The Storyteller Trilogy (99 page)

THE NEAR RIVER CAMP

For three days after the Near River men returned to their caribou camp, Anaay sent hunters out to search for game. He ordered the women to begin packing for the journey back to the winter village, then went into his tent, told Dii to keep the people away.

She brought him water and stew made with the delicate head meat of the few caribou they had managed to salvage from the hunt. He ate, but when she turned her eyes toward his bed, offering the comfort of her body, he refused her.

She scolded herself for her relief and tried to keep her thoughts away from those Cousin women who had left them. Awl and her husband had shamed the whole camp when they decided to stay with the Cousin River People. Most of the other women had also stayed, and their husbands had returned without them. With fewer Cousin in the camp, the Near River women were more blatant with their insults.

That night, sleeping alone in the tent she had once shared with K’os, Dii again dreamed of caribou. She woke in panic, sure they were about to trample their lean-tos. She crawled from the tent, lifted her eyes to the moon. It was no longer full, but gave light enough for her to pick out each tent and hearth. She stood and realized that the ground was not shaking. There was silence, save for the occasional call of a night animal.

Then she knew that the shaking had again been in her bones and that the caribou were east of the camp, a day’s walk.

“You are foolish,” she whispered. “Caribou do not sing to women.”

But still she could hear them above the silence of the night. The clicking of their legs was loud in her ears, the soft thunder of their hooves, the grunts of the bulls, soon to be in rut. When she shut her eyes, she could see them. For a long time under the moon, she knelt at the center of the camp and watched caribou.

THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

Red Leaf saw the woman coming into camp, and at first thought she was a hunter, so boldly did she walk, head up, with a fine spear in one hand, a large pack on her back. She was alone. What woman walked alone any distance? And she was tall, taller than most women. But when she drew close, Red Leaf could not mistake the face.

It was K’os, the Cousin River woman. Red Leaf had pitied her when she lost her husband in a fire during their visit to the Near River winter village. But they had made a poor choice in staying with the old woman Song. Elders could be careless with fires, and Song had kept a Sea Hunter lamp burning in her lodge. What foolishness!

So what was K’os doing here? She was one of those taken captive to the Near River Village. Hadn’t Aqamdax told her that? Then surely K’os would have heard what Red Leaf had done. Red Leaf turned away before the woman saw her face. Her chest felt as though someone were standing on it, and she could not breathe.

Now what choice did she have? Cen and the hunters would probably be gone until the next full moon. Perhaps beyond that. She would have to leave the village before then, but at least she would have time to pack food and warm clothing.

For a moment she saw her son Cries-loud’s face, his tears when she left the Cousin River Village. Her throat tightened. Two sons lost to her, and now a second husband.

Then she heard K’os call, a greeting strangers used with one another, something more appropriate from man to man.

Red Leaf did not turn. Instead she quickened her steps, walked toward Cen’s lodge. Though the snow that had almost cost her life had long ago melted, the ground was frozen hard under her feet, so that each of her steps jarred her bones.

Then a hand was on her shoulder, and she heard K’os say, “You did not hear my greeting?”

Red Leaf stopped but did not turn, kept her head down.

“Are the men hunting?” K’os asked.

“Yes, they hunt,” Red Leaf said quietly.

K’os rudely tilted her head down to try to look into Red Leaf’s face, and Red Leaf hoped the tunnel of her parka hood made shadows enough to distort her features.

“Is there an elder I might speak to? Someone who would be willing to give me shelter?” K’os asked. “Though the people in this village do not know me, they knew a brother of mine who lived here long ago. He and his wife are both dead now, I was told, but he was a fine hunter. Someone will remember him.”

Red Leaf pointed toward a lodge at the center of the village, then, with head still down, walked around K’os. She did not let herself breathe until she crawled into the entrance tunnel of Cen’s lodge.

THE COUSIN RIVER CAMP

Aqamdax watched Chakliux pace, and it seemed as though his nervousness seeped into her hands, making her fingers clumsy. She and Star were working together, cutting long strips of lacing from a caribou hide.

