“I heard. I have come to ask her to again be my wife.”
Night Man looked up at his sister. “He misses your warm lodge,” he said to her.
Chakliux saw the hurt in her eyes and held back the anger that made him want to insult Night Man. He almost told Star she had been a good wife, and for that reason he wanted her back. But how could he say something that was not true? He wanted her for the child she carried in her belly, for that son or daughter. Otherwise he would rather she belonged to some other hunter.
“I have a warm lodge where I can live,” he said.
Again Night Man looked at his sister. She moved her hands from her mouth and stood like a child, twisting her fingers into her braided hair. “He does not want you for your cooking or sewing, and he does not need this lodge,” Night Man said. “He has another woman to warm his bed.” He reached up and patted her belly. “It must be this he is after.” He looked at Chakliux. “You have not considered that it might be a daughter?”
“Why should that matter?” Chakliux asked.
Night Man laughed. “See, Sister. It is not you he wants. Get a good bride price for yourself. He will pay much for that baby.”
“You have never looked at your sister before, Night Man?” Chakliux asked, his voice soft. “You have never seen her hair, dark as night? Her face shining like sun on water? You do not know that she is beautiful to look at? Where are your eyes?” He smiled at Star. “What do you want for a bride price?” he asked her.
Star looked at Chakliux, then down at her brother. “That you help me move my brother’s things from this lodge,” she said to Chakliux, and snapped her fingers in a gesture of insult. “He will not live here anymore.”
Chapter Forty-five
S
OK INVITED CHAKLIUX AND
Aqamdax to live with him and his two sons, and asked Aqamdax to care for the children until he took another wife. It would be better for Star and Aqamdax to live in separate lodges, he had said, and how could Aqamdax disagree with him?
As she moved from Ligige’’s lodge, Aqamdax could not help but remember those days when she had been Sok’s wife. He had pretended to be what he was not—a man who needed a wife. Aqamdax had believed him, had allowed his wide shoulders and strong arms to blind her to the truth, and then had hated him when he tried to trade her to the Walrus Hunters. He had thought the magic of her storytelling would entice the Walrus people to give much in trade for her, enough to pay the bride price for Snow-in-her-hair.
But now, seeing Sok in his sorrow, moving as though he were an old man, she had no more anger. Could she pretend she had never done anything selfish? Could she say she had never hurt anyone else to get something she wanted?
So when Chakliux came to Ligige’’s lodge, promising gifts of caribou hides, meat and necklaces, Aqamdax accepted not only a new husband but also his brother and his brother’s children.
“By spring, he will find a wife,” Chakliux had said to her. “By spring you will have the lodge cover sewn, and we will have our own lodge.”
“And Star?” Aqamdax asked.
“She is still my wife,” Chakliux told her.
Ligige’ tottered to her feet, pulled on a parka. “I will go there, to stay with Star and Long Eyes, Ghaden and Yaa tonight,” she said. “Star knows that you have claimed Aqamdax as wife?”
“She knows,” Chakliux said, then offered to carry the boiling bag of food to Star’s lodge. “I do not know if she has anything ready to eat.”
Ligige’ shook her head at him. “Yaa is there. She is woman enough to take care of all of us.”
He held the doorflap open for Ligige’, went outside with her, and Aqamdax knew he would accompany his aunt to Star’s lodge, make sure Star accepted the old woman in politeness.
When he returned, his arms were full, his back bowed under the weight: a caribou hide, several long-furred wolf pelts, necklaces, boiling bags, a packet of beads—more than would be given for most first wives, let alone a woman who had been wife to two others, had once been a slave.
Aqamdax took the gifts from his arms one by one, hid tears by pressing her face into a wolf pelt. “There are more caribou hides, enough in my cache to finish a lodge cover, but I thought you would not mind if I left them there.”
Aqamdax began to laugh, then her voice broke with her tears, and she busied herself arranging the gifts in a pile at the women’s side of the lodge. She set out food for her husband, a bowl of caribou meat flavored with iitikaalux and boiled in broth, several dried fish, warmed near the hearth fire, and a bowl of fish oil to dip them in.
“One more gift,” he said when he had finished eating.
“The lodge is full,” said Aqamdax, laughing. “What more can you give?”
