by neetha Napew
They were halfway to their destination in a world the color of slate when they dropped to the ground and lay flat. Their eyes slitted against the rising wind, they watched from the lee of a tundra! slope as armed men emerged from the Ghost House and disappeared into one of the canyons that cleft the base of the eastern ranges. The wind blew toward them out of those high, glacier-choked vastnesses. The smell of ice was very strong. Now and then, the cry of a shrieking mammoth pierced the silence.
“They have gone to hunt the great tusked ones,” said Karana. “The Ghost House will be nearly deserted, except for a few guards and the captives. We will steal back our women and be gone before those who hunt mammoth can return.
Supnah eyed the horizon speculatively. “The guards .. . we will have to kill them. This man has never killed another man.
Karana looked at his father, wondering if abandoning children to the winter dark was not the same as killing them.
“The Ghost Men are predators of their own kind,” said Torka. “By their actions, they have made themselves prey to be hunted by other men. When they are dead, the people of the tundra will live without fear of their predations. To kill them ... it will be a good thing. He trembled against a terrible resolve as he watched the last of the Ghost Men enter the distant canyon. When they return, they will find their encampment as I found mine, he thought. When they return, they will die .. . but not until they see the corpses of their brothers and loved ones left for carrion, as I have seen them leave mine.
Through low, narrow, stinking tunnels, the old woman walked and chortled, gloating over the obscene victory that she was about to claim.
The baby in her arms was beautiful, as beautiful as its mother and as strong. Gulap sucked at the remnants of her teeth. Her grin became a grimace. Woman Of The West had fought for this infant like a cornered lynx. She had scratched and bitten, and when the others had obeyed Gulap and tried to hold her down, she had resorted to a hard, outward kick that had caught the old woman squarely across the chin. Gulap’s tongue explored the swollen, tender area beneath her lower lip. She could taste blood in the spongy depression where two teeth had been. Her grimace twisted downward into an expression of hatred that made her appear even uglier than usual.
Seated along the steamy, bone-lined tunnel that led toward the entrance to the Ghost House, one of the guards shuddered as he watched her pass. Would all females become as hideous as the headman’s elder sister if allowed to live past the years of their prime? He closed his eyes and went back to dozing, sorry that he had looked up at her in the first place.
She stalked on, her booted feet slipping a little in the ooze of the floor. A little farther along, another man stood dozing on his feet. She gave him an elbow jab to his ample paunch as she walked by him and turned back, chuckling at his expense as he grabbed at his gut.
“Come! Put on your clothes! Gulap needs a man to walk ahead of her to keep her safe from flesh eaters as she goes to offer them this useless meat.”
“A girl-child?”
“Not for long!” she exclaimed, squawking like a malevolent old bird until the guard opened the way before her into the world above. It had taken him only moments to slip on his surplice and loose-fitting boots. For what she had in mind for him, he would not need to be out in the cold for very long. He was up the ladder with all of the graceless ease of a bear bellying up a spruce tree.
Now the cold wind struck down at her, shriveling her happiness as it reminded her of her lost youth—for despite the heavy garments that she had donned for her venture, she was chilled to the bone. Her filed teeth ached deep within her gums. She clamped her small tattooed lips in a grimace.
How many years had passed since she had been a resilient young girl impervious to the weather? Too many! How long ago had she been a bold and seasoned traveler mocking the slave women of the Ghost Band when they balked at crossing an icy autumn river? Too long! When the captives had wailed, she had flailed at them with small, hard fists, and when they cowered naked against the cold and the ice-thickened water, begging for their clothes, she had kicked them. Her bones would crack from such treatment today.
Now, as the freezing, heavy wind embraced her old bones, it invaded the loosely fitting upper portion of her tunic. Her free hand reached to pull up her hood, then stopped. It would do no good. The cold would find her flesh no matter how many layers of skins and furs she wore. Even within her sleeping nest of grass and lichens in the Ghost House, with all of her sleeping furs piled over her, she would shiver and her bones would ache—and she would lie awake, remembering her youth and the warmth of men who had once slept beside her. The men slept with young captive women now. Beautiful women. And she would grind what was left of her teeth and know that she would sleep alone until the end of her days.
