A Saint's Last Tear

It wasn’t long before Shaman One and Two woke me up by shaking my sleeping bag violently.

“Are you ready for your preparation, Wounded Wolf?”

“Right now?” I responded.

“Get up,” they said.

And I did. They walked me, half asleep, down to the Rogue River and told me to jump in the water.

“Right now?” I asked.

“Yes, Wounded Wolf, now,” said Shaman Two.

Shaman One went with me and told me to hold my breath and when I wanted to come up for air to tap his arm, which would be holding my head under water. The water was so cold. What the hell was I doing? I was in all my clothes. Do these guys have major problems or what? I went underwater, half asleep, confused, trying to hold my breath for as long as I possibly could. I lasted for maybe ten seconds, and I tapped on Shaman One’s arm, but he didn’t pull me up; he pushed me back down. I was panicking. I began shaking my legs and trying to break free, but he kept pushing down. Five seconds went by and he pulled me up and I jumped out of the water and tried to tackle him while coughing and gasping for air. Then I turned around and saw Wandering Bull, Big Brown Bear and Shaman Two standing on the shore, applauding me. Shaman One hugged me and said he was sorry but that I had just been through my preparation. They had woken up the other two campers earlier and done the same thing. It was a staged, near-drowning experience that was supposed to make us want to fight to stay alive. That fight was our inner-light, our life-force. And in order to know we had it, we had to feel it. I came out swinging, which meant that I wanted to live. It meant I had purpose and determination and spunk.

“You have the life-force, Wounded Wolf,” said Shaman One, “and you have it bad.”

I stopped being mad at him and felt, oddly, good. I was cold and shaken up, but it made me feel better that they had tried to drown the other two campers as well. Big Brown Bear had tears in his eyes and he walked me back up to camp with his arm around me.