by Ken Altabef
Klah Kritlaq emptied a pouch of tobacco on the surface of a broad flat rock. Alaana leaned forward to inspect the cut leaves. The plugs of tobacco which came the white traders often harbored ill spirits or disease. Kritlaq flattened the dried leaves out on the rock to allow her a good look.
“There is no harm here,” he said, shooing away a pair of overly curious gray gulls with whom they shared their perch.
“Very well,” replied Alaana.
Kritlaq packed the deep soapstone bowl of his pipe, sparked the flame to life, and smoked through a long reed stem. Alaana hated the taste of tobacco, but she dutifully took a shallow puff. Nothing important could be said until the smoking had begun.
“I am grateful for what you’ve done,” said Kritlaq.
“It’s not much,” returned Alaana modestly.
“Yes, but a few good meals will do wonders for the people just now. With luck the season will favor us with a successful hunt in the days ahead.” He didn’t sound very confident. In fact his words held an air of desperation. “You puzzle me,” continued Kritlaq. “Your angakua is different from any shaman I’ve known. At times it seems so dim I can barely perceive it at all, and yet your people prosper, your women grow fat and the men strut around carefree and satisfied.”
Alaana snickered. “We aren’t so fortunate as all that. And besides, none of it is of my doing. Tekkeitsertok doesn’t even recognize me. Our luck in the hunt has been Tugtutsiak’s great gift and now he’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Swallowed by the sea. We have no headman, and I worry...” Alaana didn’t finish the thought. She’d said too much already. “Where might a departed soul go, if not with the ancestors?”
“Tugtutsiak’s soul is missing?”
“Not him. Someone else.”
Kritlaq thought for a moment, the pipe stem dangling from his open mouth. “It’s said the spirit of a shaman, newly dead, might spend some few days on the Moon.”
Alaana was familiar with that story. But Tama had not been a shaman. And yet, she had newly manifested the sight, at least in regard to the ava. She wondered…
Kritlaq passed the pipe. Alaana sealed her lips around the stem, but didn’t inhale. “How are the prospects among your young people?”
“Poor,” replied Kritlaq. “There is not one among us that shows the calling.”
Thinking of Tama, Alaana asked, “Your children?”
Kritlaq shook his head, blowing out a narrow stream of white smoke. “No one,” he said. “There are so few of us left. It doesn’t matter.” He shrugged his shoulders, a motion that caused a noisy jangle from the many trinkets adorning the front of his parka. Alaana cringed inwardly at the dissonant sound of the metal pieces striking each other but Kritlaq seemed inspired by it and, nodding his head, he dug some item out from the inside of his jacket.
“Look at this,” Kritlaq suggested. He produced a small hand mirror. Alaana gave it only a sidelong glance.
“You won’t look?” said Kritlaq.
Alaana grunted a refusal. “What do you see in there?”
“The face of my assassin.”
“It’s not my face,” said Alaana.
“No. It’s my own.”
Kritlaq puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. “I’ve done a great disservice to my people. Now I don’t see any way to correct the situation.”
Kritlaq told of how the Tanaina had occasional contact with the white men, and how he had allowed trading of skins in exchange for food and supplies. His disrespect in selling the skins had offended Tekkeitsertok, the guardian spirit of hoofed game. The great turgat now held Kritlaq in such contempt that his ability to bargain for kills, as poor as it had been before, was diminished even further.
“My mistakes have led to this,” said Kritlaq. With a wave of his hand, trailing smoke from the pipe, he indicated the camp below. “My men are reduced to a pack of scavengers squabbling over the spoils from your sled.”
“We don’t trade with the whites,” said Alaana. “We keep away. Their goods carry diseases, fever demons, and bad luck.”
“Your Aquppak passes among them sometimes,” noted Kritlaq.
“He brings nothing back. Tugtutsiak wouldn’t allow it.”
“They have many good things,” said Kritlaq defensively. “Food. Sugar. Flour. Cooking pots.”
“Yes, but if you depend on them, there will be trouble.”
