Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  “It’s tainted,” said Alaana. “I think all this meat is tainted. We shouldn’t eat any of it.”

  “I’m not afraid,” said Aquppak. “Do you hear me? I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Having pried out the fresh liver, he held it aloft, saying, “You hear? And I don’t have to listen to you, Alaana. I’ll take what’s mine.” So saying, he raised the tender organ to his lips and took a bite, letting the blood and juices run down his chin.

  Alaana moved swiftly toward the headman’s tent, careful not to spill the soapstone pot containing her freshly steaming piss. Even wounded, Tugtutsiak was seated outside his tent. The headman much preferred to be out in the open, where he could both observe the people and be seen by them in return. His wife was by his side, as well as his eldest son, Talliituk.

  Talliituk acknowledged Alaana, and said, “I dug the tip out, the way you showed me.” Tugtutsiak said nothing. He appeared to be deep in thought.

  Alaana opened the headman’s blood-stained parka and inspected his shoulder. She dipped her hand into the urine and wiped away the clotted blood. Tugtutsiak grimaced as the stinging fluid seeped into the cut, still staring straight ahead. He said nothing. Such was his way. If there was nothing important to say, he didn’t speak idle words.

  “You did well, Talliituk,” said Alaana, “There’s not much blood.”

  Alaana handed the soapstone pot to Tugtutsiak’s wife. “Pour some of this into the wound every so often throughout the rest of the day and the night. It will keep sickness away.”

  She nodded graciously. “Thank you, angatkok.”

  Tugtutsiak grabbed Alaana by the shoulder. He was gesturing at the sky with two fingers. “You see? The sky is amber, and there are no clouds.”

  “I see,” said Alaana.

  “There are no clouds. And yet, the snow is moving.”

  Alaana looked to the north, away from the river. It was true, the snow was drifting slowly on the air. It was swirling around the entire camp in a wide, slow circle.

  “I can feel a storm coming,” said Tugtutsiak in a low, firm tone.

  He waved his arm, “They all can. Terror spreads. Something unknown has slunk among us, something no one can explain, throwing everything into confusion. We must not lose control.”

  “I know,” said Alaana. As the shaman she understood this point very well. Fear and doubt were always the enemy, opening the door to all sorts of trouble and foul spirits. It was her duty to keep the people confident and safe.

  The headman’s thick fingers tightened painfully on her shoulder. “Something must be done. Now.”

  “I’m almost ready,” said Alaana. “Bring all the people out in front of the karigi.”

  CHAPTER 23

  THE PRICE OF STOLEN FLESH

  With night coming down fast Alaana had little time to prepare. But as Tugtutsiak had said, this was something that couldn’t wait. All the families of the summer group assembled in front of the ceremonial lodge, and Alaana looked out upon a sea of restless faces. The task at hand would be difficult indeed. With so many of them frightened and unsure, it was almost impossible to control their state of mind.

  “We are called today to put an end to this spirit that troubles us,” said Alaana loudly. “I only wish my skills were adequate to the task.” This was a standard humility designed to allow the people to rally to her cause, their cause. Alaana only wished it were not, in this instance, entirely true. She felt uneasy sitting before the people dressed in her white ceremonial parka, one ear lopped off, with disaster looming about them and herself obviously incapable of stopping it.

  “You are a fine shaman,” shouted someone.

  “You are a treasure to us,” said another, stirring murmurs of support from the crowd.

  “I am but a liar and a fool,” said Alaana, following form.

  “You are a great shaman,” said Tugtutsiak.

  And you are a great liar, thought Alaana.

  She accepted their praise with a nod of the head. In her left hand the drum thudded with a low, dull note, its leather head dry and cracked. Repeated endlessly, it struck a somber and calming rhythm. This drum had been fashioned by Old Manatook and still retained a fragment of the old shaman’s spirit. The tolling of the bell in her right hand, at less frequent intervals, was a perfect counter to the drum, a high-pitched note that rang in their ears and startled them awake. Between the two registers, Alaana provided a slow and repetitive chant which brought all three sounds together into a hypnotic harmony.

