15 stones, p.45
15 Stones, page 45
“Well, let’s get started,” Baer finally prodded Ushi, who was to be the interpreter.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Something appropriate,” Baer suggested. “Welcome and so on. After all we are the host, are we not?”
Ushi and Goglan then traded a few words, Ushi fumbling with a turn of phrase while the shaman’s words came pouring out effortlessly. Not surprisingly Goglan was soon dominating the exchange. He accentuated each utterance by many broad gestures. It was obvious that he was addressing both groups; however, the clan understood nothing of his speech. The Tolmecs were listening intently, nodding and even applauding at times.
“What is he saying?” Baer finally demanded of Ushi after another point was well received by the Tolmecs.
Ushi, however, merely shrugged his shoulders, “Nothing much of interest. I will tell you when we get to something more important.”
“We are going to need more than that,” Baer complained, squirming around irritably.
“It is a lot of words. A mere preamble. Has neither foot nor leg to it,” Ushi assured him.
“Translate anyway,” Baer finally ordered.
“Well, he is saying ... Why should a man run after the wind, as if he could catch it? Why should a man stand in the river and try to hold back its rush? Why should a man try to lift a whole mountain? To what purpose ...?”
“But what does this all mean?” Baer’s brows furrowed in frustration.
“It is their way of talking. They are full of should’s, have to’s and must’s. It is a waste of time to translate...” Ushi was rolling his eyes skywards and shrugging his shoulders.
“Translate all the same,” Baer instructed again.
“... Can a man prevent the sun from crossing the sky? Can he block the path of the moon over the clouds? Can any man keep time from slipping through his fingers? Can anyone hold back even a heartbeat of it? Yet, we can still choose the future before us!”
Goglan’s gestures became more expressive and the building cadence of his voice indicated that he was at long last reaching some conclusion. Listeners were leaning forward on both sides in anticipation.
“It has been prophesied that the Tolmecs, because of the violence they have unleashed upon their neighbors, would face a time when a great debt of blood would accumulate against them. We have killed, maimed and injured for many years. Do you not feel the weight of blood about to crush your conscience? We have hidden our faces for too long behind war paint. We have tried to escape the burden of our guilt and still we carried on killing, adding to its weight. Are we then to drown in the blood we and those before us have shed?” Goglan lapsed into silence to let each hearer answer the question. The clan, too, was gripped by this moment of self-examination.
“Happily, it was also prophesied that a man would come to save the Tolmecs from this fate. It was foretold that, as the new day comes from the east to bring fresh light to the world, so will a Spirit-Guide come to us to light a new way for us to follow. He will show the Tolmecs a new way of living. Or do you still thirst for blood, not knowing another way?” Again there was a brief pause.
“I tell you, there sits the man we have for so long awaited, imbued with the spirit of Latto.” The shaman pointed to Chaiko who sat frozen, feeling the intense stares upon him. “We thought that he would be one of us, but Latto chose him and he is of other people. Nonetheless, let the prophecy be fulfilled! Listen to him. Let him show you a better way!” The arm pointing at Chaiko shook with emphasis.
“If we now miss our chance and cast it aside, do we not make the prophecy a lie, and of no effect? Do we not make liars out of our fathers who diligently told us of his coming? When will we get another chance? If ever? ... Listen to him! He will speak of another way that the Tolmecs should embrace!” Then he was quiet.
The silence grew in the wake of his speech. Both sides were fidgeting expectantly. Most avoided looking directly at Chaiko, just daring a quick glance in his direction. Baer watched his brother slowly cast off his reluctance and an expression of resolve grow on his face. Awkwardly, Chaiko rose, his left leg feeling more wooden than usual. He shook his feather mantle aright and smoothed down a few ruffled feathers. He was acutely aware of all the faces, but was concentrating too hard to see them. What was he going to say?
