Seven Ways to Die (2 page)

He was dressed properly for the trek: Buckskin leggings and shirt made by his mother and grandma; his father’s gray hat which had a broad band and low, flat crown; new moccasins; and a blanket which his grandma had meticulously woven for him years before and which had served him well. His mother had braided his long, black hair into a tight ponytail.

He himself had made the bow and eight arrows with which he would hunt when he got hungry. His canteen had been his father’s in the army. His hunting knife was a birthday gift from Old Man when he was eight although his mother had felt he was too young for such a weapon.

But his father had over-ruled her and taught him how to skin an animal properly and how to throw the knife so it always stuck what he was aiming at and how to sharpen it.

“A dull knife’s about as good as a broken leg,” he told The Boy.

They were the good years before his father fell sick from the Orange Rain. His father followed the way of the
Nimiipu
and believed in the
walabsat
, the Seven Drum Religion, but he was also a Christian and went to the Catholic church with his mother. Sometimes it confused The Boy.

One night, after they had been in a sweat house, they were lying in the grass by a stream cooling down and The Boy was staring up at the stars.

Finally his father said, “You have a strong heart,
Ka-Wan.
You’re learning the way of our people. That was your choice and I’m very proud of you for taking the path.”

The Boy felt good about that.

When his father was too sick to do anything but huddle in his blanket on the back porch and stare into the mountains, The Boy would sit beside him dancing and singing songs he learned from the Seven Drummers, then saying a prayer that his father would get well.

Δ

The plan was simple. The Boy and Old Man left on horseback at first light. The Boy could take only the essentials: Water, his blanket, weapons, some flint, and some medicines his grandma, who was a medicine woman, made from mother earth, from the black moss on trees and from herbs and roots which were to purify wounds or injuries if he got hurt. No food or maps. No matches. And he was blindfolded. Old Man led him up into the mountains and away from the trails.

As sunset approached they stopped near a stream and Old Man removed the blindfold. They cut the poles for a good luck
wistitamo
and they gathered rocks and built the fire. After the sweat house, they jumped into the stream for a few moments to wash off the sweat then wrapped themselves in their blankets. They removed the canvas and poles and Old Man cooked a meal over the fire. A stew, then some venison and finally berries, each chopped in half. They drank a lot of water.

Old Man sang a prayer for his safe passage and they went to sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was peeking over the mountain top and Old Man was gone. He had left one thing for good luck, an
‘ipetes
, an eagle’s feather, which Old Man fastened to the back of the crown of his hat. He had also left the pot of uneaten stew, the rest of the venison and berries, the canvas sweat house tarp.

The Boy found a strong branch to use as a walking stick. Each morning when he woke up he would cut a notch in the handle to keep track of the days.

Δ

He found a stick and drew a straight line through the shadow. Then he stood and looked straight down the shadow. Southwest, he thought. Then he heard a sharp screech and looked up and saw a bald eagle circling him. It was talking to him, telling him to follow the line. Then it flew off straight southwest.

“Thank you, brother eagle,” he said, gathering his meager belongings, wrapping them in his blanket, and following the eagle’s trail. He was halfway down a mountainside which still had some late spring snow capping it. He trotted through the thick woods and late in the day came to a snow stream tumbling down from the peaks. He drank the cold clear water and filled his canteen and then hopped across the stream and followed it down until he came to a boulder etched out of the mountainside. It would be a safe place to sleep, there above the stream which was widening as the snow melted.

The Boy gathered handfuls of thick pine branches and made a mattress on the flat rock. Then he bunched up a small pile of leaves a few yards away and, using his flint, struck fire into the leaves and made a small temple of sticks above the meager fire and blew softly on it until the sticks started to burn. By the time the sun slipped behind the mountains he had a good fire going. He finished off the last of the food Old Man had left him, wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down on the pine mattress.

Listen. The past will become the present and the future will unfold before your eyes. Sometimes when you are alone it is okay to think about what has gone before. In your life, I mean. To understand why the past has become the present. Sometimes it is okay to think about where the trail will lead you, and why you are following it at all.

He was hungry and needed sleep to restore his energy. His food was gone.

Tomorrow he would have to go hunting.

Δ

He was awakened before dawn by an owl. He lay huddled in his blanket and listened as owl spoke to him from the dark. His eyesight was keen, so that people said he saw in the dark. He could see the owl as clearly as he could hear it.

“Oo oo whoee. Oo oo whoee.”

It was going to rain. During the coming night.

He would have to find a decent shelter. A cave, perhaps, to keep the weather at bay. He mapped the day in his head. He would kill a rabbit for food. Easier than a deer or elk unless, of course, a deer or elk presented itself. He would pick herbs, wild vegetables and roots to add taste to the rabbit. Then he would make a fire and skin the rabbit and spit it over the fire on a slant so the juices would collect in the pot Old Man had left him. Then he would add the herbs, cut some chunks from the rabbit, and put them in the pot. So then he would have three meals: The rabbit for breakfast and dinner, the stew for lunch, perhaps find some berries for dessert.

It was a good plan, he decided, and he continued to follow the stream down the mountain. His eyes moved constantly as he trotted through the woods. About mid-day he saw tracks leading away from the creek. He knelt, brushing leaves away from them. They were paw prints. Small. Two pressed hard into the ground, three hands farther there were two not so deep, three hands farther two more deep prints and then two not so deep. In his head he could see the animal hopping.

A rabbit.

This was a good sign. He followed the tracks, walking carefully. As his father once told him, “Always walk an inch off the ground so nothing will hear you.” He understood what that meant. Occasionally he notched a tree so he could find his way back to the stream. He had gone about a mile when he stopped, squatting down behind a tree. The tracks led to a hole burrowed beneath a fallen cottonwood ten yards away.

