by neetha Napew
“No spirit shall ever again come to live within the body of that little one,” said Umak softly, thus making his peace with a truth that Torka would accept in time. “Now Torka must rest.” He looked at the girl again. “Come. Lonit and Umak have much to do.”
Her strange eyes were round with confusion, enormous in her unusually shaped face. With smooth, highly defined cheekbones set forward in a way that differed markedly from the flat, moon-faced standard of beauty for females of the band, she looked like a startled antelope as she stared at Umak and then quickly looked away. To hold the glance of another for any length of time was forbidden; life spirits could be sucked from the eyes of one person right into the eyes of another. And in that short span of time in which she had held Umak’s gaze, she had felt the power of his life spirit boring right into her. It sapped her own spirit. It made her feel small and frightened and faint.
Umak understood Lonit’s reaction to his words; it was what he had expected, and now he must deal with it. He put a hand upon each of the girl’s shoulders and shook her a little. “Listen to me, Lonit, daughter of the People. The People are no more. We cannot stay in this place. If we are to have life, we must go. Now. Before the eaters of the dead come to feast. Before we find ourselves defenseless against them and without shelter from the storm that shall soon come. But first we must take the things of life from the dead. We are all that is left of them. If we die, the People die forever. Do you understand?”
She did not, but it was not a female’s place to challenge the authority of a male. Especially this male. She was terrified of him. Not because he was a spirit master, not because he was old and wise and strong, despite his years. She was terrified because she was certain that he was more than a man. She had seen him limping out of the encampment to give his life spirit to the wind. He had been a bent and ancient hunter, taking a journey from which no one had ever returned.
But Umak had returned. When she had first seen him standing at the edge of the ruined encampment, with a ghost-eyed dog staring at her out of his shadow, she had known that he was a ghost man. And the dog was a ghost dog; otherwise it would have followed Umak into the encampment to feed upon the dead. Instead, it had kept its distance, sitting now where she had first seen it, at the edge of the encampment. Its thick coat ruffled in the wind like the fur that covered the bodies of Torka’s dead. Lonit trembled violently. Umak’s hands tightened around her shoulders, and she could feel the hardness of his bones within his sinewy palms and long, strong fingers as he pressed them into the thick layering of her tattered tunic of caribou skin. Did ghost men have bones? Could they grip the living with such sure, consoling strength of purpose? She dared a quick look at the ghost man’s face. He did not look dead. He looked like Umak. He looked like the spirit master. He looked like the old hunter who had saved Torka’s life and returned to his people’s winter encampment in time to help an ugly girl lay out the dead.
Hot, stinging tears came unbidden into Lonit’s eyes. The old man drew her close and held her in his arms. In the cold wind, his was the smell of life. She drew it in. She knew that he was no ghost. He was alive. She clung to him and wept. And when there were no more tears, she whispered, “I am afraid.” He held her for a while longer, as comforted by her closeness as she was by his. Then he said gently, “Come, Lonit. There is no more time to be afraid.”
Yet she was afraid as she helped him to rummage through the ruined camp, gathering tools and weapons, clothes and skins and scraps of food. What they were doing was forbidden and would surely anger the spirits of the dead. Umak made incantations of apology, which Lonit fearfully echoed, as he picked through the rubble and brought his gleanings to be added to hers. Torka’s own chanting grew fainter until, at last, he slumped protectively over the body of his son. Lonit would have gone to him, but Umak assured her that they could do nothing for the young hunter now. “Sleep is good medicine,” he said, and kept her at the task at hand.
They placed their gatherings on a bison skin: the few unbroken spears that Umak found, daggers, strips of leather, rolls of sinew, knapping tools, and stakes of bone. Lonit had found a net woven from the coarse guard hairs of a musk ox, fleshing knives and wedges, three good sewing awls, a fine adz of greenstone, and a chisel made from one of the stabbing teeth of a great, short-faced bear.
