Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

  “What does it matter how many?” he said happily. “There are plenty. Amotkan’s plan is for people to spread out in the world. It will take many to do that.”

  Tor wasn’t seeing this the same way she was—not at all.

  She said, “A tribe of people may look like a nest of bees, but they aren’t. One bee is the same as every other. They all want the same things—enough honey for winter, to protect the nest—”

  “Quit talking of pebbles and bees, and say what you mean.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m getting to it.”

  As Moonkeeper, Ashan had been trained to keep worries to herself. There was no reason for secrets between mates, but sometimes the early training got in the way of talking openly to Tor.

  She said, “Each person has things they love and hate, and ideas and beliefs all their own. Our people have been learning to live with each other since the Misty Time. Now there’s this whole new tribe, each with things they love and hate. All these people, with so much to learn about each other, and they can’t talk about it.”

  “I see what you mean.” He laughed like it wasn’t important. “You’11 just have to sit them down to learn words, the way you tell stories. Then you can even count them if you like. But don’t worry yet, my love. The stomach speaks a language everyone understands. The Tlikit have enough to feed both tribes until spring.”

  “I know. I couldn’t believe it,” she said, remembering when she’d seen the cache of food for the first time.

  The day after she awoke, some Tlikit women had come to her.

  “Munkeppa?”

  “You may use your own words. I understand them.”

  Clicking and clacking, they had taken Ashan to their cave. When her eyes adjusted, she saw that it spread out long and low. Only the middle was tall enough for standing. Tor had warned her about the smell, but he hadn’t come close. Sharp sweat; dirt and mold; and the stink of body waste, like the tunnel inside Ehr’s cave that she’d had to clean long ago.

  How can anyone live with this? she wondered. Maybe their noses are just for breathing.

  She forgot the stench when they showed her their stock of dried food, filling a corner that could only be reached on the knees: stacks of slabbed fish in layers separated by woven mats; mat-covered holes in the dirt floor, lined with fish skins, filled with pouches of fish meal; holes with berries and roots and leathermeat.

  “It goes all the way back,” a woman said proudly.

  “Enough for all. We want to share.”

  “How kind,” Ashan said. “These people who have traveled far are hungry. Sahalie is proud of you.”

  It felt strange to use the name “Sahalie.” She hoped Amot-kan wouldn’t be offended.

  The Creator has many names, she heard in her mind. After that, she didn’t worry.

  Later, as the Shahala people sat around in a haze of well-fed bliss, the Moonkeeper had spoken:

  “Hunger has chewed our bellies for the last time. Our old enemy would not dare come to this place. We would beat him with clubs of salmon, bury him under a sturgeon longer than a man. We would deafen him with laughter… ”

  A splash of water brought Ashan back. Tor dabbed at her face. A herd of fish passed in front of them, leaping, showing their silvery rainbow sides, as if they couldn’t contain the joy of living. Tor tried to cover her from the splashing, but she pushed his hands away. What was a little water, to see something so great? She laughed and couldn’t stop.

  After the rainbow fish had gone, Ashan said, “It’s so good to eat all you want. Even if it is fish, full of sand from being wind-dried. But who with a full stomach would complain?”

  Tor laughed. “Not our people, not after all those hungry days.”

  She watched the quiet water for a while.

  “The Tlikit people seem nice. They share. But you know, Tor, they are different, and language is just part of it. I may understand their words, but I don’t understand them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like why do they go almost naked, with only those grass things hanging from their waists? Grass is fine for a basket—and the Tlikit do make excellent baskets—but to cover the body, well—it doesn’t fit like leather. It doesn’t move when they move. It’s strange to look at a man’s power staff flopping around, or to see a woman’s secret when she bends over. And don’t they get cold? Or is their skin different from ours? Will they wear leather when winter comes?”

  She realized she was babbling, but these questions really bothered her. “Those things they wear on their feet… at first I thought they were made of bark, but it’s really thick leather tied on with grass cords. Why don’t they have real moccasins? And when I was in their cave, I didn’t see any sleeping skins.”

