Broken Rock Bay (Clan of the Ice Mountains Book 3) Page 15

  When she got near enough so the others could reach her safely, several of Attu’s Clan and the nearby Nukeena pulled Keanu out of the water.

  Attu saw Rika running to Keanu’s side. He ran back downstream again, speeding through the shallows and running back up to where Keanu lay in the gravel at the water’s edge. He gasped, catching his breath as he watched Rika examining Keanu’s arm. She’d removed the rope, and Keanu’s skin was already purple and swelling. Two lines of raw redness were weeping blood where the rope had burned through her skin. But Keanu was safe.

  “Suanu?” Keanu struggled to speak. “Her son?” She tried to stand, her eyes wide, her tone desperate.

  “Lie still.” Rika knelt beside Keanu, pulling her wet hair away from her face as she pressed the woman’s shoulder, easing her back to the ground. “Everything–”

  “Attu!” Ubantu called. “Bring the rope!”

  Attu looked up from Keanu to see his father running toward them. Beyond him, in the middle of the river farther upstream, Bashoo was balancing on a low flat rock submerged just below the rushing water. He was holding Suanu in his arms. Attu couldn’t believe the man could stand there, water rushing all around him, slick algae-covered surface under his feet. Attu grabbed the rope, coiling it as he ran, and met his father at the edge of the bank closest to the rock.

  “How did Bashoo get up on the rock with Suanu?” Attu asked.

  “I didn’t see,” Ubantu said. He stood with a group of the Clan hunters. Several of the men were standing knee deep in the water. They were soaked, apparently from trying to do what Bashoo had done, but failing in their attempts.

  “The water is only thigh deep here,” Ubantu said. “I can make it.”

  Two of the other hunters protested. “It’s too strong! You’ll be carried away like Rusik almost was.”

  Rusik was sitting on the edge of the bank. He was wet and bleeding from a deep cut on his forehead. Veshria was fussing over him, a cleaning skin in her hands, dabbing at his wound and mumbling angrily about something. Attu had just a moment to wonder if Rusik was hurt more seriously than he looked when Ubantu stepped up.

  “I am shorter and built wider than the others,” Ubantu said. “My balance will be better in the water.” Ubantu finished knotting the rope around himself. He’d crossed it over his shoulders as well as around his waist. He grabbed up the other end and handed it to Attu. “Here. If I go under you can haul me back with it. But I won’t. When I get to the rock I’ll stand, anchoring my end of the rope so Bashoo can use it to steady himself as he brings Suanu and the little one to the safety of the bank.”

  Before Attu could protest at the danger of Ubantu trying to hold steady in the current near the rock, his father had waded into the water and was fighting the river. Attu held the other end of the rope, desperation tearing at him.

  “Come here!” Attu shouted to the others.

  I’m not letting my father stand alone in that river.

  “Rovek. Go grab another rope from the Nukeena camp, one of their long ones. And hurry!”

  Rovek ran.

  “I’m heading out, too. Half of you hold onto Ubantu’s rope and half mine. When Bashoo gets close enough, a few of you wade out and help him get Suanu and her poolik the rest of the way to the bank. Some will help pull Ubantu and me back. Yes?”

  The others nodded, and Attu turned to watch his father, now struggling with every step, but almost halfway to the rock.

  Above the sound of the river, Attu heard the cry of a child. Fur coverings fell away as the baby in Suanu’s arms struggled to free himself from his mother’s grasp.

  A son. Kinak you have a son. Meavu said the child is a boy. Call upon the spirits, cousin of mine gone Between. Help us save this boy-child of yours. Attuanin, I call upon you. Help me!

  Attu clutched his spirit necklace for a brief moment. The boy is large. And he fights strongly.

  The cry grew louder, and Attu could see Bashoo was struggling to keep his balance while Suanu tried to keep her child from causing the three of them to fall into the water. The tighter she gripped him, however, the more her baby pushed himself away from her. His howl of anger at being held when he wanted down echoed across the river.

  If we don’t hurry, they’ll fall into the river again.

