“Now why are you so hostile?” she asked, then looked at her feet and legs. “Ee-lie, Ee-lie.” She dropped to all fours and smiled apologetically.
“Ayi, Kapu. You’ve never seen a man in all your life. What is it that tells you to beware? Some spirit of your ancestors that still dwells in your body?”
She gave the grunt-whine and Kapu pressed down his ears, snatched up a bone, and brought it over to her. She grabbed it, he tugged, she pulled, he growled, she giggled, and Jello called Kapu home. He cocked an ear, rolled his eyes, and ignored the baby-sitter.
“You’re naughty,” she said and covered a grin with her hand. “Martha would scold me for that.”
Kapu dropped the bone. She leaned down, picked it up in her teeth, and tried to run on all fours. She had barely begun to move away when Kapu leaped on her back and took her bare neck in his teeth. She started to scream, checked herself and, closing her eyes, waited for the teeth to pierce her skin. They did not even bruise, so controlled was this grip that said “Drop the bone.” She let it go, and in one swish Kapu leaped to the ground and snatched it.
As she started after him something struck her boot and she looked around to see Zit, Zat, and Sister at her heels. Zing charged up the knoll, hit her arm with great force, and knocked her to the ground. She growled, flashed her teeth, and narrowed her eyes. Kapu dropped the bone and lay down. Zing backed up, and for a moment not a puppy moved.
“Phew.” She smiled. “That did it.”
Too late she remembered that such a smile was an apology, a sort of “I didn’t mean it,” and before she could growl all five little wolves jumped on her again.
“Stop!” She was angry. They sensed it and backed away. “Shoo! Go!” She waved her arm above her head and the threatening pose spoke louder than all her words. Drooping their tails, glancing warily at her, they trotted away—all but Kapu. He licked her cheek.
“Dear Kapu.” She was about to stroke his head, when he picked up the bone and carried it back to the den. But he was not done with play. He never was. Kapu was tireless. Diving into a tunnel, he came out on the other side and landed on Jello’s tail.
When Miyax saw this she sat back on her heels. Open-ended tunnels reminded her of something. In the spring, wolf packs stay at a nursery den where the pups are born deep in the earth at the end of long tunnels. When the pups are about six weeks old and big enough to walk and run, the leaders move the entire group to a summer den. These are mere shelters for the pups and are open at two ends. For a few weeks the packs stay at this den; then they leave and take up the nomadic winter life of the wolf.
The cold chill of fear ran up Miyax’s spine—the wolves would soon depart! Then what would she do? She could not follow them; they often ran fifty miles in a night and slept in different spots each day.
Her hands trembled and she pressed them together to make them stop, for Kapugen had taught her that fear can so cripple a person that he cannot think or act. Already she was too scared to crawl.
“Change your ways when fear seizes,” he had said, “for it usually means you are doing something wrong.”
She knew what it was—she should not depend upon the wolves for survival. She must go on her own. Instantly she felt relieved, her legs moved, her hands stopped shaking, and she remembered that when Kapugen was a boy, he had told her, he made snares of rawhide and caught little birds.
“Buntings, beware!” she shouted and slid down to her camp. Stepping out of her pants, she slipped off her tights and cut a swath of cloth from the hip with her ulo. She tore the cloth into small strips, then ate some stew, and started off to hunt birds. Every so often she tied a bit of red cloth to a clump of grass or around a conspicuous stone. If she was going to hunt in this confusing land, she must leave a trail to lead her home. She could not smell her way back as the wolves did.
As she tied the first piece of cloth to a bent sedge, she looked down on a small pile of droppings. “Ee-lie,” she said. “A bird roost. Someone sleeps here every night.” Quickly she took the thongs from her boots, made a noose, and placed it under the sedge. Holding the pull-rope, she moved back as far as she could and lay down to await the return of the bird.
The sun slid slowly down the sky, hung still for a moment, then started up again. It was midnight. A flock of swift-flying Arctic terns darted overhead, and one by one dropped into the grasses. Ruddy turnstones called sleepily from their scattered roosts, and sandpipers whistled. The creatures of the tundra were going to sleep, as they did also at noon in the constant daylight. Each called from his roost—all but the little bird of the sedge. It had not come back.