  “They don’t know how to cure hides.”

  “What?” she said in disbelief.

  “That’s right. I was going to teach them, but after they made me a slave, I refused.”

  “What do they do with hides?”

  “Once in a while they cut off pieces and leave them in the sun. They get hard and curl up, and that’s what they put on their feet. Mostly, they throw hides in a stinkpile with guts and bones, and let them rot.”

  “How wasteful! How stupid!”

  “It’s not their fault. Coyote Spirit never taught them. You’ll be surprised at what they don’t know, from roasting food in the ground, to washing smells from their bodies.”

  “It’s a good thing we have a lifetime to do this,” Ashan said. “We will need at least that long.”

  Against the cliffs, in flat places and on ledges, the Shahala made temporary shelters with wood from the Great River and hides brought from the ancestral land.

  On a fog-shrouded day—the coldest so far—the Tlikit people stayed inside their cave.

  Ashan approached a group of Shahala women. They sat with their backs to the cliff, bundled up in furs, passing a wooden bowl, dipping purple mush into their mouths.

  Ashan joined them, and tasted some.

  “Mmm. I wonder what these are? They’re almost as good as huckleberries.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,”Tenka said. “But they’re very good.”

  Ashan took another bite and passed the bowl.

  “We’re lucky,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer we could have lasted. Little ones and old ones were getting weak. But with all this food, they’re getting fat now.”

  The women nodded, smiles on stained faces.

  Ashan said, “Our new sisters are kind to share their food with us. I didn’t even have to ask them.” She paused. “We came to Teahra Village poor in food, but rich in cured hides.” She hoped someone would get her meaning, but no one did.

  “Did you notice that they stayed in their cave today? Do you know why?”

  The women shook their heads.

  “It’s too cold out here. They don’t have anything to wear except those grass mats.”

  “Why?”

  “Coyote Spirit forgot to teach Tlikit women to cure hides as he taught Shakana, the First Woman.” Ashan didn’t mention the other things Spilyea forgot to teach them.

  The Shahala women felt sorry for their new sisters. How could something so ordinary as curing hides be unknown?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ashan said. “What matters is that Coyote taught us. We have plenty of hides. They have shared with us. Now we should share with them. When hunting begins in spring, we’ll teach them how to make leather for themselves.”

  “Oh,” they said. “We see.”

  Over her deerskin dress, Ashan wore a robe made from two goat hides. She stroked the long gray fur.

  “I’m going to give this to one of them, I think maybe the woman who acts like their chief.”

  “It’s a fine robe, Moonkeeper,” Kama said. “Anyone would want it. I have some old moccasins. I will look for a woman whose feet are like mine.”

  “That would be kind of you, Karna.”

  Ashan left them discussing things they
could give away.

  Next she talked to some warriors, who were not so agreeable.

  “So,” she said after telling them the same things. “The Tlikit have food, and we have hides. They share. We will too.”

  The men frowned.

  She said, “People can live with nothing to wear, but they die with nothing to eat.”

  “We wouldn’t starve here,” Lar said, waving his hand at a fresh-killed orak that had come to the Great River to drink.

  “Then you’ll just have to do it because I say.”

  The warriors grumbled as the Moonkeeper walked away.

  “Coyote forgot to teach them!”

  “How much more proof do you want that the Shahala are Amotkan’s favored tribe?”

  Ashan understood why they felt as they did, but she thought this sense of being better might cause future problems.

  She turned. “We are the Teahra tribe now. In some ways, they will be like our little brothers, but in other ways, we will be like theirs. We are children of the same Father. That is what Amotkan told me, and I am telling you.”

  Ashan’s people gave away furs, leathers, and sleeping skins. Whether they wanted to or not, they did it smiling.

  The Tlikit were happy with their new things. Women urged men to go hunting, so they could learn how to cure hides for themselves. Some had their own ideas about wearing skins—people laughed to see a man with leggings on his arms.