  The rhythm was most important. She opened herself up to the people, in order to feel all that they were feeling. Creating a rhythm that could both unite and soothe their various emotions was no easy task. The women were afraid for their children, the husbands were afraid for their wives. Tugtutsiak was steaming with anger and indignation. Alaana’s family, arranged in the first row, worried primarily for her. Only Higilak appeared calm. She had such a cool resignation on her face it was frightening.

  Ben was watching her intently, seeming much more curious than afraid.

  His presence was too much of a distraction. She was careful not to rest her eyes on him for too long. And yet she couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking. Ben had said he felt safe with her, but he hadn’t said he wanted her for a wife.

  Aquppak was camping with his people on the western rim of the Great Basin, but for Alaana his presence loomed over the proceedings just the same. He was everything that Ben was not — a successful hunter, popular and handsome. And yet she wouldn’t give herself to him even if Ben went away. She knew what he wanted. To use her to get control over the Anatatook.

  If Ben left, Alaana wouldn’t be able to go on. She felt a terrible crushing feeling just thinking about it. She’d kill herself. But no, she would never do that. She’d still have to be the shaman, with a calling and a duty she must not shirk. She would serve to the best of her ability. In time, reduced to a miserable old wretch. She would never marry and never be happy.

  Alaana had lost her place in the chant. She felt useless and small.

  She struck the drum. She tinkled the bell. Beginning again, she told herself she must put these selfish concerns aside if the spirit-calling was to have any chance at success. As shaman, she must dissociate from her own life in order to fully enter the trance.

  More than that, she had to bring these people along with her, or the problem would never be solved. First she had to get rid of their fear, and then all the rest would fall into line. She knew how to mollify fear, for a time at least, with the drum and the bell and the chant. The rhythm of her song would carry them forward, bringing them all into the mindset of the spirit-calling with her. She must give them peace.

  “I stretch forth my hand,” said Alaana forcefully. She reached a cupped hand toward the sky. “This trouble has come upon us. This trouble shall go away from us. It will be made to go away, as it was made to come upon us. We stretch forth our hands!”

  The sun had sunk as low on the horizon as early summer permitted, leaving the gray-golden half-light that passed for night. The people fell silent, most of them in sympathy with her chanting. The exceptions were Tugtutsiak, whom Alaana believed would never let go of his wary concern for the present, and Ben, whose troublesome gaze Alaana continued to avoid.

  “Word wants to come up!” she said.

  Krittak stood up. “Perhaps it’s my fault,” she said in a loud voice, “On the morning of the hunt, I stitched a rent in my husband’s trousers so he would not catch a draft. I knew it was wrong.” She yanked her sewing kit from the front of her parka and dashed it to the ground, a significant act for the Anatatook’s most famous seamstress. “I have ruined the hunt.”

  Alaana thought on this for a moment. While the sewing of animal skins during the hunt was a breach of taboo likely to anger animal spirits in a general way, the disturbance had been something much greater. It was the same evil that had plagued their camp since her return from the north.

  The old woman began
to cry. Alaana motioned for Krittak to be seated. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  The others murmured among themselves. This served a good purpose. Let them get their secrets out, she thought. She must restore their sense of community.

  “It’s my fault,” said Ipalook’s wife, Ivalu. “I have called my husband’s name in the night, hoping his ghost might answer.”

  This was a breach of taboo, but Alaana was certain that Ipalook, who had been murdered during the Yupikut attack, had nothing at all to do with their current troubles. If Ipalook’s shade desired vengeance on the Yupikut, Alaana had already provided it.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Alaana, shaking her head.

  But who was to blame? She was no closer to finding the answer, and the problem could not go unsolved. Seeking petty confessions would not resolve the situation. Alaana recalled the spirit-conjuring she had witnessed as a child, during the disease outbreak that had claimed her sister Avalaaqiaq and so many others. The shamans Civiliaq and Kuanak had tried to foist their own guilt on the people, leading to a disastrous result. Ultimately the responsibility had been their own and they paid for it with their lives. Was this situation the same? Hadn’t she caused this? Alaana felt a surge of sickening horror at the possibility. In her arrogance, she had ill-used Manatook’s ghost in the same way as her teacher. Alaana would not have the people suffer for Old Manatook’s transgression, nor her own.

