arms and legs would not work. He seemed to have been turned to stone.
"Come on, come on, Little Chief. You've got to see this."
At last Tommy sprang up and ran out onto the lawn, to the hedges
surrounding the swimming pool, where Runningdeer had been trimming.
"This is a rare thing," Runningdeer said in a somber voice, and he
pointed to a green snake that lay at his feet on the sunwarmed decking
around the pool.
Tommy began to pull back in fear.
But the Indian seized him by the arm, held him close, and said, "Don't
be afraid. It's only a harmless garden snake. It's not going to hurt
you. In fact it's been sent here as a sign to you.
" Tommy stared wide-eyed at the eighteen-inch reptile, which was curled
to form an 0, its own tail in its mouth, as if eating itself. The
serpent was motionless, glassy eyes unblinking. Tommy thought it was
dead, but the Indian assured him that it was alive.
"This is a great and powerful sign that all Indians know," said
Runningdeer. He squatted in front of the snake and pulled the boy down
beside him.
"It is a sign," he whispered, "a SUPERNATURAL sign, sent from the great
spirits, and it's always meant for a young boy, so it must have been
meant for you. A very powerful sign.
" Staring wonderingly at the snake, Tommy said, "Sign? What do you
mean? It's not a sign. It's a snake."
"An omen. A presentiment. A sacred sign," Runningdeer said.
As they hunkered before the snake, he explained such things to Tommy in
an intense, whispery voice, all the while holding him by one arm. Sun
glare bounced off the concrete decking. Shimmering waves of heat rose
from it too. The snake lay so motionless that it might have been an
incredibly detailed jeweled choker rather than a real snake-each scale a
chip of emerald, twin rubies for the eyes. After a while Tommy drifted
back into the queer trance that he'd been in while lying on the patio,
and Runningdeer's voice slithered serpentlike into his head, deep inside
his skull, curling and sliding through his brain.
Stranger still, it began to seem that the voice was not really b - 267
Runningdeer's at all, but the snake's. He stared unwaveringly at the
viper and almost forgot that Runningdeer was there, for what the snake
said to him was so compelling and exciting that it filled Tommy's
senses, demanded his entire attention, even though he did not fully
understand what he was hearing. This is a sign of destiny, the snake
said, a sign of power and destiny, and you will be a man of great power,
far greater than your father, a man to whom others will bow down, a man
who will be obeyed, a man who will never fear the future because he will
make the future, and you will have anything you want, anything in the
world. But for now, said the snake, this is to be our secret. No one
must know that I've brought this message to you, that the sign has been
delivered, for if they know that you are destined to hold power over
them, they will surely kill you, slit your throat in the night, tear out
your heart, and bury you in a deep grave. They must not know that you
are the king-to-be, a god-on-earth, or they will smash you before your
strength has fully flowered. Secret. This is our secret. I am the
self-devouring snake, and I will eat myself and vanish now that I've
delivered this message, and no one will know I've been here. Trust the
Indian but no one else.
No one. Ever.
Tommy fainted on the pool decking and was ill for two days. The doctor
was baffled. The boy had no fever, no detectable swelling of lymph
glands, no nausea, no soreness in the joints or muscles, no pain
whatsoever. He was merely gripped by a profound malaise, so lethargic
that he did not even want to bother holding a comic book; watching TV
was too much effort. He had no appetite. He slept fourteen hours a day
and lay in a daze most of the rest of the time.
"Perhaps mild sunstroke," the doctor said, "and if he doesn't snap out
of it in a couple of days, we'll put him in the hospital for tests."
During the day, when the judge was in court or meeting with his
investment associates, and when Tommy's mother was at the country club
or at one of her charity luncheons, Runningdeer slipped into the house
now and then to sit by the boy's bed for ten minutes. He told Tommy
stories, speaking in that soft and strangely rhythmic voice.
Miss Karval, their live-in housekeeper and part-time nanny, knew that
neither the judge nor Mrs. Shaddack would approve of the Indian's
sickbed visits or any of his other associations with Tommy. But Miss
Karval was kindhearted, and she disapproved of the lack of attention
that the Shaddacks gave to their offspring. And she liked the Indian.
She turned her head because she saw no harm in it-if Tommy promised not
to tell his folks how much time he spent with Runningdeer.
Just when they decided to admit the boy to a hospital for tests, he
recovered, and the doctor's diagnosis of sunstroke was accepted.
