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Show SOUTHERN UTAH NEWS - Thursday, March 10, Testament - Page Five 1 Liberty Press. 1982 Chapter 37 Hunting with bow and arrows is a lot different than with a rifle. When Beaver George and I were heading to the Snake River country from Fort Benton, armed with our Hawken rifles, shooting an occasional deer or elk was a simple matter. Whatever we could see, within several hundred yards, we could shoot. When you saw the game, the hunt was practically over. Bow hunting is totally different. When you see the game, thats when the real hunting begins. A rifle is a better weapon for a man in a hurry. The bow, in order to be successful, requires a supreme patience, appreciated fully only by those who have done it. 1 was in a hurry to get game, and would have preferred a rifle, but since I didnt have one, I was forced to do it the Indian way. 1 had to forget about being in a hurry. I had enough jerky in my possibles bag to last a week, and was determined to keep hunting until I was successful. I rode to a wooded area at the foot of the big mountain. Red Leaf and 1 had ridden our horses through the area the previous fall and had seen plentiful deer and elk signs. There was still a lot of snow higher on the mountain, so 1 figured most of the animals would still be at g the lower elevations. There were several grassy side hills in the area where the grass was just beginning to green up. I was sure there would be plenty of deer and elk around. It was almost dark when I arrived at the desired hunting area. In addition to the horse I was riding, 1 brought along a pack horse. After staking the horses out to graze, Indian style (the lead rppe tied to the front foot), I built a small fire to keep me warm during the night. I was grateful for a nearby spring with clear, cold water. Most of the streams at this time of year were murky with the spring runoff. 1 chewed slowly on my scant ration of jerky in an effort to make it last as long as possible. 1 looked into the flickering flames, thinking about Red Leaf. Things would have been a lot simpler had she come out of the tepee that morning to talk with me, to give me the assurance that she still loved me, that she would be my wife. That would have been a lot easier than playing this game with the meat. The Utes had some strange customs. I wondered about our future together. Sometimes the carefree, nomadic life of the Utes seemed best. Moving from valley to valley in the beautiful Rocky Mountain country. Chasing the plentiful buffalo herds. Other times I thought about the life I had left behind. Warm log cabins, bread, vegetables, beef and the comforts of civilized living. Maybe the white society n children. wouldnt accept Red Leaf or our Perhaps it would be best to stay with the Utes, visiting Ike and his Gosiute tribe from time to time. At dawn I began to hunt, leaving the horses tied to trees near the cold campfire. The key to successful bow hunting is seeing the game before it sees you. With a rifle, this doesnt really matter. A good marksman can drop an animal on the run. The best way to see an animal before it sees you is to move slowly, Indian style-o- ne step, two looks, one step, two looks. Without practice, an impossible ta for a man used to being in a hurry. One has to forget time and blend in with nature, noticing the different varielicv of mushrooms and fungi, especially the broken pieces which have been nibbled on by the deer or elk. Examining tracks, sniffing the wind, straining to hear every sound. Never in a hurry. It was late in the morning when I heard an unnatural' sound-t- he thrashing of some branched 'tTflttpprd: A" minute later it started again, somewhere ahead of me in a thick grove of young aspen trees. If it were the late summer or fall, I would have guessed a deer or elk was rubbing his horns against a tree. But in the spring, the deer and elk didnt have horns. Had I been in the lower, marshy areas, I would have suspected the noise could be his coming from a beaver dragging a young sapling to pond. As far as I knew, there were no ponds or streams in the area. south-slopin- half-India- Chapter 38 Upon arriving at the Ute camp about the middle of the day, I tied the two horses carrying the four elk quarters to a small cottonwood tree near Neuwafe's tepee, the same tree where Brown Wolf had tied his horse with the deer on it a few months earlier. 1 wondered if he really threw the deer in the river after Red Leaf humiliated him by refusing to dress it out and cook it for him. 1 wondered if she would humiliate me, too. I hadnt seen her since Ike and I had brought back the horses. Maybe she was having second thoughts about being the squaw of a white boy. I decided I wasnt going to sit around watching and waiting like the lovesick Brown Wolf had done. Ike, who had waited for me while I was off elk hunting, was now ready to return to his Gosiute band. He had been keeping a close eye on the horses in the event their former owners might have followed us in an attempt to get them back. I moved closer and closer. At about 30 feet I began to get an occasional glimpse of brown hide through the thick leaves. I couldnt see enough to tell what kind of animal it was. Sometimes the noise would stop, but after a few moments of silence, the thrashing of the treetop would begin again. The woods