The Echoing Woods (pt. 3, revised)

The Child Badger

In retrospect, there were many signs that indicated how special Sara was. For one thing, the fact that she was found on top of a tree, and stayed there for two days while the elderly arriero tried to coax her down. The second was the fact that, although she was starving when found, she was still capable of incredible self-restraint. She has something of the wolf inside her, ever watchful, hesitant to trust, and decisive when she needed to be. She would reveal her true nature during the disastrous expedition into the woods, finishing what Sa had been unable to finish.

The people still bore the uneasy memory of the recent troubles. There had been a war, and the people had risen up to resist the settlers, burning down buildings, and massacring families, and burning fields. It was a long and bloody combat, in which the settlers had had to withdraw. Why they didn’t return in force no one could understand, and it gave the people a false sense of security. For ten years they thought that, possibly, they had succeeded in expelling the settlers from far to the south, those settlers who looked so different, and who so insistently had sought to impose new ways.

There was the fact, first of all, that the two peoples could hardly understand each other. The settlers refused to listen, and took no heed of custom. It had ever been the case that when conflict arose among the people of the land, there had been clashes, and raids on other nations, but no one group had ever tried to impose their ways on the other. Clashes flared up but then receded, and there was a certain stability in the ways that had prevailed for so many years. Observances continued, their ways remained distinct, and when outsiders arrived, the groups of the rolling prairies would join together to expel them.

This latest conflict had been long overdue. The newest settlers had behaved in ways never seen before, and they had brought with them misfortunes they had never experiences. Among them was the obligation to change their way of life, and the imperative that they settle in permanent abodes, attached as they were to farms and to a new style of agriculture they had never practiced before. They had chafed, but the settlers had flashing fire sticks that had killed many, and after a while, they had been forced to submit. But they didn’t forget their ways, and even though one generation grew up among the settlers and began to give signs of accepting what had been imposed on them, there were ways to rally resistance.

Eventually, with the killing of the son of the old chief, they had rebelled. They had long been conspiring together, but the settlers had taken little notice. Finally, they had their chance, and on a new moon they burned as many buildings as they could, and captured as many fire sticks as they could, and most importantly, they killed all the horses they could reach and took all the food they could take, riding deep into hiding and awaiting for opportunities to ambush the pursuers.

They had been successful beyond their wildest imagination.  The settlers had become overconfident, and although not all of the people joined in the rebellion, they managed to inflict heavy losses. Later, scattered punitive expeditions took their toll among the people, and there were several massacres, on both sides, of women and children, but the native people managed to expel the settlers. They killed as many of them as they could, and the rest fled as best they could, guarded by the few foot soldiers who remained, in a long column towards the south. By then, it was winter, and the people made plans so that they spring would not catch them unprepared.

The people were fortunate to have a leader with the qualities of Dry Arroyo. Such was his name, in the language of his people. He decreed that the groups should return to their traditional ways, and that the land be cleansed of the presence of the settlers. And such was the way of life for the people during the next thirty years. Many had, of course, developed a preference for some of the customs of the departed settlers, and in particular, many women took to wearing crosses carved out of wood, but for the most part, and it also took several years before the buffalo ranged in the same numbers as they had before, but for the most part, they were able to work through their difficulties. The winters were leaner and colder than they had been before, and hunger returned, but at least it didn’t carry the weight of humiliation that they had had to bear during the period of settlements.

When the European settlers returned, they had the help of a few of the southern peoples who, in generations past, had belonged to waves of people who they had long distrusted. These southern people had changed, and now wore the clothing of the settlers, and also, spoke much of the language of these people. They had changed. By then, Dry Arroyo was an old man, and the new leaders were ineffective in mounting a defense. It was also the case that the people had fallen into disunity. They had no eternal leader such as the wolves of the echoing woods had.

The nations were overcome singly, in a process that lasted almost twenty years. At times, the people grew so desperate that a few of the younger and foolish ones expressed the opinion that they should seek the help of the white wolf, for hadn’t  the wise man Sa said, several generations ago, that he was to be considered a protector? They made entreaties at the edge of the woods, and left offerings of food and precious materials, and even, live children, but their offerings were refused. The wolves were still to be seen, emerging from time to time from the woods, and they still had the evidence of the fires that were set within the woods, but other than that, they lacked a man with the qualities of Sa who would be acceptable to the wolves. They knew better than to try to enter the woods themselves.

With time, new garrisons were established by the settlers, who returned with their livestock, with their weapons, and with their preachers. There was a harder edge to them this time, and it was evident that they meant to establish two parallel societies. No longer would they live together, servant and master in the same household. Now, it was evident that they meant to force the nations of the rolling plains to live in new settlements, where they would be separated from each other, and guarded over by preacher and soldier. And, they would no longer be allowed to gather for conferences.

Buildings were constructed once again, and a livestock economy was revived on the grasslands. The soldiers with time sent for their families, and they were given grants of land. Slowly, five years, it was as if the memory of resistance had taken a dream-like quality. They had had difficulties, of course, and they remembered the immense pride they had felt after the success of their first rebellion, but they found themselves now so imprisoned in an onerous web of control that they found it difficult to conceive of a plan for a new rebellion. Their leaders were identified and punished, but what surely must have been a network of spies, and it was the case as well that the resistance they had mounted had weakened them. There were many widows and many orphans, and their hunger was not alleviated.

But among them the lore of the land continued. It was, of course, a beautiful lore, and it was passed on from one individual to the next. The women, in particular, became the prized storytellers of the people, and they held on to much of the history of the nations. Their symbols took on new meanings, in the type of double life they were leading, and for them, the white wolf and his pack became symbols of a justice that was deferred. The woods, of course, remained as impenetrable as they had always been, and it gave them pleasure to hear of foolish settlers who tried to enter the woods and never returned. The woods were the same, and in the same degree that they came to admire the white wolf, there grew a deep dread for this same creature and the woods in which they lived on the part of the settlers.

From time to time, one of the old ones would venture to visit the edge of the woods and address the trees. They would tell of their struggles, and talk about their dreams, in which they imagined a new home, one waiting for them deep in the woods. That their dreams were motivated in large part by the delirium of hunger was known by all, and also, by the fact that they almost certainly must have been suffering from a type of intoxication that came with the consumption of too much of the sacred weed, the Paruntha plant. The old ones would talk about the moving patterns they saw in the skies, and of the way the water reflected the presence of the many ghosts that inhabited the land, ghosts that had grown more numerous especially in the way of the brutal losses of life they had suffered.

It was said that these old one from time to time would find themselves looking into a dozen pairs of eyes staring out from the woods. Those eyes were part of a presence they took for granted, and whether ghost of wolves, it made no difference, for in truth both beings were taken to be one and the same. The wolves of the woods were spirits, and it was understood that they rejected the style of life to be lived out in the rolling hills and open lands because it was a life of dream. The eyes never blinked, and the old ones told the rest that they never heard any breathing or howling either. Those eyes were quiet, but also, insistent.

The settlers knew of these monologues at the edges of the woods, but given that these were the doings of the older ones, they found it easy to ignore them. They were not likely to severely punish old people who were undoubtedly rattled, and who furthermore, posed little risk with their burdens that they unleashed to the woods. Had it been young people, especially young men, they would have taken harsh steps and whipped them until they left them scarred and bent, but the old ones had already been punished by time, and were seen as a nuisance, for they contributed little towards the reestablishment of the settlements. It would have been just as well if they had chosen to enter the woods and not returned.

The woods, however, posed a continuing problem. From time to time expeditions were formed, with hunters who knew of trails and the life of the woods, and accompanied by soldiers with guns and a few native guides who they trusted implicitly because they had been forewarned of any consequences should they be found guilty of any treasonous acts. The settlers were always grim-faced as they ventured on these expeditions, but the guides were somehow elated. No one had ever been known to return from the woods, and this gave the guides a certain comfort, for they thought that surely they would find a liberation and wonders in a place that only Sa had been allowed to enter, and of which he had given only vague hints, because after all, he had been blind when he entered, and he had furthermore been unable to share the full scope of what he had experienced.

