A Knight Of The Word

“You haven’t changed,” she replied. “You look just the same. What are you doing here?”


He looked around speculatively. “Maybe I’ve come to be with my brothers and sisters. The Sinnissippi are gone, but there are still plenty of other tribes. Some of them have prospered. They run casinos and sell fireworks. They have councils to govern their people and rules to enforce their proclamations. The government in Washington recognizes their authority. They call them Native Americans and pass laws that give them special privileges. They don’t call them Indians or Redskins anymore. At least, not to their faces.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “There is even a segment of the population who believes that my people were wronged once, long ago, when white Europeans took away their land and their way of life. Can you imagine that?”

Nest shook her head noncommittally. “Are you sure Ariel didn’t bring me here to see you?”

His face remained expressionless. “Why don’t we sit down and talk, little bird’s Nest?”

He led her to a bench facing out toward the hater. A group of weathered men was sitting there, passing around a bottle and speaking in low voices. Two Bears said something to them in another language-and they rose at once and moved away. Two Bears took their place on the bench, and Nest sat dawn next to him.

“What did you say to them?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I told them they have no pride in themselves and should be ashamed.” The copper skin of his blunt features tightened around his bones. “We are such a sad and hopeless people. Such a lost people. There are some of us, it is true, who have money and property. There are some who have found a way of life that provides. But most of us have nothing but empty hearts and alcohol and bad memories. Our pride in ourselves was stripped away a long time ago, and we were left hollow. It is a sad thing to see. Sadder to live.”

He looked at her. “Do you know what is wrong with us, little bird’s Nest? We are homeless. It is a bad way to be in the world. But that is how we are. We are adrift, tiny boats in a large ocean. Even those of us who have land and houses and friends and neighbours and some sort of life. It is a condition indigenous to our people. We bear a legacy of loss passed down to us by our ancestors. We bear the memory of what we had and what was taken. It haunts us.”

He shook his head slowly. “You can be homeless in different ways. You can be homeless like those o￡ my people you see here, living on the streets, surviving on handouts, marking time between the seasons. But you can be homeless in your heart, too. You can be empty inside yourself because you have no spiritual centre. You can wander through life without any real sense of who you are or where you belong. You co-exist without purpose or cause. Have you ever felt like that, little bird’s Nest?”

“No.” she said at once, wondering where he was going with this.

“Indians know,” he said softly. “We have known for a long time. We are homeless in the streets and we are homeless in our hearts as well. We have no purpose in the world. We have no centre. Our way of life was changed for us long ago. and it will never return. Our new life is someone else’s life imposed on us; it is a false life. We struggle to find our home, our centre, but it is as faded as the Sinnissippi. A building is a home if the people who inhabit it have memories and love and a place in the world. Otherwise, it is just a building, a shelter against the elements, and it can never be anything more. Indians know.”

He bent close to her, pausing. “There are others who know this, too. A few, who have been uprooted and displaced, who have been banished to the road and a life of wandering, who have lost any sense of who they are. Some of these are like us men and women whose way of life has been taken from them. Some of them are looking for a way back home again. Maybe you even know one.”

Nest stared at him in silence.

“Do you still have your magic?” he asked suddenly.

Caught off guard by the question, she fumbled for an answer. “I think so.”

“Not sure, are you? Perhaps it has changed as you have grown?”

He nodded his understanding.

“It may be so. Everything changes with time’s passage. Only change itself is constant. So you must adapt and adjust and remember to keep close what is important and not to forget its purpose. Remember when we sat in the park and watched the spirits of the Sinnissippi dance?”“