Ancient Shores Part 28

At precisely 7:00 P.M. P.M. local time, Bill's exuberant theme music, "'Tis the Old-Time Religion," rocked the house, and Bill himself, about thirty bars in, walked out in front of the cameras and welcomed the vast television audience to Fort Moxie. He explained that the Volunteers had come to do battle with the devil, and he led a packed house of eighteen (which, through the wonders of electronic enhancement, sounded like several hundred) in a thundering rendition of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our G.o.d." The choir, whose location in an upstairs bedroom was disguised by drapes and handrails, joined in, and everybody got into the mood very quickly. local time, Bill's exuberant theme music, "'Tis the Old-Time Religion," rocked the house, and Bill himself, about thirty bars in, walked out in front of the cameras and welcomed the vast television audience to Fort Moxie. He explained that the Volunteers had come to do battle with the devil, and he led a packed house of eighteen (which, through the wonders of electronic enhancement, sounded like several hundred) in a thundering rendition of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our G.o.d." The choir, whose location in an upstairs bedroom was disguised by drapes and handrails, joined in, and everybody got into the mood very quickly.

"Brothers and sisters," Bill said, raising his hands, "you may wonder why the Volunteers have come to the Dakota border. Why many of us felt the Lord wanted us here.

"Tonight we are in the shadow of Johnson's Ridge." He looked beyond the camera lenses, out into living rooms around the country, where the believers were gathered. People at home always said that they thought he was talking directly to to them. "Only a few miles from here, scientists have opened their port to another-" He paused, drawing out the moment. "-place. them. "Only a few miles from here, scientists have opened their port to another-" He paused, drawing out the moment. "-place.

"Another place.

"And what kind of place have they found? They speak of trees and pools, of white blossoms and harmless creatures, of beautiful skies and warm sunlight. They speak in terms that are very familiar to anyone who has looked at Genesis." He smiled. "The scientists, of course, don't realize this. They don't recognize the place because they are too much of this this world. world.

"But we we know where they are, brothers and sisters." know where they are, brothers and sisters."

"Amen," chanted his audience.

A reporter from the Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg Free Press, Alma Kinyata, cornered him after the service. "Reverend Addison," she asked, "do you really believe that we've discovered Paradise?"

They were in his office, upstairs at the back of the converted church. It was spartan by any measure and particularly humble when contrasted against the power and influence of its occupant. He'd brought in a desk and a couple of chairs. Copies of the Bible, Metcalf's The Divine Will The Divine Will, and the Oxford Theological Studies Oxford Theological Studies stood between marble bookends. A picture of Addison's mother hung on the wall. stood between marble bookends. A picture of Addison's mother hung on the wall.

"Yes," he said, "I honestly believe we have. There is no way to know for certain, although I think that if I were to go there, I could give you a definitive answer."

Alma felt good about this one. He was responsive, and it was going to be a solid story. "Are you planning to go up there? To Eden?"

"No," he said. "I will not set foot in the Garden. It is forbidden to mortal man."

"You say you would know Paradise if you saw it?"

"Oh, yes. Anyone would."

"But the people who have been there haven't drawn that conclusion."

"I mean, any Christian Christian. I'm sorry, I tend to think in terms of believers."

"How would you know?" would you know?"

Addison's eyelids fluttered. "Paradise partakes of the divine essence. Adam and Eve were sent packing early. That was a smart move, if I may say." He grinned, rather like a large, friendly dog. "It kept the Garden unsullied. Pure. Oh, yes, that place is sacred, and I think anyone who pays attention to the welfare of his soul would recognize that fact immediately. You will recall the angel."

"The angel?"

"Yes. 'And he set an angel with a flaming sword.' I can tell you I I wouldn't want to be among those who have trespa.s.sed into the things of G.o.d." wouldn't want to be among those who have trespa.s.sed into the things of G.o.d."

Alma left convinced that Addison beleived none of it. But she got her story and scared the devil out of a substantial portion of the countryside.

And she was, by the way, wrong about Bill. He believed every word.

Andrea Hawk gave Max a hand with the travel kit and then stood aside.

The video record of the rings icon had revealed a wall with a long window. The window was dark. The wall was plain. They knew nothing else about the last of the possible destinations tied into the Roundhouse.

Somehow the place had looked chilly, so they were all warmly dressed. "You know," said Arky, "it's just a matter of time before we get stuck out there somewhere."

"That's right," said Andrea. "We should devise a test. A way to make sure we can get home."