The settlers , with their soldiers , took the forbidding feel of the  woods as a sign that there must surely be a hidden tribe or nation of people hiding within, one thoroughly adapted to the ways of the wood and as such a source of constant threat. There was to be no going around the woods, for they lay in-between the rolling hills and the mountains to the west, and these mountains would surely have to be explored because they had people who were keen on the prospect of mining, and eager to determine if there might not be incredible wealth to be found. The woods, as well, would surely help the settlements in other ways.

The old arriero Felipe San Ramón was to be a part of the latest expedition. He was not native to this land, and had come from much further south, from groups who had been overtaken, and who had also similarly resisted and been overwhelmed, and who had resigned himself to forgetting about retribution or a return to the old ways, and who would now settled for a peaceful old age. He had become a porter, and he made the long journeys from the south up to the new settlements on the northern frontier. He had been an avid hunter as a young man, and been successful as a warrior, but now, his bones grew quickly weary, and he was frequently slow of speech with strangers. He knew of the difficulties of the natives, but he knew few of their words, and for this, he was deemed especially useful by the settlers, for his inability to talk to the suffering natives and share grievances.

Felipe was a very weathered old man who had grown slightly stooped with age. He was always talking to his burros, which was the same as saying that he talked to himself compulsively.  The burros didn’t mind, and whether he rode on top of them or walked besides them, it made little difference. The burros were stolid creatures, gentle and trusting, and quite clever when they needed to be. The could be obstinate as well, and when they didn’t want to walk any further, they were in the habit of stopping, and nothing Felipe could do would entice them to resume unless they had satisfied their appetite or rested, and since these impulses so frequently coincided with his own impulses to do precisely the same, there was much harmony between them. At times, it even seemed to Felipe that the burros talked back to him, for an entire speech could surely be read in the muzzle toss of a burro.

Recently, Felipe San Ramón had come into possession of a granddaughter. How this had happened, given that his children had never grown to be of age where they could have children, they having succumbed to sickness and hunger long ago, was neither here nor there. His granddaughter was a young seven year old girl named Sara, who he had encountered last year when returned up to the frontier while carrying a load of pots.

She was an orphan, in a land where orphans were common, but she was unlike any orphan he had known before.  For one thing, so many orphans he had known had been piteous and mistreated children who grew stunted both physically and emotionally. Many banded together into packs like wild wolves, and were ever on the hunt for the meal, for the next look of pity that they could milk for a handout. They were predatory, and much to be feared, especially by an old man such as himself who, if he wasn’t careful, could be swarmed by a pack and find his wares stolen, after which the pack would magically disappear.

She had been a solitary figure that he had found one afternoon as the light was drawing to a close, out in the middle of the land, all by herself. He had not seen her at first, he having stopped next to a tree where he chose to customarily find shelter. He had settled underneath, removed the load of goods from his burros, tied them and given them water. If they needed more food, they knew best how to find it. He had also gathered dry branches, and had made a fire for heating his tea, and the meager meal he always had for dinner. He had taken little note of the pair of eyes above until after he had finished eating, and had chanced to look up. It took him a little while to recover his breath, for he thought for a moment that he had had the misfortune to have sidled up to a predatory cat of some sort.

She stared back down calmly, and didn’t move. He called out loudly in the hope that he might intimidate the beast he thought he might have encountered, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he saw that she was a small child. There was an unusual cast to her, and as he stoked the fire to get brighter flames, he saw that she was wearing a peculiar type of clothing. He felt reassured that she was only a child, and that there was only one of her, and not an entire pack of orphans who surely would not have taken pity on him if they had encountered him alone.

Felipe tried to coax her to come down, but she resisted. He tried to ask her for her name in several of the languages he had encountered, and to none of these did she seem to react. She was a very thin creature, and Felipe reflected on how foolish it must have been for a single child to find herself alone. He would later find out that she was more resourceful than he had imagined, for she was adept at trapping birds, and was furthermore expert at the art of foraging. He would also learn that, had she chose, she could easily have hidden herself from his view. For some reason, she chose to reveal herself to him, an inoffensive and shuffling old man whose constant monologue could be heard a mile away.

Felipe offered her food from his stores, and water. He poured out a little of the corn meal he carried with him, and he showed her as well the acorns he carried, and he mimicked to her the act of drinking. He wondered if he should not gather his burros, burden them once again, and move on to another shelter, but he knew enough to recognize that not only was he too tired to go tromping off into the open land after a day of travel, but his burros would never consent to do so. Besides, he reasoned, she was much too small a creature to pose him any harm. He decided to trust to his fate, and to set some food and water for him on the other side of the fire, and to settle down with a blanket and to go to sleep. Maybe he would tell her a story about the badger he had once encountered further south, next to a river, one that had followed him for a way and that he had never found the courage to kill because it seemed like such a foolish creature, a badger with a fearsome reputation but who somehow gave the appearance of being lost and in need of some help. He told her about that bright summer day long ago when he had made a new friend.

He would later name her Sara. He had no idea why he had been motivated to give her this name. Maybe it was just the sound of those noises, or maybe, it was a name he had encountered in the past, although he was unable to remember where he had heard it. During the entire next day and night, he stayed under that tree and rested, and felt no guilt or danger because of this. He couldn’t seemed to convince her to climb down the tree, but it suspected she had done so, given the fact that the food he had laid out had disappeared. Besides, he knew he was a sound sleeper, and she would surely have had ample opportunity to climb down. Still, it bothered him that she would respond to his questions, only look at him insistently, as if she were in need of something.

What he did know, after gauging her appearing in the light of day, was that she was a product of the local peoples.  The shape of her face, of her eyes, and the color of her skin told of someone who came from one of the local nations. If only she were to say something, then he could pin it down.

Felipe decided on the third day to leave. He had spent the entire second day explaining that he would be going soon, and that she should tell him if she understood, and that he wouldn’t be coming back, and that he would like to hear her say something. She remained above in the tree branches, looking down at him, or sometimes, looking off in the distance. He left her a serving of cooked cornmeal on the day he left, as well as a pile of nuts and some dried beef. He did feel a little regret, for even though she had never said anything, she had seemed to be a patient and attentive audience, and he could have sworn she understood him. He spoke in a mangle of languages, but principally, in the language of the settlers as well as the dialect of his own southern people, but interlaced with a few words of the local language of these people of the rolling hills.

That morning, Felipe gathered together his things, and tied them once again on the burro, and retook his path. He walked slowly, and wondered if he might have taken the wrong tact when he spoke to her. Maybe there are things that one can communicate without words? What if she were like the badger, who had followed him and proven to be such a nuisance to him that day long ago, but that he missed after it disappeared? By all rights, the badger had needed help, and he had been unable to provide it. But at least he didn’t shoot it, which he had been tempted to do but which, out of what mysterious act of grace, had overwhelmed him.

He continued on that long road through the empty grasslands with his cargo. When he stopped for the night, and started his fire, he felt lonelier than he had ever felt, and found himself wishing for comfort. Somehow he couldn’t sleep, and it was quieter than he had ever remembered. He looked out into the open sky, and saw the shape of the bear pouncing after the slither snake. When next he came to, it was still dark, but he heard the sound anew that had awoken him. It was a quite cough in the darkness.

He turned and noticed the girl, Sara, sitting off to the side, at the edge of the shadows. Felipe chuckled to himself, then stretch out his hand to the additional blanket that he had set aside next to the tree. He offered it to her, and she got up and took it before returning to her spot on the other side of the fire. There was an air of quiet acceptance in her stance, and Felipe turned to his side and fell asleep, dreaming as he did of the badger, who told him a story that he quickly forgot when he woke up the next morning..

She was, of course, there the next day when he woke up, tending to the fire, and had already heated a pot of water. When he opened his eyes and gazed at her, this small child or the rolling hills, this dark creature of seven or eight years of age, more animal than human, he couldn’t help but notice that she smiled.

