Chapter 2

A Sylvan View

The last of the smooth rounded stones from the river were loaded into my double woven basket. Affixed to the wooden frame of my pack, it would be an easy carry back to my earthen cabin, easier still because it was the final haul. When I returned, I could finally begin the mortar process of fashioning the new chimney, whose added size and superior aesthetics will make the approaching winter a great deal more pleasant.

Pausing before I bore the weight up the hill, I looked around me to absorb the moment, let the breeze across the water cool me, and thank the river for its wonderfully crafted gifts. Wading into a still, shallow cove, I splashed some water on my face. After the ripples subsided along with my prayer, I looked down to examine myself in the dark silted water, as I often did when fishing. Since moving back to those wilds of my youth from the city, I could not help the occasional vain interest in my appearance, as unbecoming as it may be. In a way, I needed to actually see the progress as I felt it.

As the years ticked by, the purity of my essence had showed in my face along with the age. My skin lost its metropolitan pale. The body so lost in academic sedentary sedation, hardened as my ancestor’s body would have under the load of survival. The native braids, now with equal black and white hairs, no longer were out of place growing down a tailored suit, in filtered air. They were again happy touching tanned hide and wild changing winds, free of assignment.

I was beginning to respect that reflection again.

It was true that loneliness became more palatable as my true self reemerged from the white man’s fog, as the elder had said. Even so, there was enough of the city’s social machinery still installed for their norms of social acceptance to play a role as well. The village of my people was the better part of a day’s walk from my cabin. Whenever I confronted my reflection, I always wondered if it was time to face them again.

With resolve I decided, as I always did, to wait for a sign. Walking the path up the mountain, I thought, as I always did, Is this Truth or merely Fear. That particular day the self-doubt was rendered irrelevant. The sign would come and I would never know if I could have overcome without intervention.

Oddly, it was not my spirit animal, The Coyote, that settled the conflict in me. As I began the clay cement mixture for my fireplace, just below my observation tower nestled in an old tree, a hawk from a nearby mountain, which I knew well, started to circle above me. This was not unusual. This particular hawk, which I knew as Lazy Giant, dotted my journal with encounters. The lengths this particular huge bird of prey would go through to avoid actual hunting were so extreme that they were comical. Lazy Giant was known to every local predator and would often risk life constantly to scavenge from them, this included me. You just have to laugh as you see him fly off with your newly completed moccasins, thinking it’s a free meal, even if you desire to grab a bow instead.

Stopping construction and feeling generous, I decided to get a treat for Lazy Giant. The dwelling I lived in was a half recessed cabin-cave, that not only molded naturally with the landscape as is custom, but afforded many advantages in summer and winter. The caves interior was a perfect place to bore into ground for cold burial and even in a blistering summer could be relied on for food preservation. Leaving some second class eggs on my tower for him, I resumed my work.

I had walked into these mountains years ago literally naked and fashioned a whole life. From the sacred knowledge acquired in youth, preached but not practiced when I matured to live in the white man world, I crafted all from earth again: shelter, pottery, furniture, bathing tub, ink, paper, cordage, clothes, weapons, traps, pigeonier, smoke-hut, and even my own expressive art. Although the construction of the new fireplace and chimney design was not accurate to my people’s innovations, as it used clay flues to expel smoke from within the cave, it was made from local materials only, true to the spirit of my new life.

For a time, I lost track of Lazy Giant, as I became immersed in the labor, until I heard the calls of the blue jays, eyeing the eggs excitedly. Where was he? I thought, Not even circling anymore? Strange to pass on the eggs. . .

Climbing to the top of my observation blind, I noticed that Lazy was perched on a tree near the foot of the mountain. When he saw me, he started making a fuss, screeching like a nest danger call. At first, I assumed that he merely received a better offer. There was a former champ, now an old-timer bear, who lived down that way who was always over-fishing. As I listened to him though, empting my biased appraisal as best I could, his intentions sounded more and more as though directed at me, warning me only.

Finally thanking me for all the handouts, Lazy? I thought. There must be a human walking the wood or at the least, something he wants me to know about.

As I descended the tree-stand, strolling back to the cabin, I wondered who or what it may be. Wandering hunters were rare on our land, so I assumed it a traveler from the village. Could the Tribal Counsel finally be inviting me back? There were many reasons I wished our relationship improved.

Admittedly, the most pressing was the fact I was not nearly old enough to live in harmony with the mountain, in seclusion, in peace, without a woman.

How often I thought of her, abandoned though I was, and for reasons I did not even know. Let her have her city. Her evil white world. I kicked at a piece of crockery drying in the front of the cabin, utterly shattering it.

What was it about this presence that aroused such feelings after so long a time? Endeavoring to settle the source of this sudden discord, I stalked down the mountain to the intruder and found ‘it’ easily. ‘It’ was a male youth from the village, a messenger from the looks of him. Watching him undetected, I knew he was searching for me, for he held an artificial bag, one used to carry white technology, perhaps a telephone or mini-computer.

The boy was unable to find the right path and was moving in circles. I backed off to consider this turn of events, stalking in a return up to the cabin. Time I would have, due to my practiced and obsessive removal of tracks and trail-markers.

Entering my home, looking around slowly, taking everything in deeply. Somehow, I knew then that this presence in the forest would set something epic in motion. I was not one who received a simple message from the white world.

I wanted to be excited for the possible adventure, but really feeling the moment, I knew there was only sadness in the time-spirit voices. I ran my fingers slowly, lovingly, over many of my cherished items. All, without exception, were integral to my daily life and fostered quite a special breed of intimacy.

Searching my feelings for doubt – I found none. Surprising.

From a recessed shelf dug from the soil in the rear, I removed the ornately colored box containing my soul-knife, the symbol of my tribal identity and every man’s inviolable power, earned in the rights of passage from childhood. I took my work-knife from my side and placed it upon my table.

Removing the soul-knife from the box, I rubbed the hilt, staring at the symbols carved, my trueself symbols. Name, a vitally important concept of my people. Not merely a designation, it was you, your ultimate fate mirror. I was seven before I received my name. The day the shaman and chief sent for me, I walked into their meditation hut, my parents behind me, and they said, “We know now … who you are. ”

Reflective of the world I lived in, each side had a different name. One side had my simple name symbol - ‘Istaqa’. Before the whites, hundreds or thousands of years in the past, this alone would have been inscribed, possibly with more descriptive symbols. However, these were more complicated times. On the other side of the hilt was the white word ‘Jon’, the pictogram of the eye of the watcher, the one who sees not just flaws but the nipping lessons needed to move one along the path, a rare and honorable symbol, one that truly surprised my parents, and the black dog figure on a crescent, the crescent of the teaching hill trickster coyote. Jon Chivy Coyote.

My names … so far away the moments seemed when I considered them, since anyone has even uttered them to me. I thought.

Am I that name? Pure life in the wood offers a unique dimension to self, to connection.

Tying the knife to my belt, there was one last look around. I secured the door behind me and walked down the path to intercept the messenger.