The Gathering Night

by Margaret Elphinstone

  Salmon Camp is good for firewood too. You remember the big aspen that blew down by Green Loch? That Year we were breaking up the dead branches right through Salmon Moon. Aspen’s not the best firewood, but that Year it saved us a lot of walking. That old aspen still gives itself. It started sending up new shoots from the fallen trunk. They were all in flower – it’s the only aspen I ever saw flowering like that. We’re still cutting wands from that trunk – it’s gone into all our traps at Salmon Camp, and lots of other things as well.

  It hardly rained in Seed Moon. The River went down, and stayed very low till the storm came. Most Years it’s two or three man-lengths across at Salmon Camp. By the end of Seed Moon its bed was a bleached skeleton. Dried-out tufts of black moss sat on top of each naked rock, showing where the water ought to be. Usually the River sings its song loudly while we’re at Salmon Camp, telling about the hills it’s come from, the waters it’s gathered on its way and the sea ahead waiting for it. It seldom says anything different: it’s like an old man by the fire in winter, telling his same old stories till everyone knows them by heart. And no one knows why it’s like that until the voice has gone, and only the stories are left – because then you realise that every one of those same old tellings carved its channel a little deeper into your heart.

  We followed the salmon upriver. Above Salmon Camp the River splits and splits again into more streams than you can count. They curl between banks of yellow-green mosses, cradling little grassy islands in their current. Now the islands had grown stony beaches that dried up the streamlets wherever they tried to break away. We filed along the wood path, carrying spears, nets and gaffes. The rapids in the gorge had shrunk to milky trickles that wound to and fro among a waste of stones. Even the path through the marshes was almost dry. Usually you can see the falls, white as lightning flashes, tumbling over the ledges above Rowan Pool. But now, instead of roaring down, the falls just chattered like shaken pebbles.

  In Rowan Pool the salmon were waiting for the water to rise. They couldn’t get up the fall: in its shrunken state the River was ready to give its salmon to us without even trying to fight back. While they were stuck in the shallow pool we trapped them with nets, and hooked them ashore with gaffes and hands and any way we could. Still the rain didn’t come.

  ‘It’s good for us,’ my father said. He and I were resting in the Sun on the riverbank. He was making twine, twisting it against his thigh, the way he always did when he was sitting quiet. Below us thin water chuckled past in its bed of whitened stones. ‘But not so good for the salmon. They want to get to the high pools as soon as they can.’

  ‘The high pools are a lot further for us to walk.’ I was growing lazy, what with the heat and so much plenty. I lay propped on my elbow. Below me the River rippled over the shallows like the patterns on a birch trunk under cloud-shadows. My father and I were sitting so still the dippers had flown back to fish the dark eddies on the other bank.

  ‘If the salmon don’t manage to spawn in Seed Moon, you’ll be walking a lot further than the high pools next Year.’

  I lay back sleepily on the riverbank and shut my eyes. ‘But next Year is very far away.’

  ‘That’s what you think now.’ I looked up and saw my father gazing down at me. ‘When Seed Moon comes back again, little daughter, you’ll remember my name?’

  ‘But—’ I sat up and stared at him. His words filled me with a fear I didn’t want to face. The River laughed softly in its narrow bed. Across the glen a cuckoo called to its mate: ‘Cuck – oo . . . cuck – oo.’ Not long after, I saw the cuckoo itself, a long-tailed shadow silently passing over the glistening treetops.

  ‘You may not hear my name spoken for many Years, Haizea. I think one day you’ll be the one who first speaks it again. When that happens, you’ll remember me telling you this.’

  My eyes filled with tears. I’d been content. The salmon days had been long and pink and plentiful. I felt as if my father had flung me into icy seawater. Cold depths yawned below me, where giant sea-things lurked in the dark. I shivered. ‘I never want your name to go out of the world!’

  ‘It will pass quickly, Haizea. Meanwhile, you’ll learn to be happy without it. Remember: the spirits never let the smallest Animal be lost. All this will come again.’

