Wabi (7 page)

What was to be found there? I wondered as I gazed. Had Malsumsis's pack gone there? Were there other creatures even more dangerous than the mojid and the gagwanisagwa and Toad Woman? Were there other owls there?

Then, to my surprise, I heard something below me. It was another owl. It was not calling from some faraway valley but from the edge of my own hunting grounds. What nerve! I glided down to take a look. A fat male owl, perhaps half my size, was sitting on one of my perches on the overhanging limb of a big hemlock tree.

I landed quietly behind him. Not only was this fat little owl too stupid to stay in his own home ground, he was also not even watchful enough to have seen me land. He was so much smaller than me that I didn't feel the need to do anything more to get rid of him than say a few well-chosen words.

“You are on my branch,” I said.

The fat little owl swiveled his head so fast to look at me that he almost fell.

“Who?” he said, edging quickly away from me toward the end of the branch, which began to bend under his weight. “Who are you?” There was terror in his voice as he stared up at me.

But I didn't answer him right away. Though many seasons had passed, I recognized that voice of his even if he didn't recognize mine. It was my bullying big brother.
He
was the one who grew up to be a runt!

“Who-o-o?” he said again in a trembling voice. He was so far out on the end of the limb that he was almost upside down.

“Move!” I hooted loudly. That was all he needed to hear. He flopped awkwardly off the branch, and almost landed on Malsumsis's head. My wolf friend had been waiting at the bottom of the tree and watching. He woofed at my brother, who managed to finally get his wings spread and flap away in panic.

It was hardly a victory for me. He was so pathetic. I shook my head now, remembering. The memory suited my foul mood. I noticed a hare, dropped down to the ground to grab it, and carried it over to Malsumsis. I didn't tear off a single piece of meat, even though Malsumsis waited patiently, as always, for me to start feeding first.

“Whoo-ah-whooo,” I hooted halfheartedly. “Eat it all.”

Malsumsis did as I said. A few gulps and the entire hare was gone. Then he looked at me and whined.

“Nothing,” I said.

He nuzzled me with his nose. I didn't respond. He jumped back, whimpered, flattened himself on his stomach as he crawled toward me. Then he rolled over onto his back and let his tongue loll out. Very funny. It didn't cheer me up.

I tilted my head to look up at the sky. It was starting to show signs of dawn. Soon the humans would come out of their upside-down nests to go down to the river and bathe.

“I have to go,” I said to Malsumsis.

I jumped up into flight and he did not follow me. He saw where I was headed. He usually did not accompany me when I went to watch the human beings. Their dogs did not like his scent and would complain loudly, drawing the attention of the humans to him.

It was not that Malsumsis was afraid of humans and their dogs. He could easily beat any dog, even a pack of them, and I doubted that any human was a good enough shot to hit my friend with a bow and arrows. Not only had he grown to be the largest wolf I had ever seen, he was also the fastest and most agile. But he knew that I liked to watch those human beings without disturbing them or calling any attention to myself.

And so I watched and waited, feeling worse and worse. The pain in my gut was like being impaled on the sharp end of a broken branch. I sat there hoping that when I coughed up my next pellet of fur and bunny bones, the pain would come up with it, tumble to the ground with a soft thump and be gone.

Urp. Cough. Spit.

No such luck. Pellet ejected, pain still present.

Then, at last, Dojihla walked by. She was wearing her white doeskin dress decorated with porcupine quills that had been sewn on to make a pattern of leaves and flowers. As soon as I saw her, my pain went away. I felt happy just watching her walk past.

And suddenly it came to me. I understood what it was that I was feeling. It explained so much. Such as why, during the cold moons of the last winter, I hadn't been one of those male owls filling the night with hopeful burbles and hoots, just waiting for the higher pitched voice of an interested female owl to answer me.

I looked at Dojihla and realized that I had fallen in love with her. That was it! I felt like singing one of those sweet little owl love songs that thrills your chosen one right down to the pinfeathers. I wanted to share a branch with her and lean my head against her.

Then it hit me like a great gust of sleet-filled wind. I would never find Dojihla sitting on a branch beside me. She was a human, not an owl. I was in love, but there was nothing I could do about it.

DAYS AND NIGHTS HAD PASSED since I realized that I was in love. How many? I don't know. All I knew was that I was happy when I could see her and miserable when I couldn't. I had worn all the bark off the tree limb by impatiently rocking back and forth.

I sat in the tree and cooed softly to myself as Dojihla passed. Naturally she didn't see me. Dojihla. Isn't it a beautiful name? It is almost a song. Dojihla, Dojihla. And it is perfect for her. It means “She goes by.” Which is what she did whenever I saw her. She just went by, not noticing me hidden in the cedar tree.

And what if she had looked up? All she would have seen was an owl. Admittedly, a very large, extremely capable young male owl. She would surely have taken note of the fact that he was an owl well above average. No way could she miss that special gleam of intelligence in the eyes, the sensitivity of the beak, the way each feather had been so elegantly preened. All right, I know. I was dreaming.

These days, to be honest, most of the dreaming I did was daydreaming. I was not sleeping the way I should. I was spending so much of my time awake during the day that I was actually dozing off at night. If it hadn't been for the hunting that Malsumsis did and his insistence that I always take the first bite of whatever he caught, I probably would have been losing weight. But just having the chance to watch Dojihla made my sleepless days worth while.

It wasn't a sudden thing. My feelings for her had grown over the years the way a sapling grows with the passage of seasons until one day you realize that a tall tree is standing where once there was just an open place in the forest. It had begun with watching the children play, back when she was one of them, and wishing that I could join in. I had grown used to the way she talked, the way she laughed, the way she was always the first to ask questions . . . the way she bullied the other boys and girls.