were so dense now that it appeared impossible to move any further ahead without making the kind of noise that would alarm the animal. The ground was covered with the leaves of the previous fall. The once damp and quiet leaves were becoming dry and noisy in the spring sun. I was standing next to the butt of a fallen log. It was clean and free of limbs, having been there a long time. I waited until the tree was shaking again, when the animal would be less likely to notice my movement or noise, then stepped quietly up on the butt of the fallen log. To my relief, the animal was not a bear. It was a young bull elk, rubbing away his shaggy winter coat on the underside of a horizontal branch extending from the thrashing tree. Even though I was close enough to shoot, there was too much brush between me and him. Surely the arrow would be deflected. As the elk rubbed his back on the branch, 1 began moving sideways along the fallen tree, hoping to And a more open line of Are between me and the animal. Whenever he stopped scratching and looked around, I held perfectly still. He was a beautiful animal, possibly a His head, neck and shoulders were a glossy dark brown. His sides and rump were a creamy tan under the remaining shagginess of winter that he was trying to rub away. The fuzzy stubs on his head in the next few months would grow into huge antlers, giving the elk the most majestic appearance of any animal in North America. His eyes were clear and black. He was alert and healthy, although somewhat thin after the long winter. Suddenly the elk jerked his head to attention, aphe parently startled by a strange sound or had heard the scuff of my moccasin against the log, or caught a hint of my scent. I couldnt detect any breeze, but at only 30 feet, I suppose my scent could drift in his direction without the help of a breeze. smell-perh- We rode out in the big meadow beyond the camp to catch Afteen of the horses. After these were gone, there would be four left for me.-- I had already given IS of the animals to Neuwafe. My plan was to help Ike herd his horses home, maybe not all the way, but at least far enough so stragglers would stay with the herd rather than want to come back to the Ute camp. As usual, Ike didn't say much, but I Agured he was pretty excited about bringing horses home to his Gosiute band. Now they would be able to travel and hunt buffalo. Their standard of living would increase substantially. They would have to learn to Aght, too, because traveling bands of Indians were constantly exposing themselves to enemies and horse thieves. They had to be able to defend themselves. I Agured Ike would be a good teacher, not from his words as much as his ability to do. He was brave, strong and smart. I was sure he and his Gosiutes would thrive. Sometimes I thought that maybe Red Leaf and I would join Ike and his Gosiutes. The Utes were superior in numbers, strength, wealth, and Aghting ability, but Ike was a chief. Maybe I could help him build his band into a strong people, and be some with him. kind of a As we drove the horses past the Ute camp towards the open prairie, I looked toward the little cottonwood tree where I had tied the pack horses. They were gone. I spotted the horses standing quietly in front of Neuwafes tepee. The elk quarters were on the ground. Red Leaf and her mother were busily skinning them. I wanted to gallop over and give Red Leaf a big hug, be with her, talk to her about our future life together. She had accepted me! We were as good as married, and I hadnt even talked to her in weeks! How different were the Ute ways, when compared to white civilization. I wasnt even supposed to see her now. 1 was supposed to wait until evening when she would have a meal prepared for me. Well, I couldnt just ride by without some kind of acknowledgment. I shouted towards the tepee and waved. Red Leaf and her mother waved back at me, giggling back and forth to each other things I couldnt hear. I My face began to turn red, and I wasnt sure why. turned back to the horses, glad I was heading out on the prairie with Ike, glad I had something to keep me busy during the afternoon. At Arst the horses didnt want to leave the lush meadows and the quietly grazing Ute herd, but after about an hour, they resigned themselves to being herded into the western desert. After several hours, I said goodbye to Ike, thanked him for being my partner in the g endeavor, and headed back to the Ute camp and my new bride. Ill never forget the wedding feast prepared for me and Red Leaf. By white mens standards it was not fancy. Being the spring of the year, with the winter's food supply pretty much exhausted, there weren't very many kinds of foods available. Still, Red Leaf made the most delicious stew I have ever tasted. Beginning early in the afternoon, she Ailed an old buffalo stomach half full of the tenderest cuts of the elk loin covered with water. While the meat was simmering, she added several handfuls of wild onions she had found on a south sloping hillside next to a spring. Then she added the last of the sego and camas bulbs that aps 1 horse-stealin- PAINTING FEEDS Exterior Interior -- - SEEDS MCKU TRAILERS NOR 644-213- m ns JA .iE- rUS mom N KAUAI. P. 0. Box 575- - Kanab Utah -- Distributor for M. 