The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  Of course, K’os might be able to convince the hunters to attack before the village families went to their fish camps. If she could not do that, she would have to kill the Sea Hunter woman. That would be difficult, especially now that Aqamdax lived in a lodge with many other people. If food was poisoned, too many would die; others in the village might be suspicious. She had to be more careful now. She had used poison too freely when she was young. But she had found that sometimes there were better ways to achieve revenge than by killing, and often there were better ways to kill than by doing it herself.

  Aqamdax used hot poultices to draw out the poison in Night Man’s shoulder. The wound had rotted deep into the muscle of his arm. There were painful lumps in his neck and down his side, even at the joint between his left leg and groin. She was able to draw some of the poison out, and by morning he said the pain was less. Even his eyes were clearer.

  “You are a healer,” he had whispered during the night, but she had told him she was only a wife.

  Near morning, Night Man slept, and Aqamdax also allowed herself a few moments of sleep, listening, even through her dreams, to the sound of his breathing.

  She awoke with Star standing over them, her nose wrinkled at the wooden bowl of clotted blood and pus.

  Star poked Aqamdax with one toe and asked, “What did you do to him?”

  “I cleaned his wound,” Aqamdax answered, and sat up. She had slept in her ground squirrel parka, without bedding furs, content to be inside a warm lodge.

  “I do not want Ghaden to see this mess,” Star said.

  Aqamdax nodded. Star was right. It would not be a good thing. She put on her outer parka and carried the bowl and the worst of the hide rags to the refuse pile just beyond the women’s place.

  When she returned to the lodge, Night Man was awake. His eyes brightened when he saw her, and he held out his good hand. “Wife,” he said, and the word was warm in Aqamdax’s heart. “I am hungry.”

  “You know where our cache is?” Star asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Get what you need for him and yourself. Most of what we had in the lodge was eaten last night.”

  The cache was close to K’os’s, a square of logs held high on log legs. It was a strange way to keep food, Aqamdax thought, but then the River People did most things in strange ways. Their boats were rafts of trees tied together. They were so heavy, it took several men to carry one around rapids and shallow water.

  Each cache had a ladder—two long poles tied together with crossbars made of stout branches. They were easy to climb, even with an armload, and could easily be taken down so animals did not get into the cache. She climbed up, untied the door string and opened the cache. It was still at least half full. Even K’os’s did not have that much meat, and K’os made sure any man who slept with her or Aqamdax paid in caribou or fish.

  Aqamdax pulled out a caribouskin storage container, opened it and removed a frozen chunk of meat. Near the door were baled stacks of dried and frozen fish. She took several fish to give to Biter.

  She stopped at the top of the cache and looked carefully around, checking for clouds of frozen breath that might mean wolves or a loose dog had followed and were waiting for her to come down with meat, but there was nothing except the drift of smoke from the roof holes of each lodge and the gray twilight of morning. She fastened the door and climbed down.

  Walking back to the lodge, she met other women. She lowered her head, prepared to hear their abusive words, as she had every morning, tongues clicking against the roofs of their mouths as they spoke about the strangeness of those who were not River People. But this morning the women greeted her as they greeted one another. One even stopped to ask how Night Man was feeling. Then Aqamdax saw K’os, the woman walking toward her, eyes straight ahead, as though no one was worthy of her gaze.

  One of the children had told Aqamdax that K’os was old, and she must be, to be Chakliux’s mother, but her face did not look old. Only her hands, gnarled and dark, told of her age. Aqamdax held her head high, meeting the woman as wife to widow. She expected that K’os would pass her as she had other women, without speaking, without even a flash of the eyes to show recognition, but she stopped, extended a mittened hand and said, “Tikaani tells me your husband is in much pain.”

  “The wound has never healed,” Aqamdax said, hoping her words were not an insult to the one recognized as healer. When K’os said nothing, Aqamdax, too eager to fill the quietness between them, asked, “Does this village have a shaman who knows the chants and prayers that might drive away evil spirits?”

