by Sue Harrison
Shuganan did not answer, for he felt the tremors of his own fear. Many women died in childbirth, many, many women. What if something happened to Chagak? What would he do? He did not want to live without her.
Suddenly she gripped his arm. “Something has happened,” she said, her eyes round. She stood and water streamed from between her legs. “What is it?” she asked. “Why do I do this?”
Shuganan watched in wonder. “I do not know,” he answered.
“Perhaps there is no baby. Perhaps, only water,” Chagak said, and began to laugh, and Shuganan rose in fear as her laughter became higher and higher, until it peaked like a scream.
“No, no. The water is a good thing,” he said, grasping her shoulders and shaking her. “You see, it is only water, like the splash of a hunter’s boat against the shore.”
He helped her stand and together they walked toward the ulaq, Chagak leaving a wet trail over the rocks. Shuganan put an arm around her waist and pulled her close to his side. She leaned against him, and as they reached the ulaq, she crumpled into a heap at his feet.
He bent to help her up, but she waved his hand away. She drew her knees up inside her suk and gripped the new spring grass that covered the ulaq.
Shuganan stood beside her and watched the pain distort her face.
“Ah! Ah-h-h!” she screamed and Shuganan’s eyes filled with tears. He had hoped this child would be a blessing, a boy he could teach to hunt, a boy who would bring seals for Chagak. But now he wondered how he had ever thought the child would be a blessing. Chagak had suffered so much. Pain and pain. First in the giving, now in the birth.
“Ah!” Chagak cried again, then she reached between her legs, and with a start Shuganan realized that her hands were covered with blood.
“Go!” she said to Shuganan and the strength of her voice encouraged him. “Go! Do not curse us all.”
Shuganan backed away from her, wanting to stay, wanting to help, but knowing he could not. Then he thought of Pup’s carrying sling in the ulaq.
“I will bring the sling,” he said, but he did not know if Chagak heard him.
The darkness of the ulaq temporarily blinded Shuganan, and he groped for the heap of furs Chagak had prepared for the baby. Finally he found Pup’s sling. He draped the piece of leather over his arm and went back out to Chagak.
When he saw her, Shuganan realized that she was no longer in pain. She held her head straight and her arms rested loosely over her knees. But then Shuganan saw that something red lay beside her in the grass, and he heard a tiny, gasping cry.
Chagak looked up at him, her eyes dull, and said, “A boy.”
Shuganan hurried to Chagak’s side. A fine, fat baby lay in the grass at her feet. Chagak pulled a few long hairs from her head and used them to bind the pulsing cord that led from the baby’s navel to somewhere under Chagak’s suk. Then she leaned over and bit the cord, severing it.
But she left the child lying in the grass. His cries grew harder, his arms and legs jerking with each breath.
“He is cold,” Shuganan said and began fumbling with the sling, trying to wrap it around the infant.
“He must be washed,” Chagak said.
And Shuganan, seeing she made no move to do anything, asked, “With water or oil?”
“Bring water. Do not waste our oil.”
But Shuganan brought back both water and oil, a tanned hide and several soft furred skins. He picked up the baby, and his touch seemed to calm the child. He dipped a piece of tanned hide in the water, stretched the hide to soften it, then wiped away the blood on the baby’s body. He smoothed the child’s skin with oil. The baby was well formed, long-armed and fat-bellied.
Shuganan struggled again with the carrying strap and finally decided that the wide part must go under the child’s buttocks, the strap going up the back to support the head before fastening over Chagak’s shoulder. But after he had the baby in the sling, he realized that Chagak must put the strap on first, then slip the baby into it.
He held the baby in his good arm and tucked him close to his parka. “Put this on,” he said to Chagak, holding out the strap. But Chagak did not move.
“Chagak,” Shuganan said, his voice louder. “Your son is cold. Put on the strap.”
“He is not my son,” she said. “He belongs to Man-who-kills. Let the baby’s father care for him.”
“Chagak you need this child. He will be a hunter. He will bring meat for you. If you kill this child, who will take care of you when I die?”