Kritlaq kicked out a foot, as if knocking an imaginary kabloona cooking pot from the pinnacle of Red Nose. “So I’ve learned. Now what can I do? I’ve lost the ability feed the people by myself.” He made no attempt to hide the misery in his half-starved face.
As Alaana had no solution to her rival’s dilemma, she offered no advice. Anything more she might say would be misinterpreted. “Thank you for the smoke,” she said simply. She stood, taking in one last drink of the exquisite view below.
“You’re right,” said Kritlaq. “There will be trouble, but it doesn’t only come from the whites.”
Alaana turned back around. “What do you mean?”
“There is a foul wind out on the tundra.”
“The wind is only the breath of my patron Sila. It blows this way and that. It means us no harm.”
“Not like this,” insisted Kritlaq. “Haven’t you noticed?”
Alaana had been so preoccupied lately. Neglectful. She was completely in the dark as to Kritlaq’s meaning. “I’ve seen nothing.”
“Unseen forces are always at work,” reminded Kritlaq dryly.
“What then?”
“I don’t know. Something comes from the west, as surely as the snow. Something old, very old. Something I don’t think we have the power to resist. That’s all I know. Be careful.”
CHAPTER 11
IN THE SHADOW OF THE TUNRIT
Alaana located the Anatatook fishing camp through a high wind. The fierce gusts left her chilled to the bone, but thankfully dry. The melting snow was too wet to fly. Her dogs sloshed eagerly along, energized by the promise of food at the end of the long trail. They were drawn to the sound of human voices, of caribou skins creaking and flapping, and tent poles as they groaned and complained in the wind.
Among an endless series of lifeless ridges and plains, the Anatatook had no shelter for their camp. The drifts glistened a dull gray in the morning light, the clouds an identical color above. With no line dividing earth from sky all was of a piece here, gray on gray, stretching out in every direction. Amid this seeming desolation Alaana came upon a spate of windblown tents and a group of people bustling about the river, scratching for a way to survive.
The Little White River ran between outcroppings of low, black rock. A dam crossed the stream, with water flowing noisily over the top. A series of slits chiseled into the massive blocks of stone forced salmon to pass into three circular traps. Alaana glimpsed her husband standing waist deep in the icy water of one of these pits, spearing fish to the left and right. Ben had speared so many, so fast, that he held three fish in his mouth, their tail fins clamped by his white teeth.
Aquppak stood astride the barrier, above all the other men, attacking the fish that happened to bob over the top of the dam, pinning them with deadly accuracy along the flat of the rock before they were lost upstream. He lifted each fish from the water, hooked a bone needle through its gills and strung them along a line of sinew attached to his waist. Young boys nosed their way around the edges of the weir, seeking stray fish that had flopped between the rocks.
The women had their own space in which to work. Kneeling beside a huge mound of fresh-caught salmon they slit open the fish bellies, draining the precious oil into sealskin bags before hanging the rest up to dry.
Alaana was proud of her people as they worked together to accomplish a deed that would benefit them all. But she also sensed the satisfaction of the ancient stones and an echo of those who had built them, the Tunrit. Their legend was told by Old Higilak as truth. The first people to inhabit Nunatsiaq after the Great Rift, they liv
ed in a world of perpetual night, surrounded by deadly beasts and wild spirits. Their keen minds had conceived these traps, their strong hands had built them. The Anatatook owed them so very, very much, for these stalwart ancestors forged the way, teaching the human people the ways of the hunt and how to build a kayak, leaving them the tools to prosper even as they themselves eventually died out.
Alaana didn’t disturb the goings on at the weir with any pretense of a grand entrance. She quietly led her dogs to the kennel. Her return was made evident soon enough as the animals broke out in a frenzied yapping in anticipation of a long overdue meal.
She doled out chunks of old fish from the store. The dogs didn’t even wait long enough for her to cut it up for them. To Makaartunghak she threw an entire haunch of caribou meat.
“I’m glad you’re back,” said a quiet voice behind her.
Alaana turned to see Kala, Mikisork’s wife, standing there.
She was a small woman wearing a light doeskin anorak that would have fit Noona, Alaana’s daughter of ten years, just as well. With lustrous black hair, a perfectly round face and luminous eyes, Kala was as beautiful as she was dainty. She had been brought up from the south to marry Mikisork.
