A South breeze brushed the side of my face and swirled down through the tree branches lifting the edges of oak leaves on the ground below. Like tiny red and yellow ballerinas, the leaves twisted and jumped before settling on the forest floor. In front of me a beady eye reflected sunlight like a glass marble. Fine, sharp claws rattled leaves with a dry crackle. The abrupt sound cut the dusk. A squirrel was making racket.
Thump thump, thumpthump. My heart jumped. I closed my eyes and imagined a monitor screen. Green line spiking upward against a black background. Beep, beep, beep, going faster. Like a metronome from presto to allegro. My ears were pricked, searching for any sound in the forest that would signal the approach of a whitetail deer. Dusk was setting. All senses were alert, adrenaline seeping into my system, sharpening everything. Fight or flight. Vision narrow, breath shorter.
I inhaled as far as I could. Then a slow exhale through my nose pushing the last air from my lungs.
There is a flat white rock, polished by a thousand years of wind and rain, like those in the bed of the Colorado River over which rainbow trout rise to stoneflies. The rock is perfectly level in the center of my chest. A small white feather rests on top. Like fine down from the breast of a Canadian goose, the cashmere soft barbs are light as air.
I inhaled again.
The feather shivers and floats upward in a perfectly straight line, hovering above the center of the rock.
I pushed the air from my lungs.
The feather is falling. Slow, linear, timeless. Until it touches the hard stone.
Thump thump. Thump thump. My heartbeat slowed.
When the feather is motionless on the center of the rock, my hunter’s energy is harnessed. It flows outward in symmetry. My muscles relax in a state of readiness. I am a coiled snake, a crouching wolf.
My fingers were curled around a long piece of birch. Slender and flexible, joined with bamboo. Southern craftsmen formed the wood by hand into a 58 inch recurve hunting bow. A black widow is burned in the grain. The bow arrived at my doorstep last spring. On summer mornings while coffee brewed I stepped into the backyard. Cedar arrow on the string. Right thumb wrapped around the slim wood grip. Three fingers curled under, a loosely clenched fist resting against the bow handle. Pulling back slow and smooth. Tension centered between the shoulder blades. Pulling until the twisted black and red strands of the bowstring are at the corner of my mouth. Now focusing on a red golf tee stuck in the center of a foam target. Narrowing my vision to see only the tee’s radius, the tiny dimple in the center, through the tee, through the target, releasing the arrow. Soft swish, arcing for a moment in the morning sun. Orange turkey feathers on the shaft rotating.
The white feather is settled on the center of the rock. The target ceases to exist. There is only time and space and a tiny red circle suspended in the morning air. Bamboo and birch reflex. The arrow floats. Its steel tip crashes into the center of the golf tee, splitting it into many pieces that fall to the ground.
The sensation of a perfect instinctive archery shot is much like throwing a tight sixty foot loop of four-weight fly line and watching it hiss over flat glassy water, long leader unfurling until a size twenty blue wing olive drops almost imperceptibly above a feeding trout. Or like standing on a tee box early in the morning when there is dew on the fairway. You burn a hole through a golf ball with your eyes and have a crisp, clear head as you start the backswing. There is no thought, only solid peaceful awareness as the driver comes forward. When you hear the click of the club face against the ball it seems so soft. There is no strength required. How can it happen so easily? Your brain registers this question as your hands rotate and the club face releases and the ball rockets skyward as if from a cannon. Straight and true it climbs up and up. Into the heavens and away, landing on short green grass and rolling. Impossibly far. These feelings are like flinging a cedar arrow with instinctive precision. Eventually, as with an instrument or sports equipment or tool, the bow feels so natural in the hand that it is in harmony with the spirit. The object creates no anxiety when you grasp it. The purpose for which you chose it seems inevitable. To see the small spot on the target and place an arrow there is like a breath drawn and released.
This is true when the feather is undisturbed in the center of the rock.
The feather is easily disturbed. Consider that standing with gray-haired bowmen at a target competition can send the feather sailing like a seagull in a hurricane. In this moment I am uneasy. Breath comes short. Muscles tense. I fight the bow.
Where is the rock?
