Leap of Faith
by Donna Morgan

Ye-nah watched the silver mist rise in the river valley below his perch on the cliff high above his peoples’ village. Rays of light touched the mist with hints of pink as the sun raised his fiery head above the peaks of the distant mountain. Soon, the village below would awaken and Ya-neh’s solitude would be disturbed. He yawned and stretched, reaching for a wooden crutch that lay near his left side. Groaning slightly, he pulled himself up by the leg of the crutch and slipped the well-worn top of it under his left arm. Leaning on the crutch, he gave a final look at the sun and then turned to the rocky path leading down to the small collection of lodges beside the river.

From his view, the lodges looked like a child’s playthings. His sister had made similar toys from birch bark, moss and sticks, creating tiny villages and crafting stories and songs about the people who lived there. Years ago, Ya-neh’s friends would stay late into the night, listening to her stories of brave boys who protected their village or beautiful girls who sang the moon from the sky. Ya-neh shook his head quickly, flinging the memory of stories, songs and family into the back corner of his mind. In this world, he reminded himself, boys paid a high price for their bravery and beautiful singing girls disappeared forever at the hands of strangers in the dark. He took a step down the path, his crutch scraping across the hard earth and his left foot crunching the sandy gravel as he dragged it over the ground.

By the time, Ya-neh reached the entrance to the Pe-lo-mah’s lodge, the sun had crested the cliff top, and the mist was gone from the river. The water glittered in the sun like the scales of a thousand fish. Children’s voices rang up and down the river valley, and women had lit their cooking fires for the day. The smoke rose lazily a few feet then caught in a breeze that carried it over the river as if it wished to follow the mist that had risen to the heavens. Ya-neh groaned inwardly when he saw that the Pe-lo-mah’s cooking fire was already lit, too. Two strips of jerky soaked in a pot of water over the flames, and a platter of corn meal and acorn flour sat nearby. The old man would chide him for being gone this morning when the breakfast needed cooking. Ya-neh sighed and thought, “At least he hasn’t made the fry bread.”

Just as Ya-neh picked up a gourd dipper to go get water at the river, Pe-lo-mah appeared at the lodge door with a wooden bowl in his hand and a look of disappointment on his face. “You finally decide to come do your duties, do you?” he grumbled. “The least you owe the person who had fed, clothed and kept you warm these years is to do your work.”

Ya-neh let his mind slip away as the old man’s lecture continued. He had listened to his benefactor’s complaints for seven years now, a constant reminder that Ya-neh was a burden. He had stopped trying to remind Pe-lo-mah that the people of the village were the ones who decide to place him in the old man’s care when no one else would offer to keep a crippled child with no family. Ya-neh leaned out on his crutch and held out his right hand. “Give me the other bowl, old man, and I will make the day’s fry-bread.”

Before the man could respond, he snatched the bowl and hobbled to the river with it and his dipper. He had learned to balance them both in one hand, so he could still use his crutch and not spill the water. When he got to the river’s edge, several of the village women were getting water as well. They moved to the side to give him room, but no one offered to help as he strained to hold the crutch and dip water from the reservoir carved into the bank and lined with smooth stones. People had learned that he did not want to be reminded of his injury or the fact that it held him back from the duties given most boys by the time they were fourteen.

Ya-neh was accustomed to cooking, growing vegetables and snaring small game—all of which were considered the work of women among his people. But old Pe-lo-mah had no wife or daughters to help him and Ya-neh had no other family, so the village elders decided they should become family to one another. With water in the wooden bowl, Ya-neh carefully trudged back to the lodge he shared with the old man. “No,” he thought angrily, “We are not family. I am simply his servant.” Every morning this thought occurred to him and each day he felt his ire burning again when he considered where life had thrown him.

With a practiced hand, Ya-neh added water to the acorn flour and corn meal, mixed it and poured the batter onto a hot smooth stone that lay near the coals of the fire. He eased himself onto the ground next to the stone and watched the edges of the fry-bread sizzle and bubble. His mind wandered as he listened to the crackling sound. Besides a thump and a stifled gasp, a crackling burning sound was all he could remember hearing the night of the raid that had landed him in Pe-loh-mah’s care.

Despite his efforts to block the night from his mind, Ya-neh’s thoughts often returned easily to a cold night seven years ago. His sister had just finished a long song about the Swan Girl who fell in love with the river and swam away to find its beginning. The mother of one of Ya-neh’s friends, Ta-wa-nee, appeared at the lodge door and escorted her protesting child out into the moonlight. Ya-neh was drowsy on the sleeping hides, his stomach full of his mother’s fine stew and fry-bread, and his mind filled with pictures of the beautiful Swan Girl swimming up river. Just as the lodge door dropped, Ya-neh heard a dull thud and the sharp gasp of a child outside. He laughed and called to his sister, “Ta-wa-nee is playing a trick on us! He thinks we will be afraid of his clumsy sounds. Let’s go show him we are not afraid.”

Ya-neh jumped up and ran laughing to the lodge door with his sister at his heels. He felt her hand grab his as they opened the lodge door. A glimpse at his sister’s face immediately told him his eyes were not deceived in the moonlight. Her mouth was open in a silent shriek and her eyes were wide and round with terror. Ta-wa-nee and his mother lay on the ground in the pale light. The mother’s legs were twisted strangely, like a river stork that had fallen and broken its long legs. His friend lay in a dark pool that spread beneath his head and ran to the lodge door.

His sister moved like a leaping cat, shoving Ya-neh back into the lodge and calling out something, though Ya-neh could only see her lips move. Then she was turning to the door again, looking down at Ta-wa-nee’s face that had a mouth still open in the gasp that was silenced so abruptly. Ya-neh grasped his sister’s hand again as he saw a dark figure rise before them. He tried to call out as her hand was ripped from his grasp, but his dry throat produced no sound. His sister looked him in the eyes as she rose up in the arms of the dark figure and she pointed into the lodge, silently pleading that Ya-neh go back. Ya-neh could swear he saw moonlight spilling from her eyes and causing her face to glow like the moon itself. She no longer fought the arms that grasped her and Ya-neh watched as the man started away with her, taking her light with him.

