The Hunt

I stopped.

I listened. Breathing in many whispers of the wind, I touched the ground covered with soft leaves.

Hear the forest.

"If you listen you can hear", Black Hawk always taught me. "Tell The Forest why you are here. Ask Him what you need to know. He will answer."

I am here to hunt.

I move quietly. I follow elk tracks to the dried old creek. I stop again. There is something. Something different about that wind. The way branches move. The way its heat feels on the skin. Something beyond my trained senses. The feeling behind the feeling. "A breath of darkness", as Black Hawk called it once. He said elders knew about it too.

We were coming back from the hunt that day. Resting by the fire. He picked up his obsidian blade. I could sense his alarming tension. One moment later, and he dove right into the twilight of the forest. Forever. Told me to stay behind. Whatever happens not to follow. His last words. I was just a boy. Didn't understand. But he knew. He knew something. Thought I might learn that one day too. I feel the weight of his blade on my belt. We never found him. Only the blade. The elders said I must keep it. I check my arrows. I slow my breath.

Listening.

There! Sudden movement in the corner of my eye. Black Hawk always taught me to think with my body. You mind is slow. Your mind will try to understand, to question, to doubt. But your body knows. It already knows what needs to be done to survive. I twist instantly. Or so I thought. Bow armed and raised. Arm steady. She is right in front of me. I hesitate for just an instant. Feels like forest just paused tense and quiet. Was it so quiet before? "Your mind will question", the words just pounding in my head. 
Guess its too late now.

-Who are you?
Started. 
Confused even. Is she Achomawi? Sometimes they do wander far North, but also know better not to disturb our hunting grounds. Buckskin shirt with intricate beadwork,  deerskin moccasins, leather travel pouch. I think I have seen such pattern before.
Silence still.

-What are you doing here?
My throat hoarse, dry suddenly. Not sure I even asked that. Could have been just my thoughts.

-I am here to hunt.

Voice soft. Like whispers of the morning wind. 
She speaks fluid Siletz. Stepping closer, as I put my bow down. Cannot take my eyes off her. Drawn. Surprised. 
Unsure what to make of her sudden appearance. How could I have missed her approaching? Now, right in front of me. Her eyes. Squinting, watching me intently. Dazzling, captivating beauty of those dark pools. She looks unarmed. Hunting?

-What are you hunting?
Wind finally stops to a still as if waiting. 
I feel that sudden tension too, that alarming knot inside, that inkling to jump away, even to run. That is my body reacting. "Your mind is slow. Your mind will question..."

-What are you hunting? I repeat. As if it makes any difference now. Or maybe its just that silly question ringing in my silence of my mind.

-You. Wind whispers in response. 
Comforting. 
So inviting.
And right on the edge of my comprehension, before the depth of her eyes flashed with burning red, in that very last instant when clarity finally blinds me with the only possible and inescapable revelation, her sensual lips parted slightly revealing the razor tips of her fangs.