15

IF I WAS ANGRY BEFORE, I was furious now. All by myself I found the stream, then went to our camp for Meri. She sat with White Fox and Elho, waiting for me. They had built a fire for warmth since we had nothing to cook, and they were eating fronds of deer ferns, having set aside a few for me. How was it possible, I thought coldly, to find ferns without finding the stream? They must have been a spear’s throw from it. “We can go,” I said, chewing the fronds. “Come, Meri.”

“We didn’t find the stream,” said White Fox. “We’ll have to try tomorrow.”

The sun was low in the west, but I picked up my pack and looked at Meri. “Come,” I said to her.

“Where are you going?” asked White Fox.

“To the Fire River,” I said. “I found the stream while you sat here.”

“You’re going now?” He seemed surprised. “It’s late. We’re camped.”

“Stay if you like,” I said. “Meri!”

Perhaps I sounded dangerous. Instead of getting stubborn, Meri stood up. I walked off, hearing her behind me. Soon I heard Elho and White Fox behind her, complaining to each other that we were leaving a good place and a lot of firewood, but following nevertheless. At last I turned to stare at them. “Are you women that you can’t stop talking?” I asked. “Aren’t you hungry? Do you think we can hunt with so much noise?” To my surprise, and perhaps to theirs too, they stopped talking completely. And it was just as well. In the gathering dusk we saw the outline of an ear beside a tree, put down our packs, and stalked the animal. It was a musk deer, small, but plenty for the four of us if we could kill it. White Fox screened himself in a downwind thicket while the rest of us moved the deer toward him. When he speared it, it gave a loud, shuddering cry.

Then we had to camp. The place was bad—very brushy and thick, giving good cover for any animal wanting to stalk us or rob us of the carcass, but it was now too dark to go on. Elho and White Fox were angry at me for getting us into this fix, and another time I wouldn’t have blamed them.

It was also too late to find wood, if there was any. As we sat in the dark trying to make green juniper burn, with the heavy brush and the strong smell of the fresh carcass all around us, I remembered what Graylag had said about self-control. My lack of it had brought me here in the first place, and my anger could get all of us killed.

In my mind I heard Teal saying that it was up to me to do something about the bad situation. I told her, in my thoughts, that I didn’t care. You do, she said. You do. Should I move the musk deer away from where we sleep? I asked her. That would be a start, she said. Remember the tiger.

So after we ate our fill of the musk deer, almost raw, I took it by the hind foot and dragged it far away. Elho and White Fox didn’t mind—in fact, they must have been thinking of the tiger too. There was no tree tall enough to save the carcass, so I tried to hide it under a bush, but before I was back with the others, I heard two foxes snarling over it. Suddenly there was silence, then the sound of cracking bones. Something large had chased away the foxes. Because all this happened so quickly, we saw that whatever the large animal was, it hadn’t been far away.

But what could we do? Nothing but try to keep our fire bright enough to shed a little light, wrap ourselves in our deerskins against the cold, and stay awake with our spears ready. Meri fell asleep first, then White Fox—still sitting up but with his head on his arms—leaving Elho and me awake but not speaking. I didn’t even look at Elho, but thought instead about the loud scream of the musk deer. Had pain made it scream? I didn’t think so—animals who are hurt are very quiet about it. Fear? Again I didn’t think so—we sometimes scream with fear if we think someone will come to help us, but no one would go to help a musk deer. So why? On a cold night like that night, a cry can be heard far away. The large animal now cracking the bones must have heard the cry and come. Had the deer wanted something to come? Could the deer have done what I now saw myself doing—trying to harm others because I had been harmed? You have killed me, I heard the scream say. Yet I have called someone to kill you.

And the deer almost did kill us—it did, or I did with my anger. Bored and frightened at the same time, both Elho and I fell asleep, although we didn’t mean to, and the next thing we knew, the morning star was rising and the sky was turning gray far ahead of the sun. Cold and stiff, we looked around and saw, right next to us, a tiger’s footprints. We thought it could be the same huge male who had circled our camp so long ago. The sight of his tracks gave me a sick feeling. If we had been awake, we could have touched him. “I wonder if he remembers us,” said White Fox. “It’s good you gave him the deer.”

That day my anger left me and didn’t come back. I wasn’t happy, but I was nicer to White Fox and Meri. Elho and I ignored each other, as if we both were trying to pretend that what had happened between us had never been. In time we were acting naturally with each other, almost as if what we were pretending really was true.

Later that spring we found the Fire River, with some whitefish still running but no sign of people. We walked upstream toward Woman Lake for several days, then changed our minds and walked far downstream to where the shallow river wound out onto the plain. When Meri and I were wondering what to do if we found no one, since we had nowhere else to go, White Fox found a trail along the riverbank with people’s footprints on it, and we followed it to the camp. To show our good intentions, since in a way we were strangers, we left our spears in a bush when we got near.

The camp was large, with people from many lodges living in shelters scattered over the plain above the riverbank. Some shelters were copies of bushes, domes of sticks covered with grass, but a few were copies of hemlock trees, cones of poles covered with hides. Many people were in the camp cooking whitefish. Some of them glanced at us, then stood up in surprise when they didn’t recognize us. We recognized one of them, though, a tall man with a wide mouth and popping eyes—none other than Kamas, Child of Ina, my cousin The Frog.