“Mother .. . hand up the meat so that you may more easily climb the ladder!”
The guard’s voice cut her as deeply as the chill of the wind. Mother? She was not that man’s mother! Her reaction to his unintentional insult warmed her, for warmth always came from anger .. . and from the pleasure she found when inflicting pain on those who possessed the youth and beauty she could never have again. She was suddenly no longer interested in performing the ritual murder of the baby in her arms. It was too young to fear her, to cower, and to show terror of her. It could but die, bleating like a goat. But its mother? That one could warm her old bones and take the ache from her teeth. Not through death, for Gulap would need the permission of the headman for that. It would probably come in time; but Gulap needed to be warm now. Impatiently, she handed the infant up to the guard, telling him to take it far enough from the entrance of the Ghost House so that it would not draw predators.
“Pack its mouth with snow, and its nostrils. Let it suffocate. It is a bad death. But slap it first, so that it cries. I want its mother to hear it scream.”
He shrugged and took the child. Its life or death was of no concern to him, but infant killing was woman’s work. He silently cursed the old hag for sending him out into the bitter wind to attend to such a demeaning task while she returned to the warmth of the Ghost House.
As he climbed out of the mound, he could hear her chortling happily, shaking her bloodied sloth’s-claw rattle. He hoped that she would trip and fall and impale herself on it.
Then he looked at the infant within his arms.JThe “meat” looked like its mother. He smiled, visualizing the bloodstained tip of the sloth’s-claw rattle. He had seen Gulap use it. The mother of this child would live to lie beneath many men, but never again would she bear meat that would be offered to the storms.
They lay in wait. Hidden behind the mound, they let the man climb out of the earth. He stood with his back to them, breathing in the cold, clean air of the tundra as the wind combed through the stinking, matted strands of his bison-skin coat. He did not turn around.
It was the last mistake in judgment that the man would ever make. Supnah grabbed him from behind as Torka, his blood so stirred that he made no use of the ladder, leaped down into the interior, with his spear in one hand and his bludgeon in the other.
All along the labyrinthine corridors, the torches were flickering and dying. The strong smell of smoke and the stink of burning hides began to permeate the interior of the Ghost House, but try as she might, Aliga could not open the vent to the Blood Room; it seemed to have frozen shut.
Lonit did not care. They had taken her baby. They had exposed Torka’s child. She was a captive in an underground world where she had no hope of ever seeing her man again. Her labor had been long and hard, but the birth itself had been quick and without complications. Nevertheless, as she lay upon her back, thinking of lana’s horrible fate, which she would soon share, she watched the wicks sputtering in the oil lamps and thought: The room grows dim, but it does not matter. This woman can feel the light of her own life going out. She closed her eyes. It will be a good thing.
Aliga shook her. “Lonit! Listen! Do you hear voices? Far off toward the entrance to the Ghos
t House. Male voices cursing in our own tongue.”
The weariness of childbirth had made Lonit groggy. Compounded by the lack of air, she was sleepy, drifting in her own thoughts, only half hearing Aliga. “lana. Where is lana? I have not heard her baby cry. It must be a good baby.”
Aliga bit her lip. This was no time to tell Lonit that lana’s baby had not been good, that it had grown colicky and irritable when held to a strange woman’s breast. Annoyed by its fretfulness, Gulap had brained it.
And now, suddenly, Gulap was in the room, one hand holding the hide flap in the doorway aside, the other gripping her rattle. Slowly, she advanced. Slowly, she jabbed upward with the bloodstained tip of the claw, shaking it until it hissed as she spoke. No doubt assuming that some of the hunters had returned, she ignored the sounds that poured into the Blood Room from the various interconnected tunnels. Her eyes were ferret bright.
“Stand aside, Aliga. Woman Of The West and Gulap will spend some time together. With this.”
