Call Down the Stars (58 page)

The night before they arrived at Chakliux’s village, Cen came to Cries-loud, crouched on his haunches beside him. Cen held his baby daughter in his arms, perched her on his knee.

“I’ve decided to go with Ghaden and his wife to the Traders’ Beach once this winter has passed,” he said. “Perhaps I will go even beyond that to Uutuk’s island. I have so little left to me that I must begin once more as a trader, as if I were a young man. How better to make that beginning than to visit those people who still hunt the whale? My daughter Daes wants to join me, and even Chakliux might come as far as the Traders’ Beach. But I have this good daughter who needs a father and mother—or perhaps a brother—to raise her.” He looked into Cries-loud’s eyes. “She will be strong like her mother, and perhaps with the right family, she’ll also grow wise.”

When Cries-loud held out his arms, Cen gave him the child quickly and walked away. He was gone a long time before he returned to the warmth of the campfire.

The last day they traveled, Cries-loud refused to carry Duckling on his back, as most children are carried. Instead he held her cradle-board in his arms the whole way, talked to her about everything they saw, listened in delight as she babbled back to him.

When they arrived at Chakliux’s village, he didn’t stop to talk to the elders, their mouths filled with questions. Instead, he carried Duckling into the entrance tunnel of his lodge, set her down carefully, and waited to see if she would cry. She did not. She was well wrapped in a soft woven hare blanket, and so he knew she would not get cold. He left her and crawled into the lodge. Yaa looked up at him, then leaped to her feet, gladness in her eyes.

He told her quickly about K’os and his mother, and she stood with her mouth open as though trying to decide whether or not to make a mourning song. He lifted a finger in the sign for quietness and said, “I have something I need to tell you.”

Fear, then sadness crossed her face. She nodded her head as though she knew what he was going to say.

“I brought someone with me,” he began. Yaa took a long breath, and he added, “To help you with your work.”

“That is good,” she said, but her voice was thin, fragile. “She’s welcome, my husband. Here in this lodge …” Her words broke. She cleared her throat, then continued, “Until you are able to build her a lodge of her own.”

“No,” Cries-loud said.

“I’ll be a good sister-wife to her,” said Yaa, and she began to speak of all the things the two wives would do together.

“No,” Cries-loud said again, but knew there was only one way to quiet Yaa once she started talking to hide her pain, and so he went back into the entrance tunnel and picked up Duckling. The girl had fallen asleep, but she opened her eyes and, seeing his face, smiled. He pressed his cheek against her forehead, and crept into the lodge. He expected to hear Yaa cry out, but she was quiet. He stood up and saw that her eyes were closed, her face drawn tight.

“Yaa?” he said.

Her eyes flew open, and she stretched her mouth into a wide smile of welcome. When she saw the baby, she clasped her hands to her chest and stood with her mouth open, as though she had forgotten how to speak.

“You don’t want your daughter?” he asked.

“My daughter?”

“Yes.”

She took the child, began to laugh. Suddenly she stopped and said, “She belongs to your new wife?”

“You are my only wife, Yaa,” he told her. “She belongs to you, to both of us.”

Then Yaa started to cry, silent sobs that shook her so hard she had to give the baby back to Cries-loud. He stood there holding them both, his wife and his daughter, and he reminded himself that hunters do not cry over such little things as babies, hunters do not cry for happiness. But then he thought, Perhaps sometimes they do.

Herendeen Bay, Alaska Peninsula

602 B.C.

The next evening, when a group of men had returned from six, seven days hunting sea lions, and the women had decided to take a rest from fishing, Yikaas again told his story about K’os’s death. Qumalix was there to translate for him, and other storytellers, including Kuy’aa and Sky Catcher, also listened.

When Yikaas had finished his tale, Sky Catcher called out, “Wait. You claim that is how K’os died?”

“So it is said,” Yikaas answered, using the words familiar to all storytellers.

“I have heard a different story.”

Sky Catcher spoke belligerently, and Yikaas saw him for what he was—a child whose body had grown into manhood, but whose mind stayed small.

“Tell it,” Yikaas said graciously, and stepped back to make room for him.

