The Thinking Rocks (20 page)

Dola was sitting by
himself quietly off to one side stroking Whiteface's head.  During a lull
in the conversation, he asked Cano, "Were you afraid?"

 "Of course, I
was afraid, but that didn't matter. There was something more important, trying
to stay alive."  He glanced over his shoulder at his brother,
"There are things that must be done and there are things that could be
done.  It is important to know that these aren't just different words. The
difference is doing something that must be done to survive.  It's the
difference between life and death. You can choose to do things almost any way
that you want to.  Some ways of doing something are better than
others.  Many times we have to do something, and it may seem as if all the
ways of doing it are bad ways. Nevertheless, if you must do something, you may
have to choose the best way, from bad choices.  What I am saying is this,
when you don't have a good clear choice, make your choice from the least bad
choice.

Gennos then spoke,
"I think what Cano was trying to say is, if you can't find a good way to
do something, then try to pick the best way from the choices that you
have.  He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "Think about
this. You are walking by the river and you see a plant growing that you know
something special about.  This plant has a strong spirit.  If the spirit
gets into you, strange things happen. The magic of this spirit is that if you
eat this plant or burn it in a fire and smell its smoke, it makes you feel
wonderful. You are not afraid of anyone or anything. Everything is funny. 
You know if you eat or smell its smoke, you will like it.  But, there is a
problem.  When the spirit of the plant leaves, you will become sick. 
So sick that you will think you're dying.  Any food you eat will come back
up.  You will have bad pains in your stomach.  The pains will be so
bad, that you think that you're going to die, and at the same time you will
fear that you're not going to die.  You'll have to relieve yourself; it
will be runny and smell bad.  Your head will hurt and it will be hard to
think.” Gennos paused, "The question is not if you should eat or smell it
or if you should just walk by.  The question is: If you have to eat or
smell it, what would you do?"  Gennos paused again, "The best
way is not to, but this time you have to eat and smell it, what do you do?"

Dola thought about the
problem quietly.  As Gennos had said, the best thing was not to eat the
plant or smell the smoke.  But that was not a choice he could make. 
His only choice seemed to be to eat and get sick. That didn't seem to be a good
choice either, even though it was the simplest.  As he sat there staring
into the fire, an idea started to form.   I have to eat it and smell
it, but I don't have to eat or smell a lot of it.  He looked up from the
fire at Gennos and then to Cano, "I would eat only a little of it and not
smell much of the smoke. If I had to, I could pretend to eat and smell the
smoke.  If I couldn't do that I would eat as little as possible, and try
not to smell the smoke. I know this is not a good choice, but it is the best that
I can do.  Am I wrong?"

Gennos shook his head
"No, it is the best choice of poor choices.  I'm glad you
understand." He hesitated before continuing, “You will make a great hunter
someday, because you listen and learn."

Dola was smiling, he was
glad that he received approval from Gennos, but he still wasn't comfortable
with the idea of determining what to do. He looked over at Cano, "I
understand, but it takes time to think over a problem.  You didn't have
time to look at all the different ways to do things. The bear was trying to
kill you. You had to be quick."

Cano agreed, "Only
a fool would take time to think out what to do at a time like that.  I
could smell the bear's blood on his breath; I saw it dripping from his
mouth.  The ground shook when he roared.  I could see each tooth in
its mouth, the teeth that would crush and kill me."  Pausing, he
looked away, reliving those few moments.  Then he shook his head as if
he'd just come awake, "You do what you have to do to stay alive.  I
didn't have to think; I knew if I lay there I was dead.  Anything I did
was better than doing nothing.  I got the spear and it saved my
life."  He looked into Dola's eyes as he said, "I couldn't do
what I wanted to do with the spear, but what I did saved my life.  The
bear wanted to bite me, but instead he bit my spear. The Great Spirit was
walking with me.  He must have thought that this was a lesson that I
should remember. He paused again, and then smiled and said, "I hope the
next lesson doesn't involve bears.”  He stood up and stretched. "Now
there's something that we all must do.  Go to sleep.  We will leave
early in the morning.”

They packed the
raft, but they slept by fire that night.  It was a good night for sleeping
by the fire. Cano took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  He looked up
through the tree branches at the stars in the clear skies. It was a good day to
be alive, Cano thought.

A Strange Sighting

The next day
as they drifted down the river, they saw something strange.  There was a
dead deer floating near the shore.  Something was sticking out of its
side.  The river was shallow and the current was slow at this point, and
Cano was able to pole the raft over to where the deer floated.  Gennos was
able to grab the deer by an antler and pull it aboard the raft. "Strange,"
he said, was he studied the carcass. "Look at the size of spear that
killed it.  It's so small."  The spear was indeed small; it was
only as long as a man's arm and was only as thick as a man's finger. 
Cano's spears were as tall as he was and thicker than his thumb.

Gennos
examined the deer carefully, "It hasn't been dead long.  He was
probably hit yesterday.  The spear hit too far back to kill quickly; the
deer could have run a long distance before dying. Whoever did it might be far
away.
"

The spear meant that
there might be men in the vicinity. It was a strange thing to meet other men in
the wilderness.  It was not something that happened frequently. Neither of
the brothers was sure how they would approach this problem.  They continued
to drift down the river.

Neither brother spoke
for quite some time.  Cano could see that Gennos was in deep
thought.  They both knew that there were probably other people around;
nevertheless it was uncomfortable to think about.  If they made contact
with them would they be friendly? Cano couldn't remember the last time he had
met someone outside of their clan.  He wondered if they were near another
Clan or if these hunters were just a band of travelers.  If they met, what
should we do?

