FOR TWO DAYS CHAGAK not leave Shuganan’s ulaq. She did not eat, and Shuganan was afraid that she had decided to join her brother and her people in death.
He rebuilt her ik, finding driftwood to replace the shattered ribs and keel, but he often returned to the ulaq, and hoped that his presence would bring some comfort. But she gave no sign that she noticed him.
On the evening of the second day she drank some broth, but it was as though she did not know she drank, as if her body moved without the knowledge of her spirit.
But the next morning Shuganan convinced her to come outside with him, to sit on the ulaq roof, to watch the sea for signs of seal.
And so they were both outside when the ducks came. They were large eider ducks: black and white males, reddish-brown females. Twenty of them landed on the beach as if it were their home, something Shuganan had never seen happen on this beach, something he could not explain.
“Look,” Chagak said, speaking for the first time since her brother’s burial.
And Shuganan’s heart expanded in a gratefulness that spilled into a prayer of thanks. For a moment they watched, but when the ducks entered a tidal pool and began to feed, Shuganan hurried into the ulaq and came back with his bola. The weapon was made of stones and sharp-edged shells tied to the ends of ropes. The ropes were fastened together at a central handle.
It had been more than a year since Shuganan had used the weapon, so he pulled at the ropes to be sure they had not rotted. They were strong. He tried to raise the bola over his head, but his shoulder joints had stiffened and he could not.
He sat down, discouraged, but Chagak said, “I will do it. I have watched the men of my village.”
Shuganan, surprised, handed her the bola and watched as she raised it over her head, first swinging it tentatively, then with more power, the sound of stones and ropes swishing in the air. But when she slowed, Shuganan said, “Do not stop. Throw it. If you try to stop, the ropes will twist around your arm and the stones will hit you.”
Chagak increased her speed. Standing at the top of the ulaq, hair caught back by the wind, she let the bola fly. The weapon traveled sideways from her hand into a tangle of heather.
“I wanted it to go straight,” she said.
“It takes a long time to learn to throw a bola,” Shuganan answered. “Do not be discouraged.”
“But I want to get a duck.”
“They will wait for you. Practice.”
She looked at him, something, nearly a smile, shaping her mouth. “I will learn,” she said.
For the rest of that day the ducks stayed on the beach and Chagak practiced with the bola. She threw until the rope had worn grooves of raw skin in the palms of her hands, but it was good to feel the bola’s power, to watch as ropes and stones churned through the air, singing to her of their flight.
In the evening the ducks did not go back to the sea but crowded into a pond at the top of the beach.
That night, as Chagak lay in her sleeping place, she seemed to hear the whir of the bola like a soothing chant. And though she doubted that the ducks would be on the beach the next day, she had visions of the covering she would make from the eider skins, something for a baby, something that she could wrap her brother’s body in, or perhaps, she thought as sleep pulled her into dreams, something to save … something for another child … someday.
Shuganan was awakened by the sound of ducks, the murmuring sounds of their feeding, and by something else. The sound of wings? No, a bola.
During the nights his joints stiffened, so he rose slowly from his sleeping mats. When he made his way to the outer room of the ulaq, he saw that Chagak had lit several lamps and laid out dried fish for him, but that she was gone.
Again he heard the bola, the thud as it hit some target a distance from the ulaq. He ascended the climbing log, calling to Chagak, “I am coming up. Do not throw your weapon.”
“You are safe,” she said, and Shuganan’s throat began to ache, for there was an edge of joy in her voice that he had not heard before.
“Watch,” she said and pointed to a jutting boulder in the grass beyond the ulaq. She spun the bola over her head, and when she let it go, it flew to the rock, wrapping itself around the pointed top, the bola stones hitting with sharp cracks.
“Chagak, you have learned quickly,” Shuganan said, and he did not miss the snapping in her eyes, the acceptance of his praise.
“And look,” she said. “The ducks stayed.”
Shuganan shook his head in wonder. What had brought them? He had never had eider ducks come to this beach. It was too soon for them to be gathering for the winter.
