Brother Wind

by Sue Harrison

  The women paddled until they came to the inlet where the ikyan had turned, then moved their iks into shallow water. When they came to the gravel beach where the men had landed, the women paddled ashore, then carried water bladders and sealskins of dried fish up to the campsite the men had chosen.

  Kukutux picked up the roll of sealskins she used to make a shelter for Waxtal and herself. As she walked to Waxtal’s ikyak, she noticed tracks in the gravel, paths through the ryegrass.

  She hurried to Waxtal’s side. “There are people here,” she said, leaning close to her husband as he bent over the hull of his ikyak.

  “Get me sinew and awl,” Waxtal told her as though she had not spoken.

  “There are people here, other people,” Kukutux said again, this time more loudly. “Is this the Ugyuun beach?”

  “I told you I need sinew and awl,” Waxtal said again, raising his voice. He laid his hand over a thin cut in the ikyak cover. The cut did not penetrate the sea lion hide, but it was long, and might split if the ikyak bumped against rocks or came into heavy seas.

  Kukutux shook her head in irritation but went back for her supply pack. She found awl and sinew, then returned to Waxtal.

  Walking with head down, she nearly ran into Dying Seal.

  “Kukutux!” he said, his voice holding both surprise and laughter.

  Kukutux did not think of politeness, of apologies, but instead looked at Dying Seal and said, “There are people here. Other people.” She pointed at the paths in the grass and the footprints in the sand.

  “We are near a village,” said Dying Seal. “Waxtal calls them Ugyuun. He says they are First Men.”

  “Then we have eight, ten days until we reach the Walrus village?” she asked.

  Dying Seal shrugged. “Ask Waxtal.”

  Kukutux opened her mouth to ask another question, but Waxtal called to her, his voice angry, so she turned away from Dying Seal and went to her husband, handing him awl and sinew as he berated her. His words ran like rain over her head.

  As if they were rain, Kukutux ignored them.

  She is not a worthless woman, Waxtal thought as he looked at the shelter his wife had erected. It was good, watertight and with room enough for a man to stretch out full-length to sleep. But in many ways Kukutux angered him. The one time he had hit her, she had hit him back, hard. Since then he had let his anger out only in words. Sometimes words were not enough.

  Waxtal was standing with Hard Rock and Dying Seal. The two men were discussing whale hunting. Waxtal curled his lip. What was whale hunting compared to ruling spirits? What was whale hunting compared to carving? Who, in their children’s children’s children’s time, would remember the names of Hard Rock or Dying Seal? But they would look at Waxtal’s tusks and remember him.

  “You know these people?” Hard Rock asked, turning back to Waxtal.

  “The Ugyuun?” Waxtal asked. “I have traded with them before,” he said.

  Hard Rock grunted, a sound that always irritated Waxtal. The man was stingy with words, as though his thoughts were too important to share with others. Hard Rock could blame Samiq for the curse on the Whale Hunter village, but as alananasika Hard Rock was responsible for what happened to his people. Perhaps he did not spend enough time fasting, enough time apart from his wives. Perhaps the whales sensed his impurity and would not give themselves to Whale Hunter harpoons.

  Waxtal pointed to the path that led to the Ugyuun village. He stepped aside to allow Hard Rock and Dying Seal to lead, but when the low mounds of the Ugyuun ulas came into view, Hard Rock slowed his steps.

  “You go first,” he said to Waxtal.

  Even Hard Rock sees me as leader, Waxtal thought. What is alananasika compared to shaman?

  Dying Seal pointed at the shabby ikyak racks, and Waxtal turned his head to say, “They are a lazy people and do not have much, but some of their women are beautiful.”

  Seeing three Ugyuun men behind the racks, another two sitting atop a ulaq roof, all doing nothing, Waxtal nodded his head, as if in agreement with his own thoughts. An old ulaq had been left to rot, good rafters with bad, the roof and one wall caved in. The ikyak racks were falling down, propped up with sticks and rocks.

  Waxtal called to the Ugyuun men, called and greeted them with open hands. “We are from the Whale Hunter people. We journey to trade with the Walrus tribe, but we need fresh meat. Would you be willing to trade sea urchins for dried fish? Bird meat for sealskins?”

