| FREEDOM'S COST --The medicine woman, Kwana, has forced Alex to Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron where there is to be a sacrifice. She stepped forward and untied his loincloth. They she removed the vest, displaying his old scars and the new ones she had inflicted. She took paint from her medicine bag and smeared the crimson and ocher grease over his chest, and painted black streaks across his nose and cheeks. From her pack she took the Purple Heart he had thought lost and hung it around his neck. "This is the medicine of your people," she said and he saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. "For the people of the tribes, I paint you red for courage and black for death. Yellow for honor, Many Wounds. We are giving the Great One a brave warrior." The last months with the tribesmen had separated him from the world of history and politics and art---almost like a flaying---and nothing remained but the beating of his heart and the memory of those he loved. And, perhaps, loyalty to his clan. "I will go but send my people home," he told her and she nodded solemnly. He knew that, to her, it was his last request because she did not expect him to return. "I am not tied like an animal," he said to the Indians. "Your sacrifice is only worthy if I walk across the beach by myself. Take your hands from my friends. They are to be respected." ........... "If I don't return who knows what will happen? There may be other warriors up there among the trees. You may have to fight hundreds on the beach. You'll need these Ottawa warriors on your side. Start loading the muskets now. Live to get back to the General." She had taken his moccasins and the sand was burning against his bare feet as he turned and walked toward the silent bluff. He could feel the warriors watching him stoically as he started up the incline. Kwana, clean of paint as he wished it, in her golden skin glory, stood before them, holding his breech cloth in her hands. He felt naked and free. He was purged of all but his own fire of life. Primative, he thought. The Knight goes into battle, while the demure and pure maiden waits. Such a maiden. Damn it. He was an educated man, a teacher, a linguist, a sly and careful spy. A married man with a child. They were treating him as if he were Theseus being sacrificed to the Minotaur. These Indians were as uncivilized as the early Greeks. There is nothing up here in the shadows under the trees but a tribe of savages, intent on taking my scalp. At least it should be quick; no slow torture or flaying. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, Because Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." He repeated the words over and over. The twenty-third Psalm seemed a place of rescue, far from the madness of a savage world that had swallowed him. His heels crunched in the last of the sand and now he was into the pine grove and pine needles spiked his feet. The ravens were cawing and wheeling in the sky and the bushes and trees rustled in a faint August breeze....All about him the thick underbrush was stirring and he could hear impatient animal twitching and breathing. A vile smell drifted to him on the sticky air. ....Now he could see the Amikwa village. There was no palisade, just three longhouses. The place was deserted except for a few raccoons that dashed through the pathways and scurried away when they saw him. Maybe the Amikwa left some weapons behind when they vanished. He hurried toward the first longhouse and then halted in fear. The deer hide door cover was billowing as if some creature were straining to be out. |