The Storyteller Trilogy (3 page)

Her belly ached in dismay. The last three toes on both feet were webbed together, and the boy’s left foot was bent so the sole pointed in. She flexed the foot down, forcing it until the baby began to cry. She had seen such a deformity once before. The parents had decided to allow that child to die. With a foot twisted so, how would he keep up with The People when they followed the caribou or traveled from the winter village to their summer fish camp? And what of other mothers, those women carrying babies in their bellies? Just by seeing this one, they might pass his deformity to the children in their wombs. Could such a child be allowed to live? How would he ever find a wife? How would Day Woman find a husband when her time of mourning had passed? Would a man want a woman whose son might curse his own unborn children?

Ligige’ looked over at Day Woman. She slept in quiet happiness. It would be better if Ligige’ put the child out now, but Ligige’ was not the mother. The decision was not hers. She wrapped the baby in several ground squirrel skins and laid him on the packed mud of the lodge floor far from his mother’s arms. It would be best if Day Woman did not get used to holding him, and best for the child if he did not carry memories of his mother with him to the spirit world. Perhaps, then, he would not call her to leave the living.

Ligige’ walked through the sleeping village to her brother’s lodge. He was a respected elder and, more important, Day Woman’s father. From the time he had been a young man, he had dreamed visions. He would know what to do.

The voice was soft, a sound that seemed like an owl’s call. It told Tsaani to prepare for death. He shuddered in his knowledge that owls speak only in certainty, and he wondered if the bird meant his death or the death of someone else in the village. His own death would not be a terrible loss—after all, he was an old man. He had enjoyed many nights of stars, many days of sun. But most likely the owl’s call was meant for his daughter Day Woman.

How many women survived a birth labor of three days? Her loss would not be as terrible as losing a hunter, yet she was a young woman, still capable of bearing children, and she was strong. Unusual among The People, she had no fear of water. She was the one who waded deep into the river to repair the fish traps, and once she had saved a child nearly swept away in the fast current of high spring floods.

It was said that their family carried the blood of the Sea Hunters, those men who lived out on the islands of the North Sea. But who could know for sure?

The call came again, and this time, Tsaani realized it was not an owl’s voice that beckoned him from his sleep, but that of his sister Ligige’. Tsaani pushed himself from the mound of pelts that was his bed and wrapped a woven hare fur robe around his bare shoulders. It fell in soft white folds to brush against the tops of his feet.

“I am awake, Sister,” he said. “Come.”

Ligige’ came in, and by the dim glow of the hearth coals, Tsaani could see the pinched, worried look on her face.

“My daughter?” Tsaani asked, careful not to mention her name. If she was dead, he did not want to call her spirit into his lodge. Why remind death that he was an old man?

“Day Woman is well. It is the child.”

“Dead?”

“Alive, strong, and a boy.”

It was good news, but he knew his sister had come in sorrow. “What then?” he asked.

“The child is crippled.”

“How?”

“One foot is bent. He might learn to walk. He will never run.”

“Nothing can be done?”

Ligige’ lifted her hands. “A baby’s bones are soft. If the foot was bent and held in place, it might help, but it might not.”

“He could draw bad luck to his mother, or worse, his brother. Even the whole village.”

“Yes.”

“If he is allowed to die, his mother might decide to follow.” Tsaani spoke softly, almost to himself. “She is young. It would be a bad thing to lose her.”

Ligige’ raised her brows in agreement.

“What does the mother say?”

“Nothing. She does not know. She sleeps.”

“Has she fed him yet?”

“Yes.”

Tsaani hissed, and Ligige’ chided herself for her carelessness. She should have noticed the deformity at birth. Milk was as strong as sinew rope, binding mother to child.

Tsaani turned his face toward the top of the lodge. Behind him the hearth smoke rose, as though carrying his prayers. “Bring the child to me,” he finally said, “but try not to awaken the mother.”

As his sister left, Tsaani turned to watch the smoke in the darkness, then he went to his medicine bag, a river otter skin, the tail, legs and head still attached, the belly full of dried plants, each with its own gift. He found a pack secured with one knot. Cloudberry leaves, dried and crumbled to a fine dust. He untied the knot and carefully shook a small portion of the powder into his cupped hand.

