Fishbone's Song

by Gary Paulsen

  Had to see that. See the center of his story-songs.

  That’s how it started, how I started.

  Started to think that way.

  It wasn’t the dream about the room getting bigger and bigger. Same dream over and over. It was the edge of the dream. Fishbone tried to help me see that and in the end he did. I’d see past what I was looking at, or over it, or through it, inside it.

  Saw in a book the blue-haired woman sent me about Native American people in the Southwest. Hard to read, full of ideas that were just that, ideas. What this man thought or that man thought, but just that. What they thought. No real answers in the writing of the book. But there were some pictures as well, drawings that the natives had done on flat rocks, kind of scratched-in line drawings. One was a deer, easy to tell, sideways drawing of a buck deer. But on the inside of the lines of the drawing were more drawings, almost like doctor drawings of the guts of the deer. Plus it showed an arrow in the center of the chest, front shoulder, where the heart was. Arrow through the heart. Then all the rest of the guts. How they went from the throat down into the stomach and then around and around and out the rear and at first it seemed like just that. Drawing of a deer. Somebody had taken one—with a pointed stick or arrow—and when they opened it up, they saw the guts and drew them.

  Saw inside the deer.

  That’s what I thought at first. Just drawing the inside. But then I thought—talked to Fishbone about it—what if it was more. A deer would have been almost impossible to kill then. Too fast to run down, too quick to spear. Have to sneak up to get close before shooting it with an arrow. Anybody who got one had to be really good or really lucky, and for anybody living on roots and small rodents and maybe even snakes and lizards, like Fishbone said, a deer would be an almost unbelievable amount of food. Don’t think I could eat a lizard. Maybe a snake. But not a lizard.

  Two things.

  First, you’d want to tell everybody about it. About shooting the deer. And so you’d draw the first part. Maybe a little bit of brag. Pride. You got close enough one way or another and you shot an arrow through the heart of a deer. Definitely something to brag about. But then when you opened the deer, you’d want to show where everything was for anybody else who shot a deer. Where the heart is. And the lungs. Showing how to do it. . . .

  Not just a drawing but a graph. A map. A map of how to hunt, how to kill.

  How to live in that moment, that second, when you are going to shoot a pointed stick into a deer, and if you do it wrong, you and your family might starve. But if you see this map, this drawing, and you do it right, if this drawing that goes way past just bragging, gets you to do the shot just exactly right . . .

  So the drawing goes past the killing of the deer, past the edge of that small dream and of killing this one deer, and shows more.

  More.

  And I knew then that the idea works on all things. That you can say or tell about something and in the open it will mean one thing but there will be an inside, another part that can mean something else, mean more. Tell more. Teach more.

  So I came to know, to understand, that Fishbone wasn’t just telling me stories. He was making maps for me, a way to go, to know, to learn, and I found myself doing the same thing.

  To me. I would do it to myself. Teach myself. I would see more of something, a bush, a plant, an animal or bug. Where I used to see it one way, now I would see more, see inside it some way. Would think into it. Think inside it. And because of that I would know the thing I was watching better than I would have known it before. When I would just see it and not know it.

  Like stovesmoke. Move around and through what I was seeing, hearing, studying like stovesmoke moving through the trees. Like Fishbone said, like he showed, like he told me when he said I moved through the woods like stovesmoke. Worked on this the same way.

  Watched a spider for most of a morning. Sat in the soft morning sun and watched the spider weave an almost perfect circular web eight or ten inches across. Small gray spider, about as big as my thumbnail. The web was beautiful, thin strands in a complete circle with short cross strips to tighten it. Like it had been drawn in a plan and the spider followed the plan. Perfect.

  I’ve seen webs like this before. Sometimes walked through them when they were stretched between two branches across a trail.

  But now I was different and I squatted down to see more, learn more. Saw that the web seemed to capture bits of moisture from the air. Like dew. Tiny drops that looked like diamonds when the light hit them from the back. The spider moved off to the side of the web, where it had a small cone-shaped tunnel.

