The Storyteller Trilogy (77 page)

He lifted his head to gesture toward Day Woman’s sleeping mats. “She must have been attacked when she was asleep. Her bed is full of blood.”

“It was not long ago or she would be dead,” Ligige’ said, then handed a packet of fresh bedstraw plants to Star. “Warm these in a cilt’ogho of water. Leave the plants whole. Do not boil them.”

Star took the bedstraw, but only stared at it. In exasperation, Ligige’ grabbed the plants from her, flipped aside the inner doorflap. The old woman Twisted Stalk was on her hands and knees in the entrance tunnel. “Here,” Ligige’ said, handing her the plants. “Warm these in water. Do it now.”

She felt the gentle pressure of Chakliux’s hand on her arm and knew he was telling her to be calm.

How could she be calm when her medicines were not enough to save Day Woman, and what good were her prayers? She had done little in her life to earn the power she needed to prevail against such terrible injuries. She was like a child, and the knowledge of her helplessness made her angry.

Ligige’ looked up at Chakliux, her tears so heavy they were like stones resting against her eyes. “I cannot save her,” she told him. But she went back into the lodge, tried to stop what little blood was left in Day Woman’s body from leaking out onto the floor.

THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

“Gull Beak,” K’os called.

It was morning, but not so early that the old woman should still be asleep. Although what did Gull Beak have to do all day except sew? Why not be lazy?

“I brought you wood,” K’os called, and dropped the armful of windfall branches beside Gull Beak’s lodge. It was a good lodge, well-made, though K’os could see that the caribou hides were beginning to wear at the seams.

K’os picked up a branch and scratched at the lodge walls.

“You, Slave! What do you want?”

She turned and saw Gull Beak walking toward her.

“You think I would still be asleep this late in the day? A wise woman has more to do than sleep.”

K’os set her mouth in anger but said nothing. If Gull Beak was so wise, why did she speak to K’os in such a way? Even though K’os was a slave, she had power enough to take Gull Beak’s life.

“I came to bring you wood,” K’os said in a sweet voice, and lowered her eyes as though she spoke in respect.

Gull Beak stopped at the heap of branches. “Who told you to do this?” she asked. “My husband?”

She was a homely woman, tall and too thin, with large ears, small eyes. Surely her true name was not Gull Beak. Who would choose to name herself for a bird as lazy as a gull? But K’os could understand how she could be given the name by others. Her nose was sharp and long like the bill of a bird, and her voice so loud it carried like a gull’s above the sounds of the village.

“No one told me. Even a slave has time to help others.”

Gull Beak began to laugh. “But no slave would. I am not stupid. I know how it is with the Cousin River slaves. You do not have enough to eat. The fur on your parka is wearing thin and will not be good enough to get you through the winter. If no one made you do this, then why did you?”

K’os narrowed her eyes. Gull Beak was wiser than she had thought—who would believe a woman with any wisdom at all would be wife to Fox Barking?

“In my village, I was a healer,” K’os told her. “I had everything I wanted. My husband was chief hunter. I even had a slave myself, though I took pity on her and arranged that she should become a wife. I do not want to be a slave forever.”

“You do not have to tell me what you were. I know. Everyone knows. We remember your visit to our village and how your husband died in a lodge fire while you were here. How can you hope to become wife when the men saw your husband’s bad luck? Do you think any hunter in this village will risk taking you? Most people think Black Mouth is foolish enough to have you as slave.”

“Has anything terrible happened to Black Mouth?” K’os asked. “Has his hunting been bad? Have his children grown ill? Is his wife dead? No. His hunting skills have increased, two moons ago his wife delivered a strong son, and each of his children is well.”

Gull Beak snorted. “If you are so lucky, why does Black Mouth not marry you himself?”

“Two Fist does not want him to take a second wife.”

Gull Beak shrugged. She kept a hearth outside her lodge, as though she were in a fish camp. She picked up several branches, laid them over the coals and tucked in a bit of birchbark she took from a pouch at her waist. Soon flames were licking into the branches. She adjusted a tripod over the fire and hung a cooking bag, crawled into her lodge and came back with a bladder of water. She dumped the water into the bag.

