The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  All eyes rested on Anaay, men and women watching. Dii felt as if she could not breathe. She waited for accusations to fly against him, waited and was surprised when they did not come. At first, Anaay seemed to shrink down inside himself, but then he filled his chest with air, puffed out his stomach and cried, “Again the Cousin Rivers have cursed us.”

  But as he spoke, the men around him rudely turned their backs, motioned to their women, and in silence they left Anaay standing at the crest of the hill, Dii alone behind him.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  It was night, three days after the hunters’ return, when K’os heard the scratching outside their lodge. She waited to see if Sand Fly would hear, but when the old woman did not call out, K’os spoke a welcome.

  The inner doorflap was thrust aside, and from the corners of her eyes, K’os saw Tree Climber move toward his weapons. She held up one hand. “This man, I know him,” she said to Tree Climber, and gestured for the hunter to come into the lodge. “He is Near River, and his name is River Ice Dancer.”

  River Ice Dancer held out his hands in greeting, palms up. He nodded at Sand Fly and Tree Climber, but did not seem interested in knowing their names. Instead he looked at K’os and said, “When I did not find you at the Cousin River winter village, I thought you might have come here, where your brother once lived.”

  K’os smiled to herself. She had forgotten that during one of their times together she had told him about her brother.

  “One of the women at the cooking fires told me you lived in this lodge.”

  “You see she was right,” K’os said, trying to keep from laughing at his seriousness.

  “I brought what I could,” he said. “My dog and furs and pelts, a tent. I cannot offer you a lodge, but I have enough caribou hides to make one.”

  K’os studied him from narrowed eyes. Was he telling her the truth? Did he have lodge skins? When the caribou had overrun the Near River hunting camp, few men had been quick enough even to rescue their weapons. Where had he gotten his hides?

  “You took enough caribou to have hides for a lodge?” she asked, and waved away Sand Fly, who was trying to offer River Ice Dancer a bowl of meat.

  Sand Fly sat down with the bowl in her lap. K’os sucked in her cheeks to hide her smile when she saw River Ice Dancer’s eyes on the food. If he had come here to make a bride offer, let him make it. He could eat later.

  “I took one caribou that day, and my father did also.”

  “Better than most,” K’os said, and noticed that Sand Fly had begun picking meat from the bowl, licking the juices from her fingers. “But two hides are not enough for a lodge.”

  “I went to the Cousins’s winter village looking for you,” he answered. “They had a few good hides in one of the caches. I took what I needed and a travois. In the night, I slipped away. I thought they would come after me, but they did not. Of course, they are only a village of old women. What could they do?”

  “So the hunters have not yet returned,” K’os said, mumbling the words to herself. She straightened and looked into River Ice Dancer’s face. “And you have come to me for something? All I can offer is medicine.”

  Sand Fly thrust out her hand to show a scar, neatly healed.

  K’os hid her surprise. The scar was old, and she had given Sand Fly nothing for it. But it did not hurt to have an ally. Who could say when the words of an old woman might do some good?

  “I have come to ask for you as wife,” River Ice Dancer said.

  K’os opened her eyes wide, as though to show surprise. “I do not want to return to the Near River People,” she told him. “The women there will always see me as slave.”

  “We will stay here,” River Ice Dancer answered foolishly, as though he had the power to make the Four Rivers People accept him as their own.

  Tree Climber tottered to his feet, thrust a gnarled finger into River Ice Dancer’s face. “You think you are worthy of such a woman? You’re hardly a man. How do we know you can provide enough meat for her? Do you have a cache in this village, or some other, to keep her fed through the winter?”

  “I have a pack of meat, a good dog and the caribou hides,” River Ice Dancer said.

  “And where will you live? You think I have enough to feed you? Leave your caribou hides here, then go and hunt. Bring back meat so we can see that you are worthy of this village.”

