The Snow Walker Read online

  “In the land of Kablunait—the white men—things may be as you say… but this is not the land of the Kablunait. I do not understand how it is in your land. You do not understand how it is here. We know what we know.”

  After that I tried to keep my impatience to myself and, in truth, it did not bother me so much. My life was very busy. I learned to spear the caribou at the river crossings and to be a good traveller over the winter wastes. I learned the lusty songs of the Innuit and I myself became something of a story-teller during the long nights when we clustered in the snowhouses and talked and sang the dark hours away. Seldom did I feel a desire to return south. What was there for me that I did not have with the Innuit? In the great plains I had work, good friends, a wife and child.

  Ah, yes, my friend, that was the happy time, and it lasted for three years… but, bear with me now, for what I have to tell has been a pain that half a century has never dulled.

  In the autumn of the third year, I was sick and the shaman, Powhuktuk, came to my tent and sang magic songs. I got well, as I would have done in any case, but when I was back on my feet Powhuktuk warned me I must not hunt for as many days as I had been sick. He was a real ancient, Powhuktuk, with a face like dried fish skins and a voice as hard and shrill as a hawk’s; and he knew how I felt about the beliefs his people held. He stood in front of me, outside my tent, and he shook his old bird-claw hands in my face and spit flew from his mouth, so determined was he to make me understand how serious this matter was.

  “It is the kindness of Kaila, Mother of Life, that you are well,” he wheezed at me. “So you must pay her back by not harming any of her children for twelve days and nights. If you kill anything it will be bad. You will bring evil here! Paija herself will come and make us pay!”

  Paija, I knew about. She was believed to be the most cruel of all the spirits. To me it was nonsense, but I kept my counsel. I might also have kept the tabu, except it was late in the year and, because of my sickness, I did not have quite enough caribou in my caches. I knew the migrating herds might leave the plains before twelve days and I did not intend to let my woman and child go hungry in the long winter that stretched ahead. This I told myself… knowing all the same that if I ran short my neighbours would make good my needs. Yes, I knew that, but also I did not wish to be dependent for I was a young man filled with much pride. Or perhaps—how can I know now?—perhaps I wanted to find an excuse to break a foolish law… to show those people how little their superstitions meant to me.

  On the ninth day of the tabu a big herd of deer came out of the north and began to cross the river a mile below our camp. They were the best of bucks—big, heavy, each carrying a blanket of fat three or four inches thick under his hide. They were also likely to be the last of the bucks for that year and so every hunter in our camp launched his kayak and flew downstream into the middle of the swimming herd.

  I followed in my own kayak.

  In the confusion and excitement of the slaughter, the men did not at first notice I was among them but then, one by one, they paused in the spearing, looked sideways at me and paddled away from the killing place. Before long I was alone there, my spear and right arm drenched with deer blood.

  When I paddled home the camp was silent. Even the dogs were quiet. I saw no one as I walked up to my tent. When I told my wife of the hunt I had made, she too was silent, but late that night she woke me with her weeping and when I asked her why she cried, she would not speak. She did not need to, for I knew. I began to feel guilty—not on account of Paija but because I had brought fear into the hearts of the people.

  Men do not often bear guilt easily and so I shouted harsh words at Nuljalik and called her a fool. Then I went to the tent of Katelo, and there were many people with him. I shouted at them too, calling them children and worse than children. Only Katelo answered and he waited until I had shouted myself out.

  “Ayorama—it cannot be helped,” he said. There was no anger in his voice. “Eemah, Saluk has done what he has done. Perhaps it will come to nothing.”

  His gentleness only angered me more. I went quickly to my own tent, but I did not sleep well for although Nuljalik tried to make no noise, I knew she wept the whole night through.

  Winter set in soon after. Storm followed storm and for weeks we could hardly stir from the snowhouses. When at last there came a short period of calm and we could visit our distant meat caches, we found that a plague of wolverines had invaded the land and many caches had been ripped open and the meat stolen or spoiled. Then, a little time later, a crazed fox came into camp and the dogs set upon it and killed it, but not until many of them had been bitten. We had to kill those dogs for as you know the hydrophobia is a disease that cannot be stopped except by death.

  These misfortunes were not unnatural, but it seemed there were too many of them. No one mentioned the breaking of the tabu in my presence, but I knew people were thinking about it and I became short tempered and grew harsh even with my own wife and child. One night when I insisted to Nuljalik that the wolverines were not devils but only animals, she replied, “Kakwik, the wolverine, is the servant of Paija.”

  Then, for the first time, I struck Nuljalik. I hit her hard with the flat of my hand and knocked her to the floor of the snowhouse. She did not cry but only went back to the work of sewing a new pair of boots for me.

  As time went on, the wolverines grew bolder and began raiding caches within sight of our camp. The few dogs remaining to us would not attack them and we were losing meat we could not spare. In the darkness of the long nights the men of the camp would not even venture out to protect the caches. It seemed the fear of Paija was afflicting them all. So I took it on myself to protect the meat, and many were the black, frozen hours I spent tramping around the caches. Although I sometimes got a glimpse of one of the robbers, I did not manage to kill any of them and the loss of meat and fat went on.

