RETURN

"Papa, will you tell the story of when you met Ma?"

This request comes from a tall dark skin man holding a stuffed blanket against his chest; spoken using a shortened sign language due to only one hand being free to move.

The elder man, who understands, struggles to sit his body forward on the single mattress beneath him, and then to fold his legs just so. Once he is successful, he close his eyes, cusp his hands at his apex, and then starts to hum. Baritone vibrations fill the space in which the man begin to rise. His mouth opens wider. AUM comes out louder, immersing all atoms around them, thereby spreading to the man standing in observation. He also hum, rising in experience of environmental changes within his own perception.

In the awareness of two streams of consciousness, who depart from a shanty room in a hospital west of the Mississippi River, a building burns wildly caring nill for the anti-slaveholders inside. The father and son visiting the scene through ancient time travel, both, understand the conflicting ideology that has led to this experience of smelling burning wood, kerosene, and fear.  

Anti-slaveholders are savages as far as pro-slaveholders are concerned. It was pro-slaveholders who started the fire in response to the rift. Members of the most influential church, some who are slaveholders and others aspiring to become wealthy in virgin land, have played jump rope between church and state, having let it be known within political cracks that the majority of the white men who operate the church's press are fenced on the matter. Only brave and bold men not afraid to mold a better future for themselves, a future different from the one imagined by abandoned political masters, will fail if slavery is outlawed in this state. 

"Virgin land will go unpenetrated by men who can really afford her, who can understand her and provide for her the structure needed for her to yield her most precious gifts," spoke a member of a private group to another in the presence of an ignorant child. 

The child's mother had been murdered for being Indian and the lover of a white man married to a vengeful white woman. The man couldn't rear his only boy, openly, so he made arrangements in attempt to fool the world of his folly. This boy was given to American clergymen, decent men who could highlight the path of righteousness. The man didn't know at the time that his request would lead to his son being ignorant of his death. He was never again mentioned to the boy after the transaction. The heavenly father, who neither dies nor is he born, took his place. It was this father, his son learned, who created the inequality in mankind.

"Go on, Rouleau," wheezes a dying man to a young boy. "The others will guide you. Catch up with them. This epoch requests my departure."

The young boy's blonde hair lay slick against his tan head blackened with soot. He fall to his knees beside his elder. 

"I can't let you burn, Mr. Penny. You mustn't give up the good fight. You mustn't. Let's go Mr. Penny."

The man's mouth open, but no sound comes out. His head lean backwards allowing a gust of air to escape his silence. 

The sobbing boy tries to lift the man from the chair, but can't. 

Pieces of ceiling fall to the floor making the door beside them the only reprieve. It swings open revealing three panicked men.

"Come on, now, Rouleau, before you become supper for the other side," shouts the tallest among them. 

A puddle of fire moves towards the boy inciting him to obey the tug at his stained white shirt.

"I will forever remember, Mr. Penny. I will persist until I succeed like you taught," he shout as he exits.

The scene changes.

Seventeen years later, during the peak of summer, Rouleau is tied to a stake with oil dipped hemp rope, positioned 12 o'clock above a ring of blazing coal.

"Appaka neta kahaan hai," shouts a man from a group of faces painted with three stripes on each cheek-green, white, black, respectively, beneath headdresses of eagle feathers. He spit on the ground towards Rouleau, who doesn't understand his chopped breathy dialect.

"Speak English," he shout back to the Indian Chief, he presumes. I speak English, but I do not hunt you. There's no need to kill me."

This is true. Being a mixed breed, he is unequal to his elders, and has been deceived of truth.

The other feathered men begin to echo the first.

"Appaka neta kahaan hai," they shout and start dancing around the stake, raising spears and bows to the sky.

The first man to speak the foreign words clap his hands three quick times causing the others to freeze in silence. He approach the captive coming as close as fire will let him.

"I speak English white man. Where is your leader? You lie. Always you hunt us. Not enough to rob, kill, and destroy. You try to erase native man and native woman. Then create mixed breeds you also discard. You call us Indian, but you mean savages. What do you call yourself? Who are you beyond skin?"

The men silently backing the chief burn Rouleau with their stares. He is sweating, wishing he had never strayed away from his group. Unfair treatment is, now, preferred over his current position. How can he explain himself before his boots catch fire? 

"My leader," he begin. "I mean general McCloud and the rest of the group are close by. Yes, they hunt for you to speak about peace. They want you to sign."

Fire dance against the soles of horse hide boots creating the scent of singed hair. The entire group of painted faces spit in response to Rouleau's proclaim. 

"Peace doesn't come, easily, between thief and wounded. This is done only through the spirit of the Great One who connects us all. Peace takes form between men as it exists within the two when they are apart. The white man is troubled. He has brought with him his trouble, and has shared it like a plague. You hunt us because of sickness. Our arrows, spears, and ancestors will bring forth cure."

At this indication, the rest of the painted faces thaw. Bows and spears raise. They chant, "Appaka neta kahaan hai."

"Please," Rouleau insists. "Let me down. I can help you. Maybe you can help me."

His boots become flames, yet he manages to kick them off to the ground, mindful not to hit an Indian lest he fail to prove his innocence. Some of them laugh at his attempt to stall burning alive. 

"Help," he scream.

"Yes, mixed breed. Call forth your leader. He can have stake when you're done."

Laughter from the others support the chief's expression. 

