CHAPTER 16
Kiowa shivers. "This night is the longest and coldest night of my life, Moon Beam." He pets the silver fox's head. "Something has been taken from me. There is an empty space inside me that will never be full. And it makes me so sad it hurts."
Moon Beam whimpers in short heaves.
The stars shine so brilliantly, Kiowa believes that maybe his father can see him through the portals of heaven. It gives him hope to be patient and suffer through his discomfort. He dozes off and falls asleep on the cool grass. Late into the night, his chattering teeth and uncontrollable shivering should have woken him up, but it is the rustling of the grass that disturbs him. He lies motionless, wondering what he should do.
He hears a distinct birdcall and then the familiar sound of his mother's voice. "Kiowa?"
He returns her call. "I'm over here."
Grass Woman squints and searches the darkness. "Ah, there you are."
She comes over and wraps a buffalo hide around his shaking body, then hugs him.
"I thought you might need this."
"It is late, Mother. Why are you awake?"
"Oh, I was thinking of you," she says, sitting beside him. A sprinkling of gray hair shines like Moon Beam's in the moonlight. She pats him on the back and moves her hand around in circles.
"Tell me a story," Kiowa says with a yawn that makes her yawn.
"Oh, I am not good at those," she says, pulling her son close to her side.
"Uncle tells wonderful stories."
Grass Woman begins to hum a soft song and sway back and forth. She looks up at the sky and searches for her husband's spirit. "I sometimes hear his stories. They make me happy mostly. But sometimes they make me sad."
Kiowa doses off.
When the sun rises, Kiowa feels its warm rays on his face. He opens his eyes and looks for his mother, but she is gone. Her trail leads back to the village. Beside her trail, there was another trail.
"NO!" He panics. Leaping to his feet, he shakes the warm buffalo blanket off and grabs his bow. To his complete surprise, fresh deer droppings are all around him. He missed his opportunity, and even though he doesn't want to, he quickly reports it to his uncle.
"Uncle, I remained still like the snake, but I slept like dogs and they went right past me."
"Thank you for your honesty. What have you learned?"
Kiowa is shocked that his uncle receives the news well. He makes a simple adjustment by saying, "They come and go as they please. But when the sun is up, they are nowhere to be found."
When Paw nods, he feels pleased with this experience. "But there is still a problem. I have not really done anything."
"So, what are you going to do?" Paw asks, leaning down so he's eye level with the boy.
Kiowa hesitates. He doesn't want to say, Try again, because last night was colder than he expected. And besides, all the other boys slept inside the comfort of their tepees, with their families, and they had all learned just as much.
"If we don't succeed, we try again," Paw whispers, patting him on the back.
"I guess…" Kiowa humphs.
"Are you thirsty while you stalk?"
"Yes, but I dare not get up and go drink water. It will startle my friends."
"Then put some berries in your mouth and let them roll around. Or grass. It will keep your mouth wet."
"Okay, Uncle. Thank you for your concern."
The following day the deer do not show up, but Kiowa learns why. The grass blades had all been clipped nearly in half, and though the deer could eat the grass all the way to the root, they seem to only like the grass tips.
Over the course of several weeks, Kiowa learns much about the deer. He learns that when the sun makes the earth hottest, deer generally find a place to lie down in the shade, where it is cool. He also learns how clever they are by the way they conceal themselves in undergrowth that is tall and often the same color as their fur. He learns that above all deer are quiet and patient. He watches them wrap their pink tongues around a thick blade of grass and pull it in, then thrash their heads back and forth until the herbage breaks in half. He laughs at how their lower jaws move side to side and the white fur beneath their glossy black noses looks like a mustache and beard. He becomes so close to them, he even has names for them.
"You are a mother, Black Eyes," he says to a doe whose beautiful fawn he sees nursing. He names the fawn White Eyes because of the many white spots on its side. "Feed your baby, Black Eyes. A good mother always puts milk in its baby's stomach. Oh, how you must love your baby. You let him drink milk all day long."
Kiowa learns how they move. How they speak few words, but what noises they do make sound like creaking timber, a call that brings out their young. He is shocked to see that each white-spotted fawn knows its mother's distinct call the same way he knows his own mother's call.
In his many observations and discoveries, he seems to have forgotten that he is hunting the deer. He's reached a new level of respect for his forest friends and values that bond more than his progress with the tribe. The pinnacle of his affection comes from feeding a doe by hand. He giggles when he sees his goofy reflection in her wide black eyes. He wonders why the creator put a white stripe beneath her eyes.
"I will paint this on my shield," he promises the doe, dragging the tip of his finger beneath its eye.
Kiowa learned above all that deer are incredibly gentle creatures. Doe don't have a mean bone in their bodies.
"The more affection I show you, the more affection you show me. I despise myself for wanting to harm something that can't even protect itself." His despair grows to disappointment when he thinks about a fawn losing its mother. His heart sinks at the thought of one more creature walking the earth without a parent that tenderly loved them.
"I vow here and now that I will not harm my forest friends. But only the bucks who hurt each other and sometimes scar you, Black Eyes, with their long horns." He extends this vow to all things and sees the honor in being gentle.