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He explained that all the items in the pouch would be I good medicine for me, but if wanted the strongest medicine of all, the kind enjoved b- all great warriors, would have to get it directly from Sin O'-ap. And that only happened after days of fasting and meditation, usually alone on some distant mountain peak. Someday soon I should seek that most powerful of medicine, direct from So confident and calm were Neuwafes words that chills ran through my back and neck at the thought of hadnt fell that communing with a supernatural being way since the first time I heard Parley Pratt preach in Canada when I was 12. Neuwafe was just beginning to tell me about his own when we suddenly became vigil to seek out aware of shouting outside the tepee. The thundering of horses feet. More shouting. After grabbing bows and arrows, we leaped for the doorway. Apparently enemy raiders were trying to steal Ute horses. TACK SADDLES QUALITY WORK AT REASONABLE PRICES 1 sub-chi- He didnt see me, though, or have any deAnite idea as to where I might be. He would Arst look in one direction, then another-he- ad high, ears forward, nostrils quivering. I knew if I made the slightest move, he would spot me and disappear into the brush. I dont know how many minutes I stood there without moving, but soon both feet began to go to sleep and my left arm, holding the bow and the strung arrow, began to ache. He was not in a position where I could shoot, so I continued to wait, fighting the discomfort and pain of not being able to move. After what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than IS or 20 minutes, the elk walked away from the tree, Ave or six steps to my right. When he stopped to look around, I had a clear line of fire. At ten yards it was an easy shot, but 1 couldnt risk him seeing me draw the arrow back. I continued to wait. At a moment when he turned his head to look away from me, 1 quickly drew the arrow back and let it fly. Just as the young bull was turning his head back in my arrow sunk into his side, a direction, the obsidian-tippe- d little higher and further back than I had intended. I had been aiming for the heart, but had been too hasty in letting the arrow fly, and had missed. The young bull bounded back towards the tree where he had been rubbing his back, and stopped. Again held perfectly still as he looked around, still not knowing what had happened, or where 1 was. I knew if he saw me and bounded off through the brush, I might never find him. J was hoping that the arrow bad at least he would soon drown in his penetrated the lungs. If so, "own blood If the jagged, 'razor-shar- p edges of the point did their work properly. Just as my feet were starting to go to sleep again, the elk lay down. His head was still up, looking this way and that, still trying to Agure out what was happening, but I knew I had him. Soon he would be too stiff to get up, even if he saw me. After waiting a few more minutes, 1 drew another arrow from my quiver. The movement caught the atten Next he handed me some human hair that he had clipped from Red Leaf, his sister, now my wife. He had taken care of her after their fathers death. Now u was m duty to care for her, to love her, to protect her, never to forget her. Belore putting Red Leal's hair into the pouch. I looked Neuwalc straight in the eye to let him know I fully intended to take good sare of his sister . I began to dose my poiKh, thinking Red I eaf's hair was the final nem to be carried in the pouch. But Neuwafe held out his hand, motioning for me to wail, that there was something else. Opening his own pouch, he tipped ii to the side, a d stone rolling out into his palm. He tossed it to me. It was heavy and smooth, about the size of an elk dropping. It glistened in the firelight. Solid gold.1 A nugget. The biggest 1 had ever seen. In amazement, looked up at Neuwafe. He motioned for me lo put it in the pouch, saying the Mexicans and British would 1trade food and horses for the little golj stones I figured probably understood the value of the gold nugget belter than he did. It was probably worth several hundred dollars, more money than 1 had ever seen at one lime in my life, a small fortune. If a white man had handed me the nugget, my reaction would have been to ask him where he got it. But getting it from Neuwafe on my wedding night to his sister, as an item for my medicine pouch. Im not sure why, but it would have been rude to ask him where he got it. But I wouldnt forget. Someday, when the time was right, I would ask him. It would be good to know where gold nuggets could be lound had been stored in a pit behind the tepee. Next she split open the leg bones and scraped the marrow into the simmering stew. After flavoring to taste with salt, she let it simmer the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. When 1 arrived shortly after dark, the aroma of the bubbling stew had extended well beyond the conflnes of the tepee. 