Message in the Moss - A Short Story

Among the towering forest, dominated by pine, birch and maple trees, lies the small town of Big Fork, Minnesota, deep in the northern part of the state. The town hasn't changed much in the last fifty years, it doesn't get tourists, nor is it growing. Like many small towns in America it seems to be dying a slow death.

In 2012 Echo Sherman was a senior in High School, having just turned 18 she was looking forward to graduation, and then on to the big city of Duluth, the home of the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Echo had won a full scholarship to UMD and her family has very proud of her. The first Sherman to ever attend a University.

Echo wanted to study anthropolgy, but her father wanted her to study business, that way she would have a much better chance of gaining employment and a good starting salary.

Ernest, Echo's father had worked long and hard in the forests of Minnesota as a lumberjack, then in a saw mill. On the side, to earn extra money for his family, he gathered fallen timber, brought it home and split it for sale as fire wood to the few that could afford to buy it.

Echo's mother, Liz was a full time mother, cook, seamstress and spent her time keeping the family fed and clothed. Most food was home grown or wild game. The clothing was all home made. Store bought things were few and far between.

Echo dreamed of being in the big city, learning from the professors, and meeting other young people with similar interests.

There wasn't much of a social life in Big Fork. The occasional ''Barn Dance'' being the biggest thing to happen in the small town. Echo wanted so much more then what she had for the past eighteen years.

Little did she realize that she would get much more soon. An adventure that would change her life and calling.

Echo enjoyed walking in the woods that were close to her home. This always gave her time to think of her bright future, away from this small town, meeting and befriending people of education, learning and skills.

Graduation was only a month or so away. It was the first part of May when she went for a walk that would change her life. In the heavy timber there was always moss growing. On the trees and the ground. The dampness of the area and the canopy that the trees gave, let moss grow, and grow it did.

Echo was wandering down her usual path when see came to a dead tree covered in moss. As she looked at it she saw marking in the moss. She thought to herself, what could have made such strange marks, small animals perhaps. As she got up to the tree she saw that the marking were not of an animal, but marking that seem to be made by man. Strange looking, she could not figure out what they were. Probably some of the neighborhood boys out doing their stupid things again. She continuing down the trail she soon forgot about the marking in the moss.

A few days later she again was walking the path, thinking about her future. She didn't want to be like her mother, just a housewife with little money and no future. She would be her own woman, with her own money, a job and a bright future. She would live in a big city, far from Big Fork.

She came to the same dead tree again. As she stopped to look at the moss, it had changed, the old marking were gone and new ones had replaced them. These marking were some type of hieroglyphics and looked like wild creatures. How odd she thought, who would have been out here and done this. It couldn't be the boys, since their attention span was very short, and the only thing that they wanted to do was bed her.

She got as close to them as possible and studied them for a few minutes. One looked like a turtle, you could see it's back, head and legs. Another looked like a giant bird. Not a bird that she had ever seen around Big Fork, but one that looked with she had seen in some books. Then it dawned on her, the Thunderbird. Who in the world would be making these types of marking in the moss in northern Minnesota.

She decided to leave her own mark in the moss. With her index finger she left her initial E. She would play a trick as well as anyone.

Anxious to see if new marking were on the tree, she hurried there after school the next day. There, after the E she had left in the moss were the letters CHO, then she realized what it was, her name. Stunned she stepped back from the tree. It had to be one of the neighborhood boys teasing her.

As Echo stood there she was unaware of the figure standing only a few short yards from her. Hidden in the shadows of the trees the figure was unmoving, blending into the forest like a ghost. It's eyes watching her every move.

Echo shuttered, a chill ran through her body. She laughed it off, it had to be those boys playing games with her again. But she didn't go further into the woods, she turned around, and headed back to the house.

As she hurried back home she didn't notice that she was being followed. A shadow kept abreast of her in the timber, the figure kept pace with her until she cleared the woods and across the vegetable garden that her family attended to for part of their food supply.

She waited a couple of days before venturing out into the forest again. She thought to herself, how foolish I'm being letting the high school boys put a scare into me.

As she stood in front of the tree there was a new marking, a marking of a wolf. There were many wolves in the area and people had lost some sheep and cattle to them in a bad winter, but there had never been a report of a wolf attacking people. Strange, why would there be a sign of a wolf, it didn't make sense to her. First the turtle, then the Thunderbird and now the wolf.

She finally decided to tell her father about the marking and how then appeared.

After supper that evening she pulled her father aside and told him how someone had spelled out her name after she had left E in the moss.

