Call Down the Stars (4 page)

As a young man, he had been harpooner rather than paddler, but still he knew that to keep going straight, he must paddle with equal strength on both sides of the boat. He scooted himself to the other side, earning splinters in his knees. But he ignored the pain and thrust his paddle into the water two times, then lifted it to the other side, again paddled twice. He went back and forth, until blood from his knees dyed the raw wood crimson, but finally the boat was at the center of the estuary. He turned it, headed against the current, up toward the river, but each time he switched sides, he lost whatever distance he had gained.

He tried three strokes, then four, and found he made headway with that, though the course he took was no longer straight. Each time he lifted his paddle, he looked toward the shore, sure he would see Bear-god warriors watching him, perhaps even launching one of the other boats to follow him, but no one came, and finally, as the thick black smoke from the burning village billowed up through the trees and curled down to the estuary, Water Gourd’s boat entered the river.

He closed his eyes in a moment of gratitude as the shadows of the trees welcomed him, then he found a snag, an upended cedar with roots and earth woven into a circle, the weight of it compressing the bank so that the tree had slid, roots first, into the water. The old man maneuvered the boat until it was upriver from the snag, then he turned it and used the paddle like a fish uses its tail, allowing the current to move the boat, the paddle to direct its path until the bow snugged itself into the interstices of the root mass.

Then Water Gourd, peering out through the tunnel of trees, could only wait while the smoke filled the estuary and blocked his vision of the sky.

S
OMETIME DURING THE NIGHT,
Water Gourd fell asleep. It was a sleep visited by demons, and when he finally managed to awaken, it was still dark, still night. The smoke from the village had dissipated, and he could see stars in that circle of sky afforded him from his seat in the cedar log boat.

The tide had come in, and the river had risen so that the bow of his outrigger was not wedged as tightly in the roots of the fallen tree. The bumping of the boat—away from the root mass and again into it—had brought him back from his terror-filled dreams. The wind had gathered strength, and he could hear the rattle of leaves above him, spinning their tales to one another.

Did they tell stories of women raped, babies killed, old men tortured? Most likely not. Why should they care about that? Surely the trees hated his people. After all, what cedar, what nutmeg would choose to leave the close green forest to be gutted by the fire and knives of boat builders? Maybe the trees around him celebrated, as did the Bear-god warriors, rejoicing at the deaths of the Boat People.

Water Gourd wished he could close his ears to the noise. He shut his eyes and curled into a ball at the center of the boat, his gourds, still cold and damp from their bellies of water, cradled in his arms. Although the night air was warm, the mists rising from the river hovered over him until they had worked their way through his skin to his joints, until he ached with the damp as though winter had suddenly come upon the land, disrupting the gentle weather of spring, the cycle of the seasons suddenly and inexplicably forgotten.

The boat rocked up, then bumped ahead, rocked again and jerked back. The motion settled behind Water Gourd’s ears in an ache that tensed his muscles into pain. The splinters in his knees throbbed, and new dreams invaded his eyes—monsters that were half demon, half bear. They laughed at his fear, his mourning, and blew with fetid breath to coax new life into the fires that had destroyed his village.

Then suddenly the boat tipped and swirled, and, as though a hand had gripped the stern, it pulled away from the circle of roots and was thrust violently upriver.

What giant had captured him? Water Gourd’s panic propelled him to sit upright, hands clasping the outrigger poles. Then he saw the trees sway, though there was no storm. He felt the earth buckle, and suddenly the river spewed him out into the estuary, sending his boat ahead so quickly that Water Gourd nearly tumbled backward. He heard a thin wail, and at first thought it came from his own mouth. Again the sea shook, waves came from both shores, picked the boat up, and thrust it from the estuary into the sea. Again he heard the wail, but this time he knew it was not from him, for he had clamped his teeth tightly together to keep from biting his tongue.

It was the boat; it had to be. The tree part of it was not quite dead, and as they sped out toward the sea, it called to its brother trees in fear.

“It will save you some burning and scraping,” Water Gourd shouted to the boat over the tumult of waves.