“It is not a gift for the eyes but for the ears,” Chakliux said quietly. Then he motioned for her to sit beside him, pulled her close and began to tell stories. They were ancient stories, each sacred to the River People, and Aqamdax had not heard them before. She listened in joy, felt his heart like a drumbeat set the rhythm for the words, so that each story was like a dance made with voice rather than feet and hands. And her love for him grew in the gratitude that he would trust her with something so sacred when she was only a woman, second wife, not even born to the River People.
Yaa helped Ghaden with the snowshoe he was webbing, then took a water bladder to Long Eyes and watched to be sure the old woman drank. When Star began an argument with Ligige’, Yaa was the one to distract her with a request for help with the boiling bag, and to remind Ligige’ with raised eyebrows and a quick frown that Star was only a child, though she wore a woman’s body.
Ligige’ pinched her face into stubbornness, and Yaa found her thoughts again on Day Woman, that dead one. Could Ligige’ have killed her rather than Twisted Stalk? If so, why would Ligige’ have worked so hard to save Day Woman’s life? Perhaps Star was the killer, but why would Star hurt Chakliux’s mother? For that matter why would Ligige’?
Yaa sighed. Perhaps no one would ever know who the killer was, and since there had been no more trouble in the village, why worry about it?
But then she thought of Cries-loud, his eyes shadowed with sorrow. It would be good if they could somehow prove Red Leaf was innocent, good for Cries-loud and even for Sok.
Someday, if she was Cries-loud’s wife…
Yaa squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment at the boldness of that thought and felt her cheeks grow hot.
Long Eyes let out a sudden squeal of anger. Yaa left Star and went to untangle the length of sinew thread that hung from the old woman’s needle. Long Eyes smiled at her and patted her hand, then resumed her sewing.
“Someday you will be a good wife,” Ligige’ said and nodded her approval at Yaa.
Yaa lowered her head so Ligige’ would not think she was too proud, but she hugged the compliment to herself. A good wife, she thought. She would have to be a very good wife to help Cries-loud forget his sorrow and learn to smile again.
When he finished the stories, Chakliux stood and reached up to the rafters, took a bladder of rendered oil and pulled out the stopper with his teeth. He stripped away Aqamdax’s clothing and stroked the oil into her skin, standing to comb it through her long hair, kneeling to rub it into her legs. He warmed her with his hands, cupped her breasts, then her belly, her buttocks. Then he took her to her bed, removed his own clothing and lay down beside her. His hands continued their dance over her skin, and she found herself moving beneath his touch. She reached out for him, to bring him also into the celebration of their joining.
When he finally raised himself over her, entered her, she heard the storm winds outside, beginning anew, howling through the walls of the lodge. Later, as they lay still and quiet, Aqamdax felt the lodge begin to shake.
Fingers of cold crept in through the seams and awl holes of the caribou hide lodge cover, and though Chakliux wrapped her into his arms, the wind’s voice would not let Aqamdax sleep. Through the night, she heard her husband murmur quiet prayers, but the words seemed too small, too quiet, a child’s chant against the wind.
THE FOUR RIVERS VILLAGE
The storm began just as the feasting had started. K’os moved the tripods and cooking bags into Sand Fly’s lodge and continued to feed the people until there was nothing left. When the food was gone, she opened the packs she had chosen from those River Ice Dancer had brought and gave each person a gift.
When she had first told River Ice Dancer her plan for a giveaway, he had protested.
“I have enough here to become a trader,” he told her. “I will have the finest dogs, the best parkas, and you and our children will never be hungry.”
She did not bother to tell him that she could not give him children. If he began to worry about having a son, she could claim a pregnancy, steal a child. There were ways to do such things.
“Wait and see what happens,” she had told him. “With each gift given your worth will grow in the eyes of the people. You will be seen as wise and generous, a leader.”
He had turned his back on her, pouted like a child, but she slipped her fingers under his breechcloth, and soon he was stiff and ready in her hands. When he was sated with their lovemaking, he had no more protests about her giveaway.
When the sky grew dark, the people left, walking out into the hard stinging snow, clasping one another as they moved from lodge to lodge. River Ice Dancer went with the old ones, guiding them to their own lodges, and when he returned, K’os took off his ice-crusted parka, brushed the snow from the fur, then rolled out his bed next to hers.
