Dance of the Tiger

by Bjorn Kurten

“This is a magic potion and you are the greatest of shamans,” he said. “How did you brew it?”

  She looked at the sun. “It is time,” she said. “Come with me, but take care and move silently.”

  He followed her through the wood to a rocky hill where the moss had been scraped from a shallow crevice. Here Black Cloud stopped, raised her arms, and began to talk. This was no longer the talk of the Whites. New sounds came from her lips, sounds like the calls of birds and beasts, tender and irresistible; and out of the wood came a caribou cow with her calf.

  The cow had only one antler, but the one she had shed was in her mouth, and her jaws were slowly grinding away at it. Black Cloud, who had let down her hair, lifted her short frock. Standing broad-legged like a man, she made water on the rock, and the frothing liquid collected in the crevice. Slowly the cow came closer, until it was right in front of her. Then it spat out the antler, dipped its muzzle, and started to drink. Black Cloud’s fingers closed softly on the antler.

  Shelk dared not move. In truth, this woman must be the Guardian of the caribou. Now she was at the animal’s side, her hand on its back. In the next moment she was on her knees and had started to milk it.

  Black Cloud used the excretion of her own body to win the affection of the caribou. This was the same need that made the animals chew their own antlers to stumps, in a saltless and chalkless land. Sometimes three or more caribou would compete for the delicacy. In exchange they gave her their milk, and meat when necessary. Occasionally Black Cloud chose a bull to be butchered.

  “But never a cow or a calf,” she said. “They are too close to me.”

  The cows and calves were quite tame, and showed evident delight at being caressed by the children of the Gods. “Now you know why I follow the caribou,” said Black Cloud. “Had you done the same, we could have found each other much earlier. Alas, we have lost many summers.”

  “I could see myself in my brother,” Shelk told her, “while you had no one but the water spirit. Perhaps that is why I never doubted like you.”

  He told her his story, and how he had started out to find his father. He described the shape he had seen in his dreams, and Black Cloud said, “Then perhaps he really is the Sun, whom you revere as the Supreme Being. Perhaps you are the son of the Sun.”

  “If that is so, I shall never find him here on earth.”

  “And what did you want with him?”

  “I have no son. Perhaps he could have helped me. But now I have you, Black Cloud, and you shall give me a son.”

  “You shall give me a daughter,” she added. “We are the chosen ones. From us the Different Ones will come. They will guard the cattle of the Sun and the birds.”

  Shelk nodded. Half-forgotten stories emerged from his mind. “We, ‘the children of the Gods,’ as the Whites call us, have brought forth much of what is wise and good in the world of men. Old Greylag once told me it was one of us who built the first coracle, and one of us who used the first atlatl. Here you stand, and you have made yourself the Guardian of the caribou.”

  “I shall make you the Guardian of birds,” said Black Cloud, laughing.

  She kept her word. One day she put a newly hatched raven in his lap.

  “It is yours,” she said. “Feed it, care for it like your own child, and it will become a true friend. I had a raven once; he died. This one you must attach to yourself.”

  He did so, and the raven became his.

  Once, to amuse Black Cloud, he made one of the caribou cows answer her call. In the language of the Whites, the caribou said, “May you fly high, Guardian of the caribou!”

  Black Cloud laughed. “I must remember this.”

  She bided her time, and took her opportunity when he was out of the way. One day, when the raven alighted on Shelk’s raised hand, it uttered in the language of the Whites:

  “Son of the Sun! Guardian of birds!”

  THE EAGLE FEATHER

  The black flints, which are common here, give the strongest fire.

  —Linnaeus, Scanian Voyage

  One summer day, many years later, Shelk returned to Watersmeet, his dreams and hopes far behind him. Black Cloud had given him no son; he had given her no daughter. He trudged along, numbed by his long, solitary journey. Now his steps led him, without any conscious effort, toward his and his brother’s old hideout. The raven was his only companion.

