Wabi

by Joseph Bruchac

  Although meadow mice certainly were tasty. Urp. I took a breath and then coughed up a nice firm ball of little crunched bones and hair. What a pleasant reminder of a good meal an owl pellet is! I spat it out and heard it fall into the soft snow that had drifted around the roots of the cedar.

  “Back where you came from,” I hooted softly. “Thank you for feeding me. Now become another mouse.”

  Speaking our thanks whenever we cough up a pellet is one of our oldest customs.

  It was Great-grandmother who taught me the reason.

  “The Great Darkness meant for us to always be thankful. The little scampering ones keep us alive by making themselves easy for us to eat. Those little balls of fur and bones that we spit out onto the ground will make more of those little scampering ones for us to eat in the seasons to come. We do not eat their spirits, only their little bodies. We eat them, then we give back their bones. If we did not give thanks, their spirits would go far away where we could not find them. And then we would have no more food. Always remember to give thanks, great-grandson.”

  It made good sense, and I had noticed that even the human beings expressed their thanks for the food they were given. I’d watched a human hunter do so just the other day after he killed a moose.

  But it was so hard for humans to get their food. They didn’t just gulp it down whole the way we owls usually did with most of our food. Humans had to spend much effort taking off the skins—not even with their own mouths, but with cutting tools that they struggled to make. Then they had to cut out the meat and gather wood for making fires to burn that good food because their weak little mouths and delicate stomachs could not accept it unless it was cooked. How sad!

  The night was almost over. Perhaps there was just time for one more brief hunt. But for some reason I didn’t feel like hunting. Instead I wanted to visit the village where my humans were.

  They were no longer in the village below the falls. When the season changed, they had moved to another place. They did this every year, moving their little village to be near their food. When they lived below the falls, much of what they ate was fish. But in the season of snow they moved upland to hunt the big animals. Without wings they couldn’t go from one place to another as quickly as an owl can. So they moved everything and everyone, leaving the frames of their old nests behind and making new ones in their new village. It was so much harder to be a human than an owl.

  By the time I reached Snow Season Village, the light of the Day Fire had returned. I hid myself in a snowy pine to watch. The humans were already awake and their little ones were playing a game I had not seen before. As I had hoped, Dojihla, the little girl I had protected from the gagwanisagwa, was among them.

  I liked watching her. Even though she was far from the largest child, she seemed to be their leader. They were sliding down the smooth snow on the hill behind their village. They slid on their bellies like otters. I could hear their shrieks as they did so. I used to think those were sounds of distress, but I had learned that it was their way of laughing. Not as expressive a sound as the little chuckle we owls make, but I liked it.

  The more I watched, the more enjoyable their game appeared. Dojihla seemed to delight in both tripping the larger boys and carefully helping the smallest children through the deep snow. I was glad to see that she seemed to be much more watchful than any of the others. One who is always looking and listening is more likely to survive. She even cast her eyes my way, peering suspiciously into the place where I was concealed in the pine. But I was deep in the branches and my white feathers blended in so well that I am sure she could not see me.

  Before long some of the bigger humans came out and joined the little ones. Dojihla’s big brother was among them, carrying a large, flat piece of bark. By sitting on the bark he could go down the slope almost as fast as if he had wings. Just before he went down the second time, though, Dojihla sneaked up behind him with an armful of snow that she dropped on his head. He laughed and threw snow back at her. The other humans joined in, laughing loudly. The oldest of the humans, those who walked not with two legs but with three, using a stick as another leg, came out of their nests. They were laughing too.

  As I watched them, I felt a warmth in my heart that I had not felt before. We owls seldom gather together in a group, and no owl had ever played a game like that. I wished that I could join in. Strangely, instead of being happy, I now felt sad. I could watch no longer.

  I took flight from the pine tree, my wings spreading a cloud of snow as I did so. I know that Dojihla heard me. From high above I saw her staring at the cloud of snow still falling from the branch where I had been. But none of the other happy humans noticed. They were playing and laughing and shouting so loudly that they would not even have noticed some great monster coming out of the dark forest to destroy them. Just in case, I made a big circle around the village, but I saw nothing more dangerous than a few panicky white rabbits.

  I flew until I came to another hill of snow like the one they had been sliding upon. I landed at the top of the hill and looked around. There was no person or bird or animal anywhere in sight.

  How was it that they did it? I leaned forward until my chest was almost touching the snow. Then I leaned farther forward and kicked with my feet. But instead of sliding, I buried myself in the snow. I stood up, shaking the snow out of my beak and eyes.

  Foolish, I thought. Wabi, you are foolish. It is better to be an owl than a human.

  But as I flew back to my roosting place to sleep through the day, I kept thinking of that whole village of humans laughing and playing together. Were we owls really the most favored of all the creatures made by the Great Darkness? Perhaps being a human was almost as good as being an owl.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Greedy Eater

  I FLEW SLOWLY OVER THE meadow below the beaver pond. Sure enough, there he was, making his way through the grass. Just like an owl, he was hunting for mice. Although mice were not the only things he hoped to find. It was the season to dig for grubs, and any unwary cricket or grasshopper would also be fair game.