I must say it gave me a strange feeling to see him—glad and angry at the same time. And who can say what he felt? He seemed almost frightened to see Meri and me. He probably thought we were dead by now. For all of him, we would be. Perhaps he had lied to the Fire River people to explain why he had left Graylag and Father. But he hid his confusion and came to greet us. Elho and White Fox were very glad to see his familiar face.

Many people gathered around us, among them Cousin The Stick, who looked over our heads to see if others were with us. He asked about his mother, Ina, then asked how Father was. I told him that Father had died soon after he had left us. The Stick nodded; he had expected as much. Aunt Yoi had married another man soon after she reached here, he said. She had known she was a widow. Where was she? I wondered, looking around for her. She was digging sedge root, but would be back soon and very surprised to see us, said Cousin The Frog. Meanwhile we must meet the other people and take food.

Soon we were eating whitefish by a fire with a great crowd of people around us, old and young, men, women, and children, all talking at once, all the adults anxious for news, especially about Teal. They already knew about Mother. They also wanted to hear of their kinswoman’s children, Owl and Timu, whom most of them had never seen. Elho embarrassed me deeply when he told everyone I once had been Timu’s wife but had divorced him after a fight. I would rather have told people in my own time, when I knew them better. At the news, Cousin The Stick and Cousin The Frog looked at me curiously, as if they wanted to know more, but I added nothing.

When the subject of Meri’s betrothal to Swift came up, people grew serious. Presents must be given by Swift’s lineage, they said. When they learned that Meri’s betrothal to Swift was broken, they seemed disappointed. Swift sounded good to them. White Fox was too tactful to speak of his own broken betrothal so soon after meeting Meri’s kin, but he reminded people of the gifts they owed for Owl’s marriage exchange. A noisy discussion followed about necklaces, flints, greenstones, shells, ivory, and the rainbow feathers of Woman teals on Woman Lake.

We sat a long time in the sunshine by the fire, with the hazy sky overhead and the wind in the grass around us. We ate whitefish until we could eat no more. I should have been happy, I knew. I hadn’t been at a summerground for three years, not since I was at the Grass River with Graylag and the other people, before I knew I was married. And for the first time in my life I was with people who knew me only as an adult and were interested in what I said. Also, although most of the people were strange to me, I was known to them—they remembered Mother perhaps better than Meri did; they knew Timu and Owl by name if not by sight; they remembered Teal and Mother as young girls, and called them by nicknames and pet names. Many of these people were my kin. Even so, I felt strangely sad. At that moment I would have done anything I could to be back in Graylag’s lodge, even in winter, even with people fighting. Almost overcome by homesickness, all I could think about was Timu. In my mind’s eye I saw his brown face, his handsome, wide shoulders, his long arms and legs, his beautiful back. Something pulled in the pit of my stomach. What was he doing right now? I wondered. I missed him.

A woman with a pleasant face sat down on her heels beside me. Her name was Eider and I was in her lineage, she told me. I looked at her closely to see if she was anything like Mother. Perhaps she was—she had a small, sturdy body with square shoulders, and she was about the age Mother would have been if she were living. Like Mother, Eider had a perfect, glossy braid and white teeth, which she showed often. “Your aunt will be happy,” said Eider. “She thought you were dead.” Eider called a little boy over to us and told him to go to the river where Aunt Yoi was digging sedge root. “Tell Hama’s Daughter that someone has come to surprise her,” she said. She then told me how she and I were related. Mother’s mother, Hama, had a little sister, Black Wolf, who was Eider’s mother. Black Wolf was still living, an old woman now. And she was here, not here at the fire, but asleep by her shelter. She was blind.

Eider took Meri and me to meet Black Wolf. She was lying by her fire on a deerskin blanket, tiny and very frail. Like the skeleton of a bird, her bones showed under her thin, wrinkled skin. Her eyes, which were open, were blue, not sky-colored like Swift’s but dark and filmed—ugly eyes. Her deerskin shirt and trousers were too big for her, and her hair, face, and clothes were very dirty; she had ashes on her hands, and had been touching herself without knowing she was making herself gray. When she heard Eider’s voice she sat up, slowly turning her head as if trying to find us. Eider sat on her heels beside Black Wolf and grasped her arm. “Your kinswomen are here to see you, Mother,” she said. “Yanan and Meri, Lapwing’s Children.”

“Lapwing?” cried the old woman eagerly, reaching out to touch me. “Is it you?”

“Lapwing’s Daughter, Mother,” said Eider.

Black Wolf didn’t understand. Very softly she said, “I can’t see.”

“Lapwing’s two daughters, Mother, right here.” Eider placed Black Wolf’s hand against my face.

The dry palm moved slowly across my eyes and nose; the thin fingers felt my eyebrows. “Little Lapwing,” said the old woman tenderly. Smiling, Eider looked at me and shrugged. I smiled too, but with the image of Mother here where she belonged, if only in Black Wolf’s memory, I felt sad.

Behind me a voice said, “It isn’t Lapwing, Aunt. Lapwing died. Yanan, you’re here.”

I turned. Aunt Yoi stood behind us, looking down at us, not smiling. The surprise of our coming seemed to have upset her. Letting my face show nothing but polite pleasure, I stood up. “Aunt!” I said. “I’m here. Meri too, and Elho and White Fox, all here to visit our kin and lineage. I’m glad to see you.”

“Come with me,” said Aunt Yoi. “Bring your packs. I’ll show you where to sleep.” So Meri and I got our packs and followed Yoi to the edge of camp, where in front of a little dome of branches thatched with grass, an old man was sitting. “My husband,” said Yoi. The man looked up.

“Uncle. We have come,” I said politely.

