It wasn’t just teaching me how to live, how to survive, in the wilderness, though that was a big part of it. Mostly he was showing me how to look for things, how to see things that most folks never do and that I sure never did before.
He was sure more than just a wilderness man. Sometimes I’d almost get to thinking of him, as crazy as it sounds to say it when I think of his appearance, like a preacher.
Our time together passed both slow and quick at the same time. As I look back, I can’t remember everything that happened in the exact order. It all blends together in my memory.
Like once, when summer was approaching, we were riding along looking for water, following a dry creek bed. I was getting mighty thirsty . . . and a little worried. We were a long way from any of the caves.
Hawk just kept watching the ground like he could see water there, but it was plain to my eyes that the bed was dry as a bone.
Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“You really figure this creek bed’s gonna lead us to water?” I asked.
“Sure as the sun’s up there beating down on us,” Hawk answered me.
“How can you tell?”
Hawk smiled one of his smiles that by then I’d learned meant, if not exactly that he’d been waiting for the question, at least that he was glad I’d asked it.
“Surely I’ve taught you enough by now about looking under the surface of things.”
“Yeah, but you can look at that dry, sandy dirt all you want, and it ain’t gonna make no water appear there on the surface.”
“No, you’re right about that. No water’s going to appear right here. But there’s water underneath.”
“How can you tell?”
“Just can. When reading nature’s signs is all you’ve got to keep you alive, you learn mighty quick what she’s trying to say.”
“So what’s this dry creek bed saying?” I asked.
“It’s telling us that up ahead somewhere there’s water running in this same bed.”
“Why ain’t it here? What happened to it?”
“Disappeared into a sink. There’s sinks all over this territory. There’s one below us somewhere, and if we follow this stream far enough, we’ll get to the water trickling down into it.”
“But what if there just plain ain’t no water, or if you never do find any?” I asked.
“There’s always water,” Hawk replied. “In an emergency you might have to get it out of a barrelhead cactus—like that one over there, though you don’t see too many of these this far north.”
He pulled up alongside one of the stumpy, barrel-shaped plants growing nearby, dismounted, and whacked off the top of the plant with his knife. The inside was full of a white pulp. He hacked away at it and finally pulled a big chunk out with his hands. Then he held it up in front of me, squeezing it in his fist.
“You see, if you work at it, drops of water’ll start dripping out. It’s slow work; they’re not the wettest cactus in the desert. But if you can get past the thorns, there’s life inside even these ornery looking things.”
He got back on the mule, and we kept riding. All the time, Hawk was pointing out the little signs that told him water was around and that we wouldn’t have to get our water from a barrelhead that day—things like the kind of plants and grasses, even the color and shape of the sand and its formations. And sure enough, about an hour later, all at once the stream bed was running with a decent flow of water, right to the hole where it disappeared straight down into the ground.
Hawk didn’t say anything when we found the sinkhole. He knew I’d already learned one more lesson about looking past just what things seemed to be. We dismounted and all four of us—Hawk and me and the two mules—had a good long drink.
Then we sat on the ground and rested a spell and had something to eat out of our saddlebags, since we had water to go with it. Finally we filled our canteens and continued on our way.
As we went, Hawk started to chuckle to himself.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Oh, a funny picture just came into my mind.”
“What?”
“Talking about water and rivers, the picture of a giant bear lying across a river popped into my head.”
“Doing what?”
“Just lying there in the water, but so big that he caused a bend in the flow of the water.”
We kept on silently a few minutes. I could tell Hawk was revolving the bear picture in his mind, trying to figure out what it meant.
“You see, Zack,” he said at length, “God is all around us. The tiniest and the largest things, they all say something about him. This whole desert he holds on the tips of his fingers. Look up at the clouds.”
I did.
“Just imagine the movement as God’s way of breathing. Yet at the same time, he is so close that he lives inside us too.”
“How did you get from the bear to the clouds?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied with his rumbling laugh. “I was just following wherever my thoughts led. Sometimes interesting things come to you that way. But about the bear, I realized that if there was a bear lying there, causing the bend in the river, we would stand up and take notice! Yet God is so much bigger than any bear, and he is constantly doing things that are of far vaster importance, but we don’t notice. The clouds moving over us right now are being blown by his breath. Even that rock we were just sitting on a few minutes ago is being held in place by his hand. Do you see what I’m saying?”
“That we could see the bear, but we can’t see God?”
“Right, even though God is bigger. He is always holding every flower, every branch of every tree, every rock, every pebble. It is his hand that turns every bend in the river . . . but our eyes aren’t used to seeing it. We grow too accustomed to our surroundings, and then we don’t see that he is pouring life into everything—into every detail of existence, every rock and grain of sand in this desert.”
“But if a bear was lying in the river, or if an even bigger bear was holding up that rock we were sitting on, we couldn’t help but look twice at it!” I said. “The bear would be visible, but God’s invisible, isn’t he?”