Tsaani scattered the powder into the coals, then spoke slowly, laying his words one by one on the smoke as it rose. He asked for wisdom, for strength, not only for himself but for Day Woman and Ligige’.

By the time his prayers were finished, Ligige’ was again scratching on the caribou hide doorflap. He went to her, but made her stay outside. Why chance a curse being carried into his own lodge?

He unwrapped the child. Under the light of full moon, he could see the boy was strong, his head and face well-formed, his shoulders wide. Carefully, Tsaani slipped his hands down the child’s legs. The bones were straight, but as in all babies the soles tipped inward. He pulled gently on the right foot, flattened it against his palm. He pushed, and the baby, with surprising strength, pushed back. Then Tsaani placed his hand against the bottom of the left foot. Although the foot flexed slightly, it remained tipped on edge.

Tsaani took a long breath and let it out in a sigh. “This child’s foot is bent like a bear’s paw flipping fish from water,” he told Ligige’. “His mother must have watched a bear catching salmon.” Why did women never learn to honor those animals that demand honor? “Did you notice that his toes are webbed?” he asked his sister.

Ligige’ nodded. “That is not a curse,” she said.

“Yes, but the foot …” Tsaani shook his head. When he spoke again, it was with the quivering voice of an old man. “I will take him to the Grandfather Rock. When Day Woman wakes in the morning, the child will already be gone.”

Day Woman called out to Ligige’. Her breasts ached, she said. They were full of milk. Where was the child?

For a time, Ligige’ pretended she did not hear. She was sewing a birchbark container. It was as long as her arm, wrist to shoulder, and as big around as a man’s thigh. She had pinched the container together at the bottom and whipped it shut with split spruce root. Now she was sewing up the side, punching holes in the overlapped bark with a birdbone awl and securing the seam with long stitches that crisscrossed each other all the way up. It would be a useful thing to hang on her back when she went to the woods to gather plants.

“I need my son,” Day Woman said, and using the birthing rope that still hung over her, she pulled herself to her feet. She shuffled to the child’s birchbark bed with its nest of ground squirrel furs, then stifled a cry.

“Do not call for him,” Ligige’ said quietly. “The spirits took him. It was necessary.” She explained about the baby’s foot.

Day Woman gathered the ground squirrel furs to her breast and sank to the dirt floor.

“I have spoken to your father,” said Ligige’. “He offers prayers. The child’s spirit is safe. I have promised to stay with you during these days when hunters cannot risk their skills to the powers you hold.”

“I may choose to follow my son,” Day Woman said.

Ligige’ snorted. “You are young. There will be other babies.” But she lowered her eyes as she spoke so Day Woman would not see the pity there.

Day Woman moaned and asked, “How will that be? I have no husband.”

“Your husband’s brother, Fox Barking, says he will take you.”

“He has agreed?”

“Your father went to him last night. He has agreed.”

For a long time Day Woman was silent, and Ligige’ saw that her face was the face of a person deciding. Finally Day Woman lifted the strains of her mourning song. She wrapped her arms over her swollen breasts and lay forward to press her face against the packed dirt floor. Ligige’ set aside her birchbark container and fumbled through the fish-skin basket she carried with her when she went to birthing lodges. She took out a comb carved from birch wood and began to pull it gently through Day Woman’s hair. As she combed, she, too, sang, mumbling the words of the song The People used to guide new babies to the spirit world.

THE GRANDFATHER LAKE

The lichen on the rock pricked the child’s bare skin, and he arched his back. Though the days were drawing toward winter, the sun was bright, hot. The baby squeezed his eyes tight and flailed out with his arms, but there was no closeness of body or wrap, and he startled, reacting as though he fell. Suddenly, a soft robe was thrown over him, blocking out the light and folding the heat down into his face. The blanket settled against his mouth, and he stopped crying. He moved his head and lips, searching for his mother’s breast. He caught a bit of the robe and sucked, but there was no milk. In his hunger, the child clamped his gums together against the skin, then sucked hard, drawing a bit of loose fur down his throat. He choked, turning his head to fight for breath. His face darkened; his lips turned blue.

