The Animal Wife (3 page)

"Respect my in-law!" cried Bala to Mother, having guessed what she had done. But she was striding away, her glossy braid and the fringe of her belt swinging, while on her hip her baby in his sling gave us a look which seemed to say that even he wanted nothing to do with Father.

Why was Father pretending? What really had brought him so far to visit Uncle Bala? That night in Uncle Bala's firelight, when I was sitting hidden in Father's shadow, so close I could feel the warmth of his body through his deerskin shirt, Father held up his fingers and counted off his wives. "Martin was my first wife," he said. "Martin died. Your sister, Aal, was my second wife. Aal divorced me. Your kinswoman, Yoi, is my third wife. Years have passed, but Yoi is as childless as she was when she came to the Hair River. And I am her third husband." Father grasped his little finger and shook it in front of Uncle Bala. "So I need another wife. Do you keep gifts without giving a woman?"

A woman! So that was what Father was after. I was quite surprised. But Uncle Bala seemed to have known all along. "Do you mean that the gifts you and your kin gave for Aal should be part of the new marriage exchange?" he asked suspiciously. "Because our people won't agree. I might be satisfied, but the others won't be satisfied."

"We will give new gifts for Eider's Daughter," said Father. Again I was surprised. He was naming a woman, someone whose respect name Uncle Bala knew but I did not. Father added, "Although I'm sure your people won't expect too much, after all that's happenedto me at the hands of your women. But more ivory is waiting at the Hair River for you and your kin. And this." Father took off his lion's-tooth necklace. "This for my new in-laws. Look at the bead."

He handed the necklace to Uncle Bala, who let it dangle from his fingers, barely glancing at it. I looked at the huge eyeteeth pried whole from the skull of a lion, teeth as long as my hand and pointed at both ends, sharper and shinier at the fang than at the root. Beside the teeth the carved amber bead seemed unimportant. But over the bead ran Uncle Bala's thumb.

"The amber should please her people," said Uncle Bala.

"Good," said Father.

"But she's not here," Uncle Bala went on.

"No," said Father.

Uncle laughed, now relaxed and easy. The tightness between him and Father seemed to be gone. "We haven't seen her people lately. They must be camped upstream, since they haven't passed us going downstream. We'll send someone for her."

"Everything is good, in that case," said Father.

***

Early the next morning, even before the first gray light, I heard Father's voice in the darkness. "Are you tired of fish, Bala?" he asked. "Shall my half-brother and I bring you meat?"

In the distance a lion who had roared a few times during the night suddenly roared again. We listened. "Everyone likes meat," said Bala.

It was the quietest time of day. In the east the morning star, the Hunter, was just beginning his stalk across the plains of the sky. Father and Andriki stood up, took their spears, and walked off into the mist that still lay by the river. I followed.

We had not gone far before Andriki looked back at me over his shoulder. "Kori is following us," he told Father.

Now Father stopped and turned. "Let him," said Father. "Isn't he my son?" To me he said, "What's that in your hand?"

It was my spear. I looked down at it. It must have seemed like a toy to Father, because the point was made of sharpened bone, not flint or obsidian or even greenstone, since these good stones were not found nearby. In fact, the adults traveled far to find their heavy spear-stones, then struggled to carry them home. After so muchwork, no adult would give spear-stones to a young person. But what could I say to Father if he didn't know this already? Looking up from the spear, I met his pale eyes. "It's sharp enough, Father. I can use it," I said.

"Well then," he said, "if you know how to hunt, go ahead of us and find something!" So I went ahead of them, pushing quietly through the soft grass, moving carefully around the bushes, trying to watch for everything at once and not to make noise. All the while I was afraid that one of them would see game before I did, which would shame me.

Before long, in the shadow cast by the rising sun, I noticed the tracks of a lion—probably he who had been roaring. I thought I knew him—the headman of a pride of lionesses who usually stayed far downriver but sometimes bothered us by coming quietly at night to look at us in our camp. His tracks were so big that no matter how often I saw them, they always startled me. Without speaking, I pointed to them.

Father and Andriki looked at the tracks rather scornfully. "Do the men teach you fear, here at the Fire River?" asked Andriki.

His question stung me. Had he taken my showing him the tracks as a sign of fear? "No!" I answered.

