Cry of the Wind

by Sue Harrison

  “I am Chakliux’s mother,” she told him. “You know me, K’os.”

  “He said you were leaving tomorrow.”

  “I am leaving now,” she said, and slipped out through the brush fence before he asked any questions about the dog.

  She had counted paces from the fence the day before. Eight from where she had stood with Fox Barking. The other distance she had measured only with her eyes. She took three long steps, stooped down and groped the ground, moved slowly closer to the brush fence. Finally she found Fox Barking’s fine birch-shafted spear, chuckled in satisfaction.

  She turned it point up, spoke a curse against Fox Barking, then another against Chakliux. Those two men, between them, had ruined her life, had robbed her of all good things. But already poor stupid Dii would have begun giving Fox Barking K’os’s poison. As for Chakliux, she would find something better. He had already done a fine job of cursing himself, taking a wife like Star.

  K’os pulled the dog with her into the river. The cold water bit at her legs, and the current tried to sweep her from her feet, but she held tightly to the dog, allowed him to float her through the deepest parts. When they got to the other side, K’os changed into dry boots and gave the dog time to lick his feet and legs, then she looked up at the sky, set her course by the tail of stars the River People had named for the Cet’aeni, those tailed enemies who lived in trees, and she started toward the Four Rivers Village.

  Chakliux was awakened by Star’s screech, but he merely rubbed his eyes, stretched. Then she was beside him, shaking him, pulling him from his blankets.

  “Your mother…your mother…your mother…”

  Chakliux reached up and placed his fingers over her lips. “Be quiet. My mother is gone, I know. And she took one of the dogs.”

  Star raised her eyebrows at him in surprise. “The golden-eye,” she said.

  “No. Sok has the golden-eye. I traded the dog for one of his.”

  “You knew your mother would go? She told you?”

  “I have lived long enough with her to know she would do such a thing, and that she would take the dog and steal some meat.”

  “And you let her?”

  “What is best, to have her here with us or to lose a little meat and Sok’s old dog?”

  Slowly Star smiled, but then she thrust her bottom lip out into a pout. “I wanted her to stay long enough to make me a fine parka. I thought she might if you gave her the pelts.” She tilted her head up and closed her eyes. “I wanted fox fur and lynx with strips of black from the leg skins of swans. I wanted shell beads and flicker beaks for luck. So who will make it now?”

  Chakliux’s stomach twisted at the thought of Star’s being mother to his children. Would their sons or daughters be like her, with minds so bent and foolish? He pushed her away from his bed, and in doing so saw that his fingernails were rimmed with blood from the butchering. He remembered the nights he had touched Star as wife, and it suddenly seemed that the blood was her blood, a curse on all he did, pulling away his power and protection.

  He flexed his fingers, and they were stiff, as if the blood had spread from his nails to his hands. And then it was the blood of all the men, Cousin and River, killed in the fighting.

  He had told himself that he had done what he could, but was that really true? Had he worked hard enough for peace? Or had he allowed anger and impatience to weaken his prayers?

  There had been moons when he was merely content to be a hunter, not Dzuuggi, not leader. And there had been that long winter when he went in search of Aqamdax, traveled all the way to the First Men, thinking she had escaped to that faraway place, when she had only been taken as a slave to the Cousin River Village.

  “You will find someone to make my parka?” Star asked him.

  He frowned at her, shook his head to clear his thoughts, then he lost all patience, answered curtly. “Do as all women do. Make it yourself.”

  He pulled on boots, leggings and parka, then left the tent, strode quickly away so she would not catch up with him. He walked past Sok’s tent to assure himself that the golden-eyed dog was there. He was, sitting alert and watching the activity of the camp while Sok’s other dogs slept. Then Chakliux went to the river.

  Frost whitened the ground, making the grass brittle under his feet. The few dark leaves that remained on the alders rattled in the wind, fluttered like a caribou’s ragged spring coat. But each of Chakliux’s steps released the clean, pungent smell the earth takes on before winter.

  He took off his boots, waded into a shallow sandy pool, breaking through the skin of ice that webbed the surface. He scrubbed his hands together under the water until the blood was gone from his nails and his skin was bright red from the cold. He looked into the river. It had been dark with silt after the hunt, stained with caribou blood. Now it ran clear, and Chakliux could see the rounded cobbles that covered the riverbed, gold and brown.

  The part of him that was otter longed to swim, to feel the pull of the current and the clean rush of the water. He stepped back to the shore, took off his leggings and parka, sliced into the water with a shallow dive, skimmed the bottom. The cold pressed against his chest, reached for his heart with strong grasping fingers, numbed his body to everything but the power the river held within itself even now, as it prepared to rest, dark and silent under winter ice.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  K’OS STOPPED, TOOK THE pack from her back and set it on a raised tussock. The sun was up over the horizon, and it was a relief to be walking in light. She slipped down her pants, lifted her parka and spread her legs to urinate. The dog raised his leg against a tussock, and K’os laughed.

