Song of the River (29 page)

And what about these Walrus Hunters? They did not do things in proper ways. Chakliux knew how to honor the sun; he knew the correct chants, the ancient stories, and yet here he was sitting like a child listening to the Walrus storyteller. Should he raise his voice, tell them what should be said? Yet how could he without enough Walrus words to speak clearly and in a manner the people would understand?

The Walrus Hunters seemed strong, healthy. Their food caches were full; their women were happy. Perhaps what they did was right for their beach, their village, but was it right for Chakliux and Sok? Should they have had their own celebration, remembering the way of The People, rather than relying on Walrus traditions?

There were too many problems for him in the Walrus Hunter Village, but would his life be better with Blueberry—or living with K’os?

Then Chakliux chided himself: So, like an old woman you whine out your discomfort? You mourn when your belly is full and your hands are busy, when good people are doing what they can to help you. Be still. I do not want to hear your complaints. You are not a child.

He listened again to the storyteller, watched the man’s charmed fingers change his bird knots into the long-whiskered face of an otter. The storyteller held the otter up so all could see, then he turned to smile at Chakliux, the otter-man who had come to live among them.

THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE

Aqamdax flinched from Salmon’s quivering fingers as he stroked her arm. At least his wives had left the ulax and did not see him. She wondered at herself. Why would something that had brought her pleasure yesterday now make her shudder? He was the same man. Of all the hunters, he was the only one who would stay in her sleeping place and hold her after he was satisfied.

Somehow the stories had filled her, made her feel as though she was complete, as though she did not need anyone to protect her against the night.

“No, Salmon,” she said, but tried to keep the sharpness from her voice. Why offend the man? What if by tomorrow the stories were gone and again she was alone? She might need Salmon to hold her so she would not fly up into the dark skies and lose herself in the vast emptiness between earth and stars.

“I am tired,” she said softly. “The people whose stories I told seemed to have taken a part of my spirit, so there is only enough left to guide me into dreams.”

Salmon looked puzzled, but Aqamdax offered no other explanation. How could she? The stories not only filled her, but drew her soul into places she had never been before. It would seem like a betrayal to take a man who was not husband into her sleeping place. At least tonight it would seem so. Tomorrow, who could say?

Salmon left, as did other men who heard what she told him. After the storytelling many wanted to share her bed, some who had never come to her before, others who seldom came. Finally the last of the men was gone and there were only Qung and Aqamdax.

The old woman smiled. “You did well,” she said.

Aqamdax, not used to compliments, lowered her head, unsure how to answer.

Qung lifted her hand toward the empty ulax. “No men tonight?” she asked.

“Not tonight.”

Qung raised her eyebrows. Aqamdax shrugged, and Qung turned toward her sleeping place. She was muttering, but then spoke louder. “Perhaps those chief’s wives did not lie,” the old woman said. “Perhaps they did dream.”

Aqamdax stood for a moment in the empty ulax, imagined that the people were still there. With her voice and her words, she had taken them from this ulax to places none of them had ever been. She had made them warriors and elders, children and traders. They had become Whale Hunters, and Walrus men, even faraway River People. She had done that.

She shook her head in disbelief. With only the words of her mouth, she had done that.

THE WALRUS HUNTER VILLAGE

The people of the Walrus Hunter Village told stories through the night, waiting until the sun showed its face in the morning. Then again they feasted, celebrating the light. Sok and Chakliux sat watching as the Walrus men helped themselves to the dried fish and walrus meat heaped on woven mats laid near the outdoor cooking hearths.

Sok and Chakliux did not eat until all the village elders and hunters were served, but when the boys began to bring their bowls, Chakliux and Sok went also. An old woman came to them with a bone dipping ladle and filled Sok’s bowl. He grunted at her, then picked up several pieces of dried fish, laid them across the bowl, so the steam rising from the broth would soften the flesh.

Chakliux waited, assuming the woman would bring broth for him as well, but she pulled him with her toward a boiling bag as though he were a child. She was a tiny woman, her skin dark with age, but her eyes were bright, and she was as lean and straight as a young girl.

