Julie of the Wolves (13 page)

She knew what she had to do. Live like an Eskimo—hunt and carve and be with Tornait.

The next day she took out her man’s knife and cut blocks of snow. These she stacked and shaped into a house that was generously large. If she was going to live as the Eskimos once lived, she needed a home, not just a camp.

When her ice house was completed and her skins were spread over the floor, she sat down and took out the totem of Amaroq. Her fingers had rubbed him to a soft glow in her pocket and he looked rich and regal. Placing him over her door, she blew him a kiss, and as she did so, happiness welled up in her. She knew he was taking care of her spirit.

Time passed, fountains of the magnetic northern lights came and went, and the moon waxed and waned many times. Miyax found her life very satisfying. She became an expert at catching small game and she took great pleasure in carving. When she had finished the carving of the puppies, she found a stone by the river and began chipping it into an owl. Always she listened for her pack, but they did not call. She was both glad and miserable.

Miyax was not without things to do. When she was not hunting, or carving, she danced, sewed, chopped wood or made candles. Sometimes she tried to spell Eskimo words with the English alphabet. Such beautiful words must be preserved forever.

One night she began a tiny coat of ptarmigan feathers for Tornait. He had been shivering lately, even in her parka hood, and she was concerned about him. She stitched the plumes to a paper-thin rabbit hide and fashioned a bird-like coat.

On the moonrise when the coat was finished and she was trying to slip it on Tornait, she heard in the distance the crackle of feet on the ice. The sound grew louder and she poked her head into the night to see a man on the river running beside his sled and team of dogs. Her heart leaped—an Eskimo hunter, one of her own pack, truly. Rushing onto the river ice she waited until the sled drew close.

“Ayi!” she called.

“Ayi!” a voice answered, and within minutes the hunter pulled the sled up beside her and greeted her warmly. Nestled in the furs was the man’s woman and child. Their eyes glistened softly in the moonlight.

Miyax’s voice was hoarse from disuse, but she managed to greet them happily in Eskimo and invite them into her house for a sleep. The woman was glad to stop, she told Miyax in the Upick dialect, as she climbed from the sled. They had not rested since they had left Kangik, a town on Kuk Bay at the mouth of the Avalik River, the river they were on.

At last Miyax knew where she was. Kangik was inland from Wainwright and still many sleeps from Point Barrow. But she no longer cared.

“I’m Roland,” the man said in English as he unloaded his sleeping skins on the floor of the igloo and spread them out. “Are you alone?”

Miyax smiled at him as if she did not understand and put a twisted spruce log on the fire. When it blazed and man and woman were warming their backs, Roland asked her again, but this time in Upick, her own beautiful tongue. She answered that she was.

“I’m Alice,” the pretty mother said. Miyax gestured hopelessly. “Uma,” the woman said, pointing to herself. “Atik,” she said, pointing to the man and, lifting the baby above her head, called him Sorqaq. Miyax found the names so nice that, as she took her cooking pot from the fire to offer her guests hot ptarmigan, she hummed and sang. Then she went to her sleeping skin, picked up Tornait, and held him before Sorqaq, who was now on his mother’s back in her kuspuck. He peeked over her shoulder, laughed at the bird, kicked, and disappeared. In his excitement he had lost his knee grip and had dropped to his mother’s belt. Miyax laughed aloud. Uma giggled and gave him a boost; his round face reappeared and he reached for the bird.

Miyax suddenly wanted to talk. Speaking rapidly in Eskimo, she told her guests about the river, the game, the fuel, and the stars—but not about the wolves or her past. They listened and smiled.

When dinner was over Atik talked slowly and softly, and Miyax learned that Kangik was an Eskimo village with an airport and a mission school. A generator had been built, and electricity lighted the houses in winter. A few men even owned snowmobiles there. Atik was proud of his town.

Before going to bed he went out to feed the dogs. Then Uma talked. She said they were headed for the mountains to hunt caribou. When Atik returned, Miyax told him he did not need to go to the mountains—that a large herd was yarded not far up the river. She drew a map on the floor and showed him where the wintering grounds of the caribou lay. He was happy to learn this, he said, for the Brooks Range was treacherous in winter; whole mountainsides avalanched, and storms brewed up in mere minutes.

