Free The Animal Wife by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas Page B

meat. And we wanted to join with their groups. Our summer hunting is the best anywhere, but our wintergrounds are the same as anyone else's—sometimes the animals take shelter in our woods, and sometimes they don't. If they don't, we starve. That's why we made sure to marry women from places with good winter hunting.
    "Now we have in-laws who share our hunting lands, and in return we share their hunting lands. Now if there are no animals on our wintergrounds, we go to our in-laws. They take us in. My marriage to your mother, Kori, let us hunt on Woman Lake, but Woman Lake is far. My marriage to my wife Yoi lets us hunt on the Char River. The Char is also far, but it is better. So that we could be well tied to the Char, my two nieces married the two sons of the man who owns the hunting there. Today his people sometimes spend the summer by the Hair. We give him ivory."
    Never before had I heard so much about Father's people. Never before had I given them much thought. As I listened I worried, wondering what all the people would think of me, and how I could remember anything from the tumble of names that Father soon began to call out over his shoulder. I knew I wouldn't remember any.
    Or so I thought until Father, now not so far ahead of us that he had to raise his voice, spoke of a girl named Frogga. "She's the daughter of my half-brother Maral with his second wife," he said. "Her lineage is mostly from the Grass River. She'd make a good wife for you."
    A wife! And I had been thinking I wouldn't remember the names of Father's people. Frogga's name didn't leave my mind from then on. A wife!
    "Soon after her birth," said Father, "Maral and I began to speak of a marriage between you. We could have promised her to someone from the Black River, it's true, but we don't want to give away all our women. We asked ourselves where else we would find someone for you. My brothers and I got wives from the Fire River, but you couldn't—most of the unmarried women there are in your lineage, thanks to your mother and her kin. Well. Now that you're here, we can speak of the marriage with Frogga more seriously. Maral favors it."
    We walked along in silence for a while. Father seemed content. He had finished speaking and strode forward, looking calmly this way and that. I felt on fire. I was forming in my mind the image of a beautiful girl with a long braid of black, gleaming hair. But Andriki seemed to be struggling with doubt. "You've forgotten Aal," he said at last.
    "Aal? What about her?" said Father.
    "She may not agree."
    Father turned his head for a quick, reproachful glance at Andriki. "You may not know it, but I've already spoken of this marriage to Bala. Bala favors it too. Anyway, he has nothing against it."
    "Yes, but Aal," insisted Andriki. "She's not the same as Bala."
    "What are you getting at?" asked Father.
    "Well," said Andriki, "Bala must have told her of your plan. As we were leaving, she said she thought it senseless to betroth young people far ahead of marriage. She said if death took one of them, the other people could never agree how to undo the betrothal exchange. Gifts would get mixed up, and no one would know who owned what. I wondered at the time why she said such a thing to me."
    "Well," said Father, "it does sound as if Bala told her."
    "She's the mother. She'll want a large gift," said Andriki. "Will Maral be able to find one for her?"
    Father was silent for a time. He walked steadily, his eyes on the trail, but his thoughts must have been busy. At last he said, "Aal wants something. So her words have something hidden in them. She usually means more than she says."
    "You know her best," said Andriki.
    Father thought some more. "It's her necklace," he said at last. "Did you see it?"
    Andriki thought for a while. "I saw a necklace on her the first day we came. After that I didn't see her wearing any necklace," he said.
    "That's right," said Father. "She was probably hiding it from us. The important thing is that