 

 

OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013) 

The Coming Apocalypse (Review of World War Z)

Our culture seems to have a deep-seated obsession with zombies. This has been ongoing for almost all of my life, at least since the 70s, and we can probably antedate it further, by referring to other popular works such as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” which, in its time, reflected perhaps a fifties obsession with dissimulation and political disloyalty, and the perception of the “hidden enemy” (the traitor).

We have seen this obsession extended to a catalogue of other seemingly supernatural beings, a coterie comprised of vampires, werewolves, and even a clinical arsenal of disorders that range from bi-polar disorder to multiple personalities. There is an element of compulsion in all of them, for there are appetites that must be satisfied, and these transformations allude in a powerful way to a grammar of cause and effect. If we repress our needs, we become unstable, and unleash a hidden monster that overwhelms the thin veneer of society. As with the famous work by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya, the sleep of reason unleashes monsters.

 

Earlier this year, we witnessed the release of the thriller “World War Z”. It is based on a popular novel from 2006 written by Max Brooks, and as adapted to film, it details a scenario which has not been seen very often in works of this genre.

For the most part, to talk about zombies is to talk about the coming apocalypse, the end of the world, one in which the epidemic only catalyzes what was almost a fait accompli waiting to take shape, a judgment rendered by the court of nature, so to speak. These movies typically comprise narratives that concentrate on the experiences of bands of survivors who are trying desperately to hang on. This is the case, for example, with Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead, in which little attention is given to narrating the earliest stages of this crisis, and in which instead we are left to deal with a shattered world, one in which human relationships have become fundamentally unmoored.

But in this film, we are treated to the scenario of these early stages. We have, then, the inflection point, the point of no return, where a seemingly normal world is transformed drastically, with all the dramatic potential that this entails. One would have to say that this inflection point has an essence all its own, a certain majestic quality like that present in other disaster scenarios, those that are captured in a small but breathless way in 24 hour television coverage that seems to thrive on this drama. It would seem, then, that this zombie phenomenon is a natural outgrowth of current cultural trends, and that we have more than just the usual cautionary tale that we have seen so often in science fiction.  

It is almost as if these movies allow us to visualize and give expression to underlying anxieties that pervade our culture, and that are stoked so expertly by political ideologues. Those on the right warn against the dangers of unrestricted immigration, demonizing the poor and the ethnically diverse. Those on the left rail against economic forces that seem to foreshadow a breakdown of social cohesiveness, as well as against the dangers of a coming environmental collapse. There are deep-seated fears that extend to many other aspects, and it finds expression in the creation of a crisis mentality. Like the tornado touching down on the plains, or the tsunami slowly approaching the shoreline, or the raging fire that sweeps across our densely populated landscape, these are forces almost impossible to resist.  They thus have a majesty that seems all the more compelling because of this, because they linger in our imagination. Such is the scene with the protagonist Gerry Lane, played by Brad Pitt, who starts what appears to be a normal day, but then, while caught in traffic in Manhattan, is a witness to this sudden disaster that erupts in our midst.

 

 

This point of impact, of course, has many dramatic possibilities. It has an alien element, one which bewilders and in a certain way incapacitates us, for what else can a disaster do if not disable our psychological defenses and freeze us, at least for the moment? How else to describe the poetic power of waves upon waves of zombies careening down the streets, attacking everyone in their wake, running with the agility and speed of Olympic athletes, and turning everyone they bite into zombies in twelve seconds flat? It is a wave that is dehumanizing but is also awe-inspiring, and we see it repeated in many scenes in this film.

The situation becomes desperate in the blink of an eye, of course, and suddenly, humanity is besieged. Who can put a stop to this wave of deformed and utterly unstoppable humanity, where suddenly, zombies gain a physical prowess that the humans who occupied those bodies never had? It has to be metaphor for something else, for the unease produced by the perception of transformations at work in humanity now.

I used to refer to the zombie genre as one offering parables of the dangers of unbridled consumerism, but somehow, it seems to suggest something even deeper. We feel as if we have lost control over our society, as if we are in the grip of alienating economic and social institutions that dehumanize us, that treat us as aggregates, that leave us with little sense of autonomy. We are already zombies, culturally and psychologically speaking, and that is why the zombie meets with the shock of familiarity.

In the film, we are treated to another spectacle in which the good-looking but reluctant hero ventures out to look for answers. He is forced to go out and confront these dangers, in the manner of the hero in Joseph Campbell’s analysis, and what he finds, of course, is a series of clues to a puzzle that must be pieced together. We have Sherlock Holmes in the guise of a forty-something retired crisis inspector for the UN, and we as an audience occupy the role of Watson, trying to anticipate the answer that will surely become evident through the process of deductive reasoning. The film would then purport, seemingly, to offer a narrative in which the rational would still coexist with the irrational, a contradiction that is never really resolved, for there is as ever a dreamlike quality to this film. (One thinks, for example, of the way in which the zombies reenact the biblical destruction of Jericho’s walls, where this time the action is transposed to the city of Jerusalem, in an allusion that can’t fail to have a political undertone as well.)

 

 

In the meantime, the challenges become more severe. What I am struck with is the observation that these zombies defy the laws of nature. They bite only to infect, not to satisfy their appetite, and humans are transformed into zombies in the space of seconds, almost an instant. It is as if this potential for transformation were latent all the time, and an overweight and mild-mannered programmer who never lifted a barbell is able, for example, were suddenly able to run a forty-yard dash in record time, and to coordinate his or her movements in an uncanny fashion such as not to impede the movement of the wave, and to serve as the vanguard of destruction. Don’t zombies have leg cramps that would disable them? Don’t they have metabolisms that need to process energy in a sustained fashion, and don’t they have post-adrenaline surge crashes?

Zombies are forces of nature, they are aggregates, they are waves, and their destructive potential assumes the most efficient form of expression. They are symbols, of course, for the loss of control.

Tension builds up, and as in any thriller, time is short. Even the last survivors, confined to battle cruisers that wait uncertainly 200 miles off the coast (can zombies swim?) are doomed unless an answer is found soon. And the answer arrives in a stunning insight that is withheld from the spectators in a way designed to frustrate us further even as it is suggesting in the knowing glance and the moment of epiphany that strikes Gerry as he contemplate the spectacle of a planeload of passengers overtaken by the wave in mid-flight. It is an epiphany that was all too common in other shows, such as the recently concluded “House” on television, and yet, it is necessary to prime the spectator for the prospect of a revelation.

It would seem that it isn’t only the Christian fundamentalists who revel in the spectacle of the final apocalypse, and earnestly proclaim and even welcome the proximity of the rapture. (Witness the popularity of tele-evangelists such as Hal Lindsey, or the earnest affirmations of reverend John Hagee.) Such is the case, as well, with scientists and with those who would ordinarily be associated with a more secular outlook, who also, in similar fashion, warn about the imminent destruction that will accompany global warming, or the honeybee collapse, or escalating global contamination and the many “signs” that accompany it. We believe in portents, and are all too ready to project our fears by forming scenarios that reveal our own peculiar set of biases. It seems that disaster has a satisfying emotional component associated with it as well. It is the “I told you so” moment that affirms us even while doing nothing to delay our destruction.

There is in this film the promise of a temporary reprieve to the threat of extinction. It is not quite the happy Hollywood ending, for it is fragile, as fragile as the interrupted and at times distorted communication between the investigator and his wife. Science and rationality will save us, but at the same time it dooms us, and this film has all the earmarks of a prophetic warning that we must curb our ways, take stock, and wake up. It is the secular equivalent to the bible, of course, with demons taking the form of zombies, and pathos evident in the fact that we have harbored these demons within us all along.

 

The zombie apocalypse still threatens humanity at the end of the film, of course, and this state of affairs is still invested with great emotional (and ideological) weight. How long can we continue to rehash these scenarios before they become tired and repetitive? Will we still have zombie movies and the eternal trope of invasion, conquest and decay ten, twenty, or thirty more years down the line? What will take the place of zombies (which are part of a vocabulary of symbols, metaphors and narrative formulas for otherness), for our need to project our anxieties? I’m not so sure we will find new forms, because the old ones still resonate and the human condition seems to remain the same.

