Brother Wind

by Sue Harrison

  “Yes, always I pray,” Samiq said. “And I will fast.” He looked beyond his father, called out.

  Kayugh glanced over his shoulder to see Small Knife.

  “Watch,” Samiq said to Kayugh, then asked Small Knife, “Did you bring your weapon?”

  Small Knife’s eyes slid quickly to Kayugh, then back to Samiq. “I have it,” he said quietly.

  “I told your grandfather about our fighting,” Samiq said.

  Small Knife looked into Kayugh’s eyes.

  “Show me,” Kayugh said, and backed away to give the men room to fight.

  Samiq untied the bone that straightened his forefinger, then took a short, knife-shaped stick from his waist packet. He pried up the fingers of his right hand and let them spring back to hold the knife tightly, then he crouched, facing Small Knife, both men with arms out, legs bent, circling.

  Small Knife made the first move, springing in to slash his wooden knife in a wide arc toward Samiq’s stomach, but Samiq jumped back, avoiding the blade. Before Small Knife could regain his stance, Samiq lunged in. He caught Small Knife’s right forearm. The boy lifted his knife toward Samiq’s face, slid the blade across Samiq’s cheek, leaving a red welt.

  Kayugh crossed his arms over his chest and watched. He was surprised at how quickly Samiq moved, perhaps more quickly than Raven, but who could say for sure? Once the knife was secure in Samiq’s hand, no one watching would have known the man was crippled. If Samiq could keep Raven from knowing, perhaps he had a chance. Samiq was strong, and it was not difficult to see that the fight with wooden blades was lasting longer than a fight with real knives, but still Samiq had allowed Small Knife’s blade to touch him on cheek, arm, and knee. A welt from a wooden blade was nothing, but what if each wound were laid open, bleeding?

  Finally, the two backed away, both men drawing in long breaths, and Kayugh held up his hands. “You are right,” he said to Samiq. “You are good. There is a chance you can take Raven; especially if he does not know about your hand, and so work to knock the knife from your fingers. But you must spend more time in prayer before you go. A man’s inner strength must be as great as his outer strength if he is to succeed.”

  “I will pray,” Samiq said.

  Kayugh nodded.

  “And if he knocks the knife from your hand?”

  “Try,” Samiq said and held his hand out to his father. Kayugh reached out and pulled against the fingers, but each was locked in place. He shrugged and turned away from Samiq, then turned back quickly, before Samiq could react. Kayugh kicked up, his bare foot meeting Samiq fingers with a solid hit. The wooden blade remained in Samiq’s hand.

  Kayugh smiled.

  “I heard your mother talking today with your father,” Three Fish said. She and Samiq were in the ulaq, and Three Fish was nursing their son.

  Samiq bent over her, rubbed a finger along their son’s cheek. They had named him Many Whales so that the name could be spoken once again in hope and respect. Samiq sat down beside his wife, and Many Whales, his mouth still on his mother’s breast, pointed at his father. Samiq reached over and cupped the boy’s hand in his own.

  “She asked if you will fight Raven,” Three Fish said.

  “What did my father tell her?”

  “He said yes.”

  “Do you think I should?”

  Three Fish looked at him, eyes meeting eyes. “It will make no difference if I say no.”

  Samiq looked down.

  Three Fish stroked one hand over their son’s dark hair. “You already have a wife and a son.”

  “Yes, a good wife, a fine son,” Samiq said, “but Kiin is also my wife. And I made promises to my brother. I told him I would take care of Kiin and her sons.”

  “We have Takha,” Three Fish said and looked over at the boy sitting in the basket corner, playing with three baskets and a heap of smooth beach stones. He piled the stones in one basket, then dumped them into another.

  “You are a good mother and a good wife. You are my first wife. Whether Kiin is here or not, you will have the same place in my heart.”

  “I want Kiin back with us,” Three Fish said. “My father had two wives. When his first wife died, I mourned for her as for a mother. I know it will be good for Takha to have Shuku. Their power is not complete without each other. I just do not want you to fight.”

  “I will pray. I will plan. If I do not succeed, at least you and Takha and Many Whales will be safe here. Small Knife will hunt for you.”

