The Boat of a Million Years

XII. The Last Medicine

Over the plain from the north the young men came a-gal-lop. The haste and rhythm of it were like the ripples that went through the grass beneath the wind. Sunflowers here and there swayed the same, lofty, petals as hot yellow as the light pouring across the world. Land and sky reached both unbounded, green seemed to meet blue but that was only at the edge of sight, distance went on and on farther than dreams could fly, A hawk rode the airflows, dipping and soaring, his wings twin flames. A flight of marshfowl lifted, so many that they darkened their quarter of heaven.

Children set to keep crows out of the fields were first to see the young men. The oldest boy among them ran back to the village, filled with importance; for Deathless had ordered that he be told of the return. Yet when the boy had passed inside the stockade and was among the houses, his courage faltered. Who was he to speak to the mightiest of all shamans? Dared he risk interrupting a spell or a vision? Women at their work saw him stand forlorn. One hailed him, “Oh6, Little Hare, what is in your heart?” But they were only women, the old men he glimpsed were only old men, and surely this was a thing of terrible power if Deathless cared so much about it.

The boy gulped and made for a certain house. Its dun sod loomed over him. When he came around its length to the front, the doorway gaped on a nightful cave where a single banked fire glimmered red. The families that shared it were elsewhere, doing their tasks or, if they had none, taking their ease down by the river. One did remain, the person for whom Little Hare had hoped, a man dressed in woman’s clothes, grinding corn. He looked up and asked in his mild way, “What do you wish, lad?”

Little Hare gulped. “The hunters come back,” he said. “Will you go tell the shaman, Three Geese?”

The noise of stone against stone ceased. The berdache rose. “I will,” he replied. Such as he had some power against the unseen, perhaps because the spirits made up to them for their lack of manliness. Besides, he was a son of Deathless. He dusted meal off his buckskin, uncoiled his braids, and departed at a dignified pace. Little Hare gusted relief before he started back to his duty. Eagerness tingled in him. What a brave sight the riders would be when they went by!

The shaman’s house stood next to the medicine lodge at the middle of the village. It was smaller than the rest because it was only for him and his family. He was there just then with his wives. Copperbright, mother of Three Geese, sat on the ground outside, watching over the two small daughters of Quail Wing while they played in the sun. Bent, half-blind, she was glad she could still help this much at her great age. In the doorway, Rain At Evening, who had been born the same winter as the berdache, helped a daughter of her own, Dawn Mist, ornament a dress with dyed quills for the maiden’s forthcoming marriage. She greeted the newcomer and, at his word, went inside to call her husband. Deathless came forth after a short while, still fastening his breechclout. Young Quail Wing peeped out from within, looking rumpled and happy.

“Ohe, father,” said Three Geese with due respect but not the awe that was in the likes of Little Hare. After all, this man had dandled him when he was a baby, taught him to know the stars and how to set snares and everything else needful or delightful—and, when it grew clear that the youth was not going to become fully a man, never lessened his love but accepted the fact with the calm of one who had watched hundreds of lives blow past on the wind. “They have seen Running Wolf’s party on the way back to us.”

Deathless stood quiet for a bit. When he frowned, a single wrinkle spread on his face. Sweat made his skin gleam over the springy muscles tike dew upon rock; his hair was like the rock itself, polished obsidian. “Are they sure that is who it is?” he asked.

“Why, who else?” replied Three Geese, astonished.

“Enemies—”

“Raiders would not come so openly, in broad daylight. Father, you have heard about the Pariki and their ways.”

“Oh, true, I have,” the shaman muttered, as if he had forgotten and needed reminding. “Well, I must make haste now, for I want to speak to the hunters alone.”

He went back into his house. Berdache and women exchanged looks where foreboding stirred. Deathless had spoken against the buffalo hunt, but Running Wolf had gotten his band together and left too swiftly for any real talk about it. Since then Deathless had brooded, and sometimes taken elders aside, who afterward kept silence themselves. What did they fear?

Soon Deathless reappeared. He had donned a shirt with strong signs burnt into the leather. White swirls of paint marked his countenance; a cap made from the pelt of a white mink encircled his brows. In his left hand he bore a gourd rattle, in his right a wand topped with a raven’s skull. The rest stood aside, even the children gone silent. This was no longer the kindly, rather quiet husband and father they knew; this was he in whom a spirit dwelt, he who never grew old, he who during the ages had guided his folk and made them unlike any other.

