Cry of the Wind

Book Two of the Storyteller Trilogy (after Song of the River) continues Harrison's tale of intertribal warfare and its tragic consequences some 80 centuries ago in the stark and inhospitable land that is present-day Alaska. In the Near River Village, the Aleut healing woman K'os swears vengeance against Fox Barking, who had enslaved her after his brutal rape left her unable to bear children. Not even her adopted son, Chakliux the storyteller, is safe from her obsessive need to avenge her misery. Chakliux, of the Cousin River Village, has another problem as well. He loves beautiful Aqamdax, who is caught in a loveless marriage to the cruel Night Man. The love between Chakliux and Aqamdax and the dangers they face as they try to elude K'os form the central plot of this wide-ranging tale. Harrison's research is clearly reflected in her meticulous attention to details as disparate as the careful sewing of a parka and the rituals of a caribou hunt. Her characters are based on ancient Native American mythologies and storytelling traditions. But in her ambition to create a panoramic view of this long-gone culture, she offers an unwieldy cast of two-dimensional characters who live in indistinguishable villages and scurry about in myriad subplots that serve only to illustrate how much Harrison knows about her subject. (Dec.)