Extra Ordinary: The Adventures of Shawna Ray and Christa Lynn

By Ray Wilcox

In its simplest form, this is an action tale about two destitute girls who end up ruling a country. Its underlying current is far deeper, however, with God directing the path for them and for their country. Its guise may be a children's story, but the author weaves an ever-progressive view of our dependency upon our Heavenly Father. He further explores the social and economic plight of humanity through the lens of politics. The author feels that democracy is doomed. Voters will vote themselves money, or when they do not do their homework on life, they will elect their own butchers. As the story evolves, a higher form of government emerges, that of a benevolent dictator with a Christian foundation. Some may ask, "Why not a Muslim dictator like Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini?" Islam is a religion based on harshness and works. In contrast, the basic tenet of Christianity is love, as in, "For God so loved the world" and "Love thy neighbor as thyselves." The reader will see this theme developed throughout the book and, if it is ever put into practice, in reality as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098035839

Ray Wilcox

Ray Wilcox began work as a messenger boy at the Daily Mirror in London. Later followed a successful 30 year career, working in 25 UK prisons. Lock-Down Blues evolved as a result of his knowledge and experiences as both uniformed officer and governor. He now lives in Spain with his wife.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Family Gets a Challenge

Our story takes place in the center of Europe, in the center of the time that some call the Middle Ages, specifically AD 1351 (this helps me remember my ATM number). The location and time are unimportant as this story could just as well have taken place today in China or Africa or at any other time.

For the average person, throughout history, peace and prosperity are the exception, not the rule. In fact, oppression and hardship have been the rule. Governments, kings, dictators, and warlords have treated their subjects like chattel, expendable property, using them and disposing of them as they pleased. Oppressors either used God to justify their position, or they have omitted God entirely.

* * * * *

Author’s break. I tell stories all the time to my kids, rambling on until they fall asleep. Sometimes they didn’t, and my wife would send them to bed begging for whatever happened to ——. I’ve never written anything, and it took quite a few chapters to get comfortable writing. By the time I got to the end, I knew that I should have rewritten the first twenty or so chapters; but like life, we grow and mature. And so it is with this book. At the beginning of that year, I won a diary at church with the condition that I fill it out by the end of the year. As fate would have it, I was alone on Christmas Day missing my family, daydreaming what it would be like for my wife and kids to have lived without a husband and father. I added the element of no help by putting them in a time and a place where they would have to depend only on God and themselves. By December 31, the diary was filled. I continued on while working two jobs, and nine weeks later, you have this book.

* * * * *

Our family in this story chose to live away from any village or town, retreating to the relative solace of an upper mountain valley. The closest town was Dalesville, in walking time about eight hours away (see map, last page). Life was hard as they eked out a living tilling the soil and hunting. The father loved his kids very much, often taking his little girls on long hikes and carrying them on his shoulders. He would show them God’s palette—the marvels of nature. There, he would tell them all sorts of Bible stories. It was an idyllic setting in which the family grew and loved. Father was never far from his girls, always watching over and protecting them, lest a wolf or some wild animal would come and snatch them away.

The two young girls played in the dirt near their home. Nine-year-old Shawna was tall and responsible. Her little sister Christa, seven, was good-natured and dutiful. In the field near where they were playing, the girls’ father and grandfather were digging a pit and cutting the roots around an old lopsided dead oak tree that needed to be cleared from the field. Unexpectedly, a root broke, the tree twisted, and it fell on them, killing the father and severely injuring the granddad. At the crack of the falling tree, the girls looked upward. With what they saw, their tears began to fall and create mud between their toes. When their mother ran out of the cabin, she sank to the ground on her knees, and her tears mingled in with her daughters’.

As Mother Theresa and Grandmother Fran nursed Grandfather George, they realized the severity of their plight: no able-bodied men, four helpless women. Tragedy had fallen on the family just as surely as the oak had fallen on their breadwinners.

Shawna stood up straight and proclaimed to her mother that she would start planting barley and that she would provide for the family. That day, Shawna, with Christa in tow, started digging and placing the seeds. Their mother and grandmother helped when they could, and the shoots started growing. Mother Theresa had hope again that just maybe the family might survive.

A hungry deer came down from the mountains to graze on the tender shoots. The girls took turns shooing him away. But as deer gossip spread, more and more deer descended on their precious little crop. Round-the-clock watches were established, but to no avail, as the deer grabbed mouthfuls at every nod of the sleeping watchers.

