Call Down the Stars (57 page)

Uutuk began shaking her head in denial, and K’os had to close her lips tightly over a smile. Chakliux had not taken Uutuk as far from her as K’os had feared.

“You think we’re fools?” Chakliux asked. “If they believe you did this, then what chance do we have for safety, your daughter and her husband and I?”

K’os kept herself from blinking, and so was able to bring more tears from her eyes. “What will I do without a husband, now that I’m old?” she asked.

Uutuk went to K’os, pulled her into an embrace. K’os looked through her eyelashes at Chakliux, allowed herself a tiny smile.

“Uutuk …” Chakliux began, then shook his head and turned on his heel. Just before he left the lodge he said, “Sister, don’t let her fool you with those tears. I’ll come for you both when it’s time for the ceremonies.” He pointed at K’os. “Don’t let her leave.”

He slipped into the entrance tunnel, and K’os clung hard to Uutuk. “Oh, my daughter, what a fool I was to allow your husband to bring us to this village. I had many friends here, but now most of them have died with this sickness, and my memories are tainted by Chakliux’s hatred.”

K’os took a long breath and let it out in a shudder. “What will happen to my poor husband when his bones are left here among a people he did not know? How much better that he be buried on our own island, with your grandfather’s wise spirit to watch over him.”

She continued to speak about Uutuk’s grandfather until she could feel Uutuk trembling and knew that the girl, too, wept. Then she said, “You are a good daughter, Uutuk, better than I deserve. You are all I ever wanted in a child. Though I was cursed with Chakliux, surely I have been blessed with you.”

She waited, hoping to hear some words of kindness from Uutuk, but Uutuk said nothing, and finally she loosed her hold on K’os, and went for a bladder of water, dumped some out on a rag of caribou hide and washed her face, then offered the rag to K’os.

“I am a widow,” K’os said. “Let them see my grief.”

A
FTER LEAVING CRIES-LOUD’S
camp, Gheli waited until it was truly dark. Then she set out toward the Four Rivers village, walking under the moonlight. She walked quickly so that Cries-loud would not catch up with her during the next day.

The following night and all the long nights after, she allowed herself only a little sleep. When she finally came to the Four Rivers village, she came from the direction that few people would follow, near the death scaffolds. She held her breath at the stink, but could not hold in her tears at the number of new bodies, small and large, stacked there.

Her heart pulsed in fear as she thought of her daughters. Had they, too, died? Surely at least Daes would know to be wary of anything K’os gave her. When she saw that the village hearthfires were dead, she breathed out her relief. The women must have realized that anyone who ate from those boiling bags had become sick. Or there were so few women left in the village, there was no one to tend the fires.

Most likely that, Gheli thought when she crouched to study the coals. They had not even been banked. No woman healthy and strong would leave a fire to burn itself out. That was too foolish. She stirred the coals with her walking stick to be sure there was no hidden fire that the wind might pick up and dash against lodge covers. But there was not even an edge of heat.

So now she must see whether K’os was still alive or if Cen or Chakliux had killed her. If K’os was dead, then Gheli would leave as quietly as she had come. Why not go back to that village beyond her fish camp? There was always the chance that one of the men would take her as wife. Besides, someday Cries-loud might bring Daes and Duckling to see her.

Of course, there was good reason to believe that K’os was still alive. Her mourning for her First Men husband would not yet be finished. Why add unnecessary curses by killing K’os before her husband’s spirit was completely settled in the land of the dead?

If K’os was alive, where would she stay? Surely Ghaden and his wife would be living in Cen’s lodge. Which might mean that Uutuk’s mother, K’os, would also be there. But would Cen allow K’os to live within the same walls as his daughters? Gheli heard a voice coming from Cen’s lodge. She ducked down so quickly that she set the nearest pack of dogs barking.

Someone came outside. It was Chakliux. How could she miss his limp? She thought she heard the soft sounds of a chant, a spirit song, but she could not be sure. He lifted his head, looked up at the sky. He was praying.

She felt a moment of hope. Perhaps by now he had already killed K’os, then she could sneak away in the night. No one would ever know she had been there.

After a long time, Chakliux went back inside, and Gheli crept forward on feet and hands to the rear of Cen’s lodge. She stood as close as she could to the caribou hide cover, but heard nothing. No voices. That was good. No mourning. No healing chants. Perhaps K’os was still alive, and Chakliux merely prayed for wisdom to know what to do.

