by Sue Harrison
Fat Wife laid out two lines of mats at the center of the ulaq, and the women layered them with sliced dried whale meat, dried fish, freshly cooked herring and piles of dried chitons. Bitterroot bulbs, their sour taste good to cut the tallow of the meat, were heaped in shallow wooden bowls.
Chagak was given a special place of honor among the women. No one allowed her to carry food to the men or to help with oil lamps. She held her babies wrapped in sealskin on her lap and smiled, saying little when Whale Hunter women bent over her to look at them. The Whale Hunter women wore only their aprons in the crowded ulaq. And even Chagak, after a time, took off her suk and sat on it, and she noticed that Crooked Nose had done the same.
The Whale Hunter women’s aprons were short, ending above the knee where dark tattoos marked their legs. Chagak’s mother had told her that the tattoos were a sign of beauty. She had told Chagak how upon her first time of bleeding she had stood the long hours of pain, night after night, sitting while her own mother drew a needle with sooted thread through the skin of her thighs to make a design of squares and triangles.
But unlike Chagak’s mother, most Whale Hunter women were big, and seemed to admire strength in themselves as much as in their men. Twice Chagak saw men summon their wives, only to have the women ignore them. One woman even laughed when her young husband called to her. And Fat Wife said to Many Whales, “Get your own food. I must eat, too.”
And though at first Chagak was surprised, finally she began to laugh. The laughter shook her so hard that she bent low over the babies to hide her face, but when she finally lifted her head to draw a breath, she saw that Kayugh was watching her, a sternness in his face. Then a man sitting beside Kayugh called to his wife, and as she leaned toward him to give him food, he said something else, and with a quick blow of her fist his wife pounded the man’s whaler hat down over his eyes.
Then Kayugh, also, began to laugh. He looked at Chagak, and his laughter seemed to flow into her, bringing joy. Chagak, puzzled by the feeling, looked away from Kayugh and pretended to adjust the babies’ wrappings.
Then Many Whales stood. He shouted until he was heard above the clamor. “There are fires on the beach if you want to dance.”
The men began to leave the ulaq, and Chagak, watching them, noticed that many turned to look at her as they left.
They want me to sleep with them, Chagak thought. They will ask Shuganan, and she began to search for Shuganan in the crowd of men, hoping to catch him, to tell him she wanted no man in her bed. But when she finally saw him, he was at the top of the notched log, slowly making his climb from the ulaq, other men behind him.
Then Many Babies came to Chagak and slipped a long necklace of disk beads cut from shells over Chagak’s head. “From your grandfather,” she said, then called Blue Shell over to them and directed both women into a curtained room at the side of the ulaq.
“Leave your babies here,” she said. She pointed to a wide cradle box filled with furs. “The three will fit. One of you can come back from time to time and be sure they do not cry.”
Blue Shell looked at Chagak, then laid her daughter in the box.
“A beautiful baby,” Many Babies said. “Son or daughter?”
“Daughter,” Blue Shell said softly.
“Husbands want boys,” Many Babies said.
“She is promised to Amgigh,” said Chagak, laying Amgigh beside Blue Shell’s baby. “So you see she is my daughter, too.”
Many Babies said nothing more, and as Chagak laid Samiq into the box, she smiled at Blue Shell, but then Chagak realized she had claimed Amgigh as son, and she was glad that Shuganan had not heard.
On the beach the men and women had formed two circles around the fire, the men in the inner circle, the women in the outer.
Crooked Nose and Little Duck were sitting on a large rock, watching. Chagak and Blue Shell sat down beside them. The wind from the sea was cold. Chagak tucked her hands up inside the sleeves of her suk and pushed her chin deep into the collar rim.
The Whale Hunter men wore only their aprons and danced in a slow sidewise step, but Kayugh, Big Teeth and Cray Bird jumped and kicked, bending their arms and legs in a sharpness that reminded Chagak of the flames that rose from the driftwood fire. Each man made a noise in his mouth, holding his lips pressed together and mumbling words deep in his throat, and the old men, Shuganan among them, kept the rhythm of their feet with the pounding of sticks.
