PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
PART TWO
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
PART THREE
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-one
Chapter Sixty-two
Chapter Sixty-three
Chapter Sixty-four
Chapter Sixty-five
Chapter Sixty-six
Author’s Notes
Character List
Glossary of Native American Words
Image Gallery
Pharmacognosia
Acknowledgments
Preview: Call Down the Stars
A Biography of Sue Harrison
610 B.C.
THE OLD WOMAN LOOKED down at the child. The boy’s eyes were shining, alert. She was tired, but how often did a storyteller have the pleasure of passing her tales to a child like this? How often was a Dzuuggi, a child destined to be a storyteller, born to the People? And this one was surely Dzuuggi. She had heard his voice in her dreams even when his mother carried him in her womb.
The old woman had also been chosen Dzuuggi, taught as a child the histories of the River People, but now that knowledge was a burden—so many words to be remembered. Each day as she told the stories to the boy, she felt their weight lift from her, and each day she felt lighter and stronger as though her old bones would straighten, and she would walk once more with firm steps.
She cupped a wooden bowl of willow bark tea in her hands. She raised the tea to her mouth and sipped. The bowl had darkened with age, the wood rich from the many teas it had held, the many stories it had heard.
Be like this bowl, small Dzuuggi, the old woman thought, and she closed her eyes, lifted her head so those thoughts would climb like a prayer. Be like this cup. Hold much, give much, and become rich with what is within you.
“So then, child,” she began, “you remember those two storytellers, Aqamdax and Chakliux?”
The boy nodded, whispered the names.
“You do not hear many stories about storytellers; their voices you hear, but only that. So this is something unusual.” The old woman paused and stared into the smoke of the hearth fire at the center of her lodge. The wood was still peaked high, a feast for the burning mouth that would finally consume what she had offered. She reached into the smoke, brought a cupped hand to her face as though to pull words from the flames.
“And you remember that Chakliux was from the River People, just like we are?” she asked. “You remember that he was also chosen as Dzuuggi like you?” Though her words were questions, she did not give him time to answer; instead she went on: “And the woman Aqamdax, she was what?”
“Sea Hunter, First Men,” the boy said.
The old woman nodded.
“Not River,” said the boy.
“Not River, but not so different from us. We share their blood, at least some of us do.” She lifted one finger, pressed it to the wrinkles that spread like a fan between her eyes. “You remember Chakliux had a little Sea Hunter blood, though he was River. I told you about his foot.”
She pulled off one of her furred lodge boots. The leather sole, softened by wear, dark from hearth fire smoke, had worn thin under her toes. She used one hand to press the side of her foot to the floor.
“Curled on edge, it was,” she said, “like an otter’s foot when he paddles in the water and his toes were webbed on both feet. Like otter toes.” She rubbed her bare foot, rubbed and hummed a tuneless song, then pulled on her boot.
“So now perhaps I will listen,” she said, “and you will tell me a little about Chakliux the Dzuuggi.”
The boy straightened his shoulders and began to speak in a small, soft voice. The old woman interrupted him. “You think anyone will listen to you if you speak like that?” She pressed her hands into the arch under her rib cage. “From here, your words must come from here.” She puffed out her chest with air, and the boy did the same. “Now,” she said, and he spoke again, this time much louder.
“Good,” said the old woman. “Now I can tell that the words come from your heart.”
“When he was a baby,” said the boy, “Chakliux was left on the Grandfather Rock to die.”
“’Ih?” the old woman said, as if she were listening to an actual storytelling, and the Dzuuggi’s words had surprised her. “A Dzuuggi left to die?”
“It is true,” the boy said. “His grandfather left him, because of the foot. He did not see it as otter, but only as a curse, and he left Chakliux. But Chakliux did not die. The woman K’os came and found him there. She took him home, and he became her son. But she hated him. She hated everyone else, too, after men took her by force on the Grandfather Rock and killed the spirits of her unborn children. She thought Chakliux was a gift to make up for what had happened.
“When Chakliux grew up, she was jealous of him because he was wise, and because he was chosen to be Dzuuggi. She even killed his wife and baby.”
“They must have driven her from the village after she did that,” the old woman said.
The boy leaned toward the old woman and lowered his voice to a whisper. “No, she did it secretly with poison, and so everyone thought they died from sickness.”
“You know that she was the one who started the war between the Near River and Cousin River Villages,” the old woman said. “Of all the things I have taught you, there is nothing more important than the remembrance of that war. Though it was long ago, much changed because of the fighting. So many of the River People died, and villages that had been strong grew weak.”
Her throat sounded full, as if she would cry, but when the boy looked into her eyes, he saw that they were hard and dry. She shook her fist at the hearth fire, and he wondered if the smoke could carry her anger back through the years to those foolish people.
“The Near River and Cousin People fought against each other,” she said. “They were related—cousins, the men and women in those two villages—but still they fought.”
“Why?” the boy asked.
“No good reason,” the old woman told him. “Most fighting starts for no good reason. That is why we have Dzuuggi’s—to remind us of our foolishness, so we will not do the same things again.”
“Chakliux tried to stop the fighting.”
“Yes, he did, but they fought anyway.”