The hush followed him as he walked among the dwellings. Not every eye watched with the ancient reverence. Especially hi the heads of boys, several smoldered.

Through the open gate of the stockade he passed, and through the patches of corn, beans, and squash outside. The village stood on a bluff overlooking a broad, shallow river and the cotton woods along the banks. Northward the ground sloped into gently rolling hugeness. Hereabouts short-grass prairie gave way to tall-grass plain. Shadows went mysterious over green waves. The hunters were now quite near. Earth drummed to hoofbeats.

When he recognized the man afoot, Running Wolf signalled halt and reined in. His mustang whinnied and curvetted before standing quiet. Leggings held close against ribs, the rider sat the beast as if he had grown from it or it from him. His dozen followers were nearly as skillful. Under the sun, men and horses alike blazed with hie. In some hands were lances, on some shoulders hung bows and quivers. A knife of the finest flint rested at each waist. Headbands bore patterns of lightning bolt, thunderbird, hornet. From Running Wolf’s, feathers of eagle and jay thrust upward—did he think someday he would fly?

“Oh£, great one,” he said reluctantly. “You honor us.”

“How went the chase?” asked Deathless. , Running Wolf gestured backward at the pack animals. They bore hides, heads, haunches, humps, entrails, umbles, lavishness that strained against rawhide lashings. Already, as they rested, the grease and clotted blood were drawing flies. Exultance surged in his voice: “Never was such sport, never such slaughter! We left more than this behind for the coyotes. Today the people feast, no, they gorge.”

“The spirits will punish wastefulness,” Deathless warned.

Running Wolf squinted at him while retorting, “What, is Coyote not pleased that we feed his kind so well too? And the buffalo are as many as the blades of grass.”

“A fire can blacken the land—”

“And with the first ram it springs green anew.”

Breath hissed between teeth when the leader thus dared interrupt the shaman; but none of the band were really shocked. Two grinned.

Deathless ignored the breach, save that his tone grew harder still: “When the buffalo come by, our men go forth to take of them. First they offer the proper dances and sacrifices. Afterward I explain our need to the ghosts of the quarry, that they be appeased. So it has always been, and we have prospered in peace. Ill must come from leaving the ancient, proven path. I win tell you what atonement you can make, and lead you in it.”

“And shall we then return to waiting until a herd drifts within a day’s walk of here? Shall we try to cut a few out and kill them without any man getting gored or trampled? Or if we are lucky, may we stampede the whole herd over a drop, and see most meat rot before we can eat it? If our fathers brought home little, it was because they could do no more, nor could the dogs draw much on their wretched tra-vois.” Running Wolf’s words came in spate, never hesitating. Clearly he had awaited this encounter sometime upon his return, and planned what he would say.

“And if the new ways are unlucky,” exclaimed Red Hawk, “why do the tribes that follow them flourish so mightily? Shall they take everything, and we pick the carrion bones?”

Running Wolf frowned at his follower and beckoned for silence. Deathless sighed. His response was almost gentle: “I foreknew you would speak like this. Therefore I sought you out where nobody else can hear. It is hard for a man to admit he has been wrong. Together we shall find how you can set things right and still keep your pride. Come with me to the medicine lodge, and we will seek a vision.”

Running Wolf straightened, sheer against the sky. “Vision?” he cried. “I have had mine, old man, under the high stars after a day when we raced with the wind. I saw riches overflowing, deeds men will remember longer than you yourself have lived and will live, glory, wonder. New gods are in the land, fiery from the hands of the Creator, and— they ride on horses whose hoofs drum thunder and strike forth lightning. It is for you to make peace with them!”

Deathless lifted his wand and shook his rattle. Unease crossed faces. The mounts felt it and snorted, shied, stamped.

“I meant no offense, great one,” Running Wolf said quickly. “You wish us to talk free of fear and boasting alike, no? Well, if I got too loud, I’m sorry,” He tossed his head. “Nevertheless, the dream did come to me. I have told my comrades, and they believe.”

The magical things sank earthward in the shaman’s grasp. He stood for a little while unmoving, dark amidst the sunlight and grass, before he said low, “We must talk further and try to learn the meaning of what has happened.”

