The Animal Wife (31 page)

"We'll go together," said Father. "So, Kori. Are you content?"

"I am," I said. But of course I wasn't. Whatever Father and the Bear might have said to each other, I had no thought of leaving Muskrat.

***

Dragging our packs into the blowing mist, we gathered in front of the lodge, where the adults helped each other lift packs and children. By habit we moved quietly. The fog and the damp earth kept us even quieter. Mist beaded the spruce needles and the pine needles and rose from the gray water of the lake. Because we wouldn't drink for the rest of the day, I went to the rocky shore and dipped my cupped hands into the water. Just then the mist cleared, and looking across the lake I saw the tiger.

Scanning the woods, he too was drinking. When our eyes met, he raised his chin. Drops of water clung to his whiskers and ran from his mouth. He stared at me a moment; then, without taking his eyes off me, he carefully lowered his chin and drank some more. Slowly, meaningfully, his great red tongue slapped the water. I didn't move. In time the tiger finished his drink, sighed, and giving me a last long look, strode into the forest, his tail out stiffly, as if he knew I was watching him. I waited for his roar, but none came.

"The Lily is there, going east," I said to the others when I went back for my pack and my spears.

"He mustn't follow us," said Hind. "We must let a little time pass before we cross his back trail."

"Better to go quickly before he comes around the lake," said Rin.

"Give me that," said Father to me, pointing with his lips at his wolf pup, who, with a thong around his neck and another around his jaws, was pressing himself against the outer wall of the lodge, trying to hide. I picked him up, noticing how soft his fur was, and how tender his body, and handed him to Father, who then tied his feet together and stuffed him in his pack. "We are many," said Father, "so no animal need worry us. We'll keep together until we're off the Lily's hunting lands. Don't fear him."

"Perhaps we're just foolish people who can't help fearing him," said Rin.

Maral and his wives fell into step behind Father. Rin lifted her pack and strode after Lilan. The rest of the people struggled into their packs and hurried to catch up. I put my pack on my back and lifted a full, wet waterskin to my shoulder—my share of the extra load. But I didn't follow the others. Instead I waited to see what Muskrat would do when she saw the rest of us leaving.

Curious, Pinesinger waited too. "So, Kori. Your wife goes ahead of you," she said, speaking of little Frogga, who rode astride her father's neck. "Is your woman also coming?"

But Muskrat sat on her heels behind her big belly, resting her head and her back against the lodge.

Lifting her pack to my shoulder, I stood as tall as I could. "Muskrat!" I said firmly. She looked up. "Come!" I said. She stared. Her eyes seemed wet. Was she crying? "Come!" I said louder, taking her small pack and settling it on top of mine. She shook her head. I had expected this, but even so I began to feel angry. "Come!" I said a third time. "Your pack is leaving, even if you stay." Muskrat stared, not moving.

This seemed funny to Pinesinger, who laughed and said, "She's not coming! Even she would rather live alone than live with you, Kori."

But that was not to be. Turning my back on anyone who might have been watching, so that no one could see what I did, I stood in front of Muskrat. "Look here," I said, stretching my lips and pointing to my upper eyeteeth with my first two fingers. "Tiger," I whispered, staring at her. Muskrat blinked. She took my meaning. I turned on my heel and walked away, and in no time heard her panting behind me as she struggled to keep up.

"What did you tell her?" asked Pinesinger at last, after we had caught up with the others.

"Not much, Stepmother," I said, out of breath myself by this time. "I told her that I was going to our summergrounds and that if she didn't come with me, she wouldn't find me, since I wasn't coming back."

"Did she understand all that?" asked Pinesinger doubtfully.

"Most of it," I answered.

U
P WE WENT
through the blowing mist, over the mossy shoulders of the Hills of Ohun, our group very quiet because of the tiger. Even the children made no sound. When I heard Muskrat panting at my heels, I stood aside to let her follow Rin, who was just ahead of me. Then if Muskrat fell behind, I'd know it. As we walked a gap appeared between Muskrat and Rin, and soon all I could see was Rin's outline, a shadow in the mist. Then I couldn't even hear footsteps, just the faint creaking of my own clothing and Muskrat's heavy breath.

