The Animal Wife (40 page)

When much of the day had passed, when both of us were trying hard not to show hunger or disappointment, Andriki saw a marmot sitting by his burrow. From a distance so great I could scarcely believe it, he threw his spear. On and on flew the spear, getting smaller and smaller, until suddenly it knocked the marmot over backward and pinned him, twitching, to the ground. We ran to him and broke his neck. Then we took him to the lodge, cooked him, and ate most of him, saving his legs and feet for later.

That night the wolves, who must have smelled the cooking, swarmed over the lodge. I even thought I heard one of them in the coldtrap. In the morning we climbed the Hills of Ohun and took up the cold trail of Muskrat and her people.

T
HE SPEED OF THEIR TRAVEL
surprised us. The footprints we found when the sun set the first night had been made before noon. These were in damp earth, where Pinesinger and the Ilasi had made their way around one of the bogs that lie on Narrow River. The tracks were so clear, so plain, that I saw I knew the people—they were Pinesinger, Muskrat, and the people who had been with Muskrat when I caught her. These were two women, one young, one old; a little girl, as I learned when I found that her stream of urine had dug a hole behind her heels; and the man who led them, the old man with his stick. All this I saw, yet who these people were and how they came to be there meant very little to me. I fixed my eyes on Muskrat's footprints and followed them.

The group had traveled northeast across a wide plain where juniper, sage, and fireberry grew to shoulder height, as thick as a wood. The people surely were hiding from us, traveling where we couldn't hope to see them. On the far side of the plain they had chosen a valley where a river ran through a heavy spruce wood. I didn't know the river, although Andriki had followed it with Father and said it led to the Hair. On the far side of the valley the plain rose high, open, and rocky, with no cover at all but stones and heather. Still we couldn't catch sight of Muskrat and her people.

But they couldn't hide their tracks. Sometimes we lost their trail and had to search for it, but each time we did we needed only to follow their line of travel to find the trail again, straight ahead. It struck us that the old man wasn't trying to hide their tracks or to trick us or confuse us with a false trail—surely knowing that we were following him, he acted as if he thought his best chance was to reach a certain place quickly. We realized several things because of his way of travel. We realized that his people had not been near our lodge the winter before, or if they had been, Muskrat didn't know it, and we realized that we should be ready to fight when we found them; the old man acted as if he knew that help lay ahead and was running toward it. But a fight with the people didn't worry us too badly, as they were so clearly afraid of us.

When we found where they had spent the night, we saw that they had done without a fire, perhaps because they were afraid of showing us the light. The wolf had scraped a hollow for himself nearby. Perhaps Muskrat had relied on him to give warning if we caught up to them during the night. The people had done without water—the thicket where they had slept was in the middle of the plain—and they might also have done without food. We saw no scraps, no seeds, no teeth or bones, no rinds. Perhaps I should have been encouraged, but it gave me no satisfaction to think how tired and frightened they must be. The little girl and even the babies must have been hungry and exhausted. Muskrat and Pinesinger were probably having a very hard time.

We were tired too, even though Andriki's marmot had been good food for us. Yet when we ate berries with the marmot's legs, we felt almost as strong and as ready to travel by night of the second day as we had on the morning of the first. We were out of food, though, and we had to stop in the afternoon to hunt again. We got a partridge, small for two men. After that we ran our tongues over our teeth to get rid of our thirst, we chewed juniper needles to get rid of our hunger, and we kept walking. I followed Andriki or he followed me, our strides matching perfectly as we kept the long, swinging pace of hunters, a pace that carried us fast and far. We didn't speak. As we walked, I planned what I would say to Muskrat. I would be gentle. I wouldn't be angry. I would welcome her back.

