by Sue Harrison
Her husband bent over each animal, checked the straps that secured their packs. K’os backed away from him, leaned close to Tikaani and Snow Breaker, the two young hunters who would travel with them.
Her voice was quiet and low, softened by the fur ruff close around her face. “He thinks he will speak peace to these Near River People. I do not think there is a chance for peace. Guard him. When they see his dogs, I think they will try to kill him. They will say it is an accident, but …” She raised her hands, spread her mittened fingers.
Ground Beater looked back, waved them forward. Each of the men walked beside a dog. K’os followed. The village was quiet in early morning, smoke rising to spread a thin layer above the lodges, the stars still bright. Snow squeaked beneath K’os’s sealskin boots. She carried her snowshoes and a small pack of supplies on her back. Women’s knives rested in sheaths at her waist, and she had strapped a short-bladed knife to her left wrist. Under her parka, warm against her skin, was the medicine bag. She reached up to pat it and felt her heart thump as though in answer. She smiled, peering from the tunnel of her hood. It would be a long walk, but she looked forward to seeing her son again. She missed him.
Chapter Fifteen
K’OS REMOVED HER SNOW goggles. They were made from caribou antlers hollowed into small cups that fit over the circles of her eyes. Narrow eye slits and charcoal rubbed into the backs of the goggles helped cut the glare of sun on snow, but still her head ached and she saw spots. At least they had walked most of the day on river ice rather than pushing through the dense willow thickets or the melting tundra snow.
They had walked for three days, and now, as the river bent in a wide curve, Ground Beater turned back toward her and called out, “There, the Near River Village.”
A path worn into the snow led up from the riverbank to a walkway of rocks that were easy to climb, so a person carrying something did not have to grab trees or scramble up on all fours. When they came to the top of the bank, K’os saw that the village was larger than she had remembered.
The lodges were set more closely together than in her own village. She wondered where they put the drying racks. There was no room for them between lodges. Perhaps at the edges of the village, she thought, where the sun would get at them better, but then so would the animals.
She leaned toward Tikaani and whispered, “The village is smaller than ours.”
He nodded.
But the number of men in those lodges was the important thing, K’os reminded herself. How many men? How many capable of fighting?
They were met by a group of children, boys and girls bundled in parkas and leggings. Their cheeks were round, their eyes clear.
There is no shortage of food here, K’os thought. Children always showed it first—a village’s weakness or its strength.
“We are visitors from the Cousin River Village,” Ground Beater told them.
One of the older children came forward, a boy. He was stout and strong-looking, his chin set forward so his bottom teeth fit over the top. The other children kept their distance from him, leaving a small circle of cleared space.
K’os watched him. She might be able to use a boy like that someday.
He opened his mouth, but before he could speak K’os asked, “What is your name?”
Anger darkened his eyes. It was not a question a stranger—especially a woman—asked. A name was too sacred. When you knew someone’s name, you had power over them.
“I am K’os,” she said, giving her name, so he would feel the need to do the same. It was not an equal trade. There was little power the boy could use against her.
“We will take you to the elders,” he said, turning his back on K’os and speaking instead to Ground Beater.
K’os smiled. He was not stupid, this one. A bully, yes, but not stupid. All the better. How many times had her plans been destroyed by stupidity? River Jumper, bah! He deserved what he got.
“Yes, tell them we come in honor to visit our brothers,” Ground Beater said.
The children turned and ran toward the center of the village.
“Tell them we bring golden-eyed dogs,” Tikaani called out to them.
“They are not blind,” Ground Beater said. “They see what we bring.”
K’os lifted her head, looked at the lodges around them. Soon not one will be left standing, she thought. Not one. A year from now, this will be a village of ground squirrels and ptarmigan. She held in her laughter. The Near River People deserved to be dead. They drew curses, then without thought spread those curses to others.
Soon the children returned. Two elders were with them. K’os studied the old men’s faces but did not recognize them. Good, she thought, then lowered her head, stood behind her husband. Waiting as women must wait.
The elders’ lodge was large. The lodge poles were crowded with the skins of sacred animals—white least weasels, flickers, marmot and beaver, and many wolverines. The men were seated in a circle around the hearth fire. K’os had been given a place behind her husband. Women scurried, bringing food from the outside cooking hearths. They ate well, then her husband presented the gifts he had brought: obsidian and jade blades for each man. They accepted the gifts with unsmiling faces, as was the custom in this village, but they could not hide the gleam of joy that came to their eyes. So the gifts—her husband’s idea and one that she had not been sure about—had been a good decision.
The men spoke of many things, hunts and the spring melt, even of children and wives, which surprised K’os. Men in her village seldom spoke of their families. It was good that these Near Rivers valued their children so much, she told herself. They would be more willing to fight for them, but doubts crowded out other thoughts, doubts that she could not push away. Her last visit to the Near River Village had been when she was a girl. Her father had brought her. If she recalled correctly, the Near River People had been mourning a group of men drowned in the river. She did not know how such a thing had happened, most likely in spring breakup and flooding, but she did remember that the Near River Village had been far smaller then. Though she was only a child, she had been glad she lived in the Cousin River Village, and had asked her father not to promise her to a Near River man as wife.