“And the Near River People won,” the boy said.
“Think about that for a moment,” said the old woman. “Did anyone truly win? Remember all the lives lost, and the hard winters both villages suffered because so many of their men had died.” The old woman sighed and shook her head. She looked at the boy and said, “Tell me about K’os.”
“She lived in the Cousin River Village and she tricked the people there,” he said. “When she realized that her people were too weak to win the war, she helped the Near River men kill the boys and the strongest women, then she surrendered the rest. But the Near Rivers didn’t trust her, so she was made a slave.”
“Aaa,” said the old woman. “I understand.” She sat quietly for a time, then said, “I told you about Aqamdax, how she left her people and came to the River People as wife of the hunter Sok, Chakliux’s brother. Sok did not want her and threw her away.”
She lifted her finger again and shook it as if in warning. “I will tell you this, child. Sometime you may hear people say since Aqamdax was Sea Hunter, what she did is not important to us. But anyone who tells you that is a fool. You see, each story is like a small fire, giving light and warmth. Why do you think every village has more than one hearth?”
The boy lifted his hands, fingers spread. “With only one,” he said, “there would be too much darkness.”
“For a child, you are very wise,” the old woman told him. “So tell me a little about Aqamdax.”
“Chakliux and Aqamdax shared a great love. Chakliux wanted to marry her, but she was sold as a slave to K’os. Later the hunter Night Man bought her to be his wife. Chakliux found out where she was, and when the fighting was over, he went to live with the Cousin River People so he could be near Aqamdax. He married Night Man’s sister to be as close to her as possible.”
The old woman smiled. “You remember well,” she told the boy. She drank a large swallow of her willow tea, then nodded at the water bladder that hung from the lodge poles over their heads. The boy stood and untied the bladder. He handed it to her, and she squeezed water into her cup. She dipped her fingers into the water and sprinkled a few drops over the fire. She drank again, and said, “I think you are ready to learn what happened next. Listen:”
LATE SUMMER 6458 B.C.
TWISTED STALK, WIDOW OF THE COUSIN RIVER PEOPLE:
Sometimes when I wake in the morning, I do not know where I am. How could this place be our village? Where are our hunters, our young women?
The children cry in hunger; the old women no longer greet the day in gladness. Mourning songs fill the air until it is as dark as soot. At night when I close my eyes to sleep, I see our lodges burning. I see the bones of my sons and grandsons dishonored by our enemies.
I remember those days when the Near River and Cousin River Peoples were one, when together we celebrated the great hunters who are grandfathers to both villages.
How did anger make us forget that bond? How did hatred steal into our hearts and capture our souls?
I am afraid for those not yet born. What is our gift to them? The pride of who we are, the joy and beauty of this earth? No, not when we pass down our enmity as heritage, mother to daughter, father to son.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
THE OLD WOMEN PREPARED a separate boiling bag of meat and broth for those three wives in the village who were pregnant: Aqamdax, Star and Red Leaf. Parts of the caribou were taboo for them. The flesh and bones of the neck would cause clumsiness in their unborn children, and the front legs and the meat of the lower jaw and lips must be saved for the old men.
Aqamdax knew her baby was a boy. She hid her laughter when other women told her, since she carried the child low, it was a girl. Did she not hear his whispers, the songs he sang into her dreams? Of course it was a boy. She had known since her fourth moon of pregnancy, when he had first begun moving within her belly.
During the past spring, with only six hunters left in their village after the fighting, the men had been unable to take all the caribou they needed, but at least they had killed enough to stave off their hunger. The women had dried the meat, did not allow one scrap to go to waste. The hides, riddled by the breathing holes of warble fly larvae, were useless for clothing and nearly impossible to scrape, but with their lodges burned and their caches looted, how could the women throw those hides away?
Now at the end of summer, Chakliux and his older brother Sok had taken a fine, fat caribou bull. For one night, the people pushed away their anger, their helplessness, and celebrated with a feast.
As Aqamdax ate, she hummed songs to her baby, told him to grow strong like the caribou. Some of her singing was in the River tradition of her husband’s people. But she had learned most of her songs from her own people, the First Men who lived beside the great North Sea.
The songs kept her mind busy, kept her thoughts on her child and on her husband, away from the hunter Chakliux, honored as Dzuuggi—storyteller—of this village. He was young but wise, given as gift, the people said, from the otters. Who could not see that he carried otter blood, with his left foot bent on edge, his toes webbed?
When everyone had finished eating, and the women had banked the cooking fires into smoke smudges to drive away those night insects that still lingered at the end of summer, then Chakliux and Sok told the story of the hunt.
Aqamdax squatted on her haunches, her legs spread to accommodate her growing belly. She caught sight of her husband, Night Man, watching her, and so was careful not to allow her eyes to linger too long on Chakliux.
Be grateful for Night Man, Aqamdax told herself. Be thankful you are wife and no longer slave. Find joy in the child he has given you, and honor your husband.
She sat with her brother, Ghaden, a boy of five summers, on her right side, Ghaden’s stepsister, Yaa, on her left. Both children had lost their parents and had been adopted by Chakliux’s wife, Star. But Aqamdax was the one who watched over them, made their clothing, prepared their food. Star had taken them on a whim, like a child who chooses to raise a baby fox. Who could trust her to care for two children?