A bird chirped three feet from her face, and Miyax rolled her eyes to the left. A bunting on a grass blade tucked its bill into the feathers on its back, fluffed, and went to sleep. Where, she asked, was the bird of the sedge? Had it been killed by a fox or a weasel?
She was about to get to her feet and hunt elsewhere, but she remembered that Kapugen never gave up. Sometimes he would stand motionless for five hours at a seal breathing hole in the ice waiting for a seal to come up for a breath. She must wait, too.
The sun moved on around the sky and, when it was directly behind her, the sleeping bunting lifted its head and chirped. It hopped to a higher blade of grass, preened, and sang its morning song. The sleep was over. Her bird had not come back.
Suddenly a shadow passed. A snowy owl, white wings folded in a plummeting dive, threw out his feathered feet and struck the little gray bunting. The owl bounced up, and came down almost on Miyax’s outstretched hand, the bird caught in his foot. Her first instinct was to pounce on the owl, but she instantly thought better of that. Even if she could catch him, she would have his powerful claws and beak to contend with, and she knew what damage they could do. Besides, she had a better idea—to lie still and watch where he flew. Perhaps he had owlets in the nest, for these little birds took almost six weeks to get on their wings. If there were owlets, there would also be food, lots of it, for the male owls are constantly bringing food to the young. Once, she had counted eighty lemmings piled at the nest of a snowy owl.
So close was the ookpik, the white owl of the north, that she could see the clove markings on his wings and the dense white feathers that covered his legs and feet. His large yellow eyes were pixieish, and he looked like a funny little Eskimo in white parka and maklaks. The wind stirred the wolverine trim on Miyax’s hood and the owl turned his gleaming eyes upon her. She tried not to blink and belie the life in her stone-still body, but he was suspicious. He turned his head almost upside down to get a more acute focus on her; then unwinding swiftly, he lifted his body and sped off. His wings arched deeply as he steered into a wind and shot like a bullet toward the sun. As Miyax rolled to a sitting position, the owl scooped his wings up, braked, and dropped onto an exceptionally large frost heave. He left the bird and flew out over the tundra, screaming the demonic call of the hunting ookpik.
Miyax tied another red patch on the sedge, rounded a boggy pond, and climbed the heave where the owl lived. There lay an almost dead owlet, its big beak resting on the edge of the stone-lined nest. It lifted its head, laboriously hissed, and collapsed. The owlet was starving, for there was only the bunting, when there should have been dozens of lemmings. It would not live, in this time of no lemmings.
She picked up the bunting and owlet, regretting that she had found a provider only to lose him again. The male owl would not bring food to an empty nest.
Collecting her red markers as she walked home, she kicked open old lemming nests in the hope of finding baby weasels. These small relatives of the mink, with their valuable fur that turns white in winter, enter lemming nests and kill and eat the young. Then they move into the round grassy structures to give birth to their own young. Although Miyax kicked seven nests, there were no weasels—for there were no lemmings to eat.
When in sight of her house she took a shortcut and came upon a pile of old caribou droppings—fuel for her fire! Gleefully, she stuffed her pock
ets, tied a marker at the site for later use, and skipped home dreaming of owlet stew.
She plucked the birds, laid them on the ground, and skillfully cut them open with her ulo. Lifting out the warm viscera, she tipped back her head and popped them into her mouth. They were delicious—the nuts and candy of the Arctic. She had forgotten how good they tasted. They were rich in vitamins and minerals and her starving body welcomed them.
Treats over, she sliced her birds into delicate strips and simmered them slowly and not too long.
“Chicken of the North,” Miyax gave a toast to the birds. Then she drank the rich juices and popped the tender meat in her mouth. Had she been a boy this day would be one to celebrate. When a boy caught his first bird in Nunivak, he was supposed to fast for a day, then celebrate the Feast of the Bird. When he killed his first seal his mother took off her rings, for he was a man, and this was her way of bragging without saying a word.
Silly, she said to herself. but nevertheless she sang Kapugen’s song of the Bird Feast.
