by C. S. Bills
“Seal.”
Tuunti dropped the carving onto the beach in disgust. Attu picked it up and set it with the rest of the things.
“Something’s wrong,” Ubantu whispered into Suka’s ear. “They should at least be pretending to show interest in everything, to compliment the things you’ve brought.” Suka gritted his teeth and kept producing more items. Next was the skin boat.
Kagit looked interested for the first time. He examined the small craft, turned it over, and felt its weight in his hands. He took Tuunti aside and whispered to her at great length. She seemed almost convinced, but in the end, shook her head.
Suka groaned softly.
“I tell Tuunti Nuvik boat good boat. My son learn paddle come spring. She say not for all work Farnook do, and Farnook like daughter to Tuunti.” Kagit flashed a smile.
“Like her daughter,” Attu muttered. “More like a target for her cooking spoon.”
Kagit raised his eyebrows as if to question what Attu had said to himself in Nuvik. Attu set his lips and smiled at the Raven.
Finally, Kagit motioned with his hand to the necklace Suka was wearing. Suka pretended reluctance, as was the custom among the Nuviks, before pulling the heavy necklace over his head and handing it to Kagit. A spark of real interest seemed to light the Raven’s face, making him look even more like the bird, eager to acquire this shiny thing.
“Ice bear teeth and claws,” Ubantu said. “Nothing harder. Teeth split into sharp points. Do not dull like stone weapons.”
Kagit turned back to Tuunti, and this time he appeared eager for her to change her mind, say yes to trading all these things, including the ice bear teeth and claws for Farnook. He spoke to her in a furious whisper. Tuunti seemed to be relenting.
Attu glanced at Suka. He could tell Suka was holding his breath in his anxiousness, but he was doing a good job of being the patient hunter.
“Perhaps he has a chance, after all,” Ubantu said quietly to Attu.
Then Kagit began shouting. Tuunti stood, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, shaking her head. Kagit shouted some more. She shook her head again. The men around them laughed, as if they were watching a rare treat, the Raven leader and his stubborn woman.
Suddenly, it was all over. Kagit spun his woman around and shooed her back toward the cedar house, planting a slap on her backside as she went. His people roared with laughter.
“She say no. So we trade for canoe,” Kagit said.
His woman continued to walk away. Her shoulders were shaking and she was wiping her eyes.
Is she crying? No, Attu realized. She’s laughing. This was all a show to humiliate Suka. To humiliate us all.
When Tuunti reached the cedar house she turned and made a lewd gesture at Suka before disappearing inside. The entire camp erupted into laughter yet again.
And to get Suka so provoked he would attack Kagit, Attu realized, too late.
Attu leaped for his cousin as Suka lunged forward and grabbed the necklace from Kagit and opened his mouth to swear at the man, but he never had the chance. The Raven leader hit Suka with the back of his hand, sending him flying to the side, stunned. Blood reddened Suka’s mouth and nose as the young hunter struggled to rise, and he managed to get to one knee before Kagit struck him again, this time with his other hand across Suka’s other cheek. Suka fell back onto the sand of the beach and did not get up.
Ubantu reached for his spear.
“Don’t,” Kagit growled in Nuvik. “Leave. Never try bargain for what never yours. Tell boy hunter when wakes. Man hunter takes what his to take. No one takes what mine. No one. All of this, mine,” and he gestured broadly to encompass them all, the people, the land, the cedar houses, all of it. “Farnook, mine. No one but Raven ever have Farnook.” And Kagit turned on his heel and stalked back into the forest where Ubantu had seen the wood carvers carving animal figures into the tall tree. The rest of the people melted away into the shadows at Kagit’s words.
Within a few heartbeats, Attu, Suka, who was groaning as he struggled to his feet, and Ubantu were alone on the beach again.
Chapter 16
For the next several days, Suka acted as if nothing had happened. He was calm. Too calm. He had come back from the Raven Clan’s camp in a furious anger, but refused to speak of it and by the next sun acted as if nothing had happened. He went hunting with the other men, bringing back two large seals, which he gave to Yural because she was cooking for him now. He requested she dry it for their winter stores and teased her about how hungry he always was. He continued working on his boat, fixing small things, and acting as if nothing had happened.