Season after season, Dojihla had always been the leader in whatever mischief they all got into. She had been the first to try to walk on the thin ice on the ponds, the first to climb to the top of the tallest tree. (She even decided once to climb the very tree I was in. I had to scuttle to the far side, hunch down, sit very still, and pretend to be the broken stub of a branch.)

Dojihla! She was the one who led the other children on hunting expeditions with their small bows and arrows. She even dared, with the bravest of the other young ones, to venture into a certain swamp where it was rumored that a child-eating monster lurked. (Of course, you know that was not true—at least not after I got through with Toad Woman.)

One of Dojihla's favorite games was going out with a group of boys and girls to search for someone they called the Village Guardian.

“The Village Guardian,” she would say to whatever group of children she had managed to gather to listen to her opinions, “is a tall, strong, handsome man. He roams the woods by himself, protecting the people from any danger that might threaten our village, such as monsters.”

“Are there really monsters?” some small child might ask.

“Oh, yes,” Dojihla would say, nodding her head wisely.

“They are as real as our Village Guardian himself.”

That amused me. I knew that there was certainly no such human as the Village Guardian. If there were, I would have seen him while I patrolled around the village each night.

But Dojihla was determined. In fact, when she was younger, she used to lead the other children on expeditions to find him. They would convince this noble but shy person to come and live in the village with everyone else.

“This time,” Dojihla would say, as she outlined a plan to climb a steep cliff, “we will surely find the Guardian's hiding place.”

It was hard not to chuckle at her insistence that this imaginary being really existed. Especially when she and her hapless band would fail to find any evidence of her mythical hero and she would look at the dirty scratched faces of her troop, and say—to their dismay—“I have a better idea. Now we'll search the blackberry thicket!”

Even the bigger boys never tried to contradict her. If they did, they found themselves on the ground with Dojihla sitting on their chest and making them eat grass.

Of course now that Dojihla was a young woman, she no longer wrestled with the boys. That was not through any choice of her own. She didn't seem to be afraid of anyone or anything. When a certain gleam came into her eye, it meant “Move out of my way or I will
move
you out of my way.” Isn't that wonderful? But now, more often than not, the boys she had played with either acted bashful around her or stared when they thought she wasn't looking. (They were extremely careful to not be caught staring. The last young man Dojihla had noticed gaping at her was hit in the face by a fistful of river mud.)

Several seasons had now passed since Dojihla had led a group of other young ones on one of her quests. Her parents were relieved about that. I knew this for a fact, having listened to their conversations about their daughter. They used to worry that she would be hurt during one of those foolhardy expeditions, but they never told her not to go. Now, though, they had the opposite worry. They were afraid that she would never go.

I watched them from my favorite hiding place in the cedar.

“My wife,” Dojihla's father said, shaking his head, “it is now two winters since our son, Melikigo, married and went off to the village of his new wife's family. We need a young man to take his place. Our daughter needs to finally take a husband.”

“My husband, Wowadam,” Dojihla's mother said, “you are right. But I fear our daughter will never have a family of her own. She is so stubborn, and so critical.”

“Do you think she will approve of the young man who is coming today?” Wowadam asked.

“What do you think?” Dojihla's mother replied.

Dojihla's father shook his head again and sighed.

I saw their point. Love might have made me sick to my stomach, but it hadn't made me blind. Graceful as Dojihla was, beautiful as she was, perfect as she was in form and movement, that human girl was just as finicky. I knew because I had been watching her so closely—as had every human youth in every nearby village. They all knew Dojihla. She was the lovely maiden with the sparkling eyes and the sarcastic voice—the one whose words were sharper than flint-tipped arrows.

It had gotten to the point where suitors had almost stopped coming around. Most of them had become afraid of what she would say to any man foolhardy enough to seek her hand. With a few well-aimed words or a single gesture she could destroy the tallest, strongest, most capable suitor. However, there always seemed to be at least one who thought he could succeed where others failed.

I flew off to take a look at the new suitor and found him walking along the river on his way to the village. His name, I soon learned—for he had the nervous habit of talking to himself—was Bitahlo.

“I, Bitahlo,” he said, as he walked along, “will be the one to win her heart. I am sure of it. My song will show her how I feel. She will not be able to resist its power.”

Then he began to sing it. It spoke of Dojihla's beauty and grace. He was right about that. But when he came to the part about her
sweetness,
comparing her to flowers, swaying reeds, and a doe with her fawn, I shook my head with pleasure. I thought I knew how Dojihla would react to that.

I flew back on silent wings and managed to conceal myself in the tree before Bitahlo arrived and stood in front of his prospective bride and her parents.

“I have made this song for you,” he announced. Then he sang it.

Dojihla's parents looked over anxiously at their daughter when Bitahlo finished. I was anxious too as I watched from my perch in the cedar. The song had actually not been that bad. Also, to be honest, Bitahlo's voice was good. What if that song actually did work?

Dojihla looked up. Her eyes seemed far away, as if entranced by the song. Bitahlo leaned forward, eager to hear her acceptance of his declaration of love.

“What
was
that?” Dojihla said. “Did I just hear a moose breaking wind?”

I almost fell off my branch with laughter. For his part, Bitahlo went pale, turned, and stalked off.

Dojihla's mother looked up into my tree. “My husband, what is wrong with that owl?” she said. “It sounds as if it is choking.”

“Forget the bird, my wife,” said Dojihla's father. There was a look in his eyes that told me what had happened was like that last stick pulled from the beaver dam, the one that makes the pent-up water come rushing forth. “We must talk.”

Then the two of them went into their lodge where their daughter could not hear them.

Of course I could. If you can hear the deliciously terrified heartbeat of a mouse hiding in the grass far below your treetop perch, it is not at all difficult to make out a human conversation within a nearby wigwam. That conversation! It both worried me and gave me hope.