As with the squirrels, Kiowa learns to predict where the deer will be, not where they are. He watches them scatter in a flash when the lazy young hunters stomp down the grass and send them into flight. He even knows where the bucks will reunite with their families. Many times he creeps up on them and finds father and mother curled up in the grass and circled around their babies in the midday heat. That is when he has the most fun, because the inexperienced hunters would search and search in the fields, nearly step right on them, and the deer family would not stir. It is their greatest secret.
He laughs when the deer escape his friends' arrows. Kiowa thinks of a wonderful idea to save his furry friends. I'll use the tops of the grass to lead them farther into the forest!
The next day he does just that, and soon his tribe has nothing to chase. Because he spends so much time with the deer, the boys begin to mock him. His people don't value that he had learned how to observe, plan, and even speak deer. He is spared the humiliation that sent many boys out into the field and back empty-handed, but he is grouped in the same category since he had the same results. No boy is permitted to return without meat, and he knows it won't be long before his mother begins whipping him as Makes Trouble's sisters whip their brother.
Unsure of what to do, he is torn between his feelings for the deer and his uncle's instruction. Kiowa meets with his uncle to discuss the matter.
"I don't think I can kill them, Uncle."
"You have learned much, but it is now nearing winter and my patience is wearing thin. I can appreciate your bond, but your friends will abandon you when winter comes, and you and your family will be hungry."
"You are disappointed in me?"
"I am pleased in your progress, but everything must eat."
"But I have meat of plenty."
"Yes, and how did you get that meat?"
"Mother brings it to me."
"Who gives it to your mother?"
"I do not know."
Paw smiles, "Well, when you figure it out, let me know. But consider this. Boys who hide behind men's arrows can eat only so long as men are willing to share."
"What happens if they are not willing to share?"
"Then you go the way of the earth," Paw informs him, moving his hand from the earth to the sky. "I want you to hunt the buffalo. It takes as many as eight buffalo to make a tepee. I want you to feed your wife and children. Put them in a nice tepee. Make sure they are warm during the winter. If you cannot do this, I have failed you. Worse, you will fail them."
"No. I do not want that," Kiowa cries out, shaking his hands.
Which one? he asks himself. A sickening feeling rises in the pit of his stomach.
He pushes the faces of his new friends from his mind. Instead, a new image emerges. A picture on his shield of a man sprinting with a deer. He can see the shield going into battle and costing him his life because no warrior in the world would be afraid to attack a deer-painted shield, and the only magic he could get from the deer is to run fast. But even the fastest deer can't outrun a mounted Kiowa. He knows this to be true. He also knows that the wolf, the coyote, the bear, and even large eagles attack the deer. It seems that his friends have many enemies because nothing on earth is afraid of them and they are afraid of everything.
"Fear cannot be the best way," he tells Moon Beam, who is always beside him.
A plan begins to emerge in his mind. He heard a wolf howling only a short time back and thought how wonderful it would be if he could come up on a wolf and shoot it instead of his friends. In his wild imagination he thought how that would please the tribe and protect the deer. He could win both hearts in one epic battle. But then the reality of the wolf pack circling a fallen member makes him realize the impossibility of such a crazy idea. The chances of finding dozens of healthy deer were much better.
Just then Paw says something that brings his blurry thoughts into clear focus.
"Do you know where they will be tomorrow?"
Kiowa nods.
"Then we will go together, and I will be there to see for myself what delays you."
A blank stare glazes over Kiowa's eyes. He sighs. "That sounds wonderful, Uncle."
The next morning Kiowa is already in the grassy field, eager to greet his friends. He has become an expert in camouflage, and neither he nor Paw could easily be identified in the tall green grass.
Paw plucks a blade and chews on the tip. The musky flavor has a hint of mint.
"They will be here soon."
"You know what they eat?"
Paw smiles. "Doesn't everyone?"
Kiowa suddenly feels cheated, like the secret pact he has with the deer is not so secret.
An old gray-chinned deer grazes on the tops of the grass off in the distance where Kiowa has led them. It unknowingly moves toward Kiowa with slow, painful steps.
"Aim for the heart," Paw whispers.
"I will," Kiowa replies, feeling his heart sink.
He knows the old doe and takes comfort in the fact that she doesn't have any fawns to mother. As he nocks an arrow and draws the string back, the tension in his chest is as tight as the string. He pauses, feeling like he wants to cry, but he doesn't. He closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths to calm his racing heart. He slowly opens his eyes.
Kiowa fires.
Reflection: I will never forget the day I made my first kill. I transitioned from a boy where a wolrd of possibility in my kind heart was forver altered. My reality was shattered when I realized the meat I put in my stomach, comes from my furry friends. It's a terrible truth, but reality has its taste. Anywho, I hope you're enjoying the story. If you would like to see it come to life, check out instagram: harvestmoonofficial
Or if you would like to buy the book, since it is christmas and all, check out "Harvest Moon," by Zachary H. Lovelady on Amazon.