  He looked up at her, and she gasped, bent closer. She grabbed his muzzle, lifted his head. The dog had dark brown eyes, and the fur circling his mouth was sprinkled with gray. He growled at her, and she cuffed him. He drew his teeth back, and she lifted Fox Barking’s spear. He cowered, his back legs trembling, tail tucked. K’os ground her teeth and screamed out her anger, slammed the butt end of the spear into the earth.

  Then suddenly she tilted back her head and laughed. Why not appreciate Chakliux’s trick? After all, who had taught him devious ways?

  She squatted on her heels, studied the dog, thinking. She was strong enough to carry the dog’s packs as well as her own, but was she willing to give up the protection a dog offered?

  Against what? she asked herself. If he had been the young golden-eye, that was one thing, but this animal? A good dog would have leaped to attack when she threatened him with a spear.

  How far could she walk until he would no longer find his way back to the camp? Perhaps another half day. It was at least a three-day walk yet to the Four Rivers Village. If the animal could help her carry part of the load even a short way, she would take advantage of that.

  She dug through her river otter medicine skin and found the packet she had bound with red-dyed sinew tied in four double knots. She pulled out a raven’s feather she had been saving and broke off several strands of her hair, then twisted them around the center of the feather.

  “Look, what do I see?” she said aloud, holding the feather across her eyes, “Darkness, even in sunlight.” The dog whined at her words.

  THE COUSIN RIVER CAMP

  The dog came to them three days later. Squirrel brought him into camp. He was limping, his paws filled with xos cogh thorns. An amulet was bound around his neck: a raven’s feather tied with long strands of dark hair.

  Chakliux burned the amulet outside camp, then he buried the ashes. Even K’os’s power was less than fire, less than earth. He pulled the spines from the dog’s paws and rubbed plantain mixed with caribou fat into the wounds. Throughout that day, the dog drank much water, ate grasses, vomited bile.

  After the dog defecated a loose, bloody stool, Twisted Stalk fed him a tea of yellow dock and washed his feet in water filled with shredded willow bark, but the animal only grew weaker. Chakliux took him outside camp, sat with him, lifted prayers, sang chants, something he had
never done for a dog. When the animal finally died, Chakliux burned the body as he had burned the amulet, then buried the ashes deep in the earth.

  He prayed and fasted a day and a night before returning to camp, then washed himself in the river. But though he did all these things, fear pressed into his heart. He answered questions in rudeness and could not stay away from the brush fence, as though he was waiting for the Near Rivers to attack. When his hands were busy packing meat and repairing weapons, his eyes were on the people, watching them, wondering if the dog had brought some illness as a part of K’os’s revenge.

  THE NEAR RIVER CAMP

  For three days after the Near River men returned to their caribou camp, Anaay sent hunters out to search for game. He ordered the women to begin packing for the journey back to the winter village, then went into his tent, told Dii to keep the people away.

  She brought him water and stew made with the delicate head meat of the few caribou they had managed to salvage from the hunt. He ate, but when she turned her eyes toward his bed, offering the comfort of her body, he refused her.

  She scolded herself for her relief and tried to keep her thoughts away from those Cousin women who had left them. Awl and her husband had shamed the whole camp when they decided to stay with the Cousin River People. Most of the other women had also stayed, and their husbands had returned without them. With fewer Cousin in the camp, the Near River women were more blatant with their insults.

  That night, sleeping alone in the tent she had once shared with K’os, Dii again dreamed of caribou. She woke in panic, sure they were about to trample their lean-tos. She crawled from the tent, lifted her eyes to the moon. It was no longer full, but gave light enough for her to pick out each tent and hearth. She stood and realized that the ground was not shaking. There was silence, save for the occasional call of a night animal.

  Then she knew that the shaking had again been in her bones and that the caribou were east of the camp, a day’s walk.

  “You are foolish,” she whispered. “Caribou do not sing to women.”

  But still she could hear them above the silence of the night. The clicking of their legs was loud in her ears, the soft thunder of their hooves, the grunts of the bulls, soon to be in rut. When she shut her eyes, she could see them. For a long time under the moon, she knelt at the center of the camp and watched caribou.

  THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE

  Red Leaf saw the woman coming into camp, and at first thought she was a hunter, so boldly did she walk, head up, with a fine spear in one hand, a large pack on her back. She was alone. What woman walked alone any distance? And she was tall, taller than most women. But when she drew close, Red Leaf could not mistake the face.

  It was K’os, the Cousin River woman. Red Leaf had pitied her when she lost her husband in a fire during their visit to the Near River winter village. But they had made a poor choice in staying with the old woman Song. Elders could be careless with fires, and Song had kept a Sea Hunter lamp burning in her lodge. What foolishness!

  So what was K’os doing here? She was one of those taken captive to the Near River Village. Hadn’t Aqamdax told her that? Then surely K’os would have heard what Red Leaf had done. Red Leaf turned away before the woman saw her face. Her chest felt as though someone were standing on it, and she could not breathe.

  Now what choice did she have? Cen and the hunters would probably be gone until the next full moon. Perhaps beyond that. She would have to leave the village before then, but at least she would have time to pack food and warm clothing.

  For a moment she saw her son Cries-loud’s face, his tears when she left the Cousin River Village. Her throat tightened. Two sons lost to her, and now a second husband.