“Indeed we must.” Relief made Running Wolf’s tone kindly. “Tomorrow. Come, great one, let me lend you this, my prize stallion, and I will walk while you ride into the village, and you will bless us there as you have always blessed the returning hunters.”

“No.” Deathless went from them.

They sat mute, troubled, until Running Wolf laughed. He sounded like his namesake in wooded eastern country. “The joy among our people will be blessing enough,” he said. “And ah, for us the women, hotter than their fires!”

Most of them had to force an echo of his mirth. However, the act heartened them. He at the forefront, they struck heels to flanks and pounded whooping ahead. When they passed the shaman, they never glanced his way.

Upon his own entry, he found tumult. Folk seethed about the party, shouted, capered, exulted. Dogs clamored. The abundance was more than meat. It was fat, bone, horn, gut, sinew, all they needed to make nearly all they wanted. And this was the barest beginning. The hides would become coverings for tipis—those that were not traded eastward for poles—and then whole families could range as fax and as long as they wished, hunt, butcher, tan, preserve on the spot, before going on to the next kill and the next...

“Not overnight,” Running Wolf cautioned. Though he spoke weightily, his voice carried through the racket. “We have few horses yet. And first we must care for these that have served us.” Victory rang: “But we shall soon have more. Every man of us shall have his herd.”

Somebody howled, somebody else did likewise, and then the tribe was howling—his sign, his name, his leadership to be.

Deathless went around them. Few noticed him. Those looked away, abashed, before throwing themselves the more wildly back into jubilance.

The wives and youngest children of Deathless stood fast outside his house. There they could not see the crowd, but the cheers broke across them. Quail Wing’s gaze kept drifting yonder, wistfully. She was hardly more than a girl. He halted, confronted them. Lips parted but nobody had words.

“You were good to wait here,” he said at length. “Now you may as well go join the rest, help cook the food, share in the feast.”

“And you?” asked Rain At Evening low.

“I have not forbidden it,” he said bitterly. “How could I?”

“You counselled against the horses, you counselled against the hunt,” quavered Copperbright. “What madness is in them, that they no longer heed you?”

“They will learn better,” Rain At Evening avowed.

“I am thankful I shall soon be snug hi death.” Copperbright reached a gnarled hand toward Deathless. “But you, poor darling, you must live through that lesson.”

Quail Wing regarded her children and shuddered a little.

“Go,” said the man. “Have pleasure. Also, it will be wise. We must not let the folk feel divided. That could well destroy them. I always strove to keep my people together.”

Rain At Evening considered him. “However, you will stay away?” she asked.

“I will try to think what can be done,” he answered, and went into the medicine lodge. They lingered a bit, troubled, before leaving. His unsureness, the defiance of him, struck at the heart of everything by which they had lived.

With its entrance toward sunrise, the lodge had at this time of day gone gloomy. Light from doorway and smoke-hole lost itself in shadows brimming the circle of floor and walls. Things magical were blurs, gleams, hunched lumps. Deathless laid buffalo chips in the firepit at the center. He worked with drill and tinder until flames licked small. After he had banked the fire, he put tobacco that traders bore from afar into his calumet, kindled it, breathed deep, let the sacred dizziness whirl him off toward meditation.

Insight escaped him. He was wanly glad when a form darkened the doorway. By then the sun was on the horizon he could not see. Light tinged with yellow the smoke that drifted thick and savory off cookfires. The din of celebration was at once loud and remote, only half real.

“Father?” came a shy whisper.

“Enter,” said Deathless. “Be welcome.”

Three Geese stooped, passed through, settled on the opposite side of the pit. His face was barely visible, webbed and gullied with encroaching age, full of the concern that a berdache need not be ashamed to show. “I hoped you would give me refuge here, father,” he said.

“From what?” asked Deathless. “Has anyone abused you?”

“No, no. Everybody is gleeful.” Three Geese winced. “That is what hurts. Even the old men seem to have cast their doubts from them.”

“Save for you.”

“And perhaps a few others. How should I know? More of the women are with us in their hearts, but the men sweep them along. And it is a mighty gain that Running Wolf and his followers have made.”

“He promises unboundedly much in the future.”

Three Geese grunted an affirmative.

“Why do you not share these hopes?” Deathless asked.

“You are my father, who was always kind to me,” said the berdache. “I fear there will be scant kindness in the morrow that Running Wolf brings.”