Finally, Christa had enough and took down her father’s old bow and announced to the family that they would have venison. The only problem was that no one in the family was strong enough to string the bow. Shawna came up with the idea of bending it among three saplings and putting the string on it. This idea worked, except that they couldn’t get the bow off the trees. Mother Theresa suggested that they use their worn-out ax to cut the saplings down, which took a lot of effort. Now the bow was strung, but again no one was strong enough to pull the string back very far.

That night, during Christa’s watch, she saw several deer start to eat the barley. Christa nocked the arrow and pulled the string back two or three inches and let the arrow fly. Of course, she missed, but the deer was startled and bolted. Over the next week, Christa shot many times at the deer, not once hitting any. By the end of the week, the deer paid no more attention to an arrow’s whizzing past than they would to a sparrow’s flying.

Christa grew very tired of watching all night and working all day, with little time for sleep. So she started to practice shooting arrows at an old hay pile. Her aim grew better and better. By the end of the month, when the deer came back, Christa took aim and let the arrow fly, this time hitting her mark. The arrow hit the buck in his hindquarter, but then the arrow fell to the ground. The buck jumped up and dashed to the trees. He waited there until he realized that no harm had come to him. Then he returned again. Throughout the next few nights, Christa shot at deer about ten times, until the deer just shook their coats, flicked their tails, and went back to eating.

Shawna told Christa that in Dalesville, the closest town, she had seen a crossbow that fired sideways instead of upright. This got Christa to thinking—maybe she could use her feet and her hands. The next day, Christa sat down on the ground. Placing the bow sideways with her feet on the limbs of the bow, she pulled the string back very hard with both hands and fired off her first shot. The arrow missed. It took Christa the rest of the morning to find it—way behind the hay pile, up in a tree, embedded about an inch. After a few weeks of practice, Christa could hit a chair-sized target using her technique.

At last, Christa was ready to get a deer; only the deer had stopped coming to eat the barley because there was no more barley to eat. Night after night, Christa waited for any deer to show up. Meanwhile, the family, having eaten all their meager supplies, was about to starve. Morale was low as the fall had come with no harvest.

That night, a buck came to glean the field. Starting at the far end of the field, he nibbled toward the house. For six hours, Christa lay on the ground with her bow braced against her feet, waiting, waiting… Finally, the deer came near to the house but found no morsels to munch on. As he turned to leave, Christa pulled the string all the way back and released it with full force. The arrow slammed broadside into the deer, and he sank to his knees. He struggled to get up and took a few steps, only to fall, never to revive. Christa was ecstatic, whooping and screaming for the family to come. The family came out, worried that some harm had befallen Christa; but to their surprise, they saw only a deer lying practically on their doorstep. For the first time since the accident, they were happy, if only briefly. And Christa smiled.

Over the next few years, Shawna was able to plant more and more acreage free from intruding deer. Christa was getting stronger and able to use the bow upright. She pursued all sorts of game and sold the excess skins and meat to the town’s butcher. The family was no longer destitute; in fact, they were living quite well.

Chapter 2

Shawna Gets a Sword

To keep the farm prospering, Shawna worked hard at tilling and planting. Trees and roots were always in her way and took a lot of effort to cut with the family’s ax that had worn out long ago. One evening, as Shawna came in from her full day’s work, she was complaining to old Grandpa George about how difficult it was to cut roots and trees with the hoe and ax. As Grandpa George started to tell a story from when he was a child, Mother Theresa interrupted him for dinner. After dinner, Shawna reminded him about the story he had not finished telling.

Although the kids had heard Grandpa’s stories hundreds of times and knew them by heart, each time they enjoyed reliving his adventures as if they were he, vicariously seeing the world and doing activities they would probably never get the chance to see or do. Grandma Fran would scold the old man for telling men’s tales to girls. The girls should be dreaming of marriage and family, not of battles and conquest. But that’s how it was in those days: tales of past glories inspired dreams of future great deeds. Because of these stories, the girls’ hearts became filled with ideals of courage and bravery.

This evening’s story was new, one that Grandpa George had not told before. Shawna and Christa were surprised that Grandpa George had something new to tell, and they listened intently with gleaming eyes and set jaws, so as not to miss any details.

