by Sue Harrison
“Your husband is dead,” Crooked Nose said.
The words startled Chagak and she sat without answering, her mouth open.
But Crooked Nose did not wait for a reply. “Perhaps Kayugh seeks someone as wife,” she said.
Chagak felt her face redden. She tried to listen as Crooked Nose told her about Kayugh’s skills as a hunter, but fear numbed Chagak’s hands and quickened her breath.
She knew her mother had been happy as a wife, and Crooked Nose, when she spoke of time spent in the sleeping place with her husband, spoke with flashing eyes and giggles, not dread, but Chagak had once known the pain of a man within her and did not want it again. She had seen how often Big Teeth visited his wives’ sleeping places, even in the few days they had lived in Shuganan’s ulaq, and Chagak had shuddered as she lay on her sleeping mats, remembering what Man-who-kills had done to her.
“All men are not cruel,” the sea otter whispered to her, night after night. But Chagak did not want to be wife again.
Kayugh smoothed his harpoon shaft with a piece of lava rock. It was the first evening since Big Teeth and Gray Bird had moved to their own ulaq, and Kayugh was glad for the quietness in Shuganan’s ulaq.
Shuganan sat next to an oil lamp, the old man leaning into the light. He carved a bit of ivory, his eyes and mouth moving as he worked, as though he spoke in silent words to the thing he was creating.
Chagak was finishing a chigadax for Shuganan. Made from the skin of the whale’s tongue instead of strips of seal intestine, it had taken only a few evenings to sew. Red Berry had her head on Chagak’s lap and the babies were nestled, one at each breast. Chagak was so small that Kayugh could hardly see her through the children.
It should stay like this, Kayugh thought. In peace, in quietness. He had spoken several times to Shuganan about the planned journey to the Whale Hunters. Kayugh wanted him to leave Chagak here, but Shuganan had disagreed.
“What do women know of fighting?” Kayugh had asked, but Shuganan countered, “You say you may decide to go with me. If you do, I will be glad. But what do you know of fighting? Have you ever fought against other men?”
“No,” Kayugh had said. “But I can throw a spear. I have fought seals and sea lions. Men cannot be much different.”
“Men think,” Shuganan said, “and they hate. Animals fight only to live, perhaps at times to protect their young. Men fight for hate, for power, for owning things. It is a different kind of fighting, something that draws in evil spirits.”
Kayugh fingered his amulet. The quiet of the ulaq seemed so far from fighting. He watched Chagak as she nursed the babies. His son was still thin compared to Chagak’s son, but the thinness did not make Kayugh fear for the child’s life.
“I do not want Chagak to go to the Whale Hunters,” Kayugh suddenly said, his words loud in the ulaq’s stillness.
“What is better,” Shuganan said quietly, “to take her or to leave her here? The Short Ones know about this beach. They know about my carving.
“There were two scouts here, Kayugh. One was going to stay with us, to take Chagak as wife and live here for the winter. We killed him, but the other returned to his people. He will come back to this beach.
“Do you want Chagak to stay? To be the one who tells the Short Ones that her grandfather killed one of their hunters? Besides, there is Gray Bird. If we leave the women, he will want to stay. I have seen the hunger in his eyes when he looks at Chagak.”
Kayugh sat in silence, then said, “You are right. But if we go, we should go soon. What if the Short Ones come to this beach and we are still here?”
“They are hunters first, warriors second,” Shuganan said, his hands turning the ivory he carved, his knife working until Kayugh could see the eyes and nose of a seal peeking from between Shuganan’s fingers. “They will not come until the best of the seal hunting is finished.”
Kayugh nodded, but still he was uneasy. It was not good to be taking Chagak with them. And what would the Whale Hunters think of her, one of their own—a beautiful woman with son and no husband?
Chagak was making holes with her awl in a sealskin, marking the line her needle would follow on the first stitching of a waterproof seam, but now and again she lifted her head to watch Kayugh and Shuganan.