“I will hunt and fish. I have done it before.”
“You will be old then. It will be too much for you to do.”
“Then I will die,” said Chagak.
“Chagak,” Shuganan said quietly, “a son does not always carry his father’s spirit.” He tried to meet her eyes, but she looked away. “He will be a good man. We will teach him to care about people.”
Finally Chagak turned her head toward Shuganan. “He is strong?” she asked.
“Yes.” Shuganan held him out to her so she could see his arms and legs, his small, round belly.
But she turned away again, then said, “I must bury the afterbirth.”
“Let me bury it.”
“You would be cursed. I must bury it since my mother or sister cannot.”
Slowly, unsteadily, she stood. It began to rain—heavy, cold drops. The baby started to cry. “Take the child into the ulaq,” Chagak said. “I will be back.”
She watched as Shuganan wrapped the baby in fur seal skins and then carried him down the climbing log into the ulaq.
Chagak walked to the far edge of the beach, against the edge of the cliffs. She kept her mind blank, would not let herself think of the child. It was enough that the birth was over.
She picked up a flat piece of shale and used it to dig a hole.
In the ulaq, Shuganan began to sing to the baby, a lullaby, something his mother once sang long ago, but the words seemed to catch in his throat and the song that came from his mouth was a mourning song.
TWENTY-FIVE
WHITE RIVER NAMED THEIR SON AMGIGH. Blood. It was a strange name for a child, but Kayugh could think of no reason to object. Blood was life. What spirit did not respect blood?
They made a ceremony on the beach, something quick, without feasting or fire. They told the name to the winds and the sky and sea, then prepared for another day traveling.
Kayugh was packing his ikyak when Little Duck came to him. Little Duck, Big Teeth’s second wife, was a small, round woman. Unlike the other women, who wore their hair loose, falling over their shoulders or tucked into their collar rims, she bound her hair back tightly with a strip of sealskin, the hair hanging down her back like a long black tail. Little Duck was shy and seldom spoke, but she was gifted in preparing and storing meat, and sometimes the spirits told her what would happen in days to come.
She said something to Kayugh, but her head was lowered and her voice soft so he could not make out her words. Fighting down his irritation at the woman’s shy ways, he bent close and heard her say, “Three days, we will come to a beach. Some spirit told me. It will be a good place to live, with tidal pools and fresh-water spring.” She paused, glanced up at him and then away, as if he frightened her. She pressed a hand to her mouth and said something else.
“I cannot hear you,” Kayugh said, his words too loud.
“There will be cliffs there,” she said without looking at him. She turned back toward the women who were packing supplies into hide-covered bundles, but as Kayugh watched, her back seemed to stiffen and she turned slowly to face him. “Your wife,” Little Duck said, but then walked away as if she had said nothing.
Kayugh felt a catch of fear somewhere in his chest. What about his wife? He watched White River among the other women. She was pale, looked tired, but what woman would not be tired, working during the day to please her husband, awake at night to feed her new son? Kayugh was suddenly angry at Little Duck, but then he remembered what she had said about a beach
. It was a good sign. When had Little Duck ever been wrong? Perhaps she had meant that Kayugh should insist his wife do less work, that she take more rests.
He walked over to the women. Their chatter stopped and they looked up at him. He rested his hand on the top of his wife’s head, tucked his fingers into the warmth of her hair.
“Crooked Nose, my wife will have many sleepless nights with our new son,” he said. “Could she go without a turn paddling the ik today?”
“That will cause no problem,” Crooked Nose said. “My son is big enough to take a turn at paddling.”
And looking at the boy, Kayugh saw the sudden flash of pride in his eyes. Yes, it would be a good way to prepare First Snow for the ikyak. Kayugh remembered how hard it had been for him as a boy First Snow’s age to ride in the women’s ik rather than have an ikyak like the men.
“Thank you,” White River murmured, but when Kayugh looked at Little Duck to see if she approved his action, the woman had her head lowered, her hands busy tying a bundle of dried grass.