  Then she heard K’os call, a greeting strangers used with one another, something more appropriate from man to man.

  Red Leaf did not turn. Instead she quickened her steps, walked toward Cen’s lodge. Though the snow that had almost cost her life had long ago melted, the ground was frozen hard under her feet, so that each of her steps jarred her bones.

  Then a hand was on her shoulder, and she heard K’os say, “You did not hear my greeting?”

  Red Leaf stopped but did not turn, kept her head down.

  “Are the men hunting?” K’os asked.

  “Yes, they hunt,” Red Leaf said quietly.

  K’os rudely tilted her head down to try to look into Red Leaf’s face, and Red Leaf hoped the tunnel of her parka hood made shadows enough to distort her features.

  “Is there an elder I might speak to? Someone who would be willing to give me shelter?” K’os asked. “Though the people in this village do not know me, they knew a brother of mine who lived here long ago. He and his wife are both dead now, I was told, but he was a fine hunter. Someone will remember him.”

  Red Leaf pointed toward a lodge at the center of the village, then, with head still down, walked around K’os. She did not let herself breathe until she crawled into the entrance tunnel of Cen’s lodge.

  THE COUSIN RIVER CAMP

  Aqamdax watched Chakliux pace, and it seemed as though his nervousness seeped into her hands, making her fingers clumsy. She and Star were working together, cutting long strips of lacing from a caribou hide.

  The excitement of the successful hunt had passed, and the men were bored, a few going out to look for moose or caribou, usually coming back with nothing more than a few white-fronted geese.

  Women were tired; even the boys who had come on the hunt were growing whiny. Their small squabbles escalated into arguments between mothers, and sometimes even the uncles or fathers became involved. The people needed to know when they would move back to the winter village. Already two families had left, hauling away their shares of the meat and hides.

  Aqamdax and Star finished their cutting, and Star began to pester Bird Caller and Owl Catcher, who were scraping a caribou hide. Aqamdax saw Chakliux slip outside through the brush fence. Night Man was sitting with Man Laughing, their heads bent over a game of throwing sticks. Night Man was losing; Aqamdax could tell by the scowl on his face. She left the pile of lacing and walked to the edge of the camp, trying to keep tents and people between herself and her husband. Then she wondered why she bothered. She did not care what he thought, and it was apparent he had no concern for her, gambling away their food and hides to Man Laughing.

  She slipped through the opening in the brush fence, told herself that she had not come to talk to Chakliux, only to escape the noise and people of the camp.

  She did not see Chakliux, was disgusted with herself at her disappointment, but a movement at the edge of the river drew her eyes. She walked that way, her breath catching at each step until she was sure it was him, not wolf or bear. He crouched in a growth of willow, their long thin leaves yellowed by the frost and too brittle now to gather and store in oil for winter food. She slipped through the trees, squatted beside him as she had done so often when they both lived in the Near River Village, when they had shared stories and were learning one another’s languages.

  He was sitting on a rock, slightly higher than she was, and the cool, pale sun of autumn lit his face so it was nearly without shadow. The wind blew his hair back from his forehead, pulled strands from the dark braids.

  She smiled, but he did not return that smile. “We will leave soon for the winter village?” she asked him.

  He did not answer, and she felt the familiar unrest that had plagued her when she was a girl, as though her muscles fought against her skin. She wanted him to talk to her, to tell her why he had not even looked at her these past few days. Now that the caribou hunt was over, now that they would soon return to winter camp, did he regret his promise to take her as wife? Did he think there would be too many problems with Night Man and Star? Had he said he wanted her as wife only to help her through her wild grief at the death of her son?

  The emptiness of that grief still lived with her, woke her in the night with dreams of Angax floating away across the Grandfather Lake. She closed her ey
es against the burn of tears, pushed back her parka hood, and allowed herself to think only of the warmth of the sun. Soon enough that warmth would be gone. Already the ground under her feet was cold, warning that winter was close, but why think so far ahead? No one, not even the strongest hunter, could be sure of living through any winter.

  She relaxed, content to be beside Chakliux, and when sleep had almost claimed her, she heard his voice, soft and deep, whisper, “What do I see? The winter grows old and in anger sends the wind.”

  She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.

  “The winter is not yet here,” she said.

  He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile. “It’s not a riddle about winter,” he told her. “It’s about my mother.”

  “What does it mean?” Aqamdax asked.

  “It means that when she cannot control what is happening to her, she becomes angry and tries to bring destruction to anyone near.”

  “You think she has stayed close, then, or perhaps walked back to our winter village?”

  Chakliux shook his head. “If she was close, she would have done more than send the dog back to us. He had walked a long way. Of course, he was old and might have gotten lost.”

  “But the Cousin People hunt here every year, do they not?” Aqamdax asked. “The dog had been here before.”

  “Yes.”

  “You think, then, that she cursed us?”

  “The amulet was some kind of curse.”

  “But Sok told us that you burned it and buried the ashes. How could she be stronger than that? If she has so much power, why did she stay slave to Fox Barking? If she has so much power, why did she leave when you told her to leave? Why did she take the old dog and not the golden-eye?”