Encountering Eye-shine By A.M Kelley

Encountering Eyeshine

Written By: A.M. Kelley

Cover Art By: Freeman Fly

Marah

Chapter 1.

The sun was setting over the mountain as I took in how the bright tips of light licked the changing colors of the trees. Fall colors had always been my favorite and watching this peaceful dance was a great joy of my life. In the distance a great owl mother harkened in the moon on a cool breeze. Today my clan begins our journey from our summer home on this mountain top, down into the valley, towards our winter home and our gathering. I climbed down the tree I had been using and walked over to the cave where my people began to collect themselves for our trek. We always moved under cover of darkness, there are many dangers in the forest. Our leader Charu made sure our camp was cleaned of all signs of us being there, leaving it better than we found it. He had hunted all night before with a few others to make sure we had food until we made it to the river. Two of our younger stronger women Reina and Latha, both carried deer. Our elder woman Uzma carried bundles of herbs and medicine she had collected over the summer. Charu started down the path ahead of the tribe to scout for danger. He took our twin sons Banti and Bimal; this would be their 8th winter. They were strong and smart boys who would make excellent leaders one day. So, our elder male Sikkil led us off our rocky outcrop down the mountain. We heard Charu let out a long slow whistle indicating everything was quiet so far, it was incredibly quiet as we moved deeper into trees.

I took up the rear, as the Alpha woman to make sure there were no attacks from behind. The children were in the middle with the pregnant ones. My own daughter Noya was among them. It was a full moon and even though it was completely dark now it was still quite easy to see the path we came to a creek,stopping for a break. The water was cold and fresh and shared with some deer. We followed the creek down; it was good to stay with the water on such a trip and it would lead to the river. We walked quietly the lower we went the more danger there was we kept a constant vigilance. Charu would let out reassuring whistles every so often as he scouted from far ahead. He had been the leader of our clan for 10 winters after I invited him to join our family. He was strong and agile with a good disposition. My father Sikkil was aging, and we had had no male to replace him in our family. That's why the gathering was important to my people. We could find new members, mates, to see other family members that were in different tribes. It was a sacred holy time for our people. We would feast at the river in two days and stay until the next full moon. It was a time to relax, to love, to thank the creator.

The sun began to rise light started to come through the trees I heard rustling coming from the trees beside me, Banti and Bimal burst through the tree line wrestling around, the group stopped Charu appeared indicating it was time to sleep we followed him into the forest a bit and we found a tall group trees to climb up and sleep in for the day. Noya climbed up with me and I found us a little place to sleep. I stretched out and let her get comfortable. She went right to sleep. That was a long walk for a 4-year-old. Soon Charu climbed up the tree to check on us, he took a good look around, he stroked my face and nuzzled me for a minute then climbed back down to check on the rest of the tribe. I woke up to bright light and the sound of dogs there was truly little. I disliked more than the sound of dogs except the cruelty of the big cats. I heard things moving and a whimper somewhere in the distance I could hear sharp long whistles meant for the dogs. I could tell the men were leading them away from us and pelting them with rocks and sticks. I heard nothing for an exceedingly long time then the soft whistle reassuring me all was well again, Noya still slept curled upon my body. The squirrels resumed their familiar chatter. I could sleep no more, eventually darkness came, and we walked the creek bed. Finally, I heard the river rushing. There was a magnificent waterfall, and we could see over the tops of the trees below. There were a few moose at the bottom drinking. We followed a rocky path down the cliff and found a good sturdy tree to cross over the river. We still stayed close to the bank in the tree line. We moved faster as we neared our destination, we had a strong healthy tribe and we made swift travel. I knew Charu was excited to get to the gathering. He had made a life and family for himself in our tribe, but this was the only time of year he got to see his first family, his parents and brothers. We all had people we hoped to see the children all had grandparents and most of us had brothers' sisters' aunts and uncles. We had once been a great nation, but we were now many small clans scattered amongst the deepest forest mountains. I was lucky in my clan, I had my sisters Mynah and Reina, my father and Uzma had helped raise me. She has been important to me all my life. I heard three solid whistles come from ahead then I heard someone from not far away respond. It was still a few hours from our destination when we heard an excited whistle coming from Charu. Another clan joined ours. It was the closest neighbor, their alpha was Adhi, a longtime friend of Charu, and the women joined us. Charu and Adhi took off excitedly, with Banti, Bimal, and another young fella. There were still dangers the closer we came to the gathering the safer we were where it was protected by rivers and cliffs on all sides truly very deep into the forest. Oh, course there's always safety in numbers and numbers would there be I imagined many had already arrived. A plethora of young men, looking for mates, tribes to join or to create, were eager and excited. The alpha male often had many mates, but we knew it was important to not mate with family members. We had one unmated female, my little sister Reina. She had freedom to choose to join another clan or request for us to accept her choice to mate into the tribe. Then the alphas and elders would decide it ultimately being the alpha male's decision, but wise alphas listen to counsel.