by Sue Harrison
“Watch yourself,” he said to her. “Do nothing that might curse. Do not even speak. You and Cries-loud decide on signals, perhaps a clap of hands or a whistle, to let him know what you see. We do not want the caribou to hear a girl’s voice. Stay in the tree after the caribou have passed until someone comes for you.”
He reached to the top of the lean-to, untied a water bladder. “Here, take this,” he said to her. “Wait now for Cries-loud.”
He left the lean-to, and Yaa sank to her knees. She whispered a chant she had learned as a child, something for a woman to sing when she is worried or tired.
“Mother, help me,” she said, and waited to see if she would feel her mother’s spirit near, but there was nothing.
“Father,” she whispered, and allowed herself to remember her father’s face. He had endured much sorrow in his last illness. His favorite wife, Ghaden’s mother, had died, and Ghaden had been badly injured. But in his sorrow, he had still watched over his young daughter, had taken Yaa’s tears into his own eyes so she was strong enough to bear her sadness.
Like a warm cloak wrapped over her shoulders, she felt her father’s strength. Though she could see the disgust in Cries-loud’s face when he came to get her, that strength did not leave. Yaa’s steps were firm against the earth, and she did not falter in the swift current of the river.
When they finally came to the stand of spruce, Cries-loud selected the tallest. Yaa climbed up, using the limbs like a food cache ladder, until she was in the top of the tree.
There were no caribou, but she could see her people’s hunting camp. The river was a wide shining band against the gold and red of the autumn tundra. To her right and left were other trees, some nearly as tall as the one she was in, but most much smaller, and though she knew the strongest branches of a tree grow on the leeward side, away from the wind, it seemed as though each was reaching to the west for the last light of the day.
She tied the babiche rope around her waist and around the tree, got out the stones Sok had given her and held them in her left hand. She waited and watched until the sun was gone, and then in the darkness, she listened, for sometimes caribou walk even in the night, and she knew she would hear the clicking of their legs, the thunder of their hooves.
She took in great breaths of air, testing to see if there was some smell of caribou, and she stretched her eyes wide, so she could see better in the starlight. When she began to grow sleepy, she squeezed her left hand into a tight fist until the stones bit into her flesh and the pain kept her awake.
* * *
Aqamdax sat beside Ghaden during the night, one hand on his chest to assure herself that he still breathed. Sometime in that long darkness, Biter crept into the tent and lay beside the boy, nudging Ghaden now and again with his nose. When the first gray light of morning came, Chakliux joined them. He sat close to Aqamdax, and his warmth was a comfort.
Aqamdax knew he had been praying, and she started to get up, whispered she would bring him food and water, but he said, “I need you here more than I need water or food,” he said.
“Where is Star?” she whispered.
“With Twisted Stalk.”
Aqamdax was squatting in the manner of the First Men, her feet flat against the ground, her knees upraised. She felt Chakliux’s fingers gently rub her neck, then the tent flap was thrown back and someone grabbed Aqamdax’s arm, pulled her roughly to her feet. She looked up to see Night Man. Star stood behind him, her fingers in her mouth as though she were a child.
“Your husband is here,” Night Man said to Star, and pushed her into the tent.
The woman began to wail, and Aqamdax tried to break Night Man’s grasp, but he only tightened his hold. “I allow you to stay with your brother, and what do I find? You are with another man.” He grasped the knotted otter bracelet on her wrist, twisted until he managed to pull it from her hand.
“You think I do not know where you got this?” he asked her. “You think I do not know why you wear it?”
Star’s wails stopped, and Chakliux came from the tent. “Let Aqamdax go,” he said to Night Man.
“You would tell a husband what to do with his wife?” Night Man asked, but he released Aqamdax’s arm, threw down the otter bracelet and ground it into the mud with his foot.
“Women are killed for betraying their husbands,” Night Man said.
“She has not betrayed you.”
