WHEN CHAGAK ENTERED THE ULAQ, it seemed as though it were a different place. Seal stomach storage containers were set in heaps at the bottom of the climbing log; new water skins hung from the rafters. Stacks of furs filled the extra sleeping place and overflowed into the main room.
But though Chagak had expected to hear the babble of the women, they were silent. For a moment she stood on the climbing log, staring at them as they stared at her.
They were sitting in the center of the ulaq, their backs to each other, faces toward the shelves that held Shuganan’s carvings. One woman, her nose large and humped, held the little girl on her lap. The boy sat beside them. Another woman, round-faced and plump, sat looking at the ground, her dark hair pulled back and tied, but it was the smallest woman who held Chagak’s eyes. She had a bulge under her suk.
Blue Shell, Gray Bird’s wife, Chagak thought, and then heard the spirit voice of some sea otter say, “She is beautiful, that woman.”
Yes, Chagak thought. Anyone would find pleasure in seeing Blue Shell’s tiny nose and wide eyes, her small, full lips. Chagak touched her own face and wondered if anyone found pleasure in seeing her.
At first Chagak did not want to speak. She wanted to go quickly to her sleeping place, to close the curtain between herself and the women, but she had told Kayugh that she would nurse his son, and even now the men watched the rendering pit so she could come here.
Finally Chagak said, “Shuganan’s carvings do not carry evil spirits. You do not need to fear them and soon you will be used to their eyes watching.”
And it was as though Chagak’s words had given the women life. The big-nosed woman spoke quietly to the others and then all three began unrolling grass mats and pulling food from storage bags.
It seemed as though the big-nosed woman led the others and so Chagak went to her and showed her the storage cache. She pulled back the curtains and tied them so the women could put their food inside.
“I am Crooked Nose,” the woman said. Then she gestured toward the little girl straddling her hip. “This is Red Berry, Kayugh’s daughter.”
“I am glad you have come, Red Berry,” Chagak said, but the girl hid her face against Crooked Nose’s suk.
“The boy is also Kayugh’s?” Chagak asked.
“No,” said Crooked Nose, “First Snow is my son. But Kayugh does have a son. Blue Shell carries him. He is very sick.”
Her words trailed off and Chagak said, “Kayugh told me about this son.”
Blue Shell looked up from her work. “He is very weak,” she said, “and I do not have any milk. My husband is not happy that I carry the child. He says it might curse our own children to weakness.”
“I have milk,” Chagak said, but Blue Shell’s words made Chagak uneasy. Could Kayugh’s son make sickness come to Samiq? But then the sea otter whispered again, “You told Kayugh you would feed the child.”
Blue Shell lifted her suk and pulled the baby from his carrying sling.
At first Chagak’s eyes were on Blue Shell’s belly. The woman was pregnant, soon to deliver, but then Chagak saw the infant. He looked like a tiny old man, his eyes and belly too big for his shriveled arms and legs. How long had he been without food?
Blue Shell unfastened his carrying sling and unwrapped a packet she had at her side. She took out clean fur and skins to pad the strap.
Blue Shell handed the strap to Chagak. Samiq’s strap was over Chagak’s right shoulder, so she fastened the other strap over her left. She laid Kayugh’s son in the strap and poked her left nipple into his mouth, prodding his cheek anxiously until finally she felt a small tug. The baby’s eyes opened as though he were amazed that his sucking had filled his mouth, and he sucked again, holding himself to her breast with both hands.
Blue Shell went back to the center of the ulaq and sat down beside Crooked Nose. They began to talk, voices low so Chagak could not hear what they were saying. Suddenly she felt uncomfortable and alone, as though she were the one who was visiting this ulaq.
The women laughed, and even the shy one lifted her head. Chagak felt a sudden dread that they were talking about her, so she turned away from them and watched Kayugh’s child nurse. He was not strong enough to suckle continuously, but sucked and then let the nipple pop from his mouth, searching with eyes closed until he found the nipple again, sucking, taking a breath, sucking.