Aliga stared—not at the old woman who stood, stripped naked again, as stringy and desiccated as a wind-dried haunch of old meat, but at the upraised tip of the hideous claw. Deep within her loins, mutilated muscles contracted involuntarily as she recalled her own impalement and the grunting sexual satisfaction of the tattooed hag who now stood eyeing Lonit. Aliga’s heart went out to the young woman. She was so weak. She would be unable to fight against Gulap, and if Aliga tried to intervene, the men would punish or even kill her. No one challenged Gulap. Ever. She was the elder sister of the headman. She had born him many sons. None of them would stand against her.
The old woman grinned, shaking the rattle to punctuate each step she took toward Lonit.
“Spread her legs!” she commanded, and Aliga, sickened, moved forward and did her bidding.
Lonit’s eyes fluttered open, and she attempted to raise her head as the hag bent before her, motioning Aliga aside. But now the old woman looked up, startled by the sudden intrusion of one of the other female captives.
“We will suffocate!” she gasped. “We will be smoked like fish over a smoldering fire capped by a skin basket!”
Gulap was confused. “What are you saying?”
“Strangers have come! They have sealed the vents! Even now they run through the tunnels, killing the guards who try to escape in search of air. Next they will come here! They will kill us all!”
Aliga’s face showed a mixture of dread and delight. “In this place we are already dead!” she snapped, then recoiled as the hide door flap was flung wide.
The man who forced his way through the low entryway was tall and mad-eyed from killing. He pushed the wailing woman aside, and as she fled, he stood staring past Gulap and Aliga to the bed of furs upon which Lonit lay. His hair, his clothes, his strongly handsome face—all were red with the blood of the Ghost Men. The killing end of his spear and the long, strangely curved blade of bone that he held in one hand were slimed with gore.
The old woman blinked, appalled and aroused by the sight of him. He was Power. He was Death. He was the most perfect and beautiful man she had ever seen. And she knew that he was going to kill her.
The sound that came from her throat was a half growl, half purr. As the perfect man looked at her, she could tell by his expression that never in his life had he seen a more hideous woman.
His revulsion struck deep into her pride. Her heart was beating hard, fast. Old. Gulap is old. Old. Old. Her heart hammered the word again and again until it shrieked out of her mouth, and in a leap of loathing, she flew at the man, slashing out at him with the rattle, wanting to ruin the beauty of his face, to destroy his youth and his life with the deadly claw.
He feinted to one side and sent her stumbling past him. She wheeled and came at him again, still shrieking. The pointed tip of her sloth’s-claw rattle raked his shoulder, drawing blood as it pierced the layers of his sleeve and the flesh beneath. He tripped her, and she fell in a twitching heap, her heart bleeding as it beat its last faltering rhythm around the claw that had become imbedded within it. Aliga was so lightheaded with terror that she was certain she was going to faint. Gulap was dying. In a moment, her own life would end. The stranger was moving toward her. To her amazement, she did not want to die. Noting that his dark, wide eyes were upon Lonit now, she swallowed hard and launched herself to stand between him and the weakened girl.
“No!” she cried, surprised at her own courage, which caused her to remain, feet planted firmly, between the exhausted young woman and the death-dealing stranger. “You will not touch Aliga’s sister!” she told him, wishing that she were not trembling so, hoping that her almost complete nudity would not provoke him to rape as well as murder.
His eyes took measure of her. He saw her fear, but he also saw her bravery. Slowly the killing madness bled out of his expression. His hands relaxed upon his weapons. “Do not shiver so, Aliga. Your ‘sister’ is my woman. No harm will come to her, or to you, from Torka. He moved past her to kneel beside Lonit’s bed of jumbled skins and furs. He put aside his weapons and tentatively touched her face, whispering her name as though he feared to speak it lest she vanish.
Her hands moved to fold over his as life welled up within her and flickered within her eyes. “Torka?”
He drew her carefully into an embrace and held her as though the substance of his own life was dependent upon her.
“It is so, he said, kissing her, breathing the warmth of his life through his nostrils into hers, and joined with her, mouth to mouth, life to life. “We are one,” he whispered when the kiss was done. “Torka and Lonit .. . one life. Forever .. .”
