You see, you are the joy I have beyond any sadness or wish for what once was.

A strong and steady breeze whipped the leather skins they wore at their elbows and backs and they stared at an eagle drifting on a thermal like a lone and defiant leaf in autumn.

The trees are the great and true keepers of the forest, he said, and have been since the begin-ning. Some animals of old have said it was the trees themselves that taught them to speak, for they never make an unnecessary sound. Each word, like a breath, carries with it some good, some purpose. For this reason, trees are the wisest and most compassionate creatures in the woods. They will do all in their power to take care of everyone and everything beneath them, when they have the power to do it.

The bear meant for nothing more than to pass the time when he asked the girl to tell him more about her father, and so she spoke of the man’s skills as a bowyer, how beautiful and balanced was the hickory bow with which she had watched him hunt, the arrows of birch he made, arrows that never missed their marks, with tips so sharp that they touched blood before they ever touched dirt.

A pink dawn flushed across the morning snow as the girl emerged from the cave in her fur and skins with her bow and arrows, and it dissipated imperceptibly before the sun had broken the horizon line. Her father told her once that all animals were creatures of habit and so, too, were they. The difference was she could choose to change her habits. Animals changed when they were afraid. Change before fear has had a chance to overcome you, he said, or after you have overcome it and like a storm it has moved on. And so she climbed neither up nor down the mountain that morning, but followed the ridge, circling it as though to tie a cord around the mountain’s middle.

Vocabulary

  • Laved - something that is left
  • Nacre - mother-of-perl; the hard pearly material that lines the shell of some mollusks (as mussels) and is often used for ornamental objects and buttons
  • Mottle - a colored spot
  • Pannikin - a small pan or cup
  • Offal - the waste or by-product of a process