Now I was totally un-Paiute and wondered if I had been walking backwards or something. I drank some of my water and slumped in the dirt on the big flat in the miserable west desert.

Going back seemed the only sensible way for me. The treasure was far away and the vision was fading. I dozed in the pungent shade of a sage brush for a few minutes and as I lay there, all my thoughts disappeared. The vision was gone. The sky was white in the heat and alkali dirt purged my lips and tongue. Quiet settled in all around me. I could feel the thump of my heart as it performed its duty without any effort or desire on my part.

Slowly, thumpings came through the ground under me, in time with my heartbeat. They filtered a rhythmic pounding in the soil. I felt it in the ground around me but could hear nothing. In the stillness there came a sense that I wasn’t alone out there after all. Was it someone walking? Legends say that Indians could hear the cavalry coming every time they put their ear to the ground. I just lay there, straining.

In a few minutes I could hear a muffled growl and spitting noise. It was really close. I sat up and turned toward the sound. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. There was a small mound of sand, just behind my shade bush. The brush was blocking my view, so I carefully crawled about three feet and peered over. Less than five feet away was a large hole dug in the ground. It was almost big enough for a boy my size to crawl into. Sloping upwards away from the hole was a ramp of dirt tailings that peaked sharply at its top, clearly testifying of the enormous amount of earth moving that had taken place there.

The muffled growls and hissing were coming from the hole. Then a furry rump emerged. It was a badger, a big one, coming out of the den backwards!

My curiosity faded as fear swept over me. I was too close. Every boy in southern Idaho knew that badgers didn’t back down from a fight. They chased worse than cactus. I was barefoot; no chance to outrun this monster. Right then I wanted someone to appear and rescue me. I almost cried out, “Momma!” The badger was growling fiercely and hissing. I could hear my heart right between my ears.

Old Badger came out of the earth and backed up the long dirt ramp. He held in his front claws a fist sized stone, and he was dragging and rolling it along up the ramp. His flat body topped the ramp and pitched awkwardly down the other side. This brought the stone to the top of the mound, but it slipped from his grip and went rolling back down the ramp and into the hole. Old Badger seemed to realize the failure of his attempt to remove the pesky stone. He let out a low growl and thrashed a bush near his nose, I lay low.

Old Badger finally lumbered back into the ground grumbling and hissing with typical badger temperament. I had my chance to slip on my broken moccasins and get out of that place, but I didn’t. Old Badger hadn’t seen or smelled me on his first trip out of the hole. Maybe I could watch for awhile. I could hear him deep underground almost beneath me, spitting and struggling.

Presently Old Badger’s rump emerged and once again he backed up the dirt ramp, pulling the stone along. Once again he backed his flat body over the crest and lost his grip on the stone. It rolled back down the hole. Old Badger spat out a whole string of unique sounds and followed the path of the stone back into the ground.

The badger and the stone repeated the same dance over and over again until I became weary of watching. His situation seemed hopeless with the ready-made ramp and track for that stone to roll back on. His only hope was to keep a hold on the stone. This he seemed unable to do once his body tipped over the crest of the dirt mound. I wanted to crawl over and give him a hand.

Then, on about the fourteenth attempt, Old Badger held on to the stone and pulled it over the crest. It tumbled down the back side away from the hole. Old Badger just sat there and rested for awhile. The growling and hissing stopped. He seemed really pleased with himself for a moment.

Then I got nervous. So taken was I by the drama of the badger and the stone that I forgot how dangerous badgers were and how close my nose was to his. The sudden tension I felt must have caused a movement or a scent that reached the awareness of Old Badger. He rose up and our eyes met. His nose sniffed me out, but he didn’t bristle. I almost fainted. If he chased me, he would catch me. I knew it. We stared at each other for a long moment.

Old Badger made the first move. Without any show of anger or bluff he gave me a nod, and slipped smoothly down the ramp into his den. I could feel him digging new ground below me. Then, I realized that my heart had stopped pounding and I felt warm, at ease and somehow very privileged.

I put on my torn moccasins, picked up my gear and started to leave. I glanced back at the hole and noticed the stone Old Badger had struggled with for so long. It was cleaner and smoother than the rough native lava of the area. I stepped quickly over to the dirt mound, picked up the stone and walked quickly away from the Badger’s den. To my surprise it turned out to be a broken half of a well-crafted Indian mano, or handstone. I could smell Old Badger on it. I held it in my hand for a long time before slipping it reverently into my possibles bag.

From Old Badger’s den I had scoop-plopped along for almost a mile before realizing that my despair and give-upitis was completely gone. My feet still suffered from the loose stitchings on my moccasins, but not unbearably as before. What had happened? What had Old Badger done to make such a change in the way I felt in this harsh and endless desert?

Had I been taught by an animal messenger? Truly this had happened, and a surge of genuine toughness flowed through my whole body. I was and would ever be, Badger Clan. Then I spit right into the breeze and pointed my tattered toes westward toward the ever-thickening black line of No Name Canyon.

Some examples of sizes and shapes of baskets you can weave. Top left-clockwise: A water basket in progress, shallow bowl, large tray with filigree work on top, small feather-decorated basket, flat tray decorated with corn husk design. Center front: hot pad sewn with a wheat stitch, the basket I purchased from the BOSS instructor and center a basket start (Photo by Richard Jamison).

Margaret Wilkinson

Pine Needle Basketry

When you begin, don’t be concerned with making a perfect basket, just start. Enjoy learning to work the needles and see what you come up with. And regardless of how you think your first attempt looks-KEEP IT.

I have always considered basketry a beautiful art and have I have always considered basketry a beautiful art and have especially enjoyed seeing the ancient Indian baskets displayed in museums. So when I had a chance to watch a basket actually being constructed, I sat spellbound, my attention focused on the hands of the weaver as he weaving long pine needles that were in a wide-mouth jar of water to keep them pliable. I asked him where he got the pine needles he was using, since we were in cottonwood and cedar country, and he told me he had picked them up from under the ponderosa pine trees on the campus of Brigham Young University.

At the time I was in Diamond Fork Canyon, Utah at the Woodsmoke Rendezvous, and the weaver was one of the instructors from the Boulder Outdoor Survival School (B.O.S.S.), a private organization that conducts primitive living expeditions in Southern Utah for B.Y.U. students and others.