Wobbling under the weight of a small, fat umiaq, the other new sled finally arrived. Two more young men—one spindly as a crane, one stout as an owl—ran beside it. They looked to the driver of the first sled, waiting for him to speak.
The leader finally pushed back his hood, smoothing the fox tails at his throat into a handsome symbol of his hunting prowess. The clouds moved from the Moon as if Taqqiq had blown them aside with a mighty breath, and cold white light illuminated the man’s face. A long, drooping mustache made his pointed chin even longer. High cheekbones and low, thick brows crowded his narrow eyes. He was a man, I thought then, defined by his mouth. His lips were dark. On that first night, they looked almost black. But in the sunlight, they would shine bright and red, like those of a man just finishing a feast of fresh-killed meat.
“I am Issuk. We come following the whale.”
CHAPTER TEN
The press of bodies kept Ataata’s iglu warm, and everyone, except me, sat naked or nearly so. We ate Issuk’s caribou carcasses frozen, barely stopping to wipe our lips with ptarmigan wings. Never had meat tasted so good.
Our fears seemed at an end.
The stouter of Issuk’s companions, Onerk, seemed more interested in his meat than anything else. With his insatiable appetite, small eyes, and dim expression, he reminded me of the fat sharks we sometimes saw prowling the coast: slow and stupid until they ripped the prey from our nets. Issuk’s other hunting partner, Patik, was younger. He moved well despite his gangly frame, and a ready smile revealed a gap between his two front teeth. Millik glanced constantly in his direction, flicking her long braid from one shoulder to another like a dog in heat wagging its tail.
Issuk claimed both the strange women as his wives, further proof of his great skills as a hunter. The younger one, bright-eyed Kidla, wore her hair looped in two braids around her ears, showing off the roundness of her cheeks and jaw. She popped one large, dark nipple from her baby’s mouth and shifted the child to her other full breast. The older, more homely wife was the mother of the little girl who now scampered around the iglu, garnering the cooing praise of everyone in our camp. Saartok’s eyes followed the child as a hunter’s might follow a hare.
We ate and rested and ate again. The blood dripped across our chins; we licked it greedily from our fingertips. The meat satisfied the hunger in our bellies—the strangers eased an ache much deeper.
I watched them with an intensity usually reserved for the shifting sea ice, as if by observing I could come to understand. Their clothes were like ours—except where they were not. Heavy fringe bordered the women’s parkas; the men wore ivory circles in their earlobes. Their words were familiar, but I didn’t always understand the intention behind their speech. I had to decipher their gestures and expressions as I might those of a caribou or wolf. Exhausted and exhilarated by the effort, I finally dragged myself outside to piss. The Moon had already journeyed halfway across the sky. He hung above me now, full and heavy.
“Thank you, great Taqqiq,” I murmured, “for ending our solitude.”
After the cold air outdoors, the iglu felt unbearably stuffy when I returned. Issuk wiped a drop of meltwater off his forehead and looked up with concern. The ceiling above him shone wetly, reflecting the lamplight. “Aren’t you afraid this snow house of yours will melt away on top of you?”
“Of course not,” Kiasik replied. “We don’t usually have so many people inside, so it’s weeping a little, but it’ll freeze back up soon enough.”
“How did you build it?”
“The same way we always do,” said Kiasik, confused.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” tall Patik explained, running a finger down the iglu wall. His fingertip came back stained with soot, leaving a bright streak of clean snow behind.
We all exclaimed in wonder, unable to imagine hunting on the sea ice without a snow iglu to shelter in, yet Issuk’s band had done so for many moons.
“What do you build when you travel in winter?” demanded Kiasik. He was rude to interrogate our guests, but they didn’t seem to mind.
“We make a windbreak of ice or snow,” Issuk answered. “We turn our umiaq upside down, or use our sled for shelter.”
“Nothing as secure or warm as this,” Patik interjected.
“Come!” my milk-brother crowed. “Come outside so we can show you!”
“Alianait!” the cry went up. “Come and see!”