Ya-neh’s father leapt to the door, his mouth open in what Ya-neh imagined as the big cat’s scream, though he still could hear nothing. His father’s eyes were wild with desperation. He shoved Ya-neh to the side and jumped at the dark figure carrying away his daughter. Five other men arose from the darkness and surrounded him. Ya-neh’s father waved his hunting knife, daring the intruders to approach him and looking around for the man who had taken his child.

Ya-neh had wanted to cry out for his father to follow the moon, but no words would come. His voice was as silent as the world around him in this moment. He felt hands on his shoulders and realized that his mother was there. She shoved him toward the back of the lodge and lunged at the door with her husband’s spear in hand. Her cries were also silent, but Ya-neh imagined they were like the little sparrow hawk’s sounds that pierced the early morning air when the birds were hunting mice that had stayed too long in the sunlight. She was captured as easily, he saw, when one of the dark figures grabbed the end of the spear and wrested it from her bird-like hands. “Mother,” Ya-neh longed to cry, “you are not meant to fight. Fly, fly and come back in the morning when the sun touches the mountain peak.” Ya-neh despaired in the silence as he watched the dark figure strike her down and pull her toward the fire pit near the lodge. He had her long, dark hair wrapped around his hand. As they passed the fire pit, Ya-neh’s mother desperately reached for ashes and the few remaining coals and flung them at her captor. The man threw his head back in rage, then stabbed her through the throat with her husband’s spear. She died with her hand in the fire pit and Ya-neh suddenly became aware of sound—sizzling, burning and crackling.

The return of sound moved him to action and he searched wildly around the lodge for a weapon. He reached for his father’s arrows. Grasping three of them from the quiver and with a shaking hand, he ran out the lodge door. The brave boys in his sister’s stories never shed tears, but Ya-neh felt them flowing across his face. He wondered if they glowed with moonlight.

The dark figure and his sister were gone. Ya-neh saw his father and mother on the ground. Some of the coals his mother had flung in vain lay near the edge of their home and the lodge skin was smoldering. His mother’s hand lay unmoving in the fire pit and Ya-neh could smell the scorching flesh. Sound had returned but the dark figures seemed to be gone. Ya-neh cried out then, a long, anguished cry that sounded like an animal he hoped he would never meet. He felt his very soul twisted in his scream, and the sound brought one of the dark invaders to his side, like a hunter to his quarry.

Ya-neh felt the blow of the man’s rifle butt and heard the sound of wood striking bone. He felt as if the ground rushed up to him and he could see the puffs of dust rising like fog in the moonlight. He felt the rifle butt strike again, this time on his left foot, but before he could cry out again, he saw men running from the neighboring lodges with knives and spears in their hands. Ya-neh struggled to rise, waving his three arrows at the dark one who had now turned his attention to the camp’s warriors rather than the little boy in the dust.

From the ground, Ya-neh heard the pounding of the men’s feet, but he also heard sizzling and crackling of fry-bread. “Why mother cook beside my bed?” he wondered to himself. He thought he saw the sun rising with a powerful red light and he turned his head to capture it’s glory, but saw only flames that surrounded his mother’s body and began climbing the walls of the lodge. The moment rushed back to him and he felt ashamed that he had lost himself for a moment. Again, he struggled to rise with his arrows raised above his head, but his left foot wouldn’t work. He looked down at it in the orange light and saw a mass of skin, broken bone and blood. As his mother and the lodge burned behind him, he imagined the entire world soaked in strange orange sunlight reflected on red rivers.

When Ya-neh awoke again, he was in another family’s lodge. The door flap was down. He lay in the half-light and tried to remember why such a heavy weight was in his chest and stomach. He shifted his weight on the sleeping hides and tried to sit up. His hand was heavy and tight and he looked down to see three arrows he still grasped tightly. The night’s events rushed back to him and he closed his eyes again. The arrow shafts felt almost like part of his hand now—like he had held them long enough to graft them to his fingers. He slowly straightened his hand and the arrow dropped onto the sleeping skins.

Silently, he crawled to the lodge door and pushed it back. The sound of a crackling fire and the sizzle of cooking greeted him. He first thought of the burning lodge and saw his mother’s hand. Then he realized he as watching an old man cook fry-bread by a firepit.

Fry-bread! The thought brought Ya-neh back to the present. The fry-bread he was cooking began to smoke a bit. “I guess it’s burned fry-bread for me!” he thought sullenly as he flipped the blackened cake from the stone. He poured the next bit of batter on the stone and looked around for the old man.

As if he had been waiting for Ya-neh to return from his musings, Pe-lo-mah appeared behind the boy. “If you have finished your fry-bread,” the old man instructed, “take it with you and go check the snares. I would like to have fresh rabbit today.”

Glad for a reason to leave the old man’s company, Ya-neh handed him the knife he used to take the fry-bread from the stone and pulled himself up on his crutch.

“I’ll check the snares on the lower river bank,” he stated, knowing it would take longer to reach those spots. “If there are any rabbits, then I will bring it back.” He picked up his blackened fry-bread and wrapped it in some corn husks. Then he took a piece of jerky from the hot water near the fire and walked away, chewing the tough meat.

Ya-neh walked farther than most of the villagers when he set his snares. He tired of running into the women who tried to capture rabbits and river otter on the banks closer to the village. With any luck, the process of checking snares would take until the afternoon.