It seemed to her that there were a thousand items on the hide, but Umak grumbled and shook his head and told her to go in search of this or that while he also sought out other necessities. Within her family’s downed pit hut, she found her collection of bone needles inside the strip of badger skin where she kept them. The skin had been half-mired in the muddied ooze of the permafrost. Incredibly, only a few needles were broken. She drew out the good ones, washed them in her own spittle, and rubbed them clean upon her sleeve before inserting them through the carrying hole that all women of the band had at the base of the nose—pierced for this purpose in infancy. When not transporting fragile sewing needles from camp to camp, the nose hole was used for ornamentation like stone beads or freshwater shells. Pretty things. Lonit had never considered herself worthy to wear them, but they had looked lovely on the other girls and women. The memory saddened her. She was glad when Umak called and told her to get back to her gathering.
Satisfied at last, he began to assemble a large sledge, which would carry the bulk of their supplies, and also hold the weight and length of a reclining man. It was clear that Torka, now delirious, would be unable to travel on his own.
The sledge was a simple enough contrivance of bison hides secured by sinew thongs over a frame of caribou antlers, with runners of mammoth ribs that would later double as support posts for the shelter that they would raise against the coming storm. With Lonit’s assistance, the sledge was soon assembled. Umak grunted his approval.
As Lonit watched, he began the all-important glazing of the runners, coating the mammoth ribs with a sludge of mud, moss, and snow, which she mixed for him in a stone mortar. It was difficult to keep the mess from congealing in the cold, but soon Umak had managed to smear it on the runners. He sat back, allowing it to freeze solid in the rising wind before scraping it smooth with his dagger.
Lonit volunteered to build a fire over which she would melt snow into water in a skin bag, this for the final ice glazing of the runners. Umak shook his head and cast a worried look at the sky. Day was rapidly fading into dark.
“No time to waste,” he grumbled, and walked around, scouting out a scrap of bear fur. “This will be faster and will work just as well.”
As the girl watched, impressed by the old man’s resourcefulness, he urinated onto the swatch of bear fur. The hot, steaming liquid penetrated the thick pelage. He nodded and told her to observe as he gently ran the liquid-soaked fur over the frozen sludge. After several meticulous rubbings, he had produced a hard, slick veneer of thin ice that would allow the runners to glide smoothly over the snowy tundra.
“Now we go! Like the wind,” he said.
They worked to divide their collection of tools and supplies into three piles. Two were wrapped and secured to pack frames; the third was rolled into a bison hide and loaded onto the sledge. The old man gently persuaded his grandson to release Kipu’s body; Torka stared vacant-eyed at his grandfather.
“Torka will not leave Kipu,” he muttered in his delirium.
“Kipu is not here. His spirit waits. In a far place.”
Torka’s face was a blank mask. “We will go there?”
“We will go,” said the old man, fighting against the bitter upwelling of a terrible sadness as Torka slumped forward, unconscious, into his arms.
PART II.
WALKERS OF THE WIND
“The tracks of the great mammoth lead off toward the south. So we shall go east, along the path that the caribou take when they migrate out of the face of the rising sun. Soon we will intercept the herds. Soon we will eat.”
With these words of optimism from Umak, they moved out across the frozen land, beneath a lowering stor
m sky, heading eastward into unknown country, the wild dog following not far behind.
Lonit looked back, wishing that the dog would go away. Perhaps it was a ghost dog after all. Why else would the spirit master have made no attempt to kill it? It would make a feast for them. It would give them strength to go on until larger, more palatable game was sighted, but the old man showed no interest in either killing it or driving it away, and Lonit, as a female, knew she had no right to question him.
They went on and on, bent double under the weight of their packs, sharing the weight of the sledge and of Torka, who lay unconscious upon it. After a while, the girl forgot about the dog. It was all that she could do to concentrate on her next step. The dragging of the sledge was nearly unbearable; it seemed to be growing heavier and more cumbersome with each passing mile. Lonit told herself that it did not matter. Torka’s weight would never be a burden to her. Never. She had loved him since the first days of her memory. Torka was the handsome one, the best of all the hunters, the one who would be spirit master someday, and who would lead the band when the headman grew too old. Torka was the one man who had never mocked her for her odd appearance. And once, when she was a very little girl and had blundered into her father’s way to win a kicking from Kiuk, Torka had watched her punishment, stern-eyed and frowning. When her father had stalked away, Torka had come to her and put her on her feet again. He had smiled at her ... a smile of encouragement ... a smile that had erased her hurt. She would never forget the moment. It was the first time since the death of her mother that anyone had shown kindness to her.
