Never Alone, page 17
I turn my face into the rising sun, gathering up as much of its glow as I can. Then, with conviction, I turn square to the camera and say, “Just like the changing seasons, today is the day when my luck here changes. Today, I start bringing in real food.”
Though this is officially the first day of autumn, and often still tank-top weather where I come from, up here it’s winter I feel in the air, not fall. I can almost taste it, subtle but unmistakable—a metallic tang on my tongue.
Most winged creatures are following a primal urge to rush south toward light, warmth, and steady food before it’s too late. And here I stand, with no fur, feathers, or stores of food, digging my heels in thousands of miles north of the land I call home, as arctic winter draws in.
I head out to fish the peninsula’s furthest point. The recent storm has stripped most of the leaves from the birch branches. Instead of rustling overhead, they now make brilliant golden confetti under my feet, thick as a carpet and deeper still in the crevices between the rocks.
I do my best to hold firm in the belief that my fishing luck will change today. My optimism wanes as I cast, reel in, and cast again, seeing no ripples, splashes, or signs of life.
A breeze picks up, gentle at first, but before long my hair is fluttering against my cheeks.
Finally, the glassy surface has turned into foamy whitecaps and my line is getting driven back to shore as fast as I can throw it out. I’m forced, once again, to pack up, empty-handed.
Trudging home, disappointed but determined to keep faith, I hear chattering from a tree ahead. There’s a squirrel in a low branch yelling at me. By now I have lost enough arrows to be cautious of even the low shots. This branch, though, is backed by solid rock. There’s no way my arrow can disappear.
I’ve missed too many hunting opportunities because setting up the big camera has alerted the game to my presence. This time the GoPro on my head is already running, so I leave the other camera in my pack and hold my breath as I feel around my pack for an arrow with a small point that won’t cut the squirrel in half like a broadhead would. My eyes never leave the squirrel as I find the right arrow, draw it quietly from the quiver, and fix it in place.
I inhale as I draw the bow in one fluid motion, exhale and hold as I steady it, aim, and release. Time slows as my awareness flies toward the branch with my arrow, and I watch in stunned amazement as the point catches the squirrel in the chest, swipes it off the branch, and pins it to the moss below. Oh my god! I’ve done it! I got the squirrel!
My sense of time and place returns as I rush to it. Flecks of blood—foamy with air bubbles and brilliant red from being freshly oxygenated—dot the green moss and confirm that it’s a lung shot. Its chest is warm and vibrates under my hand as I pour gratitude through my fingers; but gratitude isn’t a big enough word to express what I feel in this moment. Awe comes closer. This small life will have more of an impact on my own than anything I have ever eaten. My hands shake with emotion as I pick it up, and my eyes sting as tears of relief and gratitude well up.
Then I remember the date. It happened! It actually happened! My luck has finally changed, and on the equinox itself, just as I said it would. The tipping point indeed!
I pick up my quiver, stroking the bobcat fur along its edge. The promise of last spring—inviting the huntress into me as I consumed the bobcat’s body—has come to fruition. “Thank you, beauty. It worked,” I whisper and kiss the spotted fur as I tuck the squirrel into the quiver alongside my arrows. I head back toward the cabin with my head held high and a new sense of vitality in every step, as if I can already feel the energy of the coming meal.
I’m just reaching the boulder field near the cabin when I hear an unfamiliar sound. A flutter of wings draws my eyes to a large, round shape close to the trunk of the spruce tree up ahead.
It’s a grouse!
You are kidding me! Wow, equinox, you aren’t messing around!
I had expected the approach of winter would mean birds leaving but hadn’t realized some would also be arriving. Thus far there’s been no sign of grouse whatsoever, and I had come to believe the peninsula was devoid of game birds—just as it was devoid of fishable waters, large game, and most other food prospects. Yet here it is, another equinox gift.
Once again, I slowly lower the pack to the ground.