  Osané said:

  Everyone must be wondering by now what I thought of all this.

  My son was born at Salmon Camp. The River had been very low. Right through Seed Moon there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Then one morning early in Salmon Moon the air lay so thick it made me tired to breathe it. We smelt rain. Kemen and Amets dug more earth from the ditch round our tent. Alaia and I laid extra stones in the hearth to lift the fire above the floor. We brought all our food inside. The others were busy round their tents too. When the clouds opened the water poured down in white streaks. Hail rattled on the tent hide. White light flashed round us where we sat, still damp and breathless from running for shelter. Thunder tore the sky apart like a tree splitting when it falls, then like rocks tumbling over a precipice and rolling round below.

  Esti lifted the tent flap a little way. The dogs were huddled against the threshold, ears flat and noses hidden. A double flash lit the Camp – huge brown puddles, streaming water, tents bowed to the rain – then within a heartbeat the thunder crashed above our heads. Esti let go the hide, too scared to scream, and stumbled towards the hearth.

  ‘Baby, it’s all right. Come—’

  Amets cut across Alaia, ‘My daughter’s not scared of a little storm – don’t be a fool, Alaia! Are you there, Esti? You’re not scared!’

  ‘No!’ That was the only word Esti had so far, but it served her for everything she wanted to say. She set her mouth, and, without glancing at her mother, climbed on to her father’s lap, where she sat sucking her thumb.

  Thunder rolled around the sky with never a space between. The rain was like a waterfall. Water spread across the floor: our ditches had overflowed. Water was coming through the heather where we sat. Our furs were getting wet. I felt cold and strange. Something fluttered in my belly. Only when the fluttering began to hurt did I realise that the baby inside me had been woken by the storm and wanted to come out. I had no voice to tell anyone. I sat still for as long as I could, while the brown water swirled across the floor around our hearth.

  The hide over the door lifted. Rain spattered over us as People stumbled over the dogs and staggered in: Nekané supporting her man, Haizea with a basket clutched to her chest – ‘Our tent’s down!’

  We made room for them. Water ran off their deerskins and soaked into our furs. They took off their boots and hung them upside down to dry. Haizea’s basket was filled with moist chunks of salmon. ‘We cooked it this morning. Nekané thought we mightn’t have fire when the storm came.’

  We brought out dried deer meat and berries as well. I thought I was hungry, but when I tried to eat the pains gripped my stomach. I felt sick. The lightning grew less, and now we could count more than a hand-full of heartbeats before the thunder followed. It growled around the far-off sky as if it didn’t want to leave us. The rain streamed down.

  It wasn’t just the rain. ‘Listen!’ said Amets. ‘The River!’

  Birch and rowan cling to the sides of the Salmon River gorge, looking down on the rushing rapids. Our Camp is just above the narrows. It’s in a grassy hollow, which slopes gently down to flat rocks where the stream widens out just above the gorge. Often we work down on the rocks, and cook our fish there. When we come back the next Year our riverside hearths have always been washed away. We seldom see floods in Salmon Moon, but now the River sounded very close.

  ‘I’m going to see!’ Amets handed Esti to Alaia and ducked under the hide. Kemen went out after him.

  The rest of us looked at each other. Haizea scrambled to her feet. Alaia grabbed her by her tunic. ‘No, you stay here! They’ll come back soaked. There’s enough water in here already!’

  ‘But I want—’

  ‘No!’ Nekané so seldom
told her daughters what to do that Haizea sat down at once, more in surprise than anything else.

  ‘Could the River get into the Camp?’ she asked.

  ‘The River does what it will.’

  ‘But surely—’

  ‘It never has before,’ said Nekané.

  ‘But . . . ’ Haizea looked fearful, then burst out, ‘the sea hadn’t ever drowned the lands of the Lynx People before, had it?’

  No one answered. Water roared in our ears, but whether it was the rain or the River we couldn’t tell.

  Nekané must have been looking at me, because suddenly she said, ‘Osané! Is that child on its way now?’