Grandpa George told the stories he had heard as a child sixty years before at his own grandfather Ron’s knee, about how the Mongols had invaded their land and would have slaughtered all the people, except that their ancient king made a stand in a high valley in the mountains above this farm. With steadfast purpose, with sublime courage, and nearly superhuman effort, the king defeated the enemy. Though the peasants at that time saw two armies go up the mountain, they saw not one warrior come down. Instead, they saw that the stream ran red for a week.

Then Grandpa George told the girls about how his own grandfather Ron braved the dread of what might have been up there and went to see. At that time, his grandfather Ron was a young lad. He was gone for a while, and when he returned, he was deeply saddened. He told his family of a terrible battlefield scattered with dead people and animals as far as the eye could see. Up to the side of the valley, he saw a circle of fallen armored warriors who surrounded the dead king, who was sitting slumped over his bloodied sword, still with his gold crowned helmet on his head. None of the other peasants had wanted to venture so far up into the mountains to see these awful things. When it rained, with thunder and lightning, the children were frightened when told ghost stories about how the battle still raged on.

The girls’ eyes were wild with excitement and could hardly close when it came time for bed. All night, the girls dreamed of being in battles, defending their family against invaders. For the next few days, they begged that Grandpa George tell them the story again and again.

Christa, by this time, had become a very good hunter. Going deep into the woods to pursue game wherever it took her, often she would be gone for several days at a time. Sometimes Shawna would go along to help clear the trail and carry the game back to the farm or to town. The fall harvest had come, and Shawna was done with her duties for the year when Christa asked Shawna if she could come on a hunt. Having said goodbye to Mother Theresa and the family, they set out toward the mountains.

Shawna said to Christa, Why don’t we go up high in the mountains now before the snow falls and see the site of Grandpa’s story?

Christa jumped up and down at the mere thought of finding the battlefield. Both girls ran up the mountain jumping, leaping, and talking excitedly.

The mountains appeared so pristine and pure that the idea that there had been a battle in this place, or any visitor whatever, seemed far-fetched. Yet every so often, the sides of the riverbanks bore faint traces of a path worn in, maybe deer trails or perhaps the wearing footsteps of two great armies. The girls’ eagerness pushed their fast pace until they were stopped by nightfall. That night, when Shawna and Christa pitched their tent and ate their supper over their lonely campfire, their conversation turned to what they might find up the mountain, what a great battle it must have been, and to how they would have saved their king if they had been there fighting.

The girls were up before the sun. After breaking camp, they hiked with eager steps until they approached a large alpine valley ahead. The mark of man is like a footprint on a beach: waves erase all that remains of great deeds from the past. Sometimes, however, a footprint in the sand is filled with mud and might be preserved for generations. This vast valley was a mute witness to a great battle of long ago. In their impatience to press onward, the girls would scarcely have recognized the site if it had not been for Shawna’s keen eye in spotting an ancient brass stirrup embedded in a root near the streambed.

Shawna said to Christa, Look at that! Is it possible we have found the battlefield?

Christa looked around quickly and said, Let’s dig around some of these bushes to see if we can find anything else.

Soon both girls were digging with their hands and knives when Christa’s knife clunked into an old piece of metal. Most of the armor had turned to rust, but Christa could see a faint outline of the edge of what looked like a visor from a helmet. As both girls dug, they realized that the ground was laced with the powdered rust of armor and weapons.

Shawna reminded Christa that, according to Grandpa George’s story, the king died surrounded by dead warriors. Maybe there is a mound or hill that will show where they died.

The girls surveyed the valley and noticed, up where the grass and bushes met the tree line, that there was a small green round hill. The girls went up to the mound and looked around. The mound was really a ring, a berm surrounding a depression. Christa saw it first, in the middle of the hollow—a flash of gold. Shawna reached into the grass and bushes and, with much effort, pulled out a sword that looked as though it was just made. The blade, instead of coming to a point, ended with a flat disc similar to the rounded blade of an ax. The blade was almost paper-thin and looked very weak.

