“Most unchivalrous behavior,” I murmured. “Befitting of a fop!”
The youngster heard my admonitions of his character and turned to me. Uncannily, he seemed to understand what I had said and took offense. He stepped close once more, this time drawing a long knife from his belt. He walked around me, flashing his blade so I could see.
The others all grinned expectantly.
Without meaning to, I gulped.
With no small degree of drama, he circled me twice more, and then stood at my backside, laying the cold blade against the nape of my neck. He slid it inside my collar, and then, with a long slow move, he ran the knife down the length of my right sleeve, letting it run out at the cuff. The sleeve peeled away from my arm and hung empty at my side. He repeated this with my left arm as well.
All the while, his partners sniggered and grinned.
I tried to smile. What else could I do? It was a strategy I had learned many years before, when I was a boy myself, and subject to a similar scorn of the bullyboys at my school. Although honestly, it had never come to the disarming result I had always hoped it would.
The boy stuck his knife once more to the back of my neck.
He held it there against my skin, moving it lightly up and down, up and down, shaving at the little hairs like some sort of dainty barber.
Finally, in a wink, he thrust the knife downward with a great ripping noise. I expected to feel my spine and liver spill out onto the ground. But they did not. Instead, my velvet gown dropped away from me, leaving me bare of torso.
I clutched the material at the waist to keep myself partially covered. But the boy gave me to know, by way of a growl and fierce tugging at my arms, that he preferred for me to let go of the dress. And so I did. It fell to the ground around my boots. There I stood, shucked like an ear of corn, exposed for all to see.
I covered myself with my hands.
Now those boys hooted and hollered in true hooligan fashion.
I looked apologetically to Virtue. She was still atop Genevieve, surrounded by wild Indian boys, but she did not seem afraid or appalled or the least bit embarrassed on my behalf. If anything, she was patient, tolerant, composed. I was sorry that I would now be murdered in front of her, probably skinned and pierced with arrows. Probably castrated. I was sorry for what she would most likely have to endure because I had failed to deliver her as I had promised to the gods. We had come so far, and gotten so close. But alas!
Another boy got down from his horse and pushed me to the ground so that I fell away from my dress. He then snatched it up and ran off with it to a little tree growing on the hill. He tied the sleeves spread wide, letting the velvet flap in the breeze. From where I was kneeling in the dirt, the dress looked like the hide of some queer animal. The boy ran back over to the group, drew his bow, and shot an arrow through the dress. Everyone whooped, and then they each did the same, filling the empty gown with a constellation of tiny holes that let in the daylight from behind.
When they were done with their target practice, they turned back to me. I was still on all fours. Someone shot an arrow into the ground between my hands. They all laughed when I flinched. Then one of the boys came over and jerked my arm, indicating that he would have me to stand. I struggled to my feet. The lad shouted in my face. His own face was painted to look like an owl. Large circles around each of his eyes. Something like a beak drawn over the bridge of his nose. He shouted at me once more, but I had no idea what he was saying.
“I am sorry.” I shrugged.
He took an arrow and tapped its shaft hard against my chest, shouting nonsense.
I knew that this was it. I was done for.
Again, he slapped me hard on the breastbone with the arrow. Thwack!
I gritted my teeth against the pain.
I waited for him to do his worst.
But then the Owl Boy did something I was not expecting. He leaned forward, squinting at my chest.
“Oooh!” he said.
He lifted his hand slowly into the air between us, and then he touched his finger to my skin. It was a most bewildering moment. Transfixed, he traced the perimeter of my tattoo, going all around its edge, again and again, so lightly that, even with the anxiety of my predicament, it almost tickled.
I DECIDED TO TAKE a chance.
What, I figured, did I have to lose?
I licked my lips, cleared my throat, and said to the Owl Boy, “Syatapis!”
He let his finger come away from my skin and stared at me. His eyes grew so large they seemed to fill the exaggerated owl-eye circles drawn around them. I did not know if he was a stray Blackfoot, joined up with the Bannock or Utes. I did not even know if it was reasonable for those tribes to blend. But the word obviously meant something to him. He took a quick step away from me and turned to his fellows. With a solemn tone, he said something to the boyish chief.
The leader snorted, and dismissively jerked his chin. But Owl Boy persisted. He pointed at me and repeated what he had said, this time even more earnestly than before. The bigger boy appeared unsure. He grunted. He strode over and peered at my tattoo.
Owl Boy prattled on and on, trying, I surmised, to explain what a special creature I was. The leader listened, deliberating, while the others all leaned in behind him, trying to catch a glimpse of the mark on my chest. One of these boys called out to the leader. I heard him use the word Syatapis.
I took this as a good omen, and boldly I lifted my arm toward Virtue. “She, too, is Syatapis,” I announced. “She is the princess of all Syatapis.”
They all turned and regarded Virtue with wonder.
But the leader was not going to let it go at that. He needed to be sure. He needed to show himself as the boss. He studied me all up and down, looking, I supposed, for gills or fins or some other indication of my Syatapis heritage. Although I was naked and more defenseless than I would have preferred, I tried to stand tall, and show a character worthy of the noble underwater people I was professing to represent. I tried, that is to say, to look as much as I was possibly able to look like the brother of a turtle or a fish.
