“She is healthy,” Ligige’ said. “Red Leaf?”
Day Woman lifted her chin toward the back of the lodge, where Red Leaf lay still and white, eyes closed in sleep. There was a smear of blood on her face, but hare fur blankets were pulled up to her shoulders, and there was no other sign she had just given birth.
“Has Red Leaf fed her yet?”
“No.”
“Good. Do not allow her to feed the child until Sok decides what to do. If he kills Red Leaf, we do not need the power of her milk to draw the child into the spirit world.”
“A daughter,” Sok said and scowled.
Ligige’ snorted and tipped the baby so he could see her from where he sat beside the hearth fire. “A daughter is not such a terrible thing,” she said. “You have Cries-loud and Carries Much, two strong sons who live here with you, and that other son who is now in the spirit world. But would any of them take care of you when you are old? Someday you’ll be glad to have a daughter.”
“I am glad to have a daughter,” he said, his lips still drawn into a frown. “Here, let me have her.”
Ligige’ placed the baby into his arms, and he held her awkwardly, a hand’s length from his body.
“Your mother says she looks like you.”
“Ah, that is not good for a girl,” said Sok, but he smiled and clasped the child more tightly so she was snuggled against his chest.
For a time Ligige’ said nothing, but finally she knew she must speak. Snow-in-her-hair and her infant son, Carries Much, as well as Red Leaf’s son Cries-loud were in the lodge, but she supposed they must be a part of any decision that Sok made.
“Red Leaf has not nursed your daughter yet,” Ligige’ said. “Bird Caller has enough milk. Do you want me to take the baby to her?”
Sok handed the child back to Ligige’. When his words came, they were slow and weighted with sorrow. “I must speak to my brother first. For now, take the baby to my mother. Tell her that until I make my decision, the child should have only water.”
Red Leaf’s baby grew thin on two days of water before Sok finally returned to Ligige’, before he told her what must be done. He came in quiet dignity, and Ligige’ knew his decision even before he told her, but she waited until the words came from Sok’s mouth.
“Chakliux says we need strong women, and my son Cries-loud begs for his mother’s life, but I have decided that we risk too much to have her among us.”
“So you will drive her from the village?” Ligige’ asked, though she knew that was not what Sok had decided.
“She must die,” he said.
“I suppose it does no good to tell you that you risk a greater curse by killing her, a woman with the blood power of new birth.”
“I will wait until her blood no longer flows.”
“That is wise.”
Ligige’ filled a bowl with ground squirrel stew from her cooking bag. She held it out to Sok, but he shook his head. “You can risk your strength by refusing food?” she asked.
He took the bowl, squatted on his haunches and plunged his fingers into the meat, scooped it into his mouth.
“Has Red Leaf been told?” Ligige’ asked.
“No, but she expects as much.”
“You will be the one to kill her?”
“Who else? I cannot ask Chakliux. Why should he risk his hunting powers over something my wife did?”
“I will do it for you.”
“What if she fights? You are not strong enough.”
“She will not expect it from me. I can wait until she is asleep. Or I could use poison.”
“Is there something that would take her quickly?”
“There might be.”
Sok sat very still for a long time, one hand raised to his forehead, the other cradling his bowl. Ligige’ turned her back, pretended to be busy with many things.
“You have heard what will happen to Red Leaf?” Star asked Aqamdax.
“I have heard,” Aqamdax told her. She did not want to talk about it, did not want to think about it. It was enough for her to worry about her own child.
Star had avoided Aqamdax since she returned to the lodge, and who could blame her? Aqamdax would have done the same, though perhaps a little less obviously. Why risk your baby for the sake of politeness? But now Star sidled close to her, and Aqamdax knew the conversation was not over.
“I wonder how Sok will kill her. Perhaps he will use a knife just like Red Leaf used to kill—”
“You should not be this close to me,” Aqamdax said to the woman, and Star gasped, as though the realization of her child’s peril had just come to her.
She scuttled to the other side of the lodge. Aqamdax closed her eyes and stretched, straightened her shoulders. “I will go outside, Sister,” she said to Star. “That will be safest.”
