Song of the River (22 page)

Tears stung her eyes, but Yaa blinked them back. Brown Water’s cuff had not hurt that much, but the fear in Ghaden’s eyes as he watched her leave seemed like a knife twisting in her heart. She followed Brown Water over the narrow village paths to Ligige’’s lodge, then sat like a shadow at Brown Water’s side.

Ligige’ and Brown Water first spoke politely of unimportant things, then Ligige’ served them bowls of broth from the small boiling bag that hung from her lodge poles. Finally when they had eaten, Ligige’ began laying out herbs and bits of dried things, twigs and powders—alder bark shredded, boiled and cooled to lay over the wound site, yellow root for strength, the inner bark of willow for fever.

As she explained how to use each medicine, she often looked into Yaa’s eyes, so Yaa knew the old woman understood she would be the one who gave the medicine, she would be the one responsible.

Finally the session ended and they walked back to Brown Water’s lodge. Everything was just as they had left it. There were no slashes in the lodge walls, no blood or bodies lying outside.

See, you are foolish, Yaa told herself, and followed Brown Water into the entrance tunnel. But Brown Water stopped at the end of the tunnel, blocking Yaa inside. The woman made a strange choking noise in her throat, and Yaa felt her arms suddenly grow weak with fear.

“You should have told me you were coming,” Brown Water said, then she asked, “Where is Happy Mouth?”

Yaa reached out to push against Brown Water, and the woman crawled aside, allowing Yaa into the lodge. Yaa’s fear left with a suddenness that almost made her collapse to the floor. It was the elder Blue-head Duck. He was squatting on his haunches beside Ghaden. In his hands was a small brown-and-white puppy. Ghaden was smiling. He began to giggle as the puppy leaned forward to lick his nose.

“It is my puppy,” Ghaden told Yaa, then looked seriously into Brown Water’s face and said, “Mother, it is my dog. This grandfather says he will teach me to take care of it.”

“Happy Mouth went to bring food from the hearth,” Blue-head Duck said to Brown Water. “She will be back soon.”

Brown Water nodded, threw back the hood of her parka, and gestured for Yaa to untie several water bladders. Yaa set the basket of Ligige’’s medicines near her folded sleeping mats and hurried to do as Brown Water said.

What if Blue-head Duck had been the killer? she thought as she offered one of the bladders to him. With a puppy in his arms, who would have suspected him? He could have killed Ghaden and left before her mother returned.

Blue-head Duck took a long drink, then, lowering the bladder, looked at Brown Water. “This pup is from strong stock,” he said. “He will be a good dog for hunting and for carrying. He should be kept inside.”

Inside, Yaa thought in surprise. Who ever kept a dog inside? She looked at Brown Water, expecting her to explode in anger. Even an elder could not order a woman to keep a dog in her lodge.

But Brown Water did not grow angry. Instead she looked long and thoughtfully at the puppy. “It has a loud bark?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It will be a good dog for this lodge.”

Then Yaa understood that she was not the only one who thought Ghaden was in danger.

Ghaden wadded the strip of hide into a ball and threw it. The puppy bounded after it, barking. Ghaden knew they were making too much noise. If Brown Water had been in the lodge, she would have scolded them, but he and Yaa and his new puppy were alone.

He was going to name the dog Biter, though he had told no one yet. When Biter grew up he would be a big dog with long, strong teeth, and everyone would be afraid of him. If Biter had been with them that night, he probably would have saved Ghaden’s first mother.

The pup was light brown, with darker fur around his eyes. He had a little white spot, like a star, on his chin and a white chest and belly.

“What are you going to call him?” Yaa asked.

Ghaden looked into Yaa’s round face and drew his lips back from his teeth. “Biter,” he said, and growled.

“Biter!”

Ghaden growled again, looking at Yaa from the corners of his eyes, his lids half closed. “He is a fierce dog,” Ghaden said.

“I had a pup once. I named him Tail-chaser,” said Yaa. She bent her head to look into Ghaden’s face. “Tail-chaser is a good name,” she said.

Tail-chaser! Ghaden thought. Who would be afraid of a dog named Tail-chaser?

“His name is Biter.”

Yaa lifted her arms and spread her hands. “He is your dog. You should name him what you want.”

Ghaden crawled after Biter, grabbed away the strip of hide and threw it again. “Get it, Biter!”

The dog waved his plumed tail and ran after it. “What happened to Tail-chaser?” Ghaden asked.

