CHAGAK TOOK SAMIQ FROM his cradle and hugged him tightly to her chest.
Shuganan’s oil lamp was like a star on the dark beach, and in its light she was sure she had seen two men. She stood and watched until she saw Shuganan. He was pulling at the jawbones. The huge arched bones were nearly separated from the whale carcass, and yes, there was another man beside him. A spirit come to take Shuganan from her? Or Sees-far returning with his people?
Chagak wondered if she should run.
She had left her woman’s knife at the other beach fire and now felt a deep grief over her carelessness. Surely if she went for the knife the man would see her. She grabbed a chunk of driftwood from the ground. It was better than no weapon.
The man seemed to be helping Shuganan. Would Sees-far help? Not unless he hoped to earn a woman for the night. But why work when the one who protected Chagak was only an old man? Why not take what was wanted? How would Shuganan stop him?
But what about the baby? Some men found no joy in another man’s child.
Perhaps Chagak could lay the child in the shelter, hide him under a layer of grass mats. But if he cried … Better to put him under her suk, then if she ran he would be with her.
“Chagak!”
Shuganan was calling her. His voice was strong, unafraid. If there were danger, he would not call, Chagak told herself. She dropped the piece of driftwood but did not stand until she had the baby beneath her suk. Then she went to the other fire, picked up her woman’s knife and walked slowly toward the men. She kept her head down and crossed her arms over her breasts, trying to hide the form of the child bound against her chest.
Shuganan hurried to meet her and, grasping her arm, pulled her to the whale. The man waited for them, his hands, dark with whale’s blood, stretched out in greeting.
Not Sees-far, Chagak thought, relieved. Nor any of the traders who had once come to her people’s beach.
“My granddaughter,” Shuganan said, and he spoke in the First Men’s tongue.
The man was tall and Chagak felt like a child beside him. Her head reached only as far as his shoulder.
“Kayugh,” Shuganan said and stared at Chagak until she realized he wanted her to speak. She looked up at the man and repeated his name.
It was a good name, a name that spoke of strength. Kayugh had a wide, square face, and his eyes reminded Chagak of her father’s eyes, eyes that were used to scanning the sea. He smiled at her, but she saw a sadness in his smile, something that made her wonder why he was alone.
“We need help moving the jawbones above the reach of the waves,” Shuganan said.
Chagak wished Shuganan had not asked for her help. She could not take a chance the baby would be injured, so now she must admit she had him under her suk. She looked at Shuganan and said slowly, “I have the baby. Let me put him in his cradle.”
She saw the sudden hunger in Kayugh’s eyes and a chill pulled at the muscles of her back, but Shuganan seemed to feel no dread as he said to Kayugh, “My grandson.”
Chagak hurried back to the camp she had made beside the beach fires. She knew Kayugh watched her as she left.
“He will ask for you tonight,” came a whisper from the sea otter, but Chagak did not reply, and she blocked from her mind all remembrance of the night she had spent with Man-who-kills, the pain of man taking woman.
She laid the baby in the cradle, careful to turn his face away from the wind, and returned to the men. They had cut the jawbones from the dome of the skull and pulled them from the carcass. She and Shuganan gripped the bone that formed the left half of the whale’s lower jaw. They pulled against the gravel, Chagak matching her steps to Shuganan’s. Kayugh took the right jawbone and, pulling it alone, dragged it nearly to the ulaq while Chagak and Shuganan were still on the beach.
The bone was slippery with flesh and Chagak’s hands were not strong enough to hold it for more than a few steps. Finally she held the outward curve of the bone against her chest, so the muscles of her shoulders did the work of pulling. She looked at Shuganan, saw that he had done the same. Then suddenly Kayugh was between them, pulling so hard that most of the weight was lifted.
When they reached the rise of the beach, they dropped the bone. Chagak cut a handful of grass and wiped off her hands and the front of her suk.
“Come,” Shuganan said to Kayugh. “Chagak will watch the fires for a time. You are welcome in my ulaq.”
Chagak returned to the fires. A part of her was glad to be alone again, glad to have an excuse to stay on the beach, but part of her wished she might hear what Kayugh had to say. Why he was here.
She knelt beside Samiq’s cradle. The baby was asleep so she did not pick him up. Shuganan had made the cradle from driftwood. A fur seal skin cushioned the woven sling that hung from the deep-sided frame. Chagak had decorated the frame with puffin feathers and disk beads she had cut from mussel shells. On one corner, next to the carved seal, Shuganan had hung a small carving of a whale.
It was not the animal Chagak would have chosen, but he told her it was what they must have, something that would make the Whale Hunters believe the child was doubly of their blood, grandson of Shuganan’s wife, grandson to Many Whales. And now Chagak wondered if the carving had called the whale to them.
She added some driftwood to the fires, huddled close to the brightness that seemed to keep away the spirits that came with the dark. The sky held the color of the sun; reds and pinks lit the edges of the horizon. And Chagak remembered that on her people’s beach, also an east-facing beach, the hills around her village had hidden the sun colors that came with the short summer nights. But here, if she walked to the edge of the cove, there was nothing between her and the sun except the sea.
She took her wooden loops, green willow bent and tied, and pulled a rock from the fire’s coal bed. She carried it to the cooking pit slowly so that, if the rock fell, she would not walk over it before she could stop herself.