Yaa snuggled close to Aqamdax, but Ghaden was standing, watching with wide eyes as Sok and Chakliux acted out their hunt.
Chakliux’s words carried pictures into her mind, and Aqamdax could see the caribou, the white bands that streaked his sides blending with the lights and shadows of the dwarf birches where he stood; tatters of blood-rich skin hanging from his antlers, the bone-hard tines stained dark as bearberry leaves, autumn red.
Then Star pressed herself between Ghaden and Aqamdax, breaking into that vision of caribou. She tilted her chin up as though to challenge Aqamdax, and pulled Ghaden into her lap.
He struggled against her, and both began to squabble, first in quiet words, then with rising wails. Aqamdax leaned forward, caught her brother’s eye and raised her fingers to her mouth in a sign for silence. Ghaden pursed his lips in anger but turned back to watch the men.
Star gave Aqamdax a smug smile, then leaned close to whisper, “In only a few moons I will have two sons.” She glanced down at Aqamdax’s belly. “At best you will have only one.”
Aqamdax closed her eyes to Star’s foolishness and did not answer. She could only pity Chakliux’s child, asleep in the hard cradle of Star’s bones.
In one evening of feasting, the caribou was gone, save for the broth that could still be boiled from skull and ribs. The words and songs of the hunters’ stories drifted up until the night air thinned them like smoke, and they floated above the sleeping village, until the people called them back through their dreams.
Aqamdax slept, warm in her hare fur blankets on the women’s side of Star’s lodge. Beside her, old Long Eyes slept. Long Eyes was Star and Night Man’s mother, and since her husband’s death seemed more child than woman, as though her spirit had followed her husband into the world of the dead. Often she stayed awake through the night, moaning strange songs, but a full belly had lulled her into sleep. Aqamdax’s thoughts grew into pictures, and she was with her husband, Night Man, when Chakliux and Sok brought their caribou into the village. Night Man was scowling, his useless arm bound to his body with strips of caribou hide.
Aqamdax kept her eyes from Chakliux. Night Man was watching her, as he always did when Chakliux was near. She turned her head to look at her husband, smiled and leaned toward him until her hip touched his. There were many small ways to show a husband respect, ways that would not embarrass him in front of other men.
Aqamdax’s dreams changed to remembrances of her life as a child, when she had lived with the First Men near the great North Sea. Her father was still alive, and he picked her up, his hands around her waist. Suddenly he was squeezing her, and she could not breathe. She cried for him to stop, then looked down and saw that he was dead, his skin dark, his lips as blue as they had been when he had drowned. She heard her mother wail out in a terrible mourning cry, and her voice was so loud that it woke Aqamdax.
Star and Yaa were beside her.
“You screamed,” Yaa said. “What’s the matter?”
Aqamdax shook her head, tried to break the last threads that bound her into sleep. “Just a dream,” she said, then gasped as the pain took her again, circling her hips and pressing into her bones.
Star drew away, her hands over the small mound that was her baby. “Get her out of here,” she told Yaa. “Her child might call mine to come.”
Star backed into the far side of the lodge, paying no heed that she walked over her husband’s bed to get there.
Chakliux raised up on one elbow, looked first at his wife, then at Aqamdax. “What is wrong?” he asked.
Star pointed rudely with her thumbs. “She, her baby. It is wanting to be born.”
Chakliux wrapped a sleeping robe around his shoulders and crept to Night Man. Chakliux shook him until he was awake. “Your wife’s child is trying to be born,” Chakliux said. “I will go get my aunt.”
The pain eased, and Aqamdax was able to speak. “It is early. The baby should not come for more than a moon,” she said.
“Go to your birth lodge. I will bring Ligige’,” said Chakliux.
“I have no birth lodge.”
What woman would prepare her lodge a full moon before delivery? Why tempt a child to come into the world when he is not strong enough to survive?
“Go to Red Leaf’s. Hers is ready, is it not?”
Aqamdax nodded. Another pain took her, and she squeezed her eyes shut until it passed. She did not want to go to Red Leaf’s lodge, but how could she object? She could not stay here, cursing the men and their weapons, and perhaps Star’s unborn baby. Red Leaf had killed Aqamdax’s mother and Chakliux’s grandfather. She had tried to kill Ghaden. How could Aqamdax use a birth lodge made by a woman whose heart was stained with blood?
With Yaa’s help, Aqamdax managed to stumble from the lodge, but just outside the entrance tunnel, she felt the beginning of another pain. She squatted on her haunches, and before the pain tore away her breath, told Yaa to go back and get the cradleboard she had made and the hare furs she had prepared.
Yaa left her, and just as the pain eased, she returned with the cradleboard and furs. She helped Aqamdax to her feet, then they walked to the edge of the village.
When they reached the isolated place where Red Leaf had made her birth lodge, Aqamdax could see it was lit from within. Chakliux must have already brought Ligige’ to the lodge, but how could the old woman have started a fire so quickly?
