by Sue Harrison
“Wisdom?”
“Many good things come from wisdom: respect, honor, knowledge, love.”
Small Knife looked down, nodded his head. “So how does a son find wisdom?” he asked.
“Pray, study the earth, learn the ways of the animals.”
“So the best thing a father can do for his children is give them wisdom?”
“A father cannot give wisdom to anyone. Each person must find wisdom for himself.”
“So what is the best thing a father can do for his children?” Small Knife asked. “Feed them?”
Again Samiq thought carefully about his answer, then he said, “Once there was a village whose chief was a great hunter. The people did not have to do anything but cook what he brought for them. They grew fat on the meat and oil he supplied. But finally the hunter grew old and died, and there was no one to hunt for the people. One by one they starved until the village was too small even to be a village.
“The best thing a father can do for his children is teach them what they need to know to take care of themselves. The best thing a father can do for his children is to allow them to grow strong.”
Small Knife said nothing, and in the silence, Samiq rummaged in his hunter’s pack for a water bladder. He took out the ivory stopper, drank, handed the bladder to Small Knife.
Small Knife took it in both hands and tipped it up, sucked out a mouthful of water. He swallowed and said, “Our village is too small. We do not have enough hunters.”
Small Knife’s words surprised Samiq. Why should a boy worry about such a thing? Then Samiq reminded himself that Small Knife was no longer a boy, but a man, a hunter. So Samiq gave Small Knife a true answer and did not try to make things seem better than they were.
“Yes, it is too small,” he said.
“If another tribe comes to us,” Small Knife said, “as when the Short Ones came to the Whale Hunters before I was born, if that happened …”
“We would fight for our women and children,” Samiq said quietly.
“But we would die.”
“We might,” Samiq answered, “but remember, sometimes the strongest fighting is done with words, not weapons.”
“Words cannot kill.”
“Sometimes they kill the spirit.”
“My Whale Hunter grandfather said a spirit cannot be killed.”
“If a man does not care about anything, about himself, or others, about the earth or animals,” Samiq said, “then do you see that his spirit is dead?”
“Yes,” said Small Knife. “So you are learning to fight with words?” the boy asked.
Samiq nodded. “But I must also be able to fight with the knife.”
Small Knife lifted his right hand. “Even with your hand?”
“Yes.”
“It will not be enough to fight with words?”
“Some men are not strong enough to fight with words. In their weakness, they use weapons. So I must also be able to use weapons.”
Small Knife nodded, then asked, “How will you learn?” He slipped his sleeve knife from its sheath and held it up. “With the knife, I mean?”
“I have been thinking about that,” said Samiq. He looked long into Small Knife’s eyes. “Would you help me?”
Small Knife slipped his blade back into its sheath and cupped his hands above the flame of his hunter’s lamp. “Yes,” he said.
Then they sat in silence. When the chill of the air began to stiffen Samiq’s body, he turned and pulled two furred robes from his ikyak. He wrapped himself up in one, threw the other to Small Knife. “Go to sleep,” Samiq said. “There is much to do tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 47
The Whale Hunters
Yunaska Island, the Aleutian Chain
WAXTAL OPENED HIS EYES. The voices, a dull hum that wove in and out of his dreams, had changed. He listened. Hard Rock. Waxtal’s heart quickened. He braced his hands against the floor and tried to stand, but the days of fasting and the journey back to the Whale Hunters’ island had taken his strength.
He sank down on the floor of his sleeping place and heard Hard Rock, questioning. He heard Spotted Egg’s quick answers, Owl’s slow, strong voice, and he knew he must get up, speak to Hard Rock for himself. Besides, it was morning. His days of fasting were over, and he was hungry. He pushed forward to his hands and knees, then slowly to his feet. He lifted his arms to the water skin hung above his head and let himself drink. The water gave him strength. He drained the skin and threw it aside.
