Fog (31 page)

I didn’t look up at her, but down at the ground. There was a dark hand, shaped like a starfish, rippled by short grass and small rocks. The sun painted Rajah’s outlines onto the earth and I felt ready to press my face right there into the dirt and cry.

‘Shadows. Darkness,’ she said. ‘We think them…unnecessary. Painful. We want them gone. But see! Do you see, Micka?’

I shrugged and squinted at her.

She smiled and twisted her neck, looking up at the sun. ‘You see the sun, no?’

‘Who wouldn’t.’

She wiggled her fingers, held them up high, then pointed at the larches that silently bent in the wind, and at the dark at their feet. ‘Life casts shadows.’

And just like that, she cast herself in a new light. I wondered, and still do, how this wise, gentle, and intelligent woman could have survived the camp for so long.
 

I gaze at my palms, the calluses and cracks there, and whisper her name.

When I walk back to Seema’s, one of the women lifts her head and waves at me. I approach the group seated around three dead deer. The women’s hands are bloody, as are their knives. Small children squat next to them, eating bits of raw meat. The bigger kids hang thin slices of meat on a wooden rack to freeze and perhaps slowly dry in the wind and the sun.

‘Eat,’ she says and points at liver and heart — the prime parts, if one doesn’t prefer the head.

I pull my knife and everyone starts laughing.
 

‘You need an eating knife. Small and sharp. Not a sword.’ She holds out her own and I take it. Her expression is open and friendly and I’m surprised by my own reaction — I relax.

‘Thank you. I am Micka, sniper. No husband, no kids.’

‘I am Tari, mother of one son, wife of Oakes and Aidan.’ She says, and the other women introduce themselves, too.
 

I sit and eat the offered meat, help with cutting off slices for drying, and cleaning off bones for boiling. I find myself grinning at silly stories about neighbouring clans, jokes about Birket and the chief before him, and I realise I’ve never heard Katvar’s story.

‘Uma is teaching me sign language, but I don’t understand it properly yet. Can you introduce Katvar? I mean…I don’t know whose husband he is and how many children he has. But I know he’s good with dogs and…’ I trail off when everyone stares at me.

‘Katvar is no one’s husband and no one’s father and never will be,’ says an older woman who introduces herself as Krista, mother and grandmother of…I don’t know how many.

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘He has bad blood.’

‘What?’

‘It’s his story to tell,’ Tari says and offers me another piece of liver.
 

I reach out and take it. ‘May I ask another question?’

Tari nods and smiles. ‘You may ask as many questions as you like. We choose to answer or keep silent.’

‘Are your men ever jealous?’

A peal of laughter erupts. Even the children are amused.

‘How could they not be? But it’s the task of a good wife to pay attention and not favour one man over the other,’ Tari answers.

‘Seema has been at Birket’s home for too long,’ mutters one woman.

‘I took good care of Oakes while she was away,’ Tari replies and grins again. The fine lines around her eyes willingly conform to her laughing. They must be used to it.

Puzzled, I cock my head. ‘You enjoy it? Your husbands’…sexual attention?’

Her eyes darken when she gives me a measuring stare. ‘You do not.’ A statement, not a question.

‘I must go back,’ I say and stand. ‘Forgive my questions. I’m not used to… Forget what I said.’

I limp back to Seema’s or Birket’s or whoever’s yurt. Unfortunately, I run into Oakes, a short man with broad shoulders and a friendly face.

‘Hey Micka, Uma told me you need this.’ He holds out a piece of split oak. It’s as long as I am tall.
 

‘Yeah. I screwed up the first one. Sorry about that.’

‘Don’t worry. You can always use the wood shavings to start a fire.’ He laughs and offers his arm for support.

I allow myself to accept his help. ‘Why are people so happy here?’ slips from my mouth.

‘Why should they not be?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say and bite my tongue. My body might be growing stronger, but everything else seems to be softening up dangerously.
 

Three weeks and still no sign of the Sequencer. The Dog People don’t worry about that. Sometimes the Sequencer comes early, sometimes late, they say.