Someone called. Chakliux, Aqamdax thought, and she was surprised. Most men stayed as far as possible from a woman about to deliver a child. A woman’s power was great at such times, and even though she meant no harm, that power could destroy a man’s hunting luck.
“I cannot find Ligige’,” Chakliux said.
The old woman popped her head out of the birth lodge. “Someone else wants me?” she asked. Then, seeing Aqamdax, she frowned. “You, too?”
A pain took her, so Aqamdax could do no more than crouch and brace herself, but she listened as Yaa and Ligige’ spoke.
“I have Red Leaf here,” Ligige’ said. “It will be some time before her baby is born. When did Aqamdax’s pains begin?”
“Only a little while ago,” Yaa said, “but they are close together, one pain chasing another.”
“That happens sometimes when a baby comes early,” Ligige’ told her. “We cannot have both women in the same lodge. One child’s death could curse the other’s birth.”
Ligige’’s words pierced Aqamdax’s heart. How could the woman speak so lightly of the child Aqamdax had grown to love more than her own life?
“Take her to my lodge,” Ligige’ said. “I will come as soon as I can.” She ducked her head back inside, but then she peeked out again. “On your way, wake Day Woman and tell her to come here. She will not want to, but remind her that Red Leaf’s child also belongs to her son Sok.”
Chakliux saw Yaa leave his mother’s lodge, saw his mother walk the path to the birth hut. Aqamdax stopped once, stooped over in pain, then continued to Ligige’’s lodge and slipped inside. Light from the hearth fire soon glowed through the lodge walls, and Chakliux’s thoughts turned to his first wife, Gguzaakk.
For a long time after her death, Chakliux could find no reason to live save his duties as Dzuuggi and his desire to keep peace between the Cousin and Near River Peoples, but then he had decided to live in the Near River Village and Aqamdax had come into his life.
She was a storyteller, trained in the traditions of the First Men, and Chakliux had grown to love her, had decided to ask her to be his wife. What could be better than two storytellers living together, learning from one another? But the trader Cen had stolen Aqamdax, taken her to the Cousin River Village and sold her as a slave. Before Chakliux could find where Cen had taken her, Night Man bought Aqamdax as wife, and now Aqamdax labored to deliver Night Man’s child.
Chakliux shook his head. Night Man was as foolish as his sister Star. He was worried about whether Aqamdax’s child belonged to him. Aqamdax had been forced into other hunters’ beds while she was a slave. If the baby was born large and strong, it was not Night Man’s, though he would be wise to raise the child as his own. If it was small—a sign it had been born early—it was certainly his child but would probably die.
Chakliux was not wise enough to know which way he should pray—there would be sadness if the child lived or if it died. Instead he prayed for Aqamdax. That she would live. How could he bear to again lose a woman he loved?
Snow-in-her-hair offered Sok a bowl of soup, and he lashed out at her in harsh words. The thin, nearly meatless broth added to his anger. Any wife should be ashamed to offer her husband such poor food. What happened to the caribou belly they had roasted whole, full of the tender summer plants the animal had been eating before Sok and Chakliux had killed it? What happened to the rich broth made from the head? Surely, some of that was left. Who deserved to eat it more than he?
Again he threw harsh words at his wife, but when he saw his son Cries-loud press himself up against the side of the lodge, he was suddenly ashamed of his anger. It was not the broth that tortured his soul but the birth of Red Leaf’s child. He would keep the baby if it was healthy, but what about Red Leaf?
She had cost Sok the leadership of the Near River People. Someday, he would have been their chief hunter, and Chakliux had held an honored place as storyteller. Together they would have guided the people, turned them from war toward ways of respect, but Red Leaf had destroyed any chance of that when she killed his grand-father. Now Sok lived in exile, forced, because of what his wife had done, to leave the village of his birth.
Red Leaf was alive now only because she carried Sok’s baby. She had claimed that she killed out of love for him, to give him the chance to have his grandfather’s place as chief hunter. In that way, perhaps he was nearly as guilty of the killing as Red Leaf. But he would have never wished for his grandfather’s death.
During all the moons awaiting this night of birth, Sok had been unable to decide what he should do. Now, without doubt, in the remnants of the Cousin River Village, he was chief hunter. There was little honor in it, but still the people looked to him to provide food. They faced a harsh winter. Their only hope of survival was a successful fall caribou hunt.
If he killed Red Leaf, would her blood keep the animals from giving themselves to his spear? If he did not kill Red Leaf, would his grandfather’s need for revenge turn the caribou from the Cousin River hunters?
NEAR DAWN, AQAMDAX’S PAINS stopped. Ligige’ had given her tea steeped from balsam poplar root, and the old woman began to hope that the medicine had worked. If Aqamdax could hold the child in her belly for even eight or ten more days, there was a chance that it would live.
After Aqamdax fell asleep, Ligige’ crept back through the village to Star’s lodge and went inside. She woke Star and told her that Aqamdax’s labor had stopped, then saw that both Chakliux and Night Man were awake.
“The child?” Night Man asked.
“The birth pains have stopped.”
“Aqamdax?” asked Chakliux.
His voice was a whisper, and Ligige’ was not sure whether he spoke only to say her name or if he was asking about her.
