THE SAVAGE SERIES
EPISODE ONE:
SAVAGE DAWN
By Patrick Cassidy
JMW Publishing
New York, NY
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This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher.
This is a work of fiction and all names, places, incidents and character traits are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely and totally coincidental.
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Copyright 2013 (All Rights Reserved)
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter One
Slowly and lovingly, the warrior laid out his weapons upon the animal skins before him, painstakingly arranging each one of his tools. He allowed his hand to linger for a brief moment on the smooth ash handle of his tomahawk; he was reluctant to be parted from it for even a second. It was a beautiful weapon, measuring more than two-feet long and featuring a stunningly crafted handle that was covered from base to head with intricate Native American carvings.
This was the work of his grandfather’s people, many moons ago.
Christopher traced the blade, running an index finger along its edge. Despite its age, it was still a deadly weapon and he smiled as he imagined the 4-inch stone head whirling end over end before striking the chest of an enemy invader. Yes, it was his favorite weapon by far. A weapon any warrior would have been proud to call his own, such was the mastery of the craftsmanship.
Carefully checking each weapon, Christopher had to make sure they all looked the part that they were to play in the events of the coming evening.
His face was a mask of concentration as he wiped and polished each blade and each handle – his tomahawk was first, as always, soon followed by his trusty black bear-jaw knife, gleaming white in the dim light, and finally his bow. The warrior stood, feet spread apart, as he motioned drawing back the string, aiming at an imaginary target in the distance, letting loose an invisible arrow that was to inflict his righteous fury upon those foes that would dare encroach upon his sacred land.
Satisfied that his bow was battle-ready, Chris placed the last of his weaponry on the skins and turned to the place where his clothes and armor hung.
First, the warrior hung around his neck what had become the most essential part of his battle attire – a bone breastplate, fashioned from long bone-beads and held together with leather strapping. He savored the ice-cold chill it sent through his body.
Next, he carefully attached the belt that was to hold his weapons. The leather leggings that attached to the belt would offer his legs some small measure of protection from the rough times that awaited him in the darkness to come. The colorful beads and decorations stitched into the leggings stood out even in this dim light. They summoned a spiritual guardian, his mother had told him when she stitched them, which would follow him into battle and protect him from those that would seek to cause him harm.
He applied the necessary war-paint and slowly affixed several feathers to his hair. The feathers hung downwards, in the true traditional fashion of a brave ready for war.
Now fully garbed, the warrior fixed each weapon into its place upon his belt. His trusty steed awaited him, and he could feel its impatience boiling over just as his own adrenaline was beginning to surge through his veins. This rush of energy would, he prayed, help see him through the night successfully.
Switching on the light, Chris took one last moment to examine himself clearly in the long mirror before him. Even in the dim light of the small lamp on his dressing room table, he could see that each aspect of ceremonial costume was perfectly attended to. After all, he had fought this battle countless times before.
Chris smiled at his reflection; it was ironic that he stood here now, dressed as his people had throughout the ages. Born of a native and a white man, Chris was an impure being in an impure world. Yes, he would ride out on his ‘horse’ into the light and people would scream at the very sight of him, but there would be no glory in this battle.
As he heard the screams outside grow louder, Chris turned and exited the dressing room, closing the door behind him. The corridor was brightly lit and hurt his eyes as he made his way towards the clamoring din that signaled a large crowd, impatiently awaiting their Indian warrior. Chris walked confidently, sure of himself and of his ability to entertain even the most demanding of crowds. This was his turf and he was the chosen one. His services were in demand and he never disappointed.
The noise was growing louder and louder and as he approached his horse, ready to ride out into the night to whatever fate awaited him. Thumping music and screams of lusty women filled the air as he smiled and nodded. Tonight was going to be something special.
Working as a partially clothed male entertainer was the only way Chris knew to provide for his mother, and ensure they lived at least modestly in their two-bedroom apartment. He knew he wouldn’t have to do it forever. Once he graduated from UNLV he could pursue a career in what he truly loved – engineering, but that was still years away.
Besides, he actually kind of liked being an Indian-themed male stripper, because in a perverse kind of way, it brought him closer to his roots. He took a quick peek beyond the curtain, the only thing separating him from the hungry crowd of barking women. The place was packed. As usual, the heating was turned up too high and he could smell the aroma of the women out there, a sweet almost sickly smell of sweat and perfume mixed with the underlying scent of lust. Steadying himself on his custom made horse, crafted from a broom handle; Chris checked his watch. It was 9:59pm. Soon his song would announce to all that he had arrived.
He wondered what his mother was doing at that very moment.
When he had left her she had still been fairly cognizant, but he doubted she would be that way when he made it home later.
