AFTER THE GRASS MOON came the Moon of Dust. Almost every afternoon a steady, cold wind blew out of the west, drying the grass, lifting the dust to the sky. Dust got between our teeth and filled the corners of our eyes; it fell to the surface of the slow-moving river and rose to make a thin cloud all around the horizon, so that the sun and moon when they rose and set were wobbly and red.
Father became quietly angry after learning that Pinesinger might have come to him pregnant. Sometimes at night I would hear him whispering with her in their sleeping place in the back of the cave. His voice was always low, but hers was not—often I heard her tearfully swear that the child was his. His silence seemed to show that he did not believe her.
His mood, of course, affected the rest of us. His brothers became quiet too. When the headman of the cave and all his brothers grow sullen, the other men cannot very well keep up their usual joking, and so began a time of long silences, of keeping our thoughts to ourselves.
In those days Father was especially kind to me. I thought this was because of the closeness that seemed to have grown between us. But Andriki, who also noticed, thought differently. At last he told me that although my mother had her faults—her temper, her rudeness, her bad-mannered way of doing surprising, sudden things—no man had ever made love to her easily. Even Father had had trouble persuading her to lie with him. One night when he had tried to take her with mild force she had made such an outcry that she woke everybody, which had badly shamed Father. That night had helped to cause their divorce. "Maybe he's sorry now," said Andriki. "Maybe your mother wasn't such a bad wife after all. At least your father knew you were his son and not some other man's—not from Aal! Being sure makes him content, so he's nice to you."
Andriki's words gave me a strange feeling. Was that all I meant to Father? That I was born to a woman who held much against men?
One afternoon we stayed long after sunset in the men's lookout, perhaps so that we didn't have to go into the cave with the women. In the dim evening light a fox came trotting down our trail, not even thinking of danger. I threw a stone, hit the fox on the head, and killed him.
"What aim!" cried Father. "How did you learn to do that?"
I had learned to aim as everyone learned—in my childhood, throwing stones at birds. Father knew; he just wanted to praise me. But his question reminded me of Mother, and of the time before my guilt began, and although the praise in his question would once have made me proud, now it almost made me angry. I didn't answer.
So Father grew sour even with me. Every day we sat in silence in the lookout under the gray sky while the women went gathering or worked hides in the cave. Feeling the trouble, they too were quiet. If they spoke to each other of Pinesinger's child, they didn't tell the men what was said, and we didn't ask.
One day Andriki stood up in the lookout and faced the rest of us. "Why are we sitting here helplessly?" he asked. "Are we women, to be satisfied with carrion when out on the plain is fresh meat?"
So at last we went hunting, or some of us did—we who owned the hunting lands around the Hair. Father and Andriki got the group together, asking only their brothers, Kida and Maral, Maral's half-grown son, Ako, and me. The four other men who lived with Father at that time—White Fox (who was Kida's wife's brother), Raven (who was White Fox's father), Timu (who was Raven's cousin and the husband of Ethis of Father's lineage), and Marten (who was Maral's brother-in-law, Frogga's uncle, a man I didn't much like but was forced to respect)—might have liked to come with us, but they weren't wanted.
Each of us took several spears. Father by then had helped me shape the flint he had given me, so I had two spears. Besides our spears, we took only knives and firesticks. Maral's wives brought berries for him to carry with us, but he refused them. I could see from the mood of the hunters that our next meal would be meat or nothing at all.
So we left, following Father in single file as he strode west over the rolling grassland by the Hair. We crossed a wide plain of tough yellow grass and another of soft red grass, and then a huge burned stretch where soot blackened our moccasins. The fire had passed recently—the stumps of the juniper bushes were still smoldering. On the far side of that place, follows-fire grass was growing. Here a fire had burned long ago. With the old tough grass gone, tender green grass had sprung up, and the grazing animals knew it. We found the fresh dung of bison and horses, and to the southwest, on grass too short for us to cross without being noticed, we saw a herd of bison lying down.
