Song of the River (26 page)

K’os lowered her head, allowed her sobbing to subside.

Blue Jay stood, came to her. “She can go to my wife’s lodge,” he said, speaking softly to Ground Beater, then he bent to help K’os to her feet.

They were at the entrance tunnel when Dog Trainer said, “It is sad the young hunter has not returned to our village.”

K’os turned and looked at the man, saw that his eyes were hard and fixed on Blue Jay’s face. “Yes, it is sad,” Blue Jay mumbled.

So, K’os thought, for now I will learn nothing, but there are others in this village besides elders, and women do not always do what a husband says.

Blue Jay’s wife was called Song, simply that. A strange name, K’os thought, but soon she understood. The old woman did nothing without singing. Her voice, thin and raspy, grated against K’os’s ears until her head ached.

Song crooned over her, clicking her sympathy, watching K’os with tiny black eyes, the lids so wrinkled that K’os wondered how the woman could open them to see.

“Your boy, he will be all right,” the woman sang. “He is strong and healthy. His mother should not worry.”

Yes, K’os thought, as the old woman sang the same words over and over again, Chakliux has been here. For some reason they do not want us to know. Perhaps Chakliux himself told them that hunters from the Cousin River Village sought an excuse to attack. If that was so, then she and Ground Beater were fortunate the elders had welcomed them. Of course, as Chakliux’s parents they might be seen as friends rather than enemies.

Meanwhile, this was not a terrible place to be. The lodge was clean, well-cared-for. Fishskin and grass baskets were stacked in one area, bedding folded and piled in another. The caribou skins on the floor were well-scraped. She knew women in her own village who would make clothing out of such skins rather than use them on floors. But one look at the old woman’s parka, hung on a peg near the entrance, made K’os understand. It was sea otter, she was sure, with a ruff of wolverine fur and cuffs banded with caribou hide, scraped and softened until it was almost white. The back of the parka came down in a wide pointed tail of some strange spotted skin, a stiff-haired pelt unlike any K’os had ever seen.

One side of the lodge was hung with weapons and men’s clothing, sacred bundles of flicker feathers and a beaverskin pouch much like the one she carried under her parka, with the head as a flap that closed down over an opening cut in the throat.

There were several fire bows, one larger than any she had ever seen. How could a man build a fire using a bow that long? she wondered. The more she looked at it, the more puzzled she became. The wood part of it was very strong, reinforced, it appeared, by twisted sinew.

“Ah, you are hungry,” the old woman said. She hummed something under her breath, then hobbled to the cooking bag that hung from the lodge poles. It was set over a hollowed stone.

K’os had seen such a stone before. It was made, she had been told, to hold a fire, something used by the people who were called Sea Hunters. It had seemed a foolish thing to her. How much heat could such a stone provide? And how did wood fit into it? Now she saw that the hollow was filled with oil. Bits of twisted moss floated in the oil. Song took fire from her hearth and lit the moss. It burned, but for some reason was not consumed by the flame. The stone was no wider across than the distance from her elbow to her wrist, and only small flames rose from the moss, but K’os could feel the stone’s heat from where she sat on the other side of the lodge.

The old woman scooped out a bowl of food and brought it to her.

“That,” K’os said, and lifted her chin toward the hollowed rock, “what is it?”

“Qignax,” the old woman said. “The Sea Hunters use them to burn seal oil. It is cleaner than a hearth fire, and a good way to use old fat that is too rancid for cooking. My husband was a trader when he was young.” She hummed again, something without words.

Yes, K’os thought. She remembered that he had bought her favors with a fine necklace of soapstone carved into intricately designed balls.

“He traded for that fire bow?” K’os asked, looking at the bow hanging among the weapons.

The old woman laughed. “It is not a fire bow,” she said. “It is a strange kind of spearthrower. He got it from those people who live near the Far Mountains that edge the South Sea.”

K’os had heard stories of such people. “They are not human, I have been told,” she said.

The old woman lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “My husband says their language is different and their ways are different. They live in lodges of earth and dead trees. But they respect their ancestors and their children are healthy. He says it is good we do not live close to them. They are warriors, and their weapons would make it difficult for us to survive an attack.”

