Brother Wind

by Sue Harrison

  “All of us mourn except Waxtal,” Chagak told the otter. “He thinks only of himself.”

  Waxtal turned his back to the men and began sorting through a pile of the traders’ goods. Now and again, he held up a piece of ivory, turning it in the light that spilled from one of the oil lamps. The traders kept looking at Waxtal, and the oldest lifted a hand toward him, opened his mouth as though to speak, but then turned back to the circle of men.

  Why not speak out? Chagak thought. What trader wanted a stranger going through his trade goods? Waxtal was not some shaman to be feared or respected.

  “Yes, Waxtal thinks only of himself,” the sea otter said. “Of himself and of his carving.”

  Chagak’s mind was drawn to the baskets of carvings that were tucked in the corner of her sleeping place. Shuganan’s work. She remembered how the old man had taken her in after the massacre of her people. How he had called her granddaughter and claimed her son Samiq as grandson, though Samiq was the child of one of those men who had killed her family.

  By his caring and through his love, Shuganan had given Chagak the courage to live again. Who could not see the same caring in the lines of each ivory animal and the driftwood people he had carved?

  Then she thought of Kiin’s carvings, so different from Shuganan’s, but full of grace and movement, as if she caught the spirit of each thing she carved.

  Waxtal’s hands on the traders’ ivory suddenly made Chagak angry. “The smallness of Waxtal’s soul comes out through his knife,” she told the sea otter. “He does not carve ivory, he destroys it.”

  But the otter was quiet, saying nothing, as though Chagak’s anger had stopped the animal’s words. Chagak sighed. “Enough, Wren,” she said to her daughter. “The men will talk all night. You and I, we need to sleep.”

  CHAPTER 11

  WAXTAL CLAMPED HIS TEETH together to keep them from chattering. Walrus tusks, some longer than a man’s arm, thicker than a man’s wrist, were bundled together in the bow of the traders’ ik.

  Waxtal leaned into the ik and stroked his hand down the length of one.

  “Good, eh?”

  The voice startled him and he jerked upright, catching his hand on one of the ik’s wooden thwarts. A sharp sliver of wood tore his skin. Waxtal raised the hand to his mouth and sucked the blood welling from the cut, then turned and looked at the trader standing beside him. Waxtal shrugged his shoulders. “I have seen better,” he said.

  The trader’s eyes widened, then he laughed. “Where?”

  Waxtal pretended interest in his injured hand. The bleeding slowed, and he picked at the sliver sticking up from the wound. “I am a trader,” Waxtal said. “My son was a trader—before he was killed by someone who stole his trade goods.”

  “So …” said the trader, and he leaned down to touch the ivory, “you might like to have these tusks for your next trading trip.”

  “I am also a carver,” Waxtal said. It would not hurt to let the trader know he was dealing with a man of many talents.

  The trader coughed and looked down, hiding his mouth with his hand, but not before Waxtal saw his smile, a smile that said the trader knew the value Waxtal would put on ivory.

  “I have seen better,” Waxtal said again, then turned and walked back toward the ulas. Let the man smile. The ivory itself wanted Waxtal. Its spirit would long for the joy of Waxtal’s knife. What chance did a trader have against the power of the ivory’s spirit?

  Waxtal raised his upper lip in derision. Yes, let the trader hide a smile behind his hand. Waxtal would be the one laughing. He puffed out his chest, walked with shoulders high, back straight, but when he reached the leeward side of his ulaq, Waxtal suddenly felt as if all power had been taken from his body. He leaned against the ulaq and closed his eyes. It was the ivory, its spirit. It was dealing with the trader even now, bending the trader’s thoughts, and it needed Waxtal’s strength.

  Even here, out of sight of the traders’ ik, Waxtal felt power leave his hands and flow with the cold beach wind to settle into the walrus tusks. He could hear the voices of the men and animals who lived in the yellow hardness of the ivory. They pulled at his hands as waves pull at the blade of an ikyak paddle. Waxtal held his hands out, saw that they trembled like those of an old man.

