by Sue Harrison
“Someday you will be a good wife,” Ligige’ said and nodded her approval at Yaa.
Yaa lowered her head so Ligige’ would not think she was too proud, but she hugged the compliment to herself. A good wife, she thought. She would have to be a very good wife to help Cries-loud forget his sorrow and learn to smile again.
When he finished the stories, Chakliux stood and reached up to the rafters, took a bladder of rendered oil and pulled out the stopper with his teeth. He stripped away Aqamdax’s clothing and stroked the oil into her skin, standing to comb it through her long hair, kneeling to rub it into her legs. He warmed her with his hands, cupped her breasts, then her belly, her buttocks. Then he took her to her bed, removed his own clothing and lay down beside her. His hands continued their dance over her skin, and she found herself moving beneath his touch. She reached out for him, to bring him also into the celebration of their joining.
When he finally raised himself over her, entered her, she heard the storm winds outside, beginning anew, howling through the walls of the lodge. Later, as they lay still and quiet, Aqamdax felt the lodge begin to shake.
Fingers of cold crept in through the seams and awl holes of the caribou hide lodge cover, and though Chakliux wrapped her into his arms, the wind’s voice would not let Aqamdax sleep. Through the night, she heard her husband murmur quiet prayers, but the words seemed too small, too quiet, a child’s chant against the wind.
THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE
The storm began just as the feasting had started. K’os moved the tripods and cooking bags into Sand Fly’s lodge and continued to feed the people until there was nothing left. When the food was gone, she opened the packs she had chosen from those River Ice Dancer had brought and gave each person a gift.
When she had first told River Ice Dancer her plan for a giveaway, he had protested.
“I have enough here to become a trader,” he told her. “I will have the finest dogs, the best parkas, and you and our children will never be hungry.”
She did not bother to tell him that she could not give him children. If he began to worry about having a son, she could claim a pregnancy, steal a child. There were ways to do such things.
“Wait and see what happens,” she had told him. “With each gift given your worth will grow in the eyes of the people. You will be seen as wise and generous, a leader.”
He had turned his back on her, pouted like a child, but she slipped her fingers under his breechcloth, and soon he was stiff and ready in her hands. When he was sated with their lovemaking, he had no more protests about her giveaway.
When the sky grew dark, the people left, walking out into the hard stinging snow, clasping one another as they moved from lodge to lodge. River Ice Dancer went with the old ones, guiding them to their own lodges, and when he returned, K’os took off his ice-crusted parka, brushed the snow from the fur, then rolled out his bed next to hers.
K’os lay awake long after she had satisfied River Ice Dancer into sleep. She had given much away—even a fine fishskin basket to Red Leaf, a beaver fur hood to Cen. In the quiet of the lodge, she listened to the wind. As always, it spoke with many voices: in anger, in bitterness. But this time, it also carried the whispered words of the men and women who lived in the Four Rivers Village—praises for River Ice Dancer and for his wife, that generous one, K’os.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
Four, five times in the night, Chakliux used a walking stick to knock the snow from the smoke hole, and in the morning, when he and Aqamdax opened the inner doorflap, they found that the entrance tunnel was nearly full of snow.
Aqamdax went through Ligige’’s storage baskets until she found several old caribou skin boiling bags. Chakliux filled them with snow and hung them over the fire so the snow would melt into water, then he pushed his way from the lodge and went outside. The wind still blew, sent ice fingers through the fur of his parka ruff, scratched his face and eyelids. He had pulled the drawstring of his hood tight so he breathed through the fur, but still his lungs ached with the cold.
He could not remember such fierce weather so early in the winter, with the sun yet so high in the sky. He wondered if Sok would claim that this storm, too, was Snow-in-her-hair calling from the spirit world. As Dzuuggi he knew stories of such things happening, but that had been in times long ago. Snow-in-her-hair was not some shaman, not even a woman of great power or age. How could she know enough to make such storms?