Thereafter, Tommy tagged along with Runningdeer most days from the time
his father and mother left the house until one of them returned. When
he started going to school, he came right home after classes; he was
never interested when other kids invited him to their houses to play,
for he was eager to spend a couple of hours with Runningdeer before his
mother or father appeared in the late afternoon.
And week by week, month by month, year by year, the Indian made Tommy
acutely aware of signs that foretold his great though as yet
unspecified-destiny. A patch of four-leaf clovers under the boy's
bedroom window. A dead rat floating in the swimming pool. A score of
chirruping crickets in one of the boy's bureau drawers when he came home
from school one afternoon. Occasionally coins appeared where he had not
left them-a penny in every shoe in his closet; a month later, a nickel
in every pocket of every pair of his par s; later still, a shiny silver
dollar inside an apple that Runningdeer was peeling for him-and the
Indian regarded the coins with awe, explaining that they were some of
the most powerful signs of all.
"Secret," Runningdeer whispered portentously on the day after Tommy's
ninth birthday, when the boy reported hearing soft bells ringing under
his window in the middle of the night.
On arising, he had seen nothing but a candle burning on the lawn.
Careful not to wake his parents, he sneaked outside to take a closer
look at the candle, but it was gone.
"Always keep these signs secret, or they'll realize that you're a child
of destiny, that one day you'll have tremendous power over them, and
they'll kill you now, while you're still a boy, and weak. Who's
'they'?" Tommy asked.
'They, them, everyone," the Indian said mysteriously.
'But who?"
- 269 'Your father, for one."
"Not him."
"Him especially," Runningdeer whispered.
"He's a man of power. He enjoys having power over others, intimidating,
armtwisting to get his way. You've seen how people bow and scra
pe to
him.
" Indeed, Tommy had noticed the respect with which everyone spoke to his
father-especially his many friends in politics-and a couple of times had
glimpsed the unsettling and perhaps more honest looks they gave the
judge behind his back. They appeared to admire and even revere him to
his face, but when he was not looking they seemed not only to fear but
loathe him.
"He is satisfied only when he has all the power, and he won't let go of
it easily, not for anyone, not even for his son. If he finds out that
you're destined to be greater and more powerful than he is . . . no
one can save you then. Not even me."
Perhaps if their family life had been marked by more affection, Tommy
would have found the Indian's warning difficult to accept. But his
father seldom spoke to him in more than a perfunctory way, and even more
seldom touched him-never a real hug and never a kiss.
Sometimes Runningdeer brought a gift of homemade candy for the boy.
"Cactus candy," he called it. There was always just one piece for each
of them, and they always ate it together, either sitting on the patio
when the Indian was on his lunch break, or as Tommy followed his mentor
around the two-acre property on a series of chores. Soon after eating
the cactus candy, the boy was overcome by a curious mood. He felt
euphoric. When he moved, he seemed to float. Colors were brighter,
prettier. The most vivid thin of all was Runningdeer His hair was .
impossibly black, his skin a beautiful bronze, his teeth radiantly
white, his eyes as dark as the end of the universe. Every sound-even
the crisp snick-snick-snick of hedge clippers, the roar of a plane
passing overhead on its way to Phoenix airport, the insect-hum of the
pool motor-became music; the world was full of music, though the most
musical of all things was Runningdeer's voice. Odors also became
sharper flowers, cut grass, the oil with which the Indian lubricated his
tools. Even the stink of perspiration was pleasant. running deer
smelled like fresh-baked bread and hay and copper pennies.
Tommy seldom remembered what Runningdeer talked about4 after they ate
their cactus candy, but he did recall that the Indian spoke to him with
a special intensity. A lot of it had to do with the sign of the
moonhawk.
"If the great spirits send the sign of the moonhawk, you'll know you're
to have tremendous power and be invincible. Invincible! But if you do
see the moonhawk, it'll mean the great spirits want something from you
in return an act that will truly prove your worthiness." That much
stuck with Tommy, but he remembered little else. Usually, after an
hour, he grew weary and went to his room to nap; his dreams them were
particularly vivid, more real than waking life, and' always involved the
Indian. They were simultaneously frightening and comforting dreams.
On a rainy Saturday in November, when Tommy was ten, he sat on a stool
by the workbench at one end of the four-car garage, watching as
Runningdeer repaired an electric carving knife that the judge always
used to slice the turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The air was
pleasantly cool and unusually humid for Phoenix. Runningdeer and Tommy
were talking about the rain, the upcoming holiday, and things that had
happened at school recently. They didn't always talk about signs and
destiny, or otherwise Tommy might not have liked the Indian so much;
Runningdeer was a great listener.
