“The Iroquois believed that the world above was inhabited by many gods, and that before the earth had taken shape one of those gods was split down the middle, creating Tawiskaron and Okiwirasch, and sent to earth. These brothers were constantly at odds with each other.”
“Good versus evil,” I interrupted.
“Not exactly. They weren’t opposites, just halves of a whole so that neither was complete without the other.” I slowly nodded my head. “They divided the world fifty-fifty. Okiwirasch, it is said, governed spring and summer, while his brother ruled autumn and spring. Okiwirasch was a friend to man, creating corn and flowers so humans could survive and cherish their new world. Tawiskaron created weeds and poisonous plants so that humans could begin to recognize and learn from their surroundings.”
“I understand,” I said a little dreamily.
“All right, back to seventeenth-century New Hampshire,” Adis said.
“‘Tawiskaron has brought me back to kill me a second time.’ Jed finished Kioawa’s thought.
“‘A second, third, fourth time. He will go on so long as he is amused. It is his way.’
“‘Are you are speaking from experience?’ Jed asked, and it was now Kioawa’s turn to nod.
“‘When I was taken from my village and brought to your world, I was not alone. There were others. When the time came for the great man Lord Bryson to select his pick of the lot, he choose me and a small girl who had been a part of my clan.’ Kioawa sat back and spit with the name of Bryson. ‘We were little more than livestock at first, but when I learned your language he took an interest in cultivating my mind and saving my soul. When Onatah grew into a woman, Lord Bryson was found to have other, more personal interests. In the end, we escaped together. One night a man appeared in my cell. He held Onatah’s hand and she told me to take his other. He led us out of the cellars, through the dark house, and the streets of Boston unseen. I never saw his face, but I knew him.’
“‘It was Tawiskaron wasn’t it?’ Jed asked quickly. Religion had only a small place in his solitary life. He still considered himself a Christian but had never developed the disdain his fellow Europeans had for the traditions and beliefs of the Indian people. Maybe it was a reaction to his father’s overbearingly pious attitude. With a quick wave of his hand, his father routinely dismissed any other belief as superstitious nonsense, but Jed had started to wonder if any religion really got it right. Couldn’t God the father and the Iroquois’ Sky Woman be different faces of the same being? And how would the Christian God fare if the Indians had all the guns and armies? Would Jesus and the holy trinity be dismissed with a wave of a hand as superstitious nonsense?
“‘Yes, it was Tawiskaron,’ Kioawa answered after a slight hesitation. I’m guessing that he didn’t like to say the name out loud. ‘After the last snow fall of this year, I took Onatah and our daughter downriver. It was a trip we had done a hundred times before.’ He spoke slowly and softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. ‘The three of us were in a sturdy canoe in calm waters when they suddenly began to rise. I tried to reach the shore but didn’t make it. We were washed away and apart. I awoke many hours later, alone. Everything around me was strange and unfamiliar. For weeks I searched those unfamiliar shores for any sign of my family, but they were gone. Taken from me.’ He stood and turned towards the door. ‘One morning I awoke to find our lost canoe tied to a tree next to me. Behind it was an enormous bear. He was watching me sleep, and when I awoke he reared up.’ Kioawa stopped his story and for several seconds simply stared at the setting sun. Jed stood after several minutes of silence, and the movement stirred the Indian back to life. ‘I ran. I ran, and ran. I was terrified.’
“‘That’s understandable. I would have run, I tried to run– ’ Jed said, but Kioawa waved a hand to silence him.
“‘You ran because you saw a bear. I ran because I saw Tawiskaron. I knew him, and he knew that I knew him. He called after me but I kept running. I heard Onatah call my name but . . . I was a coward.’
“Jed stood in the cabin, not certain how to respond. This wasn’t an age of hugs, so he simply watched Kioawa and waited for him to recover.
“‘I haven’t been back to the river since. I came here because I heard a rumor that a woman and her baby were seen wandering near here. I know it is just another trick by Tawiskaron, but I have to know. That’s when I found you.’ Another long pause followed. ‘I—we—have to go back and face him. If you don’t, he will find you again, and kill you. If I don’t go back, I will never see my family again, and will never be free of him.’ Kioawa’s eyes began to tear, and he quickly walked out of the cabin and into the early evening.
