Song of the River

by Sue Harrison

  “Not tonight.”

  Qung raised her eyebrows. Aqamdax shrugged, and Qung turned toward her sleeping place. She was muttering, but then spoke louder. “Perhaps those chief’s wives did not lie,” the old woman said. “Perhaps they did dream.”

  Aqamdax stood for a moment in the empty ulax, imagined that the people were still there. With her voice and her words, she had taken them from this ulax to places none of them had ever been. She had made them warriors and elders, children and traders. They had become Whale Hunters, and Walrus men, even faraway River People. She had done that.

  She shook her head in disbelief. With only the words of her mouth, she had done that.

  THE WALRUS HUNTER VILLAGE

  The people of the Walrus Hunter Village told stories through the night, waiting until the sun showed its face in the morning. Then again they feasted, celebrating the light. Sok and Chakliux sat watching as the Walrus men helped themselves to the dried fish and walrus meat heaped on woven mats laid near the outdoor cooking hearths.

  Sok and Chakliux did not eat until all the village elders and hunters were served, but when the boys began to bring their bowls, Chakliux and Sok went also. An old woman came to them with a bone dipping ladle and filled Sok’s bowl. He grunted at her, then picked up several pieces of dried fish, laid them across the bowl, so the steam rising from the broth would soften the flesh.

  Chakliux waited, assuming the woman would bring broth for him as well, but she pulled him with her toward a boiling bag as though he were a child. She was a tiny woman, her skin dark with age, but her eyes were bright, and she was as lean and straight as a young girl.

  “Even before you came, I heard stories about you,” she said, and Chakliux realized that she spoke the River language. Her words, though clipped too short by a tongue accustomed to speaking Walrus, were clear.

  “You speak my language,” Chakliux said.

  “And what is so difficult about that?” she asked. “Even small children speak the River language, do they not?” She laughed, and Chakliux laughed with her.

  “I am called Tutaqagiisix.”

  He tried to repeat the name, but the sounds wrapped themselves into a ball in his throat and came out wrong.

  Again she laughed. “The children call me Tut. I am of the First Men, brought here to this village long ago as bride to a Walrus Hunter. I have kept my First Men name, though my husband was not happy I did so. It is a sign of my gift, given me as a child. I learn to speak languages easily. I hear the sounds and soon understand. Tutaqagiisix means ‘hearing.’”

  She dipped her ladle deep into a boiling bag, brought it out full of meat and small bones. “Seal flipper bones,” she said, still speaking the River language. “They put themselves into my ladle to remind me what I must say to you.” She pulled one of the bones from the ladle. She bit off one of the ends, softened by boiling, and sucked. Oil and broth dripped to her chin and she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, then dumped the remaining meat and bones from her ladle into Chakliux’s bowl.

  “You also have a gift.” She looked down at his caribouskin boots. “Dzuuggi, animal-gift.”

  Chakliux was surprised by her words. He and Sok had told few of his past. They were only hunters, trading, trying to earn a bride price for a wife, trying to find strong dogs for the River People.

  As though she could hear his thoughts, the old woman said, “Remember my name. I hear much. You are otter, they say.”

  “Some say I am otter. Others say I am not.”

  “What do you say?”

  Chakliux looked away from the woman. Where was Sok? Why was he alone with this old woman and her many questions?

  She looked up at him like a child, waiting for his answer, but what could he say when he did not know himself what he was? Dzuuggi, yes, but otter? Animal-gift?

  “I am Dzuuggi, trained as storyteller, and to know the many traditions of our people, the memories of wars, hard winters and good hunts.”

  Tut again raised the bone to her mouth, sucked, then looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “And animal-gift?”

  “If I am animal-gift, I am otter,” Chakliux finally said. “More than that I do not know. The one who found me told me I was animal-gift. Sometimes I believe that is true. Other times I do not.”

  “Your words are honest, as the words of a Dzuuggi must be,” the old woman said. “They say you have an otter foot. Show me.”

  Her request surprised him, but he did as she asked, showing first the three webbed toes of his right foot, then the bent and curved otter foot. She leaned over, poked at the foot, then said, “You are otter.”

