by Sue Harrison
Cen nodded, then said, “And the sax and a chigdax. Maybe boots. I want to bring my wife a good price for this parka. It has much luck in it. Don’t forget to explain about the flicker beaks.”
“I told them.”
“Good.” Cen looked up at the sky, found the brightness that was the sun hidden behind a bank of high clouds. “The day is half gone. Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” Ghaden said.
“Qung will have something in her cooking bag.”
Ghaden left the beach, turned to watch as Cen lifted his voice to beckon several hunters to his display of trade goods. Two groups of Walrus men had come that day. The Walrus were always greedy for weapons, and Cen had a good supply of birch spear shafts. He would make some fine trades.
Ghaden did not go immediately to Qung’s ulax, but instead visited the cache where he and Cen stored food and extra trade goods. He had promised one of Aqamdax’s parkas to a First Men hunter in exchange for six bellies of oil. He took the parka from the cache as well as a few wolf pelts, a packet of bear teeth, and several claw necklaces. Perhaps the man would be willing to trade a few more bellies of oil for a bear claw or a wolf pelt.
Ghaden rubbed at the scar on his neck. Sometimes it prickled, as though the bear’s spirit now and again thought of him. Among the First Men a bear claw might bring much in trade, or perhaps nothing at all. As Cen often told him, the value of any one thing changed from man to man.
“That one, the River boy,” K’os said, and pointed to Ghaden as he stood speaking to several First Men hunters. He was holding up a wolf pelt and dangled something from his left hand, but K’os was too far away to see what it was.
“As husband for Uutuk?” Seal asked.
“Only something to consider,” she told him. “I know his family. His sister is married to the chief of the elders in one of the River villages, and his mother was First Men, so he speaks our language.”
“It might be better for us if she married a hunter,” Seal said. “Since I am a trader and can get anything we need….”
“More than what we need,” K’os interrupted him to say. “There are not many traders who are as gifted as you.”
He pressed his mouth into a frown, and K’os could hear the boasting under his words when he said, “So what good will it do her to marry a trader?”
“He is a hunter,” K’os said. “His father is a trader, and Ghaden sometimes travels with him.”
“A good hunter?” Seal asked.
“Qung told me that he killed a brown bear when the animal attacked him.”
Seal tilted his head and made a noise in his throat. Laughter or disdain? K’os was not sure.
“Should I tell Uutuk to stay away from him?” she asked.
Seal puffed out his chest with a long breath. “See what he offers in a brideprice. See if he is willing to come and stay on our island and hunt there.”
K’os nearly explained that Ghaden would not know much about hunting sea animals, but she held her tongue. Let Seal believe what he wanted. Once Ghaden had Uutuk as wife, it would be too late for Seal to change things just because the man hunted caribou rather than sea lions.
She dipped her head in acknowledgment, then asked, “May I get you something to eat?”
“The chief’s first wife fed me,” he said. “But it has been a long time since I had you in my bed.”
K’os curled her lips into a smile, allowed her eyes to drop briefly toward Seal’s crotch. “When you have made enough trades, come and find me,” she said. Then she walked away, swinging her hips.
When she knew Seal could no longer hear her, she looked up at the sun, hidden as it was behind a thick mat of clouds, and she said, “Look! What do I see? In giving it takes. In taking it lives. A riddle for you, my sister in the sky.”
Ghaden hummed under his breath and considered the fur seal sax. It was beautiful and more practical for a River man than a birdskin sax, warmer and not easily torn, but River women did not sew feathered birdskins and so a birdskin sax would have more worth.
“Two teeth and a claw,” the man said, “and for a wolf pelt, I will give you these seal flipper boots.”
The boots were old, but they looked as if they had seldom been worn.
“I kept them oiled,” the man said.
Ghaden traded the teeth and claw for the fur seal sax, gave him his choice of pelts for the boots, then asked if he knew of anyone else who had seal flipper boots to trade.