  Attu’s father neared the rock. Rovek returned with the rope, and Attu plunged into the water, tying the rope around himself as the current caught him. He almost fell, but righted himself and moved swiftly again, his rope now running beside his father’s like two tracks of a snow sled.

  “Use my rope to steady yourself!” Ubantu called back to Attu. He’d reached the rock, and Bashoo was trying to climb off the rock with Suanu and her poolik in his arms.

  “Wait!” Attu called. “Hold on! You’ll need both of us to help you.”

  Bashoo seemed to realize he couldn’t get Suanu, the baby, and himself off the rock even with Ubantu’s help. He crouched, still holding Suanu. The poolik, seeing the water so close, struggled even harder in Suanu’s arms.

  “Suanu and the baby first,” Attu said as he reached the rock and held up his arms for Suanu. “I will hold on to you,” Attu told her. “Ubantu will take the baby.”

  Suanu shook her head, no. She was shivering violently. “I can’t let go of him. I must keep him safe,” she said through chattering teeth.

  “We’ll get him to the bank,” Ubantu said, his voice now coaxing.

  Suanu shook her head again.

  “Suanu!” Attu shouted.

  Suanu looked at him. Attu felt his stomach drop. Something more than fear was causing her to act this way. Suanu’s face was pale, but her cheeks flamed red. Her eyes looked glazed, as if she were fighting fever spirits. And as Attu and Ubantu reached up their arms again to pull Suanu and her child off the rock, Suanu’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed.

  The poolik, sensing his mother’s arms loosening as she passed into the Between of unconsciousness, pushed himself away from her body. Attu grabbed for the child, but he slid off the rock’s edge and into the river, bobbing up once with a wail before disappearing under the current.

  Bashoo thrust Suanu’s limp form into Ubantu’s outstretched arms, then dove after the child.

  Attu could hear the screams and cries of the people on the bank as Bashoo broke the surface of the water, gasping for a breath before diving under again.

  Kinak’s child. How can this be happening? First my cousin and now my cousin’s son? To die so young?

  Attu turned to dive after Bashoo.

  “Help me!” Ubantu shouted, and Attu hesitated. Looking back, he saw his father struggling to hold Suanu in the current, slipping, gaining his balance, and slipping again.

  Attu took one last look downstream where Suanu’s son and Bashoo had disappeared before turning back to help his father. Ubantu carried Suanu as Attu guided them back to shore, the other hunters holding fast to their ropes and steadying them in the current as much as they could.

  They reached the calmer water near the edge and hunters jumped in, pulling them all to safety. Attu and Ubantu collapsed on the shore.

  “Get Rika,” Attu said. “Suanu is ill.”

  A shout. Another.

  “He has the child!” someone downstream yelled.

  Attu struggled to his feet and half stumbled, half ran toward the crowd gathering near where Keanu had been pulled out.

  Bashoo lay gasping for breath. His arms and legs were bruised and cut. A deep purple mark on his side was spreading where he must have been thrown against a rock. But he was alive.

  Rika held the poolik in her arms. He was no longer struggling or crying but lay still, lips blue, face pale. For some reason, Rika was just standing there, not working to save him. Tingiyok and Suka were hovering nearby, Farnook clinging to her man’s side. In all the excitement, Attu hadn’t even seen the two men land their crafts.

  “Rika.” Attu moved beside his woman. She was holding the baby away from her body, staring at him, her eyes
glassy, unseeing.

  “Rika!” He touched her shoulder. No response.

  What’s wrong with her?

  “Rika! We must get the water out,” Attu said. When Rika still made no move to save the child, Attu snatched the baby from her arms, rolled him to his side in his own arms, and gently pressed the child’s chest. Water gushed from the baby’s lungs.

  “Again!” Rika came to life, and she grabbed Attu’s elbow, forcing him to tilt the baby feet up. “Press again!” she demanded. Another swallow of water squeezed out past the child’s lips.

  “Now, the breath,” and Rika breathed into the child, covering his lips and nose. Attu had seen Nuvik mothers breathe in for their babies, pulling the excess fluids from their noses and mouths when they were sick with the blocking mucus and struggling to breathe, but he’d never thought to put breath back into a person. He wondered where Rika had learned to do this.