Qumalix gave Yikaas a bleak look, and so he understood that she did not like to translate for the man, but Sky Catcher stretched his mouth into a broad smile and began, even forgetting the polite words most storytellers use to let their listeners know a new tale is being told.

“K’os was an evil woman,” he said, “and she wanted to kill the Four Rivers People for throwing her out of their village many years before. She also wanted to kill Chakliux.” He paused for a moment as if searching for what to say about Chakliux, and finally he added, “She hated Chakliux for many reasons, mostly because he was so wise and good.”

The people in the ulax murmured at that, and a few threw out suggestions as to why K’os wanted to kill her own son, but Sky Catcher ignored them and went on with his story. It was not a good story, and Yikaas soon grew impatient. Sky Catcher spoke too long about the conversations between Cen and Ghaden and the agreement they made to kill K’os.

The two carried out their plan, and K’os died in the night, with both men’s blades in her chest. But even in describing the death, Sky Catcher’s words were flat, and Yikaas tried not to rejoice in the people’s complaints.

When Sky Catcher finished, most of the listeners were polite, but one man, a First Men hunter, said, “Keep the story as Yikaas told it.”

Sky Catcher began to shout insults at the man, but Qumalix laid a hand on his arm and said, “I have also heard a different story about K’os’s death. Perhaps you would like to hear that one.”

Sky Catcher curled his lip at her, but at least he sat down to listen.

Qumalix’s story started much like Yikaas’s had, but when Gheli left Cries-loud, she stayed to live in that far River village as wife to an old man there. Yikaas listened patiently, thinking he would find fault with her story as he had with Sky Catcher’s, but then, as with all Qumalix’s tales, he was caught into her words, and somehow he was again a boy, learning stories that he would someday tell himself.

The Four Rivers Village

6435 B.C.

C
HAKLIUX SAT ALONE, STARING
into the hearth coals. He had been given a place in the lodge next to Cen’s. The man who owned the lodge had lost his wife and children, and after his mourning had decided to go hunt caribou. The empty lodge seemed full of the dead ones’ ghosts. They haunted Chakliux’s dreams and pushed him into a decision to kill K’os. How else could she be stopped?

Chakliux banked the hearthfire and pulled on his parka. He walked through the village. Though it was a sunny day, there were few people outside. Many were still sick, and others kept mourning vigils in their lodges.

He saw an old woman scurrying toward the river. She was carrying empty water bladders, and when he caught up to her, he offered to fill them. She raised her eyebrows at him and for a moment hugged the bladders to her chest, as though she were afraid, but then she smiled, showing a mouth empty of teeth, her lips collapsed in over the gums. But her eyes were bright, peeking out at him from the wrinkles of her face.

She waited at the top of the bank while he slid down the incline to the pool where the women got water. He filled each bladder, tied their strings together, and slung them over his shoulder. When he climbed back up toward her, she held out a hand, as though she were strong enough to help him up the last few steps to level ground.

“You’re the otter foot,” she said to him, and her voice was surprisingly clear and loud, a young woman’s voice coming from an old mouth.

“Yes,” he said, “And you, Aunt, what do you call yourself?”

She looked at him warily as though trying to decide whether to trust him with her name. Finally she said, “Aunt is good,” and Chakliux hid his smile. Who could blame her? With all that had happened in this village, why trust anyone?

“Did you lose people, Aunt? Do you mourn?”

“A grandson,” she said softly, and her eyes filled.

“I hope there is some way to lift the curse that has come to your village.”

She looked down at his foot. “Some say you have power,” she said, “others that you brought the curse.”

“What do you think?” Chakliux asked her.

“I think it is the woman, but who listens to me? I am old. But they forget that I remember the first time she came.”

“You remember when K’os was here before?”

The old one hissed and lifted a hand, tapped his mouth with her fingers. “Don’t say her name. It might give her the power to leave the lodge.”

“Cen is with her. He won’t let her leave.”

