The Animal Wife (38 page)

"Yes."

"But why? Tell her to go."

"I don't want her to go."

"You're in a bad state of mind, Nephew," said Andriki.

"Yes."

"Yes," said Andriki thoughtfully. "This happens. A woman can put a man in a bad state of mind. It's in her power."

I drew a deep breath of damp river air and felt some of my anger and madness leaving. "It's my little boy," I explained.

"Yes," said Andriki. "Children are the power of women. Children make them strong."

I saw how this was true. "If you were me, what would you do?"

"I'd make her bury the thing."

"How?"

"Tell her that if she doesn't, you'll force her. Then you'll be sorry and she'll be sorry, but the thing will be buried, no matter who is sorry. Do it soon and then forget about it. That's the best way."

***

For most of that night I lay awake, and in the morning I found Muskrat and Pinesinger together, eating marrow from the shin of Pinesinger's share of the horse. Trembling, Father's wolf pup looked on, his ears folded, his eyes bright. He seemed very hungry. I sat on my heels near the women, waiting for Pinesinger to offer marrow to me, but she didn't. When the marrow was eaten, the women burned the bones. Then in her own language Muskrat took leave of Pinesinger, but not, I thought, of me. I watched her pick up her digging stick and walk out to the plain. The little wolf grew very anxious, torn between Muskrat and the fading hope of marrow. At last he followed Muskrat.

When she was far away, I drew a deep breath, and trying to keep my voice from shaking, I asked Pinesinger to help me speak with Muskrat. But Pinesinger just licked the last of the marrow from her fingers. "Why don't you learn her tongue?" she asked. "Why doesn't she learn your tongue? You're always asking me to do what you should do for yourself." It seemed that my stepmother wanted me to beg her. But my anger was too strong. I stood up to leave. Instead of letting me go without taking notice, though, Pinesinger looked up at me very directly. "You're angry with her because you don't trust her," she said. "But why should I help you punish her? What makes you think you know better than she how to treat your son?"

"By the Bear!" I said. "Now I see why my father doesn't want you. Now I see why he plans to send you home. You who are always smiling, always thinking you know more than others—do you know what your husband plans to do with you?"

I saw at once that she did not. Her mouth came open and her face grew red. "What's that?" she asked. "What do you mean about your father?"

I couldn't help myself—the confusion on her face gave me a wild, happy feeling. "Goodbye, Stepmother. You're going home," I said. I think she started crying. I'm not sure, because I was striding away as fast as I could without breaking into a run.

Across the plain I went, following Muskrat's distant figure. If she had been near me, I might have taken her by the hair. But she was far, and a strong, fast walker. It was all I could do to keep up, let alone overtake her. Perhaps it was the wolf who noticed me. I saw her look down at him, then back at me, over her shoulder. When she saw me following, she turned around to face me and stood still.

This and the walking took away some of my anger. By the time I reached her, my voice, at least, did not shake. "Come," I said. "I want you to do something."

"Hi?" she asked. "Is what?"

But I wouldn't try to tell her, not out on the plain. I took her arm. She looked at me, trying to learn from my expression what might be in my mind. Her eyes were wide and soft, her face questioning. She thought something was the matter, that I needed her help. I kept my face stiff and jerked my chin to show her where I wanted to take her. "Io. I come," she said.

Back at her little shelter, I made the handsign for sit. Muskrat knew it and sat down, opening her shirt and offering her nipple to the baby. In the shade of the shelter, the wolf pup threw himself down. I stood over them, making Muskrat glance up at me, as if to ask why I did not sit also. I looked around, wondering how to begin. Perhaps I should have been more patient with Pinesinger. Yet such thoughts came too late. Floating from the cave's mouth were the sounds of argument and weeping. Pinesinger had decided to confront Father, it seemed.

But I couldn't worry about Pinesinger, not then. With the point of my spear I probed in the thatch. Out dropped Muskrat's bundle. Her eyes flew wide, and she reached for it. But I blocked her hand with the shaft of my spear. She looked up. "That thing," I began. "You must bury it."

"Ho! Bury? I not bury!" said Muskrat, alarmed.

"You will bury," I said, staring straight into her eyes.

