The Secret of the Desert Stone by Frank Peretti Page B

“What is it we’re going to see?”
    Bengati looked at the chief, who began to relate a story as Bengati translated. “There once was a young man who stole a pig from a neighboring tribe. When warriors from that tribe tried to chase him, he came to this forest and hid in a tree. They would have found him, except a bolt of lightning struck a tree nearby, breaking off a large branch and leaving a scar on the tree that was shaped like a man. The warriors saw that shape, and shot their arrows at it. They thought they had killed the thief, and so they left.”
    This sounded like the chief’s other story about the young man, Dr. Cooper thought. “And you were that young man, Chief Gotono?”
    The chief smiled and came to a stop by a huge tree with deeply furrowed bark and thick limbs. With a wide sweep of his hand, he indicated the trail that still wound through the forest toward the mountains. “I was the young man who fled with a stolen pig. I ran up this very trail,” he pointed to the huge tree beside him, “and climbed this very tree. There is the branch on which I sat while my pursuers came looking for me.”
    Now the chief grew very solemn, his hard gaze commanding everyone’s attention. “But do you understand, Dr. Cooper, that our God saved me from my pursuers when I deserved to die? God sent lightning from the sky and put another man in a tree to take my punishment.”
    The chief turned onto a side trail that led through the brush toward another tree as large and gnarled as the first. The others followed. He stopped on the far side of the tree and looked up, pointing. “Ever since that night, our people have remembered the Man in the Tree who took away my punishment, and I have given his name to my son as a remembrance.”
    Jay and Lila got to the front of the tree before their father. Dr. Cooper could see Jay pointing and Lila looking, and then he saw Lila’s face go pale as her eyes widened with awe—or was it fear?
    He came around the tree and looked up to see where the chief was pointing.
    And then he froze as well. Words failed him. All he could do was look and try to believe what he was seeing.
    About twenty feet up the big, gnarled trunk, a large limb had been blasted off by lightning, leaving a gaping scar where wood and bark had been torn away. The shape of the scar looked like a man: Bark had been peeled to form a body and two legs, and where two upper limbs had broken off, the scars looked like the man’s outstretched arms. Just above the arms, a burl formed the shape of a drooping head.
    The Man in the Tree appeared to be impaled there, hanging by his arms. A few broken arrows could still be seen embedded in the bare wood, shot there by the chief’s pursuers so long ago, and part of a spear was still embedded in the man’s side.

NINE
    T he Man in the Tree . . .” Jay said in a hushed voice. “On-To-Lo.”
    Dr. Cooper quoted the chief’s words as a question, “‘God sent Ontolo to save Mobutu’?”
    Bengati asked the chief about it, and the chief nodded and answered through Bengati, “Mobutu was my name when I was young, before I became Gotono, the chief. That night, God showed me my guilt and the price that guilt can bring, but He paid the price Himself and let me live to do what is right. He spoke to me and revealed Himself, just as He said He would. I returned the pig to its owners and also gave them two of my goats to pay for my wrong. I have never stolen again, and my people have learned never to steal. Through Ontolo, the Man in the Tree, our God has spoken.”
    â€œJust like the Lady and the Snake,” said Lila, tugging on her father’s arm.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Dr. Cooper asked.
    â€œBeset just told me another story. Listen to this.” She quickly recounted it to her father and brother.
    They were awestruck, overwhelmed.
    â€œMan, oh man, oh man,” Jay