Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  Many white bears inhabited the caves, some sitting on their haunches or sprawled snoozing on the ice with their feet in the air. They must have found Old Manatook’s scent familiar. They paid little attention to Alaana’s passing, offering only soft chuffing sounds and little yelps that might have represented recognition. Mothers, attentive to their cubs, did not bother to interrupt their grooming to look her way.

  “Go back!” shrieked Manatook’s ghost, “Go home. Go home and set me free.” Alaana felt a tug at the muscles of her shoulders and legs, jerking her slightly backward as the spirit in the skin attempted to physically interrupt her advance. She quelled the restless spirit through an effort of will, letting out a throaty growl in the process. The bears hardly noticed the outburst. Alaana supposed in this place throaty growls were quite common.

  As she moved deeper into the glacier, a pair of large males kept alongside, forming a type of informal escort with their steady lumbering gait. Alaana noticed curious patches of blue dye streaked across the fur under their eyes. She thought she’d seen them before. Then she remembered she had seen them in the words of Higilak. They matched her description of the polar bears that had attacked her father’s hunting party.

  Alaana strode confidently forward, taking subtle cues in direction from the escort. Finally she came to a large cavern which held a marvelous sight.

  About halfway up the height of the tall room a great white bear floated weightlessly. The bear had a cub balanced on each arm, and they appeared to be tending closely to some small detail of the cave wall. Freed from the effects of gravity the bear’s body seemed rounded like an inflated skin hanging in the breeze. At sight of Alaana, the bear made a startled hissing sound. It dropped halfway to the ground in a sudden lurch before remembering itself and hovering again. The two cubs seemed to enjoy the ride, letting out little squeals of excitement during the sudden plunge.

  The old bear lowered them all gently to the icy floor. Rearing up, he towered well above Alaana but his belly flopped nearly to the ground. His fur was coarse and yellowed with age and a pattern of bald spots showed bare black skin, especially at the crest of his scalp and in baggy patches under his eyes. This was an ancient such as Alaana had never seen.

  Most peculiar of all, the bear wore a necklace around its thick neck, a string of faceted colored stones, like thick gemstone plates, that tinkled when he moved.

  “You are not Manatook!” The words burst into Alaana’s skull in the secret language of the shamans, a language which required no voice box, lips or tongue, only a receptiveness of the mind. This magnificent bear was a shaman too.

  “He’s my father,” Alaana replied.

  “You lie! He had no sons.” The bear sniffed at her. “Or daughters.”

  Baring huge yellow teeth, it leaned down toward her, its face moving in close, its breath rancid with a carrion stink. A quick swat of its massive paw struck the bear claw amulet from her neck. Its swipe was so accurate she felt nothing but a whisper of claws across her chest. “Take it off! Now!”

  Alaana removed her clothes and dropped the cloak of skin to the floor. The old bear shuffled back and forth with an odd movement that resembled the pacing of a nervous man, with the added nuisance of having to convert between two-legged and four-legged stances. He held Manatook’s skin on the tip of one black claw, and laid it carefully aside.

  “Satisfied?” asked Alaana. The bitter cold inside the glacier stung at her skin.

  The bear grunted softly, and she got dressed again as quickly as possible.

  “Manatook is dead,” she said sadly.

  “You should know, there is no such thing as death,” returned the bear. “He has simply gone on alone, the golden chain severed, while we sit lingering here. His proper name was Aisaac. And I am certain he had no children.”

  “And yet,” insisted Alaana, “I am his daughter.”

  The bear inspected Alaana’s face, moving closely to squint at her as if with poor eyesight. It paid undue attention to the stump where she had lost her ear to a Yupikut blade.

  At last the bear tilted its oblong head and smiled, in as much as a bear is able to smile. “Tell me Alaana, have you yet learned to call the caribou to the hunt?”

  “Not well, but I’m hoping to improve before I starve all my friends to death.”

  “Hur, Hur! Hur, Hur! You’re brave enough coming here, I’ll grant you that. My name is Balikqi.” The great white bear bowed graciously at the waist, then plopped down onto all fours. The necklace jangled.

