by Sue Harrison
Blue Shell was thin and white, and though she was gentle with her girl baby, she seldom looked at the child, even when caring for her. Since the birth, Chagak noticed that Blue Shell often had bruises on her chest and belly.
Gray Bird, Chagak thought, and was glad she had no husband.
Gulls circled and called, occasionally dipping close to the ik, and twice as the ik neared kelp beds sea otters had come out to swim beside the craft. The otters turned on their backs and swam with their bellies up, and the women had begun to laugh, even Blue Shell.
Chagak watched the mists lift from the beaches and pull away from the land, and she tried to remember each thing, the sea, the birds, the otters, for she was afraid she would not see them again.
Then as she paddled she began a song her grandmother had taught her, a simple song of basket weaving, and in singing she was reminded of her people. Of the revenge she would take for their deaths. But when she tried to picture Seal Stalker’s face, she saw Kayugh’s instead. In place of Pup she saw Samiq and Amgigh, the boys growing up together, one tall and long-armed like Kayugh, able to throw the spear long distances, the other short and heavily muscled, gifted with the strength necessary for long hunting trips in the ikyak. And the pictures she saw called her to stay in the world.
So Chagak told herself, It is important to fight the Short Ones. The spirits of my people will not rest until I have made an attempt at revenge. I am the only one left to do this, just as I was the only one left to bury them.
Then Chagak heard the sea otter spirit speaking in a quiet voice. “It is your duty to be a woman, to continue the blood of your village. To bear children, to make sons who hunt and daughters who bear more sons, so old ways will not be forgotten.”
“No,” Chagak whispered. “I can give them nothing else. I cannot be both woman and warrior. If they needed both, they should have let Seal Stalker live. Then Samiq would carry his blood and not the blood of Man-who-kills.”
“Perhaps it is not the blood of Man-who-kills that is important,” the sea otter said. “Perhaps, through Samiq, the good that is in the Short Ones will live on, their strength and fearlessness, perhaps even Shuganan’s ability to find animals hidden in bone and ivory.”
Chagak did not answer but the sea otter said, “And you bring others with you, men who owe no revenge.”
It is their choice, Chagak thought. If they do not kill the Short Ones, perhaps they, too, will be killed. As my people were killed.
“And that is why Kayugh comes with you? He has no other reason?”
But Chagak pulled hard against her paddle until her effort blocked out sea otter’s voice, and when her shoulders began to ache, Chagak was glad for the pain. Then she could think of sleep rather than life or death.
They spent the night on a small beach, a place that reminded Chagak of the beach where she had stayed the previous summer, before she found Shuganan’s beach. And with the memories came the pain of her loss, so sudden and tearing that it pulled the breath from her body. She did not listen whenever she thought she heard sea otter’s whispery voice and stayed close to the other women, trying to join in their conversations. But their talk was about the Whale Hunters, and Chagak could hear the fear in their voices as they spoke, and she felt, though no one said anything, that they were facing danger because of her.
Finally she sat beside the coals of the beach fire and began to nurse the babies. But when Chagak looked up, Kayugh was walking toward her. He squatted beside her and stirred the fire with a long piece of driftwood.
At first he said nothing, merely grunting when Chagak lifted her suk to show him his son, but then he said, “I do not know if Shuganan has told you, but I have spoken to him of my need for a wife.”
Chagak did not look at him, and though she opened her mouth to speak, the rapid pounding of her heart seemed to close off her throat and she said nothing.
“If we are still alive after all this,” Kayugh continued, “I would like you to be my wife. Shuganan has given his consent.”
He waited for a while, then stood, and Chagak finally said, “You would be a good husband for any woman, but I still mourn my husband’s death.”
“The Whale Hunters will want you,” Kayugh said. “Do not choose one of them above me.”
And, shuddering, Chagak answered, “I will not.”
