I thought once more of the empty expanse of ocean beyond the hill, and my newfound hope sputtered and died like an untended lamp.
If the rest of the strangers weren’t coming, and this man died of his wounds, I had no chance of finding Kiasik anytime soon. I’d have to keep walking.
But if the stranger lived, he might lead me to his people—and to my milk-brother.
I nudged him with my toe. He didn’t move. I kicked his shoulder lightly. He muttered something in his sleep and opened his eyes very slowly, as if dragging frost-sealed eyelids apart. After a long moment, he finally seemed to see me.
“If you can make it to the tent, I’ll feed you,” I said, speaking as if to a child and making the appropriate gestures. He lifted his hand to his mouth, copying my eating motion, and came fully awake. But when he’d hobbled to the tent and collapsed on the furs next to the wolfdog he’d nearly killed, he passed out again.
His hair looked almost crimson in the long finger of firelight that crept through the tent entrance. Maybe it’s not hair at all, I thought, reaching for it tentatively. Maybe it’s a flower, like the summer blossoms that look like goose down.
He didn’t stir; I grew bolder. Through a tear in his trousers, I saw a dirty, blood-caked bandage tied around his injured thigh. The wrapping looked like the same strange material as his clothes—not hide, nor pelt, but something plaited like Uimaitok’s baleen baskets. I’d never seen anything woven so fine—so tight it almost looked solid.
Illuminated by the fire, his colorless eyebrows and eyelashes glowed like tiny shafts of light on his rough cheeks. Such delicacy was unsettling beside his sharp, overlarge nose and too-square face. His beard seemed a living thing, like a small animal that had attached itself to his jaw and refused to leave. Ugly, I thought.
Gently, I pulled off his trousers and unwound the bandages from his thigh. Underneath, purple and black flesh surrounded a long gash that ran from above his knee to just below his groin. Pus and dried blood crusted the wound. Perhaps I wouldn’t need to take my revenge on this man. His own body already had. His leg was sick, and the sickness would probably spread.
I knew a tale of an angakkuq who cut off his wife’s leg when it turned black from an injury. He burned the stump with a hot stone until it ceased to bleed. The woman lived, but the very next winter she hobbled into the snow and disappeared forever. Her husband understood. He’d watched her limping around the camp, unable to complete the tasks a woman should, and knew she’d happily given herself to Sila. Just like the bear, she would die only to be reborn into a new body.
I dared not take such a risk. If I sawed off the stranger’s leg, and he died from the blood loss, I’d never get the chance to ask him about Kiasik. Better to wait until he woke, ask him my questions, and then tell him to kill himself to avoid the agony of a slow death. Or I could do as Ataata would have: I could try to save him, leg and all.
I heated water and washed the wound with the last of my dried moss. With the blood and dirt cleared away, I could see the orange pelt of hair covering his thigh. I wrinkled my nose in disgust. He might not be a giant, but maybe he was not fully Inuk, either. Perhaps he was half man, half dog. That would explain a lot.
I turned away to wash my knife, and when I looked back, his eyes were open. His glance flew to my blade. His body tensed.
“Don’t worry. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dog food by now.” I put the knife down with exaggerated care and spread my empty hands, palms up. His face relaxed.
I handed him a morsel of cooked bear meat. He sniffed it first, then ate with relish. I felt more at ease once he had—having eaten in my tent, he might think twice before trying to kill me.
I pointed at his leg. “I’m going to try to save it.” I picked up my weapon again and slowly moved it toward his thigh.
He jerked away, wincing with the pain of the movement.
“I’m not going to fight with you. If you want to suffer, I’m happy to let you.”
He propped himself on his elbows and looked down at his leg. His face drained of blood, as if he was seeing the festering wound for the first time in days. He made a few more of his strange sounds, as incomprehensible to me as a gull’s croak to a wolf.
A brutal laugh ripped from his throat, and he lay back on the ground. This time he spoke without emotion, waving his hands at me. I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to go ahead and cut—or go ahead and leave. But when I moved back toward his leg with my slate knife, he stopped me with a terse “Nei!”
