by Sue Harrison
“And the baby?” the loud-voiced woman asked. “Why is he Shuku?”
“His name was given by a Walrus shaman,” Kiin said. “It is a name of power.”
The woman tilted her head, as though considering Kiin’s answer. Her next question was about sewing leggings, so that Kiin knew the woman believed her. Then all the women were talking, and Kiin hugged Shuku to her chest, and smiled her happiness at being in the Ugyuun village, safe and so close to the Traders’ Beach.
CHAPTER 65
LATER THAT DAY, Small Plant Woman helped Kiin climb up out of the ulaq. They sat together on the ulaq roof, Small Plant Woman with Shuku in her arms. It was a warm day; the sun was high in the sky, shining against the top of Kiin’s head.
Her joints ached at elbows and knees, but she stretched her arms up toward the sky, winced as the scabs on legs and feet pulled against her skin.
Small Plant Woman looked into her face and said in a quiet voice, “I have goose grease, new this spring. It will soften the scabs.”
Kiin smiled at her, but shook her head. How could she take goose grease—which could be used for food—from a woman who had so little?
“I am fine,” Kiin said. “Already the sun makes me feel strong.” She held her arms out toward Shuku, and noticed that despite her sickness, despite the days of starving, her arms and hands looked fuller, stronger, than Small Plant Woman’s. Who could not see, in the lines on their faces, the brittleness of their hair, that the Ugyuun women had starved during the winter, perhaps through many winters? Yet these six days, Small Plant Woman had fed her and watched over Shuku.
Shuku leaned toward his mother, but for a moment Small Plant Woman held the boy tightly, pressing him to her chest. “I had a son,” she said softly, then released Shuku into Kiin’s arms.
Kiin glanced into the woman’s eyes. She saw pain there, but the pain was private, something that belonged to Small Plant Woman, so Kiin looked quickly away.
“Last winter was hard,” Small Plant Woman murmured.
Kiin nodded, though she did not remember the winter being particularly hard. Who could say? Perhaps any winter was a hard winter for the Ugyuun People. Who did not know that the Ugyuun men were poor hunters? Why else would their children always have the lip sores of those who ate ugyuun raw, without carefully peeling away the outer stalk, something hungry children might do?
Small Plant Woman slid down the side of the ulaq and led the way into the lee of a larger ulaq. There she squatted down on her haunches, motioning Kiin to do the same. Kiin moved slowly, her knees and hips so stiff that she finally laughed and said, “I have become like some old woman.”
Small Plant Woman smiled, then began to speak of the little things of living: slicing fish to dry, finding where the best berries grew, weaving mats. She told Kiin about the arguments that raged between a young woman named Crowberry and She Calls Out, sister to Small Plant Woman’s father. As Small Plant Woman spoke, Kiin came to realize that there was something more important Small Plant Woman had to say.
It always brought a smile to Kiin’s face to hear hunters as they talked first of weather and hunting before any man spoke of what truly lay against his heart. Now she realized that women did the same. Their stories might be of berry picking and preparing food, of other women and their words, but still, it was the same. So Kiin clasped her hands together over Shuku and made herself listen in politeness until Small Plant Woman was ready to say what she needed to say.
Questions rose in Kiin’s mind, made her legs jump in restlessness. Eagle, Small Plant Woman’s husband, had found her. Would he expect something in exchange for saving her and Shuku? What did Kiin have to give? Small Plant Woman had said nothing about Kiin’s carrying basket. Had it been lost? Kiin’s carving tools were in it.
Small Plant Woman finished a story about two Ugyuun women, how a fight between their children had become a fight between them, then she said, “My husband Eagle found you. He is out now in his ikyak, hunting seals, but when he returns he will talk to you.”
“You are good, you and your husband, to take me into your ulaq,” Kiin said.
Small Plant Woman looked away, would not meet Kiin’s eyes, and nervousness began to twist into a hard, tight knot in Kiin’s belly.
Eagle came to Kiin that evening, after a second oil lamp had been lit in the ulaq, after Small Plant Woman and Kiin had put away food and moved the cooking skin from its place over the large oil lamp to a hook hanging from the rafters near the back ulaq wall.
