Sok was beside them, and as they passed Sky Watcher and Star, he muttered, “She should be dead, that one. If she has cost this boy his life, I will gladly kill her myself.”
Aqamdax watched in numbness, as though she saw all things in a dream. She heard the questions of those around her. What had happened? What had Star done? She felt hands on her arms, but she brushed them away. She had just lost her son. Would she now lose her brother?
“It’s my fault,” Yaa whispered, and clasped Aqamdax’s arm, clung there.
“Hush, be still. You did nothing.”
“I teased him. I told him he was not a man.”
The people had gathered outside Chakliux’s lean-to. The women sat close to the opening, while the men moved about, some lifting a hand to shade their eyes and look out over the river.
With Ligige’ back at the winter village, the old woman Twisted Stalk was the closest they had to a healer. She was inside with Ghaden, Sok, and Chakliux. Snow-in-her-hair had taken Star to Twisted Stalk’s lean-to, had given her a tea of dog fennel leaves to calm her.
“They say he is still alive,” Bird Caller said.
But another woman shook her head.
Alive, Yaa thought, and repeated the word in her mind, holding it there as if it were an amulet with the power to protect Ghaden from death.
“I promised his mother that I would be a good sister to him,” she told Aqamdax. “I promised that, but…”
Aqamdax slipped an arm around her and rocked as though Yaa were a baby. “Sh-h-h, hush, be still. Every brother and sister fight.”
Then Chakliux was beside them. He motioned for Aqamdax to follow him, and ignored Night Man when he scowled. “Yaa, you also,” he said.
Yaa crowded into the tent behind Aqamdax. The skin around Ghaden’s eyes and mouth seemed almost blue, but he did not look dead. They had taken his wet clothing off, and he had one bare arm flung up over the blanket.
“He is asleep?” Aqamdax asked.
“I do not think so,” Chakliux answered her. “We cannot wake him.”
Yaa sucked in her breath. There were water spirits, she knew. They lived in lakes and rivers. Had one of them stolen Ghaden’s soul? Would he be like Long Eyes, walking around but knowing nothing?
Suddenly the strength went from her legs, and she dropped to the floor beside Ghaden, reached out and stroked his forehead. His skin was hot, but when she touched her own face, she felt the same heat and realized her fingers were cold from her fear.
Night Man peeked into the tent, looked down at Ghaden, but said nothing. He set a hand on Aqamdax’s shoulder, and when Chakliux asked her to stay with Ghaden, Night Man protested.
Sok cut him off with quick, sharp words, and Night Man stalked away with steps that pounded into the earth.
“I will stay with him, too,” Yaa said in a quiet voice.
“I have something else for you to do,” Sok told her. “Come with me.”
She followed him to his tent, sure that he would scold her for the fight with Ghaden. She told herself with each step that she deserved his anger, but when they got to the tent, he handed her a pack and said, “There is smoked fish inside. Dry boots and leggings. You need to get yourself a water bladder. Do you have a knife?”
“A woman’s knife.”
“Take that, and change your boots and leggings as soon as you get across the river.”
Yaa’s fear of being scolded suddenly turned into horror. “You are sending me away?” she asked in a small voice.
She saw the surprise on Sok’s face. Then he said, “You are going with Cries-loud to watch for caribou. The other boys are with the herd, and we cannot spare one of our hunters. Our elders cannot run fast or climb well. You are the only one among the women who has not had a moon blood time.” He stopped, looked down at her. “You have not, nae?”
“I have not,” she said, her voice a whisper.
He handed her a length of babiche rope, showed her how to tie it around her waist and then to the tree so she was secure in the branches. He gave her a handful of stones, told her to roll them in her palms so the pain from their sharp edges would keep her awake during the night.
“Watch yourself,” he said to her. “Do nothing that might curse. Do not even speak. You and Cries-loud decide on signals, perhaps a clap of hands or a whistle, to let him know what you see. We do not want the caribou to hear a girl’s voice. Stay in the tree after the caribou have passed until someone comes for you.”
He reached to the top of the lean-to, untied a water bladder. “Here, take this,” he said to her. “Wait now for Cries-loud.”
He left the lean-to, and Yaa sank to her knees. She whispered a chant she had learned as a child, something for a woman to sing when she is worried or tired.
