Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon (36 page)

DURING THE NEXT NINE DAYS THE WOMEN FISHED and gathered sea urchins. They walked into the hills to pull ryegrass for baskets and to check the crowberry and salmon-berry plants. The men hunted the harbor seals swimming near the shore, and when they were not hunting, they helped the women build ulas. 

The first ulaq was for Gray Bird and Blue Shell. Gray Bird asked that his ulaq be finished quickly so that Qakan, his body cut apart, his spirit without power and bound to the beach, would have a place to come, a place to live. And when Gray Bird's ulaq was finished, they built another larger ulaq where everyone else could stay as the men began work on a third. 

Then the traders came. Men and women, babies, young hunters, their goods piled in iks or tied to ikyan. There were First Men and Walrus People and there were others with bearskins for blankets, with chigadax made out of bear gut. They did not seem disturbed that Kayugh's people were already there. They greeted the two new ulas with smiles, with nods. "A good place to stay," Kiin heard one woman say in the Walrus tongue. 

Driftwood and seal bone fires lined the great circle of the beach, and hunters' lamps were kept burning all night. 

Chagak and Crooked Nose, Red Berry and Kiin hung skins offish and broth over outside fires. Traders came, giving small things—a bear's tooth, a chunk of chert, a few shell beads— for a bowl of broth. 

With each new ik or ikyak that came to the beach, Three Fish hurried away, asked the traders if they had heard anything 
about the Whale Hunter people. And each time Three Fish returned to the First Men's ulas, there was sadness in her eyes, and she told Kiin that the traders knew nothing, that they spoke of ash and fire and waves that kept them away from the Whale Hunter island. And watching Three Fish, Kiin again felt the ache that had been in her chest when she had been with the Walrus People, when she thought she would never be able to return to the First Men. 

During the second day of the trading, Kiin slipped away from the cooking fires to watch. Most of the traders displayed their goods on grass mats or on sealskins dyed red with ochre. Even after being with Qakan, it was hard for Kiin to believe there could be so many things in the world. One trader had wooden dishes filled with bear claws and another had a basket of whale teeth that were as long and nearly as thick as Kiin's hand. One man had twists of rope made from coarse reddish-brown hair. Another had baskets, some finely woven of ryegrass fibers, some coarse, made of grass stalks and roots, of willow or of seal gut. Two traders had large pieces of chert, red jasper and greenstone, and another had harpoonheads made of whale jawbone with obsidian points. There were piles of bitterroot, hammerstones, bolas made with walrus tusk weights instead of stones, sea lion stomachs filled with dried halibut, rolls of dried seal intestine for chigadax, bundles of furs and skins. Others had grass mats, fur parkas and sealskin boots. Another had baskets full of rosy finch feathers, curls of orange and yellow puffin feathers and fragile disk beads cut from shells. 

And everything Kiin saw, she wanted. Her eyes filled with the wanting, and when the wanting grew too large for her eyes, it slipped into her chest and pushed her spirit into a small corner of her body, leaving an ache that would not go away until she pulled her thoughts from the things she saw and instead walked up into the hills, instead thought of heather and sea birds and of the wide grayness of the sky. 

Gray Bird was the first of Kayugh's people to trade. He took a few furs, a few of his carvings to the traders and came back 
to the ulas with bear claws and a whale's tooth. 

"To carve," he said to Blue Shell and Blue Shell nodded, then quickly lowered her head. 

But Crooked Nose spoke, loud enough for Gray Bird to hear, "So, he will carve this winter even if we do not have enough furs for parkas, enough food to eat. It is good to know that Gray Bird will carve!" 

But Kiin stared in amazement. She had a basket full of the carvings she had made since Qakan's death. She had carved murres and cormorants, eagles and terns, harbor seals with great round eyes. She had made things that were important to her: carvings of her people's ulas on Tugix's island, things to help her remember what had been lost to her, to show Shuku and Takha what they should know about their fathers and about their true people. 

