“Really, I do not care,” he said. He dipped his bowl into the cooking bag. “You want more?” he asked, but Chakliux suddenly found himself unable to eat.
He watched as Night Man lifted the bowl to his lips, swallowed several mouthfuls of meat.
“You do not care,” Chakliux said.
Night Man lowered his bowl. “I did not choose her for myself. She is not of our people, but she is not a terrible wife, and so I will keep her. What other woman would have me?” He nodded at his useless arm. “I do not want her to die, but the baby means nothing.”
“Even if it is a son?”
“I’m sure it is not mine.”
Chakliux felt his face flush, first in disbelief, then in anger. “You think she has slept with another man?”
“Not since she became my wife. But she was a slave before that. K’os made her sleep with men, then took their gifts for herself. The child could belong to some warrior now dead, killed by the Near Rivers in the fighting.”
“It would still be yours—a daughter to care for you in your old age, a son to bring meat….”
“What if the true father’s spirit comes back to see this child, to watch him grow into a man, and finds that I have claimed him as my own? Do you think he would be glad to see his son raised by a man who laid in his bed and did nothing while the Near Rivers killed everyone and stole our women?”
“I think he would be glad that a man with a good heart is raising his son.”
But Night Man said, “If the baby comes early and is strong enough to live, I will know it is not mine.”
The tea did not stop the pains. Each one was a little harder, lasted a little longer. Finally Ligige’ told Aqamdax to go inside the birth lodge. She helped her lie down on the mats.
Ligige’ lifted the summer parka Aqamdax wore, pulled down Aqamdax’s short caribou hide pants, then during a pain slid a finger up into the birth canal.
“You might as well go outside and walk,” Ligige’ said, and helped Aqamdax to her feet. “You have opened at least halfway. I do not think my tea will help now. The baby has decided to come.”
THE NEAR RIVER VILLAGE
Gull Beak leaned near as K’os gutted and sliced the salmon, then handed them to Two Fist’s young daughter, who hung the split carcasses by the tails from the drying racks.
“The medicine worked,” Gull Beak whispered.
K’os’s woman’s knife, making quick horizontal slices through the thick pink flesh, paused for a moment, then continued as though Gull Beak had said nothing.
“I brought you birdbone beads.”
K’os stood, wiped a hand on her caribou hide pants and opened a pouch that hung at her waist. Gull Beak slipped the packet of beads into the pouch, and K’os pulled the drawstring tight.
“Come to me if you hear of others,” she told Gull Beak, then squatted again in front of the heap of gleaming fish.
Chapter Seven
THE COUSIN RIVER VILLAGE
A
QAMDAX BRACED HERSELF WITH
the babiche rope. She had tied it to a stout branch of the white spruce that stood over the birth lodge. The rope disappeared through the mat roofing of the lodge, and Aqamdax wished she could follow it outside, away from the pain and the dense air, sharp with the smell of sweat and birth fluids.
She heard Ligige’’s voice telling her to push, to push and to breathe, but the words were far away and difficult for her to understand. Each pain was a wave, and she tried to float above it, as though she were back in that small iqyax with Sok, riding the North Sea when she came as his bride to the River People.
Then suddenly the pain peaked, so hard, so rending that she thought she could not live through it, but then there was another voice, the sudden sound of a baby crying. Hard, angry cries.
“A son,” Ligige’ called out. “A boy, a hunter.”
“Is he big enough? Is he all right?” Aqamdax asked.
“He is small but strong. Listen to him cry.” Then Ligige’ lifted the child and placed him in Aqamdax’s arms. Aqamdax tried to lay back, but Ligige’ stopped her. “Wait until the afterbirth has passed,” she said, and then called out for Yaa as if she could see through the mat walls and know that the girl was waiting outside.
Yaa crawled into the lodge. “How did you know I was here?” she asked, then, before Ligige’ could answer, said, “Boy or girl?”
“Boy,” Ligige’ told her. “I knew you were there, because if I were you, that’s where I would be.”
Yaa laughed, and Ligige’ lifted her chin toward Aqamdax. “Go sit behind her. Hold her up until the afterbirth comes.”
The cord, thick and blue, twisted down from the baby’s belly. When it no longer pulsed, Ligige’ tied it off at the navel, and then again a hand’s length away. She cut it between the ties with the obsidian blade of her birth knife. Then the placenta came in a rush of blood and water, and Ligige’ wrapped it in a mat, set it aside to burn later.