When the Indian finished repairing the -electric knife, he plugged it in
and switched it on. The blade shivered back and forth so fast that the
cutting edge was a blur.
Tommy applauded.
" You see this?" Runningdeer asked, raising the knife higher and
squinting at it in the glow from the fluorescent bulbs overhead.
Bright glints flew from the shuttling blade, as if it were busily
slicing up the light itself.
"What?" Tommy asked.
"This knife, Little Chief. It's a machine. A frivolous machine, not a
really important machine like a car or airplane or electric wheelchair.
My brother is . . . crippled . . . and must get around in an
electric wheelchair. Did you know that, Litdc Chiefs"
"No.One of my brothers is dead, the other crippled."
- 271 'm sorry.
"They are my half-brothers, really, but the only ones I have.
"How did it happen? Why?"
Runningdeer ignored the questions.
"Even if this knifeS purpose is just to carve a turkey that could be
carved as well by hand, it's still efficient and clever. Most machines
are much more efficient and clever than people."
The Indian lowered the cutting instrument slightly and turned to face
Tommy. He held the purring knife between them and looked past the
shimmering blade into Tommy's eyes.
The boy felt himself slipping into a spell similar to that he'd
experienced after eating cactus candy, though they had eaten none.
"The white man puts great faith in machines," Runningdeer said. "He
thinks machines are ever so much more reliable and clever than people.
if you want to be truly great in the white man's world, Little Chief,
you must make yourself as much like a machine as you can. You must be
efficient. You must be relentless like a machine. You must be
determined in your goals, allowing no desires or emotions to distract
you."
He moved the purring blade slowly toward Tommy's face, until the boy's
eyes crossed in an attempt to focus on the cutting edge.
"With this I could lop away your nose, slice off your lips, carve away
your cheeks and ears . . .
" Tommy wanted to slip off the workbench stool and run.
But he could not move.
He realized that the Indian was holding him by one wrist.
Even if he had not been held, he would have been unable to flee. He was
paralyzed. Not entirely by fear, either. There was something seductive
about the moment; the potential for violence was in an odd way . . .
exciting.
" . . . cut off the round bail of your chin, scalp you, lay bare the
bone, and you'd bleed to death or die of one cause or another but . . .
The blade was no more than two inches from his nose.
" - - . but the machine would go on .
One inch.
" - - . the knife would still purr and slice, purr and slice Half an
inch.
because machines don't die Tommy could feel the faint, faint breeze
stirred by the continuously moving electric blade.
machines are efficient and reliable. If you want to do well in the
white man's world, Little Chief, you must be like a machine.
" Runningdeer switched off the knife. He put it down.
He did not let go of Tommy.
Leaning close, he said, "If you wish to be great, if you wish to please
the spirits and do what they ask of you when they send you the sign of
the moonhawk, then you must be determined, relentless, cold,
single-minded, uncaring of consequences, just like a machine.
" Thereafter, especially when they ate cactus candy together, they often
talked of being as dedicated t
o a purpose and as reliable as a machine.
As he approached puberty, Tommy's dreams 'were less often filled with
sexual references than with images of the moonhawk and with visions of
people who looked normal on the outside but who were all wires and
transistors and clicking metal switches on the inside.
In the summer of his twelfth year, after seven years in the Indian's
company, the boy learned what had happened to Runningdeer's
half-brothers. At least he learned some of it. He surmised the rest.
He and the Indian were sitting on the patio, having lunch and watching
the rainbows that appeared and faded in the mist thrown up by the lawn
sprinklers. He had asked about Runningdeer's brothers a few times since
that day at the workbench, more than a year and a half earlier, but the
Indian had never answered him. This time, however, Runningdeer stared
off toward the distant, hazy mountains and said, "This is a secret I
tell you."
"All right."
"As secret as all the signs you've been given."
"Sure."
"Some white men, just college boys, got drunk and were cruising around,
maybe looking for women, certainly looking for trouble. They met my
brothers by accident, in a restaurant parking lot. One of my brothers
was married, and his wife was with him, and the college boys started
playing tease-the-Indians, but they also really liked the look of my
brother's wife. They - 273 wanted her and were drunk enough to think
Dean Koontz - (1989) Page 36