Unknown to the girls, this sword had been a national treasure of the ancient kingdom. According to legend, miners found a black shiny sphere, about the size of a head, in a cave where it was half-exposed in a large gold vein. Hammers, picks, and shovels couldn’t touch it. With difficulty, the minors removed the orb and brought it to King Andreas, who ordered that the shiny sphere be made into a sword. When the king’s craftsmen could not melt the orb by ordinary methods, they at last devised and made seven furnaces, nested one on top of the other, and going up a hill to the top. The flue of one went into the next, and so on. Bellows and charcoal were placed at each furnace, one after the other, to add more air and fuel. The workers made a mold from wulfenite, a tungsten ore, and waited for the orb to melt. The temperature grew so hot that the seventh furnace turned red, yet still the orb would not melt. By chance, it started to rain, cooling down the furnaces. The workers pumped harder, trying to raise the temperature. As they did so, the lodestone walls of the furnaces started to melt, giving off a metallic smoke that bellowed high into the sky. Then—blam, blam, blam!—maybe ten rapidly consecutive lighting strikes followed the path of the metallic smoke down, hitting the furnaces, vaporizing the top two and killing all the workers.

The next day, more workers came with picks and hammers to start breaking up the hardened molten stone. After a few days, they broke off a rock and exposed the sword’s tang. With more excavating, they exposed the whole sword. The tip end of the mold had melted off first, causing some of the metal to flow out of the end of the mold. A disc was created where the tip should have been, thinning out the blade.

When the workers tried to grind off this disc, they could not. The blade was so hard that not even diamond dust could wear it away. Most of the metal from the orb had flowed into the mold. But there was flat puddle of metal that had hardened outside of the mold. By attaching this overflow metal to the side of a grind wheel, they could shape and sharpen the blade. After two years, they were done, the metal wheel reduced now to a small disk. They dipped the sword’s handle in gold, cladding it with a thick layer, to show the sword’s preciousness. No earthly substance could mar the blade. When completed, the sword could not be destroyed. It could cut through armor, rocks, diamond, and yet it stayed sharp enough to slice through silk at a touch.

Shawna said to Christa, It looks to be half sword, half ax. How strange. With that, she took a stroke at a four-inch pine sapling growing at the edge of the mound. At first, she thought she had missed because for five or ten seconds, the sapling just stood there. Then it slowly swayed and fell down. The cut had been so swift and so easy that both girls just stood there, mouths gaping open. After a moment, Shawna said, I can’t believe what I just did. Did you see it too?

Christa replied, winking at her sister, Whatever you do, don’t fall on that sword, or there will be two of you. And I wouldn’t know what to do with an extra mouth to feed.

Both girls giggled and continued looking for more items. By twilight, they realized that their search would turn up nothing as all had turned to rust.

They spent the evening thinking about the great battle. All night while they were sleeping, they saw the battle raging around them, and they became part of the fight. When they woke up, Christa told Shawna about her dreams, and Shawna asked what color the king’s hair had been. Christa said flaxen. Then as the girls compared the details of the battle, they realized their dreams were identical—and what they dreamed must have been real. Both girls were the battle’s only witnesses. That morning, as they ate in somber respect, they too felt the loss of their ancient king and his sacrifice to have saved their country from the invading horde.

As they left the valley that had swallowed two ancient armies, they had the feeling that they, as lone survivors, bore witness to one of the greatest of noble earthly deeds. The impact of what they had seen remained with the girls for the rest of their lives and had a profound effect on shaping their future conduct.

All the way down the canyon, Shawna kept practicing with her sword, cutting trees and bushes that were within her reach. Both girls marveled at the sharpness and strength of the sword.

When they got home, they ran to Grandpa George and showed him the sword. He was amazed that they had found the sword of legend. He was even more amazed that it looked new and remained sharp. Even though he could barely walk, he hobbled around the outside of the house, striking every bush or tree within reach. Mother Theresa had planted some of them, but no one said anything to the old man as he relived past glory by striking down enemies wherever they might be. But when he came to her rose bushes, Mother Theresa declared a truce and cease-fire. As he returned to reality, Grandpa George felt embarrassed, and he said he was sorry, but everyone told him he did a wonderful job of cleaning up around the house. This made Grandpa George feel better.

Chapter 3

Christa Gets a Bow

As he looked upon Shawna’s new sword, Grandpa George concluded that the contrast between the girls’ weapons was like that between night and day. He decided to make a new bow for Christa. When Grandpa George was young, he had helped his grandfather Ron craft a bow for his dad. His grandfather Ron had learned about a Turkish style bow that could shoot farther than any other from an old Persian named Ali the Hunter. While his grandfather Ron was making it, he explained in detail all the steps and all the materials that would make his bow finer than most others.