“Stay for a little while,” she said to K’os. “The wood has earned you something to eat. I took a fine fat duck yesterday with my bola, and my husband was given some moose. Together they make a good stew.”

K’os squatted beside the hearth, but Gull Beak made a rude gesture with her hand and said, “I am not your slave. Do not expect me to do all the work. Take some of the wood you brought and feed the fire. Then tell me why you came.”

“In hopes of a good meal,” K’os told her as she chose branches from the woodpile.

“You are a woman who thinks further than her belly,” Gull Beak said, and K’os smiled. Perhaps she liked Gull Beak.

“Since I was a child, all things have been given to me,” K’os said. “Now, life is not easy. What good is a woman who is slave? The first hard winter, she is given to the wind so her food can be eaten by someone else. But I have been trained as a healer, and I have noticed that there is no healer in this village.”

“Blue Flower,” Gull Beak said. She gave a bowl to K’os, then filled her own and gestured toward the boiling bag. “Do not take too much. My husband will want some later.”

K’os had been watching Gull Beak, knew how seldom Fox Barking came to the woman’s lodge, but if he had given her moose meat the day before, perhaps he would expect to share some of her stew. She filled her bowl only half full, though she was hungry and her body craved fat.

“Blue Flower is not a healer,” K’os said.

Gull Beak flicked her fingers into the wind. “Surely you did not come here just to tell me that.”

“I want to be the healer in this village.”

Gull Beak laughed. “You think they will trust you, a slave from the Cousin River People? You think they will take your medicines? You could kill as easily as heal.”

“That is why I have come to you.”

Gull Beak tilted her head, arched an eyebrow.

“What if I taught you the medicines, and you gave them to the people?”

“Why would you do that?”

“With the trade goods you got in exchange, you would buy me from Black Mouth. I would work with you as healer until the people began to trust me. Then perhaps there would be some hunter who wanted me as wife, once he sees I do not carry bad luck.”

“How do I know I can trust your medicines? What if you do this only to get revenge?”

“I will take every medicine myself before we give it to anyone.”

Gull Beak raised her bowl of meat and ate until the bowl was empty.

When she finished, she smacked her lips in appreciation, then said, “I have food. I have a husband. I am honored in this village for the parkas I make. I do not want to be a healer.”

“I have seen your parkas,” K’os said. “They are beautiful. It is sad that you do not have a slave. Then you would not have to work so hard to keep traplines and catch salmon. You would have more time to sew.”

K’os ate the last of her meat, stood and politely thanked Gull Beak for the food. “I am going now,” she said in the traditional River farewell. “Two Fist will be wondering where I am.” And as she left, K’os said, “It is good at least that your husband is not a lazy man. It is good that Fox Barking always brings you much meat.”

She walked away with a smile on her face.

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

After Day Woman died, Sok went to Red Leaf’s birth lodge. She had killed before. What would stop her from killing again? How better to get revenge than to kill Sok’s mother?

He called to her, and when there was no answer, he pulled aside the doorflap, saw Cries-loud alone inside, the boy curled into a tight ball. Sok sighed his relief when, at his touch, his son sprang to his feet.

“She is gone, and she took our sister,” Cries-loud said before Sok could speak. “She left during the night. I brought her food and the baby. I don’t care what you do to me. I could not let you kill my mother.”

Sok closed his eyes. Red Leaf. The woman had caused him more sorrow than anyone should have to bear. She had killed his grandfather, now had stolen his daughter, had probably killed his mother as well. Who else would do such a thing?

Had Red Leaf taken no thought of the curse she had put on the boy, his oldest living son? Sleeping in this lodge, a place drenched in birth blood, could draw away his hunting powers for his whole life. And Sok was here, too, cursing himself, just as his son had been cursed.

“Come with me. We should not be here,” he told Cries-loud. He took the boy to Star’s lodge, to his brother Chakliux. Who else was wiser? Who would better know what to do?

THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

K
’OS LEARNED OF OLD
Vole’s ailment only by good fortune. She was sitting outside Two Fist’s lodge splitting a chunk of white whale sinew into strands for thread. Two Fist had bought the sinew from a trader, boasted to the other women of how well-sewn her husband’s boots and parka would be, bound at each seam with strong beluga sinew. But she was not the one who had to tease out the stubborn strands, so much more difficult to split for twisting than caribou sinew.

