Summer Light by Elyse Guttenberg

Author:Elyse Guttenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Elyse Guttenberg
Published: 2020-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Grey Owl fixed the snow goggles on the bridge of his nose and scanned the flats. This would be a good place to set traps, with so many tracks crisscrossing the snow and the way the land was open on one side and covered with brush on the other. Fox liked it this way; they liked to dig their dens near grassy areas where ground squirrels lived; where a vixen could steal carrion from a wolf kill then run home and feed her spring-born kits.

Allanaq came up behind him. He followed his gaze then knelt on his snowshoes. He blew the powder snow from the crust below and checked to see whether the tracks were fresh.

Grey Owl gave him time. For more days than he cared to remember they had sat in the qasgi and waited out the weather—bad weather, filled with too many signs. This recent storm had been the worst with thick gales and the sky like a mask across his face.

Allanaq worked long days on his side blades, the kind from his old home that no one else in the Long Coast village made. The same for his carvings of animals with put-together parts, head and rear like something out of a dream. It had been difficult for Grey Owl to stay quiet and not ask—patiently, gently—if it wouldn’t be better if Allanaq put away his carvings with their etched lines that brought nothing but troubled glances and angry words.

What use was all his skill if it brought only enemies? If it made others so jealous, they saw demons in everything Allanaq touched?

He had hoped things would be better by now. And perhaps they would have been, if winter hadn’t come on so angry and quick. If Squirrel had come to Allanaq’s bed more eagerly. Or if Allanaq had brought more trade goods back from the Bent Point village. Or if they had learned which way the caribou had gone instead of sitting in the qasgi looking for whom to blame.

Allanaq glanced at Grey Owl. “They’re fresh,” he said. “Better than the cold scat we found last time. We could set our traps here.”

“And head that way.” Grey Owl nodded toward the pass between two hills. “There’s a place called Where Two Families Died. I’ll show you. It will be good to know.”

They worked quickly after that. Grey Owl built an upright trap from sticks and brush and Allanaq found a trigger-stick and pushed it in. They talked about how the same kind of trap that was good for a fox could also be used for a lynx, or maybe a wolf. How it was still a good time of year for the pelts because later the coats thinned out with hunger. But then they stopped talking about hunger, lest it overhear and think they were inviting it home.

Night came on and they dug a shelter near the brush and piled snow along one side. They used the sledge for a wall and stretched a caribou skin for a roof and layered the ground with willows to block the cold.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.