Allan and the Ice Gods (8 page)

of the wolf.

Presently this was finished and he threw the gory hide, flesh side

down, over his broad shoulders to keep it stretched, as he said, for a

little blood did not trouble him. Then, without more talk, the pair

walked down to the beach, the squat misshapen Pag waddling on his

short legs after the burly, swift-moving Wi.

Here, straggling over a great extent of shore, were a number of rough

shelters not unlike the Indian wigwams of our own age, or those rude

huts that are built by the Australian savages. Round these huts

wandered or squatted some sharp-nosed, surly-looking, long-coated

creatures, very powerful of build, that a modern man would have taken

for wolves rather than dogs. Wolves their progenitors had been, though

how long before it was impossible to say. Now, however, they were

tamed, more or less, and the most valued possession of the tribe,

which by their aid kept at bay the true wild wolves and the other

savage beasts that haunted the beach and the woods.

When these animals caught sight of Wi and Pag, they rushed at them,

open-mouthed and growling fiercely till, getting their wind, of a

sudden they became gentle and, for the most part, returned to the huts

whence they had come. Two or three of them, however, which were his

especial property and lived in his hut, leapt up at Wi, wagging their

tails and striving to lick his hand or face. He patted one upon the

head, the great hound Yow whom he loved, and who was his guard and

companion when out hunting, whereon the other two, in their fierce

jealousy, instantly flew at its throat, nor did Pag find it easy to

separate them.

The noise of the worrying attracted the tribe, many of whom appeared

from out of the huts or elsewhere to discover its cause. They were

wild-looking people, all dark-haired like Wi, though he was taller and

bigger than most of them, very like each other in countenance,

moreover, as a result of inbreeding for an unknown number of

generations. Indeed, a stranger would have found difficulty in

distinguishing them apart except by their ages, but as no stranger

ever came to the home of the beach people, this did not matter.

The most of them also were coarse-faced and crushed-looking as though

they were well-acquainted with the extremities of cruelty and hardship

—which was indeed the case; like Wi, however, some of them had fine

eyes, though even these were furtive and terror-stricken. Of children

there were not many, for reasons that have been told, and these hung

together in a little group, perhaps to keep out of the way of blows

when their elders appeared, or in some instances wandered round the

fires of driftwood on which food was cooking, bits of seal meat, for

the most part, toasting upon sticks—for the tribe were not advanced

enough in the domestic arts to possess cooking vessels—as though,

like the dogs, they hoped to snatch a mouthful when no one saw them.

Only a few of the smaller of these children sat about upon the sand

playing with sticks or shells, which they used as toys. Many of the

women seemed even more depressed than the men, which was not strange,

as, like slaves, it was their lot to do the hard work and to wait hand

and foot on their masters, those who had taken them as wives, either

by capture or in exchange for other women, or for such goods as this

people possessed and valued—bone fish hooks, flint weapons, fibre

rope, and dressed skins.

Through this collection of primitive humanity—our forebears be it

remembered—Wi, preceded by Pag, marched toward his own hut, a large

one more neatly constructed than most, of fir poles from the wood tied

together at the top, tent-shaped and covered with untanned skins laid

over a roof of dried ferns and seaweed, arranged so as to keep out the

cold. Obviously, he was a person held in respect, as the men made way

for him, though some of the short little women stood staring at him

with sympathy in their eyes, for they remembered that a few days ago

Henga had stolen and killed his daughter. One of these mentioned this

to another, but this one, who was elderly and cynical, replied as soon

as he was out of hearing:

“What does it matter? It will be a mouth less to feed next winter, and

who can wish to bring up daughters to be what we are?”

Some of the younger females—there did not seem to be any girls, they

were all either children or women—clustered about Pag and, unable to

retain their curiosity, questioned him as to the wolfskin on his

shoulders. Living up to his reputation, he replied by telling them to

mind their own business and get to their work, instead of standing

idle; whereon they jeered at him, giving him ugly names, and calling

attention to his deformity, or making faces, until he set one of the

dogs at them, whereon they ran away.

They came to Wi’s hut. As they approached, the hide curtain which hung

over the front opening was thrust aside and out rushed a lad of some

ten years of age, a handsome boy though rather thin, with a bright,

vivacious face, very different in appearance to others of the tribe of

the same age. Foh, for it was he, flung himself into his father’s

arms, saying:

“My mother made me eat in the hut because the wind is so cold and I

still cough, but I heard your step, also that of Pag, who lumbers

along like a seal on its flippers. Where have you been, Father? When I

woke up this morning I could not find you.”

“Near to the God’s House, Son,” answered Wi, nodding toward the

glacier, as he kissed him back.

At this moment, Foh’s quick glance fell upon the wolfskin which hung

from Pag’s shoulders to the ground and still dripped blood.

“Where did you get that?” he cried. “What a beautiful skin! A wolf

indeed, a father of wolves. Did you kill it, Pag?”

“No, Foh, I flayed it. Learn to take note. Look at your father’s

spear. Is it not red?”

“So is your knife, Pag, and so are you, down to the heels. How was I

to know which of you slew this great beast when both are so brave?

What are you going to do with the skin?”

“Bray it into a cloak for you, Foh; very cunningly with the claws left

on the pads, but polished so that they will shine in front when you

tie it about you.”

“Good. Cure it quickly, Pag, for it will be warm and these winds are

cold. Come into the hut, Father, where your food is waiting, and tell

us how you killed the wolf,” and seizing Wi by the hand, the boy

dragged him between the skin curtains while Pag and the dogs retreated

to some shelter behind, which the dwarf had constructed for himself.