He had finished his jerky by the time he reached the lower banks of the river. The trees here hung close over the water, their branches sometimes dipping into the cool flow. Cottonwoods and willows swayed their branches and dropped occasional leaves like tiny canoes into the eddies at their roots. Ya-neh liked to stop under one of the willow trees that had great roots that jutted out of the bank. He could shimmy down the largest root and hang his feet into the cool water below. He took off his moccasins and let the water massage his mangled foot that had never grown right after the attack that dark night. In the village he kept the foot covered, so people wouldn’t stare or worse yet, refuse to look at him at all.

He untied the leather moccasin that bound the misshapen foot. The old man often complained because the leather on this foot wore out more often from being dragged across the ground. The boy noticed that the leather was looking thin again. He dangled his foot into the water and leaned against the great trunk of the willow tree. The weeping branches swayed in the breeze and occasionally touched his cheek. He imagined that his mother’s fingers brushed away the tears that had fallen so often in the last seven years.

Ya-neh sat up with a start when he heard the scream. Was it his mother’s cry that he had been unable to hear the night she died and burned with the lodge? Perhaps he had been dreaming…

But he heard it again, a plaintive, high-pitched scream that came from further down the river. Ya-neh pulled his foot from the water and hurriedly wrapped the leather around it. He crawled from the root to the river bank and pulled himself up on his crutch. The woods were quiet now, save his racing heart. Then the sound came again, and he thought of how his soul had called out during the attack on his family’s home. Cautiously, he hobbled down the bank toward the sound. He saw a bent stick that marked one of his snares. Perhaps an injured rabbit could cry so, he thought. He had heard them scream in terror when their nests were raided by a coyote or wolf. The call came again from under the brush near the snare and Ya-neh crept toward the sound.

He stumbled backward as a rush of golden brown flailed out from under a bush. Ya-neh’s breath caught in his throat as he realized what he was seeing. A golden eagle was entangled in his snare lines, along with a rabbit that appeared to have been long dead, beaten and broken by the great bird’s attempts to escape. One of the wings was pulled open by a snare line, the sinew cord from the trap cutting into feather and flesh. Ya-neh stood silently while the bird looked at him with round, angry eyes.

“I will free you, brother eagle,” whispered Ya-neh, “if you will allow me.” He laid down his crutch, got down on all fours and moved slightly closer to the bird. The eagle tried to close its stretched wing and when the sinew cord held fast, it began the screaming and struggling anew. Ya-neh pulled his skinning knife from his belt and began to inch toward the trapped bird again. When the bird had stopped flailing, it was breathing hard, almost panting through an open beak. Ya-neh slowly reached for the snare line with his left hand while holding the knife at ready with his right. When his hand touched the line, the bird moved like a flash of sunlight on water and clamped its strong, hooked bill onto Ya-neh’s hand. The boy cried out and instinctively reached for a stone that lay nearby. Shouting, he raised it above his head with the bloody hand the bird had just bitten.

“Have you no gratitude?!” he cried as he prepared to bring the rock down on the eagle’s head. He was shocked when his hand wouldn’t move, and he realized that Pe-lo-mah was behind him, staying his angry blow.

“You will not strike this eagle,” Pe-lo-mah stated quietly and pulled Ya-neh backward onto the ground. As he sprawled in the dust, Ya-neh felt his anger building—the shame of being pushed aside again and not allowed to fight.

The old man continued his lecture, “How many times have you struck out at me when you were in pain, and I stayed my hand out of compassion? You, of all creatures on this earth, should have an understanding for one who is in pain!”

Ya-neh’s face burned red with shame. He could not ignore Pe-lo-mah’s comments this time. It was the first time the old man had acknowledged Ya-neh’s crippling injury so openly. In the past, he had sent the boy on errands and to do tasks that were a challenge with the crutch and bad foot. Ya-neh wanted to scoff at the thought of compassion, to tell Pe-lo-mah that some days true compassion would meant leaving Ya-neh alone in his misery. But it was on those days, when the memories were the strongest and coping was the hardest, that the old man would send the boy on some fool’s errand to search for wild grouse eggs or mushrooms or herbs that grew only in the deep woods. Ya-neh would travel for hours in search of whatever was requested and would return to the lodge, more often than not empty-handed, but too tired to care. What compassion was there?

Ya-neh dropped the rock. The old man ignored him now and turned his gaze to the eagle, whose wing, still wrapped in the sinew cord, was spread in the dust. The boy pulled himself upright, not wishing to look as pitiful as the grounded bird. Pe-lo-mah took small steps toward the eagle and Ya-neh realized he had a blanket over his arm. “Why is the old man here with a blanket?” he questioned in his mind. Usually, he stayed at the lodge mixing herbs to cure everything from stomach aches and coughs to sore joints and headaches in the village.

When Pe-lo-mah had eased close to the eagle, he laid the blanket over the bird. The eagle was still for what seemed like a long time. The old man and Ya-neh sat watching it, wordlessly, hearing nothing but the breeze in the willow branches and the sighing of water at the riverbank. The world seemed to slow for Ya-neh and his own breathing became quiet. Finally, Pe-lo-mah gently cut the sinew cord that tethered the eagle to the stake holding the snare to the ground. He gently picked up the bird and turned to Ya-neh.

“Come here and carry your charge,” he said softly.

Ya-neh’s breath became fast again and the world seemed to spin back to normal time. Had the old man spoken? Confused, he looked up into the Pe-lo-mah’s face. The man stood above him with the bird wrapped in the blanket under one arm.

Ya-neh pulled himself up with his crutch and asked, “How am I to carry him all the way back to the lodge?”

Pe-lo-mah lifted Ya-neh’s right arm and placed the bundle under it. “You will walk carefully and slowly so as not to harm him further. I will see you in the village.” With that he turned and strode away with wide steps that moved him quickly down the riverbank. Ya-neh shifted his weight on the crutch. The bird and blanket were heavier than he would have thought and the weight threw him off balance. He hobbled along slowly, leaning forward on the crutch then dragging the rest of his body to follow.