 

In the last half of the twentieth century we saw the rise of post-modernism. This took the form of parables of alienation, with narratives that had no clear center, no path discernible and no familiar turning points, where narrative formulas were jumbled and there was an overwhelming sense of isolation, confusion and distance. This dovetailed perfected with the rise of the internet, where we are all more alone than ever, each one in a private world, with seemingly reduced scope for collective action as we all withdrew into narcissistic reflection. (I can’t stand the prospect of seeing any more preening “selfie” shots on social media sites). This film takes a departure from this state of consciousness, because we see once again familiar formulas, evident in the outcast figure who redeems himself and saves humanity. The zombie plague isn’t over, but then, the real problem remains the same: that of building a cohesive society, one that is unified in purpose but flexible enough to embrace diversity without authoritarianism.

 

We’ve seen this before. We were seemingly unified in purpose in this country after the shock of the 911 attacks over ten years ago. In the end, we dropped the ball and returned to the same old imperialist formulas that got us into trouble to begin with, invading in this case the Middle East and settling for an approach of brawn over brains. We went into full biting mode, in other words, unconscious and irrational and savage beyond all measure.

 

The zombie: foot soldier of dying empires.

 

 

OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013) 

The Echoing Woods (pt. 3)

The Child Wolf

In retrospect, there were many signs that pointed to the special nature of the child Sara. It was only natural that she would be the next one to be allowed into the echoing woods, to complete what Sa had been unable to finish.

The land still bore the memory of the recent rebellion. It had been a long conflict, one in which massacres had succeeded massacres and in which entire settlements had been destroyed. Almost all of the buildings had been razed to the ground, and the land had become emptier than it had ever been. The Indians had united under one leader, Crying Eagle, and they had managed to push the settlers out and reestablish control, trying to recover what they felt they had lost. The few settlers who had escaped, and they were very few, had been driven south, but in the coming years, armies had been sent once again, and with them, new allies.

The natives of the county of Lagunas had historical grievances that antedated the arrival of the settlers. In particular, they had fought with the nations of the south, although these were conflicts that had left little impact for the southern tribes fought during the summer months, then retreated to the south in the winter. They took with them very little, other than slaves and war trophies, and these conflicts were fought in cycles that recurred on a regular basis.

When the European settlers came, they had the help of these southern nations, people who had been more completely incorporated into the ideology of the settlers. Yet they still conserved the memory of their long ago battles with the nations of this central region, the people of the prairies that bordered the mountains. And while they lacked the advantage of the intimate knowledge of this terrain, they had superior weapons, and they were led by the military leaders who infused in them the zeal of a religious crusade. The rebellion, which lead to a period of brief recovery, was ground down in the subsequent war and, after twenty years, was almost entirely crushed.

Thus, after garrisons had been established in the ruins of the old settlements, the remaining peoples who had been unable to flee were forcibly reincorporated into the life of the new settlements, and they were forced to reconstruct what they had destroyed before. Buildings were constructed once again, and a livestock economy was revived in the grasslands. The soldiers that formed the basis of these garrisons brought families with them, and they were given grants of land, and slowly, a network stretched out to reach once again to the edges of the echoing woods. The land was fertile, and the herds of buffalo were quickly culled, until the great migrations became just a shadow of what they had been before. The seasons of migration came to an end for the native inhabitants, and those who had survived and who accepted the faith of the settlers, learned to live in the small settlements, and to become laborers, an underclass that slowly lost contact with its cultural roots as it learned a new language and left behind old customs.

But the lore of the land continued for a time, and it was nurtured with a special zeal by the old ones, who came to see in the white wolf a possible symbol of rebellion. The wolf was still sighted, from time to time, and the woods remained as impenetrable as ever. It was said that these wolves represented the only stable connection with their past, and the only possibility to return to the old ways.

Many of the old ones took up the custom of visiting the woods and standing on the edge, speaking to the trees and telling them of their suffering. They were careful to avoid a pitying tone, for they remembered that pity involved a recognition of weakness, and they felt this would diminish them in the eyes of these creatures. But they told them of the many warriors that had died, both during the running battles of the second arrival, and after the conquest, when almost all the able-bodied men had been massacred, leaving only old ones, women and children.

They spoke into the woods, and told of how their children were separated from their parents, and forced to learn new tongues as they labored in the new estates. The women were also subject to abuse, of a type that was almost too shameful to recount, and the remaining people were discouraged in their traditional rituals, and were forced to wear new clothing, and to eat new foods. They spoke of waiting for a new leader, one that could hold what the past one had foolishly lost in his attempts to conciliate with the settlers and the tribes of the south, and they shared their stories of how Sa, the old man-wolf who had been invited to enter into the echoing woods so long ago, had spoken of the white wolf as a protector.

It was true that the settlers seemed as unable to penetrate the woods as the native nations had been in the past. The woods were still as impenetrable and enigmatic as they had ever been, and the fires that blazed at night were still seen. It seemed that, alone out of everything else, only the woods and the sky and the weather had changed. Everything else was destined to end.

And it was true that the settlers talked about venturing into the woods, not so much to exploit the materials and the game, but because they viewed them as a bastion of possible resistance, and in all probability, the abode of a hidden tribe that had likely escaped the notice of the settlers in the past. From time to time soldiers were dispatched, with unwilling and desperate native guides, but these parties never returned. They would venture into the woods, groups of a dozen or more men, following the river into the woods, but nothing was ever heard from them again. This was taken as proof of the existence of a hidden nation, one that was hostile to the settlers and that assuredly constituted a threat to the settlers, and plans were made to mount a much bigger force of hundreds, planning as they did first to set fire to the edges, in the hopes that they could destroy as much of the woods as they could.

The old arriero Felipe San Ramón was to be a part of this group. As an old man he had been brought to the grasslands with the new armies, and he wasn’t a native of the region. He was, in truth, more sympathetic to the remnants of the local nations that were suffering under the new regime, for although his ancestors had belonged to the native groups that had constituted the historical enemies of the people of the grasslands, he remembered the many indignities that his people had suffered, as they had been forced to accept the ways of the settlers. He had grown old working with livestock, and had been enlisted to work as an arriero, ferrying cargo over long distances with the help of pack animals. He had three burros who had served him well, and as someone who had little ties to the land, was enlisted naturally to accompany the expedition that was being organized to subdue the tribes of the interior, as the settlers so firmly believed were dwelling deep within the woods.

FelipeSan Ramón did have a granddaughter, a young girl named Sara. She was not his biological daughter, but instead an orphan he had encountered during while accompanying the settlers in their resettlement expeditions, and he had taken pity on her. She had been a solitary figure that he had found, huddled on the upper branches of a tree, shivering and silent, with great deep dark eyes. She was unusual as well because of the reddish cast to her hair, and were it not for her quiet cough, when he had stopped to rest under the tree, he would surely never have noticed her.

Felipe tried to coax her to come down, but she resisted. She was pale and dirty, and how she had managed to feed herself he had little idea, unless she chose to forage from what she found in the grasslands. She was adept at trapping birds, and he had never seen anyone more adept at handling a slingshot. She evidently did not cook the meat that she caught, but ate it raw, and it might have been that her handling of this game and her wiping her bloodied hands on her hair gave her the wild cast that he perceived. Why she would have revealed herself to him he had little idea, other that the fact that he was, by all appearances, an inoffensive old man.

Felipe offered her food from his stores, and water. He called out to her in the Spanish he had learned from the settlers, and in the language of his fathers, and in the little he had managed to learn of the language of the people of the grasslands. She gave no sign of having understood, but looked at the handful of cornmeal that he offered to her, and the nuts and dried meat that he carried with him. He set them aside for her, and he took pity on her, for otherwise, he would not have lingered under that tree for the next day, speaking to her quietly, telling her of his life, of his parents in the days when they had lived free, wandering in the desert lands, that beautiful land that seemed to reflect his essence.

He named her Sara, from whatever hidden impulse he could not acknowledge, maybe because he liked the sound of that name. And during that entire day and night, he rested, when he wasn’t talking to her, and he came to tell her that, if she wished, he would take her with him, to find her people if she were still looking for them, for one thing was certain, she was of the grasslands, her physical features and the shape of her face and nose and her color told him that much.