Grimacing, he reached into his tall skin boot to pull out a small knife made of the same strange material as his larger weapon, as bright as the surface of a sunlit pool. He handed it to me, hilt first.
The blade drew blood when I tested it on my thumb, sharper than any weapon of antler or slate. Mysterious, spiraling beasts adorned the ivory handle, the carvings more intricate than my grandfather’s but the shapes somehow achingly familiar.
When I first pierced his flesh, he gasped with pain. When I looked up a moment later, he was already unconscious.
I cut away the black meat until what remained oozed with clean blood. I pulled more string from the cuff of his garment and sewed the wound shut, then bound it all with strips of newly scraped bear hide, just as I had for Sweet One.
I worked the whole of the short, moonlit night. By the time I finished, the Sun had lifted above the horizon once more. I cleaned the stranger’s small knife and slipped it into the sheath looped across my chest, where it rested beside my own slate blade. Though we seemed to have reached some sort of tentative peace, I’d sleep better knowing he was unarmed.
I finally found time to sate my own hunger. I took a hunk of bear meat and thrust it deep in the coals to make sure it was well cooked. My lonely feast held little joy. I remembered longingly how my whole camp would gather when we brought home an ice bear. We never dried the meat like fish, or froze it raw like caribou or seal. All of it had to be cooked and eaten before it spoiled, and so we would feast on thick chunks of boiled meat long into the night and tell stories about great Uqsuralik. The hunter recited a song he’d composed about the kill, and Ataata offered a prayer to thank the bear’s spirit for its sacrifice. Somewhere another bear would be born with the same soul, and the animal would live on. I longed for the heat of our crowded iglu, the bubble of the pot, the smell of the bodies pressed together, the roar of the laughter and singing. I would eat until my guts ached, then fall asleep with my head in Puja’s lap, then wake to eat some more.
Yet now I had to force myself to swallow more than a few bites of the bear meat. I’d left it too long above the fire, turning the rich, red flesh into a dry, charred husk. But my stomach knotted for a different reason. For the first time since I’d discarded my woman’s parka and followed the aarluk’s waving fin, I felt truly uncertain. Not just unsure if I would live another day—that was an unknown I’d long ago come to accept—but unsure of what to do next. Until now I’d had only two goals: survive and find Kiasik. Now the stranger had roared into my life like the first rainstorm of spring, bringing both danger and hope. Only time would tell if a burst of green or a sheet of ice would result.
When I returned to the tent, Sweet One rested quietly. I tucked the sleeping fur I’d made from her mother’s pelt around her flank. The stranger moved a little in his sleep, turning his face into the wolfdog’s neck so his breath moved her fur.
An angakkuq would enter a trance to ask the spirits for aid in healing the wolfdog and man. Even if I still had such powers, which spirit would deign to help? Singarti might show pity for Sweet One, but what spirit guarded giant dog-men? Taqqiq, who saw all from his high perch, must know of them. Maybe this stranger was the Moon’s latest effort to thwart me. But somehow I thought not: his hair glowed more like the Sun than the Moon.
Perhaps the spirits who had so firmly laid hold of my life did not have such a tenacious grip on his.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I dreamed of music. Of flying like a longsp
ur over a valley of nodding yellow flowers, with melody lifting my wings. I heard the tune with a bird’s ears, for it was more like birdsong than like the chants of men.
I woke to the same lilting tune dancing across the tent from where the stranger lay.
I didn’t move—I didn’t want him to stop. But I cracked open my eyes. He lay where I’d left him, his bound leg outstretched, his knee resting against Sweet One’s shoulder. He held a narrow bone to his lips, his fingers pressing against a row of three holes drilled through the shaft. The whistling melody rose and fell, the rhythm unsteady, the tone clear.
When he stopped, Sweet One lifted her front paw a little, asking him to continue. I lay curled only an arm’s length away—as far as I could get in the cramped confines of my tent—yet I felt left out of their cozy gathering of invalids.
I sat up and checked on Sweet One’s wound; so far it was healing well. And she’d clearly forgiven the stranger for hurting her. I wasn’t yet sure if I could.