What did it matter? K’os told herself. In payment for her hard work, she had managed to sneak away a bit of lynx fur from a pelt, only a small piece cut from the belly edge, but enough for her needs. She had tucked it away with the other treasures she had already accumulated—the eye of a fresh-killed fox, now dried so it was only a brittle circle, thin as a leaf; the beak from a kingfisher and the breast skin, still feathered, of a flycatcher.

When she heard Vole coming down the path, K’os did not look up from her work. One advantage in being a slave was that most people ignored her. But suddenly Vole began to wail. Holding a hand under her belly, she crouched for a moment in the path, sobbing like a child. K’os continued to sew, and finally two other women came by, helped Vole to her feet and guided her back to her lodge, but not before K’os had heard the old woman’s lamentations about blood in her urine, pain and cramps beneath her belly.

Later, when K’os had finished splitting the sinew and Two Fist had sent her to help at the fish weir, she took time to walk past Gull Beak’s tent, to stop and call quietly. When Gull Beak came out, K’os leaned close to her and whispered, “Vole is sick.”

“Do you have medicine that will help her?”

K’os nodded.

“I will arrange for you to come to my lodge tonight, after the men have eaten.”

K’os walked to the Near River and waded into the water. She gritted her teeth against the cold and lowered her small net. She stood still until the fish thought her legs were nothing more than logs. Finally a salmon swam near, and in one quick movement she lifted the net, bringing the fish up from the water, then heaved it to the shore, where boys were waiting with clubs.

She lowered her net again, and to take her mind from the bone-aching cold of the water, began to plan what she would do to the fine parka Gull Beak was making for Fox Barking. She had told K’os that it would have decorations made in sacred symbols. Circles with eagle feathers at his shoulders, so his vision would be clear; beaver ears sewn to each side of the hood to strengthen his hearing; a strip of fishskin just above the hem ruff to protect him from strange spirits when he traveled far from their village. Across the chest she would sew a band of raven beaks she had bought in trade. Each time Fox Barking wore the parka, the beaks would catch the sun and the feathers would dance in the wind.

But when K’os added her amulets and curses, every time he wore that parka, the beaks would cry to the spirits: Here is a man who steals the joy of young women. The eagle feathers would say: Beware of an elder who has built his power on death and lies.

THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

Yaa made herself small in the back corner of Star’s lodge and tried to think only of her sewing. It was not polite to listen to others’ conversations, but Ligige’’s words carried loud through the caribou hide walls. And though Chakliux’s voice was not as strident, it was a storyteller’s voice and, even when he spoke softly, seemed to find its way into a listener’s ears. Yaa thought they must be standing outside, at the back of the lodge.

“You are sure?” Chakliux asked, and Yaa could hear the exasperation in

Ligige’’s words as she said once more, “I am sure. It was Red Leaf. I saw Ghaden’s wounds after she attacked him. I myself helped prepare my own brother’s body for death rites after she—” Ligige’’s voice broke, and for a moment Yaa heard nothing. Then again Chakliux spoke.

“Then, she had a reason for killing, as foolish as that reason might have seemed to us. But why would she kill my mother?”

“To escape!” Ligige’ said.

“So why go to Day Woman’s lodge? Why not just leave the village? If she attacked my mother in her bed, then surely it wasn’t because Day Woman was trying to prevent her escape.”

“Perhaps there was something in the lodge that Red Leaf wanted,” Ligige’ said. “Perhaps she went to steal something and Day Woman woke up.”

“That could be—”

Their voices were fading and Yaa realized that they must be walking away from the lodge even as they spoke. She set down her sewing and looked over at Long Eyes. The old woman was asleep, muttering long strings of words, too jumbled for Yaa to understand. In her dreaming, Long Eyes flung away her rabbit skin blanket, and Yaa went over to cover her again.

“You are safe,” Yaa said, and smoothed back Long Eyes’s hair. She crooned a soft song and thought about Red Leaf. How strange that a woman could live among them like an ordinary person and then become a killer. What would make someone do that?