The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  They seemed to treat her well when she took her turn at the cooking hearths. One woman—her name was Happy Mouth—even sought her out, chattered away in bright words that Aqamdax only vaguely understood. Still, Happy Mouth’s acceptance gave her hope that other women, too, would someday count her as friend.

  Aqamdax turned her head so she could see the smoke hole. It was very dark, a night of new moon, but soon the sky would lighten and then she could get up. Remember, she told herself, you will not be here forever. Someday, one of the First Men will come to trade.

  Then she would go back with him, to her own people, to her own village, and again be storyteller.

  Dogs barking woke him. Ghaden reached out for Yaa, stroked the soft mat of her dark hair and stuck his thumb in his mouth. He felt Biter move beside him, heard the low rumble of a growl in Biter’s throat. He laid his hand on the dog’s back, but Biter rose stiff-legged and moved toward the door. Ghaden waited, his breath in his throat.

  It might be her. He knew that she would come for him. Biter could protect him from people, but what about ghosts? What did ghosts do? Did they turn people into ghosts? If he were a ghost, would he still live in this lodge with Yaa and Brown Water and Happy Mouth? Could he play like other boys or would he have to float around like smoke? Worse, would the ghost kill Biter?

  He heard the dog growl again, so he shook Yaa’s arm until she woke up.

  “What?” she asked, her voice full of sleep. She was cross with him, he could tell, though in the dark he could not see her face.

  “Something’s outside,” Ghaden whispered.

  “Just dogs barking. Go to sleep.”

  She flopped back down into her sleeping robes, but Ghaden leaned over her and said, “It might be the ghost.”

  Yaa sat up. “What ghost?”

  “The one who came with the hunters. The one who lives with the otter man.”

  “The First Men woman?”

  “She’s a ghost.”

  “Ghaden! She’s a woman. She’s just like us. Well, almost like us.”

  Ghaden felt tears closing up his throat. Yaa didn’t like him to cry, so he shut his eyes tight and tried to hold the tears inside.

  “Ghaden,” Yaa said softly, “why do you think she’s a ghost?”

  “She’s my other mother,” Ghaden said, but when he spoke the words, a sob came with them. He clamped his mouth shut in the bitterness of knowing that Yaa could tell he was crying.

  “Sh-h-h,” she said. She sat up and pulled him into her lap. Biter came to them, stuck his nose into Ghaden’s face and licked away the tears. “Don’t worry, Ghaden,” Yaa told him. “She’s not a ghost, but even if she is, you’re safe with us.”

  In the morning Yaa left Ghaden in the lodge and went to the cooking hearths. She walked past the place where Sok’s Sea Hunter wife was to put her new lodge, hoping to see the woman working there. Several elders were digging a circle into the earth with broad slate blades. Usually the women did that, but many were still with their families at summer fish camps, though they would return to this winter village before they left for fall caribou hunts.

  Yaa could barely remember the last time she had been on a caribou hunt. That was when her father was still strong enough to hunt, but then he became old, and now with no man in the lodge, they had to depend on Brown Water’s married son to provide caribou meat, though she and her mother and Brown Water had been able to do their share in catching and drying salmon for winter food.

  She walked slowly past the lodge site, finding reason to stop and tighten the rawhide that laced her boots from insteps to ankles. She did the left boot, then the right, but still the Sea Hunter woman did not come. She stood and watched the elders until Blue-head Duck stopped digging and scolded her, telling her she was lazy. Then she hurried to the hearths, chose a cooking bag and emptied Brown Water’s meager contribution of dried salmon and a handful of fresh blueberries. She fed one of the fires, then used a willow loop to pull a cooking stone from the coals. She carried it to the cooking bag, dropped the stone and watched it sizzle its heat into the meat and broth.

  She was disappointed that the Sea Hunter woman had not been working at her lodge. She must mostly stay inside, Yaa thought, for she seldom saw her. Well, as second wife, the Sea Hunter woman would have to do what Red Leaf told her, just like her own mother did what Brown Water said.

