Brian's Return

Chapter EIGHTEEN

Dear Caleb: I am where I belong and I belong where I am.

If there had still been something of his old life left in him — and there may have been just a faint part of it — it left with the bear, left when he looked over the broadhead at the bear’s heart and knew that he was not afraid because he was as good as the bear, as quick, as ready to do what he had to do. Because he knew he could kill the bear, knew he would kill the bear, he didn’t have to kill. He was even with the bear.

Even with the woods.

Even with his life.

He did not put the tent up that night but made a fire and had plain rice with salt — he didn’t even take fish — and then propped the end of his canoe upside down a couple of feet up on a limb, spread his bag beneath it and went to sleep. The mosquitos came for a short time; then the night cooled so that they left and he slept soundly.

The next morning he made tea, packed the canoe and worked ten hours on long lakes with two one-mile portages, making — according to the map — just under thirty miles, with thirty or so miles still to go to Williams Lake and the Smallhorns.

That evening he took fish to mix with his rice, again using a bare hook, and read some Shakespeare before it was dark — still Romeo and Juliet—having to reread it six or seven times, standing on the lakeshore speaking aloud out over the water before he thought he understood it.

Just before he finished he found himself speaking to an audience. Two otters came along the shore hunting and stopped to listen to him, floating on their backs in the water with their heads raised attentively as he read them a verse, then reread it:

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.

For naught so vile that on earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give. .

When he was finished they rolled over and dove and he did not see them again.

‘‘You could have clapped,’’ he called after them. ‘‘Or at least told me what mickle means. .’’

But they were gone.

Again he slept without the tent, under the canoe. That night it rained softly a bit but the canoe shed the water and he stayed dry and sometime toward morning he heard a noise, a rustling, and it awakened him and when he went back to sleep he dreamed of Billy.

It was a strange dream. Billy was there, in the woods, and he would point to something — a limb on a tree, a deer standing, a duck flying across the moon — and each time he would point at himself and then back to the scene and at the end he pointed at Brian, then at himself, then back at Brian and that was when Brian awakened and sat bolt upright, so suddenly that he hit his head on the inside of the canoe.

For a moment he sat there, wondering why he was awake. It was dark, though clear and well lighted by the moon, and there was a faint glow in the east. Nothing had disturbed the camp to awaken him, and then he remembered Billy and the dream.

It was there. Billy was his medicine. The deer, perhaps, but Billy as well, and it hit him that when he’d met Billy he was meeting himself years from now, an old man who looked carved in wood moving through and with the forest, being of and with the woods, and he decided that it wouldn’t be so bad a thing to be.

He arose and made a fire and had tea and a sugar cube and was packed and moving on the lake in the canoe before daylight. There was another series of long lakes and he could easily make Williams Lake and the Smallhorns that day.

He bit deep with the paddle, the canoe jumping ahead with his stroke, the pack tied in, his bow with a broadhead on the string lying in front of him, wearing only shorts except for the medicine hanging around his neck, burned brown now by the sun, one with the canoe and the lake and the morning and the air, and he was an hour across the lake when he realized he was not going to the Smallhorns.

It was a big map. There were many lakes and rivers to see, much more country to be in, and the Smallhorns would still be there later. He would find them when it was time to find them. He would head this way for a time, then perhaps move west with the sun.

Out ahead was the end of the lake, and out ahead of that another lake and out ahead of that the forest and out ahead of that his life. .

Just waiting for him to find it.

He leaned forward at the waist, slipped the paddle deep into the water and pulled back again, evenly, his arms and shoulders taking the load. The canoe came alive and seemed to leap ahead.

He would follow his medicine.