Muskrat stared back. "No," she said sharply. "I not bury. Bury is corpse. I not bury. This thing not for you, Dza Goie. This thing for him, Kiu Ngarr."

"Dza Goie?" I asked, wishing at once that I hadn't.

"Kiu Ngarr, he name. Dza Goie, you name," said Muskrat, looking down at our baby and very gently smoothing her hand over his belly, where his umbilical cord had clung. "He life there," she whispered. "He keep life. He grow tall, like you, he father. He eat. He grow strong. He keep this. I not bury."

Again Muskrat reached for the bundle, and this time I didn't stop her. Rather, I watched her unwind the bark that held it together and watched her separate the parts. Taking up the long branch, the peeled branch bent by its sinew string, she put one end in her mouth. Then she picked up one of the little bird-spears and gently tapped the string with it. The string played a song. The song was very soft—I had to bend low to hear it—but I knew it. It was the same song the women had been singing while they bathed in the river: the crane's song.

So I lost my fear of the bundle and my anger at Muskrat, all at the same time. I knew then that she had meant nothing harmful but had done no more than make a dirty thing because of her people's ignorant belief. I gave up all thought of forcing her to bury the thing. Forcing her would upset all of us—her, me, and the baby—and what would be gained? Rather, to please Father, I would bury the thing myself after dark.

But Muskrat didn't guess my thoughts. She smiled her wide white smile, put her bundle under the wall, and took her digging stick, ready to go back to the plain. Just before she stood up, she groped inside her carrying bag and took out a twig, a bit of yew, which she lay on the ground in front of me. "Is dza goie," she said.

"What? That's poison. You call me that?" I asked.

For just a moment she looked puzzled. "Io. Very strong. Most strong thing. Is good," she said. Then she touched my hand, stroking me. "And now is all right," she added gently. "Now you happy, Dza Goie."

***

Meanwhile the argument in the cave had grown much louder. As Father's voice flew from firm to dangerous, he was drowned out by Pinesinger's angry screams. "Animals," she called the women, and "women," she called the men. Perhaps I should have let Father choose his own time to tell her his plans, in his own way. Feeling that he might soon give her cause to regret her outburst but not wanting to hear him do it, I decided to take myself away for a while. So I took my spears and Muskrat's bundle and followed the river toward the old cave until I was far upstream.

As I walked along the plain at the edge of the ravine, I looked down at the river and noticed a few little holes freshly dug in the bank. Something had been digging sedge roots. A person, it was—I saw the marks of a digging stick. On I went, my eye on the riverbank. Soon I saw more holes. More sedge had been dug there. On I went, keeping watch on the river's sandy shore, and soon, even from quite far above, I saw the prints of strong, broad feet. As I had suspected, I was following Muskrat, who had been going from clump to clump of sedge grass, digging and eating like a bear.

I had nothing important to do that afternoon except to bury Muskrat's bundle. Not wanting to bury it near the cave, where anyone might see me, or where Muskrat could track me and find it, I had planned to bury the thing after dark, far away. But although I was a long way upriver, it was only early afternoon. For the rest of the day I had nothing to do. I could think of no better way to spend the time than by watching my woman, so, feeling strangely excited, as I might if starting to hunt, I set out along the ravine's rim to track her. Soon I noticed her dark shape below me, hip-deep in a spreading raspberry thicket, reaching carefully for the berries over the thorns.

Under the bush the pup waited, watching her. Often she would toss him a berry, which he would catch with a snap I could hear from afar. Sometimes she would drop a berry into her carrying bag—for me! Interested, I watched closely to see how many berries she meant for me, and saw that she was saving about half of what she was eating. Would our women save as few? I tried to remember what I might have learned from watching my mother, but found I didn't know. A long time passed while Muskrat picked and ate, picked and ate, her hands and mouth busy with berries as her eyes searched for more.

Quietly, close beside a juniper, I sat down on my heels in front of the sun. A raven soaring overhead noticed me and called. Muskrat glanced up into the sun and didn't see me. Back to the raspberry bush she turned, to pick and eat some more. When the berries became so few that her picking grew slow, she left suddenly, like a waxwing, and hurried on her way. The pup crept out of the shade of the raspberry bush to trot behind her. I stretched myself and followed, noting how the wind blew so the pup wouldn't catch my scent. I saw that he would make stalking my woman interesting, this animal.

At the water's edge Muskrat poised her digging stick like a spear. The pup grew tense at the sight of her. Setting her feet down slowly, quietly, she crept forward. With a hum, her stick flew. She and the pup ran to the place it had struck, where a small creature—a frog, I think—lay sprawling. The pup reached the frog first and bolted it down. Muskrat seemed to have expected this. On she went, stalking. Again her stick flew, and again the pup ate something.

On she went a third time, to a patch of sparse round spears of onion leaves with fading purple flowers. Squatting on her heels, she chopped the tiny onions out of the ground, catching them in her hand and throwing them into her mouth or into her bag with the same smooth motion. Far away as she was, I heard the onions between her teeth, a faint crunching.

When she finished the onions she noticed purslane and ate some. I don't much like purslane, so I don't eat it unless I'm truly hungry. I was interested to see that Muskrat didn't save me any. Had she noticed that I didn't eat it? Farther on she noticed an elderberry bush with berries still clinging to it, and ate there for a time. Still farther she found parsnips, which she dug up, saving some and chewing others. From the plain above her I could once again hear her eating her food; this time the sound was the watery noise of the wet parsnip cracking apart in her mouth.

That's what she did that afternoon beside the river. Once she had a drink; several times she offered food to the wolf, who refused nothing; and several times she offered her breast to the baby. But otherwise she found and picked small bits of food. In the late afternoon, her carrying bag bulging, she climbed the bank and turned back toward the cave, causing me to hide in a thicket until she had gone. I wouldn't have wanted her to know I had nothing better to do than to watch her gathering.

Down by the river I broke the foul things in her magic bundle and buried all the shattered pieces. Then I climbed back to the plain and started home. The sun set. Below me in the ravine I heard a rock turn over. Looking for what made the sound, I noticed, in the dusk, horses drinking from the river. One, the stallion, swept his head high, water dripping from his mouth. He must have seen me against the sky, because strange to say, he called out a challenge. His voice rang from the rocky banks of the river, and his mares looked up. All watched me for a time, then went back to their drinking, perhaps knowing that I couldn't reach them from so far. When they were ready, they turned and made their way over the stones, up the far bank to the plain, their hooves scraping. They had noticed me, had spoken to me in a language I didn't understand, and had gone on their way to a place I didn't know to do something I couldn't foresee. They reminded me of Muskrat.

I thought she might have found her bundle missing by the time I reached her little shelter. In the firelight I saw her looking at me anxiously, as if something worried her. I sat down slowly across the fire from her, watching her face to learn her thoughts. But she turned toward the cave and waited, her head low, listening. I listened too, but I heard only a strange silence, as if no one were there. Puzzled, I looked at Muskrat for an explanation. She sadly shook her head. Something was the matter. "What?" I asked. She shrugged and turned a hand palm up, to indicate that she wouldn't even try to tell me.

So I had no choice but to learn for myself. With some misgiving, yet knowing that whatever was wrong had saddened but not frightened Muskrat, I took the trail to the cave. The silence was very deep, but fires were burning. Before I reached the opening I saw their light.

At the two fires the people sat quietly. They looked up when they saw me but didn't speak. I thought that the women seemed sad and the men seemed worried, but I could see at once that whatever was wrong was not too terrible, and that no one had been killed. Then I -saw that both Father and Pinesinger were missing. I looked at Andriki. He caught my eye and stood up.

This time he followed me to the plain, to Muskrat's fire. When the two of us sat down, Muskrat got up and left. I saw her going inside her shelter, perhaps to hide in the shadow. I didn't care. I looked at Andriki, waiting.

"Here's the thing," he began unwillingly. "Your younger stepmother left here. She said if your father wanted her to leave, she would leave. She started for the Fire River. We thought she'd come back when it got dark, but when she didn't, your father went to find her."

"They were fighting this afternoon," I said, as my own part in this trouble began to come to me.

"They were," said Andriki. "By evening your father's patience was gone and he used his belt on her. Not badly, but she left afterward."