“I am reminded of the hunter who went to the river to get some fresh water. As he bent over the surface of the gently flowing stream, he noted a veil of crimson trailing through the water. Puzzled he went upstream to find a wounded bison on the river bank, blood gushing from a grievous wound on her neck. ‘A lion did this. I fought to keep the beast from harming my calf. And now my life flows out of me.’ Tiredly, the bison dropped her head onto the gravel and continued in a weak voice, ‘Bury me if you have the mind to, for I would escape the scavengers, the hyenas and the vultures from picking at my bones, fighting over my remains.’ The beast then shuddered and died.
“The hunter had compassion and he buried the beast in a shallow pit he scratched into the ground. He covered it with dirt and piled stones on it. He did it for he felt sorry for her.
“Two days later the same hunter killed a bison on a hunt and skinned it and was proud of the fine quality of the pelt. He thought nothing of it. The meat went to feed his family and the fur to keep him warm.
“Do we say that the hunter had compassion in one instance but no compassion in the other?” Chaiko paused to let each consider an answer. Baer was annoyed; this seemed hardly the occasion for riddles. They needed clarity most of all to settle their differences.
“Compassion is the quality of human heart. In the whole of nature we are the only ones to recognise another creature’s pain. We do so, perhaps out of some realisation that whatever happened to them could also happen to us. The root of our compassion may well be fear for ourselves mixed with relief that it was not on us that such misfortune fell.
“Your ancestors suffered greatly at the hands of their enemies until they fought back. Your fathers then made a virtue of necessity and learned to be cruel in the face of cruelty. They became harder, more fierce and even more merciless than the enemies they faced, until there were no more enemies to stand against the tribes, but still they punished their neighbors. And they taught their children to do likewise. But with what bitter gall did you have to feed your children to turn them so unfeeling? And each generation that so learned became even harder and feared those soft qualities that make us all human. They forgot compassion, tenderness, and joy. They have learned to respect death over life. Well, I am here to tell you to choose life over the ways of pain, suffering and death! Choose life!”
Chaiko paused. The faces looking back at him were impassive masks. Behind the deep frowns carved onto grim facades he sensed their disdain. Not an intentional disdain, more a resistance, a reluctance to embark on some new course. How was he going to reach these people, who had hardened themselves against the sway of emotions, blunted all feelings—and had developed a horror of them? People frozen into a spiritual rigidity. What could he say to people who had even turned their backs on hope? How was he going to reconnect them to their humanity? His mind remained silent; reason was not going to help him here. Was he going to argue that humans are not wolves to a pack of humans who had convinced themselves that they were? It was equally impossible to appeal to emotions they no longer possessed and even feared. Could he make them cry? How was he going to provoke these granite faces into a smile? Tell them a joke, perhaps, his intuition suggested. A joke! Under the weight of these most earnest of expectations, this thought struck him as extremely humorous. To his horror, a giggle escaped him, then a chortle. The more he tried to choke back the impulse the more uncontrollable it became. Then unable to resist any longer, he broke into laughter, the sound of it spewing from him. A deep laugh took possession of him that shook his very bones. The sound went from him into the shocked silence, rebounded from their hard incredulity ... until he had to laugh all the more.
Baer was aghast at this outburst. He could not understand its source; his brother had never been frivolous and never in such critical circumstances. What had gotten into him? Baer looked at the Tolmecs and saw them squirming about uncomfortably. People who had not laughed for generations, did not even recognise the sound for what it was. To them it sounded like the braying of an animal. Still Chaiko laughed, growing weak from the spasms, but the very unseemliness of laughter in the present situation impelled his laughter on. Doubled over between fits, Chaiko commanded them, “Laugh! Cry! Smile!” Ushi dutifully echoed his words. And because the Tolmecs were used to following orders, they tried. A crowd full of faces twisted into painful grimaces that had no humor in them yet, just a weak sound that soon died. Suddenly Cosh, not knowing why he did so, also started to laugh and then of all people, Tusk, surprising himself. Two people, who were the last to laugh at any joke, were laughing now. And like an avalanche started by the motion of a single pebble, it picked up speed and momentum. Without knowing why, the laughter spread through the clan. The fact that this hilarity was utterly misplaced and inappropriate only fed its outburst. So infected, soon all of the clan were rolling around on the grass in the clutch of a laughing frenzy. Even Baer; he could not help himself as the others with him could not.