  “That much power,” he whispered. “That much power, and I, of all the men here, am the only one who understands. The others, they will see the furs and the oil, the dried fish and caribou meat, and they will not know that those things are nothing compared to what I can do with the walrus tusks.”

  But what did he have to trade for the ivory? He had lost so much in the move from Tugix’s island. A foolish move, he thought. He had told Kayugh it was a foolish move. All mountains have times of anger, but those times pass. What man did not know that? It was Samiq’s fault. Samiq wanted to move so he could find Kiin. Kiin. She had always been a problem. What father had ever lost more because of one daughter?

  Waxtal sighed. Of course, he must remember that the traders themselves did not truly know the value of the ivory they carried. Perhaps they would take oil in exchange. Perhaps not for all the tusks, but for a few, and a few would be enough.

  Kayugh, Big Teeth, Samiq, First Snow, and Small Knife left the next morning to hunt. The traders stayed, talking long with Three Fish and Chagak about the Whale Hunters, and Waxtal curled his lips at men so weak that they would find worth in women’s words. It was good, though, because they gathered in Big Teeth’s ulaq, leaving Kayugh’s and Samiq’s ulas empty.

  Waxtal took unused sea lion stomach containers from his own food cache, rolled them, and tucked them under his suk. Outside, he walked between the ulas, staying out of sight of the water. Who could say whether one of the hunters would look back and see him? He crawled to the top of Kayugh’s ulaq and called down. When there was no answer, he went inside. He was cautious at first, peering into all the curtained sleeping places, but there was no one, not even Kayugh’s little daughter Wren.

  Waxtal laughed, then went to the food cache. He pulled one of the rolled sea lion stomachs from beneath his suk and took a stomach of seal oil from the cache. He pulled what he had carved the night before from his sleeve. Yes, he thought and laughed again: a narrow end made to fit loosely into the opening of the empty seal stomach container and a wide end to channel the oil from the full container into the empty one.

  He worked quickly, forcing the oil from one container to the other with gentle squeezes. He emptied only a part of the container, slipped in the stopper, then pulled out another container. He poured portions of oil from each storage belly, filling four empty stomachs from the ten and seven in Kayugh’s cache. Then, one at a time, he carried the containers from Kayugh’s ulaq. Waxtal’s heart pumped hard each time he left the ulaq with a full sea lion stomach in his hands, but no one came, no one saw him.

  He took the containers into his sleeping place, covered them with pelts and skins and grass mats. Four sea lion stomachs of rendered oil, perhaps enough for two tusks, he thought, perhaps enough for three if he also traded some of his carvings. And if by some chance he could take oil from Samiq or Big Teeth …

  When Blue Shell came back, Waxtal was sorting through his basket of wood carvings. She said nothing to him, only went to the food cache and brought out a handful of dried meat, put it on a mat, and set it beside him. He grunted and pointed at the water bladder hanging over him.

  She handed him the bladder. He took a swallow of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have made prayers to spirits,” he said to his wife. “I have made promises. Stay out of my sleeping place so you do not curse me.”

  Blue Shell shrugged and nodded.

  Waxtal held a bit of the dried meat over an oil lamp flame, and when the meat had softened, he used his sleeve knife to cut off a chunk. He put the meat in his mouth and watched Blue Shell as he chewed. Who would believe she had once been beautiful? If he had known what she would become, as thin and dried-up as the skin of a smoked fish, he would
have chosen a different wife.

  Ah, well, he thought, at least she understands the power of my walking stick. Waxtal chuckled. Wisdom never comes without pain.

  CHAPTER 12

  “THESE THREE CARVINGS and a sea lion stomach of oil,” Waxtal said.

  The older trader, the one with black tattoo lines across his cheeks, picked up one of Waxtal’s carvings and turned it in his hands. “You made this?” he asked.

  Waxtal nodded.

  “Someone told us that your daughter carves.”

  Waxtal snorted. Who else but Samiq would tell them that? he thought. Samiq was a fool. He should forget about Kiin. Better for Kiin to be Raven’s wife than to belong to Samiq, especially now that Samiq’s hand was crippled. But perhaps the traders had visited Raven’s village sometime in the past and seen her there.