“I don’t understand,” Attu confided in Rika. “Perhaps Suka has decided not to do anything after all.”
“I don’t believe it. I’ve seen Suka look at Farnook, Attu. You need to watch him. I think he’s planning something.”
Attu went to his father.
“I’m watching him, also,” Ubantu agreed. “I don’t trust him not to do something crazy, like try to sneak into the Ravens’ camp and steal Farnook. He could get us all killed. Kagit’s people may get women that way, but I doubt if Kagit would let us get away with it. It would humiliate him in front of his hunters to have someone take his slave. I hope Suka realizes that and can think past his anger.”
“He has always wanted to win everything. You know how competitive he is.”
“I’ll tell Rovek to keep an eye on him also. The two of them are together a lot now that Suka’s family has left and Paven can’t hunt.”
“I’m fine, Attu,” Suka said the next day, when Attu, convinced he was up to something, confronted his cousin. “I just want to be left alone about it.” He scowled and turned away from Attu, slipping his skin boat into the water.
“I’ll hunt with you,” Attu offered. “Just give me time to grab my tools-”
But Suka had begun paddling out into the bay, quickly moving north, alone.
Two nights later, Suka disappeared. He took his skin boat, all his gear, his shelter, everything, and when Rovek came to Attu looking for him, Attu knew what had happened.
“He fooled us.” Attu’s eyes showed the hurt he could not speak of at the loss of his cousin.
“And now he’s gone.” Rovek seemed dazed.
“He couldn’t stand knowing he’d lost this time and there was no getting Farnook without endangering us all. If I were him, I’d head north, away from the Ravens and toward the land that will be more like he’s been longing for.”
“I’m sorry he’s decided to go alone.”
A messenger from the Ravens came to the Clan a few days later. He stood near the shelters and blew on a large shell. The loud noise brought everyone.
“Raven requests your people to come and join in the feasting and celebration,” he declared in Nuvik.
“What is the cause for this celebration?”
“Raven requests your people to come and join in the feasting and celebration,” the messenger repeated. Clearly he had memorized his message, and they would get no more. After blowing on the shell one more time, he repeated his message again before running back toward the Raven Clan’s camp.
“Attu, find out what this is all about,” Ubantu said.
Yural added, “And find out if we need to bring food.”
“I’m not going,” Paven growled. “I will not be dragged on a tuskie hide sled like an invalid or an old woman to some Raven celebration.”
Rika threw up her hands and walked out of the shelter. Ubantu and Attu, who had come with her to convince Paven to go, sat in the silence following Paven’s outburst.
“In the next moon, you are learning how to paddle a skin boat,” Ubantu said.
Paven looked at Attu’s father as if he had grown tusks. “What?” he asked.
“You are sitting in this shelter acting like an old woman ready for a hide sled. It’s been long enough. You’ll use a stick to help you walk, and you will learn to use the skin boats. If your leg is not healed well enough by next
spring, you’ll still be able to leave. You’ll go with us.”
No, Attu thought.
Just that morning, while Rika had been trying to change Paven’s leg wrappings, he had yelled at her for not being careful, grabbing her hand roughly enough that she cried out in pain. Attu had raced into the shelter to find Rika, her lips set in a thin line, rinsing some skins she had used for the cleansing, her back turned to her father, tears running down her face.
“She is still my daughter,” Paven had said, glaring at Attu, daring him to take offense at his treatment of Rika.
“Touch her again like that and you will be on your own,” Attu had said. “I’ll tell the other hunters how you’re treating the woman of the leader, and they will help me move you, shelter and all, back up to the Rock of the Ancients, and you’ll have to fend for yourself, then. No one hurts my woman. No one.”
“I will not hunt from the boats, and you can’t trick me into it to save my hunter’s pride.” Paven scowled now and turned away from them both, refusing to discuss the matter further.
“Why must we go to this celebration?” Meavu asked Yural. The two were standing outside Attu’s shelter, and Yural was fixing Meavu’s hair into two new braids, shiny with oil from the last seal Attu had speared.
