A growl made me jump.
The bear? Was he back? Where was I?
My head hit the low ceiling of branches. Bright rays of sunlight fell through the opening of the little shelter and warmed my back. It was early morning and a beautiful morning by the looks of it. The birds chirped in competition, I heard the brook gurgling, and not a bear far and wide! My strange savior was gone too, and I wondered if I had just imagined him.
My stomach growled and I grinned in relief. So that was the culprit! While I was looking through my backpack for something to eat, the young man slipped back inside. How should I call him? As an Indian? He certainly looked like what I had always imagined. Today, to my relief, he carried more than yesterday. His torso was still bare, but in addition to the loincloth he wore soft suede leggings around his legs and moccasins on his feet.
I found my water bottle and took a sip from it. I felt his curious gaze. He wasn't obviously staring at me, yet he was watching me closely from under half-closed lids. I held out the plastic bottle to him. Maybe he was thirsty too. To my amazement, he fingered the material as he had my rain cape, amazed. He really must have lived far away from any civilization if he didn't even know about plastic!
This reminded me that I really wanted to get back to civilization.
"Do you know Mount Rushmore?" I asked him in English. "The big rock with the President's heads." He _must_ know him.
His head tilted a tiny bit to the side. I sighed. He actually didn't understand me.
Then an idea came to me. From my backpack I fished out the flyer that we had received at the entrance to the monument. Triumphantly, I held the colorful prospectus under his nose and pointed to the illustration. "Mount Rushmore," I repeated slowly and clearly.
His brow furrowed slightly as he leaned over the paper. Then he mumbled something unintelligible. It sounded almost in awe. But I waited in vain for the flash of recognition in his eyes. Instead, he took the leaflet from me and studied it carefully. His brown fingers were long and slender but still seemed strong.
I tore my eyes away from it. I no longer needed the prospectus if he kept it. But if I didn't find a way to talk to him soon...
I crawled out of the shelter. I sat up outside. I noticed a sharp pain in my right foot again and made a face. Damn! It hadn't gotten any better. Anyway, I had to get out of here.
He had followed me and I was gesturing wildly in the general direction I thought we had come from last night. It had definitely been uphill. I raised my hands like claws in front of me and gave a low, throaty growl to mimic the bear. I thought it sounded pretty scary, but to my irritation I saw him arch an amused brow.
I huffed in frustration. Then I looked around and picked up a small stick from the forest floor. I knelt on the ground, scraping away the pine needles so as to have a patch of relatively smooth earth to draw on. Inside I carved something that was supposed to represent a bear. To be sure, I growled again as I pointed my stick at it, giving him a challenging look. He crouched next to me, tilted his head slightly forward and seemed to get the point. Yes, finally!

I drew a stick figure with a backpack on my back representing myself. Then I drew an arrow from this figure towards the entrance of a cave. Anyway, I hoped that this semicircular thing was recognizable as such. To help, I added a cave passage from which hung a few stalagmites or stalactites — I always got them mixed up. I tapped the cave entrance several times with my stick and looked at him invitingly and almost pleadingly.
His dark eyes sparkled in understanding, but then he shook his head.
I nodded vigorously. "Yes, yes! I have to go there. Please."
He leaned forward and wiped away my drawings with his hand. Simply that way. He shook his head again and picked up another stick, which he used to scrape something into the ground himself: simple triangles, the points crossing at the top. teepees? A tent village. He pointed his thumb at himself, then his index finger at me, and finally his stick at the tent village. Should I come to his camp?
"No," I said. "Oooh, no. Really. I need to find my class again. And a doctor." Tears almost came to my eyes and I angrily blinked them away. Don't cry now. Not in front of him.
He pointed to my ankle and then made a gesture with his right hand that I couldn't interpret. Then I remembered something. Didn't the Indian peoples communicate with sign language in the past? Because there were so many tribes with different languages, they had to find a way to still communicate with each other. Maybe he could, too, if he seemed so familiar with Indians. And if I remembered correctly, I had seen such illustrations in the book I was going to give my brother.
I got to my feet, somewhat clumsily, without leaning on my right foot, and hobbled back to the tent. Again I rummaged in my backpack and, under his watchful eyes, pulled out the book. I flipped to the page that explained some of the symbols in sign language and looked for a term that might help me.
There was a sign for 'home. I interlaced the fingers of both my hands in front of my body. He looked at me and nodded encouragingly.
Encouraged, I kept looking. Okay, so here were the terms for 'I' - pointing your thumb at your chest - and 'walk' - a motion with your right hand.
I tried to put it all together and joined in the conversation, though he couldn't understand me: "I—go—home. I want to go home."
His eyes narrowed a little. Instead of looking at me, he had his eyes fixed on the book that lay open on the floor in front of me. He furrowed his brows and his whole expression seemed to close. He stared at me suspiciously, the intensity of his charcoal eyes sending chills down my spine. Oh oh. Did I say something wrong?
Suddenly he grabbed the book and leafed through the pages wildly. At the drawings of weapons—bow and arrow, stone club, and spear—he paused and stared at them with a scowl.
He said something, and though I couldn't understand it, his voice sounded ominous like the rumble of thunder. I swallowed. What did that mean?
"Wakan," he murmured.
I wish he would give me my book back. Then maybe I could look up what the word meant. But I didn't dare to even move.
He grabbed my backpack and dropped the book in there. Before I could break my rigid frame, he grabbed my wrist. I was startled. His fingers held me like a vise and his eyes blazed as he looked at me. With a soft but determined request that could only mean "Come!" he pulled me outside, taking my backpack with him.
"Hey!" I tried to fight back, but I didn't stand a chance against his superior strength. He was a head and a half taller than me.
I hobbled more badly than right after him. My heart was pounding in fear at this sudden change in mood and my throat tightened so painfully that I couldn't utter another sound of protest.
We walked a little way down the creek—at least he wasn't running so fast and seemed to be considerate of my foot—until I spotted a brown and white piebald horse among the logs, well camouflaged by the color of its coat. It tugged leisurely at the tender green blades of grass near the shore, wearing only a blanket over its back and a kind of halter around its nose. But no saddle.
It lifted its head and turned its ears in our direction as we approached, but it didn't run away. As soon as we reached his horse, the Indian grabbed my waist. I cried out softly in surprise. With a swing he put me on the back of the pony, which was shorter and stockier than the horses I knew from the stables. Then he grabbed the reins and set his animal in motion with a curt squeak. So he led me downhill through the forest towards an unknown destination.