Tornait, tornait,
Spirit of the bird,
Fly into my body
And bring me
The power of the sun.
Kapu yapped to say that the hunters were coming home, and Miyax washed out her pot and went to her lookout to tell them goodnight. Amaroq and Jello were facing each other, ruffs up, ready to fight. Before Jello could attack, Amaroq lifted his head and Jello bowed before him. The dispute was over. No blood was shed. The difference had been settled with the pose of leadership.
Miyax wondered what had happened to put them at odds with each other. Whatever the problem, Jello had surrendered. He was on his back flashing the white fur on his belly that signaled “I give up!”—and no one, not even the pups, could strike him.
“The white flag of surrender,” she murmured. “Jello lost.” Amaroq walked gracefully away.
He was not done with what he had to say, however. With a dash, he picked up her mitten and tore it to shreds, then rolled in its many pieces and stood up. Nails, Silver, and the pups sniffed him and wagged their tails in great excitement. Then Amaroq narrowed his eyes and glanced her way. With a chill she realized he was going to attack. She flattened herself like an obedient pup as he glided down his slope and up hers. Her breathing quickened, her heart raced.
When Amaroq was but five feet away and she could see each hair on his long fine nose, he gave the grunt-whine. He was calling her! Cautiously she crawled toward him. He wagged his tail and led her down the hill, through the sedges, and up the long slope to the wolf den. Patiently adjusting his stride to her clumsy crawl he brought her home to the pack, perhaps against Jello’s will—she would never know.
At the den site he promptly ignored her and went to his bed, a dish-like scoop in the soil on the highest point. Circling three or four times, scratching the earth to prepare it for sleep, he lay down.
Miyax glanced out of the corner of her eyes to see Nails preparing his bed also with scratches and turns. Silver was already in her scoop, snapping at the nursing Zing. Jello was off by himself.
Now it was Miyax’s turn to say she was home. Patting the ground, circling first to the left and then to the right, she lay down and pulled her knees up to her chin. She closed her eyes, but not completely.
Through her lashes she peeked at Amaroq for reassurance, just as she had seen the other wolves do. The wind played across his black ruff and his ears twitched from time to time as he listened to the birds and winds in his sleep. All was well with the world, and apparently with her, for Amaroq rested in peace.
But Miyax could not sleep. The sun reached its apogee and started down the blue sky of early afternoon. The elegant Arctic terns cut swirls in the sky, a spider crept under a stone, and the snow buntings flitted and called. From some distant spot a loon cried. Then the pale green of evening was upon the land and Miyax closed her eyes.
She awoke with a start a short time later and looked about in puzzlement. The sky vaulted above her. A grass blade tickled her face, and she remembered where she was—up on the frost heave with the wolf pack! Breathing deeply to quell a sense of uneasiness, she finally relaxed, unrolled, and sat up. Kapu was curled against her leg. His feet were flipping and he yipped as if challenging some wolf badman in his dreams. Softly she stroked his fur.
“All’s well,” she whispered and his paws stopped moving. He sighed and dreamed on peacefully.
She glanced around. All of the wolves were asleep, although they usually went hunting when the sky was lime-green. Perhaps they knew something she didn’t know. Sniffing and turning her head, she saw nothing different from any other evening. Then in the distance a thick wall of fog arose. It blotted out the horizon, the far dips and heaves, the grasses, the pond, and finally her own frost heave. The fog streamed up the wolf slope and enveloped the members of the pack one by one until only Kapu was visible. Fogs were part of the Arctic summer, rolling in from the sea for only an hour or for many days, but Miyax had never given them much thought. Now she remembered that when the fog rolled over Barrow, airplanes were grounded, ships and boats had to be anchored, and even the two jeeps in town sat where they had stopped in the fog. She also remembered that people were prisoners of the fog, too. They could not see to hunt.
Now, if the wolves did not bring her some meat, she might not eat for days. She could resort to the belly-basket again, but Jello was jumpy and she doubted if she had enough courage to put her hands in the mouths of the others. Perhaps Kapu would share his meals with her.