Now Grandpa George hadn’t been much help to the family during the past five years; in fact, he had been more of a burden. But after seeing what his two granddaughters had done in retrieving that great sword, he was inspired to make something extraordinary. His arms and mind were good. If the girls could fetch him the right supplies, he felt that he could make a magnificent bow for Christa. But first he had to remember the sayings and instructions that his grandfather Ron had given him so long ago.

Grandpa George told the girls how his grandfather Ron had been a great bowyer when he was young and taught him some of his skills. He had always thought horn would make the best bows, but a strong sinew- and flax-backed wood bow could be just as strong.

His grandfather Ron had told him that nature gives extremes to balance each other out. For instance, Grandpa George recalled his grandfather Ron saying, Let’s say you have a string, and you attach it to two sticks. If you pull the string taut, it will form a straight line. But if you bring the two sticks closer together and allow the slack string to hang down, then gravity will cause the string to form an arch. If you could freeze the arched string and turn it upside down, then that string would be in the precise shape that would best defy gravity for that span. You can use this principle to fashion a bow. And if you find a branch that has a great curve, as if a weight were bowing it down, and if you then force the branch to bend the other way, you will create the strongest bow.

Now, thought Grandpa George, what kind of wood did Grandfather Ron say to use? Oh yes. Grandfather Ron had said, Use fine-grained yew trees that are old and have grown very slowly high on a mountain, where the snow bends the tree’s branches. It’s best if the tree has been growing in sparse soil, clinging to a crack in a rocky cliff, fighting against the wind. The same goes for the wood for the arrows. Use old wood, with many fine rings. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t chew on any part of the plant. It’s poisonous. With this instruction, Grandpa George sent the girls to the mountaintop to get just the right wood for his noble task.

Bright and early, Shawna with her sword and Christa with her old bow climbed to the top of their mountain. In the distance, they saw a solid granite cliff high above the tree line. It took the girls two days to reach the distant mountain and another day to get to the edge of the tree line. Christa had shot a deer along the way and had wrapped some of the choice meat for their meals. That night, they ate roasted venison and prepared to search for the perfect tree the next morning.

All day, as they climbed hand and foot up the cliff, they had seen hundreds of small yew trees, but none of them seemed just right. Finally, they saw one: the last tree on a narrow ledge higher up on the mountain. As they crawled along the narrow ledge, scared, they almost fell several times as they inched along. But at last they came to the tree. Up close, it was a real disappointment—twisted and ugly and not very tall.

Christa said, It may not be much, but as long as we’ve risked our lives to get here, we might as well take it.

Shawna reached out to grab the tree in order to cut it off with her sword. She noticed that it was as stiff as a rock. She had to strike it three times to cut it loose. She thought to herself that she must have had difficulty because of her wobbly balance. The girls threw the yew tree down the mountain and watched it tumble and fall perhaps a five hundred feet before it started to roll and slide onto the escarpment at the base of the cliff.

Shawna, trembling, said to Christa, Let’s be careful not to do the same as the tree.

Christa replied, Yeah, good idea.

Cautiously, the two girls made it safely to sure footing and started collecting bundles of straight branches and the stalks of small trees for making the arrows. Near the end of the day, they finally made it down to the base of the escarpment where the yew tree had landed. As they retrieved the tree, they noticed it was not much taller than the length of two bows.

Christa chipped in, Maybe this will make a good bow. After falling all that way, it doesn’t look damaged at all.

Shawna said, When we get to flat ground, I want a second chance at giving it a swift whack with my sword. I can’t believe that such a little tree took three strokes.

Christa replied, There’s not much of it to start with, and if Grandpa George is going to make a bow out of this thing. I’m sure he’ll need all the wood he can get.

Shawna agreed reluctantly, but cleaned and trimmed it down to the bare trunk.

The girls gathered their bundles and started back to their house. The whole trip had taken seven days. Christa felt a little worried that Grandpa George might be disappointed at all this time and effort for such a miserable specimen. At least it certainly met Grandpa’s memory of what his grandfather had said, or so she hoped.

