The Animal Wife (30 page)

I looked at him. Taller than I may ever be, Father seemed as big as a bear in his heavy parka. With his mist-bright beard the color of a larch in winter and his pale tiger's eyes, he belonged to these woods as their herds of deer belonged to him, a hunter in a hunter's country. He carried an ax and a spear. "We'll talk," he went on, "while we get wood, so we can cook and eat before we leave. Where are the trees you ringed this winter?"

We had ringed no trees that I knew of. At Bala's lodge we didn't do this thing, killing trees in the fall to use as the winter grows older. But Bala's lodge was in a vast, low-lying fir forest where dry branches gave us all the wood we needed without our bothering to ring the trees. I saw now that Father might find fault with me. Because I was the newcomer and couldn't hunt alone, getting wood had been mostly my responsibility. I didn't answer.

"Well then," he said at last. "I'll show you some." Without waiting to see if I was following, he strode off along the little game trail that led west.

Quite soon I noticed the Lily's footprints under Father's footprints. This was the path the Lily had taken the night before! I had meant to let Father do all the talking, but the sight of those huge wet prints loosened my tongue. "Father! Look there," I whispered.

He looked down. "Yes," he said, "we'll see his tracks turn back soon. He's already far from here. We won't meet him."

As if giving no further thought to the big footprints, Father walked west beside the river for a time, and at a place where the tiger had leaped over the stream and gone south, perhaps to turn back to his moose carcass, Father left the bank and headed north into a clearing surrounded by many ringed trees. The branches were bare. The trees had died, and wind had long since blown away the needles. Here was all the dead wood we would need for a long time. Yet no one had told me about it! Perhaps only Father knew. He went to one of the trees and began to rock it. I helped, and soon, with much breaking of branches, it came crashing down. We began to chop.

At last Father turned to face me. "This is the thing as I see it, Kori," he said. "This place is not good. There's danger here for us. For one thing, your woman's people should be here soon, looking for her. And although I didn't want to say so before, the Lily is getting very bold. Now spring food is waiting on the Hair River. It's time to go. But if your woman wants to stay, you must let her."

"Why?" I asked.

"She wants to wait here so her people can find her."

"Father! Where are they?"

"They'll come."

"But she has no one."

"Women don't live alone like musk deer," he said.

"Her people ran when we caught her. Uncle and I, we found their camp. We found the tracks of the people with her—two women, a child, and an old lame man. They ran like hares. They won't come back for Muskrat. And if they do ... well, two were women. If this lodge were mine, I'd keep those other women too."

"But the lodge is mine," said Father in the quiet voice of a headman. "Just as your Muskrat is another man's woman. Somewhere that man is sharpening his spear, warming his anger, calling his brothers and his brothers-in-law, and planning how to kill us. And he knows where we live. Must we risk our lives to fight him over this strange woman? Last night I saw the Bear. He spoke to me. He told me how to hunt bears, who are His creatures. But I saw that He meant more than that. The scattered bones He spoke of are strangers who would harm us. Yet He told us not to break them. He told us to let them be. We must not hunt for trouble. We will leave these strangers alone."

"Why hasn't my woman already gone to them?"

"How would she find them? She leaves them signs, and she waits."

"She leaves them signs?"

"She does. On my way here I found twists of grass, piles of stones, scratches on the trees and the rocks, and also the tracks of those snow-walkers of hers on a trail in the woods where the snow still lasted, as if the other signs weren't enough. I thought them very strange, too. In fact, they worried me. I didn't know what to expect when I reached the lodge. But when I saw your woman, I understood."

I must say, his words shocked me. I too had seen these things and had known that Muskrat made them. I had even seen her make them. But were they signs for her people? How could Father be sure?

"If so," I asked, "why haven't her people come?" Yet even as I spoke, I knew that Father had seen in a day what I had tried never to see. Muskrat didn't want to be here.

"Wasn't it winter?" answered Father.

Father led the way back along the stream. At a place where the stream fed a pool of still water, he stopped and looked down, motioning with his chin for me to look too. I did. In the shining pool I saw two shadowy faces, Father's and one like it, which of course was mine. Father's face was very serious. "You see?" he said. "We're much the same. Your face is like mine, not like someone else's. That's good. My first wife's children looked like other men. My fourth wife—well, she was pregnant when I got her." He smiled slightly, watching me.

