The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  Daes watched with lifted chin as Gheli set her teeth into her bottom lip and seemed to struggle over what to say. She finally began to fuss with the baby, giving no answer at all.

  Some small part of Daes was ashamed, but mostly she was angry. She began to work even more quickly, so that the curved stone blade of her knife was nearly a blur to her eyes.

  When she finished splitting the pile of fish, she saw that her mother had fallen asleep where she sat, and Daes’s anger burned even stronger against the woman. She thought about packing her own things and leaving alone, but instead moved to where her mother had been working and began slicing each fish to the skin, stopping when she had a heap, to hang them from the drying racks.

  When she had completed that job, she cleaned her knife at the edge of the river, then stood silently for a moment looking out at the tops of the willow stake weir. She and her mother had slanted the weir across the river, so it would funnel the fish toward the bank, where they were easily caught with gar or basket net.

  For a moment, Daes considered catching those few that had swum into the shallows since morning when she and her mother had taken the night’s catch. But then she looked back at their lean-to, at the stacks of caribou packs already filled with dried fish, and she realized they had so many that even with their three dogs and she and her mother carrying, they would have a difficult trip back to the village.

  Daes took a long breath, fixed Bird Hand’s face in her mind, then removed her caribou hide leggings and tied her parka up around her waist. She waded into the river, crossed over, battling the current. Once on the other side, she began to pull the willow stakes up from the river bottom, allowing the current to take them and the woven branches that formed a web between the stakes.

  The cold water made her bones ache as though knives were scraping away her flesh, but her anger still burned hot enough to keep her fingers warm. She had most of the stakes pulled when she heard her mother shouting.

  “Daes! What are you doing!”

  “We have enough fish, Mother,” Daes called.

  She pulled another stake.

  “We will go when I say so!” Gheli shouted, but Daes acted as though she did not hear. Her mother scurried away from the riverbank, and Daes smiled when she realized that Gheli was still holding the baby, could not come after her until she had put the child in a safe place.

  By the time Gheli had laced Duckling into her carrying board, Daes had only three stakes left, those closest to shore. She stepped up on the bank, ripped up handfuls of grass, and used it to rub the feeling back into her legs. Her parka was wet to the shoulders, and she sluiced water from the sleeves.

  “Build another weir,” Gheli said, her voice calm but strong.

  “Why?” Daes spread her hands toward the trees. “Look, the leaves have turned. Summer is over.”

  “We need more fish.”

  “We have more than we can carry,” Daes said. “Do you plan to make two trips to the village and miss the caribou hunts?”

  “Your father will bring enough meat for winter from his trading trip. We don’t need to join the hunts.”

  “What if something happened, and he cannot bring meat?”

  Gheli sucked in her breath and raised her hand as though to strike Daes.

  “You think my words are strong enough to curse him?” Daes asked. “He’s stronger than both of us. My words are like a mosquito against him.”

  “Fool! You’re only a girl. You think you understand the ways of evil? You think you know what has power and what does not? Shut your mouth!” She bent to retrieve a willow stake that had escaped the river’s current and bobbled its way to the bank. She gave it to Daes. “Here. One less you have to cut.”

  “I will not make another weir,” Daes told her. “I’m not staying more than the few days it will take to dry those fish. You stay if you want, but I’m going back.”

  “Go, then, but don’t expect me to give you one of the dogs,” Gheli said. “You’ll have to find your own way. You think you can?”

  “I can,” Daes said, though as she spoke the words, doubt had already begun to cloud her mind. She was used to following the steps of the one before her, and often paid little heed to the way they went. But she knew that their fish camp creek fed into the river that flowed near their village. She would walk downstream until she came to familiar places. She could do that without a dog.

  She spun away from her mother, went back to the caribou lean-to, and began to gather her things. Since her mother would not go with her, why wait until those fish dried? She looked up at the sky. It was midday, and without Gheli and the baby, she could walk fast, even with a pack on her back. She might make it to the winter village with only two nights on the trail.

  She rolled her bedding and gathered her personal things—a frayed willow stick to clean her teeth, several women’s knives, dried fireweed leaves to make tea when she stopped to rest, a spare pair of leggings, extra boots, a packet of club grass fluff to catch her blood during her moon time or to help start a campfire.

  She found a wooden bowl that she could suspend from her belt. She would fill it with a little damp moss and a smoldering knot from their fire. She also had a fire bow, but after a long day of walking it was always good to be able to have fire quickly rather than have to make it herself.

  She filled several water bladders from the river, tied them so they would hang over her shoulders, then selected the packs of dried fish she would take. She tried to choose the heaviest, to spare her mother, but when Gheli saw what her daughter was doing, she began to scream out insults.

  “You can take them yourself if you want, Mother,” Daes told her, “but I’m strong and can carry a good load.”

  Gheli closed her mouth and considered the packs. Finally she said, “You would leave me here with Duckling? What if wolves come? How will I protect her?” She lifted a hand to where the baby hung, and Daes looked long at her little sister.

  “Four days until those fish are dry?” Daes asked.

  Her mother looked up at the sky, pointed as though to show Daes that no rain threatened.

