The Raven's Gift - Don Rearden [45]
“Anything?”
“He’s gone. It looked like he dipped his wings or something, but he was so far away I couldn’t tell.”
“I hope that’s what he was doing. I hope. I hope. My dad said that hunters watch the raven and if he flies upside down he’s dumping luck off his back. Maybe he dumped some luck on our trail.”
He helped her sit down in the sled. He set the firewood on her lap, and they headed in the direction the raven flew, toward where the raven’s luck fell.
PART II
The
Monster
in the
Lake
A strange crocodile-like animal, known as pal-rai-yuk, is painted on the sides of umiaks and on the inside of wooden dishes by natives along the lower Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers … According to the traditions of the people of this district the climate in ancient times was much warmer than at present and the winters were shorter. In those days the mythic animals referred to were abundant in the swampy country between the two rivers.
—AS RECORDED BY EDWARD NELSON, 1899
16
He wouldn’t have had the strength to unload the sled after loading the food and pulling it from the school, but he wasn’t about to leave it outside the old woman’s house for the night. The old woman and the girl helped him at the top of the stairs. They took the boxes and stacked them inside the arctic entry. The woman wouldn’t let him bring the cases of food into the house, and she refused his offer to go get more for her.
“I’ll leave a couple of cans of chicken and some peanut butter,” he said, knowing that she wouldn’t refuse him if the gesture came more as a statement or command than a question. She said nothing, and he knew her hunger would consume the superstition.
He removed a single canned chicken and a gallon can of pears. He took one of her big soup pots, opened the can of frozen chicken, and dumped it in. He poured some water into the pot from a brown plastic pitcher and put the can of pears directly on top of the stove and flipped it over every few minutes. When the can felt warm enough he opened the pears, dumped the pears in a bowl, and poured the sugary juice into a couple plastic cups. He handed one to the girl and offered the other to the old woman. She refused. He set hers aside and poured himself a cup. He sipped it slowly, savouring the sweetness, the cold syrup sticking to his dry mouth.
The old woman broke some tundra tea needles off a twig and set them in a pot on the stove. “Qia-qanaarituten?” she asked the girl. The girl just sipped from her cup of pear juice. “Why the girl not talking?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Let her tell you,” he said, stirring the pot of pears and the chicken.
After a long silence the woman asked him, her voice barely audible, “How did they die in there?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe poison. They looked like they just fell asleep.”
The old woman stirred her tea and looked down at the cup of juice he’d set aside for her. “They heard the sickness was in the village and made an announcement on the VHF radio,” she began. “Everyone go to the school for a meeting, even the children. They said everyone had to go because the sickness was coming. Everyone would be safe at the school. I went and hid in the steam bath. I didn’t think they would say bring childrens to an important meeting. When I seen the village police coming house to house, I just hid. When the sickness came long time ago, the missionaries made us put signs up, a black X outside a house, and no one could leave or go into a house with a sick sign posted on the door. I thought that was what they would do here. Back then it was so bad. So many people would die. I remember a line of bodies all the way to the graves. Not enough people left to bury them properly. So scary back then. Worse than this time, but maybe only since I’m old and I seen a lot of bad things.”
Her tea started to boil. She tipped the pan and filled her mug. She gripped the mug with both hands and blew on the steam rising off it. She took