“And fishing expeditions,” Ascopo volunteered.
“Yes, you can think about it this way: we have already been preparing for the husquenaugh. The husquenaugh itself is just the final test. Maybe it won’t be so overwhelming.”
Ascopo snorted and said sarcastically, “Yeah, right.”
From our lofty position high on the dune, I could see the campfire at our nearby fishing outpost on the banks, but I could also see across the sound to the distant fire of the mainland camp, where the majority of our party was at work drying the big fish.
“Kaiauk doesn’t say much, but all of it is scary. He says I need to toughen up,” Ascopo recalled.
“You know he is not supposed to describe the experience in any way.”
“I know, but I thought a brother might tell me more. Give me some warning, or something.”
“Sounds like he did give you a warning, Ascopo.”
“I guess you are right.”
Ascopo and I sat quietly for a few minutes. I turned my back on the sound and looked out to the sea. After a while, it became so dark that I could just barely see the white line where the waves crashed, rumbled, and hissed on the beach. They glowed and sparkled with greenish phosphorescence as they broke. At last, the moon rose and cast a silver glow over the landscape even as the brilliance of the stars and the phosphorescent waves dimmed.
“It is beautiful here, Skyco. Thanks for encouraging me to come up here with you.”
“Yeah. I am glad you came along, Ascopo. Look, I am sorry about telling you to go away when you were helping me after the shark attack. It was just that I hurt and was still in shock, and couldn’t believe you really wanted to be in my place.”
“It was silly of me to say so. I shouldn’t have.”
“Right. Let’s get some sleep so that we wake early enough to return in time for fishing.” I fell off to sleep and dreamed.
I was a bear. It was the same sensation as when Roncommock helped me into the other animals, but this time the bear itself seemed to be a spirit bear. I felt few sensations, but I saw through the eyes of the bear. We were back at my home village, but I hardly recognized it. In fact, the village was not there at all, just the crop field, grown immense and stretching away into the distance. Instead of growing interplanted with beans and squash, the corn grew all by itself in long, straight rows. I stood at the edge of this great field and saw in the distance, at the other end of the rows, a strange, gigantic beast rumbling toward me with an evil-sounding growl, and I turned and fled back into the forest. I awoke in a sweat. Ascopo was snoring.
The strangeness of the dream kept me awake as the moon moved across the sky. Finally, I jostled Ascopo and he turned over and stopped snoring. Eventually I fell asleep again and once again dreamed that I was the bear. This time, I felt a little more securely lodged in the bear and noticed odors as well as sights and sounds. What I smelled was a man, but not like any man I had smelled before. Then the strange man walked into view. He was completely clothed from head to foot and these clothes were what gave him the strange odor of a wet animal, but no animal that I knew. He wore a long knife at his waist, a shiny plate across his chest, and a gleaming cap on his head. Black, curly hair covered his face everywhere except a small area around his eyes and nose. Perhaps his whole body was hairy like that of a bear, and that was why he wore the clothing, in order to cover it up. Even his hands and his feet were clothed. He strutted around in his fancy clothing and yelled at some other men in a tongue that I could not understand. It was very different, even from that of the Mangoaks, who spoke Iroquois instead of Algonquian. It was confusing, but not frightening, and I awoke slowly from the dream.
I thought about my dream until the sky attracted all of my attention, and I punched Ascopo awake. The sky was a glorious sight. The whole sky turned pink and then a deeper shade of orange and red. A few clouds hung low on the horizon where the water met the sky, and they picked up the colors of pink, purple, orange, and red. I could tell where the sun would appear because one area held the brightest, most intense color. It was so strong that I could barely look at it, but then Ascopo said, “Here it comes!”
I kept peering and then looking away until I saw a small, intensely orange band appear. Quickly, the huge disk of the sun sprang up out of the sea, becoming perfectly circular as it leapt free from the water. What a sight! Within a short time of its appearance, the sky became uniformly light blue, the color show ended. We had witnessed the birth of the sun from the sea.