"Do you know what Andriki thinks about that?" he asked a moment later. "He thinks I'd welcome this child of hers if I knew who the father was. Andriki seems very sure, so I believe him. Where does he learn these women's secrets? Anyway, here is my plan. This summer, after we eat summer foods for a while, after the fireberries on the plain ripen so we can eat as we travel, I will send my fourth wife back to her parents for a time. If after all she wants to be my wife, then she can come to me when she's older. If not, her parents should give back my marriage gifts and not ask for more. Your mother won't like that, since any change will make it hard for her to keep her favorite necklace. That's Aal, though. Who can please her?"

But I couldn't think of Mother—not then. I was too surprised by Father. Since I had first learned of Pinesinger's pregnancy, I had been afraid of Father's anger. Yet now that he knew I had fathered his wife's child, he seemed not to care. I was also surprised by his plans for Pinesinger. In fact, my thoughts were swarming so thickly I couldn't follow all of them. In the dark pool Father's face watched my face carefully, as if waiting for my thoughts to grow still. "Does my stepmother agree?" I asked, wanting to say something.

"I haven't told her. And I mean to tell her myself, so don't let me come to her only to find that she knows. Don't tell her or any of the women."

"I, Father?" I asked. He gave me a sideways look that said,
Don't play with me.
"I wouldn't tell your thoughts to women," I hurried to add.

We walked on, reaching the clearing and the lodge just as a cloud of mist swallowed all but the tips of the longest branches of the trees. I wondered how Pinesinger would feel about being sent back to her parents. I knew that Bala's people would take it as some kind of disgrace. My mother had turned all the blame for divorce onto Father; according to her, the divorce was his fault. But Father must have learned from his experience with Mother. He might not want to let his name be spoiled again. Next time the fault would be his wife's, I felt sure. Also Pinesinger was younger and softer than my mother. She wouldn't know how to turn the blame onto anyone, or not in time to do any good. Instead Bala's people would blame her for spoiling the marriage and losing the gifts of the marriage exchange.

And the boy—what of him? What if Pinesinger didn't come back to Father? Was this boy, if he lived, to stay with his mother's kin as I had done, as a guest of his lineage, instead of staying with me and Father as a man in the man's place, where he belonged? It seemed wrong. Also, how would the rest of Father's people feel about Father's doings? Would the people be glad? On Pinesinger's account, we had divided our lodge. Wouldn't it be better to wait, to see how things went before sending her away? I searched for a way to ask Father these questions, but we were almost at the lodge.

"Is your pack made?" he asked. "We'll eat now. Then we'll go. The day is growing old, and we must travel fast because of water."

"Water?"

"Yes. Didn't you eat milkroots when you came?"

Of course. On our way in the fall, we had gotten water from eating milkroots. But these are fall foods that wither in spring, when their vines sprout. In fact, after the melting snow soaks into the earth there is nothing to drink on the plains. But because with Bala we had always reached our summergrounds by following the river, I wasn't used to thinking about water.

***

Father's habit was to eat before starting a long journey. In the cold lodge he put wood on the owners' fire, and when the flames grew bright he sat on his heels to cook a piece of marmot meat. "Wife!" he said to Pinesinger. "Ask Kori's woman where her people are."

So Pinesinger left Father's sleeping-skins, which she had been rolling into a pack, and came, her shirt open and the baby nursing, to sit on her heels beside him. When the meat was ready, he gave her a strip of it. Muskrat watched. In the darkest shadow of the lodge, almost hidden by a heavy lodgepole, Father's wolf pup also watched, his feet and jaws tied. Under these eyes, Pinesinger ate the meat, then spoke in Muskrat's language. Muskrat answered with one word. Pinesinger said, "She hasn't seen them."

"Now ask her name," said Father.

But before Pinesinger could do it, Muskrat and I spoke at the same time. "Muskrat," said I. "Dabe Nore," said Muskrat.

"Hi!" said Father. "She understood."

"She understands some but not much," I said.

