More Than True by Robert Bly

Author:Robert Bly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

FIVE

ONE-TWO MAN

Once upon a time there was a boy who was living with his grandmother, the father having died some years before, and his mother seemingly gone, perhaps living somewhere else. His grandmother, with whom he got along well, was raising him. But one early summer day when he was about fourteen, he said to his grandmother, “There’s absolutely nothing to do around here. I’m bored.” His grandmother replied, “Why not go out into the fields and dig some roots. Then we won’t be hungry in the winter.” The boy thought this was a good idea, and he soon began to enjoy it. He would leave every morning with his digging stick, and after a while he could guess where a big root was likely to be. Moreover, he discovered other roots he had never eaten before. Each evening, he’d add his new roots to the pile he had already gathered, and these roots were the first things he’d look at in the morning.

Early one fall day, he got up, went out to look at the pile, and came running back. “All the roots are gone, Grandma,” he cried, and he wept. His grandmother replied, “The spirit of your father came last night and took away the roots. That means he wants to get in touch with you. If you sit down, I’ll tell you a story that I’ve never told you because I thought you were not quite old enough. It’s the story of Stone Shirt.

“There was once a man who became a very powerful shaman and magician, but he used those gifts for his own gain; then he began to harm people. When he understood that people were angry at him, he made a stone shirt for himself that covered his whole heart and chest area, so that arrows and spears bounced off. People called him Stone Shirt.

“Stone Shirt is the one who killed your father. He wanted to have your mother; and after he took her away, he tried to kill you also, but something happened, so his plan didn’t work. The story tells you why your mother is not living with you. Stone Shirt is keeping her in his wigwam. That’s how it happens that you are living with me. Tomorrow morning, I want you to walk to that oak tree over there and dig underneath it. You’ll find your father’s bones buried under its roots.”

So the boy dug there, and several feet down he found his father’s bones. He lifted them carefully, brought them up, and put them on the grass. Right away he fell into a deep sleep. He slept for three days while the spirit of his father taught him all the things the father would have taught the boy if he were still alive—how to trail deer, how to find bear, how to know what sort of weather is coming, how to know where you are in the forest, how to sleep in the snow, as well as the names of certain rocks and trees.

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