The World Above the Sky (12 page)

Eugainia inhaled deeply, coughed, inhaled again. She held the smoke briefly, steadied herself, exhaled. “Very odd. A kind of euphoria.” She inhaled again. “Very light. Pleasant.”

Henry elevated the pipe, drew, savoured the smoke and exhaled. “Pungent. Very nice indeed.” Another inhalation, then, “Very pleasant. I see no ill.” He gestured his question to Keswalqw. “What is this?”

“
Nespipagn
.”

“
Nes-pi-pa-gen
?”

Keswalqw nodded.

Henry produced his wineskin, freed the spout, drank. In turn, Sir Athol directed the amber stream into his mouth, passed the wineskin on to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, who elevated it, aimed the stream with ease and drank. Then gagged.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk struggled to retain his composure. “It is horrible, Aunt. It tears my throat and burns my lungs.”

“It has great significance to them. It would be rude to refuse.”

Keswalqw took to the fiery liquid immediately. She gestured her question to Henry.

“Brandy wine.”

“Bran-dy wine?”

“Yes. From my family's holdings in France....Ah...let's see. France. Across the water. Over the sea.”

Keswalqw savoured the brandy. Henry withheld the pipe. The others watched amused, as Henry and Keswalqw passed tobacco and liquor back and forth, casual as old friends drifting off into the comfortable haze of what would soon become a familiar routine.

Sir Athol cleared his throat.

“Oh. I've been hogging it?”

“Aye, Henry. You have. Just a wee bit. Aye.”

Henry pulled a deep draw and passed it on. He exhaled a slow stream of smoke, luxuriating in the rush of pleasure that heightened his senses without clouding thought.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk relieved Keswalqw of the wineskin, passed it along.

“Have I taken more than my share?”

“I think perhaps so, Aunt,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk replied.

“At first my tongue was like an animal, caged in a burning trap,” Keswalqw observed. “Then I swallowed. My mind became clear then twitched, like the skin shivers from fear or delight, not the cold. I feel light and clear.”

Alcohol was well known to The People. Various brews from native fruits and berries enhanced their travels in the spirit world, and helped keep the bitter cold of winter at bay. But this. This brandy wine was something different.

Keswalqw passed the wineskin on with some reluctance. She opened a birchbark box from which she extracted several smaller boxes, double-wrapped in bark. She offered one to each, and took the last for herself. Neither Henry nor Eugainia made sense of the waxy mass inside. Athol knew the food from the red island. He dug in with gusto, scooping the contents with his index and middle fingers. “White fat, mixed with salt, nuts, seeds, dried strawberries and blueberries. Delicious.”

“And honey. I taste honey. Delicious,” Eugainia agreed. She turned to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. “What is it?”

“
T'iam mlageju'mi
.”

“This is very good.” Henry smacked his lips. “Very tasty. A very high quality fat. But what is it?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk turned to Keswalqw. “You see? I tell them something and they ask the very same question again.”

“I find it better to tell
then
show.”

“Ah! Good idea.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk set his
t'iam mlageju'mi
aside. “Watch me.” He smiled at his expectant audience. “I'll…show…you…what…you're…eating.”

Keswalqw seated herself cross-legged, indicated the others should do likewise. Eugainia and Henry, both naturally supple, slipped into position easily enough. Muscle-bound Sir Athol bent forward from the waist, kneeled, placed both hands on the ground, squatted, eased himself back onto his rump, manhandled his thick ankles into position under meaty calves. He shifted and grunted his way toward some semblance of comfort. Athol adjusted the folds of his great kilt too late to preserve his modesty or Keswalqw's composure. A long moment passed during which Keswalqw collected her thoughts.

“It's wonderful when the urge comes upon my nephew to show a tale. It's an urge we always encourage,” she said when her thoughts and audience finally settled. “Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk is a great shower of The People's tales.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk gathered invisible objects around himself.

“What's he doing?” Athol wondered.

“I've no idea.” Henry said.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk turned and scowled, as he might correct inattentive children. He squatted before them. “You have no idea what I'm saying, do you? I could tell you anything, you'd sit there and nod and smile like stupid, drunken animals.”

“Watch closely,” Keswalqw repeated. “And listen.”

Eugainia smiled and nodded.

“What did they say?” Athol asked again.

“I don't know,” Eugainia smiled.

“But you smile and nod as though you knew every word, I say, every word.”

“How else am I to learn? By scowling and fidgeting?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk raised a quiet, almost whispered chant.

“What was that?”

“Don't ask me, Athol.” Henry's annoyance pulled at the edges of his tight, polite smile. “I don't know what he's saying anymore than you.”

“Smile and nod, gentlemen. Smile and nod,” said Eugainia.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk walked a small circle. A story circle. He began: “In the forest, where the high lake tumbles down into the salmon river lives our Brother the great
t'iam
.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk raised his arms, angled his elbows. He brought fisted hands to either temple. His fingers flashed open, splayed, rigid. He raised his shoulders and dropped his head. He pawed the ground with one foot. He rotated his head from side to side, slowly. He snorted. He scented the air, nose and upper lip quivering.