“Lay her down,” she told Yaa.
Yaa scooted from behind Aqamdax, gently settling her to the mat-covered floor. Ligige’ cleaned and covered Aqamdax, then took the baby from her arms and washed him. She wrapped him in the softened hare pelts Aqamdax had prepared for him and handed him back to his mother.
“He is so small that he may not know how to suck. Try him and see.”
She watched as Aqamdax rolled to her side, pulled up her shirt and offered the baby her nipple. He turned his head and clamped his mouth over it, began to nurse.
Ligige’ chuckled. “Yaa, stay here with her. I have other things to do.”
Ligige’ left, carrying the afterbirth. When the burning was done, Ligige’ returned to the lodge, ducked her head inside.
“They are both asleep,” Yaa whispered to her.
“Stay with them until Aqamdax wakes up. Don’t you wake her; let her sleep. Then come get me.”
Ligige’ walked toward the village. It was always good to tell a father about the birth of a son. This child was small, born too early without doubt, but he was strong. He nursed well, and Aqamdax would be a good mother. The child should live, at least until the starving days of late winter. Then who could say? But why think about sorrows that might never come? There would be time enough to mourn later, if the child died.
She scratched at Star’s lodge, heard Long Eyes lift her voice in a vague answer. Ligige’ crouched to crawl inside and almost ran into Chakliux.
“A son!” Ligige’ said, singing out the words.
She saw the pinched look of worry on his face. “Aqamdax?” he asked.
“A strong woman. She will be a good mother.”
Chakliux closed his eyes, let out his breath.
“Where is Night Man?”
“Inside.” Chakliux stood back, held open the doorflap. He waited until Ligige’ was in the lodge, then he moved his lips in a silent prayer of thanksgiving. As he crawled back inside, he heard Night Man’s voice raised in anger and so stayed near the entrance, his eyes turned away.
“You are sure the child was born early?” Night Man asked.
Ligige’ had squatted beside him, her hands draped over her knees, and Chakliux, glancing quickly at her and then away, noticed that she looked tired. She was, after all, an old woman, and she had been awakened early to tend Aqamdax.
“He is very small,” she said, “but strong. Already he is eating.”
“You think, then, that he will live?”
“No one can say for sure. He must decide for himself whether he wants to stay in this world. I have seen large babies die and weak ones live, but there is no reason why this child should die.”
Night Man grunted, and Ligige’ said, “If you want to see him, I will bring him outside to you. Come to the edge of the village.”
“No, I will wait until it is time for his mother to leave the birth lodge.”
Ligige’ shrugged, and Chakliux realized that since Star was not there, perhaps he should offer food.
“Aunt, you are hungry,” he said, and fetched a bowl, filled it with broth and meat.
She took the bowl and ate, and to Chakliux’s surprise, Long Eyes stood and unhooked a water bladder, offered it to Ligige’. Perhaps a baby in the lodge would bring Long Eyes back to them. At one time, she had been a fine wife to Cloud Finder. It would be a good sign if her spirit decided to return to the village.
Chakliux heard a scuffling in the entrance tunnel, then Yaa was back in the lodge, her eyes dancing.
“I went to your lodge first,” she said to Ligige’. “Then I thought you might be here. Aqamdax is awake.”
“No problems?” Ligige’ asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Ligige’ stood and dipped her bowl into the cooking bag. “Then I will eat a little more before I go back. You have the food Aqamdax set aside for herself?” she asked through a mouthful of meat.
“It is in the cache,” Yaa said.
“Get it for me. I will take it to her when I go.”
Yaa returned quickly with a woven grass bag. Ligige’ set down her empty bowl and opened the bag, pawed through the contents.
“You cannot let a woman who has just given birth eat any fresh meat,” she told Yaa. “Smoked fish is good. This”—she pulled out several sticks of dried meat—“is it from last year? Didn’t this village lose all last year’s meat in the fighting?”
“I gave it to her,” Chakliux said. “It is some I brought with me when I left the Near River Village.”
“From Near River hunters?” Night Man asked.
“It is seal meat from the First Men. I spent last winter in their village.”
Night Man frowned. “You are sure it is not Near River?”
“It is not.”
