Spirit Bear

They were at the place of the forked rivers where the Deisheetaan joined the Teikweidí.

It was a good place for camp as the salmon were running up both rivers. The fish were vulnerable as they negotiated the swift moving water of the shallows.

But Kee.á was unhappy; her mother Wooshkeetan had taken another husband from a different clan – Nishga, and he was handsome but cruel; he did not hesitate to beat Kee.á if she questioned his authority. Her mother never intervened on her behalf. He was kinder to the younger children, Lingit six, and Isela nine.

Her real father, said the shamaness, had gone to the bears, gone off into the wilds two years ago when Kee.á was twelve.

They were in bear country now; they too would be fishing for salmon as they ran upriver.

Was her father somewhere near?

A few days into camp Nishga had one of his rages; he yelled at Kee.á

“Hey you ugly useless fatherless thing set up the drying racks for when I return,” he said pointing to a set of poles he had cut yesterday.

He handed her the axe. She would have almost gladly sunk the axe into his head.

He meant for her to trim the bark covered poles he had already felled and erect them into salmon drying racks; but she had other plans.

Kee.á had assembled some food and a few tools - a fire striker, a bone needle with sinew, a knife. Now she had the axe. With it she could build herself a sturdy shelter.

When Nishga had disappeared out of sight upriver she collected her bundle and struck out in the opposite direction.

She pressed through thick head high underbrush of scrub willow and snowberry. There were game trails through it and she followed one of these. It was dangerous; an encounter with a startled moose or a bear could mean death or serious injury, for here

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: alastair macleod
Bildmaterialien: alastair macleod: Native American girl, royalty free photo from Dreamstime photo credit Nejron
Lektorat: alastair macleod
Übersetzung: cover typeset in classical.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 26.03.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-0470-8

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Widmung:
To Nature. The stories, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.