1. Winnipeg year 2000
It may be recalled that Eddie's mentor, Miss Ali, left the Bronx for Winnipeg in 1945, pregnant with the baby from Eddie's rape, and had the baby she named Guy (pronounced hard G like Gee), in 1946 and settled in a house near Cree Indian land with both Cree and French friends to raise her child. And she studied the wisdom of the Cree at the feet of the ancient lady Nokomis.
Miss Ali raised Guy trilingual by using her French and Cree companions and the French-speaking child Pierre for Guy's companions before age 10.
By 2000, Guy is a youngish 54 and a professor of languages at Winnipeg University. He is a world expert on the Cree language and Cree life and customs and ritual.
One day, still much snow on the ground but otherwise bright, sunny and freezing cold, Guy is sitting in his office at the University. A knock sounds. He knows that knock. His blood-brother, Hiawatha Harper, six foot five with copper-color hawk nose. Harper is dressed in his usual woodsman's jacket that matches the faded blue Levi pants over a red flannel shirt.
"Guy, the Elders want you at a special council, now. You will be initiated into the Firewalk on the Fire Trail."
Guy's heart turns over. It is something he has waited on for years - the fabled Fire Trail, the Cree's tribal mystical drug experience whereby the walker is supposedly separated from his body and travels in time and space. He knows enough about Indians not to question a blood-brother. Immediately without a word he gets up, puts on his windbreaker and boots. Knowing the Indian's disdain for modernity, Guy does not suggest they drive; instead he follows Hiawatha Harper's swift-step - he estimates 5 miles an hour - on snowy forest paths and a little short of two hours later they arrive in front of a large wigwam. It is 12 Noon. Without a word, Hiawatha lifts the flap and ushers Guy into the semi darkness.
"You sent for me?" By the flickering light of the small central fire he looks around the circle of lean, hawk-like, copper-skin faces and the 13 pairs of dark eyes fasten on his eyes. The ceremonial blankets lie over the Indians' shoulders, and here & there a bit of silver or turquoise body jewelry is caught up by the flickering light against the blackness inside the wigwam. He repeats his question with more intensity, adding "What is it you wish of your pale son?"
An Indian rises from the circle and waves Guy to sit at center of the group and Guy sinks to the earth freezing cold on his buttocks through his Levi's. Now in the better light inside the circle Guy notes the standing man to be an Indian he has never seen before. The man stands tall before Guy, and, as the man pulls his ceremonial blanket tight around himself against the cold, Guy thinks he looks majestic. A silence. Finally the man begins.
"Yes, my son, we sent for you. I am going to reveal to you a secret of the past. The time has come when it is necessary for you to understand. You have been brought up from childhood - at the request of your paleface mother in the ways of the Cree - I am not Cree, I am Navajo from far to the south - but we are all the true men - Indians or now Native Americans as the paleface wrongly now call us. You have been taught the lore of yore, and the ceremonies. You have been one of us. Even though you have desired to learn as the paleface in his schools yet in the summer times would you return to learn of us and bring us the results of your mounting knowledge to help the true people."
Guy's brain whirls at the man's words. He struggles to control his emotions. He searches each face in the circle. They all show the unfathomable mask-like expressions of Indians. But something in those eyes also shows a deep layer of ---- fear.
The old Navajo droops visibly now in the firelight. "Terrible times are threatening us all - everyone on Earth. We are in the grip of a man-made disaster. Of course you know the words Global Warming."
So that is it! Thinks Guy. Wow! Even here in a wigwam!
Then the man folds his blanket around himself and sits silently and from his side of the fire a pitifully thin, shrunken old Indian arises. His quavering voice speaks. After casting a tiny bit of corn pollen to the four directions and blowing a powder into the fire that makes it glow greenly, he begins:
"Bad time coming for Earth. I Cree medicine man commune with Great Spirit. But we need our paleface, son - You understand science, find what we must do to survive our people from the coming doom that paleface make Earth." The old Indian comes to his point.
"We ask you to find by the fire walk. You ready?'
"I am."
He takes a cup and pours some brew into it and offers it to Guy. "Drink, my son."
Guy tips up the pottery goblet and drinks. The stuff is not too pleasant but he allows no expression of distaste.
"Now, take the ancient pipe and blow the sacred smoke."
He accepts the old, red sandstone pipe from the frail old Indian, inhales deeply and exhales the smoke to the 4 directions, noting the pungent fragrance and thinking, Powerful pot!
"Now, my son, stare at the fire while you chant with us prayer of Fire Trail."
Guy is aware of the fragrance of burning cedar mingled with the scent of sage. Then his head begins to throb and before his eyes the flames seem to rise like swaying orange hands - like expanding veils - like a strange undulating corridor. He arises and looks down to see his physical body still lying in the center of the circle of Indians before the mystical fire and he follows the corridor up its undulating ways. Higher and higher he finds himself being wafted because he no longer has body weight.
Then he is sitting in a kind of metal cubicle with bench space along its glowing walls. It is about 8-feet diameter as a perfect sphere. And at its center is a strange being, glowing, and standing facing him, legs, body and a head without any visible features, and arms lifted like a priest sacrificing to the Sun.
Suddenly Guy is aware that the thing is talking - to him. It is not in voice but in his head.
"I am Monitor. Sixty or so of your Earth years ago I spoke with a human like you (To read, click 2.(34-43) The End of Our World ), who was traveling with your mother. I am now actually dead in body but this is my mind inside an automaton. I explained to the human that I am Monitor for an intelligent race at the far end of your Galaxy, searching for other intelligent life and found it here several billion years ago and have monitored it to the present. I warned, the World War coming would be won by the United States of America over Germany and Japan - and that the result would be the massive overpopulation and over consumption that is leading to runaway global overheating that will destroy life on Earth. Now, it is well on the way and you on Earth have another hundred years before conditions become too severe. I have arranged for a small colony to be transported to your system's 4th planet, Mars. There, an underground oxygenated atmosphere colony space is already made and your human group will survive and receive science knowledge to make a new home on Mars and change its environment to satisfy your living needs. We chose the northern American Indians because they represent the original race and have not been corrupted by the white culture. We particularly do not want white people because we see them as the cause of this catastrophe that will nearly wipe out the only now intelligent life in the Universe. You as educated friend of the Cree and fluent in the 3 important languages are going to be the interface between the Cree and we. That is all. You may return to the tribal elders in wigwam and await instructions for the near future."
The being stops and Guy feels a great sleepiness and next he knows he is opening his eyes and becoming conscious back in the circle of the Indians.
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End of Chapter.
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