The sun had passed high in the sky and was moving low in the west by the time Ya-neh reached the outskirts of the village. He had stopped to rest often for fear that he would drop the bundle Pe-lo-mah had charged him to carry safely back to their lodge. The boy knew that the old man believed the eagle was a special spirit and had to be returned to the sky so that he could carry out his part in the world. Once again, Ya-neh felt shame at having threatened the eagle with the rock. And he puzzled over why the bird would be captured in his snare. He had never heard of such a thing.

When Ya-neh finally reached the lodge, his clothes were soaked with sweat and his broken foot ached from the extra burden he carried. His mouth watered as he smelled meat stew cooking outside the lodge. The fry-bread he had eaten in the morning was long gone and he looked forward to a hot meal. He settled the blanket and eagle gently onto the ground by the lodge door and called out for the old man.

“Pe-lo-mah, I have come home. The eagle is with me.”

Pe-lo-mah appeared from the back of the lodge with a handful of herbs. He hurried over to the pot and dropped them into the bubbling liquid before turning to Ya-neh.

“Take the bird into the lodge,” he ordered. “Put him in the darkest place and remove the blanket from him.”

Ya-neh’s spirits fell when the old man did not seem to recognize his accomplishment of getting the bird home. And his stomach grumbled at the scent of the stew. He hoped the Pe-lo-mah would offer him a warm bowl of it when he got the bird settled. He bent over and picked up the bundle. The eagle moved slightly, as if he might start to struggle, so Ya-neh held him a bit tighter under his arm and trudged into the lodge.

The lodge was circular, and the darkest area was where Ya-neh’s sleeping skins were. He knelt down on his knees and carefully laid the bundled bird on his bed. As he unwound the blanket, the eagle began to struggle and the boy moved more slowly, trying to move the cloth as gently as possible. When the bird was finally unwrapped, his wing splayed out on the bed with the sinew cord still wound around the widest part of it. Ya-neh sighed. He had forgotten that the old man had not actually taken the bound cord from the eagle’s injured wing.

The boy called out, “Pe-lo-mah, what can I do about the cord on his wing? It is cut into the muscle and I am afraid to pull it.”

The old man shuffled into the lodge with a bowl in one hand and a square of leather in the other. “Tie this around your arm,” he instructed, “You hold the eagle down while I remove the cord. Do not let him struggle or his injuries will be worse.”

Ya-neh tied the leather around his arm and leaned gently down on the eagle. This time, however, the bird made no move to bite him, but opened its mouth, seeming to pant. The boy relaxed. Perhaps this was not going to be as bad as he thought.

As soon as Pe-lo-mah touched the cord, the eagle tried to leap forward, catching Ya-neh by surprise. His arm nearly slipped and he had to use his unprotected hand to grab the bird’s head. The strong beak grazed the back of his hand, but this time Ya-neh was so focused on keeping the bird still that he hardly noticed the pain. Meanwhile, the old man deftly unwound the cord from the injured wing and slathered ointment from the bowl onto the cut tissue. The eagle made no effort to bring its injured wing to its body but lay splayed on the sleeping skins in the dim light. His eyes picked up the reflection of the open lodge door and glinted as he looked from the old man to the boy who still held him pinned to the bed. The claws on his great feet grasped the sleeping hides tightly as if they searched for the branch of a tree somewhere far away from the misery he was experiencing.

Ya-neh carefully removed his hand from the bird’s head and absent-mindedly swiped the drops of blood from the back of his hand. The eagle remained quiet but continued to look from Pe-lo-mah to Ya-neh. The old man slowly stood and backed out of the lodge. Ya-neh moved to follow and the bird gave a start and a half-screech.

“You stay!” Pe-lo-mah ordered. “Next you must feed him to give him strength to heal.”

He left the tent and came back with a bowl of the meat stew and a piece of river cane. He showed Ya-neh what he expected the boy to do. “You draw the stew into the piece of cane with your mouth,” the old man explained, “ as if you are going to drink it through the cane. But instead of drinking, you offer the meat broth to brother eagle.”

Ya-neh’s stomach rumbled as he plunked the river cane straw into the stew. He drew in his breath and pulled the first bit of stew into the hollow reed. When he pulled the straw from the bowl, he was disappointed that most of the broth poured out. He took the straw and held it to the eagle’s beak, but the bird moved its head away. Ya-neh tried for an hour to get broth into the bird’s mouth to no avail. He resisted the temptation to either fling the bowl across the lodge or drink the broth to calm his own grumbling stomach. His sleeping skins were wet with the liquid from the stew and he arms were exhausted from holding the straw to the bird’s beak over and over. He laid his head near the bird, no longer fearing a sharp peck, as the eagle seemed as tired and subdued as Ya-neh felt.

The boy must have dozed because when he opened his eyes again, the bird was in a different place on the skins. Ya-neh gave a start because the bowl was empty. Had he eaten the broth in his sleep or had the eagle finally just come to the bowl and helped himself? Pe-lo-mah would be angry that the bird had not eaten. He would be livid if the bird died because of Ya-neh’s inability to care for it. The boy knew the old man’s story of how he had once been in line to be the village shaman but had lost that right when he associated with the Jesuit priests who came from the south spreading word of their own Great One and disallowing the village’s religion that celebrated land, water, fire and air as symbols of the Creator. On his path to becoming shaman, Pe-lo-mah had learned the power of brother eagle as a messenger to God and a guide for the people. The death of an eagle at the hands of a villager would be considered a heinous act.

Ya-neh realized his reed straw was gone, too. He began to search around the skins, and suddenly light spread into the lodge as Pe-lo-mah lifted the door flap and entered. He had the straw in his hands.

“I have fed the eagle since you fell asleep on the job,” the old man said in an annoyed voice. “If you wish to eat, there is stew near the cooking fire. Tomorrow morning, you will be the one to feed the bird and you will build him a place to live while he heals.”