The next day they traveled from early morning until the sun had lowered in the sky, then stopped to spend the night on a beach covered with fist-sized round rocks. The women collected enough driftwood for a fire, but there were no small, close hills to give shelter from the wind that blew in from the sea.
They huddled in a semicircle around the fire, backs against the wind so the fire was in the lee of their bodies. The women brought out dried meat. Little Duck sharpened green willow sticks and skewered the fish she had caught that day, then stuck the sticks in the sand around the fire.
The day of paddling had made Kayugh so hungry that he did not wait for the fish near him to be fully cooked. When the skin began to brown, he pulled the stick from the sand and ate.
When he had eaten half of the fish, he held the stick out toward White River, offering her the other half, but she shook her head.
“You must eat,” Kayugh said to her.
“I will,” she said and smiled, but there was a tiredness in her face, a darkness around her eyes, that worried Kayugh.
Again Little Duck’s words came to him, and so during that evening Kayugh watched White River. He was relieved when she ate, and he noticed that she laughed when Big Teeth told his stories. Though she walked slowly, one hand against her belly, she helped the other women with the fire and the sleeping robes.
By the time he had lain down for the night by the fire, Kayugh had nearly forgotten his concern.
At first the sound was in Kayugh’s dreams. It was a gull screaming, then the cry of a woman giving birth, but gradually it woke him, and he realized it was the muffled cry of a baby.
He sat up, and in the twilight of early morning he saw that Little Duck and Big Teeth had also been awakened by the noise.
“Your son,” Big Teeth said, and when he spoke the words, Kayugh felt the sudden nausea of fear. A baby among the First Men did not cry as long as his son had been crying. A baby was bound close to his mother’s body, warm inside the suk and able to suckle whenever he wanted.
Little Duck slipped from her sleeping robes, and to Kayugh her movements seemed too slow, each step taking forever, but Kayugh himself, in trying to rise, felt as if his arms and legs were made of stone, too heavy to move. So he sat watching, as though the child crying were not his own, as though the woman Little Duck shook were not his wife.
Little Duck turned her head toward him, and when she spoke, the words were too slow, like a part of some dream. “She has been bleeding,” Little Duck said. Then: “She is dead, Kayugh. Some spirit has taken her.”
Kayugh could not move his head to nod, could not speak. But then Big Teeth was beside him and all the camp was awake. “Come,” Big Teeth said, and his voice seemed to give Kayugh the power he needed to move again. He threw the robe back from his legs and stood up.
“We will go to the beach,” said Big Teeth. “The women will take care of White River.”
“She is dead,” Kayugh said, looking into Big Teeth’s eyes, hoping Big Teeth would tell him, “No, she is not. Little Duck is wrong.”
But Big Teeth nodded and said, “Yes, she is dead.” Then, reaching out to take Kayugh’s arm, Big Teeth added, “Come with me. We will check the supplies. We will …”
“Where is my daughter?” Kayugh asked, suddenly irritated with Big Teeth, with the carefulness of the man’s words.
Then Crooked Nose was handing him Red Berry, the child rubbing her eyes, her movements stiff and jerky from being awakened. Kayugh hugged the girl to him and then turned away from them all, the men and women in a tight circle before him. But when he had taken a few steps, he turned back and said to Crooked Nose, “Give me my son.”
He saw the quick look of surprise on Big Teeth’s face, heard Gray Bird snort. Crooked Nose hesitated, then said, “He cries.”
“Give me my son,” Kayugh said again. He set Red Berry down and waited until Crooked Nose brought the infant.
The baby’s legs and arms trembled in the cold and his cries changed from a high, broken wail to a bleating sound, like a noise Kay ugh sometimes heard from baby seals.
“He is cold,” Crooked Nose said and asked Little Duck to bring a furred skin. The woman wrapped the baby, and the child stopped crying, as if the warmth were all he was seeking. She handed him to Kayugh and Kayugh took the child, first holding him awkwardly in both hands, then tucking him into the crook of his left arm. Kayugh picked up Red Berry and left the circle of his people.
