A tale by Eugene Marckx
Long ago when the first people lived on the earth a young man left his family, his tribe, and went out on his own across the hills. Did his folks miss him? Did he think of going back? He wandered down river valleys and over mountain ridges, hunting and fishing. Some days he had plenty and some days he had nothing at all. He climbed up a steep mountain with heavy forest, and he found a lake up there. He liked that lake, hidden in the trees, and he built a Long House nearby. Why? A Long House is for a big family. But he had that house, and the lake, all to himself.
Deer and elk came to that lake, and a lot of other animals. That water had a secret. Anyone bathing in it got new strong life again. Even trees near the lake were big tall yellow firs, and cedars thicker than four, five men could reach around. Fish came upstream to spawn there, and they didn't die. They swam back down to the sea again. They were the first Steelhead salmon and Cutthroat trout. But the man never took a bath. He set out fish traps and he smoked and dried all the fish. He shot every deer and elk he saw, horns or no horns, and he dried the meat into jerky. He stored all this away in his Long House. Of course, he couldn't eat it all. But he wanted it all. He didn't want to share that lake with anyone. Funny thing, if he had taken one bath in that water what could he have known? But no. The animals started coming at night to bathe when he was asleep. He worked pretty hard all day with his fish traps and shooting and drying, and then running after any little sound he heard around the lake. So at night he slept pretty hard. But one night he woke up hearing a lot of splashing and laughing. Women laughing. He ran at them to drive them off, but just then he got an urge to catch one of them. And he did. Oh, she screamed and fought and kicked, but he dragged her back and the others got away. He was tying her down there at the Long House doorway, and he saw her looking up to the sky in tears. He looked up too, and rising over the trees little stars like sparks from a fire were swimming way up toward the moon. He liked this woman. He let her loose during the day, and she worked for him. In her spare time she wove a little basket from fine cedar roots and bear grass, and she kept it shut in a corner where she slept. He was curious, but she followed his eyes and said, "I will open my basket for you when you are ready." Well, that bothered him. Maybe hiaqua or some other treasure was in her basket. He told himself it wasn't hers. It was his. She was his. One day she was out over a slope picking salal berries, and he couldn't stand it. He opened her little basket. He opened it and closed it again. He left it just the way he found it, but she knew. When she came back she knew. "You opened my basket." "There's nothing. You made a big secret, but there is nothing in your basket." "Nothing?" She shook her head. "What is in there is very great." She picked up her basket and walked past him out the doorway, right down to the lake. She walked right into the water and disappeared beneath the waves. The man was remembering the word, nothing. Pretty soon the lake began to drain away. The man started running around the shore. Nothing, there was nothing he could do to stop the water from draining down a hole in the bottom. And that's all he had left, a big hole. He went back to his Long House, but now all his dried meat and fish had turned moldy. So he set out to wander the hills again, like before, but the animals and fish all saw him coming. They scattered and hid out. He dug for roots, but they were old and hard, or full of worms. He searched the fields for camas bulbs, but the bears had got there first, and the same with the berries. He was starving, more and more every day until one day he picked a spot and sat down with his heart open and his belly empty. Night and day he sat, growing weaker, but he got a sense that he better not take even one sip of water. Close by was a little stream. He did something he'd never done. He took a bath. He washed himself all over in that stream, without taking a sip. Every day. A few days of this, and he was nearing the end of his life. One night he looked up and cried out to the stars. One star floated down—basket woman. She kept her distance, but he was too weak to make a move. How long did he sit and stare? But then she opened her basket. What did he see? But his eyes began to burn with the first tears he'd ever shed. They burned his cheeks until a flood of them peeled off his old leather face. All night he kept shedding tears, and he lost sight of her, but when morning came he had a feeling that she was still around. Weak as he was, he got up and took a sip of water from the stream. Then he put his little hook and line in and fished until a little trout offered itself. He made his thanks and roasted and ate it. He saved every last one of its bones and dropped them back in the stream to make a return for what was given. After that the trees and bushes and birds, all the lives around him he treated like family. And they were. Some nights he caught sight of a star dropping down in the dark. That's when he knew that her basket was still full. And it may still be. May it be so.