The Thinking Rocks
Read The Thinking Rocks Online
Authors: C. Allan Butkus
The
Thinking Rocks
By C. Allan Butkus
Copyright © 2006
C. Allan Butkus
All rights Reserved
Table of Contents
P
rologue
It was so long ago that
time had no name. The skies had issued a proclamation and it was
rain. The clouds of creation had formed and they added their essence to
the starkness below. Huge oceans formed, and still it rained. The rains
continued for tens of thousands of years. Nature was present, but unknown
and unnamed. Creation was a concept that had yet to be defined.
What was tangible was the rain and the seas.
The rain was not pure
nor was it simple. It was a blend of things that were almost too small to
conceive, but they were realized. Motion was their Father, and Matter was
their Mother. Their spawn drifted, sifted and combined.
In a process that appeared random, there was order, and
things started to happen. Things that were almost nothing combined with
themselves in the seas to form something more. At a point, their numbers
increased to such a level that they could no longer stay suspended in Nature's
strange cauldron. They sank to the bottom of the seas, but not before casting
their sirens' call to the others of their kind to join them. In hundreds
of millions of years, they would have a name, sediment. And yet another name
which told more of its nature, Limestone.
Another
concept was created at this point in time, a concept that would try to
overshadow all others. Life. This new creation had a humble origin but it also
had an inborn persistence to endure. These small things, early creatures, lived
and died. Their essence was pressed into the limestone concoction as the
sediment hardened. Life was being recorded in limestone. A cipher was
created which was a testament in stone. The path Nature was taking was being
documented for the future. There would not be anyone or anything that could
appreciate these wonders for hundreds of millions of years. The testimony
continued to be recorded chapter after chapter, level after level, as Nature
continued the lessons.
Events
were repeated with minor variations until a new element was added to the
caldron. Pressure, which caused compression, and rock was formed; huge
sheets formed that covered the sea's bed. Nature continued the lessons. For
time beyond reason, this persisted until a pattern was forming and a change was
ordered. The rains slowed, the Sun came out, and the waters started to
recede.
Deep
within the center of the earth, the heat was beyond conception. The
constantly increasing pressure on the crust sharply contrasted with the power
within the earth. Something had to give. About six hundred million years
ago, the pressure became too great to contain. Power of a colossal magnitude
forced the earth's crust to crack and be forced up. Mountains were formed; they
were without a name because man's time had not yet come. In hundreds of
millions of years, man would label Nature's creation as the Ozark
Mountains. Over the years, Nature smoothed, cut, filled and leveled
these mountains. Our story begins with a small outcrop of limestone in
the southern section of the Ozarks, in what is now northern Arkansas, about
thirteen thousand years ago at the Thinking Rocks.
She moved silently through the brush until she reached a huge
flat-topped rock on the rim of the valley. The valley stretched out below the
rock in a panorama of green and brown. Floating through the shadows cast
by the trees around the rock, she stopped and scanned the land before
her. This was near the place. His call had come from this valley.
Ordinarily she would not have been interested in another of her kind, but the
stirring deep within her was not to be ignored. A gentle breeze was
blowing past her and down into the valley. Her scent and her special musk
would drift down and he would pick it up. It would bring him. Other
animals in the valley would also know by her scent that she was near, but they
would move away to safety. As if by a self-fulfilling prophecy, she
watched, as there was a flicker of movement and then three deer moved out of a
thicket and swiftly away from danger. A growl started deep within her and
rumbled its way to her throat where it slowly died. In the distance, his
cough came to her sensitive ears. The rock in front of her was about eight feet
high, and without effort, she leapt to its top, fully exposed she was
frightfully beautiful. Her coat was a tawny brown, which faded to white
on her stomach. Drawing in a deep breath, she released a roar that had
been echoing across continents and through forests for 40 million years. It
proclaimed, I am here… This is my land. Any creature traveling in my land
is courting death.
Cano
Cano moved calmly
through the heavy brush near the clearing. He kept his movements slow and
precise and his eyes narrowed. It was hot, and there was no wind; the
tall trees were still as was the thick underbrush. Raising his head
slowly, he scanned the treetops and the sky and then tested the wind for
strange scents. Unable to detect any signs of danger, he moved down the
gentle slope toward a small stream that bordered the clearing. An outcrop of
rocks was huddled under a stand of tall cedar trees just above the water. He
approached the rocks like a shadow. No sound heralded his coming and he knew
the danger that could lurk on the rocks, or in them. A movement caught
his eye. A large green lizard had scurried across the top of the flat
rocks and then stopped. Cano waited, a faint strange flat, musky smell
came to him. Snake. He could not see it or hear it, but he knew it was
close. Something made a slight sound and then a triangular shaped head
appeared over the edge of the rock behind the lizard. Cano was as motionless as
a tree trunk. The snake struck with lightning like speed, hitting the lizard in
the middle of the back. It drew its head back and watched its prey with
unblinking eyes. The lizard twisted and flopped. It tried to crawl away, but
its rear legs would not push it along. It crawled forward for a short
distance using its front legs, a shudder passed through its body and it became
still. The snake tasted the air with its tongue before moving toward the
lizard. It came out of the rocks like the thing it was, gray death. It
was as long as Cano was tall, with a body as thick as his fist. The smell was
stronger now. Cano admired the way the snake moved and the power it had. It was
quick death, powerful and quiet. Involuntarily, it sent a chill down his back.