Shuganan, as always when he carved, paid little attention to the things around him, to what others said, to the noise and activity of the ulaq. Perhaps that was why he and his wife had no children, Chagak thought. Perhaps he gave so much of his spirit to his carvings, there was nothing left for his wife, nothing to begin the soul of a child.
Chagak glanced at Kayugh and quickly looked away. He was watching her. It bothered Chagak that the man was often in her thoughts, and once in the past few nights he had even come into her dreams, lying beside her, stroking the side of her face until Chagak had awakened, shaking.
To comfort herself, she had pulled Kayugh’s son closer to her and wakened Samiq, sleeping in his cradle above her head. Then she had nursed both children, feeling Samiq’s strong, glad nursing, and Amgigh’s gentler tug. She had run her finger along Samiq’s arm, smiling when he clasped the finger in his small hand, then had done the same with Kayugh’s son. She expected no response; the baby seldom moved his hands from her breast. But as she stroked his hand, he, too, clasped her finger, his grip strong.
Chagak had lowered her cheek to the top of Amgigh’s head, a gladness singing inside her. She had wanted him to live for Kayugh’s sake. The man had suffered enough without the loss of his son. But now she knew she also wanted the child to live for herself. Before there had been a distance, something Chagak put between herself and the child. A protection. It was still too soon since she had lost Pup. She could not bear the thought of hoping and praying, of watching and telling herself the child was improving when he was only growing closer to death. Hope brought more pain.
But though she had fought it, the caring had come, had crept into her soul when she was busy with other things, and now she nursed the child not only for Kayugh but for herself.
As Chagak sewed, she thought of Samiq and Amgigh growing up together, learning to use the ikyak, learning to hunt. Then suddenly, as if the idea were not her own, but something someone else thrust into her head, Chagak thought: It would be better for Samiq to have a father.
No, he has Shuganan, Chagak told herself, but Shuganan’s own words came to her: “I am old.”
Chagak shook her head and thrust her needle into the awl holes. I do not need a husband, she thought, and with each thrust of her needle pushed Shuganan’s words further from her mind.
It was early morning, and Chagak had just finished rinsing out the night baskets. She stood at the top of the ulaq and watched the red circle of the sun tuck itself under the clouds that filled the sky.
For the first time since Kayugh had brought her his son, she had left both babies in the ulaq, Kayugh holding Amgigh, Samiq in his cradle.
Suddenly, in the wind and the brightness of a new day, she felt like a young girl again, as though, if she shut her eyes and gave enough strength to her thoughts, she would find that she stood in her own village on her father’s ulaq, watching for Seal Stalker’s ikyak among the waves. But then she heard Shuganan’s slow steps up the climbing log, and she again felt the heaviness of the milk in her breasts and the pressure of the grief she had carried since the death of her people.
“He asks for you as wife,” Shuganan said, but he had spoken even before he pulled himself from the ulaq, and Chagak, not quite sure what he had said, squatted close to the roof hole so she could hear him more clearly.
“Kayugh,” Shuganan said. “He wants you to be his wife. He does not want you to go to the Whale Hunters without a husband.”
For a long time Chagak said nothing, but she kept her eyes to the sea, finding some small escape in watching the waves. But finally she leaned toward the old man. “We should go away now,” Chagak said. “We could find a new island. Start again. We could come back here and trade …”
>
The anger in Shuganan’s eyes stopped Chagak.
“And what would you do with Amgigh?” he asked. “Would you leave him here without milk just when he is becoming strong? Or would you take him, leaving Kayugh without the joy of a son?”
Shuganan pulled the sleeves of his parka above his wrists and held his hands out to her, stretching the twisted fingers. His hands trembled.
“I am old, Chagak,” he said. “How will I hold the spear? How will I set the snare? I cannot care for you and for Samiq. Can you be both man and woman? Hunter and mother?”
Something hard and tight pressed against the inside of Chagak’s throat. “I do not want to be a wife,” she said to Shuganan.
“Chagak,” he said, his voice stern but quiet. “It is not something you can choose. You must have a husband and Kayugh is a good man. If you do not choose Kayugh, perhaps another man, someone weak like Gray Bird, will take you by force. Then you will have no choice.”
