Wa’lik And The Last Deer

[bigtree]

Mikito awoke at dawn. Warm dust drifted through the cracks in the shelter’s roof. His bed of fur slid off as he snaked out from underneath. He turned to drape his arm over his juniper longbow and pulled the cool wood close to his side. His fingers ran up and down the length of the strapping, thewed fast against the back of the straight splint of wood, and he found no imperfection in the smoothed ridges. He measured his grip around the hide in the center, and his fingers touched without much effort. Pulling himself up straight with the wood between his feet, he struggled a little to bend the top end of the splint to the loop of string.

Mikito was not accustomed to ordering his own day and he was suddenly anxious to be in his mother’s good graces. He set his longbow aside, brushed the branches back that were thatched overhead, and pushed outside into the glow of the late winter’s morning sun.

In the center of the village, Mikito’s mother, Mi’rah, sat beside the cooking pit tending the fire. Before her on a large flat stone, crushed sugar pine cone seeds from last season’s harvest topped off the hollows and spilled into a waiting basket below. She felt her son’s arms wrap gently around her neck and she smiled. Mikito spoke quietly into her ear. “Ay’ukii, Hello, mother.”

“Ay’ukii, Mikito.” she answered. He stepped back a little and waited, but his mother gave no instruction. She pulled her thin hair out of her face and turned back into the smoke. Mikito was an eager liege to the bidding of his elders, alert for any charge that would signal his ascension into the cadre of adults and men. He did not need to be enjoined to the day’s labor.

Across the glen the village was coming alive. There were only four children in their small valley. Mikito watched as his sister, the oldest child in the tribe, emerged from his family’s lodge. Born Shu’anay’aron, branch of Sumac, she was known by the tribe as Me’asa’coiit, named for the adornments of bone and precious stone that she skillfully crafted and gave away. Seventeen seasons of life in the valley made her a constant companion to the other children, with the exception of Mikito who would measure himself against every challenge from his maturing sister.

Shu’anay’s job was to watch over seven-year old Caahi, daughter of Maruk and Otahei, the toolmaker. She also cared for the only boy in the valley other than Mikito, four-year old Yana’qui, son of Ta’niay and Kayakunva, the fur trapper. She was two heads taller than Mikito and about that much stronger. She was fast, too, but was bound and fettered by her young charges, and Mikito was seldom harassed beyond his ability to take flight.

A woman’s life in the forest was measured against her ability to work and persevere. As Shu’anay approached adulthood, the prospect of her liberty from the tribe was leavened by the harshness of life in the forest. She would not expect to survive without the support of men, but she did not intend to grow up dependent and helpless.

In her eyes, Mikito’s independence was destined by virtue of his maleness. He would soon outgrow her, but she would dominate him for as long as she was able. Shu’anay had initiated Mikito to the manner of an uncompromising, virulent woman. The crop of her dark brown hair bounced over the crest of the hill. She was followed closely by her lesser gang of three.

“Suva’nik.” Mikito whispered to his mother. He would see her later. Mi’rah dropped a small amount of pine nuts and juniper fruit into his hand and gently urged him on his way. He would have to breach the roving obstacle, and he set a course to defy the gauntlet, but they had ambushed him.

With a resounding, “Ook naa! Come here!” Shu’anay turned Mikito around and closed the gap between them. She stepped in his path and stared down at him with a silly grin. He stepped back and lost his footing on the edge of the embankment behind him. In the next instant, he was upended, rolling halfway to the bottom of the hill, a victim of the retribution of his nemesis scamp. The distance impelled was enough for Mikito to effect a retreat. He scrambled through the ivy and righted himself, cheating Shu’anay out of her moment of dominance over all of the lesser villagers. He skirted the path, satisfied that he had avoided her, for now.


As he looked through the woods, Mikito could see the men of the village gathered at their usual meeting place beside the creek. Wa’lik, his father, stood over the men, motioning upstream with an excited wave of his mighty bow. Mikito gobbled his meal and started down the hill. He quickly recovered and ducked into the scrub thicket to creep within hearing distance. Only grown men were welcome to share in their boasting and plotting.

