Wabi (11 page)

“I am impressed,” another voice spoke up from the back of the crowd. Why did it sound familiar to me? A tall, broad-shouldered man stepped forward. He was holding a small child in his arms. Suddenly I recognized him. It was Melikigo, Dojihla's big brother. Apparently, even though he now lived in another village with his wife's family, he had come to see this contest to win his sister. As he walked toward me, Dojihla's father shook his head.

“My son,” Wowadam said, “there is not time enough for this.”

Melikigo grinned as he placed his child in Wowadam's arms. “Father, there is always time for a little friendly wrestling.”

Wrestling. I should have expected it from him. His name Melikigo, means “He is strong.” I had seen, over the years, how none of the other boys—or the men when he was grown—had ever been able to throw him.

He reached out to grasp my wrist. “Shall we try to throw each other?”

I grasped his wrist in turn. I tried to remember the words I'd heard spoken when men wrestled.

“Let us do so,” I said. “Tell me when to begin.”

“Now!” Melikigo shouted. His big muscles strained as he tried to pull me forward into him so that he could wrap his arms around me. I didn't move. He tried another tactic, pushing into me. This time I turned in a half circle, even though there was no way he could have moved me. He was strong, but I could feel how much stronger I was.

I did not throw him, though, even though it would not have been hard to do. Instead, I stayed locked up with him as the two of us moved back and forth. Water was now dripping from his forehead. One or two times, I pushed a little too hard and had to pull him back so that he would not lose his footing. To anyone watching, it must have looked like an even match. Melikigo, though, knew.

“Enough,” he finally said. He let go of me and I released my own grip. His eyes found mine as he nodded. I understood the message in his gaze.
Thank you,
his look was saying,
for not making me appear foolish in front of my family.

He turned to look at his sister. She had been watching us closely. I looked too, but Dojihla quickly turned her glance away from me.

“My sister,” Melikigo said, reaching out his hand to thump me on the chest, “this is a good one.”

“Hummph,” was all that Dojihla said in reply.

I'D SELDOM HUNTED IN THE daylight before. Things looked different than at night. You could see your prey from much farther away—and it could see you. That all took some getting used to. I'd also never used any other weapon to hunt with than my own talons. That took even more getting used to.

But hunting with my great-grandfather Nadialid's bow and arrows had not turned out to be that difficult. For me, the hardest part about hunting that day was not finding game and shooting it. It was remembering what humans like to hunt. I had just crept close enough to the most delicious-looking chipmunk when it came to me that humans liked larger food. Forget about mice, shrews (which have a nice sharp tang to them), baby crows (yummy and crunchy). Think about animals even bigger than bunnies. Probably not skunks.

Wabi,
I said to myself, think big.
Think deer. Elk. Moose. Got it?

At first, when I found the animals I had decided to hunt, they fled from me. I had never approached anything from the ground before, but always from the air. When you hunt from the air, you move with the wind and it carries you. On the ground, a hunter's scent is carried by the wind. I finally realized that I had to approach with the wind in my face. Then they would not catch my human scent and flee.

I did not forget to show respect. Each time I took aim, I spoke the words much like those we owls always speak before we strike.
You who will feed me and my family, I thank you for giving me your life.

My arrows hit just where I wanted them to hit. That was very satisfying. It felt almost as it used to feel when I struck not with arrows but with the claws of my owl feet.

My next challenge was moving the game I caught. Big animals cannot just be picked up in your claws and flown away with. Luckily this new body of mine was strong. Dragging worked well, although it took more time than I had planned.

As a result, it was not until the evening, as the last light was disappearing in the sunrise direction, that I walked into Dojihla's village. I was the last of the hunters to return. They were all lined up before the big fire, each with the game they had killed piled in front of them. Their take ranged from the two deer and the beaver proudly displayed by Fat Face (a better hunter than I had expected) to the single woodchuck at the feet of an embarrassed-looking Bitahlo.

Dojihla was eyeing them all with equal displeasure. But when I stepped into the firelight and she looked at me, it seemed as if I saw a different expression come over her face.

I dropped the two big bucks I'd been carrying, one over each shoulder. Both were larger than the two Fat Face had brought.

“Two deer,” Dojihla's father said.

“Plump ones,” said her mother with a big smile.

Dojihla said nothing.1

Oops,
I thought.
Not a good sign.
But I refused to let worry
¹
get in my way—or Fat Face, who had smiled at me when I walked into the circle of light. A strange thing to do, smiling at a rival like that. He was now being poked in the back by the older woman behind him. I knew her to be his mother from the conversations they had the evening before.

“Speak up, son,” she commanded.

“I, uh, I have two deer
and
a beaver,” Fat Face said. “That should make me the, uh, winner?” To my further surprise, his voice was unenthusiastic.

I raised my hand. “Wait,” I said. Then I walked back into the woods.

When I returned, it was with another game animal over my shoulders. I placed it next to the two deer. As I walked back into the forest I thought about the look I had seen on people's faces. Perhaps carrying a full-grown elk was a little too impressive. So this time when I returned, I did so dragging in the big bull moose by its antlers. When I straightened up I saw that everyone was staring openmouthed.

Wowadam was the first to recover. “Wabi has won,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“He will be my son-in-law,” Dojihla's mother said. She wrapped her arms around me in a warm embrace. That made me feel good. However, the fact that she whispered “Be brave” in my ear did cause me a bit of disquiet.

Once again, Dojihla had nothing to say. Her eyes were not looking at me, but through me. A little shiver of uncertainty went down my spine.

But things went well at first. The other young men came over to congratulate me. They did not look disappointed.

“You are indeed a good hunter,” Fat Face said.

“Where did you find an elk of that size?” Bitahlo asked.