Ya-neh nodded mutely and stood up, his legs stiff from his kneeling so long. He hobbled to the door flap and went outside. He realized that the light had flooded into the lodge because the sun was nearly set behind the mountain and its rays had shown directly into the door when the flap was lifted. The day was nearly spent, and Ya-neh could not recall how the time went so quickly. He found a bowl of cold stew near the cooking fire. The old man had laid a cloth over it to keep the flies away. Ya-neh felt grateful and he turned up the bowl and drank the cool liquid, then used his fingers to put meat and vegetables into his mouth.

Ya-neh slept on the lodge floor that night, as the eagle sat subdued but watching every movement from the boy’s bedding. The night didn’t pass nearly as quickly as the late part of the day had seemed to do, and Ya-neh found himself tossing and turning and frequently sitting up to look at the eagle just above him. The bird always turned to look him in the eye, but made no other movement.

The next day Pe-lo-mah excused Ya-neh from breakfast duty so that the boy could search out a branch suitable for a perch for the eagle. He sent Ya-neh into the woods after a breakfast of more cold stew and cattail root. The boy remembered where he had seen a great fallen sycamore tree with white scaly bark and sturdy branches. He hoisted Pe-lo-mah’s hatchet and walked carefully to the uprooted tree. After a careful study of the branches, Ya-neh decided the great gnarled roots would make the best perch for the injured eagle. Each bundle of roots splayed out in several directions before joining up to the substantial base of the tree. The root would was tough and Ya-neh worked until midday to cut out a section for the perch. Then he tied a rope to the roots and started to slowing drag it toward the village.

By the time he made it to Pe-lo-mah’s lodge, word had spread throughout the village of the eagle that slept on Ya-neh’s bed. Curious children gathered around and tried to get a peek in the door. They didn’t dare disturb Pe-lo-mah because he was known among the village youngsters for his quick temper, but when they saw Ya-neh moving slowly up the riverbank, dragging the chunk of sycamore, they peppered him with questions about the bird.

At first, he ignored them. Suddenly two of the older boys grabbed the rope and began helping Ya-neh pull the piece of tree root to the lodge. They wanted to be part of something as important as saving the eagle. Ya-neh’s heart felt warm to be the center of attention that was not focused on his disability. He began to answer questions from the children. Yes, he had found the eagle in his snare. No, he didn’t know why or how it had gotten entangled. Yes, it had slept on his bed and eaten the old man’s stew last night. Ya-neh decided to leave out the part about not being the one who fed the bird.

The boys helped Ya-neh prop the mass of roots upside down outside the lodge and waited anxiously for him to bring out the eagle. But when the boy went inside, Pe-lo-mah scolded him for causing such a racket around getting the perch.

“You have gone beyond what we need with your foolish pride,” he chided. “How will we get this monstrosity into the lodge?”

Ya-neh felt as though his heart had been stung by a hornet as the old man’s words settled on him. Tears began to rise and he heatedly said, “I was trying to provide a home worthy of such a great creature! What more do you ask of me? I have worked for hours to try to feed him, slept on the hard floor and pulled these great roots all the way from down the river. What more do you ask of me? Can I do nothing of value?”

“You will care for the eagle,” the old man said gravely but without raising his voice. “This is the test for you. You will nurture him and bring him back to health and you will find a new life for yourself. I am done with it now. You are the one chosen to return him to the sky.” The last sentence came out in a bitter, almost regretful tone, and Ya-neh realized the old man had hoped he himself would be the one to help the eagle.

“How do you know that I am the one?” Ya-neh asked quietly, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I have seen it in my dreams,” the old man said shortly and turned away to indicate he was done with the matter.

Ya-neh went outside and worked a smaller piece off the large sycamore root and brought it into the lodge. The branch was still nearly three feet long to give the great bird room to shift his weight. Ya-neh understood clearly how important it was for a creature who was healing to be able to move about a little. He secured the perch near his bedding and began to wonder how he would move the eagle to it. He realized now that Pe-lo-mah would not likely offer help again. He had been surprised by the old man’s bitterness and the hurt expression on his face, and he wondered what Pe-lo-mah had dreamed that would lead him to say Ya-neh was chosen to heal the bird.

Ya-neh decided to let the eagle move to the perch in its own time. He remembered when Pe-lo-mah had forced him out of bed just days after the invader had crushed his foot. The pain had been severe and the old man had seemed to have no mercy. He had mixed salves and made willow bark tea to help with the pain, but he had exhibited no patience when he thought Ya-neh should be ready to walk with the small crutch he had made. Ya-neh had gone through several crutches in the last seven years, each one a little longer as he grew taller. But his foot never seemed to get any stronger and the pain still racked his body if he tried to support himself without the aid of a crutch.

His plan worked. By morning, the eagle had moved from the bedding to the perch and sat hunched on a bottom branch, his wing drooping from his side. Ya-neh began to wonder whether the damage to the wing was in the muscle alone or also in the bone. He worried that if the bone was injured too severely, then the bird would be permanently damaged, much as he himself was. He decided that he had to see if he could feel the bone for breaks, but every time he approached the eagle, it started to jump from its roost, and Ya-neh decided he had best wait until he had a plan to keep the bird subdued. He remembered when he was injured how he had try to crawl away from Pe-lo-mah when the old man changed bandages or roughly massaged the damaged tissue to encourage circulation as he put it.

Ya-neh devised a small trap to capture mice that lived in the fields just behind his lodge. He baited the trap with bits of fry-bread and set them so that when the mouse tried to carry the bread away, a box dropped down and captured it. He had three mice the first day. He dangled his first catch in front of the eagle, but the bird showed no interest in the hapless creature. Next, he tried tying a cord to the mouse’s tail and securing it to the base of the perch so the eagle would get the sensation of hunting his meal. “Perhaps it is a matter of pride to him,” Ya-neh thought. “He is not meant to be fed like a helpless baby.”