K’os lay awake long after she had satisfied River Ice Dancer into sleep. She had given much away—even a fine fishskin basket to Red Leaf, a beaver fur hood to Cen. In the quiet of the lodge, she listened to the wind. As always, it spoke with many voices: in anger, in bitterness. But this time, it also carried the whispered words of the men and women who lived in the Four Rivers Village—praises for River Ice Dancer and for his wife, that generous one, K’os.
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
Four, five times in the night, Chakliux used a walking stick to knock the snow from the smoke hole, and in the morning, when he and Aqamdax opened the inner doorflap, they found that the entrance tunnel was nearly full of snow.
Aqamdax went through Ligige’’s storage baskets until she found several old caribou skin boiling bags. Chakliux filled them with snow and hung them over the fire so the snow would melt into water, then he pushed his way from the lodge and went outside. The wind still blew, sent ice fingers through the fur of his parka ruff, scratched his face and eyelids. He had pulled the drawstring of his hood tight so he breathed through the fur, but still his lungs ached with the cold.
He could not remember such fierce weather so early in the winter, with the sun yet so high in the sky. He wondered if Sok would claim that this storm, too, was Snow-in-her-hair calling from the spirit world. As Dzuuggi he knew stories of such things happening, but that had been in times long ago. Snow-in-her-hair was not some shaman, not even a woman of great power or age. How could she know enough to make such storms?
When he reached Star’s lodge, Chakliux found he had to dig out the entrance tunnel. He heard no voices coming from within, and dug more quickly. Sometimes when the wind found a lodge sealed with snow, it would react in anger at being shut out and steal the breath of those inside.
He was halfway through when Biter bounded out, knocking him back, tangling him into a welcome of tongue and paws. Ghaden followed, whooping at the depth of the snow, calling for Yaa to join him. Chakliux warned Ghaden to stay close to the lodge. The wind was still strong, whipping the snow into a blanket that hung thick around the lodges, blocked vision of anything more than two or three steps away.
Inside, the women sat close to the fire. “Another storm,” Ligige’ said.
“Not as bad as the first,” Chakliux replied.
“Not as bad as the first,” Long Eyes repeated without looking up.
Star sat with her back to the entrance tunnel. For once she had work in her hands, but, of course, Ligige’ would not allow her to sit idle while others sewed.
“You have enough food?” Chakliux asked.
The lodge belonged to Star. She should be the one to answer, but she acted as though he were not there. Chakliux asked her again, then offered to break a trail to the cache.
Finally she looked at him, and he saw the anger in her eyes. “Your new wife,” she said, “is her bed warmer than mine?” She dropped the caribou hide she was sewing. “I am the better wife.” She patted her round belly. “Look. Here is your son. Have you forgotten him?”
“I would never forget him or you,” Chakliux said patiently. Then, as though she had said nothing, he continued. “I will break a path to the cache. It will not be open long. You will have to go soon if you need meat.”
He left, but not without inviting Ligige’ back to her own lodge, telling her that Aqamdax would move to Sok’s lodge that day.
“Take your dogs, Husband. I will not feed them,” Star called, and he heard something hit the lodge wall just as the inner doorflap fell into place behind him.
He calmed himself with thoughts of Aqamdax, then called Ghaden and Yaa to help walk a path through the snow to the caches. He loaded them with food to take back to Star’s lodge and went on to his own cache, brought back several frozen chunks of caribou meat for himself and Aqamdax and a caribou skin of dried fish for his dogs.
He took most of the food to Sok’s lodge. The lodge was empty and cold, but there was a stack of wood beside the circle of stones and sand that marked the hearth. Chakliux used a fire bow and scraps of birchbark to start a fire, fed it patiently until it had burned several of the larger chunks of wood into glowing coals, then he took some of the meat and enough fish for Ligige’’s dog to her lodge.
She had not returned yet, but Aqamdax was there waiting for him. He wanted to tell her to unroll their bedding furs again, wanted to enjoy a last time in this lodge together, but how could he risk leaving the fire in Sok’s lodge burning with no one to watch? Storm winds did strange things in empty lodges.