When he reached Star’s lodge, Chakliux found he had to dig out the entrance tunnel. He heard no voices coming from within, and dug more quickly. Sometimes when the wind found a lodge sealed with snow, it would react in anger at being shut out and steal the breath of those inside.
He was halfway through when Biter bounded out, knocking him back, tangling him into a welcome of tongue and paws. Ghaden followed, whooping at the depth of the snow, calling for Yaa to join him. Chakliux warned Ghaden to stay close to the lodge. The wind was still strong, whipping the snow into a blanket that hung thick around the lodges, blocked vision of anything more than two or three steps away.
Inside, the women sat close to the fire. “Another storm,” Ligige’ said.
“Not as bad as the first,” Chakliux replied.
“Not as bad as the first,” Long Eyes repeated without looking up.
Star sat with her back to the entrance tunnel. For once she had work in her hands, but, of course, Ligige’ would not allow her to sit idle while others sewed.
“You have enough food?” Chakliux asked.
The lodge belonged to Star. She should be the one to answer, but she acted as though he were not there. Chakliux asked her again, then offered to break a trail to the cache.
Finally she looked at him, and he saw the anger in her eyes. “Your new wife,” she said, “is her bed warmer than mine?” She dropped the caribou hide she was sewing. “I am the better wife.” She patted her round belly. “Look. Here is your son. Have you forgotten him?”
“I would never forget him or you,” Chakliux said patiently. Then, as though she had said nothing, he continued. “I will break a path to the cache. It will not be open long. You will have to go soon if you need meat.”
He left, but not without inviting Ligige’ back to her own lodge, telling her that Aqamdax would move to Sok’s lodge that day.
“Take your dogs, Husband. I will not feed them,” Star called, and he heard something hit the lodge wall just as the inner doorflap fell into place behind him.
He calmed himself with thoughts of Aqamdax, then called Ghaden and Yaa to help walk a path through the snow to the caches. He loaded them with food to take back to Star’s lodge and went on to his own cache, brought back several frozen chunks of caribou meat for himself and Aqamdax and a caribou skin of dried fish for his dogs.
He took most of the food to Sok’s lodge. The lodge was empty and cold, but there was a stack of wood beside the circle of stones and sand that marked the hearth. Chakliux used a fire bow and scraps of birchbark to start a fire, fed it patiently until it had burned several of the larger chunks of wood into glowing coals, then he took some of the meat and enough fish for Ligige’’s dog to her lodge.
She had not returned yet, but Aqamdax was there waiting for him. He wanted to tell her to unroll their bedding furs again, wanted to enjoy a last time in this lodge together, but how could he risk leaving the fire in Sok’s lodge burning with no one to watch? Storm winds did strange things in empty lodges.
“I have started a fire in Sok’s lodge,” he told her. “We should move our things there.”
“Now? In the storm?” she asked, looking up at him with worried eyes.
“Star wants me to move my dogs from around her lodge. She says she will not feed them, and in this cold they need food. You can stay if you want. Ligige’ should soon be back, but Sok also needs to return to the lodge, to have a place for himself and his children.”
He saw that she sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, worried it with her teeth. “You do not want
to live again in the same lodge as Sok?” he asked.
She looked at him with surprise in her eyes, frowned for a moment, then said, “No, I was not thinking of that.” She smiled at him, her eyes crinkling into curves like slices of the moon. “He needs me to help him with his children. I was wondering if my milk might start again if I nursed the baby.”
“Sky Watcher’s wife nurses him,” Chakliux said.
“You did not know she again carries a child?” Aqamdax asked, and laughed at his surprise. “So her milk will not be as plentiful.” She patted her own belly. “I will have a few moons before the babe we have made does the same to me.”
He opened his mouth in surprise. No woman could know so soon.
She laughed, and he joined her laughter. He was not used to a wife who made jokes.
He squatted beside her, placed his hand on her belly, and soon they were lying together on the floor mats, his parka, still wet with snow, flung aside. And for a few moments, Chakliux no longer heard the storm or thought about dogs. What man should allow such worries to steal his pleasure with a wife he loves?