  River Ice Dancer stuck out his lower lip, pouting as though he were a child. K’os held her laughter in her throat. Did he think there was nothing to winning a wife? Of course, he had come a long way and was willing to leave his own village. But how foolish to give so much for the first woman who had welcomed him to her bed. She stood up and went to the boiling bag, filled a bowl with meat. Sand Fly offered River Ice Dancer the bowl in her hand, now half empty.

  “He has come a long way, Aunt,” K’os said gently. “He is hungry.” She gave him the full bowl and also a bladder of water. “Eat,” she said. “Then we will talk about this.”

  She sat and watched him, thought about his offer, considered sending him away to hunt as Tree Climber had suggested. When he returned, if she had decided she did not want him, she could put baneberries into his food. After he died, she could keep his caribou hides and the meat he managed to bring back. But perhaps it would be to her advantage to have a husband. She tilted her head, studied him. He was not a handsome boy; his lips were too large, his nose misshapen. He was strong, though, and she had enjoyed his fumbling attempts to please her.

  River Ice Dancer looked up from his food, smiled at her. K’os lowered her eyes slowly, as though she were a girl being courted for the first time.

  Perhaps River Ice Dancer would be a good husband, she thought. And if not, then there were many ways a husband could die.

  THE NEAR RIVER PEOPLE

  Dii reached into the food pack. Many Words had given Anaay the hindquarters of a fresh-killed hare, and Dii had wrapped it in a well-scraped piece of hide and tucked it at the top of her pack, but it had slipped down the side. She was tired enough to want to leave it there, but knew she should get it out before it became soft and seeped through its wrap to foul the dried meat she carried.

  She had set her tent on high ground, layered spruce branches then grass mats over the frozen earth, but as she pushed her arm into the pack, her foot slid between two mats and slipped on the spruce branches. She fell against the pack and the sides split open.

  She pulled the hare out, clenched her teeth against angry words. They were a long way from their winter village; no use in cursing a pack she still needed. She skewered the hare on a sharpened willow branch and propped it into place over the fire she had started just outside the lean-to.

  She took meat from the carrying pack until the side was loose enough for her to relace the awl holes, then she dragged the pack to the side of the fire where it was bright enough for her to work.

  Anaay came to her tent after she had finished repairing the pack. He spoke curtly to her, criticized the taste of the meat when he ate, but Dii ignored him. She was setting the last rawhide packet into the top of the carrying pack when she realized it was the medicine K’os had given her for Anaay. Dii had nearly forgotten it during all the problems of the hunting camp.

  What had K’os said? It would help Anaay give Dii a son.

  She had intended to wait until they were back at the winter village to use it, but she had thought they would return long before now. She lived with the hardships of being Anaay’s wife. Why not have something to give her joy? Perhaps, if she bore Anaay a child, he would be a better husband. She opened the packet. It was filled with a powder, light green, nearly white. She mixed some into a cup of water, pushed the cup into the fire coals and waited until the water was hot. Then she poured the mixture into a clean cup and gave it to Anaay.

  “A tea to strengthen you,” she told him.

  He took a sip. “Cranberry?” he asked.

  “It is something we Cousin women know,” she said, and wished K�
��os had told her what plant the powder was from. “Something for hunters.”

  Anaay narrowed his eyes and held the cup out to her. “You drink,” he said.

  She considered telling him that K’os had given it to her and that it would strengthen his seed, but why chance that Anaay would see her gesture as an insult? Better to drink some herself and assure him the medicine was harmless.

  “It is usually only for men, hunters,” Dii said, but she lifted the cup to her lips without hesitation.

  Anaay grabbed it from her before she could drink and swallowed down the rest. “Why curse it, then?” he said with a smirk.

  THE COUSIN RIVER PEOPLE

  Sok sat beside Snow-in-her-hair, stroked her forehead with a strip of hide wrung out in cold water. She was hot to his touch, and in just three days her milk had dried up. Carries Much now ate at Willow Leaf’s breast.

  Snow opened her eyes and looked at him, mumbled that she must find Yaa. He told her again that Yaa was all right, that she was strong enough to leave her bed, had even come once to sit with them.