  Then one night when I was visiting the caches there came a pause in the wind and the grey curtain of ground drift stilled. There was a rift in the clouds and the white lights of the aurora shone brightly enough so I could see a fresh track in the hard snow before me. It was a single footprint, but it was huge. It was nearly as long as my forearm and its shape was almost like that of a human foot.

  For a few moments my breath stopped and I was so frightened I could not move. I had heard many stories about Paija! It was said she was a giantess possessed of a single leg that grew out of the middle of her belly. It was said she visited human camps only by darkness, when the blizzards roared, clothed in nothing except her own coarse black hair. It was said that to see her was to die with a great hole ripped in your chest out of which Paija had torn the living spirit of her victim.

  Although I believed none of this, the sight of that great footprint, before the clouds closed in and the wind whipped up the snow wraiths again, truly struck fear into my heart. I made for the shelter of the nearest snowhouse. It was Katelo’s. When I scrambled in through the door tunnel it was to find many people crowded on the sleeping ledge in the yellow light of the fat lamps. They stared at me as if fearing what I might do or say. In that warm, lighted place I shook off my own panic and when I had greeted the people I said:

  “Look you. I have just come from the caches and I know who is robbing us of our meat. It is not the wolverines alone, it is a mightier beast. I have found the tracks of Akla, the giant brown bear.”

  Silence greeted my words and the faces before me seemed to shrink into themselves. In my anxiety to convince them of the truth of what I had seen, I went too far.

  “Truly it is the bear!” I cried. “I have seen his tracks. I can show them to you. Like the tracks of a very big man!”

  A young girl far back on the ledge screamed shrilly.

  “Paija!” she wailed. “Paija is here!”

  I stood there hearing nothing but the short, sharp breathing that comes with terror. At last Katelo spoke. He did not
look at me.

  “Akla does not walk in the winter, Saluk. In the winter he sleeps in his house under the snow.”

  It was what everybody knew… what I knew myself, only for the moment I had forgotten. Then I saw what a fool I had been. I began to understand what I had done.

  It was late then to make amends, but I went back to my own snowhouse and took my wife in my arms and told her I had done wrong in breaking the tabu. As I tried to soothe her, I spoke of the strength of the white man’s God and I told her that now I would call upon this God to protect the people from Paija. At first I spoke only to give her peace, but it came to me after awhile that if I could convince the Innuit of God’s power then the wolverines would become only wolverines again; the print in the snow would belong to a bear that had somehow been roused from its winter sleep; and the shadow of Paija, which was darkening the minds of the people, would vanish.

  I jumped to my feet, picked up our child and, pulling Nuljalik after me, ran to Katelo’s. The place was still crowded. The people were afraid to go to their own homes. The children whimpered and the women stared with faces rigid with fear. Ah, my friend, how it hurt to see them like that! Yes, and to know that the fault was my own!

  Old Powhuktuk, the shaman, was there on the broad ledge with the rest. I spoke directly to him.

  “Powhuktuk! You are a great angeokok, master of spirits, here in this land. Well then, hear me, for I am also an angeokok in the lands of the south. I too have the ear of great spirits. I too can command them to help me.”

  All eyes were on me and I turned slowly and looked into each of those faces.

  “Listen, you people! I will call up my spirits, and they will do battle with Paija, and they will drive her away!”

  Then I crossed myself and I, who had not been to mass for so many years, began to pray out loud. At first I only said meaningless phrases that did not come from the heart, but as the old familiar words rang in my ears some part of the faith of my childhood began to return. Soon I was praying passionately and I fell to my knees. Something of my passion seemed to pass to the watchers and they began to sway where they sat. My voice grew stronger as I chanted and I felt power within me. Something seemed to flow back and forth between me and the people. They began chanting too, in low, humming voices—ancient chants of the Innuit, making a background for my Christian prayers…

  It lasted for hours, until I was drained of my strength and soaking with sweat. The emotions that had gripped me were so strong, and so strange, that I was dazed, hardly knowing what I was doing. Katelo and Powhuktuk lifted me to a place on the ledge and one of the women began to serve soup from a pot hung over a lamp. That place was alive again. There was new life in those faces. Those men and women who had never reproached me for what I had done were going to believe I had been able to undo my mistake. They had faith.

  All but one. Powhuktuk spoke out above the babble of talk and his old, whistling voice brought silence.

  “Saluk! Maybe your spirits are strong. Are they strong enough? Have they indeed driven Paija away?”

  I replied slowly and solemnly.

  “Imah! Yes! She is gone! She will never return!”