Kiin opened her mouth to speak, to say something to Crooked Nose and Chagak, to tell them about the carvings she might be able to trade, but then her spirit said: "Will they think you are boasting? You think your carvings are better than your father's, but perhaps they are not. You know they are not as good as Shuganan's, cannot compare to his. Perhaps you will take them to trade and the traders will laugh at you, a woman, trying to trade small misshapen animals for food, for oil, for furs. Wait, wait, think about it, wait." 

So Kiin continued to chop fish and stir the soup, to ladle out food to traders who brought beads or small bits of chert in exchange for what the women prepared. And she made herself stay near the ulas until she had grown used to the idea of trading, until it settled more deeply into her spirit and she knew the gleam of it would no longer show in her eyes. Then, she stood and stretched and left the cooking skins. She passed by her father, chortling over his treasures as he sat at the top of his ulaq. Kiin stood for a moment to watch Big Teeth and Kayugh working on a third ulaq, a place for Big Teeth and First Snow and their families. Then she went into the large ulaq where she and Amgigh lived. 

She shook out the furs and straightened the mats in Amgigh's sleeping place. He still had not come to her 
sleeping place, and Kiin had begun to feel herself again drawn to Samiq, so that she knew she must keep her eyes and her thoughts away from him for fear everyone would see how she felt, for fear she would bring shame to Amgigh. But she also held her thoughts away from Amgigh, from worrying about why he shunned her, why he would not claim her again as true wife. Her sons were safe. That was enough. She would ask nothing more. 

She went into her own sleeping place, then taking Shuku and Takha from their carrying straps, she set them into their cradles. "I will be back soon," she whispered, laying a hand on each baby's head. "Sleep, sleep." 

Then she picked up a basket of her carvings, tucked it under her suk and left the ulaq. 

The traders were noisy with stories and small arguments. For a time, Kiin only watched, listened. A man coming to trade talked first of the sky, perhaps the sea or sun, then small politenesses about rain and fog, perhaps a few jokes about other traders. The women did not trade, but sat silently beside their men, some laying out furs, stroking a hand against the nap of the fur as her man spoke of many days spent hunting for the animal, of the fur's unusual color, unusual thickness. And Kiin saw that if Chagak had furs to spare, she could have traded easily for many things. Chagak's skins were finer than any Kiin saw here. Amgigh's spearheads were better than most here, and whale oil was very precious since the traders lived so far from the beaches of the Whale Hunters. 

At first Kiin wanted to go back to the ulaq, to hide her carvings. "Who will want them?" some spirit seemed to whisper. "The men will laugh at a woman who tries to trade." And it seemed that the bulge of the basket under her suk would tell everyone of her foolishness. But then she thought of the long winter ahead of them, of Shuku and Takha without food, of her milk drying up because she had nothing to eat, of Wren lying still and white, Kayugh and Chagak having nothing to feed her. And so she made herself stay to watch the traders, to decide what her people 
needed, and to see which trader had oil, who had fish, who had skins. 

Then pulling a deep breath of air into her lungs, Kiin went to a man and woman who had baskets of kelp twine and seal stomachs of dried halibut. Kiin spoke first to the woman. 

"Will you trade with me?" Kiin asked, forgetting in her nervousness to talk about the weather, about the sea and sky. 

The woman's eyes widened and she pulled at her husband's sleeve, spoke to him in the Walrus tongue, quiet words, and she pointed all the while at Kiin. 

The man stared at her, and Kiin, speaking in the Walrus language, said to him, "I want to trade for fish." 

Almost, he laughed. Kiin could see the laughter. Though 
he kept it tucked behind his teeth, hidden in his cheeks, it 
came out in the crinkles beside his eyes, in the quivering of 
his chin. But Kiin, knowing how she must look, a woman, 
' only a woman, with nothing in her hands, understood the 
. reason for the laughter and smiled at him, for she could 
see herself through his eyes as something funny, something 
: a trader did not often see, a woman with nothing to trade, 
asking to trade. 

