Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  Uatchiaq nodded slowly and Alaana released him, his chest still heaving with each breath, his face a dazed mask blank of expression.

  In the clearing below, the wolves had all reverted to manshape and arranged themselves around the hearth. Six ragged men were now visible, while shifting silhouettes hinted at others inside the cave as well. One of the men struck flint for a fire with which to roast their meat.

  Alaana felt her stomach churn at the sight. The children. She remembered the boy Aringit playing stick and ball, his little sister dancing gaily at the summer festival. She could see their inuas still hovering over their crisping bodies, lost and alone.

  A clatter of snapping branches erupted beside her and a gigantic gray wolf crashed through the thicket, lunging and snapping. With a quick leap the monster landed full upon Uatchiaq’s back, claws digging firmly in, the long snout dipping at the man’s neck and coming back dripping red. Uatchiaq let loose a horrific wail of pain, held immobile beneath the massive, deadly beast.

  Another wolf came tearing at them from the other side, this one reddish brown in color, its grizzled fur already matted with crusted blood from a previous kill. Alaana fumbled with her tukaq, unsure of the harpoon-headed spear’s utility in such close quarters. She was not a hunter; she didn’t need to be. Her task was to call the animals and soothe their spirits, not drive home the killing spear. Kanak was much quicker with his weapon, and ran his spearhead deep into the wolf’s neck with such driving force the tip emerged from the back of the shoulder. He pushed hard, intent on overturning the animal to reveal its vulnerable underbelly. At such close range there could be no mistake, this was no man in wolf’s clothing, but clearly a full-blooded, snarling beast. The face was no inanimate mask; the snapping jaws all too real, striking with a carnivorous ferocity unequalled in man.

  Aquppak came quickly to Kanak’s aid, plunging his dagger into the wolf’s underbelly, ripping the fur in a wide gash that exposed red meat and steaming intestine. The wolf howled in pain, a sound that froze Alaana where she stood — an agonizing wail that could only have come from the throat of a man!

  Powered by fury and desperation the wolf righted itself, snapping the hunter’s spear at mid-shaft. Kanak was sent tumbling into the snow.

  And yet, too late. The huge timberwolf spun uselessly around, unable to see its adversaries clearly through the haze of pain. Although they struck out wildly, its powerful jaws snapped only at empty air. Alaana drove home her harpoon at last, finding an easy target in the huge beast’s barrel chest.

  The other wolf, having finished its grim work on Uatchiaq, jumped up, poised for another attack. The beast growled softly, its head rocking side to side as it evaluated its tenuous position. Its mate was done. Outnumbered now three-to-one, the gray wolf chose to back off. It retreated into the woods, barking sharply in a call for help.

  “There are too many,” urged Kanak. “We must get away.”

  “Uatchiaq…?” muttered Aquppak, standing numbly before them.

  “Hurry!” ordered Alaana.

  Alaana stepped over the body of Uatchiaq, where it lay amid the blood-red snow, a look of fatal surprise still locked onto his frozen features. His throat was gone.

  Alaana paused to place a smooth black stone at the bloody hollow of his ruined neck. There was no time for burial; she would say the prayer later, after the starving animals of the taiga came to pick Uatchiaq’s body clean. There was time now for only one solitary prayer stone.

  CHAPTER 3

  RED TOOTH AND CLAW

  A special council was held in the karigi, the ceremonial center and men’s meeting place. Presiding over the meeting was the village headman Tugtutsiak. He had long been famous for his powerful build, but looked decidedly leaner in recent years after cutting back on his rations for the benefit of the others. He was still a big man with huge, strong hands. In his left hand he held a rattle which he used to keep order during the meeting. That hand had two fingers missing – lopped off by the end of a wild harpoon-line during a struggle with a big-bearded seal several years earlier.