The man was large and thick, with hands as big as seals’ skulls. His face was flat, dipped in at the middle so the end of his nose was no higher than his eyebones, and his skin was black with soot. His suk was well made, of puffin skins and fur seal pelts, but it stank of mildew, so that Kiin took small breaths through her mouth to keep the smell from her nose.
“I found you,” he said, without politeness of small words. “You and your son.”
“Thank you,” Kiin said.
“I have your pack.”
Kiin nodded. She looked across the room, saw that Small Plant Woman was cradling Shuku on her lap. Shuku was fussing, whining sounds that told Kiin he was hungry. Small Plant Woman laid the baby on his back, moved him toward her left breast. Looking past Eagle, Kiin said to Small Plant Woman, “I will feed him.”
But Small Plant Woman acted as though she had not heard, and Eagle said, “Milk is milk. Who cares which woman feeds him? He belongs to both.”
His words were like a slap against Kiin’s head. She opened her mouth to speak, but could say nothing.
“I found you; if you have no husband, you are mine,” Eagle said.
Kiin sat, mouth open. She pulled her eyes away from Small Plant Woman and looked at Eagle.
Her spirit voice spoke. “Eagle!” it hissed. “Who would think to give the man such a name, slow and dirty as he is?” But Kiin shook her head until she heard not her spirit voice, but only the clear strong words of her own thoughts.
“I was traveling without my husband,” she said.
“Alone?” Eagle asked, his eyes narrowing, his lips drawing into a wet circle.
“Yes,” Kiin answered.
“How can a woman travel alone without a hunter? Without a man to protect her against spirits?”
“I am shaman,” Kiin answered, and the words, like knives cutting, sent pain into the center of her chest, so that her spirit voice cried out against the lie, and Kiin had to clamp her teeth together to prevent the cry from escaping her mouth.
At Kiin’s words, Shuku screeched, and Kiin jumped to her feet, fear so heavy in her chest that she could not breathe. The spirits might punish her for a lie, but would they also punish her child?
Without looking at Eagle, she went to Small Plant Woman, pulled Shuku from her arms, and settled the child, sobbing, tightly against her chest.
“He bit me, so I pinched him,” Small Plant Woman said, her voice quiet and without anger.
Kiin’s fear left her, and she smiled at the anxious look in the woman’s eyes. Kiin held Shuku at arm’s length and said to Small Plant Woman, “He is old enough to know better.” Then she said to Shuku, “No! No! Do not bite!”
Shuku raised one eyebrow at her, and he looked so much like his father Amgigh that Kiin held him close again, his head hard and warm under the curve of her neck.
Then Eagle was at her side, pulling her down to squat next to Small Plant Woman. “You have a husband?” he said to Kiin as though there had been no interruption in their conversation.
“Yes,” Kiin said. “Samiq of the First Men.”
“You know them,” Small Plant Woman said to her husband. “They live on the Traders’ Beach.”
Eagle cleared his throat, then cupped his hands in front of him and looked at his wife. Small Plant Woman stood up and went to the corner where she and Kiin had hung the cooking skin for the night. She picked up a wooden bowl and scooped out some of the seal meat stew, now cold, the tallow a soft yellow coating over meat and ugyu
un stems. She gave it to Eagle. He scooped out some of the stew and pushed it into his mouth with his fingers.
“If you do not want to go back to him, I need a second wife,” he said through the food. “This one is a good woman, but her babies are not strong. They do not live.”
From the corners of her eyes, Kiin saw Small Plant Woman quickly lower her head, turn away as though to deny her husband’s words.
“Many times,” Kiin began, speaking slowly, “babies die in hard winters. A mother cannot make enough milk if she does not have enough to eat.”
Eagle took another handful of meat and said nothing, so Kiin continued: “Hunters must bring enough seals, not only for the day they are living, but so their women can store oil and dry meat for those winter moons when ice keeps the ikyan ashore and winds keep hunters in their ulas.”
“The women here, they fish,” Eagle said. “They dry the fish for winter. We do not starve.”