"What do you offer me?" he finally said. "I have a good 
woman. I do not need your hospitality for the night." 

Kiin felt the sudden burning of her face, and knew the i trader would see the redness there so she quickly reached into her suk for the basket of carvings. She reached in, brought out a small gray walrus. The : animal, carved in smooth lines from a piece of driftwood, ] was nearly as long as her hand. Its tusks were small white i points carved from birdbone. 

t Kiin held the carving on the flat of her hand, and as she v looked, she saw flaws in the work. The lines were not quite ] what she had wanted, not quite what she had seen before i she started carving. But then she looked at the trader, at his I woman; both were staring, eyes wide, at the walrus. J "Where did you get it?" the man asked. ; "I made it," Kiin answered, and the trader shook his head 
and this time laughed out loud. "Women do not carve," he said. 

But Kiin held in her anger and shrugged. Let him believe what he wanted. She knew the truth. "It is mine to trade," she said. 

He looked into her eyes and for a long time said nothing, but then he whispered to his wife. She stood up, went to their ik and pulled out two seal stomachs of fish. 

"Two," the trader said. 

Kiin's heart beat hard in her chest. Two seal bellies of fish for a carving she thought had no value. But then something from within made her shake her head no, made her put the walrus back in her basket. Perhaps because the trader did not believe she had carved it. There were others who had fish. 

"Three," the man said. 

Kiin stepped around the man, her basket tucked tightly under her arm, and opened one of the containers. She pulled out a piece of fish, bit into it. It was firm and dry, the flavor good, no taste of mold. 

"Three," Kiin said. She handed the walrus to the trader and she and the wife pulled the seal stomachs from the ik. 

"You will keep them here for me?" Kiin asked. "I can carry only one at a time." 

"They will be safe," the trader said. 

But then Samiq was beside her, his hands over her hands, hoisting two of the seal stomachs, one to each of his shoulders. "I watched," he said. 

Kiin looked up at him, saw the approval in his eyes. 

"Leave the other. I will come back for it." 

Kiin walked with him to the ulas, lowered her head as they passed the women, as Samiq called out to Blue Shell, "Your daughter is a good trader." 

Gray Bird, his face drawn, eyes squinting, answered, "So she will bring traders into her husband's ulaq tonight. How much room does she have in her sleeping place?" 

Then Samiq, speaking quietly, said to Kiin, "Do you have more carvings?" 

"Many," Kiin said. "But they are not good." 

"You do not see what others see," he answered. "There is a spirit in each carving, something more than what is carved. Go back. Trade again. We have not been able to hunt much this summer. You must be our hunter." 

THE MAN WAS TALL, WITH DARK SKIN; HIS HAIR, clipped back with an ivory ornament, was like woman's hair—black, straight, hanging to his waist. A black blanket of feathered puffin skins was slung around his shoulders, and as he walked, the blanket swung, making each of his steps seem larger than they were, making others move from his path to give him room. The man stopped at a trader's ik and Amgigh moved closer. Yes, Amgigh was sure now. This was Raven. 

His skin was not as dark as it appeared. Bands of tattoo across his cheeks blackened his face, and it looked like he had rubbed soot over his eyelids. 

A quivering began in Amgigh's stomach, something that numbed his hands and made his feet and legs seem slow and clumsy. 

Raven stopped suddenly, and Amgigh heard the man's words, the full clicking sounds of the Walrus tongue. Raven reached out and grabbed something from a trader's ochre sealskin. The trader lunged toward Raven, hands clasping Raven's hands, and Amgigh saw that Raven held the driftwood walrus that Kiin had traded for three seal stomachs of fish. Raven released the walrus, backing away smiling, hands out toward the trader. He spoke, a question, again in the Walrus language, and the trader, the walrus held close to his chest, answered. 

Amgigh had been amazed at what Kiin was given for the carving. After that first trade, Samiq had come to him, then they both went with Kiin, to help her as she traded other carvings for oil, fish, for furs and sealskins. 