“Mother, help me,” she said, and waited to see if she would feel her mother’s spirit near, but there was nothing.
“Father,” she whispered, and allowed herself to remember her father’s face. He had endured much sorrow in his last illness. His favorite wife, Ghaden’s mother, had died, and Ghaden had been badly injured. But in his sorrow, he had still watched over his young daughter, had taken Yaa’s tears into his own eyes so she was strong enough to bear her sadness.
Like a warm cloak wrapped over her shoulders, she felt her father’s strength. Though she could see the disgust in Cries-loud’s face when he came to get her, that strength did not leave. Yaa’s steps were firm against the earth, and she did not falter in the swift current of the river.
When they finally came to the stand of spruce, Cries-loud selected the tallest. Yaa climbed up, using the limbs like a food cache ladder, until she was in the top of the tree.
There were no caribou, but she could see her people’s hunting camp. The river was a wide shining band against the gold and red of the autumn tundra. To her right and left were other trees, some nearly as tall as the one she was in, but most much smaller, and though she knew the strongest branches of a tree grow on the leeward side, away from the wind, it seemed as though each was reaching to the west for the last light of the day.
She tied the babiche rope around her waist and around the tree, got out the stones Sok had given her and held them in her left hand. She waited and watched until the sun was gone, and then in the darkness, she listened, for sometimes caribou walk even in the night, and she knew she would hear the clicking of their legs, the thunder of their hooves.
She took in great breaths of air, testing to see if there was some smell of caribou, and she stretched her eyes wide, so she could see better in the starlight. When she began to grow sleepy, she squeezed her left hand into a tight fist until the stones bit into her flesh and the pain kept her awake.
* * *
Aqamdax sat beside Ghaden during the night, one hand on his chest to assure herself that he still breathed. Sometime in that long darkness, Biter crept into the tent and lay beside the boy, nudging Ghaden now and again with his nose. When the first gray light of morning came, Chakliux joined them. He sat close to Aqamdax, and his warmth was a comfort.
Aqamdax knew he had been praying, and she started to get up, whispered she would bring him food and water, but he said, “I need you here more than I need water or food,” he said.
“Where is Star?” she whispered.
“With Twisted Stalk.”
Aqamdax was squatting in the manner of the First Men, her feet flat against the ground, her knees upraised. She felt Chakliux’s fingers gently rub her neck, then the tent flap was thrown back and someone grabbed Aqamdax’s arm, pulled her roughly to her feet. She looked up to see Night Man. Star stood behind him, her fingers in her mouth as though she were a child.
“Your husband is here,” Night Man said to Star, and pushed her into the tent.
The woman began to wail, and Aqamdax tried to break Night Man’s grasp, but he only tightened his hold. “I allow you to stay with your brother, and what do I find? You are with another man.” He grasped the knotted otter bracelet on her wrist, twisted until he managed to pull it from her hand.
“You think I do not know where you got this?” he asked her. “You think I do not know why you wear it?”
Star’s wails stopped, and Chakliux came from the tent. “Let Aqamdax go,” he said to Night Man.
“You would tell a husband what to do with his wife?” Night Man asked, but he released Aqamdax’s arm, threw down the otter bracelet and ground it into the mud with his foot.
“Women are killed for betraying their husbands,” Night Man said.
“She has not betrayed you.”
“The son she bore. You think I do not know he was yours? He is dead to avenge the deaths of my father and brothers. But this one”—he lifted his head toward Aqamdax—“as long as she is mine, she will do as I say.”
“You have the right to throw him away.” The voice came from behind her, and Aqamdax jumped. It was Sok, and Aqamdax was surprised that he would stand up for her.
“I have done none of the things he accuses me of, but I cannot throw him away,” she said. “I will not risk the loss of caribou to our men’s spears. Why chance a curse on any hunter in this camp?”
She turned, started toward Night Man’s lean-to, but looked back long enough to say to Sok, “Do not let your brother follow me. Make him stay here with Ghaden.”
When they came to the tent, Night Man forced Aqamdax inside. He pulled off her clothing, and then his own, pushed open her legs, stroked himself for a moment and entered her. Aqamdax lay still, blocked from her mind all thoughts of what was happening, and prayed that she would not conceive.