The boy chief examined my tattoo. He touched it. Then, straightening up, he touched his own chest over the place where he kept his heart. Lifting his other hand to his face, he laid a single finger at the corner of his eye. Gazing deeply into my own eyes, he slowly drew the tip of his finger down his cheek, as if marking the path of a teardrop. The motion took a long second to complete. When he was finished, he tipped his head at me and asked, quietly, “Heart tear?”
Now I do not know if he posed this question to me in English, or some language of the American Indian. The stress of the circumstances made it hard to distinguish. Either way, the essence of what he uttered connected in the deep well of sounds from which all we creatures draw to make our meanings known. I understood what he meant. And what is more, I understood that he understood something about me that I thought was a secret. A tremor flowed through me right then. It was one of those rare times when one being on this planet – no matter how different from us they might seem – connects with us on the level of the soul. It was like reading a poem at midnight. It was all that deep mystery stuff of life.
Moved by this familiarity, I lifted my hand and laid it flat against the boy’s chest. He did not recoil, but stood stock-still. His heart beat a rhythm – ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump – against my palm. I thought to myself, When voices of children are heard on the green…
The boy thrust his chin upward, and stepped away toward his partners. He did not speak for a moment. But then he announced something to his band of would-be renegades. They all listened intently, shooting respectful glances at me and Virtue. The leader went to his horse and grabbed down a bundle. He unrolled it and presented me with a pair of buckskin leggings and a fine buckskin shirt. Another boy gave me an elk hide robe. Another gave me a cap lined with rabbit fur.
I slid into these with thankfulness. It was chilly there in that windswept setting, and I was eager to end my exp
osed and vulnerable state of being. I was pleased to find the new suit fit me very well.
With Virtue the lads were more timid. She was still sitting on Genevieve. The boys walked around her, trying to steal peeks at her without obviously lifting their eyes to hers. At last the leader took something from a bag hanging around his horse’s neck – some charm or talisman – and walked over to the girl. The other boys parted as he stepped up beside Virtue. He said a few words of his language, and handed something to the young lady. She took it from him, and smiled.
And then it was over.
Quick as that they all hopped onto their horses and galloped back over the hill from where they had come.
Nonplussed, I held out my arms and admired my new clothes. My old velvet dress dangled like a shed skin from a tree branch.
I looked to where Virtue was waiting expectantly.
It was almost as if nothing at all had happened. Except that I was newly attired, it was almost as if we were right back in that moment before the hoodlums had arrived. I grew newly nervous when I remembered.
“Well,” I laughed. “Where was I?”
I looked to the west, trying to gather my articulacy, endeavoring once again to find the words. But it was no good. Something had changed in the interim. I suppose seeing those Indian boys in all their youthful glory had intimidated me somehow. I guess when I had been made naked in front of all the world I had seen myself for the dilapidated lowlife that I truly was. I surely was no noble Syatapis. Anyhow, I lost my nerve to up and ask Virtue if she loved me. The thought that she might not was too dreadful to contemplate. I do not think I would have survived her rebuke.
“Well,” I said, and spat out the metallic taste that had settled on my tongue. “Well, we are getting close now.”
Without so much as glancing at Virtue, I climbed up onto Brownie’s back once more, making that last push toward the legendary City of Rocks.
A SHARP BREEZE CUT down out of a birdless blue sky.
“Huh,” I mumbled. “Well.”
Puck, Brownie, Genevieve, myself, and Virtue all stood on a high hill gazing over the hallowed homeland of the Restructured Truth. At long last we had reached our destination.
I do not know exactly what I expected. I suppose one lets his imagination run amok. One conjures in his mind some sort of fairytale complete with bubbling waterfalls and bright colored rainbows. I was not necessarily thinking the place would be lined with streets of gold, or peopled with angels, but something close to it. Thurman’s description of his nouveau Zion had inspired visions of Utopia. I had been eager to see it for myself. But now… I felt like a thirsty child who has just been handed a cupful of vinegar.
Well, I encouraged myself. The place has potential. Even Jericho had to start with that first stone placed upon a stone.
The naturally occurring landscape was impressive enough. A preponderance of lofty granite pinnacles shoved up out of the sage-cluttered valley and hillsides. Junipers were placed throughout like potted plants. It did look like some sort of primitive city, albeit one built by titans before time. But to my eyes, it was the human element that stained the scene. A sense of struggle and defensiveness pervaded. The place exuded an overall personality of distrust and desperation.
An area of about two hundred acres was enclosed within a wall. This barrier was made of stone and appeared to be a work in progress, with the intention being to build it high and formidable. Random piles of rock lay waiting to be placed into the barricade. A single arched gateway allowed entry into the compound, and two men with rifles were stationed on steeples above said ingress. (Was it a fort, a sheep pen, or a prison?) Inside was a collection of mud and stone houses, one of them quite large, what could pass for a palace in this part of the world. This was the Prophet’s home, I figured – the place where he received his visions and penned his covenants. But most of the dwellings were built right into the natural rock hummocks. They looked like the warrens of rabbits and chipmunks. Wisps of smoke could be seen rising from the cracks in the stone rooflines.
