Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  She is only a girl, he reminded himself. A girl’s life was not easy, nor even necessarily good. As wife, she would spend her days working hard, her nights serving a husband who might not be easy to please.

  He had been good to his own wives, Water Gourd assured himself. Most of the time, anyway. Perhaps in his youth he had been more impatient with his first wife than he should have been. Demanding. But surely he had made up for that over the years, and paid for it with his fourth wife, wicked and self-centered as she had been.

  Perhaps, then, for both he and Daughter, it was good that the sea urchins were gone. Perhaps neither of them had much to live for. Now, he could give serious thought to dying. How can a man consider the necessity of death when he still has food?

  He set his thoughts onto ways of dying. Starvation was certainly one, drowning another, but neither seemed appealing. Water Gourd still had his knife. He could cut into his veins, knotted like blue worms under his skin. But thinking of blood turned his thoughts to butchering, and for most of that first day after their food was gone, Water Gourd was lost in remembering the feasts of the past, times of celebration.

  He filled his mind with the remembrance of sea urchins, split and ready to eat, rich as the boar fat that dripped from spits into the roasting fires. Delicate chestnut cakes, roasted nuts and tubers, grass seeds pounded fine and mixed with water, cooked on flat stones and rolled around a paste of fish. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to eat his way through such a meal, finishing with flower blossoms, bitten and sucked to get at the nectar.

  And it wasn’t until Daughter’s whimpering brought him from his feast back to the cold, wet hulk of the boat that he realized that instead of thinking about death, he had spent most of the day considering life.

  He was disgusted with himself. If he wasted his time thinking about eating, how could he hope for an honorable death?

  “There is nothing to eat,” he told Daughter sadly, and she pulled her fingers out of her mouth and puckered her lips into a pout.

  “Fish,” she said.

  “No fish,” he told her.

  She pointed at several empty sea urchin shells that littered the bottom of the boat. “Fish,” she said again, in a more demanding way. He leaned down and picked up a shell, handed it to her. She licked at the inside, then played with it for a while, and for the first time he realized that she needed a toy. Didn’t all children have toys? He considered cutting away the edge of one of the blankets, tying it into something that would look like a doll—legs and arms and head—but then he realized his foolishness. They needed the blankets much more than Daughter needed a doll. She was happy enough with the sea urchin shell, prickly though it was.

  But the thought of cutting the blanket set another idea into his mind. Perhaps he could make some kind of line from the blanket, or better yet from the fiber of his shirt. He began to examine the edges of the jacket where stitches caught up a hem of sorts to keep the fabric from unraveling. He picked at the thread, wondered what it was made of. He had seen the women of the village pounding bark, perhaps to separate it into threads for sewing. Sometimes they twisted sinew, but what man paid attention to that? Curses were too easy to come by as it was. Why bring them on yourself with an inordinate interest in women’s work?

  By the time he had picked out the stitches, he had a section of thread as long as his arms stretched wide. Perhaps enough to catch a fish, he thought. He tugged at it, and decided it was strong enough to hold. He used his knife to cut away a section of wood from the edge of the boat, managed to take off a piece as long as his fist and as big around as two fingers. He smoothed the center of the wood, then tied one end of the line around it.

  “A hand line,” he said to Daughter, and she repeated the words. “For fish,” he told her.

  “Fish,” she said, and clasped her hands to her belly and began to cry. “Fish,” she said. “I want fish.”

  He gave her a little of his hoarded water, and it seemed to calm her. He held her tightly against the warmth of his stomach and watched as her eyes closed, fluttered open and closed again. Finally she slept, and he began to consider how to make a hook.

  When the Bear-gods attacked his outrigger, two of their spears landed inside the boat. Water Gourd had nearly thrown them into the sea, fearful of the curse they might carry, but then he had decided to keep them. His first thought had been to use them on land to hunt small animals he and Daughter might come across, but now that they were so far out on the sea and their paddle was gone, how could he hope to hunt?