Sok kept his eyes from the pity on Sky Watcher’s face. He tried to eat the food Bird Caller had given him but finally set his bowl, still half full, on the floor. Bird Caller held Carries Much, and Sok lifted the child from her arms. The baby gurgled his delight, and Sok could not help but notice that the boy had Snow’s eyes, her nose. He gave the child back to Bird Caller, let himself imagine how he would feel if he were handing the boy to Snow.
But no, he would not have noticed such a small blessing as that. Perhaps the spirits punished him for his lack of gratitude. Perhaps that was why Snow had died.
He thought about other men, some much worse than he was. Take More was always grumbling about his wives. Even during the feast after their first successful river hunt, he had complained about the piece of meat one of his wives had given him. Yet in his old age, he had three wives: two old women good with sewing, and one of the young girls who had chosen to return from the Near River People. Surely Sok was a better man than Take More, but both Sok’s wives were dead and one of his sons. Was he truly that cursed?
Perhaps he should give what he had left—his two sons, his dogs—to Chakliux. In that way he might protect them from whatever bad luck he was carrying. But then, Chakliux had Star and Aqamdax as wives. What man would want Star to raise his sons? Aqamdax was not terrible, but she was Sea Hunter. Carries Much and Cries-loud deserved better.
Star, not Snow-in-her-hair, should have been the one to die at the river. Who would have missed her? Her old mother, Long Eyes, seldom knew what was happening around her. Her brother, Night Man, was too selfish to care whether Star was dead or alive.
Truly it had seemed that as Star grew stronger, Snow-in-her-hair grew weaker, as though Star’s spirit used Snow’s strength to pull itself back into the world. He turned suddenly to Sky Watcher and asked, “You need food from your cache?”
“For the dogs,” he answered.
“I will get it.”
“Bring a little caribou meat,” Bird Caller told him.
Sok pulled on his outside clothes and left the lodge. The snow cut hard into his face, but he welcomed its pain, pushed his parka hood back from his face so he could feel the bitter cold bite into his skin. A drift behind Bird Caller’s lodge was nearly to his hips, the snow hard and crusted with ice, but he forced his way through. The wind sang, and now that he was outside the lodge walls, he recognized its voice.
Snow-in-her-hair was calling him, singing, singing, her cold fingers caressing his skin.
Chapter Forty-six
THE STORM LASTED THREE days. During that time Sok was quiet, seldom spoke, even to his sons, but he cared for his dogs, went hunting once with Chakliux, though they returned only with ptarmigan.
The wind finally blew the storm north, and the sun cut through the layer of clouds to reveal the pale blue of a winter sky. Neither sun nor wind was strong enough to keep the clouds away, and two days later they circled back, at first in a thin layer, so Aqamdax thought they were only the smoke from village hearths. But soon the wind caught bitterness again in its mouth and flung it in ice and cold over the village. Once again the dogs curled tight in the lee of drifts, and old women covered themselves with caribou hides so the cold, on its way to their bones, would be trapped in the hides’ thick hair.
The first night of that new storm Sok woke Aqamdax with his mourning songs, and as his wailing turned to words, she realized that he was speaking to the wind as though it were his dead wife.
In the darkness of the lodge Cries-loud crept to Aqamdax’s bed, and though he had eight summers, he huddled close like a small child awakening from bad dreams.
Chakliux stirred beside her, and Aqamdax whispered, “You need to get Sok away from here.”
“In this storm?”
She could hear the anger in Chakliux’s voice, knew that it was not at her but at the sorrow that seemed to tear Sok away from who he was. She took his hand, guided it to Cries-loud so he could feel the boy trembling beside her.
“Where?” Chakliux asked, his voice again gentle.
“The hunters’ lodge?” she said, giving her suggestion as question.
Chakliux pulled on boots and parka, got Sok into his outside clothing. After they left, Aqamdax put Cries-loud back into his own bed, then she took Carries Much from his cradleboard and held him, singing the lullabies she had learned as a child living with the First Men.
Chakliux did not return until the next morning, and then he came by himself.
