The Animal Wife (26 page)

It was a baby girl. To her belly clung a great, thick, twisting cord, like a dark intestine, like a vine, that came from inside Mother. Taking up her digging stick, which all this time had been lying beside her, Mother chopped the cord until she cut it in two. Then she picked up the baby and put it in her shirt. All I could see was the sole of a tiny foot, pink, with the toes stretching. I had never seen anyone so small.

Meanwhile, the dark, twisting cord, dripping blood from the severed end, hung out of Mother's vulva. It was terrible to see, and it smelled, too. Bending over, pressing her belly hard with her hand, Mother grunted a few times, straining, and soon a great, dark, bloody thing like meat flopped between her heels.

Mother sat back with her legs stretched far apart and sighed deeply. Then, reaching for grass, she wiped herself clean. From her carrying bag she brought out a handful of moss, which she packed into her oozing vulva, and using her digging stick to brace herself, she stood up. She shook out her trousers, put them on, dug a deep hole with her digging stick, and buried the dark bloody thing, and then, without a word, she turned her back and started for camp, knowing that I would follow.

So I followed. As we walked, I saw her bend her head and heard her murmur tenderly to the baby. Realizing that it was up to me to guard against anything that might try to surprise us or overtake us, I kept watch behind, but saw only the red sun very far away on the edge of the plain. I remember how the sight of it, going fast, gave me a strange, lonesome feeling. For just a moment I stood still, looking west to watch the sun sink, looking east to watch Mother striding across the plain, she and the sun both moving quickly, both going farther and farther away. Neither one thought anything about me.

After the sun set a cold west wind began to blow, bending the long grass in waves as if spirits were running. I tried to see the thicket where we had spent the day, but it had vanished among all the other thickets. In the sky on the horizon, though, I saw a river of flame. Then I knew that in the Camps of the Dead my mother's people were kindling their evening fires, because the child they had sent to us was now with Mother and their work was done.

***

Pinesinger's baby came in the dead of night. The fires had burned very low, down to embers. At the fire by the door where most of us were dozing, we were awakened by a high, thin cry. At once I came wide awake, listening. A baby! Although I had not expected to have any feelings, certainly not good feelings, I suddenly felt joy. Why? I didn't know why. I just felt like singing! Of course I didn't even speak—that was no time to be indiscreet. Yet I wanted to know if it was a girl or a boy. Birth and babies are women's business—it wasn't my place to ask. Men find out when someone thinks to tell them. Not wanting to wait, though, I stood up and stretched, to see if I could glimpse the baby.

There it lay on the cold floor, naked and crying: a baby boy, waving his fists and feet. What was in the minds of these women, to leave him there? I almost cried out for one of them to take him, when Rin's strong hands snatched him up and handed him to Pinesinger, who slid him inside her shirt. The crying stopped short. All the women were talking and laughing, most of all Pinesinger, who so recently had been begging for death. Lilan motioned to Muskrat to build up the fire and clean the floor. Slowly Muskrat obeyed. When she started to put the placenta on the fire, Lilan quickly showed her that she must take all the mess outside. Again Muskrat obeyed.

Then all of us but Muskrat gathered at the owners' fire, bringing the last of the reindeer meat in strips, which we laid on the coals. Perhaps because Pinesinger had made such a fuss about this baby, people seemed to want to forget that it wasn't Father's. Rather, the women praised Pinesinger and told her that the next birth would be easier. She laughed, cooked, and ate, as if the praise excited her.

I too felt excited, although I tried to be calm. Even so, Andriki watched me carefully. "So, Kori," he said at last in his bland way. "You must be glad to have a brother, since you smile so much."

What was he doing, saying such a thing? Long ago he had guessed our secret. Whatever he meant, I was already wary—he couldn't upset me into saying something I'd regret. "Am I a woman, to talk of babies?" I asked. "What pleases my father and stepmother also pleases me."

Pinesinger ate and smiled, smiled and ate. I didn't remember ever seeing her so happy. Was it that people at last were praising her? I tried not to look at her, but couldn't help it, and caught her looking at me. Our eyes met. Then, in front of everyone, she took the baby from her shirt and held him up so we could see him. She pretended to be showing him to everyone, but I knew she was showing him to me.