On the far slopes of the hills the wind had made the mist thin and I could see the rest of our people, the many brown forms moving south in single file. Their line wound through the berry heath, red with new leaves, white with tiny flowers. To think how long the heath would lie quietly waiting for the berries to grow reminded me of how long it might be before I would eat again. I almost felt sad to see flowers just starting, without even the buds of berries, as if the heath were keeping food from me. Just then a fresh north wind cleared the mist around us. I looked up and for a moment saw the four dark breasts of sleeping Ohun. Then the wind turned and blew mist from the south, hiding the heath we were leaving behind but carrying the fragrance of the land ahead of us—the sweet, grassy breath of the plain.

At dusk the people stopped suddenly. Far ahead of me and Muskrat, their long open line closed and shortened, and they stood side by side, shading their eyes and looking west at something I couldn't see. Yet I knew it was an animal when Father and the other men put down their packs, bent low, and crept over the short grass. "Stay still," I whispered to Muskrat. She stopped in her tracks, and I hurried to catch up.

Just then Father's arm whipped and his spear flew. All the men ran forward. Chasing what? I saw a yellow animal running, dodging, with all the men scrambling to cut off its escape. It was a colt. Young and alone, it must have been lying down when the men first noticed it. The chase ended suddenly when the colt burst between Andriki and Marten, who threw their spears. Both missed. A plume of dust rose behind it as it ran away. Soon it stopped and turned to face the hunters, but by then they had no hope of getting it, and they didn't try. Instead they picked up their things and began looking for a place to camp. I went back to Muskrat. Disappointed and hungry, we at last caught up.

We camped in a thicket of blooming fireberry bushes, where we found a few dry branches to burn. The thicket also gave us shelter from the wind. In place of wood we gathered balls of dung left by grazing bison and horses, and in place of food we drank water.

Father opened his pack and took out the little wolf pup. After looking him over, Father untied his feet and jaws and set him down. The pup stood on wobbling legs, his head bent. Then his trembling hind legs suddenly folded, and he fell. The night before he would have run away, but that night he seemed too ill to notice us. Father hadn't had him long. Although it seemed longer, we had dug him out of the earth only the day before. He had lost his good condition surprisingly soon. With a long moccasin lace, Father tied the pup to the fireberry bush and watched him a while. When the rest of us drank more of the precious water, Father tried to squirt some into his mouth, but the pup struggled, wasting it. Father sighed, then turned from him, as if he had lost interest.

It came to me that I could spit water into the pup's mouth and I offered to do this, expecting Father to thank me. Instead he seemed not to hear. So I began to worry about what Father thought of me. I remembered how easily I had ignored his wishes. In fact I had ignored almost everyone's wishes, even the Bear's. That Father might not have liked this came to me slowly as I sat, ashamed, under everyone's eyes. When I could, I got up and went to sit behind Andriki. From Andriki's shadow I tried to listen to the men's talk, but I couldn't take my thoughts from Muskrat's swaying, heavy form, which still struggled along the trail ahead of me in my mind's eye. Even she had not wanted to come with us. I saw that I had pleased only myself.

But to have left her behind? I couldn't have done it. My big, heavy woman, round and pregnant? I couldn't! I made plans to take her to the Fire River, where, as I saw it, we could live with Uncle Bala. He wouldn't refuse me. He would understand. Best of all, Muskrat's people wouldn't find us there.

In no time I was lost in a daydream of the Fire River. When the evening star rose to hang above the horizon, glowing like an ember but giving no light, I remembered the same star rising out of the grass on Uncle Bala's plains. When a herd of scattered clouds ran past the stars, I remembered how people would say that the Bear was chasing bison. When the wind brought the voice of a short-eared owl—
hu ah ha hu
—I remembered a child's story of a little night hunter who killed small deer. Then I remembered how hungry I was, and other times of being hungry, and found myself thinking of the colt alone in the dark and how lucky we were to have found it, since we would probably be eating it soon. Was I a child, to let Father's anger worry me?

Most of the women were sleeping. At the far edge of camp, where I had left my pack, Muskrat had unrolled our bedding. She would be asleep in no time, I knew, because she was so tired. But the men were not sleeping. They sat on their heels around the fire, waiting for the clouds to clear, so the stars would give more light. Until we were ready to hunt the colt, though, I made sure to sit on the far side of Andriki from Father. Until I could see how things were, I kept out of his sight.