Please, I ask the universe. Please, please, please!
I can tell by its muted colors and markings that it’s a female, and she seems contentedly roosted, so I take the time to quietly set up the camera and tripod and aim them at the branch.
I’ve still got the same arrow I shot the squirrel with on the bow string, so I take aim and release. My arrow goes high, just over her head, and disappears into a thick cluster of trees. She fidgets but doesn’t take off.
I shift position so I’m shooting toward rocks, not a spruce grove.
I draw out another arrow, raise the bow again, and release. Aaargh! Low! She cranes her neck down and looks at her feet, curious about what happened, and I hear my arrow clatter on the rocks.
I’m overexcited—too much adrenaline. I need to slow down. I’m down to the last arrow I’ve got with me, a broadhead. I’ve been saving them for moose, but it’s better to use it for a grouse that’s here than a moose that might never come.
I hold the arrow to my heart, breathe deeply to calm myself, and draw again. I hold my breath until I know I’m still, and release. The arrow flies straight toward the center of her chest. As it hits she explodes into flight in a spray of feathers, and swiftly disappears behind the trees of the spruce grove.
What? She took off? How could she take off?
There’s no way I could have missed. I watched the arrow pass right through her, but she’s gone.
I find the second and third arrows on the rocks behind the tree. The shaft of the last one is tacky with blood and countless small, downy feathers cling to it.
I scan the ground for sign, but there’s no blood trail, nothing to follow. Bird skin is elastic and closes around small wounds. Beating wings would vaporize blood that managed to fall into a fine spray, impossible to see against the speckled rocks and moss.
I take stock. She’s perfectly camouflaged, and airborne. If I was a grouse, mortally wounded and feeling in danger, what would I do? I would head to where I felt safest—the thicker trees between here and the lake.
I leave my gear where it lies and head that way. No camera, no distractions. The idea of taking a life and letting it go to waste would be repulsive to me even if I wasn’t starving, but I need this grouse. I’m deeply appreciative of the squirrel, but I’m not kidding myself about how many calories are in an animal roughly the size of my fist. Less than I’ve spent this morning. The hunger that I had learned to live happily with has shifted at the sight of that bloody arrow and is now rising up in me. I can feel it inside like a tense hand gripping my belly, pulling me forward toward wherever the wounded bird may be.
The feathers on her chest match the gray blotches of lichen on the granite. She could be anywhere on these rocks; I could almost step on her before I see her. My heart is beating hard against my ribcage. My whole system is flooded with adrenaline, and I’m hot and sweaty even though it can’t be above forty degrees. Tunnel vision is one of the side effects of an activated nervous system. I can feel it happening; my visual field is closing in. I push myself to shift my focus from what is right in front of me to the broader vision we call “Owl Eyes” in tracking and nature awareness. With Owl Eyes, one can take in the greater patterns of the landscape and more easily spot anything that looks out of place.
I circle the grove, walking the rocky ledges, but see no form breaking up the angular lines of the rocks, no cloudy pile of fluff and feathers.
I elbow my way into the grove, where the spruces grow so thick their branches touch one another. The ground is scattered with blocky boulders carpeted with sphagnum moss five inches deep, and underbrush that grabs at my legs and boots. In every ten square feet of forest there are probably fifty places a grouse could disappear. I’m methodical, looking into the branches of every tree, underneath every fallen limb, and behind every boulder. I keep my eyes open for the bright pink fletching of the lost arrow as I look, but I see no more sign of it than I do of her.
I reach the far side, come back around, then continue spiraling inward until I have searched the whole thing twice. Nothing.
I can’t give up, but the squirrel has been sitting for a while now, and I need to tend to it.
Back at the cabin I skin it carefully, then lay each tiny, precious organ into the cook pot. I tuck the rest of the carcass in, place the skin next to it, and lock the lid down tight. For the first time, I actually have something I need to protect from mice and scavengers.