“The next morning, the two men slowly climbed the mountain, keeping an eye out for unnaturally large bears. They walked in silence, and as they got higher Jed began to feel more like his old self. Kioawa trailed behind a few steps and walked virtually without a sound. When they finally made it to the clearing, the sun was high and the day was more than half gone. Everything seemed quiet and normal, except for the fact that James Magraw sat with his back against his own roughhewn gravestone.
“‘Well, I see that you two finally figured it out,” Magraw said. He then pulled a bottle from his tattered shirt and took a long draw. He climbed to his feet as deftly as Kioawa moved through the woods. He turned to Jed and said, ‘You defiled this sanctuary, this refuge, with the bones of a filthy white man. My brother and I created this place with our very own hands. I carved out the side of this mountain, and leveled the ground, and he planted some of his finest creations. And now the spirit of a nonbeliever hangs over it.’ He spat out something that looked like a large dark insect. It fell to the ground, sprouted thick grey wings, and then took off into the air. ‘This is unforgivable.’ Magraw moved into the bright sunlight and then turned to Kioawa. ‘Are you here to help him, or to give yourself to me so that I might spare your wife and daughter? You are a fool and a coward. I should wipe the memory of you from their minds and give them both to a more deserving warrior. When I came to Onatah she stood fast. She made me proud.’
“‘And you stole her,’ Kioawa answered meekly.
“‘I saved her.’ Magraw had grown to twice his normal size and advanced to within a dozen feet of the pair. ‘From you.’
“‘You are the one who put her in peril by causing the flood.’ Kioawa had stepped around Jed and his shadow and faced Tawiskaron. ‘I have found you, now return them to me,’ he demanded with as much threat as he could muster.
“Tawiskaron started to laugh in James Magraw’s grizzly voice. ‘No,’ he finally said. He flopped to the ground and Jed could feel the solid rock beneath tremor from the impact. ‘I will give you a chance, both of you, to win your lives back.’ He paused again to take a swig from the bottle. ‘No human has ever beaten me in combat. I give both of you the chance to be the first. Two against one; I will even let you work together or separately if you choose.’ He lay back in the grass and closed his eyes. ‘Choose or I will slaughter you both where you stand.’
“‘Together,’ the two men said as one.
“‘I’m waiting,’ the recumbent Magraw said.
“Jed withdrew his knife and circled the prostrate form from the cliff side while Kioawa circled from the forest side. In a blur, Magraw was on them both. Seconds later, Jed was disarmed and dangling over the cliff edge, hanging on by fingertips. He managed to find a foothold and clambered back up to find that Kioawa was draped across a tree limb twenty feet high. He was conscious but bleeding from a large scalp wound.
“‘You called me a coward,’ Kioawa spat, a moment after regaining his senses. ‘Fight me as a man.’ He pressed himself back up onto the branch and then swung his way to the ground. ‘Prove yourself to me.’ He banged his chest with a closed fist and walked back into the clearing. ‘My hands are empty,’ he said as a challenge. ‘Are you afraid to do the same?’
“Jed walked into the midday sunlight but stopped when Kioawa raised his hand.
“‘No! I want this between him and me,’ he said loudly.
Magraw began to laugh. ‘Even as a man I would slaughter you in an instant.’”
“‘Prove it then!’ Anger poured from the Indian. ‘Slaughter me, but do it as a man!’
“Jed watched as Tawiskaron changed from the supersized James Magraw to a normal size Kioawa. The mimicry was perfect, and if they hadn’t been standing ten paces apart Jed wouldn’t have been able to distinguish them.
“‘How is this form? Now the only difference between us is what is in our hearts,’ the twin god said as he began to stalk the Indian. ‘You ran from me once, but this time you won’t get the chance.’
“Just as Tawiskaron said those words, the world around the clearing began to lose its color and faded to a dull white. The trees that bordered the meadow became frosted and their branches began to intertwine, forming a frozen, impenetrable barrier. The only way off the cliff was down.
