They had appeared at dawn on an ugly riverbank above the once beautiful Beautiful-river among heaps of Whiteman things such as dead thunderbeasts. After a short hike they came to the side of the thundertrail numbered 28, thumbed a ride against the Whiteman’s laws, which pleased Gerald, and rode in Mister Mason’s great eighteen-wheeler all day, along this road and the next one. This second great thundertrail was numbered 219 and offered very handsome scenery.
Old Tree Mother, you still reign in parts of this dug-up world. It warms my heart to see you bloom across the land!
Mister Mason occupied himself by listening to books read by the ghosts that possessed his many-wheeled slave-beast. Three-Rivers’ favorite ghosts were George C. Scott and Charlton Heston. They told primarily the tales of Heysuse Christos for White Men called the New Testament and his grandfathers called the Old Testament. Three-Rivers quite enjoyed this, though Gerald was vexed as they did not stop to purchase liquor or cigarettes. Mister Mason did not approve of children and squirrels doing these things, and Three-Rivers, having lost his tribal certification to the Bear Society Warrior, had no way of proving that he was vastly older than necessary for fire-water drinking rights. So Gerald slept curled up on his shoulder, snoring in his ear as only an aged squirrel can.
Jesus was wise in the things that he said. I could speak in like ways when I come to Big-Hill-Town and be received as wiser than ever.
At last they reached Mister Mason’s hometown of Timbuck, which was in the midst of a great ancient forest between two ridges of the Beautiful Mountains that ran from sunrise toward sunset. The town was very small and the warm day was cooling off, so Three-Rivers decided to head off into the forest toward sunset and up a minor ridgeline to commune with his patron aspect of The Beginner. This doing was greeted with a good omen in the form of a thunderbird flying overhead toward sunrise in a circular descent, obviously headed for its nest.
You are Thunderboy after all!
He nudged Gerald with his chin, “Hey boy, time ta roll.”
The squirrel woke up cranky, not having had a smoke or a drink for many days, “Who you callin’ boy, boy?”
“I just wanted to let you know Gerald, that we should be spending the night above trying to commune with the remnants of my patron Old Tree Mother. We should find acorns, beech and pine nuts in abundance. Keep on the lookout so that we are not ambushed by men or pounced on by cats.”
Gerald was not to be soothed, “Shee, I don’ wan’ no nuts—I wanz me a buttafinga bar—a snickas adlease!”
Up they went into the heavily wooded hills, Gerald grousing under his drooping whiskers as he continued to nod off on Three-Rivers’ shoulder. After some time, as the sun fell toward the lowering mountains beyond this great forest, the same forest where once he camped with DeathSong, Strut and Arrow Holder back in Mother Earth, Three-Rivers smelled something familiar. As he sniffed, that same smell gained Gerald’s attention, “You smell whad I smell, boy?”
Three-Rivers then stopped as a small clearing beneath some towering birch and elm came into view. He then saw with his eyes what they had smelled with their noses. “Cannabis plants, Gerald, in their live state. I have never seen this. They are not so pretty as one would think, but the smell is inviting.”
The squirrel then leaped from his shoulder to prance among the weeds as they swayed in the breeze, “You tellin’ me, boy. Dis a sight fo sore eyes fo sho!”
They spent the afternoon smoking young buds plucked right from the still small weeds. They had not a care in this world other than his prayers to Old Tree Mother as they danced in circles, smoked, and even made a bed out of nearby pine boughs. They laid in the middle of the field snacking on peanuts and corn nuts that Three-Rivers had traded for at a place for feeding trucks. They snacked away as the sun fell behind the distant mountains.
This is so pleasant, such a sure sign that Old Tree Mother survived the Whiteman here on Sunset. If she can survive here, even just in this little corner, then there is hope for the survival of her Natural People back in Mother Earth.
As he reclined and took another hit off of the latest bud Gerald had picked he heard a heavy footstep. The squirrel was so stoned that he just sat weaving on Three-Rivers’ chest as the boy reclined and sucked the smoke from the small smoldering bud. Then he heard it, the harsh click of a Whiteman’s thundercaster, and looked up to see two young White Men with hairy faces standing over them, one pointing a type of thundercaster that Randy Bracken had described as a shotgun, a most deadly weapon!
Gerald remained unaware until the man spoke with the harsh readying sound of his weapon, “What the hell is unz doin’ in our pot patch?”
Unz, unz—this is a most pleasant variation of the collective ‘you’ in English.
Oh yes, they are threatening us.
As he sat up Gerald turned around on his tail and regarded the men for a moment, before taking the last puff off of the smoking bud and raising his right foreclaw and extending the middle one while he balled up the others and clucked, “Ged los’ Whitey!”
Oh no!
The small man with pensive cheeks said to the fat man with beady eyes and shotgun, “Did that darn squirrel just flip us off?”
The fat man had a fat voice. “I dun’ know, but he sure as hell smokin’ our weed!”
Three-Rivers, being trickster, prophet and counselor of the spiritually troubled, sensed a need for his services, and a concurrent opportunity for the expansion of his consciousness by way of smoke.
They surely have a camp—a secure one.
Yes, against the coming of the Bear Society Warriors. We are natural allies…
