Born in 1523 to the Flint Place People, Three-Rivers is a language-savant of the Seneca Nation. When some misguided white people came into Mother Earth on behalf of a certain ‘Burnt Man’ looking for Hiawatha he offered himself instead, unable to resist a journey beyond the Sunset. He now works as a translator for a genetic reclamation or "time-hunting" unit managed by his adopted mother, the Sunset Lady. But the "ADHD" and "epilepsy" medication fed to him on Sunset clouds his visions and prevents him from talking with the animals and walking with the dead.

Thunderboy is the third novel in the Pillagers of Time book. It is 418 pages, about 300 of which should be serialized here. The character through whom most of the plot revelations are narrated is Hyacinth. Her chapters will not be posted online. So you will get to enjoy the adventures of Three-Rivers, and his three obtuse friends Eddie, Jay and T.T. Redbone, which shall enable you to figure out enough of the story to enjoy it but without spoiling the other novels.

For Little Mike, who has outlasted many a ‘Big Goof,’ may the trees in your forest of dreams grow forever tall

-Black Elk of the Oglala Sioux

-Black Hawk of the Sauk

Three-Rivers was feeling like a baked stone, a lifeless piece of matter that did nothing more than conduct heat and sound. It was the Moon of Falling Leaves on Sunset, and though he was loved, fed and cared for by people at once compassionate, wise and powerful, his soul—with a small ‘s’ now—was diminishing within the increasingly hollow shell of his bent little body.

At age seventeen he was barely four Sunset measures called feet tall and had a twisted back—which Healer called Doctor London named scoliosis of the severe kind and said he would soon fix Three-Rivers by cutting him up and boning him like a gutted fish and then putting him back together again!

Nasty medicine that is! Besides being boned like a fish, and hence not enjoying the procedure, you will surely be purged of whatever remains of your Beginning Spirit. On Mother Earth you were regarded with awe and wonder; the Magic Boy of Winter; the Escort of Souls; the Disciple and Son of WhiteSkyCanoe; the Many-Speaker of the Longhouse-people; Servant of Burnt Man; Tamer of the flesh-demon known as DeathSong; and, most of all, a Voice of The Beginner. They came to you in their wonder seeking healing and prophecy, never taking pity on your twisted little form.

Only you knew the secrets of your power: the frail twisted body your punishment from The Beginner for a past life’s sins to remind you of your duty to men, and to force you to forsake the ways of men; the vision sicknesses granting your ability to walk with the dead and receive possession by the grandfathers; and your spells-of-not-talking-or-hearing and the night-terrors and your attention-deficit-called-disorder-with-an-H-for-being-bored-with-pointless-chores the trades made with the Seven Aspects of Beginning that enabled you to speak with the four-legs and fliers and commune with the living world.

He stood on tip-toes in his hard Sunset moccasins-for-bald-bison-riders called cowboy boots to look outside at the falling leaves in an attempt to commune with The Sunset World.

Nothing, a hollow tune lost on a deaf ear. The Sunset medicines of Healer forced upon you by doting but soul-blind Mother, have poisoned your spirit. It has been three moons since WhiteSkyCanoe last came to you, and then only in a whisper. You are no longer even possessed! What kind of prophet are you now that you have made your much vaunted journey to Nearest Sunset? You are no longer even a fit medicine-man for Lady Doe-Eye. You have promised to find and return her lost baby to her in defiance of Mother and you can no longer even compose a prayer! You remain lost underfoot like a child, nothing but a many-speaker for the Sunset Lady and Burnt Man as they collect the lost children of the past like the Sunset Grandfather Noah stuffing animals into his floating house. You are honored yes, but impotent; like DeathSong without his fury; like Burnt Man without his science; like Mother without her beguiling beauty…just a wrong-eyed Sunset boy.

Imagine Mother, how barren you would feel if you lost your beauty; if all the men of Sunset ceased their clamoring to mate with the marvelous Sunset Lady Tina Hesperia, seducer of worlds? How would you feel then Mother? How can you not see? Every time I come to you with my woeful plight you seize me like a dead-baby-called-doll and toss me on your sleek hip—oooh Mother, you anger me so!

The others were all about their daily tasks called chores, and he, having astutely attention-deficited-his chores to some lost corner of his mind, was lurking around the windows, the low ones beneath the tables and healing beds, looking out upon the remnants of a dug-up world. It was time for a prayer of the simple asking kind so loved by the God-beseeching people of Sunset called Christians.

