by Sue Harrison
Chagak grinned and threw him her rope, then cut away as much meat as she could carry and took it to the ulaq.
With her woman’s knife she cut a portion of the meat in strips and held it, a piece at a time, above the flames of an oil lamp. Then she packed the meat in a basket and took it to Shuganan. They sat in the shadow of the whale’s carcass and ate.
They used their store of driftwood to build two huge fires, one at each end of the beach. When the fires were blazing and the coals had stored enough heat, Chagak laid stones in among the wood. As the stones heated she used a digging stick fitted with a shale blade to enlarge her cooking pit.
Shuganan brought large baskets from the ulaq, put them into the cooking pit, then Chagak filled them with water and strips of blubber.
While Chagak returned to the whale and began cutting away more of the meat, Shuganan carried hot stones from the fire and dropped them into the baskets until the water boiled. He removed cooled stones with a heavy loop of bent wood and added hot stones until a thick layer of melted fat formed at the top of each basket.
We will not starve this winter, Shuganan thought and began to sing.
Kayugh’s people had started in early morning. Kayugh, pushing away his sorrow with each stroke of his paddle, soon outdistanced the slower women’s boat, and by noon he was even far ahead of Big Teeth and Gray Bird. As he paddled, he memorized the land, the location of cliffs and small beaches, the color of rocks and the shape of kelp beds extending from the shore.
When he saw the cliffs, the cove marked with groups of large rocks, he felt a sudden excitement. This was the beach he had found the day before and perhaps it was the beach Little Duck had meant.
He moved quickly, paddling his canoe into the shallow cove. Then he stopped, paddle above the waves. A huge whale was lying across the beach.
He blinked, laughed and opened his mouth to begin a praise chant to the sea, but then he noticed that the whale was partially flensed. His heart made a sudden beating, and his disappointment held him motionless in the water. His people could not claim the beach; someone already had.
The weariness of Kayugh’s sorrow—the nights of sleeplessness, listening to his son cry, the search for a good beach—weighed him down, and Kayugh felt as though a giant hand were pushing him into the sea.
But then he thought, Perhaps those who claimed the beach would allow his small group to stay a few nights, to rest and gather roots and sea urchins. Kayugh held his paddle vertically in the water, keeping his ikyak steady in the waves.
A beached whale was a great gift, something seldom given to a village, but for such a gift there was little activity on the beach. Two fires were burning, but usually all the women would be working over rendering pits and the men stripping away blubber and meat.
The longer he watched, the more Kayugh wondered whether the beach was home to no one. Perhaps only a few hunters had found the whale and stopped to take meat and fat. But he saw no ikyak, no sign of temporary shelters.
Suddenly an old man limped over the rise of the beach. His shoulders were hunched and he walked with the aid of a stick. He was not a hunter. No. A shaman living alone? Perhaps. And perhaps he had called the whale to the beach. Kayugh had heard of shamans with such power. If this man was one of them, he could destroy Kayugh’s people with the wave of his stick, could harm without spear or harpoon, could kill without knives.
So can I bring my people? Kayugh asked himself, and heard a voice somewhere within saying, No. It was something he could not do. Why risk all? But if he went ashore now, the shaman might kill him. Then Big Teeth and the others might come to the beach, knowing nothing. Perhaps they, too, would come ashore and be killed.
In slow, easy movements, Kayugh directed his ikyak into the trough of a wave, then stayed within the trough until he guided himself out beyond the cliffs and away from the cove.
Chagak knelt beside her cooking pit. The whale blocked her view of the sea. The black skin and thick, yellow-white blubber had been peeled away. Gulls perched at the top of the carcass, pulling at bits of dark red meat, but there were no small boys living on this beach to chase the birds away with long poles and well-aimed stones. Some of the krill that had filled the whale’s belly had spilled out onto the gravel of the beach, and blood seeped into the sea.
Chagak had taken all the grass mats and curtains from the ulaq and was sewing them into storage bags. Shuganan lashed driftwood into high, many-tiered drying racks.