  “I’ll stay that long,” Daes said. “But if you’re not ready to go by then, I’ll go alone.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Near the Four Rivers village

  DAES SHIFTED THE PACKS on her back to release the pressure on the tumpline across her forehead. The dog at her side had begun to whine. He was the oldest of the three she and her mother had brought with them to fish camp and a son to Tracker, her father’s favorite dog, now long dead. He had been a gift from Cen, and Daes had named him Jump.

  “Almost there,” she said as much to herself as to the dog. She reached into a bag at her waist and pulled out a dried fish, gave half to Jump, and ate the other half.

  Since that morning she had known the comfort of recognizing trees and landmarks. She had run a winter trapline not far from where they stood. But she also had begun to feel anxious, realizing that when she returned to the village, everyone there would ask about her mother and the baby. How could Daes admit that she had left them?

  She reminded herself that she was justified in doing so, that her mother had twice convinced her to stay, even after the last fish was dried. Of course she could not tell them that Gheli would rather stay alone in a lean-to than live in her husband’s warm winter lodge. Who would ever understand that?

  Soon the old women would begin their whispers: Gheli was not quite human. Hadn’t she come to them in a storm? Hadn’t Cen dug her out of the snow like a ptarmigan in winter? Maybe she was tired of her human husband and wanted to go back to being bird.

  Daes had heard those stories whispered before, and she could give no better answer to her mother’s strangeness, but she knew that Gheli was not bird. Surely a daughter would see things through the years, feathers in the soup, a hint of claw or beak. But there was nothing, and if Gheli wanted to be rid of her husband, why was she so happy when he was in the village?

  When Cen
was home, Gheli was full of singing, always smiling, and even made small jokes, but when he was gone, especially on trading trips, she grew gaunt, her mouth sucked in as though she were drying up from the inside.

  Daes continued to walk, making soothing sounds to keep Jump with her, for he had begun to stop for any reason, a ground squirrel, a branch across the path, even the sound of a bird. Daes decided to lighten his pack, adding a roll of bedding to her load, but finally she saw the village, the trail of lodges strung out along the river, another group making a V to the first as though the lodges were geese ready to wing south for winter. She held her breath, wondering if someone had already claimed their lodge, but it was there, the gaping hole of it on the river side of the village. A log cache sat high on legs next to it. Her mother kept the lodge cover in the cache over the summer, away from greedy animals and the rot of rain. Even most of the lodge’s domed roof poles were still in place, though one was split and would have to be repaired.

  Jump ran ahead of her, his tail wagging. He ignored the challenges of other dogs tied beside other lodges and ran inside the circle of stones, the base of the lodge. In spite of Daes’s demands that he come out, he sat down as though he belonged there. What dog was allowed into a lodge, even one without its lodge cover? Finally in exasperation she went in after him, untied the bundles on her back and those on Jump’s, then dragged him outside. As she tethered him, he lifted his howls into a dog song of celebration and set other dogs to yipping.

  Children were the first to gather, hands over ears at the dog noise, and they were the first to ask about Gheli.

  “She decided to stay a little longer to fish, but didn’t want my father to worry about us. If she isn’t here in a few days, I’ll go back for her myself.”

  Daes had not thought ahead to what she would say when asked about her mother, so she found herself glad at her answer. How could her mother object? Would she want everyone in the village to know that they had argued?

  “Has my father returned yet from his trading trip?” she asked one of the older boys.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Maybe he’ll be gone for the winter.”

  “Maybe,” said Daes, but she did not like to consider the possibility. She and her mother would not have enough to eat, unless Daes was claimed as wife; then it would not be a terrible winter, even for Gheli.

  Daes studied the village, noticed that things seemed quiet. “The men, have they left yet to hunt?” she asked, and in her anxiety, the words rushed too quickly from her mouth.

  “What? What did you say?” the children shouted, but the boy nearest her said, “A few went to hunt bear.”

  Daes sighed her relief. Women did not go with men on bear hunts. There was too great a chance of a curse. She wanted to ask about Bird Hand, but thought she should not. Better to keep her mouth closed and listen at the village hearths. The women would soon tell her everything, one way or another.

  Their lodge was tall, and though the cover needed little repair, it took Daes the rest of the day to secure it in place over the lodge poles. Once or twice several of the older boys stopped their play to help her, but if her mother had been there, they would have been able to do the task in half the time.

  When she had finished with the cover, the sky was still light enough for her to gather firewood, fallen branches in the nearby forest. She brought back enough to get her through the night, adjusted the smoke hole flaps, and started the fire. When it was burning well, she took all her water bladders, those she had brought from their fish camp and others that she found in the cache, and went to the river to fill them.

  It was the time of evening when trees and lodges are dark, but the sky still holds some light. She was crouched on her toes at the edge of the water, on a bit of sand that sloped gently into the river, when she heard two voices, that of a man and a woman, both teasing.

  In the darkness at the river’s edge, Daes knew she was well hidden, so she filled the bladders quietly, smiling as she listened. The two were laughing softly, whispering, but Daes was unable to hear well enough to tell who they were. Surely not husband and wife.

