Cry of the Wind

by Sue Harrison

  “You see,” Fox Barking called, “I have found a small slave of my own.”

  He lifted Ghaden by his parka hood. The boy flailed out with feet and fists, finally landing a kick that made Fox Barking drop him. Ghaden scrambled to his feet and ran toward the brush fence. Fox Barking drew back his spear and threw it, butt first. It slammed into the center of Ghaden’s back. He cried out and fell to the ground.

  Several Cousin men raised voices in anger, but Fox Barking merely smiled, and the scar that marked his face drew one side of his lips high to show his teeth.

  Then Chakliux heard a scream, and before he could stop her, Star had torn her way through the brush fence. Aqamdax went after her, knelt with her beside Ghaden. Then Chakliux, too, began to break through the fence, but Sok caught him by the shoulders, shouted at him until Chakliux was still.

  “They might not harm a woman,” Sok said, “but you…”

  “Would the Near Rivers have survived the first Cousin attack if I had not told them what to do?” Chakliux asked. “Each man out there owes me his life. You know that.”

  “I know that,” Sok said, “but anger makes a man forget his debts. And his honor.”

  Sok gestured toward Sky Watcher and Man Laughing, Take More and Night Man. Each stood ready, spears and throwing boards in their hands.

  Then Chakliux and Sok also lifted their weapons. Chakliux took in deep breaths to keep his hands from shaking as he set the notched end of a spear into the chip of ivory that held it in place on his spear thrower.

  Aqamdax raised her head, looked at Fox Barking. He was a coward, full of fear and of hatred, angry with those who showed wisdom or courage and disdaining any he considered weaker than himself. She could feel the reassuring beat of Ghaden’s heart under the tips of her fingers. Fox Barking’s spear had knocked the wind from the boy. She prayed it had not broken his spine. She leaned down, saw Ghaden’s eyelids flicker.

  “You are all right?” she asked.

  Star had been screaming since she saw Ghaden fall, cursing Fox Barking and the Near River men. But Aqamdax was able to capture one of her hands, to hold her fingers to a pulse point at the side of Ghaden’s neck. The woman’s eyes widened, and she stopped screaming, though tears still coursed down her face.

  “He is not dead. He is not even hurt,” Fox Barking said. “But do not try to take him. I caught him. He is my slave—to do with as I wish.”

  “You would enslave a boy from your own village?” Aqamdax asked. She looked into his face, then in insult cut her eyes quickly away. “This man leads you?” Aqamdax said to the other River hunters. “I was with your people only a few moons, but still I remember that he often stayed home when others were hunting. I remember that his second wife’s lodge was falling apart, yet he could not keep his eyes or hands from the young girls.” She shook her head. “And he leads you?”

  Fox Barking pulled a short, thrusting lance from the sheath slung on his back.

  Aqamdax wondered if he would risk killing her. Who was she to speak in such a way to hunters? Why should they listen to a woman, especially one who did not even carry River blood? But she knew Fox Barking was a coward. Surely he would realize that Cousin men had spears ready. She waited for his ridicule, his insults, but when he spoke, he said, “I am Anaay, Caribou Singer. I lead these people. Our village is large and strong. We defeated the Cousin warriors. What are they to you? We heard you were only a slave here.”

  “It is true, I came as slave, but now I am wife, and as wife I have chosen to stay. This boy does not belong to you, as slave or by his choice. He is Cousin.”

  “He was Near River before he was Cousin, and that is something you cannot change.”

  “He is my brother by blood, through our mother, who was killed in your village. If he cannot be Cousin because first he was Near River, then it must be true that he cannot be Near River because first he was Sea Hunter.”

  Fox Barking’s eyes narrowed, and his face reddened. “He knows nothing of Sea Hunters. How can he be something he has never seen? You are foolish—”

  One of the other Near River men interrupted, speaking softly so that Aqamdax could make out only a few words, but Star whispered, “He tells Fox Barking that there are more important things to think about than Ghaden.”

  Aqamdax nodded, leaned down to ask Ghaden if he could move. “I’m not hurt,” he said, and Aqamdax could hear the impatience in his voice. “I’m sorry I got caught.”

  He raised himself to hands and knees, arched his back then got to his feet. When Fox Barking saw him, he let out a roar.