Chagak lowered her suk, covering the tiny child. She glanced up at the women and saw that Blue Shell was looking at her. Chagak saw relief in her eyes, but it seemed that Blue Shell’s relief was Chagak’s burden.
The otter spirit whispered, “The child will die.”
“No,” Chagak said, so quickly that she had a sudden vision of the otter sliding from shore into the sea, the animal turning its back on Chagak’s rudeness. And Chagak could not help but think the otter was right. The baby had not even cried when Blue Shell took him naked from her warm suk. A child without the strength to cry. Could he live?
Chagak kept her hand inside her suk, gently moving the baby’s head whenever he stopped nursing, and she moved her hand now and again to Samiq, checking that his arms and legs remained fat and strong, checking that Kayugh’s son did not suck the strength from her son as he was sucking milk from Chagak’s breast.
She kept her head lowered, so did not see Blue Shell beside her until the young woman asked, “Does he suck?”
The question startled Chagak and her gasp of surprise made Blue Shell giggle. But Chagak could think of no reason to smile, her ulaq full of strange women, a dying baby at her breast. Why had Shuganan agreed to let these people stay?
But Blue Shell did not know her thoughts and began to babble about rendering whale blubber and storing meat.
Chagak did not want the women to work at her rendering pit, to help her with the meat. It was her work and she had done it the way she thought best. She had made the decisions and now did not want others to change what she had done.
But then the sea otter said, “You have been away from your village too long. What woman turns down help? You are letting the men help now. Why not the women? They know more about rendering pits than men.”
So Chagak tried to listen to Blue Shell with a kinder spirit, tried to smile as the woman talked, but she did not truly hear what Blue Shell said until she began to speak about Kayugh. Then, for some reason, Chagak was interested, and she asked, “Gray Bird, your husband, is Kayugh’s brother?”
“No,” Blue Shell answered. “Kayugh’s father and mother came to our village before he was born. They were Walrus People. The father had come to our village to trade. He liked us, so brought his wife and stayed.”
Chagak had heard her father tell of trading with the Walrus Men. A good people, he had said, given to laughter, a tall, light-skinned people who trained animals called dogs to pull loads and protect their camps. And Chagak could not hold back her words, a foolish question, the question of a child: “Does he have a dog?”
Blue Shell laughed. “No, but he is a great hunter, surpassing all. He would have been the next leader if he had stayed in our village. But there was no choice. The sea rises and our island grows smaller each year. Kayugh says that someday everyone will have to leave. But our journey, until we found this place, has not been a good one, especially for Kayugh.”
“Yes,” said Chagak. “He told me his wife died after giving birth.”
“She bled after the baby was born,” Blue Shell said. “She did not tell us she was bleeding so badly.
“And before that, Kayugh’s first wife also died. She drowned when we were gathering limpets. Kayugh went after her, but when he brought her to the shore, she was already dead. She was old, wife to another before Kayugh, but Kayugh took her as first wife, giving her honor, although she did not honor him with a child.”
Chagak felt Kayugh’s son lose his grip on her breast and was filled with the sudden fear that he was dead. She glanced inside her suk, saw that milk bubbled from the baby’s mouth. He was asleep. She raised her eyes to Blue Shell and said, “He sleeps. Do you want to hold him now?”
Blue Shell looked away. “No,” she said. “I have no milk. If you keep him, you can feed him more often.”
Chagak thought again of the hurt in Kayugh’s eyes as he had spoken about his son. No wonder Blue Shell did not want to keep the baby. Who would want to be the one holding the child when he died?
Blue Shell stood. “I must help Crooked Nose unpack our belongings,” she said, but then asked, “The old man, Shuganan, is he your husband?”
Chagak lifted her head. “He is my grandfather,” she said and, grasping awkwardly for words, added, “My son’s father is dead.” Then she busied herself with Kayugh’s son, waking him so he would eat again, and she did not look up to see if Blue Shell had any more questions.