He had been proud that his wife's carvings were worth so much to others, and puzzled that the traders would see something more than the smooth lines of knife on wood, that they would see some power in what she had made. Everyone knew the power of Shuganan's carvings, but Shuganan was shaman, more spirit than man, even Gray Bird admitted that. And what was Kiin but a woman, a wife? What power could she give? 

She was a good wife, yes, and at that thought Amgigh lifted his eyes again to Raven, saw for the first time that the ivory ornament in his hair was carved, a walrus at the top. Kiin's work, he was sure. Kiin's work. So even a shaman such as Raven would wear Kiin's carvings. Even a shaman saw power in her work. 

Amgigh passed his hands up over his face, pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. Why did he not see what others saw? Her cravings were good, yes, but. .. Perhaps his eyes were blinded by his own hurts, by his own doubt. The first night they had come to this beach, he went to her shelter. He had watched her smooth oil over her legs, had lain beside her. He had meant to take her, but when he looked at her, he saw not only Kiin, but the face of Qakan floating like a ghost above her, and even an image of Samiq, strong and alive. 

And overhead, sleeping in their cradles, were the babies. One his son, yes, but the other Samiq's son. The two would grow up together as he and Samiq had—rivals in all things. And would his son Shuku always be the loser, always catch less fish, the smaller seal, never run as fast, never be the best at anything? 

If so, he, Amgigh, had done that to Shuku, had allowed Samiq to take Kiin, to put Takha in her. 

And even with Kiin beside him, with her hair smelling of seal oil and wind, her breath soft like the seed puffs of a fireweed plant, Amgigh had felt little desire for her body. 

But now, seeing Raven, Amgigh felt a sudden longing for Kiin. He needed to feel her pressed against him in the night, to know when he woke in the morning, she would be laying out food, and in the evening she would be sewing or weaving in his ulaq. 

He turned, walked quickly away from the beach, back to the ulas. His mother and Crooked Nose were outside, scraping a sealskin. "Where's Kiin?" he asked. 

Crooked Nose turned, pointed with her chin. Amgigh walked past the two finished ulas to the place that would be Big Teeth's ulaq. Red Berry, Three Fish and Kiin were dumping gravel and crushed shells on the floor. Driftwood rafters rose from chest-high rock walls. Amgigh watched as Kiin smoothed the gravel into the clay floor with a flat shale blade. 

Her hair was mussed, falling over her eyes and into her face. She and Three Fish squatted with heads bent together, Three Fish speaking, Kiin laughing. 

Amgigh had to call twice before Kiin heard him, but then she came, hurrying over the rock wall, squeezing between rafters. 

She brushed the hair from her eyes and looked up at him. Amgigh reached toward her, and his fingers seemed to move by themselves to touch her face. But then he remembered his place as husband and dropped his hand, and would not allow himself to wonder at the sudden pain he felt, as though by drawing away he had somehow torn a small part of his spirit from his body. 

"Kiin, come with me," he said, and she followed without asking questions. 

When they were a short distance from the ulas, beyond Crooked Nose's sight and far enough so the wind would cover their voices, he stopped, turned and, this time with no one watching, allowed himself to reach out, to touch Kiin's face. To push the wisps of hair from her cheeks. 

She did not speak, but Amgigh could see that her eyes were round with worry. "Amgigh?" she finally said, the name a question, and Amgigh squatted, pulling her down beside him. 

"Raven," Amgigh said. "Tell me about him." 

Kiin looked at Amgigh, her eyes still wide. "He is here?" she asked. 

"No," Amgigh said and spoke so suddenly that he was afraid Kiin would know he did not speak the truth. He took a breath, made his words come slowly. "No. He is not here. I just need to know about him. You were my wife, Kiin. I need you to be my wife again." 

He thought he saw the beginning of a smile on Kiin's face, but she looked away from him and when she did not speak, Amgigh was afraid the spirits had taken her words, that she would once again stammer and hesitate as she had when she lived on Tugix's island. 

