Brother Wind

by Sue Harrison

  “We have women,” Waxtal also said. He looked around the lodge, let his eyes linger on the food rotting on the floor, on the legging skins jumbled in a heap on the bed platform, and on the oil lamp, the wick sending up curls of black smoke.

  “I am in mourning,” Raven said, and at his words Waxtal felt the sudden lifting of his heart, the beginning of joy.

  “For your wife,” Waxtal said. He thought Raven would show surprise, but the man only pointed at the basket of harpoon heads.

  Waxtal handed him the basket and waited as Raven looked at each, laying them on a fur seal skin spread out beside them.

  “So is it your wife you mourn?” Waxtal asked.

  “Yes,” Raven said but did not look up.

  “We have women. Good Whale Hunter women. They make strong sons.”

  “It is too soon,” Raven said, “but perhaps you will allow me one for tonight. There is a chance I may decide to take her as wife.”

  “There is another woman I know about,” Waxtal said, his words deliberately slow. “You might like her. She is not with us, but I know where she is.”

  Raven made no sign that he heard Waxtal’s words, but Waxtal said, “She is beautiful, and there is one strange thing about her. She carves. She has spirit powers, some men say.” He tossed a seal carving into the basket of harpoon heads. The carving was one of Kiin’s—a tiny wooden seal that Waxtal had bought in trade from an Ugyuun man.

  Raven clasped the carving in his hand, looked up at Waxtal, his eyes so hard and bright they were like knives piercing Waxtal’s skin.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Her name is Kiin,” Waxtal said.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “You know her?”

  Raven jumped from the bed platform, spilling the harpoon heads to the floor. He gripped the front of Waxtal’s suk, pulled Waxtal to his feet, and began to speak in the Walrus tongue, his words too quick for Waxtal to understand.

  Waxtal used both hands to shove the man away, then backed from him to stand beside Hard Rock. Hard Rock stood with a knife in his hand, blade out, but Waxtal grasped Hard Rock’s wrist. “He is not angry with me,” Waxtal said. “I have just told him what Samiq did to me. He is angry with Samiq.”

  Waxtal released Hard Rock’s hand and said to Raven in the Walrus tongue, “I know where she is. I know and I will tell you how to get her. But I am a trader. I give nothing without receiving something in return.”

  “What do you want?” Raven asked.

  “You see that I did not come here alone,” said Waxtal. “I have brought many men with me.” He laid his hand on Hard Rock’s shoulder. “They are Whale Hunters. They have come to seek revenge against the man who cursed their island.” He paused so Raven would understand the importance of his next words. “He is the same man who stole Kiin.”

  Raven’s eyes narrowed.

  “The trade is this,” Waxtal said. “I will help you if you help us.”

  Raven shook his head, laughed. “And you are happy with that?” he asked. “You want nothing for yourself?”

  “I have all I need.”

  “No man is content with what he has,” Raven answered. “There is always something a man wants that is just beyond his grasp.” Raven laughed. “Otherwise there would be no traders.”

  “You are too wise,” Waxtal said.

  “And so?”

  “And so, you are right. There is something I want.”

  “And this something, is it here at my village?”

  Waxtal squatted on his haunches, giving Raven the advantage of standing, looking down at him. “For years I have fasted and prayed and called on the spirits,” Waxtal said. “For years I have sought to strengthen my people by teaching them to respect the spirit world. I am close to becoming a shaman.”

  “You know I am shaman of this village?” Raven asked.

  “Who does not know?” Waxtal answered, looking up at the man.

  “You ask to know the secrets of my shaman powers?”

  “Yes.”

  Raven threw back his head and laughed. Waxtal felt the heat of that laughter burn red across his face. Almost, he left Raven’s lodge. But then Raven strode to the far wall of the lodge. He took down the skin of an animal Waxtal did not know. He threw it to Waxtal. The skin was whole and heavy, plump with packs of something stored inside.

  “That is a medicine skin. It is the source of my power,” Raven said. “A River People shaman gave it to me. When you pray, hold it up so the spirits will know you honor them.”

  “You give it too easily,” Waxtal said. “Why should I believe what you say?”