“Kioawa lunged at his evil double, and the two became locked in a tangle of arms and legs. In an instant, Jed had lost track of who was who as the pair wrestled to the ground. They rolled to and fro, and Jed silently cheered his colleague for lasting more than the instant that Tawiskaron boasted. After several minutes, neither could press an advantage until one of the pair slipped a hand around the other and grabbed a fistful of hair. The second man screamed briefly, but then his face was twisted into the dirt as the first man began to roll them both towards the precipice. Jed lunged for them, but the momentum of the two men easily bowled him over. They swept past him in a rush, and he would have watched them go over save for a sudden flash of light and a loud snap. Something large and dark sailed over the head of Jed and he instinctively ducked. When he recovered, he found that one of the Kioawas was standing at the edge of the cliff wiping blood and sweat from his brow. His face was a mask of fury, and he screamed in a voice that rattled the mountains. Jed covered his ears as Tawiskaron stomped past him and towards the prostrate form of the real Kioawa, who had been thrown halfway across the clearing. A knife appeared in one hand of the twin god and a tomahawk in the other. He continued his ungodly scream, but it had no effect on the unconscious Kioawa. Jed tried to decipher what Tawiskaron was saying, but his words were neither Mohawk nor English. He stood over the fallen Indian and continued his inarticulate bellowing.
“‘Liar, cheat, scoundrel,’ Jed screamed, convinced that he was about to witness the murder of his friend, but his human voice was no match for Tawiskaron. Jed jumped to his feet just as Tawiskaron raised the tomahawk, but before he could drive it home, Jed drove him into the ground. He pummeled the smaller man with a blur of fists that would have certainly killed an ordinary man, but unfortunately he was not hitting an ordinary man. A second flash blinded him, and he felt himself yanked from his knees and thrown into the afternoon sun. He landed on the flat of his back, and every breath of wind was knocked from his lungs. He stared into the blue sky trying to get his lungs to work, knowing that he only had moments to live. Any second, Tawiskaron would appear above his immobile form and the tomahawk would fall. Only that didn’t happen. After several painful seconds, Jed was able to draw a breath and he rolled to his side. All he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears, and a small clump of grass blocked his view of the vengeful god and the fallen Indian. He heard mumbled distant sounds that could have been a conversation, but his oxygen-deprived brain couldn’t sort it out. Gradually, his breath returned and the sounds began to resolve into words. Two voices spoke in the strange language Tawiskaron had been screaming earlier. One was clearly Tawiskaron; it remained angry and challenging, as the other was firm and unyielding. An impasse, or perhaps a resolution, between the two was met, and after a moment of silence a pair of rough hands seized Jed and lifted him into the sky. The face of his father stared back at Jed.
“’I know who you are,’ Jed says defiantly.
“‘Finish what you started when you were just a boy,’ Tawiskaron said, referring to the last time Jed had seen his father, which was in fact in a street outside of their Boston home. Jed had raised his fist to his father that day, and the Captain lay bleeding and dazed in the street as a group of strangers dragged the sixteen-year-old Jed away. The guilt that Jed felt after that encounter was evenly balanced by the anger he felt whenever he thought of his father. Still, he deeply regretted striking his father; even though he was just sixteen at the time, he knew that he should have been stronger and resisted the impulse to lash out. ‘Finish it boy, or are you too weak?’ The voice was his father’s, and so where the words which had been hurled at him countless times as he grew up. Tawiskaron dropped him to the ground. ‘You must be punished for your impudence.’ This also was a favorite saying of his father. Tawiskaron kicked Jed in the ribs, and for the second time in a matter of minutes Jed could not draw a breath. He kicked Jed again, which was unnecessary as the man had no air left in his chest; still the pain threatened his level of consciousness. Jed rolled into a ball while Tawiskaron, in his father’s voice, berated him. Finally, he realized the futility of his physical and verbal barrage and withdrew to allow Jed to recover himself.
“After an eternity Jed was able to roll to his knees. He was bleeding again from all the bites and lacerations Tawiskaron had given him earlier when disguised as a bear. He was relieved to find Kioawa still breathing, twenty paces away. The Indian lay on his side, blood pooling around his face, which was swollen and almost unrecognizable. Still, one eye was open and it followed Jed to his feet. ‘What glory do you find in killing a man already half dead? Or killing a man who bests you in combat?’ Jed motioned towards Kioawa.
