The Animal Wife (28 page)

"Be easy, Brother," said Maral. "Will we quarrel?"

"I understand your anger," said Andriki, "but why turn it toward us? Is he our son? Did one of us divorce his mother? Did we bring him here? Did we choose to go away, leaving him with people who hardly knew him?"

"I'm thinking of her people's revenge," said Father. "I was far away when he caught her. How could I stop him? Why didn't you stop him when you knew her men could come to get her back? Is Kori's woman worth the death of some of our people?"

"What makes you think men will come?" said Andriki. "Why haven't they come already? We watched for them. We were ready. Where were they?"

"Isn't she someone's daughter?" asked Father. "Couldn't she be someone's wife as well? Shouldn't we expect revenge? Could her people come here and drag off our women and children?"

Andriki pointed with his lips at the bushes on the hillside where the wolf watched. "Look there," he said to Father. Father looked. "When we take their pups," asked Andriki, "will you worry about their revenge? I, for one, don't fear Muskrat's people or their bird-spears. Let Kori enjoy her. After all, he's a young man, with a young man's thoughts and a young man's ways. Yet his wife is an infant. If he has his muskrat-woman, he keeps away from other women, and we have peace in the lodge."

"Do you need a slave to keep peace in the lodge?" asked Father.

"Shouldn't every man have a woman?" asked Andriki. "Now that Pinesinger's child is born, even you, the man of many wives, can also have a woman." He laughed. I liked how the talk was turning.

But just as I began to feel easier, Father turned to me. "So tell me, Kori," he said. "What are your plans? I see she's pregnant. Is it yours?"

"Yes, Father," I said.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

What could I say? I was quite sure! If I had said so, though, I might have sounded brash. "I think the child is mine, Father," I said.

Then Andriki spoke for me, and bluntly, too. "His woman was menstruating when we caught her," he said. "Even Kori knows they can't menstruate while they're pregnant. After that, only he had her. He thought we were having her as well, but in truth I didn't want the crotch lice. Neither did Maral, here. No—the rest of us let her be. If any man can know he's truly a father, Kori is that man."

"Crotch lice?" asked Father.

"Yes, but by now they've crept all over the lodge. Everyone is scratching. You'll believe me soon! But yes, the crotch lice kept us off her." Andriki laughed aloud. Father sighed.

"Her crotch lice and her strange way of coitus," added Maral.

Now Father stared at Maral. "How so?" he asked.

"She's different," said Andriki. "Tell him, Kori."

"Uncle!"

"Tell me!" said Father.

I put down my antler pick and turned so that I didn't have to look at Father. "You're shaming me," I said.

The three men were suddenly quiet and I felt them watching me. I looked at the ground, my face hot. I wouldn't speak of coitus.

Andriki cleared his throat. "Must we shame him?" he asked. "After all, what was done was done long ago. If you didn't know about it, Brother, how is that Kori's fault?"

"By the Bear!" said Father. "You hint at strange things, then won't explain yourself. Why do you anger me?"

"I don't hint, Brother," said Maral very seriously. "I speak my mind openly or I keep silent, just as you do. About this woman, though, I only meant that there's a right way and a wrong way for everything. There's a right way to throw a spear and a right way to roll a fire. If you throw your spear wrong, your spear will fall. If you roll your fire wrong, your tinder won't burn. The same is true of coitus. She who gave life to all the animals and all the people, She showed us how to do this thing. We do what She taught. But not Kori's woman. Kori's woman..." Maral hesitated.

"Is she like Bobcat Woman?" asked Father, truly alarmed. I had to join my uncles in promising that Muskrat was nothing like Bobcat Woman, who in the earliest times had been one of Weevil's wives, until she tricked him into having coitus while she was menstruating. This had made his penis like a bobcat's penis, bright red and very small. When he learned how his wife had tricked him, he divorced her, and his penis became normal again.

"Not like Bobcat Woman," said Maral. "Kori's woman just faces him. It's her way, that's all."

Father seemed interested, as if he was trying to imagine Muskrat and me together. "It's not the boy's fault," said Andriki. "Which of us could say he wouldn't do the same? Surely any of us would do exactly the same if the woman didn't know how to do differently and wouldn't learn."

