The Storyteller Trilogy (118 page)

“I have heard that the Sea Hunters are a people not quite human,” Night Man said.

Aqamdax spoke in anger, in fear. “We heard the same of you,” she answered.

“What right do you have to accuse her?” one of the old women asked, and Aqamdax saw it was Twisted Stalk.

The woman’s words gave Aqamdax hope, especially when Ligige’ added in a sullen voice, “You are a fool, Night Man. You know she did not kill your sister.”

But then Twisted Stalk said, “You killed her son. You and your sister. We know how you came and took the child when Aqamdax was still in the birth hut. What do you expect when you killed her son?”

“The boy was given as gift to the Grandfather Lake,” Night Man told her. “You think our food caches are full because we are good hunters? You think the only reason we were blessed was because the caribou were pleased with our respect? I gave the child to assure we would have food for the winter.”

“You lie!” Aqamdax screamed. She jumped at Night Man, scratched his face, clawed for his eyes. “You killed our son because you thought he did not belong to you. You told me that. You told Chakliux. Even Star!”

By the time Take More and Twisted Stalk had dragged her away from Night Man, his face was streaming blood.

When he was able to speak, he said, “You think she would not kill my sister?”

In the lodge, the people were quiet, and Aqamdax saw the fear in their eyes.

T
HE OLD WOMAN ADDED
wood to her hearth fire. It was good to be back in her winter lodge, her cache full of the summer’s dried salmon. But soon most of the lodges in the winter village would be empty again. Already families had left to follow the caribou. Tomorrow, the boy would go also, but she would stay, she and the other old women. Like ghosts, they were, gray and brittle with years, not much good on caribou hunts. She shut away her thoughts of loneliness and smiled at the boy who was sitting beside her hearth.

“In the morning you will leave?” she asked him.

He nodded. “I will miss our stories.”

“As will I,” said the old woman, “but remember, each caribou hunt tells its own tale, so listen well and bring that story back with you.”

The boy looked down at his hands. He was plaiting strips of tanned caribou hide into a four-ply braid. “My father gave me a dog,” he said. “I am making a harness.”

“Look! What do I see?” said the old woman, offering him a riddle. “With twists and turns it is made stronger.”

“The braid,” said the boy, but then his eyes widened, and she saw him smile. “A story,” he said.

“Two answers for the same riddle, and both are right,” the old woman told him. “But no more riddles. Today our story is riddle enough.”

“The Cousin River Village,” she said, and began to weave her words through the smoke of the hearthfire, around the boy’s fingers and into the taut square braid. “Listen:”

LIGIGE’, OF THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE:

I spoke for Aqamdax, but my voice was small. My words were lost. We defended her, Yaa and Ghaden, Cries-loud and I, sure that because we were right they would listen. But who heeds the words of an old woman? Who listens to children? Unless Sok and Chakliux return, Cries-loud and I have no hunter to feed us, and now, because they stood against Night Man, neither do Yaa or Ghaden. We are nothing in this village.

But why would the others believe Night Man? Where are their eyes? Do they not see that, like his dead sister, he carries the seeds of madness? Perhaps when Chakliux is away from the village, we do not have enough strength to balance our weakness. Or perhaps the horror of what happened has stolen our wisdom.

I understand Night Man’s reasoning, that Aqamdax would seek revenge for her son’s death. But fear grows large within me that she would have been accused anyway, even if her baby was still alive. She is Sea Hunter. Who cannot see that difference in all her ways? Her voice carries the heavy sounds of their speech; her face is round and small-nosed like Sea Hunter faces. Even her stories and songs are different.

On the day Star’s body was found, I could not miss the whispers of the old women. Sea Hunters are not like us, they said. Who can trust them?

Aaa! At one time I believed the same myself. And how much easier to think that what happened to Star was done by someone not raised in River ways. But now that I truly know Aqamdax, I have begun to understand that the differences between Sea Hunter and River are small things and have nothing to do with the soul.

How long until the old women’s whispers close around another difference—that between Cousin and Near River, or those between families? How far will we go? Until there is only one person left?

And how would that one live, alone, without the strength of others?