  “Try it. If it gives you power, then you will know I tell the truth. Tonight in this lodge I will let you stay alone. Pray. If nothing happens, then do not tell me about the woman. If it does, it will be a fair trade.”

  “And your hunters will help us fight this man who has stolen your woman?”

  “Yes, they will do what I ask,” Raven said.

  “Then it is a trade,” Waxtal said and smoothed his hands over the thick fur of the medicine skin.

  They made other trades—-oil for harpoon heads, walrus hides for whalebone, sealskins for fur seal pelts. Then Raven did as he had promised. He left Waxtal alone in the lodge. Raven stayed on Grass Ears’ side of the lodge, asking Grass Ears and his wives to let him have the whole lodge for only this night. Grass Ears, clutching the oil belly Raven had given him in return, left, and Raven settled himself to wait, eating from the food in Grass Ears’ cache until he was too full to eat more. Then sitting down, his legs beneath him, his hands clasped, he said a short prayer to call spirits that might help him.

  When he heard Waxtal’s thin voice rise in a chant, Raven lifted his own voice to call from the peak of the lodge, to call in a small high voice something in the River People language. Then he called in another voice from the dividing curtain; something in the Walrus tongue.

  Waxtal’s chants stopped, and soon he was babbling, a mixture of laughter and boastings. Now and again through the night, Raven made the voices come from the lodge, and each time he heard Waxtal respond with fervent chants, Raven hid his laughter behind cupped hands.

  CHAPTER 93

  The River People

  The Kuskokwim River, Alaska

  THEY WERE NOT TRADERS. Why would traders brave snow and new ice? They had ikyan, not iks, and they carried themselves like hunters. They did not speak the River language.

  The older man was tall, and if you did not look at his parka, sewn in the manner of the Walrus People, or his boots, made like the seal flipper boots of the First Men, you would think he was Caribou, with his long legs, his light skin, the sharp bones of his face.

  The younger man was of a people Dyenen did not know. He was wide-shouldered, short-legged, a man whose body spoke of strength even in the way he walked. He, too, wore strange clothes, half Walrus, half First Men.

  The goods they brought to trade were of fine quality, but there was not much, though the young one had a knife—a blade of black obsidian and a handle wrapped with something that looked like hair. That, Dyenen thought, I would give much oil to have.

  It would be good if they wanted dogs, Dyenen thought. He had many dogs, trained to carry a pack, but though some Walrus People had dogs, most seemed to think their ikyan were enough.

  “Walrus?” Dyenen asked. “Speak Walrus?”

  The older man threw up his hands, spoke to the younger.

  Dyenen used his hands to make the sign known among traders for the Walrus tribe. If these two men wore Walrus clothing, they must speak the language. But the men made no reply.

  “Go get Lemming Tail,” he said to his third wife, the woman hovering near, offering meat, oil, dried berries to the men as they squatted on their haunches inside Dyenen’s lodge.

  The woman dipped her head in acknowledgment, put the bowls of food where the men could reach them, and left the lodge.

  When she returned, Lemming Tail was with her, carr
ying two babies. The traders looked at her, and the younger man stretched one hand out toward the children. Dyenen shook his head. What hunter noticed babies?

  “Lemming Tail,” Dyenen said to his wife, “these men, see whether your language is their language.”

  The woman sat down, settled the babies in her lap, and spoke to the two. Dyenen listened to her words. He would pretend with them as he had done with Saghani. A man could learn much more by listening than by speaking.

  The older man said a few words, enough for Dyenen to understand that he came from the place called Traders’ Beach, that he was of the First Men and new to trading. The young man with him was his son. Though the two did not look alike, Dyenen saw a resemblance in the way each man used his hands, the way each held his head, though the younger man kept his right hand hidden, drawn up into the sleeve of his parka. The one time Dyenen had opportunity to see the hand, he studied it carefully, saw the long scar across the top of the wrist, the clawed curl of the fingers. The scar was clear and thin, as though the cut had been made with a knife, and Dyenen felt the sudden chill of fear. Was the man a fighter? Someone who challenged men?