Chapter Nineteen
Y
AA PRIED OPEN HER
left hand, dropped the stones into her pack and slowly straightened her fingers. Her palm was crusted with blood. Though the sun had not yet risen, the eastern sky was nearly light, but she could still see stars to the west.
She heard Cries-loud whistle, and she used the signal he had told her, slapping her hand three times against her pack, to tell him that she saw no caribou.
She pulled out her water bladder and took one sip. Who could say how long she would be up in this tree? She would have to stretch her water out as best she could. She looked again toward the north, then east and west. Sometimes a herd split while crossing lakes or rivers and came from several directions at once.
She pulled a piece of dried caribou meat from her pack, held it up so the smell of the meat would drift toward any spirits that might be near. “This,” she hummed beneath her breath. “This. We need caribou, then we will send you the good smell of smoking fires and drying meat.”
* * *
Chakliux held Star in his arms, rocking her as though she were a baby. Finally he began to tell a story that mothers and fathers tell their children. He felt her relax, and her head fell heavily against his shoulder. He eased her to the floor mats beside Ghaden and covered her with a hare fur blanket. He noticed that her belly had begun to round, and he could not help but lay a hand on it, remembering his first wife, Gguzaakk, and their tiny son.
How many moons was Star into her pregnancy? Three, four? As her husband he should know, but it was not something he often thought about. How would he care for both Star and the baby? Would Star do something foolish to injure the child? At least he would have Yaa to help, but what would Star do when Chakliux took Aqamdax as wife? And now Ghaden…
Then, as though the boy heard Chakliux’s thoughts, he began to mumble. Biter jumped up and licked Ghaden’s face. Chakliux reached out to hold the dog back, but stopped when he saw Ghaden turn his head away from Biter’s tongue.
“Biter!” Ghaden called out, then Star was awake, her eyes wide with hope.
Chakliux lifted his fingers to his mouth, tapped them lightly against his lips to request her silence. Ghaden had not yet opened his eyes. Star clamped both hands over her mouth, then the doorflap was pulled aside and Aqamdax crept in. She had rescued the otter bracelet from the mud, and it dangled from her fingers. Chakliux glanced at her, saw the hardness in her eyes, and knew what Night Man had done. But he tilted his head toward Ghaden, lifted his eyebrows, reached for her wrist and pulled her down beside him.
Aqamdax opened her mouth to speak, but Star reached over to press a hand against her lips. Suddenly in the silence Biter barked, a noise sharp enough that Star covered her ears. Ghaden opened his eyes.
“Biter, you dog turd,” he mumbled, then Star began to laugh, and Aqamdax started to cry.
“Yaa shouldn’t be up there. She’s a girl,” Ghaden said, his voice pitched into a whine. “I feel good. I can go over there. I’ll be more careful in the river.”
“Your mother does not want you to go,” Chakliux told him.
“Star is not my mother,” Ghaden said. “Yaa’s my mother. They made her my mother when we lived in the Near River Village.”
Chakliux was smoothing a birchwood spear shaft with the edge of a burin stone.
“Look! What do I see?” Chakliux said. “He cries if the ravens take a share of his kill, and he claims that the foxes steal what is his.”
Ghaden thrust out his lip. “Wolverine,” he muttered.
Chakliux used the riddle often when Ghaden was upset about something. Wolverines were selfish in their kills. They hid what they could not eat, left it to rot in their musky urine, and seldom came back to find it. Was he being selfish in wanting to be a watcher for the caribou? He was old enough, and Yaa had girl things to do.
“Later today, if the caribou have not yet come, then I will take you to the tree. Yaa will be ready to come home by then anyway. She will need to sleep before watching during another night.”
“What about Star?”
“We will have Aqamdax keep her busy so she will not know until you are too far away for her to come after you.”
“Here,” Aqamdax said, “remember that you promised long ago to teach me how to make fishskin baskets. I scraped the skins like you showed me. Now, how do I sew them?”
Star straightened her shoulders in importance, took the fishskins and needle from Aqamdax’s hands. Aqamdax sat so her back was to the river and Star’s tent was between them and the banks. For a time Star sewed, head down over her work, but then several other women who were working outside stood and began to look toward the river, hands on hips.