Chapter Three -What the Wind Said

The air this day was hot and moist with a pressure that spoke of rain one afternoon when Rise was reaching her fourth moon in the world. Her legs had grown long and her muscles strong and hard, though she still retained the tiny grace that set her so greatly apart from the rest of her brothers.

The great walking earth-mounds drifted along the edges of the river as they browsed on fresh grasses turning green with the rains and melt water from the mountains to the west. Small patches of wood collected around the banks here and there. The buffalo were too big to venture into the branches themselves, except for the calves who darted in and out of the woods in their games. Rise was small enough to be at home beneath the trees and bushes however, and she delighted in finding the sweet berries in the thicket to offer the old ones in exchange for the stories of things they knew and remembered.

Rise delighted in stories, though the old buffalo were slow to talk and when they did they never seemed to tell all that Rise felt could be said. They were creatures of few words, she supposed. She could speak to the rabbits and other diggers in the grasses, and the birds in the air as well, but they usually had even fewer words for her than the old buffalo did. Even the other calves did not seem to think quite as much as Rise, in her opinion; their only interests being grass and sun and seeing how much stronger than each other they could be. Still, she loved this gentle herd and what stories they had to share.

“Saw a great eagle once.” Old Gray-hump had been telling her just that morning as he munched his way thoughtfully through the grass. “Had wings-big-as-clouds and a cry like thunder.”

“So big! Do they look like the river-eagles with their white heads? How fast can they fly? What does such a big bird eat?” The small fawn wondered aloud. She knew hawks and the river-eagles ate the rabbits and mice in the fields, and sometimes caught other birds but she couldn’t imagine a rabbit big enough to feed an eagle with wings like clouds.

“No. Fast. Us.” The old bison chuckled, trying to keep up with her flood of questions. Then he went back to his grazing.

It took Rise a while to consider this. There had yet to be anything that had threatened her herd, though she had heard of coyotes that would try to kill smaller calves that wandered too far from their mothers. It frightened her to think of a creature, especially of a bird-kind, that would think of her earth-brothers as a meal. For the rest of the morning Rise had jumped in fright every time she had heard the river-eagles calling.

Now though, as she sat in the cool shade of the trees Rise wondered if these great eagles would even see her in her tiny form as anything of interest. It would be much like a hawk trying to eat a grasshopper, wouldn’t it? Maybe not, but the earth-brothers did not speak of the great eagles except in story and even then they were said to only ride the largest of storms that could sweep across the grasslands. Mostly, her earth-mother had said, they stayed far away in the mountains.

She watched a hawk circle the grasses, less looking for food then he was simply riding the warm air that lifted its way into the sky. Rise wondered what it would be like to fly with golden wings like the hawks and eagles. She tried to imagine what the earth-brothers must look like from above; great brown mounds perhaps? Like big piles of hill-dirt that moved?

She closed her eyes and dreamed of flying above the grasses, her legs spinning beneath her as she leaped above the heads of the earth-brothers. Rise laughed with joy as she flew east, towards a figure that stood waiting on a hilltop by two pillars that gave off light like the sun. Then a dark shadow loomed behind them and swallowed the shapes into its blackness.

The fawn cried out in fear and turned to flee back to her herd but she could not see them in the plains. Then, almost as if in response to her cry, a deep rumble of thunder rolled across the plains and Rise was buffeted by great winds that threw her from the sky. As she tumbled to the ground she could hear the cries of an eagle above her, booming with the thunder in its great voice.

Rise turned her head upwards from the grass and spied an eagle with wings made of the great storm clouds that boiled through the air. The bird peered down at her as it flew, it’s golden-yellow eye piercingly fixed and terrifying. She cowered before it’s gaze, and yet was transfixed as the bird circled closer and closer. Was everything in the world bigger than she?

With one last long look, the great eagle turned itself to the east and swallowed up the hilltop and it’s shadows in the great bands of rain that fell from it’s wings. The wind swept along behind it, tossing the grasses in all directions and carrying with it a scent...

Rise turned her head towards the mountains to the west where the eagle had come from, and lifted her nose, trying to catch the last faint strains of its sweetness. Rich earth... cool waters... deep forest... and... deer.

She woke to the pattering of rain on her pelt and the call of her earth-mother to come back to the herd. Rise darted to her brother’s side and together they took shelter in the crook of her mother’s legs while the rain fell around them. She could only smell the wet-and-musk of her earth-brother’s hides and the spicy-fresh tang of the sky around them, but as the storm passed over them, she pondered her dream.

* * *

“What lies to the west?” Rise asked her earth-mother the next morning as they shook themselves of the dew and began to move across the grasses again.

“Mountains. Sky. Trees.” The great buffalo-mother replied, chewing thoughtfully. “Wind, and rain I think too. It all comes from there.”

“Will we ever go there?” Rise questioned, wondering many things but trying to ask only one question at a time. Are there great eagles there? Does it always rain or is there sun too? Is it hot? Cold? Are there others like me...

“Once in a long time the herd goes west.” Her earth-mother replied, turning her wide nose towards the mountains. “But there are more dangers there too.”

“What kind of dangers?”

“Coyotes that stink of musk and snow and are big as the gazelle. Tall cliffs and sharp rocks. And great eagles.” The buffalo-mother turned herself back to her grazing and Rise knew she would get no more answers from her for now. It seemed to take effort for the earth-brothers to speak long.

“What lies to the west?” Rise asked Old Gray-hump later in the day as he readied to nap in the sun.

“Nothing for me.” He snorted, though his eyes were less annoyed than they were amused. “The west is far. Do not wonder beyond what you have, little rabbit.”

“Have you ever been there?” She pressed, her long ears twitching themselves much like the creature he had nick-named her after.

“Yes.” He said after a long time. “When I was young.”

“What did you see there? Was that where you saw the great eagle? Were there forests?” Rise pranced excitedly as her questions bubbled out before she could slow herself.

The old buffalo laughed and shook the flies from his hump. “I saw what I saw. Yes.”

“And the forests?” Rise asked again. “Where there forests?”

“Trees that grew up the sides of the rocks, yes.” He nodded. “And once...”

He paused again and turned his great shaggy head west, looking with eyes that were slowly growing milky with age.

“Once, in a mist I saw a forest.” He said finally.

“Were there others like me there?” Rise shifted from hoof to hoof hoping he would continue. The wise old earth-brother turned his head to study her and then gave a yawn.

“Yes.” He said before closing his eyes. She knew he had given her all the answers he would about this matter but her tiny heart beat with excitement.

What lies to the west... Rise thought at the hawk that flew over the prairie that evening. Will I ever see it for myself? She turned her nose to the mountains and strained to catch a scent of anything beyond her grassy world. The buffalo-musk and grass was all she could smell.

Yes... she thought she heard on the wind as she settled next to her earth-mother her brother-calf that night. Faintly, like the memory of a song she could not quite hear, it came drifting across the land. Soon...