As children Mikisork and Alaana had been great friends and promised to someday be married. But then Miki had become frightened of young Alaana the shaman-in-training and shunned her. It was just as well, thought Alaana. She had married Ben, a decision that had led to the greatest joys of her life.
“The fishing goes well, I see,” Alaana said.
“I need to ask you for a favor,” Kala said as if she had not even heard.
“Ask.”
“Mikisork…” she started, but immediately lost her resolve. Her little eyes sought out the snow, tears forming at the corners. Her lips pursed tightly as she fought them back.
“What?” asked Alaana. “What has he done to you?”
“Oh, nothing!” she exclaimed. “Nothing. He’s done nothing wrong. It’s only that we want to have — we want you to get us a baby.” She breathed out the last with a great sigh, then looked up at Alaana. The tears had withdrawn without falling, her wonderfully broad cheeks flushed crimson.
“I see,” remarked Alaana. She should have realized. She’d long been expecting this request. Twelve winters without a baby was a very long time. A child. Alaana flinched. The thought brought Tama back into mind.
“If only you were willing to help,” Kala added, reacting to her saddened face.
Alaana quickly composed himself. “Of course,” she said. “I wondered why you hadn’t asked me this long ago.”
“I wanted to, but Mikisork wouldn’t allow it.”
“And now?”
Kala didn’t answer, for a wife must keep her husband’s secrets. Mikisork probably hadn’t wanted to become beholden to Alaana for such a delicate matter, or felt ashamed after the way he’d treated her, but now things had changed. Now, with Tugtutsiak’s death Mikisork needed of an heir to increase his stature among the Anatatook. Lack of a male child made him seem weak among the other sons of Tugtutsiak.
“Will you do it?” Kala asked. Her luminous eyes widened hopefully. Her cheeks flushed, already aflame with all the hopes and dreams of an expectant mother.
“It will require a journey to the Moon,” said Alaana, smiling. “But no matter, I was intending to pass that way soon anyway.”
“Aiee! Thank you!” Kala hopped up in the air, then turned in a tight little circle and ran off toward the fishing weir.
Having finished with the sled and dogs, Alaana sought out the comforts of her own tent. She was stiff and weary, and much too tired to eat. She sidestepped a group of children laughing and playing between the tents. The boys practiced throwing little spears through a hoop rolling along the ground while the girls cheered them on. Alaana looked to see Tama among them only to be suddenly stabbed by the thought that she giggled and played now in memory only, her laughter a bitter echo.
Though the feeling passed quickly, she thought she could never become used to it, this constant stabbing of the heart. She wanted to sleep.
She passed what she presumed to be Tooky’s tent. She recognized it as one of Tugtutsiak’s cast-offs which had most recently been used as a cover for the sleds during the winter. As such it had been much chewed by the dogs and left full of little holes. The wind played havoc with the torn hide. She wondered who had helped Tooky put it up.
Sitting in front of the tent was her tupilaq. It was hunched over, sharpening a little walrus-tusk spear. Tikiqaq hopped up on its hind flippers when it saw her approach and waddled forward.
“You smell of Kritlaq!” squawked the raven beak. “I will kill him! I will kill!”
“You are done with him,” Alaana said firmly. “Put him out of your mind.”
The tupilaq looked back angrily. “Let me go to him. I will kill!”
Alaana sighed and shook her head. “I forbid it. Don’t speak of it again.”
A deep growl came from the tupilaq’s seal-mouth and the sharp teeth flashed. “Hok! Hok-hokk! I will kill you!”
“Kill me? You’d better think again about that. Kill your master? Just imagine how embarrassed you’ll feel in front of all the other tupilaqs.”
Alaana chuckled. Tikiqaq growled in frustration.
“Stay here and do what I’ve told you. Look after the girl.”
“But I’m hungry. I thirst for the blood of my enemies. I need blood.”
“You will dine on the laughter of children,” said Alaana, pointing out the little ones darting between the tents. “Let that be enough for you.”