  “She is wife to a shaman—Raven of the Walrus People,” Waxtal said. “You have visited his village?”

  “Perhaps,” said the trader.

  Waxtal cleared his throat and tried to remember the traders’ names. Every man liked to hear his name spoken. The older was Owl, yes, and the younger was also named for something about birds.

  “These are not her carvings but your own?” the younger trader asked.

  Heat spread up from Waxtal’s throat and burned across his cheeks. “They are my carvings,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.

  Owl walked over to his ik and, sorting through several packs, finally pulled out a driftwood carving. It was a seal. The carving flowed with the wood’s grain, and Waxtal could see no knife marks on it—as though the sea itself had formed it.

  “Your daughter is Kiin?”

  Waxtal nodded.

  The trader extended his hand, the carving on his palm. “This is one of hers,” he said.

  Waxtal reached for it, but when his fingers touched the carving, the wood seemed hot. He drew back his hand.

  The trader raised his eyebrows. “Here,” he said. “You can hold it if you want.”

  The pulse of Waxtal’s heart suddenly beat hard at one side of his head, at the insides of his wrists and knees. There was some spirit here that he did not understand. Something in the wood of that carving. He turned his head to spit, but his mouth was dry, so instead he coughed. He turned back to Owl and said, “I have seen my daughter’s work before! Who do you think taught her?”

  The trader shrugged and placed the carving back in his pack. “We are going to the Whale Hunters.”

  “So you have said,” Waxtal replied.

  “Then you know we do not need seal oil except for our own use. Whatever seal oil the Whale Hunters need for food, they take from seals they kill themselves, and who burns seal oil when they have whale oil?”

  “Whale Hunters like carvings.”

  “Why trade for your carvings,” the trader asked, picking up one of Waxtal’s wooden animals, “when they can have your daughter’s?”

  Waxtal laughed. “You think they would take something made by a woman above something a hunter carved, Owl?”

  “Who will tell them a woman made it?” the younger trader asked and smiled.

  “Three carvings and two stomachs of oil,” Waxtal said, his voice a growl.

  “Someone might think that is not enough,” Owl said, and before Waxtal could make another offer, both men walked away.

  CHAPTER 13

  WHO COULD TRUST THE MAN? Kayugh thought. But what harm was there in doing what he asked? Now that Amgigh was dead, they needed someone to make their spearheads and knives. Better to have Waxtal making weapons than carving. What harm to lend him the basket that held Amgigh’s andesite points?

  “I will give them back,” Waxtal said. “But I will learn more quickly if I have these to study.” He paused, then raised his eyes to look into Kayugh’s face. “You know I will never be as good as your son.”

  For once there was an honesty in Waxtal’s eyes that Kayugh could respect. “Perhaps his gift will come to you from these stones,” Kayugh said and handed Waxtal the basket.

  “Three carvings, two sea lion stomachs of oil, and this,” Waxtal said. He handed Owl the basket of spearheads. The man sorted through them, occasionally holding one up for his brother to see. “They are good,” the trader finally said, then quickly added, “but the Whale Hunters might have better.”

  Waxtal shook his head. “They do not, nor will you find more like them. The man who made these was once my daughter’s husband.”

  “She left him for the shaman?”

  “No,” he said.

  “So then he sold her to the shaman?”

  “So then,” Waxtal said, “he is dead.”

  The trader raised his eyebrows. “You would trade these?”

  “For three tusks,” Waxtal said.

  “One.”

  Waxtal reached for the basket. The trader’s fingers tightened.

  “Five stomachs of oil, four carvings, and the basket of spearpoints for two,” the trader said and set his mouth into a firm line.

  “For three.”

  “Two,” the trader said.

  It was the last offer. Waxtal could not doubt the hardness he saw in the man’s face. He had the four bellies of oil from Kayugh’s cache, and if he took one from his own food cache … He thought of the winter, long and without enough food. We have no babies, he told himself. And I will hunt yet before winter comes. Blue Shell can fish. We will have enough.