“Be brave, little Antelope Eyes,” he had said, and on his tongue, the usually caustic reference to her large, uncommonly round eyes had seemed almost an endearment.
She had loved him ever since. It did not matter that he would never love her in return. She was not worthy of his concern, much less of his affection. It was enough to live within his shadow, to see him, to hear his voice. If Torka’s spirit left his body to walk away upon the wind, Lonit knew that her spirit would follow as surely as her body now followed Umak’s lead, eastward beneath the gathering storm, across the snow-whitened tundra, putting all that she had ever known behind her.
But how long could she go on? She was hungry and tired, not only from the day’s ordeal, but from weeks of near starvation. She and Umak had eaten only a few small wedges of rancid fat that the old man had discovered in the ruins of the headman’s pit hut. He had consumed his share with distaste, eating with a revulsion that had puzzled her. Food was food, no matter how foul. She would have gulped it all down had he not insisted that half of it be saved, sliced thin, and placed within a storage sack of oiled bird intestine. This he had pressed flat and placed inside Lonit’s traveling coat, between its soft inner lining and her tunic, with the weight of her pack frame to hold it in place against her back. In this manner, the strips of fat rode safely secured, out of the wind, warmed by whatever body heat escaped outward through her tunic, and rubbed soft by her movement as she plodded forward through the snow. When she and Umak finally made camp and sat down to consume this treasure, sharing it with Torka, it would be soft and broken into greasy globs that would grant precious energy to them as they slept and drew strength from its meager sustenance. The girl salivated as she thought of it, and as her stomach began to ache with hunger, so did her body also ache with need of rest.
The wind was rising. Daylight was only a vague, cold aura glimmering beyond the clouded horizon. Night was spilling across the tundra. Lonit wondered how long she could keep up with Umak. She cast a sideward glance at him through the long guard hairs of her foxskin ruff.
Umak walked resolutely beside her, bent forward, head out. She could see his profile jutting out from the fall of his heavy bearskin robe. Long wisps of hair whipped in the wind above his wide, furrowed brow. A heavy-lidded, wiry-lashed eye stared straight ahead above the high, humping crag of his nose. His mouth was pursed and seemed shut above his rounded chin. It was a strong face. It was the face of a true spirit master. But it was also the face of a very old man.
Lonit felt suddenly sick with fear. If anything were to happen to Umak, how would she care for herself and Torka? And what if Torka were to die? No! She would not allow herself to think such thoughts. They were more burdensome than the weight of her pack.
With grim determination, the girl leaned into the wind. It whispered all around her, rousing memories of the many dead who now lay far behind, reminding her that she and Umak had stolen the belongings of those who now lay looking at the sky.
You will not get away.
We will follow.
We will take back from you all that you have stolen.
We will eat of your life spirit and throw it away upon the wind.
You will die. Forever.
Had the wind spoken? Or had she only heard the voice of her own fear? She could not be certain. She lowered her head. She would not listen to the wind. She would not think of the past or the future, both were too frightening to consider. She would think only of the moment. Of the next step. And the next. For Torka’s sake, she must go on.
Umak sensed a change in the way the girl was carrying her side of the sledge. It surprised him, for rather than lagging, her step seemed suddenly revitalized. The girl was strong; that had been apparent from the first. She had yet to utter a complaint or to falter beneath the weight of her pack. But she was still only a female, and despite her height, she was only a half-grown girl. Soon she would tire. Soon she would stumble. And in the days ahead, until Torka recovered-the recovered Umak would have to hunt for her and see to it that she was sheltered against the weather and protected against any predators that might come against her.