"If you can think of a way to do it," said April, "set something up." Max knew she had no intention of waiting around. She wanted to look at the last of the places that could be reached from the Roundhouse; and he knew she would go on from there to Eden and begin exploring its its connections. Eventually, he believed, they would lose her. connections. Eventually, he believed, they would lose her.

Andrea stood by the icons while April, Max, and Arky took their places on the grid. "Ready to move out," said April.

She pressed the rings. "Usual routine," said Max, waving a spade. "We'll check the return capability before we do anything." And to Andrea: "We'll send the spade back. If it doesn't work, we'll post a message."

Andrea nodded.

Max tried to relax. He closed his eyes against the coming light and took a deep breath. That was probably what saved his life.

He'd discovered there was less vertigo if he closed his eyes. He watched the familiar glow against the inside of his lids, felt the unsettling lack of physical reality, as if he himself no longer quite existed. Then the light died, weight came back, his body came back.

And he couldn't breathe.

A wall of cold hit him and he went down onto a grid. His ears roared and his heart pounded.

Vacuum. They'd materialized in a vacuum.

April's fingers clawed at him. She staggered away, off the grid. He went after her.

They were in a long, cylindrical chamber filled with machines. The black panel they'd seen in the video was was a window, the night beyond it unbroken by any star. a window, the night beyond it unbroken by any star.

Several windows along the opposite wall admitted the only illumination: light from an enormous elliptical galaxy. Even in his terror, Max was awestruck by the majesty of the scene.

Arky stumbled through the silver glow to the rear of the transportation device, which was supported by a post like the one in Eden. From his angle, Max could see two columns of icons.

Arky looked at the icons and caught Max's eye. Max saw reproach in the distorted features. And something else.

Now.

Max read the tortured stare.

Go.

The dark eyes flicked to the grid. Max seized April while Arky pressed the icon display. One of the symbols lit up, but his fingers stuck and would not come loose.

The terrible cold pushed what air Max had left out of his lungs. The world was slipping away, fading, and he just wanted it to be over.

But April's hand held onto him. Drew him back. He staggered onto the grid, and she collapsed behind him.

Arky was on his knees, watching them.

The chamber began to fade, and Max would have screamed against the coming light if he could.

The tape, played on NBC's Counterpoint Counterpoint, had caught everything. A nationwide audience watched the eerie column of snow move with purpose across its screens. If any program in the history of television had been designed to terrify its audience, this was it.

"And the child," asked the moderator gently, "was found in the field when you drove this thing away?"

"I don't think that's exactly what happened," said Stuyvesant.

"What exactly did did happen, Jim?" happen, Jim?"

"It was more like it was trying to show me where the child was."

The moderator nodded. "Can we run that last portion again, Phil?"

They watched the whirling snow systematically retreat and pause and advance and retreat again. Unfortunately, the audience could not see the connection with the movements of the man holding the camera, but they saw enough.

"Is it true," asked the moderator, "that Jeri never before did anything like this?"

"That's what her folks say. If they say it, I'm sure it's so."

"Why do you think she wandered off this time?"

"Don't know. I guess it just happened."

"Jim, is there any truth to the rumor that she was lured lured? That this thing was trying to get her away from the town?"

"I don't think so," Stuyvesant said.

The cameras moved in for a closeup of the moderator, who turned a quizzical expression to the audience.

26.

O my son, farewell!You have gone beyond the great river--Blackfoot poem If, during that period, a true injustice was committed against any of the persons living in and around Fort Moxie, the victim was Jeri Tully. Jeri also received a gift of inestimable value, and the gift and the injustice were one and the same. any of the persons living in and around Fort Moxie, the victim was Jeri Tully. Jeri also received a gift of inestimable value, and the gift and the injustice were one and the same.

For reasons unknown to the corps of specialists who had examined her, Jeri had never grown properly, and her skull had never become large enough to house her brain. Consequently, the child had suffered not only a diminution in height but r.e.t.a.r.dation as well. Her world was a confused jumble, a place that was arbitrary and unpredictable, in which the principle of causality seemed scarcely to operate at all.

Jeri's pleasures were limited largely to tactile experiences: her mother's smile, an astronaut doll to which she had become particularly attached, her younger brothers, and (on Friday nights) pizza. She had little interest in television, nor was she able to partic.i.p.ate in the games normal children might play. She was delighted when a visitor paid attention to her. And she enjoyed Star Wars Star Wars films, although only in theaters. films, although only in theaters.

June Tully sensed a change in her child after Jim Stuyvesant brought her home on that cold April day. But she could not pin it down. The feeling was so ephemeral that she never mentioned it to her husband.

