The Animal Wife (37 page)

Of course some of the other men noticed us, and some came to see too. Father came, and Graylag. When Andriki moved to make way for them, his shadow fell on the bundle. Father took Andriki's arm and pulled him so that his shadow fell clear. "Don't touch it," said Father.

"What is it?" I asked.

"This is your shelter," said Father. "So we must ask you."

But I didn't know. I looked at it carefully. Its main part seemed to be a peeled bent branch, with a sinew string somewhat shorter than the branch tying the two ends together. The branch in itself was harmless—perhaps a firestick of some kind, though not as good as ours. But from one end, by horsehairs strung through holes so small I wondered how they had been made, hung three of the flat front teeth of a horse. Here was no proper use of horse teeth—there seemed something unhealthy about them. To the other end, horsehairs tied three short sticks, each with the bark peeled off and one end sharpened by burning. With them was tied a white owl's feather such as the ravine's swallows use to line their nests. These sticks reminded me of something I had seen before, and showed me that the bundle was the work of Muskrat. I looked at Andriki and he looked at me. I saw we agreed. We had seen such things at Uske's Spring: her people's little bird-spears.

Yet what made the branch terrible, and what made us afraid of it, was that a short dead thing was bound to the middle with human hair, probably Muskrat's. The thing was like meat, black and dry, as long as my thumb, thinner than my little finger. We knew exactly what it was, but because it was a woman's thing we didn't like to speak of it. So it shamed me and at the same time frightened me. It was a dead, dry umbilical cord and had surely been my son's.

"Waugh," said Graylag.

"The place is fouled," said Father.

"We'll build another fire away from here," said Maral, and they did.

Far from Muskrat's shelter their many dark shapes crowded close together around the little fire that cooked their meat. Alone at my own fire, filled with shame, I watched and listened to them, thinking that they looked like ravens at a carcass. Smoke from their fire rose into the yellow sky, and the smell of cooking horsemeat spread like a cloud over the plain. I heard them talking, not of the thing we had found but of the teeth that hung from it. How was it that Muskrat had them? They were from one of the four skulls of horses taken that summer, yet none of the skulls had belonged to Muskrat. Whose were they?

Andriki's spear had killed the first horse, and the head had gone to his kinswoman, Waxwing. Had Waxwing given teeth to Muskrat? Her husband, Marten, said she had not. One day Waxwing had dug a pit, built a fire in it, and roasted the head, which she then had shared with most of us, including Frogga, who through Lilan had shared with me. The bones lay strewn near the pit, or in the cave, or on the riverbank where we had thrown them. The fire-split teeth had fallen out.

The spears of Graylag's son and stepson had killed the second horse, and the head had been given first to Yoi and later to Graylag's wife, Teal, who was Yoi's kinswoman. Both women had claim to it, but Teal was older and her claim was stronger. She then had shared its ownership with Yoi. The flesh had been scraped from that head and cooked in scraps. As Yoi's stepson I had been given an ear from her portion. The raw skull, teeth and all, had later been stolen from us by a hyena.

My spear and Graylag's had killed the third horse, a colt. The head had gone to Father. He had torn out the tongue and pried off the lower jaw but had taken his ax to the rest of the skull and cooked the brain and ears on the cave's rear fire. Some of the teeth of this horse might be scattered in the cave where the chopping had thrown them, but the rest would have been in the lower jaw, which, through Father's own carelessness, his wolf pup had stolen.

Because of the theft, ownership of the fourth horse's head was still in question. Father's spear had killed the fourth horse, and if the jaw of the third had not been stolen, the head of the fourth would probably have gone to one of Father's brother's wives. But shouldn't the jaw of the fourth horse replace the jaw of the third? The question was made hard by the fact that the third horse was owned by both groups of people, Graylag's and Father's. So the matter had not been decided. Meanwhile, flat on its chin and severed neck, the flyblown head of the fourth horse lay in the cave, its ears back, its eyes squinting, its eight long front teeth bared.