“‘Glory? I have no need for glory. My only needs are vengeance and entertainment, and each of you supplies me with both.’ Tawiskaron had his back to the frozen trees, and as he started towards Jed the branches released with a loud Thwang! that echoed off the surrounding mountains. ‘I told you, brother, not to interfere,’ Tawiskaron said as the largest elk either Jed or Kioawa had ever seen seemed to glide into the glen on long majestic legs. ‘I have offered them each a fair deal in exchange for their lives. Lives they have both already forfeited. You have no authority here.’
“‘Liar,’ Kioawa whispered, loud enough for all to hear. The elk turned towards the fallen Indian and studied him. ‘I would have destroyed you, but you broke your promise.’ The elk looked from Kioawa back to Tawiskaron.
“‘You are nothing more than a coward and a liar,’ Jed joined in. ‘Fight me in any form that pleases you, but do it as a mortal. Enough of these games.’ Jed stared down the eyes of his father. The elk finally snorted something that may have contained words, and Tawiskaron laughed.
“‘My brother agrees, but I am not bound by what he believes, or even by promises I make.’
“‘Then I say again you are nothing but a coward and a liar and worthy not of reverence but derision,’ Jed finally said the words meant for his father from so long ago. He screamed a Mohawk war cry and began to run at Tawiskaron. He bent low to tackle the man/god, but just before impact he dropped to his side as if he were sliding into second base and swept Tawiskaron’s legs from beneath him. Jed rolled onto the surprised man and head butted him with enough force that Jed saw stars. Tawiskaron was stunned, but only for a second. He pushed the much larger man off of him with no more effort than if Jed were a piece of lint. He was on his feet in the blink of an eye, and Jed was once again on his back.
“‘I can do this all day, every day,’ he grinned and taunted Jed. ‘How long do you think you can last?’
“‘As long as I need to,’ Jed said rather unconvincingly as he slowly climbed to his feet. He took his thick coat off and found that his tunic and pants were soaked with bright red blood.
“‘Not by the looks of that,’ Tawiskaron laughed in Jed’s father’s mocking voice. ‘Why don’t you just sit down for a moment?’ A force knocked Jed’s feet from beneath him and he landed on his butt with a thud. Just for a moment, he couldn’t breathe, again. ‘I still hav
e some unfinished business with your partner.’
“Now Kioawa was just as bad off as Jed, if not worse. He climbed to a sitting position but knew that he had a number of broken ribs. He had been thrown onto an outcropping of rocks that were much more solid than his chest. He tried to say something but only managed to spit blood. The elk beside him nuzzled the back his head and then ambled away. Kioawa was left facing Tawiskaron alone and defenseless.
“‘I doubt you can be much more fun, so why don’t we simply finish this?’ The knife reappeared in Tawiskaron’s hand as he bore down on the Indian.
“Kioawa struggled to his feet. His breathing was shallow and excruciatingly painful. He regarded Tawiskaron for a moment and then spat a bloody glob onto the face of Jed’s father. ‘I should never have run from you. You are not worthy,’ he whispered.
“‘I am worthy enough to do this.’ He slashed Kioawa across the chest. It wasn’t a deep wound, just enough to further weaken the man. Kioawa fell painfully to his knees, striking the very rocks that had broken his ribs. After a moment, he tried to struggle to his feet but only managed to fall back onto his hands.
“‘Unworthy,’ he said a second time, but could only manage to mouth the words.
“A look of frustration creased the faux face of Tawiskaron. He wanted to break the Indian, to have him beg for mercy, or for death, but all he seemed to manage was defiance. ‘I have an idea,’ he said, and a second loud crack came from the frozen trees. A moment later, a young Indian woman holding a baby stumbled into the light as if they were being pushed by an unseen force.’
“‘Kioawa,’ she screamed, and she tried to run to her husband but struck an invisible wall. She wailed but was silenced by a wave of Tawiskaron’s hand.
“‘Say goodbye to your family. This is the way she will remember you, on your knees before me, bloody and broken.’ He laughed and took a step backward to allow Onatah an unobstructed view of her husband.
The Unyielding Future Page 29