The Gathering Night (22 page)

‘We agree to that,' said Aitor.

Hodei was silent.

A wild screaming broke out at the back of the crowd. There was a flurry of movement round Arantxa. The rest of us barely glanced round. Aitor raised his voice just a little. ‘But someone must have her. Some man will have to take her, and bring her into his own family.'

Now was my chance to speak. I cleared my throat.

The smoke suddenly started blowing the other way. Now we could see across the fire. Osané's face was white as ash – it was easy to believe that Death had come close enough to breathe on her. Her face was lopsided, and all round her left eye there was a great red and purple bruise. In spite of the heat she had a squirrel-skin scarf tucked round her neck, right up to her chin.

‘You're saying some man here did
that
?'

People looked round, but I never saw who'd called out.

‘You'll know who it was soon enough,' Aitor repeated. ‘Meanwhile someone must take her.'

‘She's Edur's!' I croaked. No one heard me. But other men were shouting the same thing so it made no difference.

‘Where's Edur?'

‘Give her to Edur! Let him take her!'

‘No, not Edur!' Suddenly Aitor swung round and pointed straight at us. ‘Kemen!'

I never saw a man give such a start. I put my hand on Kemen's shoulder to steady him. He stared at me wildly, as if all this were my fault. As, in a sense, I suppose it was.

Aitor fixed his gaze on the pair of us. ‘Kemen! You hear me! You know who you are, don't you?'

Kemen just gazed at him, mouth hanging open.

‘Don't be a fool, man! Come here!'

Kemen seemed rooted to the spot. It was me that pulled him to the foot of the Go-Betweens' mound and shoved him upward. What would any of you have done? You'd have had to do the same! Kemen was my brother now, and the Go-Between was getting angry – what else could I have done?

Osané stumbled again as Aitor seized her from Nekané's sheltering arm and thrust her at Kemen. Kemen was forced to put out a hand to steady her, but he never took his eyes off Zigor.

‘Take her! Go on, man, take her! What are we all waiting for? You want the names of your People to live? Do I have to tell a grown man what to do with a woman? Take her away, man, before we all die of hunger.'

Mind you, that wasn't quite the end of it. Arantxa set up such a howling you'd think a pack of wolves had joined our feast. Then Osané's elder brothers, Oroitz and Koldo, came over to our hearth and tried to make us fight. They threatened us with what Edur would do when he got back. That made me so angry I forgot I owed Edur anything. I don't like having thoughts that don't make sense sitting next to each other. Besides, we had a feast laid out in front of us.

Osané didn't even look at her brothers. She sat mute between Sorné and Hilargi, their arms protectively round her shoulders, hugging her squirrel-skins round her neck and staring into the fire.

Osané's brothers shouted at Kemen. ‘You can't steal Osané! She was promised to Edur! You can't take her! She's ours!'

Kemen just sat there as if he hadn't heard a word. It was Itsaso who said to no one in particular, ‘You know, all Arantxa's family wants is a good hunter who'll keep them fed in winter. Their own men are so bad at hunting they're all scared of starving. That's all it is.'

Kemen reached out and cuffed her. It can't have been very hard, because Itsaso just stared at him with her hands pressed to her mouth, then suddenly snorted with laughter.

Oroitz shook his spear at Kemen. ‘You can't steal my sister! We'll get her back! You don't even belong here! How many enemies do you want, Kemen?'

Suddenly Kemen leaped to his feet. He swept past the women and grabbed his share of our feast from the fire. He seized a hide and flung the half-cooked meat into it. Haizea cried out, ‘Oh no!'

Kemen strode across the Camp and dumped his meat at Arantxa's hearth. ‘
So
much for your daughter!' he shouted, and swept away the hide so the meat was all tumbled in the dirt.

It didn't stop them. Osané's brothers hurled threats and shook their fists at us. They called the spirits to witness that Kemen would be their enemy for ever.

I'd had enough. I jumped up and bundled my share of the meat into a hide.