Finally he coughed and dislodged the fur from his throat to his mouth. He pushed it out with his tongue, then gulped in air and began to cry.

The old man walked away; the cries followed him. He lifted his hands to his ears and prayed for protection from the child’s spirit.

It was afternoon when K’os reached the Grandfather Lake. She had not wanted to come, but her mother had made her. She hoped she could find the basket quickly.

She searched first at the water’s edge. Perhaps during the struggle, the basket had fallen there.

She found phalarope feathers, bear tracks, nothing more. For a moment she squatted on her haunches and allowed herself to rest. She had bled for four days, then stopped, but her belly still ached. She looked out over the lake. The water was still; only the ripples of fish jumping moved the surface.

She kept her back to the hill where the Grandfather Rock lived. Even from this far, she could feel the rock pull her, and it seemed she could hear her own cries, could feel the pain of the men’s hands at her wrists and ankles, between her legs.

It will not always be this way, she promised herself. Already she could think of Gull Wing and rejoice. She would kill the others, too. Some way, though she was a woman, she would kill them. If she was strong enough to do that, she was strong enough to face the Grandfather Rock—and Gull Wing’s body, rotting beside it.

She turned and walked up the hill, but still kept her eyes away from the rock, instead scanning the ground as she walked, looking for the basket. It was a salmonskin basket, made of six fish skins split at the belly, flayed out and sewn, tail down, to form a narrow base. Each skin was scraped so thin you could see light through it. Her mother had cut off the fish heads, and the curves of the gill slits at the top edge of the basket were like a line of waves, one following the other.

K’os settled her mouth into a frown and lifted her head to see the rock. Grasses hid most of it, and somewhere nearby lay what was left of Gull Wing’s body. Memories pressed in, squeezed against her flesh until there was room for nothing but her anger and her pain.

She cried out to the Grandfather Rock. “Give me a long life. Let my hatred grow as strong and dark as a spruce tree. Let it last through all my years.”

She repeated the words until they became a song, and she sang until her throat was raw. She crested the hill, then stopped.

There was a woven hare fur robe, pure white, draped over the rock. Who would leave such a beautiful blanket? At the first rain, it would begin to rot. She walked slowly, carefully, watching for Gull Wing’s bones. But there was nothing, no bones, no flesh. Of course, a bear might have dragged him away. Or wolves. She thought she could see a swath through the grasses, a flattening, but she was not sure. A hunter would know, a man used to tracking animals.

Perhaps Gull Wing’s friends had come back for him, or moved him to the rock and placed the blanket over his body.

She wanted to lift that blanket, to see how the man had rotted, to laugh at the skin and muscles pulling away from the bones, the eyes torn out by ravens, the flesh eaten by foxes. But a part of her hesitated. Who could be sure what was under the blanket? Who could tell what curse might await her?

Better to find her mother’s basket and leave.

She walked down the north slope of the hill, then turned toward the black, wet soil where the spruce were thick and tall. She kept her eyes on the ground and finally saw the basket, lying on its side. Her mother would be angry if it was damaged. She picked it up. It was whole; but now she must fill it with spruce roots.

She stooped, ignoring the spikes of pain that cut in from her lower back, and began to thrust her digging stick into the ground. When she felt the stick catch, she pushed it in sideways and lifted until she brought a root to the surface. Using the stick and her hands, she pulled until she had two armlengths of root above ground, then she cut it off and followed it away from the tree, coiling as she walked, pulling, until the root was thin enough to snap. She moved to another tree, took another root, then a third root. She worked until the coils filled the basket.

She knew she should leave an offering for the trees. Her mother had insisted she bring dried caribou leaves with her, but she left the leaves in the pouch tied at her waist. The trees had watched the men come, had seen them take her to the Grandfather Rock, but had done nothing to help her. Why should she leave anything for them?

She started back toward the village, but then decided to return to the Grandfather Rock. She
would
look under the blanket, and sing songs of praise to the animals that had eaten Gull Wing’s flesh. Halfway up the hill, she smelled the reek of rotting meat. The smell did not come from the rock. She turned off the path and found the heap of bones, the bits of flesh, that had been Gull Wing.