Addicted to heroin, she was almost lost to him… the drugs had taken away most of the mother he once knew. A full-blooded Native American princess, she had been warped and twisted by Chris’ white father, a despicable man who preyed on the weak. This man made his living sucking the life from others to sustain his own grotesque empire.
Chris scowled at these thoughts of his father, a man he barely knew, but who was well-known to all those who suffered because of his evil ways.
All at once, his song began to blare and Chris stiffened, assuming the pose. The Indian drums played out a background beat that he would ride his horse to. Chris readied himself before bursting through the curtains, whooping like an Indian warrior riding into battle, his tomahawk clasped in one hand and the other gripping the reins of his horse.
The club was indeed packed full of waiting women and Chris spotted the bride to be immediately, amongst the screaming, excited mass. She was the one being pushed to the center of the dance floor, bashful and embarrassed. They were always like that to begin with, but Chris had his ways and soon she would be riding him as wildly as he was riding his broom horse.
Whooping and waving his Tomahawk, Chris discarded his horse and approached the dance floor to begin his night’s work.
Chapter Two
Chris pushed closed the door and stepped into the hallway of his apartment, he was happy to be home at last. He was greeted by silence, but that was nothing new. He rarely returned home from work before 2am and his mother was probably passed out on the edge of the sofa just as she always was
when he came home at night, a needle hanging out of her arm.
The curse of her poisonous addiction was not only that she spent most of her life lost in the perennial fog of a heroin high, but that she always had access to this evil drug that literally sapped the life and spirit right out of her. Chris felt a pang of regret as he switched on the hallway light and regarded himself in the mirror, not quite happy with the image that stared back at him. He was a handsome young man; that much was certain and he never lacked female attention, but that wasn’t exactly a priority on his list. He just wanted to be normal, or at least be part of a normal existence, with a family who loved him and helped him as he studied and worked his way towards his degree, like other American families did.
Rummaging in his backpack, he found what he was looking for and began to locate and wipe away the lipstick that seemed to cover his entire face, causing his olive skin to appear unnaturally pink. Something had to give sooner rather than later, deep down he knew that a reckoning was approaching fast, like the strong winds of Yaponcha, the wind god that had once plagued his people.
His face now clear of lipstick, he felt more like himself, and felt a power surging through his veins as he looked into the dark eyes of his reflection staring back at him. He had known for a while now but was unable to or maybe even too cowardly to do anything about it. He scowled and shook his head, slapping his hands on the wall either side of the mirror before his body went limp and his head fell forward in defeat. His mother was using his money to pay for her habit … a habit that was killing her. One can only hide the truth from oneself for so long, before it eventually finds its way back out into the light, it is inevitable.
Dropping his bag in the hallway, Chris made his way into the living room where he was sure his mother would be lying prone on the sofa, as usual. The bright light from the naked bulb in the ceiling illuminated the disgrace that had come to be their living room. Discarded junk food packaging, pizza boxes, empty beer bottles and rotting food littered the floor, discarded by his mother who could barely even haul herself to the toilet these days… unable to escape the deepness of the chasm she had willingly thrown herself into.
Chris sighed and made his way over to the prone form of his mother. She lay passed out, her once beautiful ebony black hair was now streaked with white and looked tired, lank and lifeless but it wasn’t her hair that brought tears to Chris’ eyes. Her beautiful face, once proud, with dark brown eyes that radiated strength and dignity was now just a shadow of its former glory, as was her once great spirit. He stood over her and looked upon what his mother had become for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time he felt a fury washing through him, causing him to shake and ball his fists until his knuckles hurt. Nita was the name given to her by his grandfather.
In Choctaw, Nita means bear and his mother had lived up to her name for a long time, possessing strength that Chris was in awe of. That was, until his father had corrupted her and introduced her to heroin. Chris, being only nineteen now, was too young to really comprehend what was happening all those years ago when his mother began to change. It was subtle at first, but then as he grew up and neared the end of high school, she transformed drastically. Gone was the spirit of the bear within her, replaced now by a shadow.
Even that elusive shadow would disappear for hours on end while she was lost in the darkness that only heroin could bring.
Chris had lost his father too.
Not that his father had ever even remotely been what one could call a ‘father’, of course. At first he was there, and Chris remembered how he would come home from work and talk of the great building projects. Chris had been fascinated, and back then there had been love among them, they had been a real family… Chris shook his head, kneeling beside his mother, pushing away the rubbish that littered the floor and carefully removing the needle that still hung from her ruined flesh.
He had been through this same ritual on countless occasions and had become numb to it. Once upon a time, tears would have fallen as he first placed two hundred dollars of his earnings in his mother’s purse before kneeling at her side and removing the tainted tools she used to lose herself. Those same tools introduced by his father, Richard, who had long ago abandoned them both. Lifting her arm, he prepared to remove the belt she had fastened there when he noticed how cold she was.