  Back in the country of his childhood, something rekindled his spirits. He began to think of those he had left behind so long ago, and to wonder what had become of them. He met a stranger, and was going to pass him with only a brief greeting. Yet something in the man’s face made him stop. The stranger bowed respectfully.

  “You are early, Shelk,” he said.

  “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. To me it is late,” said Shelk.

  “You are joking, Master,” said the man, smiling.

  Shelk took a closer look at him. He was a fine figure of a young man, very tall and slim, but broad-shouldered and athletic. His face seemed to radiate hardness and resolution. A very tough-looking fellow indeed, thought Shelk. He wore a headband with a single eagle feather; his hair was thin.

  “As if you don’t know Viper, who’s been at your side in so many fights,” he said. “Are you going back to the camp?”

  Shelk was filled with a sudden suspicion. Once more he was Left Hand. “Come with me, Viper,” he said, keeping a wooden face. “Take me to the camp. I have been thinking deeply and have forgotten everything else for my thoughts.”

  “That’s good,” said Viper, looking pleased. “We are all waiting for your decision.”

  The raven swooped down to settle on Shelk’s shoulder, uttering its usual greeting, “Son of the Sun! Guardian of birds!” in the White tongue. Shelk smiled at Viper’s surprise. “Is that your guiding spirit, O Master?” asked Viper in the same language. Shelk only smiled ambiguously and hastened his steps. The young giant, silent and respectful, walked by his side.

  They arrived at Watersmeet, and Shelk found it changed beyond recognition. There was now a big camp there, with many tents and large numbers of men, women, and children. He was met by awed glances. The women bowed low; the men let go of whatever they had in hand and came smartly to attention. He found it all very strange, but his face gave away nothing.

  “You will find your woman in your tent, Master,” said Viper politely. Shelk, following his gaze, noted a tent that was larger than the others and stood by itself. Without hesitation, he went over and walked in.

  The tent was indeed a chief’s dwelling-place, richly furnished and with a comfortable bed, from which a girl flew up at his entrance. She went down on her knees, saying, “You’re back sooner than expected, Master. Do you wish for anything?”

  He searched her face. She was beautiful, according to the standards of the Blacks, but for him no woman could compare with Black Cloud, who had left him and returned to her own people. He said curtly, “Nothing just now. You may go.”

  The girl went out obediently, and Shelk threw himself on the bed, so tired that even his curiosity was forgotten for the moment. No doubt everything was most strange, but he knew now that Right Hand was alive and would probably be there soon. Somebody touched the door-flap, and into the tent came Fox, older and more lined than the boy Left Hand remembered, yet still the same.

  “Is there anything wrong, Right Hand?” asked Fox. “You came back sooner than we thought.”

  Shelk rose. They looked at each other, and Fox’s eyes widened. Then his face lit up in an expression of incredulous surprise and happiness.

  “Left Hand! You’re back!”

  They embraced, laughing and weeping, both talking at the same time. Then they were silent, gazing fondly at each other.

  “You’re just as like Right Hand as you used to be,” said Fox. “But I recognized you.”

  “And you’re the same, just as you were the day you used the sun-pool.”

  “I’ve got it still,” said Fox, rummaging in his pouch. “
You left it behind when you went away.”

  He pulled out the great mica crystal, and Shelk looked at it thoughtfully. Once the sight of it had filled him with triumph, then with horror. Now he saw it without emotion. It was a thing of the past. He gave it back to Fox. “Keep it. I don’t need it. But where is Right Hand?”

  “He went to Sun Village,” Fox told him. “He wanted to see if anybody lives there now. We came here only yesterday.”

  “Then you’d better go and tell him,” said Left Hand. “Everybody thinks I am he. If he should come back openly, they will be confused.”