“They are a gift from my people,” Chagak said as if she knew Shuganan’s thoughts. “They are a sign that I should live.”
And since Shuganan knew no better explanation, he nodded, pleased with the idea.
“I am ready now,” she said, and Shuganan, not sure what she meant, did not reply. But when she began a cautious walk to the beach, he knew she was going to try to take a duck, something he was not sure she should do. There was little chance she would succeed.
He wanted to call after her, to tell her that she should wait, but he was afraid his words would scare the ducks, and so he slipped down the side of the ulaq, moving slowly, his walking stick in his hands.
Chagak had dropped to hands and knees and was advancing on the ducks. She moved so slowly, Shuganan could scarcely tell she moved at all.
Shuganan’s chest began to ache and he realized that he was holding his breath, just as he did when he hunted seals from his ikyak.
The ducks began a slow movement to the far side of the pool and for a time Chagak sat still. But soon they were again eating, dipping heads down into the water for shellfish. One drake raised up on the water, beating the air with his wings, but he made no move to leave the pond and Chagak crept closer.
Shuganan knew the bola would not be as effective on the water, the stones slowed in their flight by hitting the surface. He had often hunted ducks or geese with the weapon and wished that he had been able to tell Chagak the best way to kill a duck.
Would she know to make a loud noise, then to throw the instant the ducks began to fly, when water slowed their wings?
Chagak had the bola wrapped around her arm, the stones clutched in her hand, and now she rose, but only to her knees. Shuganan was afraid she would try to throw from that position and lose much of her power. But suddenly she jumped up, whirling the bola over her head.
Some of the ducks had noticed her and began skittering across the pond, but others stayed, eating.
“Yell, Chagak, so they will fly,” Shuganan called.
“A-a-a-e-e-e-iii,” she yelled. The ducks rose from the water, but the yell seemed to check the smooth circling of Chagak’s arm. The bola jerked, and when she let it go, it fell short of the ducks and sank into the water.
Shuganan, disappointed, hobbled to her side. But when Chagak turned to him, he saw that she was laughing.
“I nearly got one. Did you see?”
“Yes, I saw,” Shuganan answered and smiled.
Chagak started to wade into the tidal pool, but Shuganan caught the sleeve of her suk. “You will cut your feet on the shells,” he said.
“The ducks will be back. I need the bola.”
“Then wait.”
Shuganan found a length of driftwood and started into the pond, clearing a path to the weapon. Finally, in knee-deep water, he reached out with his walking stick and pulled the bola toward him.
“Hurry,” Chagak said and Shuganan was surprised at the urgency in her voice. But then he heard the ducks and, raising his eyes to the sky, saw that they circled the beach. He reached into the water, not caring if he got the sleeve of his parka wet, and grabbed the bola.
Handing the weapon to Chagak, he hid himself behind a boulder a short distance from the pond and waited.
Chagak backed slowly from the edge of the pond, then knelt, holding herself very still. “Thank you,” she whispered, not knowing if her prayers were to Aka or to the spirits of her people. She was not surprised that the ducks had returned, but their presence was an affirmation to her that they were a gift, a sign that she should continue with her life, as ducks were a sign each spring that a village would soon be blessed with summer, a time of renewal, of all good things beginning.
The ducks settled into the water, their wings making a spray that Chagak could feel against her face. She waited as they preened and made small skirmishes, fighting for the best positions on the pond.
The rough nettle fiber of the rope pulled at the blisters on Chagak’s hand, but the pain was good. Better than feeling nothing as she had for so many days: feeling nothing, seeing nothing, closing her mind to everything around her, the only way she knew to dull the pain within. But the pain in her hand made her feel as if she were again part of the things of the earth.
The sun was hot under the clouds, and its rays tightened Chagak’s scalp. The strength of its warmth pulsed down her dark hair to her shoulders and back, coursing out to the rope she held in her hand.
Chagak crept toward the pond. What had Shuganan told her the night before? She must be close enough for the bola to carry to the center of the flock, but also far enough away not to scare the ducks before she was ready to throw.