A network of wooden ladders rose up the sides of the rock towers to what appeared to be nests for battlements. Rope bridges connected the ramparts, strung between the tower tops like spider web. I spied at least four canons poised for action upon these turrets. Armed men were watching out in all directions from the perches. It appeared the Restructured Truth needed considerable protection from the outside world.
A parcel of the enclosed acreage was reserved for gardens, and women and children were bent harvesting in these plots, pushing wheelbarrows of potatoes and squash. I thought to myself that the sisters Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would fit right in here. A flock of grimy white chickens pecked at the ground all around the workers’ heels.
As far as I could see, the land was parched, with only a single thin stream winding through the heart of the settlement. It seemed hardly big enough to provide drinking water for the clan, let alone irrigation for the crops. Some Mormon miracle must surely be at work. A languid, oat-colored ox stood in the lower end of the stream where it trickled under the wall. The remainder of the stream’s moisture was sucked dry by the dusty desert beyond the stronghold.
*****
We stood there for the longest time.
None of us could make up our mind to go down.
I could not guess what Virtue was thinking.
I, personally, was a bit perplexed. I suppose I had believed all along that I was actually on a mission for God. I confess that I thought we would be greeted by fanfare and banners, singing and a banquet. Surely I was some sort of victorious champion who had outsmarted many a peril in my gallant delivery of the Holy Betrothed. I had even fancied that I might be offered a home in this dreamland, be granted high office, and even presented with a couple of wives for my trouble. For it was well known that Mormons and their outgrowths were keen on polygamy. (Such has always been their appeal for lonesome bachelors like myself.) And I had figured if I could not have Virtue as my bride, I could at least start a small harem of my own. A quantity of feminine flesh, I consoled myself, might make up for any lack in quality.
But now…
“Well,” I considered. “I suppose even Muhammad had to start somewhere.”
I glanced sidelong at Virtue. She stood with Genevieve’s head over her shoulder, absentmindedly stroking the mare’s nose. The young lady was to be the Doyenne of this colony – the Queen Bee in the hive. That was something, I suppose. But even so, I could not help but think Virtue deserved better. Goodness sakes! The place had no water! And yet, who was I to offer her any option other than this one spread out before her?
Right then, we heard the distant blare of a shofar.
It seemed the sentinels had at last discovered us on this distant ridgeline, and were announcing to their coterie that intruders were afoot. At once, the place looked like a nest of panicked ants. Women and children dropped their potatoes and scurried toward their huts. Chickens scattered with a flurry of wings. The men all trained their rifles and canons on our little party.
“It appears they saw us,” I said.
And that was when I saw Him.
At the front door of his big house.
The Prophet.
He alone was dressed in a white robe, as if he had been plucked straight out of an old Bible story. And he was tall. Even over the distance one could detect a certain demeanor, a je ne sais quoi. One felt himself being granted a vision. One felt himself brushing against something not quite of this world.
The Prophet turned and looked our way. Even from afar, I felt his gaze. A wave of goose pimples tightened my skin. I nodded, as if to say hello. The fellow was over half-mile away, but I swear he returned my nod. Uncanny. He looked to be an older brother of Jesus Christ himself.
A group of men congregated before the leader, shooting us glances and, I surmised, discussing a plan of action. After a minute, five of them marched off to some horses, mounted, and galloped out of the compound, turning up the slope in
our direction.
I swallowed at a knot of nerves, and chewed at my lip.
“We will wait,” I decided. “They can come to us.”
I KNEW THAT THE Salt Lake Mormons often enlisted the help of the Utes, and two of the riders now coming our way appeared to be cut from that Indian ilk. Only one of the five wore the wrap-around beard so emblematical of the Restructured Truth. The remaining two, I surmised, must be out-for-hire gentiles, like myself, doing the dirty work for the greater glory of God. The pair appeared tough, savvy, and none too holy.
They all rode up and halted before us, their mounts breathing hard from the climb. I noticed that the two henchmen at once scanned our horses and my person, searching – I could read that look – for any sign of a weapon. They themselves wore pistols on their hips, and carried rifles in scabbards slung from their saddles. The Utes both carried shotguns over their laps. Except for his big hairy smile, the Truther remained unarmed.
Once they had assessed me, and decided I was not dangerous, all eyes went to Virtue. It was with no small degree of dismay that I noted a randy blush eclipsing the faces of the three white men. I knew that look. And I knew exactly what fantasy was playing out in each of their ignoble heads. To say the least, it was disappointing. I had expected better from this hallowed lot of Chosen Ones. Had they been devout Ablutionites, they would have quick skulked off to take a long, cold bath. But I sensed that a redemptive rinse was not the immediate subject on their minds.
I glanced at Virtue. She stood rigid, enduring their scrutiny.
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