The Storyteller Trilogy (20 page)

Cloud Finder squatted beside him on his haunches and fed the fire patiently until they had a blaze, then he set a tripod over it and hung a small boiling bag, a stew made by Cloud Finder’s wife. During their journey it had frozen in the bag. Cloud Finder had almost left it, telling Chakliux they had enough dried meat and berry cakes to keep them. Now, after walking that long day and most of the night before, after waiting through two days of storm, Chakliux was glad for the chance to eat hot food. Both men scooped snow into their wooden bowls and set the bowls at the edge of the fire so the snow would melt into water.

Chakliux began to see better, and so felt himself relax, the tension in his shoulders and back subsiding to a pulsing ache. If they had been followed by wolves, he thought, they would attack now, in darkness, but the dogs showed no signs of nervousness, Snow Hawk nursing her pups, Big Neck asleep. Of course, the fire would help keep wolves away, but, he reminded himself, the smell of food would draw them. He had slipped his knife into its sheath when they stopped to make camp, but had thrust his spear point-up in the snow, within easy reach.

He poked at the snow in his bowl until it melted. He drank, then waited as Cloud Finder dipped his bowl into the boiling bag and filled it with stew. Chakliux filled his own bowl. They were still eating when Big Neck raised his head and growled.

The dog stood, his legs stiff, the fur on his back bristled. Chakliux grabbed his spear and jumped to his feet.

A shout came from the darkness, the voice of a man.

Cloud Finder threw back his head and laughed. “River Jumper, you always know when there is food!”

River Jumper came into the light of the fire, and Chakliux, too, grinned.

“You have been following us?” Chakliux asked.

“Ah, my wife, she threw me out again,” he said, his face only a dark circle tucked back in the ruff of his parka. “I had to come this far to get fed!”

Cloud Finder dipped his bowl into the boiling bag and held it out to the man. “So that is what happened to our wolves,” he said. “They were following us. They must have smelled you coming behind and left our trail. They are smart enough not to be caught between two groups of hunters.”

River Jumper took the bowl from Cloud Finder. “I saw their tracks,” he said. “There were five of them.”

“It was good they did not turn and attack you,” said Cloud Finder. “You should not have come alone. It is a dangerous trail for a man without friends.”

River Jumper lifted his bowl of meat toward Chakliux. “This young one made it. I knew I could, too. I thought, though, that I would catch you before this. I want to help you make a good deal with the Near Rivers. They are a people of smooth words.” He laughed. “But so am I.”

Chakliux laid down his spear, picked up his bowl and stepped outside the circle of firelight. He drew his sleeve knife from its sheath and cut at the hardened snow. He knew River Jumper must be thirsty.

He heard Cloud Finder laugh, and River Jumper’s loud voice, then a muffled sound, as though something fell into the snow. He turned, the bowl in one hand, his sleeve knife in the other.

At first he did not understand what he saw: River Jumper stood with a knife in his hand. Blood dripped from the blade. Chakliux dropped his bowl, crouched, looking for the wolves he thought had attacked. Then he saw Cloud Finder crumpled in a heap near the fire, and he realized there were no wolves. Only River Jumper.

Snow Hawk backed away, several pups trying to keep their hold on her teats. Chakliux nearly called to her, but then did not. Why draw River Jumper’s attention?

Big Neck growled, and River Jumper turned to face him. The man shouted, and Big Neck attacked. River Jumper met him with Cloud Finder’s spear, thrusting it into the dog’s belly as he leapt. The dog yelped and fell. He cried out when he hit the ground, then was silent.

River Jumper pulled the spear free of Big Neck’s body. Snow Hawk placed herself between the man and her pups, her ears flat against her head, her teeth bared.

“Do not worry, little mother,” River Jumper said. “I will not hurt you.” He bent slowly and picked up Chakliux’s spear. Then he stood, lifted both weapons and called out.

“Your mother, K’os, sends her greetings.”

“W
HY?” CHAKLIUX SHOUTED AT
River Jumper, and lifted one hand toward Cloud Finder. The man lay on the ground, his blood seeping into the snow.

“Look! What do I see?” River Jumper said, his answer coming in the familiar form of a riddle. “The winter grows old and in anger sends the wind.”

“You are the wind?” Chakliux asked.