  Feeling somewhat reassured, Alaana noticed for the first time that the wall of the cave held a gigantic carving. The smooth, translucent ice presented a vast cliff face such as might be seen to the south, perhaps at the Great Basin Bay. The detail was incredible. Sea birds roosted in the heights, some peering out from their craggy nests, some caught in mid-flight as delicate projections from the wall. Every leaf of clinging ivy, every frond of moss, was embossed in high detail. Near her feet Alaana saw the pointed snout of a fox peeking from a crevasse at the base, so perfectly rendered in clear ice she thought it ready to dart fearfully away.

  “This is beautiful,” she said.

  “That is nothing,” returned Balikqi. “A simple amusement for the cubs.”

  The bear began to walk and Alaana followed, taking a path through tunnels that led even deeper into the glacier.

  “How did he die?”

  “As he lived,” answered Alaana. “Protecting us from harm.”

  “Yes,” returned Balikqi, “He was my most promising student. In a way I believe he surpassed even myself – acting as shaman for both your people and his own. He taught me much about human folk. Tell me, is it really true that the men scrape the hair from their faces and cut their skin with a sharp instrument?”

  “Some do. The cutting is unintentional.”

  The old bear stopped walking as he shook with laughter. “Hur! Hur! Accidentally cutting the face for no reason! It’s even worse than I thought.”

  The two resumed their walk through the caves. Balikqi pointed out various ice carvings adorning the walls, all of great beauty. Alaana was particularly interested in a gigantic image of a star, which seemed to exhibit an infinite variety of points projecting from the center. Depending on how she moved her head, the facets appeared to change and radiate as whispers of bright blue flame danced across the surface.

  “Do you know what they are?” she asked, pointing to the star.

  “Not really,” replied the old bear sadly, “Do you?”

  Alaana shook her head. “You say you were his teacher,” she added, “but Old Manatook—”

  “Aisaac.”

  “Aisaac,” said Alaana, “spent most of his time with us…”

  Balikqi nodded his head, smiling again. “For reasons which I understood completely.”

  Alaana saw a fleeting image of Higilak. She could not be sure if this was a genuine flash of memory or an image placed in her mind by the polar bear shaman.

  “But he was here when we needed him,” said the bear. “He always answered the call.”

  “Until this last time,” noted Alaana.

  “He answered,” returned Balikqi with a flash of milky white fang. “He sent you to us. Do you require food or water? We haven’t much time. The situation is urgent, the problem monumental. I’m going to need your help, young woman.”

  “I am in need of nothing, Old Bear. Except clarification. I want to know.”

  “Yes, to that end I think it would be best to show you. There is something here that human eyes have never seen. Come along.”

  CHAPTER 16

  NUNATSIAQ’S HEART

  “Rrrrr!”

  Iggy punctuated the growl with a shake of his massive shoulders. The girls held on for dear life. He had room enough on his broad back for both six-year-old Millik and eight-year-old Inaloo. The girls laughed in breathless gasps as he swung them this way and that.

  Playing at Big Dog, Iggy pranced about on all fours, splashing so
ft slush up at his delighted passengers. The Anatatook had paused on their journey to the summer camp for Tugtutsiak and some of the other elders to check their course. Iggy continued his wild ride for the girls, darting between sets of legs belonging to men taking a moment of rest and women stretching sore muscles after a long day on the sleds.

  At last he toppled over, careful not to crush his little friends, who howled with glee. Iggy was panting like a dog by now of his own accord, but flailing his tongue comically to add emphasis. Looking up, he saw Tikiquatta standing before him.

  “Come girls,” she said. “It’s time to go.”

  Millik whined disappointment. Inaloo said, “We want to play with Iggy.”

  “Iggianguaq has things to do,” said Tikiquatta.

  Iggy stood up, brushing snow from the front of his pants legs. “I don’t — I mean I do — I have some work to do but, uh, we can stop and talk.”

  “Be the Big Dog again,” said Millik. “Be the Big Dog.”

  Iggy laughed and shook his head. He carefully lined the girls up before their mother. “It’s a beautiful day,” he said. “Isn’t it? I always like it when we go to the lake.”