The Tolmecs looked upon this untoward behaviour with consternation, their faces growing stiffer still. But as the roar opposite them grew, an irrepressible giggle boiled up even in their ranks. They turned with wide eyed shock at their offending member, but he continued laughing, the sound bubbling from some deep inner recess. Soon more of the Tolmecs were likewise infected. Like a bush fire that jumped across barriers, the laughter swept through their ranks. Against their wish, one by one they joined in the laughter. Toemain’s whole body shook, as he howled his laugh into the air that robbed him of breath. The strong man soon became weak and helpless with the strange shaking that took hold of him. Goglan to his own astonishment and in spite of his most desperate efforts could not stem the tide that engulfed even him. Not knowing why or how, all of them were struck down powerless to withstand that one expression of humanity that needed no translation. The earth itself shook from that laughter.
Chaiko had collapsed on the grass, helpless to resist the shaking. Beside him Vakari was pounding his fists on the ground and the usually unaffected Cosh was rolling back and forth on the grass clutching at his stomach now aching with the force of laughter. All around, serious men were supine with the laughter that had taken hold.
Only slowly did the men surface from their paroxysms and often groaning and protesting, repeatedly fell back into the laughter. People were utterly spent, but when they looked at each other a fresh wave would break out again. Strangely it was the Tolmecs, who had not laughed for generations, who were the more unable to suppress it. In spite of their best efforts, they were totally overcome, gasping for breath in between fits, holding onto aching sides. And all of them were weak as new-borns, helpless to defend themselves against the impulse that shook and controlled them.
It would have been difficult for Goglan to put into words his expectations of the Spirit-Guide whom he had so zealously promoted to the Tolmecs, but this, this would definitely not have been it. Yet as he wiped tears from his eyes and tried to breathe against the quaking of his belly, he was aware that his world had somehow changed. All of a sudden he was looking at their lives from the height of a hilltop instead of myopically from below. He sensed suddenly how much it had cost his people to trade so much of their humanity for their precious security. Of course the Tolmecs knew how to laugh, a harsh sound, at someone else’s expense—but this outburst had been free, driven by the sound of laughter itself. Even the dullest among the Tolmecs gained some insight from this strangest of experiences. The laughter had loosened the bindings of their tight control and they all sensed suddenly the freedom beyond. Perhaps, there was another way to live!
After the fits of laughter finally subsided and people could at long last catch their breath, an attempt was made to resume the meeting. But all the decorum was gone, all the seriousness had evaporated—and perhaps because of it, the two sides quickly came to an agreement.
The Tolmecs promised to withdraw beyond the river and not to intrude on clan lands. They asked only that a hunting party be allowed to hunt two times on the clan side of the river to make up for the shortfall of the year. They asked also, almost shyly, that Chaiko would visit them sometimes and teach them the new way Latto intended for them to learn. The clan gave permission for the hunts and Chaiko promised to visit them when his duties to the clan allowed. The two sides nodded at each other and the meeting broke up.
Goglan invited Ushi to accompany them back to the Tolmec camp. There was still much to talk about and tomorrow the Tolmecs would be gone, back to their side of the river. Ushi gladly accepted and they soon disappeared into the depth of the landscape.
The clan looked at each other, the leaders and the escorts, dumbfounded by the unexpected turn of events. They would have been better prepared for any other contingency—but this, this left them speechless. Vakari summed up their feelings the best, perhaps, with the cryptic observation, “You can drink all the water you want, but if you were not thirsty to begin with, you will not be any less thirsty after.” No one was sure what had just happened in the field of grass, but they all knew that there was peace, and that was enough.
Chaiko was more overwhelmed than the rest, certainly more than he allowed to show. This had been such an unexpected convergence of seemingly unrelated events that could not have been foreseen or contrived. First, the sound of a flute had prevented a bloody fight and now the sound of laughter had consummated peace. Was there any sense to this at all? What was the use of wisdom, if events turned on such whims? “Wisdom is the ability to turn opportunities to advantage,” his mind hurried to console him. How true, but how chancy. Yet, Falcon had also been born this way. Its mother might have been his need, but its father was surely serendipity. As always, when beset by these thoughts, he looked about anxiously, consumed with worry about what he might be missing by not recognizing its value and use. Surely there was something right in front of his nose, if he could only see it for what it was...