Kayugh found a place in the lee of some rocks where the ground was dry. He sat down, settling Red Berry on one leg, and lowered his left arm to rest against his thigh. He looked at both children. Red Berry leaned against him, her eyes closed, but Amgigh’s eyes were wide as if he were studying Kayugh’s face.
Kayugh could cry now, with his daughter nearly sleeping and only his son to see. A son would not be ashamed to see his father cry for the death of a wife, but though Kayugh willed the tears to come, they would not, and so he watched his son, saw how beautiful the child was, with fine black brows, huge dark eyes.
His daughter, too, was beautiful, looking so much like White River. And Kayugh wondered why—with two such beautiful children—White River’s spirit had chosen to leave them. Was some other spirit already at the Dancing Lights, pulling her away from Kayugh, away from the earth? Would Red Leg do such a thing? No, in all her years as Kayugh’s wife, Red Leg had always taken more thought for others than for herself.
Perhaps Kayugh had not been a good husband. Perhaps his thoughts had been too often of himself, not enough on his wives. But no, he had loved his wives. And he was a good hunter. Had they ever been without meat? Without hides to work, without sinew for sewing?
They had had a good life together. His wives were like sisters, caring for one another, and Red Berry called both women “mother.”
Perhaps his wives had not chosen to die. Perhaps they were taken because Kayugh did not give enough thanks for what he had.
He had been an honored hunter of a large village. They had a good beach, enough to eat, and Kayugh, though a young man, had two good wives, a son growing within one wife, and a fine, strong daughter. Had he ever stopped to think how good his life had been? Kayugh could not remember. There were too many things to think of: hunting, repairing his ikyak, trading trips.
It had taken one night to change his life. A wave—something that happened once, twice in a lifetime, but now had happened three times in five years to his people’s village.
The other times, the losses had not been as great, but this time only Kayugh’s ulaq, the one on highest ground, had not been destroyed, and many people had died.
If Little Duck had not spoken of another wave, one coming again that summer, perhaps Kayugh would have stayed with the families that had decided to rebuild their village, but he had thought of his daughter and of the baby—then only a small swelling in White River’s belly—and wanted a place for them that would not always bring death.
“It is not a
good place to live,” he had told the men. “The beach is too low, too easy for the sea to overcome. The spirits bring a wave to kill us and laugh at our stupidity. We must find a new beach for our village.”
Only Big Teeth had agreed with him, and finally Gray Bird as well, a man afraid of everything, someone Kayugh would have preferred to leave behind.
Words came easily to Gray Bird. His insults were subtle, leaving barbs that stayed beneath the skin and worked into a man like nettles. But perhaps it was Gray Bird’s sly way of speaking that had won him his beautiful wife, Blue Shell—Blue Shell with smooth-skinned face and white, unbroken teeth, eyes wide and quick. Even her name, which reminded Kayugh of the luminescence of a limpet’s inner shell, was beautiful.
Her father had not chosen well for her. Gray Bird beat her often, even now though she would soon deliver their first child, and he traded her to any man for a night’s favor with another woman. When Kayugh had first met Blue Shell, the young woman a new bride, she had often smiled, often laughed, but now she was quiet, quick to duck if Gray Bird came near with raised hand or walking stick.
But Gray Bird was a man, a hunter, and who could deny Blue Shell the chance of safety for her unborn child?
So Gray Bird and Blue Shell had come with Kayugh, Big Teeth, and their families when they left the village. Leaving seemed the best thing to do, Kayugh thought, but if I had stayed, I might still have two wives. I would be able to keep my son.
“And now I must leave you,” he whispered to the baby. “For who can feed you? If I take you, you will only die and it is better if you die here with your mother. Then your spirit will not be lost. She will guide you to the Dancing Lights. But if I take you, how will you find your way if you die?”
The baby looked at Kayugh as if he understood.
“You are too wise,” Kayugh said and lowered his cheek to the soft, dark hair on his sons head. And finally the tears came, as Kayugh cried for his wives and for the son he must leave. The baby, too, began to cry, and Kayugh, hearing his son, felt as if their hearts were one, their spirits joined.