  “He is a man. Soon he will take a wife, live with her, hunt for her father.”

  “I will ask my father to go to other First Men villages, to bring you back a husband to live here and train our sons. Three Fish,” Samiq said and reached out to turn her head toward him, “I must fight. How can I say I am a man if I do not?”

  For a moment Three Fish’s eyes flicked down to Samiq’s right hand, then up again to his face. “You are a man,” she said. “Let it be enough that I tell you so.”

  Samiq smiled, a smile he might give a child. “Three Fish,” he said, “I will fight.”

  “When?”

  “Soon, after fasting, after prayer.”

  Three Fish lowered her head. Finally she said, “Will a woman’s prayers help?”

  “Yes,” Samiq said. “Pray.”

  CHAPTER 74

  The Ugyuun People

  The Alaska Peninsula

  “HOW LONG?” KIIN ASKED. Her voice was thin, broken.

  “Ten days.”

  “Ten days!”

  “Soul Caller said that your spirit left you to follow your son. He was not sure you would come back to us.”

  Kiin struggled to focus her eyes. The woman speaking beside her—what was her name? Small Plant Woman. “But I am here in the ulaq, sitting.”

  “You were like a woman sleeping, with eyes open, doing as I asked you to do, but with no understanding of what was around you.”

  Kiin pushed herself slowly to her feet and walked in unsteady steps from one side of the ulaq to the other. “It is morning?” she asked Small Plant Woman.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you let me take your ik and follow them?”

  Small Plant Woman stood up, wrapped an arm around Kiin’s shoulders, and walked her back to a place beside the oil lamp. “Kiin,” she said softly, “if I thought you could find them, I would let you go. But you cannot. You do not know where they went.”

  “They went back to the Walrus village.”

  “That is a long way. Too far for one woman to go alone.”

  “I came this far alone.”

  “And you almost died, you and your son.”

  Kiin felt the tightness of tears in her chest, building up until she could no longer hold them back. She sank to her knees and covered her face with both hands.

  Small Plant Woman hovered beside her, patting her back, stroking her hair as though Kiin were a child. She put her arms around Kiin and rocked her, sang a lullaby, a First Men’s song, something Kiin had once sung to Shuku.

  For two days, Kiin did what Small Plant Woman told her, digging roots, finding berries, catching fish, gathering sea urchins. The sorrow in her chest seemed to slow her mind, as though she walked always in fog, the gray hiding the sun, the earth, and all things beautiful.

  The night of the second day, Eagle came to her, the man glancing often at his wife, as though he found the words he needed to say by looking into Small Plant Woman’s eyes.

  He spoke first of hunting, as though Kiin were a man, then of sewing, as though he were a woman, until even Kiin’s sorrow could not hold back her smile.

  At last he said, “I will take you to your family.”

  Kiin looked up at him, lips parted, but could find no words.

  “I do not know where the trader and his wife took your son, but if I take you back to your husband at the Traders’ Beach, then perhaps he will help you find the boy.”

  Again Kiin opened her mouth to speak, but could not decide what to say. She had t
hought often in the past two days of returning to Samiq, but what if, in finding Shuku, the Raven had traveled to the Traders’ Beach, had found Takha, taken him as well, or worse—had fought Samiq and killed him as he had killed Amgigh?

  Tears came to her eyes, and she could not blink them away. I cannot stay here, she told herself. The Ugyuun do not need another woman to feed.

  Kiin licked her lips and swallowed, rubbed one cheek against her shoulder. “When?”

  Eagle shrugged. “Tomorrow, if the sky is good. Small Plant Woman, you want to come? You and Kiin could paddle your ik; I will go in my ikyak.”

  Small Plant Woman looked up from her sewing. “Yes,” she said. “We will go together to find Kiin’s husband and her other son.” She reached over to pat Kiin’s shoulder. “Then your tears will be for happiness.”

  CHAPTER 75

  The River People

  The Kuskokwim River, Alaska

  RAVEN GLANCED AT LEMMING TAIL. Mouse peeked out from the neck opening of Lemming Tail’s parka, and the Ugyuun baby was a bulge that curled around Lemming Tail’s side.