She dropped the rock into the pit. The oil and water frothed and sent up a circle of bubbles. If she and Shuganan kept the fires going all night, in the morning there would be a thick layer of oil at the top of each basket. Chagak would skim it off and pour it into other baskets for cooling.
After cooling, any sand or bits of flesh that might make the oil rot in storage would be in the bottom layer. Chagak would skim off the top and put it into seal stomach containers for storage.
She would use the oil at the bottom of the basket more quickly, some for cooking but most for oiling seal belly containers, or for greasing babiche and sinew for sewing, even for waterproofing the seams of the ik and ikyak.
Chagak was returning to the fire when she saw something moving in the darkness by the ulaq.
Her first thoughts were of night spirits, and she called softly, speaking aloud to the sea otter spirit and clasping her shaman’s amulet, but then Kayugh stepped into the light.
Chagak felt a moment of relief, then a sudden dread, fear that Shuganan had agreed to let the man have her for the night. Her throat seemed to close, and she did not think she could speak.
She stood, holding her tongs between them as though they would protect her. He made no move toward her but squatted on his heels by the fire and stared into the flames. Chagak pulled another rock from the coals and carried it to the rendering pit.
When she went back to the fire, Kayugh stood. A fierce trembling started in Chagak’s hands and she turned away from him, pretending to check her son.
“You have a son,” Kayugh said, moving to stand beside her. He squatted down and moved back some of the sealskin blankets that covered the child. “He is healthy and fat.”
“Someday he will be a good hunter,” Chagak said, the usual reply of a mother receiving a compliment.
“Your husband?”
“He is dead,” Chagak said, her words abrupt. She and Shuganan had decided on a story to tell the Whale Hunters. She hoped Shuganan had told the same story to this man.
“I am sorry.”
“His name was Seal Stalker,” Chagak said and was surprised to find tears in her eyes, for it seemed that her words truly made Seal Stalker Samiq’s father. “He was a good man.”
Kayugh stroked the top of Samiq’s head, the man’s strong square hand lingering over the baby’s pulsing fontanels. “You must be proud of this son,” he said, his eyes rising to meet Chagak’s eyes.
But Chagak looked down, “Yes,” she murmured, the dread again closing around her throat.
“I told your grandfather that I would watch the fires for a time so you could rest.”
Chagak looked at him in surprise. Shuganan helped her with the whale meat because they knew the sea might soon carry the animal away. If there had been other women here, Shuganan would have helped only with the peeling of the skin, the cutting of the largest bones. Why would this hunter offer to help?
But then the sea otter seemed to say, “Perhaps he wants a share to take back to his village.”
“You should sleep,” Chagak said. “You have been in the ikyak today. Shuganan will come and take my place.”
“He is old. He needs more sleep than either you or I.”
“I will sleep for a short time, then I will come back,” Chagak said, but she stood and watched as the man used the tongs to pull a rock from the fire and drop it into the boiling pit. Then she picked up the baby and returned to the ulaq.
“He told me to come to the ulaq and sleep,” Chagak said to Shuganan. She hung the baby’s cradle from a rafter over her sleeping place and then returned to the central room of the ulaq. She sat down beside the old man. “Should I have stayed with him?”
“No,” Shuganan said. “He wanted me to talk to you.”
Chagak had been surprised to find Shuganan still awake when she entered the ulaq, but now she clasped her hands in apprehension. “He wants to share a sleeping place with me?”
Shuganan laughed. “What man would not? But no, he did not ask. He asked only about your son and your husband.”
“He asked me also,” Chagak said. “I told him what we decided to tell the Whale Hunters.”
“Good. That is best.”
“What did he want then?” But as she spoke, Chagak suddenly remembered his gentle ways with Samiq, the longing that had seemed to be in the man’s eyes when he looked at the child. “He does not want Samiq?” she asked, fear making her words too loud, her voice high like a little child’s.
“You have too many fears,” Shuganan said, scolding her.
Chagak pressed her lips together and felt the burn of foolish tears at the corners of her eyes.
“His village was nearly destroyed by the sea. A great wave. He is chief of a small group of people. Two other men, three women, some children. They want to come to this beach, to stay here with us.”
“They would build a village? Claim this place as their own?”
“Only if we say they can. Otherwise, they will come for a few days, until the women have had time to dry fish and gather grass for mats.”
“And you told them to come?”
“Only for a few days. If they are a good people they can stay, if not …”
“If not, who will make them leave?” Chagak asked. “It would not be hard for three men to kill us and take this beach.”
“And what will prevent them from doing that now?” Shuganan asked. “Kayugh will return to his people, tell them where we are. It is better for us to welcome them. Besides, we will soon leave for the Whale Hunters’ village. Who knows if we will return?”
Chagak picked up a handful of loose grass from the ulaq floor and let it sift through her fingers. “If there are three men and three women, Kayugh must have a wife,” she said.
“He spoke about a wife.”
The thought gave some relief to Chagak, but she knew that many men were strong enough hunters to support more than one wife. “We should have told him I was your wife,” she said.
“Why? Perhaps he or one of his men will want you. You need a good husband.”
Chagak shook her head. “No,” she said and stood up. “I have you and Samiq. I do not need a husband. I do not want a husband.” She spoke loudly, almost in anger, and Samiq began to cry, his wail small and thin from the ulaq rafters.
“If Kayugh asks for me, tell him no,” she said and went to her sleeping place before Shuganan could answer.