Authors: Janet Dailey
About midafternoon, Belyaev called a halt, ordering a short rest stop. Luka shrugged out of his heavy pack and lowered it to the ground, the muscles in his shoulders and back aching from the strain of carrying its weight. He sat down beside it, stretching and flexing to ease the stiffness. As he glanced over their back trail, he recognized the cliff where they’d captured the boy. Since their approach to it had been from a different direction, he hadn’t been certain it was the same one until now.
“Somewhere around here is where you captured the chief’s son, isn’t it?” At the sound of the question, Luka turned back and encountered Belyaev.
“That cliff.” Luka indicated the location with a jerk of his head.
“How far is the village from here?”
“Two—maybe three hours’ walk.” He scanned the coastline ahead of them, trying to identify landmarks. “See that point of land. It’s on the other side along the shores of a bay.”
Belyaev studied the clouded sky, trying to estimate the number of daylight hours left. “We should reach it before the light goes,” he concluded, then grinned at Luka. “It will be a good place to make camp tonight—and maybe have somebody else do our cooking.”
“The village has a baidar, too,” Luka reminded him. “We’re going to need one.”
“Yes.” His grin widened.
Rising, Belyaev gave the order to move out. With their packs shouldered once more, the band set out again. Belyaev picked up the pace of their march, intent on reaching their destination before the light faded.
When they topped the cliff behind the village, Luka paused to look over the setting and gauge the native strength. He counted fifteen men scattered over the site, some sitting and staring seaward, others engaged in various tasks. Two were on the beach, where a half dozen one- and two-hatch kayaks—known in Siberia as “bidarkas”—rested on the sand. A screaming, soaring flock of seagulls fought over the discarded fish entrails where a group of women were cleaning some fish. The wind carried a shouted warning from the village. A second later, Luka spotted the man hurrying off the earthen mound that roofed the native dwelling to alert the villagers to the approach of the Russians.
With trepidation, Winter Swan watched the band of strangers make their way down the cliff path toward the village. Instinctively she gripped the carved bone handle of the fan-shaped knife more tightly, forgetting the cleaned halibut she was slicing into chunks. Strong Man came up behind her, his bare calloused feet making little sound on the sand. She turned to look at him, but his attention was centered on the approaching visitors.
“Why have they come?” she wondered.
“To visit. Maybe to trade.” He seemed unconcerned.
Her instincts were not so trusting. Winter Swan watched her husband walk away to join the headman and greet the new arrivals.
Beside her, Summer-Face Woman went to work on the gutted halibut with renewed vigor, deftly cutting strips of the white flesh from the bone. “We must prepare these fish so we may feed our visitors,” she said, then cast a quick, excited smile in Winter Swan’s direction. “There will be much singing and dancing tonight.”
“Yes.” Winter Swan forced her attention back to the fish, but without the enthusiasm for the chore that Summer-Face Woman exhibited.
“Maybe one of the strangers will offer presents to sleep with me tonight.” As Summer-Face Woman considered the possibility, her dark eyes glittered.
Winter Swan knew she would not accept if an offer was made to her, although it was her right to do so if she wished. A man did not own his wife’s body. She was free to lie with another man if she chose. But Winter Swan had never found the pleasure in another man’s arms that she had with Strong Man. And she certainly shared none of Summer-Face Woman’s curiosity for what it might be like to couple with one of the strangers.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the men from another land enter her village. All the men were there to welcome them except for Many Whiskers and three others who were away hunting. As soon as the fish was cut up, Winter Swan assisted the other women in their hurried preparations to accommodate their unexpected guests in the communal dwelling.
While the meal was being readied, Winter Swan and Weaver Woman pushed aside the covering of dried grass to clear an area of the packed earth floor for the dancing that would come later. As they finished, the headman descended the notched log ladder from the hatch opening in the roof, escorting his visitors into his familial home. Winter Swan was immediately conscious of the tension in the air and the suspicious way the men looked around. The strangers gripped their thundersticks as if ready to use them. Their behavior made her uneasy, and she glided quickly out of their way.
The barabara was soon crowded with villagers and guests. The tension seemed to lessen when the women served the meal of raw fish seasoned with berry paste. Using hand signs, Strong Man and his male relatives established a halting communication with the strangers, but there were many gaps in the primitive conversation.
The earthen walls of the half-buried barabara held in the warmth given off by the stone lamps and the body heat from so many people gathered inside. Seeking relief, Winter Swan followed the lead of other members of her village, both male and female, and removed her long parka of otter skins so the air could touch her bare skin. Seldom did her people wear clothes inside the barabara except on the coldest of winter days, and sometimes on exceptionally warm summer days they went about their work outside without any covering.
As she moved among the strangers picking up the empty serving bowls, she was conscious of the way they stared at her. Little by little, Winter Swan had become accustomed to the strangeness of these men, their round eyes and thickly whiskered faces, but their peculiar clothing she continued to regard as very confining and wondered how the air ever touched their skin. She suspected they must be very warm in their close-fitting garments. Sweat trickled down the brows of some, but none made any attempt to remove their clothes.
With the feasting over, it was time for the dancing to begin. Winter Swan watched with pride as Strong Man took off his bird-skin parka and stowed it inside their private cubicle in the barabara. His naked body bulged with massive muscles, his arms and legs like sinewy trunks, and his broad chest and shoulders like an ocean-smoothed rock. The long torsos of all the men in her village were notable in their high muscle relief and little fat. Yet, next to Strong Man, they resembled female fur seals next to a beachmaster bull. Winter Swan heard the strangers murmuring in their alien tongue and knew they were impressed with the might of her husband.
