The Curse of the Viking Grave Page 9

  Peetyuk could not contain himself. Choking with laughter, he rolled on the gravelly shore until Awasin, stumbling over unseen rocks, came charging up the beach, grabbed Peetyuk by one leg, and hauled him into the lake. Helpless with laughter, Peetyuk could put up no resistance. His head disappeared under the surface, and when he came up again, spouting water like a whale, the Eskimos lost all control and the shrieks of mirth became ear-splitting.

  The kayak was rescued and dried out, and then Jamie was offered a chance to show what he could do. He declined, firmly but politely, while secretly making up his mind that the only way they would ever get him into the flimsy craft would be to hog-tie him first.

  One day about a week after their arrival at the summer camp, Ohoto (who had been making daily excursions on foot toward the south) returned to camp in a great state of excitement. He brought the news that the long-awaited herds of bucks were coming.

  The six kayaks which had been readied for use were hurriedly carried over a ridge behind the camp to the banks of the small but swift river which flowed into Innuit Ku from the northeast. Here they were concealed in a clump of willows. Beside each kayak an Eskimo hunter lay down in hiding.

  Two other men went loping across country to the east where a long row of inukok, spaced about fifty feet apart, had been built for nearly a mile in a diagonal line toward the southeast. The two men ran from stoneman to stoneman, crowning each with a big lump of muskeg from which dried grasses waved. The addition of these “heads” gave the stonemen a resemblance to crouching human beings. This was a “deer fence,” and its function was to deflect the approaching herds toward the particular crossing place on the river near which the hunters and kayaks lay hidden.

  Back at camp the women and children were busy rounding up the dogs and tying them securely so they would not rush out and alarm the caribou. All fires were put out and the ashes damped with water so the deer would not catch the smell of smoke.

  When everything was ready those Eskimos who were not otherwise engaged climbed the slope of the ridge near camp and took up vantage points from which they could observe the hunt.

  Peetyuk, Awasin, Jamie and Angeline took up a position at the north end of the ridge, almost directly above the chosen crossing place.

  Old Kakut was at the south end, searching the southern horizon with an ancient brass telescope. At last he laid down the tube and began waving his arms up and down. Another man, stationed not far from Jamie, repeated the signal so that the hidden hunters by the kayaks could see it.

  “They come now,” Peetyuk muttered to his friends.

  Straining their eyes, the watchers could just make out a blob of movement on the slopes of a hill two miles away to the south. As they watched, it began to resolve itself into a familiar pattern. Long skeins of caribou twisted slowly down the slope and headed out along the floor of the valley leading past the ridge. These were all bucks and they were in no hurry. They seemed to drift aimlessly before a light southerly wind, often stopping to browse on reindeer moss which had been exposed by the melting snows.

  They moved unbearably slowly—or so it seemed to the watchers. Finally the lead bucks reached the stoneman fence. Although they did not seem much frightened by it, they nevertheless swung away towards the northwest.

  Two hours after they had first appeared in view the lead bucks reached the riverbank. Here they milled about for another twenty minutes, apparently undecided whether or not to cross the swift stretch of water. Then the pressure of the herds building up behind made up their minds for them and a bunch of fifty or sixty animals plunged into the stream. With heads held high, they struck out buoyantly for the opposite shore.

  Jamie’s gaze was glued to the barely discernible shapes of the kayakers, but they remained motionless.

  “What’s the matter?” he whispered to Peetyuk. “Why don’t they launch the kayaks? Those deer are pretty near across!”

  “Wait,” Peetyuk calmed him. “Watch close, you see.”

  Having crossed safely, the first deer shook themselves like dogs and began to move on north. Now a herd of perhaps a hundred which had been watching them from the south shore seemed to conclude that the crossing was a good one, and they too plunged into the fast-moving current.

  They were halfway over when the six hunters leaped to their feet, seized their kayaks, flung them into the stream and jumped aboard. Whipping the water with their paddles, they shot down on the startled deer and in a few seconds had cut them off from both banks.

  The caribou whirled in panic, swimming upstream and circling so tightly that they got in each other’s way, which increased their panic. In the meantime each kayaker, while handling his light craft with one hand, pulled a short spear from its lashings on the foredeck. Wielding these three-foot lances tipped with broad triangular steel blades, the hunters closed in on the milling animals.

  One quick thrust into the back of each swimming buck just behind the ribcage was enough. Then the hunter maneuvered his kayak within reach of another deer. Soon the cold green waters of the river were darkening and becoming turbid with blood. A score of dead and dying deer were drifting swiftly downstream from the killing place. The survivors scrambled ashore wherever they could, and made off at an ungainly gallop across the plains.

  The whole incident, from the time the hunters appeared until the deer fled, had taken no more than five minutes. As Jamie, Awasin and Angeline got stiffly to their feet along with the Eskimos and began to make their way down the hill to the crossing place, the two men who had gone off to repair the inukok appeared away downstream. Each of them had a long pole with a hook on it, and they were busy hauling the floating carcasses to shore.

  “Your people don’t need rifles,” Jamie told Peetyuk admiringly. “That was the slickest hunt I ever saw.”