“How’s your leg?” I gestured toward his wound.
He gave a slight grimace, then shrugged his shoulders. It seems that in some ways, men of all worlds are alike—unwilling to admit to pain. I didn’t embarrass him by pressing further. He made a motion toward his mouth and asked a question in his strange language.
“Yes, you must be hungry,” I replied, keeping my voice purposely gruff, wondering again if this man thought me male. Would my short hair, tight hood, and straight knife mean the same thing to him that they did to an Inuk? His own clothes were neither male nor female but something else entirely. He wore his flame-colored hair like a woman, some of it plaited into narrow braids, most falling loose to his shoulders. And I had never seen a man with tattoos. For a moment, I dared let myself hope that he lived between man and woman, as I did. Yet as I’d cleaned his thigh wound, it’d been perfectly clear that his body, at least, was very much a man’s.
While he ate a portion of the charred bear meat, inhaling more than chewing, I hand-fed chunks to Sweet One. She sniffed at it tentatively, unused to cooked flesh.
“Eat it anyway,” I scolded her. I found the charred meat flavorless compared with our usual bloody fare, but Sweet One and I choked it down. I didn’t want a single bite of the bear to go to waste.
The meal done, we sat in awkward silence. I suddenly felt very certain that, despite my bulky parka, the stranger knew I had a woman’s body—and that he, like Issuk, would never understand I had a man’s spirit at the same time. I had to get out of the tent, away from his blue stare, and think of some way to convince him I was as male as he was.
I made to leave, but he stopped me, gesturing to his groin and making pissing sounds. I held the tent flap for him as he crawled, wincing, to the opening. He tried to stand, failed, grunted a few angry words, then managed to rise awkwardly to one knee and reach for the waist of his trousers.
While he gingerly maneuvered himself, I slipped my waterskin beneath my parka. When he finished, I walked a few paces from the tent, turned my back, untied my own trousers, and squirted a thin stream from the waterskin while sighing contentedly. Surely even among his strange people, women didn’t piss standing up.
When I knew he slept once more, I finally left to remove my clothes. I scraped my bloody parka with my ulu and washed the worst of the blood from my skin in the swift, cold stream, keeping my back to the tent, just in case. High overhead, the Sun sent her beams to warm my cheeks. Still no sign of other strangers on the horizon.
Before my bleeding had begun, my chest had been little different from a man’s. But in the moons since I’d left home, my breasts had grown larger and more tender. I had no more stretched hides to spare, so I retrieved the man’s blue cloak from where it lay still pinned to the ground with my arrow. A seam ran along the bottom edge, easily ripped free with the small, glinting knife. The strip of blue was as long as my outstretched arms. I bound it around my ribs so I could remove my outer parka and still look like a man in my lighter atigi.
Far to the south I spotted a flock of geese flying toward my camp, too high to bring down easily—but I had to try. I couldn’t grow complacent just because of my hoard of bear meat. When I returned to the tent for my bow and arrows, the man awoke. He pushed himself upright and started to rise.
“Brandr,” he said, staring at me intently, pointing to his chest.
“You can’t go with me,” I retorted. “You can barely walk.”
He frowned in concentration, pointed at me, and said haltingly, “Youcantgo…”
I nearly dropped my bow in astonishment. “You can speak! But what do you mean, I can’t go? Are you ordering me to stay?”
“Brandr. Bran-duh,” he repeated more slowly, slapping his chest. Then, pointing at me again, “Youcant.” He said this a few more times, looking incredibly proud of himself, white teeth flashing through his orange beard.
“Brandr!” I cried in recognition, pointing at him. He nodded his head vigorously, a gesture that—from his smile—seemed to indicate agreement.
“Já, já!” He grinned, jabbing a finger at himself once more.
“Omat.” I pointed to myself. “Omat.”
“Youcant?”
“No.” I moved my hand across my body dismissively.
“Uh-maht?”
“Yes.” I tried to nod my head like he did.
“Uh-maht. Omat.”
I hadn’t heard my own name spoken aloud in many moons.