When I’m done, my panic about the grouse has passed. I’ll find her. I’m supposed to find her, but maybe the universe requires that I share this moment with the world in order to receive its gift. I start up the big camera and hold it out at arm’s length, pointed at my face as I search. I let myself see the land as she would—having burst from the tree, full of adrenaline.
How far would panic drive her?
I’ve thoroughly searched the rocks and the trees. Now I walk the edge between them, peering between birch trunks into the thick forest.
I muse out loud as I search, “I just don’t know how far a grouse can go wounded. I know a bear can run thirty yards after it’s been shot in the heart.”
Then, I see a rounded shape against the green ground cover and gasp—are those feathers?
36
Naming Artemis
Oh my god it is! It’s her! I’ve found her!
I’d swear I already looked here, but this time there’s a ray of sun shining through the trees. The grouse is glowing as I pick her up, and the light catches the white feathers of her breast and head. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, so sleek and graceful. Her head lolls and one bright drop of blood dribbles from her beak. A perfect lung shot, yet she flew another fifty yards to die in this peaceful stand of white-trunked birches, where I can hear the waves lapping the shore.
What an incredible turnaround. I can hardly believe I have been so blessed. It’s all too perfect. My throat swells and I’m crying before I know it. I can hardly contain myself. I’m overwhelmed by it—to have searched so hard and almost given up, but to have held faith; to have felt hunger so deep in my body, but still been utterly grateful for every second here; to have laid my life on these rocks and asked this place to feed me and then when it didn’t, to say, “That’s okay, I’ll find something else to live on”; and to have found sustenance in beauty. It was all meant to be and has all culminated in this.
This is the moment when I know I belong. My chest swells with the knowledge. My breath feels bigger—no, I feel bigger, my lungs and heart taking up more room, my shoulders wider. The land has tested me every step of the way—tested my resolve by covering me in snow only three days in, tested my body with oozing welts and raw lips, tested me with hunger by giving me a rocky, barren peninsula with no fishing spot on a lake people travel across the world to fish on.
“She says she’s here in gratitude and connection,” the land had asked, “but does she really mean it?”
And I did. I do. I stare down at the bird in my hands, the details blurred through the flowing tears. The land has seen me. I have been deemed worthy.
The scale has tipped. I’m no longer a visitor waiting on the doorstep to see if I’ll be let in. Now I live here.
I pluck two particularly striking feathers—boldly patterned with black and white stripes—from her breast, and thread them through my pierced ears. I’m part grouse now, as well as part bobcat, and I want to look the part.
I try to wipe my weeping eyes, but my fingers are sticky with blood. Soon, I’m messier than when I started, my cheeks still wet with tears, but now with feathers and blood mixed in as well. In this moment, it strikes me as incredibly funny. I’m brimming with so much joy and exaltation that it all feels both wonderfully blessed and ridiculously comical. Tears of wonder, gratitude, and relief keep running down my cheeks, tickling as they drag the feathers down with them. Everything about this morning, this bird, this triumph, and this life is so utterly beautiful, magical, and hilarious that I might never stop laughing and crying about it. I’m woozy with the swirl of so many intense emotions. It’s hard to talk to the camera through my tears and laughter, and impossible to sum up all I’m feeling, so I just say, “What a freaking morning,” and head back to camp.
I stop on my way home and gaze out over the lake, realizing that this is a big deal, and it’s about more than just the squirrel and grouse. I have hunted a little with rifles, and I have shot my bow a lot, but this is the first time I have ever shot and killed something with my bow. Today isn’t just the tipping point of the sun’s arc and the seasons; it’s a tipping point in my life. Now I’m a real hunter. No—a huntress, an important distinction. It matters to me to embody all that’s beautiful about the feminine in this pivotal moment. And I have been—I’m wearing the wool skirt and leg warmers and am hunting from a place of love and connection.