Let the woman fill it. He had had enough of filling water skins. Sudden joy flooded his chest. Let the traders say what they would. He had fulfilled his promise to the spirits. Who could say what powers that would give him? Perhaps enough to pull Hard Rock his way. He pushed aside the curtain and walked out into the main room of the ulaq.
He ignored the three men, but let his eyes rest on the woman. Her face was round, her lips full. She had the long narrow eyes so often seen on Whale Hunter women. She was tall and strong, though it seemed to Waxtal that she held her left arm too close to her body, standing with one hip outthrust, elbow leaning against her hipbone.
She would be welcome in his bed, but probably Owl or Spotted Egg had already claimed her. Or perhaps, being brothers, they had shared her. Since she had come, the ulaq was clean—no bones or food scraps on the floor—but his tusks were not in their usual place beside the low boulder lamp. For a moment, his heart squeezed tight and his breath came in short, quick gasps, but then he saw the tusks lying against the far wall, the ivory glowing yellow in the oil lamp light.
“Waxtal,” Spotted Egg said. His voice was a low growl that prickled the hair on the back of Waxtal’s head.
“I have completed my fast,” Waxtal said. The words seemed to use up the strength the water had given him. He glanced around the ulaq, looking for his walking stick, and remembered he had left it in his sleeping place. He slumped down, suddenly afraid he would fall, here in front of Hard Rock and the traders, in front of the woman who now lived with them. The woman came to him, helped him to sit as though he were an old man, and before he could protest, she put a bowl of broth in his hands.
He raised the bowl to his lips, drank the broth. It was good, rich with fat and sharp with the taste of bitterroot bulbs. It was warm, but not hot enough to burn, and the warmth seeped out through the wooden sides of the bowl to pull the morning stiffness from his fingers.
Hard Rock squatted on his haunches beside Waxtal, looked at him, but Waxtal said nothing, only raised the bowl once more to his lips. “You took their trade goods,” Hard Rock said.
“Only because they were going to take what was mine and leave me here.”
“This is true?” Hard Rock asked. He looked up at Owl and Spotted Egg.
Owl shrugged.
“He is too old to keep up with us,” Spotted Egg said.
“He took everything?” Hard Rock asked. “Everything that was in this ulaq?”
“No,” Owl said. “Not the things that were here when we came, not the whale oil or the dried fish.”
Hard Rock lowered his head, but Waxtal, looking over at the man, saw the beginning of a smile on his face. “You think he should be killed for taking what was yours,” Hard Rock said.
Again Owl shrugged. “It does not matter to us. We do not want him with us, that is all.”
“That is not what Spotted Egg told me,” Hard Rock said.
Owl looked at Spotted Egg, narrowed his eyes.
“We did not have to bring him back here with us,” Spotted Egg said. “We could have killed him where he was. We could have taken everything and been gone.”
“But you did not,” Hard Rock said. “Why not?”
“He was fasting, praying,” Spotted Egg said. “Why take the chance that some spirit in that place would be angry?”
“So you thought it was better to bring him here, let the Whale Hunters’ island carry the curse?” asked Hard Rock. “Better to let me decide whether he lives or dies? I have enough problems
with curses.”
“It is your choice,” Owl said. “We will kill him or let him live. But if he lives, we will not take him with us.”
Hard Rock stood, walked the length of the ulaq. “Why should I want him dead?” he asked. “He took nothing that belonged to the Whale Hunters.”
“Good,” said Spotted Egg. “You feed him. I am sure the Whale Hunters need another old man to care for. As for us, we will leave. There is nothing for us here. We have tasted your whale oil. It is old. We have tasted your women. They are—”
Owl interrupted, said something in Caribou to Spotted Egg, his words too rapid for Waxtal to follow.
“Tomorrow, then, we go,” Owl said to Hard Rock. “We thank you for your hospitality and leave you the skins of oil you see here in this ulaq as our thanks.” He pulled back the grass curtain that hung over the entrance to the food cache. Waxtal, squinting, counted four seal bellies. “We also leave you the old man. Do what you want with him.”
