Again Owl was
wakened in the night by soft rustling noises, this time from the meadow. The moon had risen, and by its light he could detect motion in the grass. The creatures seemed small, and he laid aside his spear to pick up the throwing sticks.
Crouching, he made his way toward the grassy clearing, keeping to the shadows. To his surprise, the meadow seemed alive with scampering forms. Rabbits! He congratulated himself on accidentally locating his camp almost on top of the rabbits' meeting place. He knew of such areas, with a level open space to run and play, and adequate food supply for the creatures. There were at least as many hopping forms as one has fingers.
Another hunter shared interest in the rabbits' council. From a dead pine came the hunting call of a great owl. Instantly every rabbit froze in position. Owl used the moment of inaction to move quietly to better location. By
using the owl's hollow cry to distract the animals, he could benefit in improved hunting. The long-ears started to move cautiously again. To his surprise, one began feeding only a few paces in front of him. The stick whirled, and a fluffy rabbit lay kicking in the grass.
He flitted forward, administered another blow, and glanced quickly around for new quarry. It was several moments before he spotted his prey, another fat long-ear contentedly nibbling a blade of the lush grass. The stick whirled again. This time the blow was not so sure. The stricken rabbit threshed around in the grass, squealing in distress. All the other animals fled into the woods or among the rocks. Owl sprang forward to prevent the escape of his prey.
Just as he was almost ready to reach forward and grasp the kicking animal, a shadow flitted across his path. On silent wings, the great owl swooped softly in front of him and snatched the rabbit. It was gone almost before the bird's human namesake realized what was occurring.
Owl was furious for a moment, then became amused. The game belonged to one hunter no more than another. Had he not done the same with the kill of the real-cat? After all, it was with the help of the great owl that he had secured the first rabbit. He picked up his throwing stick and hurried back to claim that kill. He turned and waved to the silhouette in the dead pine, elongated by the rabbit carcass dangling below.
“Thank you, my brother,” he called, with a laugh.
The rabbit was large and fluffy, and of a kind not familiar to him. In the prairies and woods of his home, there were two long-ears. There was the large, tough and bony animal with a black tail, and the smaller, softer, white-tailed rabbit, much better for eating.
This rabbit was neither. It was heavy and meaty, and when daylight came, Owl could see that it was strangely mottled with white patches among the brown.
Each night thereafter, when the moon rose, Owl and his feathered counterpart shared the hunt. Some nights were totally unproductive, some produced a meal for the day. On one memorable night, he secured two fat rabbits in addition to one seized by his silent-winged hunting companion.
One other maneuver he learned during this period. He could imitate the call of the hunting owl to perfection. This sound could freeze all motion on the part of the long-ears, and enable him to maneuver for better position.
Finally came the night when he decided the meadow was hunted out. The great owl had already moved on to better hunting. The remaining long-ears had become so wary that at the slightest movement in the shadows they vanished. Besides, the waning moon no longer lighted the meadow satisfactorily for hunting.
Owl had begun to construct a robe from the rabbit fur. The skins had no strength, but much warmth. Clumsily and painstakingly he stitched the skins together with sinew. He had fashioned an awl from a rabbit bone, honed to a fine point on a stone. Already his furry cape was large enough to throw across his shoulders, and it became larger with each rabbit kill. Scraps of fur he stuffed into his moccasins.
When Owl left the Place of Rabbits to move on into the mountains he was much better equipped and provisioned. He had decided that there was to be no pursuit. Danger from enemies would be from a chance encounter. Therefore, if he watched carefully to observe any sign of human activity, he should find safety for the moons of the winter.
There remained the selection of a winter camp site. Owl was having a great deal of difficulty in relating his knowledge of needs for winter to this strange region. His experience was with skin lodges, erected at the south edge of a growth of timber, to shelter from the north blast of the Cold Maker.
His greatest problem was lack of knowledge of the area. He had no way of knowing how deep the snow, or how cold the nights would be.
It was to be assumed that lower areas would be more habitable. In the edge of the mountains, familiar to the People, it was realized that deer, elk, and the big-horned sheep came down from the taller peaks to winter in the lowlands. Owl's search, then, was for a sheltered valley or canyon, inaccessible to casual travelers, with a water supply, game, and an exposure to the south.
At times he despaired of finding a wintering site with all these qualifications. One he rejected for lack of water. Another was too conspicuous to any passer-by. The best site he found was finally rejected with regret, after he realized there was no sign of game in the area. He continued to travel in the generally northeast direction.
He almost decided to travel as rapidly as possible out of the mountains, hoping to find a tribe of friendly Growers with whom he could winter. This plan he finally rejected, also. He could not risk being caught in the open by Cold Maker, or blundering into a band of Head Splitters by mistake.
Owl was beginning to feel depressed, even desperate. His earlier confidence was hard to maintain through the chill of the lengthening nights. Maybe, he was forced to consider, there was good reason why the Hairfaces shunned the mountains in winter.
There had still been no winter storm. Several times dark clouds had gathered over the peaks of the high ranges to the west, but then dissipated. If at any time one of these threatening situations materialized, Owl would be in a very vulnerable position.
He remembered once, long ago, seeing an aging buffalo bull circled by wolves. The animals were patient, and there was no doubt about the eventual outcome. The bull could
fend off the nipping, feinting attacks for a day or two, but eventually he would go down.
Tonight, in the depths of depression, Owl began to feel like the tired old bull. So far he had been successful in his bid for survival, but for how long? Tired, hungry, thirsty, and cold, as he built his fire, he really began to doubt himself. Perhaps captivity would be preferable to the end that seemed likely. He was proud of his bid for freedom, but what good had all his effort been if the end result was the same? Would he, like the buffalo bull, go down when Cold Maker, now only nipping at his heels, unleashed the final onslaught?
