by Ron Carter
He cut a branch from a nearby live maple, quickly peeled away the bark, and drove the slick, white stick through the center of two chunks of venison. Within two minutes he had driven forked sticks into the ground on either side of the fire and suspended the meat above the flames, where it began sizzling, dripping fat and juices sputtering into the fire. He sliced off a piece of raw liver, rinsed it with canteen water, and knelt beside Billy.
“Eat this.”
Billy looked at him, inquiring. “Raw?”
“Raw. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Liver will replace it.”
Billy shuddered, but took the dark, slippery morsel and gingerly put it in his mouth. By force of will he chewed and swallowed. Eli picked up the gall bladder. “I’m going to wash the wound.”
“With gall?”
“It cleans anything and will start the healing. It will sting a little, but no pain.”
He removed the blanket from Billy’s shoulder, then punctured the gall sack with the point of his knife. Kneeling behind Billy, he squeezed a small amount of the thick, green, malodorous liquid into his cupped hand, then used his fingers to gently rub it onto the eighteen stitches on Billy’s shoulder blade.
Eli rose. “Let that dry in the open air.” He reached for the liver. “Can you stand more?”
Billy grimaced.
“Think you can get some venison down?”
“Yes.”
Eli plucked the stick from above the fire. The two chunks of loin were seared on the outside, but the inside was red, raw, dripping blood. “Eat all you can. Especially the blood. You need it.” He took salt from his own pouch and pinched some onto each of the two pieces.
Billy was ravenous. He blew on the meat to cool it, then tore pieces with his teeth. He drank cool water from his canteen and did not stop until he had finished both pieces of smoking venison. While Billy ate, Eli sliced two more pieces and set them broiling over the fire, then reached inside his buckskin shirt to draw out Billy’s shirt, washed clean in a stream. He unfolded it, shook it, and rummaged in Billy’s pouch for the needle and thread. After lifting the stick with the second two chunks of sizzling venison from the cross-arms, he handed them to Billy, then sat down with the needle and thread. Ten minutes later he had sewn the slit in the back closed, and again his smile came and went.
“It isn’t pretty, but it will hold.” Billy looked and grinned. The shirt was white, the thread black. Eli draped the damp shirt on the branches of a nearby bush and spoke once more. “I’ll be back in quarter of an hour.”
Billy had finished one more piece of venison when Eli’s voice came from the forest, “Coming in.” In one hand he carried a gathering of fronds cut from growth in the forest, and in the other, a lily pad. Without a word he laid the fronds on a large, flat stone, and with a smaller rock, began to crush them to a pulp. Finished, he lifted Billy’s shirt from the bush.
“Lift your right arm.”
The two of them worked Billy’s shirt over his right arm, then his head, and straightened it.
“I’m going to put this poultice on the stitches and the lily pad over it to hold it in place.”
“What’s the poultice?”
“Jimson.”
“That will help?”
“Draws poison. Helps heal. Lean forward.”
He lifted Billy’s shirt, carefully mounded the pulp over the stitches, then laid the lily pad over the poultice. He pulled the shirt down, then draped Billy’s pouch over his left shoulder with the strap holding the poultice in place.
“Sit still for a while. I have to make a strip to tie down your arm.”
Fascinated, Billy watched him spread the deer hide on the ground, then start with his knife. He began at the neck and made but one continuous cut, round and round the hide to the center, creating a single strip of rawhide half an inch wide, twenty-five feet long. He tied a loop in one end and came back to Billy.
“Put your left arm across your body and raise your right arm.”
He tightened the loop around Billy’s mid-section just below his left arm, then began winding it around and around, working upward. He brought the end of the strip over Billy’s left shoulder and tied it off. Billy could not move his left arm, and the poultice was firmly in place.
“Too tight?”
Billy shook his head.
“When you can, get on your feet and walk around a little. I’m going to cook as much of the venison as I can, and then move what’s left of the deer away from camp.”
“Are the Mohawk likely to return?”