  Maintaining order was no easy task. Hunger was foremost on everyone’s mind. The men grew paranoid when ravenous, and heated accusations were leveled at anyone who might have broken the taboos and brought misfortune on the rest. Ipalook’s wife confessed to cleaning three seal skins while she was still in mourning for the death of her baby. Sugluk, well-admired for his limitless patience during the seal hunt, admitted to bouts of bad temper against his family. And in a reluctant confession ferreted out by Tugtutsiak, Oonark revealed he had secretly observed his wife while she was giving birth.

  It was agreed that women should refrain from sewing until the crisis was over so the thread wouldn’t draw evil spirits into the village. After the next moon, when the long night lifted and there was finally daylight again, the band would move to the shore and try for better luck with seals and walrus. Perhaps Sedna, the Sea-Mother, would be kind to them. But first they must survive the next few weeks of bitter winter, and deal with the wolves.

  Alaana was asked to explain what the scouting party had seen. A mass of astonished faces stared back as she related her tale of men who put on the rank and rotten skins of the wolf to become inhuman monsters. She described creatures of utter ferocious hunger with blazing eyes and elongated muzzles full of teeth as long as knives.

  “Are they men or beast?” demanded Tugtutsiak in his deep commanding tone.

  “They are men,” she said. “But they have warped the spirits of the forest. When they dress in the fur of the wolf, they become as the wolf.”

  “What must they have given up in return?” asked Aquppak. “What dark bargain have they struck for such a power?”

  “I cannot guess,” answered Alaana.

  “Nothing breeds desperation as does hunger,” said Tugtutsiak.

  “They are no longer men,” spat Kigiuna.

  “Their blood is red,” added Kanak, “and they die stuck on the end of a spear, just like all the rest.”

  “Men or beasts, we will kill them,” announced Tugtutsiak to widespread approval from the men. “We know their lair. We’ll attack right away.”

  “It will not be easy,” explained Alaana. “There are dark forces at work in the taiga. A corruption such as this…” She shook her head. She was at a loss to say more. She was young; there was nothing in her experience to prepare her for a threat of this great measure. The others searched her with their eyes, and she knew her recent inability to call the animals to the hunt weighed heavily on their minds.

  “If only Manatook were here…” muttered Tugtutsiak.

  “Yes, if only,” agreed Alaana. She had no pretensions to being as capable a shaman as her predecessor. Old Manatook had possessed strength perhaps to rival that of his spirit guide, the polar bear, and certainly the ferocity and indomitable will. Whispered tales had it that Manatook had even been able to transform himself into a bear in his younger days, that he had once retained such a form for two full moons during which time he had lived with the white bears and learned their ways. Indeed he had taught the tribesmen how best to walk on thin ice – with legs spread as wide as possible and sliding their feet along quickly – a trick he had learned from the polar bears.

  Alaana felt pressured to offer guidance. With Old Manatook gone, she was the shaman now. She must come up with some plan.

  “We will hold another spirit-calling,” she announced.

  “A spirit-calling,” growled Tugtutsiak. “Weren’t you the one who stood on this very spot three sleeps ago and told us there were no wolves in the taiga?”

  “Yes,” said Alaana firmly. “And I was right.”

  Tugtutsiak bowed his head in grudging agreement, but when his eyes met Alaana’s again it was with little respect.

  “I will appeal to the spirit of Old Manatook,” said Alaana with sudden inspiration. “I will ask him to teach me the trick of changing human shape to that of the white bear. That way, we’ll be sure of victory.”


  Her plan was met with great enthusiasm. Much more than she had expected from this group of people, half of whom believed that Manatook had willfully deserted them. Many of them privately scoffed at the tales of his magical transformations, claiming they were exaggerations born of Manatook’s tall stature, long neck and narrow head which caused him to resemble the great beast, and his habit of wearing a pair of luxurious trousers made of thick polar bear fur.

  Tugtutsiak gazed at Alaana with narrowed eyes. “We will have the spirit-calling,” he said solemnly, although his tone implied he thought it would do them little good. Alaana knew what the headman thought of her. She was young and, even worse, a woman. In his eyes a woman was no shaman at all.