“We ate him,” Yaa answered. “It was the end of winter and our father could not hunt anymore.” She rubbed her hands, thinking of the swollen joints that had changed her father from a hunter into an old man.

“Nobody will eat Biter,” Ghaden said. “He will eat them first.”

Yaa raised her eyebrows. “We need a protector dog in this lodge,” she said. “Maybe Biter is a good name for him.”

Yaa looked over at the puppy. He had the strip of hide in his mouth and was shaking his head. Now would be a good time, she thought. Her mother and Brown Water were at the cooking hearths, and Ghaden was talking more than he had since his mother had died.

“Now you are safe,” Yaa began, and looked at Ghaden.

He raised his eyebrows in agreement. “Nobody will get me,” he said, his voice firm.

“Ghaden,” Yaa said, “no one knows who killed … who hurt you.”

Ghaden crawled over to his puppy, put the dog on his lap and held the strip of hide up over its head. Biter lunged and tripped over Ghaden’s legs, then bumped forward on his nose. He got up again, jumped toward the hide and caught it. Ghaden laughed.

“Do you know who hurt you?” Yaa asked.

It seemed as though Ghaden had not heard her question. He continued to play with the dog, dancing the hide strip around Biter’s head.

“Ghaden, do you know?”

Yaa crawled over to her brother, clasped his arm and looked into his face. “Ghaden, I asked you if you knew who hurt you,” she said, her voice stern.

Ghaden closed his eyes and shook his head until Yaa placed her hands on either side of his face to hold him still.

“Ghaden,” she said softly, “if we know who hurt you, we can tell the elders. They will send him away, and he will never hurt you again.”

Ghaden looked at her, his eyes round. He blinked back tears. “I saw … I saw …” he said, then patted his legs.

“You saw his legs?”

“Yes, saw them.”

“I thought it was … I thought it was … Cen.”

“The trader?”

Ghaden raised his eyebrows.

“But it was not?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Do you know who …?”

Again he shook his head. “I saw the knife,” he said. “Blood on it.”

Ghaden stuck his thumb in his mouth and drew his legs up under him. He reached out toward one of Yaa’s braids, then pulled his hand back. Biter jumped up to lick Ghaden’s face. Ghaden pushed him away. The dog tilted his head, cocked his ears, then settled to sit quietly beside him.

Ghaden wrapped one arm around the pup, tucked his fingers into Biter’s thick fur.

“Do you remember anything about him?” Yaa asked.

“Tall,” Ghaden said around his thumb.

“Did you hear any noise? Did his boots have rattlers?”

Ghaden tried to think back to that night. The boots were different, but he could not remember how. It had been dark and he was sleepy. He had wanted to stay with Cen. There were things to play with in the trader’s packs and always a lot to eat. But his mother said they must return to Brown Water’s lodge.

By the time they got back, Ghaden was ready for his own bed, but for some reason his mother did not go inside. They waited in the cold until the chill of the air had seeped through his clothing.

He had looked back over his mother’s shoulder as they crouched in the entrance tunnel, and saw someone. He thought it was Cen coming to get them, to take them back to his warm lodge. Ghaden slipped away from his mother, ran out to grab Cen’s legs so he would not walk past them.

They were in the shadows. He might walk right by, and Ghaden was cold.

It was not Cen. Whoever it was carried a knife. Even in the dark, Ghaden could see blood on the blade. He still wasn’t sure why he reached for it, but he remembered being frightened. He had run with the knife to his mother, and so had led the killer to her….

Ghaden rolled to his side and curled himself into a ball. Biter licked his cheek, and Yaa asked more questions. Ghaden put one hand over his eyes so he did not have to look at her. She was like Wolf-and-Raven’s wife, like old Ligige’, like the man who had come into Wolf-and-Raven’s lodge when Ghaden was there alone. They all asked too many questions.

Finally Yaa’s questions turned into a lullaby, a song soft in her throat. “I will not talk about it anymore, Ghaden,” she said. “Do not be afraid.”

Biter lay down beside him, pressed his cold, wet nose to Ghaden’s face. Ghaden patted his dog, and Yaa sang until he fell asleep.

Chapter Thirteen

T
HE MORNING WAS WARM,
the snow under Chakliux’s feet softened by a south wind. Last year’s grasses stood in dark clumps at the edges of the riverbank. Smoke lay in a thin layer over the Near River lodges. The dogs were barking—some for the joy of being fed; others, smelling the fish given to their neighbors, crying out for their share.