  As he would be for an owl as big as I was. He neither saw nor heard me coming as I swooped down—to land right in front of him. He jumped back, startled. He lifted his tail and stomped his front feet, turning in a half circle to display more clearly the broad white stripe that ran from the top of his head all the way to the end of his fluffy tail.

  “I’ll shoot, I’ll shoot,” he chirruped at me. “Watch out! Watch out!”

  Much good that would do him against an owl. I almost chuckled, but then remembered why I had been searching for this one.

  “Segunk,” I hooted softly. “Smelly One. Be calm. Do not use your weapon.”

  “Why not? Why not?” he chirruped again, stomping his feet a little more softly this time.

  “Look at me,” I said. “I am an owl. Even if you shoot me with your weapon, it would not bother me. I would still eat you.”

  This was true and the skunk knew it. We horned owls are the only ones who regularly hunt skunks. Their smell does not bother us at all. We find it rather pleasant. It does not even stick to our feathers. Of all the various creatures great and small, we are the only ones that skunks fear.

  Segunk lifted his tail even higher, still threatening me but beginning to look confused. Why would an owl talk with a creature he intended to eat? Skunks are not good at thinking. With a weapon such as theirs, thought is seldom necessary.

  “No, no,” he chirruped, doing a little half circle of a dance. “No, no. If I do not shoot, if I do not shoot, you will eat me, you will eat me.”

  “No,” I said, speaking very simply so that he could understand. “Help me and I will not eat you. Help me and I will never bother you again.”

  Slowly, Segunk lowered his tail.

  The cave’s mouth was so well hidden in the tangle of dead tree limbs that it did not seem that large. But I knew that the creature that hid within that cave was not a small one. It had piled those dead branches
to conceal its hiding place. I was the only one who knew that it had taken shelter there.

  I could smell its thick odor. It was not a sharp stinging smell like Segunk’s—a scent that meant life, powerful life. The scent of this creature was different. Even though it was sickeningly sweet, I knew that it meant death.

  Why did I know the creature was there? Aside from being able to smell it from a look away? It was because I kept such close watch over my village of human beings. I had been doing this for a dozen turns of the seasons. I had watched their nestlings grow—especially Dojihla. She had grown tall and strong over the past three winters. I liked the way she gathered flowers in the spring and wove them into little circles to place on the heads of the small children. I liked the way she told her older brother and her parents in such great detail about all the things she had done each day. (Having good owl ears and a conveniently thick tree to conceal myself in made it easy for me to listen. And I never fell asleep while she was in the middle of a story, as her brother often did.) Of all the humans, she was the one I most enjoyed watching and listening to. I even enjoyed watching her bully the other children of her own age, telling them what they should or should not do.

  At times, I wondered what it was about humans, and this one human girl in particular, that attracted me. Or what it was about me.

  I was now a fully mature owl, yet I had no interest in finding another owl as a mate. Instead, whenever I was not hunting or sleeping, I stayed close to the humans, watching and keeping watch.

  Which had led me to this new creature. It had come crawling and skulking down from the broken cliffs a few days ago. It looked something like a big human being. But it was not. Its teeth were long and sharp, its hands clawed, its little eyes as yellow as pine pitch. Its elbows and knees bent strangely and it did not walk upright. It was one of those monsters that I had heard the humans tell stories about when they wanted to frighten their little ones into obedience.

  “If you do not share your food, you will turn into one of those awful beings. You will become a mojid, a Greedy Eater.”

  I loved to hide in a nearby tree when human stories were being told. Some of them were fine ones. Others, I must admit, were rather foolish, for they indicated that the Great Darkness—who they called the Great Mystery—liked humans better than all others.

  “Not humans!” I hooted out one night in spite of myself when I heard such a silly thing said. “Owls are the favorite ones!”

  I had been a little too loud, and the storyteller stopped his words.

  “Shall I go out and throw a stick at that owl?” I heard a certain young woman’s voice ask the storyteller. I knew that voice: Dojihla, of course. She was just like me in that whenever a story was being told, she was eager to listen. As usual, I enjoyed hearing her talk, despite the rude action she had just suggested.

  “No,” the old man answered in an amused voice. “When you hear an owl call that way, it is a good thing. It means no enemy is nearby. If there was any danger out there, that owl would be frightened and make a cry of alarm and fly away.”

  “Gracccck,” I muttered, clacking my beak. “That shows how much you know about owls.”

  I had heard several stories about mojidak. None of them were pleasant. As I watched that Greedy Eater skulk its way down out of the hills, I realized that the stories had been true. It really was unpleasant, disgusting, and dangerous.

  Unfortunately, it was also elusive. Somehow it heard that first big rock I dropped and it jumped aside. Too bad. That stone would have split its head open like an egg.

  It ran into the cave before I could get back with another rock. I wondered where this mojid came from. Probably from someplace where it had just eaten its whole family. According to the human stories, that is what the mojidak do—they eat each other as readily as they devour almost anything else that moves.