She had realized that over the years the village would change, that it might grow strong. Now, as the men spoke, she contemplated how such a village could be taken by force. It would not be easy. Even the elders looked well-fed.
She was so immersed in her own thoughts that she almost missed her husband’s question. “Have you seen our son?” he asked. “He brought several golden-eyed dogs from our village to all of you. He had hoped to bring more, and we were able to secure two males after he left. We have brought them to him.”
K’os was almost hidden by her husband, and so, in the shadows at the back of the lodge, she was able to change her position to see each elder’s face. They looked at one another, biting at lips, raising eyebrows until one finally said, “He did not come here. We have not seen him since he left our village to return to you nearly a moon ago.”
Several elders shifted uncomfortably, but most nodded heads, raised chins in agreement.
It was not a woman’s place to speak in a meeting of elders. It was unusual enough that they had allowed her to be here now, but she was a healer, and she knew several of these men—old Blue Jay and Camp Maker. She was sure they had not forgotten her. Besides, she was a woman afraid for her son. Who would blame her if she spoke?
She took a quick gasping breath, then put her hands over her face and moaned. “He is not here?” she asked. “He left our village six, seven days ago.”
She blinked tears from her eyes and leaned forward so the hearth fire would show her face.
“There are other villages,” one of the elders said, the man they called Dog Trainer. “Perhaps he went to the Four Rivers Village, hoping to find more dogs to trade before he came here.”
K’os shook her head. “He knew we were trying to find dogs for him. He knew we mi
ght follow several days later.”
She began to cry, hard shaking sobs, and Blue Jay asked, “You saw no sign of his camps on your journey here?”
“One,” Ground Beater answered, and K’os looked up at him, set her teeth together. He spoke the truth. They had found one of his camps and two bodies—what was left of them—but she needed Ground Beater to be quiet, to let her speak. Of course, he did not know what she was doing. He thought they were only looking for their son, to warn him of the anger building against him in their village and to bring him dogs to trade so he could secure a place in this village or another.
K’os lowered her head, allowed her sobbing to subside.
Blue Jay stood, came to her. “She can go to my wife’s lodge,” he said, speaking softly to Ground Beater, then he bent to help K’os to her feet.
They were at the entrance tunnel when Dog Trainer said, “It is sad the young hunter has not returned to our village.”
K’os turned and looked at the man, saw that his eyes were hard and fixed on Blue Jay’s face. “Yes, it is sad,” Blue Jay mumbled.
So, K’os thought, for now I will learn nothing, but there are others in this village besides elders, and women do not always do what a husband says.
Blue Jay’s wife was called Song, simply that. A strange name, K’os thought, but soon she understood. The old woman did nothing without singing. Her voice, thin and raspy, grated against K’os’s ears until her head ached.
Song crooned over her, clicking her sympathy, watching K’os with tiny black eyes, the lids so wrinkled that K’os wondered how the woman could open them to see.
“Your boy, he will be all right,” the woman sang. “He is strong and healthy. His mother should not worry.”
Yes, K’os thought, as the old woman sang the same words over and over again, Chakliux has been here. For some reason they do not want us to know. Perhaps Chakliux himself told them that hunters from the Cousin River Village sought an excuse to attack. If that was so, then she and Ground Beater were fortunate the elders had welcomed them. Of course, as Chakliux’s parents they might be seen as friends rather than enemies.
Meanwhile, this was not a terrible place to be. The lodge was clean, well-cared-for. Fishskin and grass baskets were stacked in one area, bedding folded and piled in another. The caribou skins on the floor were well-scraped. She knew women in her own village who would make clothing out of such skins rather than use them on floors. But one look at the old woman’s parka, hung on a peg near the entrance, made K’os understand. It was sea otter, she was sure, with a ruff of wolverine fur and cuffs banded with caribou hide, scraped and softened until it was almost white. The back of the parka came down in a wide pointed tail of some strange spotted skin, a stiff-haired pelt unlike any K’os had ever seen.
One side of the lodge was hung with weapons and men’s clothing, sacred bundles of flicker feathers and a beaverskin pouch much like the one she carried under her parka, with the head as a flap that closed down over an opening cut in the throat.
There were several fire bows, one larger than any she had ever seen. How could a man build a fire using a bow that long? she wondered. The more she looked at it, the more puzzled she became. The wood part of it was very strong, reinforced, it appeared, by twisted sinew.
“Ah, you are hungry,” the old woman said. She hummed something under her breath, then hobbled to the cooking bag that hung from the lodge poles. It was set over a hollowed stone.
K’os had seen such a stone before. It was made, she had been told, to hold a fire, something used by the people who were called Sea Hunters. It had seemed a foolish thing to her. How much heat could such a stone provide? And how did wood fit into it? Now she saw that the hollow was filled with oil. Bits of twisted moss floated in the oil. Song took fire from her hearth and lit the moss. It burned, but for some reason was not consumed by the flame. The stone was no wider across than the distance from her elbow to her wrist, and only small flames rose from the moss, but K’os could feel the stone’s heat from where she sat on the other side of the lodge.