“The son she bore. You think I do not know he was yours? He is dead to avenge the deaths of my father and brothers. But this one”—he lifted his head toward Aqamdax—“as long as she is mine, she will do as I say.”
“You have the right to throw him away.” The voice came from behind her, and Aqamdax jumped. It was Sok, and Aqamdax was surprised that he would stand up for her.
“I have done none of the things he accuses me of, but I cannot throw him away,” she said. “I will not risk the loss of caribou to our men’s spears. Why chance a curse on any hunter in this camp?”
She turned, started toward Night Man’s lean-to, but looked back long enough to say to Sok, “Do not let your brother follow me. Make him stay here with Ghaden.”
When they came to the tent, Night Man forced Aqamdax inside. He pulled off her clothing, and then his own, pushed open her legs, stroked himself for a moment and entered her. Aqamdax lay still, blocked from her mind all thoughts of what was happening, and prayed that she would not conceive.
Chapter Nineteen
YAA PRIED OPEN HER left hand, dropped the stones into her pack and slowly straightened her fingers. Her palm was crusted with blood. Though the sun had not yet risen, the eastern sky was nearly light, but she could still see stars to the west.
She heard Cries-loud whistle, and she used the signal he had told her, slapping her hand three times against her pack, to tell him that she saw no caribou.
She pulled out her water bladder and took one sip. Who could say how long she would be up in this tree? She would have to stretch her water out as best she could. She looked again toward the north, then east and west. Sometimes a herd split while crossing lakes or rivers and came from several directions at once.
She pulled a piece of dried caribou meat from her pack, held it up so the smell of the meat would drift toward any spirits that might be near. “This,” she hummed beneath her breath. “This. We need caribou, then we will send you the good smell of smoking fires and drying meat.”
* * *
Chakliux held Star in his arms, rocking her as though she were a baby. Finally he began to tell a story that mothers and fathers tell their children. He felt her relax, and her head fell heavily against his shoulder. He eased her to the floor mats beside Ghaden and covered her with a hare fur blanket. He noticed that her belly had begun to round, and he could not help but lay a hand on it, remembering his first wife, Gguzaakk, and their tiny son.
How many moons was Star into her pregnancy? Three, four? As her husband he should know, but it was not something he often thought about. How would he care for both Star and the baby? Would Star do something foolish to injure the child? At least he would have Yaa to help, but what would Star do when Chakliux took Aqamdax as wife? And now Ghaden…
Then, as though the boy heard Chakliux’s thoughts, he began to mumble. Biter jumped up and licked Ghaden’s face. Chakliux reached out to hold the dog back, but stopped when he saw Ghaden turn his head away from Biter’s tongue.
“Biter!” Ghaden called out, then Star was awake, her eyes wide with hope.
Chakliux lifted his fingers to his mouth, tapped them lightly against his lips to request her silence. Ghaden had not yet opened his eyes. Star clamped both hands over her mouth, then the doorflap was pulled aside and Aqamdax crept in. She had rescued the otter bracelet from the mud, and it dangled from her fingers. Chakliux glanced at her, saw the hardness in her eyes, and knew what Night Man had done. But he tilted his head toward Ghaden, lifted his eyebrows, reached for her wrist and pulled her down beside him.
Aqamdax opened her mout
h to speak, but Star reached over to press a hand against her lips. Suddenly in the silence Biter barked, a noise sharp enough that Star covered her ears. Ghaden opened his eyes.
“Biter, you dog turd,” he mumbled, then Star began to laugh, and Aqamdax started to cry.
“Yaa shouldn’t be up there. She’s a girl,” Ghaden said, his voice pitched into a whine. “I feel good. I can go over there. I’ll be more careful in the river.”
“Your mother does not want you to go,” Chakliux told him.
“Star is not my mother,” Ghaden said. “Yaa’s my mother. They made her my mother when we lived in the Near River Village.”
Chakliux was smoothing a birchwood spear shaft with the edge of a burin stone.