“We can’t leave yet because Paven isn’t ready to travel back to the grasslands, and even if we wanted to, we couldn’t leave right now, so we have to keep peace with the Ravens.”
As she spoke, the wind picked up again, and Attu could hear the waves crashing along the shoreline. “Anyone out in a skin boat today would be tossed around like a leaf upstream in the rocky river behind our shelters. The ocean has been angry for almost half a moon, and Ashukat says it rises up suddenly like this for the next three moons. It can catch the most wary traveler on the water before they can make it back to shore, or it can crash them on the rocks littering the beach in most places. Only after the winter storms subside will it be safe to travel north again.”
“So we must go to keep the Ravens from getting angry?” Meavu frowned. “But they already don’t like us, wouldn’t trade with Suka for Farnook. What will going to their celebration do to help?”
“This is all getting so complicated,” Attu agreed. “Just trust me, Meavu. None of us wants to go into the Raven Clan’s camp anymore, but saying no to them right now is not an option.”
Why didn’t we leave when we had the chance, like the rest of the Seers did? Suka is the smartest one among us, leaving when he did. There were three days of calmer waters, just enough for him to paddle far. I hope he has gone north. I hope he’s off the ocean now.
Attu clutched his spirit necklace as he had so many times since Suka had left, asking Attuanin to protect Suka as he journeyed, and Elder Nuanu’s spirit to watch over him. He prayed he would someday see Suka again.
And my dreams are getting more frequent. Night after night, I’m running or flying or whatever toward the flames... Attu shuddered at the thought. The sensation of being burned, it just keeps getting worse. And the smoke, like I’m suffocating...
The cedar houses shone in the light of many torches set like shelter poles around the clearing of the Raven Clan’s camp. Attu felt his skin crawl at the sight of so many people gathered in one place, as many as ten times the largest meeting of Clans he had ever seen or more, and Rika tightened her grip on his hand as they approached the Ravens, spread out in front of the huge houses. Everywhere Attu looked, the people were dressed in strange finery, necklaces of bright stones woven with netting into intricate patterns, feather shawls and bright shells jangling from their arms and legs and hair. And the smell of food...
Attu couldn’t believe the food. It was piled on flat pieces of wood these people called boards. Attu had returned from investigating the invitation telling the rest they must not bring food to this event or they would shame Kagit, and they must wear their finest clothing and be prepared to stay until the next day. All but Paven and Nuka, the oldest woman of Attu’s Clan, had come. She’d volunteered to stay with Paven.
“I’ve been avoiding him until now because he is a fool,” she said, patting Rika’s knee. “But I’ll stay with him so you can go, child. I don’t want to walk that far, into the Raven camp, anyway. These old bones are content to stay here where it’s warm.”
Her words didn’t seem to hurt Rika’s feelings, and Attu had to grin at the Elder as she pulled out a piece of sewing later that day and started waving at Attu and Rika to leave Paven’s shelter, ignoring Paven’s attempts to scare her away with his yelling. She grinned her toothless grin at him and laughed as if what he was saying was the funniest thing she’d heard in a long time.
“And don’t worry,” Nuka added. “If those large white beasts that Paven saw come again in the night while you are all gone, I will tell them they can have this hunter. He is not worth fighting for.” She cackled at her own joke.
Paven roared at her and Nuka laughed again, popping her lips with amusement.
When Attu had looked back, Paven had turned away from Nuka, and buried his head in his furs.
Attu almost felt sorry for him.
Now, they were here, dressed in their best furs and grass clothing, and looking like they did not belong.
Because we don’t.
The feasting began. Attu reeled at the noise of so many people and watched in awe as the Raven hunters ate and ate. There were meats of all types, some roasted, some cooked into thick stews, and at least three kinds of fish. There were berries, nuts, and various cakes made from ground cattail roots, some with a thick sweet filling. There were mussels and crabs and some other shellfish Attu had never seen before. The long planks the Ravens had set up groaned and bent under the weight of so much food.
