They flew within the belly of an iron salmon which was also a thunder drum, the whirling wings of storm overhead and without assaulting their sensitive ears. This nameless, weird human of Sunset seemed surprised and worried over this and began sharing and tearing cloth with his helpers and then packing these bits of soft clothing into the Man-eater ears.
Men needed ears in war, especially the one not already damaged by firing his musket. Panther-across-the-moon signaled for his men to cover their good ear until it was packed by the odd-looking whites, whites with an otherworldly, but noticeably human, face.
The flying salmon warrior who had addressed them seemed to be the chief of these, and noticing Panther-across-the-moon’s seeking eyes, properly introduced himself in his womanish remaking of the speech they both shared with their Grandfathers, “Chief, I have no reasonable name, only a white mumble sign for counting me among the captives of my nation—a mind-weir fit only for slaves. It is my hope that I earn a name by your side. These three men are white-human cross-breeds, like the wolves of winter were bred with town dogs to make madmen. They are called Lumbee and also have no sensible name. These—”
The iron salmon then shuddered as if shivered by a fish lance and the warriors were pitching to the weak side of the iron belly. As he kept his footing, he noted the ships casks of painted iron lining the belly, tied to the iron ribs, large enough each to stuff a white man in—perhaps two if you quartered them.
Iron Salmon, who now had a name in the mind’s eye, then sent his lips running like a woman who had just found a particular berry patch, “The world we go to is insane. Rather than run traces or canoe along rivers, the whites ride multitudes of rolling canoes along stone rivers, canoes that drink fire water so that their wheels turn faster by many times than the wheels of the carts you may have seen among your whites.”
“The brothers of these Lumbee, will meet us at the Stone River Camp, will guide your rolling war canoes, once you have stolen them. The whiteman town we attack houses more of the walking dead: white, tobacco-white and soot-white, than there are human beings under all the trees from the everlasting snows to summer, from the salt water to the big river in your world. The forts that guard this place are known to these Lumbees, who shall fill these casks with fire water at the Stone River Camp. With these they will burn from above the nine guardian forts that ring the town and then the nine forts within the town.”
“When the fires begin lighting the sky you and your warriors will be clear to raid in your rolling war canoes and on foot—though, I warn you, the town is so vast it takes half a day to walk across and is a forest of stone buildings. We ask of you to kill all men and to impregnate all women of the white kind—not the soot-whites—so that the blood of our Grandfathers will flow in this land again!”
Axe-and-sack stepped forward and snarled, “Are all of you Sunset people insane?”
Iron Salmon’s eyes grew wide and he looked weirder still at the Lumbees, who all acted like pet humans drinking fire water as they screamed, “Yes!”
Taking the subtle cue from his elder, Panther-across-the-moon, said to the summoned Sunset person, “You are Iron Salmon, and with your iron salmon in the sky you should stay, to light our way with your fire casks. We have not traced together before and could become disorganized, which cannot happen among many enemies. Burn you world while we slit its throats and fill its wombs!”
Iron Salmon whooped, unsure if he had been diminished or enhanced, but elated with his name. He was soon with his Lumbees strapping tiny red, unlit torches to the still empty fire water casks, a cask for every warrior here.
Onward the iron salmon beat air paddles and thundered along into what must have been a night. For no light other than the strange white shining eye torches within the belly of the flying fish lit their painted faces. They stood illumed like so many wolves and bears staring from the nighted woods upon the wicked mud towns of the Whiteman.
The drumming of the flight entranced them and they slept the half-sleep on the feet, nodding like saplings in the wind.
*****
The salmon slowed and flopped down, much like an owl he thought.
The butt flap opened and they saw the weirdly lit half-night, a night so bright that stars were little seen as the warriors emerged and were greeted by four Lumbees, each holding a bloody scalp in their hand—their guides, crazy like the rest, armed with strange-looking muskets and shiny knives.
As discussed, Panther-across-the-moon and Axe-and-sack each took ten men to guard the perimeter around this brightly lit stone space, roofed oddly against rain, apparently a pen for the painted rolling canoes, which were filled with fire water like a campfire was fed wood. As his 20 warriors helped fill the casks he regarded this ghostly place. A scalped white man was slumped in the doorway of his trading house.
The night was good already.