Ernest laughed, it nothing but a bunch of the boys trying to scare you. Then she told him about the turtle, Thunderbird and the wolf. He looked at her, concern on his face. Echo, many years ago this area was inhabited by Indians and the signs that you saw are all very powerful symbols of the tribe that one lived here. Maybe the boys are doing this, but I doubt it, most don't have a brain in their head. With that, he asked that she not take these walks in the timber alone.

That night, Ernest was was debating with himself, should he tell her or not. Would it change her life if she knew? It was a restless night for Ernest.

The next day Echo went straight to the library and researched the Indians that had lived here those many years ago. She was aware of the Reservations in the area, but knew little about the people that lived on them, or their history.

Hours later, having missed supper at home and with the library ready to close she headed out the door and home. She had learned much in the last few hours, so much of the history of the original people of the area. She had learned what the symbols that she had seen really meant. The turtle, the earth was built on the turtles back, and that the Ojibwe, the original inhabitants called North America, Turtle Island. The Thunderbird was the most powerful of the spirits that the Indians called Manitous. It protected Mother Earth and the wolf was the sign of power, loyalty, and was the creature that the Creator had sent to earth to name all things.

She was enthralled with the history that she had read and when she got home, she was on the internet, her connection to the world. Learning more and more as she went along.

She knew that she had to go back to the markings in the moss. There was something going on that she did not understand, but really wanted to learn more about.

Deep in the woods ghostly figures moved closer to the moss tree, waiting for Echo to visit again. They knew that she would come back, she was drawn it the tree.

Echo had learned so much, but she wanted to learn more of the original people that lived here. She was even thinking of adding some classes on Native American history. She was being drawn to it and could not explain it.

Echo was staring at the tree with it's marking in the moss. Very deep in thought, wanting to leave another message, but not knowing what to leave. After a time she felt a breeze making it's way through the trees, the air suddenly chilled, leaves rustling on the ground. The sound of wings flapping came from above her, powerful wings unlike anything she had ever heard before.

Glancing down the path she saw a shadow standing at a bend in the trail, just a dark shadow, she couldn't make out any details only the outline of a figure, she was not even sure it was human. Next to the figure were other shadows, they looked like very large dogs, but she knew better, the wolves, their eyes flashing yellow, there fangs exposed.

The figures starting moving toward her. Frozen in fear she couldn't run, she could only wait for them to come closer.

As they moved closer the power of the wind picked up, above her the Thunderbirds powerful wings were beating a rhythm that she could feel. The moss on the ground began to move, slowly a turtle walked onto the trail.

The figures were now right in front of her. Then she could make them out, wolves surrounded her, and the man held out his hand to her. Her hand moved towards his without her knowing it. He was a powerful looking man, tall with his hair tied into braids that flowed to his waist. His skin the color of copper. His eyes, piercing, looking into her soul. Yet she was not afraid of this man.

As their hands touched he uttered something to her, Gakina Awiiya, and she knew what it meant, ''we are all related''.

Stone Hand guided her to a fallen log and motioned her to sit. Spellbound she sat, not knowing if it was fear or expectation, she listened to Stone Hand speak.He looked at Echo, she felt his eyes looking into her very soul. You carry the blood, he said to her...What in the world is he talking about, I carry what blood? but she could not speak. Stone Hand presence was over powering. You are the daughter of the Ancient Ones, you are one of ''The People'', Echo. What is he talking about, her brain screamed, but no words would come out of her mouth.

Echo's father straighted up, a cold breeze covered his body as he looked to the sky. There he saw the Eagle gliding across the Creator's realm. She knows, the thought hit him like lightening. The secret that he had kept for decades, the secret that was his and his alone, but no more, Echo knew. Ernest had kept the fact that there was Ojibwe blood running through their veins, from long ago. He kept the secret because he didn't want her to face the racism and bigotry he had faced,if people found outshe was Indian.

Slowly it started to make sense to Echo. This man, Stone Hand was telling her that she carried Ojibwe blood. How could that be, no one had every told her, not her father or mother. He looked at this man, Stone Hand, surrounded by the powerful symbols of the Ojibwe people. She understood every word that he spoke, but it wasn't English, it was her native language, the language of the Ancient Ones.

Stone Hand took her hand and guided her back to the path. She looked back, and he was gone, the wolves were gone, as were the turtle and thunderbird.

Slowly, she walked back to her home, it was time to talk to her father.

Twenty years later, Echo was a professor of Ojibwe history and language at Bemidji State University. Not far from her home in Big Fork, she was at peace with herself, she knew who she was. She was one of ''The People'', Anishinaabe and proud of it.

She looked back at the meeting on the trail and the message in the moss. Was it a dream, a vision. Was Stone Hand a manitou, and the wolves, turtle and thunderbird, were they too manitous. She wasn't sure, the only thing that she was sure of was that it changed her life for the better.

Kavika 2013. All rights reserved. Do not use without permission.