“Not those we met yesterday. I think they were sent down here by the British on a scout. We might meet some others, but I doubt it. This is pretty far south for them to be here by accident. I’ll take a look a little later on.” He paused, then spoke with quiet deliberation. “Listen to the birds. Study the squirrels. Watch whatever comes to feed on the remains of the deer. They’ll tell you when something is moving in the forest. Try to feel what’s going on around you.”
Farther from Billy, Eli built a second, larger fire, and as the afternoon wore on, cut thick strips of meat from the deer—the loins, hams, then shoulders, and set the pieces to broil. While the meat was cooking, he gathered the deer entrails and was gone for a time. When he returned, the intestines had been slit open, washed clean, and wound around a section of tree limb, and the paunch had been opened, emptied, and also washed. He set the limb with the intestines on a rock near the fire, then hung the open paunch on a bush to dry.
Billy rose, and spread his feet while the lightheaded dizziness passed, then walked to Eli. “Anything I can help with?”
Eli shook his head. “Get some sleep. We’re going to have to move on, and for what’s coming, you’ll need your strength.”
With the sun halfway to the western rim, Eli set the last of the meat to cook, then gathered the remains of the deer and walked fifty yards south, where he scattered the offal in the foliage. When he returned, Billy was leaning against the log, awake, and Eli spoke.
“Can you eat some more venison?”
“Yes.”
As Eli stepped over the log, he said, “Wait. I’ll be back soon.” Ten minutes later he returned, carrying a dripping bundle of green growth in his hands. Both sleeves of his buckskin hunting shirt were soaked past the elbows.
“Watercress. Tasty.” He dropped the tangle of wet stems and leaves on his blanket and went to his haunches beside Billy. “Feeling any better?”
As he spoke, the westering sun dimmed, then disappeared. Instantly the forest darkened, and there was a strange, loud rushing sound overhead. What had been bright one instant was cast in shadows the next. Billy peered upward but could not see through the tree tops. He looked at Eli in question.
“Carrier pigeons. Millions of them. Once when I was young they covered the sun for more than two hours. We had twilight twice that day.” For more than ten minutes they sat quietly in the queer mid-afternoon shadow before the rushing sound overhead faded and the light once again filtered into the green of the forest.
Eli brought cooked venison, and they sat cross-legged on their blankets, eating the meat and watercress and drinking sweet, cold water from their canteens until they had their fill. Finished, Eli gathered the remainder of the cooked meat and the watercress onto a flat rock and covered it with ferns against the gathering flies, then walked back to Billy.
“I’m going to walk a circle about half a mile out, to be sure we’re alone. You should be all right. Watch the place I took the last of the deer. The birds will gather first, then others. They’ll tell you if anyone’s coming from the south.”
Within seconds Eli had disappeared, and the sounds of the forest quietly returned beneath the green cathedral dome overhead. To the south, where the remains of the deer carcass were scattered, one great black raven circled, then settled in the top of the trees to study the forest floor. Another joined him, and another, and then they came flocking, calling among themselves.
Billy remained motionless,
leaning against the log, watching intently. Soon one raven tucked its wings and dropped eighty feet like a bullet before it spread them. Billy heard the whisper as the glossy black feathers caught the air, and the bird settled lightly to the soft forest floor. An instant later the air was filled with black bodies dropping and the rush of flared wings catching the air as they came to rest. Billy remained still and made no sound as he watched their every move.
Most of them vanished in the thick foliage. Some reappeared, heads held high, carrying strips of meat or hide locked in their strong black beaks. A sleek, dark marten came slinking through the ground cover to seize a bone and was gone. Squirrels darted about, scolding, furious at the invasion of their domain. A rabbit stopped to watch, and was gone, uninterested in meat and bone. A horned owl silently perched on a pine branch thirty feet above the scramble beneath, head swiveling, patiently watching, waiting its opportunity.