  “We are going back inside our camp,” Aqamdax said.

  “Prove that he is Sea Hunter!” Fox Barking demanded. “If he is, I will let him go!”

  Aqamdax caught her lip in her teeth. How could she prove such a thing?

  Ghaden turned to Fox Barking and, holding himself very straight, said, “Tutxakuxtxin hi? Unangax uting.”

  Aqamdax covered her mouth in surprise. Who had taught Ghaden First Men words? Their mother?

  “What did he say?” Fox Barking asked.

  “He speaks the language of our people, the First Men,” Aqamdax answered. “The ones you call Sea Hunters. He asks, ‘Can you hear?’ Then he tells you he is of the First Men.”

  Fox Barking stood with his mouth open in surprise, and Aqamdax pushed Ghaden ahead of her through the brush fence. She did not see Star pick up Fox Barking’s spear, but looked back as she heard the man cry out. It was a beautiful spear, the birch shaft fletched with dark feathers and capped with a walrus ivory foreshaft, a heavy chert point. It was banded in the black and white of a Near River weapon but also carried Fox Barking’s ownership marks of blue and yellow.

  Star raised her head and looked into Fox Barking’s eyes. She drew the chert point across her arm, smiled as she cursed the spear with woman’s blood.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  AFTER ARGUMENTS AND DISCUSSION, the Cousin River men finally agreed that the Near Rivers could speak to those women who had been their wives. They met just outside the brush fence, and Chakliux or Sok stood beside each of the women, pressing a hand to sheathed knives hung at their waists when any man tried to force a woman to come with him.

  Three wives decided to go back with their husbands. Each of those women had no close family members still alive among the Cousin River People, and one was pregnant with her Near River husband’s child. The other women chose to stay, and to Chakliux’s surprise, one of the Near River men, First Eagle, asked permission to join his wife, Awl, in the Cousin camp.

  Night Man and Sky Watcher voiced their disagreement, but Sok said First Eagle was a good hunter and praised him for his courage. Awl was his first wife, a niece to Twisted Stalk. They could not doubt that she was a strong woman. She had managed the walk to the Cousin camp in spite of broken ribs.

  Besides, Sok said, they needed another hunter in their village, many more hunters. Chakliux, Man Laughing and Take More agreed with Sok, and so First Eagle was allowed to stay. Then there was only Fox Barking and his demands to have K’os returned to him as slave.

  “She is not wife,” he called out.

  Who could disagree? And who among the Cousin River People truly wanted K’os back with them?

  “She is your mother, you must decide,” Sok told Chakliux.

  “I will speak to him,” K’os said. “I’m not afraid. I will tell him I belong to my son, Chakliux.”

  Chakliux looked down at K’os, at her beautiful face. A man who only glanced at that face, and at K’os’s lithe body, would believe she was young, but when a man looked into her eyes could he think she was anything but evil?

  She pushed back her parka hood, pulled her hair out of the pins that held it in place behind her head. Glistening black, it fell past her waist, as shining as obsidian. She looked over her shoulder at the men standing around Chakliux.

  “Perhaps there is one here who would be my husband,” she said. Sok laughed, and Sky Watcher shook his head, but Take More
narrowed his eyes, seemed to consider her offer.

  “There are few among us who want to die as your husbands have died,” Chakliux said.

  Take More’s eyes widened, and Chakliux hoped he was remembering the stories of Name Giver’s slow death, the disease that seemed to eat his belly until he could do nothing but vomit blood. And who would want to burn as Ground Beater had in a stranger’s lodge?

  Then Take More, too, turned away, and the softness in K’os’s face turned to hatred.

  “You, Chakliux,” she snarled, “I cannot believe I call you son! Any other man would have arranged to buy his mother’s freedom. Have you forgotten that you owe me your life?”

  “That debt was paid by Gguzaakk and our son,” Chakliux told her, his words bitter and edged with grief.

  He thought he saw a flicker of fear in K’os’s eyes, but it left so quickly he was not sure. Could she be afraid of Gguzaakk’s spirit? Did she feel Gguzaakk’s presence, as he sometimes did? Or was she truly afraid that he would not stand with her against Fox Barking and the Near River men?