He and Yoi seemed to be waiting for something. Soon Yoi nudged me. “Offer your greetings,” she said. “Where are your manners?” Embarrassed, I tried to think how. I had never offered greetings at Graylag’s lodge, since we all knew each other. In fact, I remembered meeting strangers only twice before—first the people on the Fire River, when my parents would have been offering the greetings, and next when I returned to Graylag’s lodge after living on the Marten River, when I was sitting outside with Meri and saw Swift come down the trail. I hadn’t even thought of greeting him. Shouldn’t Yoi have known that I wasn’t used to meeting strangers? Why did she shame me? I suddenly remembered all the other people I had met today, to whom I had failed to offer greetings. What must they think of me? My face grew hot.

Seeing my confusion, Yoi began a greeting for me. “Honor to your lineage,” she said. I repeated this, mumbling. “Honor to your mother,” Yoi went on.

I looked sideways at her, remembering how, not so long ago, I used to look up to see her face. I won’t do this, I decided, and instead of repeating after her, I looked openly at her husband and said, “I’m sorry, Uncle. At my home we don’t often meet new people. My sister and I mean no discourtesy—we honor you and all your people.”

He nodded, giving Yoi a strange little glance. “Welcome to you and your sister,” he said warmly. “It will be good having my wife’s nieces here in our camp.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” I said.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Thank you, Uncle. We ate whitefish.”

“Yes,” he said. “So you did. I was there.”

There seemed to be nothing else to say. I sat down, and so did Meri. Some women with children came by on their way to the river. The children, unused to strangers, stopped to gape rudely. A baby wanted to stare too, but it was being carried away. All it could do was turn in its sling to keep its eyes on us like a little owl. In a moment the women gave the children some hard looks to make them leave us alone. Then we got to talking with these women and at last followed them to the river.

Many women and children were there before us, all naked, all bathing at a sunny bend of the river where the water was rushing. In the sunlight the fast water sparkled and the people’s wet skins shone like the skins of red deer. These women too bore the marks of The Woman Ohun. But why did that surprise me? Teal, who had put my marks on me, came from here. I took off my clothes and shook out my hair. Then I waded into the water, which was so cold that when it reached my thighs I had to wait.

Yoi and Meri waded in beside me, Yoi as beautiful as ever, with smooth arms and legs. But she looked wrong—a grown woman with a girl’s breasts. Suddenly I felt almost sorry for her, still childless among so many women with children to wash and carry, to talk to and sing to—all the Fire River songs Mother used to sing to me. Years had passed since I had seen so many children. Thinking of the people of Graylag’s lodge, with only Ankhi’s child still living, I watched these children, their wet bodies shining, playing with round stones on the riverbank. They made a little lodge and carefully placed a pile of sticks beside it—a pile of antlers!

I turned to Aunt Yoi to point this out to her, and caught her looking me up and down. On her face was a very strange expression, half angry, half smiling. “Yanan,” she said.

“Aunt?”

But instead of speaking to me, she turned to a woman washing herself beside us. It took me a moment to recognize that this naked woman was Eider. To her Yoi said, “Yanan is pregnant.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t hear the river or the people, and all I could see in my mind’s eye was Elho, Elho over my shoulder in the birch grove.

Yoi smiled and asked, “Aren’t you?”

I stiffened my neck to keep from looking down at myself and stared instead at her, trying not to let my eyes grow round. Was I marked? Did Yoi know about the father? In a terrible confusion, I suddenly realized that I was standing naked in front of many strangers, all now looking at me, all seeing something I knew nothing about. “No!” I said. Then, “Yes!” I was afraid of seeming ignorant. But Yoi still watched me with a strange half-smile. She knew she had surprised me.

There was nothing to do but wash myself. As calmly as I could, I scooped water over my arms, hardly feeling the cold. Then I sat on my heels in the current, up to my chin in the fast water, wishing I didn’t have to stand up again so everyone could look at me. What did they see? I bent my head as if to wet my hair and squinted at myself underwater. Was my belly different? My breasts, perhaps? The water was foaming. I couldn’t tell. When I waded to the riverbank and found my clothes, I peeked at myself again as I stepped into my trousers. Perhaps my nipples seemed bigger and darker. Perhaps my belly seemed rounder. I caught sight of a faint line running from my navel into the hair of my crotch, right down the middle of me. Was that the sign? Nothing could have made me ask Yoi, and I wished with all my heart for Mother. I could have asked Mother. Then I wished for Teal. I could have asked Teal, too. But of course, if I had stayed with Teal, this would not be happening to me.

 

At sunset I managed to get away alone into a wormwood thicket. There I pulled up my shirt and looked at myself carefully. My belly was rounder than I remembered, it was true. I pushed and poked at it, trying to feel the baby moving. Nothing. Perhaps it was dead. Considering that Elho seemed to be the father, that might be the best thing that could happen. My belly would be its grave, and someday I would forget all about it. But perhaps it was moving after all, still too small for me to feel, in there with all the fish I had eaten. Sooner or later something would happen, but what? And how long would I have to wait to find out?

By night I was sure I was pregnant. The thought was so frightening that it had to be true. Since I couldn’t hear what other people said to me, I went to bed but didn’t sleep, and I lay by Yoi’s fire, looking at the stars. Yoi’s husband, whose name I finally learned was Otter, was away visiting. Yoi and Meri were asleep side by side in front of the shelter. Yoi even took some of Meri’s deerskin, just as she used to.