Suddenly, for a moment, all movement ceased. In a twinkling the ravens rose to the lower branches of the trees, and the squirrels disappeared. Billy reached for his musket and waited, breath coming short as he waited for shadows slipping toward him among the trees, and the dreaded rush of painted men with spiked war clubs and tomahawks.
There were no shadows. Billy saw instead a slight movement in the foliage, then heard a purring sound from deep in the throat of something large. Without warning, the head and shoulders of a great, yellow-gray cat reared upward from the ferns with the neck of the deer carcass clutched in its mouth. Holding its head high, the huge panther effortlessly dragged the carcass of the deer away through the forest, while all living things made way. The tawny animal was gone as quickly as it had appeared, while Billy gaped. From what he had seen, he estimated the cat was twelve feet long, tip of nose to tip of tail. As soon as the great beast vanished, the ravens dropped back to the ground to scavenge the scraps, the squirrels reappeared scolding, and the sights and the sounds of the forest resumed.
The last arc of the sun was setting the treetops on fire when Billy heard Eli’s voice from the north, with his familiar, “Coming in.” Moments later Eli stepped over the log, and Billy turned his head, musket still across his knees.
Eli glanced at the musket. “Someone came?”
“No. A panther came to the deer carcass.”
“Big?”
“About twelve feet long, nose to tail.”
“Fairly good size. I didn’t hear a shot.”
“I didn’t shoot.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“No. Just the birds and squirrels. Anything happen where you were?”
“No Mohawk. We’re safe for now.” He leaned his rifle against the log. “I’ll have something to eat in a few minutes. Then we’ll have to put out the fire. It draws too many things in the dark.”
Eli set about warming some of the cooked venison over the small fire, with Billy watching until he could stand it no longer.
“Let me help. There’s something I can do.”
Eli turned to face him. “You got hurt this time. Next time it could be me, and you’ll have to tend me. For now, the biggest help you can be is to rest, gather strength. We have to move on soon.” Billy nodded, and Eli turned back to the work of getting their evening food ready and settling in for the night.
They ate warmed-over meat and finished the watercress, then drank from their canteens. Eli repacked the remainder of the cooked meat in ferns, shook both blankets, then settled them onto the ground next to the log, with the rifle and musket nearby. With purple-gray gathering around them, he banked the fire while Billy sat down on his own blanket and leaned gingerly back against the log, taking care to keep the wound on his shoulder from touching the rough bark. Eli settled onto his own blanket, cross-legged, before he spoke.
“We’ll repack your shoulder in the morning. Any pain?”
“It aches a bit. No real pain.”
A few moments passed before Billy continued. “Earlier, when the raccoon came, something happened.”
Eli sensed the time for talk had arrived. He remained motionless, silent, while he waited, eyes locked onto the dying fire.
“She studied me, and I looked at her, and it was like she understood I wouldn’t hurt her. I put some fish on my pouch, and she came and took it and left.” Billy paused for a moment. “Almost like we were talking.”
Eli studied Billy’s face for a moment. “Anything else? The birds? Squirrels?”
Billy shrugged. “No. But something opened up inside of me.”
“What?”
Billy cleared his throat, hesitant, afraid he could not find the words he needed.
“It was like the birds and animals all have thoughts—like they could tell me if I could learn how to listen. Like the whole forest has things to tell.”
At that moment, movement to the south caught the eye of both men, and they turned to see the horned owl that had been patiently sitting in the tree above the remains of the deer plummet downward and set her wings in a silent glide. At the right instant her legs swung forward, and the black, needle-sharp talons plucked an unsuspecting squirrel from atop a log, frantically squirming to escape. With strong strokes of its powerful wings, the owl ascended up through the trees into the twilight and was gone.
Eli turned back to Billy. “Anything else?”
“I don’t see anything quite like it was before, even things I knew.” Billy stopped, waiting, and saw that Eli was working with his thoughts. He gave him time.
Slowly, choosing his words carefully, Eli spoke. “The Indians have lived in the forest for thousands of years. It’s their school, their food, clothing, religion—their life. They’ve learned the lessons the forest can teach. They know that everything in the forest has a spirit.”