A
FTER THE STORM MOON
came the moon that at Uncle Bala's we had called the Moon of Cast Antlers but that Father's people called the Carcass Moon. I learned why when I heard people praying to the Bear to lead us to a carcass. But that would not be easy, even for Him, since with the new moon came more and more new snow. In spite of the fears of the women, this time the deer didn't leave our Narrow Lake country. Instead more deer came, as if they had found other places the same or worse. The wolves came back, and the Lily too. Hunting in the snow was easy for us, since deer were at the end of every fresh trail. We found them struggling in snowdrifts or sliding on the crust. Whatever way, they moved slowly. After the new moon Maral and Andriki together killed two reindeer.

At the quarter moon Muskrat chased a hind onto a snowfield, where one of the deer's thin front legs pierced through the crusted snow. She fell forward, snapping her bone. When Muskrat brought me there, the hind was heaving herself, trying to stand and run. After spearing her, I praised Muskrat very much and promised that this time nothing would keep me from giving her the hide. "San kew," said Muskrat. She was learning more of our speech. I would have rolled a fire and cooked the liver for Muskrat then and there, but there were only willows, no wood, and also I wanted to take the meat to safety. I was afraid of the Lily.

Only the scarceness of firewood kept us from eating day and night, since by now we had more meat in the lodge than we needed. By the end of the Storm Moon at Uncle Bala's lodge we were always traveling far for firewood, since we would have picked up all the dead wood nearby. But in the deep snow that year at Narrow Lake, wood was especially hard to gather.

So getting wood fell mostly to Muskrat. Her work began almost as soon as she had enough clothing to leave the lodge, and it went on all winter. At first Rin or Lilan would simply hand her an ax, show her some sticks, and push her toward the door, sure that she would know what was wanted of her. And she did. Every night she came back to the lodge with wood. In time she went without being told. When she got the reindeer hide and made her little snow-walkers, it was easy for her to walk on the deep snow, so although the rest of us brought back a few sticks each time we went out, most of the wood we burned was gathered by Muskrat.

Behind her back the other women made fun of her. One day when Muskrat was getting wood I entered the lodge to find Pinesinger imitating the strange, spraddling steps Muskrat took when she wore her snow-walkers. The other women were already laughing, and when Pinesinger finished they laughed until they cried. "You looked just like her," said Hind.

That they would make fun of my woman angered me. I wanted to ask why they were in the lodge burning wood while Muskrat was out getting more for them. But Hind was my aunt and Pinesinger was my stepmother; it wasn't for me to criticize them. I said nothing.

That night I took one of Muskrat's snow-walkers and held it up, pretending to look at it in the firelight. "I think I could make some of these," I said. To my surprise the women began to laugh again, and this time the men joined them. I saw there was a secret joke that I didn't understand. Taken aback, I glanced at Muskrat. She seemed startled. "Why do you laugh, Aunt Hind?" I asked.

"Ah, Kori, never mind," said Andriki, trying to seem serious. "It's just these women. They're not sensible. Don't pay any attention to them. Your aunt is worst of all." He looked at Hind affectionately. Their eyes met, and both snorted with laughter.

So I saw that no one would answer me and that I as well as my woman was the butt of a joke. We were to be left out, pushed aside. Angry at the others for mocking me, angry at Muskrat for shaming me, I put away the snow-walker, and lifting my chin I stared at the fire, making up my mind to leave the lodge and all the people and go back to the Fire River.

Only Pinesinger didn't want to drop the subject. "Would you wear those?" she asked, grinning and pointing her lips at the snow-walkers as if she would burst with the laughter she was holding.

I didn't answer, but instead gave Pinesinger a look that made her eyes widen and her laughter fade. Andriki noticed. My face must have bothered him, as any threat to the peace of a lodge must bother everyone, because Andriki said, "We're not laughing at you, Kori. These lewd women have a joke of their own, and they won't tell you because you're a man and their nephew and stepson. It's just a woman's joke, not seemly and not funny. Let it go."

