Breakaway: Clan of the Ice Mountains (15 page)

Sighing, Elder Nuanu looked off for a moment to the southeast. All eyes followed hers as she called quietly upon the trystas of safe travel, “Oh, keep the ice firm until we can pass over, spirits who can...”

Attu looked at his people. Elder Nuanu had done what all of his father’s persuasion hadn’t been able to do. She’d spoken out the fear that had been smoldering in the hearts of Attu’s clan for the last moon. This place was wrong. It was all wrong. They needed to leave, to travel toward the great land Elder Tovut had said awaited them, as fast as possible, before it was too late.

“What do you know of hunting, of the ways of the nuknuk?” Moolnik said, pulling himself up to his full height and leaning forward so that he towered over Elder Nuanu like an ice bear over its prey.

Oh no,
Attu thought.
Moolnik is going to be the “mighty leader of hunters” now. He didn’t hear a thing Elder Nuanu said, except that she tried to tell him about hunting.
That wasn’t done amongst the people. Women didn’t advise men on the hunt. Attu could see Moolnik was ready to upbraid her.

Beside him, Ubantu tensed. Attu knew his father hated it when his brother acted so arrogantly, as if he alone knew what was right and wrong to do.

W
hy does he just stand here?
Attu thought.
He does nothing to stop his brother. Again.

“When the hunter cannot see to catch the game, all go hungry,” Elder Nuanu replied. “I speak the truth. You’ll let us all die here. All you see is the game in front of you; you cannot see the danger lurking behind it. You cannot even see the danger when it breathes down your neck and you are too terrified to move.”

“How dare you-” Moolnik began, but Elder Nuanu slashed her hand down across her body, silencing Moolnik by her man’s gesture that meant be quiet, or I will silence you by cutting your throat.

The whole clan grew deathly still.

“I know what really happened with Taunu and Yupik. He told me as he lay bleeding on the furs of my shelter, the shelter you haven’t even entered since the attack.”

Several hunters popped their lips at this announcement. Their leader hadn’t even gone to the side of his injured hunter? That was unthinkable. A few men stepped back from Moolnik even further.

“You’re afraid to continue,” Elder Nuanu said. She glared up at Moolnik now, as Healer, and as the Elder who commanded respect by her mere presence, and all could see the warrior spirit growing within her even now, ready to be released to the Between.

She will be unstoppable,
Attu thought.

In a dangerously soft voice, almost crooning, Elder Nuanu said, “You know the words of my man are true, and you’re afraid to continue the necessary journey to the great land beyond the Expanse. You did nothing to protect us from the ice bears, just as you did not see the crack coming as we began our journey, and when you did, you chose not to come back for me, but ran to save your own life, instead.” Elder Nuanu glanced at Attu. “You forced a young hunter to do what our leader SHOULD have done but could not.”

Moolnik looked like he was going to speak again, but Elder Nuanu held up her hand, palm toward him.

Attu saw Moolnik cringe. He took a step backward.

“Swear, Moolnik,” Elder Nuanu commanded, her voice now so strong, Attu felt it in his very bones. “Swear on your spirit, on its journey to the heavens after you go Between, that you did not see me when the chasm opened; you did not hear Attu’s cry, and you did not know you were leaving me behind to die.”

Moolnik stood silent, a guilty child before the fierceness of this Elder, this woman of truth.

“This is your leader,” Elder Nuanu said, her voice raised for all to hear. “Obey him if you will. Stay here and die.”

She raised her hands toward the sky, and turned. “Or follow Attu, who leads with the wisdom of his father behind him, the bravery of one who saves the weak, and the courage of one who faces death, even death by an ice bear, and still he protects. He is a true Nuvik, sacrificing for his people. He has dreamed and it has come to pass. What more must you see to believe him, whom my man has proclaimed will be the one to save us, and who has already proven his worth to us in saving us all from the chasm? I have made my choice. I will follow Attu. Make yours. There is not much time. It may already be too late.”

Elder Nuanu turned and disappeared inside her shelter.

Moolnik threw himself out of the center of the group, his face flaming. “Dreams, sacrifice, how can you believe in such foolishness, such weakness?” He yelled toward Elder Nuanu’s tent as he lurched toward his own shelter, followed closely by Kinak. Suka hesitated, turning toward Attu, a look of utter despair etched into his face. He turned back, rushing after his father and brother to catch up with them.