When Luka first noticed the natives removing their parkas and saw they wore nothing underneath, his interest was aroused by the paleness of their skin. Unlike their ruddy faces and hands, which were exposed to the elements, their bodies were a creamy shade of ivory. He stared at the bare-breasted women walking among them, then he saw the muscled brute of a man.
“Would you look at that one?” he murmured to Belyaev seated beside him. Reluctantly the Russian hunter dragged his attention away from the naked women in their midst. “He looks like trouble to me.”
“I would not want to get crosswise of him,” Belyaev agreed thoughtfully. “I would wager he could strangle a man’s neck with each hand and wrap his legs around a third and choke him to death, too.”
“We need to watch him.”
Belyaev grunted an acknowledgment. “Have you noticed the women? They aren’t bad to look at even with those ivory buttons poking out of the skin by their lips. I feared they were all going to look like that old hag you brought to the shitik. I wonder if we could persuade any of them to warm our beds tonight.”
“With the likes of him around, I wouldn’t try to find out if I were you,” Luka advised dryly. “That is, unless you keep your musket primed and handy.”
“Have you ever kept a native woman before, Luka Ivanovich?”
“No.” It would have meant turning his back to one of alien race, trusting one to an extent, and that was something he’d never been able to bring himself to do. He’d always limited his contact with native women to the duration of sexual intercourse, then kicked them out of his bed.
“I had one once. A lot can be said for having a woman around when you want one.” Belyaev smiled crookedly. “She’s good for more than warming your bed. She cooks and sews and tends you. Eventually they all start making demands, but then you send them back to their village and get a new one.”
“Yes.” Luka watched the four naked men assemble near the area where the dirt floor had been cleared of the loose grass covering. They were joined by other natives with bladder-skin drums.
He didn’t like being trapped in this barabara with all these natives. It didn’t allow for any fighting room. If the natives did attack, they’d pay hell getting out of here. And the fighting would be hand to hand; their muskets wouldn’t do them much good. All this food, dancing, and show of hospitality could be an act of treachery designed to lull the promyshleniki into letting down their guard, then the natives would fall on them.
“I have been thinking.” Belyaev watched a native woman walk by, noting the sway of her hips. “This would be a good site for our winter quarters. The cliffs shelter the valley from the wind, the stream provides us with fresh water, and the bay contains fish. There are plenty of sea otter in the area. If we build our camp by the village, we will have access to the native boats—and their women.”
“And it will make it easy for them to murder us in our sleep,” Luka added.
“I have been thinking about that, too.” He grinned widely, the action as always drawing attention to the prominent gap between his front teeth. “And I haven’t been able to figure out what use these natives are to us. They don’t pay tribute. They have no wish to hunt sea otter. And they don’t want to trade us their boats. They act friendly, but so did those natives on the other island. And you had to fight your way off that beach. It occurs to me we could eliminate some problems if we did away with some of the obstacles around here.”
Luka glanced around the room, considering the present odds again. He had no more compunction about killing a native than he did about squashing a beetle. Ultimately it might come down to killing or being killed.
“Not here. Not now,” Belyaev said. But he had made it clear to Luka that if the promyshleniki could not get what they wanted, they would take it.
Hands beat a primal rhythm on the bladder drums while the naked dancers leaped onto the packed earthen floor. Luka stared at the brawny native, all sinew and glistening flesh. He represented the strength of the tribe, their symbol of power—and the greatest threat to the promyshleniki.
CHAPTER V
While Winter Swan prepared the day’s first meal, Strong Man went through their son’s morning ritual of exercises, making a game of them. She listened to the wordless sounds Strong Man made as he gently pulled Walks Straight’s arm directly over his shoulder and back behind his head, making the joint supple. Usually it was her son’s uncle, Many Whiskers, who played with him, but he was still away from the village hunting.
She glanced over to watch her husband massaging their son’s knees. Walks Straight sat on a box with his legs straight and his feet resting on another box while Strong Man pressed lightly downward on his knees. Bending his foot forward and backward as far as it would go, Walks Straight stretched the hamstring muscles along the back of his leg. In another five summers, Walks Straight would be able to sit comfortably in a kayak with his legs outstretched and not suffer from cramping. This conditioning would serve him well in the future, but at the moment, Winter Swan simply enjoyed watching the two of them together.
All too soon the food was ready and she had to interrupt their play. As the two of them came to eat, Walks Straight marched beside his father. It always amused her to see how proudly he carried himself, but she never let it show.
The incomprehensible tongue of the strangers drifted into the barabara through the opening in the roof. “Will they be leaving today?” she asked her husband.
“No. They are going to stay here.”
“How long?”
“Until next summer, when they will leave for their land across the waters.”
Frowning, she glanced about their family dwelling, remembering how crowded it had been last night. “But they cannot stay here. There is not enough room.”
But it was more than the lack of room that worried her. The way some of them had looked at her made her uncomfortable in their presence. She had never had this feeling when men from other villages had looked at her, showing their desire to lie with her. It was a sensation she couldn’t explain, but she knew she didn’t like it.
“They will build their own.”
But it wasn’t enough that they would sleep somewhere else. She wanted them to leave the village and never come back. She kept remembering the deaths of Small Hand and Moon Face. Her people on Agattu would not have been so willing to forget them as Strong Man’s family was. They had attacked these strangers and driven them away from the island.
“Why do you trust these strangers?” She was troubled by his calm acceptance of the situation. “I cannot. When they look at me, the thing that is in their eyes is not good.”