“We must go out hunting together sometime,” said a short, stocky young man who introduced himself as Gitowdeb.

As they talked with me, some of them began to confide in me. They had all been pushed into the competition by their parents, who were eager for the prestige to be gained by their son marrying the chief's daughter. I wondered if Bitahlo with his single woodchuck might have been a better hunter than I thought. Fat Face, in particular, seemed relieved that he had not won Dojihla.

“Good luck marrying a bobcat,” he whispered to me.

“I do not understand,” I said. And I didn't. What did a bobcat have to do with anything? It was confusing enough to have been an owl who fell in love with a human without bringing in the prospect of marrying yet another sort of animal.

“She is better suited to you,” Fat Face said, chuckling as he did so. He patted me on the shoulder. “May you survive it.”

Preparations moved along for the feast as I was moved from one group of happy people to the next. They were pleased by all the game I had brought in. I was pleased, too, but getting a bit dizzy.

“We will all eat well tonight,” said a woman holding a baby.

“Welcome to our family, brother-to-be,” said the man behind her. It was Melikigo, Dojihla's brother. He thudded me again in the chest with the flat of his palm and then slapped his hand over his heart.

“You are just the sort of hunter we need for our village,” an old man said to me. He placed a string of clay beads in my hand and then looped them around my neck when I did not seem to know what to do with them.

Children were tugging at my hands or wrapping their arms around my legs, men and women of all ages were coming up to embrace me.

I began to feel as if I was caught in a strong wind that was blowing me first one way and then the other. And through it all, every time I caught Dojihla's eyes, I felt troubled by the look that I saw there. Questioning.

They sat me down in front of the fire with Dojihla by my side. Meat from the various animals I brought in had been thrust onto wooden spits and was being cooked over the fire right in front of us. Fat was dripping out and spattering on the hot coals. The smell of the cooking meat filled my nose. My mouth began to fill again with water. I swallowed. It made my nose twitch. What a strange sensation that was! It twitched again. I reached up to touch it with my fingers. This soft nose was not at all like my hard beak. I pushed it with my finger, feeling it move. So different. Yet I was getting used to it. In fact, I rather liked having this kind of a nose.

I looked over at Dojihla. I liked her nose even more than mine. Her nose was the most pleasing to look at of all the young women there. I smiled at her and she smiled back sweetly.

Too sweetly?

Suddenly, a feeling of panic swept over me. I did not know how, but I knew I was in trouble. I'd seen that look on Dojihla's face before many times, from when she was a little girl playing with her friends. Whenever she got that look, someone else—who had been doing something to displease her—was soon going to be unhappy.

What had I done? I did not know what to say or how to act. I looked around for Fat Face, hoping that he might help me. But he was in another group of people far away from us, talking with a young woman who giggled at his every word.

“Husband-to-be?” a sweet voice whispered close to my ear. Warm breath caressed my cheek. It made my heart beat faster.

I turned to look into Dojihla's eyes. My heart thudded to a stop. What I saw was far from sweetness. There was a challenge and a question, there was suspicion and stubbornness. I truly was in trouble. And I had no idea how to get out of it.

“Yes,” I answered.
If you cannot think of what to say,
I thought,
say as little as possible.

Dojihla reached up a hand to touch my face. “You are feeling too hot?” she asked.

Her innocent tone made a chill go down my back. How could I not be feeling hot with all of the logs she had been piling onto the fire next to us?

“You are very warm,” she continued. One of her fingers brushed something wet from my forehead.

Warm
and
wet? I put one hand up to feel it. It was true. Moisture was leaking out of my skin. Was something wrong with me? I held my wet hand out by the fire. It wasn't blood. Then I remembered that I had seen water like this dripping from Fat Face's forehead when he tried to string my bow and from the forehead of Dojihla's brother when we wrestled.

“You are sweating so much,” Dojihla said. “I am sure your headband is too hot.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I was feeling faint.

This time, as you have probably already guessed, saying the least was not the best. But I was confused. After all, I had not been a human for that long. When owls are hot, they don't sweat. They just pant or fan their wings.

“Then let us take that headband off,” Dojihla said, reaching up both her hands.

“Yes,” I said, then, “NO!”

But it was too late. Quicker than a bat snatching a moth out of the air, Dojihla whipped that leather band from around my head and my two tall owl ears popped up.

All around us, people gasped.

“Kina!” someone said. Look!

“Ears like an owl?” said another voice.

Dojihla stood and stepped back from me. Triumph gleamed in her bright eyes.

“Look,” she shouted, pointing at me as she did so. “I promised I would marry the man who was the best hunter. But this one is not a man. See those ears? This one is not a human being. Perhaps he was planning to devour me as soon as he got me alone.”

“Wabi,” said Wowadam, “is this true?”

Dojihla grabbed her father's arm and pulled him away from me. “Do not get too close,” she said. “He may try to harm you now that we have found him out to be a monster.”

“Be careful,” someone else shouted. It was Bitahlo. “Get away from him.”

Fat Face stared at me, shaking his head.

Dojihla's mother was covering her mouth with both of her hands.

Melikigo had stepped protectively between me and his wife and baby.

My heart was breaking. I stood and looked around the circle of firelight at the shocked faces staring at me. I did not see a single look of friendship or understanding. I was a monster to them all.

I shook my head. “No-ooo-ooo,” I said. “No-oo-ooo.”

But that was all I could think to say. I knew as soon as I said it how I sounded. Not like a man at all. I turned, grabbed up my bow and quiver of arrows, and walked swiftly into the darkness.

I WAS IN GREAT PAIN. An ache had blossomed in the center of my being as soon as Dojihla had exposed me as something other than I had pretended to be. How could I have thought they would accept me as a human?
What a fool I am,
I thought as I stumbled away from Valley Village.