Wolf Road, page 13
A ring of drummers – all women – were beating out a building rhythm, and beginning to hum along. The girls arrived just as Aski stepped into the centre of the nine-foot-wide circle, tall in her headdress of eagle feathers, beating her own beautiful drum. It was made of a long strip of birch, bent around into a large oval, with the finest reindeer hide stretched tight across it and stitched in place with sinews. It was painted with a cross in the centre – representing the four directions in the earthly world – and with tiny, simple images of reindeer and birds. She beat it with a reindeer bone hammer. And Aski was wearing her shaman cloak, sewn in stripes of different furs – reindeer, fox, wolverine, bear and lynx – and heavy with stone, ivory, antler and shell amulets. Each one carried a meaning. Some she’d made herself, others were gifts from all sorts of people who wanted her to help or protect them somehow. Gifts that were themselves heavy with the weight of expectation, longing and sometimes desperation. As Aski drummed, she spun around and the cloak flung out. She already looked like she was flying.
The girls sat down on the ground some distance from the circle, and waited for the flight to start.
‘What a day!’ whispered Tuuli. Wren shushed her.
The drummers were now holding their drums up to their faces, and the humming had become a chant, in the old language. Words that Tuuli couldn’t even make out. Some sang low, others high. They were still drumming, and it all merged together in a rushing river of sound. The chatter from the crowd had fallen away to a low murmur. Everyone was now immersed in the moment.
Tuuli could feel her own heart thumping. The drums always had this effect on her. She was never sure if she felt excited or unsettled or both. She’d mentioned it to Wren before, who was of course sure this was another sign that Tuuli was destined for shamanism. When she’d told Aski, her aunt had predictably said, ‘You might be a shaman too, little wind-hawk.’
Aski was still spinning, eyes closed. The other drums began to beat yet more insistently, and the chanting grew louder still, Then she came to a stop and started drumming again, and chanting into the hollow back of her drum. Her spirit was about to leave her. She cried out, dropping her drum and hammer, lifting her face to the star-studded sky.
Two of the circle drummers were ready – they’d already laid down their own drums and were now at her side, ready to catch her as she fell. They gently lowered her to the ground – onto a great pile of furs. And then they wrapped the shaman cloak more closely around her. Aski-on-the-ground was sleeping soundly – nothing could wake her now. Aski-of-the-air had left her earth-bound body and was flying far above them all.
The two shaman-catchers picked up their drums again, and now all the drummers sat down on the ground, settling into a gentler thrum, and the chanting turned back to humming. People around the campfire began to chat again.
Wren yawned noisily. Tuuli caught the yawn.
‘I wonder where she’s gone,’ she said. ‘I wonder if she’ll see Andar.’
‘She might do,’ said Wren. ‘And then what do we say?’
‘I don’t know. It seems like another world, doesn’t it?’
‘I think this might have been the most unusual day of my life,’ said Wren, in agreement.
Just then, Kuba appeared out of nowhere and sat down beside them.
‘So here you are!’ he exclaimed. ‘Where have you been all day?’
‘Off hunting nothing,’ said Wren.
‘Petrel’s been looking for you,’ he said to Tuuli. ‘To go fishing.’
‘Oh, we know. We saw her,’ replied Tuuli. ‘We just had delicious roast bison with them.’
‘Ah, but we got the stomach,’ said Kuba. ‘That was an exceptional morsel. Well, not exactly a morsel. More of a massive totally tasty thing,’ he said emphatically, with his hands held out as though he was grasping a large, round but invisible object between them.
‘I thought that was meant for Aski?’ said Wren, teasing him.
‘She won’t eat until after her flight, so I thought I’d better help out,’ replied Kuba. ‘There is some left.’
He lay down, stretched out and patted his stomach, like a drum.
‘But most of it is in here.’
Tuuli was quiet. The conversation seemed so banal after the events of the day. And they couldn’t tell Kuba about the boy and the cave and the painting. She was suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. She tried to make a pillow out of Lupa, who wasn’t having it. The wolf got up and slunk away, presumably on the prowl for some unguarded leftovers around the camp. Tuuli hoped she wouldn’t go back to the pit-roast bison. She put her head in Wren’s lap and closed her eyes.