“Weapons like that fire bow?” K’os asked. “What does it do?”

“I cannot touch it,” the old woman said. “Even my husband seldom touches it. We do not take it with us to fish camp or when we follow caribou. We leave it here in the winter camp. It has great power, but he showed me how it works, and I will show you.”

She brought a small fire bow, settled on her haunches beside K’os and tightened the string until it curved the bow’s wooden back. She handed it to K’os, then crawled over to hunt through her stack of firewood until she found a stick. She notched the end of the stick with her woman’s knife and set the notch into the string, pulled back and let the stick go. It flew across the lodge, stopping with a thud against the caribou hide wall.

“They do that with spears?” K’os asked.

“That is what my husband says. Small spears with feathers at the end like our men put on their bone-tipped throwing spears. The shafts are only this long,” she said, and held her hands a shoulder width apart. “The spear points are small also, no longer than a finger, and made thin and light, of bone and slices of chert.”

“So why would people use a weapon like this?” K’os asked.

“It is easy to carry. A man can take a handful, two handfuls, of little spears and shoot them quickly, and very far.”

“Farther than a man throwing a spear with a spearthrower?”

“Yes,” the old woman said, but she answered slowly, as though not quite sure she was right. “I am trying to think of what my husband told me,” she said. She was quiet for a moment, then looked up at K’os with eyebrows raised. “A weak man is able to send his little spear nearly as far as a strong hunter can. That is the good thing. It helps a boy or an old man bring home meat for his family.”

“That
is
good,” K’os said, and raised the food bowl to her lips. The old woman’s stew of meat and roots warmed K’os from her mouth to her belly. She settled her eyes on the bow, caressed it in her thoughts as it hung on the wall. She remembered all the young men she had welcomed into her bed during the past year—boys with thin arms, not yet able to match a grown man strength for strength. With these spear bows, would they be as formidable as older warriors? Was that possible?

K’os finished her meat, then reached inside her parka to the many necklaces she wore against her skin. The young men were always making them for her. Necklaces were not as good as some things. You could not eat them, and they would not keep you warm, but they had their uses.

“You have been kind to me,” she said to Song. “Take this and remember my gratitude.”

For a moment K’os saw a young woman shine through Song’s faded eyes, then one clawed hand reached out for the necklace. K’os stood and draped it over Song’s caribouskin shirt, then closed her ears to the old woman’s pitiful song of praise.

“You would take a golden-eyed dog?” K’os asked.

“No,” the old man said. “How can I trade it? It holds my luck. There is nothing you can give me for it, not even a golden-eyed dog. I still hunt, an old man like me. That spear bow keeps my spearthrower and spears strong. This year I have killed a bear. I also took many caribou. Look at my lodge. See the furs; see the baskets of dried meat. My cache is still nearly full. Soon I will have a giveaway. There is too much for my wife and me, so I will share what I have with others. We will feast and eat. I can do that before you leave. Your husband and the hunters from your village will see how much luck I have.”

K’os narrowed her eyes, pulled her lips into a thin, tight line. Blue Jay was a fool. Why did he need luck? He was old.

“If I decided to give it away,” he said, “I would give it to you. But a man cannot lose his luck. Especially an old man.”

She heard the pleading in his voice and realized he was like all men, eager to please. She stood. “I understand,” she said. “I will not ask such a thing of you, nor will my husband.”

The old man smiled, relief in his eyes.

“You know I have been asked to visit my son’s Near River mother,” K’os said.

Blue Jay looked down at his hands. “I know you believe your son to be animal-gift,” he said. “Some of us in this village also believe that. Do not let this woman take away your heart.”

K’os smiled. “Chakliux is animal-gift, but if Day Woman thinks he is her lost son, then perhaps that belief brings her comfort. I will not take away her heart either.”

“You are kind,” Blue Jay said, then jerked his head toward Song’s parka. “My wife will show you the way.”

K’os nodded and followed Song from the lodge.

“He is a good man, worried for everyone,” Song said.

“Yes,” K’os answered. How sad, she thought, that his luck has run out.

After Song left them alone, K’os sensed Day Woman’s nervousness. She could not raise her eyes, and her hands trembled when she gave K’os a dish of meat. K’os set the food on the floor beside her.