  “Me too,” replied Tiki. She wasn’t smiling particularly but he thought he saw one of her eyes twinkle at him.

  “Mostly I’m thinking of the fish,” admitted Iggy. “As I remember we left the caches well stocked last year. In a couple of days we’ll have our bellies full of salmon again. I’m so tired of musk ox.”

  Tiki nodded absently.

  “Fish soup!” Iggy said to Inaloo. “Fish heads!”

  “Fish eyes!” she answered with delight.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said laughing. He shook some snow off his shoulder, casting a sly glance at Tiki. She wasn’t laughing but she had smiled. Good enough.

  “Come girls,” she said. “We have to check our sled.”

  She took Inaloo by the hand and turned away, trailing her long golden hair. Tiki most often wore her hair down, as a subtle sign that she was uninterested in advances by men.

  Little Millik paused just long enough to kick Iggy in the shin. He had no idea why she’d done that. Just like her mother, he thought.

  He watched them go. Tiki was a slender woman but the light summer parka allowed more than a hint of her feminine curves at breast and hip. Desire flared up within Iggy’s heart. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

  Her response had not been exactly what he’d been looking for. It never was. She kept her distance, but she had smiled. She had smiled. That was worth something. And there was that twinkle in her eye. Unless he had imagined that. He thought he probably had. What harm would there have been in staying, just for a little while, to talk?

  Maybe she’d thought him a fool, rolling around in the slush. Was that what she’d meant by him having important things to do? Maybe she thought him just a boy. He was, after all, only half her age. He knew she’d seen thirty winters at least. Did she think him a child? He was the biggest of all the Anatatook men, and the strongest. Perhaps there was some way he could demonstrate his strength for her, but he mustn’t be too obvious about it. He couldn’t think of anything.

  He had planned on asking Kanak for advice, but that chance had passed as well. Iggy thought about his real father, whose name had been Anangiaq. Iggy had always called him ataata, which meant father. He had precious few memories of the man, and those too closely wedded to the feelings of intense hunger that he had felt at the end when his family had been trapped by heavy weather in the cave out on the tundra. Anangiaq remained a mystery to him, a long, drawn face with hungry eyes, who had died looking for food for his family.

  Kanak had always been a good father to him. Kanak had enough love in his heart for both his wives and all his children, and enough skins and meat to boot. Of course all of Kanak’s other sons were already married and no bride for him, but Iggy didn’t blame Kanak. There just weren’t enough available women.

  Only a few remained, chiefly those recently widowed in the Yupikut attack. His own mother, Tassiussak, was probably already sought after. But potential suitors would meet with nothing but disappointment on that front. At least for a while. His mother had already lost two husbands, and it did not go well with her. First poor starving Anangiaq and now the heroic Kanak. How much heartbreak could a woman stand?

  Just like Tiki. Two husbands, both dead. Was that the barrier that stood between them?

  Would his mother ever marry again? Would Tiki?

  Is that it, he wondered. Is that why she keeps rejecting me?

  Iggy considered the other available women. There was Ivalu, Ipalook’s widow. She was clever with household chores and an excellent seamstress. But she never seemed to smile. And he’d never heard her laugh, even when her husband had been alive. Tikiquatta had a wonderful laugh.

  There was also Imenak, but she had an obnoxious habit of spitting continuously, even when inside other people’s houses. And she was perhaps even older than Tikiquatta.

  What did it matter? He didn’t care about any of the others. He wanted Tikiquatta. He wanted her to smile at him, and to hold him close to her heart. Anyone could see that she was miserable living with Aquppak and Putuguk. He wanted to make her happy.

  Balikqi led Alaana into the next cavern. The walls of this gigantic room were covered by intricate carvings that told the entire history of the bears of the ice mountain.

  “No time, no time for the past now,” said Balikqi as his claws hooked the nape of Alaana’s parka and pulled her along. “There is so little time.”

  “You sound just like Old Manatook.”

  “Aisaac,” corrected Balikqi.