Attu had taken portions of everything, but what he piled on his board was nothing compared with what these people consumed. They ate as if they’d been starved, although most of the men were no longer lean as they had been when they first arrived, but had blubber around their waists and full cheeks. The women, too, were now full in the hips and breasts with thick upper arms and legs.
Like nuknuks, they have grown fat since they arrived. Attu thought to Rika.
Eating like this would make anyone fat. Rika looked across the crowd of Ravens. Our people have never had this much food, not even here. How do they gather and hunt so much?
I’ve watched them return from the hunt. The men travel far, out into the bay and south, and they send large parties of hunters into the waters upstream. But still, it’s as if they can call the game to them. Somehow it’s connected with their belief in the Raven spirit. But I don’t know how...
Attu and Rika sat with Ubantu and Yural, along with Meavu and Rovek, who spent most of his time near Meavu. Tonight, they sat quietly, staring at everything with wide eyes. Attu smiled at Meavu as she looked around. She hadn’t been in the Raven Clan’s camp before. Attu remembered how he’d felt the first time he’d seen these strange people.
Attu looked over to where Ashukat sat with Tingiyok. He looked sick. Tingiyok wasn’t sick, but he seemed overwhelmed by all the noise and food and the wild ways of these people who strutted around showing off their shiny jewelry of bright shells and stones and other finery, their hair looped or held up high around their faces, like bird animal crests. They stood too close to each other as they talked, moving their arms and heads as if they were indeed ravens pecking at each other.
“They laugh and chatter among themselves like birds. You’re right,” Rika whispered. Attu realized she had heard his thoughts. “Bright birds on branches, black birds in clusters. They look so strange in the torchlight.”
After the feasting, Kagit stood in the doorway of the largest cedar house. “Come in, come in!” He called in their language. Then he called again, in the Raven’s tongue. The Raven people stood, but moved behind Attu’s small group.
As Attu moved to step inside, he felt a sudden urge to turn and run the other way. He hesitated, and only Rika’s hand in his compelled hi
m forward.
Why does this feel like a trap? He mind spoke to Rika.
“Let’s try to stay near the door. This place is made of solid wood and the only ways out are the doors in the sides,” she whispered back.
Kagit motioned for them to sit near the front of the house, before a section that was raised to knee level. Kagit stood on this raised portion, which made him look even taller. As Attu looked, he realized that in the shadows around Kagit were many, many objects piled one upon another. Small mountains of things.
“Why is Kagit surrounded by all those possessions?” Yural asked Ubantu.
But Kagit had raised his arms and all grew quiet. “It is the way of our people to have a celebration when we finish building our great cedar houses. And part of that celebration is the giving of gifts. This is to please the Raven who watches over us all, for He too, loves the bright and shiny things His people love. And so, people of the Ice Mountain Clan and our few Seer friends left with them, we give you all of this.” Kagit grinned, that same eerie grin that was not a grin at all, but a threat, and waved with his hands to encompass all the wealth spread out around him.
Attu was stunned. Looking more closely, he even saw a small wooden boat among the piles of food, fur, tools, cooking spoons, clothing, and carved boxes and trinkets. And he had a sudden thought. Never would his people be able to give gifts such as these back to the Ravens. And a gift that could not be reciprocated was no gift at all.
This IS a trap.
Ashukat rose to his feet, Tingiyok at his side, bowing before Kagit and looking as confused as Attu felt.
“What will he tell Kagit?” Rika whispered.
Attu shook his head. “I don’t know. But pray the spirits guide his tongue.”
“Mighty Raven leader, embodiment of the Great Raven spirit, Ganhada Himself, you bring us great honor to invite us to this feast and to give us such lavish gifts,” Ashukat said. “But we are unfamiliar with your customs. You know we are a small number compared to the greatness of your people, and we are poor when compared to your great wealth. In ten lifetimes in the Here and Now, none of us could ever amass such wealth to return such gifts with gifts of our own. What are we to do? You must know this, great leader, he who is ‘top of the mountain’ and sees all, as you have said. If we refuse your gifts, you may become angry. If we accept them we can never repay you. So...” Ashukat’s voice trailed off. He leaned heavily on his staff and said nothing more.