The men of Supnah’s band emerged from the Ghost House in silence, sobered by what they had done—neither rejoicing nor lamenting the fact that they had slain others of their own kind. They left the bodies of the marauders where they lay and led the once-captive women to freedom.
Torka carried Lonit in his arms as Kararta came to them. “Look! cried the boy, ecstatic, holding up a tiny bundle. “Karana has taken good care of her for Torka and Lonit! But now she is hungry, and this boy cannot feed her!”
Lonit sobbed with relief as Karana eagerly placed her tiny daughter into her arms. Torka looked at the infant and saw that she had her mother’s antelope eyes. He wanted to smile and be glad, but for the moment he could feel nothing. There was a dark, cold emptiness expanding within him. It stank of the blood of the men whom he had killed.
The baby fussed at Lonit’s breast. Fatigue and stress had combined to keep her milk from flowing. Aliga came near, bundled in furs now to protect her from the bite of the wind. She reached up, offering to take the infant to lana to be nursed.
“In time, Lonit’s milk will flow. For now, let lana suckle it. Perhaps, by feeding your child, lana will also be fed.”
Neither Lonit nor Torka understood Aliga’s words until their infant was placed into lana’s embrace. Her sad, now vacant eyes brightened. Her haggard face eased into a radiant smile. She cooed. She crooned. She put the child to her breast, kissing its tender brow, calling it Ninipik and “little son.”
“Where is Manaak’s child?” asked Torka.
While Lonit closed her eyes and buried her head in Torka’s shoulder, Aliga came to answer his question. “So many spirits walk the wind....”
“Too many,” replied Torka, his voice as bleak and hostile as the land around him. “And more will follow before this day is done.”
They took the women back to where Navahk and the others awaited their return, and when the captives told them of what they had endured, there was not a man in Supnah’s band who did not agree with Torka that their hunt was not over. As long as any Ghost Men remained alive, all their own lives were in jeopardy.
Only Navahk stood back from the others, observing Torka as he sat with Karana and the dogs, refitting the end of his spear with a new point. “For whom do you hunt, Man Who Walks With Dogs? For the good of all, or for yourself?”
Torka did not hesitate. “I hunt the Ghost
Men for Manaak, and for a dead child with whom he walks the wind. I hunt the Ghost Men for Naknaktup, a brave old woman who dared to turn her back upon her people for love of an even braver old man. I hunt the Ghost Men for Umak, who was father of my father and master of my spirit. I hunt the Ghost Men for lana, for Aliga, for Lonit, and for my daughter who has yet to be given a name, so that never again need they fear that ‘ghosts’ will come in the night to murder their people and steal them away into slavery. I hunt the Ghost Men for Karana, so that no boy may ever again suffer at their hands. And I hunt for Torka. Yes. Because I need to hunt them. For myself.”
They devised a plan for their man hunt. They would go out in several groups, each scouting the exact whereabouts of the Ghost Men. Once found, they would gather into a single force, surround their prey, and kill them all. The Ghost Men would be absorbed in their mammoth hunt, killing or butchering, totally unaware that others of their own kind pursued them.
Supnah named the men who would stay behind to protect the encampment of women. Karana was told to remain with them and to make certain that the dogs made no trouble; the animals made most of the women nervous. The boy pouted and openly showed his disappointment, insisting that both he and the dogs would be of help to the hunters. Neither Torka nor Supnah would hear another word from him. They told him that they planned to walk into danger and would not put his life at risk.
“We leave some of our bravest hunters here,” said Supnah, attempting to soothe the boy’s feelings. “Our women must have strong men to guard them. Karana will be one of these. And Navahk, too. It will be a good thing for Karana to be with his father’s brother again. Learn from Navahk. He has much to teach us all.”
Karana seethed with frustration while Aar nuzzled his hand to offer comfort. Navahk was a tall, smiling figure in white, staring after the departing hunters with unblinking eyes as they walked away and gradually disappeared into the distance.