  K’os’s eyes darkened. “He died last fall,” she said. “Right after we returned from our summer fish camp. He was old, but he did not know much. I have plants that will help Night Man. I gave some to his mother before winter started. If I had known he was not getting better, I would have brought more.”

  Surely the woman understood that giving things to Night Man’s mother was worse than giving them to a child, Aqamdax thought. Besides, she did not trust K’os. She might decide to give poison rather than medicine.

  “I will bring you some.”

  Aqamdax nodded her thanks, then continued toward Star’s lodge. She would accept K’os’s medicine but not give it to Night Man. Perhaps her own poultices would be enough to help him grow strong again. Aqamdax entered the lodge, saw that her husband was sitting up, his lips tightened in concentration as he and Ghaden worked together to string rawhide into the web of a snowshoe.

  It is good to be wife, Aqamdax thought. Had she ever wanted anything more than that?

  Chapter Forty-one

  THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE

  SOK LIFTED THE DOG’S body, stood without speaking as Sleeps Long spat full into his face.

  “That is what I think of your brother’s dogs. That is what I think of you. If your brother ever returns to this village, tell him he owes me two handfuls of caribou skins, enough to pay for three good dogs.”

  Sok held in his anger. “You think I have not also lost dogs?”

  “I know you have. Yours were among the first to die. But now your brother’s foolishness—trying to bind us in friendship with the Cousin River People—has not only killed your dogs but also most of the dogs in the village. I have nothing more to say to you, Sok.”

  Sok stood holding the dog, unsure what to do. He had lost count of the dogs that had died in the past year—four handfuls? Five? He should go to Wolf-and-Raven. A shaman would know some way to lift a curse from the village, but Wolf-and-Raven was still angry with Sok for taking Snow-in-her-hair to be his second wife.

  His anger was foolish. Snow-in-her-hair was happy. Sok had not forced her into his bed. She had come willingly, and he had taken her as wife when she became pregnant. He had paid the same bride price he would have had she come to him as first wife. Now she lived in Aqamdax’s lodge, and Sok spent most nights there even though he could not enjoy her during her pregnancy.

  The village rumors—that Snow-in-her-hair had slept with many hunters so she could get pregnant and be taken as wife—were not true. She slept only with Sok. The rumors were part of Red Leaf’s plan to force Wolf-and-Raven to allow his daughter’s marriage. How else would he give her to Sok unless he believed that, in her disgrace, she would never find a husband?

  Wolf-and-Raven should be grateful. Did the old shaman think he was powerful enough to make his daughter a husband from stones, from twigs or mud? The many days he spent speaking to spirits seemed to cloud his mind so no one could truly understand him.

  Why should Sok take the dead dog to Wolf-and-Raven? He would only berate Sok, call down curses on Chakliux.

  Better to go to Blue-head Duck. Sok started toward Blue-head Duck’s lodge, carrying the dog, keeping his eyes straight ahead and away from those along the path who stopped to stare. He did not scratch at the door-flap. How could he with his arms full? Blue-head Duck’s old wife gasped as he came inside, as he lay the dead dog down.

  Blue-head Duck was sittin
g near the hearth fire, a bowl of food raised to his mouth. He lowered the bowl, but his mouth stayed open.

  He did not speak, so finally Sok said, “First they blamed my brother. Now they blame me. They say I do not have the gifts my grandfather had, that all our dogs will die, then worse will happen. Perhaps our children—”

  “Shut your mouth!” Blue-head Duck cried out. “Do not open the spirits’ ears with such words.”

  “Those words have already been spoken,” Sok replied. “Whispered from lodge to lodge by old women who have nothing better to do.”

  “Whose dog is it?”

  “Sleeps Long brought it to me.”

  “He has always prided himself on his dogs. What does he say you should do?”

  “He has no advice. He only blames, as does everyone in the village.”

  “Did he say you should come here?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you? I know little about dogs. I have only the one I need to help my wife carry our supplies when we move to fish camp in the spring. I no longer hunt bear or follow the caribou. I am an old man. Why do I need dogs?”

