The Storyteller Trilogy (123 page)

K’os raised the parka, held it above her head, moved her feet in a slow dance of mourning, her shoulders heaving as she sobbed. Finally she threw herself over River Ice Dancer’s body, covering him from chin to groin with the parka. She buried her head in the fur and cried out her anguish, but as she lay over his body, her hands worked under the parka to remove her knife from the scabbard. She slipped it up her sleeve even as three old women pulled her away, one cursing, two crooning their sympathy. They walked her to the entrance tunnel. There K’os hefted the pack they had allowed her, went outside and called the two dogs they said she could take. They were River Ice Dancer’s dogs, and one pulled a travois laden with tent and tent poles, food and some of her belongings.

As she left the village, she sang mourning songs until she knew they could no longer hear her voice.

When the sun had nearly tucked itself again into the earth, K’os made a camp in a group of spruce trees. She set up the tent, tying the dogs near the entrance, and she built a fire, lighting it with the smoldering knot of spruce she carried in a birchbark container hung from her waist.

She huddled close to one of the dogs. He snapped at her. K’os snarled, and the dog tucked his tail between his legs, cowered and finally accepted a small piece of dried meat from her hands. The night would be long, and she was cold, but she would not die.

Her hatred alone would carry her to the Near River Village, but someday she would return to the Four Rivers. Perhaps she would come in stealth, or perhaps with warriors, but she would return. Then Cen would suffer, for who but Cen could have killed River Ice Dancer? He alone had the strength and a reason.

Of course, for him to do such a thing meant that Red Leaf had told him of K’os’s threats. Not the whole truth, K’os was sure, but some part of it.

K’os smiled, searched through her pack until she found her medicine bag. She drew out the small pouch tied with red sinew. At least she could comfort herself with the thought of Red Leaf’s retching out her life, bleeding from nose and mouth until finally even her vomitus and feces were only clotted blood.

K’os tipped back her head and laughed. That night, in spite of the cold, she slept well.

THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

Cen knelt beside Red Leaf, gently shook her awake. “Gheli?”

She heard his voice from her dreams, opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him.

“It is morning. Are you well enough for me to go and get wood? I will return as quickly as I can.”

“Go,” she said, her words broken by the dryness of her throat. “First, could you bring me some water?”

He untied a bladder, held it to her mouth, and when she had finished drinking, he tucked the sleeping robes around her shoulders. She watched him leave, waited for a short time, then rolled out of her bed. She went to her stack of baskets, chose one made of salmon skins, dark and translucent, sewn side by side, tail ends down to form the base. She pulled out a pouch of caribou hide, no larger than her hand. It was bound with red sinew, tied with four knots. She took it to the hearth fire and used a stick to tuck it into the coals.

She flexed her fingers. She was a large woman, a little clumsy, but her hands were as nimble as a child’s, gifted with needle and awl, cunning enough to substitute a packet of ground willow root for one of baneberry and to do it so quickly that the trade was not even noticed by someone standing near.

As the poison burned, Red Leaf thought of that harmless pouch K’os now carried in her medicine bag. And she wondered what other lives she had saved. Perhaps they would count as a payment for those she had taken.

THE HUNTERS’ SPRING

Aqamdax wiped her hand across her mouth, lay back on her bed. Snow Hawk tried to lick her face, but she pushed the dog away. She patted the floor mats, and Snow Hawk lay down.

Was this the third or fourth morning that she had awakened to light-headedness and nausea?

“I do not need to be sick, Snow Hawk,” she said to the dog. She closed her eyes. Stories of people and their illnesses spun into her head, mocked her with medicines she did not have, until finally she retreated into the helpful tales mothers told small daughters. Sometimes those stories offered women the best advice.

Suddenly Aqamdax began to laugh. Snow Hawk whined and pressed her cold nose into Aqamdax’s face. Aqamdax wrapped her arms around the dog, but Snow Hawk broke away, crouched with forelegs on the ground, rear end raised, tail wagging.

“A game?” Aqamdax said, and sat up to ruffle the dog’s fur. “Yes, Snow Hawk, a game.”

How foolish not to realize… But she had not been sick with her son, and her moon blood times had not been regular since his birth.