Attu stood frozen to the spot.
It is as if Moolnik truly has a Moolnikuan spirit within him, tricking him, as if the spirit his father named him for is trying to take him over. How else could he not see what needs to be done to save us? And so many have been fooled by him. Is that Moolnik’s own cunning? Or an evil spirit within him?

The rest of the clan broke into noisy chatter, milling around Elder Nuanu’s shelter, talking amongst themselves.

“Time to organize,” Ubantu said quietly to Attu. “What do we do first?”

Attu couldn’t believe that after such a shocking display of anger and truth telling, so humiliating for Moolnik, that his father could calmly face what had transpired and begin planning.

“You have known these things about Moolnik for a long time, my son. Now the rest need a chance to consider what they’ve heard today. Our people know the truth when they hear it, and...” Attu’s father paused, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly, before he continued. “If it looks like a dead tooth fish and smells like a dead tooth fish...”

“...it must be a dead tooth fish,” Attu finished the old saying without pause.

Ubantu put his arm around Attu’s shoulders. For the first time since his injury, the added weight didn’t hurt Attu’s back.

“Moolnik put his pride before the hunt too many times, and the game scattered,” Attu’s father said. “He did it to hide the fear of being less than others. My father corrupted his spirit by not allowing him to travel his true path and saying that to be a dreamer, a shaman, was weakness and lies. The abuse he suffered at the hands of my father has ruined him. Only jealousy resides in his heart of cowardice now. There is no room within him for true leadership. I have known this must be true since you told me what happened with Elder Nuanu. Now, give the others some time to see it, too.”

Ubantu drew Attu off to the side. “And now we must watch my brother as if he were a wounded ice bear, for Elder Nuanu’s shaming him has made him dangerous to us all. She has dropped the stone upon his honor that will cause all the other stones to fall off his pile.”

Attu nodded. Moolnik wouldn’t let his public humiliation go without revenge. His father was right. Moolnik would never be the same after this day. Attu shivered at the thought.

Attu glanced at his father, and a look of understanding flowed between them.
I am not alone,
Attu realized.
The people are now on my side. Elder Nuanu has made it so.
He felt a sudden rush of affection for the wise old woman.

“What’s next, mighty leader of the Ice Mountain Clan?” Attu’s father said, dropping his arm from around Attu’s shoulders and standing in front of him to await Attu’s orders. Ubantu’s voice was a bit teasing, but Attu heard the pride in it as well.

“I’m not the leader of these people, Father, you are,” Attu said. “No matter what Elder Nuanu would like to think.”

Ubantu put his hand up to protest, but Attu continued. “I will lead with you, Father. We’ll lead together. We’ll be strong together for our clan.”

Ubantu smiled, a wide strong smile that filled Attu with warmth. “We need to pack for the journey my son,” he said, “and fast.”

“Like Elder Nuanu said,” Attu added, “we must pray it’s not already too late.”

T
he clan left two days later. The sky edged with the pink of dawn as each family readied to begin traveling again. Shelters came down. Men strapped on packs made heavy with large hide bundles of extra meat and fish. Women carried rock moss tied into packets with sinew and thrown across the top of their packs, and even small children carried pouches of the dried blue algae.

Those who were ready scouted the shoreline for a safe place to step out onto the Great Frozen. Attu went with them, anxious that no one fall into icy shallow water with the surface of the ice so thin near this southern edge of the shoreline. Eventually they chose a path out onto the ice from midway up the land where the ice was thicker.

It won’t be long before no one will be able to get off this land,
Attu thought as he looked at the precariously thin ice that now surrounded the entire southern end.

He walked back toward the camp, leaving three families at the shoreline waiting for his return with the rest. Attu wasn’t sure about Moolnik and his family, however. The hunter hadn’t spoken to anyone since Elder Nuanu had shamed him. Suka had been avoiding Attu as well. When Attu had left for his first trip to the shoreline, Moolnik’s shelter had still remained untouched, his camping area eerily quiet. Attu didn’t know what Moolnik had decided, but from what he could see, his uncle had made no move to get ready to leave.

