Free Grayfox by Michael Phillips Page B

said, we did talk—I spent a lot of time just watching him or staring into the fire. That was another thing he taught me in those early days—to watch and observe.
    He never told me those things. He never sat me down and said, “Now, Zack, you gotta learn to appreciate the quiet, and you gotta watch and observe from what’s going on around you and learn from it.”
    No, that wasn’t Hawk’s way. He let me learn what I was ready to learn. For instance, he just let me feel the silence and know that he was at peace with it and figure out for myself that silence was a good thing.
    Later on, Hawk taught me a lot with words, too, but always the words followed. First came the silence and the watching—and sometimes that was enough. Sometimes words could come along afterward to add meaning and sense to it all. But they always came after I had already begun to figure out what the silence was saying or at least asking myself what it was supposed to be saying.
    The things I learned from Hawk always had to do with such simple things. Yet he’d see huge meaning in them. He taught me to see , to find meaning . . . in everything.
    Two of the first things I learned to look at different were the two things closest by during those first days—the fire and the pale light from the snow at the mouth of the cave.
    Hawk would just start asking me a question now and then, maybe like, “Be pretty tough, wouldn’t it, if there wasn’t any light?”
    Then we’d talk about light for a while, maybe going off in all kinds of directions in our conversation. At the end of it, I always knew he helped me understand the whole idea of light in a deeper way.
    It was the same with the fire.
    Fire’s got a lure to it you can’t help being drawn into. I’d find myself just staring into the orange and yellow flames, sometimes for hours. All it would take was a question or two from Hawk to set my mind going.
    â€œWhere does the smoke go?” I asked him.
    â€œLittle crack way up through the roof of the cave—twenty, thirty feet up there.”
    â€œWhy doesn’t the snow drip in and get us all wet?”
    â€œNear as I can figure, the crack curves around and runs downhill for a spell, too, so whatever leaks down from outside doesn’t getall the way down inside the cave. Smoke’ll go up and down and all over the place long as there’s an air draft pulling it. Water only goes downhill.”
    â€œIt’s so warm inside,” I said. “I can’t believe we’re surrounded by snow everywhere.”
    â€œNo better insulation than the earth, Zack,” Hawk replied. “Once you get a good fire going, place like this’ll stay warm enough to live in all winter.”
    Well, anyway, the days did pass quick. The snow outside melted down enough so that Hawk could finish shoveling his way through it. And gradually, using the crutch he’d made me, I was able to get up and about on my splinted leg. There was still a thick pack of know everywhere when I finally did get out into the light of day, but breathing that fresh air sure felt good!
    After that, there wasn’t another big snowfall for quite a while, and we were able to start moving about outside. Already I’d almost forgotten my anxiousness to hurry back down to the valley and the Pony Express. I knew I couldn’t ride yet, and Hawk Trumbull was staring to grow on me.
    One day I woke up and Hawk was gone from the cave.
    I crawled to my feet and hobbled outside. It took me an hour to find him, though he was only a hundred yards away, up on top of the hill behind the mouth of the cave.
    I worked my way up to where he was sitting.
    â€œMorning,” I said.
    He didn’t reply. He just kept looking up at the sky. I was worn out from the climb, so I sat down a little ways off. Hawk just kept staring straight up into space. It was cold but bright and sunny, and the sky was a deep,