“I am strong enough to kill Gray Bird, and I am strong enough to be alone.”
Shuganan sat down on the ulaq’s sod roof. “Yes,” he finally said. “You are strong enough to be alone.”
For a long time he did not speak, and Chagak began to hope that he agreed with her, but then he said, “For you, perhaps, it will take more strength to belong to someone.”
THIRTY-SIX
“A SON!” GRAY BIRD SAID to Blue Shell as she entered the birthing shelter.
Chagak, remembering her own pain during Samiq’s birth, was disgusted with the man. Did he not think of his wife’s pain or the fear that comes to every woman when she gives birth? Chagak almost opened her mouth to speak but, catching Shuganan’s eye, she saw the warning there and did not.
“Come with me, Gray Bird,” Kayugh said. “We will find driftwood to build your new son an ikyak.”
Gray Bird looked toward the hastily constructed driftwood and skin birthing shelter. Crooked Nose shrugged and said, “It is her first baby. It will be a long time.”
Gray Bird went with Kayugh, Shuganan trailing after them, and Chagak noticed that Kayugh dropped back to walk with the old man.
Chagak continued her work. She and Crooked Nose were preparing sea lion skins as a covering for an ikyak. They had soaked, scraped and dried the skins, then stretched them until they were pliable. Now they would cut the hides, using an old ikyak cover as a pattern for their knives.
Red Berry played nearby, and Samiq and Amgigh, wrapped against the cold of the gray day, were in their cradles at the side of the ulaq. Kayugh had told Chagak that in the winter he would start working with both boys, stretching their arms and legs with exercises so they would be agile hunters.
So young, Chagak thought, and already learning to be men. And though she was proud she had given birth to a son, she suddenly felt a great and shameful longing to have a daughter.
Crooked Nose stopped her work and squatted down beside the babies. Both boys had cradles now. Shuganan had made one like Samiq’s as a gift for Kayugh’s son. The rectangular driftwood frames suspended beds of sealskin strips that rocked with the babies’ own movements.
“Two fine sons!” Crooked Nose said.
Chagak smiled.
The first thing that Chagak had noticed when she met Crooked Nose was the homeliness of the woman’s face, the large nose, the small, close-set eyes, but now Chagak saw only the shining goodness of her, the wide smile, the laughter that made the children cling to her.
“And now your son, First Snow, is nearly a man.”
“Yes,” Crooked Nose said. “Already Big Teeth trains him in the ikyak. Soon he will be a hunter.”
Crooked Nose smiled, but Chagak felt her sorrow. What woman found it easy to lose her son to manhood?
Crooked Nose took a hide from the pile and positioned the pattern skin over it. “I had four other children,” she said, then pulled her knife through the hide with a quick, even stroke. “Our first three were daughters, but we had no husbands promised for them, and so …” She waved her hand toward the hills. “I had many tears, although Big Teeth did not see them. Then Big Teeth took Little Duck as second wife, hoping for a son. But I gave him a son and Little Duck has not given him any children, even in these eight years she has been wife.”
Poor Little Duck, Chagak thought. No wonder she was quiet and shy. But she was fortunate that Crooked Nose was the first wife. Crooked Nose treated Little Duck like a sister.
“He was a fine son,” Crooked Nose said. “After his birth Big Teeth made a feast for the village. During the feast we heard a rumbling noise, but no one thought it was more than some spirit angry in the mountains, but that night the waves came, washing into our village, killing many. The water tore the side from our ulaq and pulled it into the sea. My son was in his cradle and the waves floated him away from me.”
Crooked Nose’s voice broke and Chagak could think of no words to comfort her. Chagak pulled another skin from the pile and began cutting, her eyes on her work, giving Crooked Nose excuse to stop speaking if she wished, but after a moment of silence the woman continued.
“I still dream of it. I am reaching toward the cradle, but still my son floats away from me….”
“I am sorry,” Chagak whispered.
“Yes,” Crooked Nose said. “It was a terrible time. But First Snow’s parents were also killed, and I took him as my son.