Anger tightened Chakliux’s chest, and he turned away. Who did not know a woman needed meat after giving birth? Yet this man would sacrifice his wife’s strength over his hatred for the Near River People. He almost reminded Night Man who had begun the fighting, who had struck first, but he did not allow the words to move from his heart to his mouth.
Instead he stood, said, “I must find my wife, tell her that she has a nephew.” He left the lodge, glad to get away from Night Man’s smoldering anger.
“Is the baby my brother?” Ghaden asked Yaa. He stroked Biter’s back with his fingertips, leaving tracks like small valleys in the dog’s brown fur.
“Star’s baby will be your brother or sister,” Yaa told him, “and that makes Aqamdax’s baby your cousin.” She paused. “Well, no. Aqamdax is your sister, so you are his uncle. At least, I think you are his uncle. And I am kind of an aunt.”
Ghaden puffed up his chest. “I will have to take care of him. I will have to show him how to hunt.” He went to the weapons area where Night Man and Chakliux kept their spears and throwers, their darts and lances. He had a bola there and a small thrusting lance. The lance was really only a toy, even though the wooden shaft had been sharpened into a point and hardened in fire. But the bola was a true weapon. Chakliux had made it for him and was teaching him how to swing it so he didn’t hit himself with the sharp stones. He hadn’t got a bird yet, but soon he would. Then he would give the new baby one of the feathers, something Aqamdax could put in his amulet. He picked up his bola, ran his hands from the braided handle to the stones. Each stone was tied securely to the end of one of the bola’s rawhide strings.
He wanted to take the weapon over to where Yaa sat, to hold it in his lap and think about the birds he would kill, the praise Yaa and Aqamdax would give him when they added the meat and bones from those birds to their cooking bags, or roasted them on a stick, but Yaa was a girl. She might pull away some of the bola’s power. So he hung it again from its wooden hook on one of the lodge poles, then went and sat down beside Biter.
Suddenly the doorflap opened and Star came in. “You are a lazy one,” she said to Yaa. “Have you checked the traplines? And you, you could bring wood,” she said to Ghaden.
Ghaden knew Yaa was tired from being up early with Aqamdax and helping Ligige’, but he was glad to have something to do. It was boring in the lodge. He slipped on his summer boots, then followed Yaa and Biter. He heard Star speak to Night Man while he was still in the entrance tunnel: “She had a son, I am told.”
Ghaden stopped for a moment so he could hear Night Man’s reply, but he could not make out the mumbled words.
Star’s voice lifted in laughter, then Ghaden heard Long Eyes also laugh, the sound like a weak and fading echo.
“You think it is yours?” Star said. “With all the men K’os brought into her lodge, you truly think Aqamdax’s son is yours?” Again she laughed.
For some reason the sound made Ghaden shiver.
That evening, after Ligige’ had left her for the night, Aqamdax still could not sleep. The joy and wonder of having her own child filled her like laughter.
She ran a finger over her son’s cheek. Even in his sleep, he turned toward the touch, opening his mouth, moving his head until he succeeded in getting her fingertip to his lips. He sucked for a moment, then relaxed. She had just fed him, so she knew he was not hungry. A bubble colored by her milk lingered at one corner of his mouth.
Among the Cousin River People, the men were the ones who named the babies. Night Man would give him a River name, but that did not matter. Aqamdax would call him Angax, the First Men word for power. Surely such a name would lend him the strength he needed to survive.
Angax looked like Night Man, even Ligige’ had said so. He had Night Man’s strong chin and his eyes that tilted down at the sides. Just above his forehead a swirl of black hair turned a small circle, like an eddy at the side of a river; that, too, was Night Man’s. Aqamdax had counted her son’s fingers and toes, long thin fingers like her own, and she had unwrapped and wrapped him many times.
When she nursed him, small pains twisted just below her belly, but Ligige’ had called them afterbirth pains, something every woman had, nothing to worry about.
So now for Aqamdax there was only happiness. She had hoped Night Man would come to see the baby but thought perhaps such a thing was against River taboos. They were a strange people, with many things forbidden to both men and women.
Aqamdax had been out of the lodge once to relieve herself, her baby tied to her chest, but mostly she had lain still and watched her son.
It had not been a long labor, Ligige’ told her. Many women having first babies went a whole day or more. But Aqamdax had grinned and told Ligige’ that it had been long enough.