  Haizea and Alaia swung round and stared at me. A pain gripped me. I gasped, and leaned forward.

  ‘Who is this, who chooses to come into the world on a day like this? Someone brave, that I can tell! Husband, you’ll have to get out of here! Go to Sorné’s tent – if it’s still standing. Haizea! Help your father across the Camp! Alaia, are any of those skins still dry? Osané, even a girl who won’t speak could surely let her elders know about a thing like this! That’s it, husband. Take this cloak! Now, out you go! Haizea, tell Amets and Kemen they must find somewhere else to stay! Alaia, is any of that wood dry enough to burn?’

  I’d never found Nekané easy. I’d been very glad when Alaia suggested she and I make ourselves a summer tent. We had enough hides, and she said it would be good for us and our men to have our own tent. Of course she didn’t mention I was pregnant in case the spirits heard, but I knew what was in her mind. It was lonely for Esti when our family were at River Mouth Camp. Alaia knew she’d pleased me from the way I’d got to my feet and set about scraping skins at once. We both worked hard making our tent: we each had strong reasons for wanting this change.

  Even though I’d felt like that about the tent, I was very relieved when Nekané saw what was happening and took charge of my son’s birth. Haizea came back soaked to the skin, and said the River had overflowed the gorge, but it wasn’t coming any higher. The rain was easing off. By then I hardly heard her. All I knew was that when my boy lay in my arms at last, I noticed how everything was quiet except for the water dripping from the trees, and the swollen River. The hide had been pulled from the smoke hole, and the evening Sun was beaming into the red heart of our fire.

  I loved my son as soon as I saw him. I was frightened no one would recognise him – every woman must fear that – but I was also frightened about who he might be. And if I were the one to recognise him, how would I tell them who he was? Perhaps it would be a name I wouldn’t want to speak even if I had my voice. Perhaps – I often wondered about this during the Moons when my voice was gone – perhaps my voice had left me in the first place because she knew it was better for my story not to be told. So although I was happy I was very scared as well.

  I needn’t have been. When Nekané brought her husband to see my child, he stood looking down at him for a long while. When he smiled his face broke into more creases than I’d ever seen in it before.

  ‘Bakar.’ The quiet voice was rich with satisfaction. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come back.’

  Alaia said:

  Bakar was born in the tent that Osané and I had made. It was a good thing we’d made it so strong! I was very happy when my father recognised Osané’s son as soon as he set eyes on him. Somehow I’d had it in my mind that we were expecting a little stranger – some soul from the Lynx People whom we’d never known. But of course Osané was our far-off cousin, and Bakar’s name has lived among our People for longer than anyone can remember.

  After Bakar was named Osané let me take him in my arms. ‘Welcome back to the Auk People, brother,’ I said to him. My voice trembled with joy. ‘We’re so happy to see you again, Bakar. You will always find food here!’

  Since my mother had become Go-Between she hadn’t been with her family much. She had to learn from Zigor, and that took her far away. I wondered if one day she’d be sorry she’d neglected my father so much in his last days. It seemed to me that learning from Zigor could wait, but Death never waits just because someone isn’t ready.

  Sendoa and Sorné left us at the end of Salmon Moon. My mother went with them: she wanted to go to Gathering Camp. It was lonely when they’d gone, but I was pleased to stay away from Gathering Camp. Now Kemen had joined our family we had enemies we’d never had before. It frightened me that one of them – Hodei – was Go-Between. Edur was angry with us too, and, though Amets didn’t talk to me about it, I knew he was upset about losing Edur’s friendship. Osané’s family wouldn’t speak to her at all after the night Kemen took her – not that Osané said anything anyway, but they’d made it quite clear they’d cast her off. When her brothers had met Kemen alone they’d spat and muttered curses. That was when I told Kemen it would be best if he didn’t go out alone while we were at Gathering Camp. ‘If you’re with Amets or Sendoa,’ I’d said, ‘they’ll just keep away.’