If he could convince the tree that it was better off in the sea, it might not dump him in its effort to return to the sanctuary of river and forest. He reached for the paddle. Perhaps if the boat saw that he, too, wanted to remain in the river, it would help him. He thrust the paddle into the water, thrust again and again until he had managed to turn the boat toward the estuary. A wave caught him and pushed him forward, and he dipped his paddle, working as hard and fast as he could. A second wave took him and a third, until finally he felt the contrary current of the river. Though it was dark, with the eyes of his memory, he saw the green river water mingling with the blue sea, swirling into a dance that would complete itself out past the estuary in a place where fish fed from the river’s generosity.

Water Gourd paddled, blessing arms kept strong by carrying water, cursing muscles pulled long and stringy by old age. Two strokes to counter the river’s flow, two to pull the boat forward, then the shift to the other side to wield his paddle between the outrigger shafts. Two strokes to straighten the bow and two to regain the ground he had lost in shifting his paddle. He counted his strokes, singing them under his breath like a chant, and he nearly wept with joy when he regained the entrance of the estuary.

Then, above the sounds of river and sea, of his chanting and the splash of his paddle, he heard voices. His heart clenched like a fist, and for moment he did not have the strength to lift the paddle, but merely kept it in the water, the blade turned flat against the side of the boat.

Bear-god warriors. He saw their torches lining the banks of the estuary, saw one then another lift his fire until they cast light in long sheaths across the water to his outrigger. They lifted their spears, threw. The spears were thrusting lances, not so good for distance. One fell into the estuary, but another thwacked hard inside the boat, cutting a gouge into Water Gourd’s thigh before the tip embedded itself in wood.

He knew then there was no hope. He raised his paddle and brought it into the boat, laid the blade over his belly. Better to take a spear in chest or throat and have his life end suddenly than to suffer a gut wound. He felt the river current thrust him toward the sea, but then the boat turned sideways and a wave brought him back. The Bear-god men threw more spears as sea and river played with his boat, like children throwing a pig bladder. A spear clattered against the outrigger and one landed in the bow. Water Gourd pinched his fingers over the oozing wound in his thigh. It was not a terrible cut, shallow and less than a handbreadth in length, but it hurt.

Suddenly the earth heaved again. Water Gourd saw it first in the flames from the Bear-god torches, the light moving in odd circles, one torch dipping down until it had extinguished itself in the water. As though the river were inhaling, the boat was suddenly sucked far into the estuary. He closed his eyes, tried to prepare for death, but then just as unexpectedly, the river exhaled and thrust the boat and Water Gourd out into the sea, past the waves that would return him, far beyond the reach of any spear.

The torches were only tiny needle pricks in the night, and in his relief Water Gourd began to laugh. Better to drown than face the tortures the Bear-gods would inflict. At least he could throw himself into the sea and have it done quickly.

Or better yet, he would wait until morning, rest a little, then turn his boat toward the next village, warn them that the Bear-god warriors were coming. They might see him as a hero and, if they were successful in fending off the attack, would welcome him in their village. Surely they would want him as one of their wise elders. Perhaps he would even find himself a wife and get himself sons in his old age. Hadn’t his own grandfather once put a son into the belly of a young wife?

Water Gourd lay back in the boat, retrieved the woven rush shirt that the builder had left in the stern, and pulled it on over his head. He tried to sleep, but the dreams returned, and he blinked himself awake, sat up.

The moon had risen, lending light, bouncing it from wave to wave. The wind cut across the water, not strong, but cold enough to raise the flesh on Water Gourd’s arms. His eyes fell on the bundle of supplies in the bow, and he remembered that it was covered with deerskin blankets. He crept forward, but suddenly the top blanket began to move, raising itself as though it were alive.

Water Gourd had once seen a deer that had been chased into a river, and he had not forgotten how hard it struggled to get back to the sure footing of land. Perhaps this blanket, too, wanted to find its way to shore. He thought for a moment of plucking it up and dropping it into the waves, but he was cold. How foolish to throw away a blanket just because it had a little life of the deer still in it! Better to wrap it around himself, subdue whatever weak power it claimed by sitting on it.

He clutched the blanket in one hand, and with a quick jerk flipped it up and swaddled it around his legs.

