Front Porch Tales with Barbara Belding Gibson Come on, pull up a rocking chair, grab a glass of iced tea and let's visit a while. The year is 547 B.C. Two men, opposites in geographic location as well as stores of worldly goods, go about their daily lives, neither aware of the other. Cyrus the Great, in all his finery, is sitting on his throne in Persia making decisions affecting lives in most of the civilized world. Half way around the globe we see a short, stocky man, dressed only in a hide loincloth, squatting on the hillside above a place known as Backbone Spring. The man known as Eagle Feather was, in his own way, as important to his people as was the King of Persia to his. Eagle Feather had been selected by his tribe, the Pole Painters, to travel to the land of the Gates of the Nether World to get the materials needed for new weapons and tools. Of all the members of his tribe, he is always the one selected to gather flint from this location. The reason becomes clear when his story is told. In his early years the young man had traveled far in search of his medicine, that one special item that each young man must find for his medicine bag, that item which would give him his warrior name, his invincibility. He had searched and searched for his medicine but had become very discouraged because he was so totally unsuccessful. Finally, one evening just at dusk he saw smoke on the horizon. He thought at first that it might be just clouds in the twilight. But then as darkness began to fall he could see a glow at the base of the cloud. He instantly knew this was it. This was the place where he was to find his medicine. The next morning he traveled on toward the smoke, looking carefully for something to guide him to the right location for his meditation. He walked along the course of a river, looking for a while at some swallows building their nests of mud high above him on the cliffs. As he continued on, he came to a break in the cliffs, a place where the rock stood high on either side of the mouth of a creek. He turned and walked through the opening, feeling all the while that it was a magic place. As he walked along, he began thinking that those cliffs had been like the gap in the brush that surrounded his people's home camp, like a gate in a fence. Then he walked around a bend in the creek and there, in a small canyon, was a flame coming out of the ground -- the flame that was the source of the smoke towering overhead -- his smoke, his beacon. As he watched, the fire never seemed to burn out. Surely this must be the opening to the Nether World, the receptacle for all the unused heat and light from the sun, the energy sent by the Great Spirit to light the gathering place of his ancestors. That cliff opening had been the Gate to the Nether World. Surely, his ancestors were nearby and would tell the Great Spirit of his presence. Surely the Great Spirit would come and show him his medicine. Tomorrow was to be the day. He could feel it in his heart. Is it to be? We will see. Join us next week for the next installment in the adventures of Eagle Feather. *These stories are based on places and events in Gaines Bend Ranch. The date is based on an Atlatal Point found above Gaines Bend's east cliff by Shawn Gibson. The swallow cliffs are the south wall of PK near the mouth of Neeley's Slough. The rock gate is now called Hell's Gate. The flames were coming from a pile of rocks up Jowell Creek just south of Hell's Gate. The story is from Barbara's imagination.