At Play in the Fields of the Lord

by Peter Matthiessen

He remained on the rock a second day and a second night, just out of stubbornness, and because he was proud of the rifle that Alvin Moon had laid beside him. No bear nor cougar came—the animals would not bother him, his father said, if he sat still—and on the third morning he did not feel hungry any more and sat there motionless, letting the sun and wind blow through him. He was as firmly rooted in the ground as the young pine. By afternoon he was growing weak and became filled with apprehension: something was happening. The jays and squirrels had lost all fear of him, flicking over and about him as if he had turned to stone, and the shrill of insects crystallized in a huge ringing silence. The sky was ringing, and the pine trees on the rocks turned a bright rigid green, each needle shimmering; the pines were ringing and beside him a blue lupine opened, breathing. Then the river turned to silver and stopped flowing. The jays trembled on the rock, their eyes too bright, and the squirrel was still, the gold hairs flowing on its tail. He stared at the enormous sky, and the sky descended and the earth was rising from below, and he was soaring toward the center—