“We built our ulas again. In the next few years there were other waves, but they were not as strong. They took no lives. Then in this past year, when the snow changed back to rain and we knew that the fur seals would soon come past our beach, the rumbling began again.
“Kayugh took many of us into the mountains and we were safe, but not everyone would go, and when we returned to our village, we found many of our people dead. So we followed Kayugh and now we are here.”
A cry from the birth shelter interrupted Crooked Nose. Little Duck called, “Crooked Nose, the baby comes soon.”
Crooked Nose left the sea lion skins and went to the shelter. Chagak felt suddenly alone, and she wished that she, too, had been called.
Someone must stay with the children, she thought and smiled at her own foolishness. There were still times she wished that Crooked Nose and the others had not come to this beach. So why did she want to be included?
But then Blue Shell screamed, and Crooked Nose called, “Chagak, come quickly. We need you.”
Chagak ran to the skin tent. Inside, Blue Shell lay on her back, her knees raised. Little Duck held Blue Shell’s hands and Crooked Nose knelt between her legs.
Why was Blue Shell lying down? Chagak wondered. She should be squatting so the baby would come more quickly.
Chagak saw Blue Shell strain with another pain, and a tiny buttock was forced from the birth canal and then drawn back inside.
“Where is the head?” Chagak asked.
“The baby is backward,” Crooked Nose explained. “Come here. Hold Blue Shell’s hands.”
Chagak, facing Little Duck and Crooked Nose, knelt at Blue Shell’s head. She clasped both of Blue Shell’s hands in her own. Crooked Nose worked her hand up the birth canal. “Try not to push,” she said to Blue Shell. “Wait. Wait. Now, Blue Shell!”
Blue Shell grasped Chagak’s hands and pulled, then she screamed, and suddenly the baby was lying in Crooked Nose’s arms. It was a girl.
The baby made a small cry and Blue Shell tried to sit up, but Crooked Nose pushed her down, saying, “Wait.” And she pressed on Blue Shell’s belly until the afterbirth was expelled.
Crooked Nose handed the baby to Blue Shell, and Chagak shivered at the sudden quiet that had come into the tent.
Blue Shell clasped the baby and then closed her eyes. Tears seeped from beneath her lids as she whispered, “Gray Bird will make me kill her.”
Chagak sat at the entrance of Shuganan’s ulaq scraping a sealskin. Samiq and Amgigh nursed beneath her suk and Red Berry played with colored stones at the grassy edge of the beach.
Chagak thought of Blue
Shell and the new baby, then folded her arms over her son and Amgigh.
Kayugh had not made his wife kill Red Berry, but perhaps Red Berry had been promised in marriage even before her birth.
Resentment rose in Chagak’s chest, filling her lungs until she could not breathe. If Gray Bird had suffered as Blue Shell had, would he be so anxious to kill the child? Did any man know what it cost a woman to give birth? But then she thought of Shuganan. He had been with her during Samiq’s birth, had watched over her. And the thought came, Do I know what a man goes through to bring seal oil? Do I understand the dangers of the ikyak? She shook her head, closed her eyes and began to rock the babies.
She tried to stay above her grief, to make a pattern of thoughts that floated her above the pain as kelp floats on the sea, but she could not forget Blue Shell’s tears.
“I have had enough sorrow,” Chagak whispered angrily, boldly directing her words across the strait toward Aka. But then she heard other voices raised in anger, and Kayugh and Gray Bird came from Big Teeth’s ulaq.
Kayugh scanned the beach and then, in long, quick strides, he overtook his daughter, pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest. Red Berry clung to him, her face small and white against his parka, and she peered from her father’s arms as Kayugh’s words lashed out at Gray Bird.
“We try to begin a new village. We have found this good place. We have found wisdom here and life for my son. You will build this place without women?”
Chagak kept her eyes on Kayugh’s face and prepared to grab Red Berry from his arms if Gray Bird attacked.
“Who will bear your grandchildren? That?” Kayugh pointed to a rock. “That?” He pointed to a tangled mass of heather.