  “We go now,” he said, grasping a spear in his left hand. He lifted his chin toward the dog K’os had brought with her, told her to bring him.

  When she opened her mouth to protest, Chakliux said, “You are afraid I will offer a trade for the dog and not you?”

  Then K’os was quiet and followed him from the camp, through the brush fence to the Near River men.

  Anaay tensed when he saw Chakliux. His best spear lay tainted on the ground, and though he had others, it was not good for a man to fight without his strongest weapon. K’os followed Chakliux leading the golden-eyed dog she had stolen.

  A riddle came to his mind, and Anaay laughed at his own cunning.

  “Look! What do I see?” he called. “Three dogs.” He frowned when Chakliux showed no reaction to the insult. Then he said, “You have brought her back to me. Or perhaps you want to buy her for yourself.” He laughed, long, hard. “What do you offer?” he finally said. “She is worth a caribou just for a night in your bed.”

  “I would give that for her,” River Ice Dancer said.

  Anaay flicked his fingers at him in insult.

  “Of course, being her son,” Anaay said to Chakliux, “you have probably not enjoyed her that way.” But he stuck his tongue into his cheek, implying otherwise. Several of the Near River men laughed.

  “I do not want her,” Chakliux said.

  K’os screamed out a curse.

  Chakliux said, “Two caribou for the dog.”

  “No,” Anaay answered.

  But Least Weasel stepped forward. He was a tall, thin man, his face like a hawk’s face, with small round eyes and a hooked nose. He looked down at Anaay, pushed past him to Chakliux. “The dog is my father’s,” he said. “We did not have a good hunt this year, Chakliux. I will take three caribou for him, with the hides.”

  “Our women have already butchered and boned the caribou. I will give you the meat of three, the intestines of one, stuffed with fat and dried berries, plus two hides.”

  “And two bladders, scraped for use as water carriers.”

  “Done,” Chakliux said.

  He left K’os, went back through the brush fence, then he, Sok and Sky Watcher came out carrying the meat and hides he had promised. When he brought the last of the meat, Anaay stepped forward and took K’os’s arm, began to pull her away.

  K’os spit at Chakliux and hissed, “I wish I had left you on the Grandfather Rock. You need to be dead.”

  Then Chakliux said, “The same price for K’os that I gave for the dog.”

  Anaay looked at Chakliux, then at K’os. Suddenly in the dark centers of her eyes he saw himself again as a young man lying between her legs, thrusting into her until the blood flowed. He released his clasp on her arm so quickly that she nearly fell.

  “I will take the caribou,” he said.

  When Chakliux returned with K’os, the men in the camp would not look at him. Even Sok turned away, muttering insults about women like K’os.

  “Go help Aqamdax,” Chakliux told K’os. “There is much to do.” He turned his back on her, stood looking out through the brush fence as the Near River men left carrying the meat Chakliux had given.

  “Do you have any men or women injured?” K’os asked, standing beside him. Then she drew in her breath, pointed at movement in the alders near the river.

  Chakliux squinted, then one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile as Cries-loud and Black Stick darted through the hole in the brush fence. He called out for Snow-in-her-hair and Black Stick’s mother. They greeted the boys with tears.

  “In this camp today,” Chakliux told K’os, “you will help the women.”

  “I am your mother. Do not consider yourself my owner,” K’os said.

  “My mother is dead,” Chakliux replied. “Today, you are slave and will help the women. Tomorrow, you are free. You will leave us in the morning.” Chakliux clasped the front of her parka, gripped tightly. “For Gguzaakk, for my son, I should have killed you long ago. Take the freedom I give you and be grateful.”

  He released his grip on her, and she hissed out, “You have given me death!”

  “I know you better than that, K’os,” he said. He lifted his chin toward a storage lean-to beside his tent. “You can clean that out. It is shelter enough for one night. In the morning, you will leave.”

  She turned her back on him, and he took the golden-eyed dog, tied it at the side of his lean-to, then he went from tent to tent, looking at all the dogs in the camp. At Sok’s lean-to, he stopped, stood for a moment considering. He jumped when Sok, who had come up to stand behind him, began to speak.

  “You gave them too much,” Sok said.

  “It is a good dog,” Chakliux said.

  “Not for the dog. For K’os.”