  Kemen hadn’t answered me. He’d turned to Amets and said, ‘I think your wife is asking us all to be women! Perhaps she’s tired of meat and doesn’t want any men around because they just keep bringing her more of it!’

  Osané of course had said nothing.

  Haizea and I walked further every day to get food. Now that Bakar was born, Osané came with us; sometimes we spent half the day walking with our babies on our backs. We’d dug so many roots and taken so many plants in the woods that we started going along the shore instead – however long you stay in a Camp, the sea keeps on giving more food than anyone can eat. We found good places along the shore where we’d never gathered before. We set nets and caught sand martins above the beach, and trapped waders where small streams spread themselves across the sand. We managed to trap one otter; Osané used its pelt to line her baby’s sling.

  It got harder to find dead wood, so twice the three of us paddled along the coast and got driftwood from the beaches. We lashed it into big bundles, and towed it home when the flooding tide was ready to help us with our load. On other days we climbed above the trees and set traps for hare and ptarmigan on the slopes of Mother Mountain. One sunny day we climbed to the top of Mother Mountain, where we showed Osané the two peaks of Grandmother Mountain, lying between the High Sun and Morning Sun Skies. When we faced the other way we could make out, between the Sunless Sky and the Morning Sun Sky, the hills above Gathering Loch. There, in the far-off haze, men would be preparing for the great Gathering Hunt of the Auk People.

  Haizea and I always climb to the top of Mother Mountain when we’re at Salmon Camp. We do it because our father took us up there every summer when we were little. From the top of Mother Mountain he used to show us where everything was, right across the world. The Year Osané came was the first Year my father didn’t come with us when we went to the top of Mother Mountain.

  Amets hadn’t said anything, but I knew it hurt him not to be at Gathering Camp. After all, he was – and is – one of the best hunters among the Auk People. He should have been at the great Hunt! Edur would be there, and Osané’s brothers . . . so many friends and cousins would be there, but not Amets! We all had our reasons for keeping away from Gathering Camp that Year, but none of us spoke about them.

  Or only to the spirits: the spirits listened to us. The spirits heard how we longed for the wrongs we carried with us to be put right.

  Osané said:

  I said nothing for two hands-full and three Moons. After Nekané brought my soul back, and I lay alone in the Go-Betweens’ shelter, I tried to waken my voice. My throat hurt. My voice was so unhappy she’d fled my body. Then after two hands-full and one Moons my son was born. My voice wanted him to hear what she sounded like. At first she only spoke to him secretly. One day I was filling waterskins at Salmon River. I sang to my son as he lay in his sling against my heart. I’d seen him gazing at the lights that danced on the water, so I sang to him how at the Beginning there was just the one light falling from the Sun, and how it broke into many pieces when it hit the ground, a
nd some fell into the sky and some into the water, and some still drift across the lands, always looking for a home.

  While the River flows

  While the River flows

  Catching the light as it falls . . .

  A shadow fell across us. I looked up. It was Kemen.

  I stopped singing.

  ‘I heard your song.’

  I was silent.

  ‘I heard your song.’

  My heart spoke to him. He didn’t know that, because I had no words.

  Kemen moved the full waterskins aside, and squatted beside me on the riverbank. ‘Osané, I’m very glad you have words for him. Couldn’t you find even one for his father?’

  My voice fled. I swallowed, searching for it in my throat. Something changed inside my heart and now I wanted my voice to come back. I couldn’t force it. Instead, I nodded.

  Kemen laid his hand on my knee. ‘I heard you sing about the light drifting across the land, always wanting to go home.’

  I looked away. The lights danced on the River. After a while I saw that the River was holding the song curled up inside it. I listened to the River, then I hummed the same tune under my breath. Then, very softly, fixing my eyes on the lights until I couldn’t see anything else, I began to sing the words.

  The song reached its end. I’d been looking at the sparkling lights so long I couldn’t see the River any more. I could only see the patterns the light made inside my eyes.

  ‘Osané?’

  I kept my eyes on the River. I cleared my throat. I found my voice huddled inside my gullet. I forced it to remember.