The excitement of the successful hunt had passed, and the men were bored, a few going out to look for moose or caribou, usually coming back with nothing more than a few white-fronted geese.

Women were tired; even the boys who had come on the hunt were growing whiny. Their small squabbles escalated into arguments between mothers, and sometimes even the uncles or fathers became involved. The people needed to know when they would move back to the winter village. Already two families had left, hauling away their shares of the meat and hides.

Aqamdax and Star finished their cutting, and Star began to pester Bird Caller and Owl Catcher, who were scraping a caribou hide. Aqamdax saw Chakliux slip outside through the brush fence. Night Man was sitting with Man Laughing, their heads bent over a game of throwing sticks. Night Man was losing; Aqamdax could tell by the scowl on his face. She left the pile of lacing and walked to the edge of the camp, trying to keep tents and people between herself and her husband. Then she wondered why she bothered. She did not care what he thought, and it was apparent he had no concern for her, gambling away their food and hides to Man Laughing.

She slipped through the opening in the brush fence, told herself that she had not come to talk to Chakliux, only to escape the noise and people of the camp.

She did not see Chakliux, was disgusted with herself at her disappointment, but a movement at the edge of the river drew her eyes. She walked that way, her breath catching at each step until she was sure it was him, not wolf or bear. He crouched in a growth of willow, their long thin leaves yellowed by the frost and too brittle now to gather and store in oil for winter food. She slipped through the trees, squatted beside him as she had done so often when they both lived in the Near River Village, when they had shared stories and were learning one another’s languages.

He was sitting on a rock, slightly higher than she was, and the cool, pale sun of autumn lit his face so it was nearly without shadow. The wind blew his hair back from his forehead, pulled strands from the dark braids.

She smiled, but he did not return that smile. “We will leave soon for the winter village?” she asked him.

He did not answer, and she felt the familiar unrest that had plagued her when she was a girl, as though her muscles fought against her skin. She wanted him to talk to her, to tell her why he had not even looked at her these past few days. Now that the caribou hunt was over, now that they would soon return to winter camp, did he regret his promise to take her as wife? Did he think there would be too many problems with Night Man and Star? Had he said he wanted her as wife only to help her through her wild grief at the death of her son?

The emptiness of that grief still lived with her, woke her in the night with dreams of Angax floating away across the Grandfather Lake. She closed her eyes against the burn of tears, pushed back her parka hood, and allowed herself to think only of the warmth of the sun. Soon enough that warmth would be gone. Already the ground under her feet was cold, warning that winter was close, but why think so far ahead? No one, not even the strongest hunter, could be sure of living through any winter.

She relaxed, content to be beside Chakliux, and when sleep had almost claimed her, she heard his voice, soft and deep, whisper, “What do I see? The winter grows old and in anger sends the wind.”

She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.

“The winter is not yet here,” she said.

He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile. “It’s not a riddle about winter,” he told her. “It’s about my mother.”

“What does it mean?” Aqamdax asked.

“It means that when she cannot control what is happening to her, she becomes angry and tries to bring destruction to anyone near.”

“You think she has stayed close, then, or perhaps walked back to our winter village?”

Chakliux shook his head. “If she was close, she would have done more than send the dog back to us. He had walked a long way. Of course, he was old and might have gotten lost.”

“But the Cousin People hunt here every year, do they not?” Aqamdax asked. “The dog had been here before.”

“Yes.”

“You think, then, that she cursed us?”

“The amulet was some kind of curse.”

“But Sok told us that you burned it and buried the ashes. How could she be stronger than that? If she has so much power, why did she stay slave to Fox Barking? If she has so much power, why did she leave when you told her to leave? Why did she take the old dog and not the golden-eye?”

Chakliux smiled again, and this time the smile lighted his eyes. He reached over to smooth back Aqamdax’s hair. “Why do I worry about her when I will soon have the wife I have wanted for so long?” he said.

At his words, Aqamdax had to blink back tears. Then once more they sat in silence, but Aqamdax’s thoughts were no longer dark visions of sorrow and death.

THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

T
HE OLD MAN CALLED
himself Tree Climber, a foolish name for someone who scarcely had the strength to sit upright. His eyes were rheumy and looked sore. That was a good thing, K’os thought; a healer could do something about that. She felt the resentment of the old man’s wife. The woman had offered K’os nothing, not even water, until her husband scolded her, made an insult that included her brother and dogs.

K’os had pulled off both inner and outer parkas as soon as she came into the lodge. She laid them over her lap, tucked her hands under their warm fur. She saw the woman—Sand Fly, her husband called her—smile at her gnarled hands, and K’os hated her for that. But Tree Climber’s eyes had stayed on the round, dark-nippled mounds that were K’os’s breasts, peaking over the furred parkas.

Neither Tree Climber nor Sand Fly asked the questions that most would have asked: Why did she travel alone? Where was her husband? Her village?

People had to be careful if a woman alone came to their lodge. What if she was an outcast, driven from a village for doing some terrible thing? But then, too, she might be an animal-woman, sometimes human, sometimes not. Who would choose to insult someone like that? Who would refuse to give her food or water, a safe place to stay?

It had been a long time since K’os had enjoyed the warmth of a winter lodge, a long time since she had eaten a bowl of hot food. Tree Climber, old as he was, deserved some politeness, even if his wife was rude. So, though he did not ask questions, K’os said, “You heard of the fighting between the Cousin and Near River Villages?”

“The trader Cen lives here now,” Tree Climber said. “He told us.”

In her surprise, K’os almost forgot what she had been going to say. Cen! She had thought he was dead. Then he had not been killed in the fighting. Coward! He must have deserted the Cousin River warriors when he saw they had no chance for victory against the Near Rivers.

“You know Cen?” the old man asked, and leaned forward, looking into her face through the smoke of the hearth fire that burned between them.

K’os almost told him she did not, but then realized she had to tell the truth. If Cen was in the village, then he would certainly tell the people that he knew her. “Yes, I know him, but I am surprised to know he lives here. I had been told he was dead.”

“He’s lived here through the summer,” the old man said, “though he was away some, trading. Now he is hunting caribou with other men from our village. They have been gone nearly a moon.”

“No,” his wife said, correcting him. “Only since the full moon.” Then she asked K’os, “Are you Near River or Cousin?”

“Cousin, taken as slave to the Near River,” K’os told her, and saw the glee in the old woman’s eyes.

“They did not treat me well, as you can see,” K’os said, raising her hands.

The old woman covered her mouth as though she had not already noticed K’os’s hands, had not rejoiced in their deformity. “They do not hurt as much as you might think,” K’os said. “I can sew and do all things a woman must do.” She kept her voice sweet, did not allow anger to leak into her words, but she slid her eyes toward the old man, raised her brows.

“So why are you here alone?” Sand Fly asked, leaning forward, speaking loudly, as though to draw K’os’s eyes from her husband.

“The Near River men decided they would hunt the Caribou River this fall.”

“What about the Cousin River People?” Tree Climber asked. “That is where they hunt, nae?”

K’os lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “What could they do? Most of their hunters are dead. They took what caribou they could and returned to their winter village. But one night, while the Near Rivers were still at their caribou camp, I escaped. I do not want to be a slave. I will make some man a good wife. That is why I’m in this village.”

“To find a husband?” the old woman said, and began to laugh. “What woman finds her own husband?”

K’os ignored her laughter and looked into the old man’s face. “Your eyes bother you?” she asked.

He looked down, and K’os knew he was embarrassed.

“I am a healer,” she said softly. “Allow me to stay in this lodge until your hunters return. I will do what I can for you. Besides…” She got up and pulled her heavy packs from the entrance tunnel, where she had left them. She untied the largest, took out several sticks of caribou meat. “I did not leave the Near River hunters without helping myself to their drying racks.”

Tree Climber arched his eyebrows at his wife, but she turned her back to him. He looked at K’os, at the meat in her hands. “You are welcome in my wife’s lodge,” he told her.