  Will it work?

  A tiny cough, a gasp for air, then a cry. Long and loud. The baby’s eyes opened and he screamed, kicking and flailing his arms and legs as if he were being attacked by an ice bear and not being saved by Rika, who held him upright gently but firmly now, tears flowing down her face.

  The ululation cry of Attu’s people echoed off the trees and joined the child’s screams. Attu had never heard anything so beautiful in his life. He joined in and grinned as Bashoo stood, tipped his head back, and called out in his own way, his men echoing the same cry all around the camp.

  Chapter 12

  “Suanu has the milk fever,” Rika said. She placed a wet hide on Suanu’s forehead, then rubbed her arms with another wet hide, freshly rung from the bowl of cool water at her side. “I’ve given her what potions I can, but I must be careful because whatever I give her will affect her milk, and Brovik will receive at least some of the potion as well.”

  “Is that why he’s been sleeping since he ate?” Attu glanced at Kinak’s son, bundled and sleeping peacefully. He didn’t look at all like the angry poolik of just a short while ago.

  “Partly. I gave Suanu something to help her rest. It won’t hurt the little one. But I think he was also exhausted from all his struggling and nearly drowning.” She shivered and dipped the hide into the bowl again, wringing it out and moving to moisten Suanu’s legs. “This will help her fight the fever spirits,” she said, although she knew Attu understood what she was doing and why.

  Attu continued to watch Rika work. Something was still wrong with her. Rika was going through all the healing motions, but she was acting detached from the Here and Now. It reminded Attu of how he’d felt for a while after experiencing a Remembering. “What happened back there, when you were holding Brovik?”

  “What do you mean?” Rika asked, avoiding his eyes as she continued her work.

  “You know what I’m talking about. You were just standing there with Brovik in your arms. He wasn’t breathing, and yet you were doing nothing. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

  “I...” Rika hesitated. She dropped the hide back into the bowl and turned to Attu. Tears filled her eyes, and he could see she was struggling to talk. Part of him wanted to reach out and hold her, tell her it was all right, he hadn’t meant to upset her by asking, but a bigger part of him knew she needed to talk about it. A healer who hesitated, who froze in an emergency, was not the kind of healer his people needed. And it was unlike Rika. She was a woman of action and decisiveness. He wanted to know what had happened to cause that reaction in her, and she needed to understand it as well. Attu waited. Finally, Rika met his gaze.

  “When I held him in my arms, so still, so lifeless, as if his spirit had already gone Between, all I could see was the baby in my dream, the one where Vanreda stood, her dead child in her arms.” Rika shuddered and reached for the hide again, her movement desperate, as if she had to have something to do with her hands to dispel the images in her mind.

  “What were you thinking?” Attu prompted.

  “I wasn’t thinking anything... I was...” Rika paused, her brows furrowed in thought. “No, I was thinking something... I was thinking it could be my child, as I had thought for so long before Ashukat explained to us about Vanreda. Remember, I had thought it was my child in the dream back then. I was standing there, holding him, and thinking he could be my child in the Here and Now in just a few moons, gone Between before his spirit had a chance to stay the full seasons with us. And that thought was just... too much.”

  Rika sat back, twisting the hide in her hands, unaware she was dripping water all over herself.

  “But it was not your child,” Attu reassured her, taking the hide from her and placing it back in the bowl. He turned her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. “And you saved this one,” he whispered, his breath fluffing the small curling hairs near Rika’s ear.

  Rika pushed her hands into Attu’s chest, pulling away from him as her voice rose. “But it could have been! When it’s my turn to deliver, what if something goes wrong and I go into the Between of unconsciousness and none of the other women knows what to do? Our baby could die!”

  She sat and covered her face with her hands, her hair dropping around her like two sheets of dark ice.

  “We will deal with whatever happens when the time comes, ” Attu said. “You’ve already been sharing everything you know and learning more things from Yural and Elder Nuka and the other older women. Many of them have been assisting at births since before we were born.

