He Found Her Whom He Sought

 

            When he found her, she was curled up behind some tufts of tall grass just his side of the first dirt road that wound through suburbia and ended up in town. He found her more with his nose than his eyes.
            He didn’t know if she had come from the small city, or if she was headed there next.
            He drew closer so that he could see that she was asleep. She was smaller than Jumpstart. You could say that he fell in love in that moment, or maybe he fell into his life, or entered a story yet to be written in days and years to come.
            He lay down, without waking her, almost nose to nose, and watched her sleeping.
            After a while, she sensed that he was there and opened her eyes, yellow like his. She didn’t startle or leap to her feet. She just looked into his eyes. Something passed between them, wild, subliminal and permanent.
            “Will you come with me,” said Jumpstart, belly still touching the earth. He was hoping not to frighten her by standing over her. His head lay on his forepaws, in a position almost of supplication. This was no demand on his part. This was his first gambit.
            “I am hungry. Will you shelter me? If I come with you will you help and lead me?” she asked, still curled in her sleeping position. “Will you hunt for me? Will you lead our children? Are you he whom I seek, or should I search longer? I am tired of searching.”
            “If you will come with me, fair one, I will lead you, and I will follow you. I will be there when you wake, and I will watch over you as you sleep.
            “I will feed you and our children before myself. I will hunt for you. I will lead you. I will serve you until my last breath, and I will bless you in every way I can,” whispered Jumpstart, saying words that he himself didn’t know he had in his heart. Perhaps those words were born in that moment.
            “Then I will follow you. I shall be yours and you shall be mine, as long as we live in this world,” she said. Still she lay with her nose within inches of his, eyes wide, waiting.
            “My mother named me Jumpstart,” he said.
            “Jumpstart. My mother just called me Dreamer. But when she spoke to me she said Sweety,” said the Sweet Dreamer.
            “The name is right, for I found you sleeping, Dreamer,” he said, as if in a dream himself. “Let us go then, into the meadow, and into the deep forest. I will find you something to eat as we go along. Then we will greet my friends there. Are you willing?” said Jumpstart.
            “Yes,” she said, this Dreamer, and she rose from her place of sleep. “What manner of friends?”
            “You will meet the lord of this place, his lady and the mother of his children. There is a great black Raven there too, and a wolf, and two brother mountain cats of the forest. We will greet them, and find our way in the world then,” he said.
            “I will have no fear if you lead me,” she said.
            So, Jumpstart led his love back the same way that he had come searching for her. They loped together for a few miles, until they reached the meadow near the Home Clearing. He caught a careless young rabbit, which is sad for the rabbit, but is the way of Coyote, his nature and the way he must live.
            Dreamer had her first meal with him then and there. The days before Jumpstart were already receding to a shadow in her mind. Her mother and father became totemic figures, as if in an old myth.
            They went on, side by side, growing stronger as they ran.
            Never were they parted, as long as either lived.
            Together, they then entered the Great Forest following paths that lead to the Home Clearing, if a soul has a standing invitation.
            Maeve saw them first.
            “Welcome, both of you. Come to the fire. Everyone is there!” she called as she flew overhead. Then she flew ahead to announce the visit.
            “Boss! Ramona!” Maeve called, coming in for a landing. “Jumpstart has come back and brought his new love!”
            Ramona stopped flipping fish on her big pan, standing with her wooden paddle in hand.
            Cherry and Blue came running to see.
            Twigg, who had been sitting by the fire, turned his attention to the new arrivals, and smiled.
            Bob and Berry picked up their heads and watched the approach too. They had been sleeping near the fire circle.
            Ralph, who had been sitting near the fire and Ramona, stood and spoke.
            “Welcome! Come near! Let me see you! Who is this beautiful young thing you have here, Jumpstart?”  
            “Her mother called her Dreamer. She is mine and I am hers. I hope that you will bless us, Sir,” said Jumpstart.
            “Of course, please come near,” said Ralph. And Ralph did bless them, as he had done before, at other marriages. With a hand on each of their heads, he blessed them.
            “Be bound by love!
            “May your children be many and strong!
            “May your hunt go well!
            “Go about the earth doing good!
            “May the Maker of All guide you in all your steps together!”
            He smiled down at them, well pleased.
 
            Jumpstart and his Dreamer both thanked Ralph, in awed tones, feeling seriously blessed.
            “Would you like to have fish with us,” said Ramona. “We have lots, Ralph always catches a lot of fish!”
            “Yes, Lady, we would like to share fish with you. We are honored to eat with you!” said Jumpstart. Dreamer murmured “yes,” too.
            So, very content, and very blessed, they ate fish with the family, and the animals, and Maeve too.

💛