Billy’s eyes narrowed. “Everything?”
Eli nodded.
In the gathering twilight he waited for Billy to speak, but Billy remained silent. Eli continued. “Maybe the whole earth is a living thing.”
Billy did not try to speak, or move.
“The Indians think it is. All they think, all they do, is built on that understanding. To them, death is only the passing of the spirit from the body. Those left behind mourn, but they know the spirit goes on. They’ll join it later.”
He paused, choosing his thoughts. “Taronhiawagon—their God—created it all. Carries the heavens on his shoulders. He can talk with all of it—animals, birds, mountains, streams, clouds—and they can talk back, each its own way according to how he created them. Every thing has its place, its purpose. Every thing obeys his voice, his laws.”
Eli stopped and drew a great breath and slowly released it. “Everything except man. Man is special. He gave man the power to know right from wrong.” Eli raised his eyes to Billy’s. “And he gave man—only man—the power to choose which one he will follow.”
He dropped his eyes once more. “To force man to choose, he sent the twin boys, Good and Evil, like the Devil and Jesus. Choose evil, bad things happen. Choose good, and you feel peace. Joy.”
Eli stopped again and looked into the purple gloom of the forest, and Billy saw a faraway look steal into his eyes.
“God gave man dominion over the earth, and that was the beginning of trouble. White men think that means cut out the forests, change the streams, kill the birds and animals, take the land from the Indians, make them live on small sections like white men, or die. Send missionaries to change the Indian religion.”
A great sadness stole over Eli as he continued. “The Indians believe that all those things are bad—no one should do those things. They believe all things are a gift, to be honored and revered. Not changed, destroyed.”
Again he turned serious eyes to Billy. “They believe all things were made to work together. They think God intended that man would learn his place in the great plan, and that he would fulfill it if he was given the choice. For Indians, happiness occurs when all things are working together, just as God meant them to, including man. The yearly cycle of the India
n—the seasons, the ceremonies, the planting, the harvest—everything is guided by this great plan. Right now the Iroquois are preparing for the Green Corn ceremony. For two or three days they will gather, and dance, and pray, and they will thank God for the green corn that he has sent once again to feed them through the hard winter. They will have another ceremony when they harvest it. They will have their midwinter ceremony. And many, many more. For all things they thank Taronhiawagon, who is the creator.”
Eli gestured to the south, where he had left the remains of the deer. “When I shot the deer, I went to him. I told him he had fulfilled his purpose, that I needed his body to make you well. He had been brave, and had great speed and strength, which I honored. I told him that God was pleased with his sacrifice, that you could live and be healthy. I told him that God would accept him in heaven, where he would be at peace forever. I poured clear water over his head to wash him. I used every part of his body I needed for you, and then I gave the rest of it to other creatures who needed it. The deer is honored, happy where he is. You are getting well. It is God’s plan.”
Billy swallowed, his mind laboring with thoughts and feelings he had never known, as Eli continued.
“It is evil to take more than you need. It is evil to insult the forests by cutting them where you do not need to cut them. It is evil to kill what you do not need or cannot use.”
Eli stopped and his words came low, powerful, spaced. “But most of all, it is evil not to thank God for his great plan of harmony, and to not try to understand how man was meant to take his part.”
The shadows were deep before Billy moved, and Eli spoke once again.
“Most white men have never thought that for them to live, something must die—that for anything to live, another thing must die.” He gestured south, to where the great owl had swept down to seize the squirrel. “For the owl to live, he had to take the squirrel. For the squirrel to live, it had to take the nuts. For one thing to live, another must die.” He exhaled and seconds passed. “It seems a harsh thing to us, but I do not think it seems harsh to God. I do not think other creatures see death as we see it. It frightens us, and we fear it. But once we understand that death is a part of life, and that as with all things God has provided, it is meant for our good, it is no longer a fearsome thing.”