Andriki pointed ahead of us so that I would keep going. I looked to the west, into the sky that was filling with daylight. There ravens were circling, looking down at something. Suddenly it came to me what they were circling, and where I could take my father and Andriki to find meat. Where lions are eating, people say, ravens are the smoke of their campfire.

Father and Andriki seemed to be waiting for me to move. Carefully I began walking toward the ravens. After we had walked a while, Andriki poked me with the tail of his spear. I looked back at him. He made the hunter's handsign for question. Watching his face to see how he would take my answer, I made the handsign for meat. His eyes widened very slightly, just enough to show surprise. I found this satisfying. On I led them, more slowly now, easing myself forward over the sparse grass, staying far away from the bushes.

The ravens had vanished. I walked toward the place where they had been. At last, half hidden by a distant thicket of juniper, I saw them again, now sitting on the rack of red bones they had been circling. I stood still, trying to see and hear everything. The lionmight be with this carcass, perhaps in the juniper. In fact, I thought I smelled him.

Looking carefully into the grass to be sure no other lion was hiding near us, I cleared my throat. "Uncle," I began, "we're here!"

My words woke him! From the juniper I heard a short, sharp grunt, a startled cough. "Waugh," said the lion, as a person might say, "By the Bear!"

We listened while the silence grew. Now the lion was also listening. Soon we heard a clap of sound, the buzz of many flies all jumping suddenly into the air. The flies had been chased off the carcass by something that moved in the bushes.

I felt the skin crawl on the back of my neck. Wanting the lion to think of standing bravely in the open, not to think of creeping, of stealth, I steadied my voice and said loudly, "Look at us, Uncle! We won't surprise you. Be easy. We respect you. Hona!"

Now something moved on the far side of the juniper, and slowly, showing us the side of his body, the lion walked into sight. His eyes, round and pale in his dark, scarred face, looked straight at us. "You see us, Uncle," I said, keeping in my voice a firmness and a calmness I didn't feel. "You are one. We are three. We have spears. Go now, and we won't hurt you."

Carelessly, as if to show that he was ignoring us, as if to show that he was leaving anyway, the lion took himself to another thicket, farther away. There he threw himself down. Ough! But in the grass we saw the top of his head, his round ears. He was still watching.

"Thank you for the horsemeat, Uncle," called Father politely. "Brother, help Kori get the meat while I keep my eyes on this lion. If he changes his mind, I want to see." So Andriki and I used our knives on the horse, then made a bundle of the meat and marrow bones with twine from my hunting bag.

"My in-laws may be content to wait like-women, watching animals eat meat while people eat fish," said Father proudly as we were ready to leave, "but my son knows what men do."

Glad of the praise, I didn't want to say that Father was wrong about his in-laws waiting like women, watching animals eat. They didn't have the patience. To save wear on their brittle, hard-gotten spearheads, our men often took meat from lions, especially from this lion. In fact, this particular lion had come to expect being stoned and insulted if a group of people found him alone on a carcass. By now, when he saw people, he seemed glad to get up and go away. But if I had told this to Father, he might have changed his mind about my bravery, so I smiled and said nothing.

On the way back Father again told me to lead. This pleased me too. As we walked he called out, "You did well."

This pleased me most of all. "Thank you, Father," I said, speaking without turning, in the hunter's way.

"How did you know there was only one lion?"

"Because he called all night but no one answered. Because his wives do his hunting before they do their hunting. Because his meat was old. Did you hear the flies on it? There were too many to have come this morning. Last night those flies slept on that meat."

Behind me, Father was quiet. We walked on, the day growing warm and the smell of grass rising. In time I heard the river. We were almost in camp. Now again Father spoke to me. "Kori!"

From his voice, I knew that he was standing still. I stopped and turned to face him. "Yes, Father?"

"Have you no better spear?"

This question surprised me. If I had a better spear, I would have brought it. But, "No, Father," I said.

Father stared at me, frowning. "Why won't your uncle give you a flint? Why does he waste your hunting?"

I didn't know why, so I said nothing. Soon I began to feel uneasy, held tight by Father's eyes.

"By the Bear!" he said at last. "Come here, Kori."