Ah, Chakliux, sleep. Tomorrow you will have no worries. What is one more death? Just another mourning.

Gheli squeezed the pouch that hung from her left wrist, loosened the drawstring, and stroked the long-bladed knife she had borrowed from Cen’s weapon cache before she left for fish camp. It was obsidian, and Cen claimed it had once belonged to a man who lived so long ago that even the storytellers had forgotten about him.

The moon was just past full, one edge of it rubbed away, raw and ragged, bleeding out its light. She waited through the night, the pouch clasped in her fist, until the moon set and there was only darkness. Even the dogs stayed in tight circles beside the lodges, kept their faces covered with their tails. She moved to the entrance tunnel, place a hand on the caribou hide doorflap. It was rough and hard against her fingers. Her stomach twisted and she gagged, then fought down the fear that choked her. She gripped the haft of the knife to give herself courage, moved her fingers over the pouch so she could feel the finely ground powder hidden within.

She waited in the tunnel until the air settled and warmed a little. An edge of the doorflap was pulled away from the opening, and Gheli leaned in close. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so the few remaining hearth coals gave enough light for her to see. She scanned the lodge. There were three, no, four, on the men’s side. She recognized Chakliux and Ghaden. The one so close to Ghaden was too small for a man. She had to be K’os’s daughter, Ghaden’s wife.

The other was Cen. Her eyes softened. She knew well the way he slept—on his side, his legs drawn up, an arm flung out over the fox fur cover. He snorted, mumbled in his sleep, and she froze until he was quiet again. On the women’s side there was Daes. And K’os. Again Gheli felt the need to retch. She cupped a hand over her mouth until the nausea passed.

Daes slept as far from the woman as she could, her back pressed into the matting that covered the stone and sod of the lower wall.

The years had most likely changed K’os’s face into something much different from what Gheli remembered, but the hand that lay over the sleeping robe marked her. She studied K’os, grimaced. This would not be as easy as she had hoped. The woman was wrapped tightly in her furred sleeping robe. Would the obsidian blade cut through it? She could go for K’os’s neck, but what if she missed, connected with jaw or shoulder bone?

Gheli lifted a prayer to whatever spirits might be willing to help her, then crept to the pile of sleeping robes stacked on the women’s side. She pulled one over herself and lay down between Daes and K’os. Daes moaned and pressed even closer to the wall, but K’os did not stir, so when the voice came, it startled Gheli into jumping to her feet.

“You have returned.” The words were whispered, and they came from K’os. “Cen told us wolves killed you. You seem to be good at cheating death. Perhaps I need to know your secret.”

K’os sat up and pushed the robe down around her waist. She had changed much, was finally an old woman.

“You’ve come to kill me,” she said.

“Yes, so Cen or Chakliux will not have to.”

“My mourning has not ended. You will risk that curse?”

“Yes, to protect my daughters.”

From the corners of her eyes, Gheli saw Daes scoot toward the hearth. The girl began to hiss, and called out to her father. Finally Cen awoke, Ghaden and Uutuk also, then Chakliux. Ghaden thrust his wife behind him while he groped for the weapons that he had laid near his bedding mats.

He lifted a short lance, and Gheli called to him, “Let me kill her. What is one more curse for someone like me who has earned so many?”

Ghaden looked at Cen and said, “Wait.”

“They let me keep nothing except this small crooked knife,” said K’os, and raised herself to her knees, swept away the sleeping robe. She lifted the knife. The blade was no longer than the last joint of a finger, and it had been set into the side of a caribou rib, the curve of the rib good for a woman who needed to use that knife for her sewing.

It could take out an eye, Gheli supposed, or make a slash in the flesh, but she wore a parka, and the small blade would not easily cut through the hide. She had only to watch her face and her hands. Nothing more.

K’os had grown thin in her old age, and she seemed much smaller than Gheli had remembered. Perhaps she had also grown weak. Gheli allowed herself to hope that she would live through the attack.

“Cen,” she said, “if I kill her, will you let me go?”

“You’ll leave the village?” he asked.

Gheli opened her mouth to answer, but Daes began to wail, a high-pitched keening.

“Be quiet!” Cen shouted at the girl, and Daes covered her face with her hands, muffled her sobs.