A
QAMDAX STOOD IN FRONT
of the people gathered in Star’s lodge. She reminded them that she had once been slave to K’os. “If I had been a woman inclined to violence,” she told them, “I would have killed K’os during those days of my slavery. So how can you think I would kill my own husband’s child? How could I make him grieve in such a way?” She looked at Night Man, met his eyes boldly, hoping he would see her scorn. “I hold life sacred,” she said, and to her surprise, she saw he was afraid.

For a moment her own fear was replaced with a flow of strength, but then the old women’s whispers broke the silence, and she heard their hissed insults.

Ligige’, then Ghaden and Yaa, even Cries-loud, stood and spoke for her, but for each word they said, Night Man spat out lies, until Twisted Stalk, her feet on the treacherous path between the two sides, suggested they send Aqamdax from the village.

“At least until her husband returns—if he returns,” Twisted Stalk said. “Then let him speak to us about what should be done.”

Aqamdax watched in horror as the people in the lodge nodded agreement, as they shouted down Ligige’’s attempts to speak again in her defense.

“Pack your things,” Night Man told Aqamdax, and turned cold eyes on her when she cried, “Who will nurse Sok’s son?”

Twisted Stalk stood. “He will be a grandmother’s baby, cared for by the old women,” she said. “We have nursed enough grandchildren to keep some of our milk. Together we will keep him alive.” She turned her face from Aqamdax’s tears, but held up one hand to silence Night Man when he objected as Aqamdax asked Ligige’ to watch over Ghaden and Yaa and Sok’s older son, Cries-loud.

“They are not your children,” she said, and Night Man had no argument.

When Twisted Stalk won a promise from Man Laughing that he would feed Sok’s and Chakliux’s dogs, Aqamdax left Star’s lodge, walked out into the storm, let the wind scour the tears from her face.

She took as much meat and fat from Chakliux’s cache as she thought she could carry, then rearranged his remaining packs, setting the dog salmon at the front for Man Laughing. She worried that he would take caribou meat for himself from Chakliux’s share. But if all the dogs’ fish was at the front, he would be less tempted to take what was not his.

She was unsure of the tradition of the River People. Would the whole village come to Sok’s lodge, force her out with anger and shouting? Would they send a hunter, perhaps even Night Man himself? Or did they trust her to go alone?

Her tears touched everything she packed, and for a moment her hands hesitated over a small furred hood she had made for her son. She slipped it into her inner parka as something soft against her skin, a comfort to remind her of that little one who waited for her at the Dancing Lights.

She loaded a backpack, then a travois, one she considered her own. For how could she carry the weight of food and tent hides? When she finished, she waited in the entrance tunnel of Sok’s lodge, wondering what she should do. Why go out into the storm any sooner than she must?

Finally, over the wailing of the wind, in the darkness of late afternoon, she heard voices. Her pulse pounded hard in her wrists and temples, and the thoughts she had held at bay—walking under the weight of her pack, trying to pull the travois, staying alone during the dark days of winter—twisted into her heart like knives.

Her eyes burned with tears, but she crept out of the lodge tunnel to meet the ones who came. Then, through the snow, she heard Ghaden’s voice, and Biter bounded out to jump against her, knocking her back so she had to catch herself before she fell.

Ghaden and Yaa threw their arms around her, and Cries-loud pressed close to her side.

“They would not let me bring the baby to you, even to feed one last time,” Ligige’ said, her voice raised against the wind. “But even Twisted Stalk has a little milk. Do not worry about him. He will have enough to eat.”

She reached across Yaa to grip Aqamdax’s shoulder. “Chakliux will soon be back. Stay close, less than a day’s walk. He will find you.”

“I know he will, Aunt,” said Aqamdax.

“You are ready, then?”

“Yes. Do I go, or is there some River custom that must be followed…something I must do?”

“I do not know Cousin ways,” Ligige’ said, “but in the Near River Village, there is no custom, nothing you must do. If you are ready, go. That is best.”

Aqamdax bent down over the children, pulled each close. Cries-loud gave her a bola, something Aqamdax knew his father had made for him. She began to thank him, but tears broke into her words, shattering them as she spoke. Yaa gave her mittens, caribou hair on the outside with hare fur liners.

