Wabi (19 page)

“AHHHHWRURRR!”

Its low, rumbling roar seemed to go on forever. All that kept the great bear going was its desire to hurt other things as it had been hurt, to strike blindly against its own pain.

I knew this, for as with the wolves and the Oldold Woman, I could sense its deeper thoughts. There was an undercurrent of memory—of the beginning of its own agony when it had been captured. I felt the great bear's memories of its pain as it had struggled to break the bonds that held it while the evil Oldold Woman tortured it for no reason other than her own amusement. Then, one night, it had torn itself free and fled. It had made its way across the swamp, through the forest and up the mountain, coming into this valley to escape. However, although it had escaped, it was not free. Its body was on fire with a pain that never left. Its mind had been broken. It was mad.

This great bear, which was now so close that I could feel the heat of its breath, was not like those other monsters I had fought. Only its size made it different from other bears. Before it had been caught and tortured, its only wish had been to live as a bear lives. Now the only thing that would heal its tortured spirit would be to release it from its body. To kill the bear would be an act not just of battle, but also of mercy.

That is what I thought and saw as I slid toward that giant animal that had become death walking. Then I hit the bottom of the slope. Things no longer moved as slowly as a dream. The creature loomed over me like a great black cloud in the sky. It lunged down at me as I managed to raise the long fire stick, bracing it against the rock beneath me, pointing it at the wide, fire-scarred chest.

Although that stick was not as sharp as an owl's claws, it was sharp enough. The weight of the great bear, the speed of its thrust toward me, drove the fire-hardened tip deep into its chest.

“AHWROOOO!”

It roared again then, not just in pain, but also in anger and frustration. It was being killed by my rough spear, but it was determined not to die alone. It thrust down, driving the spear deeper into its own body to reach me.

THUMP, THUMP, THUMP-THUMP.

The sound came from the cliff above us. I turned my head to look. I had been wrong about Dojihla's determination. That final stone had not been too large for her to move. It was rolling down toward the great bear and myself. We were both about to be crushed by its inexorable weight.

I felt sharp teeth sink into my shoulder and pull, just before the boulder completed its descent.

THUMP-THUMP, THUD!

Then the Great Darkness opened its wings around me. I saw and felt and heard nothing else.

I knew that voice. It was my great-grandmother's, yet there was something strange about it. It seemed both close and far away, there in the darkness that held me. I felt her beak gently preening the feathers on my head. No, fingers were brushing the hair back from my forehead. Fingers?

Have you ever been in the midst of a dream and became terribly confused when you suddenly realized it
was
a dream and not reality? That is how it was for me as I struggled to wake. Was I an owl dreaming that I was a human or a human dreaming that I was an owl?

I opened one eye and saw what I was. No owl had a nose like the one I could see there in the corner of my eye. No owl was able to move its eye around in its socket the way I was now moving mine. I was still in a human body.

With that one open eye, I also saw where I was. I was inside a wigwam, the arc of bent poles covered with animal skins and tree bark above me. I tried to open my other eye, but there was something blocking my vision. I tried to lift up my arm on that side to feel what was there. A sharp stabbing pain shot through my shoulder as I did so. I could not move that arm at all. It seemed to be fastened to my chest. I struggled to sit up, but it was so hard to do. I felt dizzy.

“Be calm,” said a pleasant voice from the side where my other eye could not open. I turned my head to look. A man and a woman sat there near the door of the lodge. I had the feeling they had been there for some time.

“Be calm,” the man said again. I suddenly recognized who he was. It was Dojihla's father, Wowadam. “You were struck hard by some of the pieces of stone from the avalanche. But all of your injuries will heal, including your eye that is now covered to protect it.”

“It is true,” said the woman who sat next to him. It was Dojihla's mother. I noticed how, just like her husband, she was sitting completely still with her hands clasped in her lap. Strange.

“Olinebizon,” she continued, “has assured us that you will be well and strong again. She will be back soon and tell you herself.”

Olinebizon? Good Medicine? Who was that? I knew no one of that name.

I reached my good arm up to touch my painful shoulder. As I felt it, I remembered the stab of sharp teeth just before the darkness came over me.

“Do not remove that poultice, Wabi,” Dojihla's father said. “Good Medicine Woman has assured us that it will draw out the pain and help you heal.” He raised a hand to gesture that I should lie back.

“Rrrrrrrrrr!”

A threatening growl came from just behind my head and Dojihla's father quickly dropped his hand back into his lap.

“Your friend is very protective,” he said, his voice just a little nervous. “I would say that he is a wolf were he not so much larger than any other wolf I have ever seen before.”

Then Malsumsis leaned foward to look down at me and lick my cheek.

“There are only two people he will allow to touch you,” Dojihla's mother said. “We can approach no closer than here by the door of the lodge.”

“Despite the fact,” Dojihla's father said, “that we have been ordered by a certain one of those two people—”

“No,” Dojihla's mother said, “not ordered. We have been asked.”

“Ordered,” Dojihla's father continued, “to keep watch over you when neither one is here.”