‘Oh no,' cried Haizea tearfully. ‘Not
all
our feast!'

She needn't have worried. When Sendoa and his brothers saw what was happening they seized their meat from the women, and they too bundled up their share of the kill and dumped it at Arantxa's hearth ‘because these great hunters of yours don't seem able to get you any'. Suddenly everyone began to laugh. More cousins started joining in the game. More and more meat was laid at Arantxa's feet – far more than any single family could possibly eat. Arantxa's husband and sons were so shamed in the end they had to creep away into the forest until after the feast was over. Arantxa didn't know what to do with all that meat. She couldn't persuade anyone to take it from her. By now the whole Camp was enjoying the joke. Those who hadn't dumped their meat on Arantxa started coming over to our family with baskets full, and begging us to take a few sad morsels from their leftovers. They gave so much that Haizea said afterwards she'd got more food than if we hadn't given anything away at all.

So that's how Kemen got his wife, and paid for her too. And because of Kemen, Hodei the Go-Between and all his family were angry with my family. And because of Kemen my friend Edur thought I'd betrayed him. Oh, I had plenty to worry about! Even so, I'll never forget the sight of all that meat piled up at Arantxa's hearth. People still tell the story of that night. It was one of the best jokes we ever had: it still makes me laugh whenever I happen to think about it.

F
OURTH
N
IGHT
: S
ALMON
C
AMP

Alaia said:

In Light Moon I carried the Fire to our Salmon Camp – the one that was my father's Birth Place. Salmon Camp is a place of many waterfalls. We fall asleep to the sound of water rushing through the gorge below. Two Rivers meet just above our Camp. One comes down from Mother Mountain, the other from Salmon Camp Hill. Many small streams have fed those Rivers and helped them grow strong. Wherever the streams cross the precipices that line the hillside they make more waterfalls, until the whole hill sings. At the foot of every waterfall there's a dark pool. The streams sing to the Salmon with many voices. When the Salmon hear the call of the waters they come in from the sea and leap up the falls. They jump from pool to pool until they lie in the lap of the hills. The high pools are the Birth Place of the Salmon, and their Death Place too. All the while we're at Salmon Camp we hear the Rivers sing to the Salmon. The songs of the water live in our hearts and become our songs too.

We'd agreed with my aunts in Deer Moon that we'd all make Salmon Camp together, but the weather had been so bad we weren't sure anyone would come. When we arrived my aunt Sorné was already there. She had a basket of trout and shellfish ready roasted for us: she'd seen our boat coming through the straits between Cave Island and Mother Mountain Island on the far side of the loch. We always keep the saplings cut back on the steep slope below Salmon Camp; it doesn't matter being so open because the wind seldom comes from the Sunless Sky in summer. From our hearth we can see everything that's happening on the loch below.

My mother didn't seem particularly pleased to see her sister. Nekané can be ungrateful: Sorné had only come because she'd been thinking about us. It was kind of her to want to hear all about our first winter with Osané and Kemen. When I said so to my mother, Nekané just snorted, and went on cutting heather for our sleeping places, slicing through each stem as fiercely as if the spirits of the heather had offended her. Sendoa had brought his mother – that was because he wanted to hunt with Amets – and some of the younger cousins came with them. Our own family ended up staying at my father's Salmon Camp until Deer Moon went into the dark. Sorné was with us until the end of Salmon Moon. Most of her family had stayed at their Salmon Camp by the Boat Crossing Place. The River's much bigger there. I didn't blame them. I tell you, it wasn't the sort of Year when you'd paddle far if you could help it!

As soon as we got to Salmon Camp I unwrapped our embers and added them to my aunt's fire. Everyone stretched up their arms while my father called on the Salmon spirits and told them we'd come back. My father said to the spirits that, just as he'd come back to his own Birth Place, now we were waiting for the Salmon to come home too. My father spoke to the spirits for a long while. Behind him I could see a wave of cloud rising under the Evening Sun Sky, over the shoulder of the great cliffs where Salmon Camp Hill tumbles to the sea. I couldn't help thinking we ought to get the hides stretched over the tent frames before it rained. In less than a hand-full of heartbeats that great grey wave would swallow the Sun. Even as I watched, the Sun slipped into it and began to disappear. The air turned cold and smelt of coming rain. Still my father spoke to the spirits . . . what more could he possibly have to say? I had baskets of shellfish, eggs, shag chicks and flatfish we'd brought from Seal Bay. I needed to build up the embers into a good roasting fire if we were going to eat before dark. If only I could get the fire ready now, we could eat outside before the rain drove us into our tent.

I'm not like my mother and sister. There are many things I'll never know. I see so little that I find it hard sometimes to be patient with those who look further, and understand more. But the spirits don't despise me either. One thing I can say for myself: I've never – in all the Years I've looked after the fire, however hard the rain, and however wet the voyage – I've never let our family's Fire go out.

Next morning the men went down to Shellfish Narrows to rebuild the fish traps. Often the winter River is so angry it sweeps everything away; sometimes it's kind and leaves a few stakes still standing. This Year the River had not been kind. The men spent all day cutting and fixing new stakes. We women dug the withy fences out of the dry sand and set about mending them. No one had been at this Salmon Camp last Year; there was a lot of work to do to get everything mended. It rained all day, but at last the sky cleared. The red Sun shot its dying rays across the sea. Above us, Mother Mountain glowed purple in the last light. Hills and islands moved closer as, one by one, stars pierced the deepening sky like sparks rising from far-off spirit-fires.

That night we sang to the Salmon. Our song told the Salmon we were at the River waiting for them. We called on them to come back:

Come, Salmon, home to your River!

Your River is waiting for you

Come, Salmon, leap up the high falls

Your River is waiting for you

Death is looking out for you

Like a Mother watching for her young sons to come home from the sea

Come, Salmon, come to your River!

Your People are waiting for you.

We sang one song after another. Light Moon rose over the hill where Salmon River springs. She was already waning, telling the Salmon that soon Seed Moon would follow her, and they must hurry towards the River where the People waited. The evening light had barely faded when the morning began to glow with the beginning of another day. Our last song trickled into silence. Dogs and children had long been asleep, curled up together in little mounds by the warm hearth. We brought furs from the tents and covered the children up. Sorné laid damp turfs over the fire. Men and women wrapped themselves in their cloaks and stretched themselves on the ground to sleep under the watchful eyes of the new day.

Until Seed Moon rose, we women were able to fish from the boats every day. Our nets were full of saithe, and, on calm days when we paddled out beyond Driftwood Island, some fine fat cod as well. We wrapped them in dulse and roasted them, then feasted off the delicious white flakes. Until the great storm lashed the River into a fury, Haizea and Itsaso guddled for stray trout in the pools below the falls. They didn't get many, and sometimes we had to send them to do more useful work collecting sea-roots and shellfish along the shore. While we were fishing, the men went off to their Hunting Camp on the side of Mother Mountain, where Salmon River begins. The red deer calves were still young enough to be run down with dogs, and twice Sendoa and Amets came back with hinds in milk as well, though that's always a tough kill – a mother, whether People or Animal, will always fight harder for her young than for anything else.

But before I can explain what happened next at Salmon Camp, I need to take you back to River Mouth Camp and tell you about the first winter that Osané spent with our family.

She didn't speak.

I don't mean she was quiet, or she didn't talk much. I mean what I said: she didn't speak. Not one word. When we left Gathering Camp, taking her and Kemen with us – we had to make another boat before we left, our family had suddenly grown so much bigger – she didn't say a word on the journey. I thought it would be better when we got to River Mouth Camp. I was wrong. She didn't speak all winter while we were there. Nor did she speak when we got to Seal Bay Camp. Not a single word for many Moons – two hands-full! Now it was Seed Moon, and Osané still hadn't said one word to any of us.