Felipe decided to leave without her having once climbed down from the tree branches. She would cough from time to time, and he offered her water, leaving it in cup, and showing her how to drink. He was certain that she had eaten and drank from what he had left out for her, but he never managed to catch her at it, for it must have been while he dozed, and she was so stealthy that he heard little other than the cough.

When he left, he invited her one last time, then retook his path, with his three burros. He was pensive as he left, and regretted that he couldn’t communicate with her, but he had neither the time nor the supplies to remain out there for a prolonged period. He continued on that long road through the empty grasslands with his cargo, that must reach the next settlement within a week, and he had already wasted a precious day, although somehow he felt comforted by having been able to talk about his life to someone who didn’t view him with pity or disgust, and who listened without interrupting and ordering him to keep quiet.

When he stopped for the night, and started his fire, and heated his food, combining the corn meal with hot water, and digging into his supply of dried meat, after tending to his burros, he settled in to look at the night sky, covering himself with an old blanket. After having put away his dishes, and after having draped the blanket around his shoulders as he sat next to the fire, he heard a quiet cough in the darkness. He turned and noticed the quiet presence of the girl, Sara, who was standing at the edge of the shadows, on the other side of the fire, watching him as she had done perched on top of the tree they had both left behind. Without a word, he drew out additional food, and extended to her a cup of the warm wine he had saved for himself, and set it out for her to eat. He wasn’t surprised when she quietly sat down and devoured the food eagerly. For her to allow him to see her eating seemed like a gesture of trust, and he accepted it without speaking. He then added more branches to the fire, and unpacked another blanket, as well as an old shirt that he indicated she should put on, and he settled back and dozed almost immediately. He was ordinarily a very watchful and cautious man, but he trusted her.

She was there the next day, tending to the fire, and when he opened his eyes and gazed at her, this small child of seven or eight years of age, more animal than human, she smiled.

 

 OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013) 

The Echoing Woods (pt. 2)

The Two-Souled One

The white wolf of the echoing woods was a part of the established lore of the native peoples, and had been so for as long as they could remember. Now, it would be natural to assume that it couldn’t have been the same wolf, extending back for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, but the peoples of the plains and the surrounding area insisted this was so. The white wolf was almost certainly held to be the same one, and if it was so old, this could only be explained by the fact that it was a sorcerer. It wasn’t really a wolf, in other words.

Trees lived for hundreds of years, but would eventually succumb. They would grow old and weary, and would be slowly hallowed out, and would lie down the way other living things would lie down. They could also be attacked by illness, by lightning strikes, and by fires. They could be chewed by beavers, or beset by blight, or maybe, their roots might be pierced by some form of burrowing animal. That much had been seen in other trees, and had been communicated in the lore of other people who had lived in forests, if not in the echoing woods. But there were things in these woods that couldn’t be explained.

For one thing, there was the fact, as already mentioned, that the trees were packed closely together at the edges of the woods. They were packed so closely together that they seemed to weave a protective wall that could scarcely be penetrated. Was it meant to keep things out? People could still penetrate into the woods, but they would have to follow the path of the rivers that led out of the woods, but none had ever penetrated very deeply.

It was also a fact that there were fires within the woods that couldn’t be explained. Now, fires were used by the native peoples, and fires resulted as well from the lightning strikes that hit during dry periods, when the skies were abuzz with energy that was meant to caress the world below. (So it was interpreted, for it was thought by many of the original inhabitants that lightning must certainly be a sign of lovemaking between the earth and the sky.) But what could explain the fires that were lit deep within the woods during the winter period, great fires that tinged the sky with red, and that as far as they knew couldn’t have been set by people, for none had been known to live in the woods of the white wolf?

It was said that these fires were set by the wolves themselves, and since the woods were ringed by hills, lying outside the domain of the woods, it was possible for the people to climb up these hills to look into the forests. (Curiosity sometimes overcame fear.) It was said that the fires blazed in certain locations deep within the forest, but these weren’t random blazes. These took the form of shapes, of patterns that seemed to trace out circles, or lines, or what was most breathtaking, spirals. How could these possibly be natural? These fires blazed brightly at night, and it was speculated that the wolves had their own religious ceremonies, and they must certainly be sending messages, for the howls of the woods would echo quite distinctly during the periods when these fires were set, and could be heard for miles away.

The white wolf, the one that stalked the dreams of so many of the Indians of the region and, later, of the white settlers who arrived in subsequent years, quite evidently was the leader of a hidden nation. It was thus worthy enough to be graced with its own name, and in the lore of the Zaltarek nation, was given the name Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui, which meant the two-souled king. It was said to have the spirit of both a wolf and a man, like the great constellation seen on summer nights, the one that seemed to take the form of a wolf with a human face. This face seemed to follow the great milky river that criss-crossed the night sky, as if it was following a path that led to a hidden destination.  The name was also deemed apt because this white wolf, being singular, was quite evidently capable of human speech. This ability had been noted in ancient lore, and while few had ever been in close presence to Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui, those who had and survived were adamant that it had understood their speech and had, furthermore, spoken in turn.

It was said that the white wolf at times condescended to talk to humans, for inscrutable reasons. Never had it been known to ask any questions, for it already seemed to have all the knowledge that it needed, or that it gauged possible to obtain from humans, but it would offer short and taunt observations, as well as warnings, and from time to time, would foretell fates.

History told of an elder who alone had been permitted to have extended conversations with the ancient white wolf. His name had been Sa, and he was known to have been a worthy warrior, one who had furthermore been known for his preference for solitude. As an old man he had grown blind, and by all accounts, would have been forced to depend on the people to attend to his needs had he not received an invitation by the white wolf to the woods and dwell within. Sa, who had turned white and hoary with age, accepted the invitation, for he was human, and curiosity still burned deeply within him, and he had always sought his own path.

Sa, with sightless white eyes  and a white mien, withdrew from the open sunlight, and chose to dwell in the shadow of the trees, in the company of the white wolf. From time to time, he would emerge from the woods, and he would shake his head and turn from side to side, and he seemed to turn whiter the longer he dwelled within, as was passed down by lore. If members of his tribe passed by the edge of the forest, and called out to him, never too insistently, he might emerge, from a patch between the trees that had not been seen before, and he would shuffle out to the men, his former nation, and would speak to them.

He would emerge in particular during the time of the hunt, when the herds of buffalo roamed the land from one corner to the other. The vibrations seemed to draw him out more than the meek calls of his former associates, and he would sit on the ground with his palms touching the ground, and smile, as the drumbeat of distant animals on the open land were a music that enchanted him as few other pleasure had in his lonely life. And he told them of his conversations with the white one.

“The white one shouldn’t be feared”, he is reputed to have said in a conversation that had been persevered in lore, “For while he seems aloof, he cares deeply for the land. We should called him protector, and not wizard, for what he keeps within the woods would surely destroy us if it was loosed upon the world.”

Now, there were episode that had been preserved by oral history, in which the white one had spoken to humans. These were invariably brief conversations, and they were always associated with an element of wonder, for what stood out in the memory of those that recounted these conversations was the memory of the sound of that voice, a hoarse growl that was barked out insistently, but was nonetheless very distinct, and had a certain grace and authority that mesmerized almost as much as the stare of those magnificent green eyes. The white wolf knew more than they could suspect, but it never seemed to be motivated by a desire to do harm, for it was merciless only when provoked.

According to Sa, it was a clever wolf who did, indeed, have two souls. It had the soul of a wolf, but the other soul wasn’t a human. That was where the people had been mistaken. The wolf spoke to the trees, and it spoke as well to the sun, and to the moon, and to the far-off mountains that called to the wolf in their own way that was almost unbearable to the two-souled one. And, contrary to what they had thought, the white one roam about the land only when accompanied by its pack. It was also a lonely animal, as much out of place with the other wolves as it was in the woods far away from the mountains, and when the call became too unbearable, it would roam out by itself away from the woods, out into the plains, unseen and untouched by anyone.