Heavy with food but invigorated by the chance to show off our skills, we clambered from the iglu. Kiasik explained our building process eagerly, with interjections from all. I was content to let him brag a little, grateful that our conflict was over. How could Kiasik accuse me of bringing bad luck when the spirits had finally granted our most fervent wish?
Soon we were all wielding our long snow knives to build an iglu for Issuk’s family. Before we could finish, however, Tapsi drew forth our old ball—a fist-size globe of sealskin stuffed taut with moss—and we began the kicking game. For many winters, since the old men had grown too frail for such pleasures, only Millik, Tapsi, Kiasik, and I had played. Now a whole herd of us kicked the ball back and forth under the moonlight, trying never to let it touch the ground. Both of Issuk’s wives joined in. Saartok stood to the side, Kidla’s little baby snug against her back, its round face peeking from beneath her capacious hood. She bounced on her toes to soothe its whimpers. I couldn’t decide if she cried from sorrow or joy.
Puja watched over Nua, the little girl, offering her a doll of carved antler that once belonged to Millik. I hadn’t seen it since I was a child, when Kiasik had chided me for playing with it. Nua happily built her own tiny approximation of a snow iglu to shelter her new friend.
Despite the darkness, we acted sun-mad—as if we’d stayed awake for days of unending summer light, our energy boundless, feeling no fatigue.
The kicking game soon degenerated into a chaotic contest of tag. Millik squealed as gangly Patik seized her around the waist and swung her in a wide arc. Together they collapsed onto the ground, breathless with laughter. Kiasik grabbed Issuk’s younger wife, Kidla, by the sleeve of her parka. She spun into his grasp, flashing a broad smile of white teeth before wiggling loose and dashing off across the ice.
While we played, Ataata and Ququk patiently completed the new iglu. Puja showed little Nua how to pack loose snow into the chinks so no wind could get inside. I remembered well her teaching me to do the same thing. I went to help, fitting a clear ice window into the spiraling pattern of snow blocks.
When it was done, Ataata and I sat atop the roof, watching the others play. His hand drifted to the black bear claw at his throat, and his lips moved in a soundless murmur.
“You’re thanking Uqsuralik for sending us visitors?” I guessed.
“I’ve already done that,” he said with a chuckle. “Now I thank the dwarfs for teaching our family to build igluit from snow. It’s good to offer Issuk such a fine gift in return for the meat he brings us.”
“The dwarfs taught us?” This was a story I had never heard. “I thought they disappeared long before our ancestors arrived here.”
But for once, Ataata didn’t offer me a tale. He didn’t even seem to hear my question.
The game had slowed now, everyone panting and laughing, their eyes still bright even as their limbs dragged. Issuk’s older wife collected her daughter and headed back inside Ataata’s iglu with Puja. Soon Kiasik and Kidla followed, chatting merrily.
“This reminds me of my father’s camp,” Ataata said to me, smiling. “The nights were long and full of play. No one would decide to start a game, it would just begin. Just as easily, it was over. We ate, we talked, we played, we slept. When we awoke, if the weather was good, we hunted. If not, we would sleep again, or talk, or play some more.” He turned and took my hand in his own. “Your life hasn’t been so simple, Little Son. Too few hunters. But now, it’ll get easier. You’ll see.”
That was the last time I trusted Ataata’s words. It was the first time he’d
been wrong.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We followed the others back into the iglu. Ququk drowsed through half the conversation and even Puja’s eyes drooped with weariness. But the younger people showed no sign of needing rest. We were eager to learn as much from our guests as we could. Issuk told stories of the whale hunt, interrupting even my grandfather to brag of his exploits on land and sea. I found such boasting unsettling but reminded myself that much these Inuit did was strange to me.
Although she’d seemed cheerful enough with Kiasik, Kidla never spoke a word in her husband’s presence. Silently she pulled meat off the bone and handed it to him in generous portions. Her enormous, dark eyes followed his every move.
When Issuk leapt to his feet to demonstrate his technique with the harpoon, his young daughter flinched and shrank back. Though more composed, the girl’s mother, Uimaitok, also sat silently, her eyes trained on the sewing in her lap.
