Read Online Brother Wind by Sue Harrison - Free Book Online Page A

wind to settle into the walrus tusks. He could hear the voices of the men and animals who lived in the yellow hardness of the ivory. They pulled at his hands as waves pull at the blade of an ikyak paddle. Waxtal held his hands out, saw that they trembled like those of an old man.
    “That much power,” he whispered. “That much power, and I, of all the men here, am the only one who understands. The others, they will see the furs and the oil, the dried fish and caribou meat, and they will not know that those things are nothing compared to what I can do with the walrus tusks.”
    But what did he have to trade for the ivory? He had lost so much in the move from Tugix’s island. A foolish move, he thought. He had told Kayugh it was a foolish move. All mountains have times of anger, but those times pass. What man did not know that? It was Samiq’s fault. Samiq wanted to move so he could find Kiin. Kiin. She had always been a problem. What father had ever lost more because of one daughter?
    Waxtal sighed. Of course, he must remember that the traders themselves did not truly know the value of the ivory they carried. Perhaps they would take oil in exchange. Perhaps not for all the tusks, but for a few, and a few would be enough.
    Kayugh, Big Teeth, Samiq, First Snow, and Small Knife left the next morning to hunt. The traders stayed, talking long with Three Fish and Chagak about the Whale Hunters, and Waxtal curled his lips at men so weak that they would find worth in women’s words. It was good, though, because they gathered in Big Teeth’s ulaq, leaving Kayugh’s and Samiq’s ulas empty.
    Waxtal took unused sea lion stomach containers from his own food cache, rolled them, and tucked them under his suk. Outside, he walked between the ulas, staying out of sight of the water. Who could say whether one of the hunters would look back and see him? He crawled to the top of Kayugh’s ulaq and called down. When there was no answer, he went inside. He was cautious at first, peering into all the curtained sleeping places, but there was no one, not even Kayugh’s little daughter Wren.
    Waxtal laughed, then went to the food cache. He pulled one of the rolled sea lion stomachs from beneath his suk and took a stomach of seal oil from the cache. He pulled what he had carved the night before from his sleeve. Yes, he thought and laughed again: a narrow end made to fit loosely into the opening of the empty seal stomach container and a wide end to channel the oil from the full container into the empty one.
    He worked quickly, forcing the oil from one container to the other with gentle squeezes. He emptied only a part of the container, slipped in the stopper, then pulled out another container. He poured portions of oil from each storage belly, filling four empty stomachs from the ten and seven in Kayugh’s cache. Then, one at a time, he carried the containers from Kayugh’s ulaq. Waxtal’s heart pumped hard each time he left the ulaq with a full sea lion stomach in his hands, but no one came, no one saw him.
    He took the containers into his sleeping place, covered them with pelts and skins and grass mats. Four sea lion stomachs of rendered oil, perhaps enough for two tusks, he thought, perhaps enough for three if he also traded some of his carvings. And if by some chance he could take oil from Samiq or Big Teeth …
    When Blue Shell came back, Waxtal was sorting through his basket of wood carvings. She said nothing to him, only went to the food cache and brought out a handful of dried meat, put it on a mat, and set it beside him. He grunted and pointed at the water bladder hanging over him.
    She handed him the bladder. He took a swallow of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I have made prayers to spirits,” he said to his wife. “I have made promises. Stay out of my sleeping place so you do not curse me.”
    Blue Shell shrugged and nodded.
    Waxtal held a bit of the dried meat over an oil lamp flame, and when the meat