“A SON!” GRAY BIRD SAID to Blue Shell as she entered the birthing shelter.
Chagak, remembering her own pain during Samiq’s birth, was disgusted with the man. Did he not think of his wife’s pain or the fear that comes to every woman when she gives birth? Chagak almost opened her mouth to speak but, catching Shuganan’s eye, she saw the warning there and did not.
“Come with me, Gray Bird,” Kayugh said. “We will find driftwood to build your new son an ikyak.”
Gray Bird looked toward the hastily constructed driftwood and skin birthing shelter. Crooked Nose shrugged and said, “It is her first baby. It will be a long time.”
Gray Bird went with Kayugh, Shuganan trailing after them, and Chagak noticed that Kayugh dropped back to walk with the old man.
Chagak continued her work. She and Crooked Nose were preparing sea lion skins as a covering for an ikyak. They had soaked, scraped and dried the skins, then stretched them until they were pliable. Now they would cut the hides, using an old ikyak cover as a pattern for their knives.
Red Berry played nearby, and Samiq and Amgigh, wrapped against the cold of the gray day, were in their cradles at the side of the ulaq. Kayugh had told Chagak that in the winter he would start working with both boys, stretching their arms and legs with exercises so they would be agile hunters.
So young, Chagak thought, and already learning to be men. And though she was proud she had given birth to a son, she suddenly felt a great and shameful longing to have a daughter.
Crooked Nose stopped her work and squatted down beside the babies. Both boys had cradles now. Shuganan had made one like Samiq’s as a gift for Kayugh’s son. The rectangular driftwood frames suspended beds of sealskin strips that rocked with the babies’ own movements.
“Two fine sons!” Crooked Nose said.
Chagak smiled.
The first thing that Chagak had noticed when she met Crooked Nose was the homeliness of the woman’s face, the large nose, the small, close-set eyes, but now Chagak saw only the shining goodness of her, the wide smile, the laughter that made the children cling to her.
“And now your son, First Snow, is nearly a man.”
“Yes,” Crooked Nose said. “Already Big Teeth trains him in the ikyak. Soon he will be a hunter.”
Crooked Nose smiled, but Chagak felt her sorrow. What woman found it easy to lose her son to manhood?
Crooked Nose took a hide from the pile and positioned the pattern skin over it. “I had four other children,” she said, then pulled her knife through the hide with a quick, even stroke. “Our first three were daughters, but we had no husbands promised for them, and so …” She waved her hand toward the hills. “I had many tears, although Big Teeth did not see them. Then Big Teeth took Little Duck as second wife, hoping for a son. But I gave him a son and Little Duck has not given him any children, even in these eight years she has been wife.”
Poor Little Duck, Chagak thought. No wonder she was quiet and shy. But she was fortunate that Crooked Nose was the first wife. Crooked Nose treated Little Duck like a sister.
“He was a fine son,” Crooked Nose said. “After his birth Big Teeth made a feast for the village. During the feast we heard a rumbling noise, but no one thought it was more than some spirit angry in the mountains, but that night the waves came, washing into our village, killing many. The water tore the side from our ulaq and pulled it into the sea. My son was in his cradle and the waves floated him away from me.”
Crooked Nose’s voice broke and Chagak could think of no words to comfort her. Chagak pulled another skin from the pile and began cutting, her eyes on her work, giving Crooked Nose excuse to stop speaking if she wished, but after a moment of silence the woman continued.
“I still dream of it. I am reaching toward the cradle, but still my son floats away from me….”
“I am sorry,” Chagak whispered.
“Yes,” Crooked Nose said. “It was a terrible time. But First Snow’s parents were also killed, and I took him as my son.
“We built our ulas again. In the next few years there were other waves, but they were not as strong. They took no lives. Then in this past year, when the snow changed back to rain and we knew that the fur seals would soon come past our beach, the rumbling began again.
“Kayugh took many of us into the mountains and we were safe, but not everyone would go, and when we returned to our village, we found many of our people dead. So we followed Kayugh and now we are here.”
A cry from the birth shelter interrupted Crooked Nose. Little Duck called, “Crooked Nose, the baby comes soon.”
Crooked Nose left the sea lion skins and went to the shelter. Chagak felt suddenly alone, and she wished that she, too, had been called.
Someone must stay with the children, she thought and smiled at her own foolishness. There were still times she wished that Crooked Nose and the others had not come to this beach. So why did she want to be included?
But then Blue Shell screamed, and Crooked Nose called, “Chagak, come quickly. We need you.”
Chagak ran to the skin tent. Inside, Blue Shell lay on her back, her knees raised. Little Duck held Blue Shell’s hands and Crooked Nose knelt between her legs.
Why was Blue Shell lying down? Chagak wondered. She should be squatting so the baby would come more quickly.
Chagak saw Blue Shell strain with another pain, and a tiny buttock was forced from the birth canal and then drawn back inside.
“Where is the head?” Chagak asked.
“The baby is backward,” Crooked Nose explained. “Come here. Hold Blue Shell’s hands.”
