Cry of the Wind by Sue Harrison

Author:Sue Harrison
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Native American
ISBN: 9780380726042
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2013-04-22T21:54:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-seven

THE NEAR RIVER PEOPLE

DII SET HER PACK on the ground, shuddered as she heard Anaay bellow at her. “You think I want my tent there? It is wet. Find a better place! I did not bring you to make my life more difficult.”

She carried a heavier load now that K’os was no longer with them, nearly twice as much as she had carried before, and that day Anaay had given her another of his own packs as well as a caribou hide. She had tied the hide on one of the dogs’ travois, but the added weight pressed the travois down into the tundra, miring it in any wet spot that the snow and cold had not yet hardened.

By midday her back and shoulders were stiff with pain, but she had kept her thoughts away from the agony. She had been so tired by the time they stopped to make camp that she had unstrapped the heaviest of her packs and let it fall where she stood.

“Where do you want the tent?” she asked Anaay.

He lifted a hand toward her, and she crouched, prepared for his blow, but then he looked at the men and women who were watching. “Go with Blue Flower,” he told her. “She has a little wisdom. Put my tent beside hers.”

Blue Flower lifted her chin toward the east side of the camp, and Dii grabbed her pack, urged the dogs forward and followed the woman. Blue Flower bent to whisper to her nephew who walked beside her, and he ran back to help Dii drag the pack.

“Wife, you shame me,” Anaay called to her, “allowing a boy to do your work.”

But Blue Flower turned around, thrust back her parka hood and with all the camp listening said, “You should be the one ashamed, Anaay. It is a husband’s work my nephew is doing. Are you so blind that you do not see your wife carries more than any of us and also watches three dogs?”

Blue Flower’s words seemed to lend strength to Dii’s arms, but she knew Anaay would not forget the humiliation, nor would he allow her to forget.

THE COUSIN RIVER PEOPLE

Yaa searched through the camp for Sok, but though she asked many, poked her head into the open sides of lean-tos, no one knew where he was.

Marsh marigold grew near rivers. She knew the plant well but had never seen it used for medicine. The round ruffled leaves grew on stems no more than a hand’s length from the earth. They fanned out in a circle, and each spring the plant bloomed with bright yellow flowers. She knew she could find it herself, especially this close to a river, except for the snow.

She was glad Sok and not Twisted Stalk was the one who was supposed to go with her. Ever since K’os had been with them that one day, Yaa had been thinking of someone among the Cousin People who might have killed Cries-loud’s mother Day Woman. She had considered each

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