At first I tried to believe that Timu was the father. This wasn’t easy. I had been with Timu since the end of summer when we saw the Yellowleaf Moon, having coitus time and time again all autumn and all winter until we had our fight, but not one person had ever noticed a single thing different about me. Yet the moment I had coitus with Elho, it seemed, Yoi noticed a baby right away. Much as I wanted to think that Timu was the father, I felt he couldn’t be. And trying to pretend that he was didn’t change the feeling.

I then remembered Mother and Teal calling to the tigress, perhaps Sali. I remembered Mother and Teal telling Yoi of babies fathered by their kinsmen—of armless, legless babies put out to die in the snow or left under bushes for the foxes. And of babies born crosswise, like Sali’s. And of the men who kill these children, men who want to dash the babies’ heads against a rock. And of the Camps of the Dead, where the lineages are angry with such women and refuse them places at their fires. I should have thought of this before I took off my clothes in the birch grove. It was too late to be thinking now. Still, my thoughts wouldn’t stop.

But could no one get away with such a misdeed? Many people hid many things; perhaps this too could be hidden. After all, Sali had told her husband about her kinsman-lover. She had shouted out her kinsman’s name in vengeance. And when Yoi had let Elho call her “wife,” Father had overheard, and caught her. I, on the other hand, hadn’t yet told anyone. Perhaps I could hide what others could not. If Mother were living, she would advise me to hide the truth, to lie, as she had advised Yoi.

Why do we look at the night sky when we have questions? In my mind Timu spoke to me. If you’re not asleep, your eyes are open. There’s nothing to see except the sky, he said.

But you don’t ask questions you can’t answer, I reminded him. The sky is big, and we don’t really know what stars are. All we learn about them is from stories—no one has ever gone up to look. My questions seem small when I see so much darkness.

What are your questions, Wife? asked Timu.

Even in my daydream I couldn’t tell him, of course. Rather I tried to stop thinking about him. I had lost the right to think of him this way. Instead in my mind I heard Teal speaking. Where will you go next, you who learn nothing from the experience of others? What will you do? You who like handsome men, go find one now to hunt for you next winter. Will you live in Otter’s lodge? Where is it? Who are his people? I hope they like rude women or they won’t like you, Woman-with-No-Husband.

I’ll find another husband, I said. I’ve just come here. I don’t know the people yet. I’ll make my way.

Our lineage will marry you to the man who best suits the people here, said Teal in my mind. Your marriage could be very helpful to them. I hope they’re helpful to you.

Perhaps I’m not pregnant, I imagined myself saying. What does Yoi know?

Perhaps you’re not. Perhaps Yoi isn’t jealous of every sign of pregnancy. You who are always daydreaming, perhaps you just imagined what happened in the birch grove.

Yoi found a husband, I said.

He’s old, though, even for her, said Teal’s voice in my mind.

I woke from this daydream when I heard Otter coming home. He unrolled a deerskin blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders, then fed the fire as if he meant to sit up for a while. When he noticed me looking at him, he smiled and took two fish out of his hunting bag, holding them up and pointing—one for him and one for me. I got up then and sat with him at the fire while the fish cooked. He asked me about our journey here and what game we had seen. He seemed so kind, so interested, that I found myself telling him about the tiger, and how we had seen the same tiger before, and how we had tried to find the camp here at the Fire River years before. But he knew that—he had heard it first from Yoi. Even so, he listened politely and again told me I was welcome as long as I wanted to visit.

Would he feed me in winter, even if I didn’t belong to his people, even if I brought no useful tie to a good lodge or a summerground? He seemed to be offering just that, and I was about to ask about his lodge when Yoi woke. Otter told her the fish were ready to eat, and she joined him at the fire.

In the nicest way, Otter gave her a fish on the point of his knife, and gave the other fish to me. I tried to refuse it, but he said he wasn’t hungry—he only cooked fish to pass time. I was very hungry, and the fish smelled good; I tried to refuse it once more, but when Otter still wouldn’t take it back, I ate it. Yoi’s, of course, was gone.

Yoi now wanted to know what our plans were, and if it was true that I was really divorced. When I said I was, she was angry. Now she had no place in Graylag’s lodge. She might need that place, she said. Who knew what winters The Bear might send her? Who knew when she might starve? Also, she supposed she now would have to return her share of my marriage exchange, with nothing to take its place, since I had no husband. I should cancel my divorce, she said, and solve these problems.

I reminded Yoi that since I had damaged Graylag’s ties with the mammoth hunters, I might not be welcome if I went back.

“Not even if you’re pregnant?” she asked. “Isn’t a child always welcome?” When I didn’t answer, she looked at me strangely.

Later she told me that a widower was here from a lodge on Woman Lake where people killed big fish even in winter. If I wouldn’t cancel my divorce, I should marry him. Of course, she said, he wouldn’t be able to get a child on me for a few years if my child lived. But in the morning she would speak to Eider about the widower and me.

Had Yoi been to his lodge? I asked. No, but people spoke well of it, she said. The people there killed reindeer too, and kept a big pile of all the antlers from all the reindeer next to the lodge. Yoi understood that this pile was something to see. I remembered the pile of sticks like a pile of antlers made by the children at the riverbank. Were these the children of the widower’s lodge? I asked. Yoi shrugged. “Perhaps they were,” she said. “I didn’t notice. Tomorrow I’ll bring you to the people of this widower, if Eider agrees. You can stay with them. We can talk about the gifts they could offer for you.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked. I wasn’t ready to begin a marriage tomorrow.