  He had spent several days, when they still had sea urchins to eat, holding one of the spears poised over the edge of the boat, ready to thrust it at any fish that came close, but he had seen no fish, and finally gave up. What could he expect? he asked himself. It was a Bear-god spear, and what did the Bear-god People know about the sea? The fish had probably seen the spear as insult, and most likely thought he, himself, was a Bear-god.

  He had tried to fashion a paddle using a spear as a shaft, but he couldn’t gouge out a wide enough piece of wood from the boat to serve as blade. Besides, the spears were thrusting lances, the shafts too short for paddles unless he leaned far over the edge of the boat.

  Before he made his decision, Daughter’s warmth against his belly drew him into sleep, and in his dreams he was again a boy, idle for some reason and watching the village stone knapper. That stone knapper was long dead, and even in his dream, Water Gourd had a hard time remembering the man’s name. Finally it came to him. Carver—probably not his true name, but a name, like Water Gourd, bestowed because of what the man did.

  In that time long ago, Carver had made most of the spears, knives, and tools for the people of the village. For two years, Water Gourd had been his apprentice, learning the patient art of stone knapping, but then in the foolishness of his youth, he had decided he would rather hunt or fish.

  But that night in the cedar boat, Water Gourd watched Carver in his dreams, and he realized that he remembered much. There was the pad of leather used to protect the left hand as it cradled the stone; the deer antler punch and the fist-sized rock used as hammer; punches, drills, and incising tools to make arrow points from bone. All that night of sleeping, Water Gourd watched and learned.

  In the morning, he unwound the sinew that bound the Bear-god spearhead to its shaft. He spoke in soothing tones to the stone as he freed it, so it would not be afraid of what he was about to do. He didn’t want it to shatter in his hands.

  He wrapped the sinew around his wrist and tied it, so he would not lose it. Then he carved himself a punch from the bone haft of his wrist knife, made a new handle from the shaft of the Bear-god spear. The knife wasn’t as beautiful, but it was usable. He chose a ballast stone to be his hammer and padded his left hand with a corner of the smaller deerskin blanket. He gripped the spearhead and began a careful reshaping, narrowing and thinning the base of the blade until he was able to chip away several long thin splinters of stone.

  Water Gourd looked at his fingers in wonder, at the swollen, misshapen joints, and was amazed at what he was able to do. It seemed as though he could feel Carver’s hands on his own, guiding, teaching, for surely the work was not Water Gourd’s alone.

  He knapped the narrow end of the largest stone splinter into a point, then cut another chunk of wood from the spear shaft, carved it down, and with his knife dug a hole where he inserted the blunt end of the splinter, the sharp end jutting up at an angle away from the wood. He bound the point in place with some of the sinew and used the rest as a leader to attach the completed hook to the length of line he had unraveled from his jacket.

  It had taken him most of the day, for he had had to stop several times in his work to comfort Daughter, to wash out the rags that were now always wet between her legs. Her buttocks and the tiny woman’s cleft between her legs were rough and red, swollen with a rash, and she fussed some, pulling at the rag now and again, but most of the time, she only sat, half asleep, so he wondered if she were considering
death herself, a preparation to allow her spirit to slip easily from her body.

  He considered what he would do with her if she died. The easiest thing would be to drop her into the sea, but would that be wise? Surely her flesh would be good and sweet, though he would not eat her himself. What man could risk a curse like that? But if he dropped her body into the sea, the fish would eat her. So what difference would it make if he used her for bait? The fish would still eat her, but he would have a chance to get himself some food.

  He sat a long time watching her, and once she looked up at him, smiled around the fingers in her mouth. His heart squeezed tight, and he angrily batted at the tears that suddenly burned in his eyes. Ah ee! What foolishness, to care about a child so young that she could hardly talk!

  Maybe he could catch a fish before she died, and the meat would give her the strength to live a little longer. He sat the girl down in the middle of the boat, in a place that was not too wet. With the remaining part of the spear shaft, he began to dig through the debris in the bow. Perhaps he would find something—a hard fin left from the smoked fish that had been in Daughter’s pot, a glob of sea urchin eggs that he could rub on the hook.