  Sok chose his words carefully. “You are the eldest of the hunters in our village. You know the prayers and chants to appease the spirits nearly as well as Wolf-and-Raven. I ask you to join your prayers and chants with mine and Wolf-and-Raven’s to protect our dogs. If some disrespect has angered the spirits, perhaps that will help. The rest of us, we are like children. We do not know what to do.”

  As Sok spoke, Blue-head Duck straightened, then finally stood up and faced Sok, locked eyes with Sok.

  “Leave the dog. I will pray until I decide what must be done.”

  At dusk, Ligige’ left her lodge. Her arms ached and her finger joints also. She could sew only a little while, and then had to stop. She did little but sleep and eat. What good was that to the village, a woman who took a share of food but gave nothing in return?

  She had decided to go to the cooking hearths, take a turn stirring so some of the younger women could get back to their lodges, and also so she could scrape away the layer of soft warm fat that coated the tops of the bags where the liquid had boiled down. She would rub it into her hands to soothe the joints, and it would be good to lick off later.

  She nearly ran into Vole, Blue-head Duck’s wife, who was pulling a dead dog from their lodge.

  “Your dog?” Ligige’ asked, and wondered why Vole had not butchered it for its meat.

  “No,” the woman told her, her voice muffled by the front of her parka as she bent nearly double, pulling the dog outside.

  Ligige’ saw Blue-head Duck’s dog leap to its feet from where it was tied at the back of the lodge. It ran to the end of its rope and lunged toward the dead dog, its voice raised in a howling bark.

  “Sok brought it.”

  “Another dog dead?”

  “Yes. My husband said I was to give it to you. He has taken any curse from it, and says you can have it.”

  “Whose dog is it?”

  “Sleeps Long gave it to Sok.”

  “He does not want it?”

  “He told my husband to give it to someone who needs the meat.”

  Ligige’ bent to help Vole pull the dog’s body to her lodge. Ligige’ thanked her, told her to give her thanks also to Blue-head Duck and to Sleeps Long, but after Vole left, Ligige’ only sat and stared at the carcass. If the meat was free of curses, why did Blue-head Duck or Sleeps Long not want it? If it was so safe to eat, why would someone like Vole, whose love of dog meat was well known, give it so willingly?

  All day until late into the night, Ligige’ sat beside the dead dog; all day, she thought about the dogs that had died. They had not started dying until Chakliux came to the village. The people had blamed him, but now he was gone.

  He had traveled to the Walrus Hunters, Happy Mouth said, to find Ghaden and Yaa, but who could believe that? Why would he go after children who were not his, not even a sister or brother, not even a cousin? Happy Mouth only hoped he went, and her hope had made her believe something that was not true. Besides, who could doubt that Aqamdax had taken Ghaden? Of course there was little chance she would survive a journey all the way back to her own people.

  Red Leaf had claimed that she took Chakliux’s iqyax. Who even knew Chakliux had an iqyax? It was hidden in the forest, Sok had said, but why did he hide it? It would be safer in the village.

  After a few days, Red Leaf had changed her story. Walrus Hunters had taken Aqamdax, the woman said, in revenge for something she had done. If that was true, what chance did Aqamdax have of survival? If that was true, why would they have also taken Ghaden, and what had happened to Yaa?

  Brown Water said Yaa had not been right in her head since Chakliux had found her, and no one knew how she had gotten hurt. Most of the women thought she had been hit by a falling branch and that after Chakliux had left the village, she had probably just wandered away on her own. Someday a hunter would find her bones.

  Once Chakliux was gone, the elders claimed there was no more reason to worry about dogs. They were safe. But even without Chakliux in the village dogs were dying again. Now the people blamed Sok. They said he was not as powerful as his grandfather, that he did not know how to protect the dogs. She had heard some of the men speak out against the Cousin River dog, Snow Hawk, and the four pups Chakliux had brought from that village. Some said those dogs should be killed, but they were healthy dogs, and their owners wanted to keep them. Two had already delivered litters of strong pups, and some of those, Ligige’ had heard, were also golden-eyed.