  There was another young man there that night—Onekwa, a good friend of mine, only recently married. Now he jumped off the ledge happily shouting that he was going to fetch his wife and father and mother from their snowhouse nearby. Katelo waved him on his way, telling him to go to all the houses and ask the people to come for a feast. Onekwa nodded and crawled out through the tunnel. I turned to look at Nuljalik who was trimming a lamp. She lifted her head, smiling at me with a face that was warm with the light of the lamp, and warmer still with the love she bore me… and then, from the darkness outside, there came a terrible cry!

  How can I describe it? It was beyond mortal words for it held terror beyond anything mortal.

  For one moment it was as if I saw before me the dreadful shape of Paija herself. The people were transfixed by that cry and it appeared that I alone had the power of motion. There was a deer spear of Katelo’s in a niche beside me. I grabbed it and made for the door, shouting, “Akla! The bear has got Onekwa!”

  My wife forestalled me. She flung herself against my legs so that we fell together to the hard-packed floor, and as we struggled her voice rose in a frenzied wail.

  “Not Akla! Paija come for her gift! You will not go out!”

  She fought like a demented thing and I had no time to be gentle with her. I caught her by her long black hair and flung her against the wall and again I plunged toward the doorway that loomed black before me.

  I can see that dark tunnel mouth so clearly still… for it was the last thing I ever saw. Nuljalik had scrambled to her feet. She seized a fat lamp and flung it at my head. It missed me but the scalding oil ran down my brow into my eyes, and they instantly became twin sockets of fire. Dimly I heard my wife’s voice, as if from a great distance.

  “You must not look on her… you will not look on her!”

  Then I was aware of nothing but the agony, and I rolled on the floor like an animal. I hardly felt my wife push past me as she thrust her way into the dark tunnel…

  andré paused, and the pause lengthened. His hands gripped the edge of the table with such pressure that the old bones shone translucently through the yellowed skin. His sightless eyes were no longer wells of mystery. He was looking through them down the long years into the abyss of an igloo tunnel into which his woman had vanished.

  Slowly his grip on the table relaxed. He folded his hands in his lap and calmly continued his story.

  for many days I was in a delirium of pain, but I remember calling unceasingly for my wife. Nobody answered for a very long time, then one day I heard the voice of Katelo.

  “Call no more for Nuljalik! Call no more for your wife! Paija has been here… and is gone with her gift.”

  Why they let me remain alive is a mystery to me. Yet I, who had no right to expect it, received kindness from them. They took my son from me, it is true, but I can believe he grew up to be a good man, one who lived according to the laws of his people. It was the right thing they did, and I did not resent it. As for me, there followed seven months of darkness in the new camp the people moved to.

  On a day late in the summer I was lying alone in the small tent the Innuit had pitched for me when I heard a voice speaking Chipewyan. It was Denikazi, and with him was Father Danioux. The priest had at last come north to bring the light of God to the heathen Esquimaux. You may judge his surprise when he found me there; but he was friendly toward me and so for the first time I was able to unburden myself. He listened in silence to my tale, and when I had finished, he put his hand on my forehead.

  “Ah, my son, you have sinned greatly. It was blasphemy for such a one as you to command God’s help… you who had long ago forsaken Him. And it was a great sin to have even pretended to believe in the superstitions of these poor people. Yes, but harsh was the penance. To lose your wife to the bear because of her pagan beliefs, and to lose your sight because of that same heathen devil-worship, was indeed terrible. Truly you have suffered. But take comfort now for le bon Dieu is merciful. He will welcome you back and He will give you the opportunity to make amends for your sins. You will begin by helping me bring these poor children of darkness into the way of the Faith.”

  Instead of giving comfort, his words touched off madness in me. To him the sacrifice Nuljalik had made was clearly no more than the act of an ignorant animal. I sat on the pile of skins and savagely flung his hand away.

  “You lie!” I raged. “It was no bear! It was the devil-bitch, Paija, who slaughtered my wife!”

  That violent rejection of God and priest might have led a lesser man to abandon me but, whatever his faults may have been, Father Danioux would not do such a thing. The next day, when I was calmer, he talked to me again and I repented of my rage and did not reject his desire to bring me bac
k to the comfort of religion. But I refused to help him in his mission to the Innuit. I refused because I remembered Katelo’s words when I challenged the beliefs of his people:

  “… this is not the land of the Kablunait… you do not understand how it is here. We know what we know.”

  I remembered, and I who had dealt a deep wound to those who had been so good to me would not wound them again. Perhaps the time might come when they would welcome the God of the white men… but that time was not yet.

  I said as much to Father Danioux. Angrily and without my help he went ahead with his mission to the Innuit; and when that mission failed, he was convinced, doubtless with justice, that it was my stubbornness which had prevented him from bringing many heathen souls to the True Path.

  Even so, when he and Denikazi departed they took me with them. After we reached Caribou, there was nowhere for me to go, so Father Danioux took me into the mission. Then he set himself the task of cleansing my soul.

  Life slowly began to have meaning for me again as I determined to atone for what I had done, by serving God. Despite my blindness I made myself useful to Father Danioux, being willing to do all he asked of me… except one thing.