“No, it was a mitten. One of the brothers threw it in to see if you were home.”
When he could no longer stand the suspense, the bear poked his nose out of the cave and gave himself away. The brothers below gave a shout, and the brothers above drew their arrows. X’oots rolled back into the den, searched for his wife and children in the half-light, and spun just as the first arrow glanced off his shoulder. Soon the air whined with arrows. The bear roared and staggered, hit a dozen times, fought into open air and skidded headfirst down the rocky incline till he lay supine. He lifted his head but knew he could no longer move, then lay still and breathed his last, the edges of his fur fluttering in a passing breeze. The dogs danced around the corpse, yelping triumph and crying over their fear of death. One of the brothers braved a kick in the dead animal’s ribs, and seeing no spirit left behind in the bear, he lifted his chin to the skies and began to sing.
Hearing the human voice, S’ee uncovered her children, demanded they keep quiet and gather the arrows that had missed the mark. With a strip torn from the remnants of her dress, she tied the arrows to the dog’s sides and pushed him out of the den. When the arrows came back to them this way, the brothers stopped their chanting and knew that something human remained in the hole above them. They found her naked and cowering with two young children in the darkest corner of the den.
“Woman, how did you get here?”
“I am S’ee, don’t you recognize me? And that was my husband you have filled with your arrows.” She pushed the men aside, scrabbling down the rock face on all fours till she embraced the bear, dusty and bloodied, his spirit gone. The insects swarmed on the wounds, crawled into his mouth and lifeless eyes. She buried her hands in his fur, grabbed the broad muscles along his arm, and keened her lamentations. Young Yeikoo.shk’ raced to her side, desperate to comfort, and when she saw the boy, S’ee thought of the babe left in the den and knew at once what she must do.
“Go to my mother and have her send clothes for me and my two babies, and we will need moccasins for the journey home. You are to leave the head and skin whole and drape it across four poles, facing the east, so that X’oots may see the break of each day and watch over his children.”
The brothers did as she instructed, and the dogs cried inconsolably at the bearskin stretched out above them, as if alive. The brothers took the meat but would not eat it, building a pyre as soon as they left the valley, burning his body atop a mountain. For six days, S’ee woke to the sight of the bear watching the sunrise, and she cursed him for his pride. The babies grew hungry and dirty from her neglect, and by the time the brothers returned, the children ran and hid from them. The youngest brother, the one whose arrow first pierced X’oots’s heart, gave S’ee the dress and moccasins sewn by her mother, and the customary shape and style of those clothes assuaged her grief. The thought of leaving her husband behind she could not endure, so she ordered her youngest brother to roll up the skin and carry it on his back for the journey. She dressed and combed her hair with her fingers, fed the children, then followed her brothers out of the valley of the bears.
Whispers reached her ears before the family arrived in the village. Those children were not Tlingit but half bear, and S’ee herself had nearly become one from her long familiarity with the grizzly in the rain forest. Even her mother and sisters looked upon them with wonder and suspicion. S’ee overheard the eldest tell Shax’saani how their sister smelled like an old brown bear no matter how many times she bathed. At potlatch, the tribal leaders huddled together and murmured to one another as they watched S’ee’s children roll and tumble in their rough play. Rumors fell like rain: that they were wild at heart and when of age would run amok; that their teeth were sharper than a marten’s; that in one minute flat, they could dig a hole deep enough to hide in; that they preferred to shit on the pathways, their stools gleaming with jewels of undigested berries. By early summer, a few mothers advised their children to stay away from S’ee’s “cubs.” The snub spread from house to house, family to family, infecting the clan.
“I am sorry, sister,” said the one who had ended up marrying D’is, the moon-faced boy, “but your boy and girl are wild things, ruining my sons.”