Uma nursed the baby, tucked him into their furs, and softly sang him to sleep as the fire began to die down. Presently her head nodded, and she slipped into bed, where Atik joined her.

Miyax alone was awake, visions of Kangik filling her head. She would go there and be useful. Perhaps she would teach children how to snare rabbits, make parkas, and carve; or she might live with some family that needed her help. She might even work in the store. In Kangik she would live as her ancestors had, in rhythm with the animals and the climate. She would stay far away from San Francisco where men were taught to kill without reason. She did not fall asleep for hours.

Tornait awoke first and called softly. Miyax dressed, cut off a piece of meat, and held it out to him. He snatched the food and swallowed it noisily. That awoke the baby and the baby awoke Uma, who reached out, took him to her breast, and rocked him as she lay in the furry warmth of her skins. It was almost zero in the house and she did not hurry to get up.

Atik awoke, yawned, and roared, “I’m hungry.” Uma laughed and Miyax put the pot on the fire. Atik dressed, went out to his sled, and brought back bacon, bread, beans, and butter. Miyax had forgotten there were such good things and her mouth fairly watered as she smelled them cooking. At first she refused the food when Uma offered it, but seeing how disappointed she was she accepted the bacon and sucked on it quietly, remembering with pain the tastes of Barrow.

After breakfast Atik went out to harness the dogs, Miyax cleaned up, and Uma played with her baby. As she tossed him she chatted happily about her love for Atik and how excited she had been when he decided to take her on the hunt. Most Eskimo wives were left home these days; with the advent of gussak frozen foods, cooks were no longer needed for the hunt. And the women never tanned hides anymore; all skins for the tourist trade must go to Seattle to be tanned correctly for the temperate climates where most were shipped.

Uma rambled on. Atik had been raised in Anchorage and knew very little about hunting, for his father had been a mechanic. But he had died, and Atik was sent to live with his grandfather in Kangik. He had become enamored of hunting and fishing and became so skilled that when his grandfather died he was adopted by the greatest of all living Eskimo hunters.

“Kapugen taught Atik where the seals live and how to smell a caribou trail.”

Miyax stopped cleaning her pot. Her blood raced hot, then cold. Turning slowly around she stared at Uma.

“Where was this Kapugen born?” she asked in Eskimo.

“He has never said. He paddled up the river one day, beached his kayak, and built a house where he landed. All I know is that he came out of the Bering Sea. But he was wealthy in the Eskimo sense—intelligent, fearless, full of love—and he soon became a leader of Kangik.”

Miyax did not take her eyes off Uma’s lips as they formed soft words of Kapugen.
“U i ya
Kangik?” she asked.

“Yes, but not in the center of town where the rich men live. Although Kapugen is also rich, he lives in a simple green house on the river bank. It is upstream, beside the wilderness, where the people he loves feel free to visit.”

Trembling with eagerness, Miyax asked Uma to tell her more about Kapugen, and Uma, spilling over with enthusiasm, told how the town and its people had grown poor and hungry several years ago. The walrus had all but vanished from the coast; the gray whales were rare, and the seals were few and far between. The Bureau of Indian Affairs put most everyone on pensions, and so they drank and forgot all they knew. Then Kapugen arrived. He was full of pride and held his head high. He went out into the wilderness and came back with musk-oxen. These he bred and raised. The men helped him; the women made the fur into thread and then into mittens and beautiful sweaters and scarves. These were sold to the gussaks who paid high prices for them, and within a few years the people of Kangik became independent and prosperous.

“But there is still a need for caribou and wolverine furs for clothing and trim,” she said, “so Kapugen and Atik go hunting every winter to supply the town.”

“Kapugen did not come this year,” she went on. “He let me come instead.” She smiled, slipped her baby into her kuspuck, tightened her belt, and stood up. “Kapugen is wise and strong.”

Miyax turned her back to Uma. She must not see the quivering of her body at every mention of her father’s name. He had been dead to her, for so long that she was almost frightened by the knowledge that he lived. Yet she loved each cold chill that told her it was true.