“Is something wrong with it?”

“Your niece is here to visit, Wife,” said Otter. “Perhaps she doesn’t want to marry yet.”

“No? Then what will she do in winter? Your brother’s lodge is crowded and the hunting is poor. Will she stay with you?”

“She may if she likes,” said Otter. “She and her sister too.”

“Where do my cousins live?” I asked Yoi, thinking of The Stick and The Frog.

“With their wives’ people. Kamas’s wife is from a lodge on the Fire River where it leaves Woman Lake, and Henno’s wife is from a lodge on the far side of Woman Lake. They’re crowded, though. They might take Meri, but they can’t take you.” Yoi changed the subject. “You haven’t seen the lake yet. It’s very big. No one has ever walked around it.”

Otter laughed. “Of course people have walked around it, Wife. No lake is too big for that.” He became serious. “It is big, though,” he added. “It takes a whole morning just to walk across the ice in winter.” As I began to see how things might be for me, I felt frightened. I didn’t want to talk about the size of Woman Lake or the lodges on it. Perhaps I showed this, as Otter changed the subject. “What of the two men with you?” he asked. “Elho, is it? White Fox?”

White Fox a man? I wouldn’t have put it that way, but, “Yes, Uncle,” I said. “White Fox came to ask our lineage for Meri.”

“What of the other man? Is his name Elho?”

What about him? For just a moment I tried hard to think of something to say about Elho. When the silence became worrisome, I hurried. “White Fox was once betrothed to Meri,” I stumbled on, as if Elho had not been mentioned. “She then was promised to a man from the mammoth hunters . . .”

But I never finished my speech, because Yoi was staring at me as if a thought had suddenly struck her. “Elho is our kinsman, here for a visit,” she answered for me. I glanced at her in dismay. She watched me with cold triumph, seeing something. I tried to smile to cover my confusion, but too late.

 

During the days that followed I learned much about pregnancy from other pregnant women, of whom there were quite a few, all glad to talk about it. I saw how, when I was a child in Graylag’s lodge, the grown women might have talked about these matters with each other. I also saw that, like the women of our lodge, none of the women here said anything to children. If a child, even Meri, came around to listen, the women changed the subject. It seemed enough that children knew who they might or might not marry. In fact the other women seemed to have learned about pregnancy as I was learning, from finding their trousers getting tighter every day as their children grew large below.

Although I always carefully spoke of Timu as the father, Yoi took a deep interest in our trip from Graylag’s lodge. She now wanted to know exactly when we had left. Had Timu come partway with us? What moon was in the sky? Was there snow? A lot or a little? Were the rivers open or under ice? What foods had we eaten? Did we find fern fronds by the Char River? Were the winterberries red or black? Did the four of us come all the way together? Did we meet other people?

Since I guessed that she was trying to find out if I had been with Timu when I became pregnant, I lied or answered vaguely, so Yoi got nothing out of me. Sometimes I overheard her questioning White Fox, and I even heard her questioning Meri. But she couldn’t question White Fox very closely—she wasn’t his aunt—and Meri was afraid of Yoi, so Meri wouldn’t answer. Yoi even tried questioning Elho in a whispering, girlish voice, as if to remind him of their own past. But Elho surely had secrets with several women. No old misdeeds would loosen Elho’s tongue, especially since admitting to more would add to his trouble. He may not have been a wise or careful person, but he wasn’t so careless as to chatter to Yoi. Yoi came away from her talks with Elho looking annoyed and disappointed.

I spent the days sleeping or digging roots and talking with the other women, but I spent the nights awake, wondering what to do. One night I was sitting alone by Yoi’s fire when Yoi got out of bed to sit beside me. She tried again to pry from me any adventures I might have had on the way to the Fire River, but as usual I didn’t answer. At last she asked me outright how long ago I had left Timu and who the baby’s father was. I stared at her as if I was shocked. “You can tell me,” she urged. “You have no mother, no one to talk to. But you need someone to talk to. I’m your aunt. Whom can you tell, if not me?”

“There’s nothing to tell, Aunt,” I said innocently. “I’m going to have a baby—nothing more.”

“Then why don’t you go back to your husband?”

“The people don’t want me, Aunt. As I told you, I broke our ties to Graylag’s people.”

“You could go back,” she said. “If the baby is your husband’s, they would welcome you.” I said nothing. “Of course, if it isn’t your husband’s, you should stay far away,” she went on. “Have you menstruated since you left Timu?”

“I’ve only menstruated once in my life, Aunt. That was long ago on the Antler River, when Meri and I were finding our way back from the Pine River where you saw us last. I bled from the cuts of The Woman Ohun instead of menstruating.”

If I thought that speaking of her leaving Father would stop her questions, I was wrong. “You know,” she said, “you never answer me. What are you hiding? At first I never doubted that Timu was your baby’s father. But then I saw that you were hiding something—the real father. He must be White Fox.”

“Aunt!” I said. “He wasn’t White Fox. White Fox is a child.”

Very slowly Aunt Yoi smiled. “Perhaps not a child, but still a youngster,” she said. “Of course the man isn’t White Fox. The man is our kinsman. Who else? He’s Elho, Child of Teal—Teal, Child of Sali. Well, Yanan. We’re all in one lineage—Sali, Elho, you, and me!”

I faced her squarely. “Just because you did wrong doesn’t mean I did the same,” I said. “I’ve done nothing, and Timu is the father. And I’m tired now. I’m going to sleep. Pregnancy makes women tired. Have you heard that?” Yoi gave me a long look that said, I haven’t finished with you. But I was spreading out my deerskin for the night.