“She is strong. It is not Aqamdax I worry about.”
Ligige’ went then to Red Leaf’s birth lodge. The day was brightening, the sky clear and without clouds. She did not bother to call out or scratch at the doorflap. She merely pulled it aside and stooped to enter.
Day Woman looked up and smiled, a baby in her arms. “A daughter,” she said. “Fine and strong. She looks like Sok.”
The baby’s mouth was pursed, and she sucked at her fist. Ligige’ squatted on her heels and pulled back the ground squirrel blankets that covered the child. She inspected her arms and legs, hands and feet. She pressed on the baby’s belly, chuckled when the dark eyes opened, the mouth puckered in protest.
“She is healthy,” Ligige’ said. “Red Leaf?”
Day Woman lifted her chin toward the back of the lodge, where Red Leaf lay still and white, eyes closed in sleep. There was a smear of blood on her face, but hare fur blankets were pulled up to her shoulders, and there was no other sign she had just given birth.
“Has Red Leaf fed her yet?”
“No.”
“Good. Do not allow her to feed the child until Sok decides what to do. If he kills Red Leaf, we do not need the power of her milk to draw the child into the spirit world.”
“A daughter,” Sok said and scowled.
Ligige’ snorted and tipped the baby so he could see her from where he sat beside the hearth fire. “A daughter is not such a terrible thing,” she said. “You have Cries-loud and Carries Much, two strong sons who live here with you, and that other son who is now in the spirit world. But would any of them take care of you when you are old? Someday you’ll be glad to have a daughter.”
“I am glad to have a daughter,” he said, his lips still drawn into a frown. “Here, let me have her.”
Ligige’ placed the baby into his arms, and he held her awkwardly, a hand’s length from his body.
“Your mother says she looks like you.”
“Ah, that is not good for a girl,” said Sok, but he smiled and clasped the child more tightly so she was snuggled against his chest.
For a time Ligige’ said nothing, but finally she knew she must speak. Snow-in-her-hair and her infant son, Carries Much, as well as Red Leaf’s son Cries-loud were in the lodge, but she supposed they must be a part of any decision that Sok made.
“Red Leaf has not nursed your daughter yet,” Ligige’ said. “Bird Caller has enough milk. Do you want me to take the baby to her?”
Sok handed the child back to Ligige’. When his words came, they were slow and weighted with sorrow. “I must speak to my brother first. For now, take the baby to my mother. Tell her that until I make my decision, the child should have only water.”
Red Leaf’s baby grew thin on two days of water before Sok finally returned to Ligige’, before he told her what must be done. He came in quiet dignity, and Ligige’ knew his decision even before he told her, but she waited until the words came from Sok’s mouth.
“Chakliux says we need strong women, and my son Cries-loud begs for his mother’s life, but I have decided that we risk too much to have her among us.”
“So you will drive her from the village?” Ligige’ asked, though she knew that was not what Sok had decided.
“She must die,” he said.
“I suppose it does no good to tell you that you risk a greater curse by killing her, a woman with the blood power of new birth.”
“I will wait until her blood no longer flows.”
“That is wise.”
Ligige’ filled a bowl with ground squirrel stew from her cooking bag. She held it out to Sok, but he shook his head. “You can risk your strength by refusing food?” she asked.
He took the bowl, squatted on his haunches and plunged his fingers into the meat, scooped it into his mouth.
“Has Red Leaf been told?” Ligige’ asked.
“No, but she expects as much.”
“You will be the one to kill her?”
“Who else? I cannot ask Chakliux. Why should he risk his hunting powers over something my wife did?”
“I will do it for you.”
“What if she fights? You are not strong enough.”
“She will not expect it from me. I can wait until she is asleep. Or I could use poison.”
“Is there something that would take her quickly?”
“There might be.”
Sok sat very still for a long time, one hand raised to his forehead, the other cradling his bowl. Ligige’ turned her back, pretended to be busy with many things.
“You have heard what will happen to Red Leaf?” Star asked Aqamdax.
“I have heard,” Aqamdax told her. She did not want to talk about it, did not want to think about it. It was enough for her to worry about her own child.
Star had avoided Aqamdax since she returned to the lodge, and who could blame her? Aqamdax would have done the same, though perhaps a little less obviously. Why risk your baby for the sake of politeness? But now Star sidled close to her, and Aqamdax knew the conversation was not over.
“I wonder how Sok will kill her. Perhaps he will use a knife just like Red Leaf used to kill—”
“You should not be this close to me,” Aqamdax said to the woman, and Star gasped, as though the realization of her child’s peril had just come to her.
She scuttled to the other side of the lodge. Aqamdax closed her eyes and stretched, straightened her shoulders. “I will go outside, Sister,” she said to Star. “That will be safest.”
She was weaving grass mats for the lodge floor. The grass in this place where the River People had chosen to live was not as good as what grew near the First Men villages, but it made sturdy mats. At one time, the women had laughed at her floor mats. Their village had been strong then, and there were caribou skins that could be used to pad floors. Now there were not even enough skins for lodge walls.
