Owl Carver had said, Many times the people do not want to listen to the shaman. The truer his words, the less they hear him.
The warning had disturbed Gray Cloud. But he never saw the people refuse to listen to Owl Carver. And he did not lose his determination to become a shaman himself.
No one could gain such a great reward without risk. A warrior must kill an enemy at great peril to himself to gain the right to wear the eagle feather that marked him as a brave. A hunter had to kill an animal that could kill him before the tribe would consider him a man.
How, then, could one speak to these spirits of the tribe unless he, too, had faced death?
But what kind of a death? Would he freeze and starve here in this cave, his dead body remaining until Owl Carver came and found it? Or would an evil spirit come and kill him?
Whatever might come, he could only sit and wait for it in the way that Owl Carver had taught him.
He turned his back on the unknown depths of the cave and seated himself at its entrance, pulling the bearskin cloak around him for warmth. He dipped his fingers into a pouch at his belt and took out the bits of dried mushroom Owl Carver had given him from a medicine bag decorated with a beadwork owl. The sacred mushrooms grew somewhere far to the south and were traded up the Great River. One by one he put them into his mouth and slowly chewed them.
You do not need to swallow, Owl Carver had said. Hold them in your mouth until they slide down your throat without your knowing how it happened.
His mouth grew dry as the mushrooms turned to paste. And it was as Owl Carver had said; they were gone without his knowing when they disappeared into his body.
His stomach heaved once and he thought with terror that he might fail this first small test. But he held his breath and slowly the sick feeling died away.