When the moon was hidden, Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui (for Sa chose to continue using the human word, insisting that the name used by the white wolf was quite unpronounceable), the two-souled one wandered far afield, out past the edges of the human settlements. It listened to the voice of the wind, and to the shimmering flicker of the stars, and at times, yes, it approached the settlements of the people, as it had told Sa, and it listened to the fire and to the stories that were told during dark evenings, for stories were the spells that bound it to the earth and to the woods and to the mission it carried out.

“The two-souled one lives for stories, and it knows that the world has ever been a place of conflict. It knows that it comes from somewhere else, but it has been given a mission deep in those woods, and although it is unhappy, it would be unhappier still if it failed at the charge it has been given. The stories tell of sacrifices, first and foremost, and pain alone give dignity to life, for it expressed a sense of the value of things that we otherwise take for granted.”

These were concepts that had been little associated with the figure of the white wolf that had seemed unalterably strange and forbidden, as aloof as the whirling summer twister, as fickle as the wandering buffalo, as oppressive as the snow of winter. To tell the truth, what most affected those who heard the first accounts by Sa of his conversations with the two-souled one was the chilling revelation that they had almost certainly been spied upon by the white wolf in the past, without having any way of detecting its presence.

Sa elaborated on his account. He told them that the wolves had lived in the woods long before the first people had arrived. Back then, the woods had been different, had been brighter, and had been more joyful. What was now a place of echoes had once been a place of music, and the wolves had not been alone. Back then there had been other creatures that lived in the surrounding area, gigantic bison with large tusks, and wild boar, and lions that had prowled in the hills, powerful and feared hunters. But something had happened, something had arrived in the woods that had teemed with activity, and with it, the two-souled one had been called, to try to contain what had slowly started draining the life of the woods.

Here Sa became more ambiguous and vague in his recounting of the story, as if he was hesitant to reveal the true dimension of the problem involved. All he would say was the Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui spoke of one who slept, but would one day awaken. There were places deep inside that he would never see but that the white wolf told him about, and there was a secret place that they, the wolves themselves, avoided at all costs. There were, thus, secretive woods within secretive woods.

Sa told his tribe to respect the boundaries of the woods. They should never try to enter, for they were being kept out for a reason. If they tried to enter, they would certainly be killed, for the need was great to maintain a certain equilibrium, all the more so since it was so fragile. Why it was that Sa had been permitted to enter one he would never be able to explain, but there was a passage deep in the woods, and up to this point little detail had been provided by the two-souled one. It was a riddle that obsessed them both, however.

Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui alone of all the wolves could speak the speech of humans. It was never fully clear, though, if those wolves might not be able to understand human speech, for Sa sensed that the other wolves gathered around when the white wolf spoke to him, and appeared to listen carefully, as he could judge by their quiet breathing and the stillness of the air. Sa learned of many stories that he promised to tell them at another time, and he told them that the wolves listened carefully when he shared his own stories treasured among the people, their own stories of origins, and of hunts, and of courtship and adventure.

There were stories about the river as well, and of the fish that traveled along it and settled in the lakes, but the two-souled one always remembered the mountains from which it had been called.

And so it was that the people memorized the stories told by Sa, those stories that were shared during that one summer, for Sa never did reappear in subsequent years. There were those who scoffed at the stories, and insisted that they must have been idle dreams produced by one who had ever been known to prefer the intoxication of the Paruntha weed, the one of eternal dreams. Why Sa alone had been allowed to enter the woods the young scornful ones could not explain, but they spoke with bravado about their mission, to one day challenge the white wolf, and to claim the woods for their own. In their view, Sa was little other than a foolish man, too fond of solitude and rendered unmanly by age. Others disagreed with these scornful ones, and defended the memory of the old man, who had been a distinguished warrior when young, but little else was said other than to incorporate the account of the hidden mysteries revealed by Sa. It was held that he must surely be gone, though, that winter, the bone rings that had been worn by Sa were found in the midst of their tents, after one moonless night. How they had ended up there was quite unknown, for a man did not part with his bone rings even in death.

So Sa became known as the man-wolf, and Kakturimeritak-fnah-tutwui became known as the wolf-man, in addition to his other titles. And part of this knowledge was passed on to the early friars who accompanied the earliest white settlers, and in particular, to one who took the time to learn the language of the Indian nations and to inquire as to their religion and their legends, thinking thereby to catalogue and dispute these outlandish suspicions. This friar, Fray Joaquín Gaspar Zubizárraga, the Basque, had the foresight to write them down, and that was how the knowledge of Sa and the lore of the two-souled one came to the settlers, when so much lore from the early peoples who had lived before the arrival of the settlers had been otherwise lost. And it was to figure into the legends that were to be spun about the child Sara, she who was also to venture into the woods many years later and to emerge with a wondrous tale and message.

 

OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013) 

The Echoing Woods (part 1)

The Echoing Woods

It was said that one should be very careful when travelling out to forests of the Condado de Lagunas. The lakes around those woods were beautiful, with plentiful fish. The surrounding land was also known to be very fertile, perfect for the growing of corn and other crops. The grasses were tall, and provided much pasture for livestock, and since security was so important for the settlers who were being sent out to live in such isolated areas, there were many defensible positions. Water, land, grass and a favorable terrain, these were the primary attraction for those who were arriving from the south, after the recent rebellion in which so much that had been built up had been lost. But the woods were another matter, a danger, something mysterious that didn’t seem to fit in to what they had encountered in other areas. That was why, once again, the settlers made it a point to avoid the woods, and to detour around them as they established their new settlements.

For one thing, there was a legend that didn’t seem quite real to those who first heard it. This legend had to do with woods that were populated by creatures unlike those found anywhere else. Now, the settlers knew about bears, and about mountain cats, and about bison and snakes and eagles and badgers. They knew also about the dangers of the weather, and of the chill winds that swept across the area, and the tornados that were known to touch down from time to time. They also knew of the fierce Indian tribes that had lived around the area, and that had fought so fiercely during the rebellion, leaving few survivors among those who had settled fifty years before. But they had never heard of the wolves of the echoing woods, wolves that were said to be more than wolves, and who had exerted such a hold on the imagination of the native peoples.

These were no ordinary wolves. The settlers and the native peoples knew of the wolves of other areas, those that lived and hunted in packs, that fought with stealth, and if not controlled, preyed mercilessly on livestock. Those types of wolves had been seen before, and they could be hunted down, they could be drawn out with traps, they could be corralled with special dogs, and they could be culled and forced to retreat until they left for other pastures. Those wolves they knew about. The wolves of the echoing woods were a different kind of wolves, clever in a way that no other wolves had been known to be, and were adept at hunting humans, when provoked. It was a fact that the wolves of these woods, which were seldom seen but could be senses, were dangerous animals, with an almost human-like intelligence, and time after time they had shown themselves to be fearsome foes if settlers tried to cross into their territory. And it was said that these wolves were let by a monstrous white wolf that could freeze your blood and left you breathless, if you were unlucky enough to see it.

The echoing woods were aptly named, and they extended for miles and miles. The trees were packed thickly, and they ranged up to the edge of the mountains towards the east. There were streams that led out of the woods, and flowed out to the open land, creating corridors of greenery that arced across the plains before they became dusty and dry. And these rivers fed the lakes that were found in the area, lakes large and small, with a clear and chilled water that tasted of mountain tops.

When they arrived, the first settlers had seen these woods and felt encouraged. These were woods that they could use, woods that would protect them if need be, and furnish them with material for the settlements they were about to establish. These people had just crossed a dry and open land, one that could seem so desolate at times, and where water was such a precious resource. Where there was water, and forests, there would be game, and they could settle down and establish their ranchos, and slowly expand and incorporate the local inhabitants, bringing the true religion to them, and maybe, one day, making it out to the mountains and hills that were visible as a distant shadow off to the east, where those who didn’t wish to live by farming might find precious minerals. They would built small churches, and have large families, and live with security, if they could be left alone.

