[at-l] Story Time... (LONG!)

[shane@theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

> That was without a doubt one of the greatest
> posts I've ever seen here.  I'd
> like to meet Chief - and you - some day.

Well, if ya'll like these little snips so much maybe I'll do
one a week or something from the memory file...  I'm loathe
to try to actually put years of trip journals up on the
net - I just don't have the time - but some of the short
ones - the really good ones - might be fun to remember.

In a different thread there is a discussion about changing
names.  I don't change names, and I don't distort events.  I
do tend to paint them dramatically, but the conversations
and the people are as I remember them.  This only shows that
the world is that big, and that some people are more
colorful than others.

I can't say when you'll meet Chief.  He's in Australia, and
has been for about two years.  The good news is that he's
supposed to come home soon, but then he's talking about
South America...  Every so often he writes me a letter that
is essentially 'the weather is great, wish you were here,
why don't you drop your life and come over?'.  He is a
genuine wandering bum.  The enlightened homeless you might
say.  There is little difference between the phrase 'long
distance hiker' and the term 'hobo'.  One day maybe he'll
settle down and get married and have a child like I did, but
it makes me glad to know that there are still people in the
world like Chief.

You can meet me anytime.  Just vacation in New Orleans and
drop me a note.  Or, if you hear that I make it up that way,
drop me a note...

I can tell you the first time I met Chief, as the initial
color of it is still vivid in my mind...  This is an event
in my life that made me believe in the synchronicity of the
universe.  There are no coincidences.

At the close of winter in 1993, just as spring was hinting
that it was near, I was sitting at the breakfast table with
my parents.  I was feeling very weary of the world, and my
usual winter malaise hadn't shown any signs of letting go of
me.  I still had some of that original teenage angst, and I
was having a lot of trouble with the spiritual side of my
being.  To make things worse, my martial practice was going
badly, and my Sensei wouldn't let me train with the other
students, and insisted on private instruction, because too
many of them were being injured.  I was, for lack of a
better description, agonizingly depressed.  "So, son, what
are you going to do this year?", my father asked as I stared
blankly into my corn flakes.  They had gotten used to the
idea that I might vanish for months on end, and they would
only receive post cards and sporadic phone calls letting
them know that I wasn't dead.  I hadn't really thought about
it, but just then the wanderlust monster must have slipped
out of the box I had locked him in, snuck up behind me, and
given me a big nuclear wedgie because I said, "Oh, I'll
probably go see the Cascade's this year."  As soon as I said
it, I felt instantly better.

I hadn't really been planning to, but I had been 'map
hiking' the Cascades for about a year and a half - ever
since I had passed through and decided that I needed to get
into some of this country eventually.  I had some nice spots
picked out, and there wasn't anything to hold me back.

Two weeks later found me jumping a box car three blocks from
my parent's house.  Box car riding is an excellent way to
see the country.  Box car surfing is an excellent way to
pass the time.  Many tracks pass far from civilization and
trains can be excellent jumping off points to investigate
areas you have never been.  Of course, this can be dangerous
transportation, and you should find someone with experience
should you ever decide to try it.  Before everyone tells me
how dangerous, illegal, etc. this is, I already know.  I
also know that it's safer than hitchhiking.

Various trains, cars, and scores of little towns later, I
found myself in the Cascades.  As the trip had progressed,
my mood hadn't lightened much.  I was in a dark and ugly
mood that I couldn't seem to shake.  I was feeling
disconnected from everything - even myself.  So, I wandered.
Following my map.  I eventually came to one of the places I
wanted to explore, and camped there for the night.  It was a
beautiful little place.  A trickling spring flowed down into
a little stream.  There was a ledge of rock over an undercut
in the mountain that was a nearly perfect shelter.  It
couldn't quite be called a cave, but it was one of those
places that you almost only ever see in pictures or by
reading novels.  There was even a fire ring of stones, and
soot marks on the ceiling - but no wood or even ashes.
Nobody had camped here for a long time.  I had no idea how
long, but I was six days out and far from any easy access.
A few times I even had to blaze my own trail when animal
trails petered out completely.

I left the next day, eager to find the next mark on my map.
After a few miles of struggling to make the terrain match
the map, I slapped myself in the head.  My God!  I was
hiking the map!  For reasons difficult to explain, this
really hurt my feelings - and I cried.  I cried a lot.  It
was a very low point in my life.  Then, like a distant echo,
I heard the words of an old indian man who was kind to me in
my youth.  "In the previous ages, children did not cry.
They did not cry because the Earth Mother cradled them, and
the Great Spirit sang to their souls.  The Earth Mother and
the Great Spirit have not forgotten this, but the children
no longer go to them."  I cried some more.