She was weaving grass mats for the lodge floor. The grass in this place where the River People had chosen to live was not as good as what grew near the First Men villages, but it made sturdy mats. At one time, the women had laughed at her floor mats. Their village had been strong then, and there were caribou skins that could be used to pad floors. Now there were not even enough skins for lodge walls.
Aqamdax squatted on her haunches at the sun side of the lodge. In her own village, she would have found a place away from the wind, but here she had grown to appreciate a windy day. The sound took her back to her own people, to the First Men Village and the noise of the waves.
There, Aqamdax had grown used to the wideness of the sea and horizons that spread to the edge of the earth. The River People’s land was cut into small pieces by trees and hills. Some days, during the two years she had been with the River People, she felt closed in, as though she had been made to sit too long in a small place, legs and arms cramped for room.
A shadow fell across her work, and Aqamdax looked up to see the boy Cries-loud, Sok’s son. Once, in a time that now seemed very long ago, he and his older brother, that first Carries Much, had been her stepsons. Now, even though she was no longer wife to their father, Cries-loud often came to her with his small boy triumphs, his problems and questions.
He squatted beside her, his legs crossed. Aqamdax smiled a greeting and was not surprised when Cries-loud said, “Star told me my mother is going to die.”
Aqamdax wanted to gather the boy into her arms, hold him as she held Ghaden when he was sad or tired, but Cries-loud was not a child. He had eight summers. Soon he would hunt with the men.
“You understand why?” Aqamdax asked.
“I understand.”
“You know that this was a difficult decision for your father?”
He nodded. “Star told me it must be done because there is a curse. Do you think all the fighting and all the terrible things that happened to us were because of what my mother did?”
“I am not wise enough to know that, Cries-loud. There were many people besides your mother who did foolish things. I have heard the stories of the dogs that died in the Near River Village. A shaman did that. Surely his powers were greater than your mother’s. There was a woman named K’os who lived in this village before you and your father came here. She is gone now, but she was very evil, even had people killed.”
“Did someone kill her?”
“No.”
“My father says I cannot see my mother. He says I cannot speak to her again.”
Aqamdax’s eyes filled with tears. What a foolishness, all this killing. Did men not face enough death just in hunting? Did women not do the same in childbirth? Chakliux had worked hard to protect these villages from one another, but it seemed that some spirit of anger and death lingered even yet.
She placed an arm around Cries-loud’s shoulders, and he leaned into her. “You should remember the good times with your mother and all the good things she has done. Your new sister will need you to protect her. You are the big brother for her and for Carries Much.” When she said Carries Much, she felt Cries-loud shudder and knew he was thinking of his older brother, killed during the fighting.
Then, though Aqamdax had not planned to tell a story, an old River tale came to her. “There was once a wise porcupine and a foolish raven,” she began, the words singing from her mouth. She felt Cries-loud relax beside her.
He was too old for a children’s story, but he listened as Aqamdax spoke.
Chapter Three
THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE
K
’OS LEANED OVER THE
boiling bag and pretended she did not hear what Blue Flower was saying. As widow of the Near River shaman, Blue Flower held a place of respect, and could make the youngest wives scurry to do her bidding simply by raising her eyes to the sky as though she had special spirit powers. She claimed to be the healer in this village, though she knew nothing but a few of the chants her husband once used.
K’os had seen her set broken bones so poorly that arms and legs would be crippled forever. Blue Flower seldom gathered plants for medicine and seemed to know only the most familiar—willow bark to ease pain, fireweed for upset stomachs. Even a child knew such things!
K’os had offered to teach Blue Flower about herbs and plants, but the woman had reacted in horror. Who would be foolish enough to trust a Cousin River slave?
Though Blue Flower was incompetent as a healer, still K’os had to admire her for the honored place she had made for herself. K’os had heard the whispered tales of how Blue Flower’s husband, Wolf-and-Raven, had slyly killed Near River dogs so when the deaths stopped he could claim he had successfully driven the evil from their village. What did Blue Flower have to boast about, being wife to a man like that? He had been caught in his scheme, caught by an old woman, the one called Ligige’. Of course, some said Ligige’ had had the help of Chakliux.
