Through Better Men than I

By Master Sargent Mike Sibley

I can hear their whispers wherever I go. “Control your breathing, concentrate on the blade, and squeeze.” “Feel your way along with your toes instead of watching your feet.” “Work your way down through that black-growth and you’ll find ‘em in that stand of beech.” So persistent are they that I sympathize with a schizophrenic who feels as if he’s never alone. Unlike him, my voices are not a psychotic delusion created by chemical imbalances crying out for the saving grace of lithium. Real men spoke those words and no amount of time or distance will ever silence them. They are my last connection to a past that I crave but know I’ll never see. They define the man who hears them. And I pray they shape the lives of my sons.

When I close my eyes and listen to their whispers I return to my youth and, in some ways, to times that I never lived. I can still feel my father’s warm breath on my ear as I concentrated on the front blade of the Model 94’s sights, silently asking a god yet known to help me prove I was ready to join the hunt. I can see the gentle face of my grandfather as he admonished me for being so preoccupied with the obstacles in my path that I never saw the animal in front of me. I can feel the weight of my great-grandfather’s right hand on my shoulder as the old mystic described where he knew the deer would be feeding on beechnuts. And if I let my mind misbehave, I see their fathers and grandfathers passing on the same lessons of how to live off the land.

All three of them were hard men, descendants themselves from a long line of hard men. Hundreds of years in the mountains of northern Maine proved Darwin right on some level; only the strong will survive. Their rough exteriors hid a gentle spirit that I have not seen since I chose to leave the Wabanaki nearly two decades ago. Faces darkened by the sun and chiseled by the wind offered smiles or thoughtful expressions and rarely scowled at my clumsiness. Hands calloused by decades felling timber were quick to embrace me or pat me on the back. In all my years with them I never heard a curse pass their lips, nor did I ever hear the words “I love you.” The absence of that sentimental phrase never created a doubt in my mind. Their actions and whispered instructions reverberated much more than those syllables ever could.

Today the world is full of self-professed sensitive men that care for so many causes yet are guilty of so many trespasses. The headlines and social dilemmas created by the supposed sophisticated modern man perplex me. Once, not so long ago, I knew three men who were superior in every way. They demonstrated it in how they survived and provided for their families. The hunt, like everything else in their lives, was a necessary vocation and not some mere recreational activity. They felt no joy in killing but the survival of their own outweighed the animal’s sacrifice. The meat loosened the purse strings a little. Muskrat hides and beaver pelts ensured the family had presents under the tree. Reliance on the land created a spiritual connection between the hunter and the hunted. Father, after downing the biggest buck of his life, patted the deer on the neck, apologized, and then shed one of only two tears I’ve ever witnessed on his cheek. These hard men, in their quests for survival, formed a brotherhood that I admire and long for.

Fifteen years ago I became a father, and therefore a likely candidate for the office of grandfather and great-grandfather. I want my sons, and their sons, to share the bonds that I experienced and to understand theirs is a lineage of survivors. My greatest fear is they will grow up to be modern men who vocalize convictions but never take a stand; men who will not provide for their families or value the land they walk on. I want them to be hard men, like the gentle giants that guided me more than a decade ago. But now I’m without those guides that led me into the evergreen forests of Passadumkeag Mountain as a boy and helped me safely emerge as a man. Great-grandfather was eaten alive by a cancer before my journey was over. Grandfather’s body succumbed to years of providing for his family and arthritis now keeps him inside on cold days. Father can still walk, but a drunk driver ended most of his hunts by ruining his right arm. During my early days of fatherhood I wandered aimlessly, lost and confused in a foreign land. I didn’t know how to connect with my boys, how to teach them all of life’s lessons passed down through generations. Then I listened to those whispered voices and realized three hard men taught me how to live when they showed me how to kill.

I suddenly understood that those long struggles in thigh-deep snow with 50 pounds of traps on my back had defined my spirit more than any school or job or friendship. Because of those hard men I had grown into a survivor in my own right. They showed me that the right course in life often proved the hardest, which only made the rewards in the end taste even sweeter. When they filled my packbasket with a man’s load and ignored my boyish whines they taught me how to carry my fair share. As my skills grew they forced me to make decisions for the group, and in doing so made me a leader. The more I reflected on those times the more I realized exactly what I had learned. The cold dark and rainy night spent alone guarding our equipment from thieves showed me how to conquer fear. Self reliance came when they made me run my own trap line, where my many mistakes could have meant death in the cold waters of Bowers Brook or the alder thickets atop Vinegar Hill. Confrontations with lesser men that used the land like a whore made me stand up for what I held sacred.

I am not a hard man like my three forefathers. I spend most of my time behind a desk where I feel their whispers on the back of my neck. Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” pulls at my soul as I recognize a piece of me in Buck. I don’t belong here, but I must stay. Survival, for me, has taken on a new form. To care for my family I must continue with the detestable and mundane course I’ve set for myself. That too I learned from them. Far removed from my ancestral home the other lessons of survival learned on the hunt have sustained me. When rifle fire and mortar rounds pounded the Bosnian forest around me I controlled my fear. Hard work, paling in comparison to the load of traps that made my lungs burn years ago, earned me awards and respect. I am not a hard man, but I share traits of those three hard men. I want my boys to become even better men, able to survive in a changing world. To prepare them for life I turned to my roots where I’ve found so many answers.

Last year, Robert, my oldest, took his first steps on his own journey into manhood. It was just he and I, but we were not alone. When he made mistakes the words I spoke were first whispered in my ear by my father 25 years ago. And I’ve come to understand that those words came in turn from grandfather, and great-grandfather, and other hard men before them that I only know through stories. Because of their convictions, and hard work, and love, I now know how to be a father on my own. When Robert pulled the trigger for the first time they were there when his triumphant shout echoed through the valley. And they were no doubt there when he sheepishly wiped a tear from his cheek as he realized that the price of our survival was that beautiful animal’s life. When I remember that hunt my overindulgent mind can see three hard men standing off to one side. They each have a knowing smile on their face, content that the cycle of life is rolling along and that they are still providing for their families.