The Whale Hunter women stayed in one place in the women’s circle, shuffling their feet and swaying to the rhythm of the dance. Blue Shell and Little Duck joined the women, and soon Crooked Nose pulled Chagak to her feet and they also entered the circle. Chagak watched for a time, but soon the pounding of sticks seemed to match the beating of her heart and she began to sway. She closed her eyes and the noise of the dance seemed to sink into her bones, loosening her muscles and warming her skin. But when she opened her eyes, she saw that Kayugh had stopped dancing and was watching her. His eyes held her for a moment so she felt the intensity of his desire, and she left the women’s circle, sat down on the rock and pulled her knees up inside her suk.
Kayugh began to dance again, but every time Chagak looked at him, he was watching her. And she noticed that many of the Whale Hunter men also watched her, and Gray Bird, too, his eyes narrowed, the tip of his tongue curled to touch his upper lip.
When Crooked Nose came back from the dancing to sit with her, Chagak laughed and said, “I have too much milk. I am going to my grandfather’s ulaq. Tell Blue Shell, if she would like to stay and dance, I will also feed her baby.”
Crooked Nose, watching the dancers, nodded but did not look at Chagak, and when Chagak was nearly to the ulaq, she thought she heard the woman calling her, but Chagak did not look back.
The thick ulaq walls shut out most of the noise of the dance. Only two lamps were lit, one on each side of the main room, and the light had a softness unlike the flames of the beach fire. Chagak went into the curtained sleeping place where the cradle was hung. She pulled it from the rafters, holding it steady so the babies would not awaken. She set the cradle on the floor and squatted beside it.
They are beautiful babies, Chagak thought. Amgigh was still thin, but beside Blue Shell’s daughter he looked large. Samiq was the largest of the three, and in his sleep he sucked on his fist. Chagak took Amgigh from the cradle. She moved carefully, not wanting to wake the other babies.
“You need to eat,” she whispered to Amgigh as she fastened his carrying strap over her left shoulder and slipped the baby into her suk. He did not seem to awaken until she pressed her nipple close to his mouth, then he grasped her breast and began to suck.
After he had nursed for a time, milk began to trickle from her other breast, and Chagak picked up Blue Shell’s daughter. She was a pretty baby, round-faced and delicate like Blue Shell. Gray Bird had refused to claim her life from the spirits by naming her, but Blue Shell called her Little One, not a true name but something to hold against spirits meaning harm.
“Little One,” Chagak whispered, “perhaps this milk is not as good as your mother’s, but it is better than having nothing.” Chagak fastened a strap over her other shoulder, leaned up against the side of the ulaq, and pressed the baby to her breast.
Chagak was nearly asleep, the babies warm against her belly, when she heard people coming into the ulaq. At first she thought it was Blue Shell coming to get her baby, and Chagak pulled the infant from her breast and laid her back into the cradle beside Samiq, but then she heard voices and knew that Many Whales and Shuganan had come to the ulaq.
Chagak covered Blue Shell’s baby with the furred skins that lined the cradle, then picked up Samiq. He gave a short cry and rooted against her breast until Chagak guided the nipple into his mouth.
Again, she leaned back against the ulaq wall and closed her eyes, but the men’s voices kept tangling into the threads of her dreams and she could not sleep.
“And so you are sure,” Chagak heard Many Whales say.
“He told me before I killed him,” Shuganan said, and Chagak knew he must be speaking about Sees-far, and she thought again of the trickery Shuganan had used to kill the man, and the honor Samiq was to receive from Sees-far’s death. Samiq is too young, Chagak thought. What does he know of killing men? And suddenly she wanted Samiq to stay a baby. Always to nurse at her breast. How could she protect him when she could no longer hold him, could no longer comfort him with her milk?
But Many Whales’ words interrupted her thoughts. “Soon then?” he asked.
“Yes.”
For a long time no one spoke, then Chagak heard another voice. “Is there a place in the hills the women can hide?” It was Kayugh.
“Many places, I am sure,” Many Whales said.
“Nothing on the beaches,” Shuganan said.
Again, a pause.