1 hadnt eaten since early morning, having been out on the prairie helping Ike get underway, driving his horses to the Gosiute camp. My only regret as I approached the tepee for the wedding feast was that I didnt have a tepee of my own for Red Leaf and 1 to share. Before reaching the tepee I stopped for a minute to contemplate what 1 was doing. By marrying a Ute, I would become one of them, more so than I had been before. With a Ute wife it would be difflcult to go back to a white civilization that would look down upon her and our children. Did 1 really want to spend the rest of my life in this wild land of the Rocky Mountains? She handed the second bowl to Neuwafe, who immediately popped a big camas bulb in his mouth, grunted with pleasure, and began to chew. Red leaf handed the third bowl to her mother, then dished up her own. When she Anally looked up at me, there was a sudden look of surprise in her face, a look of concern. Apparently, she had never seen a man wait for a woman at mealtime before. She seemed worried that maybe I didn't like her stew, that for some reason I was rejecting it. Realizing that an attempted explanation might only make matters worse, I smacked my lips and tossed a big chunk of elk meat fn my mouth. With a smile ot relief, Red Leaf, without taking her eyes off of me, raised her own bowl to her lips and sipped the steaming gravy. 1 didnt have to pretend the stew was good. It really was, the best I had ever tasted. The meat was juicy and tender, hardly needing chewing. The camas bulbs were crisp and chewy. Best of all was the marrow gravy, flavored just right with the onions and salt. Instead of utensils, we ate with our fingers-Ashi- ng out the bulbs and pieces of meat, occasionally taking a deep drink of the rich gravy. The firelight reflected warmly on our chewing faces as we went to work on the stew. After finishing my fourth serving, and licking the bowl and my fingers clean, I put down the bowl and leaned back on the buffalo robe behind me. Neuwafe Anished off his sixth serving a minute later. The women put away the bowls and, to my surprise, suddenly disappeared through the tepee entrance into the night. A wedding party without the bride isn't much of a party, it seemed to me. Still, everybody else seemed to know what was going on, so Agured would have to go along whether 1 liked it or not. Neuwafe pulled a long pipe and tobacco pouch from under his buffalo robe. After tapping the end of the pipe on a Areplace rock to break the old ashes free, he packed it full of fresh tobacco and lit it with an ember from the fire. Every spring, just before leaving on the summer buffalo hunt, Neuwafe and most of the other men in the tribe would prepare little individual garden plots, maybe only three feet wide and four feet long. They would plant tobacco in the little plots. When the tribe returned to the shores of Utah Lake in the late summer or early fall, the men would harvest their little stands of tobacco. After puffing contentedly for a few minutes, Neuwafe offered the pipe to me, something he had never done before. I gratefully accepted, puffing carefully the strong, sweet smoke. After each of us had smoked several times, with very little conversation, Neuwafe handed me a little leather pouch, with a long, looping drawstring, similar to the medicine bag he wore at all times, attached to a thong that wrapped around his neck. 1 opened the bag. It was empty. 1 looked up at Neuwafe, who handed me a little, white tooth. He explained that it was from a beaver, the smartest of animals. A small beaver could cut down mighty trees, making them fall in the right places. A beaver was seldom caught by enemies. A beaver always had plenty of food for winter. I put the beaver tooth in the bag. Neuwafe handed me a claw. He said it was from a bear, that bears were brave Aghters, especially when their lives or those of their loved ones were in danger. Thats the way a man needed to be. I put the bear claw in the pouch. Next, Neuwafe began to lay long hairs, one at a time across my knee. There were black ones, white ones, but most in varying shades of brown. When he finished, there were 34 hairs on my knee. One from each of the horses Ike and I had stolen, he explained. That was a remarkable deed, one I should never forget. I wrapped the bundle of hairs together in a single knot, and I placed it in the pouch with the tooth and claw. tion of the wounded animal. He watched as I strung the arrow, tned to get up, but couldn't. He was dying. 1 wished for a rifle so I could shoot him between the eyes and put him out of his missery. 1 waited a few more minutes until he could no longer hold his head up, then cautiously moved forward to dress him out. The next morning I loaded two of the quarters on each horse and headed back to the Ute camp. Slowly, I moved ahead, pausing between each step to look and listen. The brush was thick and I couldn't see more than 30 or 40 feet ahead of me. The morning breeze was steady from the right; no danger of the animal smelling me. As I came over a little rise, I suddenly saw the top of a tree thrashing against its neighbors. I couldnt see the bottom of the tree, or the source of the thrashing. It occurred to me that might be stalking a bear, one that was sharpening his long claws in the bark of the thrashing tret. 1 would have to get close to see the animal. Surprised bears sometimes became angry, more inclined to attack than to run away. 1 would have to take that chance. The Storm 1S83- 371 E. 200 Fender Gibson, etc. Sohr Service ! $2. C3-p- er $4.C3-pe- r i 9 Drew Cleaning flew & Old person couple 644-200- 6 Kensb,Uteb grrnrri irrmni 11 : mmn im iummt MEETINGS-KANA- AL-AN0- N -- B Zions Bank - Downstair 7pm.Saturday - 7 p.m. - Zions Bank - Downstairs 644-57- 643-2S- 644-Z3- Wednesday ltmnitnmemtiiMiieieim..111lt,t |