  Yaa stirred the cooking bag again and looked up at the sky. Brown Water had told her to stay here until the sun was two hands past the tops of the northeast trees. She held a hand up to the edge of the trees. One and a half. She fed two of the fires, adding the wood where it would least disturb the coals. She didn’t mind hauling wood and feeding fires or stirring the food, but she didn’t like to carry hot rocks and drop them into the cooking bags. Even the most carefully chosen rocks—smooth and round—sometimes cracked into pieces when you added them to the meat. There was always the chance a sliver of stone would fly up and cut hands or face. Best Fist had a scar above her left eyebrow where a rock had cut her last year. Then, of course, someone had to try to find all the pieces of rock and get them out of the food. Yaa had had to do that more often than she liked to remember. Still, as careful as she was, Dog Trainer had once chipped a tooth on a piece she did not get out.

  Yaa moved to the next cooking bag. For the moment, she was alone at the hearths, although since the fires were burning so well, she knew other women had recently been there and would probably return soon. She stirred the meat, felt the heat rise, but knew it needed another stone. She was lifting the stone with the willow loop tongs when she saw the Sea Hunter woman walking toward her. As much as she wanted to look at her, Yaa made herself keep her eyes on the rock until she got it to the cooking bag. She dropped it in, then looked up and greeted the woman.

  The Sea Hunter woman smiled at Yaa and held up a caribou cooking skin, pointed at the cooking bags with her chin, then at the skin so Yaa knew she wanted some meat to take back to Red Leaf’s lodge.

  “Red Leaf tell … come … take.”

  It seemed as though the woman’s broken speech stole Yaa’s words, and she could only nod. The woman brought the skin and Yaa filled it.

  The Sea Hunter woman thanked her, and Yaa inclined her head, then went back to stirring. The woman had turned away before Yaa thought to call after her: “I am Yaa. My mother is Happy Mouth. My brother is Ghaden.”

  The woman turned. “No speak,” she said.

  Yaa laid a hand on her chest. “Yaa,” she said.

  “Aqamdax.”

  Yaa lifted her chin toward the woman. “Aqamdax?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  The woman walked away. Aqamdax, Yaa thought. It was a word she did not know. A Sea Hunter word, no doubt, and hard to say, the last part more like a choke deep in the throat than a sound. No wonder the people did not say her name.

  Daes had had a River name. Perhaps this woman, too, after living in the village for a time, would take a name everyone could say. Then, thinking of Daes, Yaa realized how much this new woman looked like her. Of course, it was the same among many people. The hunters of the Cousin River Village, when they came here to trade, all seemed to look much alike.

  Daes had kept her hair long, seldom binding it back from her face. She cut it in a fringe across her forehead, as did this new First Men woman. Suddenly, Yaa stopped stirring. No wonder Ghaden did not want to go outside. Aqamdax did look like Daes. Ghaden probably thought she was his mother’s ghost.

  THE COUSIN RIVER FISH CAMP

  K’os rolled her sleeping mats into a tight bundle and secured them with a braid of babiche. She hated the long three-day walk to their winter village. They would stay there only a moon, then leave on a caribou hunt, and what was worse than that? Piling rocks and rebuilding brush driving fences to direct the caribou to the hunters. Then butchering and hauling, most of which the women did.

  For the past few years she had chosen to remain in the winter village, had found a young woman willing to go with
her husband, do his work in hopes of becoming a second wife. She certainly did not mind having another woman warm Ground Beater’s bed during the caribou hunt, but second wife? No. Why chance that Ground Beater would be influenced by another woman’s needs, by her wants, or by her father’s ideas? K’os always saw they were paid well in meat, and even a few necklaces, but also always found reason for them to return to their mothers’ lodges.

  This year, though, she had no husband, and that meant she had to go on the hunt again. She would do her share—build fences and butcher and skin—but all the while she would be watching.

