Part 11 (1/2)
”I can't read.”
”Oh,” Charlie said, and then brightened. ”I'll teach you.”
”We're going to be here that long, huh?” Jack said.
Charlie threw his head back and laughed, his teeth glistening in the sunlight. It was a loud, boisterous laugh that reverberated around them.
”I can see why you got robbed,” Jack said. ”All of creation can hear you.”
Charlie tucked the canteen under his arm. ”My ma told me you have to laugh loud enough for the Old Man to hear.”
”The Old Man?” Jack said. ”Who's that, your pa?”
”No, the Creator.”
”That Bible stuff?”
”Chewak stuff,” Charlie said. ”She said the Old Man made the sky, the prairie, even these Badlands, although I'm not sure why he'd want to do that.”
”Me neither,” Jack said.
”Maybe this was a testing ground,” Charlie said. ”A place where my ancestors came to see the White Eagle. Legend says the White Eagle is the size of a horse, with wings the length of mountain pines. And he's pure white, not one spot on his feathers. My ma told me he's a tear from the Old Man. When you see the White Eagle, you're supposed to find your purpose-path-something like that.”
”You ever seen it?”
”No,” Charlie said.
”Any Indians you know seen it?”
”I don't know any except my sister,” he said. ”But that's going to change. When I finish my studies, I'm going to travel to the reservations and preach the good word. In return, I hope to learn their ways and language. My ma taught me all sorts of things, but she died when I was young so I've forgotten most of it.”
”Except for white eagles,” Jack said. Squinting up at the sky, he said, ”Well, I don't see no eagles, but I reckon we'll have our share of buzzards soon enough.”
Charlie laughed again.
As noon burned down, they decided to rest. Leaving the riverbed, they slipped behind a giant boulder at the edge of the path. Although it provided shade, it offered no respite from the heat.
Jack couldn't resist any longer. When Charlie offered, he grabbed the canteen and gulped two mouthfuls. It hurt to swallow, but the water tasted gritty, warm, and good. He was still worried about getting sick, but at that moment sick was preferable to death from thirst.
Charlie took a swig from the canteen before closing it. ”So, where are you headed?” he asked, licking the water off his lips.
”I don't know,” Jack said. ”Heard of a place up north called Lone Pine. They got free land for settlers.”
”Lone Pine? Yeah, I know it. You running away?”
”No.”
”Folks tend to head north when they're running away from something.”
”Well I'm not,” Jack snapped.
Liar.
Charlie gave him an apologetic smile. ”Sorry,” he said. ”Preacher habit. We ask lots of questions.”
”You like being a preacher?”
”Well, I'm not a full preacher yet,” Charlie said. ”But of course I like it. I get to speak to folks about Jesus, and that's the most important thing anyone can ever speak about.”
”How do you figure?”
”He keeps you from going to h.e.l.l,” Charlie said. ”What can be more important than that?” He pressed his fingers to the boulder, leaving three spots of moisture on the surface. ”But it's not easy. You have to have the faith of a mountain. Sometimes it's hard to believe, especially when I think about my people...”
Charlie stopped talking. The three spots of moisture evaporated.
”Chewaks don't like Jesus?” Jack asked.
”Sometimes I think it's the other way around,” Charlie said. ”See, the Bible teaches us that when Jesus died, there was a new law. The only way of getting into Heaven was to believe in him.”
”Yeah,” Jack said, nodding. ”My ma taught us that.”
”Like all good mothers do,” Charlie said. ”Even my ma taught me that, although she mixed it with stories of the Old Man, the Crow, and the Winter Bear.”
Jack didn't know those Bible stories, but his ma had never read him the Bible. She couldn't read either. She just liked to hold it sometimes.
”So there was Jesus,” Charlie said, ”a carpenter living in Nazareth. That's far away.”
”Another country?”
”Over the ocean.”
”Oh.”
”So after this carpenter died and came back to life, he was the only way of getting into Heaven. It became the law.”
”So?”
”So there's a problem,” Charlie said. ”White man only came here four hundred years ago.”
Like every other preacher he'd ever heard, Jack was having a hard time following him. ”So?” he repeated.
”Well, it wasn't until four hundred years ago, and less than a hundred for the Chewak, that any Indian would have heard of Jesus. Yet, according to the Bible, if you don't know Jesus you go to h.e.l.l. That means that for almost two thousand years my people have been dying and going to h.e.l.l because they didn't know Jesus, although there was no way they could have known Jesus.”
Jack sat back and thought about Jeanie. She never went to church once their ma died of the fever, and he never saw her pray a word in her life. And because of that, she was burning in h.e.l.l? He didn't know about all those Indians, but that didn't seem right about his sister.
”It's a thorn I can't pluck,” Charlie said, giving his canteen a swish. ”Tell you the truth, I'm glad to be heading home for Emily's wedding. I don't want to think about it for a while. All I want to do is see my pa and play my fiddle.” He mimicked the stroke of a bow. ”I'm not sure if the good Lord will approve, but I reckon the Old Man will be fine with it.”