Gennos was the first to
speak, "I think that whoever they are, they will be down stream of
us."

Dola asked, "Why do
you say that?"

"The deer is a
fresh kill, it didn't float by us.  If it had we would see it. So, it had
to have been hit near here.  It could not float up stream.  This means
that whoever hit it is near. Possibly down among the trees around the bend in
the river. "The bigger question is should we try to meet them?  We
don't know if they are friendly," said Gennos. 

Cano spoke
"I would like to know more about the small spear.  Why did they use
it?  Are they small people, which have to use small spears?  Where
did they come from?  How many of them are there?  Where are they?
"

Dola said, "I think
we will find out about these people soon, I smell smoke.”

The hunters all sniffed
the air and then began looking for the origin of the smoke.  The river
followed a twisted course, and was never straight for any great distance. 
Below the raft it turned sharply toward the side of the river they were
on.  Smoke could be seen rising in the still air.

"Well, for better
or worse we'll know more in a short time," Gennos said.

Cano said, "Well,
let's find out who these people are.  We can return their deer and see if
they will let us eat with them.”

As they came around the
bend in the river they saw a small sand beach and a clearing with a fire. 
Cano lay his pole down, then he stood with both hands raised and called in
aloud voice "HOLA-HOLA.”

There appeared to be a
small group of men and a woman in the camp. At the sound of Cano's voice, one
of them picked up his weapons and dashed into the brush.  The others
watched him leave and then turned toward the raft. The woman was kneeling next
to the fire and did not rise.

Cano called again
"HOLA-HOLA", and then he reached down and held up the body of the
dead deer.

The group of men on
shore didn't do anything at first. Then the tallest of the group turned toward
the place the first man had disappeared in the brush. He appeared to be
listening to something.  The distance to the raft was too great for anyone
to hear what was said, but the men on shore turned toward him and lay their
weapons down. The tall man called toward the raft, but no one on the raft could
understand what he said.  They stood listening until he motioned for them
to come ashore.  The others and the woman had not moved.

Although, they were
apprehensive, Cano lay the deer down and he and Gennos poled toward
shore. 

Dole said, "I don't
see a raft. I wonder how they got here.  Oh look, there are some logs near
shore. They look strange."

The brothers were more
concerned with the people on shore, and just glanced toward the logs Dola had
seen.

Whiteface stood at the
front of the raft, watching quietly.

Gennos said, "Keep
smiling, but know where your weapons are.  Something doesn't feel right
about this.  I don't like the way that one man ran off into the brush,
something is wrong".

Whiteface's ruff came up
slowly as they came close to the shore.  A rumbling growl started low in
her stomach.

When they were a short
distance from the shore, Cano jumped into the knee-deep water.  He turned
toward the raft, pick up the deer and turned toward shore.  He smiled and
called to the men onshore.  But the words froze when he saw the strange
look on one of the men's face. The man was looking at something downstream.
Cano turned and saw another man coming quickly toward them from
downstream.  He was carrying weapons and he didn't appear friendly.

Gennos saw him at the
same time, "Quick Cano, push the raft back out!"

Cano dropped the deer
and spun toward the raft.  He leaned forward and started pushing with all
of his might.  The sandy bottom helped, but the raft was heavy, and was
difficult to move.  Gennos was using a pole to push and the raft began to
slowly move away from the shore.

The man downstream continued
rushing toward the raft, but he called to the men near Cano.  Without
stopping, the man took one of the short spears and did something strange. 
It looked like he was going to try and throw both light spears at once. 
Cano wasn't worried; he knew that the raft was well beyond throwing
range.  Cano renewed his efforts to move the raft, and as he changed his
footing, one of his feet slipped on a large stone on the bottom of the
river.  This caused him to fall forward.  He heard a swishing sound
and saw one of the short spears strike the water where he'd been
standing.  How could this be?  Looking back at the man in the water,
he saw him getting ready to throw another spear.  He looked up at Gennos
and saw him swinging his heavy rafting pole at him.  His started to dodge
the blow, but before he could, he heard it strike something behind him. 
He looked over his shoulder and saw one of the men fall backward with a scream
of pain.  There was a large cut across his forehead and blood ran down the
side of his face.

 Dola
called a warning just as the man downstream cast another spear.  The spear
flew in a graceful arc toward the raft and then impacted next to Gennos. 
He looked toward the shore and saw that the younger man near the fire had his
back to the woman.  She looked around and then dashed away from the
river.  The young man didn't notice she was gone.  His attention was
on the action in the river.

Cano felt a strong hand
grab his shoulder and spin him around.  Something heavy smashed into his
head and everything went black.

Gennos
attempted to hit Cano's attacker, but the pole was too short. He dropped the
pole and picked up his spear.

The man who had hit Cano
grabbed a corner of the raft and jerked it. This caused the raft to start a
spin and Gennos lost his balance and fell into the river.

The man with the weapons
was very close, and called out something Dola could not understand.  The
man on the corner of the raft replied, and then continued to pull the raft
toward shore.

The man with the cut head
came forward wiping the blood away from his eyes and grabbed the unconscious
Cano by his hair and dragged him to shore roughly.

Gennos sputtered his way
to the surface and was about to throw his spear at Cano's attacker when he saw the
man from downriver raise his short spear. At this range Gennos knew the man
would not miss with his short spears.  Death was very close and he knew
it.  They looked at each other for a long moment before Gennos slowly
lowered his spear and then dropped it into the river.  He slowly raised
his hands.

Dola called out to
Gennos, "What should I do?"