“Kapu?” He sighed and pushed tighter against her. The whiskers that protected his sensitive nose and warned him of objects nearby, twitched as her breath touched them. His lips curled up. Whatever he was dreaming about now must be funny, she thought. She hoped so, for her wide-awake dream was hardly amusing—it was desperate.
She was looking at Silver stretched not far away in a thin spot of fog. Zing, the incorrigible Zing, was nursing again. Silver growled. The pup rolled to his back, paws outstretched like an upside-down chair. Then Sister moved out of the fog. She snuggled up to her mother, suckled two or three times, more for comfort than food, and fell back to sleep.
This brief sucking of the pups had started Silver’s milk flowing. Miyax stared at this unexpected source of food.
She inched forward on her stomach and elbows until she was close to the mother. Miyax had drunk the milk of other wild mammals on Nunivak and each time had found it sweet and good. True, the walrus and musk oxen had been milked by her father, but if he had done it, why couldn’t she? Slipping her hand beneath a nipple she caught several drops, keeping her eyes on Silver to discern her mood. Slowly Miyax brought the milk to her mouth, lapped, and found it as rich as butter. She reached out again, but as she did so, Silver closed her jaws on Miyax’s shoulder and held her immobile. She stifled a scream.
Suddenly Amaroq appeared and lifted his head. Silver let go. Miyax rubbed her shoulder and crept back to Kapu. He was awake, peering up at her, his head on his paws. When their eyes met, he flipped one ear humorously and Miyax sensed he had been through this, too.
“Guess I’m weaned,” she said. He wagged his tail.
The fog thickened and, like an eraser on a blackboard, wiped out Amaroq and Silver and the tip of Kapu’s tail. She cuddled closer to Kapu, wondering if Amaroq would hunt tonight. After a long time she decided he would not—his family was content and well fed. Not she, however; two drops of milk were scarcely life-sustaining. She patted Kapu, crawled off in the fog, and stood up when she thought she was safely out of sight. Amaroq snarled. She dropped to her knees. His tail beat the ground and she gasped.
“I know you can’t see me,” she called, “so how do you know what I’m doing? Can you hear me stand up?” His tail beat again and she scrambled to her house, awed by the sensitivity of Amaroq. He knew about fogs and the sneaky ways of human beings.
The sedges around her pond were visible if she crawled, and so on hands and knees she rounded the bank, picking seed
s, digging up the nut-like roots of the sedges, and snatching crane fly larvae from the water. As she crept she ate. After what seemed like hours of constant foraging she was still hungry—but not starving.
She came back to her house in a fog so thick she could almost hold it in her hands. For long hours she was suspended between sleep and wakefulness. She listened to the birds call to keep in touch with each other in the fog. Like herself they could not smell their food; they needed to see. As time dragged on, she sang to pass the hours. At first she invented rhymes about the tundra and sang them to tunes she had learned at school. When she tired of these melodies she improvised on the songs of her childhood. They were better suited to improvisation, for they had been invented for just this purpose—to pass the hours in creative fun when the weather closed in.
She sang about the wolves, her house, and the little feather flower on her table; and when she had no more to say, she crawled to her door and looked out. The fog was somewhat lighter. She could see the empty pot by her fireplace and, low overhead, a few birds in the sky.
Then an airplane droned in the distance, grew louder, then fainter, then louder again. The pilot was circling, waiting to see if the weather might suddenly clear so he could land. The same thing had happened to her when she was flown from Nunivak to Barrow. As their plane came over the town, a dense fog rolled in and the pilot had circled for almost an hour.
“If we cannot land on this turn,” he had finally announced over the intercom, “we will head straight back to Fairbanks.” But suddenly the fog had cleared, and they had landed in Barrow.
The sound of the plane grew louder. Through the thinning fog, she saw the commercial plane that flew from Fairbanks to Barrow and back. Her heart pounded. If the pilot could see her he might send help. She ran out to wave, but the fog had swirled in again and she could barely see her hand. The engines accelerated, and the plane sped off in what must be the direction of Fairbanks. She listened to its sound and, bending down, drew a line in the soil in the direction it had gone.