 

When I was alone, I again seemed to hear Teal speaking in my mind. You’re going wrong, she said. Your aunt sees your secret. Or else she’s suspicious. Why does she want this knowledge?

People are always curious, always prying, I answered.

There’s more, said Teal. Your aunt is jealous. She was jealous of your mother, she’s jealous of pregnancy, and she’s jealous of you. What will she do with what she thinks she’s seen?

I don’t know. I’m afraid of her.

You should be afraid of her. There’s good in this for her. Look there for the beginning of trouble. What if she told someone?

That would be bad, I said.

Would you do what she asked to stop her tongue?

I would, of course. I knew it. In my mind I heard more of Teal’s questions. Would you marry someone she chose, and live where she chose, letting her use you and your child, stained and without people except its own kin? She could use you and the child too, for anything, forever. Think how things are with your Aunt Yoi, living in winter where the hunting is poor and the people many, she with no children to tie her to them, and now with no tie to Graylag either. What might become of her? She’s still young, still beautiful, but even now she can see herself as an old woman—alone, without children, left to die in the snow.

Otter is kind. He’s good to her.

Otter is old, Yanan. And the lodge belongs to his brother. Did you think to ask if this brother has sons with their own families? When Otter is dead, will they want your aunt living with them if she bears no children to tie her to them? You’re giving Yoi great strength, if she can use it. She could have you disgraced and your child put out for the foxes. She needs this strength, and she thinks she sees a way to use it. She’s dangerous.

She has suspicions, no proof, I said bravely.

See that she doesn’t get proof, said Teal. Watch yourself and watch your tongue.

 

Two days later Meri and I were digging sedge root in the long grass on the riverbank. Hearing the grass rustle, we looked up to see, against the sky and the grasstops, the faces of White Fox and Elho. Still he follows me, I thought angrily. I was even angrier when I saw that he and White Fox were carrying out some kind of plan. Without a word to me, White Fox asked Meri to follow the river downstream with him, leaving Elho and me alone. Elho then sat on his heels in the deep grass, facing me across the hole I was digging.

“What will people say when they see us here together?” I asked.

“Haven’t you the sense to let me be? And what have you said to White Fox, that he helps you?”

“Do you think I’m here to have coitus with you, Kinswoman?” he asked. “People say you’re pregnant. I’ve come to hear if it’s true.”

“Are you my mother to ask me?”

“Answer, Yanan.”

“Why, if it doesn’t concern you?”

“Because Yoi is talking of your marriage to a widower.”

“Yes?” I kept digging.

“His betrothal gifts won’t be many, if he has to wait for years to get a child from you.”

Seeing Elho’s reasoning, I rested my digging stick. “Your share won’t be large,” I agreed.

“I need gifts to give for Ankhi. Now you say you’re pregnant, so what do you expect my share to be in your next marriage? You leave trouble behind you, Yanan. Have you ever thought of other people before making plans?”

“If I’m pregnant, do you think I can stop it?”

Elho brushed the dirt off a root and bit into it. “You make me tired, Yanan,” he said, chewing. “You make people angry.” He swallowed. “First you spoil Meri’s betrothal, so we get no ivory. Next you divorce Timu, so we must return the gifts we got for you. And then you tell people you’re pregnant, so we get very little in your next marriage exchange. How must we feel about that?”

I shrugged, and began to dig another root.

Elho caught the top of my digging stick. “I want something from you, Yanan,” he said. “Since you made trouble, you must undo it.”

“We’re both angry,” I said. “You want me to remarry just for presents. You even dare ask if I’m pregnant, because of your greed!”

“Women don’t understand the betrothal exchange,” he said stiffly.

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. That’s why you’re here, digging roots like a woman and speaking rudely although you’ve come to beg.”

“I told Yoi and Eider I’d persuade you to let Swift have Meri. That’s why I’m here. Your aunt will help with my marriage exchange if you listen to reason. I’m doing what I must do.”

Suddenly a thought struck me, so that I stared straight at Elho without seeing him. Why indeed was he here? If Yoi and Eider wanted something of me, why didn’t they ask me themselves? Did they think I had special feelings for Elho, so he could persuade me when they could not? Or was Yoi setting a snare for us, a snare carefully hidden and baited with something neither of us so far had seen?

She was! I saw it! Suddenly I began to laugh. “Who told White Fox to take Meri away from here, Kinsman?”

Elho looked puzzled. “Your aunt did. She thought I could persuade you better if I spoke with you alone. Anyway, we’re talking about Meri. We don’t want her to hear.”

“You’re greedy, Kinsman,” I said. “And you’re simple. My aunt is greedy too, but she’s not simple. She sent you here with the promise of presents. She got rid of White Fox and Meri through you. You and I are alone here for as long as we like. We could have coitus again, as Aunt Yoi hopes we will. Stand up and walk away. Someone else is coming.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do it, Kinsman! Don’t stay here by me. Get up and go!”

“Do you think you can command me?” asked Elho angrily, making no move to do as I said, and as we sat glaring at each other, the grass rustled again and Cousin The Frog stood over us. Looking somewhat surprised, perhaps to see us clothed and sitting above a pile of sedge roots, not naked and embracing, he didn’t even meet our eyes but seemed to be glancing over the ground as a man will if he comes upon another man alone in the bush with a woman. If we had already done what he came too late to see, the trampled grass would tell the story.