“I will leave,” Gheli promised.

“You’ll be dead,” K’os said, then she called out to her daughter, “Uutuk, you’ll let her do this to me? You won’t ask your husband to help me?” K’os’s voice was suddenly soft and pleading.

Uutuk was crying, but she turned her face away.

K’os looked at Chakliux, smirked. “Why did I ever think I should raise children?” she asked. There was hatred in her words, anger and also, Gheli thought, some fear.

“Be careful, Mother,” Daes said in a small voice.

Gheli turned her head toward Daes, and at that moment, K’os lunged, laid Gheli’s cheek open with the blade of the crooked knife.

Gheli thrust out with her knife. K’os was not wearing a parka, but only a loose caribou hide shirt. Gheli’s knife went easily into K’os’s belly. K’os screamed, slashed again with her crooked knife, this time catching Gheli’s forehead, then the top of her hand. Gheli ignored the pain, ignored Cen and Chakliux. She thought they might pull her away, but they did not. And she jerked down hard on the haft of her knife, pulled with all her strength, leaving a long wound in K’os’s abdomen. The stink of slashed bowels filled the lodge. Uutuk buried her head in her husband’s shoulder and cried out her anguish.

K’os was screaming, her hands at the edges of her gaping wound. Gheli threw the knife, and it landed in the hearth coals where the rawhide that bound the blade to the haft began to sizzle and smoke. She opened the pouch and shook the contents over K’os’s face and belly.

“You wanted to poison the people of this village,” Gheli shouted at her, “well, now you are poisoned. Now you are dead. Tell your spirit to do to me as you wish. I’ve been cursed by many, so you will have to fight for your turn to destroy me.”

She spun to face Ghaden and held her hands out, palms up. “I have no more weapons,” she said. “Ask your wife if she wants me dead. I won’t fight you.”

Then, in a horrible voice, K’os cried out, “Ghaden, you have no need. She’s already dead.” Then her words were only curses, against Gheli, against Cen, against her children.

Uutuk covered her ears, and Ghaden, his arm around her, walked Uutuk to the entrance tunnel. They left the lodge, and Daes crept out after them.

“And you,” K’os screamed at Chakliux. She lay back on the floor, and the pain took her voice. “You,” she whispered. “You will … stay to watch … me die?”

He did not answer, but took down a water bladder and carried it to her. He lifted her head so she could drink. She took a mouthful but spat it in his face. He left her and went to stand beside Cen.

“I’m sorry this happened in your lodge,” Chakliux said.

“I’ll burn it,” Cen told him.

Gheli, still on her knees, looked up at him. “You know I’m already cursed,” she said. “Let me take what I need. What will it hurt, if you’re going to burn it anyway?”

“Take what you want,” Cen told her.

K’os’s moans turned into laughter. “You need nothing,” she told Gheli, “except to prepare for the spirit world.” She lifted a bent finger to point at the cuts on Gheli’s face. “I told you, you’re already dead,” she said again.

“I’ve had worse than this,” Gheli told her. “What’s a little blood?”

But Chakliux took a step toward his mother and asked, “What did you do?”

“Poison,” she gasped. She lifted the amulet pouch that hung at her neck, opened it, and sifted the powder into the wound at her belly. “Now it will take me also,” she said. “More quickly than Red Leaf’s poison. I learned … from the First Men. It stops … the breath … Once in the blood … it works quickly.” The last words hissed from her throat, and she looked up at Gheli, saw the horror on the woman’s face.

“The knife blade?” Gheli asked, the question only a whisper.

K’os took one last breath and began to choke, and in Gheli’s ears, the choking sounded like laughter.

T
HEY BURNED CEN’S LODGE
and all that was in it, weapons, food and clothing, floor mats and boiling bags, baskets of spruce root and bark. Not only those things burned but also the bodies of K’os and Gheli, and when all that was left was ashes and bones, the shaman of the village made chants to protect them against the curses of those two women. Then he took the bones and made a long journey to leave the packet that held the charred remains far from any village of the River People.

Cries-loud returned the day after the deaths, and joined his sister and Cen in mourning Gheli. But no one mourned K’os. When Chakliux, Cries-loud, Ghaden, and Uutuk left the Four Rivers People to return to Chakliux’s village, Cen and Daes went also, and they took Duckling with them.