River Jumper laughed. “You honor me,” he said, and shook his head. “You are a child, Chakliux. Do not try to understand.”

Snow Hawk stood beside her pups, her eyes moving from Chakliux to the spears in River Jumper’s hands. She crouched, and Chakliux saw the muscles in her flanks ripple. He knew Snow Hawk; he had watched her among the village dogs. She would fight to the death, but not for him. He had not yet earned such loyalty. She would fight for her pups. She would go for River Jumper’s throat, even after seeing Cloud Finder and Big Neck killed.

Chakliux shifted the sleeve knife to his left hand and carefully drew the obsidian blade from his leg sheath. It was a fine knife, well-balanced, and he was good with knives, but who could say whether knives made in the Near River Village carried the same vision as those he had grown up with. Each weapon, like each man, was different. He set his eyes on the triangle beneath River Jumper’s chin, the gap left by the ruff of his parka hood. That soft and vulnerable spot.

Snow Hawk growled, a low rumbling in her throat. River Jumper’s eyes moved to the animal. In that brief moment, Chakliux pulled back his arm and threw.

He saw the surprise in River Jumper’s face, then heard the hiss from the man’s throat, saw the bubbling of blood. River Jumper’s arms dropped, and he released the spears. Then, before Chakliux could stop her, Snow Hawk attacked the man, carrying him to the ground with her weight, sinking her teeth into his throat and ripping away flesh.

Chakliux called to her and she stopped, standing over River Jumper, her mouth dripping blood.

“Get away,” he said, his voice loud but controlled. “Leave him.”

She bared her teeth, guarding her kill.

Chakliux stepped carefully around her to the bed of spruce branches where her pups were huddled. One by one he picked them up and set them in the snow. The smallest, a black-and-white female, began to whimper.

Snow Hawk looked down at River Jumper’s body. She lifted her head to growl at Chakliux, then went to her pups.

Chakliux stood still as Snow Hawk moved the pups back to the spruce bed, then he walked slowly past River Jumper’s body to Cloud Finder.

He has to be dead, Chakliux told himself. No one can survive a spear in the chest. But to Chakliux’s surprise, Cloud Finder’s eyes fluttered open. Chakliux felt the beginning of hope. Perhaps the spear had been deflected by some weapon Cloud Finder had hidden under his parka. Then Cloud Finder tried to speak. Blood foamed from his mouth, and Chakliux’s hope died. “Go,” Cloud Finder said, choking on the word.

“No,” said Chakliux. He knelt beside Cloud Finder and pulled up the man’s parka, trying to find the wound, to stanch the welling blood.

“Fool!” Cloud Finder said. “River Jumper … would not come … alone. Others … out there …” His words were lost in a spasm of choking.

Chakliux lifted Cloud Finder’s head to ease his breathing. He loosened the parka hood, pulled it away from the man’s throat.

“Go!” Cloud Finder said again. “Do not stop until …” He took a long, shuddering breath. “Leave me,” he whispered. “I am dead.”

A high, thin keening rose into the air, and Chakliux realized it was Snow Hawk. She lay with her pups, but her eyes were on Cloud Finder.

“Bring my dog,” Cloud Finder whispered, then reached out toward Big Neck.

Chakliux gathered the dog’s body in his arms and laid him beside Cloud Finder. Cloud Finder curled his fingers into the thick fur, and looking up at Chakliux tried to smile. “Go,” he said one last time.

Snow Hawk walked with her ears flat, neck fur bristled. He had left the sled—it would only slow them—and carried a small pack with few supplies.

Chakliux had taken Cloud Finder’s sleeve knife from its sheath and placed it in the man’s right hand, but when he was finally ready to leave, Cloud Finder was already dead.

Chakliux threw River Jumper’s spear far into the dark of the night. He did not fit it into his spearthrower before he threw. Why risk that the spear would carry River Jumper’s evil into Chakliux’s own hunting supplies, to his thrower and blades and spears. But he did not want to leave the weapon for those who followed. He had traded away all but one of his own spears at the Cousin River Village, so decided to take Cloud Finder’s spear with him.

He told himself the Near River could not be far. Chakliux wondered whether he should walk the river ice or follow the animal trails through the snow and brush of the banks. He was less likely to be seen in the brush, but the trees would slow him. He would not reach the village by morning, and in daylight his tracks would be easy to follow. If he walked the river, he might arrive at the village by morning, before they could catch him. Besides, there was a good chance the other men would stop for the night. It was a dangerous thing, walking in darkness.