A little later, she was aware of being tucked up in furs. Wren had brought a pile over, and was making a bed for them on the ground. The large campfire was smaller now – though still alight – but too far away to share its warmth. The night was cold, but with enough furs, they could sleep out. The stars were incredible. Tuuli peered out between her eyelashes, looking at the arc of the Sky River passing over them. She could see the pattern of stars they called the Bear, and the Hunter, too, with three stars at his belt. Lots of people, including Aski, still wrapped in her shaman cloak, were sleeping out under the stars tonight.
Tuuli fell back to sleep, dreaming of the cave. The blue-eyed boy was there and he crawled into the cave ahead of her then called to her, saying, ‘Come.’ And Tuuli went in after him but couldn’t see anything in the darkness, and spent ages crawling round in the belly of the earth, calling for Andar, but there was no sign of him, no glimmer of light from a lamp. And then she tried to turn around, but couldn’t, and was just going deeper and deeper into the ground. And then it wasn’t Andar she was trying to find, but Poz. She knew he was in the cave, somewhere. If only she could find him. Panicking, she suddenly woke from the nightmare in a cold sweat. Lupa was lying up against her, fast asleep. Tuuli pulled the furs up around her neck and, as the claws of the nightmare pulled out of her, she sank back, this time into a dreamless sleep.
THE MORNING AFTER
The camp was slow to get going in the morning. People had eaten too much the night before. And there was still plenty of meat around, as well as fish, of course. There would be no need for any hunting parties to set off today. A few people went down to the river to wash, but no one was fishing – apart from a few young children who were always keen to hone their skills and build stone dams and fish traps.
Tuuli woke late. She was stiff from sleeping on the cold ground. Lupa was with her, but Wren had disappeared. Aski was still asleep, enveloped in her cloak and furs, beside the central campfire, which was just burning. One of the women was sitting by it, feeding it sticks. Unlike the other campfires, that shaman fire had had to stay alight all night, to keep away any evil spirits that might try to prevent Aski’s own spirit returning to her.
Tuuli went down to the river, wrapped in a fur blanket. She drank some water from cupped hands, while Lupa wandered into the shallows and tried to fetch stones out from under the water. Tuuli threw a stone further out into the river and Lupa chased after it, before giving up. Laughing, Tuuli hurled another stone. Then she remembered the gift from Andar and fetched it out of her pouch. It was a scallop shell – pierced so it could be hung from a thread, and painted red with ochre.
Wrapping herself back up in the blanket, Tuuli wandered over to Jutsa’s tipi. Remi and Maatu were sitting outside, getting a small fire going.
‘Hey Tuuli-nita,’ said Remi, with a note of mock surprise. ‘I saw you at the gathering last night. Are you avoiding us?’
‘Not really,’ replied Tuuli. ‘Just hanging out with Wren.’
‘Well, I think you missed some good roast bison. Big Cev and Little Cev came back with a great haul yesterday.’
‘I know, I had some with them,’ said Tuuli.
Remi was quiet for a moment.
‘Did you take Lupa over there?’ he asked.
‘I did. She got a hoof to chew on.’
‘Mmm. Well, Big Cev isn’t keen on her,’ said Remi.
Tuuli sighed in exasperation and looked away.
‘I’m just telling you,’ Remi went on. ‘And he’s not the only one. There are quite a few people who think you’re doing something… well, something dangerous.’
Tuuli kicked at a stone. Maatu was silent.
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think they might be right.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Tuuli. ‘I thought you were giving her a chance.’
‘Well, you’ve had her for a moon now…’
‘Nearly a moon,’ interjected Tuuli. ‘And she’s not hurt anyone, has she? This,’ said Tuuli, gesturing to Lupa, who was sniffing around the tent, ‘is not a passing phase. She is my wolf. I am keeping her.’