“Time to go,” Ascopo said. “Fish are waiting.”
“Let’s fill our gourds with water before we leave. The water here tastes better than the water back at camp,” I suggested. I was surprised at how easily he agreed. He must not like the taste of the camp water either.
Down at the foot of the dune, the tiny frogs in the muddy pool began hopping frantically as we disturbed them, but we needed to enlarge and deepen the fresh water hole so that we could fill our containers. The digging was easy. When we sat back to rest from our work, I saw my face reflected in the pool of water. A little frog hopped back in the pool, and as the ripples reached my face, I thought I saw a bear face reflected there instead. I jerked back, about to ask Ascopo if he saw it too, but he was already calling me to come see a fox track he’d found.
The tracks went from the pool to a copse of shrubby trees. I recognized them immediately as wax myrtle shrubs and knew that my mother would welcome some dried leaves for her medicine bundle, so I broke off several branches and laid them on the sand not too far from the water hole where they would receive unobstructed sun. I would return for them later, perhaps tomorrow. Their heady fragrance swirled up in the air as I breathed it in.
Ascopo continued tracking, but said that the fox tracks were harder to follow in the sand under the trees than in the muddy area near the water hole. I came over to help and the two of us were barely able to discern them. Soon, however, Ascopo had located the foxhole at the roots of one of the wax myrtle trees.
“Now what?” Ascopo said as he turned toward me, indicating the fox’s lair. “Should we dig him out?”
“For what reason? We have plenty of fish to eat and there is nothing we need that the fox could provide. Let’s leave him. It was fun just to be able to track the animal to its den.”
“I agree,” Ascopo said. “We need to be heading back anyway.”
Back at the water hole, the sediment stirred up by our digging activities had settled back out, leaving the water clear. While not as clean and nice as the water from the Chowan, it was fresh, unlike the brackish water of the sound, and better tasting than the water near the camp. We each filled a macócqwer with water and stoppered it with a wooden plug carved from a tree branch. Again I thought I saw a bear face reflected in the surface instead of my own.
“You go ahead on back to camp, Ascopo. Tell Tetszo that I am staying over here today.”
“What, and miss the fishing?” Ascopo couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Yeah. I had some really weird dreams. Roncommock told me that I should follow my instincts when I was here, and I think maybe I should stay here a while longer. I know you want to fish, so go ahead without me.”
“Are you sure you will be safe here by yourself?”
“Sure. Go ahead. I’ll be fine.” I could see that Ascopo was reluctant to leave me, but fishing easily won out after his brief, internal struggle. He headed back toward camp, and I headed toward the sea. I could smell the myrtle here, too, its essence reminding me of the winauk that Roncommock often used when summoning the spirits. My mother used it for calming coughs or breathing problems, but maybe it was a spirit herb, too.
Over on the beachfront, it was clearly low tide. The wrack line of flotsam was high above the waterline on the upper part of the beach. There was an immense curve of white sand in each direction, but I turned toward the north. I knew this was the right way to
go. I felt a little dizzy from the bright sunlight on the sand and felt disoriented from the constant wind and sound of the waves, so I looked down at my feet and began to walk in the direction that they pointed. Eventually I would come to the inlet.
As I walked the beach, my senses sharpened and time slowed down. I was not sure whether I was in the real world, or the spirit world, or both at the same time. My vision was sharper, sounds were louder, scents more intense. The wind was strong enough to move the hairs on my arms and legs and set them tingling. Even my lips tasted of salt and the briny sea. Were the spirits insisting that I pay attention?
I could hardly believe the incredible numbers of interesting shells that seemed to be everywhere. I looked at all the different shapes and colors, and found a whelk shell that was so big I just had to pick it up and carry it in my hand. It would make a great head of a hoe or maybe even a war club if someone could carve the handle so it would fit tightly enough into the shell’s opening. Perhaps Ascopo’s carving training would come in handy; if not, I bet Cossine would know how to affix it. Next, I came across a cockleshell so large that each half would hold a mouthful of water. I picked it up too. I could use it as a bowl or ladle. In one place where the waves had left a slight depression, the shells piled in a heap. I found a bunch of shark’s teeth and picked up every one. Since I escaped the teeth of a shark, it felt only right that I should claim them. When a beautiful, tiny, white, intricately coiled wentletrap revealed itself, I wanted to keep it, but I already had too much to hold in my hands and needed to adjust.