  The words washed through Chakliux like warm rain, driving away doubt. Then he reminded himself that she was only an old woman. What did she know? But a small voice came to him, as though Gguzaakk spoke: Why doubt? Tutaqagiisix has also been given a gift. Who else is more apt to recognize the same in another?

  “So then,” Tut continued, “where do you build your iqyax?”

  She handed Chakliux his bowl, and as though they were brother and sister, born to the same mother, sharing the same food, she reached in and pulled out another seal flipper bone.

  “On the leeward side of the walrus rock,” Chakliux told her, “beyond the high tide mark.”

  “Come to my tent tomorrow, early in the morning. You can carry the walrus hide. It is heavy for an old woman like me.”

  Then like brother to sister, Chakliux offered his bowl once more to her fingers.

  Chapter Twenty

  CHAKLIUX ANGLED HIS IQYAX into the waves and turned his upper body to add thrust to his paddle, driving the bow forward, resisting the water spirits that wanted to tumble his iqyax back to shore.

  His arms were strong, hardened during the four moons he had been with the Walrus Hunters, and now he had his own iqyax, Tut’s fine stitches binding the walrus hide cover into one whole piece, like the skin of an animal.

  She had also made a hatch skirt, and his chigdax, a watertight parka made of strips of sea lion gut with drawstrings at wrists and face. She had done all this and given it as gift, countering his protests with her own: Who did she have to sew for, now that she was a widow? What did he want her to do with her days? Sit with the old women and grumble?

  The iqyax moved over waves like an otter. Sinew bindings at each joint allowed it to flex and bend as Chakliux paddled over each swell. He used his body and legs within the wooden framework as though the iqyax were skin and skeleton, and he its muscle.

  Old Tusk had set out seal bladders, each blown full of air and tethered to the next, each weighted with a stone ballast on a long bull kelp line so it would not be lost in the waves. At each end of the tether line, Old Tusk had tied sealskin floats.

  “You first!” Old Tusk called.

  Chakliux pulled the rope that released his spearthrower from the deck of the iqyax. He fitted a harpoon into his thrower and raised his arm, pulled back, his hand tight on the thrower, fingers light against the harpoon shaft to hold it in place. The throw had to be accurate, had to hit the center of the target or the bladder would skitter away from the harpoon. He threw and his harpoon hit; the bladder popped. The tether line sagged under the weight of the ballast stone, no longer buoyed by air, and pulled the neighboring bladders closer together.

  Old Tusk threw his harpoon. It, too, hit. Chakliux lifted his voice to praise, but Old Tusk called: “You are too noisy, brother. Remember, where there is one animal there may be many. Try again.”

  Chakliux coiled in his harpoon, fitted it into the spearthrower, and threw again. This time he missed, his throw only pushing the bladder sideways. Old Tusk threw again, hit again.

  “See what happens when you are too noisy, brother,” he called. “The animals leave you.”

  Chakliux took the scolding in good humor. Old Tusk was right. Hunting sea animals was very different from taking caribou or bears. He coiled in his harpoon and threw. He struck the bladder, and before retrieving the weapon, took anoth
er harpoon from the iqyax deck and threw it. Again he hit his target.

  This time Old Tusk was the one to raise his voice in praise, and Chakliux could not keep the smile from his mouth. He began coiling in his harpoons. Besides the sealskins, there were two handfuls of bladders still floating. Chakliux and Old Tusk would aim only at the bladders so the whole line would not sink, costing them floats, kelp lines and rock weights. He tied one harpoon on his iqyax and fitted the other to his thrower. He raised his arm, then saw that Old Tusk had raised his thrower straight in the air.

  Like all Walrus men, Old Tusk had painted his thrower black on the top, red on the bottom. When he held the red side up and turned it toward Chakliux, it meant his harpoon had hit its mark. This time, the black side was up, a sign he had sighted an animal. Had he seen a seal or otter, even with the noise of their practicing?

