A Choice of Gods

15

Horace Red Cloud squatted by the fire for a long time after the two white men had left. He had watched them leave, going up the hollow that ran back into the hills, until a twisting of the hollow had hidden them from view, and after they were gone, had stayed by the fire, unmoving. The morning was far gone, but as yet the camp lay in shadow, the sun not having risen enough into the sky to clear the towering bluffs that blocked its light. The camp was quiet, quieter than usual—the others knew something was afoot, but they would not intrude upon him, there beside the fire; they would not ask, but wait for him to tell them. The women went about their work as usual, but with less commotion, without a banging of the pans and yelling back and forth. The small-fry huddled, quiet in groups, whispering to one another, bursting with excitement. The others were not in camp—perhaps working in the cornfields, although some of them would be fishing or out prowling. One could not expect a man, especially a young man, to spend an entire day at drudgery. Even the dogs were quiet.

The fire had burned to a gray ash, with some blackened sticks showing at its edges and a hint of heat lying in its heart, with only the smallest of smoke rising from the ash and the ends of the blackened sticks. Slowly he put out his hands, holding them in the smoke, scrubbing them together, washing them with smoke. He did it absentmindedly and was somewhat amused when he saw what he was doing. A cultural reflex action, he wondered, still keeping his hands where they were, still washing them with smoke. Thus his far ancestors had washed their hands in smoke as a purification rite, one of the many senseless little gestures they went through when they stood upon the brink of magic, symbolically purifying themselves so they could deal in magic. And how much had he and the others lost when they had turned their backs on magic? Belief, of course, and there might be some value in belief, although there was, as well, delusion and did a man want to pay for the value of belief in the coinage of delusion? Although we've lost very little, he told himself, and have gained a great deal more—an understanding of ourselves as a factor of ecology. We have learned to live with trees and water, with earth and sky and wind, with weather, and the wild things, as if they were brothers to us. Using them as we need them, not abusing our need and use of them, respecting them, living with them, being one with them. Not using them as the white man did, not owning them, not ignoring them, with no contempt of them.

He got up slowly from the fire and went down the path toward the river. Where the path ended at the water's edge canoes were drawn up on the gravel beach and a yellowed willow tree, its branches drooping, dipped the gold of its leaves into the flowing stream. Upon the water were other floating leaves, the red and brown of oak, the scarlet of the maple, the yellow of the elm—the tributes of other trees farther up the stream, their offerings to the river that had supplied the water that they needed through the hot, dry days of summer. The river talked to him, not to him alone, he knew, but to the trees, the hills, the sky, a friendly mumbling gossip that ran down across the land.

He stooped and cupped his hands together, plunged them in the river and then lifted them. His hands were full, but the water ran between his fingers and escaped, leaving a little puddle of it where the edges of his palms were pressed together. He opened the hands and let the water go, back into the river. That was the way it should be, he told himself. The water and the air and earth ran away when you tried to grasp them. They would not be caught and held. They were not something one could own, but something one could live with. It had been so long ago in the first beginning, and then there had been men who had tried to own them, to hold them, to influence and coerce them, and after that there had been a new beginning and was that new beginning to come to an end again?

I shall call all the tribes together, he had told Jason, sitting at the fire. It is near the time to make the winter meat, but this is more important than the winter meat. It had, perhaps, been silly for him to say a thing like that, for he should have known— and did know—that a throng a thousand times as large as all the tribes would not prevail against the whites if they wanted to come back. Strength was not enough, determination would be futile, love of homeland and devotion to it stood as nothing against men who could cross between the stars on ships. They took one path, he thought, and we took another, from the very first and ours was not the wrong path (indeed, it was the right one), but it made us weak against their rapacity, as everything was weak against their rapacity.

These had been good years since they had gone away. There had been time to find the old paths once again. Once again the wind blew free and the water ran untrammeled down the land. Once more the prairie grass grew thick and sweet and the forest was a forest once again and the sky was black in spring and fall with wildfowl.

Hedid not like the idea of visiting the robot installation, he recoiled against the robot, Hezekiah, riding in a canoe, sharing even temporarily this ancient way of life, but Jason was quite right—it was the only thing to do, it was the only chance they had.

He turned back up the path, toward the camp. They all were waiting and now he'd call them all together. The men would be picked to paddle canoes. Some of the young men would have to secure fresh meat and fish for the journey. The women must get together food and robes. There was much to do; they'd set out in the morning.