  This year the young hunters had chosen to break with tradition, and she was afraid that without her there, they might allow the elders to convince them to return to their spears and spearthrowers without the chance of proving that their bows and small-bladed arrows would work as well, perhaps even better.

  She added her rolled sleeping robes to the pile of her belongings. Her two dogs would take the caribou hide tent, her bedding and her cooking utensils. She would carry her medicine bag, the plants she had gathered and dried, as well as the few weapons she owned.

  She shaded her eyes from the sun and looked across the camp. There were few families left, so it was easy to see that Tikaani’s tent was still up. His sister was slow. K’os took two dried fish from a sael and gave one to each of her dogs. Most of the elders thought dogs worked better on an empty stomach, but she had always fed dogs well and never had trouble with them.

  Dogs and men were much alike: mean when their bellies were empty. She laughed and sat down on her bedding roll. She pulled out a fish for herself and began to eat, her back to the summer camp so she could look down the path that led from the river.

  She thought at first she was seeing a vision—the body of a bear with the head and beak of a giant eagle. By the time several of the elders found courage to go forward and meet the strange beast, she realized it was only a man carrying a large pack and a skin-covered boat. A Sea Hunter trader this far from the sea?

  She had never been one to rush forward, to greet traders or hunters until she decided what kind of men they were. Once such foolishness had cost her much. She would not repeat her mistake. She crouched between her dogs, an arm around each animal’s neck, and spoke in a stern voice until their barking had faded to thin, high whines.

  When the man finally drew close enough for her to see his face, she remembered him, recalled inviting him into her bed. He had been in too much of a hurry for her taste, but had been generous in his trading. His face had changed—more than what would be expected only from the passing of years. His nose had been broken and a scar drew his mouth into a pucker, but still his eyes and the bones of his cheeks were the same.

  The shaman He Talks puffed himself up to hold his shoulders straight, his sagging belly in. He approached the man, soon was arguing with him, telling him that he had never been to their village. K’os drew her mouth into a smirk. What did He Talks know?

  K’os rose, walked slowly toward the trader. He had set down his boat, and she could see that he wore a peaked hat. It seemed to be made of wood, thin and bent into the shape of a woman’s breast, but large enough to fit over a hunter’s head. It was waterproofed with strips of gut. She could understand the reason for such a thing, especially on the sea. It would shade the eyes and even protect against rain. It might be something a hunter would wear, or a shaman. Either way, it must hold power. She wanted it, and by the time the trader left them, she would have it.

  “He has been here before,” K’os said to He Talks.

  He Talks turned to her, and K’os saw that his eyes were dark in anger. He did not like her. She was a woman, and younger than he was, but her power was greater. He was afraid of her. He had been the first to throw accusations against her in Gguzaakk’s death, the first to withdraw them after three nights of stomach pains and loose, bloody stools. He had not even had the decency to thank her for the medicine she had given him, a medicine that took away the pain almost as quickly as it had come.

  “He has been here before,” she repeated. “He was a guest in my fish camp lodge, a friend of my dead husband.” That reference to Ground Beater should be enough to convince those few who still doubted. Who would risk mentioning someone dead unless that mention carried great importance?

  She stepped forward and looked into the trader’s face, so close that the beak of the hat extended forward over her head. Yes, he was the same one. She was not wrong. Ah, but what was his name? Something about the earth. Yes, tundra—Cen.

  “What happened to your face, Cen?” she asked, and smiled at her boldness.

  Her question surprised him. She was not a young woman, but a man would have difficulty knowing such a thing. Her face was beautiful, but who could have accumulated the cold knowledge in those eyes without living a long time?

  He almost answered her with a joke, but for some reason the words that came out of his mouth were harsh, angry. Words that told the truth.

  “The Near River People killed my wife and nearly killed me,” he said. “They still have my son—unless they have killed him also.”

  More people had gathered now, the hunters crowded so close that they pressed against him on all sides. They spoke to one another quietly, their voices like a low rumble in the throat of a dog. He pulled up his sleeve so they could see his misshapen wrist.