The old woman scooped out a bowl of food and brought it to her.
“That,” K’os said, and lifted her chin toward the hollowed rock, “what is it?”
“Qignax,” the old woman said. “The Sea Hunters use them to burn seal oil. It is cleaner than a hearth fire, and a good way to use old fat that is too rancid for cooking. My husband was a trader when he was young.” She hummed again, something without words.
Yes, K’os thought. She remembered that he had bought her favors with a fine necklace of soapstone carved into intricately designed balls.
“He traded for that fire bow?” K’os asked, looking at the bow hanging among the weapons.
The old woman laughed. “It is not a fire bow,” she said. “It is a strange kind of spearthrower. He got it from those people who live near the Far Mountains that edge the South Sea.”
K’os had heard stories of such people. “They are not human, I have been told,” she said.
The old woman lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “My husband says their language is different and their ways are different. They live in lodges of earth and dead trees. But they respect their ancestors and their children are healthy. He says it is good we do not live close to them. They are warriors, and their weapons would make it difficult for us to survive an attack.”
“Weapons like that fire bow?” K’os asked. “What does it do?”
“I cannot touch it,” the old woman said. “Even my husband seldom touches it. We do not take it with us to fish camp or when we follow caribou. We leave it here in the winter camp. It has great power, but he showed me how it works, and I will show you.”
She brought a small fire bow, settled on her haunches beside K’os and tightened the string until it curved the bow’s wooden back. She handed it to K’os, then crawled over to hunt through her stack of firewood until she found a stick. She notched the end of the stick with her woman’s knife and set the notch into the string, pulled back and let the stick go. It flew across the lodge, stopping with a thud against the caribou hide wall.
“They do that with spears?” K’os asked.
“That is what my husband says. Small spears with feathers at the end like our men put on their bone-tipped throwing spears. The shafts are only this long,” she said, and held her hands a shoulder width apart. “The spear points are small also, no longer than a finger, and made thin and light, of bone and slices of chert.”
“So why would people use a weapon like this?” K’os asked.
“It is easy to carry. A man can take a handful, two handfuls, of little spears and shoot them quickly, and very far.”
“Farther than a man throwing a spear with a spearthrower?”
“Yes,” the old woman said, but she answered slowly, as though not quite sure she was right. “I am trying to think of what my husband told me,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, then looked up at K’os with eyebrows raised. “A weak man is able to send his little spear nearly as far as a strong hunter can. That is the good thing. It helps a boy or an old man bring home meat for his family.”
“That is good,” K’os said, and raised the food bowl to her lips. The old woman’s stew of meat and roots warmed K’os from her mouth to her belly. She settled her eyes on the bow, caressed it in her thoughts as it hung on the wall. She remembered all the young men she had welcomed into her bed during the past year—boys with thin arms, not yet able to match a grown man strength for strength. With these spear bows, would they be as formidable as older warriors? Was that possible?
K’os finished her meat, then reached inside her parka to the many necklaces she wore against her skin. The young men were always making them for her. Necklaces were not as good as some things. You could not eat them, and they would not keep you warm, but they had their uses.
“You have been kind to me,” she said to Song. “Take this and remember my gratitude.”
For a moment K’os saw a young woman s
hine through Song’s faded eyes, then one clawed hand reached out for the necklace. K’os stood and draped it over Song’s caribouskin shirt, then closed her ears to the old woman’s pitiful song of praise.
“You would take a golden-eyed dog?” K’os asked.
“No,” the old man said. “How can I trade it? It holds my luck. There is nothing you can give me for it, not even a golden-eyed dog. I still hunt, an old man like me. That spear bow keeps my spearthrower and spears strong. This year I have killed a bear. I also took many caribou. Look at my lodge. See the furs; see the baskets of dried meat. My cache is still nearly full. Soon I will have a giveaway. There is too much for my wife and me, so I will share what I have with others. We will feast and eat. I can do that before you leave. Your husband and the hunters from your village will see how much luck I have.”
K’os narrowed her eyes, pulled her lips into a thin, tight line. Blue Jay was a fool. Why did he need luck? He was old.
“If I decided to give it away,” he said, “I would give it to you. But a man cannot lose his luck. Especially an old man.”
She heard the pleading in his voice and realized he was like all men, eager to please. She stood. “I understand,” she said. “I will not ask such a thing of you, nor will my husband.”
The old man smiled, relief in his eyes.
“You know I have been asked to visit my son’s Near River mother,” K’os said.
Blue Jay looked down at his hands. “I know you believe your son to be animal-gift,” he said. “Some of us in this village also believe that. Do not let this woman take away your heart.”
K’os smiled. “Chakliux is animal-gift, but if Day Woman thinks he is her lost son, then perhaps that belief brings her comfort. I will not take away her heart either.”
“You are kind,” Blue Jay said, then jerked his head toward Song’s parka. “My wife will show you the way.”