“Look! What do I see?” Chakliux said. “He cries if the ravens take a share of his kill, and he claims that the foxes steal what is his.”
Ghaden thrust out his lip. “Wolverine,” he muttered.
Chakliux used the riddle often when Ghaden was upset about something. Wolverines were selfish in their kills. They hid what they could not eat, left it to rot in their musky urine, and seldom came back to find it. Was he being selfish in wanting to be a watcher for the caribou? He was old enough, and Yaa had girl things to do.
“Later today, if the caribou have not yet come, then I will take you to the tree. Yaa will be ready to come home by then anyway. She will need to sleep before watching during another night.”
“What about Star?”
“We will have Aqamdax keep her busy so she will not know until you are too far away for her to come after you.”
“Here,” Aqamdax said, “remember that you promised long ago to teach me how to make fishskin baskets. I scraped the skins like you showed me. Now, how do I sew them?”
Star straightened her shoulders in importance, took the fishskins and needle from Aqamdax’s hands. Aqamdax sat so her back was to the river and Star’s tent was between them and the banks. For a time Star sewed, head down over her work, but then several other women who were working outside stood and began to look toward the river, hands on hips.
Aqamdax was frustrated with herself for not telling them what she hoped to do. She hovered over Star, distracted her with many questions, but finally Star lifted her head and saw the women.
She stood. Aqamdax tried to draw her back down, but Star pulled away and went to stand with the others. Aqamdax followed, hoping she would have the strength to hold Star back. She placed a hand lightly on Star’s shoulder, looked out to see Ghaden and Chakliux midway across the river.
“There, see,” Star said to Aqamdax. “Ghaden is going anyway. You should not have tried to stop him the last time. It caused too many problems.”
One of the other women looked at Star in surprise, opened her mouth to say something, but Aqamdax caught her eye, signaled the woman to remain silent.
“You are right, Star,” Aqamdax said. “But sometimes it is hard to let boys become men.”
A movement at the far edge of the horizon caught Yaa’s eye. The last time she thought she had seen something, it was no more than the wind blowing. It was difficult to stay awake, and she did not know if she could keep her eyes open through another night. What did boys do? Surely there was something better than sharp stones. She squinted and watched, moved her head to clear her vision. She kept watching until finally she was sure that she saw something. Not a herd of caribou, but something alone, perhaps one of the wolves that always kept pace with a herd, running at the edges, circling ahead and back, always watching for an animal weak in some way.
She remembered her father’s stories of wolves, how they worked together as a pack, sometimes making the herd run so calves would be left behind, an easy kill. She wondered if wolves were the ones who had taught men to hunt together, rather than each man going out alone, working by himself.
Chakliux would probably know if wolves had been their teachers. She felt her thoughts drift toward stories he had told, and then she remembered Aqamdax’s stories, First Men tales, so different from those of the River People.
Yaa’s eyelids were heavy, and her eyes stung. She blinked to wash away some of the burn. Then she was sitting with a group of her friends, Green Stripe and Best Fist, Blue Necklace—girls she had known in the Near River Village. Ghaden was with them, healthy and strong, and they were all in the branches of the tree.
Yaa began to giggle. Where had they come from? How had they found her here? Then she gasped and jerked herself awake. She had been dreaming!
She stuck her little finger into her mouth and bit until she tasted blood. The pain cleared her mind, and she looked out again through the tree branches toward the horizon. At first she saw nothing but tundra, then she caught movement again.
No, not wolf, she thought, and watched until she knew it was a man. She whistled to Cries-loud, waited and, receiving no response, whistled again. Finally she heard him call, “Caribou?”
She knew by the hoarseness of his voice that he had been asleep, but she was watcher, not Cries-loud, and perhaps he had different rules to follow.
She slapped her pack three times. No, not caribou.
“Wolf?” he called to her.
She had no signal for wolf, so again slapped her pack three times. Maybe he would realize she meant no.
“Wolf?” he asked again, and again she slapped three times.
“Moose?”
Three slaps.