  Old Tusk pointed with his thrower west, toward the horizon, and Chakliux saw them. Iqyan, three, perhaps four. He quickly tied harpoon and thrower to his iqyax and grabbed his paddle, ready to head back to the village, but Old Tusk called, “They are Walrus.”

  He began to paddle toward the iqyan. Chakliux followed. As they drew closer, he could see the yellow and red markings and realized the men were traders. He remembered the group that had left the Walrus Village not long after he and Sok had arrived. He had understood that they hoped to trade with Sea Hunters.

  Chakliux thrust his paddle into the waves and pushed ahead to meet them, to see traders and iqyan that had been in the presence of sea otter men. Perhaps someday he would go himself to those far shores and learn what the Sea Hunters had to teach him.

  Sok smiled. It was a forced smile, covering his anger. His trade offers were more than enough for the mask and shaman’s pouch. Yehl was an old man who hid behind the power of his chants and medicines. His pleasures no longer came from the bodies of women or the accumulation of goods; now he found joy in withholding from others what he could not have himself.

  The Walrus considered themselves a strong people, but how long would that strength last with a shaman like Yehl? Surely the spirits knew he was growing weak. Those evil ones out there would soon start playing their tricks. Would the sea animals continue to give themselves to the harpoons of men whose shaman had no power?

  Sok had wasted four moons here in this village, surely long enough to know if the Cousin River People would seek revenge, but also long enough—more than long enough—for him to accumulate the trade goods he would need to change Wolf-and-Raven’s mind about giving Snow-in-her-hair to him as wife.

  But he had been too eager, and in foolishness had traded Snow Hawk during the first few days they had been in the village. Chakliux had told him to wait, but Sok, seeing the goods offered, had not. Since then, he and Chakliux had needed to trade away much of what he received for the dog in exchange for food, lodging and oil. How could he have known that the things he accepted in trade, though unusual to the River People, were of everyday use here in this village? How could he have known that in trading those things back to the Walrus, he would get so little in return?

  Still, he had two walrus tusks and several obsidian spear points. Surely Wolf-and-Raven would find some value in those things, but probably not enough to pay a bride price for Snow-in-her-hair.

  Yehl shifted on the fur mats where he sat, stood and reached for his caribouskin parka, another thing Sok had given to the man in trade. Sok stood, still unused to the rude ways of the Walrus. What man ever leaves a guest who is visiting? Chakliux’s calm voice came to his ears: each village has its own way.

  So then, Sok wondered, how should he respond? Finally he stood also, pulled the hood of his parka around his face, and when Yehl left the lodge, Sok followed him. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the sun when Chakliux came running to him, grabbed his arm as though they were both children, and chattered so quickly that Sok could not understand what he said.

  Sok jerked his arm away. “What has happened?” he asked, his voice rough and low.

  “The Walrus traders have returned.”

  Sok looked down at his brother. His eyes were bright, his face red and peeling from the long days he spent in the iqyax. Perhaps it was time for Sok to leave this village. It appeared that Chakliux would be happy to stay. He had even learned many of the Walrus words. Sok was able to communicate only with one of Yehl’s sons, a man who spoke the River language, though in a poor and halting way, and to the old woman called Tut.

  At least there was Little Ears. She knew only a few River words, but what need did he have to speak when he was with her?

  “They have Sea Hunter things: otter skins, obsidian, grass baskets, shell beads, seal flipper boots …”

  Chakliux’s list continued until Sok’s anger lifted enough for him to realize that his brother was suggesting they trade for these things themselves. Why not? Something brought from the far shores of the Sea Hunter People should be worth more to Wolf-and-Raven than mere Walrus goods. He clapped a hand on Chakliux’s shoulder. His brother still wore the knee-length gut parka that hunters used to stay dry when they were in their iqyan.

  “You were practicing today?” he asked Chakliux.

  “Too bad the bladders were not seals,” Chakliux answered.

  Sok laughed. They pushed their way through the children and women to the group of Walrus men who surrounded the traders.