Still, the ways of women were not my concern. They must be bored by stories they’d heard before. I, on the other hand, dreamed of the whales we might hunt with Issuk at our side. Finally we’d have new jawbones to strengthen our qarmait’s walls, baleen to fasten our tools, and, best of all, the delicious whaleskin the elders spoke of so wistfully. The hand of Taqqiq must have guided Issuk and his men to us.
“We traveled east for many moons, always following the black whale,” explained the hunter. “In the summer, we found them in great numbers, far to the north. Then, in the fall, they began to move south. We followed.”
“Where are they now?” Kiasik asked.
Issuk waved a hand. “At the ice edge.”
“Where’s that?” Kiasik spoke for us all. In the Moon of the Sun’s Rising, we had never seen the end of the ice. The whole sea lay frozen before us, and we wouldn’t see open water again until late spring.
“I haven’t seen it yet.” Issuk’s mouth twisted on the words, as if he were loath to say them. “But that’s where whales always live in the winter, and they were swimming south when we saw them last. We thought to move quickly and follow them, hunting as we went. But the ice buckled and rose, and our sleds were slow. I didn’t understand why the spirits would punish us, but now I think it was so we could teach your people to hunt the great whale.” Murmurs of excitement all around. Issuk looked pleased. “The ice here is smooth. The traveling will be easy. But we must hurry or the whales will be on the move again.”
“Open water… in winter?” I asked, remembering Ataata’s story of his own father’s journeys to the south. His warnings of a barren land without ice. “You will find nothing but starvation there.”
Issuk frowned. “I know the sea and the whale, boy. Better than you. You should not—”
“No ice means no seals, no seals mean no bears, no bears mean no fox, no raven, no wolf. There will be emptiness. Stone and snow. That’s all,” I insisted. He glared at me and I glared back; suddenly the warmth of the iglu felt suffocating.
“Who are you to question—”
“I am an angakkuq—”
“Omat,” Ataata interrupted. His tone, soft but firm, silenced me. Issuk was our guest and a gift from the spirits. “Come,” my grandfather continued, “we should have more games to celebrate our new friends.”
“Head butting?” proposed Kiasik brightly, hoping to show off his skill.
“Maybe a song-singing competition?” offered Puja. I silently thanked her for suggesting something I was good at.
“We play a good game among my people,” Issuk declared. “I’ll teach you.”
The rules were simple. One man would hit the other as hard as he could upon the temple. They would take turns until only one remained standing; then the winner faced the next challenger.
I shrank back against the iglu wall, remembering my discomfort during our summer games when Kiasik’s body pressed against my own. I felt even more keenly that I didn’t understand these new Inuit. Issuk’s proposal—and our brief confrontation—left me uneasy. One might emerge from the head-butting game with a sore chest and an aching scalp, but we never tried to injure each other.
Issuk went first. “I’ll challenge every man here, and I will win every time.”
Kiasik leapt to his feet. “I’ll do it!”
Issuk eyed him doubtfully. “And what will you wager?”
“Wager?”
“Don’t you bet on your games? You’re missing half the fun! You bet something, and if I win, I get it. If you win, you get what I wagered.”
Kiasik looked confused for a moment, but then he opened his amulet pouch and removed his tiny seal carving. He had nothing else to call his own.
“This carving was made by our great angakkuq after my first hunt. It brings me luck and calls the seals.”
I placed a hand protectively on my own amulet, feeling the tiny tusks of my walrus carving pricking through the sealskin. I would never surrender it.
Issuk’s eyes narrowed. “You must be very sure of yourself to wager such an item.” He cocked his head, thoughtful. “If you win, I’ll lend you Kidla for the night to warm your bed.”
My stomach clenched. Kiasik’s lips parted as he stared at the young woman.
We pulled our legs up onto the sleeping bench to make room on the floor. Kiasik and Issuk stood a few feet from each other. As the host, Kiasik would hit first. The stranger calmly pushed his hair behind his ear, baring his smiling profile and bracing his legs for the impact. Everyone leaned forward eagerly, the lethargy of the long night extinguished. Kiasik pulled back his fist and took a few practice swings at the air in front of Issuk’s nose. He didn’t flinch.