“Yep,” replied Hawk. “But not exactly invisible, because we have been looking at what God does all our lives. We have seen him, from the day you and I were each born, we just don’t know it. We haven’t trained our eyes to see the maker of bears and rivers and clouds and rocks all together . . . and what he’s doing every day.”
We rode on a little further. I think Hawk knew I had plenty to think about for the time being. But then he added one more twist to the conversation.
“Everybody has two eyes, Zack,” he said. “But if you’re really going to live, you need four.”
“Four . . . how do you mean?”
“Two outside, two inside.”
I didn’t need him to tell me what he meant. I’d been with him long enough to understand.
“And the most important place to use your extra set of eyes isn’t to look under the ground for disappearing creeks, is it, Zack? Or for bears lying in rivers.”
“Nope. You’ve made your point, Hawk,” I said, laughing.
“Where is it?”
“Inside your own self,” I answered.
During our next stretch of silence, I thought about how Hawk himself was a just-about perfect example of all he was telling me. Nobody’d know by looking at him what was inside. Who’d be able to guess that a wild-looking mountain man like him would all the time be thinking about God? About the insides of things?
Chapter 17
Legend of the Gray Fox
“I ever tell you the Paiute story of the gray fox?” Hawk asked me one day.
It was a dim, overcast day early in spring, still cold, and without any sign of new growth or greenery anywhere. It was even before the conversation we’d had about disappearing creeks and bears lying across rivers. On this particular day everything, from the flatland to the mountains and past the
horizon up into the sky, everything looked gray and dreary. I suppose that’s what reminded Hawk of the story.
“Nope,” I replied to his question.
“Most foxes are red, right?” he said.
I nodded. “We got some brown and gray ones in California,” I added.
“But out here in the high desert of the Utah territory there aren’t hardly even any red foxes, much less grays. Almost none.”
“So what do the Paiutes have to do with them?” I asked.
“Well the fox is a sly and crafty animal, and I reckon the Paiutes like to think the same is true of themselves. You know about the Paiute war last year?”
“Yeah. That was right before I came out, and everybody told me about it when I joined the Express. Keeping away from them was our main worry.”
“With good reason,” said Hawk. “War chief Numaga fought the cavalry almost to a standstill last year. There’s been more white blood shed by the Paiutes hereabouts than in any other conflict since our kind landed several centuries ago. Man of peace that he was, once he was forced to it, Numaga was a brilliant warrior.”
“What’s that got to do with the fox?” I asked.
“Like I said, there aren’t many foxes out here. Foxes want woods and trees. That’s how they survive. They learn every nook and cranny of the terrain where they live—rivers, streams, caves, forests, hollowed logs—so that no other animal can catch them when they’re in their own familiar surroundings. They can outrun and outmaneuver just about anything. They have bags of tricks to outwit their pursuers, even those who are bigger and stronger.”
“I’ve run into their tricks trying to trap them.”
“Right, like running in huge circles to tire out whatever’s chasing them, especially dogs. They’re fast enough that they can stop, get their breath, drink, even eat, and stay ahead of the dogs, and eventually wear them out. Or they might use their double-back technique, turning around and retracing their own steps right toward their enemy, then leaping off the trail to hide. The dogs chase past, and the fox then leaves in a new direction, while the dogs eventually arrive at a dead end. They’ll do ’most anything to throw an enemy off their trail.”
“Do you think the foxes actually think up all their tricks?” I asked, thinking more about some of my own past experiences.
“Who knows?” replied Hawk. “They’re clever and cunning, that’s all I know. I figure that’s why rich folks in England and back East go on fox hunts, just to match wits with them.”
“I still don’t see what they have to do with the Paiutes.”
Hawk laughed. “I’m just getting to it,” he said. “The Paiutes like to think of themselves as foxlike. And I reckon they got a right to the claim if they can survive out in this wasteland like they have.”
“Like you have, too,” I said.
“Maybe you’re right. But they been here longer, and there’s more of them. And one thing’s for sure—Numaga sure outfoxed Major Ormsby and the cavalry last year. Anyway, from a long time back the Paiutes have talked about, not a red fox, but a gray fox, maybe because of the color of the hills around here.”
“What do they say?”
“They claim there’s a gray fox that roams these hills, maybe wandered up from the White Mountains to the south where there’s grays. They consider it kind of like an animal brother to the Paiutes. If they have a good hunt of deer or elk or antelope, they’ll say the Gray Fox chased the animals to them. If they outwit an enemy, either the whites or maybe a certain tribe of the Shoshone they’re not on too good of terms with, they’ll say the Gray Fox ran through the enemy camp, spreading confusion. If they elude someone chasing them, they’ll say the Gray Fox came between and spread false scents and confused the trail with markings and signs to throw them off. Any good thing they can’t explain, they’ll say the Gray Fox is responsible. It’s a quick-witted, daring animal, not big and overpowering like a bear. It uses brains and craft and stealth to gain victory over its adversaries instead of brute strength.”