This time, I let the land and my body’s deep knowing draw me to the grouse, rather than use the more masculine approach I took earlier—charging after her in my adrenaline rush and thinking my way through. Neither is better or worse; they are equally valid, but different. As the masculine approach to hunting and outdoor skills is what our culture generally thinks of and celebrates, I’m thrilled that it was the feminine approach, using softness and deep listening, that brought me this success, and that I get to share it with the world through the camera. After so many years of pushing my softness down to illustrate my toughness, it’s a joy to feel utterly in love with who and what I am and, over two decades after I started making my first wooden bow when I was nineteen, to finally have become a bow huntress.
I know what I need to do to mark the occasion—name my bow! As soon as the thought enters my mind, I already know its name. Artemis, of course, goddess of the hunt, animals, and the wild. Walking home with my bow and my bird in hand and adorned with grouse feathers, it isn’t just my bow that is Artemis, I am also embodying the ancient goddess myself.
37
Spruce Grouse Cottage
The sun is warm on my back as I lay my birch bark “cutting board” on the ground outside the cabin. As I pluck the grouse, clouds of her tiny feathers, too small to catch, reflect the bright sunlight and swirl around my head in the light breeze. I can smell the spruce needles scrunching under my feet and the animal scent of her body. All my senses are heightened. Everything feels different—stronger, brighter, more real—now that I belong here more deeply.
I save everything, peeling the fat from around her organs and intestines and saving the congealed blood—rich in protein, iron, and salt—from her chest cavity.
With her organs in the pot lid and her body wrapped in birch bark, I tuck her next to the squirrel, feeling like the wealthiest person in the world. Wealthier, because those rich only in money, who have never known lack, will never appreciate food in this way. Money can’t buy this kind of gratitude, but true hunger can.
Surprisingly, now that I know I have food, I don’t feel compelled to eat it right away. It isn’t that I’m not hungry—I’m ravenous—but I’m used to that. It’s far too beautiful a day to sit inside, though, and I can cook just as easily in the dark. These two generous creatures have changed everything. If I continue this trend, and staying and “surthriving” here are possible, I’m doubly determined to harvest more cabin-winterizing materials. I bring my “scarf” (actually a wide piece of wool cloth I got from a fabric store) out to an area of deep sphagnum moss and spread it on the ground. I heap piles of moss onto the scarf in thick layers. Sphagnum moss is one of the best insulating materials around and will be a lot harder to harvest once it’s buried in snow or frozen solid. Today, while it’s still easy, I’ll harvest enough to improve the cabin and cushion my bed, and for anything else I might need it for this winter.
One scarf load is four times what I could carry in my arms alone. I choose a sheltered spot against my south wall and start a pile of moss, then spend the afternoon hauling countless more loads. By dusk the pile is as tall as my chest.
Satisfied with my work, I turn back to the cabin, where my meal beckons. It feels appropriate to begin with the squirrel, as it was my first kill here. Today, I decide, it will get my full attention. I’ll cook the grouse tomorrow.
Flames aren’t great for cooking—they make a lot of smoke and often burn the meat—so I let the fire burn down to brilliant, cherry red coals while I cut the squirrel into smaller pieces. Red squirrels are tiny, and much more so without their skins. The entire thing, nose to rump, is only about six inches long and two inches around. I separate the minute scapula from the toothpick-sized ribs with delicate flicks of my knife. Shoulders are remarkably insubstantial, just a few muscles and ligaments holding them all together. Butchering shoulders always gives me pause, making me wonder what my own look like inside.
My shoulder trouble started in 1998, when I was twenty-three and working at an outdoor education center in the northern Adirondacks. I never knew what caused it—maybe splitting the many cords of wood we used to heat the dormitories, maybe all the hide scraping I was doing in frigid temperatures. Whatever it was, by spring I had crippling pain in my shoulders. For the next decade, when temperatures dropped below freezing, the joints would sometimes seize up so painfully that I occasionally needed help getting in and out of my clothes.