Then Ghaden leaned close to say, “I brought you Biter. He is the best thing I could think of.”

Then even through her tears, Aqamdax forced herself to speak. “Biter is a wonderful gift, Brother,” she said softly. “But you will have to keep him for me until I return. I cannot carry enough food to feed a dog as well as myself.”

“You know he hunts. You know he brings hares and ptarmigans to us almost every day.”

Tears closed Aqamdax’s throat, and Ligige’ said, “Your gift is a good one, Ghaden. Now that Biter belongs to your sister, she has decided that she wants him to stay here in the village to watch over all of us. You do not expect my old dog to take care of four of us, do you?”

Then Ligige’ pulled the children away from Aqamdax and said to her, “Go now, before Night Man makes it worse for you.”

They slipped away in the darkness of snow and wind, and Aqamdax strapped the pack on her back, adjusted the pulling strap of the travois across her chest and started out alone into the storm.

THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

Red Leaf held the open pouch in one hand, a cup of water in the other. “How much?” she asked K’os.

K’os pressed her forefinger and thumb together. “Only this,” she said.

Red Leaf pinched her fingers into the gray-green powder, sifted it into the cup.

“Tomorrow, you will take more,” said K’os. “Two, three pinches.” She narrowed her eyes, looked at the baby hanging in her cradle-board, asleep. “Do not nurse the baby,” she said.

“You think I want my daughter dead?” Red Leaf answered. “You think I would drink this cup if it were not for her?”

K’os merely smiled, waited as Red Leaf drank, then said, “Fill it again, drink again, then wipe it out.”

Red Leaf did as K’os told her, and handed K’os the pouch. She tied the pouch shut again, carefully knotting the red sinew four times. “I will be back tomorrow, Gheli,” she said. “And if you refuse my medicine, I will tell your husband who you are.”

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

T
AKE MORE JOINED AQAMDAX
just as she left the village. He was leading Snow Hawk on a tether, the dog fighting him at every step, and he carried an old hunting spear.

“You have your belongings?” he asked, shouting over the noise of the storm.

“What I could carry,” she told him. She turned her head toward the spear. “Night Man told you to kill the dog or me?” she asked.

For a time Take More did not answer, though the wind played tricks with Aqamdax’s ears, made her think he was speaking when he was not.

“Both,” he finally said.

“And what will you tell Sok when he returns? The dog belongs to him.”

“The truth,” he told her. “That I did what had to be done. How can we allow a dog to live once it has tasted human blood?”

“There were no marks of Snow Hawk’s eating on Star’s body,” Aqamdax said.

“Be quiet. Do not speak about her.”

“Why should I be afraid? I will soon be dead. You should fear me more than her. If I did not kill Star, that means you will take an innocent life. And if I did kill her, then I am wicked enough to avenge my own death even if it is deserved. The people decided I should leave the village, not that I should be killed. It is no surprise to me that Night Man sent you rather than come himself. He has never been known for his courage.”

Take More answered her, but his words were lost in the wind, and Aqamdax found she had no more breath to continue her arguments.

They walked until Aqamdax had to stop. She took the pack from her shoulders and crouched to huddle against it, a small protection from the wind. She did not look at Take More as he stood beside her, did not offer him food when she pulled a stick of dried meat from her parka sleeve, but when she got up to continue their journey, he slung the pack to his shoulders, strapped it to his own back. Then each time they stopped, Take More squatted on his haunches beside her, huddling in silence in the lee of pack and travois.

Finally in their walking, Take More pointed to a clump of trees, dark in the night against the snow.

“There is a spring in those trees,” he told her, “open even in winter. Sometimes when I hunt, I come here to fill my water bladders.”

“My death will curse your spring,” Aqamdax said.

Take More did not answer her, the man striding toward the place with long steps so that Aqamdax, pulling the travois, could not keep up with him. The trees were willow and alder, their branches bending toward a small opening where water spoke in a voice much different from the wind.

Take More dipped his hand into the pool and drank, then said, “It flows back into the ground there.” He pointed toward a gap in a pile of rocks. “It is called the Hunters’ Spring. The River People say that many old men have come here to die.”