Finally Kiasik threw his entire weight behind a blurring punch that cracked squarely on the other man’s temple. Issuk’s head snapped to the side. He stood staring at the ground for a breath and then straightened, still smiling, seemingly impervious to the pain. A murmur ran through the crowd. Puja’s hand crept into mine.
Kiasik looked shaken, but he braced his feet for Issuk’s punch and turned the side of his face toward his opponent. Issuk didn’t need a practice swing. With one swift jab, he laid Kiasik flat on the ground, unmoving. Puja’s shrill gasp sounded above the excited clamor. My own fear forgotten, I hurried to my brother. Shallow breaths lifted his bare chest. I slapped him lightly on his uninjured cheek. His eyes fluttered open, and in the moment before he hardened his gaze, I saw fear—and shame—cross his face. He pushed away my help and heaved himself to his feet. Dizzy—but alive.
Issuk held out his hand, palm up.
Slowly Kiasik removed the seal carving from his pouch and handed it to Issuk.
My voice rose over the shocked chatter. “That amulet won’t work for you.”
Issuk lowered his brows. “Who are you to know such a thing?”
“An angakkuq,” I insisted, aware that I was repeating myself. Frustration crept into my voice. “That amulet was carved for Kiasik and will protect him alone.” I deepened my tone and stood as tall as I could, willing myself to seem wider than my slim frame, suddenly aware that he might see me as something other than a hunter like himself. Ataata coughed, warning me to proceed with caution.
Issuk stood silently a moment, then let out a laugh. “I am the favorite of Taqqiq himself, the Moon Man! I don’t need an angakkuq’s amulet when he guides my harpoon. Sanna quails when she sees me coming, and the Ice Bear hides his nose in the snow!”
His own band laughed with him, but my family shifted nervously to hear Issuk deride the great Uqsuralik, to whom we owed our very survival.
“Would you like to wager to get it back?” Issuk demanded. “You’ll be an easy challenge.”
“I accept,” I said quickly. I stepped to the front of the iglu.
Ataata spoke. “Omat—”
“I’m ready.” I tensed the muscles of my stomach and planted my legs firmly. Help me, Singarti, I prayed. Give me your strength and swiftness, your keen eyes and fierce bite.
Issuk raised his arm, his fist clenched. In the lamplight, his re
d lips shone wetly.
I looked away, awaiting the strike.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the oncoming punch whirring toward me—and I knew in that instant that Issuk would bring us nothing but grief.
I swiftly shifted my weight and raised my own arms, grabbing his fist in my hands to stop the blow. The iglu erupted in protest. This was not how the game was supposed to be played—I shamed my whole camp through my cowardice.
I met Issuk’s wide eyes as I pried his fingers open. Too late, he realized my intention. He tried to pull away, but I’d already yanked the short piece of antler from his closed fist. I held it aloft.
“This is why his punch is so powerful. This man must cheat to win!”
Issuk lunged toward me, but I stuck out a foot and let his great weight fly harmlessly over my outstretched leg. Patik and Onerk sprang to his defense, but my own people, their faces pale with anger, restrained them from joining in. Issuk grabbed my leg and I crashed beside him. My grandfather didn’t intercede; when I’d accepted the role of an angakkuq, I also accepted its challenges. Ataata wouldn’t protect me.
We rolled across the fur-covered floor, each scrabbling for the other’s throat. From afar we must’ve looked like lovers wrestling in their sleeping hides. Issuk let go for a moment, just long enough to punch me hard in the face. Even without an antler in his fist, the blow brought stars to my eyes. I rolled away, attempting to gain my feet, but Issuk caught me by the corner of my atigi. When I rose up, the sinew threads ripped, and the caribou hide flapped open, leaving one breast—small and high, but unmistakably female—exposed.
A shocked inhalation from Issuk’s band. He dropped my atigi as if it were covered in boiling seal oil.
The Wolf in the Whale Page 11