  “And you are teaching the younger women as well. Every woman is learning what to do during a normal birth and what can go wrong in the process and how to deal with it. All of you have knowledge of the care of pooliks. You’re doing what you can to prepare. What about this milk fever sickness?”

  Rika looked up at him, and as Attu watched her, she seemed to come back from the desperate place she’d been moments before. “We need to talk about milk fever, also. It can be deadly if not treated properly,” Rika said. “You must use the right poultices on the affected breast and keep the fever down. Suanu will have to...”

  Rika looked at him. Not only had she pulled herself back off the dark cliff she’d been teetering on, but by the gleam in her eyes she was already planning her next instruction. “You’re right, Attu. I’ve learned so much from Yural and Elder Nuka. Meavu is learning quickly and Veshria has already birthed three children while with the Seers. She learned much while in their Clan and has shared her knowledge with us. She may sometimes be stubborn and distrustful of me, but she has helped us. We will all know as much as we can before the births begin.”

  “You will be surrounded by women who know what to do when our poolik is born.” Attu smiled and moved to sit closer to Rika again.

  “Thank you for reminding me–”

  “–that you are not alone in this,” Attu finished her thought. This time when he reached out to Rika, she let him hold her, clinging to him fiercely.

  “I know,” she said. “But sometimes lately, I forget. I feel so strange. I know it’s my body changing as the baby within grows. I know from taking care of others that a woman’s mind can play tricks on her when she is doing this great work. Bringing a spirit into the world, giving it a body, and nurturing that body until it is ready to be born is no small feat.”

  “I think it is an amazing thing,” Attu said. He placed his hand gently on Rika’s abdomen. Just in the last few suns, he could see she had grown larger. It was as if he were to watch closely enough, he could see it happen before his very eyes.

  And I’m worried, because she seems so much bigger than the other women, even though they are all about the same number of moons along. Does she see this too? And is that also on her mind?

  Attu considered asking Rika about it, but as he sat, feeling her relaxing into him, he decided now was not the time.

  The shelter skins moved slightly and a gruff voice said, “Ai?”

  “That will be Bashoo, come to check on Suanu and Brovik again,” Rika said. “Come in. It’s all right.”

 
; Attu moved to open the flap, letting the Nukeena into their shelter. Their dwelling suddenly felt much smaller.

  Rika was smiling, and Attu saw the knowing look on her face.

  “What?”

  Rika ignored him. She motioned for Bashoo to come to Suanu’s side. The man moved gracefully in spite of his size. He towered over Suanu before dropping to his knees beside her, touching her forehead lightly as she slept. He looked a question at Rika.

  “Ai. Sabotta. She is better.” Rika pointed at Brovik. “Sabotta. He is also better.”

  The Nukeena stood again, brushed past Attu without a glance, and picked up Brovik. Attu opened his mouth to protest, but closed it when Rika gestured at him behind Bashoo’s back. The man gently held the poolik, his eyes caressing the child like a new mother’s as he slowly moved back and forth. He stood there for a long time, oblivious to everyone except the poolik in his arms. He started humming, a deep sound like thunder rumbling in the mountains to the east, and Brovik snuggled into his chest, his whole body stretching before relaxing against the huge man.

  The Nukeena finally put the baby down, and Brovik did not wake, but stretched again, rolling to his side, now snoring. The man smiled, tucking Brovik’s furs around him before he turned to Rika and said, “Fuva.”

  “Fuva-go,” Rika said and bowed slightly. Brovik tilted his head in return, walked to the shelter entrance, paused, turned to look one more time at Suanu, then slipped out.

  “He has been here before to see them?”

  “Yes, that was his third time. He’s the one who got Brovik to sleep earlier, while I was working on Suanu. He is quite concerned both Suanu and Brovik make a full recovery. Did you know ‘Bashoo’ means bear in Nukeena?”

  “A good name for him. The man is huge.”

  “And since the rescue, he’s acting like a mother bear with these two.” Rika grinned at Attu. “Perhaps he’s beginning to feel more than just protective of them.”

  “Wait, what do you–” Attu was interrupted when the door flap moved again.