I looped the string from my water container around the whelk so that I could carry it over my shoulder, and packed the small shells and teeth into the bowl-like half of the cockle, leaving my other hand free. Some broken shells of the wampum clam were already partly rounded and polished, so I picked them up, thinking that they would be easy to finish into purple wampum disks for Menatonon to add to a wampum necklace. Next, I found a translucent shallow shell that resembled a glossy toenail. It was even marked in the center with what looked like a miniature footprint. I kept an eye out for those and collected many more, which my mother and sister would appreciate as decorations for their skirts.
Soon, the cockleshell was full and I was in a quandary over how to carry my growing shell collection. I drank as much water as I could hold, brushed the sand off the shells, and dropped them down inside the water gourd. I strung a few more of the larger shells on the string over my shoulder, but I still had to carry some of the bigger shells in one hand. It would do for the time being. I kept walking and picking up more interesting shells. Was this what I was supposed to be doing? It was strange to feel such a compulsion to pick up shells and to think about their uses for myself and others of my tribe.
A flock of terns stood on the beach ahead of me, facing into the wind, and I studied them as I approached. There were big ones and small ones, but all were white and light grey with black feathers on their heads. They made their loud “kak-kak-kak” and lifted up from the beach without apparent effort. One wheeled out over the swash of waves and immediately dove straight in, like an arrow shot from a bow. It came back up, flapping vigorously and shaking water off its back with a silvery minnow in its mouth. Another tern made a half-hearted lunge at it, but the one with the fish flew on safely ahead. Another bird caught my attention as it began to flutter like a hummingbird high up over the water, peering down at the water. All of a sudden, it dove straight toward the surface, just like the other bird, but this one pulled out of the dive before it hit and I rocked back on my heels and gasped at the speed of it all. They were consummate hunters, surprising their prey of tiny fish by swooping down from above.
I walked on farther down the beach, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the feel of the sea air blowing across my face. It was moister, with a more noticeable tang, than the air of my home village on the river. The loose sand crunched under my feet, grinding away at my toes unlike the mud or soils I was more accustomed to feeling. Little bits of sand blew against my face and lips, some even entering my mouth. It was a strange sensation to feel them grind against my teeth, as if I’d broken a part of a tooth. As I felt all these sensations from my body, the sounds, scents, feelings, and even tastes of the great beach, I simultaneously saw myself outside my body, observing it.
A giant cloud obscured the sun, then moved in from offshore, sweeping through the inlet ahead, dark, menacing, and fast. Wind whistled around my ears. I was cold—shivering—and sand pelted my legs. The shiver seemed to shake me back into myself and I saw there was no cloud after all. Even the wind and blowing sand ceased. What had I seen? Was it real or imagined? I sat down abruptly, light-headed and confused.
Up ahead I saw more birds flying toward me, and I focused on them as a way of clearing my mind from the image of the cloud. They differed from any I had ever seen. Three of them traveled together and they glided right along the edge between the water and the sand, where the big waves washed up and left a shimmering sheet of water before disappearing down into the beach itself. These birds glided barely above the shining pools, and their lower bills left a line behind them where they cleaved the film of water in two.
As I stood awe-struck, watching the birds fly while skimming the surface, one hit a fish with its lower mandible, flipped the fish up into the air, and caught it on the wing. He flew up and gave a little shake, then glided back down and starting fishing again just behind the other two. It flew as if it were a sunbeam, animated light and shadow rather than a living animal. It wheeled and turned back to make a loop, starting another fishing run well up the beach ahead of me. It drew a line with its beak that perfectly outlined the swash of each wave on the beach. The birds flew on past, still skimming down the beach until they disappeared into the hazy white distance. I shook my head in wonder, stood up, and walked on.