Men who’ve fished all day deserve to eat and eat well. And everybody knows the best time for a feast is as soon as the game is in hand. Having secured five or six day’s catch at the weir, a council feast was held. The men gathered in Maguan’s large tent. They sat on the sleeping platforms in two long rows facing each other in no particular order. It grew warm in the tent with so many people inside and the side flaps were rolled down to let in some cool night air. Maguan served as host, passing out whole fish from a large heap of dried salmon trout piled on the ground beside him.
Kigiuna took up a fish. He sliced it all the way from head to tail with one deft slash of the knife. He bit into the fillet, cutting it off at his lips and passing what remained to the man beside him. The smacking of lips, the sound of chomping, and little fish bones grinding between clenched teeth filled the tent.
Kigiuna gulped and swallowed. “It’s a problem,” he said. A few dark locks of hair fell across his forehead. He shook them away from a proud face with keen eyes, and a nose straight and only slightly arched. “With Tugtutsiak gone, who will decide our movements?”
Nuralak, the influential head of one of the largest hunting families said, “It won’t be long before the herds come up from the south. Their coats light, their bellies full and fat. We must be ready.” He was a man old beyond his prime, whose long saturnine face was noted for a large, misshapen bulb of a nose.
“We are always ready,” said Aquppak, offering his elder a handsome smile.
“The quality of the hunters is not in question,” agreed Nuralak, “It’s more a matter of choosing the right place.”
“My sister has communion with the spirits,” said Maguan. “She is best suited to lead us.”
There were murmurs of disapproval from the men assembled, but it was Aquppak who spoke. “A woman to lead us? That’s ridiculous. We accept her as shaman because there is no other. But that’s as far as it goes.”
Nuralak added, “The blessings of the spirits are important, but their help is not constant. Nor to be depended upon. Tugtutsiak always led us to the herds. Not Alaana. He did it so long and so effortlessly we’ve taken it for granted.”
“Perhaps tradition should guide us here,” suggested Talliituk. “It has long been the way of the Anatatook for the whaling captain to decide, even going back to my father’s father. Tugtutsiak’s place was handed down to him. Bring in a
whale and feed the Anatatook for an entire season…”
“Yes, but you’ve never brought in a whale,” said Aquppak. There were a few snickers among the men, and whispers behind the hand regarding Talliituk’s inept attempts at whaling.
Talliituk flashed his huge front teeth angrily. “No, but I have the boat…”
“So does Maguan,” said somebody.
“You call that a boat?” Talliituk smiled wickedly, but his quip didn’t bring the laughter he had expected.
“Then let that be the test,” suggested Iggy, waving a blood-red piece of trout in the air for emphasis. “Whoever brings in a whale first.”
“Tradition be damned,” Aquppak objected. He glowered at Talliituk as if he’d rather settle the matter with his fists. Aquppak was a hunter, not a sailor.
Nuralak raised a hand to calm the excited young men. “There are much more important matters than hunting whales.”
Kigiuna spoke between licking the palm of his hand and sucking at greasy fingers. “The boats are put away. There is no whale. I’ve had enough of whales for a while.”
Aquppak leaned forward sharply, “And I dare say Tugtutsiak, rotting at the bottom of the sea, might agree.”
The men erupted with offended shouts and jibes, although some of them remarked approval even for this show of arrogance and disrespect. The council was out of control, which spoke strongly for their need of a leader. In former days Tugtutsiak would keep order at such meetings with a turtle-shell rattle held in one of his huge, powerful hands.
Talliituk stood up. “If we could ask my father,” he shouted back at Aquppak, spittle flying, “He would without doubt say that I should be in charge.”
“Come, Talliituk. You look too much like an unhappy fish,” Aquppak shouted back. He had a particularly low opinion of Talliituk in even the best of times.
“A very small fish,” added Kigiuna dryly, “with a mouth too large for his face. You speak so loudly of your own virtues. Too loudly, I’d say. An ailing seal seeks the spot where it is easiest for it to blow.” He held up a severed fish head and flapped its wide mouth, squeezing it until the eyes bulged. The image did bring to mind Talliituk’s face, especially since the remark had caused his eyes to bulge fairly wide.