  Peetyuk grinned. “They hunt good, but not all time can catch deer at river. Then come hungry times, if have no bullets for guns. Come on. Now we have big feed of marrowbones.”

  There was a gigantic celebration in the camp that night. Everyone stuffed himself on the sweet white marrow from the long bones of the bucks and on other delicacies such as roast kidney, hearts, and whole broiled briskets dripping with fat. When the eating had eased off a little (it never ceased entirely), the drums came out and there were songs and dancing.

  One of the dancers was an ancient old man whose face was so lined and creased it looked like a piece of corrugated cardboard. Yet despite his age he was very agile, and when he sang and danced everyone stopped to watch and listen.

  “Who’s that old fellow?” Jamie asked Peetyuk.

  “He Elaitutna. Most old man of Ihalmiut, He angeokok, big magic maker. He speak to many spirits, and he know many story. Tomorrow, maybe, he tell you some.”

  The next afternoon Peetyuk took his friends to visit Elaitutna. The old man did not rise from his pile of robes when they entered his tent, but only nodded and looked sharply at them with tiny, jet-black eyes which were almost hidden under folds of wrinkled skin. After a time he spoke briefly to Peetyuk, and Peetyuk replied at considerable length before explaining the conversation to his friends.

  “He ask what you do in our land. I tell him about Viking cache and say we come to get. He not like that. Maybe he try stop us. He think Viking cache some kind of magic. Wait now, I try find out.”

  Peetyuk spoke again in Eskimo, and the old man nodded his head but said nothing. It seemed like an impasse until Jamie had an inspiration. He had several plugs of tobacco in his pocket, intended as gifts for some of the hunters. He pulled out three plugs and gravely offered them to the old man.

  Elaitutna’s clawlike hand came out with the speed of a striking snake, seized the plugs, and plunged them under his loose parka. He looked shrewdly at Jamie for a moment, then he seemed to make up his mind. Rising to his knees he began to rummage about under the sleeping platform and at last he drew out a strange contraption made of wood and bone. He held it up so they could see it, but only Jamie recognized it.


  “That’s a crossbow,” he said in surprise. “Eskimos don’t use crossbows! They were something Europeans used hundreds of years ago. Where did he get it, Peetyuk?”

  “He say he made it,” Peetyuk replied after translating the question. “He say Innuit find how to make from men called Inohowik—Men of Iron—who come to land long, long ago. Elaitutna say he tell story, if we want.”

  “It may be something to do with the Vikings,” Jamie answered, his voice rising with excitement. “Ask him to tell the story, Peetyuk. Ask him, please!”

  Peetyuk turned back to the old man and repeated the request. Elaitutna raised his eyes so that he was looking past the boys. He seemed to be peering through the wall of the tent into some limitless distance they could not penetrate. For a long time he was motionless. Then his voice broke the waiting silence.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Viking Bow

  “THIS BOW WAS A MAN’S WEAPON! It gave my people strength for more generations than I can count. It was the gift we laid aside when the white men brought rifles to our land. That was a wrong thing we did, for men should not lay down the gifts which make them great.

  “This was a gift that came to us in time out of memory; but I have that memory, for I am angeokok, a man of magic things, and the memory lived through all the many winters until it came to me.

  “This was a gift of the Inohowik. They were mighty beings, more than men and yet not gods, for death felled them in the end. They were pale-skinned and bearded. Their eyes were blue with the color of deep ice.

  “As for the place they came from, who knows their lands? We only knew it lay far to the east, over the salt water that has no shore. They traveled over that water in boats fifty times the size of a kayak, so it was said.

  “In those days we lived closer to the salt water and there were not many of us in the land, but the Itkilit—the Indians—were many. They hated us and hunted us like rabbits. It was their custom to come far out into the plains in summertime, and they would fall upon the Innuit camps and slaughter all within. So we were much afraid.

  “In the hunter’s moon of a certain year our people were camped on a river called Ikarluku. One morning a boy went to the river to spear fish, but soon he came running back crying that the Itkilit were come. The men seized their spears and stood trembling in front of the tents. But it was not the feared Itkilit who came down the river—it was a strange canoe made of heavy wood and rowed by eight strange men.

  “These were Inohowik. They sat in pairs, and a ninth stood and faced them from the stern. He wore a shining iron cap upon his head and iron sheets that caught the rising sun upon his chest.

  “The Innuit were afraid, for they thought these must be devils. They watched in terror as the Inohowik came to shore. The tall one, he who stood in the stern, landed first. He held up a huge round shield ahead of him, and it was painted white as snow. Then he flung down the shield and on it laid a mighty iron knife as long as a man’s leg. So he stood with empty hands, and the people saw he had come to them without the black blood of evil in his heart.

  “This was the coming of the Inohowik. They could not speak our tongue, nor we speak theirs. Yet they made it known by signs that they had come many moons’ travel, and wished now to return to a far distant place beyond the salt waters. After a time the People understood that the Inohowik had come to our shores in a great canoe and then had ventured south into the forests where Itkilit bands came on them at night and slew all but these nine. The nine fled to the north again, but when at last they reached the salt water shores they found their great canoe had gone, and they were left alone.