  “There are some debts that take much to repay.”

  “I do not want her here. Bad luck follows her.”

  “She will be gone by tomorrow.”

  Sok nodded his approval, and Chakliux pointed with his chin toward one of Sok’s dogs, a black male with a white belly and chest, large head, small ears.

  “That dog,” Chakliux asked. “Would you take a golden-eye for him?”

  K’os complained and grumbled as she worked, and though the others ignored her, Yaa found herself watching. She remembered when Aqamdax was K’os’s slave, how wicked K’os had been. When Cries-loud convinced Yaa that Red Leaf did not kill Day Woman, Yaa’s first thought had been of K’os. Surely she was a woman evil enough to kill. But when Red Leaf died, K’os had been slave, and truly she looked like a slave, her parka ragged and thin, her face gaunt. What slave would escape to kill, then return to her master?

  So K’os could not be the killer, but if it was not her, then it must be someone who lived in the Cousin River Village. Yaa shivered and clasped her woman’s knife, the only weapon she had, and wished she was a boy with a long-bladed hunters’ knife to protect herself and Ghaden.

  Chapter Thirty

  K’OS WAITED UNTIL THE darkest part of the night. She knew the cycle of the moon, that it would hide its face until nearly dawn. She would have to walk carefully in the darkness, but with the dog it would not be difficult. She had worked the day before, as Chakliux had ordered her, at first in anger but then in glee, as she realized the women were so busy they would not notice the meat she stole.

  With the many caribou they had killed, the Cousin River People would live through this winter. But there would come a year when the caribou were not so plentiful, and then what would they do, with so few men to hunt and so many women to feed?

  Of course, some of the old ones would die this winter. They always did. And there were always other deaths, unexpected.

  When she was a slave in the Near River Village, K’os had asked about Gull Beak’s sister-wife, Day Woman. Where was she? Had she died?

  Gull Beak had said Day Woman decided to leave the village with her sons Sok and Chakliux. It was best.
The woman was a problem, Gull Beak told her. Always crying, always worrying. K’os had expected to see Day Woman here. She was old, but not too old to help with a caribou hunt.

  K’os had whispered her questions to Aqamdax, had claimed concern for Day Woman out of friendship, but Aqamdax knew her too well, smiled in scorn and told K’os not to mention the woman’s name. She was dead.

  “Sickness or accident?” K’os had asked.

  “Sickness,” Aqamdax had finally answered, but her hesitation told K’os there was something Aqamdax had chosen not to tell.

  “Long Eyes?” K’os had asked.

  “Back in the winter village with Ligige’,” Aqamdax replied.

  “Ligige’?”

  “Aunt to Sok and Chakliux,” Aqamdax said. “From the Near River Village.”

  “So, she, too, came with my son?”

  “Yes.”

  K’os had nodded toward Snow-in-her-hair. “That one also.”

  “Yes, as Sok’s wife.”

  “He had another wife, as I recall, though I have forgotten her name,” K’os said.

  “Let it stay forgotten,” said Aqamdax. “She is dead.”

  “Accident or sickness?” K’os again asked.

  This time without hesitation, Aqamdax answered, “Sickness.”

  In the darkness, K’os crept from the storage lean-to, her pack in her hands. She took the hare fur blanket Star had loaned her for the night. She had laughed to discover that Chakliux had taken Star as wife, offered sympathy for Aqamdax’s dead baby, but held a spiteful joy in her heart when Star told her what Night Man had done.

  “Young babies often die,” K’os had told Star, and looked down at Star’s belly.

  Star had crossed her hands over her stomach and hurried away. K’os would have liked to stay, to see the child that Star would give Chakliux. This one she would most likely allow to live, even if it was a boy. Chakliux might find more anguish in watching his son raised by a woman like Star than in losing the boy as an infant.

  K’os went to the makeshift storage caches, to those that held the best meat, and filled her packs. Then she returned to her lean-to, took the water bladders, rolled the bedding mats and crept to where Chakliux had tied the dogs. There were four, and she approached them cautiously, offered pieces of meat to keep them quiet. She knew he had put the golden-eye nearest the tent door. In the darkness she groped for the dog’s tether, cut it and led the animal out to the brush fence. She was stopped there by one of the boys stationed as watcher.