The slight shudder caught the snake's attention, and it turned its head in
Cano's direction and flicked its forked tongue in and out, tasting
the air.
He knew that if he did
not move, the snake could not see him; at least that was what he had been
told. The problem was that being told something while sitting around a
campfire and believing it was quite different from being able to really believe
it when it happened. Next time, Cano vowed, I will practice with little
snakes that can't kill with their teeth. Cano remained as still as the rocks
the snake lay upon.
The lizard
gave a final twitch, which caught the snake’s attention again, and it glided
over and then paused, then struck the lizard again. Two holes appeared where
the snake's fangs penetrated the body. There was no movement from the lizard
after this last attack. The snake crawled over the body as if inspecting
the kill, after which it started to swallow the lizard headfirst.
Cano waited
until the snake had the lizard almost half swallowed before he struck. He took
two steps forward and drove his stone tipped spear into the neck of the snake
just behind the head. He leaned on the shaft and drove the point through
the leathery skin, smashing the backbone and driving deeply into the body of
the lizard. The snake went into withering spasms of pain, it twisted and
whipped around trying to get at its attacker but it was hampered be the lizard
in its mouth. Its tail struck a mighty blow to Cano's leg and he
instinctively jumped away, causing his spear to pull out of the snake. He
scrambled away from the thrashing snake just as the lizard was dislodged from
the snake's jaw. The snake tried to move to a coil position. Something was
wrong. The snake was not the same, it seemed to be broken, the head
flopped around and the body started to spasm and curl upon its self. Cano
waved his spear in the snake’s direction, but the snake ignored the spear and
continued to twist and crawl. He moved forward and poked the snake in the side
with the spear. It continued to try to get away. Cano, in an effort to
finish the snake off, found a large rock and smashed it down on the snake’s head.
He heard the bones splinter as the stone crushed the head to a pulp. The
snake's body squirmed and twisted as it died.
Cano
cautiously approached the snake with poised spear. The snake did not move. He
drove his spear down into the area behind the head repeatedly until the head
was severed. He could relax now, the part of the snake, which killed, was gone.
When he returned to camp, he would have a story to tell at the fire
tonight. He could show them that he was a man. He was brave to have
faced death from a
snake
and return to the fire with it as food for the clan.
He would have one of the women of the clan tan the skin of the snake and he
would wear it to show his courage. Cano, the snake killer. He would ask
Ceola to tan the skin for him. Ceola was beautiful, with the soft brown eyes
and the budding body of a young woman. She was his choice for a mate. She was
not ready. She still had to undergo her passage from child to woman. Cano
smiled, their time would come.
He climbed
over the rocks and walked down to the stream. After cleaning his spear in the
water and taking a drink, he felt good and powerful. He was a force to be
reckoned with, a man.
He climbed
back up the slope to the rocks and stopped when his chest was level with the
rock were the snake lay. It was as he had left it. He reached up and grabbed it
by the tail to lift it. Like a flash of light the snake struck Cano in
the chest below his neck. The force of the strike and the surprise of it
sent Cano over backward and down the hill into the stream
. He grabbed his
throat and scrambled out of the water looking for the snake. It was nowhere in
sight
and his spear
was still by the rocks where he dropped it. He took his hand away from his
throat which was covered in blood. No one survived a bite like this from a
snake this large. He thought, ‘I will die now.’ The shock and
realization of his impending death stunned him. I am too young to
die. No story at the campfire tonight for me, soon the poison will kill
me. He sat down and quietly waited for the end.
As he sat
there waiting to die, he noticed that his elbow was starting to hurt and that
he was hungry. Death was not at all like what he expected. He remembered
what one of the hunters had said at a campfire one night. The dead animals can kill
you. A hunter takes care around live animals, but when they are dead what
is the fear? That is when they get you. Check them after the
killing, check them again, and then once more. He looked down at his wound as
he tried to wipe away the blood. The blood wiped away. The skin was
not broken; there were no puncture marks from the snake’s fangs. The
realization that he had not been bitten slowly dawned on him. Of course
not. The snake had no head; he had been hit by the bloody nub where the head of
the snake should have been. He sat there thinking, trying to make sense
of what had happened. Then it all began to make sense. The spirit
of the snake was teaching him a lesson in respect. There was powerful Mana
here. The spirit of the snake had sent a message: even in death, respect the
life you have taken. Your life can be taken as easily as the one you
took. Honor the dead, for one day you will be one of them. Cano sat
quietly thinking about this, then with a nod he stood. It seemed to fit,
it was right that this is the way things worked. He climbed the slope and
retrieved his spear. Gently placing the spearhead near the bloody end of the
snake, he thanked the spirit of the snake for its life, and for the lesson.