  “You are Kiin; Mouse is Shuku; the Ugyuun baby is Takha,” he said.

  “The Ugyuun is Shuku,” Lemming Tail replied. “He looks much like Shuku, only bigger.”

  Raven shrugged and asked, “Is he much bigger than Mouse?”

  “Some, but what two babies are the same size?”

  Raven nodded, thrust his paddle deep into the water, and directed the trading ik toward the mouth of the river. The water where sea met river churned, and Raven braced himself with knees widespread as he paddled.

  “The current is strong,” Lemming Tail said.

  “Paddle. I told you it would not be easy,” said Raven.

  Lemming Tail pushed forward onto her knees so she could drive the paddle more deeply into the water. When they entered the river, the current was as strong as their paddling.

  “We should walk,” Lemming Tail finally called out.

  “White Fox, Birds Sings, and I had no trouble.”

  The woman made no answer, only pulled her paddle up out of the river water and set it across the top of the ik.

  “Paddle!” Raven bellowed.

  “Let me out. I will walk.”

  Raven roared out his anger. “There, see? A place with sand. We will leave the ik there. Then we will walk.”

  Lemming Tail put her paddle back into the water and, thrusting it against the mud of the river bottom, helped Raven push the ik into shallow water.

  Raven was about to climb out of the ik when a voice came: “Saghani, be careful.” In the thick willow and alder brush of the riverbank, Raven saw Dyenen. The old man pointed to a welling of clear water in light-colored sand at the edge of the bank.

  “See how the water comes up there? It is from below where there are spirits that would draw a man down.”

  Lemming Tail stared at the old man, her eyes following the red and blue embroidery that marked the shoulders and arms of his white fur parka.

  “This is Kiin?” the old man asked, speaking in the River tongue.

  “Yes,” Raven said, but kept his head down as he searched among his supply packs.

  Dyenen leaned over, carefully chose a place to set one foot, and reached to grab the bow of the ik. He pulled it close to the bank and offered a hand to Lemming Tail. She looked back at Raven, then climbed from the ik, clutching Dyenen’s hand.

  “Your son?” Dyenen asked and pointed with long brown fingers to Mouse.

  “He asks if Mouse is your son,” Raven said.

  “He is Takha,” Lemming Tail answered.

  “Takha,” Raven said, “though we sometimes call him Mouse.”

  Dyenen laughed. “Good. A child with two names is a child loved.”

  “The other son nurses,” said Raven and gestured toward the bulge in Lemming Tail’s parka.

  Dyenen pointed toward a path that ran just inside the trees. Lemming Tail pushed through brush until she was there, then she waited, watching through the spaces between trees and shrubs until Dyenen and Raven had pulled the ik out of the river and tied it in place.

  “It will hold until I can send men down to bring the packs,” Dyenen said.

  “It is good you are here,” Raven answered. In the Walrus tongue he said to Lemming Tail, “Dyenen’s men will come for our packs. Thank him. It would have taken me a long time to unload all the packs and carry them to the village.”

  “I would have been the one to carry them,” Lemming Tail said.

  Raven leaned over and whispered into her ear, “You are Kiin. Kiin does not complain.”

  “Is there anything you want to take now?” Dyenen asked.

  “This only,” Raven said and reached into the ik, untied a pack. He pulled out the lynx skin medicine bag Dyenen had given him.

  “I can carry something,” Lemming Tail said.

  “Here.” Raven handed her a pack of food. She set it on her head, balanced it with one hand, the other arm around Shuku strapped under her parka.

  Dyenen held out his hands, but Raven said, “Your men will carry. Show us the way.”

  Dyenen and Raven pushed ahead through the trees, leaving Lemming Tail to follow.

  “He is old, but he is not ugly, and he is strong,” Lemming Tail whispered to Mouse as he watched from her shoulder. She began to hum a song, something she had heard once, long ago, something about furs, food, and a village of many lodges.

  After they had walked for a long time, Lemming Tail began to call out questions to Raven. “How much longer? How much farther?”