“From what we know about the tribes who have gone the way of the horse, that is so.”

“I have heard men say—when I happened to be in earshot of man-talk—that some are forced to it.”

“True. They are thrust from their ancient homes, the eastern woodlands, out onto the prairie, by invaders from farther east. They say those invaders bear horrible weapons that shoot lightning. They get them from pale-skinned foreigners such as we hear rumors of. But others, like the Par-iki, have freely taken to the horse, and spill out of the west, out of the mountains yonder.

“They did not have to. We do not have to. I have spoken with travelers, traders, whoever bears news from outside. North of us the Ankara, Hidatsa, and Mandan still live in olden wise. They remain strong, well-off, content. I would have us do the same.”

“I have talked with two or three of those young men who brought horses despite your counsel, father,” said Three Geese. “One of them went forth with Running Wolf, first to practice, later on this buffalo hunt. They say—he says— they intend no disrespect, no overthrow of anything. They only want for us whatever is good in the new ways.”

“I know. I also know you cannot pick and choose. Change is a medicine bundle. You must refuse it altogether, or take the whole thing.”

Sorrow thinned the voice of Three Geese: “Father, I do not question your wisdom, but I have heard some who do. They wonder if you can understand change, you who live outside of time.”

Deathless smiled sadly through the dusk. “Strange, my son, strange that only now, when you near the end of your days, do we truly confide in each other.” He drew breath. “Well, I seldom speak of my youth. It was so long ago that it seems a half-forgotten dream. But as a boy I listened to my grandfather tell about the drought of many years that at last made our people trek eastward from the uplands, to find a better home here. We were still learning how to be plainsfolk when I became a man. I had no idea then of what I was. No, I expected to grow old and lie down to rest in the earth like everyone else. When, slowly, we came to see that this was not happening—what more soulshaking change than that can you imagine? Since it was clear the gods had singled me out, I must seek the shaman, have him teach me, change from man to disciple, finally from housefather to shaman myself. And the years flew by faster and faster. I saw girls born whom I wed when they were grown and buried when they had died, along with the children, the children. I saw more tribes pour onto the plains, and war begin among them. Do you know it was only hi your mother’s girlhood that we decided we must build a stockade? True, a certain awe of me has helped keep enemies off, but—Running Wolf has had a vision of new gods.”

He laughed wearily. “Yes, my son, I have known change. I have felt time rush by tike a river hi flood, bearing the wreckage of hopes downstream out of sight. Now do you understand why I have tried to bulwark my people against it?”

“They must heed you,” Three Geese groaned. “Make a medicine that will open their eyes and unstop their ears.”

“Who can make a medicine against time?”

“If anyone can, father, that one is you.” The berdache hugged himself and shivered, though the air was still mild. “This is a good life we have, a gentle life. Save it for us!”

“I will try,” said Deathless. “Leave me alone with the spirits.” He held out his arms. “But first come and let me embrace you, my son,”

The old cold body trembled against the firm warm flesh, then Three Geese said farewell and departed.

Deathless sat unmoving as embers faded and night welled up out of the earth. Noise continued, drum-throb, chants, feet stamping around an extravagant fire. It grew louder when the doorway brightened again. A full moon had risen. That gray went black as the moon climbed higher, though the ground outside remained hoar. At last the merrymaking dwindled until silence laid its robe over the whole village.

No vision had come. Perhaps a dream would. He had heard that men of nomad tribes often tortured themselves in hope that that would call the spirits to them. He would abide with the ancient unforced harmonies. On a few heaped skins, one atop him, he slept.

Stars fared across heaven. Dew glittered in deepening chill. The very coyotes had quieted. Only the river murmured, along the banks, under the cottonwoods, around the sandbars, on and on in retreat from the sinking moon.

Slowly, eastern stars dimmed as their part of the sky turned pale.

The hoofs that ueared scarcely broke the stillness. Riders dismounted, left their animals in care of chosen companions, approached on foot.

They meant to steal the horses hobbled outside the stockade. A boy’on watch saw them and sped for the gate. He screamed his warning till a warrior overtook him, A lancethrust cast him to hands and knees. Little Hare gobbled around the blood that welled into his mouth. He threshed about till he fell in a heap that looked very small. War cries ripped the dawn.

“Out!” roared Running Wolf before his house. “It’s an attack! Save the horses!”

