UKTENA

It begins with crying. It always begins with crying.

Every creation is also a loss; as every mother cries while giving birth.

They sat along the campfire. A nation on the verge of extinction. Their ghostly shadows projected onto moonlit walls. The medicine man knows that they are trapped in this canyon. A war party is coming to kill them. He heard their whooping cries and he did his best to calm his people.

He sung a medicine song worthy of such precious lives. Lives that would soon be put out, and then he spoke: “Let us not forget that every campfire is like a star and thus every star is like a campfire. And around these stars, these campfires, we tell stories. This whole cosmos made not of galaxies and planets but of songs and stories.”

He sang to them about Uktena — the great horned serpent with rainbow wings.

“As we wait for death, do not cry, for our end is only the beginning. In the long telling, nothing is wasted or lost, it is only converted into something more powerful. Great Spirit, we are coming home.”

Grandma Spider and Falling Star sat above this canyon and heard it all.

“So much suffering and sadness,” said Falling Star.

“Yes,” said Grandma Spider. “But also so much strength and beauty.”

#

It was early morning when she heard the crying.

She had been warming herself on a large rock that overhung her favorite lake. She decided to see what the noise was about. Slithering into a nearby canyon, following the sound, she arrived at a small forest of oaks and hickories. There, in a bright clearing, she saw the weeping child. A tiny copper-colored boy in a tanned buckskin shirt. She made her way to him and he fell silent.

She wondered where he came from.

“Where are you from?” she hissed.

There was no answer. He could not understand the language of her forked tongue.

She gazed into his frightened brown eyes. Practically hypnotizing him. Attempting to read his mind. Only the vaguest wisps of his world could be gleaned.

“You’re lost?”

Still no answer.

She spread open her magnificent rainbow wings, sparkling in the morning light, and flew away. When she returned she had a large basket in her mouth. She laid it down and within it were fresh berries.

The child’s eyes lit up. He walked toward the basket and grabbed some of the sweet fruit. Looking at her for approval.

“It’s okay. They’re for you. Eat them.”

He took a small bite and smiled.

“Good huh?”

Still no answer.

She waited for the child to fall asleep. He began to close his eyes and she gently nudged him into the intricately weaved basket. The boy bundling within it as best he can.

Once asleep, she picked the basket up with her fanged mouth and soared away into the late afternoon sky.

When he woke it was night. A full moon made the surrounding land visible. High on a mountaintop, it was summer, but he was still cold. He found the antlered she-snake sleeping in a great coil of scales and rainbow wings. He crawled under her bright feathers and fell asleep. She opened one eye and looked down at him. The great red jewel on her forehead started to glow. A sign that she is happy, for once.

The following morning, he's back in her basket, carried over prairies and lakes and mountains. She is on her way to see Coyote. A wise yet mischievous trickster. He will know what to do.

Later in that day, they landed near a forest stream. He crawled out of the basket and took a sip of the good cold water.

She keeps still. Waiting for Coyote to show up.

It was near evening when they heard a yapping could have passed for laughing. He came from the dense underbrush with his nose in the air and made his way to the stream. After he drank for a considerably long time, he turned around and faced the snake and the dozing child.

“Hello there. Haven’t seen you in many a moon," he yaps. "What brings you to my side of the forest?”

“This child,” she said. “He’s lost. What should I do with him?”

Coyote turned his muzzle and sniffed. “Hmmm, have you thought about eating him?” He then gave a good howl that nearly woke the boy.

“Shhhh,” she hissed. “You’ll wake him. I’m serious, what shall I do?”

Coyote shook his head. “Take him home of course!”

“I don’t know where it is.”

“His people have been migrating across Turtle Island for quite some time. Falling Star told me he saw a band of them making their way south.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. I bet your child is of that tribe.”

“Thank you.” She then plucked a feather from her rainbow wings and dropped it.

Coyote picked this up with his mouth and scurried back into the underbrush.

The boy spent several days in the airborne basket. Carried further south.

One night there was a terrible storm. Lightning spread across the dark sky like a giant electric spiderweb.

The she-snake was preparing to land when she heard a high rolling screech from above.

The thunder birds are upon them! They dive on her with talons drawn. Huge eagles made from the weather that raged around them.

One of them grabbed the basket and soared away. She raced after it, beating her wings as fast as they would carry her. The thunder bird is too swift. The storm too much. Blinded by sheets of hard rain, her heart sinks. The little boy is gone. Forever.

She took shelter in a mountain cave and cried. Crying like the sky above her.

The storm cleared by morning and she opened her tired eyes. Not wanting to do much of anything. But, then, she heard crying. His crying.

She flapped her wings and lifted. Surveying the land around her. And there, caught in the branches of some tall pine tree, was the basket and the boy!

She hovered beside it. Grabbing the basket with her mouth and continuing to fly south.

The next day she found a wandering tribe. They looked weary and weather-beaten, and one amongst them screamed upon seeing the airbound serpent.

Some archers shoot skyward. She barely missed the arrows that wizz past her. Barely misses. But, she's mistaken. An arrow has struck beneath her left wing. A deep and fatal wound.

She landed close enough and gently placed the basket on the earth.

The jewel on her forehead began to glow a bright blood-red.

“Good bye, little one.”

The little boy emerged from the basket and walked forward.

A woman amongst these people rushed out and grabbed him. Crying tears of joy.

#

Utkena remembered when she was once a gigantic winged serpent.

Now she's been reincarnated as a fair maiden. Resting among the stars and high cliffs. A golden campfire burned into the wondrous night. Grandma Spider and Falling Star joined her.

“We never die. We just become stories,” whispered Grandma Spider.