Then Kayugh leaned over her and Chagak felt the weight of something at her neck. Looking down, she saw that he had slipped a necklace of bear claws over her head, a gift fine and rare, something that he must have taken in trade from the tribes far to the east who hunted the brown bear. She lifted the necklace, let it lie smooth and heavy against her hands. Each yellow claw had been polished, and between the claws were circles of shell beads. It was something a wife might hope to receive after giving her husband many sons.
“For saving my son,” Kayugh said, and for a moment pressed his hands against her shoulders, then he walked down the beach to join the other men.
They came to the Whale Hunters’ cove the next day. It was as her mother had described it: a wide sand beach with a large pool in the center where even now ducks were swimming.
There were women on the beach and ikyan on racks near the pool. Children played at the edge of the beach. Meat racks were full, hung with dark red meat, and Chagak called back to Crooked Nose, “They have already taken a whale.”
I should have come here when my village was first destroyed, Chagak thought, and thrust her paddle against a rock to turn the ik toward shore. But then the sea otter whispered, “You know you could not. Pup was dying. And besides, if you had come here first, would Amgigh be alive? Would you have Samiq? And could you offer what you offer now? Shuganan’s wisdom, Kayugh’s strength, a grandson for your grandfather?”
But Shuganan’s plan might not work, Chagak thought, then pushed that fear from her mind. Why hold any doubt? Why strengthen the Short Ones with her questioning?
Five ulas were set in the highest corner of the beach, where the waves could not reach but a man sitting at the top of a ulaq could watch the sea.
Several of the women who had been on the beach had run to the central ulaq when Kayugh and the other men began pulling their ikyan ashore.
“The central ulaq belongs to my grandfather, Many Whales,” Chagak said. “If he still lives.”
“You have not been here for many years?” Blue Shell asked.
“I have never been here,” Chagak answered. “But my mother spoke often of the village and my father visited each summer.”
Kayugh waded out to their ik and Chagak laid her paddle in the bottom of the boat. She hiked up her suk and thrust her legs over the side.
“Stay in,” Kayugh said. “You have the babies. I will pull you.”
But Chagak jumped into the icy water, clamping her teeth together so they would not clatter. She grabbed the edge of the ik and pulled with Kayugh. “I should be the first to see my grandfather. Perhaps he has heard about my village. Perhaps he thinks I am dead. Then he will not believe Shuganan and will not listen to his plan to protect this village.”
Kayugh shrugged, but Chagak saw irritation in the set of his jaw, the snapping of his eyes. Was it so important that he pull her ashore, that she keep her suk dry? But some part of her wished she had done as he asked. And when they had dragged the ik ashore, she straightened her suk, wrung the water from the bottom edges, then adjusted the bear claw necklace over her breast.
Looking down at the necklace, she began to tell Kayugh how beautiful it was, but when Chagak looked up, he had gone to help Big Teeth and Gray Bird pull their ikyan up the beach.
“At least the Whale Hunters will think you have a husband,” the sea otter whispered. “What woman, unmarried, has such a fine necklace?”
But the words were no comfort. For the first time Chagak thought of herself among so many men, granddaughter of their chief, unmarried. A shiver of fear moved over her.
“What would be wrong with a husband from your mother’s people?” sea o
tter asked.
“I do not want a husband.”
“What would be wrong with Kayugh for husband?” sea otter asked.
Then, speaking loudly, Chagak answered, “Do not talk to me about husbands.” But then she turned and saw that Crooked Nose stood beside her. Chagak blushed, but Crooked Nose only smiled, then said, “Shuganan calls us,” and pointed toward the others gathered beside the ikyan.
Some of the Whale Hunters were speaking to them. One, Hard Rock, Chagak recognized. He was not much older than Chagak, strong, and strong-willed. A good hunter. He had come several times to her people’s village when her grandfather visited.
“Hard Rock,” Chagak called out to him, ignoring the startled looks from Big Teeth and Gray Bird. Who knew these people? They or she? Should she wait, giving no sign? Was she granddaughter to their chief only so the men could give the first greetings? “It is Chagak.”