The rest of the camp received the news of peace with great relief. The visitors were jubilant also, for this meant that they could all go home. It had been a good and rare event for so many of the clans to come together, but there were family and things to do awaiting each back home. The happy, boisterous sound that arose around the campfires soon grew into a need to celebrate this fortuitous turn of events. Only Tanya and Dawn noted the strange quiet of their mates.
Chaiko was still trying to rationalize the events into some sense of order, disliking the haphazard, arbitrary flow outside his control. He could not reconcile his need to think, if everything in life was based on some intuitive reactions to life flowing by. In some cases, thinking might even be a hindrance! He struggled mightily with his thoughts, beset by fresh doubts.
Baer was likewise occupied with trying to make sense of things, but he was unable to tease apart the many strands that all seemed to lead back to Chaiko. He was sure that Chaiko had somehow enabled all this but could not figure out how. He felt a sense of superstition growing in him, that perhaps Chaiko really possessed magical powers, as all had claimed. Had not Tomakon told them that even the great Bogan had foreseen that Chaiko in particular would grow into a great shaman? Could Baer doubt the evidence of his own eyes? Had he not been there to see war held off and peace bought at such a cheap price? He shook his head, uncomfortable with his conclusions. It seemed that the brother he thought he knew so well constantly surprised him. Chaiko was growing into a stranger in front of his eyes. Again he shook his head to deny the distance that he felt growing between them.
Chaiko sat by himself, away from all the commotion, struggling to regain some measure of balance. Even Dawn left him alone, warned off by his self-absorption. And Crow, too, kept his distance. It hardly seemed possible that he had grown up with such a powerful wizard as this, who could turn the warlike Tolmecs into such mild mannered, peaceful creatures.
Shortly before the sun set Ushi returned bubbling with news. He had spent all the rest of the day with Goglan and was privy to the reactions of the Tolmecs. He reported eagerly to the council of leaders.
“Nothing that was said in the meeting was new to the Tolmecs. There have always been a few among them who voiced the same concerns: the weight of blood debt accumulating and so on until some dire retribution would surely befall them. Their seers often vied with each other to foretell even more horrific consequences. They had heard it all before. What was new to them was the laughter. They did not know they had it in them and that it would be totally out of their control. It truly shook them up. It was a surprise to me also. I cannot think how you came upon the idea,” Ushi said looking at Chaiko with big eyes. When the shaman just shrugged his shoulders, the trader continued. “The fact is, the Tolmecs have grown tired of their own warlike ways and were looking for a way to change. Meeting you,” and the trader again looked significantly at Chaiko, “gave them an opportunity to embrace change and fulfill their prophecies. Thus they could change without giving up their identity. They can accede to you as their Spirit-Guide. So they claim you.”
Ushi then paused briefly to stuff some meat into his mouth and chewed hungrily. He had not eaten all day in his drive to get some answers. And now he was growing tired of talking, a rare event indeed. He paused, looked at them in turn and said, “I wish someone would explain it all to me. I do not understand how mere laughter can turn hardened people just like that.”
No one answered him as all of them were puzzled by the very same question. The silence grew to listen to itself. Then Chaiko moved slightly and all turned expectantly toward him. The shaman made a gesture to ward off their questions but answered anyway. “As you have said, over many years the Tolmecs grew tired of their ways. But stubbornly they kept to their cruel customs. Like snow building on the high ridges, the layers of succeeding generations made the snow deeper, heavier and all the more ponderous. Even they realized that someday it would all collapse, and they feared that day. The laughter ... that laughter was like the snowball that started rolling and gathered the rest of the snow into an avalanche. The snow came rolling down, freeing the high ground for the first time. And now no amount of shoving will get the snow back up there. The change is irreversible.” Perhaps in that image, the shaman of Standing-Rock Clan had found his answer.
