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were men in the Near River Village who hoped for peace, then there was a chance.
    “I will stay,” Chakliux said.
    He lowered his head so Wolf-and-Raven could not see doubt darken his eyes. He had a brother he did not know, a mother who seemed aware of nothing beyond her own needs. Why had she claimed him now, when she had once left him to die under cold and wind and the teeth of animals? Why take away his honor as animal-gift?
    But should she say nothing? He was not animal-gift. He was only a child thrown away, a curse.
    Then Gguzaakk’s voice came to him, spoke in his heart, reminded him why he was in the Near River Village. He must discover how to turn people from hatred to understanding. It did not matter if he was animal-gift. It did not matter if his foot was a sign that he carried otter blood. If he could not bring peace, then many people in this village and his own would die.

Chapter Two
    THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE, TRADERS’ BAY
    (PRESENT-DAY HERENDEEN BAY, THE ALASKA PENINSULA)
    Aqamdax looked out over the ice-covered inlet, north toward the sea, then east toward the land of the River People. Perhaps next summer her mother would come back. It had been four years since she left with the trader, but she had promised Aqamdax she would return, and each summer Aqamdax waited and watched.
    The wind cut hard from the west, forcing Aqamdax to step forward and brace herself against it. There was no one else on the beach so she called out her words, placed them on the wind, and prayed the message would find its way to her mother.
    “You left me in He Sings’s ulax,” Aqamdax said, lifting her words like a song. “His throwing board is strong. His seal harpoon is cunning, and there is food enough for everyone. His wives still hate me, but I do what I can to help them.
    “For two summers now my blood has followed the moon. Soon I will be wife. Come back and share my joy.”
    She would have said more, but from the edges of her eyes she saw that He Sings’s second wife had come to the beach. The woman walked toward her, bent with the wind, her mouth opening and closing like a fish’s mouth. She was dragging her youngest daughter by the hand. The child was howling, but the wind pulled away the noise, so Aqamdax knew of her protests only by seeing her face.
    When Fish Taker drew near, she set her hands at the center of the girl’s back and pushed the child toward Aqamdax.
    “I told you this morning, you must take care of her. How will I finish my husband’s parka if this one is forever crawling into my lap?”
    “She was asleep,” Aqamdax told the woman.
    “She woke up.”
    Fish Taker turned back toward the sod-roofed ulas, leaving the girl with Aqamdax. The child was not yet to the age of remembering, but she could talk and walk. Aqamdax knelt down beside her, turning so the girl was in the lee of Aqamdax’s body, shielded from the worst of the wind.
    “Little Bird, why do you cry?”
    “I want eat,” she said. She raised a mittened hand to wipe at the mucus running from her nose, then hiccoughed out a sob.
    “Here, I have something.” Aqamdax pulled a strip of dried fish from the sleeve of her birdskin sax.
    Aqamdax ate well in the chief hunter’s ulax, but had not forgotten the summer after her father’s death, before He Sings had agreed to feed her and her mother. Now she always carried dried meat or fish, even hid some in her sleeping place.
    Little Bird reached for the fish, but Aqamdax chewed off a chunk, warmed it for a moment in her mouth, then handed it to the child.
    “We should go back to the village,” Aqamdax told her. “It is too cold on the beach.”
    Aqamdax hoisted her to one hip, then walked up the slope of the beach, over the path worn into the snow. She carried Little Bird to Give Spear’s lodge. Give Spear was an elder, and never worried if someone chose to sit in the leeward shelter of his ulax. Besides, he was one of the few hunters in the village who had never come to Aqamdax’s