Hard Rock turned and the others with him. He gripped his amulet and held it toward her. “Chagak?” he called and Chagak heard the quivering in his voice.
“I have come bringing friends.”
“We saw your village. We thought you were dead.”
“I was in the hills gathering heather when the village was destroyed. I alone am alive. I have come to see my grandfather. To bring a warning to this village.”
For a moment Hard Rock stared at her, then he whispered to one of the men beside him. The man ran to her grandfather’s ulaq and Chagak waited, hoping her grandfather would come to meet them on the beach, but the man returned alone.
“You are to go to your grandfathers ulaq,” he said to Chagak. “The others must wait here. Our women will bring food and water.”
Chagak and Shuganan had planned what they would say, even before Kayugh and his people had come. And now she wondered if she would say the right things. What if she said what Shuganan had told her not to say? And he would not be there to correct her, to smooth over her mistakes.
But Shuganan smiled at her and she felt some of the strength of his spirit flow into her. She wrapped her arms over the babies she carried within her suk and followed Hard Rock to her grandfather’s ulaq.
The ulaq was higher and longer than the ulas of her own people. Instead of carved soapstone oil lamps, there were boulder lamps. The boulders were as high as Chagak’s waist and each had a hollow at the top that held oil and a circle of moss wicks.
Many Whales, Chagak’s grandfather, sat on a mat in the center of the ulaq. He wore an otter skin parka decorated with fur and feathers along each seam. He also wore his whaler hat. The hat was cone-shaped, pointed at the top and sweeping to a wide edge that kept rain and sea spray from funneling down the neck of his parka.
When Chagak was a child, she had been fascinated by whaler hats and sometimes set a basket upside down on her head and pretended she was a Whale Hunter.
But Chagak’s mother had explained that women did not hunt whales, though they were the ones who made the glorious whaler hats; that someday she would teach Chagak how to make such a hat, to split thin slices from the curve of a driftwood log, to steam the wood and bend it into shape, then smooth and oil the hat until the wood gleamed like the inside of a yoldia shell.
Many Whales’ hat, with long sea lion whiskers protruding from the back and feathers and shells hanging from the curved edge, marked him as chief hunter.
Fat Wife sat beside Many Whales. Fat Wife was not Chagak’s true grandmother but a second wife taken after Chagak’s grandmother had died. She was a short, fat woman and she wore her hair pulled tightly back from her round face and bound with an otter tail at the nape of her neck.
Many Whales held his amulet in both hands, and as Chagak took a step toward him, he lifted the charm and said to her, “I saw your village. How did you live?”
The straightness of the old man’s shoulders, the singing way of his words, reminded Chagak of her mother. Any apprehension she had felt, the fear he would not remember her, lifted as though her mother’s spirit were beside her, and she said, “I was in the hills picking heather. I stayed almost until dark, and when I came back to the village, the ulas were on fire.”
Many Whales motioned for Chagak to sit down on the mats spread in front of him. Chagak sat cross-legged in the manner of her grandfather. She glanced quickly inside her suk and adjusted Samiq’s carrying strap. She noticed her grandfather’s interest but said nothing about the babies.
“And of all your people you were the only one who lived?” Many Whales asked.
“No,” Chagak said. “My brother Pup also lived for a short time. I buried the people. Made ceremonies and sealed each ulaq. It took me many days. Then I took food, an ik and Pup and started toward your village, but I came to Shuganan’s beach first.”
“Shuganan?” said Fat Wife. “Who is Shuganan?”
But Many Whales said, “I know Shuganan. Many years ago he took a wife from our village. He lives on a small beach a day’s journey from here. He harms no one, but men who have stopped at his beach say there is some magic in him. He carves stone and ivory into animals. They say the carvings hold great power.”
Chagak slipped the carving of woman, husband and baby from her neck and handed it to Fat Wife.
“The statue has the power of giving sons,” Chagak said, then lifted her suk. She held her smile inside her cheeks as first Fat Wife then Many Whales opened their mouths to speak but said nothing, both staring at the babies strapped to Chagak’s chest.