  Besides, did those elders forget that the first dogs had died when Tsaani was still alive? Perhaps she should remind Blue-head Duck. He seemed to be the elder with the loudest mouth, and usually the wisest of those men whose age had earned them the respect of the village.

  Strange that all the animals had died in cold weather. Strange, too, that most had seemed healthy. The ones that died were often the favorites of their owners. If there was some curse, even if it was something the spirits sent as punishment for disrespect, it would seem that the old and weak would still be the first to die.

  Ligige’’s thoughts began to circle, twining themselves into confusion. Her eyes burned from spending the whole day in the smoke of her lodge.

  “Well, old woman,” she said out loud. “You need to do something with this dog.” She seemed to recall that the other dogs that died had not been eaten. Some were burned, and the pups were buried. Perhaps Blue-head Duck was afraid that the waste of meat had angered the spirits. Perhaps that was why he gave her the dog.

  If she ate it and the spirits were pleased, then perhaps the deaths would stop. If she ate it and the spirits were angry, then she would be the one to suffer—she, and not some hunter or a young woman who might yet have children. The thought made her angry, then she reminded herself that this was a way to help everyone. Why complain?

  She found a knife with a sharp, newly retouched stone blade. She was not strong enough to lift the carcass, to hang it from a tree limb; besides, it was too cold and dark for her to work outside. She pulled out old mats to set under the dog, then rolled it to its back and made her first cut, throat to anus. She would eat the liver and kidneys, pancreas and heart, but would set aside the intestines and belly to clean outside. Otherwise the stink would never leave her lodge.

  Ignoring the pain in her joints, she worked to free the organs, then carried the belly and intestines into the entrance tunnel. They would stay cold there until she was ready to work on them. She gave the bundle one last heave to clear the inner doorflap, but lost her balance and fell forward.

  She landed face down on the viscera, and cried out in disgust as the thick smell of fecal matter filled the entrance tunnel.

  “Fool, fool, fool,” she screeched at herself. “You should have waited until morning. There are plenty of young girls who would have helped you.”

  She pushed herself up, winced. She had fallen on something sharp, pierced her left h
and. She crawled back inside her lodge, pulled down a bladder of water and washed away the dung. Her hand was bleeding, a puncture wound. She found a clean knife, made the cut larger. She had lived long enough to have seen such wounds fester, especially when they did not bleed enough. She washed the hand again, then sucked at the wound, drawing out more blood. She heated water, made a salve from fat and dried violet leaves, then bound it to her hand with a thick pad of caribou hide.

  She pulled the dog’s remains into the entrance tunnel and left them there. Enough, she told herself. Time for an old woman to sleep. She would decide what to do with the dog in the morning.

  THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE

  Two tens of days had passed since Night Man had taken Aqamdax as wife. During that time, she had gone to his bed only once, three days after their marriage ceremony. During those first three days, Night Man had grown stronger, and Aqamdax had waited for him to ask her to his bed, but when night came, he said nothing, so she went to the women’s side of the lodge and rolled out her sleeping furs beside Star and Long Eyes.

  The third day she had come in from gathering wood. She had brushed the snow from her parka and hung it from a lodge pole. She was cold, and she held her hands to the fire. Ghaden and Yaa were outside playing, and Star, too, was away; only Long Eyes sat, singing her strange song, staring at the lodge walls.

  Night Man called Aqamdax, and she left the warmth of the hearth fire with regret.

  “You want food or water?” she asked.

  “No food, no water,” he said softly, then held out his good hand. She knelt beside him, and he stroked her cheek.

  “Are you cold?” he asked softly, then said, “It is warm here, in this bed.” He lifted the furs that lay over him and held her eyes with his own. She slipped in beside him, felt herself relax as the warmth of his body enveloped her. She lay still, waiting, not sure if he wanted her body or only the comfort of having her beside him.