The Story

Troubled Athabascan teenager Duane “Shadow” David is plotting to commit suicide when he’s sentenced to cut wood for elder Sidney Huntington. It’s only by combining the elder’s knowledge of old hunting ways with the boy’s expertise in video games that they stand a chance against a marauding Winter Bear. An excerpt from the play:

ACT ONE, SCENE 2, SIDNEY’S CABIN – DAY (Sidney opens the woodstove and puts in a log. Flame leaps up. He closes the woodstove, adjusts the damper.)

LIGHTS UP ON SIDNEY HUNTINGTON’S CABIN:

SIDNEY

The strange thing is he was dressed like they dress today, but he was talking old Koyukon “high words.”

MIRANDA

What was he saying?

SIDNEY

I don’t know. They gave up talking that way long before my time.

MIRANDA

Then how do you know they could understand each other?

SIDNEY

It’s not a big a deal. They say in the old times, humans and animals talked a lot.

MIRANDA

Who was the boy?

SIDNEY

I couldn’t see his face. He was standing in the shadow of the Big Animal.

MIRANDA

Why do you insist on calling it “The Big Animal?”

SIDNEY

Because them “Big Fellas” can hear almost as good as they can smell and they don’t like to hear us talking about them.

MIRANDA

Maybe they don’t care anymore.

SIDNEY

What are you talking about? In the old days, the people were hungry. They couldn’t take no chances. If a Big One gave himself, they stopped everything. Made a party to thank him. Right there.

MIRANDA

You mean the men did. The men made the feast. (Miranda picks up his 7-day pill dispenser and shakes it.)

MIRANDA

Grandpa, are you taking your pills?

SIDNEY

Is that why you came out here two days early? To random drug test your old grandfather?

MIRANDA

There is one more thing. (a beat) There’s a boy. He’s in some trouble. You could help him.