  I couldn’t go into the cave after it. I made a pile of stones on the top of the cliff and waited patiently. But it was crafty. It refused to come out. Sooner or later, it hoped, I would abandon my vigil and it would be able to make its way close enough to the village. I didn’t even want to think about what it might do there.

  It was holed up in that cave, but it was not about to starve. Somehow, perhaps when I was off gathering more stones, it had managed to catch some small creature. I had heard something whimpering and then growling in weak but brave defiance from inside that cave. But the mojid had not yet eaten it. Greedy Eaters like to torture and play with their food before they kill it. I decided I could wait no longer. That is why I enlisted Segunk’s help.

  Segunk looked pleased as he stood in front of the cave mouth. There is always something self-satisfied about a skunk when it is about to confront a bigger creature that doesn’t know what sort of surprise it has coming.

  “I go in now?” Segunk chirped, balancing himself on his two front legs and hopping forward. “I go in now?”

  “Go,” I hooted, nodding my head.

  Segunk trotted to the cave mouth, slid through the piled branches, and looked into the darkness.

  “Hello,” Segunk called out. “Here I am, little creature good to eat. Here I am.” He vanished into the cave.

  Although I flew up to my pile of rocks to pick a good heavy one, I could still hear what was happening below. Segunk’s little feet were picking their way in deeper and deeper. The sound of the Greedy Eater’s breathing was growing heavier as it became more excited about a foolish little one actually entering his lair.

  Then I heard the mojid’s voice.

  “I have you!” he snarled.

  “Something else, something else I have,” Segunk chirruped.

  Pssssssshhhhhhhh!

  “AH-GAH, AH-GAH.” The sound of the mojid’s choking coughs as he tried to escape those stinging fumes echoed loudly.

  “AH-GAH, AH-GAH.” The mojid came stumbling out of the cave. He rubbed his yellow eyes that were so blinded, he could not see anything. Including my nice heavy stone.

  The sound was very satisfying. It was a combination of a thonk and a splat.

  I dropped down to land by the creature’s body just as Segunk came strolling out of the cave. Almost all of his spray had been absorbed by the monster, so the little creature that came stumbling out of the cave behind Segunk was sneezing from the smell but wasn’t completely blinded.

  It was the one I had heard whimpering and growling. I sat there as it came up to me. I suppose I should have flown off, but for some reason I did not understand, I stayed.

  It was a wolf cub. It trotted up to me, sneezed one more time, and then looked right into my eyes. Then it whined and licked my beak with its tongue.

  Segunk was quietly making his way back down into the meadow. But the wolf cub showed no signs of wanting to go anywhere. It nuzzled me with its nose.

  Strange, I thought. Then I leaned forward to preen the hair on the back of its neck with my beak.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Wolf Cub

  DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH food a wolf cub eats?

  Too much, that is how much.

  I probably should not have fed him. But he looked so starved that it just seemed like the right thing to do. It was made especially clear when, as I was preening his fur with my beak (now, why did I do that?), he looked up at me and whimpered something in a soft little voice.

  Because of that strange gift of understanding that my great-grandmother told me she and I shared, I knew what his whimpers meant.

  Malsumsis hungry. Want to eat.

  I turned my head around to look back at the dead mojid. The wolf pup—Malsumsis, as he called himself—turned his body to follow my gaze. The mojid’s smell had been sickeningly sweet before being struck by Segunk’s spray. Malsumsis wrinkled up his nose. Now it was totally disgusting. Not good food at all. I wondered if even the turkey buzzards that were now circling overhead would eat it.

  Malsumsis turned back to me. His eyes looked up into mine and he whined again.

  Hungry.

 
Then he leaned against me with his shoulder.

  He almost knocked me over. I looked bigger than him and I was certainly much stronger, but owls are not heavy creatures. Our bones are hollow and our feathers, though bulky, are light. That is why we are able to ride the wind as we do. Even though this wolf puppy was half my size and underfed, he was heavier than me.

  I hopped back and examined him. His coat, except where I had preened it, was scruffy. Ribs showed along his sides. He had gone without food for longer than the brief time he’d been held in that cave by the Greedy Eater. This was strange. I’d watched wolf packs many times in the past. I always enjoyed the way they played with their little ones, fed them and cared for them. It wasn’t just the mothers and fathers of the cubs that took care of them, but all of the adults of their pack.

  Then it came to me. It had been a long time since I’d heard the night singing of the wolf pack that ranged the woods above the waterfall. At least two full moons had come and gone. Had this little one belonged to the Upriver Pack?

  “Where are your parents? Your pack?”

  He lowered his head till his nose touched the ground.

  I waited, rocking from side to side, but he said nothing.

  Finally, I broke the silence. “Wait here,” I hooted. “I’ll be back.”

  It was a good night for hunting. It didn’t take long at all for me to come back with a nice fat bunny. It would have been a full night’s food for me, but Malsumsis made short work of it, then licked his chops and asked for more.

  Two bunnies, six mice, and four voles later, he was finally full . . . and I was exhausted. The sun would soon rise. It was time for me to rest.

  I opened my wings to take flight. I had just enough energy left to fly back to my roosting place on the other side of the valley.