  Her guilty thoughts allowed disharmony to enter the camp, and the ceremony stumbled at her loss of control. The people began to bicker among themselves.

  “It’s all his fault,” someone shouted, pointing a finger at Ben. “It’s obvious he brought the trouble here. Just look at his skin. He’s half a demon himself, burned black in the flame of the Underworld.”

  “It’s not his fault,” said Alaana forcefully.

  “So you say,” said Nakasuk. “You brought him among us. What dark secrets does he hide?”

  “It is not his fault,” repeated Alaana. She needed to restore order quickly before things went too far. If she allowed suspicion and fear among the people those ill feelings would empower the angry tarrak to destroy them.

  She beat the drum three times. “I know the cause well enough.”

  This brought a renewed hush over the crowd. Nakasuk and the others who had stood up, all eased themselves back down.

  Alaana raised the red rattle that Old Manatook had once given her. With this device she had called the old shaman back from his trip to the north in time to confront the man-wolves. She was careful not to let it make a sound, lest it summon Manatook’s vengeful ghost. Inside were scraps of dried flesh the old shaman had cut from the skin of his forearm. Alaana had now come to realize that these were stolen bits of the real Manatook’s flesh.

  She held the rattle high. “There is one whom Old Manatook has offended.”

  Alaana’s gaze went involuntarily to Higilak’s face. Her features were dazed, as if she had just been startled awake from a dream.

  “This brings the trouble to us,” said Alaana.

  She laid the rattle before her and arranged a few strands of dried sedge on a flat rock. Instead of striking the rock with flint she tapped its surface with her finger, politely requesting the stone to provide a tiny spark of its life essence. The stone was amenable to her cause. The dried sage flared up. A collective gasp rose from the crowd as the people’s discontent rapidly dwindled away. Their shaman had identified the source of the problem and was dealing with it in a confident and forceful way.

  “I will set things right.” Alaana began again with the drum and the chant, absent the dissonance of the bell. She led them back into the trance, creating a receptive state of spiritual rapture. In the dim amber light of summer’s sunset, their expressions became peaceful and serene. All skeptical notions were actively thrust aside. Alaana was buoyed by their confidence; her own fears and self-doubt tumbled away as meaningless distraction.

  She cracked the rattle open as if it were a goose egg, and placed the withered crisps of skin one by one into the tiny fire.

  “Take this back,” she said. “Now you are whole. Leave us be.”

  The blistering ash flared bright scarlet as the offering was consumed. The pungent aroma of burning skin pricked her nose.

  “It’s done,” she said. “Blown away on a foul wind and gone.”

  Alaana gestured slowly, tracing a line from the last of the smoldering wisps up into the sky. Let the people see, she thought. Let them visualize their troubles floating away, and as they believe the danger is past, it will be past.

  “Let us have the feast. Nothing is lost to us. Tugtutsiak and I will find the herd again, and all will be well. There will be plenty of time for hunting caribou in the long days to come.”

  The people cheered and rose from their places, eager to begin the communal feast. Alaana wished she could share in their joy of the moment.

  As they exited the tent Kigiuna approached her, smiling broadly.

  “Well done,” he said. “I almost believed it myself.”

  Alaana winced. If there ever was anyone she could not fool it was her father, who was now both ardent believer and hard-bitten skeptic in one. “You’re right,” admitted Alaana. “I don’t believe this ghost can be dismissed so easily.”

  “But for the moment,” whispered Kigiuna, “you may claim this small victory. You have moved the people from fear to high spirits.”

  “Yes, and their confidence will be a powerful weapon against the ghost. Good enough, I guess, until I think of something else.”