"I'm not interested, Uncle," I said stiffly. "I don't want to know."

People began to talk about other things, but the talk was forced, unnatural. As soon as I could move without drawing too much attention, I unrolled my sleeping-skins and lay down in them, leaving Muskrat to make her own bed alone. Whatever the joke, it had shamed us both, and the shame of each had shamed the other. After that, everything went on as before, but I had nothing more to do with Muskrat's snow-walkers.

***

At the end of the Carcass Moon came a spell of mild weather. The snow sank and hardened, and animals and people could walk anywhere. Now hunting became more difficult, but because of the bad winter the carcasses were so many that we ate meat without hunting. The days grew long again, and we began to think of spring. More time would pass before we could think of traveling, though. The ice on the rivers would melt and break and the rivers would flood. After that, and after green things began to grow in the woods so we could eat, then we would travel.

But as a journey is hardest just before it ends, as a night is coldest just before morning, so winter is hardest to bear just before the time to travel comes, since the cold seems deepest, the firewood is gone, no green food is growing, and the animals are leaving for their summergrounds. Also people are angry with each other after being so long in the lodge, after all the bad feelings and grudges of winter. The lodge smells from stale smoke, spoiled meat, children's feces, and the unwashed bodies of us all. Just then the flies come. First come blackflies, then mosquitoes, so thick that they make even the deer crazy. Sometimes we see an animal running, running, bucking and kicking, and we know it has been made crazy by flies.

The moon is named for them. What Uncle Bala called the Moon of Flies at Father's lodge was called the Blackfly Moon. At Father's lodge the blackflies were thicker than I had ever seen. Perhaps because of the sheltering woods or perhaps because of the water by then lying on the ice of the lake and flowing in the streams, there were so many biting flies that we became gray with them each time we left the smoke. The children cried terribly; their eyes were swollen shut from bites. For a while Frogga cried all the time. She scratched herself until she bled and fell asleep still crying. We all grew impatient and ground our teeth to keep from shouting at her. Privately, I began to wonder what kind of a wife she would be if she complained so freely. Of course, older people didn't complain. But older people were more used to the biting. Maral, for instance, hardly noticed. I still felt bites, but I pretended not to notice. Would Frogga someday do the same? I hoped so, or she would find much trouble from her husband.

Then there were the lice, thanks to Muskrat. One day Maral said he was tired of itching. We would bathe. All of us took axes and cut spruce branches, and then, on the slippery, packed snow beside the lake, we wove them into a domed shelter. The shelter had to be heavy, since we had no way to give it thickness except with layers of spruce twigs, and it had to stand on its own, since we couldn't dig holes for its lodgepoles. Cutting the branches and making the shelter took a day. The next day we covered it with our sleeping-skins, built a fire inside, and heated stones. By late afternoon the bath was ready. Many of us went in naked, shut the door, and poured water on the stones. The great heat and the burning steam made me feel so good I almost wept. All the bad things of winter came out of my body through my skin, and when I walked over the wet ice to the waterhole and in a cloud of my own steam let myself down through the ice into the lake, I became new, as it must be to die or to be born.

There wasn't room in the bath shelter for everyone, and we didn't have enough wood to keep the bath going. Rin's daughter, Waxwing, and her husband, Marten, because they didn't belong to the families of the owners of the lodge but instead were a sister's kin and in-law, held back politely until some of us had finished. Because of her new baby, Pinesinger came in only for a little while, hardly enough to get hot, and Frogga came in with her parents but went straight out again because she didn't like the steam. Ako was kept out until others had finished, because the bath was too crowded and no one felt the need to be polite to someone so young. Among those invited inside while the bath was at its best, I was last.

Muskrat wasn't invited. When everyone was finished, I showed her how to go inside, but by then the fire was smoking and the bath was cold and wet like a cave. Muskrat looked in and shook her head. "She doesn't know what it is," said Rin, watching. But Muskrat's face showed that she knew the bath would not be good, so she must have known what it was. She probably hadn't hoped to bathe with the rest of us anyway, since she knew she wasn't treated the same. Even the children could choose ahead of her.

***