“Now you have two people to guard,” she told Snow Hawk, “until Chakliux comes for us.”

She slipped one hand under her parka, felt the soft hood she had made for her dead baby. Tears came to her eyes, and she began to cry—in sorrow for that little one who had died, in joy for the new baby she carried so close to her heart.

Sok squinted at the tear-shaped woods. The Cousin People called it the Hunters’ Spring. Take More had once grudgingly led him to the place when they were hunting moose. Sok had laughed to himself about the old man’s reluctance to share its location. Chakliux had already told Sok about the spring. Did Take More think Chakliux would keep hunting secrets from his own brother?

Sok shook his head. What would he do without that brother? He sighed, looked again at the thin gray trees. Suddenly he crouched, gripped his spear, ready to throw.

A wolf stood at the edge of the woods. No, not wolf; the animal’s tail was curled almost to its back. A dog. Not as dangerous as a wolf—at least, more predictable—but still, he gripped his spear. Perhaps the animal had come with a hunter who had stopped at the spring, most likely one of the men from the Cousin River Village. Sok raised his voice, called out. The dog lowered its head and stared at him, then slowly wagged its tail.

Sok cupped his hands around his eyes, squinted. Snow Hawk? Yes, his own dog Snow Hawk. Aqamdax must have lent her to a hunter to use as a pack animal on a hunting trip. Or perhaps one of the men had decided to take Cries-loud hunting and the boy brought Snow Hawk with them. Sok broke into a run, his snowshoes slowing him, forcing an awkward gait.

“Cries-loud!” he called, his pulse jumping in the hope of seeing his son.

But there was no answer, and if they had brought Snow Hawk, why was the animal loose, without pack or travois harness?

Sok held out his hand, approached slowly. “Did you chew through your tether?” he asked, his voice low, soft. If the animal had been running loose, wild since he and Chakliux left the village, she would not yield easily. For Chakliux, perhaps, she would come. Not for Sok.

“Snow Hawk,” he called softly. “Snow Hawk.”

Snow Hawk lowered her tail. She snapped once at the air, then dropped to her belly. Sok reached up under his parka, brought out a piece of dried meat. He had not had the presence of mind to bring much food from Chakliux’s tent. Each time he sorted through his pack, he was surprised at what he had brought—foolish things—extra blades, not yet knapped for use; large balls of babiche; a pack of caribou teeth. Little meat, no extra boots.

Suddenly Snow Hawk perked her ears, looked back into the trees. Before Sok could stop her, she bounded off toward the woods. He followed her. If she had come with hunters, he would probably find them at the spring. His own water was gone, the last swallow taken at dawn. Dry cold days, dim of light but clear of sky, always seemed to draw all the water from his body, leaving him parched, with lips cracked, eyes burning.

He came to other trails, all made by one person, someone with small feet. Surely not a boy. Would the Cousin Rivers have forced Cries-loud from the village after Sok and Chakliux had left? No, there were too many good people there to allow such a thing. Perhaps they were a woman’s tracks. Yes, the toes turned in. How else did a woman walk when she was carrying a heavy load or pulling a travois? Most likely an old woman, then, one who had offered to leave the village so there would be more food for the children. But what fool had allowed her to take Snow Hawk, a golden-eye, pregnant with a litter and one of the best dogs in the village?

Then he knew. Ligige’, of course, it was Ligige’. She was, after all, Near River, the most Near River of anyone except he himself, his sons and Yaa. And she had probably stolen Snow Hawk, especially if her leaving had been forced on her by others.

“Ligige’!” he shouted, then turned and called in all directions.

But the voice that answered him was not Ligige’’s. And it came so unexpectedly that he jumped, his snowshoes threatening his balance. He reached for an alder tree, grasped the thin bole to keep from falling into the snow.

“Sok? You are here? Where is my husband?”

He stared at Aqamdax for a moment before he could respond, and then he spoke only to say, “Where is Ligige’?”

“Ligige’ is here?” Aqamdax asked, and in the foolishness of question upon question, Sok wondered if he were still in a dream, back in Chakliux’s tent.