He was the first to dash forth into the open, but men swarmed after him, mostly naked, clutching whatever weapons they had snatched. The strangers sprang at them. Alien words yowled. Arrows whirred. Men screamed when struck, less in pain than in fury. Running Wolf bore a tomahawk. He sought the thick of the foe and hewed, snarled, a tornado.

Bewildered, the villagers nevertheless outnumbered the raiders. The Pariki leader yelled commands. His men rallied to him, where he shook his lance on high. In a body, they beat the defenders aside and poured through the opened gate.

Dawnlight strengthened. Like prairie dogs, women, children, old folk fled back into houses. The Pariki laughed and pursued them.

Running Wolf lost time getting his dismayed fighters together. Meanwhile the Pariki made their quick captures—a woman or child seized, hauled outside, or fine pelts grabbed, a buffalo robe, a shirt with colorful quillwork— and regathered in the lane that went straight to the gateway.

One warrior found a beautiful young woman with an aging one and a crone in the smallest of the houses, next to a round lodge. She wailed and clawed at his eyes. He pinned her wrists at her back and forced her along, regardless of struggles or of the others who sought to hinder him. A man bounded from the lodge. He was unarmed apart from a wand and a rattle. When he shook them, the warrior hooted and swung tomahawk at him. The man must dodge back. The raider and his prey joined the rest of the war band.

Running Wolf’s men milled in the entrance. At their backs, those Pariki who had kept the horses arrived at a gallop, with the free beasts on strings. The villagers scattered. The forayers seized manes, got on with a single leap, dragged booty or captives up after them. The men who had already been riding helped injured comrades mount and collected three or four dead.

Running Wolf bayed, egged his people on. Their arrows were spent, but enough of them finally came at his heels that the foe made no further try for their herd. Instead the Pariki rode west, .bearing their prizes. Dazed with horror, the villagers did not give chase.

The sun rose. Blood glowed brilliant.

Deathless sought the battle place. Folk were getting busy there. Some mutilated two corpses the enemy had not recovered, so that the ghosts must forever drift in the dark; these persons wished aloud for live prisoners to torture to death. Others tended their own slain. Three Geese was among those who worked on the wounded. His hands eased anguish; his low voice helped men bite back any cries. Deathless joined him. The healing arts were part of a shaman’s lore.

“Father,” said the berdache, “I think we need you more to make medicine against fresh misfortune.”

“I know not if any power to do that is left in me,” Deathless replied.

Three Geese pushed a shaft deeper into a shoulder, until the barbed head came out the rear and he could pull the entire thing free. Blood welled, flies buzzed. He packed the hole with grass. “I am ashamed that I was not in the fight,” he mumbled.

“You are long past your youth, and fighting was never for you,” Deathless said. “Buf I— Well, this took me by surprise; and I have forgotten whatever I once knew about combat.”

Running Wolf stalked around, tallying the harm that had been done. He overheard. “None of us knew anything,” he snapped. “We shall do better next time.”

Three Geese bit his lip. Deathless went impassive.

Afterward he did undertake his duties as the shaman. With his disciple, who yesterday had never come near him, he led rites for the lost, cast spells for the clean mending of wounds, made offerings to the spirits. An elder mustered courage to ask why he did not seek omens. “The future has become too strange,” he answered, and left the man standing appalled. By eventide he could take a short span to console Quail Wing’s children for the taking of their mother, before he again went alone into the medicine lodge.

Next morning the people buried the dead. Later they would dance in their honor. First, though, the hale men gathered at a place which had known happier meetings. Running Wolf had demanded it—no council of elders calmly finding their way toward agreement, but every man who could walk—and none cared to gainsay him.

They assembled before a knoll near the bluff edge. Standing on it, a man could look south to the broad brown river and its trees, the only trees anywhere in sight; east to the stockade, the fields clustered about it, gravemounds both raw and time-worn; elsewhere across grass that billowed and shimmered, green and white, under a shrill wind. Clouds flew past, trailing shadows through a sunlight gone harsh. Thunderheads loomed blue-black in the west. From here the works of man seemed no more than anthills, devoid of life. Nothing but the horses moved yonder. They chafed at their hobbles, eager to be off and away.

Running Wolf mounted the knoll and raised an arm. “Hear me, my brothers,” he called. Wrapped in a buffalo robe, he seemed even taller than he was. He had gashed his cheeks for mourning and painted black bars across his face for vengefulness. The wind fluttered the plumes in his headband.

