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shoulder when he cocked his arm to thrust the spear, that finger would not stay straight. The curl of the finger tilted the throwing stick, and each time Samiq threw his spear, the spear made a short arc into the ground. If he tried to adjust his aim, the spear flew high like a boy’s bird dart, then came down straight from the sky.
    Samiq stood up, pulled the throwing stick from his right hand, and, clasping the stick with his left, flung it as far as he could. He squatted beside the ikyak and closed his eyes.
    What is a man if he cannot hunt? he asked himself. Would Kiin have left Takha with me if she had known I could not hunt? Better for him to have Raven as father.
    “You have no more respect for your grandfather’s throwing stick than that?”
    The question startled Samiq, and he looked up to see his father Kayugh. Kayugh squatted beside him and placed the throwing stick at Samiq’s feet.
    “What good is it to me?” Samiq asked. He held out his right hand, fingers curled like a bird’s claw. “How will I feed my family? How can I teach Takha to hunt? Why should Three Fish call me husband if I cannot bring meat for her and our sons?”
    “So what then?” Kayugh asked. “Will you take Takha to Raven? Will you send Small Knife back to the Whale Hunters?”
    Samiq looked at his father, saw the anger in Kayugh’s eyes. “What good am I to Small Knife or to Takha?” he murmured.
    Kayugh shrugged. “Then I will keep your throwing stick,” he said. “Your grandfather Shuganan did not make it so that you could throw it away. Your foolishness will curse your hunting far more than the wound on your hand. You can paddle your ikyak, can you not? But I will go now and tell Small Knife that he no longer has a father. Perhaps he will decide to take Takha back to the Whale Hunters with him. Then you will not have to worry about either son. It is good that Kiin and Shuku went back with Raven. At least you have no concern about them.” Kayugh stood, then said, “Or perhaps your worries about yourself are so large there is no space to think about others.”
    Samiq jumped to his feet and faced his father. “You have never cared about me. You cared only for Amgigh. I would give my life to bring him back. But I cannot. I promised myself I would raise Kiin’s son, train him as Amgigh would have. That is all I can do for Amgigh, but now how will I do that?”
    “Do not ever think that Amgigh was closer to my heart than you,” Kayugh said. “Perhaps you are not son of my flesh, but you are son of my spirit.”
    Kayugh walked away then, back toward the low earth-and-grass mounds that were the First Men’s ulas. Samiq turned and watched him go. Though now a grandfather, Kayugh still carried himself with the sure and powerful walk of a hunter. Then Kayugh, as though knowing that Samiq watched him, turned back and called, “There is more to being a hunter than the skill of arms and hands. Do not forget the spirit. Do not forget the heart.”
    Then he left Samiq alone on the beach.

CHAPTER 7
    C HAGAK LOOKED UP from her sewing as Kayugh came down the climbing log into the ulaq. “You found him?” she asked.
    “He is on the beach.” Kayugh went to his weapons corner. He sorted through a basket filled with spearpoints and took out a fine obsidian blade, black and nearly translucent, one of Amgigh’s best. Kayugh held it for a moment against his cheek.
    Chagak had carried the pain of Amgigh’s death like a stone in her chest for this long moon, and now as she saw the sorrow in Kayugh’s face, her throat tightened and tears burned her eyes.
    Kayugh spoke from the weapons corner, his voice thin, almost like a boy’s. “Do you think, wife, in raising our sons that I favored Amgigh over Samiq?” he asked.
    The pain in his words reached into Chagak’s chest, squeezed her heart, so that for a moment she could not answer. She wiped the palms of her hands over her cheeks and closed her eyes until she stopped her tears, then