“Sometimes the old women make extra pairs and are willing to take food for them. You have caribou meat?”
“Some,” Ghaden told him, his mind already on Qung. He and his father would give the old woman a good supply of dried meat for allowing them to stay in her ulax, but she might have boots to barter, or know of someone who did.
He went to her after he had completed his trades with the First Men hunter. Qung gave him the names of three women, and each had something worthwhile to trade, a pair of boots, delicate shell bead necklaces, a puffin skin sax, grass baskets so finely woven that Ghaden could scarcely believe a woman’s fingers had made them.
He traded for all of them and stowed the goods in his cache. Then he went to Cen and offered to take his place at their trading mats.
Cen was gone for a good share of the afternoon, and during that time Ghaden went to his cache, brought out the seal oil bellies, the puffin skin sax, the seal flipper boots, the grass baskets, two caribou hides of his own, and a handful of shell necklaces. He piled these things with Cen’s trade goods and took the caribou parka.
Ghaden had intended to tell Cen about the trade, but as soon as Cen returned a group of Walrus men crowded around him, began making offers for spear shafts and knapped points, so Ghaden let his father take over the trading and returned to Qung’s ulax. There were questions he needed to ask her about First Men customs and brideprices.
He was still with Qung when Cen came in. Ghaden looked up, surprised to see that his father had left his trade goods. A man had little to worry about in this village as far as anyone taking what did not belong to him, but why leave the trading in the middle of the day when the best barters were often made?
“The parka is gone,” Cen said, interrupting rudely, without greeting Qung.
“I am glad you have come to my ulax,” Qung said, and rose to her feet. She was so bent by her humped back that she reminded Ghaden of a duck, waddling on widespread legs. She hobbled to a low-slung hook where she kept a water bladder and offered it to Cen.
Cen’s face reddened. He took the water, murmured his thanks, then drank.
“Sit down,” Qung said, the words like an order given to a child. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” Cen bit out the word.
“Now, you have something to say to Ghaden?” she asked, raising her eyebrows into the wrinkles of her forehead.
“Yes, I have something to say to Ghaden. The white caribou parka is gone.”
“I traded it,” Ghaden told him.
Cen took in a mouthful of air, then blew it out between his teeth. “You should have told me,” he said, his voice low and quiet.
“It was a good trade.”
“What did you get?”
“A puffin sax and one of fur seal, two pair of seal flipper boots, necklaces and baskets, and eight bellies of oil. I put out the fur seal sax, the oil and boots, and some of the necklaces, but the puffin sax and the baskets are in my cache.”
Cen was still angry, but Ghaden could see that he was pleased about the trade goods, and gradually his anger faded. But he held up one finger, and like an old woman shook it in Ghaden’s face.
“You should have told me, and even though it was a good trade, you should have asked me before making it. The parka belongs to my wife.”
“Grass baskets and a birdskin sax will not please her?” Qung asked.
Cen blinked and looked at the old woman as though he had forgotten she was with them. “She is not difficult to please,” he said. “She would be happy with the baskets alone, bu
t I want her to know …”
He stopped as if unsure how to say what he meant, and Qung said, “You want her to know that you missed her and that you think she is a good wife.”
Cen merely grunted, and when he walked to the climbing log, his footsteps were heavy, as though he needed to remind himself of his own importance. At the top of the ulax he looked down at Qung and said, “See if you can teach him some wisdom, Aunt.”
After Cen left, Qung put her hands over her mouth and began to laugh, but when Ghaden joined her laughter, she settled herself back onto her haunches and said, “Your father is right, you know. You should not have made that trade by yourself. What if you had taken too little?”
“It was not a problem,” Ghaden told her.
She tilted her head, asking a question without speaking.
“I own the caribou hide parka,” he said. “I traded it to myself. If my father was not pleased with the trade, then I would have given more.”
“This Boat People woman—Uutuk, K’os’s daughter—you plan to give it to her?” Qung asked.