Jeri, by the nature of her misfortune, would never really grasp her deficiencies, and therefore they could give her no pain. This simple view provided unlimited consolation to her family. But something unique had happened to her when she sank half frozen into the snow off Route 11. She was frightened, but not for her life, because she did not understand danger. She was frightened because she did not know where she was, where her home was. And she could not stop the cold.

Suddenly something had invaded her world. Her mind opened, not unlike a blossom directed toward the sun. She had risen into the sky and ridden the wind, had known a flood of joy unlike anything she'd experienced before. She had reached far beyond her own pale limitations.

During those few moments, Jeri understood the interplay between wind and heat and the tension between open sky and swollen clouds. She soared and dipped above the land, as if she were herself a storm, a thing made equally of sunlight and snow and high winds.

For the rest of her life, her crippled brain would cling to the memory of the sky, of the time when the darkness and the chaos and the weakness had receded. When Jeri had known what it was to be G.o.dlike.

Adam and Max went back in pressure suits to retrieve Arky's body. They said good-bye to him two days later in a quiet Catholic ceremony at the reservation chapel. The priest, who was from Devil's Lake, said the ancient words of farewell in the Sioux tongue.

The mourners were equally divided between Native Americans and their friends. There were a substantial number of attractive young women, and nine members of a teenage basketball team for which Arky had been an a.s.sistant coach.

Max was informed that, as one of the beneficiaries of Arky's sacrifice, he would be expected to say a few words recounting the event. So he used a notebook to record his thoughts. But when the time actually came to speak, the notebook, which was in his pocket, seemed a long way off. It embarra.s.sed him to have anyone think he could not, without help, describe his feeling for the man who had saved his life. "Arky did not know April or me very well," he said, speaking from the front of the chapel. "A few months ago we were strangers.

"Today she and I are here not only because of his courage but also because under extreme conditions he kept his head. He must have known he could not save himself. So he devoted himself to saving us."

Max took a deep breath. His audience leaned forward attentively. "When I first visited his office, I noticed that he kept a bow in a prominent place on the wall. It was his father's, he explained. I could see his pride. The bow is a warrior's weapon. My My father was also a warrior. And he would have been proud to claim such a son." Max's voice shook. He saw again the little girl in the aircraft window. father was also a warrior. And he would have been proud to claim such a son." Max's voice shook. He saw again the little girl in the aircraft window.

He had thought that memory had been laid to rest when he'd gone through the port after April. But he understood in the cold clarity of that moment that it would always be with him.

It is the custom among the tribes of the Dakotas and the Northwest at such times to deemphasize their sense of loss. Rather than mourn, they celebrate the life and accomplishments of the spirit that had taken flesh and lived temporarily among them. Part of that celebration is a ritualized gift-giving by members of the family.

At the end of the ceremony, Max was surprised to be called forward by a teenager who identified himself as Arky's brother. "We have something for you," the boy said.

While an expectant stir ran through the party, he produced a long, narrow box wrapped in hand-woven fabric. Max thanked him and opened the package. It was the bow.

"I can't take this," Max protested.

James Walker stood and turned so the crowd could hear him. "In your own words," he said, "the bow is a warrior's weapon."

Everyone cheered.

"I'm no warrior," Max said. "I'm a businessman."

The tribal chairman smiled. "You have a warrior's spirit, Collingwood. Arky gave his life for you, and it is the family's decision you should have the bow." When Max still hesitated, he added, "He would wish that it find its home with you."

One of the students showed the visitor in, looked inquisitively at April, and withdrew.

She rose and extended her hand. "Mr. Asquith?"

"Pleased to meet you, Dr. Cannon." Asquith's grip was uncertain. He seized her by her fingers. "I don't know whether you've heard of me."

The tone carried just enough self-deprecation to imply that Asquith understood he was in fact a person of no small significance. He was, of course, Walter Asquith, two-time Pulitzer prize-winning critic, essayist, poet, and novelist, best known for a series of scathing social commentaries, the most recent of which, Late News from Babylon Late News from Babylon, had topped the New York Times New York Times best-seller list for six months. April remembered from her college years a guest instructor who was at the end of a long career as an editor and writer. They'd been a.s.signed Asquith's best-seller list for six months. April remembered from her college years a guest instructor who was at the end of a long career as an editor and writer. They'd been a.s.signed Asquith's Marooned in Barbary Marooned in Barbary, a collection of blistering attacks on various literary personages and efforts, in one of which the instructor surfaced briefly to take an arrow between the eyes from the great man. He had proudly pointed out the page and line to his students, and April understood that the a.s.sault had been the apex of his career. Rather like being Dante's barber.