  Raven did not answer her. Instead he directed his words to Dyenen. Raven hoped Dyenen did not sense the rudeness in Lemming Tail’s voice. On their journey back from the Ugyuun village, she had been no problem, and Raven had let himself hope she had begun to change, for once appreciating the good things in her life.

  When they had stopped at the Walrus village, Raven had been sure Lemming Tail would spend all her time with her friends, but to his surprise she had said she was tired. She needed sleep because she wanted to leave the next day. She told him she had said goodbye to all her friends and did not want to cry tears of parting twice.

  Raven had shrugged and let her stay in the lodge. He had spent his time gathering supplies and trade goods, repairing the ik, and checking his harpoons and knives. His parka was torn, so he gave it to Lemming Tail to repair, expecting a sharp and angry reply to his request, but she had smiled and promised to sew it quickly.

  Even so, they were two days in the village, days when Lemming Tail asked that no one be allowed to come into Raven’s side of the lodge. She had much to do to be ready.

  They had left in early morning, and Raven had not had to drag Lemming Tail from their bed, had not had to chide her for her slowness.

  They had launched the ik with no one on the bench to offer songs or prayers, though as Raven took the first strong strokes with his paddle, he thought he saw those two old ones, Grandmother and Aunt, on the beach. He laughed. Why think such a thing? The two old women were so weak they seldom left their lodge.

  And now he was finally here, and if Dyenen believed that Lemming Tail was Kiin, that the babies were Shuku and Takha, he, Raven, would have all the power any man could want.

  As they broke into the clearing of the River village, Dyenen heard Lemming Tail draw in her breath. His chest tightened and he looked back at her, hoping her reaction was one of joy, not despair.

  When several of his hunters had run into the village to tell of Saghani’s approach, Dyenen had put on his finest parka. He had washed carefully and smoothed oil over his face, chest, and hands. Under his parka, he wore a necklace of bear claws and caribou bone, all from animals he had taken in his youth. What would be better to remind the spirits that he had been a skilled hunter than such a necklace?

  For days, Dyenen had prayed; for nights he had lain awake trying to think of ways to please this new wife, a young woman with spirit powers of her own, a woman who might not be impr
essed with his position among the River People. After all, she was of the First Men and the Walrus. Why find any importance in another tribe? Had he not seen his own daughters turn down offers from men of other tribes, hunters who had much to give a good wife?

  To please Kiin, Dyenen had had a man skilled with drawing and dyes paint pictures on Dyenen’s lodge to tell the stories of Dyenen’s life. He had asked several women of the village to make her a fine parka and leggings, and they had used caribou skins worked until they were so smooth and soft that Dyenen’s calloused fingers could hardly tell he was touching them. He had made her a bed platform next to his, filled it with the softest fox and hare furs. He had made sure all the oil in his food cache was fresh, that there was much meat on the food platform he shared with two other men of the village. And he had told his four other wives that they would accept this new wife as a shaman, with the honor given to a shaman, for though she might not claim such an honor for herself, her carvings were proof of her powers.

  Saghani had not lied. The woman was beautiful. Her eyes slanted up from a small nose, her brows slanted also, like a bird’s wings. Her hair was long and smooth, oiled until it shone. Her parka bulged with her babies, so he could not tell her shape, whether she was slim or thick, but even if she was too thin, if she bore him sons he did not care. Besides, her hands and feet were plump and well shaped. Would her body not be the same?

  Dyenen looked at her and smiled. Kiin’s eyes were wide, her mouth open, and after a few moments of staring, she began pointing and jabbering, asking many questions. Dyenen waited politely as Saghani answered her questions, sometimes in error, but Dyenen did not interrupt, reminding himself that Saghani still did not know he spoke the Walrus tongue. Dyenen was glad to hear Kiin speak the Walrus language so well. He had only a few words of the First Men tongue. He would ask her to teach him during the long winter evenings when they were together in his lodge. How else would a man learn the language? The First Men were not traders. Most seemed content to stay on their small islands, hunting sea animals. Even their stone knappers made knives and harpoon heads flaked only on one side, which meant they did not have the knowledge of heating the stone before they worked it, a knowledge that had belonged to the River tribes for as long as their storytellers could remember.