Still Father seemed to have trouble taking it in. "Hi!" he said at last. "Crotch lice and this too! No wonder her people don't want her."

On the hillside the watching wolf ran nervously to the far side of the bush that hid her. We rested, listening. Still no sound came from the den in the earth. "Are we digging for nothing?" asked Maral.

To answer Maral, Father pointed his lips at the wolf, now watching from a new thicket, as if she had hoped to see a change. "Do you see her?" he asked.

"Yes," said Maral.

"You who think that Kori's woman has no people who want her, how do you explain that wolf?" Father asked.

"If you want an answer from a wolf, watch what happens now," said Maral, and lying on his belly, he reached his arm deep into the hole, felt around for a moment, and sat back on his heels, holding in his large hand a soft brown pup. At the sight the wolf on the hillside stopped still. "Will she fight us?" asked Maral scornfully. Handing the pup to me, he again stretched himself on his belly and reached down the hole.

I looked at the little animal. It was a male, I saw when I turned it on its back. The long hairs at the end of his penis were wet with urine. I held him in both hands, noticing that his brown eyes stared into mine, noticing that he held his body rigid, his neck arched, his front legs stiffly bending at the wrist and elbow, his hind legs stretched so long and straight that he pointed his toes. Between his hind legs curled his tail, its tip trembling. Under my thumbs I felt his ribs, as delicate as a baby's, and under his ribs I felt his beating heart.

Never before had I held a living wolf pup. The fur surprised me, soft and brown, although an adult's was coarse and gray. How would he change his fur when he grew up? I turned him over to look at his back, and suddenly, with strength that surprised me, he twisted out of my hands and ran. "Hi!" I shouted.

"Hi!" cried Andriki, grasping his spear behind the blade and bringing down the shaft like a club. The spear moaned through the air, so fast Andriki moved it, and it caught the cub a great thump that laid him flat, with his teeth through his tongue and his legs spread like a pegged-out pelt.

"Hi!" cried Father. "Be careful! I want it alive!"

Andriki and I stood over the pup. His ribs heaved slowly, and blood ran out of his mouth. "It's still alive," said Andriki, poking the pup with his foot. Without knowing why, I glanced up the hillside to see what the watching wolf thought of this. But the watching wolf was gone.

Behind us Maral said, "You've killed it, and he wanted it alive."

"It could still live," said Andriki as the pup gave a shuddering sigh. "Anyway, if I hadn't hit it, it would have run away. He still would have lost it. Kori! You let go of it. Why?"

"I didn't think it would move so fast," I answered.

"You were daydreaming," said Father.

For some reason I couldn't take my eyes from the pup, as brown as the brown dust, his eyes filming. I heard Maral scratching at the dirt. "Here," he said behind me. "Pay attention this time." And he put a second pup into my hands.

"I will," I promised. I took off my belt and wound it tight around the new pup's feet and neck and jaws. Another little male, perhaps not as large as the first one, this pup couldn't have moved if he had tried to. But he wasn't trying. Perhaps he had seen what had happened to his brother. Perhaps he was too frightened by us. As I tied him he trembled violently but otherwise lay perfectly still.

"There might be more," said Father, and for a third time Maral groped in the depths of the den.

"If there are, I can't feel them."

"Shall we dig deeper?"

"Hi! Aren't two enough?" asked Andriki. "Are we going to spend the day here? Won't we hunt? You've come so far, and we have little to eat here. Aren't you hungry?"

"If we leave pups here, the adults will move them. We won't find them again easily," said Father.

"You have two," said Andriki. "How many do you need?"

"Are you impatient, Little Brother?" asked Father. "Very well, let's see what we can see from the ridge of the hills. We don't want to hunt near here. Remember the Lily?"

"Will we take this hunting?" asked Maral, touching the second wolf pup with his moccasin.

"We'll take him to the lodge. One of the women can keep him for us," said Father. He pulled his beard, looking down at the two pups. "They must eat," he said. He thought again, a long time. "Years ago," he said, "I lived on the Char, just like I lived this winter. One of my wife's kinswomen kept a wolf pup. It came and went of its own free will, and of its own will it helped us in hunting. I saw this. It even made a reindeer stand still and wait for me until I could spear it. As that wolf helped the people on the Char, so this wolf will help us. And what my wife's kinswoman did for their wolf, my wife will do for mine. She won't refuse. Come. We'll tell her now that she must feed it." He took a few long strides in the direction of the lodge, Maral and Andriki following.

