remarkable and educated man.
His house was highest on the cliff, accessed, Rock was happy to discover, by a series of sturdy ladders. They went up.
The home of the chief was most remarkable. Like the other dwellings it was a Pueblo-style, and bare of adornment, or even of glass in the windows. There was a fireplace, with a few embers being cared for by a pretty woman. There were bookcases—hundreds of shelves. All the classics—in five languages one could read Dickens, Cooper, Disney, Heinlein, and Proust—plus thousands of technical books dating from before World War Three. Rockson also found a newly bound twelve-volume History of the Southwestern Indians in the 20th and 21st Centuries by Chief Smokestone. “I am not finished with it,” Smokestone said, as Rockson removed one volume from the shelf and started thumbing through it.
“Quite impressive,” the Doomsday Warrior said.
“I am adding a volume,” said Smokestone, “so that people in the future will know of us, and of our ways. Perhaps it will help them. The air is very dry hereabouts, and the books keep well. But just in case I am having them all transferred to hard disk in our computer room.”
“It seems,” said Rockson, “that you have updated these ancient dwellings.”
“We do what we can,” Smokestone replied modestly. He showed the Doomsday Warrior more of the complex—cafeteria-style communal eating areas, gymnasiums with stone barbells, and of course the computer room—deep in the interior of the living rock. Must have been hard carting it all down here.
After seeing all their progress Rockson was more than happy to retire to the Indian chief’s study and discuss their relative philosophies while the rest of the team looked around, led by eager Indian maidens, who expertly elucidated the many sights for them.
After inquiring about how Rockson’s trip had been so far, and Rockson saying “Not too bad” laconically, the subject got heady. As usual among men of learning, the discussion turned to the Great Nuclear War. And the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking got more intense than usual. The Indian chief insisted that if the Indians had run the world, the war would never have happened.
“Please explain that,” Rockson asked.
Smokestone had put on a softer loose shirt and lit up a pipe with a pungent tobacco. He offered Rockson some—there were many pipes—and Rockson accepted one. He puffed away too. They could, Rockson mused, be sitting in an ancient English mens’ club lined with books, and not in the middle of a primitive cliff dwelling in Arizona. Smokestone, between puffs of the stuff which tasted better than it smelled to Rockson, went on with his remarks.
“When the Indian nations owned America, they respected nature, worked with it. To us, to all the tribes, the earth was our mother. To dig up huge tracts of land with giant shovels was evil. Just as you cannot dig holes in your mother breasts with a knife—the Indian thought of the land as our mother. The land repaid us for our respect, and fed us, and the cycle of life was complete.
“Neither did the the Indians—the native Americans—consider the land dividable. We couldn’t own the land, instead it owned us. Our way was—and is—to walk with the beauty, to know that the spirit of land and sky and man are one whole. The white man lost that identification to the earth. They took away the soil, dug it up and refined it, made it into uranium, and then into thermonuclear bombs. To destroy themselves, and us, and the land and the air and water, in all the ten directions.
“It all started a hundred years before the war. The fences went up—barbed wire, then razor wire. The white man said to the native Americans: ‘This piece is my land, and this piece is your land,’ and gave themselves the better land. Then the white man discovered oil, and it was on the Indian lands. And they said, ‘Wait a minute, sorry about that, this piece of land is not your land
His house was highest on the cliff, accessed, Rock was happy to discover, by a series of sturdy ladders. They went up.
The home of the chief was most remarkable. Like the other dwellings it was a Pueblo-style, and bare of adornment, or even of glass in the windows. There was a fireplace, with a few embers being cared for by a pretty woman. There were bookcases—hundreds of shelves. All the classics—in five languages one could read Dickens, Cooper, Disney, Heinlein, and Proust—plus thousands of technical books dating from before World War Three. Rockson also found a newly bound twelve-volume History of the Southwestern Indians in the 20th and 21st Centuries by Chief Smokestone. “I am not finished with it,” Smokestone said, as Rockson removed one volume from the shelf and started thumbing through it.
“Quite impressive,” the Doomsday Warrior said.
“I am adding a volume,” said Smokestone, “so that people in the future will know of us, and of our ways. Perhaps it will help them. The air is very dry hereabouts, and the books keep well. But just in case I am having them all transferred to hard disk in our computer room.”
“It seems,” said Rockson, “that you have updated these ancient dwellings.”
“We do what we can,” Smokestone replied modestly. He showed the Doomsday Warrior more of the complex—cafeteria-style communal eating areas, gymnasiums with stone barbells, and of course the computer room—deep in the interior of the living rock. Must have been hard carting it all down here.
After seeing all their progress Rockson was more than happy to retire to the Indian chief’s study and discuss their relative philosophies while the rest of the team looked around, led by eager Indian maidens, who expertly elucidated the many sights for them.
After inquiring about how Rockson’s trip had been so far, and Rockson saying “Not too bad” laconically, the subject got heady. As usual among men of learning, the discussion turned to the Great Nuclear War. And the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking got more intense than usual. The Indian chief insisted that if the Indians had run the world, the war would never have happened.
“Please explain that,” Rockson asked.
Smokestone had put on a softer loose shirt and lit up a pipe with a pungent tobacco. He offered Rockson some—there were many pipes—and Rockson accepted one. He puffed away too. They could, Rockson mused, be sitting in an ancient English mens’ club lined with books, and not in the middle of a primitive cliff dwelling in Arizona. Smokestone, between puffs of the stuff which tasted better than it smelled to Rockson, went on with his remarks.
“When the Indian nations owned America, they respected nature, worked with it. To us, to all the tribes, the earth was our mother. To dig up huge tracts of land with giant shovels was evil. Just as you cannot dig holes in your mother breasts with a knife—the Indian thought of the land as our mother. The land repaid us for our respect, and fed us, and the cycle of life was complete.
“Neither did the the Indians—the native Americans—consider the land dividable. We couldn’t own the land, instead it owned us. Our way was—and is—to walk with the beauty, to know that the spirit of land and sky and man are one whole. The white man lost that identification to the earth. They took away the soil, dug it up and refined it, made it into uranium, and then into thermonuclear bombs. To destroy themselves, and us, and the land and the air and water, in all the ten directions.
“It all started a hundred years before the war. The fences went up—barbed wire, then razor wire. The white man said to the native Americans: ‘This piece is my land, and this piece is your land,’ and gave themselves the better land. Then the white man discovered oil, and it was on the Indian lands. And they said, ‘Wait a minute, sorry about that, this piece of land is not your land
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