Tuuli stuck her jaw out. Remi shrugged his shoulders. Maatu said nothing, but shook his head a little.
‘Well, we’re clearly unwelcome here,’ said Tuuli. And she turned her back on Remi and Maatu, called Lupa to her side and headed back to the centre of the camp. Aski had now woken up, and had gone down to the river to wash. Then she came back, her damp hair cascading over her shaman cloak. She sat down by the fire and got ready to share her spirit journey. People were bringing small gifts of food and laying them on a split larch log in front of her, and plying her with pine-needle-and-crowberry-leaf tea in birch-bark cups.
Eventually, one of the Snow Geese men raised his voice and asked her, ‘Aski of the Swans, what did you see on your journey?’
Aski threw a handful of dried pine resin onto the fire. It crackled and sparked. And then she began speaking. Everyone fell quiet to listen.
Aski had a lot to report. Many people had come to her with questions over the previous days. Now she must do her best to answer them. Firstly, and most importantly, she revealed that she had seen the reindeer and that most of the huge herd had assembled at the Summer Set. Many calves had already been born. Many tribes would gather at the meadow. Many babies would be born this coming summer.
Throwing more pine resin onto the flames, she told a pregnant woman from the Fulmars that her baby would be born safely, and that she would also be safe. Feeding the fire each time, she told an old man with joint pains that he must sacrifice a hare; she said the weather was changing and that clouds would be coming from the sea; she said that some (she did not say who) would not make it back to this place in the Fall, and that their spirits would stay in the meadow and join the migrating geese when they flew back towards the mountains.
She threw another handful of resin onto the fire, and it crackled and flared. She closed her eyes.
‘I have seen the boy lost to the river,’ she said. ‘He is now hunting with his ancestors.’ And then she began telling an old story.
There was one ancestor, a woman from many generations ago, a founder of the Swans. She had once hunted and killed a sacred white reindeer. This most ancient Jutsa had not offered the reindeer back to the cosmos. She had not given it a sky burial. She had eaten it. And so, when she died, her spirit had been condemned to wander restlessly. Her lineage continued, but the death of the sacred white reindeer had haunted the Swan people. Many bad things had happened. Swan women had lost babies before they were born. They had lost their men. Finally, the cosmos had claimed the life of one who would end this disturbance, this curse. One whose name was ‘reindeer’ – Poz.
‘With his death,’ Aski intoned, solemnly, ‘the curse has been lifted.’
She stopped speaking and paused to drink some tea. Nobody broke the silence. There was only the sound of the river, and birdsong. Two buzzards circled high above them, making their mewing calls.
Tears were streaming down Tuuli’s face. She hugged Lupa. Blinking through the tears, she saw her mother across at the other side of the campfire, hugging Garan. Maatu and her father had come to listen, too. But now Remi got up and walked away from the gathering.
Aski threw some more resin onto the fire. There was more to come. And Tuuli knew what to expect, as these utterances always followed a pattern. Aski said again: the weather is changing; it is time to move on. She said that they must only stay at Spring Camp for three more nights, and then they should follow the river again. And when they reached the summer meadows, she intoned, ‘All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.’
And then Aski folded her hands in her lap and closed her eyes for a brief moment. Then she stood up and walked away from the fire. A cousin from the Fulmars, who had a baby of her own and had been looking after little Nika all night, passed her back to Aski.
Tuuli wiped her tears away and walked over to Garan, Jutsa and Maatu. Garan looked up at her, and Tuuli took her hand and squeezed it. Then she wandered back to her tipi.
Remi was sitting outside on his own, still working on his antler fish-baton.
‘That’s taking a while,’ remarked Tuuli, not unkindly.
‘Oh, it’s finished. I’ve been using them. Look – it’s two batons, attached with sinew. I hold one and then hit the fish with the other. It’s vicious! But I just thought I’d add something.’ He showed it to her. Into one of the batons, he’d carved three fish – each one simply depicted by two intersecting arcs, and hatched to represent scales. There were some other, smaller, starlike patterns as well.
