The Storyteller Trilogy (29 page)

“Thank you,” Aqamdax said, and realized that she had not thanked anyone for a long time—not since her mother had left.

“I do it as a favor for myself,” Qung answered. She swept one arm toward Aqamdax’s feet. “Now I do not have to put up with your wiggling.” She cackled, an old woman’s laugh, then stood and hobbled to the notched climbing log. She looked up expectantly.

Her hearing is not as bad as she pretends, Aqamdax thought, and reminded herself not to forget that. Then people were descending into the ulax, men followed by wives and children. Babies were slung on backs, toddlers on hips; young children climbed down cautiously; the older children jumped into the ulax from near the top of the log.

Qung sat down beside Aqamdax and bowed her head. Aqamdax, noticing, did the same. It was a wise thing to do, Aqamdax realized. The bowed head seemed to discourage anyone from starting a conversation, and it helped Aqamdax shift her thoughts back to the stories she would tell.

When Qung began the first story, Aqamdax raised her head, looked at the people. All of them had their eyes on Qung; each leaned forward as though ready to snatch up the words that came from Qung’s mouth. Would they look at Aqamdax like that, or would they hiss their disgust?

She found each of the chief’s wives. They sat behind the men but ahead of most other women. She found her cousin Kittiwake and Kittiwake’s little son. Her mother’s closest friend, Blue Fish, was there, and Blue Fish’s aunt, her mind nearly gone, her mouth always dribbling saliva.

Aqamdax shifted her eyes to the men, saw the chief, and Salmon, then the one who had been her father’s hunting partner, Afraid-of-his-hand, the man who could not save him from the sea.

Her toes began to wiggle, and she felt Qung squeeze her arm, pat the whale tooth shell Aqamdax still held in her hands.

Aqamdax rubbed her fingers over the shell, then took a long breath. Qung’s story continued as though nothing had happened, and Aqamdax bowed her head, made herself sit still and listen until she was caught into the words, the ancient carver Shuganan alive again in the hills and beaches she saw in her mind.

When the story was done, Qung reached over, pressed Aqamdax’s hand, smoothed gnarled fingers over the carving Aqamdax held.

“The woman Chagak was in the hills gathering berries when the warriors came,” Aqamdax began. She stopped to take a breath, her heart hammering in fear. Would the people get up and leave? She heard several women hiss. Again Qung pressed Aqamdax’s hand, and Aqamdax remembered what the old woman had told her. Keep speaking, do not stop. Continue the story.

Aqamdax opened her mouth, and the words came, halting at first, but then they flowed, beautiful words, honed through years of storytellers into something that carried the mind to far places and times long ago.

At first she spoke quietly, but as the story pulled the First Men’s thoughts together, it also seemed to strengthen her. When Chagak spoke to the otter, Aqamdax used the knowledge Qung had given her to throw her voice up and out so it sounded as though the otter called from the top of the ulax, as though the animal were sitting there above them.

Several children looked up at the roof hole, and a number of women hummed their approval. The quiet praise glowed in Aqamdax’s chest, filled her with joy. Her voice grew strong, and the story folded her into its magic like a sea otter folds itself into the kelp, safe. Safe.

THE WALRUS HUNTER VILLAGE

THE STORYTELLER SPOKE IN
a chant, using strands of knotted sinew stretched between quick fingers to illustrate his words, but the words were often spoken too quickly for Chakliux to understand, with allusions to other stories, to hunters and warriors that Chakliux did not know. When the people laughed, Chakliux could not join them, and when they nodded, adding comments of their own, agreeing or disagreeing with what the storyteller said, Chakliux felt like a child who understood only small pieces of the world around him.

He glanced across the circle of people that ringed the storyteller. They were outside, at the edge of the Walrus Hunters’ summer village, the women and their children beside the men. He saw Sok with his arms shamelessly tucked under the parka of Little Ears, the woman hiding her giggles behind both hands.