When I quit crying, I heard a bird singing in the distance,
and to my great amazement, I proceeded to remove my pack,
boots, socks, and everything else, and tie all my worldly
possessions into a in a big trash bag, and hang the whole
mess in a tree.  Then I walked back to that little place and
for the next fifteen days had an intensely private time
letting the Earth Mother cradle me and listening to the song
of the Great Spirit.  On the night of the sixteenth day, I
had begun to wonder when I would leave.  I had begun to
wonder if the spirits of this place would let me leave.  I
very clearly remember saying out loud, "Well, if the Lord
requires my services, I'm sure he'll send an angel to let me
know."  It was the first language I had heard or thought for
ten days, and I startled myself.

That evening it rained, and my little alcove was cozy and
dry.  I had the fire going well, and was looking forward to
another night sleeping on the stone floor.  If you have
never slept in this way, it will not seem appealing to you.
So, there I sat, a haggard figure with a pure soul.  The
warm glow of the fire passed directly into my being, and I
was at peace.  I was the land.  I sat there and breathed,
and each breath was a lifetime.  Each heartbeat was a
generation.  I was a true child of the Earth Mother, and had
you found me there you would have thought that I was a ghost
from ten thousand years ago.

Without any warning, a monster came out of the rainy
darkness into my little cave.  It was huge.  It was black.
It was cold.  The shadow it cast on the stone wall behind it
stretched out hideously.  It came closer and closer.  It
towered over me.  It was a monster disguised as a man.  The
man threw back his hood and his eyes shined in the fire.
Wild eyes.  Black pools that glanced back and forth, looking
and looking.  Those black eyes searched for something that
they could not find and they became wilder and wilder.  The
massive jaw trembled.  The eyes finally settled on me.  I
did not move.  I did not breathe.  My heart did not beat.

I had the instant knowledge that I would die here at the
hands of this monster.  I was not troubled by it.  This was
a good place to die, and I thought that my bones would not
mind turning to dust in such a place.  I asked them, and
they all agreed that they would not mind at all.

Such was not to be my fate, however, for the monster spoke.
As monsters are wont, I supposed it would taunt me before I
died.  So when the monster spoke I was not surprised.

What did surprise me was what the monster said: "Please,
sir, have mercy on me."

Now this was a very strange turn of phrase.  Not something a
modern man uses at all - but vagabonds and wayward axe
murderers aren't always aware of modern English usage.  I
tread cautiously.  "Why, do you think, you would need my
mercy?"

The monster trembled.  "Please, sir, am I dead?"

I must admit that at that point I laughed.  Cackled
actually.  The monster hit his knees in front of my fire and
wept bitterly.  And I felt pity.  And I had mercy.  And I
was sorry that I had laughed.

"Stand up man, I'm as real as you.  And you aren't dead
either.  What are you doing walking around in the middle of
the night smack in the middle of nowhere wondering if you
are dead?"

The monster cried.  "OH MAN!  I am SO lost.  I have been
walking out here for DAYS!  I'm out of food, out of water,
and when I saw your fire I thought I was saved.  Then when I
saw you... well...  you look like a ghost.  Yesterday I
started thinking I had died and went to hell and it was my
penance to wander hungry and thirsty, and then I saw you
and...  well...  It isn't every day you find some naked
hermit sitting in a cave next to a fire."  He said more than
that, but I'll leave it alone.  Suffice to say he had left
his map and compass on a rock when he stopped to take a
leak.  Then when he went back for it, he ended up lost in my
little neighborhood.  He cried a lot.

I fed him, I gave him water, and I put him to sleep naked on
the stone in front of the fire.  There, the Earth Mother
cradled him, and the Great Spirit sang to his soul.

The next day we retrieved my stuff, and had a great feast.
When you've been living on roots, bugs, and small critters,
Kraft M&C is food of the gods.  We walked out together, and
stayed together all that summer until he walked home with me
and then caught a bus back to Arizona the following spring.

We still get a chuckle that both of us mistook the other for
the Devil.  I have found it an excellent way to make a
friend.  I started to use a new phrase after that: "Every
devil I meet is an angel in disguise."

Good night.

Shane