The old man thought about this as he walked. Since the death of his last woman so many moons ago, he had had no one to care for but himself; and since he had injured his leg, he had been cared for by others. Now he was needed again. Torka and Lonit depended upon him for their survival. If he failed them, they would die. And if they died, it would be as though the People had never lived at all.
It was nearly dark now. The wind was very strong. Yet the old man was not chilled, nor did he slow his step. His awareness of his responsibility to Torka and Lonit did not intimidate him. For them he would be young again. For them he would be strong, as strong as the girl who matched her stride to his. He eyed her thoughtfully out of the corner of his eye, thinking: This one has courage. This one will someday be a woman who will make brave sons.
Her face was hidden deep within her ruff. This was just as well, for Umak knew that she was no beauty. It did not matter. In the vast, hostile, unknown land that lay ahead, a woman’s beauty would be measured by her stamina and strength of will, not by the shape of her features.
But now, as darkness claimed the last of day, the woman was just a girl, and the “young” spirit master’s leg ached within the confines of the old man’s skin. When Torka stirred upon the sledge, both of those who carried him were thrown off balance. They went to their knees in the snow.
“Hmmph,” snorted Umak, rising, extending a hand to the girl. “I think now it is time to rest.” His hand was steady. He was glad for the darkness. It would keep her from seeing his weariness upon his face. But Lonit was not looking at Umak. She was looking beyond him, back along the way they had come, with an expression of terror frozen upon her face.
Eyes.
Hundreds of staring eyes. They seemed to hang suspended within the night. Floating, disembodied, blinking now and then, like sparks hovering above an unseen fire.
Lonit was certain that they were the eyes of the dead .. . watching .. . following across the miles .. . waiting for the dark .. . preparing to steal the life spirits of those who had stolen the belongings that should have been theirs in the spirit world.
But Umak knew better. He could just make out the form of the wild dog.
It stood between him and the watching eyes. The dog’s tail was tucked. Its ears were laid back. Its head was out, and
its teeth were bared as it growled deep in its throat. It was the warning growl of one animal to another.
Now Umak growled, at his failure to sense the threat. The wind had blown the scent away, but that was no excuse. The dog had picked it up. In other days, a younger and less tired spirit master would have known that it was there. He grimaced with self-disgust, then squinted into the darkness, willing himself to see the sleek forms that crouched there, as white as snow in their winter coats.
Foxes.
How long had they been following? Emboldened by starvation, gathered into a great and ravenous pack, they would be as dangerous as wolves when they moved to the attack.
And Umak knew that they would attack. They had seen their prey stumble and fall. They had smelled the weakness of an old man and a young girl and the blood of Torka’s injuries upon the wind.
Slowly, purposefully, Umak slung off his pack and told the girl to do the same. She obeyed, hesitating only when he told her to hand him two of his spears and to take up two of them herself. She blanched; it was forbidden for a female to touch the weapons of a male lest the contaminating influences of her weaker gender sap their killing powers. She had scrupulously avoided doing so when they had gathered the belongings of the dead. Now she stared at the old man, hoping that she had not heard him correctly; but when he scolded her sharply and repeated the command, she did as she was told.
It took her only a moment to loosen his pack and draw the weapons from it. There were seven spears in all. Long, slender lengths of bone sliced from the leg bones of mammoths killed long ago by hunters of the band, each was ripped with a flaked or chipped point of stone or ivory that was secured to its killing end by sinew binding. The old man had inserted the spears horizontally through the center of his rolled stalking cloak. Normally he would have carried two or three of them in one hand, their weight resting across one shoulder; but with the sledge to drag, and the added burden of a pack frame loaded with supplies that, under usual traveling conditions, would have been distributed among several members of the band, the spears were an unnecessary hindrance. He had not intended to hunt. For protection, he had his stone dagger and a club made from the fire-hardened thigh joint of a long-horned bison tucked into his belt beneath his traveling cloak. In an emergency, the spears could be taken up quickly enough to be used against large predators, as he chose to use them now against the foxes.