I could see from the way Father looked around for the wind that he was thinking of stalking these bison. Andriki made the hunter's handsign for cow bison, and Maral made the handsign for circle. Then the four men spread out and walked west in an easy, strolling way that would take them at an angle near the bison but not straight to them. I didn't know this kind of hunting, but that didn't matter—it was enough that the four men knew one another's minds. Ako and I followed them.
The bison noticed us, of course. Some stood up. But we walked so calmly, so casually, our spears held very low, that we soothed the watching bison, who bent their heads to graze. The yellow wagtails, who hunt the insects stirred up by the sharp hooves, went on hunting insects. Except for our regular strides and our steady, plodding travel, everything stayed the same until, very slowly, Father and Maral moved up beside Andriki and Kida. To the watching bison, each pair of men must have looked like one person. For a little while the two pairs walked in step. Then quickly and carefully Father and Maral dropped down on their bellies on the short grass. Without breaking stride, the rest of us kept walking.
On we went, leaving Father and Maral behind. Andriki led us around the bison in a wide half-circle that never brought us near them but never took us far away. To keep us in view, the standing bison turned as we went by. This watchfulness of theirs is what makes stalking them so difficult.
After we had walked a while, we heard a great burst of noise from the bison—snorts, grunts, and bellows and the thundering feet of a full stampede. Off went the herd, almost hidden in its own dust, right out from under the wagtails, who screamed in flight. For a moment I was afraid that the bison meant to run toward us. If they did, they would trample us into paste. But they ran away to the north, and left behind themselves in the slowly clearing dust the figures of Father and Maral standing over the huge brown corpse of a young cow bison who lay, stuck with spears, on her side.
By the time we reached Father and Maral, they had gathered grass and bison dung to make a fire and had cut open the skin on the cow bison's thighs. The rest of us took our knives to the front legs and belly. By sunset we had loosened the skin and rocked the great, stiff corpse free of it. By dusk the shine had dried from the meat and we were scraping dried blood from our hands and sleeves.
A stiff east wind rose, but there was no shelter out on the plain. We gathered more bison dung and heather for our fire, then sat around it in the open near the carcass, letting the wind slap at us and whirl the stink of raw meat and rumen in every direction. At dark we heard lions, but they didn't worry us—we were six men with fourteen spears. We would worry the lions, if they came.
Then Father and his brothers did something I hadn't seen before—they chopped the upper front leg and ribs from the body, and as the opened chest filled with black, clotting blood, they dipped it out and drank it from their cupped hands. "Hona!" said each man after drinking. When my turn came, a rush of strength and heat from the fresh blood filled my body. No one needed to tell me that this was a man's thing, taught by the Bear. "Hona!" I said, hoarse from the rough, hot feeling. After each of us had drunk, we cut out the liver and set it to cook. As we did, the moon rose into the smoke on the horizon—a full moon, the Dust Moon, blood red.
Then we sat on our heels around the fire, my father, my uncles, my brother-in-law Ako, and me. The four men watched the meat. I watched the four men. They looked like each other, our fathers and uncles. As the wind blew smoke and their own loosening hair into their eyes, they squinted, and I saw that their eyelids, their foreheads, and the lines creasing their foreheads were the same. In their flapping shirts, the men kept their arms quietly folded, their elbows on their knees. And I noticed that a good feeling seemed to have grown among them. I saw ease in the way their shoulders touched; I felt comfort in the slow way they moved. At last the four brothers began to talk about Pinesinger. Then I saw that to have that talk was the reason we were there.
***
"You don't like to feel doubt, it's true," said Andriki. "But what can you do? Divorce her? After all, Pinesinger is young and strong. If she's carrying a child that isn't yours, she'll have yours later."
"And before you divorce her," said Kida, "remember how hard you tried to get a woman of her lineage. Remember your betrothal to Meri."
Meri? A girl named Meri lived in Father's cave. She was married to White Fox, Kida's wife's brother. "What Meri?" I asked.
"The Meri married to White Fox," Andriki answered. "What other?"
