The World Above the Sky (13 page)

Henry sat.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk reclaimed the stage. “To thank him—my Brother
t'iam
for the gift of himself to The People—I light my pipe.” He kneels. “I blow tobacco smoke into the nostrils of dying
t'iam
.”

“The smoke eases his passage,” Keswalqw added quietly.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk strokes the invisible creature's snout.

“Because I show respect, and affection, and kindness, and because I promise to honour his bones, to keep them from the dogs and from fire, we know
t'iam
will come back and feed the people. In this way his life departs his body.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Keswalqw sat still. After a long moment of silence, Athol wondered aloud, “Now what?”

“It feels like prayer,” Eugainia said quietly. “Yes. Keswalqw offers thanks, I think. They sit in silence and recall the creature's beauty and his spirit. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk honours the life he has taken.”

Keswalqw reached over and squeezed Eugainia's hand. Their understanding had grown far beyond what may be told by words, many of which were still beyond their grasp. A simple glance or touch conveyed the other's thoughts cleanly, with great depth of feeling, and near-perfect accuracy. When thoughts were given shape and volume, ideas crossed the baffled air between them with ease. In some way neither could articulate, their commune increased, rich with tone and feeling, their understanding expanded and accord hovered near.

“Yes, Eugainia,” Keswalqw told her. “It is a prayer. In this way we honour the t'iam who makes the cheeks of our children round with fat.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk concluded the tale. “My Brother
t'iam
's spirit will soon find another home. The rutting time is past. The season's young grow in the bellies of the females, waiting to house the wandering spirit of a fallen friend. When I know for certain
t'iam
's spirit is gone, I cut him open and feed his entrails to the dogs.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk watched the dogs devour the guts. In his regard there rested a tinge of sorrow. He walked from the dogs who, in his mind's eye, snarled and tore at each other as they gorged, distending sagging bellies. He sat to one side, away from his audience, knowing the images he generated would flow to Henry, Keswalqw and Athol. Only Eugainia returned the thought, expanded, alive with the pain and glory Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk felt deep in his heart.

“To live we master our fear of death,” he said at last. “We feed on death, grateful for the life we've taken. Death feeds us and death feeds upon us. In the end, death overtakes all.”

“You are young, Nephew. When you reach the uncertainties of middle life, as I have, you'll learn there is nothing to fear. In the end life and death are one creature.”

Keswalqw took the stage. “The women come and butcher the carcass. Back at camp, we strip the hide of fat and flesh, strip and joint his bones…”

“Bones!” Athol Gunn interjected. “Look! She's jointing bones...many a time I have done, I say, I have done the same things, as a lad at mother's wee ancestral croft when we'd flee the hurly-burly at Rosslyn for the quiet of the hills.”

“We crack his bones,” Keswalqw continued, “and grind them down.”

“Smashing open the bones, yes?” said Athol.

“Yes, I think so,” said Henry.

Keswalqw defined first a tall tree, then a segment of the trunk. She indicated the trunk and how it was hollowed out with glowing coals and embers.

“She burns the core out of the trunk,” Athol offered. “To make a pot, I'll wager.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's birchbark-and-pitch bucket became useful; Keswalqw filled the imaginary tree-trunk pot with imaginary water from the very real pail. She took up Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's woven hot-rock slings, their use now familiar to the visitors.

“In a burned-out tree trunk filled with water,” she says, “I drop hot, hot stones.”

“We see this among the poorest of the poor when we visit your outer islands, Henry,” Athol recalled. “A hollowed tree trunk—even a skin bag filled with water—serves in the absence of an iron or copper pot. The heat of the rocks boils the water and—”

“Look!” Eugainia followed Keswalqw intently. “In go the cracked bones.”

Keswalqw's upward roiling motion made the process clear “Up to the top floats
mu'mi
.”

Eugainia indicated her birchbark container, extracted the last morsel with her index finger. “
Mu'mi...mu'mi...
marrow! The marrow melts, flows from the cracked bones and floats to the top.” She slipped the last of the sweetened fat into her mouth. “
Mu'mi
?” she repeated.

“Yes,” Keswalqw confirmed. “
Tia'mu'mi
.”

“This is the large creature's marrow.” Henry observed. “Only one creature I know of could produce the marrow in such quantities.”

“Moose! I thought in this New World it would be some giant exotic beast. But it's just a plain old moose! This means there are moose in the New Arcadia!”

Eugainia jumped to her feet, dropped her chin to her chest. She slowly raised her face which, streaked with tar and altered by the joy of invention, was quite transformed. She inflated her lungs. The sound that emerged was unmistakable. Part grunt, part snort, the call rose sharply, a trumpeted announcement that curled into a whine, fell into a deep-throated “humph.” She repeated the call. Keswalqw laughed and clapped her hands.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk offered a broad-faced grin. “
Tia'm
, Eugainia! Exactly! You give us the cow. And here, I give you the bull.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk pawed the ground. He snorted. He swayed his head side to side, uttered the bull's harrumphing grunt, then a distressed bleat, then piteous rising and falling moans punctuated by sharp, nasal barks. The call terminated in a series of sloshing, guttural sounds, as though the moose's large wattle had filled with water, slopped back and forth, its ebb and flow reverberating in the ruminants lungs and many stomachs.