  A few refused them. “Bad smell,” they said. “If it gets that cold, we stay in the cave.”

  Ashan changed her mind about who should have her robe. She cut the goat hides apart and gave them to two of the women who lived out in the open by the oak tree. Her friend Mani cut up a similar robe and gave it to the other two.

  To the woman named Tsilka, Ashan offered an old skirt. At first Tsilka acted as if she might refuse it, then she took it—with hard, narrow eyes—as if she were entitled to it.

  Ashan thought, This woman who thinks herself some kind of chief will have to learn that a tribe can have only one chief Someday…

  CHAPTER 11

  IN FURY, TSILKA CLIMBED TO THE CLIFFTOP, TORE OFF Ashan’s leather skirt, threw it to the ground, and stamped on it. Standing near-naked in the Tlikit way, proud and cold in a lonely wind, chin up, feathered hair blowing out behind, dark gold skin oiled and glistening, arms crossed defiantly over breasts, she watched the village below.

  The woman who thought she didn’t need a friend could have used one today. A friend would have known she was upset and come up here with her, would have asked how all this came about.

  “I feel stupid,” Tsilka hissed. “Ugly. Gouged, raw and shrieking inside with rage. I feel sick, like I’m being dragged through dung. How am I hiding it? Why don’t I vomit from swallowing lies? Why isn’t my skin red with the hatred burning me up?

  “I was happy before they came. I had my daughters. I had people coming to me, treating me like the chief I was born to be. I didn’t have Tor, and I didn’t care. But now that I see him every day, how I care!”

  She snuffled and blinked away hot tears. It wasn’t smart to lose control, not even up here by herself. Tsilka indulged her hatred of Ashan to battle self-pity.

  “She has everything I’ve worked for all my life. I’m the daughter of Chief Timshin, but people listen to her as if she spoke the gods’ exact words. She’s not even tall, yet she gets respect. It makes me so mad I could scream!”

  That was why Tsilka had stormed out of the village. Ashan was telling the proud, ancient Tlikit how humans were created from mud and smoke and other stuff, not pulled from deep water as everyone knew. And they were accepting this foolishness!

  Tsilka stamped her foot.

  “Worst of all, she has Tor. She could have everything else, if I could have him. Is that so much? For people who claim to be fair?”

  Tsilka swallowed bitterness.

  “He’s the father of my children. He belongs to me!”

  Not having Tor was like a hand around her throat, squeezing; like a punch in the chest every time she breathed. Standing in the lonely wind above Teahra Village, she thought about ways to get her man.

  Could she do something to make the Shahala and their chief leave, while making Tor stay? Then it would be just like before. Tsilka, the twins, the Tlikit people, and Tor—a free man this time—living by the Great River. Tsilka laughed at herself. After all Ashan had done to get here, she wasn’t going to leave.

  Just as wild: the idea of getting Tor to take Tsilka and the twins away to live by themselves. Ashan had Tor under a spell that made him forget he’d ever loved Tsilka. Someday, after seasons of seducing, he might leave Ashan for the better woman. But no time soon. And would he ever leave his son? Of course, he’d left them before, long ago—that’s how Tsilka had come to have him.

  What would happen if Ashan found out that Tor had been Tsilka’s mate for a time, and was the father of her children? Ashan might banish him. Or forgive him. Or kill him. But Tor had promised he would kill Tsilka if she ever told, and she believed him.

  Maybe she should kill Ashan. That would solve everything.

  Danger pricked her skin. A Moonkeeper’s magic was deadly, if Tor could be believed. Tsilka had doubts about this magic that no one had yet seen, but there must be some reason the Shahala did what Ashan said. It was unwise to think of killing her rival until she understood her powers.

  Tsilka would do anything to possess Tor… but what? She felt as if she were trapped inside a tunnel with a flapping, shrieking condor, as if there were a weapon on the ground, but she couldn’t find it in the dark, and she had to fight an overwhelming urge to roll up in a ball and cry.