  A tatter from one of the deerskin blankets might attract a fish, but there were curses that came when a man put land animals in fish bellies. Surely he had enough bad luck as it was. Why ask for more?

  He lifted each ballast stone, searched Daughter’s pack. Finally he found half a sea urchin shell. Except for that shell, there was nothing, not even a bit of waste from one of Daughter’s rags. That was what happened when a man went for too many years without a wife. He got used to cleaning up after himself.

  He finally took the shell and tied it on the hook, lowered the hand line into the water. He had thought he might need to attach a bit of stone to weight the line, but the stone hook was heavy enough to carry it down. He leaned over the boat and watched it drop as he unwound line from the wooden handle.

  He watched for a long time, but saw no fish, and finally, his back aching, he sat up and scanned the sea. As swells lifted the boat, he looked out toward the horizon. Sometimes his eyes fooled him into thinking he saw land where there was none. Then the sea dropped the boat into a trough between the waves, and there was nothing but water rising, so that he marveled they had lived this long and not been swallowed up.

  This day, with his hook and line and the hope of fish, Water Gourd decided that the sea was friend rather than enemy. He sang a fisherman’s song in his old creaky voice, then told Daughter that the walls of water that rose smooth and green around them would soon bring a fish to his hook.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula

  602 B.C.

  A LOUD VOICE INTERRUPTED Qumalix’s story. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head as though she needed to remind herself where she was. In the dim light of the ulax, Yikaas could see she was searching for the one who had called out.

  A man rose to his feet. He crossed his arms over his chest, puffed himself up with a full, long breath of air. He was First Men. He wore an otterskin sax, a long hoodless parka favored by both men and women of the Traders’ Beach, and ivory labrets pierced his skin at the corners of his mouth. Kuy’aa had explained to Yikaas that a man’s labrets were signs of his family’s lineage and his place in their village. This man’s labrets were large circles, and from each, a blunt tusk protruded the length of a finger joint. Vertical lines darkened his chin, and a path of circles and dots crossed his cheeks. No doubt he was a hunter from some powerful family. Did he not have a hunter’s tattoos?

  But to Yikaas’s surprise Kuy’aa leaned close and whispered, “I know him. His name is Sky Catcher, and he’s a storyteller from a First Men village a day’s journey west of this Traders’ Beach.”

  Sky Catcher spoke, and though Yikaas could not understand his First Men words, he heard the belligerence in the man’s voice, and felt a sudden urge to protect the girl who had been telling them such a good story.

  Yikaas hoped that she would translate Sky Catcher’s words, but she did not. She answered him in a respectful voice, and their conversation went on, Sky Catcher’s harsh comments, the girl’s soft answers, until several River traders in the ulax spoke out to protest.

  “What does he want?” one asked.

  “Tell us what he’s talking about,” said another.

  Finally Qumalix held up one hand, palm out, a request for silence. She lifted her eyes to the River traders and said, “He claims that he likes my story well enough, but that he has never heard of the Boat People. He wants to know if they are First Men or even River, and if not, he asks why I talk about them rather than tell stories of people we know, like Chakliux and K’os or Aqamdax—those people whose stories have come to us from times long ago.”

  Yikaas had to admit that he had wondered the same thing. Since Qumalix was from the Whale Hunter islands, he had expected her stories to be about First Men, not Boat People. But still, he was not rude enough to interrupt and ask as Sky Catcher had.

  “If you will be patient,” Qumalix said, “you will see how the stories of Daughter and Water Gourd fit together with those about Chakliux and his family.”

  Sky Catcher asked another question. Qumalix answered, then said in the River language, “He wants to know if the Bear-god warriors are River people.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from other First Men, but the River traders raised their voices in outrage. “We’re not like that. We would never attack a peaceful village. Perhaps the Bear-gods are First Men.”

