Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

her shelter. 
    But again she saw the tooth as shell, saw it so clearly that it was as though the tooth were already carved. And her hand moved to pick up the knife, as though the tooth itself were directing it. So blocking the fear from her mind, she began to carve. She carved carefully, slowly, pushing the image of the shell from her mind down into her hands, down into her fingers as they gripped the knife. 
    Samiq squatted in the lee of the hunter's beached iky an and oiled his chigadax. That morning, Amgigh had brought in his first sea lion. Their mother sat now with the hide staked out on the beach. She scraped away flesh left on the underside of the skin and the wind carried off the smaller bits of debris. But in the midst of the joy over Amgigh's first sea lion, Kayugh had asked both Samiq and Chagak to leave the lodge so he could talk to Amgigh. Samiq knew their father would speak to him of Blue Shell's daughter. Yes, and how would Amgigh feel, a young man filled with the pride of his first sea lion kill, to learn that his brother would be going to hunt  the whale while he, Amgigh, would stay in the village and take Blue Shell's daughter as wife? 
    Sarniq scooped yellow oil from the basket he cradled between his knees and rubbed it into a seam. Amgigh had never been afraid to show his anger. Who could say what he would do this time? Perhaps refuse to take the girl, perhaps go to another village, live there, hunt there. And who could blame him? 
    Samiq looked back toward the ulaq and saw Amgigh striding toward him. 
    "So," Amgigh called out, his voice high and hard, "you have been chosen to be the hunter and I am to be a husband." 
    "It was not my choice," Samiq said, and he looked up at his brother, met his eyes so Amgigh would see he spoke the truth. 
    Amgigh laughed, a hard laugh, edged in bitterness. "You would choose Blue Shell's daughter then?" 
    Samiq looked down. How could he answer his brother? What man would choose a woman over the chance to learn to hunt the whale? But then why, he asked himself, did the pain in his brother's eyes find an answering ache in his own chest? 
    "It is for our father to choose." 
    "You are the better hunter." 
    "How can anyone know that I am the better hunter?" Samiq asked. "In my last hunt, I took no sea lions. This morning you did. In the hunt three days ago I was the one to kill a seal. And the hunt before that neither of us took a seal and Gray Bird did. Is Gray Bird better than we are?" 
    Amgigh smiled, a true smile that crinkled his eyes and broke out over a laugh. He squatted beside Samiq. For a moment he did not speak, then he laid his hand on his brother's arm. 
    "I have pieces of obsidian left," Amgigh said. "Large enough for two good knives." 
    Samiq nodded. Yes, their father had taken Amgigh with him to the mountain Okmok. They had brought back obsidian to trade with the Walrus Hunters and some for Amgigh to knap. 

    "The knives will be brothers as we are," Amgigh said. "You take one with you to the Whale Hunters and I will keep one with me. They will remind us of our bond. Then, when you return, you will share the Whale Hunters' hunting secrets with me." 
    There was hurt, but also hope in Amgigh's eyes, and some of the weight that had settled into Samiq's chest lifted. "I will tell you everything I know. We will hunt together. Men from other tribes will tell stories of the hunts we make." 
    Amgigh nodded. A smile pulled at one corner of his mouth, but he looked down, traced a pattern in the beach gravel. "Until you get a wife," he said, "I will share Blue Shell's daughter with you." 
    And Samiq bent low over his chigadax, afraid of what his brother might see in his eyes. 
    "Daughter?" 
    The girl jumped and tucked her partially carved tooth under a mat. She leaned forward to pull open the door flap. At first, she thought her mother had come, but then she realized that the voice belonged to Chagak. 
    "A gift from Kayugh's ulaq," Chagak said and laid