The blanket settled around him, warm and still. Water Gourd nodded his approval. Even an old man had more power than a deerskin blanket. But suddenly the boat again started to wail, more loudly this time, so that Water Gourd lost his temper.

“You want to go back and be captured by the Bear-god men?” he shouted. “They know nothing about boats. They wouldn’t take care of you. They would let you rot.”

The wails continued, louder now—surely not the sound a tree-boat would make. Then Water Gourd’s old ears remembered the cries of his sons when they were babies. He leaned forward, groped under the other deerskin blanket until his hands came upon flesh—warm and soft and round. A child!

He felt until he found the head. The boy was well-haired, his mouth filled with small, hard teeth. Water Gourd pushed his hands under the baby’s shoulders, lifted, prodded, and pulled until he managed to get it to his lap. Two years, perhaps three, he thought, for the number of teeth in the child’s head. The baby rooted and thrust against Water Gourd’s chest.

“I am not a woman,” Water Gourd said. “I have no milk.”

The child’s cries grew more frantic. Water Gourd twisted one corner of the blanket and thrust it into the boy’s mouth. He began to suck, and his wailing stopped. Water Gourd patted the baby’s back, mumbling his consternation. The boy’s mother must have hidden him in the boat when the Bear-god People attacked. The baby jerked the blanket from his mouth and began to fuss again.

Water Gourd sighed and pulled the plug from one of his gourds, took a swallow of water. He sucked out another mouthful, then lowered his head to the baby’s head, pressed his lips to the baby’s lips and released a stream of water. The child choked at first, but then he drank, and Water Gourd chuckled to himself at his own cunning. After several mouthfuls, the baby seemed content, and Water Gourd leaned forward, opened the pack of supplies that had lain under the boy in the bottom of the boat.

There was a heavy pot, the kind women store food in, also a few of the small soft skins mothers use to pad their babies’ bottoms. A woman’s knife and three full bottle gourds. A packet that was probably a good luck charm for the baby. A small one, it was, smaller than most women carry for their sons.

Water Gourd’s stomach suddenly lurched, and he fumbled at the skins that swaddled the child, worked his way through them until he could feel the baby’s soft, damp rump. He thrust a finger between the baby’s legs, then withdrew his hand, moaning softly.

What had he done to deserve all the curses that had befallen him? He thought back through his life, to the sons and wives he had outlived, to the lazy niece he depended on for food. And now this. The baby was a girl. A worthless girl.

Surely there was no hope. What sea animal coming upon them would allow them to live—an old man who could no longer throw a harpoon, and a baby who would curse the very wood of their boat with her urine?

Water Gourd set the child away from him, back into the nest her mother had made her in the bottom of the boat. He turned his back and did not allow himself to think about her as he watched over the bow, looking east, waiting for morning.

N
IGHT CLOUDS MOVED IN,
darkened the moon, and though Water Gourd was determined to stay awake, he fell asleep, slept long and hard until the girl’s wailing broke into his dreams.

He comforted her as best he could, and when the sun rose, he gave her some venison, and much of the water in one of his precious gourds, but she still whined and cried, asking for her mother, her father, her aunt. He considered dumping her into the sea, but he had placed her by then, knew she was Fire Mountain Man’s daughter. Fire Mountain Man had always been good to him, willing to share meat and fish, and for that reason, Water Gourd stayed his hand. He remembered the cries of the girl’s mother as she was being attacked, and though in his mind he defended his choices, he also had to push away thoughts that accused him of cowardice.

Cowardice? No. Wisdom. If he had been killed, who would warn the next village about the Bear-god warriors? Surely the sea gods had saved him for that purpose. Of course it was possible that they had only meant to save the girl, though why she would be worth saving, he could not understand.

He finally decided that her discomfort was due to the soiled rag she wore between her legs. He humbled himself to take on the duties of a nursemaid and cleaned her, dipping her to the waist in the sea until the filth was washed away, then wrapping a clean rag around her. He rinsed out the old and laid it across the boat to dry, apologizing to the wood for the indignity of such a thing. But the boat did not seem to mind, played no tricks on them, and so gave Water Gourd further proof that the girl, rather than he himself, was the reason he was now safe and beyond reach of the Bear-gods.