  “They were hungry when they came to the Innuit camps, and the People fed them, for that is our way. It was a day of days when they came amongst us. It was the beginning of our greatness.

  “As to what happened afterwards—the stories tell of many things. They tell of the strength of the strangers, and of the tools and weapons they possessed. Much was of iron, which we had never seen before, and which we came to call by the name of one of the strangers—howik. But the leader was called Koonar.

  “When they had been with the People a time, they began to ask if there was a way around the salt sea to the northward. When they were told there was no way, they were bitterly unhappy. Then the snows began, and they came into the houses of the People and began to live with them.

  “For more than a year they lived with the people. They learned to hunt as the Innuit hunt. Most of them gave up their strange clothing and wore the fur clothing of the Innuit. But Koonar would not do this, and always wore his clothes of iron. Even in the hard heart of winter he wore his horned iron cap which made him look like a musk-ox bull.

  “Koonar was a giant. He could carry the whole carcass of a caribou on his back. When he wielded his great iron knife he could split a caribou as easily as a woman splits a fish. Koonar lived with a man called Kiliktuk, who was angeokok. Kiliktuk had a daughter named Airut, and after a while Airut grew big with child, and the child was Koonar’s. Then the Innuit were happy for they thought Koonar and his men would stay with them always. The Inohowik had much to teach the People. They taught them how to strike fire with iron and stone, how to build salmon weirs, how to read the stars so one could find one’s way, and many other wonderful things. Yet for all their wisdom they were as children in our land, and it was we who taught them how to live in the country of the great plains.

  “The next winter the Inohowik gathered in an igloo and talked a long time. Koonar was not with them, for he was in the igloo of Kiliktuk and Airut, and there he lived with the baby son which had been born to Airut. Then the eight came to him and said they would leave. They said they would march to the shores of the salt sea and then go south to the forests far enough to find the wood with which to build a great canoe, and so sail off into the east to their far distant home.

  “They asked Koonar to go with them, for Koonar was their leader. Koonar said he would do this, although he did not feel pleasure in it.

  “Then the People were angry. All of the Inohowik had taken wives amongst the people, and the Innuit were angry that these women should be deserted. Things might have come to trouble, but Koonar stopped it. He said if we would let his men travel south, he would remain behind with us forever, and he promised to teach us many secrets.

  “So it was agreed. The People spoke against the journey all the same, for they knew the Inohowik would not survive. They knew that if the winter blizzards did not destroy them, then the Itkilit would. But the eight would not listen. One day they departed with dogs and sleds the Innuit had given them.

  “They vanished into the drifting snow and were never seen again. Somewhere in the dark night they met the fury of the land and perished.

  “And so the tale of the Inohowik becomes the tale of Koonar, and of Airut, and of the children she bore. Koonar was much loved amongst my people. Often he spoke of things he had known and seen in distant places. Much of what he said was beyond belief, for he told of great battles fought on land and sea, with such fierce weapons that men’s blood flowed like the spring rains.

  “The Innuit asked Koonar to show them how to make such weapons, but he refused. He said he would not give the People the means to destroy themselves. He spoke so because he did not understand the Innuit. He did not understand that we do not take life unless we must. Koonar was afraid we would become like the Itkilit if he told us the secret of the killing weapons.

  “The People loved Koonar, but he grew sad as the years passed. He would no longer go out hunting, but sat at his camp staring toward the east, and talking to himself in his strange tongue. The Innuit were sad for him, but they could not help him.

  “One spring it was decided to move inland from Ikarluku to the rich caribou lands near the River of Men; for it was felt that with Koonar to help the People they would be able to defend themselves against the Itkilit.

  “So the move was made. And it is said that when they marched to the westward, Koonar was the last of
the marchers, and he turned many times toward the east, and that he wept.

  “The People came to the banks of the River of Men and they made a camp not far from Angikuni Lake, and it was a good place, with many fat deer. For three years they prospered, and all thought this was because of Koonar’s good luck, and they loved him even more.

  “Then, in the fish-spearing moon of the third year, the men decided to go north down Innuit Ku in search of musk ox. They asked Koonar to go with them, but he said he was sick and could not go. But his was a sickness of the spirit, not of the flesh.

  “So the hunters took their kayaks and went north, and Koonar remained in the camp with the women and children and old people. And it happened that when the men had been gone a while, a great party of Itkilit came down the river and fell on the Innuit camp.

  “Then there was a terrible slaughter. It is said that half the women and children were slain. But all would have been slain had it not been for Koonar.

  “Koonar was a little way from the camp, sitting alone, as was his habit. When he heard the screaming of women and children he came running back. He had his great knife in his hand, and his horned hat on his head, and his iron shirt was shining in the sun.

  “He came down upon the camp, bellowing like the great brown bear of the Barrens. He ran straight at the Itkilit and his great knife flashed and grew red, and it flashed red many times.

  “The Itkilit could not stand against him. He killed many, but the rest fled to their canoes and turned south up the river. But before they passed from sight, one of them turned and fired an arrow from his long bow, and the arrow went below Koonar’s iron shirt and pierced his belly.