Voice In The Mist

By Larrywomack.com

The fog consumed the night.  Scores of tree frogs randomly punctuated the tense silence.  Occasionally fragments of the fog would come loose and splash into the water and cause the young Iroquois’ breath to quicken.

In the heavy darkness, he sat as still as the river in his birch bark canoe.  His stomach ached with the pain of hunger.  It had been six days since he had eaten.  He survived only on water.  Water was abundant.

The rains had begun ten days ago, the very day he had entered the forest, and had finally stopped a few hours ago at sundown.  The rains had drenched his spirit and totally washed away the thrill of the excursion.  He was in the dark, in the mist, and in despair.  This was his initiation into the hierarchy of the tribe–the survival test–and all hope of success had been washed away by the torrential rains.

On the fourth day, while building a shelter with his small canoe and limbs from fallen trees, he found a nest of rabbits and caught two of them.  Their pelts hung from his loincloth.  It was impossible to build a fire, so he ate them raw.  Only a portion of the unpleasant meal had stayed with him.  The experience was almost as distressing as not having eaten at all.

There were ten more days to go.  He had begun the 200-mile journey of initiation with his knife, his bow, six arrows, the birch bark canoe, and a small knapsack that contained flint, a line and a hook for fishing, a small pouch of ceremonial smoking weed, and a pipe.  Yesterday as he sat helplessly in the deluge, he realized that the small bag of belongings had been lost.  Though the items were not necessary for survival, the loss of them represented his plight and drove him to the edge of his confidence.  The next day he discovered that three of his arrows were flawed and useless.  That discovery furthered his hopelessness.

The ceasing of the rains brought out the snakes, poisonous lizards, and spiders.  So he found safety in the isolation of the canoe resting on the dark waters of the swollen stream.  Fear of reptiles and insects in the night was not his nature.  It was a sign of his despair.

The sounds from the frogs and the fog dripping into the stream established a rhythm in his mind that lulled him into a shallow sleep.  He saw his mother holding a child; his brother as a boy, chasing a boy; and he saw the face of a chief.  The face was unfamiliar, but somehow known to him.  The face was carved and crevassed with lines of wisdom.  He and the chief did not speak, but they communicated.  The young man asked the deepest of all questions.  The chief replied with the wisest of all answers.

The rhythm, silence, and sleep were broken by the crash of limbs.  The young man, though startled by the sound, began to breathe more deeply than he had in days.  His eyes searched the darkness.  Nothing could be seen.  He reached into the bottom of the rain‑filled canoe and found his bow.  It felt familiar in his hands.  His spirit began to rise.  He looked for an arrow.  Nocking the arrow into the bow, he waited.  The frogs had stopped.  The fog was quiet.  His heart was the only sound he could hear.  Suddenly the night crackled again with breaking limbs.  He shot the arrow into the night.  He never heard it land.  His stomach gnarled.  His heart stopped.  The despair began to creep back into his mind.

A familiar but unknown voice called to him from out of the forest, from out of the night.  “Aim higher and slightly to the left.”  The voice frightened him, but he quickly retrieved another arrow from the dampness of the boat.  He raised the bow and followed the instructions.  He held steady and fired.  Silence.  The voice said, “Center your courage, your wisdom, and your soul.”

The young man was suddenly no longer afraid.  He thanked the unseen moon for the challenging experiences of the past few days and became energized with the life or death situation in which he found himself.  His past, present, and future hung in the balance, on the accuracy of the flight of a single arrow.

He placed the arrow on the rawhide string, raised the bow high above his head, and with fluid, confident action lowered the bow until his hand touched his cheek and his eye sighted down the unseen arrow.  He fired into the darkness and heard a simultaneous thud and moan, the signal of his arrival into the leadership circle of his people.

He moved the canoe towards the quiet by pulling on the branches that hung above the stream.  When the canoe hit the shore, he reached forward and felt the familiar antlers of the fallen deer.  He dragged the deer into the boat.  Using it for a pillow, he drifted off into a deep and confident sleep.  The morning would be soon enough for feasting.  The night would bring rest and quiet celebration.