But finally she said, "He is not evil, not good. He is something like ..." She stopped, pushed her hands through her hair and then said, "He is himself, doing what he wants to do, and he does not think of others, how they feel or if what he does might hurt someone." She turned and looked into Amgigh's eyes. "I cannot explain it," she said. "He is... he is like the wind. The wind blows and brings in waves that destroy a village or the wind blows and brings in the body of a whale so everyone has oil. Good and bad, both, you see, and not caring either way." 

"You were wife to him," Amgigh said, his words flat, hard. 

"Not in his bed," Kiin said softly. "But I kept his ulaq clean and made clothes for him and carved if he told me to carve. I made a blanket of black puffin feathers for him. It was beautiful. I wish I could have brought it back for you." 

Her words reached into Amgigh's chest and squeezed his heart so that its beat seemed small and faint. "You made a blanket for him?" 

"I was his wife. He asked me to make it and I did." 

"No," Amgigh said, and the word seemed to pry the fear away from his heart so it could beat again, so again he was a man, a man ready to fight for his wife, not a boy afraid of something he did not understand. "You are my wife. You have always been my wife." 

 
"Yes," Kiin answered, but she turned her face away from him, and he could not see what was in her eyes. "I am your wife, but the Raven gave me food and a place to live. I took care of his ulaq and made his clothes." 

"And warmed his bed," Amgigh said. 

"No," Kiin said. "You know I did not." 

Amgigh pulled up a stalk of grass and twisted it between his hands. "If Raven finds you, he will want you back." 

Kiin turned toward him. Her face was white, and the black centers of her eyes suddenly pulled in, as though her spirit were shutting itself away. 

"Kiin, he will want you back," Amgigh said. "He will want you and my sons." 

"Yes," Kiin said, the word hardly louder than a breath. "At least Shuku." 

Amgigh stood and pulled Kiin up beside him. Without looking to see if others saw, whether there was someone who might be offended, man, woman or spirit, sea animal or bird, he pulled her into his arms, laid his head against her hair. "He will not have you. You are my wife," Amgigh said, and knew he should have claimed her that first night in his bed. How else did a man drive away the memories and spirits of others? 

"For the rest of the trading, I want you to stay away from the beach," Amgigh said. "I will have Three Fish bring you the babies. Take them into the hills and do not come out. Then if Raven comes, he will not know you are here. And when the traders have left, I will come for you." 

Amgigh left her then, left without looking back. He did not want her to see what was in his eyes. What he knew he would have to do. 

Kiin looked into Three Fish's eyes, tried to see if the woman knew what was happening, but Three Fish's large round face was flat, without trace of sorrow, anger or fear. She sat holding Samiq's son, the baby asleep, his fingers wrapped around one of hers, bubbles of milk from Kiin's nursing at the coiners of his mouth. 

Amgigh had come with Three Fish, had walked with the two women farther from the beach, around the boggy edges of a lake, over sedges to a high mound ringed with stunted willow. There, in the lee of the mound, Amgigh helped Kiin make a shelter of hides, driftwood and mats while Three Fish held the babies. 

When they were finished, he left, again without looking back, stopping only to stroke each baby's face and to press his own cheek against Shuku's. 

Now she and Three Fish were alone, each holding a baby, and Kiin wished Three Fish had gone back with Amgigh, so Kiin could be alone, could raise her songs to any spirit that might keep the Raven from coming to their beach. What if he came and saw the carvings she had traded? He would know she had been there. She should have thought of that before the trading, but what was worse—going back with the Raven to the Walrus People or seeing the First Men starve over the next winter? 

Kiin tucked Amgigh's son under her suk, then to calm her spirit, she pulled out her crooked knife and a chunk of walrus tusk she was carving. She had traded a few of her carvings for more ivory—whale and bear teeth, walrus tusk and a strange chunk of yellow ivory, rounder than walrus tusk and without the brittle marbling of the center; there was a faint pattern of checks at the rim of the cut edge, dark and light like the pattern Chagak put on the ends of her grass mats. 