During the night they would take turns watching the fire and keeping hot stones ready for the cooking pit.
Tomorrow, if the sea still honored Shuganan`s claim, they would strip away the rest of the meat and string it on the drying racks.
The whale had been a wonderful gift, but Chagak could not help thinking of the celebration her village would have had: the dancing, the songs, the joy of many night fires down the long beach. And though she and Shuganan had rejoiced, it was a quieter joy, a singing of the spirit. And who could say which was better? But some perversity in Chagak wanted both.
“There is a whale beached there,” Kayugh said, drawing his ikyak close to Big Teeth’s. But before he could say more, Big Teeth called the news to Gray Bird and the women. Kayugh stilled his ikyak and shook his head. He tried to cut into the babble of excited voices, and finally, forcing his ikyak next to the women’s ik, called out, “Wait. There is a whale, yes, but there is also an old man.”
“An old man,” Gray Bird snorted.
“He is flensing the whale. He has built fires to render the blubber.”
“What does that matter?” Gray Bird said. “What is an old man? Our women could take him.”
“If the beach is his, it is his,” Kayugh answered. “Perhaps he will let us stay, but there is that chance he will see our coming as a threat.”
“He will see nothing if he is dead,” said Gray Bird.
“And what if he is shaman?” asked Big Teeth. “What if he called the whale to his beach? Would you want to be enemy of such a man? What would he do to you if he could kill a whale?”
Gray Bird did not answer but bent over his ikyak as if he had found a small tear in a seam, and Kayugh said, “Let me go alone. Make a camp at a beach close to the cove, and if I do not return, do not come after me.” To Blue Shell he said, “Do not worry about my son. If I die, I will take him with me to the spirit world.” Then, looking at Crooked Nose, Kayugh said, “I give Red Berry to Big Teeth as daughter.” And he saw Crooked Nose nod and pull the child to her lap.
Kayugh turned his ikyak and went swiftly, keeping to the tops of the swells, speeding his ikyak to the cove.
It was nearly night and Shuganan’s legs and arms ached, but it was a good kind of pain. Chagak had brought sleeping mats and the baby’s cradle to the beach. They made a camp in the grass above the tide mark, near the cooking pit. Even with the rise and fall of the waves, the whale had remained on the beach, and the tide had risen no higher than the flippers.
Now Shuganan used hand ax and knife to detach the jawbones. It was slow work, and he realized that he would not be able to cut away the entire lower jaw before the sun set.
If the sea gives us six or seven more days, he thought, we will have enough meat and fat for two winters.
It seemed as though his arms had grown stronger as he worked, and he began to hope that Chagak could make him a chigadax from the skin of the whale’s tongue. He began to hope that he would hunt again, that in the fall, when the small fur seals swam by, he would use his ikyak again.
When he heard someone behind him, he thought Chagak had come to help, and he said, “Bring me a lamp.”
But then he turned and saw that he spoke not to Chagak but to a young man. Shuganan’s breath caught in his throat and he stood still, knife in left hand, ax in right.
The young man’s eyes moved to the weapons, but he stepped forward, close enough for Shuganan to touch, and held out his hands, palms up. “I am a friend,” he said. “I have no knife.”
For a
moment Shuganan did not move. I was not quick enough, he thought. I have not warned the Whale Hunters. But then he realized that the man spoke the language of the First Men and that he wore the full-cut birdskin parka that all First Men hunters wore.
“I am Kayugh,” the man said. “I seek a new beach for my home. The rising sea brought waves that destroyed my village.”
He was tall, well built, his eyes round and clear.
He shows his soul through his eyes, Shuganan thought, and suddenly was not afraid.
“There are others with you?” Shuganan asked and moved so he could see around the man, but there was no one else on the beach.
The man hesitated, searched Shuganan’s face.
“Not with me,” he said. Again he paused and his eyes seemed to hold Shuganan’s eyes, as if their spirits were testing one another. “They have camped for the night farther east. I saw the whale and that you were here. We do not want to claim a beach that belongs to someone else. I have come only to ask if we might spend a few days gathering sea urchins and roots.”