  Then the two men spoke together in a language that Dyenen thought was the First Men tongue. He listened, and though he did not understand the words, he recognized the feelings under them—anger, sorrow. Finally the younger man looked at Dyenen, met Dyenen’s eyes with his eyes.

  “Tell him to look well, look long,” the father told Lemming Tail. “Tell him to look also at me and see that we come with no deceit. We have come to ask for something that your people may not want to give. But it is ours, stolen from us.”

  Dyenen listened to the man, and then listened again as Lemming Tail used River words—her knowledge of that language not perfect, but improving each day—to tell him what had been said.

  “You speak well, Lemming Tail,” Dyenen said to her.

  She laughed. “I like to talk, and your women here do not know Walrus. But you should speak to these traders yourself. You speak Walrus.”

  “Not as well as you,” he answered.

  She cocked her head at him, made a slow smile. “You do not want them to know you understand,” she said.

  The woman was smart. In many ways it would be easier if she were not—but if she gave him a son, he would be glad for that intelligence. Many times he had seen stupid women have stupid sons.

  “I think they are First Men,” Dyenen said. “Speak to them in the First Men tongue. Raven said you and your sister Kiin were First Men.”

  “Raven lied,” Lemming Tail said softly. “I am Walrus.”

  Dyenen looked at her with narrowed eyes, but Lemming Tail turned to the traders, lifted her hands in invitation for their questions.

  “You are not River,” the older of the two said.

  “I am Walrus,” Lemming Tail answered. Mouse reached up, clasped a handful of his mother’s hair.

  “What is your name?”

  Lemming Tail looked at Dyenen. “Do I tell them my name?” she asked. She pulled her hair from Mouse’s grasp.

  “Tell them you are Utsula’ C’ezghot. It is a good name for you,” he said.

  “I do not lie,” Lemming Tail said. “Raven lies,” and she shook her head against the name Dyenen had given her. Then she turned to the men and said, “I am Lemming Tail.”

  “Do you know a woman of the First Men called Kiin?” the older trader asked.

  The woman’s forehead crinkled, and she clenched her hands over the babies in her lap.

  Dyenen leaned forward onto the balls of his feet. “Kiin?” Dyenen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ask them how they know her.”

  “She is dead,” Lemming Tail answered. “I cannot say her name.”

  “You have said it before. Ask.”

  Lemming Tail thrust out her lip at Dyenen, but with eyes lowered told the two men, “The woman you ask about is dead.”

  The father lifted his head, looked for a moment at his son, and said, “I know she is dead.”

  “Then why do you ask for her?”

  “He was her husband,” the man said, pointing with his chin at his son.

  She looked at Dyenen. “They lie,” she said in the River language.

  “Why do you say that?” Dyenen asked her.

  “She was my sister. Before Raven took her as wife, he killed her first husband in a knife fight.”

  “This one has been wounded with a knife.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Look at his right hand.”

  The woman watched the man for a time. “He keeps it hidden,” she finally hissed at Dyenen. “You think I would not know my own sister’s husband?”

  “It does not matter,” Dyenen said. “Ask him why he has come.”

  “My husband asks why you are here,” Lemming Tail said.

  “To claim Kiin’s son.” The trader again pointed his chin at the young man beside him. “And his son—Shuku.”

  Lemming Tail gasped. “The woman’s son is also dead,” she said, her words quick and falling over one another.

  “Ask him why he thinks we have Kiin’s son,” Dyenen said, but Lemming Tail did not seem to hear him. She babbled to herself in the Walrus tongue, words that made no sense. “Ask him!”

  “You ask him!” Lemming Tail screeched back. “I will say something wrong.” Mouse reached up with both hands and grabbed his mother’s hair, held tight. Shuku began to cry.

  Then Dyenen spoke, his voice loud so he could be heard above Shuku’s crying. “These are River children,” he said, speaking in the Walrus language. He turned his head toward Shuku and Mouse. “We do not have Kiin’s son.”

  For a long time Kayugh studied the old man. For a long time he held the old man’s stare without blinking. Finally, the old one raised his voice above the crying and said, “I am called Dyenen.”