When they finally got home, they dragged the bundles right into the house, even though Mother Theresa protested. Shawna felt that unless she put the sticks into Grandpa George’s hands, Mother Theresa or Grandma Fran would pick them up for firewood before anyone could stop them. Grandpa George was delighted as he went through each pile as if it were some precious heirloom. He started sorting out the best specimens and asked the girls where they found them. All the while, the girls kept assuring him, yes, they had done exactly as he had requested; and no, these were not ordinary shrubs from the lowlands.

The next day, Grandpa George hobbled into his little shed behind the house and started asking Grandma Fran to bring him kettles of steaming water. He kept his grinders and fire going for the next two weeks. Afterward, he asked Christa to find him a beaver and bring him its guts for the string. He also needed some boar tusk to make strong notches for the arrows and boar sinew for the tough backing. Besides steaming and shaping the wood to form a recurve, the sinew as it shrank would enhance the recurve. He sent Shawna to town to get scraps of iron to fashion the arrowheads. Each time the girls brought him something, he would ask for more, such as owls’ feathers and beeswax. Again he sent Christa to get flax linen along with fish bladders to glue on the backing. At this rate, Christa feared that the task would never end. She even suspected that Grandpa George was deliberately stalling because his life needed a quest and a purpose more than Christa needed a bow.

Just then, as Christa wondered whether Grandpa George would ever finish, they heard a loud twang, a fast hiss, and a loud crack. There across the yard, an arrow had buried itself deeply in the trunk of a tree. Shawna went with her sword and cut out a wedge holding the arrow. The girls took the arrow with the wedge to the shed to show Grandpa. Grandpa George’s eyes gleamed as the girls ran up to him. Christa was trying to grab the bow out of his hand, and Grandpa George was swinging it playfully around his head, trying to keep her from getting it. But Christa was quicker and snatched it from his hands.

The shape of the bow looked like two Ss put together. Grandpa George explained how, on most bows, the limbs tamper from the handle out, yet they are made formed from a single piece of wood that naturally tapers from one end to the other across the length of the bow. When carving one limb, it has the natural taper; the other limb needs to be cut across growth rings, changing the dynamics of the curve. When tillering the bow to get a symmetrical curve when pulled, often limb thickness could be different. His solution was to use two identical branches tapering out and join them at the handle. This made the bow multisectional with long, graceful S limbs tapering out and back to the tips. Grandpa George had done a wonderful job of finishing it. It shone as though on its own, almost in the darkness, making it look alive. It was smooth and silky, with a rubbed beeswax finish for protection from water. Shawna even felt a twinge of jealousy for a second when she compared it to her sword. But then she thought, Nah, how could anything compare with my sword? Now both girls had something extraordinary. And with that, extraordinary achievements were expected from both of them.

For the next few years, each girl worked on her special skill. Shawna used her sword to cut trees and clear the land to greatly increase the farm’s acreage and to plant more crops while Christa was getting better and better with her bow hunting every day. Sometimes the girls would help each other, depending on the season. Shawna would help carry the dead prey to the cabin, and when they got more than they needed, they would go to the butcher to sell the meat and furs. Or Christa would help Shawna to farm or to carry wood to the cabin, and they would sell any extra in town. In this way, both girls started making money for Mother Theresa. The family was secure; the future seemed bright.

Chapter 4

Shawna Gets a Bear

Veiled by the morning mist, the sun rose over the cool mountain valley. No schedule to rush it; life started the day slowly. The night before, the large young bear had stopped in his tracks and fallen to the ground for his sleep. As if animated by the sunlight, he got up and continued down the gorge high up on the mountain. He needed food for his massive body to function. Despite his tremendous size, he walked stealthily down the pine-needle-covered soil. His keen senses led the way. A faint whiff of hide in his nostrils and a slight taste of testosterone on his tongue alerted him that a caribou buck was nearby, off to the left. He slowed down and inched forward, assuming the camouflage of a large boulder. He moved so slowly among the underbrush, downwind of his prey that he did not alert the buck.

The bear first saw the caribou when it was about fifty yards away. The caribou was in rut, with an overwhelming desire to mate. He was muscular and large, probably winning all of his contests with other bucks. With one goal on his mind, feeling confident of his strength, he was not on guard for predation. The large brown boulder kept creeping closer. The sight of the boulder even grew so familiar that the buck turned his back on it.