  So Right Hand, notified by Fox of his brother’s return, crept into the camp in the dark, and the three of them were reunited in the Chief’s tent, under the pale light of the oil lamp. At first Left Hand did not say much about his travels to the north, but Right Hand and Fox had much to relate of their adventures in the southern lands. They had tracked Skua all the way to the Land of Flints. When they found him, he had established himself as a powerful and feared shaman. So great had his power waxed that it took Right Hand two winters to outwit him. He collected around him a group of warriors who swore him blind allegiance, but the one who finally helped him bring Skua to his doom was a boy whose voice had barely started to break. It was Skua’s partiality to beautiful young boys that became his undoing. He died the death that he had designed for Left Hand and that he had meted out to many others in the days of his power. He suffered many deaths, for they called him back to life as many times as they could. When all was finished, they gave him to the hyenas.

  Right Hand’s task was done. He wanted to disperse his band immediately and return to Sun Village, but his warriors protested. They had become used to being led by an invincible hero and to taking what they wanted from peaceful villagers—food, weapons, ornaments, and women—rather than toiling themselves. Thus Right Hand settled down as a robber baron in the Land of Flints. By then he was already known under the name of Shelk. Like his brother, he had taken that name in memory of the triumphal arch of Sun Village; also because he had now followed the shelk to its winter country just as old Greylag had done long ago.

  Right Hand’s decision was due in part to the youth who had helped him break Skua’s power. The boy, called Viper, was the son of the shaman whom Skua had succeeded after cleverly bringing about his death. Right Hand himself had no son, although there was no dearth of women. He came to think of Viper as his own son, finding in him a willing and ambitious disciple, and teaching him the secret White language as well as the principles and practice of war. For Right Hand’s intelligence and imagination were now firmly turned toward this new concern, the art of war; herein he became a great creator of new ideas. Soon he was renowned and feared far and wide. Men found him utterly invincible. From the start he realized that war required the same sort of organization as a mammoth hunt, only more highly developed. His men were now a well-drilled army. He demanded absolute obedience, but also boldness and initiative. No slackness or insubordination was tolerated; the punishment was flogging and expulsion, and the punishment for cowardice in the face of the enemy was death. Yet more and more warriors flocked to him, for the rewards of good conduct were great. All the good things of life were within the grasp of a brave warrior. Those who wore the eagle feather in their headband thought themselves the betters of all other men.

  The peaceful villagers complained bitterly, but nobody took heed of them. As time passed, however, Right Hand found that there was less and less to be got from them. The years of plundering had taken their toll, and the once opulent people in the Land of Flints were now poor and devastated. So Right Hand broke camp and marched off to the north with his warriors and their women and children, looking for a new country to ravage. In the course of the years they moved ever farther north, and now they were in the old territory of Sun Village. But the village was gone; the people had moved away long ago.

  “These days, we’re not enjoying the same success as we used to,” said Right Hand. “The people here are poorer than the villagers in the Land of Flints. Too often we have to hunt and work like ordinary villagers. This does not suit my warriors, who are used to taking what they want by force.”

  Left Hand stood deep in thought.

  “I may be able to give you what you need,” he said finally. “I now have power over the cattle of the Sun, like that of nobody else in this land, and this power can give us all a good life.”

  Left Hand described Black Cloud, how she had tamed the caribou so that they gave her milk and meat. Right Hand listened with interest and growing enthusiasm. Then they laid their plans as in the old days, with Fox as an admiring witness.

  It was Right Hand’s idea to keep his twin brother’s identity a secret.

  “The men will fear and revere us the more if they think we’re the same man, who can be in two places at the same time,” he pointed out. “They must never see us together. No one knows but Fox; no one else must be told. From now on, I’ll pitch my tent well away from the others. Then we can get together without anybody knowing.”

  “But your woman?” asked Left Hand.

  Right Hand shrugged his shoulders. “She’s of no account,” he said. “She is one among many; you’re welcome to see if your luck with her is better than mine. We must share all things: the leadership, the tent, the woman. From now on we’re Shelk, the one and only.”