“How many people do you have?”
“Three men, three women, three children.”
Shuganan studied the man. He seemed to be a good man. Like someone he would choose as husband for Chagak, but who could say? Sometimes evil was disguised as good. Perhaps he was a spirit come to steal the whale. Perhaps he was a shaman who had been told by spirits about Shuganan’s carvings. And perhaps he did have women and children, but if so, why did he not bring them with him?
Shuganan wanted to tell him to go, but then the thought came, What if this man were some good spirit? What if he were the one who had sent the whale and now wanted to see if Shuganan was a good man, a man willing to share?
“You may stay the night,” Shuganan said. “We have much meat, as you can see. Eat what you want and take some back to your people.”
THIRTY
CHAGAK TOOK SAMIQ FROM his cradle and hugged him tightly to her chest.
Shuganan’s oil lamp was like a star on the dark beach, and in its light she was sure she had seen two men. She stood and watched until she saw Shuganan. He was pulling at the jawbones. The huge arched bones were nearly separated from the whale carcass, and yes, there was another man beside him. A spirit come to take Shuganan from her? Or Sees-far returning with his people?
Chagak wondered if she should run.
She had left her woman’s knife at the other beach fire and now felt a deep grief over her carelessness. Surely if she went for the knife the man would see her. She grabbed a chunk of driftwood from the ground. It was better than no weapon.
The man seemed to be helping Shuganan. Would Sees-far help? Not unless he hoped to earn a woman for the night. But why work when the one who protected Chagak was only an old man? Why not take what was wanted? How would Shuganan stop him?
But what about the baby? Some men found no joy in another man’s child.
Perhaps Chagak could lay the child in the shelter, hide him under a layer of grass mats. But if he cried … Better to put him under her suk, then if she ran he would be with her.
“Chagak!”
Shuganan was calling her. His voice was strong, unafraid. If there were danger, he would not call, Chagak told herself. She dropped the piece of driftwood but did not stand until she had the baby beneath her suk. Then she went to the other fire, picked up her woman’s knife and walked slowly toward the men. She kept her head down and crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to hide the form of the child bound against her chest.
Shuganan hurried to meet her and, grasping her arm, pulled her to the whale. The man waited for them, his hands, dark with whale’s blood, stretched out in greeting.
Not Sees-far, Chagak thought, relieved. Nor any of the traders who had once come to her people’s beach.
“My granddaughter,” Shuganan said, and he spoke in the First Men’s tongue.
The man was tall and Chagak felt like a child beside him. Her head reached only as far as his shoulder.
“Kayugh,” Shuganan said and stared at Chagak until she realized he wanted her to speak. She looked up at the man and repeated his name.
It was a good name, a name that spoke of strength. Kayugh had a wide, square face, and his eyes reminded Chagak of her father’s eyes, eyes that were used to scanning the sea. He smiled at her, but she saw a sadness in his smile, something that made her wonder why he was alone.
“We need help moving the jawbones above the reach of the waves,” Shuganan said.
Chagak wished Shuganan had not asked for her help. She could not take a chance the baby would be injured, so now she must admit she had him under her suk. She looked at Shuganan and said slowly, “I have the baby. Let me put him in his cradle.”
She saw the sudden hunger in Kayugh’s eyes and a chill pulled at the muscles of her back, but Shuganan seemed to feel no dread as he said to Kayugh, “My grandson.”
Chagak hurried back to the camp she had made beside the beach fires. She knew Kayugh watched her as she left.
“He will ask for you tonight,” came a whisper from the sea otter, but Chagak did not reply, and she blocked from her mind all remembrance of the night she had spent with Man-who-kills, the pain of man taking woman.
She laid the baby in the cradle, careful to turn his face away from the wind, and returned to the men. They had cut the jawbones from the dome of the skull and pulled them from the carcass. She and Shuganan gripped the bone that formed the left half of the whale’s lower jaw. They pulled against the gravel, Chagak matching her steps to Shuganan’s. Kayugh took the right jawbone and, pulling it alone, dragged it nearly to the ulaq while Chagak and Shuganan were still on the beach.
The bone was slippery with flesh and Chagak’s hands were not strong enough to hold it for more than a few steps. Finally she held the outward curve of the bone against her chest, so the muscles of her shoulders did the work of pulling. She looked at Shuganan, saw that he had done the same. Then suddenly Kayugh was between them, pulling so hard that most of the weight was lifted.
When they reached the rise of the beach, they dropped the bone. Chagak cut a handful of grass and wiped off her hands and the front of her suk.
“Come,” Shuganan said to Kayugh. “Chagak will watch the fires for a time. You are welcome in my ulaq.”
Chagak returned to the fires. A part of her was glad to be alone again, glad to have an excuse to stay on the beach, but part of her wished she might hear what Kayugh had to say. Why he was here.
She knelt beside Samiq’s cradle. The baby was asleep so she did not pick him up. Shuganan had made the cradle from driftwood. A fur seal skin cushioned the woven sling that hung from the deep-sided frame. Chagak had decorated the frame with puffin feathers and disk beads she had cut from mussel shells. On one corner, next to the carved seal, Shuganan had hung a small carving of a whale.
It was not the animal Chagak would have chosen, but he told her it was what they must have, something that would make the Whale Hunters believe the child was doubly of their blood, grandson of Shuganan’s wife, grandson to Many Whales. And now Chagak wondered if the carving had called the whale to them.
She added some driftwood to the fires, huddled close to the brightness that seemed to keep away the spirits that came with the dark. The sky held the color of the sun; reds and pinks lit the edges of the horizon. And Chagak remembered that on her people’s beach, also an east-facing beach, the hills around her village had hidden the sun colors that came with the short summer nights. But here, if she walked to the edge of the cove, there was nothing between her and the sun except the sea.
She took her wooden loops, green willow bent and tied, and pulled a rock from the fire’s coal bed. She carried it to the cooking pit slowly so that, if the rock fell, she would not walk over it before she could stop herself.
She dropped the rock into the pit. The oil and water frothed and sent up a circle of bubbles. If she and Shuganan kept the fires going all night, in the morning there would be a thick la
yer of oil at the top of each basket. Chagak would skim it off and pour it into other baskets for cooling.
After cooling, any sand or bits of flesh that might make the oil rot in storage would be in the bottom layer. Chagak would skim off the top and put it into seal stomach containers for storage.
She would use the oil at the bottom of the basket more quickly, some for cooking but most for oiling seal belly containers, or for greasing babiche and sinew for sewing, even for waterproofing the seams of the ik and ikyak.
Chagak was returning to the fire when she saw something moving in the darkness by the ulaq.
Her first thoughts were of night spirits, and she called softly, speaking aloud to the sea otter spirit and clasping her shaman’s amulet, but then Kayugh stepped into the light.
Chagak felt a moment of relief, then a sudden dread, fear that Shuganan had agreed to let the man have her for the night. Her throat seemed to close, and she did not think she could speak.
She stood, holding her tongs between them as though they would protect her. He made no move toward her but squatted on his heels by the fire and stared into the flames. Chagak pulled another rock from the coals and carried it to the rendering pit.
When she went back to the fire, Kayugh stood. A fierce trembling started in Chagak’s hands and she turned away from him, pretending to check her son.
“You have a son,” Kayugh said, moving to stand beside her. He squatted down and moved back some of the sealskin blankets that covered the child. “He is healthy and fat.”
“Someday he will be a good hunter,” Chagak said, the usual reply of a mother receiving a compliment.
“Your husband?”
“He is dead,” Chagak said, her words abrupt. She and Shuganan had decided on a story to tell the Whale Hunters. She hoped Shuganan had told the same story to this man.
“I am sorry.”
“His name was Seal Stalker,” Chagak said and was surprised to find tears in her eyes, for it seemed that her words truly made Seal Stalker Samiq’s father. “He was a good man.”