“Even before you came, I heard stories about you,” she said, and Chakliux realized that she spoke the River language. Her words, though clipped too short by a tongue accustomed to speaking Walrus, were clear.

“You speak my language,” Chakliux said.

“And what is so difficult about that?” she asked. “Even small children speak the River language, do they not?” She laughed, and Chakliux laughed with her.

“I am called Tutaqagiisix.”

He tried to repeat the name, but the sounds wrapped themselves into a ball in his throat and came out wrong.

Again she laughed. “The children call me Tut. I am of the First Men, brought here to this village long ago as bride to a Walrus Hunter. I have kept my First Men name, though my husband was not happy I did so. It is a sign of my gift, given me as a child. I learn to speak languages easily. I hear the sounds and soon understand.
Tutaqagiisix
means ‘hearing.’”

She dipped her ladle deep into a boiling bag, brought it out full of meat and small bones. “Seal flipper bones,” she said, still speaking the River language. “They put themselves into my ladle to remind me what I must say to you.” She pulled one of the bones from the ladle. She bit off one of the ends, softened by boiling, and sucked. Oil and broth dripped to her chin and she wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, then dumped the remaining meat and bones from her ladle into Chakliux’s bowl.

“You also have a gift.” She looked down at his caribouskin boots. “Dzuuggi, animal-gift.”

Chakliux was surprised by her words. He and Sok had told few of his past. They were only hunters, trading, trying to earn a bride price for a wife, trying to find strong dogs for the River People.

As though she could hear his thoughts, the old woman said, “Remember my name. I hear much. You are otter, they say.”

“Some say I am otter. Others say I am not.”

“What do you say?”

Chakliux looked away from the woman. Where was Sok? Why was he alone with this old woman and her many questions?

She looked up at him like a child, waiting for his answer, but what could he say when he did not know himself what he was? Dzuuggi, yes, but otter? Animal-gift?

“I am Dzuuggi, trained as storyteller, and to know the many traditions of our people, the memories of wars, hard winters and good hunts.”

Tut again raised the bone to her mouth, sucked, then looked at him from the corners of her eyes. “And animal-gift?”

“If I am animal-gift, I am otter,” Chakliux finally said. “More than that I do not know. The one who found me told me I was animal-gift. Sometimes I believe that is true. Other times I do not.”

“Your words are honest, as the words of a Dzuuggi must be,” the old woman said. “They say you have an otter foot. Show me.”

Her request surprised him, but he did as she asked, showing first the three webbed toes of his right foot, then the bent and curved otter foot. She leaned over, poked at the foot, then said, “You are otter.”

The words washed through Chakliux like warm rain, driving away doubt. Then he reminded himself that she was only an old woman. What did she know? But a small voice came to him, as though Gguzaakk spoke: Why doubt? Tutaqagiisix has also been given a gift. Who else is more apt to recognize the same in another?

“So then,” Tut continued, “where do you build your iqyax?”

She handed Chakliux his bowl, and as though they were brother and sister, born to the same mother, sharing the same food, she reached in and pulled out another seal flipper bone.

“On the leeward side of the walrus rock,” Chakliux told her, “beyond the high tide mark.”

“Come to my tent tomorrow, early in the morning. You can carry the walrus hide. It is heavy for an old woman like me.”

Then like brother to sister, Chakliux offered his bowl once more to her fingers.

Chapter Twenty

C
HAKLIUX ANGLED HIS IQYAX
into the waves and turned his upper body to add thrust to his paddle, driving the bow forward, resisting the water spirits that wanted to tumble his iqyax back to shore.

His arms were strong, hardened during the four moons he had been with the Walrus Hunters, and now he had his own iqyax, Tut’s fine stitches binding the walrus hide cover into one whole piece, like the skin of an animal.

She had also made a hatch skirt, and his chigdax, a watertight parka made of strips of sea lion gut with drawstrings at wrists and face. She had done all this and given it as gift, countering his protests with her own: Who did she have to sew for, now that she was a widow? What did he want her to do with her days? Sit with the old women and grumble?

The iqyax moved over waves like an otter. Sinew bindings at each joint allowed it to flex and bend as Chakliux paddled over each swell. He used his body and legs within the wooden framework as though the iqyax were skin and skeleton, and he its muscle.