  He hung an amber necklace, the double of the one he wore himself, around his brother’s neck. “I’ve kept it for you ever since I took the two of them from a chief in the Land of Flints. He’d made some funny remark about my having no sons, and that was the end of him. His private parts were taken off and stuffed down his throat. Now, with our dress, our headband, and the eagle feather, you will look exactly like me.

  “But now I’ll go,” he went on. “Rest from your journeys, speak with Fox, call in the woman. Tomorrow we start for the Land of the Caribou; there’s nothing here for us. Truly you came at the right moment, my brother.”

  PART THREE

  TIGER

  THE REDS

  Demuth des Menschen gegen den Menschen, sie schmerzt mich.

  —Beethoven’s conversations

  “I don’t like the look of the weather,” said Baywillow.

  He and Tiger were alone on an immense expanse of ice. Baywillow had stopped to look around. The sun was low in the sky, right ahead of them, and the reflections of its slanting rays from the rippled surface were dazzling. A thin line, far away at the horizon, showed them the land. Behind them, clouds rose rapidly. They could no longer see the distant speck of Morningland, but the dead seals they had in tow were evidence enough of where they had been.

  Morningland, where the grey seals gathered in late winter to bear their young, was a skerry far out in the sea. It could barely be glimpsed on the northeastern horizon on a clear summer day, but in winter, when the sea froze over, it became accessible, and the tribe of Veyde’s Island had known it as a sealing place for many generations. The grey seals were shy, but at pupping time they were easy enough to club. The hunters did their business swiftly and competently, killed as many seals as they could pull back to the camp, and tried not to disturb the others. Now Tiger and Baywillow pulled three seals each in a single line behind them. One walked in the other’s tracks to take advantage of the trail broken in the snow, and they took turns in the lead.

  “No, it doesn’t look good,” Baywillow went on. “I smell snow in the air.”

  “Do you think we’ll get a snowstorm?” asked Tiger.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. The weather is unusual. You can feel the wind coming from the northeast.” Baywillow was speaking from experience, as a native islander and seal-hunter. “We’ll get a strong northerly with dry snow; then it’s going to veer to the west with lots of wet snow. Question is, how soon? What we have to do now is to strike straight toward land. That way,” and he pointed to the distant dark line in the northwest. “There’s Deadman Island, where Mister Buckthorn son of Clover was found
dead many winters ago. It reaches farther out than the other skerries. I don’t trust the ice on a day like this.”

  He stood listening for a moment. “Yes, you can hear it,” he added, pointing to the open sea. There had been a great silence all around them ever since they traveled out of earshot of the noisy seals of Morningland. The soft snow muffled their footfalls, and the only sound was the rustling of the seal bodies sliding along. Now they heard a new noise.

  “It’s the swell of a storm at sea,” observed Baywillow. “It probably started as an easterly, then ripped up a heavy sea where the water’s open. That’s how it goes. We’d better start moving, Tiger.” He turned and started pulling.

  Distant cracks reverberated through the ice under their feet. Tiger hitched his towline over his shoulder and followed in Baywillow’s steps. Only a thin layer of snow covered the ice, and the path made by Baywillow’s seals made pulling easy.

  Suddenly the air was full of snow, and everything around them vanished. Baywillow, hardly visible through the driving snow, called out, “Just follow me, Tiger. We’ll keep the wind on our right.” The wind suddenly increased, almost blowing them over, and the snow stung Tiger’s cheek. He pulled at his hood. There was a louder crack in the ice. He steadied himself and caught up with the last of the seal bodies trailing behind Baywillow. He caught an occasional glimpse of his brother in the thick snow. He felt his heart warming with trust and love.

  His brother! Pulling through the snow, he fell to musing once more on this incredible fact. He, who had lost all of his family, had found a brother on Veyde’s Island, and an older brother at that! Miss Angelica had told him how she had met the Chief, Tiger’s father, many winters ago. Realizing her opportunity to become the mother of a child of the Gods, she had followed him into the wood. Why had she not told him this before? At the question, even the masterful Miss Angelica had been silent for a moment, arranging her thoughts. Then she said: