The Gathering Night (36 page)

I wanted to see my brother – of course I did! At least . . . Basajaun was my brother – my one link with the People of my birth – of course I was glad to have news of him after so long. Now he was with my enemies. Nekané said Basajaun didn't know that. My enemies were using him. If they meant to do him wrong it would be because of me. Basajaun was quick to act – never willing to wait and see. Although he was my brother he wouldn't understand the path I'd taken – not as Sendoa and Amets understood it. Unless he'd changed . . . Years had passed since we parted. I might have changed too, more than I knew. I didn't know what to think.

A keen wind came from the Morning Sun Sky, bringing freezing rain. Whitecaps scudded across the loch. Leaves streamed from the trees, caught up in the gusts that blew them seaward. No newcomers would arrive while the gale lasted. People shifted their tent doors to face the Evening Sun Sky, moved their fires to the inside hearths, and hung their strings of fish and meat over everyone's heads. Baskets of roots and shellfish were piled up so there was hardly anywhere to sit. That didn't stop People visiting. When I lifted the door hide to peer out I saw bent figures running across the rain-swept clearing. I watched them lift a door hide, barely stopping to call a greeting, and duck inside out of the weather. More often than not they were heading our way. Our hearth was always crammed with People wanting a word with the Go-Between. Usually they had to make do with the rest of us, because Nekané had gone off somewhere.

Either our hearth was crammed with children or there were none; the little pack from Berry Camp all went off together, and soon found plenty more cousins to join them. I think they visited every tent at Gathering Camp, cleaning up People's food as they went like a swarm of ants. I was very glad when Esti seized Bakar's hand and led him off with the rest. My boy never looked back; he'd forgotten about his mother's milk already.

We hardly saw Haizea. She came in, ate, slept, ate again and left. She had hardly a word to spare for anyone. No doubt they'd made their own shelters at High Clearing. Alaia scolded her for not bringing food.

‘Alaia, we've got
plenty
of food. When I was young and free I had other things than food to think about at Gathering Camp. I think you did too!' It was so unlike Osané to add her voice to any argument that everyone looked up.

Amets was lying in the bed place behind Alaia. His infant daughter Alazne lay prone against his bare chest, her head against his heart. Amets roared with laughter and grabbed Alaia with his free hand so she fell backwards beside him. ‘That's right! You hear what your woman says, Kemen! I think she knows something! I think these women of ours remember more than they let on! We'll have to watch them, Kemen! They know too much!'

‘Amets! Now I've spilt these shells everywhere! Let me sit up!'

‘So!' I put my hand up Osané's warm back under her deerskins – she was leaning forward, picking bogbeans off their long runners – ‘What's all this you're remembering, then?'

‘Ow! Your hand's cold! Stop it, Kemen!'

‘I
did
bring food.' Haizea looked round at us as if we were so many worms under an upturned stone. ‘Alaia, it was me that brought all those flounders hanging there—'

‘No you didn't! You brought flounders two days ago! They didn't last long! Those aren't—'

‘Oh!' Haizea leaped to her feet. ‘I don't need to eat here! So there!'

She grabbed her cloak, ducked under the tent flap, letting in a shower of raindrops in a swirl of air, and was gone.

Amets and I went out before dawn next morning. The wind had died. We took our bows and arrows, net and snares, and crept out, leaving our women asleep. There were brown puddles all across the clearing, but the rain had stopped. No one was about. Pink-footed geese made great arrowheads above our heads, heading towards the High Sun Sky. The air had changed: it smelt of the Open Sea. We headed uphill. Amets wanted to take me to the Great Marsh that lay beyond the hills, where, he told me, ‘The Swollen River leads between one loch and the next. It's the best place for duck anywhere around Gathering Camp. It takes less than half a morning to get over the hill. We could even get back tonight – but why should we? I think we might have our own Roast Duck Camp by the Swollen River, Kemen!'

I was glad to get away; it was hard waiting every day for Basajaun. Amets had often – very often – described how his dog, as well as all the other things he could do, knew how to lead duck straight into a trap. Amets had wished – very often – that I could get a pup from the same litter. There was no chance of that, as Edur's bitch was the mother. I was happy with the pup I'd chosen, which was one of Sendoa's. ‘And,' I said to Amets, ‘I reckon your dog sired this one anyway. It comes to the same thing.'

‘In that case,' Amets had said, ‘my dog can teach yours.
If
he can get duck to follow him – at least we'll find out who his father is!'

‘If it were that easy, there'd be a lot more angry men in this world!'

Amets had roared with laughter. But he didn't forget that my dog and I needed a lesson. So now we were wandering deep into the marsh, our dogs leaping through the water behind us. We brushed through bullrushes and reeds, and waded thigh-deep across creeks and patches of open water. Here and there we came to islets covered with birch and willow scrub growing so thick we couldn't scramble up to dry land. The reeds thinned out; the bare wetlands were red as an otter pelt, with gleams of water here and there. I gazed, eyes half shut, until I began to make out the rounded shapes of many ducks, thick as leaves in fall, scattered across the floodlands. The rushes round me whispered among themselves while the wind stirred them.

‘This way!'

I followed Amets. We came to a creek that wound across the flats until it lost itself in spreading waters. Amets' dog stopped on the bank. It watched Amets, ears cocked. My dog looked this way and that, at me, at the other dog, at Amets and at me again.

Amets pointed to the gap in the rushes where the stream flowed out. He spoke low, close to my ear. ‘We spread the net there, inside the rushes. You take this end. You'll stay here while I wade across. Then we'll drag it up.'

‘How far?' I whispered.

‘Not far – less than a man's length. Just enough for the rushes to hide us.'

‘And the dogs?'

‘Ah!' Amets held his dog by the muzzle and looked in his eyes. He spoke to him softly. The dog stood poised, tail high, straining to be off.

I told my dog to follow. I told him – but this part was without words – not to shame me.

As soon as Amets let go, his dog trotted away. My dog followed. They didn't follow the creek. Amets' dog was making a wide curve across the flats, so as to come on the ducks sideways. I had to take my eyes off the dogs to get our trap in place. Amets unrolled the rush netting, and we set it across the creek. Then we crouched, one on each side. I peered through the rushes.

The dogs, Amets' dog in front and my dog following, came into sight, trotting up the bank towards us. Every few paces Amets' dog stopped and lay down. Amets' dog didn't glance at the ducks. My dog stood behind him:
he
never took his eyes off those ducks. I heard him whine. I whistled him to lie down, as loud as I dared. I willed him not to shame me. Slowly my dog lay down. Amets' dog trotted forward a few paces, and lay down again. Two heartbeats later, my dog followed.

I saw the ducks. Sure enough, they were swimming
after
those dogs. They weren't being driven. They were curious – you listen to what I'm saying, you children – those ducks just wanted to see what happened next. Well, isn't that about as foolish as you can get? Just tagging along, wanting to know what happens next . . .

Sure enough, those ducks swam up the creek. They watched those dogs push their way into the rushes. The ducks wanted to see why. They followed. They swam into the rushes. They swam under our net – and then . . . We pulled it tight! Like this!

Amets can't say now that I don't listen to what he says! And I can't deny that Amets' dog is clever – almost as clever as Amets says he is!

Amets and I walked back over the hill next morning, each of us with four plump ducks dangling from his shoulder, and two more in our bellies. We came by the highest hill so Amets could show me all the islands. The Sun climbed as far as he could into the High Sun Sky: now it was Gathering Moon he was starting to get tired. The waves were still chasing each other down Gathering Loch, but they'd lost their white caps. We reached the shore not far from Gathering Camp. The tide was low enough for us to walk along the beach. We came round the rocks and saw two loaded boats paddling towards Gathering Camp. Sunlight sparkled on the water. I shaded my eyes. The boats bobbed up and down so I couldn't see.

‘Amets, they must be from Loch Island Camp!' My voice sounded hoarse and strained. ‘No one else could have got here so soon after the gale.'

‘Where are your wits, Kemen? For all we know they're from Bloodstone Island, or even further out. They could have camped anywhere between here and Flint Camp while they sat out the storm.'

I knew better. I broke into a run, slipping and sliding over the wet rock. The boats were well ahead. They reached Gathering Camp beach before I did. Amets shouted at me to wait. I couldn't.

I arrived all out of breath. They were pulling up the empty boats. Their gear was piled on the beach. The men turned the boat over and laid it down. They stood up and turned away. I saw my brother.

‘Basajaun!'

He ran towards me. I held him to my heart. We stood, holding each other by the elbows, searching each other's faces.

Basajaun, my brother!

He hadn't changed. The lines from nose to upper lip had hardened – were familiar – only it was my father who had deep lines like that, not Basajaun. My brother's eyes were the same, the colour of hazels in fall, green turning to brown. I looked into them. I couldn't read his heart. He
had
changed. His beard was cut close to the skin, in the manner of the Auk People. His lynx-skin cloak was worn and sea-stained – all the fur rubbed off the collar – he still wore it the Lynx way, fastened on the right shoulder with a pin of polished antler. A picture flashed across my mind: our mother's hearth in Fishing Camp – the smell of root-cakes baking – my mother turning them with her digging stick, burying them in the ashes – and Basajaun sitting on an upturned log, shaping and polishing that very pin. And now – now I wore deerskins sewn by an Auk woman, fastened at the neck with a rawhide string. That same woman had threaded my necklace, made from the teeth and claws of the bear I'd not yet killed when last I saw my brother. Osané had also plaited my hair for Gathering Camp – in the Auk way. I looked at my brother and saw how I had changed.

Nekané said:

More People had come to Gathering Camp than usual, because, in all the places where Auk People hunt, the Animals were refusing to give themselves. Now the Hunt was delayed because of the gale. Soon there wouldn't be enough food at Gathering Camp for so many. Everyone knew the crisis would come when the Go-Betweens spoke to the Animals about the Hunt. Either the rightness of things would be restored, or the Auk spirits would change sides and destroy us.

I walked on the edge of a precipice. I trod slowly, step by step. Between each step I gazed into the chasm below me. If I fell I was lost for ever. None of you realised that. You knew I was taking risks. You knew that this Gathering Camp would either see everything lost, or everything healed. You had some idea of the task that lay before me. What you didn't know was that my very name was in danger.

Some People thought that the wrong had been done when I went Go-Between. We all know there's only one way to get rid of a Go-Between: their name must die. I'd seen men – and some women too – making signs as I passed. Not just signs to keep away bad spirits, but signs that threatened me directly. No spirit had heeded those signs, but People's wishes have great power, and if these enemies of mine had known what to do they could easily have bound a weak spirit to work against me. Everyone knows – I'm not giving anything away here – that even a weak spirit can cut the thin thread between a journeying Go-Between and their sleeping body. If that happens, the Go-Between can't get back into the world. I didn't let myself think about that. Luckily only another Go-Between would know how to bind a spirit in such a way, and it hadn't taken me long to realise that even if my fellow Go-Betweens didn't love me, they wouldn't betray me either.

I was already shaken by grief. At Loch Island Camp, when Hodei and I made Kemen's cousin show us where his soul had journeyed, I saw at last why my Dolphin had been waiting for my call. I didn't yet see how the wrong had happened, but I saw who'd caused it. I saw enough to tear my heart in two. When we came back to our bodies, Hodei and I agreed we'd both been right. He'd picked up my strand of the story, and I'd picked up his. Now we were able to twine the two strands together. We tested the rope we'd made. We made it rise up straight so we could climb to the top. It bore our weight; we found no weakness in it. Until then we had been – not enemies – but not friends. We'd circled around one another like two wary dogs who meet when their families come together, not knowing – because dogs' memories are short – that they were born of the same mother not so many Moons ago.