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The sun was entering its zenith when he stopped. The
road had petered out to a poorly maintained tar and gravel lane. He had
ignored a “No Trespassing” sign fifteen minutes ago. Benny looked around
and liked what he saw. Trees old and knurled closed in, shut off the noon sun.
It was like home, from the days he and his then step-father-to-be Carl had run
from the law and the Project when they were just a couple of kids. Carl had
been about fifteen, maybe sixteen, and he had been about seven.
Carl had been lost without city lights. Benny had
been in heaven, free and happy in their year on the mountain. And now here he
was, about the age Carl had been, and at sixteen, Carl Ivanovitch had been
more of a man than most twice his age.
On the streets, Carl knew the ropes, and Benny was
lost. In the hills, Benny was master, even at seven. Carl had bragged to Anna
that what Benny taught him in that time saved his ass plenty, when he was
behind enemy lines in the war with the drug lords in America de Sud.
Carl learned to be humble before the Tsi:ge:Yu:i, the God, and to ask
instead of simply taking. The forest reciprocated by allowing them to live,
and live well on her bounty.
True, when Benny told Carl they were feasting on
rattler, the dude lost his cookies.
The Adohi:yi, the forest, the Place of God's
Peace. Benny felt a swell of hot joy in his heart. The adohi:yi was the
perfect place. A place where a man could act like a man, not a dog, waiting to
be whipped by some jerk with more money than heart. Here you lived, or you
died. The Forest accepted it all with total serenity.
Die free.
The words carried that message, and Benny offered up
a fiery shout of agreement. The early colonists looked on the native peoples
with resentment and envy for their freedom. They adopted many native ways,
ways that shocked the staid of Europe, ways like wanting to be independent of
masters and slavery to greedy politicos. So much had been given by the Ani,
the People, with that first shot on Breed's Hill in Massachusetts, a hill
named for a mixed-blood Native American. A man who died rather than accept a
yoke.
Taking a pouch of tobacco from his back pocket,
Benny rolled a smoke. Under him the Red Sun purred and was content. He
pinched the excess from the ends and offered it to the ani:tsi:ge:O,
the Little People who lived in the forest. The first puff he gave to the sun.
Warm winds took the wisp of fragrant blue smoke and
lifted it high. The Eagle-Woman nodded and accepted it. She lay it in the
hands of her son, the Wolf of God. In turn, he showed it to the Sun-Father and
lay it in a golden bowl at the foot of the Dalonega throne.
Love reached out and touched Benny. The only gift
that can be given without strings attached is love.
Well passed bullet-hole-ridden “No Trespassing,”
signs he found a place to spend the night. It was deep among the trees. Benny
went out and erased his tracks, made certain no broken twigs or clumps of bent
grass pointed the way to him. He gathered dead brush from high in the trees,
knowing that it would be far dryer than the wood that littered the ground.
With a groan of thanks, he rolled up in his blankets
under the trees and drifted away to sleep, feeling safe for the first time in
months.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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