Kiin took a long breath and said, “Fish is not enough to give a woman good milk. She must have oil, and meat that is fat.”
Eagle raised the bowl toward her, pointed at her with his chin. “And you know this because you are shaman?”
“I know this because I am a woman who has nursed babies. A hunger comes to all mothers with babies, a need for oil, for fat.”
Again the man’s eyes narrowed. “You have another child?” he asked.
“A son who is at the Traders’ Beach with his father.”
Eagle nodded. He looked at Kiin, did not look away until she met his eyes. “If you want to go back, I will take you there,” he said. “To your husband and the Traders’ Beach. It is only a few days from here.” He scraped out the last bit of meat, then licked his bowl and handed it to Small Plant Woman. She set it back in the pile of bowls that crowded the floor in front of the food cache. “He will probably give me something for bringing you back,” Eagle said, and let out a long belch. He looked at his wife, the woman still beside the food cache. “Good,” he said to her, patting his stomach.
“If you are shaman, then you have powers and know how to talk to the spirits,” Eagle said.
Kiin, eyes lowered, only nodded.
“I have heard stories of the two old women, sisters, who were once of the First Men and now live with the Walrus People. They are shamans, it is said. You know them?”
“I have heard of them,” Kiin said carefully.
“The Walrus People,” Eagle said. “One of their villages is not so far. Sometimes their traders come here after they have been to the Traders’ Beach.” Eagle belched again, but the belch turned into hiccoughs, hard and loud, until Small Plant Woman reached up to the rafters for a bladder of water and brought it to him. She stood at his side as he drank, then patted him on the back until the hiccoughs stopped.
Eagle held the water bladder out toward Kiin, but she shook her head. Eagle shrugged and handed the water back to his wife, then reached out and caught her wrist, circling it with his fingers. “This woman, she needs a child,” Eagle said. “I found your pack. I know what is in it—not what a woman carries. There are knives, such as men use, and animals made of wood and ivory.”
He stopped, and Kiin said, “I carve.”
Eagle nodded, and a glow came into his eyes. Kiin shuddered. Would this man, like the Raven, try to keep her for her carvings?
“If you are shaman and you carve,” Eagle said, “can you make something to bring strength to my wife’s child?”
Small Plant Woman, standing beside her husband, laid one hand over her belly.
“You are with child?” Kiin asked.
“Not yet,” Small Plant Woman answered, “but children come easily to my womb. They do not live through any winter.”
Kiin looked at Eagle. “I am not shaman in the way that most people are shaman,” she said. “My strength is in my carving and in my songs. My powers are not great powers, but you saved my life and my son’s life. I will try to help your wife with her babies. You must bring in enough seals so that Small Plant Woman can have oil to last through two winters.”
“I am a good hunter.”
“Then do this. For a son.”
Small Plant Woman knelt beside Kiin, wrapped her arms around Kiin’s shoulders, whispered her gratitude in Kiin’s ear.
“I will try, I will try,” Kiin whispered back, suddenly afraid that in claiming to be more than what she was, all power would leave her.
Eagle bellowed out a laugh and stood, picked up his wife, the water bladder still in her hands, and carried her into a sleeping place.
Kiin settled Shuku in her lap, raised her parka so her son could nurse. Shuku’s quiet swallows were drowned out by Eagle’s noisy lovemaking. Kiin smiled. Eagle had said the Traders’ Beach was only a few days away by ikyak. Perhaps by the next full moon, she would see Samiq, would be back with her own people. Joy leaped in her heart, until she remembered her promise to Eagle, and she lifted prayers to the spirits, prayed they would not be angry. And her spirit voice whispered, “You claimed no more than what you are, a woman who sings, a woman who carves. Are not those powers as great as any the Raven claims?”
So Kiin turned her thoughts to songs, and as though hope and joy lent power to her voice, words came easily from her mouth, a song for strength, a song of hope, a powerful song for Small Plant Woman.
CHAPTER 66
The Walrus People
Goodnews Bay, Alaska
“A SHORT CAMP. Just for tonight,” Raven said.