On the morning of the third day we were trying hard to ignore our hunger, knowing that Muskrat's people were hungry too but no more than half a day's travel ahead of us. We thought we would soon be starting home with our women, free to hunt as often as we liked. And we were almost right. By thé afternoon we had found a milkroot, which gave us food and water, and we were traveling as fast as ever. Muskrat's people, in contrast, were stopping on every high place where they could keep watch for us while they rested. Pinesinger no longer carried her baby; the task seemed to have fallen to the older of the two Ilasi women. Pinesinger no longer seemed sure-footed, but was using her digging stick as a cane. Perhaps her fatigue wasn't surprising; she was pregnant, and she had traveled a long way. The old man, though, was as strong and sure as ever, in spite of his cane. With his people at his heels, he was all but flying. Yet he wouldn't run ahead of the others. He stayed to lead them. So when we camped that night, as I rolled our fire in a wormwood thicket out on a lonely plain, I knew we would find them the next day.

I knew where we would find them, too. Their trail led straight for a ridge of hills that ran north and south, standing above the plain like the fin of a grayling might stand above the surface of a pond. Surely the Ilasi were camping in those hills. I was leading all the time now, as if my woman's footprints were pulling me forward. While the sky was still black, I felt that dawn was coming, so I woke Andriki and we started for the hills before it was light enough to see.

By midmorning we were above the plain on gently rising ground, in a sunny grove of pines that covered the southern slopes. The smell of the warm needles was sweet, and the woods were quiet. The old man had taken a well-worn trail, a clear, smooth path among the trees. I followed carefully. The woods were open so people couldn't hide, and I felt safe from an ambush. But we didn't much fear Muskrat's people, with their small bodies, their mouse-eating habits, and their little bird-spears. Instead we worried that we would frighten them into running farther. As if they were a herd of deer, we stalked them quietly. On we went, slowly moving up the slippery, needle-covered slope, stalking the Ilasi with all our skill. When I thought I saw the sky through the pine tops, I turned and looked at Andriki. "We might hear them," I whispered. "Listen." So we listened, straining our ears. But we heard nothing.

Very carefully we went on. The trail led to the base of a cliff and followed it. Above us the cliff was a scrambled fall of boulders, a tumble of rocks too thick and steep for trees to grow among them. Here and there grew tufts of juniper and red-leaved berry bushes. High above I saw an eagle soaring, following the ridge of the hills on his way south. We took a few steps, as silently as we could. I saw another eagle, a she-eagle, and not far behind her a pair of hawks. The range of hills would have to be a long one, to draw south-flying eagles and hawks. I guessed that Andriki knew the range and surely the cliff too, since a range of hills as large as these would not have escaped his notice. But he didn't seem to know the trail, because he kept looking down among the trees below us, as if we might be leaving by another way and he were fixing the place in his mind. Though neither of us knew the trail, both of us felt we were very near the people. Again we went forward slowly, almost creeping up among the boulders, taking care not to roll rocks with our feet.

I was thinking of fighting, of killing, of the Ilasi men who might be lying in wait, ready to try to keep me from my woman. I was thinking of the blade of my spear, its edge and its sharpness; I was thinking of the hafted ax thrust into my belt and of my knife in the top of my moccasin. I was waiting to hear a man shout, or the hum of a rock thrown at me, or the crashing of a boulder rolling down on me. My eyes were stretched wide and my ears were straining, but I wasn't ready for what I heard next. First I heard a wolf bark once, short and muffled, and while I was looking around to see where the sound had come from, I heard a child's voice. "Father," it said. The voice was my own little boy's. Again he spoke: "Father!" Only that wasn't how he said it—he couldn't talk that well. "Baba," said his little voice, or "Bada." The voice came from above. Astonished, I looked up. No one was there.

The voice had stopped Andriki in his tracks. At once he backed against the cliff, his body almost in a crouch, his spear ready. But I lay my spear down by my feet and started to clamber up the cliff toward my son.

Suddenly I heard a murmur of voices, among them someone saying the name that Muskrat called me, the name of the yew, Dza Goie. A group of strange faces appeared, looking down on me. Because they all wore blue buttocks scars on their foreheads, I thought at first that one of them was Muskrat. But they were men, six of them, with black hair and beards and hard, dark eyes.

Holding to the rocks with my hands and toes, pressing my body to the cliff for balance, I stared straight up at them. Beside their bearded faces bristled a number of their little bird-spears, weak and ridiculous. No wonder our long spears worried them. Still, who could say what other weapons they might have? I knew better than to feel too sure of myself. So I tried a smile, hoping that my smile was happy, confident, and not a grin of doubt. "Waugh," said one of them, the only one who was looking at me.