"I understand," said Muskrat.

This surprised me but not Father. When he saw that she understood him, he spoke to her directly. "Leech Pond," he began. "How did you find it?"

But Muskrat just looked at him. Perhaps she couldn't find the words. So I answered. "They came here by chance," I said. "Her people were here only for a short time. They were on the move, just as they were when they passed Uske's Spring. Do you remember that camp? Before that, they came from the south."

"Why did they leave their homeland?" asked Father.

I had already heard the story, so I answered for Muskrat. "Long ago something bad happened to them," I said. "Perhaps an illness. Her people went in all directions. None stayed behind. All left."

"Where in the south?" asked Father. "Has the place something by which it's known? A river, perhaps?"

"No river," said Muskrat.

"It has a strange animal," I said, and I told Father about the animals who were halfway between wolves and deer, who built summer shelters as people do, who cried out with human voices, and who shared their name with Ohun.

"Io. Tai tibisi," said Muskrat, who seemed to have understood this too.

"Hi!" said Father, wondering. "Can that be true?"

"It's what she once told us, unless she was lying," I answered. Muskrat nodded.

"Ask if her people will come for her," said Father.

"No," said Muskrat without waiting for Pinesinger. "They not come. They far. I not see where," she said. Suddenly she pointed at me with her thumbs. "He come," she said. "Hiyiyiyi! He catch me. Snow come." She gestured with her hands to show snow falling. "I look." Scowling, she pretended to search the ground. "Ah. I see nothing. Then I wait. I wait. Much snow. Much, much snow. I still here. My people, they far. Very far. Where? I not know. They not come. They forget me. They forget me." She fell silent, then suddenly began to cry. With her left hand she wiped her eyes. With her right hand she twice cupped her left breast, leaving space for the nipple between her third and fourth fingers. Like our handsigns, her gesture meant something. But her tears and the lift of her shoulders showing that she didn't know how to find her people were the only signs we could understand.

"Why must you sit here talking?" asked Rin. "Is there something to say that won't wait for night? If we mean to travel today, we should go now, with Kori's woman or without her. We will travel very slowly, and water to drink is far."

But Father wouldn't be hurried by his sister. "Truly," he said thoughtfully, becoming serious, "this is what I think of Kori's woman. We don't want to fight strangers for her. We have women of our own, women who can be our wives. When we need more, we'll visit Bala or any of the people on the Grass River or the Black River or the Char or the Hair, and we'll marry. Marriage is the way to get women. That way we get in-laws, not enemies. We see marriage gifts, not spears. My son is young. He has had no one to teach him except his mother. That's why he acted rashly and did what he should not have done. We won't risk death and wounds to help him do it, and we won't be forced into fighting to make up for his mistake."

Andriki, who had been listening closely, frowned and pushed back his yellow hair. "Will her people use our hunting lands without asking us?" he said. "Will they come here freely? Perhaps Kori seized the woman, but I helped him bring her here. We taught her people to fear us. That was right."

"You taught an old man and a few women to fear us," said Father. "But the men, do they fear us?"

"I don't like your way of thinking," said Andriki. "We aren't cowards. Why do you talk as if we were?"

"Be easy, Brother," said Father. "No one is calling you a coward. No. I am just saying that we must save our fighting for something big, not for Kori's mistake. Do you want to risk your life for his woman? Would you, just for strangers who know nothing about us, who can't speak with us, who eat fish and hunt birds—just so they will think us brave? No. That's why I say she should go free."

I looked at Muskrat to see what she thought of this. But she was leaning against the wall with her eyes shut and didn't seem to be listening. Perhaps Father's speech held too many words for her.

"I think my half-brother is right," said Maral. "From the start I've been against keeping this woman. I was angry with Kori for bringing her here. It's best if she doesn't come to our summergrounds. Let her stay where her people can find her. She sets snares, and soon she'll have frogs and swans' eggs from the shore of the lake. There's summer food here, not like some lodges. She can go into the hills where she was camped when Kori found her. There are frogs and birds in Leech Pond. Well, then." Maral looked around the firelit lodge, warm at last thanks to Father. "Come, wives," he said. "If we're going, we should start."