The place within was quite spacious, sixteen feet long, perhaps, by

about twelve in breadth.

In the centre of it, on a hearth of clay, burned a wood fire, the

smoke of which escaped through a hole in the roof, though, the morning

being still, much hung about, making the air thick and pungent, but

this Wi, being accustomed to it, did not notice.

On the farther side of the fire, attending to the grilling of strips

of flesh set upon pointed sticks, stood Aaka, Wi’s wife, clothed in a

kirtle of sealskins fastened beneath her breast, for here, the place

being warm, she wore no cloak. She was a finely built woman of about

thirty years of age, with masses of black hair that hung to her

middle, clean and well-kept hair arranged in four tresses, each of

which was tied at the end with fibres of grass or sinew. Her skin was

whiter than that of most of her race; indeed, quite white, except

where it was tanned by exposure to the weather; her face, though

rather broad, was handsome and fine-featured, if somewhat querulous,

and, like the rest of her people, she had large and melancholy dark

eyes.

As Wi entered, she threw a curious, searching glance at him, as though

to read his mind, then smiled in rather a forced fashion and drew

forward a block of wood. Indeed, there was nothing else for him to sit

on, for furniture, even in its simplest forms, was not known in the

tribe. Sometimes a thick, flat stone was used as a table, or a divided

stick for a fork, but beyond such expedients the tribe had not

advanced. Thus their beds consisted of piles of dried seaweed thrown

upon the floor of the hut and covered with skins of one sort or

another, and their lamps were made of large shells filled with seal

oil in which floated a wick of moss.

Wi sat down on the log, and Aaka, taking one of the sticks on which

was spitted a great lump of frizzling seal meat, not too well cooked

and somewhat blackened by the smoke, handed it to him and stood by

dutifully while he devoured it in a fashion which we should not have

considered elegant. Then it was that Foh, rather shyly, draw out from

some hiding place a little parcel wrapped in a leaf, which he opened

and set upon the ground. It contained desiccated and somewhat sandy

brine, or rather its deposit, that the lad with much care had scraped

off the rocks of a pool from which the sea water had evaporated. Once

Wi by accident had mingled some of this dried brine with his food and

found that thereby its taste was enormously improved. Thus he became

the discoverer of salt among the People, the rest of whom, however,

looked on it as a luxurious innovation which it was scarcely right to

use. But Wi, being more advanced, did use it, and it was Foh’s

business to collect the stuff, as it had been that of his sister,

Fo-a. Indeed, it was while she was thus engaged, far away and alone,

that Henga the chief had kidnapped the poor child.

Remembering this, Wi thrust aside the leaf, then, noting the pained

expression of the boy’s face at the refusal of his gift, drew it back

again and dipped the meat into its contents. When Wi had consumed all

he wanted of the flesh, he signed to Aaka and Foh to eat the rest,

which they did hungrily, having touched nothing since yesterday, for

it was not lawful that the family should eat until its head had taken

his fill. Lastly, by way of dessert, Wi chewed a lump of sun-dried

stockfish upon which no modern teeth could have made a mark for it was

as hard as stone, and by way of a savoury a handful or so of prawns

that Foh had caught among the rocks and Aaka had cooked in the ashes.

The feast finished, Wi bid Foh bear the remnants to Pag in his shelter

without, and stay with him till he was called. Then he drank a

quantity of spring water, which Aaka kept stored in big shells and in

a stone, her most valued possession, hollowed to the shape of a pot by

the action of ice, or the constant grinding of other stones at the

bottom of the sea. This he did because there was nothing else, though

at certain times of the year Aaka made a kind of tea by boiling an

herb she knew of in a shell, a potion that all of them loved for both

its warmth and its stimulating properties. This herb, however, grew

only in the autumn and it had never occurred to them to store it and

use it dry. Therefore, their use of the first intoxicant was limited

of necessity, which was perhaps as well.

Having drunk, he closed the skins that hung over the hut entrance,

pinning them together with a bone that passed through loops in the

hide, and sat down again upon his log.

“What said the gods?” asked Aaka quickly. “Did they answer your

prayer?”

“Woman, they did. At sunrise a rock fell from the crest of the ice

field and crushed my offering so that the ice took it to itself.”

“What offering?”

“The head of a wolf that I slew as I went up the valley.”

Aaka brooded awhile, then said:

“My heart tells me that the omen is good. Henga is that wolf, and as

you slew the wolf, so shall you slay Henga. Did I hear that its hide

is to be a cloak for Foh? If so, the omen is good also, since one day

the rule of Henga shall descend to Foh. At least, if you kill Henga,

Foh shall live and not die as Fo-a died.”

An expression of joy spread over Wi’s face as he listened.

“Your words give me strength,” he said, “and now I go out to summon

the People and to tell them that I am about to challenge Henga to

fight to the death.”

“Go,” she said, “and hear me, my man. Fight you without fear, for if

my rede be wrong and Henga the Mighty should kill you, what of it?

Soon we die, all of us, for the most part slowly by hunger or

otherwise, but death at the hands of Henga will be swift. And if you

die, then we shall die soon, very soon. Pag will see to it, and so we

shall be together again.”

“Together again! Together where, Wife?” he asked, staring at her

curiously.

A kind of veil seemed to fall over Aaka’s face, that is, her

expression changed entirely, for it grew blank and wooden, secret

also, like to the faces of all her sisters of the tribe.

“I don’t know,” she answered roughly. “Together in the light or

together in the dark, or together with the Ice-gods—who can tell? At

least together somewhere. You shake your head. You have been talking

to that hater of the gods and changeling, Pag, who really is a wolf,