“How did you know?”
“I am old, but I see well enough.” She lifted her chin toward an ulax rafter and told him, “Bring down that seal belly for me. I need oil for the lamp.”
He stood and reached for it, took out the stopper, and poured oil into the side of the stone lamp farthest from the clump of moss she used for a wick.
“Be careful,” she said, “or you will douse the fire.”
When the bowl of the lamp was full, she waved one hand at him and said, “Hang it up again.”
He replaced the belly on its peg, then she pointed at the floor with pursed lips. “I think you had better sit down and talk to me.”
He turned toward her but remained standing.
“Sit!”
He sat.
“You are making a brideprice,” she said, “but you hardly know this girl. Her father is not much, and you have heard about her mother. What River man has not?”
“Yes, I know her mother,” Ghaden said, “and I know what she did to my sister.”
“Daughters are like their mothers. Surely you are old enough to have realized that.”
“Uutuk is not like K’os.”
Qung began nodding her head, keeping a rhythm as though she were listening to a drumbeat. Finally she said, “And what if you are wrong? Are you willing to chance that you might bring another K’os into your village?”
“I told you. She is not like K’os.”
“You have seen her sewing?”
“It is very good.”
“She has her own medicine bag, a sea otter. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“You know that K’os is a healer?”
“I know.”
“And she also uses her knowledge of plants to kill.”
“Some people say that.”
“Did you know that she sews very well?”
“I have seen parkas she made.”
“Then how can you say Uutuk is not like her mother?”
“In these things—in the good ways—she might be like K’os.”
“Only in good ways?”
“Uutuk is not K’os. There is no hatred in her.”
Qung began nodding again, and finally even closed her eyes, so that Ghaden thought she had fallen asleep. He had nearly decided to get up when she said, “Uutuk seems to be a good woman, which means either that she is a good woman, or that she is very good at being evil.”
Ghaden considered her words, then said, “She is a good woman. I know it.”
“Then if you are sure, and you have decided to make her your wife, there are things you should know about First Men customs.”
He waited, but Qung did not say anything more. Finally he asked, “Do you know someone who will talk to me about these customs?”
“Do you think there is anyone who knows more than I do?”
He smiled at her. “No, but I am not sure you want to tell me what you know.”
“Better I should tell you than someone who will give you poor advice. But you are not the only one in this ulax who trades.”
“I have oil,” he said to her, “and caribou meat.”
She waved a hand at him. “I have more than enough to keep me through the next winter and even beyond that, and I am still not too old to catch a few fish and gather sea urchins.”
“Baskets? Necklaces? A parka. I have a parka my sister Yaa made, not as beautiful as some, but the caribou hide is well scraped and the seams are straight and strong.”
Qung wrinkled her nose as she considered his offer; then on impulse he lifted one of the bear claws he had strung on sinew and hung at his neck. He untied the sinew and held out the claw, a long brown curl, polished to brightness with caribou fat. She squinted at it, reached out and took it, then cradled it in her lap, but she asked, “What would an old woman do with a bear claw?”
“Power is power,” Ghaden told her.
She chortled to herself and wrapped her fingers around the claw, held it as she told Ghaden the First Men customs of taking wives.
“She is worth more than a few seal bellies of oil and six necklaces,” Seal said to Ghaden.
They were sitting on the lee side of the chief hunter’s ulax, away from the wind. Trail-walker, brother of one of the chief’s wives, sat with them. He was thin, long of legs, and tall. His large nose and narrow face made him look out of place among the First Men. Like Seal, he had cut his hair in a fringe across his forehead, and large round labrets pierced his skin at the corners of his mouth.
“Get some caribou meat,” Trail-walker said to Seal, the labrets clicking against his teeth.
“Trades are better made between two men,” Seal told him. “Be quiet and let me think about this.”
