09-13-2016, 12:49 PM
Noah shifted the old truck into park and gripped the steering wheel hard as he took a breath. He tried not to show it but he was hurting more often than not these days. He could feel time gnawing and grinding away at his bones. Time was a poor friend and an unforgiving master. Always taking, stealing away, never giving back, grinding forward like the wheel of a millstone. And as long as man had existed, he had tried to rage against the dying of the light, rage against change and decay. But it made no difference. The future was inevitable, and one day it would no longer belong to him. He would try not to fight it when that day came.
But until then it was still his time. Noah got out of the truck and surveyed the landscape. Rolling yellow grasses covered the flat horizon, broken by a jagged mound of rock shooting up from the ground as if the earth had punched the sky. To the right a narrow band of river continued to wear away at the soft soil in solitude. There was not a building to see. In the evening light of the setting sun, the dying light caught the red mud and set it ablaze, like a red tower rising from the grassland. Thunder Butte. The Lakota legend was that this was the birthplace of Thunder. A fitting place to birth a people of fire and iron who would cause the earth to tremble with their footsteps and shoot lightning from their eyes, like the Kakchinas of old.
What was, and what will be. And yet it may be so, today.
He probably needn't come here in person, but he wanted to see this himself. After years of fruitless endeavors of trying to keep the Native peoples safe from the Sickness, from the government, the Atharim, and themselves, they could finally press forward with a concrete plan and a solid foundation. Jon and others had done their work like good servants to the will of fate, making sure this place would be protected from the government, and out here in the middle of nowhere these spirit warriors to be could pose the least risk to themselves or others until they could gain control of their abilities. That was the greatest danger. And that only left the Atharim. They would have to keep guard, and eventually build fortifications and self-sustaining operations. The butte itself with its hard rock core may prove useful. He hoped they wouldn't have to transform it too much. It was a sacred place.
The sport utility vehicle pulled in behind Noah, and a middle-aged man with a prominent nose and flecks of gray in his single black braid got out. He was wearing a jeans jacket and pants with thick boots. Chief Stephen Two Moons of the Standing Rock Lakota. His son was one of the six youth in the SUV, brought here by Noah because they had begun to experience the channeling Sickness. Two young men and a girl, only sixteen, from the Lakota Nation, two Cherokee sisters -- twins -- from Oklahoma, and a young Hopi man from Arizona. The Hopi reminded Noah too much of Jerome. That was all he had managed to find so far and keep tabs on in this past year, even though Noah had become known through the tribes as a man who could treat the Sickness. All too often these youth were just disappearing.
"We'll set up camp down between the river and the butte," Noah said. "Where the river bends around. Should be able to divert the stream for water collection and purification. It's too late in the year for planting, but there's plenty of grass for the buffalo and the other livestock." They had food, anyway. Some, at least. This was a collaborative effort on behalf of the tribes and all had made some donation to the cause. Even so, the Lakota Spiritual Development Institute would probably always be the epitome of austerity. "Erect the teepees in a circle down there."
The man nodded, and banged on the hood of his SUV. The boys and girls got out. Other vehicles began to pull in behind them. Camp helpers and volunteers, mostly family or people who hoped somehow they could gain these abilities for themselves. About two dozen of them all together. They'd help get set up and perhaps stick around for lack of anything better to do. They began to empty the old truck of supplies. Long tent poles and bags of treated canvas. Food and water. Gas for cooking stoves. Shovels and pickaxes for digging, and coils of rope and barbed wire.
Chief Two Moons had been Navy himself, serving aboard the USS Ronald Regan during the Taiwan Strait War. The man understood the value of discipline. They'd spoken of how to best proceed. Hard work and discipline would go hand in hand with the teachings of their ancestors. These people -- kids, really -- would learn how to become self-sufficient out here as well as gain control over their abilities. And as more came, the need for organization and discipline would become all too apparent. A simple thing like improper latrine placement and maintenance could spell doom for this camp, and lack of discipline would destroy any outfit, let alone one in which the people had the power to destroy each other and themselves.