  Snow gasped for breath as she did each time she spoke, and Sok’s chest also ached, as though he, too, fought to breathe.

  Aqamdax and Twisted Stalk had heated strips of caribou hide layered with spruce pitch and packed them over her chest. They had forced marsh marigold tea and lungwort down Snow’s throat, had rubbed her back and neck with caribou leaves, but nothing seemed to help. Sok lowered his head to his arms, closed his eyes only for a moment. How long since he had slept?

  Dreams hovered close, and though his eyes were closed, he saw Star walking toward them. She was better, Chakliux had told him, but Sok hadn’t known she was able to leave her bed.

  “You are well?” Sok called to her.

  She looked at him and smiled, but did not answer.

  “I am glad you could come,” he said.

  Still she did not speak. He watched her as she knelt beside Snow-in-her-hair, as she leaned close. Sok thought she had some secret to whisper, but then she opened her mouth wide, set it over Snow’s mouth, sucked in as though to draw the breath from Snow’s body.

  Sok cried out and jumped to his feet, but Star was gone. A wind cut in from the open side of the lean-to, brought a cloud of smoke from the fire. It settled into his throat, made him cough. He went outside and drew the night’s cold deep into his chest. The camp was dark except for hearth coals.

  “A dream,” he whispered, and went back to his wife.

  “She is awake,” Twisted Stalk told Chakliux. Chakliux was so deep into his thoughts that the old woman had to repeat her words before he understood what she had said.

  “Your wife is awake. You should go to her. She asks for you.”

  “She’s awake?”

  “She asks for you.”

  He followed Twisted Stalk from the center of the camp to his tent. Aqamdax was at the entrance, had stayed each night with Star, catching what sleep she could during the day.

  “She is hungry,” Aqamdax said.

  Chakliux ducked into the tent. Star’s eyes were open, her face pale but no longer fevered.

  “Twisted Stalk said you are better.”

  “I’m well now,” she told him. “Tired, though,” she said. She clasped his hands, pulled them down to her belly. The baby moved.

  Chapter Forty

  THE NEAR RIVER PEOPLE

  ANAAY FINISHED THE MEDICINE, then narrowed his eyes. “A woman should always go first to her husband’s tent,” he said to Dii. “I should not have had to come here to eat.”

  But what could she say? She had lingered in her own tent because she did not want to hear his complaints, did not want to chance that he would take his anger out on her.

  “I was coming,” she finally told him, “but the food was not ready. You know the hare is from Many Words?” Perhaps the surprise that Many Words had brought a gift of meat would calm Anaay’s anger.

  Anaay grunted, grabbed his walking stick and began to push himself to his feet. Dii’s heart quickened, and she stood also. Better to give herself some chance to run, though in the darkness, she would not go far. She preferred her husband’s walking stick to whatever night spirits lurked this close to the cold and ice of the North Sea.

  But when he was almost to his feet, he slumped suddenly, clasped his belly and groaned. Dii waited, wondering if he was using some ploy to get her close so she could not run from his anger, but he loosed his clasp on the stick, collapsed to the floor mats and tucked himself into a ball.

  “What have you done to me, Wife?” he rasped out, his words thick, harsh.

  “Nothing. I did nothing,” Dii said, fear pulling her denial into a child’s voice.

  “The hare,” he gasped.

  “Many Words…”

  “He—” Anaay cried out, twisted against the pain.

  “I saw him kill it. He used a throwing stick,” Dii said. She was crying now, her words broken. “I saw him skin it and…he gave the hindquarters to me….”

  Anaay, in his agony, did not seem to hear her. She had watched Many Words, had not taken her eyes away from him. She had even checked the hare’s legs for splintered bones and had eaten a few bites herself. She sat back on her heels, waited to see if she would have any pain. There was nothing.

  “I ate the hare, too,” she told Anaay. “I’m not sick.”

  He seemed to consider her words, clenched his teeth as another pain took him.