  They were suddenly quiet, and Daes thought perhaps they had moved downriver, away from the village. She filled another bladder, then heard an explosion of laughter. She knew that laugh. It was Crane, a great hulk of a girl, too long of leg and arm. Even her neck stretched out like a crane’s neck. She was a good lesson to all mothers for caution in naming. Daes’s thoughts went to her baby sister, and with some satisfaction, she pictured the child growing short and squat, waddling and murmuring like a duck.

  Aaa, it was good for a woman like Crane to find a man, even if just for a night of play. Perhaps that would be enough to fill her heart for all her life, or even to give her a child. Then most likely someone would take her as wife. After all, Crane was gifted with common sense, and not terrible with her needle.

  The man began to laugh, a deep laugh that made Daes hold her breath in glee. It was Bird Hand’s father, she was sure. Chief hunter of the village and already with three wives! Surely he did not want another. Was Crane so foolish to think that he would take her? Was she so desperate that she would be satisfied to have a man use her and then pretend nothing had ever happened between them? What about the chief hunter’s second wife? She was a jealous woman, unable to do anything about the first wife, and satisfied to have her sister be third wife, but what if the chief hunter brought Crane into their lodge? The thought made Daes’s throat swell with laughter.

  Crane and the chief hunter were very quiet now, without doubt into the serious work of mating. Daes would not hear any more from them until they were done, and the wind was too cold, blowing down the river, and her belly was too empty to stay longer. She filled her last water bladder, gathered the bladders into two bundles connected with a short braid of babiche, and slung them over her left shoulder. She smiled in the darkness. She had enough to keep her mind busy for the evening. She might as well return to the lodge.

  In the morning, she would go to the village hearths and see what the women had to say about the caribou hunts. If the men planned to leave soon, then she would go, too, and let her mother worry about getting herself back to the winter village, but if it would be a while, then perhaps after a day or two of rest she would go back and help her mother carry the remaining packs of dried fish to the village.

  Satisfied with her plans, Daes pushed her way along the river’s edge, past willow brakes and brush, until she came to a little clearing. As always, when she filled the water bladders, her own bladder seemed to fill itself as well. In the darkness, she jerked down her caribou leggings and pulled up the edges of her parka, began to release her water. She was squatted on her haunches when she heard Crane’s voice again. Daes made a face. She did not need them to stumble upon her. Crane was the kind of woman who would make a joke for the whole village out of such a thing.

  They stopped short of where she was crouched, and Daes was able to pull up her leggings and adjust her parka without letting them know she was there.

  The chief hunter was saying something to Crane, words of endearment, clear enough for Daes to hear. She covered her mouth with both hands to hold in the sound of her breathing.

  “Aaa, two fine, fat pups, they are,” he said, and Daes knew his hands were on Crane’s breasts, “and here the mother.”

  The words were a blow that knocked away Daes’s wind. Yes, of course, his hands were on Crane’s breasts, then on her belly, but how did Daes know that? Would a father make love with exactly the same words used by his son? The voice was not the chief hunter’s, but Bird Hand’s, deepened by his lust.

  Daes moaned, did not realize she had made a sound until she heard Bird Hand say, “Listen, I heard something.”

  In quietness she held her breath, and even the blinking of her eyes seemed to make noise, but finally Crane said, “I don’t think it’s anything, just the river.”

  Daes heard them walk away, and she crouched again on her haunches, pressed her finge
rs into the corners of her eyes until she had pushed her tears so far down her throat that her lungs shuddered with each breath.

  Daes did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were woven with images of Crane and Bird Hand finding her by the river. For some reason she had no clothes, and stood before them naked while they laughed. When she woke in the morning, she lay exhausted on her sleeping mats, playing what had happened over and over again in her mind. Finally she convinced herself that Bird Hand had used Crane only for a night of pleasure, that he would never want her as wife.

  If Crane’s father were someone important, that would be different, but he was not. He limped badly from a leg broken years before, and seldom hunted but relied on others to provide for him. Crane’s brother was still a boy, and her sister, beautiful to look at, as Crane was not, had yet to have her first moon blood time. Perhaps Bird Hand thought it worthwhile to take Crane just to have the best chance of claiming the sister once she was a woman, but that could be several years yet.

  No, Daes told herself, she had nothing to worry about. But she took special care that morning, combing out and braiding her hair, carefully brushing the dirt and grease from her summer parka and leggings. When she went to the hearths, she did not go as most girls would, empty-handed, but brought a packet of dried blueberries and made a show of offering it to the chief hunter’s third wife, Wing—Bird Hand’s mother—for the cooking bag she was stirring.

  Wing looked surprised at the gift, hesitant to take it. Such berries were usually saved for feasts.

  “It will add flavor to the stew,” Daes told her, and the woman nodded as though still unsure of what to say. She dumped the berries into the broth, and Daes hurried away, brought back several armloads of wood, stacked them near the fires.

  “Where is your mother?” Wing asked, waving a hand before her face as a gust of wind changed the direction of the smoke and set several women to coughing.