“Look,” said Athol. “He's a large, horned...no, antlered, creature. Some kind of deer.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's exhaled forcefully, raising a moan, the moan punctured by an unexpected grunt. His creature moved forward, at once awkward and graceful, with slow, high steps. He reverted seamlessly from the creature to himself, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk the hunter. He collected his imaginary bow, slung a quiver of arrows over his shoulder, giving his audience the convincing impression of a spear. His attention shifted to the ground around at his feet.

Henry found himself completely engaged. “Let's see. He picks up his gear, and...something...some
things
…smaller than him...leap about in excitement.”

“Children, perhaps?” Eugainia wondered.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk beat the overexcited figures into submission.

“God have mercy,” Athol whispered. “The brute is beating his children.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk read Athol's alarm, reacted quickly. He opened his mouth and yelped like a chastised dog.

“They're dogs, Athol,” Henry barked in confirmation.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk nodded and smiled. “Yes! You're no fool, Hen-ry Ork-nee. But your friend, Sir Ath-hol? Nice, but I think a little slow.”

“What did he say?”

“Smile and nod, Athol,” Eugainia advised. “Smile and nod.”

Athol nodded and smiled.

“It is winter, and the snow is high,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk continued. His creature ploughed through snow, grunting and snorting at the effort. “Our Brother
t'iam
soon tires and gives himself easily.”

“It is a good winter,” Keswalqw explained in an aside; her reassurance was met with smiling faces on nodding heads, eyes blank with incomprehension. “Not a starving time. There's lots of snow. The
t'iam
will soon get bogged down. Easy to kill.”

“Keswalqw. They don't understand. Show, don't tell, remember?”

“Yes. Of course. Sorry, Nephew. Go on.”

“I travel on the snow with my snowshoes and my dogs and I'm happy. I see that Brother
t'iam
knows we are hungry and will give himself to The People.”

“What's he doing now?” Athol asked.

“I think...yes. He's tracking the big...antlered creature,” Henry ventured. “No. The creature is stuck in the mud.”

“I think it's winter. If he's stuck, he's stuck in the snow. Excuse me, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk?” Eugainia said, gesturing cold, then falling snow. “Winter? Is it winter?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk nodded and smiled. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivered. He blew hot breath into his cold hands. He mimed wind-blown snow. Long low sweeps of his body, his outstretched arms rising with each pass, indicated banks piling high among the trees. His large antlered creature became stuck once again.

“Hah! I thought so,” Eugainia said. “The animal is bogged down, stuck in the snow.”

“He is a most convincing
comedien
,” Athol suggested.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk came to a wary stop. He revolved his antlered head and upper torso slowly. He scented the air. He moaned. He grunted. He quivered.

Eugainia agreed. “Most entrancing.”

Athol elbowed Henry, lightly at first, then with some insistence. Henry's manners held where Athol's failed. Eugainia felt Sir Athol's glance, her attention on the handsome young hunter. Henry kept a scrupulous eye on the performer, not his ardent admirer whose cheeks he knew flushed a vibrant pink where tar had slid away in the rising heat of the fire.

“Brother
t'iam
smells us,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk warned. “He says, ‘You can't have me that easily. I'll run. If you're worthy of my life, you shall have it.' He breaks free of the deep snow. I set the dogs to run him down. They soon tire him. Once again, for the final time, Brother t'iam is caught and struggles to free himself. The dogs begin to tear his flesh. I drive them away for, like their cousin wolves, dogs kill slowly, cruelly, selfishly.”

“They know no better,” Keswalqw murmured.

“They tear still-living flesh from their prey's body, Aunt,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk countered, his aversion of the young to death and its cruelties strong. “They snap and snarl, and in their fever—their blood fever—they turn on each other.”

“They're only dogs.”

“They dishonour the spirit of the creature they kill.”

“Don't be so hard on them—”

“Who is telling this story, Aunt? You or I?”

“You.”

“Thank you. I pull them apart, the fighting dogs, and drive my spear—my spear sharp as the tooth of the wolverine into the heart of Brother
t'iam
.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk raised the phantom spear over his head, one hand precisely placed above the other. He plunged it with all his force into the exhausted moose.

“Finally,” said Athol, more invested than he knew, “I say, finally he killed the bloody thing.”

“Shush, Athol,” Henry whispered urgently. “He's not finished.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk threw back his head. “
Akaia-aia-ah, akaia
!” He extracted the spear, planted it in the snow beside the dying beast. “I bend low, close to Brother
t'iam
. I hear him speak. ‘You shall give my body to The People,' he says. ‘Eat my flesh. Honour my spirit. Treat my bones with respect, I will return to feed The People again.'”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk held out his hand to Henry. Henry, moved and, pleased he had followed the tale, stood to shake hands. “That was terrific. Well done, Mimktiki…Mimiko…”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk declined the handshake, indicated the pipe. “Oh. The pipe.” Henry flushed. “You want the pipe.” He returned red-faced to his place. “I thought he wanted to shake hands. A natural mistake, ah, Minktika— ah, Mitikimato...sorry. I, ah...sorry.”