Little Ears’s father had already approached Sok, asking a bride price for the woman. Sok had made vague promises, offered possibilities, but Chakliux knew he wanted the woman only as long as they stayed with the Walrus Hunters. Sok had little enough chance to make Snow-in-her-hair his bride as second wife. How could he win her if she were to be third wife? And who would take the brunt of the Walrus Hunters’ anger when Sok left? Chakliux, of course. If Chakliux did not return to the Near River Village, then he would probably stay here, living with whatever mischief Sok left behind him.

Chakliux moved his eyes around the circle, away from his brother and Little Ears. There was Walrus Killer, the chief hunter, his two wives and their many children. Old Tusk, a hunter who was not old at all, sat next to them. He was helping Chakliux build his own iqyax. Together they had gathered driftwood for the frame. Old Tusk had been generous in trading Chakliux the ivory he needed to inlay at joints where wood rubbed wood. He had taught Chakliux how to mix red ocher into a paint which would protect the iqyax frame against rot and also show the sea animals that the iqyax was one of them, the wooden frame its bones, the lashings its tendons and sinews, the ocher its blood.

Old Tusk had offered to teach Chakliux how to paddle, had already taken Chakliux out in an old iqyak. Now Chakliux knew how to bend his body with the boat, to move his legs as though they were the iqyax’s own muscles, his paddle as though it were flippers and tail. There was much Chakliux had yet to learn, even the simple knowledge of tides and rips, clouds and winds, but they had come to the place where Chakliux must learn to be the iqyax’s true brother, and how could he be true brother unless he made the frame with his own hands, unless he built it to match the length and reach of his own legs and arms?

Now the frame was nearly done, but how could he complete an iqyax without a wife to sew the cover? Little Ears had offered, but Chakliux could not agree, knowing Sok’s intentions.

Chakliux turned his mind back to the storyteller. He tried to follow the words, to focus his thoughts on the strands of sinew the man fashioned first into the head of a fox, next into a series of knots he called birds. Chakliux wondered if he could learn to do such a thing to strengthen his own stories, to help the Near River men decipher his riddles.

It was long-sun celebration, a time of feasting and giving thanks, but Chakliux felt uneasy being in this village on this day. What were his own people doing? Who was telling the stories now that they had no Dzuuggi? Were sacred ways being honored? Or were spirits angered because The People had forgotten what should be done?

And what about these Walrus Hunters? They did not do things in proper ways. Chakliux knew how to honor the sun; he knew the correct chants, the ancient stories, and yet here he was sitting like a child listening to the Walrus storyteller. Should he raise his voice, tell them what should be said? Yet how could he without enough Walrus words to speak clearly and in a manner the people would understand?

The Walrus Hunters seemed strong, healthy. Their food caches were full; their women were happy. Perhaps what they did was right for their beach, their village, but was it right for Chakliux and Sok? Should they have had their own celebration, remembering the way of The People, rather than relying on Walrus traditions?

There were too many problems for him in the Walrus Hunter Village, but would his life be better with Blueberry—or living with K’os?

Then Chakliux chided himself: So, like an old woman you whine out your discomfort? You mourn when your belly is full and your hands are busy, when good people are doing what they can to help you. Be still. I do not want to hear your complaints. You are not a child.

He listened again to the storyteller, watched the man’s charmed fingers change his bird knots into the long-whiskered face of an otter. The storyteller held the otter up so all could see, then he turned to smile at Chakliux, the otter-man who had come to live among them.

THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE

Aqamdax flinched from Salmon’s quivering fingers as he stroked her arm. At least his wives had left the ulax and did not see him. She wondered at herself. Why would something that had brought her pleasure yesterday now make her shudder? He was the same man. Of all the hunters, he was the only one who would stay in her sleeping place and hold her after he was satisfied.

Somehow the stories had filled her, made her feel as though she was complete, as though she did not need anyone to protect her against the night.

“No, Salmon,” she said, but tried to keep the sharpness from her voice. Why offend the man? What if by tomorrow the stories were gone and again she was alone? She might need Salmon to hold her so she would not fly up into the dark skies and lose herself in the vast emptiness between earth and stars.

“I am tired,” she said softly. “The people whose stories I told seemed to have taken a part of my spirit, so there is only enough left to guide me into dreams.”