Shit.

Sometimes, a war begins while you wait for some idiot to show up and transmit your message. I’m about to go nuts.

When I’m not in Birket’s yurt carving away at the longbow, I’m hobbling around the village, lending a hand with butchering or whatever else needs doing.

A horde of screaming kids runs past me, followed by a group of women who seem to be even more excited about returning hunters than usual.
 

My eyes follow their path, expecting a dog sled laden with deer or moose. The trilling sound of
yip yip yip
tells of a good quarry just before the dogs run into the village pulling a sled larger than any I’ve seen. A huge black mass is lying on top of it. Then comes another sled, just as large, just as laden. Two hunters. One of them scrapes off his hood. Katvar.

I try to identify what they’ve killed. Head and chest are broad and wooly. Two short horns. A pale tongue hangs out of the gaping mouth. Its small eyes are glassy. I dip a finger into the thick fur and Katvar cracks a smile.

I lift my hands and sign, ‘Wisent?’ in the sign alphabet Uma has drilled into me.

Katvar’s eyebrows rise. He nods.

‘Never seen one,’ I tell him and step aside to make space for the men and women moving the animals off the sleds. The wounds at the sides of the wisents catch my eye. They are not bullet entry wounds, and this time I can identify them. ‘Why the hell would you hunt them with bow and arrow?’

Katvar signs and I’m lost.

‘Sorry, didn’t get that,’ I say.

He repeats himself, and this time he signs not words, but letters. ‘Migration routes.’

‘Okay?’

He grins and mimics a rifle, croaks a muzzle report, points at the wisents, then signs. ‘They leave.’ A quick movement of his flat palm, facing to the side, up, down and forward, closing his fist. All this fuss for one short word — leave.

‘You are saying that they leave when you make a noise?’ I ask, surprised.

He nods, then taps the shoulder of the other hunter and signs to him.
 

‘I am Kioshi, father of six and husband of Saida and Gnat,’ the man says.
 

I have to tell my mouth not to gape. Gnat? Really?

‘Katvar asked me to explain. We hunt with bow and arrow because animals change their migration routes when hunted with rifles. When you fire a gun, the rest of the herd remembers. When you kill them quietly, they forget.’

‘You don’t hunt with rifles at all?’
 

‘No, we don’t.’

‘But, last time I was here, you did hunt with rifles. I remember.’

Kioshi turns away and mutters, ‘That was last time. This is this time.’

Katvar doesn’t meet my gaze. Someone is lying.

Wisent seems to be a special prize. Katvar and Kioshi have the honour of opening the animals and taking heart and liver. They cut the organs into pieces, eat the first bits and pass the rest around for the others. When I slip the meat into my mouth, Katvar’s gaze meets mine. He’s shining with pride.

The women get to work with their knives. I have to wait until the limbs come off, then I can cut slices for the drying rack. I’m not allowed to do the heavy work yet. My hand strays to the exabyte drive around my neck. I’m in the Stone Age. Or Iron Age. Crazy shit. When I look up, I catch Katvar staring at me. All colour has left his cheeks. His eyes are on the ivory dog. He lowers his head, bumps Kioshi’s shoulder, and leaves.

Butchering the two large animals is hard work and we are still at it when the sun dips into the trees and clouds begin to crawl across the sky. As soon as the cloud cover stretches above me, concealing me from Erik’s satellites, I feel safer.
 

A variety of odours wafts through the village: frying meat, wild onion, thyme, various roots. As if on cue, the women seated in the bloody snow pack up their knives and their baskets, which are filled with meat and bones. Children carry away the baskets and two old women bring a small, shallow tub, fill it with lukewarm water, and hang cloths over its rim. We strip and hurry the water onto our bodies to wash away the blood and dirt. Everyone is laughing, even old Barktak. Someone brings clothes and Uma holds out mine — a present from Seema before she and her youngest children left for Oakes’ yurt. I get dressed and watch Katvar untie the dogs that dive at the leftovers, inhale anything that looks like meat and blood, and roll in the patches of red snow.