  Sat there. Watching as I did and I wondered if the spider had pride about the web, the perfect web, hung between two branches. If the spider thought that the water droplets were beautiful, jewel-like, as I did. Dawned on me then that anything that could make something that perfect, that beautiful, must know about it. Know how good, how pretty it was. Or why would they do it? Why make everything exactly perfect if you couldn’t like it? Love it. Know how it looked.

  So I sat there. Watched. Saw the spider make the web, took most of the morning, and when I would have gone, I stayed. Tried to think how it was for the spider, what it meant and then, and then . . .

  It happened.

  One bark moth, gray and spotted, came wheeling through the gap and hit the web, became tangled, struggled and wiggled so the framework of the web shook and the spider came barreling out of the cone-shaped nest, ran across the web to the moth, bit it once, which paralyzed it—with venom that powerful, I was glad spiders weren’t as big as dogs—and turned the moth over and over, three or four times, wrapping it in strands of web to keep it there, hold it there, and was almost done, turning away, when a mosquito hit the web on the opposite side from the moth.

  Caught.

  Tangled and snagged, much smaller than the moth, but still food for the spider, who moved from the moth, ran back across the web, injected the mosquito, tied it with two quick wraps, and then left it and went back to the moth.

  A thing to see, to tell Fishbone. But how did it know? How did the spider know to wrap the moth several times, the mosquito with two quick wraps, then back to the moth, which it took into his funnel home and ate while I watched? Ate it all while it moved to the mouth of the little tunnel and kept one of his four eyes, or maybe more than one, on the mosquito, which was still in the web.

  Finished with the moth, having sucked the body completely dry, he threw the empty carcass out, off the web, then ran back for the mosquito body and brought it back to the nest. Tied it up to the side of the tunnel.

  But didn’t eat it.

  Saving it for later. Maybe. Probably.

  But again, it all had to be thought out. Everything he did, was doing, had to be thought of, an idea, and then followed through. A plan. He had to make a plan, think it all out, eat one bug, the moth, save the next for when he was hungry again. But not leave it out where something else could get at it. He brought the mosquito back into his tunnel, his house. Hung it up for later.

  All thought out. Where to put the web up, how to build the web, how to wait and watch, how to deal with the moth, then the mosquito. How to save food. How . . .

  How to think, I said to Fishbone that evening. Sitting with a cat. New cat, just showed up, purring and meowing. Kind of scraggly and beat-up, but just jumped up in Fishbone’s lap and made himself to home. Or herself. Could have been either way. Hard to tell. Old Blue dog five or six was there too, down by the rocker, but he and the cat had worked things out between them and they just sat, or laid, listening. Seeming to listen except the dog was mostly asleep. Now and then twitching an eyelid half-open, then closing it slowly. Big old hound. Mostly ate and goobered spit on things when he shook his head. Spit on the walls, the ceiling boards, the stove. Big lips, big drool. But Fishbone liked him. Said he had a lot of love in him, so he was worth a little spit here and there.

  He knew how to think, I said again. The spider knew things, how to wor
k things out and make them happen. He hunted, snared with the web. He was a better hunter than me. Thought things out better than I did. Brain the size of the head of a pin, if that, and he was better than me.

  Shook his head. Not better. Same as. Same as you, same as me.

  Spiders, I said. Bugs. We’re all the same. Not really a question this time. Just said it.

  All things, all things. Have the same things to need. Food, air, kind of shelter, other things like us, so we’re not alone. More food, more air, water. Doesn’t matter if you’re us, or a bug or a leaf on a tree.

  But you’re alone.

  Not in myself, not in my head. Have all the people I knew, all the dogs and cats, all the air I breathed, all the food I ate, all the beauty I’ve seen and still see. Got you, got this dog, this cat. Got the squirrel we’re going to have for an evening meal with gravy and biscuits. Got a roof over my head . . .

  But, I said.

  Got life. Got a life. Same as you, same as the dog here or the cat . . .

