The Arrowhead

As I walked up the graveled driveway and through the iron gates I felt at peace. I decided to sit for a moment on the wooden bench that stood at the top of a small hill just past the spot where the driveway ended and the manicured lawn began. As I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the sun bathe my face, the story of the arrowhead came to mind. It always did in this place, even when I consciously tried to ignore it. It was one of the most significant memories of my entire life and yet I was not even present for most of the events that made up the story. I knew those events only because my brother and sister had told them to me over and over again in their completely dysfunctional way. Maybe that’s why the story was so precious to me. Perhaps what was so important was really the memory of the three of us sitting in the back yard or in my room on a rainy day, me pestering the two of them to tell the story just one more time. I don’t know. But I never had any difficulty recalling the story in its entirety.

It all started on a Sunday morning after we had got back home from church. We had been good so mom agreed to let us go out to the park to play for the afternoon.

Jason had been talking about crossing the creek at the back of the woods just behind the park for a long time. He didn’t want to do it in the summer or fall because the creek was almost dry then. That would have been too lame. But in the spring when the snow on the mountains was melting that little creek started bubbling and gurgling – sometimes it even overflowed its banks. That’s when it aroused his interest.

Jason led us down to the creek and we all watched as the water went tearing by. He tried to size up the distance across the creek and how difficult it would be to jump across. Darian and I sat on the grass a few feet back from the bank.

"We can do it. I'm sure we can!” Jason said. Darian seemed convinced but I was not. I crawled up to the edge of the bank and stared across the short distance to the other side.

"See, Annie! Trop facile!”

Jason knew how much I hated that girlish nickname but he used it anyway. He also knew that it annoyed me when he used the only two words of French that he seemed to have learned after six years of immersion.

"Peut-être trop facile for you", I responded in the most manly voice I could manage, "but maybe not so easy for me! I am definitely too short. I will fall into the creek and you'll never see me again until some Forest Ranger finds me living with wolves a thousand miles from here."

Jason was not very empathetic.

"Don't be such a noodle-head, Annie. You will not fall in. I won't let you. We'll all hold hands, take a good running start, and fly over this creek like it was nothing. You'll see."

Jason reached out his hand to me but I crossed both my arms and my legs and settled firmly into my spot on the bank of the creek.

"I'm not going, and that's that" I said. I then gave Darian a warning.

"If you decide to listen to him you're not being very smart."

Darian stared at me, then turned towards Jason.

"Anoka may not be the bravest kid on the block, Jason, but this time he might be right. Are you sure we can make it. It does look pretty scary."

"Come on, Darry. I would never make you do anything really dangerous. Mom would kill me if you or Annie got hurt. Look, it's not even very deep."

Jason took a broken branch a few feet long and tried to stick it into the bottom of the creek bed about halfway across. On the first attempt the current caught the branch and almost tore it out of his hands. But on his second try he aimed the branch a bit upstream and managed to jam it into the muddy creek bed leaving a few inches sticking out of the water.

I was not impressed.

"You almost lost that old tree branch. If that had been Darian she'd be halfway to the wolves by now!"

My grim assessment was made without even a hint of a smile. Darian definitely was looking nervous at that point.

Jason decided to change his approach.

"Fine, Annie. You just sit there like a bump on a log. Darry and I will go across and we’ll have so much fun that you will never be able to catch up to us if you have nothing but fun for the rest of your life!"

That bold claim made Darian giggle despite any misgivings she might have had about trying to cross the creek.

Jason seized the moment. He grabbed her hand and dragged her away from the creek. He looked at her with a demonic expression and said "Let's do it! Trop facile!" Darian started laughing hysterically and they ran as fast as they could towards the creek, jumping off the edge with their last step.

Jason landed two feet squarely onto the opposite bank but Darian's right foot slipped off the bank and into the water. It took all of Jason's strength to pull her away from the water. They fell in a heap onto the muddy grass beside the creek where they lay like rag-dolls, panting from the exertion of the jump.

"Was that great or what?" Jason beamed at Darian and, after a moment's hesitation she nodded her head.

"Yeah, it was pretty amazing all right. You're a freak, you know."

"Maybe, but here we are, safe and sound! Hey Annie, you want to try by yourself? I'll catch you."

I looked at my two mud-stained siblings with a mixture of admiration and envy. Even so, there was no hesitation in my response.

"No thank you. I'm quite happy to stay on this side. But I have to admit it did look pretty cool. Maybe I'll try when I get bigger."

The bravado faded from Jason's face just for a moment and was replaced with a smile that made me feel like he really did care about me.

"OK - you stay right there and relax. Don't try anything dumb. We won't be very long."

As Jason wagged his finger at me to emphasize his instructions I played an imaginary trumpet with my thumb on my nose. Jason just shook his head.

Jason and Darian headed back into the forest and within a few steps they had to start climbing up a slope that got steeper and steeper. Soon they were scrambling over patchy grass punctured by numerous jagged outcrops of bedrock. In places they slipped on loose gravel, suffering many minor cuts and scrapes as they went.

Having conquered the roaring creek Darian seemed to have gained a lot of self-confidence and often led the way. It was after about five minutes of climbing that she stopped dead in her tracks. She peered into a dark shadow that nestled amongst some boulders just ahead of her. As Jason caught up she pointed her arm towards the spot.