With all the speed of a pulled bow, the boulder sprang to life and closed the gap. At the first sound, the buck flicked his head toward it and saw a massive boulder springing toward him. Shocked and perplexed, the buck wondered how a boulder could suddenly move so fast. Instead of bolting, he just stood there and stared, not understanding what was about to happen. Then at the last second, he realized that just a few feet away from him was the only creature stronger than he. He snapped his head around and tried to turn to flee.

At a run, the bear, with his left paw, swatted the caribou on the neck, instantly breaking it. In recoil, the buck’s body rose up in the air and flipped over the bear’s head, landing upside down on the ground a few feet in front of the still moving bear. Without hesitation, the bear opened his mouth, letting his momentum carry him into the belly of buck, ripping it out and flinging it as he finally came to a stop. This was not the first caribou that the bear had killed. His enormous size showed that he had been successful in many such kills. What was particularly sweet was how, because the buck was so arrogant about his own strength, the bear had been able to kill him so easily.

The bear ate about half of the buck and then used his great paws to cover the rest with dirt and pine needles for a later meal. Usually, the bear did not need to come back because he hunted so successfully. This allowed the wolves and other predators to take advantage of an easy meal.

That afternoon, Christa came across a pile of dirt and needles. Blood and guts were splattered around a twenty-foot circle. She saw a bear’s footprint in the dirt and placed her boot sideways in it. She reckoned the print to be about two of her feet across from end to end. The deep claw holes looked at least three inches deeper than the footprint. Christa shuddered. She didn’t know if she could stop a bear that size if it were to attack her. Christa had learned to run with agility through the forest. Maybe she could shoot it and escape from it by dodging between rocks and trees. To avoid the bear would be the best strategy, but she would have to keep her wits about her and stay on guard.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Shawna was finishing her trenching with a grubbing hoe. She thought to herself that it would be good to get a horse to pull a plow. Farming was hard work, hand-digging all those rows, especially since she had enlarged their homestead. With pride, she looked at her arms, not too large but muscular for a woman; they had become work-hardened. She could dig all day without needing a break. Still, a horse would be nice. She could have more time to cut wood and make more money. Yes, she could make more money and buy a horse, maybe even two horses or four. She put down the grubbing hoe and resolved, I’m wasting my time here. I need to cut and sell wood to buy a horse or two.

Shawna stood up, arched her back, and walked back to the cabin—a long walk, for which she was happy because it showed just how large her farm had become. She said goodbye to her mother and grandparents, told them she would be a day or two cutting wood, and if Christa should come in, to send her up to Old Rocky’s Hollow to help her drag the loaded handsled to the road that led to town.

So Shawna went up the mountain, and the bear came down the mountain; and where their paths crossed, both of their lives would change. Since Shawna had her sword with her, she felt invincible. She felt that nothing on earth could contest her, and probably she was right. Shawna started cutting trees. She knew that she could cut an eight-inch-diameter tree with one swipe of her great sword, but she didn’t like to choose such thick trees because to cut them took all of her strength. If she didn’t put all of her effort into the cut, then the blade would get stuck, and she would need to use the old ax to chop away at the trunk so that she could get her sword out. Most of the townsfolk liked logs no larger than six inches anyway. Those fit in their stoves without the need to split them.

So Shawna worked in the hollow and chose four- to six-inch-diameter trees, making one cut for each log roll. She had worked for nearly two hours. Every time her sword would cut through a tree, its blade would sing, a tone that would change frequency depending on the size of the log. It was fun to hear her sword lower its pitch as she repeatedly hacked a tall fallen trunk. Stroke by stroke, the pitch would go lower and lower until the end. She would not even need to look at where its end was because she could hear it. Her swinging sword blade would sound like a harp she had heard in town when she strummed her fingers across the strings. Shawna finished about twenty trunks, her arms had finally grown tired.

Now came the hard work of gathering all the logs, piling them up on the sled, and then pulling the sled down the mountain. Once she got down the mountain, Christa would need to help her. Shawna wiped the sweat from her brow, retied her hair, stabbed the sword into a stump, and started gathering piles of logs in her strong arms, in which she placed so much confidence.

About two hours later, she had most of the sled loaded when she noticed a boulder watching her. The bear recognized from the startled look on her face that she had made him out for what he was, and he had lost the advantage of stealth attack. The bear charged, keeping his head low for maximum speed. Shawna realized that she was out in the open, her sled a hundred feet behind her, her sword two hundred feet in front of her, and a bear fifty yards away and closing fast.

