The Great Death Read Online Free Page A

surface of the lake was flat. A raft of mud ducks bobbed on the milky-blue water.
    Millie motioned for her sister to pause with her before turning back. She looked around, at the hills, the distant mountains to the south, the broad, flat, silent lake. To Millie it seemed almost beautiful, in spite of the horror. On such a day, village children might have played in the lake or along its banks, staying close to shore, frightening one another with stories of monsters that were said to live in the lake. Father had seen one when he was a young man. He had told the story of how he was paddling his canoe along the western shoreline, looking for caribou or moose or beaver, when a giant, scaly fish, longer than his canoe, swam alongside, splashed, and dived. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Others had seen it, too.
    Was the great fish also dead, killed by the red spots?
    Was all the world dying?

Denc ' i
    (Four)
    â€œThere is a steep cliff two days up the coast,” said that sly Raven. “You must make camp at the bottom of the cliff and await my signal.” Raven smiled as he lied to the chief, happy that his deception was working. He was an accomplished liar.
    A DOG TROTTED BY on the beach carrying something in its mouth. It lay down and began eating, tearing off pieces with its teeth. The girls thought it was a salmon at first, but when they were close enough, they realized that they were wrong. They could see fingers.
    Millie picked up a stone from the beach and hurled it at the dog, striking it squarely in the side. But it didn’t move. It kept eating, greedily gulping pieces. Both girls dropped their bundles of firewood and ran at the dog, yelling and waving their arms.
    â€œGo away!” they shouted. “Go away!”
    The dog stood up, growling at the meddlesome girls. Millie picked up another stone and hurled it with all her strength, hitting the dog again. This time it dropped the arm and skulked back toward the village with its tail between its legs.
    The dogs were eating the dead. For many days, no one had been feeding the dogs, and so, hungry as they were, they turned to the only food they could find.
    Millie and Maura picked up their bundles of wood and the pail of fresh water and returned to their house. Father was still asleep. Mother was awake but too weak to sit up.
    â€œDaughters,” Mother said hoarsely, as if her words were dying, as if they too had red spots, “go check on my sister and her baby.”
    Auntie had given birth in early spring, when the ice melted on the lake. Both mother and child had caught the sickness the day after Millie and Maura’s father first showed the spots. Uncle had been among the first men to die.
    Before leaving as Mother asked, the sisters rekindled the fire, warming the cabin. Maura washed her mother’s face, tried to get her to drink some water. She studied the tattoo on Mother’s chin: three blue-black lines running vertically from just below her lower lip. All the women in the village had tattoos on their faces, some of the lines solid, some dotted, but all the same color. It was a sign of beauty and maturity, of reaching the marrying age. The lines were made by stitching strings of gut smeared with bear grease and ash into the skin, leaving the permanent blue-black lines after the stitches fell out.
    â€œAre you cold?” Maura asked Mother gently.
    â€œNo, child.” Her mother did not open her eyes to speak, but she trembled from time to time, as if shivering. Maura pulled the blanket a little higher and looked closely at her mother’s face, tracing the tattoo softly with a finger.
    One day, she thought, Millie and I will have tattoos. Then she began to cry a little, quietly, not letting her sister see her. It was a mother’s role along with her sisters and other women of the village to sew the stitches. Maura worried that her mother wouldn’t be here to do this for her. She was afraid that no one would be