Salmon looked puzzled, but Aqamdax offered no other explanation. How could she? The stories not only filled her, but drew her soul into places she had never been before. It would seem like a betrayal to take a man who was not husband into her sleeping place. At least tonight it would seem so. Tomorrow, who could say?

Salmon left, as did other men who heard what she told him. After the storytelling many wanted to share her bed, some who had never come to her before, others who seldom came. Finally the last of the men was gone and there were only Qung and Aqamdax.

The old woman smiled. “You did well,” she said.

Aqamdax, not used to compliments, lowered her head, unsure how to answer.

Qung lifted her hand toward the empty ulax. “No men tonight?” she asked.

“Not tonight.”

Qung raised her eyebrows. Aqamdax shrugged, and Qung turned toward her sleeping place. She was muttering, but then spoke louder. “Perhaps those chief’s wives did not lie,” the old woman said. “Perhaps they did dream.”

Aqamdax stood for a moment in the empty ulax, imagined that the people were still there. With her voice and her words, she had taken them from this ulax to places none of them had ever been. She had made them warriors and elders, children and traders. They had become Whale Hunters, and Walrus men, even faraway River People. She had done that.

She shook her head in disbelief. With only the words of her mouth, she had done that.

THE WALRUS HUNTER VILLAGE

The people of the Walrus Hunter Village told stories through the night, waiting until the sun showed its face in the morning. Then again they feasted, celebrating the light. Sok and Chakliux sat watching as the Walrus men helped themselves to the dried fish and walrus meat heaped on woven mats laid near the outdoor cooking hearths.

Sok and Chakliux did not eat until all the village elders and hunters were served, but when the boys began to bring their bowls, Chakliux and Sok went also. An old woman came to them with a bone dipping ladle and filled Sok’s bowl. He grunted at her, then picked up several pieces of dried fish, laid them across the bowl, so the steam rising from the broth would soften the flesh.

Chakliux waited, assuming the woman would bring broth for him as well, but she pulled him with her toward a boiling bag as though he were a child. She was a tiny woman, her skin dark with age, but her eyes were bright, and she was as lean and straight as a young girl.

“Even before you came, I heard stories about you,” she said, and Chakliux realized that she spoke the River language. Her words, though clipped too short by a tongue accustomed to speaking Walrus, were clear.

“You speak my language,” Chakliux said.

“And what is so difficult about that?” she asked. “Even small children speak the River language, do they not?” She laughed, and Chakliux laughed with her.

“I am called Tutaqagiisix.”

He tried to repeat the name, but the sounds wrapped themselves into a ball in his throat and came out wrong.

Again she laughed. “The children call me Tut. I am of the First Men, brought here to this village long ago as bride to a Walrus Hunter. I have kept my First Men name, though my husband was not happy I did so. It is a sign of my gift, given me as a child. I learn to speak languages easily. I hear the sounds and soon understand.
Tutaqagiisix
means ‘hearing.’”

She dipped her ladle deep into a boiling bag, brought it out full of meat and small bones. “Seal flipper bones,” she said, still speaking the River language. “They put themselves into my ladle to remind me what I must say to you.” She pulled one of the bones from the ladle. She bit off one of the ends, softened by boiling, and sucked. Oil and broth dripped to her chin and she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, then dumped the remaining meat and bones from her ladle into Chakliux’s bowl.

“You also have a gift.” She looked down at his caribouskin boots. “Dzuuggi, animal-gift.”

Chakliux was surprised by her words. He and Sok had told few of his past. They were only hunters, trading, trying to earn a bride price for a wife, trying to find strong dogs for the River People.

As though she could hear his thoughts, the old woman said, “Remember my name. I hear much. You are otter, they say.”

“Some say I am otter. Others say I am not.”

“What do you say?”

Chakliux looked away from the woman. Where was Sok? Why was he alone with this old woman and her many questions?

She looked up at him like a child, waiting for his answer, but what could he say when he did not know himself what he was? Dzuuggi, yes, but otter? Animal-gift?

“I am Dzuuggi, trained as storyteller, and to know the many traditions of our people, the memories of wars, hard winters and good hunts.”

Tut again raised the bone to her mouth, sucked, then looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “And animal-gift?”