But not out of hearing. Hidden by Andriki, I listened carefully as Father told us once again of the wolf pup a woman had kept at Graylag's lodge and how this wolf had helped with hunting. One winter day when Father had been hunting in a wood, he told us, he had surprised a male reindeer in a thicket. The reindeer had run up a hill when out of nowhere Graylag's wolf had appeared and chased the reindeer, who was forced to stop and lower his antlers to keep the wolf from biting his legs. When the reindeer had shown his side, Father had thrown his spear and killed him.

So Father had hopes for the pup. "If the pup were old enough," he said, "he could find that colt tonight and make it stand still for us until we caught up. A wolf can run as fast as a horse. A person can't."

"Is that true?" asked Andriki.

Ignoring Andriki, Father began to tell the story of a second hunt with Graylag's wolf, a hunt Father had heard about but hadn't seen, when suddenly he was interrupted by a cry from Pinesinger. We all turned, and Father seized his spear.

"Get him away!" cried her voice in the dark. Her baby also started crying.

"What now?" asked Rin, her voice tired.

"The wolf!" cried Pinesinger.

"Speak softly, woman," said Father. "You'll drive the colt farther. Don't you want to eat?"

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"His wolf came touching me! I was sleeping. I thought it was the baby. Hi! Filth! Get him away!"

"Came touching you, Wife?" asked Father.

"Yes," said Pinesinger. "He came to my breast."

It was almost as if Father had planned it. Of course the wolf was hungry, being so young. Of course Pinesinger's milk-filled breast had lured him. Of course he had helped himself to a little taste. At first I thought it funny, and looked at Andriki, waiting to laugh. Then I felt annoyed that an animal would take food belonging to Pinesinger's child, and I opened my mouth to object. But at last I saw that I should keep quiet, since both the pup and the woman were Father's and I had already given him much reason to complain. So I hid in Andriki's shadow to see what came next.

Father got up and went to speak with Pinesinger. But instead of standing over her and speaking in his matter-of-fact headman's way, he sat on his heels, very politely crouching beside her bed. He spoke so quietly, his tone so kind, his voice so low, that none of us could overhear him. He wanted something.

Soon we stopped straining our ears to hear him, because Pinesinger began calling out her answers. "If my mother could hear that, she'd weep," she said. Then, "They'll want their gifts back." Next, "My father will fight you." And last and loudest, "We aren't animals!" No one had to tell us that Father was asking her to feed his pup.

"Does this mean she'll do it?" Andriki asked the men around the fire. We couldn't help but laugh.

After a while Father came back to the fire, looking neither disappointed nor triumphant but satisfied, as if he had finished something. With his foot he lifted his spear to where his hand could grasp it. We looked at him with curiosity. "Well? What is it?" he asked, as if he couldn't imagine why we were watching him.

"It's we who want an answer," said Andriki. "Will she?"

"Will she what?"

"Don't tease us, Brother. Will she feed your wolf?"

"Yes," said Father.

"She will?"

"Yes."

"But that's not what she said!"

"What?" cried Father, playful at last. "She was speaking privately."

"How could we not hear?"

"She'll feed it, and someday we'll have a hunting helper, just as Graylag once had. Unlike Graylag, we'll keep ours with us and won't let it run away into the woods. For now, though, we must get meat for ourselves. Are you coming with me, or must I hunt alone?" To Rin, still awake, he added, "Build the fire, Sister. We'll cook soon."

***

The wind had risen and the clouds had gone; the bushes on the plain showed faintly in the starlight. Spears ready, we spread out and walked very quietly toward the place we had last seen the colt. Because he was so young and without parents, he had nowhere to go, so we knew where to find him. Our thought was that lacking a protector, he might stay still as we got near; he might try to hide instead of moving to stay beyond us, as a grown horse would. With luck he was sick, or had been orphaned or separated from his mother for so long that, like Father's wolf, he was weak from hunger and thirst. With luck he might be lying down.

Since the yellow-brown colt would be hard to see we went slowly, keeping watch for lions, as must everyone who hunts at night. When lions hunt on such short grass, they like dark nights. Even so, we weren't much afraid of meeting them. And I, for one, did not expect our hunt to take long.