*****
Young Robert Growling Bear was preparing for the ceremony in the sweat lodge. He had gathered the sage and cedarwood, piling them onto the hot coals, when he heard someone call his name. He climbed up out of the pit and walked to the edge of the clearing. He swore he heard his father’s voice. He waited, straining his ears. He was sure he had heard his name wafting through the fiery autumn canopies of aspen and elm.
“I think that your father is calling you, son,” said Roger Sitting Bear.
“I know. I heard him,” Growling Bear replied, then waited for Sitting Bear to continue.
“Will you go to him?” Sitting Bear questioned.
“You have been my father these past few years; it is you who saved my life,” Growling Bear stated as a matter of fact.
Growling Bear stared at the man who had saved his life that fateful day while he and his mother were harvesting wild rice. The ibom had been sudden; there was no time to react as the fierce wind blew the tiny craft into the ash trees lining the marsh. Growling Bear had been thrown into a clearing where Sitting Bear was gathering cedarwood and pine needles for the sweat-lodge ceremony. Sitting Bear had witnessed the incident and ran to Robert Growling Bear, who had stood up, yelling and screaming, his arms and legs flailing against the tempest.
Sitting Bear had had no time for such nonsense. He had grabbed the boy and, using buffalo hide and rope made of hemp, tied himself and the boy to a large Buckeye tree. The fierce wind flattened most of the birch and ash trees to the ground; young Growling Bear had lacerations on his face and legs. Sitting Bear, the local medicine man, brought the boy to his home to nurse him back to health. Growling Bear had suffered from amnesia and for the longest time did not remember who he was. He had often become frustrated as he agonized over his memory loss, throwing himself down kicking and screaming against his inability to remember anything of his past. Thus, a boy who had once been called Robert received the name of Growling Bear.
Sitting Bear had taught the boy to accept his fate; he calmly and patiently raised the boy as if he were his own. Young Growling Bear was an apt student who quickly learned all the healing knowledge the medicine man had to offer.
“Do you want me to go?” Growling Bear asked, his eyes growing wide with confusion.
“What you decide is totally up to you; remember, you are your own person.” The great medicine man spoke calmly.
Growling Bear grabbed the buckets of water that were needed to create the steam in the sweat-lodge ceremony. Quietly, he shoveled more coal into the pit, and then gathered up more sage and cedarwood chips. Growling Bear finally spoke: “I hope it’s okay with you that I choose to stay.”
Birthing the Lucifer star Page 6