“Wapiti!” cried Wa’lik, as he drew a precious arrow from his mangled leather sheath and let it fly upstream. He then crouched down and in a solemn voice counseled those seated that the Deer Spirit had again filled his dreams. Singing songs of the great Wapiti deer herd, the Spirit had called Wa’lik by name and had conjured visions of the giant elk he had hunted in the past.

Mikito slid closer to see the faces of those who had gathered, without giving himself away. Ota’hei sat directly underneath Wa’lik, looking up into his face with a frown. Ota’hei always had a grim look about him. His dark eyes were deeply set behind his massive, wooly brows, and he watched through the chopped, shingled front of his long black hair.

Bruja set himself so that, as he watched Wa’lik speak, he could include the rushing stream and an occasional trout in his broad view. He dangled the end of the grass rope he had fiddled together, down to the brooking stream below so that it skipped along the surface of the current.

Kayakunva was perched on a stump with a clutch of new arrows resting atop his longbow, nodding, with an approving gleam in his quick eyes. And he marked in his mind the spot where Wa’lik’s shaft had fallen.

Mikito never tired of his father’s tales of a time when the giant deer filled the forest and the valley woods. Wapiti, he told him, stood as tall as a man at its shoulders, was as heavy as ten men, and had bones like branches atop its head. But Mikito had never seen a giant deer. These days there were only the white-tails and the muley long ears. As he had grown, these deer seemed smaller to him, and every season they had become harder to find in the valley.

“Ha’ii, matee! Wait! Stop talking!” Bent and weathered, the tribe’s eldest man stopped Wa’lik with a wave of his hand before he could finish the telling of his latest dream. “Why,” Marmot asked, “does the Deer Spirit disturb only one hunter’s sleep? Many nights I have called and sung but no Spirit came, no Deer Spirit answered. The Wapiti are gone forever.”

The tribe called the old man Marmot. A full head of gray hair down his back made him look like the yellowbelly rodent of the same name. Marmot was one of a band of Medicine men and Shamanists who had scattered north. They were driven out of their Pueblo village land by mistrust and disillusionment, brought on by a long period of drought and disease. Many small wars erupted after their departure. The leaderless people, packed together in close, tough competition, found it impossible to share the land’s dwindled resources between the many tribes. Many more would be pushed to scatter in all directions to avoid the fighting and unrest. Marmot had left his band far behind and pressed north to search the forest wilderness for healing plants.

In the past, many a hunt had begun with a vision from Wa’lik, but, he would dream only of elk. When the elk could no longer be found, it was Marmot who had begun to conjure visions of Rabbit and his den.

In an elaborate nighttime ritual, the manner of which was the invention of Marmot, the fur of the rabbit was cast into a crackling chaparral fire. He would be aided in this ritual by Wa’lik’s aunt, Hamiahaj, “the woman who would be Marmot’s wife.”

He would appear overcome, utter strange words, and sing songs known only to him. Then, he would withdraw to his lodge to receive visions of Rabbit and the location of his den. In the morning he would emerge and announce the vision, which would cause great celebration in the village and a rush of preparations for the hunt.

Atop the hill the village had come fully awake. This warm winter morning promised to awaken every desire hibernating inside. The forest floor had begun to glow a mossy green with a new season’s rush of growth to forage. The forest around them was a perpetual resource for their survival. Mikito would rely on his sharp eyes and strong back to keep up with the women today as they searched the wilderness for food. A hard day’s work often meant larger portions at mealtime. He ran most of the way back to the village, gathering litter as he climbed . . .


Wa’lik And The Last Deer

A tale by, Ron Fullwood

Illustrated by, Karen Fullwood

http://www.returningsoldiers.us/WalikAndTheLastDeer.htm

[petgoat]

1. It's intelligently done but there's an awful lot of scene-setting.

Usually by the tenth or fifteenth draft you'll get to the story quicker.

Keep at it, you're talented.