I added the new lines to my story and stopped, tapping my pencil against the page, like tiny seeds for the chicken to peck. Maybe that was the truth beneath the surface. I was scared. I was terrified that my story would end tragically. Like poor Anne Boleyn. She plotted and planned and became Queen, only to be discarded. There was that word again. The life she had built was taken from her in one fell swoop, and the man who should have loved her abandoned her to fate.
I had never considered myself a chicken. In my dreams I was the swan, the bird that became beautiful and admired. The bird that proved everyone wrong. I asked Jimmy once why he was named after a bird. Jimmy was used to my questions. He told me I had been abnormally resilient and mostly unaffected by the absence of my mother. I hadn't cried or complained, and I was very talkative, almost to the point of driving a man who had lived with little company and even less conversation a little crazy. He never lost his temper with me, although sometimes he just refused to answer, and I ended up prattling to myself.
But this particular time he was in the mood for storytelling. He explained how hawks are symbolic of protection and strength, and that because of that he had always been proud of his name. He told me many of the Native American tribes had variations of some of the same stories about animals, but his favorite was an Arapaho story about a girl who climbed into the sky.
Her name was Sapana, a beautiful girl who loved the birds of the forest. One day, Sapana was out collecting firewood when she had saw a hawk laying at the base of a tree. A large porcupine quill stuck out of his breast. The girl soothed the bird and pulled the quill out, freeing the bird to fly away. Then the girl saw a large porcupine sitting by the trunk of a tall cottonwood tree. “It was you, you wicked thing! You hurt that poor bird.” She wanted to catch the evil porcupine and take his quills so he wouldn't hurt another bird.
Sapana chased after him, but the porcupine was very quick and he climbed the tree. The girl climbed after him but could never seem to catch up to him. Higher and higher the porcupine climbed, and the tree just kept extending itself higher and higher into the sky. Suddenly, Sapana saw a flat, smooth surface over her head. It was shining, and as she reached out to touch it she realized it was the sky. Suddenly, she found herself standing in a circle of teepees. The tree had disapeared and the porcupine had transformed himself into an ugly old man. Sapana was afraid and tried to escape, but she didn't know how to get home. The porcupine man said, “I have been watching you. You are very beautiful and you work very hard. We work very hard in the the Sky world. You will be my wife.” Sapana did not want to be the wife of porcupine man, but she did not know what else to do. She was trapped.
Sapana missed the green and browns of the forest and longed to return to her family. Each day the old man brought her buffalo hides to scrape and stretch and sew into robes. When there were no hides to stretch, she would dig turnips. The porcupine man told her not to dig too deep, but one day the girl was daydreaming about her home in the forest and paid little attention to the depth she was digging. When she pulled the large turnip from the ground, she saw light shining up through the hole. When she looked into the hole, she could see patches of the green earth far below. Now she knew how to get home! She rolled the huge turnip back into the hole so the porcupine man would not see what she had discovered.
Each day Sapana would take the leftover sinews from the buffalo hides and tie them together. Eventually, she had a very long rope she could use to lower herself back to the earth. She tied the rope to a nearby tree and rolled the turnip from the ground. She lowered herself down through the clouds, and the patches of green grew closer and closer, but she was still high in the sky. Suddenly, Sapana felt a yanking on her rope and looked up to see the porcupine man peering down at her from the hole in the sky. “Climb back up or I will untie the rope from the tree and you will fall!” he roared. But Sapana would not climb back up. Suddenly, the rope loosened, and she was falling through the air. Then something flew up beneath her, and she settled onto the back of a large hawk. It was the hawk Sapana had helped in the forest the day she had chased the porcupine. He flew to the earth with her on his back. Sapana's family was so happy to see her. From then on, they left bits of buffalo meat for the hawk and other birds of prey as a symbol of their gratitude for Sapana's protection and return.
“You are like the hawk that saved Sapana!” I had squealed, delighted by the story. “I wish my name was Sapana! Then I would be Sapana Echohawk!”
Jimmy had smiled at me. But he seemed sad, and he muttered, “Sometimes I feel more like the porcupine man than the hawk.”
I didn't understand what he meant and laughed uproariously at his joke. “Icas is the porcupine man!” I said, pointing at the lazy dog with the shaggy coat. Icas raised his head and looked at me, as if he knew what we were talking about. He ruffed and turned away, as if offended by the comparison. Jimmy and I had both laughed then, and the conversation was forgotten.