White Fox and Bird Sings pulled the trading ik up onto the salmon camp beach, but Raven turned away, pulled his feather cloak tightly around his shoulders, and walked down the beach, studying tide marks and debris left by the waves. He strode quickly until he was too far for the men to call him and ask for his help with ik or supplies. They had brought Bird Sings’ wife with them. She was strong. Raven needed time to plan, to decide what he must do next.
First, a quick stop at their village to drop off trade goods and pick up Kiin. Bird Sings’ wife was not nursing, and if Raven went to the Ugyuun village to trade for a baby, he needed someone to feed it. A baby was not like a stack of trade goods, something to be bargained for and then stowed in ik or ikyak until needed. He wanted a healthy baby, too, not some starved infant that would die before he could get it back to Dyenen. Kiin was a wise woman. She would be able to tell him which baby was well, which was not. And it was an advantage that she did not speak the River tongue. By the time she learned the language and told Dyenen that the Ugyuun baby was not truly her son, Raven would already know the old man’s shaman secrets, and once given, the secrets could not be taken back. But first Raven had to think of a way to get Kiin to agree to come with him.
If Kiin were like Lemming Tail, he could tell her that they were going to the Traders’ Beach, that he was returning her to the man Samiq, but Kiin was not like Lemming Tail. Kiin would know, by sun and stars, which direction they traveled. Perhaps he could promise her spirit powers or honor for her carvings. But each of those ideas left an uneasiness in his chest. Kiin had come with him to the Walrus village only to save Samiq’s life. What did he have that she valued as much as that? Perhaps a promise to return her to her own people after a year. But would she believe him?
Then suddenly he knew—Shuku. Raven had promised Shuku to Dyenen, had he not? It would be Kiin’s choice if she wanted to go with her son or stay with the Walrus People. …
Bird Sings’ wife, her shrill voice lifted in a strange cry, brought Raven from his thoughts, and he turned to see the woman waving her hands over her head, motioning toward a pile of driftwood high on the beach.
Bird Sings and White Fox left the ik and joined the woman. White Fox raised a hand toward Raven, motioned for him to come.
Raven walked slowly. Why hurry for something discovered by a woman? But he squinted his eyes to see better, curious about what would excite Ice Hunter’s sons, who usually hid all thoughts behind slow-closing eyes and stern faces.
Then Bird Sings lifted
something from the pile of wood, and as Raven drew close he saw that it was a necklace, the strand broken. Bird Sings lifted it, and beads spilled from the sinew cord.
Bird Sings’ wife looked up at Raven with fear in her eyes. “It is Kiin’s,” she whispered.
Raven frowned, squatted on his haunches between Bird Sings and White Fox. He used his walking stick to pry into the pile of wood and heavy, wet sand.
“It is an ik,” he said slowly.
“The necklace is Kiin’s,” Bird Sings’ wife said again. She began to dig in the sand, uncovering pieces of wood that had been the ik’s skeleton.
“We can save most of this,” White Fox said. “The wood is still good, even the walrus skin—a woman might use it for boots or floor mats.”
“Do what you want with it,” Raven said, speaking as though to a small, pestering child.
White Fox pulled on a leather thong, jerked it out of the sand. A pouch was attached, and when White Fox saw it he dropped it quickly. “An amulet,” he said and leaned forward to fix his eyes on Raven’s. “This is Lemming Tail’s ik. The necklace and the amulet are Kiin’s.”
Raven stood up and walked away as though White Fox had said nothing. White Fox moved to follow him, but Bird Sings reached out, caught his brother’s arm, held him back. “Let him go,” he said. “It is a hard thing to lose a wife.”
Raven turned back. “It is not Lemming Tail’s ik,” he said. “It is not Kiin’s necklace.”
White Fox and Bird Sings looked at each other from the corners of their eyes, then Bird Sings said to his wife, “I will gather driftwood and start the fire. You save what we might be able to use,” and he pointed at the remains of the ik.
That evening and the next morning, Raven spoke little. When White Fox tied the torn walrus hide and broken pieces of framing wood into the traders’ ik, Raven stared for a moment at the load, but still said nothing.