“She can do all kinds of things. She’s like a shaman. She can sit there and be with Cen while her spirit is out here doing evil. She is like that. I saw it in her the first time she came to us. She lived with my friend and her husband. They were old then, and died long ago, but they didn’t see what she was. We should have sent her away the first day she came.” She nodded and began to mumble as though arguing with herself, and finally she spoke out to say, “Of course, she still might have come back. She’s one of those who forgets nothing.” She gave him a sly look, arched her sparse brows. “They say you are her son, and the girl, the young wife Uutuk, she’s the daughter. Is that true?”

“She raised us both. There was a time when I called her mother.”

“So perhaps you helped her in the cursing,” the old woman said.

“No, we did not.”

She laughed. “What else would you say? That you helped her? We still have enough men left in this village to kill you both.”

Her words were a boast and also, Chakliux recognized, a way to comfort herself.

“You’re lucky you have Cen,” she continued. “He’s the only one who stands between you and death. And look what has happened to him. Your mother’s curse has even taken his wife.

“I know what it is to mourn, but this curse is more terrible than most. I sat beside my grandson for two days watching him die.” Again her eyes were wet, and she did not bother to blink away the tears. They pooled in the pouches above her cheekbones. “Everything he had ever eaten came up,” she said, gesturing toward her mouth, “and his bowels …” She shook her head. “I wanted to take his pain. Why did this happen to him when he was young, and here I am old and nearly worthless?” She held out her hands to show him that they were shaking. “I should be the one dead,” she said. “I should be.”

“Aunt, there’s always need for your wisdom,” Chakliux said gently. He gave her the water bladders, and before she went into her lodge, she said, “Sometimes people call me Near Mouse.”

He knew the poison. It was from the baneberry plant. Years ago, K’os had tricked the woman Dii into poisoning her own husband with it. The death had been no loss. Fox Barking was a man who caused all those around him problems, but at that time he had been leader of a village, and Dii was fortunate to avoid the punishment of death.

The man’s death had been a blessing for Chakliux’s family. His brother Sok had taken Dii as wife, and their marriage was a good one. She had given Sok healthy children, and not only that, she had the gift of dreaming caribou. Their village had not been hungry since Dii came to them, for she could almost always tell the hunters where the herds were traveling. What a fool Fox Barking had been to see her gift as a threat to his own power.

Chakliux sighed. K’os’s death would cost him much. Perhaps his own life. Uutuk had offered to help him, but how could he allow her to be involved? She was too young, and still loved K’os as mother.

Chakliux was not a vengeful man, and though Cen thought it was only just for K’os to die a slow and painful death, Chakliux did not want to see her suffer. Besides, a lingering death would give her time to curse those who caused it. He went back to the lodge and chose two throwing spears, each with a long stone point, then went to the village hearths. The four fires had been started again, but there were no women tending boiling pots. The fires burned only so that anyone careless enough to allow their own hearth to go out could come and get coals.

Chakliux squatted beside one of the fires and held his spears in the smoke. For a long time he prayed for strength, for wisdom, for safety. He took his hunting knife from its sheath and prayed over it as well, and when he felt he had gathered enough power, he left the hearths and walked to Cen’s lodge.

K’os was waiting for him. She stood slowly, her eyes burning. “You will kill me yourself,” she said, then held a hand out toward Uutuk. “In front of my daughter?” she asked.

“Leave, Uutuk,” Chakliux said. “You don’t have to be here. Why see this? Remember the good things this mother did for you, and think of nothing else.”

Uutuk scrambled to her feet. She had begun to cry.

“Where is your husband?” Chakliux asked her, but he did not take his eyes from K’os.

“He and Cen went hunting ptarmigan.” Her crying made the words difficult for Chakliux to understand.

“And Daes?”

“She doesn’t want to stay with me in this lodge any more than she must,” K’os answered, and Chakliux could not help but marvel at the calmness of her voice. She was wearing only caribou hide pants and a few necklaces, her chest bare in the custom of the First Men. If he could not have seen her hands or face, he would have thought she was young. She held her shoulders so straight, and her breasts were still plump, unlike those of most old women. Her eyes, too, were bright, but hard and cold, as they had always been. She was holding the upper of a caribou hide boot, furred, and cut to fit to a sealskin sole that lay on the floor at her feet. Uutuk had a similar boot in her hand, this one with the sole partially attached, dangling at the heel, gaping like an open mouth.