So I did. Still staring at me, he reached into his hunting bag, pulled out a great, heavy flint, seized my hand, and brought the flint down into it so hard my palm stung. But as I clenched my fist tightly around the heavy stone, my heart filled with a fierce, glad feeling. "Father! You have given me a flint!" I said.

"Yes, my son," said Father.

***

A few days later, while Uncle Bala was cooking fish for the three of us—Father, Andriki, and me—as we lay on our backs looking at the half moon in the afternoon sky, Father said, "The longest days will soon be here, a good time to travel. Our home is far. We will leave when my wife comes. We'll take Kori."

Oh, I was happy! I jumped to my feet, seeing in my mind's eye the wide plains, the open woods, the great Hair River, and the corpses of huge animals.

"Sit down, Kori," said Uncle. "The fish is almost ready to eat."

"I'm going to make my pack!"

The men laughed. "You don't need to make your pack just yet," said Uncle. "And your mother? What of her?"

What of her? I was old enough to decide for myself where I would go or stay. I hurried to Mother's empty grass shelter and took my winter clothes—my parka, my outer trousers, and my moccasins—from the bush where I kept them. No one saw me. My deerskin sleeping-skin, my spear, and my hunting bag (with the flint inside it) were already at Uncle Bala's fire. Before Uncle Bala's fish had quite finished cooking I had tied all my things together into a pack, and I was leaning on this pack, pulling the fishbones out of my teeth, when I heard Mother screaming on the far side of camp. Word of my plans must have reached her.

In no time my stepfather came striding up to Uncle Bala's fire, his belt in his hand. Without greeting the men or showing any politeness, he thrashed the belt against the ground, raising a cloud of dust and ashes, and roared, "Go home, Kori!"

Sometimes in the past I had had whippings from Mother, whippings I liked to think I hardly noticed. But never had I been punished by my stepfather. His rage was frightening. I started to my feet.

But Father put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me down. To my stepfather he said, "Kori stays with me."

My stepfather turned and left, looking worried. Later he came back with six of his kinsmen. They stood in a half-circle over Father and Andriki, all talking at once, insisting that Father would not take me.

Father and Andriki stood up. I saw how, if the argument became a fight, we were greatly outnumbered. Father must have seen this too. Yet very carefully, very slowly, he rubbed his hands together as if to heat the calluses a spear makes on one's palms. He meant to hint that he wouldn't run from fighting. But his tone of voice was pleasant. "Must Kori stay here as a guest of his lineage?" he asked. "Or shall he come to the Hair River, where together with me, my brother, my half-brothers, and their sons he will own the hunting?"

My stepfather had no answer for that. He was not my kinsman anyway, just someone who was speaking for Mother.

"Kori can decide for himself," said Uncle Bala. "Well, Kori—your mother or your father?"

"My father," I said.

"Then you must tell your mother. Go on. Go do it."

So I went. I found Mother all red in the light of the setting sun, sitting by her fire in front of her grass shelter, cracking the shinbone of the mare I had taken from the lion. Without a word she looked at me sadly, handing me the broken shin. I took it and licked out the marrow. "You're leaving," she said.

"But not now," I said. "Not until Father goes."

Mother looked at me steadily, planning her words as if she hadn't heard mine. At last she spoke. "On the bank of the Hair," she said, "you will find a huge, dark cave where many people spend the summer. I used to spend the summer there too. We were there when I bore you. I went out to the plain where no one would see me and I hid myself in a thicket. I hid from the lions. There were many lions. I crouched down out of sight and hung on to the thickest branch of one of the bushes. I bit the branch so I wouldn't scream. I was there all day, until sunset, without help or safety or water. At last I bore you, in a river of my blood. And then I carried you back to the safety of the cave. I took care of you. I fed you. These fed you." Mother opened her shirt and showed me her breasts, the nipples now hung with drops of milk for her new baby.

"Mother, I know that—" I began, but she interrupted me.

"Don't speak! I'm speaking," she said. "In winter, when there was no food, you ate the food of my body. Even when I starved, I had milk in my breasts for you. And wherever I went, I took you. When your father divorced me I brought you to my people, thinking that you would be with me when I grew old, that you would hunt and give me meat, give back to me some of that life and food I gave to you. But I see I was wrong. You're going." She pressed her lips tight and looked at me with huge eyes.