Aqamdax squatted on her haunches at the sun side of the lodge. In her own village, she would have found a place away from the wind, but here she had grown to appreciate a windy day. The sound took her back to her own people, to the First Men Village and the noise of the waves.
There, Aqamdax had grown used to the wideness of the sea and horizons that spread to the edge of the earth. The River People’s land was cut into small pieces by trees and hills. Some days, during the two years she had been with the River People, she felt closed in, as though she had been made to sit too long in a small place, legs and arms cramped for room.
A shadow fell across her work, and Aqamdax looked up to see the boy Cries-loud, Sok’s son. Once, in a time that now seemed very long ago, he and his older brother, that first Carries Much, had been her stepsons. Now, even though she was no longer wife to their father, Cries-loud often came to her with his small boy triumphs, his problems and questions.
He squatted beside her, his legs crossed. Aqamdax smiled a greeting and was not surprised when Cries-loud said, “Star told me my mother is going to die.”
Aqamdax wanted to gather the boy into her arms, hold him as she held Ghaden when he was sad or tired, but Cries-loud was not a child. He had eight summers. Soon he would hunt with the men.
“You understand why?” Aqamdax asked.
“I understand.”
“You know that this was a difficult decision for your father?”
He nodded. “Star told me it must be done because there is a curse. Do you think all the fighting and all the terrible things that happened to us were because of what my mother did?”
“I am not wise enough to know that, Cries-loud. There were many people besides your mother who did foolish things. I have heard the stories of the dogs that died in the Near River Village. A shaman did that. Surely his powers were greater than your mother’s. There was a woman named K’os who lived in this village before you and your father came here. She is gone now, but she was very evil, even had people killed.”
“Did someone kill her?”
“No.”
“My father says I cannot see my mother. He says I cannot speak to her again.”
Aqamdax’s eyes filled with tears. What a foolishness, all this killing. Did men not face enough death just in hunting? Did women not do the same in childbirth? Chakliux had worked hard to protect these villages from one another, but it seemed that some spirit of anger and death lingered even yet.
She placed an arm around Cries-loud’s shoulders, and he leaned into her. “You should remember the good times with your mother and all the good things she has done. Your new sister will need you to protect her. You are the big brother for her and for Carries Much.” When she said Carries Much, she felt Cries-loud shudder and knew he was thinking of his older brother, killed during the fighting.
Then, though Aqamdax had not planned to tell a story, an old River tale came to her. “There was once a wise porcupine and a foolish raven,” she began, the words singing from her mouth. She felt Cries-loud relax beside her.
He was too old for a children’s story, but he listened as Aqamdax spoke.
THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE
K’OS LEANED OVER THE boiling bag and pretended she did not hear what Blue Flower was saying. As widow of the Near River shaman, Blue Flower held a place of respect, and could make the youngest wives scurry to do her bidding simply by raising her eyes to the sky as though she had special spirit powers. She claimed to be the healer in this village, though she knew nothing but a few of the chants her husband once used.
K’os had seen her set broken bones so poorly that arms and legs would be crippled forever. Blue Flower seldom gathered plants for medicine and seemed to know only the most familiar—willow bark to ease pain, fireweed for upset stomachs. Even a child knew such things!
K’os had offered to teach Blue Flower about herbs and plants, but the woman had reacted in horror. Who would be foolish enough to trust a Cousin River slave?
Though Blue Flower was incompetent as a healer, still K’os had to admire her for the honored place she had made for herself. K’os had heard the whispered tales of how Blue Flower’s husband, Wolf-and-Raven, had slyly killed Near River dogs so when the deaths stopped he could claim he had successfully driven the evil from their village. What did Blue Flower have to boast about, being wife to a man like that? He had been caught in his scheme, caught by an old woman, the one called Ligige’. Of course, some said Ligige’ had had the help of Chakliux.
Chakliux, K’os’s own son. He was a greater fool than Wolf-and-Raven. The Near River People held him in great esteem. So why had he allowed a man like Fox Barking to drive him from this village? She had taught him better than that! With elders as weak as Fox Barking and Sun Caller, he would have soon secured a place as leader.
Blue Flower lifted a ladle in K’os’s direction, whispered something to the other women. They laughed. K’os turned her back on them, began a chant of nonsense words. Soon they were quiet, and K’os began to sing louder. One by one they left, until K’os was there alone with the few children who always lingered near the hearths hoping for handouts.
K’os continued to sing, beckoning the youngest of the children with a piece of boiled fish, dripping juice from the soup broth. The child crept forward, and when he had it in his hand turned and ran. An older boy tried to grab the fish from him, but K’os called to him, offered him a chunk of meat. Soon she had given each child something to eat, and as they stood around her, she began a story, something she remembered from when she was a child.
She did not like children—their sticky fingers always reaching to touch or grasp, their whiny voices competing for attention. But she had watched Aqamdax work her way from slave to wife in the Cousin River Village, and Aqamdax had begun with the children. What better way to win the parents than through their sons and daughters?
Dii shuddered at her husband’s touch. She knew she should be grateful he had chosen her from among the Cousin girls taken as slaves, but when he called her to his bed, she had to force herself not to shrink from his groping hands.
He was a lazy man, sleeping long into each morning. She often asked herself why the Near River People had selected him as leader of their elders. Even Sun Caller seemed a better choice. He was shy in speaking out, and the words came from his mouth in broken, stuttering phrases, but there was a wisdom about him that Dii had noticed even the first time he came to her lodge.
Fox Barking lifted the hare fur robe that lay over him, and Dii saw that his penis was swollen, ready for her. At least it would be over quickly, she told herself as she slipped off her long caribou hide shirt and slid in beside him. He grabbed her breasts, and she winced. She would soon be in her moon blood time, and they were tender.
She turned her thoughts to good things, as she always did when she was in her husband’s bed. If she allowed her mind to be filled with her sorrows, her husband’s groping and thrusting always seemed more painful. She was, after all, second wife of a man who was leader of the elders. She had her own lodge, a good one, and her husband received large shares of whatever meat the hunters brought into the village, so her food cache was nearly full, even before the fall caribou hunts.
The spirits must have taken pity on her for her losses: the death of her mother on their journey to this village; the slaughter of her father, uncle and brothers in the fighting. Yes, they had taken pity, had allowed her to be a slave only a few days before Fox Barking had chosen her. He had introduced her to his first wife, Gull Beak, an old woman whose teeth were worn to the gums, but for all her homeliness Gull Beak had a true heart. She did not ask much of Dii and sewed most of Fox Barking’s clothing. Dii hoped Gull Beak would live a long time. Surely Fox Barking would not look on Dii’s sewing with favor after having worn Gull Beak’s fine clothing for so many years.
Fox Barking groaned, then his body relaxed over hers. He would sleep now, trapping Dii under him unless she was able to pull away.
“I must go to the hearths,” she whispered. “It is my turn there.”
He mumbled a reply, then rolled to his side so she could leave his bed. She slid out, took a long breath.
“Bring me back something when you return,” he told her. “I will be ready to eat.”
Dii used the edges of her hands to wipe Fox Barking’s sweat from her chest and belly. She pulled on the knee-length pants she wore in summers, then slipped into her boots and parka. The boots had moose hide soles, but the uppers and all of her other clothing were made of caribou hide, everything sewn by her mother the winter before the fighting.
She looked back at Fox Barking. His eyes were closed. The scar that ran from his forehead down over his right eye and to his jaw gathered the skin as though a woman had run a thread through his flesh and pulled it tight. She was glad that Fox Barking did not allow her to eat with him. It would have been difficult for her to swallow her food if she had to look at his face. Of course, there were others in the village who bore scars. Third Tree had only one eye, and Talks-all-night carried the marks of burns she received as a child when her grandmother’s lodge caught fire. Those scars, though they were worse than Fox Barking’s, did not turn Dii’s stomach. But who noticed Third Tree’s empty eye once he began telling his jokes? And who noticed Talks-all-night’s burns when her gentle spirit made itself known through her kindness?
Dii left her husband and walked to the hearth fires. She was still not accustomed to the closeness of the Near River lodges. In her own village, lodges had been far enough apart so a woman could keep her drying racks close. Here the women set their racks at the edge of the bowl of earth where the village was nestled. They lost dried meat and fish because of this strange practice. Wild animals were more bold in stealing from the edges of a village than they were in braving dogs and people to sneak between lodges. Of course, children kept watch over the racks, usually the boys, those not quite old enough to join the hunting trips. But what wolf, what lynx, was afraid of a boy?
Dii avoided the edges of the village as much as possible. Where else would the warriors’ spirits stay, those from both the Cousin and Near River Villages who had been killed in the fighting? Somewhere out there were her father and brothers. She did not want to meet them, nor any of the Cousin men’s spirits. Surely they must hate her now that she was wife to one of the Near River elders.
She did not mind taking her turn at the cooking hearths, though it was not like it had been in the Cousin Village, with all the women sharing and laughing. Here the mix of Cousin and Near River was still uncomfortable, but in the past few moons the women had seemed to drift into an arrangement favored by all. The Cousin women, most now wives, came early, started the fires when dawn was only a gray promise of light. Then later, when husbands were beginning to awaken, the Near River women came and the Cousin women left, taking a share of food to their lodges. From then on they took turns. Only in evenings when everyone was hungry did the two groups mingle.
Dii had taken a turn at dawn, and now the Near River women should be at the hearths, but better to be with them than under Fox Barking’s sweating body. She lowered her head and determined to say little, giving no one reason to find fault with her. But when she reached the hearths, only the woman K’os was there.
When she had lived in the Cousin River Village, Dii had feared K’os. K’os had been the village healer, and able to help many with her medicines. But who had not heard the stories of men and women—those K’os hated—who died horrible deaths? Some even said she had killed her own son’s wife. In the Cousin River Village, Dii had seldom spoken to the woman, tried not to look at her, but here K’os was only a slave.
No one came to her for medicines. No one gave her the honor due a healer. In the Cousin River Village, many men visited her lodge, gave gifts for her favors. K’os was supposed to be old, but her hair was as thick and black as a young woman’s, her skin unlined, her eyes large and bright. Even her teeth were strong and unbroken.
