The Trip by Jimmy Morrison & Colin Pohl

He stared down the rugged hills in the distance, taking a moment before he began his tribal fast.  Those hills turned into cliffs and to get further from the tribe than he ever had, it would take a couple days to reach those peaks.  If he succeeded they’d call him a man, but first he had to agree not to eat on the journey and he had to reach new heights he had not yet experienced on his own.  His elders had so many requirements.

So he agreed to their demands, but his idea for how to reach new heights was actually prohibited by one of the Chiefs.  The peyote he had done just before the fast made him the first Shitoshi Indian to trip on the new hallucinogen that came from the southwest.  The moment passed and he took his first step toward the ridges in the distance.

The flatlands went quicker than he thought they would.  To be honest, he seemed to cross them almost instantly.  He had lost himself in the repetitive walk, but now the hills were rising and he was having to scan the different paths for the easiest way to the top.  He never stopped moving, constantly choosing one path after another, never hesitating or second guessing the direction.

He felt confident each time that he had found the way.  But eventually his confidence became his downfall.  The one thing he’d been allowed to take was a skin for water.  As the hills became rockier and more difficult, he didn’t even stop when his dry mouth led him to drink.  It was during one of those drinks that the rock he walked on gave way, causing him to trip down the ravine.

He slid down the rocky incline more than twenty feet, sliding to a stop slumped over himself.  It wasn’t the scratches or the pain from the fall that shook him, it was the wetness that spread across his back, telling him his water skin had dragged along underneath him the whole way.  The not eating thing didn’t bother him if he had something to drink, but this isn’t how he planned this whole thing going.  Rather than starting right back up toward the cliffs, he took a minute to dwell on the fall.

A minute turned into fifteen before he looked back up toward his destination.  An eagle larger than any he had ever seen had perched himself on the branch closest to him.  He had no idea when the bird had arrived.  After neither of them said anything, he started taking steps toward the mountain.  As soon as he passed the eagle, it spread its wings, revealing its massive wingspan.  The eagle landed right in front of him, gracefully presenting the back of his wings to the man.

This entire journey, he had felt like he had the confidence to know he was making the right choices, but when he was back with the tribe, that was not always the case.  He had been riddled with doubts.  All of that was gone now in this moment, where he felt so connected to nature that he immediately knew what he was supposed to do.  The moment the eagle landed, he responded in one swift motion, climbing onto the eagle’s back as they were lifted up in the air, heading for the plateau on top of the furthest mountain they could see.

The land looked so different from the previously unimaginable heights they were looking down from.  The hills got smaller and smaller and the dried-up streams snaked through the landscape like the lines on a leaf or the branches that hold them.  The eagle descended toward the plateau and everything seemed right in the world.

He was silently thanking the bird when his attention turned toward the rocky ledge they were headed for.  The eagle moved at a speed he didn’t expect was possible.  Before he had time to react to the consequence of this realization, they slammed into the ground, sliding all the way to another ledge.  Their trajectories separated almost immediately upon impact, and he just caught glimpses of the eagle as he rolled across the rocks.  The eagle slid much faster and further and as the Indian came to a stop, he got his bearings just in time to see the bird disappear, apparently plummeting from the cliff.  The physical pain in every part of his body overtook him and everything went dark.

The first thing you notice when you wake up in the badlands is the taste of the grit in your mouth.  This morning was the worst he’d experienced, his mouth so dry and dirty it was practically swollen shut.  He lifted his head and looked to the last spot he’d seen the eagle.  He groaned as he lifted his body off the ground, stumbling toward the cliff.  He reached the ledge, and quickly realized there was no carcass to be found.  The animal spirit that saved his life and almost took it at the same time must have survived and flown off before hitting the rocks far below the place he now stood.

He turned to figure out where exactly he was and the image consumed him.  He was at the highest point on the furthest ridge looking back on the land he’d experienced with his elders.  But it wasn’t just the view that felt so profound.  He had never appreciated the beauty of that land the way he now did.  It was as if all the people who had come before him were just building toward this one moment where he would get to see the world, like it was art itself, as if the land had been sculpted all those moons ago just for him to experience it now.

He stood there thinking for a very long time, but when he stepped forward to head back toward his tribe, he did so with a purpose.  As he scaled down the rocky ravines, it quickly became clear that someone had made their way up this path before, maybe even as late as the night before.  He did not let his mind wander toward this possibility and took step after step down the dangerous terrain.

The moment his father saw him stumbling out of the desolate countryside, he rushed to his side.  They walked together to the roundhouse the rest of the elders were waiting in.  No words were spoken until he had sat in front of them for quite some time.

“I know what I must do,” he told the Elders.  No one said anything at first, but the Chief furthest from him eventually responded.  “What did you learn on your journey?”

“I went on this trip for you, to please you and my father.  It wasn’t something I thought I would want to do.  I went reluctantly.”  He paused.  “I’m glad I did, because now I know how you’ve helped me.  Not just you but the ones who came before you.  I get to ride higher than anyone ever has, because all the work and things you have learned and saved are passed on to me.”  The Chief smiled and begins to say that was the point of sending him on the journey, but he interrupted, something the Chief had not had happen to him in as long as he could remember.

“But this is also why I have to leave this land.  I cannot be held back by your way of life.  I have experienced a whole new world, and I must go find the tribe that sent it to me and thank them.”

Before anyone could even respond, he ducked out of the roundhouse and was never seen by a Shitoshi Indian again.

Written by Jimmy Morrison