Before the string touches my mouth the arrow is gone. It will strike the target far from the mark. Or worse, clatter through the trees. The bow feels foreign and unnatural in my hand. I try desperately to find the feather. Words of encouragement from the bowmen seem hollow and far away. My temples throb and a tight feeling spreads across my chest. The rock and feather are no longer inside me. They are drifting about the universe. I fling cedar arrows after them. Precision is unattainable. Despair builds.
Then a deep breath reveals the shadow of the rock. I exhale with unhurried force. The rock did not move. It is there. I could not see it. I breathe again. In and out until the white surface is sharp and clear. Until I feel the thousand years of water and wind that has made it flat and smooth flowing through me. Until at last the white down wisp drops to the center and is still.
I stand relaxed and observe an arrow. A bowman sent it to the bullseye a moment ago. I see the target, then just the arrow, and release. Swish, then a loud crack. I have struck the bowman’s arrow. There is a gash in the cedar. A feather hangs from the carefully crested shaft. But the bowman smiles. His arrow is ruined and he pounds my back with enthusiasm. He knows the journey I have taken.
I dove to the murky depths of my subconscious to retrieve the rock. I trekked far up a mountain to reclaim the feather. In harmony again, the birch and bamboo feels natural in my hand. The result is certain when I bend the bow.
Whitetail deer too have great power over the feather. A twig snaps. A horizontal line appears in the trees. An ear flickers and suddenly there is a buck. It looks small at first. Then walking closer it becomes large, very large, so very close, and impossibly large. Thump thump. Thumpthump. Heart beating too fast, mouth dry, hard to breathe, desperate, trembling.
Where is the rock? The feather has blown away.
The arrow is gone. Everything is in slow motion. Orange turkey feathers rotating, sharp steel flashing in the sun, swish into eternity, no thump. Deer bounding, disappearing, gone. Arrow in the dirt, under the leaves, over the deer. The woods deadly silent after. I have known this failure.
The South breeze wafted again through the oaks. I watched the squirrel crouch, front paws holding a nut, cracking with yellowed front teeth, cheeks fat. The sun glided toward the tree tops and a long shadow fell from where I perched. A chickadee flickered through the branches. A leaf rustled and the squirrel leaped onto the base of a tree and evaporated into the dusk. No chirring bark or flickering tail. I saw why. A buck was standing, ears forward, watching where the squirrel had been. The waning rays of sun made a dappled pattern on its brown flanks. White forked antler bone contrasted with dark leaves. The deer lifted its nose and stood motionless.
The rock is white and smooth, in the center of my chest. The feather wavers above it, drifting on a breath of air.
The buck had three points. A fork on one side and a twisted spike on the other. He walked slowly, pausing behind an aspen tree.
The feather is starting to shiver. Inhale, floating up. Exhale, dropping slow, steady, not fluttering, now still on the center of the rock.
The buck stepped forward and I saw the front shoulder, then a small tuft of hair, the shadow of its heart beating . Bow up, tension between my shoulders, string back, on my mouth, brushing the side of my nose. Arrow gone. Slow motion again. Orange feathers rotating, arcing through the November sunlight, sharp steel flashing. Deer bounding. Left arm back, bow still up, birch and bamboo natural in my hand. The hunter’s spirit radiated from me. I knew without seeing that my cedar arrow had pierced the heart. An antlered buck pulled down for the first time with a traditional wooden bow.
I waited then walked. The white forked antler rose from oak leaves. I was on my knees, placing fingertips on soft hair. Passing them over antler bone. Then sweating, relishing with joy the labor of pulling the buck from the forest.
Later, I stoked wood from the forest where the buck lived and died into a crackling bonfire. The moon was high. I looked Southwest. Three bright stars blazed in a line, Orion Nebula, a constellation embodying the hunter. I spread glowing coals and placed a fresh venison loin over the fire. It sizzled and I breathed the cold November air. Heat radiated from the embers. I was warm and gazed into the flickering flame and let out a long slow breath.
A flat white rock, polished by a thousand years of wind and rain was sharp and clear. A small white feather rested on the center of its smooth surface.