“They come in the night, when there is still light, but not enough to see well,” Shuganan said. “That way the village hunters are confused and sometimes, in the fighting, even kill men from their own village.
“The Short Ones kill everyone, even babies and children. They set the top of a ulaq on fire, and as the people come out through the roof hole, they kill them. One at a time.”
“We cannot be in our ulas then,” Many Whales said. “What if they come tonight? There is not time to hide our women.”
“They will not come with the beach fire,” said Shuganan. “There is too much chance hunters will be on the beach and so their coming would not be secret.”
“Then I will set watchers, and we will keep the fire going, and the dancing,” said Many Whales.
“You have five large ulas,” Shuganan said. “How many hunters?”
“Eighteen,” Many Whales said. “And three old men who still have some strength. Four boys, nearly men, one my son. They stay in the watcher’s hut on the ridge above the village. They watch for whales. They are old enough to fight.”
“Send the old men to protect the women in the hills. Perhaps some of the Short Ones will try to find the women. Three old men and the women against one or two warriors should be sufficient. Let the boys stay on the ridge as watchers to tell us when the Short Ones come.”
“And the rest of the men?” asked Many Whales.
“Some should be hidden on the ridges that surround the village. The others, ten of your best warriors, should be hidden inside the ulas, two in each. Then when the Short Ones wait at the top, our hunters will come out, spears ready, and when everyone is fighting, our men will come down from the ridges and attack.”
“How many warriors do the Short Ones have?” Chagak heard Kayugh ask.
“When I lived with them,” Shuganan said, “perhaps twenty men.”
“And so they will put four men on each ulaq?”
“Two, perhaps three,” Shuganan said. “The rest wait between the ulas for those few who escape.”
“So if we put two men in each ulaq, we will be fighting only two or three, at least at first.”
“Yes,” Shuganan said.
There was silence for a moment and Chagak thought perhaps the men would say no more, each content with his own thoughts, but then she heard Kayugh say, “I will be one who waits inside a ulaq.”
And at his words Chagak felt a sobbing begin within her breast, as though sea otter were crying. She suddenly seemed to smell the smoke, to hear the cries of the people of her own village. And she wished Kayugh were old like Shuganan and could come with the women and children.
FORTY
THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN went to the caves at the center of the island. The old men left with them, except for Shuganan, and the boys were set as watchers atop the ridge that lay behind the village.
Before leaving, the women had replaced much of the thatching on the ulaq roofs with green grass, then carried baskets of water to soak the grass so it would not catch fire easily. They also rolled up the mats and heather that covered the ulaq floors, leaving bare dirt, and moved all baskets and curtains into storage places farthest from the roof hole. Then the fire of a torch thrown into the ulaq would not spread.
The men enlarged each roof hole so another climbing log could be set into place. Then two men could climb up and emerge from the ulaq at the same time. It had been Blue Shell’s idea. Kayugh, lying in the sleeping place next to hers, had heard Blue Shell suggest it softly in the night to Gray Bird, who told the men as though he himself had thought of it. But Kayugh said nothing when Gray Bird claimed credit. The idea might save lives. That was enough.
Kayugh had watched as the women, following White Face, an old man, left the village. Kayugh had spent time the night before making an amulet for his son. Inside the tanned skin pouch he placed one of his small bird dart points, a piece of whalebone he had kept from the whale on Shuganan’s beach and a lock of his own hair. Then he braided a cord of babiche to tie the bag at the top and hang it around the baby’s neck.
The evening before the women left, Kayugh had asked Chagak for his son. And though there were questions in her eyes, Chagak said nothing as she took Amgigh from her breast and handed the child to Kayugh.
He took the boy outside to the lee side of the ulaq where the wind would not pull the baby’s breath from his mouth. Then he spoke to the child, telling him about his mother, about his grandfather and great-grandfather. He spoke of hunting and of taking a wife—all the things Kayugh would have told him gradually through the years—and as Kayugh spoke, Amgigh kept his dark eyes on Kayugh’s face, as though he knew he must remember his father.
Before Kayugh took the baby back to Chagak, he said, “Amgigh, if I am killed, Chagak will be your mother. She will choose a husband, and he will be your father. You must make them proud of you.”