"Look Jason. I think it’s a cave. Do you think anything might be living in there?"

Jason twisted his face into a knot trying to see past the darkness without success.

"Could be. There's no way of knowing without going inside."

Jason crossed his arms and frowned.

Darian gave him a side-long glance, then started walking brusquely towards the cave. Jason held back for just a few seconds, then he ran up to her side. At the mouth of the cave they both stopped and peered in. Somewhere towards the back of the short cave there was a small hole in the ceiling and a shaft of light, pencil thin and pencil straight, diluted the darkness just enough for them to see that the cave was empty.

They crouched down and stepped into the cave, Darian still in the lead. Near the spot where the pencil light made a small circle on the floor of the cave they stopped and sat down.

"This is a real find, eh?" Jason's rhetorical question elicited an enthusiastic response from Darian.

"Yeah. There might be some neat stuff lying around here buried in the dust; maybe some bones or arrow heads or something."

As she said that she started sifting the powdery floor of the cave with her fingers. Then she looked up at the source of the pencil light and followed the shaft down to the spot where it disappeared into the dust. She drew a circle around the spot with her forefinger.

"You know, if we stay here for a few minutes we'll see this spot of light move out of the circle. I can tell my science teacher that we measured the rotation of the earth."

Jason rolled his eyes.

"Darry, don't be so boring. I know that you're a science wiz but how about you leave that stuff back at school, OK?"

With that he started a serious sifting effort, complete with the occasional "ouch" as his fingers ran into a chunk of rock. Darian joined in and after about ten minutes Jason pulled out a small, triangular piece of stone from the dust.

"Hey, take a look at this. Do you think it might be an arrowhead?"

Darian took the stone in her hand. It was fairly flat and was the right shape but the edges were smooth, not chipped as they should be if it was an arrowhead. Even in the dim light of the cave Darian could see the expectation in Jason’s eyes.

After holding the stone in her hand for a couple of more minutes she seemed to make up her mind about what it was.

"You know, Jason, it's hard to make out for sure what this is here in the cave but I think it is an arrowhead. I think you have found something special here and should keep it."

Darian handed the stone back to Jason who rolled it around in his hand looking very pleased with himself.

"Thanks Darry. Now we have something to show Annie. Are you ready to go back?"

"Yes, I think we should." They both stood up and were about to walk out of the cave when Jason glanced down at the floor of the cave.

"Hey Darry, the spot is still exactly inside the circle that you drew. Guess the earth stopped rotating, eh?" He chuckled as Darian stared down at the spot of light. She just shrugged her shoulders. “I guess I’m not so smart after all” she said.

They made the return trip fairly quickly, half crawling, half sliding down the hillside before running across the grass to the bank of the creek. I was still sitting there and didn't get up until they had jumped across the creek, this time putting a bit more effort into it and landing beside me without incident.

Jason immediately dug out his precious find.

"Look Annie, we found this fantastic cave and inside it I dug this up. Darry thinks that it is an arrowhead." He held the stone out for me and I took it in my hand and stared at it intensely.

"I wish I could have been there. Maybe I would have found one too." I couldn't disguise the disappointment in my voice as I handed it back to him.

Jason’s eyes sparkled as he closed my hand around the stone.

"Yes, but this one is for you Annie. I want you to keep it. That's why I dug around in that dirty old cave for so long; so that I would have something to bring back to you."

I bit the corner of my lip.

"Thanks, Jason. For a big brother you're alright."

Jason smiled and put his arm around my shoulder. Darian joined in and the three of us walked back through the woods to our house, stumbling around trees and nearly falling down several times because we refused to let go of each other.

Over the next couple of years we had other adventures but none were quite as memorable as the trip to the cave. Jason and Darian chose never to go back there again. They told me that the memory that they had of it was too precious to take a chance of spoiling. And I was sure that an actual visit would never be as good as hearing the story over and over.

When Jason graduated from our elementary school and entered the local High School things changed. He started spending more time with his High School friends and less and less time with us. It was a natural progression, but it sometimes made me wish that we could get back to the 'good old days' of water fights and secret 'missions'.

After running through the story in my mind I sat quietly for another minute or two. Then I stood up from the bench, stretched and walked over to the spot where Jason’s memorial was located. He had been killed in a skateboarding accident when I was 12.

For many years I had been very angry with him for being so reckless and leaving such a big hole in my life. I missed him terribly every day. But as I grew older I realized that the memories I had of Jason meant that he would always be with me.

I looked down at the bronze plaque adorned with an image of Jason riding on a skateboard. Even the cold metal couldn’t disguise the fire in those eyes. The epitaph engraved into the plaque read “He had the courage to live life to the fullest”.

I reached into my pocket and started rubbing the smooth, triangular stone that I kept on my person at all times; the stone that Jason had been so excited to give me all those years ago; the stone that I knew was not an arrowhead even though Darian had said it was so that Jason would feel it was special enough to give to his little brother.

I could no longer be angry with Jason. I loved him for who he was in life and I will continue to cherish who he was for as long as I live.

Life is precious because it does not go on forever. That is what I have come to realize. Jason’s was far too short, but he took from life everything that it had to give and gave to others all of the love that filled his heart. For me and for everyone else that had the privilege of knowing my brother, that has to be enough.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 12.01.2010

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