Between Two Worlds (11 page)

“Oh? Who will replace me?” he asked.

Maybe a white man
. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Angulluk managed a feeble smile, as if I’d been joking.

An idea popped into my head and I dared to say it out loud. I’d find out how good I was at persuading the Fat One, or at least how much he valued me. “Mitti Peary wants me to come to the
Windward
when I sew her clothes.” I paused. “Since I’ll already be working on the ship, it makes sense for me to spend my nights there, too. Until you return, why not trade me to Duncan? You could get another block of wood that way.”

He frowned. Then, “I don’t like trading you to the
qallunaat
.”

“You may only be gone a short time.”

“If I trade you, it will be for bullets, nothing less. And Duncan may not be the one who gets you.”

I took a long breath and tried to calm myself. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Taking a different approach,
I repeated what Duncan had told me. “The only guns and ammunition on board belong to Peary. And only Peary’s wife and the captain have access to them. If you are convinced that you need more bullets, maybe there’s another way. Use your wits, if you have any.”

“Quiet, Eqariusaq!”

“You are a hundred times greedier than any
qallunaaq
, and uglier, too.”

Did he plan to trade me or not? A sense of foreboding filled me.

Winter’s darkness came to Musk Ox Land. As always, the change of seasons reminded me of Peary and something that happened when I was a child in Itta. When I pictured him, I saw a tall man, handsome, with reddish hair, marching up and down hills of snow and shouting orders.

“Peary is never still,” my mother once said. “He makes me dizzy.” Like all of us, she liked him best in small amounts.

I was six winters old on that moonless, frigid day when my family and I watched Peary and his men circling in a well-trampled loop around their camp. Leading four men, pounding his feet into the snow, Peary was bellowing, “One two three four five six seven eight!”

“Perhaps they need to stimulate their bowels,” my mother suggested. “Ha! Too much white man’s food gives them digestion problems.”

“No, woman,” said my father. “Peary marches his men around because they are terrified of the dark winter.”

My parents laughed. Then my father said the men marched in a circle because they needed exercise. Living
here was hard for them; during the winter’s dark, they drank liquor, argued, senselessly hit one another, and, like fools, broke into fits of weeping.

Each time the men stomped by, panting, hands gripping the handles of their glowing lanterns, I braced myself in case one staggered off his path and hit us.

“Don’t be afraid of these men. Don’t be scared of anything.” My father held me close. He knew my fear of the shadowy season we’d just entered. “Eqariusaq, look at the sky and tell me what color it is.”

“Purple,” I said, taking in the gently glowing sweep of the friendly Ancestors. Called the Northern Lights by the
qallunaat
, the Ancestors shone radiantly against a background of endless stars.

“Exactly so. And at midday, if you look to the horizon, you will see a flush of pink. Remember that if you hear the white men say, ‘The winter sky is as black as a grave, as black as death.’ They don’t know what we know.”

“Yes, Ataata.”

His cheerful voice eased my fears, though I still couldn’t embrace the darkness of winter like an old friend as he did.

Peary’s men kept marching in a circle, as if to break through the darkness of their imaginations. I bit my lip, held my father’s hand, and watched. Only years later, after I’d returned from the white man’s land, did I fully appreciate the calm and softness, the peace and joy, of our starry season. By then I’d learned about real terrors.

The village moved into our cycle of starlit days. In a different time, I’d have welcomed the full moon, now shining bright, and looked forward to being in Duncan’s arms again. But this time the trade came with a cost: Angulluk could lose his life. He’d left early that morning with Bag of Bones and Ally’s husband, Piugaattoq, to search for Peary. I couldn’t stop the Fat One, and now I regretted our arguments over it. What if an avalanche swallowed him or if he froze to death after falling into a break in the ice?

At least I had a distraction. A pile of rabbit, seal, and fox pelts, already cured, waited on the
Windward
. It was time to make clothes for the Pearys. Sewing new clothes was always a celebration.

With my birdskin bag slung over my shoulder, containing my wooden chest of treasures as well as my sewing things, I trekked out onto the ice toward the
Windward
. Tooth Girl and her mother walked beside me, and Ally, carrying Sammy on her back, followed close behind. Cin, a skinny, long-legged puppy now, nipped at my heels. Cin would live on the ship; Angulluk was giving her to Marie. The runt would never grow large enough to be a sled dog, he supposed.

Old Navarana shuffled out of her warm igloo to walk with our group part of the way; but I knew it was because
she had stern words for me. “You shouldn’t sleep on the ship again.”

“Angulluk traded me to a sailor. I must go, Aana.”

“That’s not why you’re leaving us,” she said. “I hear you arguing with your husband. You
want
to go. You want to be with this white man.”

Ua!
As usual, her words hit their mark. I clenched my hand inside my fur mitten.

“I’ll be back in a few days.” Would I? If Angulluk and the others made a real effort to reach the fort, it would take them at least five days out and five to return.

Navarana turned back. The four of us walked a curving path on the sound where the snow had blown away. A cold wind howled, and I faced the land to shield myself. Everything looked beautiful: the waves of shining white ice, the purple-gray sky in the moonlight, the snowy cliffs above the cluster of igloos and tents.

Crewmembers were piling up a snow wall around the ship and had stretched canvas over the ship’s deck. A row of lanterns dangling in this shelter glowed like small suns, bringing the shadowed figures into focus.

Duncan stood near the rail. He waved to us as Marie called, “Hello!”