The next day the mouse was still there and the eagle sat despondent with his drooping wing. Ya-neh began to be alarmed that the bird might die, and desperately wanted to ask Pe-lo-mah for help, but he didn’t know how to approach him. The old man had barely spoken to him for the last day or so. But he had continued to excuse the boy from cooking and snaring chores, indicating the importance he attributed to Ya-neh’s task of healing the bird.

Ya-neh moved outside the lodge to find the old man, but he was nowhere to be seen. However by the cooking fire was a fresh river trout, gutted and ready to be cooked. Ya-neh took out his knife and cut off a bit of the fish. It smelled of the fresh, clean river and was good white meat. He carried the fish back into the lodge and walked over to the eagle. The bird turned its head and watched as Ya-neh waved the fish in front of its bill. Then, almost as if the eagle could bear its hunger no longer, it snatched the fish from the boy’s fingers, and swallowed it whole. Ya-neh smiled broadly and went out to get more fish.

The eagle ate most of the trout then ruffled its neck feathers and shook its head dismissively as if to say, “Leave me to rest now.”

When Pe-lo-mah returned to the lodge, the boy shared the news that the bird had eaten the fish. “Thank you for bringing it, Pe-lo-mah,” he said warmly.

“I did not bring the fish,” the old man stated. “Two boys from the village brought it.” He said no more for the rest of the day.

Three days passed and still the eagle did not lift his drooping wing. He ate fish with great relish for the first two days, but on the third day he refused to eat again. Ya-neh fretted about the bird and decided to carry it to the outside perch. He considered asking Pe-lo-mah’s advice on the thought, but the old man had been spending much of his time away from the lodge, sinking ever deeper into his bitterness. Ya-neh wrapped his wrist with the leather and laces and pushed his right arm firmly on the bird’s chest. He was thrilled when the strong talons closed over his arm. Balancing between the crutch and his outstretched right arm was difficult, but he managed to get to the door As he tried to pass through, the bird turned back toward the dim light and leapt to the floor. The force shoved Ya-neh into the side of the lodge and he stumbled and dropped his crutch. He was amazed at the strength of the eagle, even with it injury. But he felt a deep disappointment well up in his chest and tears blurred his vision as he watched the eagle sit despondently on the floor. Ya-neh stood balanced on his good leg, his crutch forgotten and shed tears for the creature that refused to go to the light.

He knelt down and crawled over to the eagle, then laid down facing the bird. He gently pushed the injured wing toward the broad feathered body and felt relief when it moved easily. When Ya-neh released the wing, the bird let it droop again, though not as far as it had been when the boy had moved it. Suddenly Ya-neh sat up and smiled. He spoke aloud for the first time that day, “I know what to do for you, brother eagle.”

Ya-neh crawled to his bedding, his crutch still forgotten, and tore off a piece of material from a blanket that had once been his mother’s—one of the few items he had left from his old life. The material was worn thin with time and tore easily. Then he pulled the leather laces from the brace on his arm. He used his knife to cut some slits in each end of the bit of blanket and laced the leather through the slits in one end. Then he scooted back over to the eagle and gently pushed the wing back to its body again.

“You need a crutch, too, my friend,” whispered Ya-neh, “even if only for a while.”

He wrapped the fabric over the injured wing and around the bird’s body, passing it under the good wing. He was pleasantly surprised that the bird sat still as he passed the leather laces through the other end of the fabric strip. Then he pulled the laces together and the eagle’s wing was held securely to its side.

Content with his work, Ya-neh lay down on the floor again and watched the eagle, who watched back with glittering eyes. For a moment, a flash of light in the bird’s eye reminded the boy of a crescent moon and he thought of his sister and her stories. She would be thrilled to tell this one, he thought, the story of the boy who saved the eagle. Ya-neh felt a tear stinging his eye again. He had not thought of the happy times with his sister for a long time. The memory that prevailed had been the one in which she was snatched away with the moonlight tears streaming down her face.

Later that evening, the old man returned. He looked drawn and tired, but when he saw the eagle with its wrapped wing, his head went up and a hint of a smile showed. The happiness was gone as quickly as the crescent moon Ya-neh had seen in the eagle’s eye that day, but the boy still caught the glimpse and his heart felt better toward Pe-lo-mah.

During the night, Ya-neh awoke to the old man crying and moaning in his sleep. His words were unintelligible, but the boy was saddened by the sound that expressed years of pain and sorrow. He wondered what had caused Pe-lo-mah to suffer so. Ya-neh realized he had been so focused on his own pain that he had not even realized the old man carried a burden as well.

The next morning, Pe-lo-mah stood over Ya-neh’s bed. When the boy opened his eyes, he looked straight at the old man and reached for his hand. The elder knelt down and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply and exhaling shakily.

“The Great One dealt with me last night,” he began. “I have been wrong to try to heal only your body and not your spirit, Ya-neh. That is why you have been chosen to as the healer of the eagle. You are more worthy than I because you have worked to heal your own spirit.”

“Pe-lo-mah,” Ya-neh began, but the old man interrupted him.

“I must finish. You have discovered how to heal the eagle’s body, but now you must heal his spirit as well. He has forgotten what he is and his role in this Great Creation. You must take him to the sky every day to remind him what he is and why he must live.”

“How do I do that?” Ya-neh said. “I cannot fly.”

“Each day,” the old man answered, “you must carry the eagle to cliffs above the river and let him look out over the valley, so he feels the wind, sees the sun and remembers the truth behind his existence. Each day, you must go higher until the eagle takes flight.”

Ya-neh was silent. In the back of his mind, he pictured the long, difficult walk up the mountain path, balancing the eagle and his crutch. How would he do it? How could he carry both his pain and the pain of another creature and survive? The task seemed overwhelming.