  “Perhaps Blue Flower will have something,” Dii said. “A tea or—” She stopped. The remembrance of the tea she had given Anaay tore into her thoughts, squeezed her heart tight.

  Then Anaay, too, gasped. “The tea. Who gave it to you?”

  “No one,” she answered, too afraid to tell him the truth.

  “K’os,” he said, whispering the name.

  Dii did not answer.

  “K’os!” he shouted, then doubled again in agony.

  “K’os,” she answered.

  “She told you to kill me?”

  “She said it would help you give me a son.”

  He ground his teeth, spat out, “You do not know that she wants me dead? She did not tell you…about the Grandfather Rock?”

  “Only that you saved her, that you helped her kill—”

  His sudden laughter turned into a scream of pain. His eyes rolled back in his head, and a stench suddenly permeated the tent. He groaned, and she saw the discoloration of his caribou hide leggings, the stain that was a mix of dung and blood. She ran from the lean-to, thinking only to get help. Blue Flower, where had she set her tent?

  Dii made her way in the darkness, hearth fire to hearth fire. Most were now only coals, shedding little light, so that she stumbled often as she ran.

  She recognized Blue Flower’s tent by the string of raven skulls hung at the entrance, charms once owned by her shaman husband. She called out, tried to keep the tremor from her voice.

  “I am asleep,” Blue Flower answered.

  “My husband, Anaay, needs medicine,” Dii said, and held her breath until the woman drew aside the tent flap.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Blue Flower asked, her face a pale moon peering from the darkness.

  “Stomach pains,” Dii answered, afraid to say more.

  “Diarrhea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait.”

  Dii had not taken time to put on her boots. She stood in her lodge moccasins, and the cold of the ground seeped into her feet, made her bones ache. Finally Blue Flower poked her head out again. “Nagoonberry root,” she said. “Let him chew it, or make a tea.”

  Dii had many questions, but Blue Flower closed the doorflap in her face. She went back to her tent, could smell her husband’s sickness before she even stepped inside. He was lying with his knees drawn to his chest. She knelt beside him broke off a piece of the root, pressed it against his lips.

  “It will help you,” she said. “Blue Flower sent it.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “Chew i
t,” she told him. “I will make a tea.” She waited until he clamped the root between his teeth, then she put the rest into her own mouth, chewed until it was pulp, then spat it into a cup and poured in a little water. She pushed the cup into the coals and waited until the water was warm, then she took it to Anaay, tried not to see the mess he was lying in. She tipped his chin up, pulled what remained of the root from his mouth, then dipped her fingers into the cup and dripped the mash down his throat.

  He seemed to relax, and Dii let herself hope that the nagoonberry was working. Suddenly his teeth clamped on the edge of the cup. His head snapped back, and his arms and legs flailed. She tried to hold him still, but he broke away from her, continued to twitch and jerk.

  She lifted a chant, clasped the amulet her father had given her when she was still a child. Fear made her tremble. What hope could she have for protection when Anaay himself was so cursed? She began to cry, tears dropping from her cheeks to the front of her parka, but she did not stop singing until finally Anaay lay still. His eyes were open and had rolled up into his head so she could see only the whites. He jerked, and she jumped away, dropped the cup of mash. Then he was looking at her. Perhaps the tea and her prayers had worked.

  “I’ll get you clean clothes, Husband,” she told him. “You can sleep here in my tent….”

  Then she noticed he had not blinked, and suddenly she knew that he was seeing nothing at all.

  THE COUSIN RIVER CAMP

  Sok shook himself awake. He thought he had heard a fox barking. Had it been true or only a part of his dreams? Either way, what else could it mean but death? He crawled to the open side of the lean-to, saw that Owl Catcher, sitting beside Snow-in-her-hair, had fallen asleep. One look at his wife froze his heart.

  Her mouth and eyes were open. Sometime during the night, her spirit had found its way from her body. He tried to begin a mourning cry, but no sound came from his throat. Perhaps when Snow left, she had taken his voice with her. He leaned over his wife’s body, gathered her into his arms, wept silently.