  The two men on the ulaq slid from the roof and joined those on the beach. One man carried a bird spear in his hand. The others kept their hands tucked up their sleeves.

  The hair in Waxtal’s armpits prickled.

  “You said you knew them,” Hard Rock whispered.

  Dying Seal stepped forward, held his hands out, repeated Waxtal’s greeting.

  The tallest of the Ugyuun men also held out his hands, and the other Ugyuun men followed, one by one.

  Waxtal took a long breath, then stepped forward, ahead of Dying Seal. “We come not as traders but to trade, and to ask if we may spend the night on the beach there.” He turned and pointed.

  “You are welcome to stay, but we have little to trade,” said the tallest Ugyuun.

  “Water?” asked Hard Rock.

  “Yes, we have water.”

  “Sinew?” asked Dying Seal.

  “Some. What do you offer in exchange?”

  “Oil,” Waxtal said and ignored the look of anger on Hard Rock’s face. They had enough oil to get to the Walrus village. What did Waxtal care about oil beyond that? He would not return to the Whale Hunters’ island with the rest of them. He and Kukutux would stay—and that would be two fewer people for Hard Rock to feed.

  Perhaps if the Whale Hunters did not have enough oil for the return journey, they would choose to be part of Waxtal’s village, giving him the power of shaman over more people. Or perhaps they would leave some of the children. He would be willing to take She Cries’ stepdaughter as second wife. Most shamans had at least two wives. If they killed Samiq, the Whale Hunters would owe him a wife anyway, a wife and much more. And if they wanted something in exchange, he would give them Blue Shell. He almost smiled. An old woman for a young one.

  “We will trade some of our oil,” Hard Rock said. “And dried fish. Sealskins, a few. Whalebone harpoon heads and beads.”

  The man who seemed to be leader of the Ugyuun raised his eyebrows and looked quickly at the men beside him. Several of them nodded.

  “We will go back and get what we have for trade,” said Hard Rock. He and Dying Seal turned, but Waxtal, lifting his chin to point at the Ugyuun village, said, “I will go with them.”

  Waxtal knew that Hard Rock would not bring much oil, but he did not want to go back with them. Why be loaded with sealskins and dried fish? Why carry baskets and water bladders? Let Hard Rock and Dying Seal carry what must be carried. Waxtal was the trader. He would do what he was good at doing, and the Whale Hunters would have more than if he had let Hard Rock or Dying Seal speak.

  He felt the anger in Hard Rock’s stare, but turned his back on the man and followed the Ugyuun.

  Inside one of the Ugyuun ulas, the men squatted on their haunches near an oil lamp. From the dim edges of the room, a woman came, a beautiful young woman, her suk one that Chagak herself might have made, so intricate was the stitching, so beautiful the feathers.

  As Waxtal’s eyes adjusted to the light, he studied the inside of the ulaq. It was neat and well-ordered, something that surprised him. He had been once or twice in other Ugyuun ulas. All things were usually jumbled together, and the smell of rotting floor heather and the stink of old fish had been as heavy as smoke. But this ulaq smelled of fresh heather, of ryegrass newly woven, of meat cooking. The oil lamp wicks were trimmed, and even from across the width of the ulaq, he could see that the curtain over the food cache bulged with what was inside.

  “I am Eagle. This is my wife, Small Plant Woman,” an Ugyuun man said. “Welcome to my ulaq.”


  Waxtal nodded, then reached for a stick of dried meat from a bowl the Ugyuun woman was holding before him. “Your lodge is good,” Waxtal said. “You have had a good summer for hunting.”

  “It has been a good summer,” the man said and smiled at his wife. She placed one hand over her belly, and Waxtal wondered if she carried a child. He lifted his eyes to the shoulder of her suk, to a piece of ivory sewn there. As soon as he saw it, his stomach tightened and his mouth grew dry. The carving was a murre, wings spread.

  It was one of Kiin’s. Who would not recognize her work? Each carving was so … so … what could a man say? Complete. As though the knife knew what was necessary, what lines, what curves—and then stopped there.

  “So you will trade for water and fresh meat?” Eagle asked.