Chagak, facing Little Duck and Crooked Nose, knelt at Blue Shell’s head. She clasped both of Blue Shell’s hands in her own. Crooked Nose worked her hand up the birth canal. “Try not to push,” she said to Blue Shell. “Wait. Wait. Now, Blue Shell!”
Blue Shell grasped Chagak’s hands and pulled, then she screamed, and suddenly the baby was lying in Crooked Nose’s arms. It was a girl.
The baby made a small cry and Blue Shell tried to sit up, but Crooked Nose pushed her down, saying, “Wait.” And she pressed on Blue Shell’s belly until the afterbirth was expelled.
Crooked Nose handed the baby to Blue Shell, and Chagak shivered at the sudden quiet that had come into the tent.
Blue Shell clasped the baby and then closed her eyes. Tears seeped from beneath her lids as she whispered, “Gray Bird will make me kill her.”
Chagak sat at the entrance of Shuganan’s ulaq scraping a sealskin. Samiq and Amgigh nursed beneath her suk and Red Berry played with colored stones at the grassy edge of the beach.
Chagak thought of Blue Shell and the new baby, then folded her arms over her son and Amgigh.
Kayugh had not made his wife kill Red Berry, but perhaps Red Berry had been promised in marriage even before her birth.
Resentment rose in Chagak’s chest, filling her lungs until she could not breathe. If Gray Bird had suffered as Blue Shell had, would he be so anxious to kill the child? Did any man know what it cost a woman to give birth? But then she thought of Shuganan. He had been with her during Samiq’s birth, had watched over her. And the thought came, Do I know what a man goes through to bring seal oil? Do I understand the dangers of the ikyak? She shook her head, closed her eyes and began to rock the babies.
She tried to stay above her grief, to make a pattern of thoughts that floated her above the pain as kelp floats on the sea, but she could not forget Blue Shell’s tears.
“I have had enough sorrow,” Chagak whispered angrily, boldly directing her words across the strait toward Aka. But then she heard other voices raised in anger, and Kayugh and Gray Bird came from Big Teeth’s ulaq.
Kayugh scanned the beach and then, in long, quick strides, he overtook his daughter, pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest. Red Berry clung to him, her face small and white against his parka, and she peered from her father’s arms as Kayugh’s words lashed out at Gray Bird.
“We try to begin a new village. We have found this good place. We have found wisdom here and life for my son. You will build this place without women?”
Chagak kept her eyes on Kayugh’s face and prepared to grab Red Berry from his arms if Gray Bird attacked.
“Who will bear your grandchildren? That?” Kayugh pointed to a rock. “That?” He pointed to a tangled mass of heather.
Kayugh clasped Red Berry at her waist and held her out toward Gray Bird.
Do not cry, Chagak pleaded silently with the child. Please do not cry. But Red Berry held herself stiff and still, her eyes shifting between Gray Bird and her father.
“She brings me joy,” Kayugh said. Then in a voice so low that Chagak strained to catch the words, he added, “I will kill any man who tries to hurt her.”
Slowly he set Red Berry down. The child stood for a moment looking at her father. Chagak held out her arms. Red Berry ran to her and snuggled into her lap.
Then Gray Bird spoke. “If Blue Shell’s daughter lives, I will have to wait three, perhaps four more years for a son. Perhaps I will die before then.”
Chagak looked at Kayugh. Would Gray Bird’s words soften Kayugh’s resolve? But Kayugh did not speak and Gray Bird continued, his anger hard in his voice: “Each man rules his own family.”
Kayugh’s jaw tensed and Chagak began to creep backward, holding Red Berry against her with one arm.
“Chagak!”
Chagak jumped and rose slowly, her eyes searching Kayugh’s face.
“Bring my son.”
She did not want to obey. Amgigh was too small to be caught in a fight between two men. She hesitated and Kayugh called again. Chagak pulled the baby from beneath her suk and hurriedly wrapped him in the furred skin she had been scraping.
She took the child to Kayugh. Red Berry followed her, one hand clinging to the back of Chagak’s suk.
Chagak handed the baby to Kayugh and he held the child toward Gray Bird, opening the fur wrapping so that Gray Bird could see the child’s arms and legs.
“I claim Blue Shell’s girl child for my son,” Kayugh said, then he turned and held the baby toward Tugix. “I claim Blue Shell’s girl child for my son.”
Gray Bird’s jaw clenched and he spun away toward the birth shelter.
Chagak thought that Kayugh would go after him, but he stood where he was, holding his son, the baby now crying in the chill of the wind. But soon Gray Bird returned. He held Blue Shell’s baby, wrapped in a coarse grass mat. He opened the mat and flipped the child from front to back. In the coldness of the wind, the baby’s skin quickly mottled and turned blue.
“Wrap her,” Kayugh said. “She will be wife for Amgigh.”
Gray Bird wrapped the child, moving her too quickly to his shoulder. The small head jerked against his chest.
“If you kill her, you kill my grandsons,” Kayugh said, and he stood with his eyes fixed on Gray Bird until the man returned to the birth shelter. Then Kayugh gave his son back to Chagak, hoisted Red Berry to his shoulders and walked to the beach.