Yes, Chakliux decided, they had probably stopped for the night, and sent River Jumper ahead to scout out Chakliux’s camp. Perhaps by the time they decided to see why River Jumper had not returned, Chakliux would already be at the Near River Village.

Snow Hawk growled, but Chakliux told himself that dogs did not know everything. Perhaps she only growled at the wind.

He pulled his parka hood close around his eyes, still felt the aching cold of the night air against the bridge of his nose. “The winter grows old,” he thought, remembering River Jumper’s riddle. His mother had sent them. Perhaps she had even been the one who urged their old shaman, He Talks, to offer Chakliux as husband to Wolf-and-Raven’s daughter. Even if Day Woman had not realized Chakliux was her son, it would take only a whisper to the right person for someone in the Near River Village to discover who he was—a curse given back to the Near River People. She might have been the one who had Tsaani killed.

But why? Perhaps she needed to know she could still control the young men, could make them fight or die at her whim.

Until Gguzaakk’s death, he had been blind to the immensity of K’os’s depravity. Gguzaakk had tried to tell him, but when did a man listen to what his wife said about his mother? Those were women things, a foolishness that men did not trouble themselves to understand. Even after Gguzaakk and their son had died, he did not want to believe….

“My mother,” Chakliux said aloud, so that Snow Hawk cocked her head and looked up at him. “My mother.” He spat out the words, flinging them away.

“My mother is Day Woman,” he said to the night. “My people are the Near River People. I am a hunter of the Near River Village. Not animal-gift, not Dzuuggi.” He whispered it to the green light that spread undulating fingers into the north sky. Then he turned and said the same words south toward the Near River.

A hunter. What man needs to be more than that?

The night cold seeped into his joints, making his steps stiff and awkward. His knees groaned like trees in wind. He stopped to break the ice balls from between the pads of Snow Hawk’s feet. She sniffed at the front of his parka.

“Not yet,” he told the dog. “Not yet. Soon.”

Then he saw the thin edge of darkness against the snow, the trees that marked the winding path of the river. The sight gave strength to his legs, and he began to walk more quickly. Snow Hawk seemed to sense his excitement and broke into a run, but he reached out, grasped her tail, slowed her to a walk. In cold like this, he could not risk running.

They worked their way through the brush until they came to a path made by animals, a gentle incline to the river. The river ice was solid beneath his feet and covered with a hard crust of wind-polished snow. Chakliux removed his snowshoes. The snow was hard enough to hold him without them. He strapped the shoes on his back and began to walk. The ache of his otter foot eased. It was good to be on the river. Even Snow Hawk moved with more assurance, as though she had followed the river before, as though she knew where it led.

Chakliux looked up. In summer, at this time of the night, the sky would be light, but now the sun still hid its face, ashamed, the elders said, at allowing the winter to stay with The People for so long. By the time he reached the village, the sun would be up, traveling its curve in the sky. He had a long walk yet, but was close enough to hope that if Cousin River men were following, they would turn back rather than risk facing Near River hunters.

He did not see the overflow until it was too late. He heard it first—the brittle song of the ice beneath his feet. The water must have oozed up through a crack during the day to flood the ice, then froze to slush. A man who walked through it would get wet, and unless he acted quickly, his feet would freeze.

Chakliux had known hunters who had done such a thing, remembered their suffering. Usually, even if toes and heels were cut away, the rot brought a slow and painful death. Those who survived, like old Net Maker, were crippled, a burden to The People when they moved to fish camp or followed the caribou.

But sometimes the ice gave warning, as it had for him, a voice that would save a hunter if he listened well enough, if he kept walking and did not stop. He quickened his pace, setting his feet carefully and pushing Snow Hawk ahead. It was a large flow. Many were only a few steps across, but this one spread the width of the river.

Then, ahead, he saw the clear dark of solid ice where wind had swept away the snow. Ice—or a crack where water shone through. Ice, he told himself. Ice, not water, then took two quick steps and jumped.

Ice, solid, hard. Ice under his otter foot. But his good foot, the foot he had pushed with as he jumped, broke through on that thrust and was wet, soaked and cold.