Elho looked embarrassed, as if The Frog had caught us in some wrongdoing, but I smiled. “Cousin! You’ve come. Perhaps my aunt told you where we were,” I said. He grunted with surprise. Perhaps she had! “White Fox and Meri are just there,” I went on, pointing with my lips down the river, “and now I’m going to them.” I stood up and stretched, then bent and picked up the sedge roots, handing them to Elho. “Take these to my aunt. They’re hers—she told me where to find them. I’ll get Meri.” And I went, leaving Elho and Cousin The Frog ashamed and unable to look at each other.

Perhaps I’m doing better, I said to myself as I followed White Fox and Meri home. At least I feel better. Now for Yoi.

 

I saw what to do about Yoi. I had a plan that would help her a little. But more important, the plan would help me. Yoi didn’t know it, but she would get me back to Timu with all Graylag’s people welcoming and praising me. I could right all the wrongs and live in honor—well, for a while, if no one ever found out about Elho.

But no one had yet found out about Elho, although Yoi tried to use Elho’s greed for presents and women to get proof for her suspicions. But she failed, and instead showed me how useful she herself could be.

My plan made me happy, cheerful, and loving, not just to Meri but to everybody, so that when Yoi brought the widower and some people from his lodge to visit me, these people told Yoi that I was good. They said I had a cheerful nature and would be good company in winter. They would gladly have me, and if years passed before I had a baby by the widower, well, so it would have to be.

I thanked them for their kindness, and with my head bent modestly I promised to speak to my lineage about my betrothal exchange. Yoi seemed a bit surprised—perhaps she didn’t think I would agree so easily. Perhaps she was also disappointed. If she needed more time to persuade me, her share of the marriage exchange might have been larger. When the widower and his people were gone, I thanked Yoi for her help.

Eider came to sit at Yoi’s fire, seeming pleased with the news. Only Otter looked sorry. A little later he reminded me that I needn’t marry in a hurry; I was welcome to stay with him as long as I liked. “Thank you, Uncle, but I’m content,” I said.

Meri looked worried. When we were alone she said, “What are you doing? Where are you going? I’m going with you, because I won’t stay here.”

“You’ll come with me. You won’t stay here. Don’t be afraid—everything will turn out well. Go find Elho. Ask him to meet me where we dug sedge roots when the moon rises tonight. Say it’s very important, and don’t tell anyone else—not anyone, not White Fox, not for any reason. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Meri, impressed.

“Good, because if you tell, I’ll have to marry the widower and go with him while you stay with Aunt, and we won’t see each other, not ever again.”

Meri stared at me with round eyes. “I won’t tell,” she said.

 

I went to bed early, while the sky in the west was still red after the sunset. “My pregnancy makes me tired,” I explained in a satisfied voice to Yoi when she looked at me as if she had a question. When the sky in the east became pale yellow-pink before the moonrise, people had forgotten about me. Leaving my deerskin in a pile as if someone were sleeping underneath it, I crept to the edge of the camp and took the trail to the river, where I sat down in the long grass.

Upstream, bison were wallowing. I listened to them splash and snort. Glad of the sound, since some of the bison would keep watch for lions and hyenas, I saw how The Woman must be helping me. Soon I heard the grass rustle, and raising my chin to look over the top of it, I saw against the rising moon the outline of Elho. He would never have found me if I hadn’t stood up.

“You’re here,” I said as softly as I could.

Even so, he started nervously. “Yanan? What’s this? Meri said I must meet you here.”

“Get down in the grass,” I whispered. “I have a plan and I need your help.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going back to Graylag, with a wife for Swift. He wants a woman from my lineage, so we’ll bring him one. The bridal exchange should be something to see, since she’s full-grown and beautiful.”

“Who is this woman?”

“Aunt Yoi. Who else?”

“Your aunt? But she’s married.”

“To an old man from a poor lodge. She left my father because she was afraid of spirits. Think how fast she’ll leave Otter because she’s greedy for ivory.”

Elho thought for a while. “How will you do this?”

“Not I. We! We will do it, and White Fox will help us when he sees how he gets Meri out of it.”

“And what am I to do? Do you want me to try to persuade your aunt?”

“Leave her to me. You must describe the Hair River. Tell our kinswomen about the meat and ivory there. Tell them about the presents in your marriage exchange. Be sure the people see what they get if Yoi marries Swift.”

“It’s good, Yanan. The people here like ivory.” Elho smiled, then frowned. “What about Otter?” he asked.

“Don’t tell Otter.”

“He’s a very mild man.”

“He’s mild, it’s true.”

“Is it right to take his wife from him?”

“Did something stop you from taking Father’s wife or Timu’s wife? They were mild too.”

“They must be mild, since their women came to me so willingly. Does it never worry the women of our lineage to harm a good man?”

“How am I hurting Otter? Yoi won’t share his bed. He’s good, but she’s not.” Elho made me think, though, and I found that I was worried. Otter was so kind to me that it hurt to work against him. I tried to think of a way to soften our deeds, but unhappily, no idea came. “Well, I’m sorry,” I said at last. “But after all, he’ll be hurt by Yoi, not by us. No doubt she’ll pay for it. Swift is so fierce that he’ll certainly beat her, and then she’ll be sorry she left so kind a man.” For just a moment I saw in my mind a very satisfying image: Swift with bite marks up and down his arms, and Yoi striped with welts from a stick.

“Swift might beat your aunt,” Elho agreed thoughtfully. “She can be very annoying. Well—let’s do it.”