Behind me I heard a ruckus and turned around just in time to see a bald eagle, enormous in comparison to the delicate skimmers, as it struck the forward bird and drove it down to the water. Black and white feathers flew into the air. My chest hurt as if I’d been struck instead of the bird. The skimmer flopped feebly once or twice in the shallow water and then the eagle swooped in and scooped it out of the water, clutching it tightly with deadly talons. Its beautiful white breast turned ochre from the blood seeping from the wounds made by the eagle’s talons as droplets fell from the red bill. The other two skimmers skittered away, calling angrily to each other. The roar of the waves crashing on the beach intensified and confused me. Just a moment ago, the skimmers had flown away ahead of me, disappearing into the distance. How had they suddenly appeared behind me?
The slope of the beach to the water became steeper, and I struggled along as walking became more difficult. A few white mounds of sand pushed up above the surface of the water, forming tiny islands surrounded by deeper water. The islands of white sand appeared bright and attractive, but the dark swirling water surrounding them suggested otherwise. I considered wading out to one of the islands, but the dark water discouraged me. The breakers were striking farther off the beach, making the water muddy instead of clear pale blue. I was nearing the inlet, with currents and waves much more pronounced. Here at the inlet, dark and light swirled together.
Now I could see across the inlet to the land on the other side. The current was rushing out, sweeping along bits of seagrass and brownish twigs so quickly that I became dizzy watching it. Some tiny fish swam by, little minnows that would swim in toward the beach, hunker down in a depression behind a pile of sand pushed up by the current, then dart out after food and be swept a little farther out the inlet.
Suddenly, a skimmer sailed in the inlet, leading the flock of terns. Their white underwings flashed so brightly in the light that I felt blinded in looking at the flock. The whole sky filled with white billowing feathers. Again I felt the cold, strange, shadow sensation of the dark cloud, and I shivered.
A bigger wave suddenly swept up the strand, splashin
g against my shins and startling me, forcing me back to reality. “Look at what is actually here! See this place as it really is!” the water gurgled and murmured around my feet. As the water retreated, scouring away the sand under my feet and making me sway, tiny coquina clams colored in rainbow hues spewed out of the sand and washed down toward the ocean, where they rapidly reburied themselves. They were incredibly numerous and I considered collecting them for a clam stew, but, instead, I picked up empty coquina shells that were piled in windrows higher up the beach.
Many of the shells already had holes drilled into them at the apex of the shell, exactly where you’d want a hole in order to string them onto a necklace or sew them to a garment. My mother could cover a deerskin with these colorful shells and make a magnificent cloak, fit for a powerful chief. If she were to give me such a wonderful gift, I would hold an enormous celebration and shower her with presents in thanks.
In addition to the coquina clams, funny, little, rounded crabs dug like moles down into the beach sand when a wave washed them out. I dug in after one and caught it just under the sand’s surface. Its back was smooth and curved, hard and slippery, and its small feet dug constantly into my hands. When it found a little purchase in between my fingers, it nearly pushed its way out and escaped, but I caught it in time. I held it in my fingertips and turned it over, its feet still moving. It was hard to see a mouth anywhere, unlike the big round crabs whose mouths opened at the base of the feet, or the blue crabs who bubbled up froth around their mouths. This little one just kept digging frantically, and when I set it back down on the wet sand, it disappeared in an instant.
While watching the mole crab dig back in, I crouched down close to the sand where I saw dozens of tiny forked lines on the surface of the sand. I scooped up a handful of sand around one of the strange forks and found another mole crab. I tried again; another mole crab. These crabs tried so carefully to hide, but now I could identify them while they were buried under the sand, and as I looked down the beach, I could see hundreds of them, hidden in plain sight. I laughed aloud at the thought that they left some part sticking up above the sand, like a person hiding under a basket with his feet sticking out. I also saw structures that were tufts of some rooted material instead of the perfect V-shapes.
Spirit Quest Page 13