She thought for a precious second and came up with a plan. In the bottom of the hollow where she stood were river rocks, some big and some small. She grabbed one that weighed about twenty-five pounds, with a broken edge on one side. She lifted it as high overhead as she could, even standing on her tiptoes; and in that position, she froze. About ten feet out, the bear lifted his head to the height of Shawna’s belly and opened his great mouth as he prepared to eviscerate her. He thought, This is so easy—a quick meal, then a nap afterward.

When the bear was about four feet away, Shawna used all her strength to bring the rock down on the bear’s snout, where it met his skull. At the instant of contact, everything went black for Shawna. She felt as though she were tumbling, tumbling, tumbling in the darkness, followed by nothing, nothing. For the bear, it was the most intense pain that he had ever felt, with bolts of lightning going off in his head. He could not bite, nor swat, nor even think of doing anything. Over and over, he rolled on the ground, screaming and crying out in pain.

Shawna came to in a minute or two. She took a mental survey of her injuries. She too was in intense pain, but because her life depended upon her next action, she had to assess her condition immediately. Her right knee looked mangled, if not broken. Shawna realized that when she hit the head of the bear, his head had been waist high, but the force of the rock had pushed it lower so that her knee had taken the brunt of the bear’s open mouth. Even so, she was fortunate to have her leg intact. Her left wrist also looked broken or badly sprained. When she took a breath, it felt as if she had broken ribs, maybe all of them. She had cuts and bruises all over, and her head had also bumped into several boulders as she tumbled down under the bear.

The next few moments would decide whether she would live or die. As soon as the bear came back to his senses, he would kill her, for no better reason than anger. If only she could get to her sword. She still had one good arm and leg. But when she stood up, she collapsed in pain. It was going to be a race to see who could recover more quickly, Shawna or the bear. She lay there thinking, If I can’t get to my sword, and I don’t have the strength to stand, what can I do?

The bear had stopped writhing and rolling with pain, and now it merely lay there whimpering and holding its head with its great paws. Shawna crawled toward the bear and positioned herself in front of his nose. She took a river rock that weighed about five pounds and forced it into her injured left hand. She held her left hand high up over the bear’s head, and with her right hand, she reached between the bear’s claws and grabbed the bear’s right ear and pulled hard.

The bear was shocked. Not only had he failed in what should have amounted to an easy kill, not only had he felt the greatest pain of any encounter with any prey, but now he was being attacked. Anger flashed in his eyes. He pushed his paws down to lift up his head when Shawna slammed the rock down in the same spot on his snout again. This time, the pain overcame him, and he passed out.

In that brief instant when the bear flicked his head up, Shawna got knocked backward. Her ribs and wrist felt a renewal of pain. Shawna lay there moaning, knowing full well she would have to do again what she had just done. If only she could lie there a few moments longer until her pain subsided a bit. But she didn’t have a few minutes—that is, if she wanted to live.

Despite her anguish, she crawled back to the snout of the fallen enemy. As she lay there staring at his massive head, she thought, What if I could tame this bear? He would be more powerful than four horses. He could plow, and he could pull the sled loaded with logs. Why not? What good is a dead bear anyway?"

With a new resolve, Shawna put her left hand in the depression where she had slammed down the rocks. Then with her right hand, she grabbed his right ear and started yanking, softly at first, then emboldened by her goal, harder and harder. After all, no one really wants to wake a sleeping bear. If her plan were to work, it had better be now, and the bear needed to be awake.

The bear had forgotten his most recent encounter and was dreaming of being somewhere else, when a pain on his right ear and his snout started to sear him back into consciousness. When he opened his eyes and saw Shawna leaning on his great head, and when he remembered what had just happened, fear filled his eyes—and Shawna saw it too. He knew that Shawna had seen his fear, and he tried to close his eyes so she couldn’t see it anymore. Shawna shoved her left fist hard into the depression, and pain forced his eyes open again. Shawna thought as she looked at her wrist bending sideways, I wonder who is feeling more pain, the bear or me. But Shawna had to play her bluff if her plan were to work. His eyes open, the bear looked straight into Shawna’s eyes. He was beaten. He looked down in submission toward his victor. Despite the pain in his nose, he sniffed deeply to capture the scent of Shawna, the one creature more powerful than he. Ever after he would associate that scent—Shawna’s scent—with pain, never to be