The rocks quietly trickled down the side of O’Brien creek, a connection off of the mighty Gila River that flowed through my beautiful Mogollon (Pronounced Muggyown) Mountains. The creek flowed slowly as is winded down through the mountains and provided the perfect cover for the hunt. My feet are clothed in Wapiti moccasins as we follow the White tailed deer along the creek trying our hardest to stay out of sight of the easily spooked “Ghost” of the forest. As I hunt I hear my father whisper into my ear, “Turn of your ears, turn off your senses and give yourself over to your instinct, give yourself to you true nature.”
A Dine warrior Aditsan, who was saved by my father from an old cantankerous grizzly, appointed me White Wolf, as I never went the normal path. He knew that my life would difficult but I would be stronger and adept at survival because of my nature. As we pursued the deer I could remember my old ways coming into me, the spirit of the wolf that flows through me and I slowly let my instincts take over. The ability to harness your inner animal is a complete denial of your day to day to senses of sight and smell given over to your animal senses. As I let my old self take over I felt my eyes wander, tracking the hoof prints, the pellets of the deer. I picked up the slight crunch of leaves as the deer continued to walk along the creek and prepared my body to spring.
To prepare for this day of becoming a man my father sent me to the river where I found the arrow weed for my shafts and cut down the ash sapling for my bow. He showed me how to treat the wood to make it strong and I had to practice every day until my fingers bled. From the beginning my dad knew that I would need to be strong in these mountains and gave me over to the way of the savage. We hunted our game, we made our dugout and eventually our two room cabin. My father raised me to a man who could subsist off of nothing and live with everything if I earned it.
As I prepared for the final shot I began to thank the Great Spirit for allowing me this opportunity to hunt the deer. My father raised me to be Christian with an appreciation for the Gods of the Native Americans. I am in a way a spiritualist who does not fully understand what he feels in the forest. There are times that I feel as if I see the spirit of an old one, those who came before us, hunting and running right beside us. I understand whose I am in my beliefs; I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am the son of God. I do not cater to those who believe in a hell fire and brimstone approach to their relationships with God and force their beliefs on others. Living in a constant state of preparation, you find an appreciation for God and the Bible. There is also a misunderstanding of nature and the bible. Many people feel that if you respect nature and desire to take care of it that you are anti-civilization, anti-progress, but they don’t understand that once nature is gone it can never come back. This respect for nature is what leads us to this place today.
The deer and my bow have finally set the time for this to happen and I have my arrow notched and aimed and my arrow is let loose on the deer. All of a sudden I see the arrow hit square in his chest and for an instant the deer just stares at me followed by a race against life, against an ever slowing heart, and finally against the very nature that makes him run. “Run Eiren, get the deer before you lose him.” My father yelled at me as I stood shocked in my place. I had taken many deer with my dad’s old Sharps carbine but I had never hit one with my bow and for a second I felt a connection with the ancients who have lived long before. The tracking of the deer was not difficult once I found the blood trail and when we came up on her she was breathing her last breath. When I walked on her tears rolled down my cheek and I thanked God for providing us with food to survive. Pulling out my skinning knife we made sacrifice to the hunt and ate the dying heart as it beat it last beats. We took the meat and hide home form the hunt and prepared the hide to tan.
“Eiren, curry down the horses and make sure the pen is latched tight tonight, the paint was acting skittish earlier today.”
I took Buck, the old mutt that we found Texas Arizona Arizona
Coming out to the horses gave me an opportunity to think alone. Do you ever wonder what you’re supposed to do with your life? I have lived my life as a frontiersman and in this life you worry about survival; you don’t worry about education and what you will do for the rest of your life. There is also an emptiness in my heart that I can’t explain. Sometimes I look into the stars at night and wonder where my beating heart will be filled? Somewhere I know there will be someone out there, that beloved for whom my heart yearns.
Tomorrow, tomorrow I will find a job that can help prepare me for my future. Maybe I will set out into the mountains and find some gold; I have some pelts that I have saved up over the years and I will sell those. What I do know is that I need to make money so that I can fulfill my education and make a name for myself and hopefully find she for whom my heart desires.