Waxtal drew in a long breath and looked at Hard Rock, but Hard Rock was already at the climbing log, and, saying nothing, he left the ulaq.
“Tell me what you need done,” the woman said and stood up from her basket pole.
Spotted Egg pulled his parka from a pile of skins heaped near the entrance of his sleeping place. “There is a hole under one sleeve,” he said, then also threw out leggings and boots, tossing them into a pile at the woman’s feet. “Owl, you have clothes for mending?” he asked.
Waxtal turned his back on the traders, raised his bowl, and licked it clean. He went to his tusks, picked up the carved one and took it into his sleeping place, then carried in the plain one.
He laid his hands on the tusks, felt the clamoring of voices at his fingertips. Yes, he thought. He would wait here, out of the way. He would wait here and guard his tusks. But once Owl and Spotted Egg had left, he would go to Hard Rock and make his offer. Owl and Spotted Egg might think they were taking all the trade goods, but they did not know what he had to trade—knowledge that Hard Rock would give all he had to possess.
CHAPTER 48
The River People
The Kuskokwim River, Alaska
“EACH PACKET HOLDS a different medicine,” Dyenen said. “Each string that ties the packet is a different color with different knots.” He pulled several packets from his lynx skin medicine bag, then nodded toward the medicine bag that Raven carried. “See, Saghani, you have the same.”
Raven reached into his bag, found packets that were tied in the same manner as Dyenen’s packets.
“That is how you know what is in each,” Dyenen said. “Now listen and remember.” He spread his packets on a flat dry growth of moss and motioned for Raven to do the same.
Raven reached into his own medicine bag, spread the packets out, then squatted on his heels beside the old man.
Dyenen held up a packet and waited until Raven found his tied with the same color string and in the same series of knots.
“Lovage,” Dyenen said. “It is found in sand near the sea. The plants are tall with leafstalks red near the bottom. The leaves are shiny and divided so three are one. Leaves and stems should be picked before the flowers come. Eat them green for sores in the mouth or dry them for tea that will take away that pain which comes low and deep in the back. Red string, three single knots.”
He picked up the second packet, opened it, and spilled out nettle roots. “Dried nettle,” he said. “The roots are good for toothache. Pound them and hold them on the jaw wrapped in grass heated over coals. Pick it in spring. It grows in shaded places where old villages once stood. It grows like a man, tall and with one stalk. The leaves are good for stopping the flow of blood. Red string, two double knots.”
He went on, his eyes on the packets, his fingertips gathering stains from the herbs.
But as Dyenen spoke, a coldness crept into Raven’s chest. There was nothing here, no stones carrying the glitter of spirit powers, no fur from sacred animals, no amulets consecrated by fasts or visions. Just herbs, plants that anyone could gather, that any wife could boil, that any old woman could use for backache or fever or leg cramps.
He had traded away Kiin’s carvings for something a child could do.
Dyenen’s words continued, a long line of foolishness about pain and plants, about teas and powders. The chill in Raven’s chest turned into the heat of anger, anger so large that Raven could not even fit words around it. And so he sat in silence, Dyenen’s voice no more important than the noise of the river that flowed beside them, no better than the whisper of spruce branches in the wind. Then above those noises, he heard the loud, strong call of a raven, and looking up, he saw the bird above them, the tips of its wings bent in the wind, the sun turning the black of its feathers into blue and green and red. The bird rose on the wind currents, and Raven felt his heart lift also. The old man had power. There was some way to get that power.
When Dyenen had talked about every packet, he put them all back into his lynx skin bag. Raven replaced his own packets, though not with the same care Dyenen used. Both men stood, and Dyenen said, “So the trade is done. Medicine for medicine. Each day I will teach you more, other ways to use the packets. I will show you the plants, where they grow, what they look like. Soon you will know as much as I do.”