I turned away before he could see the emotion pulling at my face.
I looked to where Sweet One lay sprawled across his lap, completely trusting. If my wolfdogs approved of him, perhaps I had nothing to fear.
“I was there. I saw you on the beach, in the big boat,” I said finally, trying to use easy words. “I need to know where my brother is.” Clearly he didn’t understand. I needed to start simpler.
“Are you all alone?” I ventured. No response. I tried speaking in the angakkuq’s tongue.
He just shrugged, looking bewildered.
Finally I reached into my amulet bag and pulled out Kiasik’s seal carving. “Brandr,” I said firmly, pointing at the figure. He cocked a pale eyebrow at me in evident confusion but continued watching. Next I pulled out my own sacred walrus carving. “Other man,” I said, pointing to it. I continued to place the other items from my amulet around the seal—the small quartz blade I had found amid the ruins, Ataata’s black bear claw, the tuft of Singarti’s white fur—naming each one as a new man. I prayed he’d understand.
“Brandr and many, many other men,” I concluded, sweeping my hands over the assemblage. “Or…” I quickly removed everything except for the seal and placed them carefully back within my amulet pouch. I touched the solitary figure. “Brandr all alone.”
“Já.” He pointed to the carving. “Brandr.” He pointed to himself again. Was he saying he was alone, or that his name was Brandr? How stupid were these hairy dog-men? I began to put the other items around the carving again to make sure we understood each other, but he impatiently knocked them aside.
“Enough! I understand,” I said. “You’re all alone. Maybe hunting to bring back food? If so, you’re not very good, are you?” Ataata would’ve warned me not to insult a guest lest I make him feel uncomfortable, but I wanted this stranger to feel uneasy. I needed him to be just scared enough that he would answer my questions. “You look like you haven’t eaten in days, and you have no bow or spear.” I spoke with more contempt than I felt. I, too, lived on the edge of starvation. “Where are the other giant dog-men?” I picked up the little figurines and placed them in a clump next to the seal I’d called Brandr.
“Here?” I asked before moving the grouping farther away from the carving. “Here?”
He looked blankly for a moment, his eyes following my motions as I moved the little grouping to the edge of the tent.
“Here?” He shook his head firmly—which seemed his way of saying no—and reached a long arm to pick up the penis-bone walrus. Without a glance at Ataat
a’s delicate carving, he hurled it through the open flap of the tent. I heard it clatter dully against the gravel. He waved at it dismissively and reached for the next object.
“Hoa!” I shouted, just as I would to halt an unruly dog team. I stomped from the tent, scanning the ground for the tiny yellowed walrus. My frustration bled into anger. Why had I bothered saving him if my brother was still out of reach?
Ataata would counsel patience, I knew. I should try to seize the opportunity to learn about my enemy. By watching him, I might learn his people’s secrets. Already I’d seen his weapon up close. If I could teach him real words, perhaps I could explain about Kiasik and finally get some answers.
Walking a wide circle before the tent, I spotted the walrus. I ran my fingers over the smooth, warm bone. One tiny tusk had chipped off. A reminder. This man may seem helpless now, but he’s still dangerous.
I clutched the amulet in my fist and checked that the small knife he’d given me to clean his wound was safely tucked in its sheath and out of his grasp.
When I returned to the tent, I held the broken walrus in front of his face before thrusting it back into my pouch. He flinched, his cheeks flushing a brilliant red more suited to an unripe bearberry than a man. That doesn’t mean much, I thought. Even a dog can feel shame.
He gestured toward the sheath looped across my shoulder. I moved my hands protectively over the knife’s handle. “You seem tame enough now, but I’m not going to give you the chance to prove me wrong.”
It felt awkward to deny him—I’d never refused to share a tool with another man. I expected him to rage at me for leaving him defenseless and taking away such a magically sharp weapon. Instead he simply nodded and reached to lay his hands on my own before I could pull away. His palms were as rough and calloused as an Inuk’s, but his long fingers looked like tree branches beside my own. I listened carefully as he spoke, trying to pick out the words from the nonsense.
The Wolf in the Whale Page 23