“Sok stayed at the hunters’ lodge?” Aqamdax said.
“The men asked him to tell hunting stories. I came to feed the dogs and see if you need anything, but I should go back.”
Aqamdax kept her disappointment hidden. Only a moon before he had not been her husband. Then, a quick smile when others were not looking was all they dared. How could she complain now that they belonged to one another?
“How bad is the storm?” she asked.
“Like the others,” he replied, and shrugged his shoulders as though it did not matter, but she could tell it bothered him. How could a man hunt? How could a woman keep her traplines open?
She gave Chakliux food, filled his bowl again so he would stay longer. When he left, she sang songs to fill the lodge, and told stories, Cries-loud begging for more even when her voice grew hoarse from speaking. Later in the day, Yaa and Ghaden came to the lodge, and Aqamdax taught them all a First Men song.
She fed the children, took Carries Much to Bird Caller so the woman could see him. Aqamdax herself was nursing the baby now, and each day she had more milk. She fought the storm back to Snow’s lodge, told Ghaden and Yaa she wanted them to spend the night, but in the early darkness of that evening, Star came, scolded both children for worrying her. Then when the children begged, she agreed that Cries-loud could come and stay in her lodge with Ghaden and Yaa.
Aqamdax met Star’s eyes boldly. “You know I cannot let him go with you,” she said.
“You trust your brother and sister with me and yet not Cries-loud?”
“I have no choice with my brother and sister,” she said, “but Cries-loud belongs to Sok. You must ask him.”
“Where is he? I thought he would be here.”
“He and Chakliux are at the hunters’ lodge.”
“A new husband does not live with his new wife?” Star asked, mocking her with raised eyebrows.
Aqamdax did not answer. She knew the truth. What else mattered?
“I will go to the hunters’ lodge and ask,” Star told her, but Aqamdax put on her outside clothes, bound the baby under her parka and went with her. Together they stood outside huddled with Yaa as Ghaden and Cries-loud went in. Finally Chakliux came out, said Sok wanted the boy to stay in Snow’s lodge until the storm ended.
Star thrust her lip into a pout, and grabbing fistfuls of Yaa’s and Ghaden’s parkas, dragged them with her to her lodge.
“Wait for me,”
Chakliux told Aqamdax, and he followed Star to her lodge.
Aqamdax and Cries-loud waited, crouched beside the hunters’ lodge, heads turned away from the wind. When Chakliux came back, his face was grim, but Aqamdax asked no questions, said nothing about Star. Chakliux walked Aqamdax and Cries-loud to Snow’s lodge, stayed with them there through the evening before returning to his brother.
That night Chakliux dreamed he was with Aqamdax. He turned in his sleep, flung an arm over her to pull her close, then sat up, suddenly awake. He heard the sleep noises of the men, smelled the thick odor of their breaths, rich with the meat they had eaten the day before.
Sok was not in his bedding furs. His parka no longer hung on the clothing pegs. Take More sat beside the hearth fire, was feeding thin sticks into the coals.
“He left,” he said to Chakliux.
“You did not stop him?” Chakliux asked.
“Is he a child that I must stop him?”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“That someone was calling him.”
Chakliux dressed and went outside, studied the footprints the snow had not yet covered. The largest went toward Sok’s lodge, and Chakliux began to hope his brother had stopped for food and supplies.
Then, through the darkness, Chakliux saw Sok leaving the lodge, a pack on his back. He did not take any of the dogs, but instead started toward the caches. The new snow, not yet hardened by the wind, reached Chakliux’s knees, and his otter foot slipped. He toppled into the snow, but he pushed himself up and caught Sok before he reached the caches.
When Sok saw Chakliux, he said, “My wife is calling me. I cannot pretend anymore that I do not hear.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find her.”
Chakliux grasped his brother’s arm, lifted his voice above the screaming wind. “What if she is calling you to her world? Who will raise your sons? Your wife would trust them to another?”
“They are yours if I do not return,” Sok said, then continued toward their food cache.
Again Chakliux caught his brother’s arm. “I am going with you.”