Raven looked down at the old man and slowly shook his head. “You think old women’s medicine, herbs and plants, are a worthy trade for my carvings?” he asked. Without giving Dyenen a chance to answer, he continued, “I know you have power. I have seen it. I came to your lodge. I heard voices. Yet you were alone inside. The lodge was trembling with your power. The hunters say you call animals. The hunters say your power brings fish, caribou, beaver. None of that have you shared with me.”
Raven turned away from the old man and began following the river back to the village. The old man said nothing, and Raven did not look back to see whether he followed.
When they came to the first lodge, Raven turned and was surprised to see the old man close behind him. Raven had not slowed his pace, had not worried whether Dyenen could keep up with him.
“I will give back the carvings,” Dyenen said and held his hands out for the lynx skin bag.
“A trade is a trade,” Raven answered. “I said I would give you the carvings, and I will, but I expect something more for what I have given.”
“I have nothing more.”
“You are shaman of this whole village. Do not tell me you have no power.”
“What is more powerful than the earth?” Dyenen asked. “What is more powerful than the plants that grow from the earth?”
Raven bent over, picked a brown shoot of joint grass just pushing up from the spongy soil. “You would tell me that this is more powerful than the wolverine, than the bear or wolf?”
“I would tell you that each power is different,” Dyenen said.
“I am not a fool,” Raven said. “I know there is power in the medicine bag. I will stay and learn the secrets of this power from you. But I also know you have the power of animal calling. I know you have the power of spirit voices. Maybe I was a fool to think you would understand the power of my carvings and accept them in trade for all your knowledge.”
“I have given you the most powerful knowledge I have,” Dyenen said.
Raven clenched his teeth, felt them move in their sockets. “The voices, the animal calling, those things I want. What do you want? What in trade can I bring for those powers?”
“I have all things I need. There is nothing you can give me.”
“Some men have everything they need,” Raven said, “but no man has everything he wants.” He fixed his eyes on Dyenen’s eyes.
Dyenen turned away. “I am content,” he said.
Then Raven remembered something. Dyenen had no son.
“And you do not wish for a son,” Raven said slowly.
The old man stopped, turned his head to look at Raven. “You think I could not trade for a boy?” Dyenen asked. “You think there are no River fa
milies who would give me their sons?”
“A son of your loins,” Raven said. “A son by your own seed.”
Dyenen laughed. “You cannot give me that.”
“You are right,” Raven said. “No man can offer such a thing, but a woman can be traded—a woman with spirit powers, a woman who has the gift of sons.”
The old man stood still, his chest moving in slow, long breaths. “You know such a woman?” he asked.
“Yes,” Raven said.
The old man raised his eyes to Raven’s eyes. And as though he saw truth there he said, “Tell me about her.”
CHAPTER 49
DYENEN STROKED THE WALRUS CARVING, felt its spirit spread into his hands. At first he had not believed Saghani. Who would? These carvings made by a woman? But there had been only truth in the man’s eyes as he spoke of Kiin, of the twins she had birthed: two sons, healthy and strong. A woman like that, could she not give him sons? He was old, but not too old to have put a daughter into Far Sky’s womb, not too old to enjoy a woman in his bed almost every night.
“If this woman is honored among her own people, she might not want to come to this village,” Dyenen had said.
Raven lifted his hands, spread his fingers. “Her father gave her to a man who is worth little, lazy and a poor hunter.”
“If she has such power, why does she stay with him?”
“He gave much, in furs and weapons, to her father as bride price.”
“And the husband would be willing to trade her? Does he not know the value of her carvings?”
“He fears her carvings. He does not understand them. He has offered her to me before in exchange for trade goods.”
For a long time Dyenen sat and thought. He had much in skins and pelts, land animal furs that would have much value among the Walrus People. Perhaps the woman would be happy at this River village. It was a good village; the women would be kind to her.
“Does she like to carve?” Dyenen asked.