“Is there such an animal around here?” I asked.
“You mean, has anyone actually seen it?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. The Paiutes claim to have caught glimpses of its eyes shining in the night, or of the tip of its furry tail. They believe in it and teach their children its ways. Young Paiute boys and girls grow up wanting to be the first to spot the animal. I heard that one of chief Winnemucca’s daughters, Sarah, saw him last year, just before the worst of the outbreaks.”
“I thought you said Numaga was chief.”
“He was the war chief, Winnemucca was the chief. Actually his name was Poito, whites gave him the name Winnemucca. That was the old chief, who scouted for John Fremont back in the ’40s. Young Winnemucca, the chief now, is Sarah’s father.”
“Sarah sounds like a funny name for an Indian.”
“That’s a white name too,” answered Hawk. “Her Paiute name is Shell Flower. She lived with a white family for a year at the Mormon trading post, and converted to Christianity, though she still kept her Indian faith too. Always after that she has been known as Sarah to white folks. She and her sister later attended a Catholic convent school in San Jose for a short time too. Winnemucca’s family knows the ways of the white man as well as any Paiute. And now that the fighting from last year is over and most of them are on the reservation, things are peaceful most of the time and a lot of them are learning English.”
“Is the reservation near here?”
“Not far. Just a few miles southwest.”
“It sounds like you know the man Winnemucca as well as they know the way of the white man,” I said.
“I’ve met his whole family, and believe me, there are more of them than Pony Express riders in this territory! In fact, one of Old Winnemucca’s brothers they call Wahe, or the Fox.”
“But not gray fox?”
“No, just Fox.”
Chapter 18
In Search of Food
We got on the trail of a small group of pronghorn antelope across the desert. It was early June sometime, and I’d been gone from home almost a year.
All we had was our two mules, and matching a pronghorn with a mule was like putting a snail up against a racehorse. So we had to use stealth and cunning, else we’d never catch it.
Finally we left the mules tied up by a watering hole and tracked the animal on foot.
It was about an hour later when suddenly Hawk stopped, looking straight up in the sky.
“What is it?” I said.
“I think there’s Paiutes out,” he said, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“How can you tell . . . you hear something?” I asked.
“No,” he replied, “but you see those two eagles way up there?”
I looked but didn’t see anything.
“No,” I answered.
“Keep looking,” said Hawk. “They’re circling in a big lazy arc.”
“That mean something?”
“Maybe not. But I have the feeling it means the Paiutes are out, and not too far away.”
“How can you tell?”
“If you know how to read the eagles,” he said, “they can tell you all kinds of things. Sometimes the eagles are looking down on something ten miles away. So all you gotta do is figure out from their movements what they’re gazing at.”
We kept on after the antelope, but I could tell that Hawk was being a little extra careful.
Twenty minutes later, after stalking up and down what seemed like a dozen rises and falls of the terrain, Hawk and I had managed to head the animal into a small box canyon. We were about a hundred yards apart and it had disappeared from our sight. Hawk signaled to me to rejoin him, and we inched our way to the top of a small ridge over which the animal had disappeared. Hawk shouldered his gun, ready to get off a shot before the animal saw us and bolted up the opposite side of the canyon and away.
But the moment we stuck our heads up over the top of the incline, what m
et our shocked eyes instead of the trapped antelope was a small hunting party of six or eight Paiute braves standing over a dead antelope, an arrow sticking out of its chest.
They saw us the moment we appeared, and the next instant four arrows were poised in their bows, the tips aimed straight toward us. My heart started pounding so loud I was sure Hawk knew I was frightened out of my wits.
I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“Nothing to worry about, son,” he whispered. “These fellows have either strayed off the reservation, or else the antelope led us further west than I figured. You wait here.”
Then, without a word, he stood up and walked straight toward the group of Indians. My heart pounded louder than ever.
I couldn’t hear anything of what went on, but gradually the arrows came down, although the fierce expressions on the Paiute faces never changed. Hawk talked to them a minute or two in a language I couldn’t understand, with an occasional wave of one of the Indians’ hands adding expression to the interchange. I watched in silent fear that any second one of them might suddenly kill him and then come after me. But after a couple minutes Hawk turned and walked back in my direction. He came over the ridge and just kept walking away, signaling me where I was still crouching down to follow him. He never looked back, and never said a word until we were fifty or more yards away.
“Looks like they’ll be enjoying that antelope in their camp tonight,” he said finally, still walking. “I reckon you and me are going to be stuck with cattail pancakes.”
“Again!” I groaned. “Didn’t you tell them it was our antelope?”
“Sure,” replied Hawk, “but they said they’d been following it all morning, and I didn’t feel like fighting over it.”
“I thought you said you were their friend?”
“Friend would not exactly be the right word,” laughed Hawk. “They tolerate my presence is about as far as I’d say. I do them favors and show them things and they let me stay alive. But they wouldn’t think twice of killing me, either. Don’t worry. We’ll have our antelope stew—just not today.”
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