  Lemming Tail moved to stand behind Dyenen. She jiggled the babies in her arms until they stopped crying, then Kayugh said, “I am Kayugh of the First Men. This is my son Samiq.”

  Kayugh turned to Samiq, said to him in the First Men language, “The old one is named Dyenen. He claims they do not have your son.”

  “Raven brought my son here,” Samiq said, and Kayugh translated the words slowly in Walrus to the old man.

  “Why, if Kiin was Samiq’s wife, did Raven have her and her son?” the old man asked.

  Kayugh grasped Samiq’s right wrist and held the hand up so the old man could see the scar. “Raven did this, then stole Kiin and her two sons. When Kiin and one son died, he decided to trade her other son. He also traded the woman who caused Kiin’s death—Lemming Tail.”

  “Lemming Tail claims to be Kiin’s sister,” the old man said.

  Kayugh shook his head. “No, she is not.”

  The old man turned to Lemming Tail, his eyes angry. “This is true?” he asked. “You killed Kiin?”

  Lemming Tail said, “I did not kill her. I only sent her away.”

  “And she died,” Dyenen said.

  Lemming Tail did not answer.

  “Which child is your son?” Dyenen asked Samiq.

  Kayugh said, “The one who wears an amulet like this.” He held out his hand, and Samiq reached over, placed the ivory ikyak in Kayugh’s open palm.

  Dyenen gestured to Lemming Tail. “Turn the babies so we can see their faces,” he said.

  Lemming Tail shook her head, but Dyenen said, “Do it now or I will call Two Hands and Weasel. You know they stand just outside the door.”

  Slowly Lemming Tail turned the babies; slowly she raised her head and looked with hatred at Kayugh.

  “That one,” Kayugh said and pointed to the carving sewn on the smaller child’s parka.

  “No!” screamed Lemming Tail. “He is my son. I sewed the amulet on his parka to give him power.”

  “Give me the babies,” Dyenen said, but Lemming Tail ran to the door of the lodge.

  Then two River men were also in the lodge, blocking Lemm
ing Tail’s escape.

  “Take the babies,” Dyenen said to the men. “Bring them here to me, then put Lemming Tail in the women’s lodge and do not let her leave.

  Lemming Tail herself brought the babies to Dyenen and asked in a quiet voice to be allowed to stay.

  “You have caused too much trouble already,” Dyenen said, then he flicked his fingers at the River men. Lemming Tail tried to grab the babies from Dyenen’s arms, but the River men dragged her away, screaming. One of the men finally put his hand over her mouth, picked her up, and carried her from the lodge.

  In the silence, Samiq said, “The child without the amulet, he is Shuku.”

  “You are sure?” Kayugh asked. “You saw him last almost a year ago. Babies change as they grow.”

  “He is my son,” Samiq answered.

  For a long time Kayugh studied the child, then said to the old man, “This one.”

  “You are sure?” Dyenen asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He is one of two sons born together?”

  Kayugh looked into the old man’s eyes. “Yes,” he finally said.

  “I am shaman of this village,” said Dyenen. “I do not have a son. I have many daughters, but no sons. I was told this boy’s father did not want him. I would not have taken him otherwise:”

  “I am sorry,” Kayugh said.

  “I will not keep your son,” said Dyenen, “but I gave much for him in trade.”

  “All we have is yours,” Kayugh said.

  “No,” Dyenen said. “I want no trade goods, but take the woman Lemming Tail. That is all I ask. This other child, Mouse, will be my son, but you take her.”

  “I have a good wife,” Kayugh said.

  “Then give Lemming Tail back to the Walrus.”

  “What does he ask?” Samiq asked his father. “I will give everything I have. I will stay here and hunt one summer with the River People and give them all I take in. I will teach them to build ikyan, to hunt whales.”

  “Do not offer too much,” Kayugh said. “He asks only that we take the woman Lemming Tail.”

  “We will take her,” Samiq said.

  CHAPTER 94

  LEMMING TAIL STRUGGLED against the hands that held her. She was not a fool. The First Men hunters thought Mouse was Kiin’s son. They would take him away. Dyenen in his anger would let them.