Old Tusk had set out seal bladders, each blown full of air and tethered to the next, each weighted with a stone ballast on a long bull kelp line so it would not be lost in the waves. At each end of the tether line, Old Tusk had tied sealskin floats.

“You first!” Old Tusk called.

Chakliux pulled the rope that released his spearthrower from the deck of the iqyax. He fitted a harpoon into his thrower and raised his arm, pulled back, his hand tight on the thrower, fingers light against the harpoon shaft to hold it in place. The throw had to be accurate, had to hit the center of the target or the bladder would skitter away from the harpoon. He threw and his harpoon hit; the bladder popped. The tether line sagged under the weight of the ballast stone, no longer buoyed by air, and pulled the neighboring bladders closer together.

Old Tusk threw his harpoon. It, too, hit. Chakliux lifted his voice to praise, but Old Tusk called: “You are too noisy, brother. Remember, where there is one animal there may be many. Try again.”

Chakliux coiled in his harpoon, fitted it into the spearthrower, and threw again. This time he missed, his throw only pushing the bladder sideways. Old Tusk threw again, hit again.

“See what happens when you are too noisy, brother,” he called. “The animals leave you.”

Chakliux took the scolding in good humor. Old Tusk was right. Hunting sea animals was very different from taking caribou or bears. He coiled in his harpoon and threw. He struck the bladder, and before retrieving the weapon, took another harpoon from the iqyax deck and threw it. Again he hit his target.

This time Old Tusk was the one to raise his voice in praise, and Chakliux could not keep the smile from his mouth. He began coiling in his harpoons. Besides the sealskins, there were two handfuls of bladders still floating. Chakliux and Old Tusk would aim only at the bladders so the whole line would not sink, costing them floats, kelp lines and rock weights. He tied one harpoon on his iqyax and fitted the other to his thrower. He raised his arm, then saw that Old Tusk had raised his thrower straight in the air.

Like all Walrus men, Old Tusk had painted his thrower black on the top, red on the bottom. When he held the red side up and turned it toward Chakliux, it meant his harpoon had hit its mark. This time, the black side was up, a sign he had sighted an animal. Had he seen a seal or otter, even with the noise of their practicing?

Old Tusk pointed with his thrower west, toward the horizon, and Chakliux saw them. Iqyan, three, perhaps four. He quickly tied harpoon and thrower to his iqyax and grabbed his paddle, ready to head back to the village, but Old Tusk called, “They are Walrus.”

He began to paddle toward the iqyan. Chakliux followed. As they drew closer, he could see the yellow and red markings and realized the men were traders. He remembered the group that had left the Walrus Village not long after he and Sok had arrived. He had understood that they hoped to trade with Sea Hunters.

Chakliux thrust his paddle into the waves and pushed ahead to meet them, to see traders and iqyan that had been in the presence of sea otter men. Perhaps someday he would go himself to those far shores and learn what the Sea Hunters had to teach him.

Sok smiled. It was a forced smile, covering his anger. His trade offers were more than enough for the mask and shaman’s pouch. Yehl was an old man who hid behind the power of his chants and medicines. His pleasures no longer came from the bodies of women or the accumulation of goods; now he found joy in withholding from others what he could not have himself.

The Walrus considered themselves a strong people, but how long would that strength last with a shaman like Yehl? Surely the spirits knew he was growing weak. Those evil ones out there would soon start playing their tricks. Would the sea animals continue to give themselves to the harpoons of men whose shaman had no power?

Sok had wasted four moons here in this village, surely long enough to know if the Cousin River People would seek revenge, but also long enough—more than long enough—for him to accumulate the trade goods he would need to change Wolf-and-Raven’s mind about giving Snow-in-her-hair to him as wife.

But he had been too eager, and in foolishness had traded Snow Hawk during the first few days they had been in the village. Chakliux had told him to wait, but Sok, seeing the goods offered, had not. Since then, he and Chakliux had needed to trade away much of what he received for the dog in exchange for food, lodging and oil. How could he have known that the things he accepted in trade, though unusual to the River People, were of everyday use here in this village? How could he have known that in trading those things back to the Walrus, he would get so little in return?