  “Yes,” said Waxtal. “We will trade for what we need and also for other things.” He lifted his hand to point at the carving. “That,” he said. “What will you take for that?”

  The woman cupped her hand over the carving, looked with worried eyes at her husband.

  “It is not for trade,” Eagle said.

  Waxtal cocked his head to one side, took another piece of meat. “Then perhaps you will tell me where you got it. Perhaps I could find the carver and get one like it.”

  The Ugyuun man smiled, but said nothing.

  “One belly of oil,” Waxtal said.

  “Seal belly or sea lion?”

  “Sea lion.”

  The man raised his eyebrows at his wife, and for a few moments their eyes held, as though they spoke without words. Finally she said, “He is Whale Hunter, not Walrus.”

  Her husband nodded. “The carver is a woman,” Eagle said. “She is of the First Men. She lives with her husband and son on the Traders’ Beach, only two days from here.”

  “But,” said the woman, “if you go to the Walrus People, do not tell them about her. She has enemies there.”

  “Enemies?” Waxtal asked, but the worried look came again into the woman’s eyes, and she pressed her lips together and would say no more.

  The knowledge was like sand against Waxtal’s skin. Kiin—what father had a worse daughter? Already, she had left Raven and gone back to Samiq. How could he, Waxtal, now ask for Raven’s help? But then a smile came slowly to Waxtal’s face.

  “The Walrus People do not know where she is?” he asked.

  The Ugyuun woman shook her head.

  “Do not worry,” Waxtal said. “I will never tell them.”

  CHAPTER 91

  The First Men

  Herendeen Bay, the Alaska Peninsula

  KIIN SAW BIG TEETH when he was still out on the bay. She lifted one hand, and he did also, but when he beached his ikyak, he pulled the craft ashore with his back turned toward her, and then found something in the hatch coaming to keep his hands and eyes busy.

  Kiin waited for him to turn, but finally could wait no longer. She came to the man, hesitated, then laid one hand softly against his back.

  “My mother?” she asked.

  For a time it seemed as though he had not heard her, did not know she was standing beside him, but then he lifted his head and looked at her, and Kiin saw that his cheeks were wet with tears. “She is dead,” he said, and his voice carried the sound of his crying.

  Kiin had no words, nothing, and it suddenly seemed as though her chest were cold and hollow. “How can I live without my mother?” a little child-voice asked from within. “Who will take care of me?”

  She began a mourning song, then realized she was singing one of her mother’s lullabies instead.

  “I am sorry. I am sorry,” Big Teeth said over her singing. “If I had been there sooner, I might have saved her.”

  “And my son?” Kiin asked, and the question was so large, so heavy, that she felt she could not even breathe.

  “He is with the River People. Raven traded him.”

  The world darkened, grew small, but then Kiin’s spirit voice whispered quiet words, comforting her as a mother comforts a child. “He is not dead. You will find him. Samiq will find him. Mourn your mother, but do not mourn your son.” Then the world came back—the rush and roar of the waves, the strength and cold of the wind, the sound of Big Teeth’s voice, broken in sorrow.

  “What happened to my mother?” Kiin whispered, and then, though she did not know how, Samiq was with her, and Three Fish, Chagak and Kayugh, and Crooked Nose, her strong arms holding Big Teeth close to her even as he spoke.

  “The man Raven killed her,” he said.

  Anger filled Kiin’s chest so that she could do nothing but scream, but finally her screams became words and she shouted, “Why, why, why?”

  “She had left the village—to meet me,” Big Teeth said. “She was hiding in the grass on a beach where Raven came to pray. He thought she was a wolf.”

  “A wolf?” Kiin said, and her voice rose up into something that was almost a laugh. Samiq reached for her, tucked her head against his shoulder.

  “I buried her in the manner of Whale Hunters, on that beach, with prayers.”

  “I must go to her,” Kiin said, and fought to break from Samiq’s arms. “I must go.” But Samiq would not release her.

  “Your mother is here,” Samiq said. “Be still and wait. She is here. Why go back to the Walrus People? She would not stay there. She followed Big Teeth’s ikyak back to us. Be still and you will feel her spirit with us.”

  So Kiin no longer fought, but let her husband take her back to the ulaq, to Takha, who hugged her and patted her cheeks with his baby hands until he had coaxed a smile.