Then he took Amgigh back inside the ulaq and asked if he might also hold Samiq. And Chagak, though she looked surprised, had given him the child.
Kayugh took Samiq outside and spoke to him as he had spoken to Amgigh, of hunting and the honor of a man, of choosing a wife and building an ikyak. And Samiq, too, appeared to be listening, to hold what Kayugh said.
Then Kayugh had taken Samiq back to his mother, and as the woman took the child, Kayugh said, “I would be proud to claim him as son, but if I do not return, take Amgigh as your son. Choose a husband who will be a good father to both boys.”
Chagak opened her mouth as if she would say something, and Kayugh waited, hoping that she would give him some reason to believe that if he returned safely she would become his wife, some hope that would strengthen his arms and give true aim to his spear in the fighting. But she looked away and said nothing.
Then in the morning, as the women filed from the village, Chagak had turned back, first to Shuganan, giving him an amulet, something that looked like a shaman’s pouch, and then to Kayugh, pressing against him briefly to slip something into his hand and whisper, “It gave me strength once.” Then she ran back to join the women. Kayugh opened his hand and saw that she had given him a dark eider duck feather, and though he did not know how the feather had helped Chagak, he tucked it into his amulet.
Shuganan told Kayugh the story later, and the old man smiled as he explained how Chagak learned to use the bola. Now as Kayugh paused for a moment in his work, hauling one of the ikyan up to the top of the cliff, he thought about the woman who had lost everyone and now might lose all again. He remembered how many times after his wives’ deaths he had considered death for himself and his son, and he wondered if Chagak had felt the same hopelessness.
He set the ikyak he was carrying beside the others they had hidden. They had left a few ikyan on the beach, but most were on the cliffs. When the Short Ones came, they would see those that were left and think there were few hunters in the village. Shuganan said that the Short Ones’ scouts had probably watched the village for several days the summer before and knew how many men were in the ulas, but if the ikyan were gone, the warriors would probably think the men were away hunting.
Kayugh returned to the beach and helped Big Teeth notch d
riftwood logs, second climbing poles for each ulaq. Both men used stone axes hafted to strong driftwood handles.
“When do you think they will come?’ Big Teeth asked Kayugh.
But Gray Bird joined them and answered Big Teeth’s question before Kayugh could speak. “Shuganan is a fool. They will not come. Who would attack the Whale Hunters? They are strong enough to kill whales; they have eaten whale meat since they were small boys. Who can stand against that power?”
Kayugh, angry at Gray Bird’s answer, said, “Shuganan lived with the Short Ones. He knows how they think and why they fight. We do not.”
Gray Bird shrugged and squatted on the beach. “If they come, I will fight,” he said. “But I do not think they will come.”
But Kayugh saw the muscles of Gray Bird’s jaw twitch and he sensed a nervousness in the man. Perhaps he talked only to relieve his own fears. Why argue with him?
Kayugh finished the last notch at his end of the log and waited while Big Teeth finished his. Then, without speaking, they hoisted the log to their shoulders and carried it to Many Whales’ ulaq.
When she was a child, Chagak sometimes wished she had been born a boy. Her father had a pride in her brothers that she knew he did not feel for her. But when she had become a woman, able to bear children, she no longer wanted to be a man.
Now, as she and the other women waited, she again wished she had been born a boy, wished she could do more against the Short Ones than sit and weave baskets and pray.
Occasionally Fat Wife, who had proclaimed herself leader among the women, sent one of the older girls up to the ridge where the boys kept watch for sign of ikyan. But each time the girl had returned shaking her head. There was no one. Only the men of the village waiting.
Two days passed slowly. Chagak listened to the Whale Hunter women tell of coming to the cave in other summers, for other reasons. They talked about the salt marshes, less than a morning’s walk away; how they were filled with scaup and with bowitcher nests, and that the green-brown eggs—sometimes even ten in a nest—were good fried in whale oil or boiled in seawater. And near those same marshes, cranberries grew thick on their glossy-leaved stems and a woman could find mossberry roots, something that made good medicine for the eyes.