Day Woman’s eyes grew large. “There is something else you would rather have?” she asked.

“I have had enough food,” K’os said. She smiled at the stricken look on Day Woman’s face, then asked, “You are Chakliux’s true mother?”

She expected no answer from the woman. She had seen such wives before, knew many of them. They lived always trying to please others. She had heard a saying once: “Those who enjoy kicking dogs will find dogs to kick.” Day Woman’s husband was, no doubt, a dog kicker.

Day Woman’s lodge alone was proof of that. Lodge poles were crooked and small, the bedding furs were old and the smell of mildew was strong. The caribou skins on the floor were well-scraped, but many were falling apart.

“Yes, I am Chakliux’s mother,” Day Woman said.

K’os was surprised but pleased with the directness of Day Woman’s answer. She always welcomed a challenge.

“No,” K’os told her, “you are not his mother. He is animal-gift, given to me. His powers are for the people of my village.”

Day Woman sat with mouth open, and K’os watched as the woman’s eyes filled with tears.

“Crying will not change what is true.”

“I do not cry for what you say,” Day Woman answered, her voice louder than it had been, as though the tears had strengthened her throat. “I mourn the years I was not mother to him, and I thank you for being his mother when I could not.”

K’os shrugged, then picked up her bowl of food, began to eat. Glancing up, she noticed that Day Woman, seeing her eat, seemed to relax. Hospitality was very important to these Near River People, K’os reminded herself. Even the Near River men who came to her village to trade, and then to her lodge for other reasons, always brought gifts and kind words, boring K’os with talk of things that did not matter. She had eyes; nothing stopped her from looking outside to see the sky, to know if it rained or did not, if it snowed or was clear. Why did they have to speak of such things as though she depended on their words for knowledge?

K’os lowered her bowl, looked into Day Woman’s face. Yes, she could see some resemblance to Chakliux, the curve of the mouth, the way the right eye was a little larger than the left. “If you are his mother,” she said slowly, “then you understand how I feel. More than two handfuls of days have passed since he left our village. He was coming here. We found the man he traveled with dead. There is no sign of my son, and your elders say he did not come to this village.” She looked at Day Woman, then up at the top of the lodge. She held her eyes wide open, did not allow herself to blink until the smoke from the lodge hearth burned, then she raised one hand to wipe tears from her cheeks. “I cannot bear to think that he is …”

Day Woman leaned forward, shaking her head. “Do not cry, Sister. Do not cry.” She crawled on hands and knees to K’os and wrapped her arms around K’os’s shoulders.

K’os stiffened against the woman’s touch but forced herself to be still. Day Woman smoothed K’os’s hair as though she were a child.

“The elders are afraid of the young warriors in your village,” Day Woman said. “They are afraid the Cousin River hunters will think Chakliux stole golden-eyed dogs for us.” Again she stroked K’os’s hair, then rocked on her knees. “Hush, now. Chakliux is alive. Do not worry over him. Even now he is on his way to the Walrus Hunters. Even now he is safe, he and his brother, my son, Sok.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE SCREAMING WOKE YAA,
and at first she thought it was Ghaden. When she realized he was asleep, she reached out for him. He was startled at her touch. Yaa gathered him into her arms, and he winced as she hugged him too tightly.

“What is it? What is the matter?” Brown Water called.

“Something outside,” Happy Mouth said.

In the half-light of early morning, Yaa saw Brown Water roll from her sleeping mats, wrap herself in a hare fur blanket and duck out through the entrance tunnel.

“Yaa, Ghaden, you are awake?” Yaa’s mother asked.

“Yes. We are awake,” Yaa answered.

“Put on your boots but stay in your beds,” said Happy Mouth.

Brown Water stuck her head back inside and said, “There is a fire. Song’s lodge.”

Yaa sucked in her breath. When a fire started, it spread rapidly, lodge top to lodge top, the greased caribou skins burning so quickly people were often trapped inside.

That was one of the reasons the women did most of their cooking outside, keeping only a small hearth fire in the lodge for warmth in winter and to drive away mosquitoes and gnats in summer. It was one of the first things Yaa had been taught, how to tend the fire, to keep it small.