Just then we heard a loud, pure voice behind us. It was the wolf who had been watching. Her call rose high, held steady, and flew far. After the call came a deep silence, as if even the trees were listening. Father and his brothers stopped and waited, as if rooted to the earth by the sound. How could a cry cause so much silence? We held our breath, listening. At last, from the east, behind the Hills of Ohun, a wolf's voice answered. Then, from the south, two others answered, and from the north a fourth answered, almost too far to be heard.

"So," said Father softly. "Now they'll come."

"Then what?" I asked him.

He gave me a long look, as if he couldn't decide whether or not to answer me. At last he said, "They'll come and they'll sing. Then they'll leave, and years will pass before they use this place again. Well, Brothers. What of us? Are we going to stay here?" He turned on his heel and strode off, with Maral and Andriki behind him. I picked up the second pup and followed. I would have brought the first one too, but it was dead.

N
O ONE WAS
in the lodge, so we left the pup tied to the door of the coldtrap. Father thought if we didn't tie the pup's jaws shut he would bite through the sinew string, so we wound it very tightly around his muzzle and looped it around his neck. Then we tied his legs together, because we didn't want him pawing off the string. When we finished, he looked like a hafted ax with eyes. I couldn't help but laugh.

Then we went hunting, Father and Maral going west downstream, Andriki and I going east upstream. On the eastern shore of the lake we found the tracks of the she-moose the tiger had killed, oval dents in the wet earth, partly filled with brown water. She had looked at the landscape for a long time. Since we had never seen her or her tracks before, we knew she had come here as a stranger and had tried to learn about the lake before hiding her eyes and ears in it. There was no use to follow or learn more about her, of course, so we set off to the northeast, bending our trail to keep far away from the tiger.

All day we hunted. Our way led over the great, low-lying plain of sedge and willow, all red with spring. At midday we saw a large brown bear making his way toward the horizon. At a distance, a fox followed him. Two of us were no match for that bear. We kept still until he was gone. By late afternoon we had seen no more than two pairs of ptarmigan and a small herd of reindeer, who saw us as soon as we saw them. Then the shadows of the willows grew long and the cold evening wind began to blow. We knew darkness would soon come, and not wanting to meet the Lily without daylight, we turned to go home.

When we reached a pine woods, Andriki stopped to cut branches, explaining that Father would need them. He didn't say why, but I helped. The branches were fresh and green, with new growth showing. Andriki had brought a string with him. We used the string to tie a large bundle, which we dragged into the lodge as the sun went down under the cloud-streaked sky. In the embers of the fire I saw the palms of two hands and the soles of two feet shaped like a person's but darker and smaller—Father and the others were cooking one of two marmots that some of the women had killed with stones. It was skin and bones, poor food after its long sleep, and like any bit of women's food a disappointment after the animals Andriki and I had seen.

When we had eaten, Father left the lodge and was gone a long time. We sat waiting while the sky above the smokeholes grew black and the wind grew strong. After dark Father came in and we sat a while longer. "Build the fire," said Father at last. "I will show you that the Bear is not far."

So we gathered up dry wood and the fresh pine branches and brought them to the Bear's place, which is the owners' fire, where the Bear would sleep if the lodge were His den, if the braces of the ceiling were the roots of His pine tree, which is the lodgepole of the world. Maral's two wives knelt to brush the floor, smoothing out the footprints, gathering the chips of bark, the scraps of marmot bone and marmot hair, the bits of pine cones and seed hulls, making the sacred spot ready for its fire. We scooped up the last embers from the cooking fire, and shaking them gently so they didn't burn our hands, we put them on a fresh pile of twigs. A little blaze started. When it flamed, the people sat around it. I squeezed myself in between Pinesinger and Andriki.

Then Father stood up and brought from his pack a little drum like Andriki's drum, made of a bird's skin stretched on a branch bent in a circle. He gave the drum to Maral, who tapped his fingertips on the skin, making a flat, dry sound, a steady rhythm, which the rest of us kept by clapping our hands. We sang: