Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (14 page)

It feels good to tell my father everything,
Attu realized, as some of the weight of the frustration he’d been carrying began to lift from his shoulders.

Gaining courage by his father’s acceptance of what he’d said so far, Attu told Ubantu about Elder Nuanu and how Moolnik had left her, and what had really happened with the ice bear attacking Taunu, how Yupik had climbed the bear’s back with his double knives while Moolnik just stood, apparently too terrified to move. He told how angry it had made him to hear Moolnik lie to cover up his own cowardice, and how frustrated Attu was to have to follow such a leader as Moolnik.

“I can’t do it anymore, Father,” Attu finished, suddenly weary of it all.

“I knew Moolnik was irresponsible and a jealous braggart set on making himself more than he should be, but this...” Ubantu gazed at the nuknuk lamp’s steady flame, his eyes thoughtful.

Attu let out his breath with relief.
He knows I wouldn’t lie to him, or stretch the truth to make Moolnik look worse than he is.

Too tired to remain sitting, Attu stretched out on his bed furs. He’d slept some, but he was still weary. Yural had put more salve on his back, and no wounds had reopened, but his back and sides still hurt.

Attu’s mother had gone to Elder Nuanu’s as soon as she’d re-bandaged Attu’s back and he was resting. Yupik had suffered only one gash across the back of his head, not too deep, and would recover, Elder Nuanu said. His mother had taken some of Rika’s salve over to the healer’s shelter.

Taunu’s arm had been nearly ripped from her body. No amount of healer’s salve would help such a wound.

Attu was almost asleep before his father spoke again.

“We must stay until Taunu either passes Between or recovers enough to travel.” Ubantu shifted his sitting position, easing his crippled leg. “Then, we will travel toward the land Elder Tovut spoke of again, with or without Moolnik.”

“And the others?” Attu whispered. “Will they come with us?”

“I do not know,” Ubantu said. “We must try to convince them all, even Moolnik. Perhaps now that he felt the hot breath of an ice bear on his neck, he will see reason.”

Fear rose in Attu at the possibility of having to leave part of the clan behind. Even as much as he hated Moolnik, still it wasn’t right to divide their clan. It was dangerous for everyone.
And what of Elder Tovut’s prophecy? How can I lead a clan to safety when I’m no longer a part of it?
Attu didn’t want to lead, but Elder Nuanu had insisted it would come to pass, and she’d never been wrong in her predictions.

Attu, now no longer sleepy, lay awake long into the night, falling asleep only to dream again of the girl on the other side of the chasm of open water. There was no doubt. It was Rika. He called after her in the dream, even as it unfolded, even as he saw the logic in the dream as he was dreaming it. Rika was unreachable, unattainable, as if a large body of water did indeed separate them. Yet still, he heard his own voice, crying out to her that he was coming. After that, he dreamed again of a journey between two ridges of rocks, but all was hazy around him. In the distance he heard a voice. Was it Rika’s? She was calling, “I must show mercy; I must show mercy.” Then it all faded to darkness, and he found himself floating somehow as if in one of those skin boats Elder Nuanu had spoken of. He floated along in the darkness, water surrounding him, stars above. And he was not afraid.

Attu awoke the next morning wondering about the dreams of ridges and floating on the water. They made no sense to him, so he put them aside in his mind and considered the dream of Rika.
Did the spirits give me the dream of Rika before I met her, just to help me see she could never be mine?
He’d wanted her for his woman, Attu had to admit to himself, as crazy as that sounded. He’d barely become a hunter, and then she’d shown up, tipping his world on edge like ice tilting under his feet just before plunging him into the freezing cold water underneath. She’d been there when he needed her, after the bear attack, with her healing hands and her insolent ways. And then she was gone.

“And you need to stop thinking about her, calling after her in your spirit like a nuknuk pup crying for its mother,” Attu mumbled to himself.

“What did you say?” asked Meavu, who was still rubbing the sleep of Between out of her eyes.

“Your father has gone to see Elder Nuanu,” Attu’s mother said, thinking Meavu had been speaking to her. “Taunu hasn’t woken since the attack.” Yural sighed. “Elder Nuanu says there’s not much hope.”

Yural waved Attu out of his bed, moving in behind him to straighten his sleeping furs. Attu knew his mother was trying to keep herself busy in her worry. Their shelter had never been as neat as when his father had first been injured.

“Did Father say what else he was doing this day?” Attu asked as he grabbed a large hunk of dried nuknuk and shoved it in his mouth before his mother could scold him for taking her food without asking her.

“He’s going to talk to Moolnik and the other hunters about leaving,” Yural said. She continued to scurry around the small shelter, like the little whirlwinds that pick up old snow and spin it in the air.

Attu knew he needed to get out of her way for a while. And he needed to get out of camp. He was still furious with Moolnik. It wouldn’t be good for the others to see his anger, not today, when his father would be trying to influence the other clan members to leave against Moolnik’s wishes.

It will take more than one ice bear attack to get Moolnik to leave this prime hunting ground,
Attu thought.
He will not be easily persuaded, if Father can make him see reason at all. It hadn’t worked before, even with Paven and the other entire clan working to convince Moolnik.

“I’m going fishing,” Attu announced.

“Alone?” his mother asked, her eyes widening in fear.

“I’ll stay close to camp, along the shoreline, and away from the rocks on the other side,” Attu assured her. “It will be all right, Mother.” He reached out and touched her arm. “Besides, wouldn’t tooth fish stew be good to eat tonight?”

“Don’t brag about game that’s not in the pot yet,” his mother scolded him. She smiled. “Tooth fish stew does sound good. I never thought I’d say this,” and she lowered her voice to a whisper so the spirits of the animals couldn’t hear her but Meavu and Attu still could, “I’ve actually grown tired of eating nuknuk.” Attu’s mother giggled like a young woman who has said something bold to her hunter, as she turned away, busying herself with cleaning the already spotless shelter.

Attu grinned at Meavu, who smiled back. He grabbed up his fishing pouch, with its ball of thin line, bone hooks and dried mussels for bait, and his knife and spear. He grabbed another piece of dried nuknuk, dodged his mother’s playful slap at his hand full of meat, and headed out to the south end of the land to fish at the shoreline.

The next day, Taunu died.

“S
he lost too much blood,” Elder Nuanu told Attu as the two of them sat in Elder Nuanu’s shelter. “Her spirit couldn’t remain in the body without the life force of blood to sustain it.”

Yupik lay snoring in the corner of the shelter, his sharp breathing punctuated by occasional murmuring and twitching.

“I think he’s dreaming of the ice bear attack,” Attu said. “He may need the Remembering.”

“Yupik is healing,” Elder Nuanu said, “but the wound on the back of his head required many stitches, and his eyes now see only darkness. He didn’t even notice when the body of his woman was moved to his brother’s shelter for burial preparation. His spirit is with us still, but it’s not strong, and I’m concerned for him.”

“What did Moolnik say when he saw Yupik?”

“That mighty leader has not seen fit to visit this wounded hunter, or to confer with this clan’s healer.” Elder Nuanu gazed into Attu’s eyes, her formal tone giving away her true feelings while her face remained impassive.

Attu was shocked, but he worked to hide his reaction. “Father has decided we’ll travel south, with or without Moolnik and those following him, as soon as Yupik is able and Taunu’s body is buried in the proper manner for a woman of the clan.”

Women’s bodies were guarded, but only for three days. Because they weren’t hunters in the Here and Now, their spirits didn’t need to be guarded until the trystas could spear them into the heavens to light up the night sky for the clan. Women became part of the Between, where they could continue to guide their families as long as those family members followed the rituals of the clan.

That’s why it was so important to follow ritual. In the Between, women were the hunters, hunting out evil and destroying it before it could destroy their families. Men, with their spirits in stronger bodies, hunted in the Here and Now. When they passed to the Between, they kept the fires of the stars, like giant nuknuk lamps in the sky. Women kept the fires in the Here and Now because their bodies were weaker, and became the hunters, the protectors, in the Between, once their spirits were freed to fight and protect as fiercely as the men did in the Here and Now. Thus the cycle of hunter and protected fire-keeper was complete for both men and women.

“Attu?” Elder Nuanu interrupted Attu’s thoughts.

“Yes?”

“Tell your father I will come with him, whether Moolnik comes or not. My man was right. The Warming Time is coming, and I won’t spend the rest of my few remaining moons trapped on this land with water all around, while my people slowly starve to death.”

“Thank you, Elder Nuanu.” Attu smiled at the old woman, jumped up, and headed back to his family’s shelter.

This news will help Father persuade many to come with us.

––––––––

L
ater the next day, Attu heard sudden shouting, voices raised in either anger or fear, he couldn’t tell which. Grabbing his spear from its place beside the door of the shelter, Attu left his half-finished bowl of tooth fish stew and raced toward the noise coming from the middle of camp. He scanned ahead as he ran, looking for signs that a bear was attacking.
Would an ice bear be so bold as to come right into the center of camp?
Attu could hear a man’s voice, and now a woman’s, then several women.
What was happening?

Rounding the corner of a shelter, Attu was almost knocked to the ground as his father threw out his arm to stop Attu from taking another step.

“It’s Moolnik and Elder Nuanu,” his father hissed. “Moolnik found out Elder Nuanu said she will come with us.”

Attu saw the entire clan gathered in a loose circle around Moolnik and Elder Nuanu, who were hurling insults at each other. Most of the women were standing behind Elder Nuanu, including Attu’s mother with Meavu by her side. Attu would have chuckled at Meavu’s pretending to be an adult, but the look on her face showed Attu this was not play to Meavu. She was furious.

Moolnik, with Kinak and Suka flanking him a few feet back, stood facing Elder Nuanu. The other men were staying off to the side, as Ubantu was. Attu took all this in at a glance as he turned his full attention to the arguing pair.

“And you are a fool, Moolnik, the son of a trysta grasped by a tooth fish,” Elder Nuanu spat. Attu cringed at her lewd insult.

“And you are a bag of bones in a body soon to go Between,” Moolnik yelled. “I can hardly wait to guard your grave.”

The women of the clan collectively drew in sharp breaths, frowning in disapproval of Moolnik’s daring to show such disrespect to an elder who would be even more powerful in death than she already was in life.

“What is it going to take to get you to see what’s right in front of your eyes?” Elder Nuanu continued, undaunted by Moolnik’s remark. “Three people died in Paven’s clan. Taunu has died, and Yupik is slow to recover. His sight is still impaired. And yet-”

“And yet we are here, eating better than the clan has ever eaten before, rich in the meat of the nuknuk and tooth fish.” Moolnik took a threatening step closer to Elder Nuanu. “When have you ever seen the children so chubby, the women’s cheeks so round, the men so strong?”

“Like fat nuknuks, waiting to be an ice bear’s meal,” Elder Nuanu replied as she rolled her eyes at Moolnik. Then her voice softened, became persuasive. “That’s not the point, Moolnik. This is not a competition you must win against your older brother. Your father is long dead and his cruel ways died with him.”

“Don’t you dare speak of my father like that!” Moolnik spat.

“I will speak of him, Moolnik. Can’t you see? It’s as if he still lives inside your head, jeering you, poking at your spirit to fight your brother. Ubantu is not your enemy. He just wants what is best for this clan. So do I. We must keep traveling south and east, before it’s too late, before this land is surrounded by water. The nuknuks will leave, for they need the ice, the cold, and perhaps the tooth fish as well. None of us knows for sure.”

“That’s right, YOU don’t know, Elder Nuanu,” Moolnik said, his tone derisive as he leered at the old woman. “You listened to your man and you believed every word he said. You trusted in the words of an old man, slipping into the Between, an old man who for all we know was simply repeating the lies told him by his grandfather. Both our fathers would have laughed at him.”

Moolnik turned to go, but Elder Nuanu took a step forward, closing the gap between them. She grabbed Moolnik’s shoulder, and he spun back around.

“Don’t you touch me, woman,” he growled.

“And don’t you turn your back on an elder,” Elder Nuanu shot back at him. “This is no longer about what my man Tovut said.” She paused, and Attu saw her back straighten as she pushed forward with her argument. “I do believe he spoke the truth, but this is now about the facts we see. It’s warmer here than it should be; plants grow in abundance where they should be sparse. Water forms at the edge of the shoreline every day the sun shines, and there SHOULD NOT BE so many nuknuks.”

Elder Nuanu shook her head. “Where are they coming from? Are they coming from the south, because the ice there is now no longer able to bear their weight, so they must travel farther north to find places upon which they can rest?”