She wasn’t just cold, but ice-cold – stiff and her arm refused to bend. He froze, eyes immediately moving to her face, searching for the signs and as he stared, his heart sank into a sour pit of sudden despair.
No. Please God.
As he held his mother’s lifeless body to him, he shook with barely contained rage.
He had known this day would come eventually. Instead of facing it and doing something, he had ignored the signs … he had hidden from the truth.
Chris knew the pain would inevitably catch up with him, but for now his eyes remained dry as he spent his last moments with his mother, gently cradling her for the final time.
Chapter Three
Two days after his mother, Nita, passed on to the other side, Chris finally managed to motivate himself to pack up her things and try to get his life back to some semblance of normality.
Not that it had been normal in the first place.
He had ventured out shopping earlier and managed to get some cardboard boxes from the local mini-mart. That had been the easy part. Now he stood in the living room, the place that had become his mother’s den, where she spent most of her time, awake or not. He stood and surveyed the scene, realizing it was going to be a very long day.
He would start with the living room first, then her bedroom, and then he finally felt a shred of emotion as the realization hit him like a punch to the abdomen – this was it – she was gone forever. Once he packed up her things, there would be nothing left to remind him of her. He would be alone, but he knew it wasn’t the loneliness that scared him, his mother had been lost to him long ago. He already knew what it was to be alone. Shaking his head, his long black hair gently falling into his eyes as he did so, he swept the emotion to the side. He had better things to do than get all melancholy now.
Chris picked up one of the boxes and chose a corner, where he began placing his mother’s possessions into the box, gently. He was careful to be respectful of her things. As Chris worked, he spotted the potted plants on the windowsill, now fading in color and beginning to wilt from lack of care. He nodded and sighed, if there was one thing his mother had been skilled at, even as she succumbed to the poisonous grip of heroin addiction, it was tending to her garden and house plants. She always said she had been born with a green thumb and Chris smiled as he recalled how she always managed to keep her flowers colorful and plants green, but whenever she left home for a day or two when he was younger she always entrusted him to care for them. He laughed as he began placing the plants on the floor by the sofa, ready to pack away, without fail whenever she came home, no matter how hard he tried the plants and flowers would be wilting and half-dead. She had the green thumb alright.
After another thirty minutes Chris took a little break and sat on the edge of the sofa, as he perched and wiped away the sweat of another scorching afternoon heat wave, he noticed something jutting out from under the sofa. Picking it up, he stared at it for a long moment, memories flooding his brain and filling his mind’s eye with images that played like miniature movies.
The object was a handmade bone necklace, with bluebird feathers and wooden beads that had been given to his mother by her father. He held it up before his face, remembering how it had looked on her the first time he ever saw her wear it, during a funeral for his uncle at the Wahyani reservation. He had only been a young boy at the time and it was the first time he had visited the sacred ground of his mother and grandfather – Chief Thunder Bear.
A small tribe, the Wahyani was a proud collection of warriors. A century earlier, their people had banded together with the other tribes to fight off the hordes of European invaders that threatened to overwhe
lm them and their way of life. As a boy, Chris had been in of awe of the warriors that day at the funeral, remembering the stories his mother had fondly regaled him with.
Even with their land long gone and their culture all but wiped out, his people had never given up, joining others to make a stand at Wounded Knee during the uprising in 1973. His grandfather and some of the other warriors present had been a part of that legendary stand and he had great respect for them.
Back then he had considered himself a Whayani tribe member, despite living a modern city life with his mother. However, his first visit to the reservation as a boy did not provide the welcome he expected.
Chris felt a pang of regret as he remembered the abrasive looks he and his mother received from some of the other more traditional tribe members. Throughout the long funeral ceremony for uncle, and afterwards, Chris had been saddened and confused by their refusal to speak to him or his mother, as if they were alien visitors.
Chris placed the necklace around his own neck at that point and held it close to his chest. What was he? Was he an Indian warrior or was he a white man? Did he represent the people who had stolen the Whayani way of life or those who it had been stolen from?
He didn’t know then and he still didn’t know. Nothing had changed.
Chris leaned back, resting his head against a cushion, and once again recalled the memory of his uncle’s funeral. It had been an ancient ceremony. He allowed himself to feel as he had then, as a little boy, captivated by the Shaman conducting the ceremony that would ensure the safe passage of his uncle’s spirit to the afterlife.
At that moment, just for the duration of the ceremony, Chris had felt like a spirit was bubbling up within him. He stood among his people to bid farewell to one of their lost brothers. The Shaman had uttered the prayers that would protect his uncle’s spirit, as his body lay wrapped there in its coffin, an eagle feather blowing softly in the breeze that swept through the area like so many spirits traveling to the afterlife.
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