Chakliux, K’os’s own son. He was a greater fool than Wolf-and-Raven. The Near River People held him in great esteem. So why had he allowed a man like Fox Barking to drive him from this village? She had taught him better than that! With elders as weak as Fox Barking and Sun Caller, he would have soon secured a place as leader.
Blue Flower lifted a ladle in K’os’s direction, whispered something to the other women. They laughed. K’os turned her back on them, began a chant of nonsense words. Soon they were quiet, and K’os began to sing louder. One by one they left, until K’os was there alone with the few children who always lingered near the hearths hoping for handouts.
K’os continued to sing, beckoning the youngest of the children with a piece of boiled fish, dripping juice from the soup broth. The child crept forward, and when he had it in his hand turned and ran. An older boy tried to grab the fish from him, but K’os called to him, offered him a chunk of meat. Soon she had given each child something to eat, and as they stood around her, she began a story, something she remembered from when she was a child.
She did not like children—their sticky fingers always reaching to touch or grasp, their whiny voices competing for attention. But she had watched Aqamdax work her way from slave to wife in the Cousin River Village, and Aqamdax had begun with the children. What better way to win the parents than through their sons and daughters?
Dii shuddered at her husband’s touch. She knew she should be grateful he had chosen her from among the Cousin girls taken as slaves, but when he called her to his bed, she had to force herself not to shrink from his groping hands.
He was a lazy man, sleeping long into each morning. She often asked herself why the Near River People had selected him as leader of their elders. Even Sun Caller seemed a better choice. He was shy in speaking out, and the words came from his mouth in broken, stuttering phrases, but there was a wisdom about him that Dii had noticed even the first time he came to her lodge.
Fox Barking lifted the hare fur robe that lay over him, and Dii saw that his penis was swollen, ready for her. At least it would be over quickly, she told herself as she slipped off her long caribou hide shirt and slid in beside him. He grabbed her breasts, and she winced. She would soon be in her moon blood time, and they were tender.
She turned her thoughts to good things, as she always did when she was in her husband’s bed. If she allowed her mind to be filled with her sorrows, her husband’s groping and thrusting always seemed more painful. She was, after all, second wife of a man who was leader of the elders. She had her own lodge, a good one, and her husband received large shares of whatever meat the hunters brought into the village, so her food cache was nearly full, even before the fall caribou hunts.
The spirits must have taken pity on her for her losses: the death of her mother on their journey to this village; the slaughter of her father, uncle and brothers in the fighting. Yes, they had taken pity, had allowed her to be a slave only a few days before Fox Barking had chosen her. He had introduced her to his first wife, Gull Beak, an old woman whose teeth were worn to the gums, but for all her homeliness Gull Beak had a true heart. She did not ask much of Dii and sewed most of Fox Barking’s clothing. Dii hoped Gull Beak would live a long time. Surely Fox Barking would not look on Dii’s sewing with favor after having worn Gull Beak’s fine clothing for so many years.
Fox Barking groaned, then his body relaxed over hers. He would sleep now, trapping Dii under him unless she was able to pull away.
“I must go to the hearths,” she whispered. “It is my turn there.”
He mumbled a reply, then rolled to his side so she could leave his bed. She slid out, took a long breath.
“Bring me back something when you return,” he told her. “I will be ready to eat.”
Dii used the edges of her hands to wipe Fox Barking’s sweat from her chest and belly. She pulled on the knee-length pants she wore in summers, then slipped into her boots and parka. The boots had moose hide soles, but the uppers and all of her other clothing were made of caribou hide, everything sewn by her mother the winter before the fighting.
She looked back at Fox Barking. His eyes were closed. The scar that ran from his forehead down over his right eye and to his jaw gathered the skin as though a woman had run a thread through his flesh and pulled it tight. She was glad that Fox Barking did not allow her to eat with him. It would have been difficult for her to swallow her food if she had to look at his face. Of course, there were others in the village who bore scars. Third Tree had only one eye, and Talks-all-night carried the marks of burns she received as a child when her grandmother’s lodge caught fire. Those scars, though they were worse than Fox Barking’s, did not turn Dii’s stomach. But who noticed Third Tree’s empty eye once he began telling his jokes? And who noticed Talks-all-night’s burns when her gentle spirit made itself known through her kindness?