The others were looking at Andriki. He was of course below and behind me, and I suddenly wondered what he was doing, that five men were staring past me at him. But I had to trust his judgment, since I couldn't turn to see. Behind the row of bearded faces I heard a sudden burst of the Ilasi language, men's voices and women's too, so I knew we had found not just one of their hiding places but their den.

One of the men picked up a large rock and held it above me, showing me that he would throw it down on me if I came nearer. So that was how they meant to defend themselves—with rocks. Yet the rocks were very large, I saw, large and heavy. With them the Ilasi could break our bones. I didn't want to loose a hail of rocks down on us, so I kept still and tried to smile again.

"Ia waugh!" one of them cried, making gestures. Slowly I moved backward until I stood by the spear I had dropped, beside Andriki, who, with his eyes on the men above us, slowly lowered his body until he could lay his spear quietly beside mine.

Then, as if the men were lions, Andriki began to talk in an even, soothing tone. "We see you, Old Ones," he began. "We honor you. My brother, at home, has lost his wife. My nephew here has lost his woman. The child up there who spoke, that is his child. We have come for our women. We mean no harm."

"Waugh," answered one of them, while behind him the jabber of language began again.

At last I heard Pinesinger's voice, speaking to me from a place that echoed. "Kori? Is it you?" she asked.

"I'm here, Stepmother," I answered.

"I won't go back with you. I don't care what your father says."

"I came for my woman, Stepmother," I said. "I came for Muskrat. I want her and my boy to come back with me."

"You won't get them," she said, her voice floating. "Don't anger these men."

"Aren't these my father's hunting lands, Stepmother?" I asked.

"Ah, Kori," she answered, "I wouldn't want to say who owns these hunting lands."

"Come down and talk with us, Eider's Child," said Andriki beside me.

"I'll talk from here," she said. "I don't want you to snatch me, so I'm coming only far enough to see you."

"This isn't good," said Andriki. "My brother will weep if he learns you won't come back."

Above us, holding her blue-eyed child tightly against herself, pregnant Pinesinger sat on her heels among the six men, all in a line in the mouth of their cave. Her face was very dirty, but her hair was braided and around her neck hung a beautiful necklace of horse's teeth and teal feathers, a necklace never given her by Father or any of our people. Doubtfully she peered down, clutching her child as if she were pretending a confidence she did not feel, as if she too were wondering what might come of this meeting. Looking at the necklace, I wondered if she had chosen a man from Muskrat's people.

But the black-bearded men kept glancing at her with suspicion. They hadn't known her but a day, and they would have been foolish to trust her. They surely didn't trust us, as their faces showed, and they kept looking over our heads, as if they were expecting something to appear behind us. That made me uneasy, of course, and kept me glancing backward too, until it came to me that I also might seem to be expecting something.

"Kori and I are going to sit down," Andriki told Pinesinger. "Please tell the men there, so we won't frighten them."

In a questioning tone, Pinesinger spoke a word or two to the men, who scowled and twisted their heads as if they didn't quite understand her. To us Pinesinger added, "They are many. Be careful of them." Then, "You say he will weep. Where will he do his weeping? Isn't he with my co-wife?"

Andriki spread his hands wide, palms up, appealing to Pinesinger. "Sister-in-law," he began. "You must come back with us. We can't leave you here to eat mice among stone-throwing strangers. After dark tonight I'll get you away from here safely—by the Bear, I promise you."

"No, Brother-in-law," said Pinesinger in her high voice. "These people aren't keeping me against my will. I wanted to come here. I want to stay. These people came to your country from the south, but for now they live here. Sometimes they get flint from a place on the Fire River. It must be the same place my parents get flint. Anyway, it's on the river. When they go, I'll go with them. Until then I'll stay here. I will. I can't live with your brother."

"You can," said Andriki. "He's not a bad husband. You're young. You've only known your parents. A wife can't speak to her husband as you spoke to my brother, not even here among these people. I'm sure of it. You're better off with men you know than with strangers. Anyway, your husband has forgotten all the trouble. You'll see I'm right. You'll thank me," said Andriki.