He slipped an arrow from the quiver, fitted the notch between the feathers and the bow string and waited. 

Listen. Patience is the virtue of the hunter.

And so he waited while above him storm clouds were gathering. Owl was right. The Boy could smell rain in the air. And it was getting dark. But his stomach was growling.

Far off, there was a rumble of thunder. He watched the hole. Perhaps the rabbit had left his house. Perhaps he was wasting his time. Then he heard a sound and the rabbit peered over the edge of the hole. It looked around, stuck his head up a little farther.

Ka-Wan
very slowly pulled the string back until the arrowhead was almost touching the bow. He sighted down the arrow, could see the rabbit’s head now clearly above the hole. He waited. A minute, two minutes passed. Then the rabbit rose up a little farther and he could see the white fur on its chest.

Now!

He moved his fingers half-an-inch off the bow string. The arrow whirred towards its target. The rabbit heard the sound, turned his head sharply, but he was too late. The arrow had found its mark and pierced the rabbit’s throat, pinning him to the ground at the edge of the hole.

Now he had to find shelter.

He made his way back to the stream and trotted down the mountainside. Ahead of him he could hear a waterfall and then through the trees he saw a band of treetops and the waterfall grew louder. He moved faster and finally came to the rim of a small cliff where the stream dropped into a pool before it continued down the mountain. He climbed down the small ravine.

The Boy was in luck. On the far side of the pool close to the waterfall he saw an opening under an overhang. It was small but large enough to crawl through so he took off his moccasins and hopped through the frigid water to the other side of the pool. He crawled to the cave and looked in, sniffing the stagnant air.

There was a feral odor inside but it was too dark to see anything. He sniffed the air again. Was it fur? A wolf perhaps, or a fox? Maybe an otter? Was he intruding on its domain?

He quickly gathered the makings and struck a fire close to the cave opening and beneath the overhang to protect it from the coming rain. He found a sturdy tree limb about three feet long, set the end afire, and crawled through the opening, following the torch light.

He lay there with his legs still outside, the torch held high, and studied the arched interior. It was four or five feet high, the sides and ceiling formed by sturdy rocks as it coursed back into the mountain and narrowed into darkness. The sandy floor was dry. It was perfect although the smell of the torch obliterated all other odors.

He decided to take a chance. He wedged his torch between some rocks, pulled his blanket and meager belongings inside and carried the pot and rabbit and the wild vegetables and berries he had gathered back outside.

He was unaware that he was being watched.

Inside the cave, a pair of narrow, black eyes followed The Boy’s every move, watched through the cave opening as he skinned the nice, plump rabbit and prepared his dinner, watched and waited as darkness fell and lightning streaked the sky and rain began to pelt the earth, watched and waited as The Boy finished his meal and extinguished his fire.

The eyes narrowed to mere slits in the flickering shadows as he returned.

The Boy crawled a little deeper into the cave, away from the acrid smell of the torch. He stretched his blanket out on the dry floor of the cave and made a bundle of the canvas tarp against the wall for a pillow.

As he settled down, pulling the blanket over him, a bolt of lightning startled him and cast a blue glow through the cave opening.

He did not see or hear the creature as it coiled on the sand, its head rising above a rock two feet away, its tongue licking the air, its eyes widening.

The Boy, his ears still ringing from the crack of lightning, was unaware of danger.

Unaware until he heard the dreadful, dry, terrifying rattle. By then it was too late.

His mouth dried up and his eyes bulged as the snake streaked out almost to its full length. Its fangs snapped like a trap, puncturing the blanket and The Boy’s leggings and piercing the inside of his left leg an inch above his ankle. It felt like he had been hit with a hammer.

He screamed, broke into a sweat, pulled his legs up against his chest, and watched terrified as the predator slithered out of the cave.

His fear was replaced almost immediately by action. He remembered the words of Old Man.

Do not panic or you will die. Be calm but do not hesitate. Move slow like the possum. But do not waver. Do what you must do before the sleep comes.

He moved resolutely but in slow motion, got his knife, cut two, short strips from the canvas tarp, pulled up his pants leg and saw the two scarlet fang marks, already beginning to swell. He leaned over, sliced an inch-long slit through the wound, pulled his leg up and bit hard over the cut and sucked the poison from it. He could taste the venom as he spat it out. He tied one strip of canvas an inch or two above the wound, tightened and knotted it, did the same below the swelling. He bit again, sucking the toxic blood into his mouth and spitting it out. He took a deep swig of water, swished it around in his mouth, spat it out. He got his grandma’s reddish ointment from his small bag of possessions and slowly smeared it into the wound. His teeth began to chatter. Pain overwhelmed him.

Then he lay back and pulled the blanket around him. He was beginning to shake and the pain began to numb his nerves so he began a
Nimiipuutimpt
chant to himself, slowing the chant, lowering it deep in his throat. He lay still as a sleeping cat and stared at the flickering shadows on the ceiling of the chamber and kept chanting to slow his heartbeat as the room began to tilt and spin and envelope him. 

And he slipped eagerly into the void.

Δ

Visions swept through the swirling mist of his fevered mind like the colored shards tumbling in a kaleidoscope, each fragment becoming fleeting instants from the past, nightmares he had forgotten or tried to forget colliding with moments of pure joy:

Picking huckleberries with his mother under a clear azure sky and waiting at the table while she mixed them with honey, his mouth wet with anticipation.

Ka-Wan seeing his father, Charley Wildpony, for the first time. How powerful and handsome he was in his Marine uniform, stepping off the bus as he returned from faraway battlefields, a mighty warrior with colored ribbons on his chest, each a testament to his bravery.