He chewed a little of his precious dried meat and rolled into his makeshift skins for the night, still cold and thirsty.
It was some
time during the night that Owl's medicine coyote came to him in a dream. He had been restlessly tossing, the transparent visions shimmering and fading like mirages in the prairie sun. He saw again the miseries of captivity, the escape from the Head Splitters, the recapture, and the death of Willow. Then, she was still there, smiling sadly and sympathetically as he sweated under the ore sacks. Her gentle yet determined face encouraged him, as her memory always did. Again, she vanished, to be replaced by the cruel leer of El Gato. The overseer, too, now disappeared in a flash of fire from the smoke-log, and Owl was running, climbing, lungs bursting. Then he was tired, cold, and hungry, and sank down in despair to rest.
Just at this time in his vision, when depression was overwhelming, a coyote trotted into his dream. The animal
approached and sat on its haunches near him, looking directly into his face. Owl recognized his medicine beast.
“Do not despair, my son,” came the soft chortling voice. Owl looked at the coyote dully, without spirit.
“The answer is very near,” continued the gentle chuckle.
Even in his dream state, Owl was irritated. He had given the escape his best effort, and now felt the weight of failure falling heavy on his shoulders. Worse, even, was the diminishing likelihood of his survival. And here was the completely inappropriate advice of the mystical dream coyote.
“Very close by,” continued the voice. “You have only to think and look. I will be with you, my son.”
The expression on the face of the dream beast was so compassionate that it was impossible to remain frustrated. Owl felt a warm, comfortable emotion spread over him, and he was reassured. He reached out a hand to touch the coyote, to retain the sense of closeness, and the animal vanished instantly. His hand came in contact with the smooth stone against which he camped. He was alone in the night beside the embers of his fire. One cannot touch a medicine animal.
Still, the feeling of close comfort persisted. Owl remained wide awake, his senses alert. He took small sticks and fanned the embers to blaze again, all the while pondering the meaning of the vision. The rest of the night was spent in meditation, sitting over the tiny fire with his rabbit fur robe wrapped around his shoulders.
He was puzzled about the cryptic message, “The answer is very near.” Was this to indicate nearness to this place, or in the nearness of time? Owl was inclined to believe that both might be implied. At any rate, it could do no harm to remain here in waiting for a short while.
In addition, he was comfortable here. There was a peaceful lack of urgency in the place, and it was pleasant to be here. This was in direct contrast to his feeling for the
place as he made camp the night before. It was strange how the message in his vision had changed his attitude. Where he had previously been anxious, depressed, and impatient, he was now relaxed and expectant.
Most of the day Owl spent near his fire, and mostly in thought. Activity did not, at this time, appear productive. Sun Boy carried his torch in its slow arc across the southern sky, and Owl was content to sit and appreciate its warmth.
There was still the quality of expectant waiting, and toward the end of the day, Owl began to wonder if he had misunderstood his vision. After all, the coyote had said, “think and look.” Perhaps he was not being aggressive enough. He wandered around the immediate area, poking and investigating, but found nothing. It would help, he thought with a bit of irritation, if he had some idea what he was seeking. He returned to his fire, and realized he must have more wood for the coming night.
Owl had made several trips to his camp with armloads of sticks when he noticed a scraggly dead pine nearby. It had grown from a crevice at the back of the rock against which he camped. The tree was no taller than his shoulder. It had managed to survive in a tortuous location on the exposed face of the rock for a few years, but had now succumbed. It would be ideal fuel, Owl thought, as he broke the dried branches and piled them in the crook of his arm.
The tree had clung tightly against the rock face, and he noticed that when he pulled the twigs away, there were marks remaining on the smooth surface of the stone.
Suddenly he took a step back for a better look. The scratches just exposed had not been made by the tree, he now realized. They had been put there by a human hand. Hurriedly, in the waning light, he pulled branches and the collected debris of the years away from the rock.
There were three of the figures, human figures of varying
sizes. The largest was only half the height of a man, while the smallest was little more than a hand's span. They reminded Owl of the figures on the Story Skins far away in the lodge of White Buffalo.
He attempted to decipher meaning from these pictures. At first he thought this might represent a family unit, a warrior, his wife, and a child. Yet all three carried spears, so he decided they must be warriors with varying degrees of prestige. But why were they here?
It was almost fully dark now, and he lighted a torch to continue his examination. He also looked at the other accessible faces of the great boulder, but found no markings of any sort. He returned to the fire, though he knew there would be little sleep tonight.
He remembered White Buffalo's occasional mention of the Old Ones. There was little knowledge of these people. They had lived among the rocks and cliffs of the mountains, before the memory of tribes now in the region. Owl realized with a twinge of regret that he had been inattentive during some of the rambling lectures of the old medicine man.
He could remember only that the Old Ones had been gone for a very long time, long before the People came from the northern plains. And that migration, though recorded in the Story Skins, was before the time of his grandfather's grandfather. The strange people had left a record of their passing only in the occasional picture scratched on the. surface of a rock. There were said to be many such pictures in the far recesses of the mountains, he now recalled. But why here? What was the purpose of this solitary marker, the great red stone bearing the pictures?
Crouched over his fire, deep in thought, Owl could feel the presence of the Old Ones who had made their home here. They had been people like himself, with dreams and
hopes and problems of survival. Where had they come from, and why had they gone?
For some reason the first phrases of the People's death song came to him, in a comforting, enduring way:
“The grass and the sky go on foreverâ”