  The cavern’s dome was laid bare to the open sky by a circular opening at its apex. By some trick of reflection the edges of the opening bent the setting sun’s glow so that it spilled down into the center of the room.

  The huge bear stood up on his hind legs in the cone of warm amber light, his front paws raised high. Alaana caught an echo of his incantation within her own mind. She didn’t understand the words, but all became clear as she felt herself growing lighter and lighter. A strange tingling spread along her backbone, causing a sickening feeling at first, as if her upper body were being pulled skyward while her feet remained pressed to the ground. Let go, she told her legs. Just relax and let go.

  She reached the point where gravity lost all meaning and the dizzy feeling transformed into one of pure joy. The cave floor drifted away as the pair floated up into the cone of light showering down from the roof. They spun gently as they rose. An intentional flourish on the part of Balikqi, Alaana thought, in order to better show off the view.

  They passed through the ceiling and out into the polar evening, drifting upward until they reached a vantage point high above the cave. The clear sky highlighted the crystalline beauty of the glaciers all around. The sight struck Alaana breathless as she hovered in this wondrous new middle ground, the darkening sky above, the purple landscape below. Endless vista upon endless vista, limitless, infinite, with the two of them hanging weightless in between. All her troubles seemed to melt away.

  “The problem is there,” said Balikqi. The polar bear shaman indicated a point in the direction of the setting sun. “That mountain of ice stands in the way, blocking the flow of warm water from the other side. Each season our world gets colder. The ringed seals can live here no longer, the ice grows too thick for them to come up, and we haven’t enough food to survive. The mountain is in the wrong place.”

  Alaana gazed across the ice plain at the gigantic glacier in question.

  “We need to move it but a little,” said the bear contritely, “Just two finger’s breath to the side, to let the warm stream pass in. Over time it will carve its own way through. We need only to get it started.”

  “Move the glacier?” asked Alaana incredulously. “It can’t be done!”

  The two of them lurched in mid-air. “Rawwwrr! Don’t say it can’t be done. I’ve spent half my life m
aking up for Aisaac’s folly.” Balikqi grunted in anguish, and brought them down in a juttery path back to the cavern floor. Alaana hit the ground harder than she would’ve expected, a thump that jarred her to the bone. Her knees buckled and she tumbled awkwardly backward. The bear plopped down beside her. He made a much gentler landing, she noticed.

  “I suppose I must tell you the story,” Balikqi said, “As embarrassing as it may be to your friend’s memory. But please,” and at this he pointed a long black claw in Alaana’s direction, “Mind yourself. I won’t tolerate skeptical thoughts.”

  Alaana mumbled an apology, but the bear waved her off and began his tale.

  “When Higilak and Aisaac were first married they lived in a stone house. They were very happy together even though he must disguise himself as a man, keeping the truth even from her. Not surprisingly he was a magnificent hunter. The girl grew intensely proud of him, and had the idea to return to her old village so that she might show off her new husband. As he was an excellent provider, she felt certain they would be well received and all the troubles of the past forgiven. But the journey was long and dangerous, undertaken during midwinter at Higilak’s impetuous urging.” Here the bear shook his head as well as a polar bear, who has no neck to speak of, may do so.

  “Aisaac could deny her nothing, it seemed. I can’t criticize him in this too much, I’ve had my own share of misadventurous matings. When I was younger, you understand.”

  The great beast’s head lolled downward, his arched snout turning slightly away. His eyelids drooped for a moment and Alaana thought he was on the verge of falling asleep, although he might just as well have been looking down at his twinkling necklace of stones.

  “Old Bear?”

  “Hur? Oh, yes. I know.” Balikqi looked up sharply, the glimmer in his liquid brown eyes almost a twin to that of the necklace. “I know. Aisaac and Higilak crossing the ice. By the time they neared the village they were snow burnt and Higilak was half-crazed with hunger. Even worse, a wind storm was hurling snow and ice in a violent swirl around the whole area. Of course Aisaac immediately recognized the true nature of the storm. He bade his wife stay put in the shelter of a crevasse in the rock face while he went forward to investigate. With that, he stepped into a white curtain of pure rage.