Trail-walker leaned close to whisper into Seal’s ear, but Seal pushed the man away and said to Ghaden, “She sews well. Do you want to see one of the parkas she made?”
Ghaden agreed, though he knew that Seal was only trying to make the bargaining more difficult.
Seal climbed up to the ulax roof and went inside, returning with a large, square trader’s pack. He untied the flap and pulled out a black-feathered birdskin sax, unrolled it and held it up. Ghaden grunted his approval, then noticed a few stitches of red sinew on the top edge of the collar rim.
“Your wife used to live in my village,” Ghaden said. “She owned my oldest sister as slave. I know K’os’s mark.” He reached out and fingered the red stitches. “This is not Uutuk’s work. Perhaps you are ashamed of what she sews …”
Trail-walker bumped Seal with his elbow and gave a quick shake of his head.
“Do not take me for a fool,” Seal said to Trail-walker. “I did not notice that this was my wife’s work. Wait.”
He dug through the pack, pulled out another rolled sax, then two more, checking the collar rims on each. Finally he grunted and threw one toward Ghaden. Ghaden unrolled it. He knew little about stitching and cutting, but he had seen Cen turn a garment to the inside, run his fingers across the seams, and sniff the hides, so Ghaden did all these things. He noticed that the stitches were small and even, which seemed good. Birdskins smell different than caribou hides, so he could not be sure about the odor, whether good or bad, but they carried no stink of mold.
Thrusting out his chin as if he knew what he were talking about, Ghaden said, “Well made.”
“She sews quickly. She can make a sax of puffin skins in just a few days.”
Trail-walker rubbed his nose and commented, “What does he know about puffin skins? He is River.”
“Puffin skins are smaller than cormorant,” Seal explained to Ghaden. “It takes a woman more time to make a sax from puffins.”
Ghaden did not answer. Trail-walker had insulted him, assuming his ignorance about puffins and cormorants, but Seal did not seem to notice Ghaden’s silence. He continued to chatter about his daughter’s abilities.
“Her mother has taught her about pl
ants. It is useful to have a wife who knows something about healing.”
“Would she be willing to live with the River People?” Ghaden asked.
“She wants a husband who will hunt for her family. How can you do that if you go back to live in a River village?”
At first Ghaden had no answer. Surely Seal was wise enough to realize that a man who had spent his life learning to hunt caribou would be of less use than a boy when it came to taking sea animals.
“I could make sure that my father always brought a good supply of dried caribou meat to the Traders’ Beach each summer,” Ghaden said. “You could claim it here. Surely with your own hunting skills, you do not need more seal or sea lion meat, and because you are a trader, you could make good deals with the caribou I provide for you.”
Trail-walker spoke again into Seal’s ear. This time Ghaden heard what he said. It was an insult, but Ghaden held in his anger and waited for Seal to speak.
“How do I know you will do such a thing?” Seal asked. “I do not come to this beach every year. It is too far to travel.”
“I give you my word. Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I do not lie. I will send meat whether you are here or not. If you do not come, the chief hunter can use it and later exchange seal oil for what he and his people have eaten. You know that the men of this village can be trusted. They often do things like this for traders. Why do you think traders continue to come to their beach?”
Seal pinched his lips into a frown. “I will not be here next year,” he said, “so perhaps you should give me now what I would have coming.”
“What if she is not a good wife?” Ghaden countered. “A man cannot be expected to pay for a wife who does not please him.”
Seal looked at Trail-walker, but Trail-walker only shrugged. “A caribou hide of dried meat,” Seal finally said. “I will give her to you for two wolf pelts, the oil and necklaces, and a caribou hide of dried meat. She is yours as soon as you bring the oil and meat. Do not forget the necklaces, but give the most beautiful to my daughter. Tell her it is from me. Tell her that I expect grandsons in exchange.”
Trail-walker leaned close again, and Seal listened, then smiled. “One last thing,” said Seal and lifted his chin toward Ghaden’s chest. “A bear claw.”