We heard the tops of the masts rattling. The wind had stripped the clumps of snow from the icy rigging. Ally with Sammy, Mikihoq, Tooth Girl, and I passed through the opening in the snow wall and climbed on
steps made of crates. Cin reached the deck first, and Marie hugged her.

Duncan came forward; even in the moonlight I could see his wide smile. I wished I could see the color of his hair. “Billy Bah! I’m glad you’re here.”

Shyly, I smiled with my eyes.

Marie found an old boot and offered it to Cin, who came after it, growling.

Captain Bartlett and other crewmembers arrived to play with the puppy. Cin sank her teeth into the captain’s leather glove and ran off with it. He shook his hand. “Her teeth are like razors.”

Duncan wrestled the glove away from Cin as Captain Bartlett arranged a pen for the puppy against the wall of the pilothouse, under the shelter of the tarpaulin, and lined it with old blankets. “I can’t have this rascal coming inside the ship.”

Duncan said, “I’ll make Cin a leash and collar.” He moved close to me and took my hand. We stood, our faces nearly touching, until Mitti Peary appeared. She ushered my people into the forward saloon, with Duncan and me close behind. There we were met by a faint rotten smell, which came from a sea-drenched carpet rolled up on one side of the room. The space seemed emptier, larger, colder. I wished we could work in the cozy officers’ sitting room.

But the seal pelts, thick and black and luxuriant, heaped in a great furry pile near a coal-burning stove,
made a welcome sight. Rabbit and fox pelts, skins, and bushy foxtails rose in mounds on the far side of the saloon. Duncan and Mikihoq joined me in laying out the pelts. I stroked every one briefly.

In the center of the room, where there were no tables or chairs fastened to the floor, we took off our own outer furs and sat upon them. Duncan took a seat beside me and put his arm around me. I leaned into him.

Mitti Peary eyed Duncan. “Mr. Gaylor—that’s your name?” Her lips tightened. “Surely you must have tasks to do. In a few minutes, the women will start sewing. We’ll need our privacy.”

“Certainly.” Duncan smiled at me and left.

I measured Mitti Peary with my hands, trying to forget how she treated Duncan. Usually, I could look at someone and almost guess how many pelts would be needed, how that person moved, and how the fur would give and wear over time. But I’d never sewn a coat for a giant.

“Mitti Peary, stand up. Stretch out your arms,” I said. She was so tall that I could not reach her armpits, so I stood on a chair.

She allowed me and Mikihoq to stretch her arms in all different directions, and she squatted, and bent over, as she was told. Mikihoq gasped as she measured Mitti Peary’s long legs for
kamiit
.

Marie giggled and laughed as Ally and Tooth Girl positioned her in birdlike poses.

Ally had taken all five of the fox pelts. “Give some to me,” I said.

“I’ll need them for Marie.” She was curt. “It will make her
kapatak
look pretty to have white sections as well as black.”

“It’s not fair that you should take the best furs,” I grumbled, though there were plenty of good ones left.

I chose glossy black seal pelts for Mitti Peary. I rubbed a fur against my cheek: I loved its softness and its oily, rich smell.

Now I had to be very careful. One mistake could ruin the fine fur. I took a breath and cut the largest seal pelt with my
ulu
. I sliced in a straight line, trimming off the sections where the animal’s legs had been. I paused to look. My mother would have been pleased by my work.

After cutting strips for the back, sleeves, and hood of the coat, I gave a sigh of relief. The hard part of shaping the pelts was done and I could relax while I trimmed off jagged pieces. Mikihoq had also finished the challenging work of slicing long, rectangular strips for Mitti Peary’s
kamiit
.

When the edges of the pelts were even, we could begin to stitch the strips of fur together with sinew. Pushing the needle through the thick pelts was hard work, and the sewing would take many days.

While Mitti Peary sat on a chair, sipping tea, Marie scooped Sammy up off the floor. She held his chubby
hands and walked him. Then they played peekaboo until Ally took him to nurse.

Marie wanted Tooth Girl to play hide-and-seek, but Tooth Girl’s mother made her keep to her sewing. I put Marie to the task of stitching together scraps for her doll’s coat. “I wrote a letter to my father,” Marie said to me. “I gave it to Angulluk when he and the other Eskimos brought the furs. Do you think Dad will read my letter today?”

“Not today. The men have only just left.”

Ally put down the fox pelts she was sewing and said gently, “Marie, it’s a very long way from here to the fort. The snow is deep and there are many hills to cross. Even if our men do reach your father, you must not expect him to return to the ship. He can’t walk as far as he used to.”

Marie moaned softly.

Mitti Peary had been gazing blankly, hardly noticing us. But hearing this, she eyed Ally like a hawk. The captain must have told her that her husband had suffered from frostbite, but she wasn’t aware that Ally often accompanied Peary to his camps on both sides of the sound; she’d made the difficult ice crossing with him several times, though she remained in Itta during his longer journeys. “Tell me, Ally.
Is
he walking? Or isn’t he?”

“Pearyaksoah, the Great Peary, walks …” Ally hesitated. “Like a little child.”

“You’ve seen him, then? Since the surgery?”

“Yes. He only has two toes. The little toes on each foot.”

Mitti Peary gave a slight nod. Last winter, Peary had suffered frostbite during a long trek by dogsled. The
qallunaat
sawed off his dead, blackened toes.

“I washed his feet for him many times,” Ally added. “I changed the bandages.”