  From the stores in the karigi Alaana gathered the things she would need for the ceremony. She put her ceremonial parka over her heavy winter coat. The ceremonial parka was fashioned from an albino caribou hide inlaid with polar bear teeth for strength and caribou ears for luck, and belted with a string of tiny bone knives. In the crowded confines of the karigi, she began to grow unbearably warm.

  The Moon mask was a large, round, bone-white face. A long thin nose sat above a wide, gaping mouth punctuated by wooden pegs meant to resemble teeth.

  Alaana gave the mask a little twist to straighten the eye-holes. She could only see out of the left which was cut in full circle; the other eye-hole, smaller and crescent shaped, was spaced too wide. With this mask, if the ceremony were successful, the spirit of the Moon would flow into her body. It was well-known that the ghost of a shaman would typically visit for a time on the surface of the Moon before moving on to the land of the dead, and it was Alaana’s hope that Old Manatook could yet be reached by a soul flight to that celestial realm.

  A large round section had been cut from the dome of the karigi to allow a clear path for the shaman’s soul on her flight up into the night sky. Alaana sat on a braided mat of caribou skin. Woven into the fabric were waves of color designed to represent the ever-changing form of Sila, the spirit of the wind.

  Alaana extinguished the lone oil lamp. The men sat in silence. The only sound was the young shaman’s breathing, a rhythmic cadence that grew progressively heavier as she forced herself to relax. In the darkened snow house only Alaana was visible, focused in the pool of starlight that beamed down from the exposed circle of sky. She hoped that wrapped in two parkas and the great mask, she would appear no longer a teenage girl but a bulky awe-inspiring form. The people depended on the shaman for protection from malevolent spirits of the wild. It was she who must save them.

  “The way is made ready for me. The way opens before me.” She spoke clearly and without hesitation, her tone commanding and sure. She repeated this five times, for five was the number of steps which separated the world of the living from that of the dead.

  She produced a small rattle from the inner folds of the ceremonial parka. Its yellowed gourd contained several dried strips of Manatook’s flesh, cut from his forearm many years ago.

  Alaana began a chant Old Manatook had taught her, an appeal to the Moon-Man in the sky to receive her, repeating the words over and over until they lost all meaning. Alaana shook the rattle in time to the ritual words.

  She could hardly bear the stifling heat, but the heavy garments served their purpose. Slowly, she lowered her consciousness, falling into the warm folds of the bulky parka and entered the trance.

  Alaana felt a tremendous euphoria within the allaruk, the vision trance. Despite the gravity of their situation her spirit was suddenly free, relieved of all worldly concern, opening outward like the petals of a rare summer bloom. It was a feeling of total unity, of being in touch with every aspect of her environment. She could feel the pulsing heartbeats of the men in the room as they quickened with anticipation, the good nature of the women and children throughout the camp, the implacable calm of the ice, the loneliness of the snow and the freedom of the wind. Her soul left her body.

  Alaana shot up into the sky like the surest straightest harpoon ever flung from the hand of man toward the face of a god. The iglus of the village retreated below her. The air raced past in freezing sheets, but the ceremonial parka kept her warm. Alaana lost herself in an impossibly deep blue sky whose stars rushed toward her in brilliant lines, sharp and clear in the cloudless night.

  The Moon-Man lived in an enormous iglu in the sky. A team of four ethereal dogs lay tethered beside his giant sledge, which was fashioned from the massive jawbone of a blue whale. As Alaana flew toward the celestial icehouse the huge dogs slowly lifted their heads. Their shimmering fur, made of moonbeams and star dust, glowed silver-white. The dogs did not react aggressively but simply looked up at her, curious at her odd manner of approach. Perhaps they thought her already dead.

  Alaana found the Moon-Man alone in his hut. He was a tall, stern-faced giant with an enormous bleached-white gourd for a head. Hunched over a circular hole in the ice below him, he held a walrus tusk in one hand, a flensing knife in the other. With quick sharp strokes he knocked off little ivory flakes and let them drift down, down into the night sky.

  The Moon-Man slowly lifted his gigantic head up. He turned toward Alaana, his blanched face a twin to the great moon mask. The crescent eye narrowed.