“What then?”
Yaa could hear the aggravation in his voice.
“Chakliux?”
Three slaps.
He asked no more questions, though Yaa waited, then suddenly he was beside her, his head sticking up through the spruce branches.
“Are you sick? What’s the matter?”
She leaned close to him and whispered so any caribou nearby would not hear her voice. “A man, walking.”
“Where?” Cries-loud asked, and pulled himself up to sit beside her. He looked out toward the river, toward the Cousin People’s hunting camp, but Yaa shook her head and pointed east. Cries-loud watched the man for a long time, then said, “I don’t know him. He’s not from our village.”
Yaa looked again, noticed the quick way the hunter slapped his hands against his sides, how he tilted his head, lifted his chin. Suddenly she knew who it was.
She covered her mouth with her hands, and Cries-loud looked at her in surprise. “You know who it is?” he asked.
“A Near River boy,” she said, forgetting to whisper.
Cries-loud shook his head at her and laid fingers against his mouth. She crinkled her face into a frown.
“Near River?” Cries-loud said. “You’re sure? They don’t hunt here.”
“You know him,” Yaa whispered. “River Ice Dancer.” She leaned closer to whisper. “Remember? I broke his nose once.”
Cries-loud smiled his crooked grin. “I’d forgotten,” he said.
Yaa balled her hand into a fist and faked a punch to the center of Cries-loud’s face. He flinched and raised his eyebrows at her, and she had to clamp her teeth together to keep from laughing.
“I have to tell my father about him,” Cries-loud said to her. “If you see caribou, you will have to come down yourself and run to tell the people, but leave as soon as you see the first animals, and run fast, so they do not see you.”
He started down the tree, then stopped, looked up at Yaa. “Since we had to have a girl watcher,” Cries-loud said, “I’m glad it’s you.”
It was as fine a compliment as Yaa had ever received, and she covered her face to hide her blush. When she finally pulled her hands away, Cries-loud was halfway down the tree.
THE NEAR RIVER CAMP
K’os saw Anaay outside Dii’s tent. He was doing nothing, did not even have a weapon in his hands. She walked over and squatted beside him. He looked at her with surprise, and she saw the derision in his eyes.
“You do not have enough work to do?” he asked.
“I have fed your dogs and cleaned your leggings.
You have eaten, and there is a water bladder at your side. The traplines your wife and I set were empty this morning. We wait for the caribou. Have you had any more dreams? Have you called them to us?”
Her insolence was like splinters under his skin. How dare she speak to him in such a way? She was a slave, and he was leader of the whole Near River Village. All these people were here because he had brought them to this place. She was nothing except a woman who fed dogs and warmed the beds of those men he chose for her.
He owed her no answer, but anger forced words from his throat. “I have called the caribou, and they are coming. I have sent our youngest hunters to watch for them. Soon all the women’s knives will be busy.”
K’os stood and looked down at him. She curled her lips into a sneer. “Do not tell me you called the caribou. I am Cousin River. We passed the rock markers set in place by the Cousin River grandfathers. They guide our hunters, and they guide the caribou. You are stealing meat from the Cousin People. You think I do not know that? If you have the power to call caribou, then why are we here rather than in some new place?”
Anaay clasped the walking stick that lay on the ground beside him. He lashed it toward K’os, but her feet were nimble, and she only laughed at him, dancing away as he cursed her with words and thoughts.
THE COUSIN PEOPLE CAMP
Cries-loud met Chakliux and Ghaden as they came from the river.
“Caribou?” Chakliux asked, but Cries-loud did not answer. Instead he bent down to clasp Ghaden’s shoulders.
“You are alive!” he shouted, then, as though he had only just heard Chakliux, he said, “No, no caribou, but Yaa saw a man. She says it is someone from the Near River Village. A boy called River Ice Dancer.”
Chakliux filled his cheeks with air and blew it out in a quick, angry breath. “She is sure?” he asked.
Cries-loud nodded.