By Jim Farrell
Chapter Three
Much to Brother Bill’s relief, he found that he was indeed adopted by Grinning Tall Man and his wife, She-Who-Hits-Head-On-Branches. He found out later that the couple had just lost their newborn son in a cougar attack, and had been firmly convinced that the Great Spirit in the sky had returned their son to them when he witnessed their sorrow. Throughout the five years that Brother Bill lived with them, he never let them know the truth, mainly because he didn’t want to hurt their feelings.
Grinning Tall Man and She-Who-Hits-Head-On-Branches had to spend very little time teaching Brother Bill the language of the Pachena Bay people, for he was a fast learner. Brother Bill would walk for hours with Grinning Tall Man beside the small stream the beavers had dammed up to make the large lake the village sat beside. From these walks with his newfound father, Brother Bill learned why these Pachena Bay people, were as tall as they were.
It seems that they were traveling into the interior of Vancouver Island from Pachena Bay looking for the valley that their tribe had been using since time remembered, when the greatest shaking of the earth that anyone had ever remembered took place. The ground rose up thirty feet into the air and then, in the flash of an eagle’s eye, dropped again. The people couldn’t stand or even set down as the ground moved up and down. When the ground stopped shaking and rolling, the tribal members picked themselves up and looking back to the path that they had come down into the valley on, had disappeared into a cloud of dust and a sheer rock wall was left in its place, leaving the tribe in a huge box canyon with no way out.
It turned out the valley was so deep that in order to feel the sunshine on their faces, they would have to stretch their necks up. By stretching their necks, they were also able to check for any cougars or rattle snakes lurking about. It seems that at some time in the ‘before remembered time’ there had been a huge wind that had dropped any number of strange animals into that forlorn valley, including that venomous reptile.
After years of stretching their necks, they just seemed to grow more. Finally, it was decided by the Ha-wilth (hereditary chief), that they should move out of the canyon to a country where they didn’t have to extend their necks so much. The only problem that remained for the Indians was where and how should they move. None of tribe had been much further than the canyon rim, and no one could remember what lay beyond the seemingly unobtainable canyon rim.
The many years that the tribe had lived in the deep canyon ultimately paid off for the tribe. For years, one kind of animal or another would fall into the canyon and become hurt. The Pachena Bay people didn’t like to see the animals in pain, so they would pick up the injured creature, and care for it until the misfortunate critter was better. Of course, many animals were frightened of the tall people and would try to run away even though they were in pain.
The lofty tribe learned that the only way they could treat the wild creatures, was to look into the eye of the critter and hypnotize it, taking away all the animal’s fears. It was with this constant exposure that the Pachena Bay people learned to speak with the animals. Now they didn’t talk to them the way that you or I would, but by looking into their eyes and kinda felt what they said. After all, even if the animal is hypnotized, how can you doctor him if you don’t know where it hurts? So, out of necessity, the tribe learned to talk with all the animals, except for the always evasive cougar. The only reason that they didn’t learn how to talk to the cougar, was over all the years the tribe had lived in the deep canyon, the cougar hadn’t fallen into it. After all, that big cat is the surest footed creature of the animal kingdom. Therefore, the tribe, being human, and like most people all over the world, feared what they didn’t understand, began to fear the big mountain lion.
In order to solve the problem, they talked to an eagle, who’s wing they had mended, and asked him to fly around until he found the ideal place for the tribe to move. After about a month of searching, the eagle had returned to the village in the canyon and told the tribal council, there was no way out that he could see, but maybe at the other end of the huge canyon. He told them there was a lake with tall, majestic fir trees all around it. He also told of abundant game and rich soil growing fields of huckleberry, salmon berries (with their eatable stems in springtime), thimble berries and eatable roots grew in abundance.
The Ha-wilth called the tribe together and announced to all, that a new home had been found. As in most Indian tribes, it was up to each individual if he wanted to go, or to stay in that part of the canyon. After a lengthy discussion they agreed to go to the new place, for they were tired of bumping their heads on rock overhangs, and afraid of growing any taller than ten feet.
So off the tribe moved heading north to a place none had ever traveled to, thankful that they had learned to converse with the animals and how to hypnotize them if they ever were threatened by wolves, brown bears, or any other critter except the ever evasive cougar. And that was how with that exodus they came to live next to Pachena Lake, in what call Vancouver Island.
Grinning Tall Man and She-Who-Hits-head-On-Branches both spent many hours teaching Brother Bill to talk with the animals and to improve his own ability to hypnotize them. They would take him into the dark, fir forest until they found a woodpecker, or even a raccoon to talk with. That way, they started with the small animals and worked him up to the larger ones. Brother Bill and his adoptive parents had to crawl quietly until they were close enough to the animals to look them in the eye. For a ten-foot tall Indian, that took a lot of time, or they had to look like a big log moving up to the animal. But that was easy for Brother Bill to do, because a person 2 feet 12 inches tall can hid almost anywhere.
He spent the next five years with the Pachena Bay people, learning how to understand the critters and having them understand him, while learning the first people’s ways and customs. A major problem came up when She-Who-Hits-Head-On-Branches and Grinning Tall Man tried to understand why Brother Bill didn’t get any taller as the years rolled on. They would feel sorry for him as he would run foot races with the other first nation children, who would beat him for many years, until Brother Bill developed his leg muscles to move five times as fast as the other children and began to finish in the top couple of runners. In fact, when Brother Bill broke the world record with the three-minute mile years later, he gave credit to those races he ran with the other children. Many athletes have tried it, but it’s widely believed that none will ever break Brother Bill’s record of two minutes, nineteen seconds.
Brother Bill knew that the time was fast approaching when he would have to leave the tribe and strike out on his own and try to find his way back to Missouri and Mother (we always called her mother). He knew that she must be getting mighty worried about his whereabouts. So he spent the last six months putting into practice the talents that he had learned from his adoptive parents, She-Who-Hits-Head-On-Branches and Grinning Tall Man.