More wanted her to tell them of such a story, but Ghaden squeezed his eyes shut tight, shouted at Aqamdax in his mind to say nothing, sit still, don’t move.

But even had she wanted to talk, Night Man’s voice rose loud over everyone’s. “Sok’s wife is dead. She did not do this. The dogs would have seen her. We would have heard them. Did anyone hear dogs barking this morning, early, when it was still dark?”

“How would they see her through this storm?” Take More asked.

Night Man ignored him. “You think some spirit did this? No. Someone here in this village killed her.”

“What reason would any of us have to kill her?” Twisted Stalk asked. “She had done nothing to us. We needed her child.” She lifted her chin at Ghaden and Cries-loud, then turned her head toward Yaa and Carries Much, at Squirrel and Black Stick, sitting beside their mother. “Look how few children we have. Can a village survive without children?”

“Perhaps it was one of the Near Rivers,” Take More said. “They hate us.”

“There is that chance,” said Night Man, “but if they wanted to kill our women, why not attack us on our return from the hunting camp? We would have been easy to kill, laden with packs as we were. Or why not attack the village while we were still hunting? Our old women could not have defended themselves. If the Near Rivers wanted to kill or raid our caches, why not come to the village when those caches were full of summer salmon and the old women were here alone?”

He looked at Ligige’. “You were out checking your traplines this morning,” he said. “Did you see anyone?”

Ligige’ roused herself as though she had been asleep through all Night Man’s yelling. Her voice was thick and her words difficult to understand. “After I left my traplines, I saw nothing but my own dog,” she said slowly, “then the dog Snow Hawk and these dead ones.”

Night Man squinted at her. “You saw nothing but two dogs, your own and Snow Hawk. Snow Hawk is Sok’s dog, nae?”

“Sok’s or Chakliux’s,” Ligige’ answered. “I am not sure whose.”

“Sok’s,” Aqamdax said quietly, and Ghaden sucked in his breath, shook his head at her, but she did not notice him.

“Sok is away, but you live in his lodge,” Night Man said to Aqamdax.

“Be quiet, be quiet,” Ghaden moaned under his breath. “Be quiet, Aqamdax. Star will hear you. She will steal your eyes.”

But Aqamdax answered, her voice clear, her words loud. “Yes, I live there with my husband and Sok’s sons. I take care of their dogs.”