Snow Hawk perked her ears and stopped. She whined and looked up at Chakliux’s parka where her pups were bound against his chest. One had died, killed by Caribou’s knife. Chakliux had taken the pup from his parka, shown it to Snow Hawk, then made a small hole for it in the crusted river snow. Chakliux had allowed Snow Hawk to feed her other pups, then tucked them again in his parka, and continued the walk to the Near River Village. The dead man’s boots on Chakliux’s feet were dry, warm.

The children saw him first, boys feeding their fathers’ dogs. They cried out at his approach, then stopped short when they saw who he was. So, Chakliux wondered, was he considered a curse or only a returning hunter?

“Whose dog?” one of the older boys called.

“She belongs to the elders,” Chakliux answered.

The boy came closer, glancing back at his companions as if to see their reaction to his daring.

“Stay away from her. She is nervous. She does not know this village,” Chakliux told the boy. “Her pups are here in my parka.” He set his hand over his chest. “She will fight to protect them.”

The boy nodded, then squinting at the dog shouted out, “She has golden eyes. Look at her! Golden eyes.”

Chakliux reached into the pack on his back and pulled out a short length of braided bark rope. He fastened it around Snow Hawk’s neck and led her through the village, around dogs that snapped at her from their tethers near the lodges.

He stopped first at Sok’s wife’s lodge, crept inside, taking the dog with him.

Red Leaf was sewing a pieced parka, something beautiful and most likely for Sok. She looked up as he entered, giving a little start of surprise when he brought the dog in with him. She lifted a hand toward the door, pointed rudely with one finger and said, “Get that dog out of my—” Then she stopped. “A golden-eye,” she said. “You got one.”

“Five, I have five,” Chakliux answered, and reached into his parka, set the four pups, two dark-furred, the others mostly white, on the floor. “Three female, one male,” Chakliux said, and lifted them to show Red Leaf the eyes. Snow Hawk nosed each of them, stopping to lick the darkened blood from the white-and-black fur of the smallest.

“It was hurt?” Red Leaf asked.

“No,” Chakliux said, but told her nothing more. He did not want her to spread the story of his journey among the village women before Sok and the elders had a chance to hear it.

Red Leaf filled a bowl with warm broth and handed it to Chakliux. He left his parka on. Because of Snow Hawk’s pup, the tip of Caribou’s knife had left only a shallow wound in Chakliux’s chest, but Red Leaf did not need to see it.

Chakliux tipped the bowl and sucked in a mouthful of warm liquid. It eased the ache in his belly and spread its heat out toward his arms and legs. He emptied the bowl then asked, “Where is Sok?”

“He and my sons have gone to feed his grand … to feed your dogs.”

Yes, his dogs. He had almost forgotten. During his journey, the world had become only himself, Snow Hawk and her pups. Here, he had dogs and a wife.

Red Leaf refilled his bowl. He drank several mouthfuls, then set the bowl on the floor for Snow Hawk. She was lying on her side, her pups crowded against her belly, nursing. Red Leaf squawked out a protest as the dog began to lap up the broth, but Chakliux said, “Snow Hawk has earned it.”

“Why do you think they came after you?” Dog Trainer asked. His face was drawn, and the flickering hearth fire added to the lines that scored his cheeks and forehead.

Away from the fire, the lodge was so dark that Chakliux had to remind himself it was not yet night. His eyes were gritty, as though there were sand under the lids, and several times as he explained to the elders what had happened, he had to hold his mouth closed over a yawn.

Chakliux shook his head. “I do not know. Cloud Finder traded me the dogs. As an elder of the Cousin River Village he came with me, to speak to all of you, to tell you that the Cousin elders want peace, that only the young hunters, bored with the dark days of winter, speak of fighting.”

“So then three were killed?” Dowitcher asked. He sat next to Dog Trainer in one of the places of honor at the back of the lodge. Sok was beside Chakliux, facing the half circle of village elders.

“Three, perhaps four. Another hunter was wounded,” Chakliux said.

“But they killed this elder who traded you the dogs?”

“Yes,” he answered. “One of the hunters killed him.”

“Nothing has happened to us,” Sok said. “None of our young men were killed. This elder was one of theirs. My brother”—he nodded his head at Chakliux—“he is also of their village. Perhaps this is not our problem, but one they must solve for themselves.”