  Then one of the First Men traders called out, “We have heard your stories about the Near River and Cousin River people. They almost killed each other off. How can you claim to love peace? Besides, we First Men know how to build good boats. We would never make boats like those the Bear-god People used.”

  The argument grew worse, words flying. Men stood to shout at one another, and women screeched out insults. Yikaas huddled where he was, angry at all of them for interrupting a story he wanted to hear, angry most of all at Sky Catcher, who had started all the foolishness.

  Kuy’aa pushed herself up to her feet and hobbled to the climbing log. Yikaas sighed and got up to follow her. Surely the storytelling had lasted long enough so that the sun had set, even on this short summer night, and he didn’t want Kuy’aa to wander around the village alone, lost, as she looked for the ulax where she was supposed to stay. But to his surprise, once she had ascended several notches on the climbing log, she turned back to face the people and, setting two fingers at the corners of her lips, blew out a long, shrill whistle.

  The arguing stopped, and mouths dropped opened in surprise as the people realized that the whistle had come from an old River woman.

  “Be quiet!” she shouted at them. Then she lifted her chin toward Qumalix. The girl still stood in the storyteller’s place, her hands clenched together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Tell your story,” said Kuy’aa. “Those who do not want to hear it can leave.”

  There was a mumble of agreement among the River traders, and questions from the First Men until someone translated Kuy’aa’s words. Several men and one woman left the ulax, among them Sky Catcher, but the others settled down and urged the girl to continue.

  Yikaas wondered if she would after so much arguing and rudeness. She rubbed her fingers against her eyes, and he saw the tiredness in her face, but she started to speak, at first so quietly that he could hardly hear her. Her voice trembled, and Yikaas lowered his head, embarrassed to look at her, but as she spoke, her words grew stronger.

  Soon Yikaas was caught again in her story. Once more he was Water Gourd, an old man trying to cheat death as he and Daughter drifted north on a sea that seemed to stretch to the end of the earth.

  The North Pacific

  6447 B.C.

  DAUGHTER’S STORY

  Water Gourd fished two days without a bite. Each morning was gray with fog, the sun little more than a patch of brightness
, scarcely strong enough to coax away the night. When a fish finally did take his hook, Water Gourd’s fingers were so numb with the cold that at first he wasn’t sure he had felt anything at all, but he bent quickly and set Daughter in the bottom of the boat, shushed her protest at being taken from the warmth of his lap.

  “Fish,” he whispered to her, and she was quiet.

  The nibble came again, and Water Gourd tensed his arms, ready to snap the line and set the hook, knowing that if he moved too soon, he would scare the fish away. For a long time, he felt nothing, and the fear that he had not moved quickly enough settled in his stomach like a rock. He was suddenly dizzy, too long without food, too weak, and he wondered whether he would be strong enough to bring a fish in even if it did swallow the hook.

  Thoughts of death again blackened his mind, and he shook his head to drive them away. What fisherman gives up after one nibble? He jiggled the hand line, lowering it slowly and then jerking it up, allowing it to fall again. Suddenly the line was tugged so hard that it nearly jumped from his fingers.

  He cried out and began to sing one of the chants fishermen use to charm fish. It was a song for nets and not hand lines, but at least the fish would hear his Boat People words and know that he was a man who honored the sea and those who lived in it.

  The fish was strong, and as it sped away from the outrigger, it began to pull them. Water Gourd held tightly to the wooden hand grip and contemplated the strength of his line. He interrupted his song to speak to it, begging it to hold, to stay strong.

  “Strong,” Daughter echoed from where she sat in the bottom of the boat. Then she looked up at Water Gourd and asked, “Fish?”

  “Fish,” Water Gourd told her. “A big fish.”

  “A big fish,” she said solemnly.

  A shadow moved in from the sea, changed from shadow to fish, swam until it neared the boat. Water Gourd’s breath caught so hard in his throat that he nearly choked. It was huge, that fish. Surely too large to catch. Should he hang on, use up what little strength he had, or cut the line?