  Or the squirrel.

  Same as, long nod. He had a life. It all starts and goes and it all ends. Like the moth the spider killed and ate, the mosquito, the squirrel. Pretty soon I’ll go, then the worms get me.

  No, I said.

  Another slow nod. Then a sigh, like held air going out. Shoes moving, shuffle-pat, shuffle-pat. For sure, for sure. I’m old. I’m old past where it’s supposed to go, where it’s supposed to be. Sometimes I can’t remember a thing itself, only the shadow of what it was. Woman, place, money, good food—just the shadow of what it was. Had a really good dog once, just good, now only remember the good that he was, good that he did. Can’t remember quite how he looked, same as the forever woman, only remember how she was, how she seemed, maybe how she smelled, how the air around her moved, but not her. Quite. Almost but not quite. Only how she was in my memory.

  Remember the chiggers and snakes in Fort Sill, but not hearing the men who had been drafted against their will who weren’t from the country. City men, never saw a hard day, crying alone in the barracks at night. No real thought on that, how it sounded, only what it meant. First time away from home, some to die, some to live, but never able to be that thing again, that thing at home. Remember that, but not the true sound of the crying. Soft crying because they were soft and had to be hard. Had to learn to be hard. And it was hurting them to make them hard. Some of them couldn’t do it. Stood with blood running out of their noses and their rear ends. Remember all that, can feel all of that, but not quite how it sounded. Men crying. Same later in the hospital where they worked on my bullet holes from Korea. Remember that men cried but can’t remember the sound of it. Same for the screams when they pulled steel out of some. Maybe me. Remember there were screams, but not how they sounded. That’s gone. The true of it is gone.

  Just shadows.

  But they’re more real in a way. Memory gets fuzzy, like smoke in wind, but the thing of it, the center of it, the body of it, stays true. Can’t remember how my ma looked, only that when I got bit by a snake and wasn’t supposed to live, she sat with me and wiped my temples with a soft wet rag that was a piece of little sister’s diaper cloth. Remember the rag. How it felt. Cool, soft; and the sound she made, like music way off, but I can’t remember a hair on her head. How she looked. Not a thing. Just the way she was, not how she looked.

  Same for you. You saw the spider, the way it was, but later, when you’ve got years on you, only the shadow of the spider . . .

  How smart it was.

  How it saved its food.

  How it could, and did, think.

  And it will fill your brain and help you to reason, to think, to understand things you see, things you can’t even dream on now. It’s like having a special set of your own tools. Carry them with you all the time, wherever you go. Shadow memories, just sitting there, waiting to be used.

  And I did.

  Might have been thirteen then, or fourteen, maybe fifteen. Didn’t matter how old I was. Only how my brain worked. How I could learn things.

  Hunted with the bow and cane arrows that whole summer but didn’t shoot anything big. Squirrels, grouse, now and then a rabbit. Fish. Now and again crawfish. Saw things, saw everything I wanted to see. Saw it all clear and for sure deep, for sure. Went to studying on spiders, more spiders. They’re probably the best hunters and I wanted to be a better hunter. Lot of them used webs across the trail, across any opening they found. Not all pretty, like that first one. Sometimes just a few strands stretched like a split-rail fence. Something flies through and just catches one wing on a strand, and they’re all sticky, and it wiggles and wraps itself. A few spiders live in little holes in the ground with a tiny trapdoor on top, and when something walks by, it will shake a strand of web back into the hole, like a warning line, and the spider jumps out and takes it. Some spiders just stretch a kind of web between two long front legs and hang on a single web across the trail, completely still as if nothing is there, and when something walks by, it will kind of throw its web down on the target and drop in for the kill.

  I turned spider.