  “I will bring the oil,” Waxtal said.

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAGAK PULLED the sea lion stomach from the storage cache. It had been three days since the traders left, and all the men, even Waxtal, were hunting. Today perhaps they would return. And bring sea lions, she prayed, then lifted her head so her breath took the prayers up out of the ulaq. Perhaps the wind would take those words the many days’ journey to the sacred mountain Aka. Or to Tugix, if Aka had no power after pouring out its anger in smoke and fire.

  She picked up the sea lion stomach, then realized that her hands were covered with oil, not just the little that always seemed to coat the outsides of stomach containers, but enough so that it dripped from her fingers. She pulled out another container of oil and another.

  She heard someone at the top of the ulaq and turned to see Kayugh’s daughter Red Berry descending the climbing log. Red Berry’s baby son was a bulge under her suk, the other boy, now with more than two summers, straddled her hip.

  “Mother, what are you doing?” Red Berry asked as she set Little Flat Stone on the floor.

  Chagak reached into a basket of dried cod and handed the boy a chunk of fish. “Wren is in her sleeping place,” she said. “Go and share your food with her.”

  The boy scooted into Wren’s sleeping place, and Chagak smiled at Red Berry as they heard the children begin to chatter.

  “What a mess,” Chagak said and held up her hands dripping with oil.

  Red Berry pulled off her suk and laid her baby on it on the floor. “Did one of the oil containers split?” she asked.

  “I think so,” Chagak said and leaned into the cache to pull out another container. “Not a good year for this to happen,” she said. “We have so little.”

  “The traders, they probably gave us poor containers,” Red Berry said. She squatted beside Chagak and picked up one of the seal stomachs. “This one is not full, Mother,” she said. “Look. But it is sealed well.” She ran her hands over the sides of the container. “No splits. It is good. But they did not give full measure.”

  She set it down and watched as Chagak picked up another. “Red Berry,” Chagak said slowly, “this one is not full either, and it is one I filled myself.”

  One after another, they lifted the containers. Finally Red Berry found the one that was leaking. It had a split stopper. “But none are full,” Red Berry said. “Do you think the traders took what we would not trade?”

  “They were never here alone.”

  “Who then?”

  Chagak shook her head. Who? Then the sea otter voice cam
e, something soft and pulling at Chagak’s mind. “Waxtal,” the sea otter said. “Who else is foolish enough to steal what is already his?”

  Chagak closed her eyes and waited until she could speak past her anger. “It was Waxtal,” she finally said. “Blue Shell told me that he wanted those ivory tusks the traders had lashed in the bottom of their ik. He must have stolen our oil and traded it for the tusks.” She bit at her lip, and for a long time sat without speaking. Finally in a quiet voice she said, “Kayugh gave him your brother’s greenstone spearheads.”

  “Amgigh’s?” Red Berry asked.

  Chagak nodded. In her mind, she was suddenly once more a young woman. The softness of Amgigh’s baby breath was against her skin. Then the years moved and she saw him as a boy running, and then as a young man, head bent over the beautiful spearpoints he knapped. And in that moment, she felt the loss of those spearpoints more keenly than any amount of oil.

  The men returned from their hunt that day. After speaking to Chagak, Kayugh sought out Samiq and his son Small Knife, Big Teeth and his son First Snow. So few hunters for a village, Kayugh thought. And now they would be without Waxtal. But what man could be allowed to stay in a village where he had stolen another hunter’s oil? Then Kayugh remembered Big Teeth’s words: “Waxtal eats more than he brings in.”

  “What about Blue Shell?” Samiq asked after the men had heard Chagak’s story. Kayugh was proud of his son. A leader must think of all things, not only the punishment, but also the consequences of that punishment. Would it be fair to hurt a wife for what a husband had done?

  “Wait,” Big Teeth said. He left the lee of the ikyak racks where the hunters squatted out of the wind.

  Kayugh saw him go into his own ulaq. While Big Teeth was gone the other men said nothing, each keeping to his own thoughts.