“We're eating moose marrow, mixed with herbs, nuts and honey, Lord Henry.” Eugainia prized the last pine nut from the corner of her box. She repeated the cry of the female moose in estrus.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk responded with the snorting harrumph of the inflamed bull.

“Those were moose mating calls,” Athol ventured quietly.

“Indeed they were,” Henry replied, his enthusiasm diminishing. Sir Athol shared Henry's growing unease.

“We make a food very similar to this, Keswalqw, but in the stomach of a sheep.” He persisted despite Keswalqw's blank stare. “Instead of nuts we use oats and barley, turnips and such. And, I must admit, a lower quality fat which—”

“This is hardly haggis, Sir Athol,” Eugainia interrupted. She turned her attention back to the young hunter. “Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk,” she mimed, “this is delicious!”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk smiled. Eugainia smiled in return. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk left the story circle. He indicated the map fragment at the torchlit table, pointed to the symbol in question, mimed boiling water.

Athol missed the point. “What's he saying?”

Henry mistook his meaning, licked his fingers. “The place is named moose marrow? Ah,
t'ia'mu'mi
?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk was encouraged. “No, Henry Orknee. Not quite.” He repeated the gesture.

Eugainia copied the motion. “Water…? Boiling water…?”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, excited, said, “
E'e
! I think she's got it, Keswalqw.”

He turned Eugainia to the southwest and pointed. He indicated a distant location.

“
Eteg etligmiet samqwan
.”

“Think geography, not cuisine,” Eugainia said aloud, more to herself than to Henry or Athol. “It's not just water boiling. I think it's ‘where the water boils.'”

Eugainia indicated the precise spot on the map. “
Eteg etligmiet samqwan
?” she repeated distinctly.

“
E'e
,” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk beamed his positive response. “
Eteg etligmiet samqwan
.”

Athol reflected on Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's story. “What was all that business about the dogs and hunting? It seems a long way around to get to floating fat and boiling water.”

“This man has killed a flock of birds with one stone,” Eugainia explained. “He's taken us on a splendid hunt, given the name and direction to the place from which we can begin to explore. And he gave us the history of this wonderful food.”

Henry offered Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk his hand. “I honour you, Mimkt...Mim-kitti…”

“Mim…k't…a…whoa…qwusk.” She spoke softly, as to a lover. “Equal emphasis on the first and fourth syllables. His name is Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk.”

Henry inclined his head in an abbreviated bow. “Thank you,” he said. Then spoke the young man's name, at last, with ease. “Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk nodded, pleased.

“May you walk with the Great Spirit at your side.”

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk shook Lord Henry's hand.

Keswalqw uncovered the ember from its punk clamshell bed. The gentle urging of her breath sparked a slender rope of sweetgrass, the hair of mother earth. Its transformation to air and smoke helped The People remember through whose world they walk. She held the sacred smoke to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. He closed his eyes. With open palms rotated upward he pulled the sweet, pungent smudge toward his face, then over and behind his head. He inhaled deeply. He completed three cleansing cycles, each strengthening his spirit.

Keswalqw stood before Eugainia. She honoured the ritual with dignity and gratitude, as did Henry and then Athol in their turn.

Keswalqw loosened an eagle feather from the thong around her neck. She circled the sweat lodge, wafting sweetgrass smoke over the hide-draped apex of the dome. The feather furled the rising smoke, urged it on its journey up through gathered darkness to the stars. Keswalqw indicated Eugainia should enter the sweat lodge.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk took his aunt aside. “What are you doing, Keswalqw?”

“Preparing to enter the sweat lodge. What does it look like?”

“The men first, Keswalqw, in our way. Not you women. You must go back to the village. I'll fetch you when we're finished.”

“Who is the greatest warrior of the people?”

“I am.”

“And who is the greatest shower of The People's stories.”

“I am, Aunt.”

“And who will become chief?”

“I will.”

“And when will this happen?”

“When you, who sits in the centre of the circle, you who sits at the doorway to the spirit world, when you, who rules but does not lead, when you, keeper of the sacred Tales of the Six Worlds, when you, Great Mother of the Clan, keeper of the flame of L'nuk, The People, when you tell the grand council that I, in your opinion, am ready to be chief. Only then will it happen.”

“You have kept us from the grandmother stones and their healing power long enough.”

Eugainia slipped into the sweat lodge, the wineskin in her free hand. Keswalqw tucked a soft rolled package under her arm. She stooped to enter.

Inside, at Keswalqw's bidding, Eugainia removed her shoes. Keswalqw stowed the package wrapped in pliant sealskin, tied with braided spruce-root tendrils safely out of harm's way. Eugainia peeled the tarred garments from her body. With a stout stick, Keswalqw lifted the ruined linen gown from the fir-bough floor where it had fallen. She lifted the flap and called out to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. He carried her shed, tarry skinlike dress across the meadow to the fire. It flared into flame instantly, sending a thick plume of black smoke—a prayer he thought of thanksgiving and renewal—skyward.

Keswalqw emptied the contents of the birch pail directly onto the rocks. The seal-oil stone lamp, with its sweet-hay wick, disappeared in the sudden haze of steam. Heat, dense with weight and substance, struck Eugainia. She felt sweat bead on her forearm. Soon rivulets of tar dripped from her fingers to the boughs below. She inhaled deeply, held her breath, then exhaled with force. She drew her shoulders to her ears, then let them drop. A sigh arose from her belly. She felt safe and at peace.