I knew of no other. Still, the news surprised me. White Fox's Meri was still young. She must have been a baby, almost like Frogga, when she was betrothed to Father. I saw how badly Father must have wanted someone of her lineage, if he, a grown man with children of his own, a headman, had been willing to wait for a baby.
"Ever since Meri," Maral said to Father, "you've had trouble with those women. Her sister spoiled your betrothal to Meri—her sister, Yanan! And then? Yanan talked you into marriage with her mother's sister, Yoi. So thanks to women of this lineage you have a wife who has always been childless. Yanan surely knew her aunt couldn't have children. Her own aunt? Of course she knew."
Now Andriki took another turn at Father. "But you wouldn't learn from your mistakes," he said. "When you couldn't get Yoi pregnant, you tried to marry Yanan. You were going to divorce Yoi."
"I would have had to," said Father. "Could I marry an aunt and a niece at the same time?"
"No. That you thought to marry an aunt and a niece even at different times shows how badly you wanted one of those women," said Maral. "And you wanted Yanan even though she was married, pregnant, and telling everyone she hated you."
"She didn't want me, it's true," said Father.
"So it's a good thing you didn't divorce Yoi," said Andriki.
"I suppose," said Father.
"You suppose?" cried Andriki. "Think what would have happened! You would have divorced Yoi and married Yanan. But Yanan died. If she had been married to you when she died, do you think her lineage would then have given you Pinesinger?" To me he said, "These days, Pinesinger's people don't want to give us women. They say we divorce them or kill them. Those people would have refused to give us Pinesinger if Bala hadn't helped us. Without Bala we would have come home with no one but you." To Father he said, "Be thankful that Bala doesn't listen to the others. It was he who found Pinesinger."
"A good man, Bala," said Kida thoughtfully. "Always a good friend."
"Do you still want a woman from the lineage?" asked Maral.
"Yes," said Father.
"Then keep Pinesinger," said Maral. "Her lineage has six women, and no others. The first," he said, showing his thumb to Father, "is Pinesinger's mother—married and past childbearing. The second woman"—he held up his forefinger—"is Yoi. Yoi is childless. The third woman is Yanan. Yanan is dead. The fourth woman is Meri. Meri is married to one of our own people. Not one of us here could agree to your trying to take Meri away from one of our own men. The fifth woman"—Maral now showed Father his little finger—"is Pinesinger. So you see? You have what you want. You're married to the only woman possible—Pinesinger!"
Eider, Yoi, Yanan, Meri, and Pinesinger made five. "Who is the sixth?" I whispered to Maral.
"Teal," he answered. At the mention of her name, the four grown men laughed, their bearded faces wrinkling pleasantly.
"Who is Teal?" I asked, puzzled by the laughter.
"Watch out for Teal," said Andriki.
"She's an old woman," said Maral, "one of the wives of the headman of the Char River people. She left the Fire River before you were born."
"Teal is a shaman," said Father quietly. "Her mother was Sali Shaman. Now do you know her?"
Ah! Who had not heard of Sali and the wonderful things she had done? She had brought the Woman Ohun to some of our people when they were camping by the Fire River. Before everyone's eyes, the Woman had given birth to a baby who got up and walked away, then to a bear who got up and walked away, and last to a reindeer who got up and walked away. The Woman then had vanished in a whirlwind. Ever since my childhood I had heard this story. I had also heard that Sali was killed by her husband and then became a tigress who in turn killed him. Ever since, whenever a certain tigress came to hunt on the banks of the Fire River, people feared that she was Sali, back again.
"Sali was very strong," said Father. "And her daughter, Teal, is strong too. The shaman's power of those women makes my own seem weak. Because of their power I want a wife from their lineage. I want the shaman-child I will get on that wife. That's why my heart has turned against Pinesinger, for the harm I think she did me."
"But how much harm has she really done?" asked Maral. "Suppose she is pregnant? Aren't all children welcome? After she gives birth to this child, she'll be ready for your shaman-child. Just be sure you get to her first."
We all laughed at Maral's words, even me.