Kiin turned the partially carved walrus tusk in her fingers, let it warm with the heat of her hands, smoothed her fingers over the crevices. The chunk of tusk was as long as her hand, and at the broken end was as large around as her wrist. When she had first seen the tusk, she had seen also what was within it: an ikyak, sleek, one end pointed up with the curve of the tusk, the other end blunt. Already under her knife, the ikyak had begun to emerge. 

She looked up at Three Fish, but Three Fish was murmuring to Takha. So Kiin began to carve, using her knife to shave away long curls of ivory. And as she carved a song came, something she could not hold within. So keeping her eyes 
on her work, she sang, the carving and the singing joining into one song, voice and hands. 

Amgigh went to the beach. Most of the traders had packed away their goods for the night. Only four of the Walrus People iky an were left—Raven's and the iky an that belonged to a man called Ice Hunter and Ice Hunter's two sons. Ice Hunter spoke the First Men's tongue, and he spent most of that evening speaking to Amgigh. 

"Kiin is a good woman, yes," Ice Hunter said, "but she is not worth a fight that will kill you, and Raven has killed others. He is not afraid to fight. Let him have the woman." 

"And my sons?" Amgigh asked. 

"No, do not let him take your sons," Ice Hunter said. "The women in our village think there is a curse. They think one of your sons must die. If you let him take your sons, one will be killed." 

"Raven will kill him?" 

"No, Raven wants both alive, but think how easy it is for a child to die. Think how easy it is for a baby to fall from an ik or for a young boy's harness to give way when he is gathering eggs." 

Amgigh nodded. Yes, it would be easy to kill one son or another, and though he cared more for Skuku, he would also grieve if Takha were killed. And what of Kiin? How could he bear to lose her again? 

"I will fight for her," Amgigh told Ice Hunter, and Ice Hunter, shaking his head said, "Then I will see you again when I come to the Dancing Lights." 

Together they went to Raven, and Amgigh waited until Ice Hunter spoke to the man, Amgigh watching as Raven's eyes narrowed, as his brows wove themselves into one line across his face. 

"He wants her and both sons," Ice Hunter told Amgigh, and Amgigh listened, but did not take his eyes from Raven's face. Perhaps the man was without honor; perhaps he would kill Amgigh if Amgigh looked away, even for a moment. 

Amgigh's hand lingered over his long-bladed knife. Raven might be a better fighter. What did Amgigh know of fighting men? But Raven would not have a better weapon. How many men knew the secrets of knapping obsidian? How many men knew the secret place on Okmok where the sacred rock was found? 

"She is my wife and they are my sons," Amgigh said and he tried to catch Raven's eyes, to hold them with his eyes. How else does a man reason with other men? But Raven stared straight ahead, as though he did not see Amgigh, as though Amgigh were not even on the beach. So Amgigh spoke to Ice Hunter: "Qakan had no right to sell Kiin," Amgigh said, "But whatever Raven paid for her, I will return to him." 

Amgigh waited while Ice Hunter, using his hands and many words, again spoke to Raven, but Raven flung his black feather blanket to the ground and with more angry words went back into his shelter. 

Then Ice Hunter turned slowly to face Amgigh. "He will not trade for her, but he will fight you for her and for the sons," Ice Hunter said. "Spear or knife, he does not care." 

"Knife," Amgigh said, his hand pressed against the sheath that covered his obsidian blade. Okmok was stronger than Raven. 

The beach was empty, the traders still sleeping, some in the First Men's large ulaq, others in the shelters they had made under their iks. Amgigh had not told Samiq what was happening. When his brother sat down beside him the night before, asking about Kiin and Three Fish, Amgigh had explained that there were in the hills, away from traders, away from the noise that kept the babies crying. They would be back the next day, at least Chagak had said so, and Samiq had shrugged. But Amgigh knew Samiq was worried, and he understood without anger that his worry was as much for Kiin as for Three Fish.