But this forest was different. The trees, for one thing, seemed to be unique, and those at the edges were packed so closely together that they resembled what could only be called a type of arboreal fence. There were openings, of course, and one could always follow the streams inland, gaining thus access to the interior, but that didn’t stop the woods from seeming somehow forbidding. And there were signs, for one thing, great flocks of owls that seemed to circle overhead, and chirping noises the likes of which they had never heard before, and that seemed to echo against the wall of trees, almost as if they were warning people to stay away.

Many of the first settlers had been warned by the original inhabitants. Those first episodes of contact were difficult, for the original Indian inhabitants were not sedentary, and were used to moving around and avoiding contact. But once this communication had begun, and once they had found useful go-betweens who had been trained in the respective languages of the groups, they were told over and over that the woods were already inhabited, and that, if they wished to preserve the peace, they should avoid provoking the dwellers within. When pressed as to the nature of the people that lived within, they were told over and over again that they weren’t people, they were wolves, with cold hearts, and with little regard for humans. And they were fighters the likes of which could not be defeated, should one be foolhardy enough to try to confront them.

In particular, there was a legend about a giant white wolf that paced with a retinue of followers, and that had a power that had not been seen in others. Now, it was true that most animals tend to avoid human contact, and they prefer to remain hidden and slip away unnoticed if possible. That had always been the way of animals, unless they were willing to tolerate human company, and to grow dependent upon them, and to accept them as kindred spirits. But this white wolf was known not only for not slipping away, but for confronting intruders, and challenging them with a withering stare the likes of which few could describe, for it was a disabling stare, one that paralyzed those who saw it. This white wolf froze people, the way it froze animals that were unlucky enough to be caught by its glare, and it was said that people had seen it freeze massive buffalo who were provoked by the scent of these animals, and had never shirked from a challenge, and who would charge at any other wolf, but were unable to move when confronted by the white wolf.

This white wolf, then, was said to be a sorcerer. It had powers that other wolves didn’t have, and for that reason, and for the way it easily exerted control over the other wolves in its pack, and for the sense that it gave of being an ancient creature, it was feared and respected. It was, indisputably, the master of the echoing woods, and what was just as eerie, it was known to effortlessly monitor these woods, for it was said to have been seen at two or more places at the same time, by members of different tribes who lived many miles apart, but who could share details of their sightings and pinpoint when and where they had seen the old one.

The pack of wolves did not always stay within the confines of the woods. From time to time they were known to organize expeditions out to the prairies, miles and miles out, on mysterious pursuits. Who these wolves had to fear was hard to imagine, but the fact was that they did venture out, and when sighted, the Indians knew enough to give them ample space, even though curiosity was a powerful incentive.

The white wolf (it always accompanied the pack) would lead them out at a quick pace, following what seemed to be invisible signs that the observers couldn’t trace to any form of prey. Where they following buffalo? The wolves were known to challenge and bring down these massive animals from time to time, and it was a given that they must have big prey within their domain, for the woods were known to have elk. But when the wolves ventured far out on the plains, they seemed to follow the trail of a certain weed that grew sparsely in this domain, a bitter weed that was sometimes gathered by the Indian inhabitants and boiled in water and drunk by those who were plagued by bad dreams, and had need of rest. The weed was known as paruntha, a purplish plant that grew in sparse clumps, but was never very common, and that seemed to trail away like the footprints of some willowy creature that might have walked across the plains long ago.

The wolves were seen to stop and smell the weeds, but they wouldn’t otherwise taste it or try to dig it out. They took note of the weed, especially when it sprouted during the early spring, as the snow was retreating and the days grew warmer, and they would resume their trek, ignoring everything else, and seemingly in little need of any water or nourishment, although if they happened to come across any game as they ventured out, they would quickly dispatch it and share it among themselves. The Indians who had shared these accounts were quite firm in stating that they were never able to give a full account of these expeditions, for they feared the wolves, and in particular, the white one that led them during their treks, and was known to be inscrutable and, of course, deadly. What it was they were searching for, would be something that was seemingly inscrutable, for even the words of Sa, the elder from long ago, were couched in terms of vagueness.

The Indians of this region thus avoided the woods, and preferred to hunt along the edges of the lakes, catching fish, hunting beaver, and of course, pursuing the elk and moose and the buffalo that roamed across the plain. They lived by hunting, and they lived by sowing wild herbs and grains that they would gather at different locations during the year. Hides were cured for fabric and coverings, bones were carved and became both weapon and ceremonial items, and meat was dried and stored in preparation for winter. Their connection to the land extended to the lakes, to the earth, to the rivers, to the skies and to the animals of the open plains, but it didn’t extend to the woods. It was seen as an enclosed space, a conception that they sought to communicate to the first settlers, whose early attempt to penetrate the woods and to use them had alarmed the Indians and provided the impetus for the contact with the white settlers that the Indians would otherwise have avoided if they could. For you see, the Indians feared the consequences that would have befallen them had the wolves been provoked, consequences that were deadly, as was seen in several subsequent episodes.

 

OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013) 

The Echoing Woods (First Draft)

It was said that in the deep woods of Lagunas county, there lived an old wolf who remembered a time long ago, before the arrival of the first European settlers. It was not as old as the sycamore trees, but it was old enough, and more cunning than any other animal or man, and had managed to live in seclusion with its own group of wolves who had managed to survive the bounty hunters who had roamed relentlessly over the plains and mountains, intent and killing as many wolves as they could.

The wolf, it was said, was blind, but it cunning knew no end, and it was said that this wolf, along among all the others of its kind, was able to speak the language of humans. Legends told of a great big wolf, completely white, who had followed bands of humans when they trekked across the land, and who knew best how to avoid isolate stragglers, and who knew the danger of firearms. It was said that this wolf would call out to people, in a low-pitched and slightly breathless voice, as if its breath was quickly consumed in the exercise, and would say, “Cristiano,  ven acá, necesito tu ayuda”, or would taunt the unfortunate soul, and would say “Mira que tu alma, no hay escape”, and would frighten the men so much that they would invariably panic and pounce on their horses wishing to escape the sound of that unearthly voice, only to be led into a trap that had been carefully planned.

How the men knew of these encounters was difficult to explain, for it was said that no one survived these encounters. But people swore nonetheless that there was a shadowy wolf that roamed deep in the woods, and from time to time ventured towards the edge to capture unwary men who happened to ride by, and would devour both them and their horses, and bury their belongings deep inside the woods. For much was made of the account of the old arriero Felipe San Ramón, who in 1764 had been trailing behind his companions who were pushing ahead, because he was laden with supplies  and the men were cold and wished to race towards the woods to cut down a few branches and start a fire, and Felipe had been a mile away as the light was fading, and had seen the men bolt into the brush, only to hear a few horrendous cries and see one of the horses bolt out again, only this time pursued by a pack of wolves that brought it down, then dragged it slowly back into the woods.

This was the account that had been left by Felipe San Ramón, to his captain at the station he had left behind, after having ridden desperately back in the direction he had come, abandoning everything but his guns, and showing more courage than had ever been attributed to him before. Why he insisted on the story of the wolves was never understood, for the men had been hardy hunters who it was thought would have had nothing to fear from wolves, and were more likely to have been set upon by Indians. But Felipe insisted that the men had bolted into the forest, and that there had been not a single shot fired, and that the terrified Pinto horse that had tried to escape had been wounded, but also, that the wolves had acted with an uncanny discipline that suggested cunning beyond that which had ever been possible in wolves, at least in the experience of Felipe. And what caught his attention, in that instant before he dropped everything and bolted in the opposite direction, was the image of a massive white wolf that had stepped out of the woods and had turned to look at him briefly, as if it could see him clearly, and had appeared to shake its head.