  “I go now,” Samiq said. “If you want to come, then come. If not, stay.”

  “There is ice forming in the bay,” Kayugh said. He raised one hand to the sky. “Snow maybe.”

  “I cannot wait until spring,” Samiq said. “I do not know what kind of people have him. If they run out of food, they may let him starve—first before any of their own children.”

  “You know that any man who takes a child as his own, though his wife did not bear it, treats that child as he treats his other children,” Kayugh answered.

  “That is the way of the First Men. The River People may be different.”

  “You do not even know what the baby looks like,” Kayugh said.

  He bent to pull a handful of grass from the ground and held up the blades one by one, let the wind carry each from his fingers.

  “I will ask for the child traded by Raven of the Walrus People. I will offer everything I have. He is my son. I cannot let him be raised by River People who do not speak the sacred words of the First Men language, who do not know how to hunt seal or the whale, who cannot build ikyan.”

  Kayugh looked away, out toward the bay. The sky was gray, and as the sun neared the western horizon, all things seemed dark.

  “Tomorrow?” Kayugh asked.

  “The tide is best now,” Samiq answered.

  Kayugh nodded. “I will get food. You get whatever you need to trade for the child.”

  Samiq started up the beach toward his ulaq.

  “You should have a carrying strap,” Kayugh called after him. “Something to hold the child under your parka on our journey back.”

  His father’s words seemed to put strength into Samiq’s legs, and he went more quickly.

  The ulaq was full of the mourning songs of women. Crooked Nose and Kiin were at the center of the group, both women with eyes closed, faces wet with tears. Samiq beckoned to Three Fish, and the woman came to him, listened as he whispered what he would do. Her eyes were round in fear, and she opened her mouth, wide and square so that Samiq knew she would soon begin to wail, but he clamped his hand over her face, spoke to her in the stern way of father to child.

  “Do not cry. I will be back, with Shuku. Do not tell Kiin until you have to. Fifteen, twenty days I will return. Now get what I need—oil, a small basket of Kiin’s carvings, a carrying strap for Shuku, dried meat and fish, my hunter’s lamp.”

  He did not wait for her, but went
into his sleeping place, took his harpoons and several knives, an extra parka, and the pack of supplies he always carried when he went hunting.

  He stopped to press his cheek to Three Fish’s face, to speak for a moment to Small Knife, to hold Takha and Many Whales. He lifted the small ivory ikyak Takha wore at his neck, the half ikyak like the one Shuku also wore, and, glancing at Kiin, took the necklace. “I will bring it back,” he whispered to Takha, then looked once more at Kiin. Her eyes were closed, her mouth moving with the words of mourning. Her pain was a knife in his heart.

  Samiq left the ulaq and went to the beach, waited for his father. Then the two left together, paddled out into the gray of the coming night.

  CHAPTER 92

  The Walrus Hunters

  Chagvan Bay, Alaska

  WAXTAL OPENED HIS MOUTH AND LAUGHED. The story was an old one, and he had heard it before, but why tell Raven that? Let the man have joy in small things.

  Raven narrowed his eyes and stared at him. “I know you,” he said. “You have been here before—to trade.” Raven spoke in the Walrus tongue, and Waxtal was glad Hard Rock, who sat with them in Raven’s lodge, did not understand.

  Five men were gathered, Raven and Waxtal sitting on the bed platform, the others—two Walrus hunters and Hard Rock—standing. There seemed to be no woman in the lodge, and Raven had offered no food.

  “I have traded here and in other Walrus villages,” Waxtal said.

  Raven sat quietly for a moment, nodding his head, watching Waxtal so that Waxtal had to force himself to sit still, to wait. Finally the man smiled and said, “So, you have come to trade, you and these Whale Hunters. What do they have that is worth so much?”

  “Harpoon heads and spearpoints,” Waxtal said. “Some that are new, others that have been used to kill whales. They hold much power.” He noticed that Raven and the two men with him, a young man with a scar that ran from the corner of one eye to his chin, and an older man, large and tall, leaned forward. The younger man reached out one hand for the basket that held the points, but Waxtal drew the basket back, settled it between his legs.