Malsumsis came around to my side. I raised my good hand to stroke his head. I noticed how he was looking at my wounded shoulder. The way he looked was almost . . . what? Guilty, that was it. It came to me then what had happened.

“My friend,” I said, “was it your teeth I felt in my shoulder?”

Malsumsis lowered his head and whined.

“No,” I said. “Do not be sorry. You dragged me to safety. If you had not done so, I would have been crushed.” Then a thought came to me. “Dojihla?” I said, trying to sit up. “Where is she?”

Dojihla's mother carefully raised her hand. “Be calm. She is well.”

“And Majiawasos, the Bad Bear, was destroyed by the avalanche that came down that cliff side,” Dojihla's father said.

“When you are well and strong you can go there and see,” Dojihla's mother added.

“But there will be little left to see other than bones,” Wowadam added. “According to some of our young men who went to view that place, a pack of wolves came down from the mountain and has fed on the creature's body.”

“Good,” I said, a smile starting to come to my face. “But, wait, no one has tried to bother those wolves, have they?”

Dojihla's father laughed. “No, of course not. As long as they go their way and allow us to go ours, we are happy to share this valley with them. There has always been room for both wolves and humans. When they were gone, we missed them. It's been good to hear their songs on the night wind again.”

Then I began to hear something new. It was the sound of two women talking to each other as they approached the door of the lodge.

“Ah,” said Dojihla's mother, turning toward the door. “Here are the two who have been caring for you, Wabi. We will leave you in their care now.”

“My dear wife means that we will leave before we are ordered to leave,” Dojihla's father said with a smile. He followed her out the door.

I was weaker than I had thought. I had to lie back down and close my good eye. I heard the two women come into the lodge and kneel beside me.

“Move aside, you,” a young woman's voice said. I heard the soft pad of my wolf friend's feet as he allowed himself to be shoved back.

A hand touched my cheek and I opened my eye to look up into the concerned face of Dojihla.

“Ah,” I said.

I could think of nothing more to say. It was not just because the expression on Dojihla's face was filled with hope. It was also because I could see behind her an old woman with hair as white as snow and a strange smile on her face. I had never seen that old woman before . . . or had I? And then I knew.

I REACHED MY HAND OUT toward the old woman whose smile grew broader as I did so.

“Is it you?” I said.

“Wabi,” my great-grandmother answered, “here I am.” She squeezed my hand in hers. Dojihla moved back slightly to allow my great-grandmother to come closer.

“Are you content to be a human?” Great-grandmother asked.

“It was good to be an owl.”

“Yes, but are you content now?” she repeated.

“I think so.”

I looked over at Dojihla, who seemed to be listening very intently to this conversation between us—listening as if she completely understood what we were talking about. I wondered how much my great-grandmother had told her. From what I had learned of Dojihla's stubborn nature, probably a great deal.

I nodded my head. “Yes, yes. I am content.”

Dojihla let out a breath and turned her head away for a moment.

I looked toward the door of the lodge. The light of the sun was dimming. Soon it would be dark.

“Are you content, Great-grandmother?”

She smiled at that. “Wabi, don't you know how lonely I would have been without you?” She sighed. “Have you been to the place where my roosting tree stood?”

“Yes,” I said, and nodded my head. It was sad to think of how the old tree had been broken.

My great-grandmother sighed again. “I have been back there too. One way or another, all trees must eventually fall. It was still standing when I changed. I saw the bear coming. I had to warn the people of the village before it reached them. There was no way they would have listened to me as an owl.”

She paused then and looked out the door. “Did you see that the seven stones are also gone?”

“I did.”

“They were not destroyed by that poor suffering bear. Remember the story I told you, Wabi? How they were once seven wise old ones who turned themselves into trees and then into stones? They have changed again. They have gone and taken with them the power for us to change. For better or worse, you and I are humans, and humans we will stay.”

It was now dark outside the lodge. Night had come, a night that my great-grandmother and I would never again fly through on silent wings.

I reached my good arm out to my great-grandmother. “Help me to stand,” I said.

But before my great-grandmother could pull me up, Dojihla was there, lifting me to my feet. I was so surprised at her strength that I spoke without thinking.

“Am I not too heavy for you?”

“Who does this foolish one think carried him all the way from the cliff back to the village?” Dojihla said, looking back toward my great-grandmother. She wrapped my good arm around her neck and grasped me firmly about my waist. Malsumsis rose from the place he had been curled up next to the door to stand at my great-grandmother's side.

The four of us went through the door of the lodge to stand under the night sky. I turned my head to look into Dojihla's eyes. Our faces were very close to each other.

“I was afraid I had killed you when I rolled that last rock down the cliff.” Her voice was soft and I saw that there were now tears in her eyes.

“No,” I said, “you saved me.”

“And how many times have you saved me, my Village Guardian?”

I wasn't sure how to answer, but perhaps there was nothing that I needed to say just then. It was enough to stand there with our arms around each other and the two other beings I loved most in the world close beside us.

I looked up into the sky at a pattern that I had never noticed before. There were seven stars directly overhead. Their shape was that of a circle without end.