Pe-lo-mah, seeming to sense Ya-neh’s distress, said softly, “The Great One will be with you each time you take a step. You must call on Him for help. It is as the Jesuits taught me. ‘I look to the hills from whence cometh my help.’ It is in the hills and mountains that you will find your answers, Ya-neh, and you must go to them to find them. They will not descend to you here, and I have failed for not teaching you this earlier.”

Ya-neh was speechless. The old man laid his hand on the boy’s cheek then turned and walked out of the lodge. When Ya-neh emerged to the outdoors, Pe-lo-mah had prepared a pack for him with food, water and another bundle that was unidentifiable. Ya-neh rolled his mother’s blanket and tied it onto the top of the pack.

When the boy explained to him that the bird would not come out into the light, Pe-lo-mah fashioned a hood that slipped over the eagle’s head. Ya-neh was surprised to see that, with his vision blocked, the eagle was subservient and of a pliable spirit. He got the bird outside with no resistance.

“He relies on you,” the old man said softly. “When you feel the time is right, you give him his sight back.”

With the pack on his back, the eagle grasping the leather brace on his right arm and his crutch tucked firmly under his left arm, Ya-neh headed upriver toward the cliffs that towered above the village. This morning the tallest cliffs were still in the mist that rose from the river toward the heavens. In the distance, across the river, the sun was above the Great Mountain and flooded the valley with clear white light.

The path up to the first level of cliffs was familiar to Ya-neh. He had climbed it many times to escape the noise and eyes in the village and to sit brooding about his plight in life. When he reached the first cliff, he decided not to stop. The place held his dark memories, etched into every rock and blade of grass that he had studied during his immersion into self-pity. He barely glanced at the sandy spot that was worn from his hours of sitting.

The next path was a bit steeper than the first and rockier, so that his crutch slipped often on the gravelly ground. His right arm began to ache from the weight of the eagle whose talons tightened painfully on his arm, even through the leather, each time Ya-neh slipped. The pack made his back ache. Finally, he allowed himself to stop for water, taking small sips from the water skin and offering some in his hand to the eagle. The bird would not drink, and Ya-neh considered taking off the hood to see if that would help, but something told him it was too soon. His alarm about the bird’s thirst subsided. The eagle would drink when the time was right. As he returned the water skin to his pack, Ya-neh absentmindedly brushed away a white moth that flew in front of his eyes. His eyes strayed to the unidentified bundle that Pe-lo-mah had included in the pack. Then he shook his head. It was not time to open it yet, either.

Ya-neh shifted the pack to his back, pulled himself up on the crutch and leaned over to the eagle that was sitting on a boulder beside the path. A breeze had sprung up and cooled the sweat on Ya-neh’s forehead. The eagle’s feathers ripped from the air and the bird shook its hooded head as he stepped onto the boy’s outstretched arm.

Ya-neh sat on the second cliff for three hours before he turned back down the mountain to return to the lodge. For the next seven days, each morning, he climbed the mountain, going a little further each time, each cliff higher and the view more spectacular than before. As he climbed higher, the wind grew stronger and the trees in the rocky soil took on the look of old warriors who had seen battle and survived with gnarled limbs and strong hearts. Ya-neh thought of his own foot and how he was becoming able to climb more easily with each passing day. His heart swelled with joy as he looked down at the river and across the valley to the Great Mountain. Sometimes the mountain’s craggy top was obscured in cloud, but on other days, the blue, green and white granite reflected back the glory of the sun.

On the eighth day, as Pe-lo-mah prepared his pack with food, water and the mysterious bundle that Ya-neh still had not opened, he included a fire kit. He stood by Ya-neh in front of the lodge and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. A look passed between them and Ya-neh knew he would not return to the lodge tonight. He would stay on the cliffs until the eagle flew, whether it was today or tomorrow or a thousand tomorrows away.

The two exchanged no words. The look was enough. Ya-neh walked down the path, his back straight and his eyes on the cliffs. When he reached the riverbank, he looked back to see the old man still watching him. He balanced on his good leg and raised his left hand in a final thanks to Pe-lo-mah. The old man bowed his head in return.

Pe-lo-mah reached the seventh cliff by midday—a feat that would have taken him a full day less than a week ago. He strained to look up and saw three more above him. He had never been higher than this. He stopped and ate a bit of jerky and fry-bread. He didn’t offer any to the eagle. Ya-neh had learned that the bird would eat and drink only in the darkness of the lodge, seeming to give in to nothingness when he was hooded and blind in the Great Creation.

“My friend, we will not return to your dark respite tonight. You must learn to be an eagle again. You will not eat or drink until you have done so, I’m afraid.”

The path to the next cliff was scattered with briars that pulled at Ya-neh’s clothes and slowed his progress. He gritted his teeth, balanced on his good leg and used his crutch to shove the briars from his path. By the time he reached the eighth cliff, he was exhausted, but the sun was still high and he knew he could travel even further today.

He sat on a great flat rock and looked out over the river valley. He could no longer see the lodges and the great cottonwoods and sycamores along the river looked like no more than bits of moss. The river itself wound like a silver ribbon to the base of the Great Mountain, which was bare of clouds today and shone like an ocean of stone.

When Ya-neh felt rested, he packed his supplies and arose to continue to the ninth cliff. The path here was steep, but clear of briars. He studied what might be the best way to the top, concerned that he would slide on the small, round stones that littered the ground. The little white rocks reminded him again of the moon, they were so clean and unblemished. But he knew they also impeded his way. He started up the path, gently kicking stones from his way with his deformed foot. The tiny rocks clattered down behind him and rolled to the bottom of the cliff, where they gathered in a crevice like pearls from the mussels in the river that Ya-neh’s people treasured. But the boy was relieved to find such treasures behind him. The path turned back on itself before it reached the ninth cliff and the way was no longer strewn with pebbles. Ya-neh sighed and rested on his good leg before taking the next step. The path was less steep and tufts of grass began to show where soil was gathered among the boulders. The boy was a little surprised to see grass up this high. He had expected more bare rock.