The shale of the beach scraped her knees, but Chagak did not feel it. Her eyes were on the center of the flock, the place her bola must go to be effective. Then suddenly, in one movement, she lunged forward, yelling and whirling the bola over her head.
The ducks rose from the pond and Chagak threw.
The bola left her hand smoothly. One duck fell, then another, their bodies hitting the water. Shuganan was already wading into the pond to retrieve them, but Chagak watched the flock as it rose into the sky and disappeared beyond the island’s curve.
They were her people’s spirits, she had no doubt. She had taken two of them. Two spirits would stay with her.
Shuganan held up the ducks. “Two drakes,” he called.
“Two sons,” Chagak murmured. “I have won two sons.”
She skinned each duck carefully, first removing all large feathers, leaving only soft down, then cutting at neck, legs and wings and pulling off the skin in one piece. She cooked the ducks that night, wrapping them in kelp and roasting them in a fire pit over a bed of hot coals.
Shuganan gave her many compliments for the meal, but Chagak’s thoughts were on tanning the skins. The drakes did not have the fine, thick breast down of a hen, but the skins were thicker and so would be easier to scrape and tan.
When she had pulled off the first skin, she held it up and, seeing the size and shape, had been reminded of her tiny brother, and a sharp pain of grief rose within her chest, but then clearly in her mind she saw other babies who would someday be hers, and so she decided to keep the skins whole.
She would rub them until they were soft, using a mixture of brains and seawater. Then she would smooth each skin by rubbing it with sandstone.
“The meat is good,” Shuganan said again. “Many years since I have eaten anything better.”
Chagak lowered her head in acknowledgment of the compliment, and Shuganan asked, “You have kept a feather?”
Chagak reached toward the pile of her belongings. She kept her things in one of her mother’s baskets, something Chagak had brought with her that the storm did not take. She showed him the handful of feathers she had saved.
“Could I have one?” he asked.
And Chagak, though surprised at the request, handed him a long black wing feather.
“As a pattern for my carving,” he explained and tucked it into the hair at the crown of his head. “You should keep one also,” he said. “Something for your amulet. I am sure the ducks were a gift to you. Perhaps from your people. Perhaps from Tugix.”
Chagak selected a feather and tucked it into the leather bag at her neck, then something made her say, “I will save the skins for a suk. Something for a baby.” Then she stopped, afraid to voice her hope that the baby would be hers. That she would someday be a mother.
But Shuganan said, “Yes. Soon we will go to a place I know. My wife’s people, the Whale Hunters, live there. Perhaps we can find a husband for you.”
Chagak opened her mouth to speak but for a moment could say nothing. Finally she said, “My mother’s people are the Whale Hunters. I was trying to take Pup to them when we came to your beach. My grandfather is Many Whales.”
“Many Whales,” Shuganan said with a slow smile. “He is their chief.”
“Yes. My mother told me.”
“You will have no trouble finding a husband.”
“He is not a man who values granddaughters,” Chagak said. “And when I tell him what has happened to his daughter and his grandsons …” She shook her head.
All but one of her grandfather’s sons had died in infancy. Many Whales was to have taken Chagak’s oldest brother sometime during the next year and trained him to hunt the whale. But what would Many Whales say when he was told all his grandsons were dead and only Chagak, a girl, lived?
“My grandfather will not want me,” Chagak said to Shuganan. “He wants sons.”
“If he will not find you a husband,” Shuganan answered, “then I will.”
The words made Chagak shiver, and a sudden clear image of Seal Stalker came to her mind. A tightening of sorrow slowed her heart, but she looked up at Shuganan and made herself smile.
“Yes, I will need a husband,” she said. “Someone who will give me a child. But I do not need a young man.” And then, with a boldness Chagak knew must have come from the duck feather in her amulet, she said, “I would be wife to you.”
But Shuganan smiled gently and said, “No. I am too old. But we will find someone. A good man. I will be grandfather. He will be husband.”