K’os raised her head and called out a greeting. Dii could not ignore her. Her mother had taught her that every person deserved to be treated fairly, even slaves.
“Good morning,” Dii said. “My husband sent me to get food.” She dipped her ladle into a boiling bag and stirred the contents.
“You are Fox Barking’s wife,” K’os said.
“Yes,” Dii answered, then did not know what else to say. She did not want to boast of being a wife when K’os was still a slave. Finally, she said, “Second wife.”
“Ah, yes, there is that other one—Gull Beak. Is that her name?”
Dii nodded.
“She is old, that one,” K’os said, then plucked a bit of fish from the bag she was stirring and ate it.
Dii’s eyes widened in surprise. Surely slaves were not to eat from the boiling bags without permission, but who was here to stop her? She remembered when K’os herself had owned a slave, the Sea Hunter woman Aqamdax. She remembered how thin and worn Aqamdax had become. Sometimes Dii’s mother had given the woman a little food, even though she was a slave, even though she was Sea Hunter.
Dii tried to remember which Near River family owned K’os, but she could not. There were too many families to learn all at once, though she now knew those who were her husband’s friends or related to him in some way.
“Does she have any children, this Gull Beak?” K’os asked.
“None living,” Dii said. “And she is so old she does not even go to the moon blood lodge anymore.”
“So I suppose Fox Barking hopes you will give him a son.”
Dii’s cheeks suddenly burned red. “Yes,” she said quietly.
“I have medicines that will help you conceive.”
Dii considered being pregnant. It would not be easy delivering a child in this village, without her mother to help her, but then she reminded herself of the moons during her pregnancy that Fox Barking could not ask her to his bed. That would be worth something. And what about the joy of having someone who truly belonged to her, who carried the blood of her father and mother?
“It would be a good thing to have a baby,” Dii said.
K’os nodded. “Sun Girl, that is your name, is it not?”
“I have changed it. I am Dii now. Because no one else in my family is still alive.”
“Dii, then,” K’os said, and smiled as though amused by what Dii had said.
Dii turned her head away and reminded herself to be wary. Only a fool would trust someone who could smile at another’s sorrow.
“Tomorrow, come to the hearths again in the morning,” said K’os. “If I am not here, then come the next day. I will bring you something. It does not help everyone—it did not help me—but perhaps it will give you a child.”
Dii thanked her, then began to fill the small caribou hide bag she had brought with her. Fox Barking would expect her back soon.
“I am surprised that your husband keeps his first wife, old as she is and unable to give him children,” K’os said.
“It is her sewing. She is gifted. He keeps the best parkas for himself and is able to earn much in trade from the others. Animals honor him because of the respect he shows them in his clothing.”
“Only for her parkas, then,” K’os said, and Dii glanced at her to see if the words were a question, but it seemed as though K’os had forgotten Dii was there, the woman’s eyes looking up and out, beyond the tops of the lodges.
“SO WHAT DO YOU know about the woman called Gull Beak?” K’os asked.
Two Fist, the wife of the man who owned K’os, frowned. K’os held her smile in her mouth. Did Two Fist suspect how often her husband took K’os to his bed? Possibly, but she had caught them only once, the lazy one, coming back from the cooking hearths long before she should have. The woman turned away without answering.
Let her ignore me, K’os thought. There are others to ask. She continued to stir the cooking bag, filled bowls for two hunters, then, when Two Fist pointed with a toe at one of the hearths, she gathered an armload of wood from a pile nearby and carefully added pieces to the fire.
There were five hearth fires in a circle at the center of the village, a fire named for each of the four directions of the wind and another for the sun. She wondered whether there were any hearth fires burning in the Cousin River Village, or if the people had gone to their summer fish camps. They had probably stayed in their winter village. It was close to the Grandfather Lake, and there was good fishing at that lake, summer and winter. Besides, the Near River and Cousin fish camps were less than a day’s walk apart. Why chance living so close to those people who had nearly destroyed them?
Even most of the Near River People had chosen to stay in their winter village, though the salmon fishing there was not as good as it was near the mouth of the river. Of course, a fish camp was not truly a village, just a scattering of tents—a few here and a few farther upstream and some beyond those. An easy place for warriors wanting revenge to kill families, one by one. K’os set the last piece of wood into a hearth fire and stood. She brushed her hands together, then began to stir a cooking bag.
“I thought you knew all the women in this village,” Two Fist said. “You have been with us almost five moons.”
“There are too many to learn so quickly,” K’os replied. Of course, she did know most of the men, many of them because they had visited her when she had lived in the Cousin River Village. Women were usually not important to her. Why should they be? Men held the power.
When K’os had first come to the Near River Village, Fox Barking claimed her for himself, and so she had thought her revenge would be easy. She owed him for much more than that long-ago rape and beating, which had left her unable to have children. Her revenge would also be for what he had done to her people in the Cousin River Village. He would die, yes, but it would not be a quick death. As his slave, surely she would have opportunity to slip poison into his food—a little each day until sickness weakened him and his spirit could no longer stand against death.
But though he had kept most of her belongings, he had soon traded her to Black Mouth. Now it would be more difficult to carry out her plans for revenge, but perhaps Gull Beak was the answer.