  The traders were pulling packs from the bows and sterns of their iqyan. Several of the elders had already opened the packs, removing fist-sized nodules of obsidian, braided kelp ropes, packs of beads, whale teeth and fishhooks. Several children who had managed to creep through the crowd to the iqyan had opened a sea lion belly of dried fish. They ran, laughing, chunks of fish clasped in both hands, as one of the traders chased them away.

  Chakliux noticed several whole seal skins turned inside out, stubs where the front flippers had been, the skins taut and bloated with the contents.

  “Oil,” Tut said, coming to stand beside him. “They do as we do, turning the skin whole, hair and all, and placing the fat strips inside to render on their own.”

  “I do not like the hair,” said Chakliux.

  Tut shrugged. “Good flavor,” she said. “They render some also in pits or boiling bags, but that takes a long time. It is better to sew your husband’s chigdax than wait on oil, eh?”

  Sok gripped Chakliux’s arm, pointed with his chin. One of the traders was holding a parka made of pieced bird skins. In the sunlight, the black feathers were as shiny as obsidian. It was trimmed with bands of hair embroidery and strips hung with iridescent shell beads.

  “So what do you think?” he asked. “Would Wolf-and-Raven want such a thing?”

  “What man would not?” Chakliux answered.

  “Do not think you will get it,” Tut said. “The Walrus are not ones to part with such trade goods easily.”

  The anger of his frustration with Yehl and the powerlessness he felt living with these Walrus Hunters honed Sok’s words into sharpness, and he snapped, “What do you know, old woman?” He turned so she could see the sun Red Leaf had pieced on the back of his parka. “Not even for this?”

  “I have heard men say good things about that parka. You should have brought more with you.”

  He had told himself the same thing many times, but who could believe that something a woman made would have more value to these Walrus Hunters than weapons or food?

  He turned to Tut. “Tell those men not to trade away too many things. Tell them this River hunter has much to offer.”

  “I will tell them,” Tut answered, “but do not expect them to give easily what has cost them many moons of hard travel.”

  He had taken the name Yehl, Raven, when he was young and strong, not yet as powerful in shaman ways as he would be, but, unlike many shamans, a gifted hunter, able to take both land and sea animals. Now his arms were the thin bony arms of an old man. His voice, once loud enough to carry chants over the whole village, was weak, and so were his eyes.

  Som
eone scratched at the side of his tent, and Yehl pushed himself up.

  “I am here,” he called.

  He recognized the large, square hand as it thrust in to push aside the walrus hide doorflap. Sun Beater. His mother claimed he was Yehl’s son. Who could say for sure? The woman had never been one of his wives. She was not a woman to be trusted, and Yehl had never fully believed her claim.

  Yehl treated the boy well, including him in hunting trips with his sisters’ sons, sharing meat and oil with Sun Beater’s mother each time she was between husbands, but the important things—chants and songs, weapons and amulets—those he saved for his wives’ sons.

  “Father,” Sun Beater said even before Yehl had a chance to return to the soft furs where he had been sitting, “I have come to tell you my vision.”

  Yehl sighed. He was no fool. He knew that Sun Beater wanted to be the next shaman, and how could Yehl deny his claim? None of his true sons wanted to follow their father, nor did his sisters’ sons. They were content being hunters. But Sun Beater was not a patient man. He wanted Yehl to teach him quickly, so he could claim powers he had not earned. He was too much like his mother. Wanting one thing, then wanting another, never satisfied for long with what he had.

  “There is food in the boiling bag,” Yehl said, and gestured toward the doorflap, the tripod just outside.

  Sun Beater shook his head, squatted on his haunches. “I was sleeping but not sleeping, seeing but not seeing,” he said, words that Yehl remembered saying to him long ago when he had explained one of his own dreams. “A woman came to me. Her voice was the voice of an otter, and when she spoke, it was like the wind sharing the secrets it has learned from the earth.”

  The young man’s eyes glowed, and for once Yehl believed him. There had been a dream. Yehl knew when someone was lying. But a dream could mean many things—perhaps only that someone was afraid or wanted something. Perhaps only that the spirit was living its own life while the body rested.

  “This woman,” Yehl said, “who is she?”

  Sun Beater shook his head. “That is why I came to you. Perhaps you know.”