"It doesn't help to brood," Andriki said later, after we had eaten the liver and were roasting strips of the bison's flank. The wind had died. The moon was high and had turned from blood red to bone white, licked clean by the hunters of the sky.
We had felt very bold about lions when the night began, but we were not so bold now. When we thought we heard a roar, we silenced Andriki so we could listen carefully. Perhaps we hadn't heard a roar. The plain was quiet.
"Here's how to look at this," Andriki began again. "Think back a few years. Do the things that worried you then worry you now? Of course not. This too will be forgotten. We offered Bala too many things in the marriage exchange. We'll tell him to expect less when we see him. That's how to look at this, Brother. Not with anger, especially since you can't do anything."
Again we listened to the night. We heard the wind around us and a nightjar very far away, one of the last of the year, but still no lion.
Then Maral spoke. "Andriki is right about the marriage exchange. Pinesinger's parents don't deserve a large share, since they left her so long unmarried. They were careless or ignorant. Compare how they managed their family with how we manage ours! We married your son to my daughter. When Frogga is ready for a man, Kori will be there waiting for her. But Pinesinger had no husband to watch over her. Only thoughtless people would expect men and boys to keep away from a willing girl of that age."
"The willingness of a woman has much to do with her pregnancies," said Father dryly. "You make it sound as if Pinesinger's pregnancy were her parents' fault."
"It was their fault," said Maral.
"It's womankind's fault," said Andriki. "Do you remember the story of the First Woman and her sleeping-skins? Shall I tell it?"
It is good to hear stories often, since there is much to be learned in them. "Yes, tell it," Maral said.
So Andriki told the story. According to him, the First Man, Weevil, gave a gift of sleeping-skins to the First Woman, Mekka. She was his wife, and the sleeping-skins were the same as ours today, winter reindeer hides sewn together with the soft fur inside and the tough hide outside. But Mekka wasn't grateful. She had fallen in love with another man, Wolverine, and when summer came she made Weevil go alone to his summer hunting grounds so that she could open her sleeping-skins to Wolverine.
When Weevil came home in the fall, he was hungry for his wife. He hurried into her sleeping-skins and coupled with her. Afterward he noticed that her belly was swollen. "What's this?" he asked. "Are you pregnant?"
Mekka pretended to be very modest and shy. She whispered, "Yes."
"When did you conceive this child?" asked Weevil.
"Just now, with you," she said.
They went to sleep, but during the night Weevil was wakened by the grunting voices of the reindeer sleeping-skins, right in his ear. "What was that?" he asked. "Are reindeer passing?"
"It was nothing," said Mekka.
Weevil went back to sleep, but soon woke again. This time he heard the sleeping-skins saying, "If she just became pregnant, it must be summertime."
"Let's get up," said Weevil. "I want to turn the bed inside out to find who is talking inside it." Mekka tried to stop him, but he took the sleeping-skins away from her, pulled them inside out, and found them covered with short brown hair. At his feet lay their long white winter hair. Thinking it was summer, the skins had shed.
"Now I see how you tricked me," shouted Weevil. Seizing his belt, he turned Mekka under his arm to punish her for faithlessness and lying, but she became a red cuckoo and flew away. Even today when you hear a she-cuckoo calling in the woods, you know it's Mekka, jeering at Weevil and at every woman's husband.
The story made us quiet. For a long time we thought our own thoughts while we watched the wind send the fire this way and that, as if an unseen foot were kicking it. At last Kida said, "Ah, the people long ago, and the things they did.... If Weevil hadn't left his wife alone in summer, Wolverine wouldn't have had the chance to make her pregnant. And wasn't Weevil a coward to want to beat her in revenge? I'd rather beat the man."
"Now you sound ignorant," said Andriki. "A man can't watch his wife all the time, any more than he can teach all men to keep away from her. He must teach his wife to keep away from other men."
"So should I have done with Pinesinger," said Father. "Only now it's too late."
"She was pregnant when you got her!" cried Andriki impatiently. "From that day it was too late!"