“We know what we have suffered,” he told the eyes and the souls that sought him. “Now we must think why it happened and how we shall keep it from ever happening again.

“I say to you, the answers are simple. We have few horses. We have hardly any men who are good hunters upon them, and we have no skilled warriors at all. We are poor and alone, huddled within our miserable walls, living off our meager crops. Meanwhile other tribes ride forth to garner the wealth of the plains. Meat-fed, they grow strong. They can feed many mouths, therefore they breed many sons, who in turn become horseman hunters. They have the time and the mettle to learn war. Their tribes may be strewn widely, but proud brotherhoods and sisterhoods, oath-societies, bind them together. Is it then any wonder that they make booty of us?”

His glance fell hard on Deathless, who stood in the front row under the hillock. The shaman’s gaze responded, unwavering but blank. “For years they stayed their hand,” Running Wolf said. “They knew we had one among us who was full of spirit power. Nonetheless, at last a band of young men resolved to make a raid. I think some among them had had visions. Visions come readily to him who rides day after day across empty space and camps night after night beneath star-crowded skies. They may have urged each other on. I daresay they simply wanted our horses. The fight became as bloody as it did because we ourselves had no idea of how to wage it. This too we must learn.

“But what the Pariki have found, and soon every plains ranger will know, is that we have lost whatever defense was ours. What new medicine have we?”

He folded his amis. “I ask you, Deathless, great one, what new medicine you can make,” he said. Slowly, he stepped aside.

Indrawn breath whispered among the men, beneath the damp chill that streaked from the stonnclouds. They stared at the shaman. He stood still an instant. Thereafter he climbed the knoll and confronted Running Wolf. He had not adorned himself in any way, merely donned buckskins. Against the other man, he seemed drab, the life in him faded.

Yet he spoke steadily: “Let me ask you first, you who take leadership from your elders, let me ask you and let you tell us what you would have the people do.”

“I did tell you!” Running Wolf declared. “We must get more horses. We can breed them, boy them, catch them wild, and, yes, steal them ourselves. We must go win our share of the riches on the plains. We must become skilled in the arts of war. We must find allies, enroll in societies, take our rightful place among folk who speak Lakotan tongues. And all this we must begin upon at once, else it will be too late.”

“Thus is your beginning,” said Deathless quietly. “The end is that you will forsake your home and the graves of your ancestors. You will have no dwellings save your tipis, but be wanderers upon the earth, like the buffalo, the coyote, and the wind.”

“That may be,” replied Running Wolf with the same lev-elness. “What is bad about it?”

A gasp went from most listeners; but several young men nodded, like horses tossing their heads.

“Show respect,” quavered an aged grandson of the shaman. “He is still the Deathless one.”

“He is that,” acknowledged Running Wolf. “I have spoken what was in my heart. If it be mistaken, tell us. Then tell us what we should do, what we should become, instead.”

He alone heard the answer. The rest divined it, and some wrestled with terror while others grew thoughtful and yet others shivered as if in sight of prey.

“I cannot.”

Deathless turned from Running Wolf, toward the gathering. His voice loudened, though each word fell stone-heavy. “I have no further business here. I have no more medicine. Before any of you were born, rumors came to. me of these new creatures, horses, and of strange men who had crossed great waters with lightnings at their command. In time the horses reached our country, and that which I feared began to happen. Today it is done. What will come of it, nobody can foretell. All that I knew has crumbled between my fingers.

“Whether you must change or not—and it may well be that you must, for you lack the numbers to keep a settlement defended—you will change, my people. You want it, enough of you to draw the rest along. I no longer can. Time has overtaken me.”

He raised his hand. “Therefore, with my blessing, let me go.”

It was Running Wolf who cried, “Go? Surely not! You have always been ours.”

Deathless smiled the least bit. “If I have learned anything in my lifetimes of years,” he said, “it is that there is no ‘always.’ ”

“But where would you go? How?”

“My disciple can carry out what is needful, until he wins stronger medicine from warrior tribes. My grown sons will see to the welfare of my two old wives and my small children. As for myself—I think I will fare alone in search of renewal, or else of death and an end of striving.”

Into their silence, he finished: “I served you as well as I was able. Now let me depart.”

He walked down the knoll and away from them. Never did he look back.