“Boys,” Chagak said and lowered her suk. “Shuganan is a good man. He could not save Pup, but for loss of a brother I have two sons.”
“Shuganan is your husband?” Many Whales finally asked.
And Chagak, remembering what Shuganan had told her to say, thought for a moment and then met her grandfather’s eyes. “Shuganan’s grandson was my husband,” she said. “He was a good hunter, bringing many seals. A strong man. His name was Seal Stalker and he was killed last summer by one of the men who raided my village.”
Many Whales nodded and seemed about to speak when Fat Wife handed Chagak the carving and said, “You say your village was raided. You are sure it was men and not spirits?”
The question was not one that Shuganan and Chagak had discussed. Chagak clasped her hands in her lap and tried to decide what Shuganan would want her to say.
“Shuganan was once a trader,” she began. “For a time he lived with a people called Short Ones. He told me their men were strong and good hunters, but they hunted men as well as animals. They destroyed villages and killed the people.”
“Why would they do this?” Many Whales asked.
“Shuganan said they believe that, for each man killed, the killer’s power is increased.”
Many Whales shook his head, and the sea lion whiskers at the back of his whaler’s hat bobbed as he said, “A hunter may gain some power when he kills an animal, if he carries respect and uses the right weapons. But a man … a man’s spirit has too much power. It draws evil.”
“You should have come to us sooner,” Fat Wife said to Chagak and leaned so far forward that her large breasts pressed against her knees. “We have hunters here. You say your husband is dead. You can choose a husband here. The finest hunter.”
But before Chagak could answer, Many Whales said, “Who are the men and women with you?”
“They came from a beach to the east. They are from a village of the First Men, but a village my father did not know. A wave killed many of their people and destroyed their ulakidaq, so they have sought a new place to live. Shuganan has asked them to stay on his beach. They have built a ulaq there.”
Again Chagak lifted her suk. “This child is my son,” she said, laying a hand on Samiq’s head. “This child belongs to Kayugh, the leader of those people. The mother is dead, so I nurse him.”
Fat Wife reached out toward the babies, but Many Whales grasped her thick wrist with his bony hand and drew back her arm.
“So you have come to bring my grandson to stay with us,” Many Whales sa
id.
Chagak lowered her suk, smoothing it down over the babies. She lifted her head and looked into her grandfather’s eyes. “No,” she said. “Samiq also belongs to Shuganan. When Samiq is older, perhaps you will teach him to hunt whales, but for now he will stay with me and with Shuganan.
“I have come to warn you of the Short Ones. Two of their warriors came to our beach. My husband killed one; Shuganan killed the other. They were scouts, sent to learn about your village. They will destroy your village unless you defeat them.”
Many Whales began to laugh. “Our village. Who has power to take a man who hunts the whale? If an old man like Shuganan could kill one of their warriors, how can the Short Ones have enough power to stand against my hunters?”
“I cannot tell you how they gain their power,” Chagak said. “But I know how they come and how they kill. We have come to tell you. To help you prepare.”
Again Many Whales laughed, and Chagak wondered how her small, gentle mother had come from such a loud and boasting people, a people who laughed too much and complained too much, who made noise and argument for each task.
Finally she said, “You will take a chance of losing a grandson to the ones who killed your daughter and her children? There is power in the knowledge of something. What will it hurt to listen? If you do nothing and the Short Ones come, you could lose everything. If you prepare for them and they do not come, what have you lost? A day’s hunting.”
For a long time Many Whales did not answer her, but then he murmured, “For a child, you are wise.”
Turning to Fat Wife, he said, “Tell the women to make a feast. We will listen to Shuganan and make him and his people welcome. Tell Many Babies I want her to make my granddaughter a necklace of beads. It will be a gift, and if it is beautiful, I will give Many Babies two otter skins.”
THIRTY-NINE
THE WHALE HUNTER WOMEN made a feast and the people of the village, men and women, even the children, crowded into Many Whales’ ulaq to eat.