‘Fish and flowers,’ Remi said. ‘A fitting weapon for the spring salmon run.’
Tuuli took the batons and twirled them round.
‘Careful,’ said Remi. ‘You can easily hit…’ He was too late. Tuuli yelped as she whacked her free left wrist with the weapon.
‘Hern’s horns! I wouldn’t want to be a salmon!’ She exclaimed, as she handed the batons back. ‘And I think I’ll stick to a harpoon.’
‘Speaking of which…’ said Remi, and went into the tipi. He brought out a beautiful, long harpoon.
‘The handle is larch,’ he said, handing the weapon to her. The antler tip was carved with three curved and backwards-pointing barbs on each side. It was firmly anchored to the handle with sinew and resin.
‘This is so much nicer than my old one,’ said Tuuli, stroking the handle, still sticky with fish oil. ‘Thanks, Papa.’
He smiled at her. Then frowned as Lupa slunk around Tuuli’s legs and licked the harpoon.
‘There’s real concern about that wolf in camp,’ he said.
‘Lupa. Her name is Lupa.’
‘I can’t tell you what to do,’ he continued. ‘You’re too old for that. But you’re not making things easy for yourself.’
‘Well, we’re leaving soon,’ she said. ‘And then people will have other things to keep them busy than moaning about my wolf.’
‘Ah, three more nights,’ said Remi, moving on. ‘I think it’s too late. We should be packing up now.’
‘We usually stay a half-moon here, though,’ responded Tuuli.
‘I know. But we left Winter Camp late this year.’
‘We couldn’t have left any earlier. We’d have been travelling in deep snow.’
‘I know. But the melt came late, and then it’s happened so fast. Look at all this now,’ he said, gesturing to the landscape around them. She looked round at the bright green of the taiga, against the red of the alder on the flanks of the hills, against the blue sky. There were only just flecks of snow on the ground now, like ptarmigan feathers.
‘It is warm,’ agreed Tuuli.
‘It’s happening too fast,’ said Remi. ‘The river is higher and swifter than usual.’ He paused then added, ‘And more dangerous.’
‘Did you believe that story?’ Tuuli asked, sitting down by him. ‘About the ancestor and the sacred white reindeer?’
Remi sighed.
‘You know what I think about all that.’
Tuuli bit her lip, and rested her chin on her hands.
‘Maybe it’s helpful,’ she said. ‘For Garan. For Numil.’
Remi looked at her and shrugged.
‘It’s just a story,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘It doesn’t really help, does it? We’ve lost someone, and when that happens, you have to think about the reasons. There have been problems in the talo for a while. Maybe we could have solved them better. But the changing nature of the river, the late, fast snowmelt. Those are the things we should be taking notice of. We should be listening carefully to nature, not to these crazy hallucinations, these fables.’
He was getting angry, and he stopped himself. He added another detail to one of the carved fish on the baton. Then he began again.
‘But there is one thing I think she was right about.’
‘What?’
‘The reindeer. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are already at the meadows. They know it’s late too. They won’t have wanted to stop for long on their journey. And that’s why we should be getting on with ours now.’
He stood up and twirled his batons round, then caught the free end in one hand.
‘I’m going to start packing up today,’ he said. ‘Are you going to help? Or have you got better things to do?’
Tuuli gazed up at the hills.
‘I… I was thinking of maybe going hunting again,’ she said. ‘With Wren.’
‘I don’t understand this need for hunting expeditions when we have so much fish right here,’ Remi responded.
‘I suppose it’s having been stuck here with my ankle for so long,’ said Tuuli. ‘I need to roam.’
Remi understood this urge, but was still hard on her.
‘That’s as maybe,’ he said. ‘But your mother is busy with the baby. And you,’ he pointed at her, ‘should be helping us get ready to move on.’
‘Just because you want to leave early,’ replied Tuuli sulkily. And she stood up, turned on her heel and walked off, with Lupa trotting at her side. Remi was left shaking his head. He grumpily smacked the ground with his fish-baton.