Thus the men around the dayfire remembered each horse and who had owned each of the six jaw parts from which horse teeth might be taken. They saw that no one had given teeth to Muskrat. They saw that she must have used them anyway. They wondered why. Now and then one of them would glance at me, sitting at a distance but listening carefully, and at last Andriki called me. "Don't sit alone, Nephew," he said. "Have you done wrong, that this should shame you? The food is ready. Come and eat."

So I went to sit with the others. Politely, the men spoke no more of Muskrat or her doings but of the meat that lay around us and how this horse would be shared. Even so, I felt a stiffness, a discomfort among the others, and I noticed that they were unwilling to look at me.

After we had eaten and were gathering up the rest of the meat to carry into the cave, Father took me aside. "This is no good thing, this work of your woman," he said. "We don't know what she means by it, or what the thing she made is for. We don't know what harm can come of it. She should bury it. Perhaps Graylag's wife will trance to clean the place, but then again, perhaps she won't. As for me, I won't. I'd feel foolish trancing over a bit of woman's filth, even if it could cause sickness. After all, who but your woman will suffer? But see that she does this no more."

T
HE SUN SET
. The sky turned bright blue, then pale gray, and the stars came out. I heard voices, and standing up, I saw the line of women coming through the dusk from the plain, each woman bristling with her load of branches for the night's fires. While the other women took the trail to the cave, Pinesinger broke from the group and came to my fire. From the very end of the line of women Muskrat came too.

Pinesinger dropped her firewood, looked around, and noticed the embers of the men's dayfire and the burned bones. "You killed today," she said. "What is my share?" But it must have been clear that whatever her share was, I didn't have it, so she went down the trail to ask for it from the people in the cave.

Muskrat dropped her load of branches at the side of the shelter. There she saw the thing lying untied, with the little bird-spears, the horse teeth, and the umbilical cord all spread out. In her quiet, matter-of-fact way, as if nothing much were wrong, she knelt to tie them up again.

I felt a terrible anger. How stupid she seemed there, kneeling in the dust, her hands busy with foul things! She had made a spell. How evil she seemed, misusing a part of a child to do it, since it is through the umbilical cord that the heart climbs from the placenta and finds its place in the body. As a bird flies home on the same path through the air and finds its old nest after the winter, the heart remembers the umbilical cord and the placenta, and that is why women must treat these things with respect, especially the stump of the cord after it falls off the baby. How could Muskrat treat a life so carelessly?

And how could she be so careless of my safety and the safety of our men? What if we had touched the thing, made dangerous with birthmatter? Did she still not understand? That seemed impossible. She had learned about menstruation, or at least she didn't foul the lodge. Was that only because she had been pregnant? Was it possible she didn't understand the rest?

But most of all, what was she doing, making a spell? That this foul thing of Muskrat's was a spell I had no doubt. Shamans make spells, the spirit-snares they put on corpses. Yet here was Muskrat meddling dangerously with her bundle that perhaps had powers none of us could understand. The feathers in her bundle spoke of the air—the world of spirits, birds, and shamans. The teeth in her bundle spoke of the forests, the rivers, and the plains—the world of animals. And the wood spoke of fire, of camps and lodges—the world of people.

I could have killed Muskrat. I wanted to kill her. I saw myself standing over her, my foot on her neck, my spear raised. I saw myself, my fists filled with her hair, dragging her over the plain to beat her with a stone. I saw myself leaving her wounded on the plain, to be found by the hyenas. I would have spoken to her, but rage was choking me.

So I did nothing. I watched in silence as, in the starlight, she tied the redberry bark around the bundle and put it into the thatch again. When she finished, she happened to glance my way. My rage must have showed on my face. Her eyes flew wide in surprise. For a moment she watched me, as if trying to judge what was the matter. If she had smiled, I think I would have leaped at her. But her pained look seemed to accuse me. What was happening? My anger waited. In time, innocently, Muskrat got up and went quietly into the shelter.

Pinesinger came up the trail carrying the right front leg of the horse, from the hoof to the elbow. Absently I watched her, thinking that Father must have given her that meat. In fact the whole right foreleg was his, because the spear of his brother had killed. Who was now cooking the foreleg from the elbow to the shoulder? Probably Yoi.

"Will you share with me, Stepmother?" I asked, to say something.