  The growl rolled into a deep roar of anger, but the woman who stood before him lifted her voice to call out, “We have a common enemy. They steal our fish and curse our hunting. They have turned my own son against us.”

  Cen saw several elders step back, pull at young men in the crowd, but the hunters pushed them away.

  “Do you seek revenge?” she asked, hissing the words into his face.

  “Yes,” he told her. “And I want my son.”

  She turned with arms spread, and in that way widened the circle of people. “You see,” she said, “we are not the only ones the Near River People have cursed.” She looked over her shoulder at Cen. “Those with the same enemies should lend their strength to one another. Our winter village is three days’ walk. Will you come with us?”

  He looked at her. The question was more than something asked in hope of trading.

  “There is a traders’ lodge where I might stay? I no longer have my own lodge poles.”

  “There is a lodge where you can stay,” she said. Then she clasped his left hand, pushed up his sleeve, her hand hovering for a moment over the haft of the blade he had sheathed there. She ran strong fingers over the wrist, palpitating the swelling that extended up his arm.

  He noticed that her hands were the hands of an old woman, with pocked skin and large purple veins. He wondered how far that oldness extended—to her breasts, her belly? Or was her body young like her face?

  “I have something that will take the pain from your wrist,” she said.

  “I can bear the pain, but I need to regain my strength.”

  “I may be able to help with that,” she said, then shrugged. “And I may not, but pain weakens the will.”

  “I will go with you,” Cen replied.

  The woman left then, and again the hunters crowded close, asking questions about the First Men hat he wore and about the seal flipper boots on his feet.

  He had been wise to come to these people. If nothing else, he would make good trades. He lifted his eyes to where the woman had been sitting. But he might gain more than that. Perhaps much more than that.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  GREEN STRIPE GIGGLED, AND Best Fist said, “Dats’eni.”

  “Dats’eni,” Aqamdax said, correcting herself.

  “You are getting better,” said Best Fist.

  Aqamdax smiled at her and said, “Because you help me.” Best Fist, a girl who had not been blessed with comely face or quickness of hands, straightened her back and lifted her eyebrows at Aqamdax, and Aqamdax continued her story. It was about a duck and a raven, one of the few
the River children had told her. She had made it her own by adding voices and giving the duck a good amount of wisdom as weapon against the raven’s cunning.

  When she finished the story, one of the children sang out a request for another. “The last one,” Aqamdax told them, though she truly enjoyed telling stories, and the telling did not slow her fingers as she sewed a caribouskin parka for Red Leaf’s youngest son.

  More than two tens of children had gathered to listen to her stories that day. Even a few of the oldest boys stood at the edge of the group, each with a practice spear or bola in his hands, as though he had stopped for only a moment.

  First the children had merely watched her when she sat outside her new lodge to sew or scrape hides. She had tried to speak to them, but found they slipped away if she looked at them. So one day she did not lift her eyes from her sewing, but began to sing songs using the few words of the River language that she knew. One day she began to tell stories, simple things about animals or plants, speaking as though she talked to herself.

  Finally the children grew bold enough to sit near her, and then to tell her stories as well, and to correct her words, to answer her questions about the way things were done in the village.

  She found they were remarkable teachers, and so during the two moons she had lived in the village, she had already learned much of the language. It was good, too, to have the children as friends. Now that she had her own lodge, she was often alone, though Sok came some nights to share her bed, and each day Red Leaf brought her more work to do.

  Usually Chakliux came each morning, at first to share new River words and perhaps a bowl of food, but now they were friends. She told him about her people, and she, too, was a teacher, sharing First Men words as Chakliux shared his language with her.

  For the past four days, Chakliux had been away hunting bear, and soon, after a short time home, he would leave for the caribou hunt. She would not go on that hunt, Red Leaf had told her, though Red Leaf, Sok and their sons would go. Someone had to stay with the dogs left behind. Someone had to watch the lodges. It did not matter to Aqamdax. Having never been on a caribou hunt, she would be like a child, always in the way.