“Good. Start tomorrow. I want to see my husband.”

“What about the baby?”

“What about it? Doesn’t Timu want children?”

In the moonlight we heard the bison leaving the river, water pouring from their sides. Elho watched me as we listened, then said in a soft, strange voice, “Isn’t it mine?”

I saw that the time had come to talk with Elho of my pregnancy. “Look at it this way, Kinsman,” I began. “Perhaps the baby is yours. I thought so too, at first. If it is, Timu may kill it, Ankhi may divorce you, and both of us will be in disgrace for the rest of our lives. Perhaps Graylag won’t let us live with him anymore, even if Teal is your mother. If he doesn’t, we will wander where we can, looking for someone else to take us in.

“But if the baby is Timu’s, my divorce will be canceled and I will still be Timu’s first wife, full of honor, by the wish of the old people. There will be a place forever in the lodge for me and you and Meri and Ankhi, and you will have a niece or a nephew to grow up with your daughter. Now I seem to remember feeling life in my belly even before we left for the Char River. That makes me think this baby is Timu’s.”

“I see,” said Elho.

“Good. We agree. We can go.”

“Not yet,” he said. His voice was soft, and his eyes were on the neck of my shirt, fastened by the ivory pin his fingers now were gently twisting. He pulled slowly, and the shirt opened. I looked down at my breasts in the moonlight and watched my nipples take form. I couldn’t help it—as Elho wanted me, I also wanted him.

Wasn’t the harm already done? Couldn’t I now give myself to him because of happiness, after throwing myself at him because of misery and anger? But no. I took the pin away from him and closed my shirt. “Do you want to scare this child of mine with coitus?” I asked, standing up. He stood too, but caught my arm. “Haven’t you heard of the stranger in the coldtrap?” I whispered, pulling my arm free. Then I walked off in the dark, quickly and quietly among the huge black shapes of the grazing bison. If this baby met a penis, it would meet only Timu’s. So it must be.

 

The next day Elho and White Fox did their work well. By evening, when I told Yoi that Meri was betrothed to Swift only because Swift insisted on having a woman of our lineage, Yoi was more than ready to be that woman. She faced me eagerly, with shining eyes. “Why was a child like Meri offered in the first place?” she asked. “Why didn’t someone come straight to me, a young widow?”

“Aunt! People thought you were married to Father. Then, no one knew where you were. Now only Meri stands in the way, because the mammoth hunters don’t know of your willingness and are still hoping for her. Remember, her betrothal to White Fox was broken.”

“By whose word was that betrothal broken? No one asked me! I helped your parents choose White Fox as Meri’s husband, and White Fox that husband shall be! I’ll go to the Hair River and fix all this.”

Out of the dark Eider came to join us. When Yoi told Eider about her betrothed (as she already called Swift), Eider seemed delighted. She began to talk of ivory, and soon she and Yoi were naming all the people who should give and receive gifts.

But suddenly Eider remembered what the mammoth hunters looked like. In the middle of talking about a necklace, she caught herself. “Think what you’re doing, Yoi,” she began breathlessly. “I’ve seen some of them. They have hair like yellow caterpillars and white skin like plucked birds. Just like the animals. It’s as if they wanted us to eat them. How do we even know that they’re people, since they don’t look like people?”

I hated to hear this—Eider could ruin all my plans. I was always very careful in describing the mammoth hunters, and now Eider was blurting everything. Yet what could I say? She spoke the truth—they really didn’t look like people. But, “They’re not so bad as that, Aunt,” I said, “and not all of them look so much like animals. Elho married one of them. And my co-wife, Ethis, looks almost like you. She’s just as pretty. And it’s not their fault. They’re not dirty, just ugly. Some of them can be nice . . .” My voice trailed off. Then I remembered myself. I must do better, I thought, and went on in a stronger tone. “Even the ugly ones are not so ugly after you get to know them. It isn’t their looks, anyway. It’s their hunting. You get used to their looks.”

I drew a deep breath of relief when Yoi agreed. “Looks aren’t important,” she said.

“There’s something else,” said Eider, “something else I don’t understand. Why did Lapwing’s Daughter change her mind so suddenly, and what will we tell the widower who now wants to marry her?”

“What does it matter?” said Yoi. “Tell him what you like.”

But I felt I owed Eider an explanation. “When I divorced, I didn’t know I was pregnant,” I said. “But as I was leaving, I noticed the signs. I then decided just to visit here, not to stay. My aunt didn’t understand this when she spoke of another husband for me. Perhaps I hadn’t told her of my pregnancy, since I felt shy to speak of it. But now I’ll go back to my husband. Everyone must keep the gifts of my marriage exchange.”

Yoi looked at me very doubtfully. “You learned of your pregnancy when you were leaving?” she asked. “By what signs?”

After all I was doing for her, she still wanted to unbalance me. But she couldn’t anymore, not after all I had learned from other pregnant women. “Why, my belly grew round,” I said. “My breasts grew large, my nipples turned dark, and I saw a line below my navel, right down the front of me. And I felt life there. We who are pregnant, we know right away.”

Yoi was silenced. Sulkily she waited for Otter to come back from his visiting, and when he sat on his heels beside her to offer her a piece of fish as usual, she told him she was divorcing him. “Your people were too stingy to give many presents, so not much will have to be exchanged,” she said.

I was watching Otter closely but couldn’t tell from his face what his thoughts were. “If you wish, Wife,” was all he said.

In the morning we started for the Hair.