But still, they were missing one key component. The institute needed teachers. Men and women who could show the way, who had done it themselves already.
Fortunately, Noah had already taken care of that. "Hello, Jon," he called out without turning his head. "Why don't you come up and say a word or two?"
But until then it was still his time. Noah got out of the truck and surveyed the landscape. Rolling yellow grasses covered the flat horizon, broken by a jagged mound of rock shooting up from the ground as if the earth had punched the sky. To the right a narrow band of river continued to wear away at the soft soil in solitude. There was not a building to see. In the evening light of the setting sun, the dying light caught the red mud and set it ablaze, like a red tower rising from the grassland. Thunder Butte. The Lakota legend was that this was the birthplace of Thunder. A fitting place to birth a people of fire and iron who would cause the earth to tremble with their footsteps and shoot lightning from their eyes, like the Kakchinas of old.
What was, and what will be. And yet it may be so, today.
He probably needn't come here in person, but he wanted to see this himself. After years of fruitless endeavors of trying to keep the Native peoples safe from the Sickness, from the government, the Atharim, and themselves, they could finally press forward with a concrete plan and a solid foundation. Jon and others had done their work like good servants to the will of fate, making sure this place would be protected from the government, and out here in the middle of nowhere these spirit warriors to be could pose the least risk to themselves or others until they could gain control of their abilities. That was the greatest danger. And that only left the Atharim. They would have to keep guard, and eventually build fortifications and self-sustaining operations. The butte itself with its hard rock core may prove useful. He hoped they wouldn't have to transform it too much. It was a sacred place.
The sport utility vehicle pulled in behind Noah, and a middle-aged man with a prominent nose and flecks of gray in his single black braid got out. He was wearing a jeans jacket and pants with thick boots. Chief Stephen Two Moons of the Standing Rock Lakota. His son was one of the six youth in the SUV, brought here by Noah because they had begun to experience the channeling Sickness. Two young men and a girl, only sixteen, from the Lakota Nation, two Cherokee sisters -- twins -- from Oklahoma, and a young Hopi man from Arizona. The Hopi reminded Noah too much of Jerome. That was all he had managed to find so far and keep tabs on in this past year, even though Noah had become known through the tribes as a man who could treat the Sickness. All too often these youth were just disappearing.
"We'll set up camp down between the river and the butte," Noah said. "Where the river bends around. Should be able to divert the stream for water collection and purification. It's too late in the year for planting, but there's plenty of grass for the buffalo and the other livestock." They had food, anyway. Some, at least. This was a collaborative effort on behalf of the tribes and all had made some donation to the cause. Even so, the Lakota Spiritual Development Institute would probably always be the epitome of austerity. "Erect the teepees in a circle down there."
The man nodded, and banged on the hood of his SUV. The boys and girls got out. Other vehicles began to pull in behind them. Camp helpers and volunteers, mostly family or people who hoped somehow they could gain these abilities for themselves. About two dozen of them all together. They'd help get set up and perhaps stick around for lack of anything better to do. They began to empty the old truck of supplies. Long tent poles and bags of treated canvas. Food and water. Gas for cooking stoves. Shovels and pickaxes for digging, and coils of rope and barbed wire.
Chief Two Moons had been Navy himself, serving aboard the USS Ronald Regan during the Taiwan Strait War. The man understood the value of discipline. They'd spoken of how to best proceed. Hard work and discipline would go hand in hand with the teachings of their ancestors. These people -- kids, really -- would learn how to become self-sufficient out here as well as gain control over their abilities. And as more came, the need for organization and discipline would become all too apparent. A simple thing like improper latrine placement and maintenance could spell doom for this camp, and lack of discipline would destroy any outfit, let alone one in which the people had the power to destroy each other and themselves.
But still, they were missing one key component. The institute needed teachers. Men and women who could show the way, who had done it themselves already.
Fortunately, Noah had already taken care of that. "Hello, Jon," he called out without turning his head. "Why don't you come up and say a word or two?"