Snow Hawk jumped around them, making a dance in and out of the paths that cut through the trees, and Aqamdax scolded her, warned her away from a noose trap set in an animal trail. The pause gave Sok time to clear his mind. He pointed to Aqamdax’s footprints and said, “I followed Snow Hawk here. When I saw your tracks, I thought perhaps some old woman had been driven from the village. I thought it might be Ligige’.”

“They are my tracks,” Aqamdax said. “Night Man forced me to leave.” She frowned, and before he could ask her the many questions that came to him, she said, “My husband is with you?”

He shook his head. “I am alone.”

“Where is Chakliux?” she cried out. Her voice was a wail, both demanding and denying, and he could not look at her.

“If one of us had to die,” he said softly, “I do not understand why it was Chakliux. You know I would have given my life for him.”

Slowly, Aqamdax sank to her knees. She curled herself into a ball, and Sok knelt beside her. He gathered her close, let his own cries echo hers until even Snow Hawk lifted her head and joined their mourning.

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

L
IGIGE’ BRUSHED THE SNOW
from her stack of wood and kicked several pieces loose from the pile. Her thoughts were on a basket she was making, not a fishskin basket—the kind she had made since she was a child—but one of grass, in the way Aqamdax had been teaching her. Her stitches on one side were loose, and the basket was lopsided. Perhaps if she unraveled it back to where she had started her last weaver…

She picked up the chunks of wood that had scattered from her pile, groaned as she straightened, and started back into the lodge. Ghaden and Cries-loud were usually the ones who brought in the wood, but Sky Watcher had taken the boys on a morning hunt. She hoped they had good luck. Fresh meat in winter warmed a body as much as a hearth fire.

She stooped at the entrance tunnel, threw the wood inside piece by piece. Yaa would stack it there later after she finished scraping the caribou hide Ligige had given her. The girl would need to escape the smoky lodge for a little while.

Ligige’ rubbed her eyes. Winter hearth fires always left them red and weepy. Sometimes she walked the paths of the village just to get out of the smoke. She took a long breath. The air was clean but cold enough to make her cough.

Already, though spring was far away, the days seemed to be a little brighter, a little longer. Or perhaps it was only an old woman’s wish, she thought.

As she ducked her head to enter the tunnel, something caught her eye, someone at the crest of one of the hills north of the village.

Sky Watcher already? A seed of fear lodged in her heart. Were the boys all right?

A trampled pattern of snowshoe tracks led from just beyond her lodge to the hills. She walked those tracks until the snow gave way and let her sink to her knees. She sat down and lifted her feet, crawled back toward her lodge, then stood again.

No, she thought with relief, it was not Sky Watcher. The man was too large and walked too heavily. Who, then? Perhaps a trader, or worse, someone who had been sent away from his own people for one reason or another. They did not need anyone like that here.

Best to tell the men. She started toward the hunters’ lodge, made herself hurry over the frozen and slippery path. She scratched at the lodge’s caribou hide doorflap, called out, and was answered by Take More. The old man’s voice carried an edge of irritation.

“Come out here,” Ligige’ demanded, having no patience for his rudeness. When he was with other men, Take More acted as if he had the right to treat old women like slaves.

“What?” Take More demanded from inside the lodge. “What are you telling me? Who is it? Ligige’?”

“Yes,” Ligige’ said. “Someone is coming. A man. I saw him and now I have told you.” She turned her back on the lodge, looked again toward the hills, pretended not to notice when Take More joined her.

“I am alone here,” he said.

She grunted but said nothing. He was Cousin River; she was not. Perhaps he would recognize the one who was coming. But when the man topped the nearest hill, Ligige’ knew who it was, and she whispered his name under her breath: “Sok.”

The village, though small, looked good, the lodges strong, smoke spiraling up from their smoke holes. Only his lodge carried that appearance of neglect which seems to mark any shelter where people no longer live.

Several women were walking the village paths. He recognized Ligige’ standing near the hunters’ lodge. Someone was with her—Take More? Sok lifted one hand in greeting, felt the weight of what he had to tell them slow his steps. Then he thought of his sons, so that sorrow and joy suddenly lived together in his heart.

Take More had a blanket clasped around his shoulders as though he had come in haste from the hunters’ lodge. He huddled near the entrance, but Ligige’ came to meet Sok, and her first words were no surprise.

“Where is Chakliux?”