Outside the dogs began fighting over their rations, and Atik’s whip cracked like a gunshot. Miyax shivered at the sound. She thought of Amaroq and tears welled in her eyes but did not fall, for she was also thinking about Kapugen. She must find him. He would save the wolves just as he had saved the people of Kangik.

“Amaroq, Amaroq,” she sang as she fluffed up her furs. Uma turned to her in surprise.

“You are happy after all,” she said in Eskimo. “I thought perhaps this was the beginning of your periods and that your family had sent you to a hut to be alone. The old grandmother who raised me did that, and I was miserable and so unhappy, because no one does that anymore.”

Miyax shook her head. “I am not yet a woman.”

Uma did not inquire further, but hugged her. Then she put her baby in her kuspuck and crept out the door to join Atik in the starlit darkness. It was day and the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere were shining overhead. The dogs were biting their harnesses and fighting each other, and Atik was trying to make them hold still. Suddenly they lunged in all directions and the sled was moving. Atik picked up Uma and the baby, put them on the sled and, calling his grateful thanks to Miyax, took off.

She waved until they were lost in the darkness, then rushed into her house, rolled up her sleeping skins, and loaded her sled. She hoisted her pack to her back and picked up Tornait. Carefully she slipped the feather coat around his breast and, leaving his wings free, tied the little coat on his back. He looked silly. She laughed, rubbed her nose against his beak, and tucked him into the hood of her parka.

“Amna a-ya, a-ya-amna
,
”
she sang as she slid to the river, put on her snowshoes, and strode down the snapping ice bed.

She had gone about a mile when she heard Kapu bark. She knew it was he. His voice was unmistakable. Terrified, she turned around.

“Stay! Stay!” she screamed. The wind picked up her words and blew them down the river. Kapu ran up to her, followed by Nails and the pups. All were yipping authoritatively as they told her to join them.

“I cannot,” she cried. “My own Amaroq lives. I must go to him!”

She walked forward a few steps, and turned and glared as the wolf leader had done. For a moment they hesitated, as if not believing her message. Then they dashed away and ran up the river. They called from the bank, and then they were gone.

Miyax had spoken her last words to her wolves.

She thought of Kapugen and hurried on. What would she say to him? Would they rub noses when they met? Surely he would hug his favorite child and let her enter his house, tan his hides, sew his clothes, cook his food. There was so much she could do for this great hunter now; prepare caribou, catch rabbits, pluck birds, and even make tools with water and the freezing air. She would be very useful to him and they would live as they were meant to live—with the cold and the birds and the beasts.

She tried to recall Kapugen’s face—his dark eyes and the brows that drooped kindly. Would his cheeks still be strong and creased by laughter? Would he still have long hair and stand tall?

A green fountain of magnetic light shot up into the sky, its edges rimmed with sparks. The air crackled, the river groaned, and Miyax pointed her boots toward Kapugen.

S
HE COULD SEE THE VILLAGE OF
K
ANGIK LONG
before she got to it. Its lights twinkled in the winter night on the first bench of the river near the sea. When she could make out windows and the dark outlines of houses, she pulled her sled to the second bench above the river and stopped. She needed to think before meeting Kapugen.

She pitched her tent and spread out her sleeping skins. Lying on her stomach, she peered down on the town. It consisted of about fifty wooden houses. A few were large, but all had the same rectangular design with peaked roof. Kangik was so snowy she could not see if there was trash in the streets, but even if there had been she would not have cared. Kapugen’s home had to be beautiful.

The village had one crossroad, where the church and mission stood. On either side of them were the stores, which Miyax recognized by the many people who wandered in and out. She listened. Dog teams barked from both ends of town, and although she knew there were snowmobiles, the village was essentially a sled-dog town—an old-fashioned Eskimo settlement. That pleased her.

Her eyes roamed the street. A few children were out romping in the snow and she guessed that it was about ten o’clock in the morning—the time Eskimo children were sent out to play. By that hour their mothers had completed their morning chores, and had time to dress the little ones and send them outside, cold as it was.

Below the town, she could see the musk-oxen Uma had spoken about. They were circled together near the gate of their enclosure, heads facing out to protect themselves from wolves and bears. Her heart thrilled to see these wondrous oxen of the north. She could help Kapugen take care of the herd.