Father, though I can no longer hear your words, or feel the beating of your ghost’s wings across the surface of my soul, I trust that you might hear me. Even though I beseech He-Who-Makes-Rivers when it storms, from behind this wall of looking-stone called glass, he answers me not, by sign or word. I know I have fallen far beneath his hearing after the arrogant fashion in which I used you to command Thunderer, his father after all...So I ask you Father, please, send me a sign…

He attempted to fall off into a trance, but the chalky poison medicine of Sunset called no-more-epilepsy-take-once-a-day-forever-without-beer—But I like beer Mother!—prevented him from careening into the realm of ghosts and souls…

Do you see that! That fat squirrel just came down from that oak for one last acorn. He should be working on his nest this time of day. Everyone knows that the cats are about this early in the morning. Thank you Father. It is time to sneak out of this place wrong-eyed boy. Father has sent your totem animal—a chief of the local squirrels no doubt—to parley with you. Perhaps you can offer to have Eddie chase off the local cats in return for the news of squirrels. This is so exciting, to be contacted by your totem animal; he who you are best able to speak with!

Three-Rivers sneaked, and lurked, and skulked, and tucked-and-rolled—well, as best he could—and did all of the other deceptive tricks of Sunset sneakers called spies and force-recon and swimming-dogs-without-paws called SEALs, until he reached the fenced garden of Lady Tannika toward which the squirrel was also sneaking. They eventually sneaked to within a spear-length of one another, before Three-Rivers spoke the greeting of squirrels. The squirrel stopped, acting as if he suspected a trap, and then returned the greeting. But Three-Rivers heard it as a man hears it, not as a squirrel does. The squirrel said more things, and Three-Rivers attempted to answer in kind, but he could understand nothing said by the squirrel. Soon the squirrel arrogantly twitched its tail and bounded off, leaving behind a broken-hearted boy, without even his totem-animal to lift his spirits or ally his fears.

Three-Rivers walked back inside, past the healing room for wounded children, past Healer’s place-of-decision-making called office, and into the climbing machine called elevator that took him down to their spacious and plush underneath house called base. He went to bed dry-eyed and without hope or recourse, but determined somehow to regain his medicine.

What about your chores wrong-eyed boy? You are not a medicine-man any longer and no warrior to be sure, so there is no excuse for you shirking your mundane duties.

He then got out his picture-book called cell, the small living ghost of knowledge that accompanied people everywhere on Sunset, and opened up his pictures so that he could say his prayers. He had pictures of every one of his friends, even evil Randy Bracken of the White Hate Society called Skinhead. As he brought up each and every picture, especially of those lost such as Bruco, Angh, Terrence and Jacques, and those not yet returned like Bluebird—who was still apparently possessed by the flesh-demon DeathSong—he said an appropriate prayer from among WhiteSkyCanoe’s collection, and then composed a new one of his own, though these now lacked inspiration.

Your prayers now suck Sunset boy!

Disappointed with his own prayerful efforts on behalf of his friends and family he went to bed full of bad-boy dreams of doing evil Sunset tricks in order to regain his medicine. He took much inspiration from the dream-stories called movies watched with Jan on his computer about the tuxedoed man with three-numbers for a name and a penchant for shaken drinks. Three-Rivers went nowhere without his tuxedo, and had purchased several spare tuxedoes and as many pairs of matching cowboy boots with his allowance; being the portion of his Civilized-People-Killing-Nephew-of-Cherry-Tree-Killer-Ancestor trade notes called ‘twenties’ that Mother permitted him to take from the machine-of-spitting-money called ATM.

He was inspired by this revelation, changed into his freshly cleaned sky-colored tuxedo, practiced the turn-and-cast-thunder-trick of Tuxedoed Trickster as he whistled the distinctive movie-tune, and then slinked out of his room as if he were a man desired by many women, and headed to the science-chamber of Burnt Man; that powerful invoker of thunder who had once sent his servants to Mother Earth to abduct Lady Doe-Eye and He-Who-Makes-Rivers, not realizing that this great prophet had already become One with The Beginner. They had returned instead with one of his prophets, Three-Rivers, who was now not even a medicine-man. But that, was about to change.

Burnt Man commands Thunderer and holds the secrets of the thunderbirds. He makes the very dream-catchers that permit people to travel between worlds. Surely he has chores that need doing, and naps that need taking. Be Tuxedoed Trickster and steal his science and be a medicine-man once again.