  I quit shooting things with the bow and went to trapping with the roll of wire. The bow was all right, but sometimes if the cane arrow didn’t hit just right, it was kind of slow, not calm and easy. Little too much flopping. So I’d settle in for the evening with a soft camp, good fire, and before hard dark I’d put out a couple of wire snares. If I was after rabbits, I’d put the snares in a grass tunnel, where they ran all the time. Like little highways. If I was working on gray squirrels, I’d read the ground where they came off the tree to find food at night—always a little mark in the dirt where they left the tree—and go back up the tree about three feet and make a small noose with the wire, tied off to a limb. Then from the snare I’d run a long piece of small, braided fishing line back to the campsite, tied around my finger. Something hit the snare and I’d come awake, take up a small wood club, maybe a piece of firewood, one whack and done.

  Stew.

  Meat.

  Anything more than I needed I’d take back for Fishbone when I came off the run, the circle. Might be overnight, might be two nights. Never much more. Fry the meat up with bacon grease and flour gravy, and either some biscuits or a couple of thin sliced potatoes, and have it with cold creek water to drink. Except Fishbone would sip ’shine with his food, or black coffee so strong it would near hold a spoon upright. Sometimes a little ’shine in his coffee. Just a touch. I didn’t drink coffee at night, only sometimes in the morning, and never drank ’shine. Made my brain into mush and if I drank strong coffee at night, I’d stay up half the night, and pile bad dreams on things when I finally did sleep. Have green monsters. Once dreamed an alligator dragged me into the creek to stick me under a log until I softened up for him to swallow. One of the books the blue-haired lady sent me had a picture of crocodiles and said how they kept meat underwater under old logs to rot until they could swallow it whole. Read that and then drink strong coffee before you go to bed and I guarantee you’re going to have bad dreams. Monsters. Crocodiles. Alligators.

  After we ate, we’d sit on the porch and I would tell him about the loop I had made, the hunt, what I had seen and done and learned, try to tell him the inside of the inside of the very inside of things, try to draw not just the deer but the workings of it. The wind, how it was blowing, how the woods smelled in the morning wet, and the hot afternoon, every sound, every part of it, and he would nod, nod, and sip ’shine and shuffle his old boot on the porch boards and tell me story-songs. Stories that would fit into what I had been telling him so that it wouldn’t just be about a squirrel or a rabbit or a deer I had seen, wouldn’t just be about my hunting, what I saw, but would mix in with when he was guiding elk hunts in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming not too far from where Custer and the Seventh Cavalry got wiped out. So hunting would mix with sad battles, joy mixed with misery, beauty mixed with ugly . . .

  All there in my brain, in my thinking.

  And I knew. />
  I knew.

  Knew that it would not last forever. That I would go on bigger and bigger loops in the woods, longer and longer until maybe like the Old Blue hounds, I would find a different place to be, to think, to live. Or I would come back and Fishbone would be gone, would still be there, the shell, the body sitting in the chair but the inside would be gone, maybe to see Jesus or his baby sister or his ma that he couldn’t remember. Gone.

  Had to happen. I was always going longer and longer, trying to see more, and it would be hard to get back if I went much farther. Had to push the edge of the dream out and out. Had to see my own life, my own self, how I would turn out and why I would become whichever way I went.

  Or Fishbone would be gone. He was old, creaking old, rocking-chair old. Said once everybody he knew was gone, dead and gone. So either I would run so long there was no coming back or Fishbone would go. Away. Inside himself.

  One or the other.

  But not now.

  Not just yet.

  For the now we had, the very now that we had, we would keep eating meat fried in bacon grease with gravy and biscuits and I would talk about what I saw, and Fishbone would tell story-songs with his boots shuffle-patting on the board floor of the porch while he kept time and wove my stories into his stories. Closed his eyes and dozed into his memories so I could learn, I could be more, could grow more while he sipped ’shine and danced in his thoughts.

  That was how it would stay.

  For now.

  Just for now.

  GARY PAULSEN is one of the most honored writers of contemporary literature for young people, author of three Newbery Honor titles: Dogsong, Hatchet, and The Winter Room. He has written more than two hundred books for adults and young readers. He divides his time between New Mexico, Alaska, and on the Pacific.

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