Pinesinger put the foreleg on the ground and took her knife to it. "You have two stepmothers," she said. "My share is small, without much meat on it. I have kin to satisfy too, remember. You must also ask my co-wife for some of hers."

"Are you refusing me?"

"Listen to yourself, Kori," said Pinesinger. "You sound like an animal growling. What have I done to you that you speak harshly to me?"

I didn't know I had spoken harshly. "I'm sorry, Stepmother," I said. "I don't want meat from your share, because I'm not hungry. I won't eat."

"And your woman?" asked Pinesinger. "What of her?"

"What of her?" I asked. "All day on the plain did you find nothing to eat?"

Pinesinger had cut free the long, thin muscle that lifts the hoof. She put sticks on my fire, getting ready to cook. The hoof drooped sharply. Still holding the leg, she lowered her head to blow on the coals, leaning so far forward between her raised knees that her child-swollen belly pushed against the ground. As she did, the wolf came up behind her and seized the hoof. "Hi!" she shouted, jerking the hoof away from him and bringing it down on his head like a club. Crying, he vanished into the dark.

But I hardly heard him. Anger seemed to have overcome me. My thoughts were fixed on killing Muskrat. I saw how I would do it if my anger weren't calmed. I had to speak with Andriki. I stood up and took the trail to the cave.

At the cave's narrow mouth, in a cloud of smoke and scent from the cooking horsemeat, I waited for people to see me. Many firelit faces turned to look. My eyes found Andriki's, and seeing my trouble, he raised his chin to beckon me. Making my way to the men's fire, I sat on my heels behind him. "It's Kori," said one of Graylag's women at the women's fire.

"Child of Aal, tell me something," called Graylag's wife, Teal, from the dark, over the heads of the people. "What has your woman made?"

I stretched my neck, but I couldn't see Teal because of the darkness and smoke. So I called my answer in the direction of her voice. "Aunt, I don't know."

"It's filth," said Father. "It's not important. That my son lets his woman play with birthmatter and take the teeth of horses that aren't hers to use, that's what's important."

But Andriki looked at me with great meaning in his eyes. Seeing that he had words to speak for my ears only, I lowered my head to wait until he was ready. "What are your plans?" he asked, when at last people began to talk of something else.

In a voice as low as his I answered, "I won't say."

"Come," he whispered, looking around at the other people, some of whom were watching us curiously. "There's no need to tease those who want to overhear us." Straightening his long legs, he stood up and led the way out of the cave, down to the river, and over some boulders to a large, flat, starlit rock in the middle of the current. I saw how well he had chosen the place—there we could talk without anyone hearing us yet be as safe as if in a cave. Andriki always knew what to do. "So are you troubled by your woman?" he asked.

It shames me to say so, but I began to weep. "I'm going to kill her," I said.

"Ai, Nephew," said Andriki calmly, as if he would have expected any man to weep. "I saw from the start that this matter was troubling you, perhaps more than it needs to. Yet what is so bad that it can't be fixed? Tell your woman to bury the thing. That's all you need to do. Getting Pinesinger to help will be your problem." He laughed.

I tried hard to control myself so I could answer him. When he saw I was having difficulty doing this, he went on. "The teeth your woman used, they're nothing much. Your father's wolf stole a jawbone from the cave, so perhaps your woman didn't take the teeth—perhaps the wolf brought them to her. The little spears, those are her people's things. What do they mean to us? Nothing. The hair? It's her hair. Her people can't be wise or clean. She hardly knows how to braid hair. What does it matter that she uses it? The feather? A bird stole that feather for its nest. She stole it from a bird. And the umbilical cord fell from her baby. Your father looked at the thing. He isn't worried. He sometimes talks about important things that were done by shamans—things that mattered. He doesn't talk of your woman's doings, because they aren't important and don't matter."

"It's that she plays with things she doesn't understand," I said. "It's that she named my child, never thinking that a name could be harmful. She doesn't understand our ways and doesn't want to. She doesn't understand anything. She's stupid and dangerous. I want to kill her. If I did, no one would avenge her. But who would feed my child if she were dead?"

"You want to kill her?"