by Tim Westover
#
The dog smells burning.
His lungs expand into being, drawing deep the scents of fire and danger and humans in need. The meadow and the ridge, as always, are vastly different from the last time the dog saw them. Gone is the acrid fire billowing into the air, coming from all directions at once and from none. Gone is the artificial thunder rumbling as the dog had never heard it before, rolling across the plain covered in smoke and dead horses and ten thousand dying boys. In place of blood-churned mud is an endless expanse of flat grey rock, smooth and rough at the same time beneath paws which grow more solid with each footfall.
He’s slightly disoriented by the many lights glittering in the darkness glittering brighter than stars above but without heat, without smoke. The heat and smoke come from the human dwelling on the other side of the flat stone river, roiling silently out into the cool night.
The dog pads quickly across the unfamiliar smooth stone, ducking between two hulking hollow metal boulders smelling strangely of battle, of ozone and old coal. Doesn’t matter. He knows what has drawn him here, what always draws him to this place; inside that human dwelling are a man and a woman and their two children. They sleep, not knowing the breath in their lungs will soon be replaced with smoke if not for the dog coming from so far away to wake them, to lead them from the burning and the fire and the death.
Briefly, the dog is filled with the memory of that perfect day an aeon ago—though of course the dog doesn’t know aeons. At this moment, as his shadowy form passes through the flimsy artificial wood of a suburban dwelling, what the dog knows is the memory of that morning of perfect happiness when he lay on his side on packed earth, two human toddlers tugging his ears in play before curling into his warmth so the three of them could sleep in the sunshine, breathing the distant scent of ash carried from over the ridge on gentle summer breezes.
To Gnaw the Bones of the Wolf-Mother
Sean Taylor
It was supposed that lost spirits were roving about everywhere in the invisible air, waiting for children to find them if they searched long and patiently enough.
—Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket), Salish
The words of my people are all I have. They are law to me. In those words, I am called Wolf Cub with Child Eyes. But today is the day I become a man, and then my people will know me by another name—a name neither they nor I know yet.
A name Yowa will choose for me, a name the wilderness will prove is mine.
Then my name will also be law, even as my people are known by our name—the Aniyunwiya.
“Cub,” my father says to me. “Today, you are still a boy. You must be ready.”
“I am ready,” I tell him, “to be a man.”
He laughs. “Patience, Cub.” His eyes turn down, dark and serious. “Your quest will be dangerous. Some boys do not return.”
“And they go to Yowa, Father.”
“Yes,” he says and nods like one of the white settlers below, low in the valleys, afraid to live higher because of the wolves and other beasts. “But I am not eager for you to go that far away yet. I would have more time with you here in our home.”
“And I would sooner die than fail to become a man.”
He laughs and grips my shoulder with one calloused hand. “Then you are almost a man already.”
The warriors have gathered in a circle outside our hut, and my father leads me out to join them. The oldest of them, a grey-haired man of wrinkles and a back bent like a curve in a river, stands with the aid of a staff and points to me. “Come, Wolf Cub with Child Eyes,” he says.
And I do, leaving my father to take his place in the circle of warriors.
The old one, who is called Leader by law but Gentle Bear by the men of the tribe, crouches down on one knee beside the fire and bids me sit in front of him. He reaches into his shirt and retrieves a pipe. I look back at my father, who ignores me and chants softly with the other men. Gentle Bear pushes a branch into the fire and holds it there until it burns, then shoves the flaming end into the open mouth of the pipe. Smoke billows up from it, and a pungent smell makes me shiver and cough.
Gentle Bear laughs, then tells me that a man could inhale the smoke without coughing like a child. He offers the pipe to me, and I take it. The men around us chant louder:
May Yowa speak to this boy and make him a man.
May the winds and the rains challenge this boy and make him strong.
May the beasts torment this boy and make him brave.
May Yowa speak and bring this boy back to us a man.
Having witnessed the ceremony many times before from the door of our hut, I know what to do, and I rest the mouthpiece of the pipe between my lips. I take a deep breath, then let it go. The wind kisses the back of my neck where my hair is tied into a single braid by leather strips. A beast howls in the far-off woodlands. The fire beside me crackles.
And I suck the pungent smoke into my chest.
I want to cough.
I want to cry.
But a man can inhale the smoke without coughing like a child.
The wait seems to last the rest of the night, but I know it is only a few moments, and eventually, Gentle Bear rises and pulls me up by my hand.
Standing comes to me with more difficulty than before. My body seems to have lost the ability to balance, and my legs seem to be as heavy as the stones that change the river’s course.
But Gentle Bear is not challenged by my sudden weakness. He simply holds my arm high, and the warriors break the circle and walk by me in single file, each clasping my arm and smiling as he passes.