Now, Felipe had never been more than a lowly arriero, adept at loading his animals and leading them on the endless trails, and he was known to be more than a little fond of wine, and had an appetite that earned him the scorn of his companions, but he was otherwise known to be truthful, if a little prone to exaggeration and to the addition of colorful details. It was thus thought that he must have seen some form of attack, and that he might have been maybe more than a little sleep on that late November evening, and that the Indians that undoubtedly had attacked his companions had been wearing some animals skins, and that this must have been the case with the white wolf that must undoubtedly have been the leader of this pack. But what they could not understand is why, if this was an attack by Indians, he had not been chased down himself, and they had no doubt that Felipe would not have been difficult to catch, for he was not the best jinete in his group, nor was his mare the fastest. But somehow he managed to make it back to the colonia in a breathless state, and his story spawned the legend of the old “Viejo” on the edge of the forest, the wolf that evolved to haunt the imagination of many a settler who couldn’t help but view that forest with foreboding, something which only increased when the few local Indians with whom they came into contact also told tales of the wolf people who claimed the forest, and who had defended their terrain from time immemorial.

The Indians added details that peaked the imagination of the early settlers. They told of the wolf king, who was completely white, and who it was said were inordinately long-lived, for there had only been one throughout the centuries. In the past it had scoured the surrounding land, and had claimed its bounty of bison for its group, and had resisted the arrival of the Indians, but with time, had come to an accommodation, whereby it was left to its own domain, but with the condition that its people were to be left along, unhunted, when they ventured out of the forest on their mysterious delegations to other groups. For this was a society with many groups, and this wolf, it was said, was not a rustic and lonely romantic on the fringes, but was a cultured creature that hewed to a mysterious warrior ethic, and they were known to mark their boundaries by rubbing their teeth to form grooves that marked their territory, but that, it was said, also was a system of writing, for the grooves were intricate, and extended around the widest trees.

From time to time groups would cut around the edges of the forest, and try to traverse it to find a way of controlling the space and making it more suitable to human exploitation, but these projects never continued for very long. For one thing, the settlers and foresters reported a deep feeling of unease, as if they were being followed by many pairs of invisible eyes, and they encountered as well an uncanny silence that permeated the trees, and that was evident furthermore in the absence of wildlife, the absence of badgers, of rabbits, and of birds that were otherwise to plentiful in other forests. Sooner or later it was deemed easier to move on, especially after people and horses were found to disappear mysteriously, and trackers were unable to determine what had happened. For there were disappearances, men and women and children, one by one, and there were tales of whispers heard late at night, and no priest was ever able to exorcise an entire forest, so it was best to move on to more hospitable terrain.

The legend of the wolf extended to surrounding areas, and indeed, it would have been just as easy to name the county “Nido del Lobo” (lair of the wolf) or “La encantada” (the enchanted one), or more ominously, “Los desaparecidos” (the disappeared ones) or “El temido” (the feared one), but the settlers were ever conscious of the effect of nomenclature on the drawing of new settlers, and instead they took the name of the lakes that boarded the region, and named it “Condado de Lagunas” (the county of lakes). But in the back of their mind, everyone knew of the reputation of the forest, and of the presence of the watchful one that so few had actually seen, but that was felt as an invisible presence lurking deep within.

One of the stories that was told was of the little girl Sara, who had accompanied a settler family that had been passing by the forest in the years after the Indians had been pacified once again after revolting against the control of the Europeans. After years of painful struggle, in which much infrastructure had been destroyed and in which the Indian tribes had shown a determined willingness to forget the lessons of the early friars and wipe away the ranchos and the nauseating livestock that they had brought with them, there passed by the forest a group of families that had been encouraged to settle in the area. The Restrepo de Juárez family had several small children, among which was a girl by the name of Sara, who had bright red hair. She was only seven, and the smallest of her family, and it was said, the one who showed the qualities that made her most unladylike, because she was so independent. She was also the only girl with red hair among that group, and according to traditional lore this in and of itself was a bad sign. Despite this, her parents were indulgent with he, for she was the youngest, and also, gave signs of a piercing intelligence.

The girl, it was said, had been riding along in the wagon, and as she usually did, when the wagon stopped would jump out without first waiting for the permission of her parents. This was a bad sign, for who knew if it was safe to leave the wagon, and whether or not it was safe to reveal oneself? But she would jump out and run to see what the men were doing, getting in their way and filled with questions and an eagerness to help. What she should have been doing, it was said, was waiting until her mother had given her permission to step down, and then assisted her mother in pouring out a measure of water in tin cups to be distributed to the older ones, then staying with her older sister Rosa and preparing the materials for the upcoming meal, for a stop was usually occasioned by a need to prepare the next meal, and there was much to do. One needed to measure out cornmeal, and heat water, and take a measure of dried meat to be warmed, and milk one of the cows as well as prepared a small fire and set out the utensils as well as stay tend to the goats and other livestock that accompanied them, for the animals needed water and food as well. But Sara was not of a mind to follow a routine, and she was always bounding away to see what the older men were doing, especially her father, Rodrigo, who always tried to make sure they stopped near a source of water, and who would unseat the pack animals and adjust their burden, and who would scan the horizon and make sure they were safe before judging his prospects for finding local game, a rabbit or snake or opossum that would provide them with much-needed fresh meat.

Sara loved the fact that the men had free scope of movement, while the women and children huddled together in a central area, always close to the wagons, always within sight of one or two men with rifles at the ready, who stood attentive. She envied their freedom of movement, and the fact that the men would wander off in pairs in different directions, to explore the local area, which was never chosen to be too exposed, but was typically a spot that was reasonably close to a river or stream, and was furthermore close to trees that provided shade in the sun and wood for their fires, and also, cover should there be any unpleasant surprises. The men would not venture too far away, but they were nonetheless wary in the way of all such men who were traversing a difficult terrain, and especially during the time when the memory of the Indian revolt was so recent.

Her father, after settling his horse and making the rounds to talk to the other men, had decided that they might follow the stream that led into the forest, at least for a short while, to see if they might catch game. They knew that other animals were drawn to water as well, and that this was their best hope for supplementing their modest supply of food, and it was thought furthermore that they should ask Diego and Gaspar to bring along a net to see if they might be able to trap some fish, by laying the net along a narrow stretch of the river then wading in behind it, so see if they could direct the fish into the net. It little mattered that this was the famed forest of the White Wolf, for during and after a period of rebellion, in which desperate measure are taken, and in which the chief source of information regarding the danger of the forest is provided by a community that has been discredited and whose motives for telling the truth might be doubted.  Who knows what agenda they might have, for might it not be that the Indians spread the legend of the dangerous and haunted forest in order to carve out for themselves a place where they wouldn’t be disturbed?

Such was the general opinion among the hardy men, who had recently served in the campaign to “pacify” and bring back their wayward Indian subjects to the way of Christianity, and it was to be credited to them that their religion and god had protected them from the attacks of these rebels, and therefore, their religion and god would protect them from the satanic lore of these groups, even if the legends had been crafted by some of their own settlers, such as the humble arriero Felipe San Ramón.

So, the father ventured confidently into the forest, even as one of the other men mumbled about the legend of “El lobo blanco”, and Sara followed along, even though she knew that this was ill-viewed by the rest of the men. Her father was an indulgent man, however, and had come to view his daughters intrepid nature as an endearing feature, and although she was only 7 years old, and although he had been away for two years fighting the last of the Indian campaigns, was entranced by this daughter, who by all rights should have been a son like the one he had lost recently to fever, and he allowed her to follow him, after calling out to his wife with his clear whistle call to let her know he was stepping away. Gaspar and Diego followed with their net, as well as another two men, while the rest stayed at the temporary camp, and settled into watchful repose.

It was early afternoon, and they had been traveling for five hours. The heat was a heavy burden, but it was also, in a way, pleasant, the men relished the taste of the water, and the chance to splash some on their faces and necks, as well as to soak a few old clothes that they would then use to scrub their arms and chest and liberate them from the dust and burrs of their journey. Little Sara ran around the men and, after taking a few sips of water, splashed her feet before grabbing a stick that she would use to poke underneath the biggest rocks that lined the river, knowing that a stick would help her dislodge any rocks and would usually send a small wave of water-dwelling creatures scurrying away, among which she might find little camarones (crayfish) that she might pluck from the water.

What neither she nor any of the men noticed was that they were being watched by several sets of eyes from the edge of the forest.

OGRomero © 2013
(Copyrighted by OGRomero, 2013)