When I enter Birket’s home, the warmth inside feels much too hot for me. Steam, chatter, and the aroma of stew fill the yurt. People are seated around the small stove that is about to buckle under the weight of an enormous pot. A bowl, filled to the brim, and a piece of flatbread are pushed into my hands. Birket laughs and talks so loud, I think he must be drunk.
 

I eat my dinner and feel laziness soak my bones. I realise that I didn’t think of my weapons for most of the day. I didn’t think of war. It comes down hard on me now. I take in the happiness, the smiles women give men, the seemingly normal and good life. No one starves, no one is the slave of anyone, children are allowed to be children, and not made soldiers or wives.

A flask is making the rounds. From the looks on people’s faces, the contents must burn in their throats. I wave the offered drink away and stare at my bowl. Empty. I touch my belly. Empty. My hand strays to my chest. I can feel the heartbeat, but still, it feels empty there, too. Abruptly I stand and leave the yurt.

Sal bumps into me. It’s the first time I see him smile. ‘Just left Raven’s. He traded furs for ale a month ago. Ale’s gone now.’ Sal grins even wider and I can smell the alcohol on his breath. I’m about to step back from him, when he nods toward a yurt and says, ‘Come. You have to try the wisent cheeks my wife cooks. She makes them with a honey crust.’

‘Honey?’ I’m baffled.

‘Yep. She knows how to find bees and how to harvest honey. Got stung only once. She’s the best. Love her. My wife.’ He staggers through the snow as if he’s forgotten I’m here. Then he turns and blinks at me. ‘Coming?’

I nod. I’ll definitely not say no to honey crusts, with or without wisent cheeks.

Sal’s wife is a round and short thing who can bark anyone’s head off. I squeeze myself into the back of the yurt, a sliver of food in my bowl, and inhale the scents of rosemary, honey, and fried meat.

My mouth waters. My fingers pick at the hot meat and just as I put some of it into my mouth, Sal’s wife comes stomping across the room and chucks another, much larger piece, into my bowl. ‘You need to fatten up!’ she hollers. Everyone but Sal stares into their bowls and chuckles. Sal just looks…lovestruck.
 

I stuff more food into my mouth. I can’t believe the abundance of so delicious a meal.

Drinks are passed around, but I decline. I sip my hot tea until I’m sweltering. Before I combust, I say my thanks, pull my hood over my head and step out into the snow.
 

Sucking in the crisp cold air, I begin to feel what must be healing. I bleed only a little these days and my ankle doesn’t protest with screams of pain when I gently put my weight on it. My body mends. But I’ll never stop expecting an attack. Peaceful as my days may seem, war is coming. The Dog People just don’t know it yet. The question is: will I warn them?

When I walk back to Birket’s yurt, I hear a cough. I turn and spot the dark shape of a man of about my height. He lifts a hand in greeting.

‘Hey, I was on the way to Birket’s…’ I trail off when I see him stare at my throat. Because of the warmth in the yurts, my coat is unbuttoned and my shirt a crack open at the top.
 

Katvar reaches out to touch the ivory dog. A knuckle rests against my skin. Warm on warm. Calloused on soft. A current zips from there through my entire body and my reaction is instantaneous.

My left hand grabs the front of his coat and shoves him hard while my right hand slips the pistol from my thigh and my left leg hooks around his right. In less than a second, he is flat on his back, air punched from his lungs. He coughs. The muzzle of my gun rests between his eyes, my knee is on his chest. Hell opens her gates and pours her shit over me. I’m terrified and I don’t understand why. Katvar has never raised a hand against me. He can’t even raise his voice. It seems as if, slowly, my brain contracts to its normal functionality, and my shocked, wide-open senses settle to the low-danger mode, to a perception less sharp and aggressive as rational thinking gradually trickles back in.

What flickers in Katvar’s eyes is anger, puzzlement, and more. There’s knowledge. He has witnessed the transformation of woman to monster. He’s learned to not trust the veneer.