When he reached the ninth cliff, Ya-neh turned to the Great Mountain again. “How could the mountain suddenly look so close?” he thought to himself. Indeed, he would felt he could see every detail in the rocky surface. He considered whether he should remove the eagle’s hood. Surely, the view from this great height would inspire the bird to stretch his wings. Ya-neh reached for the hood, then stopped himself as a white moth lit on his outstretched hand. No, it was not time. The moth flicked her moonlight wings and allowed the breeze to lift her. The same wind lifted the boy’s hair to whisper in his ear, urging him to move forward. Ya-neh nodded and raised the hooded eagle on his arm. The journey was not finished

The path to the tenth cliff was the steepest yet and Ya-neh struggled, often sliding back down further than he had made progress in the first place. He felt his frustration mounting and considered leaving his pack. Then the old man’s bundle crossed his mind and he knew that it was meant to accompany him on the final part of journey. Resolute, he stabbed his crutch into the soil and pulled himself and the eagle up. He made progress this way, relying on his arms and the crutch, which he could plant firmly in the fertile soil he had been surprised to see at the top of the cliffs. The air was now so cool and light that he hardly sweated and he had to take long, slow breaths to keep from feeling dizzy. Ya-neh felt thoughts of prayer to the Great One brush through his mind, much as the white moth had touched his hand.

“Help me persevere. Give me strength,” murmured Ya-neh repeatedly, unaware that he even spoke.

Meanwhile, the eagle had become more animated, which made the climbing all the harder. The bird shook his head and tail and clamped down on Ya-neh’s arm as if determined to pull the boy up the mountain.

By the time he reached the tenth and highest cliff, Ya-neh thought his lungs would burst. When the ground leveled, he dropped to his knees, unable to look around him at the grassy flat land. The wind whipped his face with the long grass as he struggled to get his breath and he focused on the lashing of the long, slender blades as he slowed his breathing. He realized the eagle was on the ground beside him, sitting quietly upright with his beak open as if he were crying out. But just as on the night the dark invaders changed his path, Ya-neh could hear no sound. Even the wind that stirred everything around him was silent.

In the quiet, Ya-neh raised his head and looked to the east. The Great Mountain lay not only in front of him across the river valley, but below him as well. How had he climbed so high, he puzzled? He could barely recall the last path, just a long series of planting his crutch in firm ground and pulling himself forward. He had been focused inwardly, drawing strength from his prayer to the Great One.

The quality of light on the tenth cliff was pure and white, as if the sun poured its cleanest rays here to encourage the verdant grass. Ya-neh looked across the cliff and saw wildflowers, purple, red and yellow sprinkled like jewels in the sun. As he began noticing his surroundings, the sound of the wind returned to his ears and he breathed in deep. He looked to the eagle, which now sat upright with its beak closed and head turned in Ya-neh’s direction, even as the hood shielded his vision.

“In time, my brother eagle,” the boy said. “First, I must prepare.”

He left the eagle sitting and went to the edge of the cliff, where he spread his mother’s blanket and sat upon it, opening his pack. He laid the food and water to the side for he felt no hunger or thirst. What he needed was deeper in the pack. He withdrew the bundle the old man had hidden away in the bottom of the bag and slowly untied the laces that secured the wrappings on it, peeling away the layers of fabric like the bandage from a wound.

Inside the bundle, he found the book the Jesuits had given Pe-lo-mah, stories of the Great One. He also found the three arrows with which he had tried to fight the invading warriors on that dark night, which seemed so distance in this light. He laid the arrows to the side. Under them in the bundle was the old man’s peyote pipe, long unused since his days as an aspiring shaman. Ya-neh laid the pipe on the book and then turned to the eagle behind him. He had his mother’s blanket, his father’s arrows and his benefactor’s blessing. But where was his sister? He gathered a handful of the bright flowers and laid them on the blanket as a reminder of the gentle stories that bloomed from her mind.

Then he turned to the eagle that was still sitting quietly in the waving grass.

Ya-neh stood without his crutch and limped his way over to the bird. He gently picked him up and carried him to the blanket. Much as he had unwrapped the bundle of gifts, the boy unwound the layers from the bird’s wing and body. When the last of the fabric dropped away, the eagle stretched his wing and called out to the wind. Ya-neh reached for the hood then hesitated. When the hood was gone, would the eagle fly away, forsaking him for the sky? Had he gained faith in his wings again?

Ya-neh felt the sting of tears but the wind dried them before they could touch his cheek. He drew off the eagle’s hood and the bird immediately raised his wings to the rushing wind. But he did not fly. Instead he turned and looked to the boy with his bright eyes.

Ya-neh looked at the bird and then together they turned to the Great Mountain and a song arose in the young man’s heart. As the eagle called beside him, Ya-neh kneeled and sang:

Ya-neh stood as he finished his song and his eyes focused on the white moth that landed on the book Pe-lo-mah had granted him. The eagle followed Ya-neh to the blanket, his wings still held wide. Ya-neh picked up his three arrows—truth, love and light. The white moth, with moonlight in her wings, let the breeze lift her to his ear and she whispered to him in a voice that he had not heard for seven years.

“The Great One offers you a way home, my brother.”

Ya-neh watched the moth hover by his face and this time the wind allowed the tears of joy to find his cheeks. The eagle raised its wings and shoved them down, gathering power from the wind and rising in front of Ya-neh with the moth. Suddenly, the eagle swooped and brushed the young man’s foot with his once injured wing. Ya-neh’s pain subsided.

With arrows in hand, Ya-neh ran nimbly through the waving grass to the edge of the cliff. Along with the eagle, he took to the sky with his eyes upon the face of God in the Great Mountain. Far below, in the river valley, he could see his sister smiling, the moon shining from her eyes, her hand grasping jewel-colored wildflowers, waving him and brother eagle home.