  Kigiuna smiled again. “Take some advice from your father. Best not to try anything more with an empty stomach. Eat, smile and laugh with us. For now, there is the feast and —”

  A booming clap of thunder suddenly shook the camp. The dogs took up a feverish yammering. The Anatatook people froze in place. All eyes went toward Alaana. A rancid wind rose up, carrying the stench of death down the length of the river and back again along the settlements. It brought with it that same strange and eerie sound — a mournful wail of deep anguish and pain.

  Higilak cried out. An expression of horrified recognition stretched her old and withered face, as if the sound recalled to her some painful memory with which she was intimately familiar. But what?

  Qupagnuk, whose name meant ‘Snow Starling’, cried out. He was a young hunter from the south who had been taken in adoption years ago by the family of the wise man, Massautsicq.

  Qupagnuk had the look of the pibloktoq, the confusion of senses that sometimes comes upon a man during the long months of darkness in winter, when his nerves reached the limit of endurance. There was a total derangement of his face. His eyes goggled wildly in their sockets, his mouth hung open in the tail-end of his scream.

  To the Anatatook this was considered a sacred state, one in which helping spirits were often known to give predictions to the people. The others backed away from him, as it was dangerous to touch anyone in such a fragile condition. Alaana thought differently. Suspicious, she drew a few steps closer.

  Qupagnuk threw off his coat, stomping it into the ground. Bare-chested and exposed, he appeared less the robust young hunter and suddenly much more like an old man, rumpled and thin. He drew a hunting knife from his boot.

  For a moment he struggled with the knife, at cross-purposes with the spirit that had come upon him, the crazed look of the icecap full upon his face. Alaana felt compelled to intervene, but hesitated. Any rash action now might drive the spirits too far.

  Qupagnuk stabbed the knife into the flesh of his wrist and a jet of red blood sprayed outward. His eyes bulged and a sound came from his throat that was a little bit like a laugh and a scream both at the same time. He carried the blade up the length his arm, parting the skin in a long, rending gash.

  Higilak screamed.

  Qupagnuk continued his act of self-destruction, bringing the blade up to the shoulder and across the chest.

  Higilak rushed toward him, but someone held he
r back.

  Alaana was caught in a moment of indecision. This was a message from beyond, an important message, and to interrupt might well bring sudden and total disaster to the camp. On the other hand it was impossible to stand by as one of her friends destroyed himself. Still screaming his rage and fear, Qupagnuk took the blade in his opposite hand and scored a line down the other shoulder and arm, finally reaching the wrist. The motion was capped by another spurting red fountain. Everyone present could recognize this action for what it was; the young hunter was mimicking the method a man might use to skin a bear.

  Qupagnuk’s pibloktoq was spent. He crumpled to the snow, a great mass of which was already stained red. Alaana rushed to his side, knowing it was already too late. Blood ran from the wounds at both wrists, flowing freely. Alaana clamped a hand firmly across one of the wounds. Tugtutsiak knelt on the opposite side, his hand on the other wrist. The headman looked frantically about, saying, “We have to bind them up,” but it was already too late. Qupagnuk had grown pale as the snow; there was very little time left.

  The storm raged upward, circling the camp in a band of whirling snow lifted from the ground. Its nightmarish, shrieking voice was bolstered by a chorus of screams.

  Tugtutsiak rubbed his hand tenderly against the young hunter’s face, leaving a streak of crimson along the jaw. “This goes too far, Alaana!”

  His eyes blazed with fury, and Alaana could not meet their gaze. She was certain the headman would have struck her dead on the spot if he thought that would satisfy the spirits. She leaned in close, pressing her ear to the young man’s lips. Qupagnuk had difficulty getting the air to come out of his mouth with force enough to speak. One word.

  “Akisaqtuq,” repeated Alaana.

  “Revenge?” raged Tugtutsiak. “You brought this here! You caused this!”

  Kigiuna stepped forward, shouting into the gale. “This is Old Manatook’s doing. Alaana is not to blame!”

  “Old Manatook is dead,” said Tugtutsiak. “Who is there to pay the price for his mistakes?”