How can we leave Suka, Kinak, his new woman Suanu, Shunut, and Tulnu behind?
But Attu knew they would stay with Moolnik if he refused to leave.

Rounding the low hills, Attu came back in sight of camp.

Moolnik stood stubbornly in front of his shelter, his silent presence menacing and bitter. The other hunters ignored him as they made their final preparations. None were willing to risk their lives or their families to another ice bear attack. Moolnik was alone now, only his shelter still standing.

Moolnik’s woman, Tulnu, came out of their shelter, and seeing that they were the only ones left, she cried out in a shrill keen like one might call out for the dead. Tulnu threw herself down in front of Moolnik and wailed, tearing at her hair and her parka, throwing the bits of hair and fur and bone she ripped off into the air, screaming and howling with a voice that sent shivers down Attu’s spine.

The rest of the clan watched in horror as Tulnu began scratching her face, and bloody lines appeared on her cheeks. Attu stood open-mouthed. He had never seen a woman crazy with grief like this. Tulnu began biting at herself, tearing bits of her parka fur off with her teeth and moaning, rocking back and forth, clutching her body like she was dying of a bad mussel spirit.

Moolnik stood for several more moments, stonily watching his woman in her agony, until suddenly, apparently unable to bear his wife’s fierce grieving over the loss of her clan, Moolnik shouted at her to be quiet and began taking down the hides on the outside of the structure.

Tulnu immediately fell silent. She rose up out of the pile of torn fur bits and parka ornaments that surrounded her and rushed inside the shelter, coming out a few moments later, pack on her back and holding little Shunut’s hand. Kinak and Suka came out next, packs at the ready, and began helping their father dismantle the shelter.

“Allow him to save some of his pride, my son,” Ubantu said, reaching down to pick up his own large pack. Attu realized he had been staring, and lowering his gaze, picked up the pack he had dropped in his amazement at the sight of Tulnu. He positioned it on his back for travel.

“We go,” Attu said and turning away from Moolnik’s half-dismantled shelter, walked away from it and toward the shoreline. The others followed.

Attu hated Moolnik, but he knew that leaving Moolnik and his family behind would have meant death for them all. A good leader kept his people together, no matter what. Attu couldn’t help but smile as he walked out on the ice, leading the group slowly so Moolnik and his family could catch up.

Tulnu had known Moolnik would come all along,
Attu realized as he continued to think about what he’d seen, and how Tulnu had readied everything except for taking down the shelter, in spite of Moolnik apparently insisting they were staying.

Attu shook his head at the wisdom of that woman, who knew how to get Moolnik to do what she needed him to do, pride or not. Later, Moolnik would say he’d had no choice but to come because Tulnu would’ve died of grief if he hadn’t, then haunted him from the Between. The whole clan had seen the wildness of her pain. No one would contradict him.

––––––––

E
lder Nuanu walked up beside Attu, both about a spear’s length from Ubantu. The ice seemed thicker here, just a short distance from the shoreline, almost as if it had been pushed together. They’d decided it was safe to remain closer for a while.

Attu was surprised at Elder Nuanu’s boldness, walking in front with the lead hunters. She began calling out to the spirits for safe travel on the ice, sprinkling small bits of a dark substance from her hand onto the Great Frozen behind them.

Attu didn’t understand the ways of this Elder, this embodiment of Shuantuan, the greatest trysta of all, living in the body of only one woman of all the clans at a time, protecting and guarding that clan above all others as a reward for their following all necessary rituals with true hearts. It was a great honor to have her among them. She made him feel safer as she walked in the lead with them, reaching out into the Between of the spirit world for guidance and help.

Perhaps that’s the most important task Elder Nuanu does,
Attu thought.
Her knowledge of the rituals and her confidence in interacting with the Between spirits makes the clan feel protected. Whether what she does works or not, still we feel better because she does it. Is that what it truly means to be Shuantuan?

Attu decided to ask his father about this later, when they had a private moment. Now, he needed to make amends with Elder Nuanu. Just because Moolnik hadn’t asked Elder Nuanu to perform rituals of travel didn’t mean there weren’t any. Obviously that’s what Elder Nuanu was trying to show him.