The fire taunts Rouleau, taking time to consume him. His stockings start to burn, crisping his feet. He cry out in agony, and as though in response, the group of English law enforcers with whom he traveled appear.

Shots fire above the gathering of painted faces and white men, projected from the man on the back of a brown horse with a blonde mane and tail. The Indian's nock their arrows in perfect sync, each targeting vulnerable parts of the newcomers.

"Hold your fire," General McCloud orders. "Contingent upon cooperation of these here Indians."

The chief claps once instructing his men to lower their weapons.

Rustling of leaves within surrounding trees is heard before a feminine voice speaks.

"Father, please listen."

Red leaves of a silver maple cloak the speaker within its bosom until she take her chances with disobedience. It is well known among this tribe, since the betrayal and death of key matriarchs, non-warrior females are to remain beyond battle grounds in preparation of warriors' return. 

"You must let him down from his death," she continues. "He belongs to us, to Big Hips. I was shown her demise in a dream."

The horsemen laugh at the words they hear. They jeer about savage connections, and their delusions that help them not.

The female continues to speak with her back turned to the men as she carefully manuevers down to their level. Fringes of buffalo teeth catch on a jutting limb that breaks away in response, taking with it a tear of her deer skin dress. She ignore masculine commotion though uncertain of her fate once she is grounded. She continue to speak as swiftly and clearly as possible under these circumstances. 

"The spirit of the great One has revealed the captive as one delivered through ignorance. His mother died because of his birth. He will be my husband when he is freed." 

Rouleau is unconscious, still burning, unaware of this twist.

The gathering of men stiffen as they watch the tree give birth to a voluptuous female with slick black hair, braids adorned with flowers resting on her shoulders. She hit the ground running towards Rouleau. From her stanon she produce a pouch filled with sacred dust that is thrown at the fire.

She speak an incantation in her native tongue as her hands gesture between the young man on the stake and the sky.

"Desist," she demands and the fire obeys.

Several of McCloud's men, without hesitation, rush to Rouleau removing him from capture. Their abandoned horses wait with the others whose men on their backs target the chief and the female before him. The warriors ready their bows at both, the defiant female and the horsemen.

"Catalana," the chief addresses. "Why do you defy your honor with nonsense? You use sacred knowledge to help enemies?"

"Father, he is not our enemy. He found us through fate. He doesn't know Big Hips, yet her spirit has brought him home."

"Big Hips defied honor when she joined the white man in secrecy. Disrespect for tribe mother. Her death was mourned but just."

"Death by hands of another is never just, Father. Big Hips followed premonitions of the oracles. I regard her honor."

"You can not marry a man with tainted blood. You bring death within our tribe from outside. That man is just as the men who help him. The white man. The enemy. They come to steal, kill, and destroy."

Catalana's head move from side to side. 

"No, father. True peace knows no enemies. Our people deserve more than famine and war. These men on horseback carrying fire have come to secure peace as you were told. The dream revealed these things and the many hardships that will follow. We must persevere peacefully within, if we are to survive at all." 

The man and his son traveling through consciousness, enter space within a teepee where young Catalana is kneeling beside the naked Rouleau lying upon a bed of wool. Using her freed hair, she apply sap to his burns, and then covers them with bark. After his legs and feet are completely covered, she massages his scalp as she tell him about Big Hips and her plan that brought him to life.

Two nurses call out to the men suspended in air inside of the small room. Having come to the end of their voyage, they return to their original positions; one upon the bed and the other upright on the floor. Cries ring out from the blanket the standing man is holding. He rocks the child, speaking soft words to it.

"Mr. Beaulieu," exclaims one of the pale skin women, her dainty hands rising to her face. "I didn't know you," she struggles to speak. 

Her body collapses and the woman beside her catches the corpse, hugging at the waist to assist with transition to the floor. 

"Susan," calls the younger nurse to the older. 

People stir beyond the door. A stocky male with blonde hair and pale skin appear at the side of the fallen. He place his fingers on her temples, before placing two fingers on her wrist below her palm. Her chest shows signs of breathing. Moments later she wakes.

"Are you alright, Susan," the male ask.

She nod and attempt to stand, insisting she do so on her own. 

"Yes, Sir. I am just fine. I can't describe what happened just now."

She turn towards the other nurse who had witnessed what she saw.

"You saw them, right?"

"I saw them, Susan. But, is it worth our repertoire to attempt the impossible? It's time to bring in Mrs. Beaulieu."

Susan and the male leave the scene, moving as though she had not fainted moments ago. The third nurse enters the room fully.

"We will be ready for you to return in just a while," she say to the man, who is making silly facial expressions and speaking babble to the alert baby.

"What a beautiful brown baby," she compliments. "Hello there little brown girl. What is your name?"

"Her name is Big Hips in our tribe. Her social name is Shaanti." 

He and baby Shaanti stand in the hall while the space is prepared with a miniature hearth that burns cedar, sandalwood, and silver maple. A pot of peace lilies are placed upon the bedside table. Then, Susan and the male accompanying her, together, wheel a rickety metal bed with a frail woman on top into the room.

A pocket watch being used to amuse the baby displays the hour hand on eleven as the minute hand moves beyond it when they are welcomed back inside of the space where the man's Papa and Ma wait in each other's embrace. They acknowledge his return, and kisses the baby before withdrawing into a cocoon made of a thin blanket. Eventually, the pair drifts into sleep from which neither of them return.