  “Manatook…” mumbled Alaana, choking slightly on the name. She feared she was not bold enough to put the question directly to the awe-inspiring spirit before her.

  The giant’s pale brow wrinkled as he waved Alaana off.

  “I would speak with Manatook…” stammered Alaana, but already it was too late. Falling over backwards, and with the sound of a great cracking of ice, she plummeted down.

  Alaana opened her eyes to behold a circle of eager faces staring at her in the darkened iglu. Her heart sank in her chest as the exhilaration of her wondrous flight faded away to nothingness like ash in a crumbling hearth.

  Off came the heavy mask. Alaana slipped Manatook’s rattle out of sight into the depths of her ceremonial parka, and shook her head. She would not lie to them. Her brother Maguan patted her reassuringly on the back, proclaiming loudly that it was not Alaana’s fault. One had only to look outside to know the difficulty lay in the timing of the enterprise. The moon shone only as a thin crescent this time of the cycle.

  “Useless!” hissed Tugtutsiak and he went back to his house to make ready. Alaana could say nothing to him; the man had lost first his son and now his younger brother Uatchiaq to the ravages of the wolves.

  “Alaana shoulders too much responsibility for one so young,” added Maguan.

  Outside, a light snow had begun. The flakes, like flecks of shaved ivory, drifted gently down into the night sky.

  “It doesn’t matter,” remarked Massautsicq. He was ihumataaq, one who has much wisdom, and his words carried great weight. “We have a good plan and many brave men. We must strike while we still have some strength left among us, and before hunger saps the rest. Let each man bring out his weapons and harness.”

  Alaana pointed out there was no point in using the dogs, as they could never be coaxed to attack such unnatural beasts. They would only spoil the hunters’ approach.

  “As you say, angatkok,” replied Massautsicq.

  Alaana watched the others go to their houses to prepare for the hunt. The men, though terrified at the thought of what they might face in the cold and dark, were desperate to end the siege. They gratefully seized this opportunity to strike back at their enemies, but the shaman’s mind was full of doubts. She couldn’t shake a foul and persistent premonition, the image of dead men strewn over the snow amid frozen pools of blood.

  Kanak led the way across the ice with the unerring strides of a seasoned bloodhound, following the trail he had forged the day before.

  The men wore their heaviest furs and skins, glad for whatever protection the thick garments might provide against raking claw and tearing fang. Many wore coats adorned by amulets fashioned by Alaana and anointed with droplets of her blood to give them power. These included the caribou ears for luck, t
he seal’s claw for a steady hand, and the teeth of the brown bear for strength of arms. As decisive action allays fear, the men moved at a rapid pace, fueled by a desire to meet their terrible foe as quickly as possible, whatever the cost.

  The light snow did not hinder them much. Again there was the conspicuous absence of wind. Kanak found the enemy encampment without difficulty and Tugtutsiak ordered the men to surround the area in a rough semi-circle. He planned to give the bowmen a chance to let loose before he signaled a rush at the lair. In so far as it would be possible to surprise beasts with such sensitive noses, the men arranged themselves along the ridge of the high ground.

  But in the end it was the Anatatook who were to be surprised.

  The enemy camp had very recently been the site of a pitched battle. Six or seven bloody corpses lay strewn about the snow.

  The Anatatook men exchanged cautious glances as they moved carefully down the rocky slope. There were no wolves. They found only dead men, clad in the rotten skins of wolves, their makeshift garments torn, their bodies lifeless. Frozen gouts of blood and thrashed muck showed that they had been killed by slashing claws and savage teeth. The bodies had not been eaten, but a being of extreme power had dashed them about as if they were children’s playthings.

  There was not a soul left alive in the camp.

  They found the bear in the rear of the cave, still locked in a deadly embrace with two wolves. It was a fair-sized polar bear, its thick white pelt matted with red gore and muck, killed by a massive throat wound.

  Alaana shuddered.

  Cries of triumph and relief went up from the men. Miraculously, the battle had been won for them before it had even started. No one saw fit to question their outrageously good fortune except for the shaman.