more scars on your conscience?”
“She can’t,” Max said. “Her threats are sheer bluff. Every peripheral nation in the world is watching this play out. Secondary and primary nations are gridlocked on this, politically and philosophically. Protests and riots are erupting in one major city after another. It’s all falling apart, all because one lone independent nation said yes to the dream.”
Jack Tree said, “You were so certain, Doctor, weren’t you? Convinced by all your covert anthropological data. You thought the dreamtimes were dead. You’ve plied us with schemes designed to make us invisible, even to ourselves. You called it the application of successful adaptative cultural adjustment. For all your efforts to save us by destroying us, we have still defied you. We have met our dream.” He paused and studied the steatite pipe in his hands. “Not, I’ll grant you, in the way I would have imagined it. The pattern in the skies is new to me, so new that it sometimes frightens me. But I am old, my days are almost done. What I pass on to my children is and always will be the one thing you cannot control, cannot shape to suit your ends. My gift is the history of the damned, and my poison is truth. You see, Doctor, I remember .”
Jenine said, “You’re all making a terrible mistake.”
“If we are,” Daniel said, “it will be ours, not yours. Possessing something—even freedom—is two-edged. Our days of sucking at your collective tit are over. The time’s come for you to let go.” He smiled, and it was a smile of sad wisdom. “I had hoped for your blessing, for the cleansing of your hands. But no, you still try to possess us. If it comforts you to call that possession something else, like protection, compassion, or a justifiable maternal instinct, then so be it. Whatever word you choose, it still means chains to us.”
Entry: American NW, July 11, 2014
“Enough of the preliminaries,” Jenine said, “let’s get to negotiating this treaty.”
Jack Tree repacked his pipe and set a burning ember to the steatite bowl. “We have come to listen, Dr. MacAlister.”
“As representative of the North American Confederacy and spokesperson for the divine will of the Triumvirate of A.C . 14, I am authorized to negotiate the honorable purchase of the following items from those gathered here as representatives of the Lakota Nation and related sovereign peoples of the Midwest Hole; said representatives being thusly identified and duly recorded: John ‘Jack’ Tree Whose Roots are Deep, and Daniel Horn, of the Lakota Nation. Do you acknowledge your presence here at this gathering?”
“We do.”
“Excellent, we’re off to a fine start that will benefit us all. We are, as you know, newcomers to your lands, granted by right of God and King, and by right of Manifest Destiny to rule over and subjugate all peoples we encounter should they prove incapable of opposing us. Regardless of our motive, our methods remain singular in their objective; to wit, either by direct violent action upon the persons of said indigents, or by systematic destruction of their habitat and subsistence patterns, or by insipid destruction of their social fabric and way of life as categorized by cultural affiliation, through such deus ex machina vectors such as disease, alcohol, enforced indoctrination of our religious beliefs, legal removal of children for purposes of education and assimilation, restriction to peripheral lands unsuitable to sustaining traditional lifestyles and conducive to general cultural deterioration through long-term programs to ensure dependency, loss of dignity, removal of personal responsibility in matters of familial care, education, sustenance procurement, shelter maintenance, and so on.
“Toward the satisfactory completion of our singular goal, we are herewith purchasing from those in attendance and those peoples they represent, the following: your land, your life.
“In return, and as payment for the
“She can’t,” Max said. “Her threats are sheer bluff. Every peripheral nation in the world is watching this play out. Secondary and primary nations are gridlocked on this, politically and philosophically. Protests and riots are erupting in one major city after another. It’s all falling apart, all because one lone independent nation said yes to the dream.”
Jack Tree said, “You were so certain, Doctor, weren’t you? Convinced by all your covert anthropological data. You thought the dreamtimes were dead. You’ve plied us with schemes designed to make us invisible, even to ourselves. You called it the application of successful adaptative cultural adjustment. For all your efforts to save us by destroying us, we have still defied you. We have met our dream.” He paused and studied the steatite pipe in his hands. “Not, I’ll grant you, in the way I would have imagined it. The pattern in the skies is new to me, so new that it sometimes frightens me. But I am old, my days are almost done. What I pass on to my children is and always will be the one thing you cannot control, cannot shape to suit your ends. My gift is the history of the damned, and my poison is truth. You see, Doctor, I remember .”
Jenine said, “You’re all making a terrible mistake.”
“If we are,” Daniel said, “it will be ours, not yours. Possessing something—even freedom—is two-edged. Our days of sucking at your collective tit are over. The time’s come for you to let go.” He smiled, and it was a smile of sad wisdom. “I had hoped for your blessing, for the cleansing of your hands. But no, you still try to possess us. If it comforts you to call that possession something else, like protection, compassion, or a justifiable maternal instinct, then so be it. Whatever word you choose, it still means chains to us.”
Entry: American NW, July 11, 2014
“Enough of the preliminaries,” Jenine said, “let’s get to negotiating this treaty.”
Jack Tree repacked his pipe and set a burning ember to the steatite bowl. “We have come to listen, Dr. MacAlister.”
“As representative of the North American Confederacy and spokesperson for the divine will of the Triumvirate of A.C . 14, I am authorized to negotiate the honorable purchase of the following items from those gathered here as representatives of the Lakota Nation and related sovereign peoples of the Midwest Hole; said representatives being thusly identified and duly recorded: John ‘Jack’ Tree Whose Roots are Deep, and Daniel Horn, of the Lakota Nation. Do you acknowledge your presence here at this gathering?”
“We do.”
“Excellent, we’re off to a fine start that will benefit us all. We are, as you know, newcomers to your lands, granted by right of God and King, and by right of Manifest Destiny to rule over and subjugate all peoples we encounter should they prove incapable of opposing us. Regardless of our motive, our methods remain singular in their objective; to wit, either by direct violent action upon the persons of said indigents, or by systematic destruction of their habitat and subsistence patterns, or by insipid destruction of their social fabric and way of life as categorized by cultural affiliation, through such deus ex machina vectors such as disease, alcohol, enforced indoctrination of our religious beliefs, legal removal of children for purposes of education and assimilation, restriction to peripheral lands unsuitable to sustaining traditional lifestyles and conducive to general cultural deterioration through long-term programs to ensure dependency, loss of dignity, removal of personal responsibility in matters of familial care, education, sustenance procurement, shelter maintenance, and so on.
“Toward the satisfactory completion of our singular goal, we are herewith purchasing from those in attendance and those peoples they represent, the following: your land, your life.
“In return, and as payment for the
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