  If she didn’t do something, she’d go crazy. But nothing she could do would make Tor hers; any move against Ashan would be the cause of her own death. She would have to hold all this inside, and wait. Oh, how she hated to wait! But while she waited…

  “I promise myself,” she said, making it true with a blow of her fist to her chest. “I will do all I can to make her life as miserable as mine. Somehow, without putting myself in danger. And always, I will be thinking, watching, waiting for the moment when I can explode like a tree struck by lightning, and take her down.”

  Focused rage was better than scattered rage. Tsilka felt better as she thought about how to make Ashan unhappy by getting in the way of what she wanted.

  Ashan spent most of her time among people, telling stories, teaching words, talking about whatever they wanted to talk about.

  Poor Tor, Tsilka thought. How neglected he must feel.

  It seemed that Ashan wanted more than anything for people to get along, to like each other, to be friends.

  “I will be the horse thistle spreading my seeds over new grassland,” Tsilka vowed. “No—I will be the wind, blowing the thistle seeds—invisible. Ashan will never know from where the enemy comes, and will not look too hard. With luck, she won’t know there is an enemy.

  “Because I have already found her weakness. The great chief of the Shahala tribe sees only what she wants to see. She lies to herself and does not know it. So great is her arrogance, she believes things are true just because she wants them to be. That is how I will bring her down.”

  Tsilka went along with the rest of her people, as they went along with the Creator’s Plan—as Tor called it. Meaning that everyone went along with Ashan. Tsilka pretended to accept it. She hated the leather skirt Ashan had given her, but she wore it—with the split front where the back should be, so her naked bottom still showed when she bent over. Except for that, she did nothing to make Ashan or Tor notice her.

  Tsilka dug through her tribe like a mole through soft ground, coming up here and there in places secret from Shahala ears, talking to one or several. She scattered her thistle seeds as questions, knowing it would take time for them to grow.

  “Why must we share our home and our food just because Tor—who used to be our slave—speaks words about some Creator’s Plan?” she asked. “Why are we being
so generous? What do we get from it?”

  “It’s not so bad,” they said. “We have enough to share.”

  “These Shahala think they are better than us,” she said. “Doesn’t that insult you? What’s wrong with our ways, our language, our gods? Where is our Tlikit pride?”

  “We still know our gods. What does it hurt to hear about theirs?”

  “You’re afraid of them,” she taunted.

  They grumbled, and said they were not afraid, but it was obvious that they were. And why shouldn’t they be? Of the Moonkeeper, and whatever magic she might have. Of Tor—who might be the god Wahawkin. Of the number of intruders who had claimed their home—there were nearly two Shahala for each Tlikit.

  Tsilka said, “I’m not saying we should raise weapons against the intruders—at least not yet. I’m saying we should stand up for ourselves like men and women, and not lie down like slaves.”

  Tsilka found little support. Most people didn’t mind—and some enjoyed—having the Shahala here. Even Tsilka had to admit that it was good to have so many children of new blood.

  A few agreed with her. Two men, Tlok and Chalan, seemed to hate the Shahala almost as much as she did. She asked them to meet her away from the village.

  “This is our home,” Tsilka said. “Life was good before these strangers came. What do we need them for?”

  Chalan said, “They are noisy. They fill the place up. You can’t even walk without stumbling over one of them.”

  Tlok said, “They eat our food.”

  “They think we are stupid and dirty.”

  “They insult us. They think they’re better than we are.”

  “We must rid ourselves of them,” Tsilka said.

  Chalan said, “Have you forgotten how many there are?”

  Tlok said, “How would you get rid of them, woman? We can’t throw rocks and see them run like a herd of animals.”

  “I know. We’ll have to be more clever than that. I think we must work on our own people first. The three of us will find times to talk to them alone. We’ll show them that this isn’t right. The Tlikit are a proud people, and there’s nothing wrong with the way we are. We don’t need new gods, new laws, new chiefs.”