Kiss of the Fur Queen Read Online Free
Author: Tomson Highway
waving a magic wand.
The baby boy was floating in the air, his skin no longer silver blue but pinkish brown. As he floated, he turned andturned and laughed and laughed. Until, lighter than a tuft of goose-down, he fell to Earth, his plump posterior landing neatly in a bowl of silver.
“Ho-ho!
My victory boy!” the fun-loving caribou hunter trumpeted to whatever audience he could get, which, at the moment, was his wife.
“Ho-ho!
My champion boy!”
“Down! Put him down, or his little bum will freeze!” cried Mariesis Okimasis, though she couldn’t help but laugh and, with her laughing, love this man for all his unpredictable bouts of clownishness. Jumping up and down, the short Mariesis was trying to get the tall Abraham to put his World Champion’ship Dog Derby trophy down so she could put their baby back into the warmth and safety of his cradle-board. This was, after all, a tent, not a palace, not even a house, and this was, after all, mid-December and not July, in a region so remote that the North Pole was rumoured to be just over that next hill. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the curl of smoke from its tin chimney, the little canvas shelter would have been invisible, that’s how much snow there was when Champion Okimasis was born.
T HREE
A top a low, moss-covered rock that overlooked Nameegoos Lake, Champion Okimasis stood singing a concert to his father and the caribou. The three-year-old stretched and pumped the miniature accordion strapped to his chest with such abandon that its squawk was frightful. Somewhere out on that lake, Abraham Okimasis and his team of eight grey huskies were giving chase, and if Champion performed with sufficient conviction, the Okimasis family would be feasting on fresh hindquarter of young caribou before the sun touched the prong of that first pine tree.
“Ateek, ateek, astum, astum, yoah, ho-ho!”
Champion’s robin-like soprano rang out, his lungs small balloons. By the time he got to the tenth repetition of the phrase, a herd of caribou would come bursting out the other side of that first island, his father not twenty yards behind them.
“Caribou, caribou, come to me, come to me,
yoah, ho-ho!”
Down the rise of land, Champion’s mother was squatting on bare ground, clearing used dishes from a lunch table of spruce boughs three feet from the smouldering remains of their campfire. The early afternoon sun, amiable enough for early January, wasn’t making much headway on the top layer of snow, but its golden light made Champion Okimasis and his family feel warm and at ease with life.
Covered in earth-toned cotton dress and winter parka, midriff ripe as a full moon, Mariesis Okimasis looked, to the singing Champion, like a boulder, a part of the earth. She was nine months into her twelfth pregnancy and the fateful event could pounce upon her any minute now, so Champion had been informed by his older sister, the pouty and bossy Chugweesees Okimasis.
“Ateek, ateek, astum …”
So proud was he of his first original composition that Champion wanted it to be appreciated, not just by his father and the caribou, not just by the two other hunting families on the other side of the island, but by the world. Her face glowing with an inner light, Mariesis smiled at the impassioned, swaying, rocking musical wonder and said, “Champion. My boy. You will soon have a brother who can dance to that little caribou song of yours.”
Champion would have had ten older siblings but for TB, pneumonia, and childhood ailments, Mariesis had explained to an uncomprehending Champion; but here at least were Josephine, five, and Chugweesees, seven, playing with sticks and stones, and Chichilia, eleven, repacking the grub box forher mother. William William, nineteen, was up in Kasimir Lake, just south of the Northwest Territories border, helping one-eyed Uncle Wilpaletch trap mink and otter and arctic fox; and Marie-Adele, twenty-one, was married with children of her own and moved to her
The baby boy was floating in the air, his skin no longer silver blue but pinkish brown. As he floated, he turned andturned and laughed and laughed. Until, lighter than a tuft of goose-down, he fell to Earth, his plump posterior landing neatly in a bowl of silver.
“Ho-ho!
My victory boy!” the fun-loving caribou hunter trumpeted to whatever audience he could get, which, at the moment, was his wife.
“Ho-ho!
My champion boy!”
“Down! Put him down, or his little bum will freeze!” cried Mariesis Okimasis, though she couldn’t help but laugh and, with her laughing, love this man for all his unpredictable bouts of clownishness. Jumping up and down, the short Mariesis was trying to get the tall Abraham to put his World Champion’ship Dog Derby trophy down so she could put their baby back into the warmth and safety of his cradle-board. This was, after all, a tent, not a palace, not even a house, and this was, after all, mid-December and not July, in a region so remote that the North Pole was rumoured to be just over that next hill. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the curl of smoke from its tin chimney, the little canvas shelter would have been invisible, that’s how much snow there was when Champion Okimasis was born.
T HREE
A top a low, moss-covered rock that overlooked Nameegoos Lake, Champion Okimasis stood singing a concert to his father and the caribou. The three-year-old stretched and pumped the miniature accordion strapped to his chest with such abandon that its squawk was frightful. Somewhere out on that lake, Abraham Okimasis and his team of eight grey huskies were giving chase, and if Champion performed with sufficient conviction, the Okimasis family would be feasting on fresh hindquarter of young caribou before the sun touched the prong of that first pine tree.
“Ateek, ateek, astum, astum, yoah, ho-ho!”
Champion’s robin-like soprano rang out, his lungs small balloons. By the time he got to the tenth repetition of the phrase, a herd of caribou would come bursting out the other side of that first island, his father not twenty yards behind them.
“Caribou, caribou, come to me, come to me,
yoah, ho-ho!”
Down the rise of land, Champion’s mother was squatting on bare ground, clearing used dishes from a lunch table of spruce boughs three feet from the smouldering remains of their campfire. The early afternoon sun, amiable enough for early January, wasn’t making much headway on the top layer of snow, but its golden light made Champion Okimasis and his family feel warm and at ease with life.
Covered in earth-toned cotton dress and winter parka, midriff ripe as a full moon, Mariesis Okimasis looked, to the singing Champion, like a boulder, a part of the earth. She was nine months into her twelfth pregnancy and the fateful event could pounce upon her any minute now, so Champion had been informed by his older sister, the pouty and bossy Chugweesees Okimasis.
“Ateek, ateek, astum …”
So proud was he of his first original composition that Champion wanted it to be appreciated, not just by his father and the caribou, not just by the two other hunting families on the other side of the island, but by the world. Her face glowing with an inner light, Mariesis smiled at the impassioned, swaying, rocking musical wonder and said, “Champion. My boy. You will soon have a brother who can dance to that little caribou song of yours.”
Champion would have had ten older siblings but for TB, pneumonia, and childhood ailments, Mariesis had explained to an uncomprehending Champion; but here at least were Josephine, five, and Chugweesees, seven, playing with sticks and stones, and Chichilia, eleven, repacking the grub box forher mother. William William, nineteen, was up in Kasimir Lake, just south of the Northwest Territories border, helping one-eyed Uncle Wilpaletch trap mink and otter and arctic fox; and Marie-Adele, twenty-one, was married with children of her own and moved to her
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