A wide stone river bypassed this place, a trail of stone wider than the length of a house, lit by bare, iron, torch trees at regular intervals as far as the eye could see.
Standing cases with metal-headed snakes were used to fill the casks as they were rolled out and then back into the iron salmon, at rest and darkened at the edge of the rolling canoe pen.
He and his men watched the trail to sunrise as Axe-and-sack watched the trail toward sunset. Then it came, two running suns in the night, behind the shadowed bulk of a rumbling canoe—no, obviously a white man cart, but without stupefied animals harnessed to its front. He and his men were prone in the mucky grass.
The guide of the large black, racing white man cart blazing its night suns, turned into the pen as if to inquire of the Iron Salmon. He was young and smooth of face. A woman sat next to him, fresh and straw-haired. In the hauling bed of the cart were two men with small beards and small women, all soft, all white, all with the white man’s poison bottle in their pale hand.
They were up and over the wall of the cart bed in two silent breathes, the women screaming and the “men” screaming nearly alike, screams quickly silenced by the knife. Wolf Paw’s pocked and painted face split in an elated grin as he hauled the screaming woman off the cart and into the muck where she was made to mind. Swims-by-night took the other woman as the guide was pulled through the broken glass and Lynx-prancing grabbed the third woman by her throat and spread her out on the stone surface.
The remaining men pushed over the black cart so it would block the stone path and offer cover. For an entire step of the moon they waited, his men taking turns enjoying the white women as they whimpered and moaned from beneath the hands that covered their mouths.
When Iron Salmon signaled for them to return to the flying salmon, Swims-by-night and Axe-and-sack stood over the three raped women, who they had respectfully arranged in a naked row out of the mucky grass where their men had been dumped, so that they could hold hands after their ordeal.
Swims-by-night: “Look how fat they are!”
Axe-and-sack: “Get used to it—when you are my age the only ones not fat are sick.”
Swims-by-night: “But they’re so young to be so fat!”
Axe-and-sack: “More cushion for my old hips, I say. What concerns me is how narrow their hips are. The old crones will have to cut the babies out of these two.”
Swims-by-night: “I wonder if they enjoyed this—they’re all glassy eyed. Could they be silently weeping over their men?”
Axe-and-sack: “Of course they are. We are their men and we leave them naked and alone in the night.”
With that they were off with their chief to the iron butt flap. Panther-across-the-moon was the last to step within the salmon and as he turned to regard the three ravished white women, he was impressed by the ghostly aspects of their stunned, tear-shined faces that seemed to call on Old Crone Moon for redress as the iron butt closed and the thunder paddles beat the night sky like the wings of countless ravens.
His heart warmed as he realized that by sunrise a wicked white nation will have been slain, slain by forty and four Man-eater hands.
Written To:
RetroGenesis: And Morning Came: The Thanatos Trajectory
Yes!
The boys are just getting warmed up.
It wasn't until I was sent down to a prison in Eastern North Carolina that I met my first Lumbee Indians. They're all from Robeson County, NC (Lumberton). The first thing I noticed about them was that most of them had curly hair and beards. They looked like Brazilians and 95% of them had the last name Oxendine, Locklear, or Chavis.
As time went on I learned more about them. Although they've been trying to get in on the government check and casino action for many years, the federal government refuses to acknowledge the Lumbee as an official tribe.
Not only did the Feds not recognize them as a tribe, the Cherokee Indians I was in prison with didn't recognize them as Indians either. They called them "Blackfoots" due to their obvious African ancestry. Every religion gets their own service in prison if they want to organize it. The Cherokee had some type of sweat lodge ceremony that they put on about once a month. They absolutely refused to let the Lumbee participate in it. It caused quite a bit of tension between these two groups.
The Lumbee vastly outnumbered the Cherokee in there so it wouldn't have been much of a battle if it had ever materialized, but it would've been worth the price of a prison sentence just to see a tomahawk forged out of melted coffee cup lids.
youtu.be/RzpRU347BDU
The Butchers Hill area of Baltimore is home to a colony of Lumbees who share residency between Fayetville or "Lumberton," NC where some of the girls try to get army husbands. The ones in Baltimore have a reputation for knives and crime and appear to be black/Caucasian/Indian mongrels.
Your comment will remain as an end note in the book.
Thank you, Sir.
Thanks, James. I'm honored.