Clifford Simak: A Choice of Gods

"It seems, sir, the band has moved. They are camped down by the river, in their old camping grounds. They plan to restore the old fields and put in a crop next spring."

"You had a talk with him?"

"Sir," said Thatcher, "he is an old acquaintance and, naturally, I passed a few words with him. He brought a bag of rice."

"I hope you thanked him, Thatcher."

"Oh, indeed I did, sir."

"You should have brought him in."

"He said he had no desire to disturb you, sir, if you happened to be busy."

"I am never really busy. Surely you know that."

"Then," said Thatcher, "I'll ask him to step in."

Jason rose and walked around the desk, standing beside it, waiting for his friend. How long had it been, he wondered—four years, or five—it surely must be five. He'd gone down to the camp to bid his old friend good-bye and after the band had embarked, had stood for a long time on the shingle of the shore, watching the long line of canoes move swiftly up the river, paddles flashing in the sunlight.

Red Cloud was the same age as Jason, but had a younger look. When he came into the room and across the carpeting, his stride had a young man's spring. His hair was black, without a trace of gray; it was parted exactly down the center of his scalp and hung in two heavy braids across his shoulders to dangle on his chest. His face was weather-beaten but, except for a tiny network of crow's feet at the corner of his eyes, had not a wrinkle in it. He wore a buckskin shirt and leggings, with moccasins on his feet. The hand he held out to Jason was thick and calloused with short, blunt fingers.

"It has been a long time, Horace," Jason said. "I am glad to see you."

"You are the only one," said Red Cloud, "who still calls me Horace."

"All right, then," said Jason, "shall I call you Chief? Or Cloud? Or maybe Red?" Red Cloud grinned. "From you, Jason, Horace sounds just fine. We were boys together. Surely you remember. And it brings back the times when we roamed the woods together. We nicked our wrists and held the cuts together so that our blood would mingle. Or at least we thought that it would mingle. I rather doubt it did. But that is neither here nor there. The important thing was the symbolism."

"I remember," Jason said. "I can remember that first day, when your band came paddling down the river and saw the smoke rising from one of our chimneys. All of you, the whole kit and caboodle of you, came swarming up the hill to see what it was all about and for the first time both your band and the people at this house learned that they were not alone, but there still were others left."

"We built big fires out on the lawn," said Red Cloud, "and we killed a beef or two and had a barbecue. We joined hands in a ring and danced around the fires, whooping and hollering. Your grandfather of blessed memory rolled out a keg of whiskey and we all got rather drunk."

"That was when you and I first met," said Jason. "Two young sprouts out to show the world—except there was no world to show. We took to one another almost immediately. We went hunting and fishing together and we roamed the hills. And we chased the girls."

"We caught some of them, as I recall," said Red Cloud.

"They weren't hard to catch," said Jason.

They stood, looking into one another's face, silently, then Jason said, "Let's sit down. There must be a lot we need to talk about."

Red Cloud sat down in a chair and Jason took another and spun it around so he could face his friend.

"How long has it been?" he asked.

"Six years."

"You just arrived?"

"A week ago," said Red Cloud. "We left the north after the wild rice harvest. We didn't travel fast. We stopped whenever we found a good camping place and loafed around and hunted. Some of our young men took the horses down west of the river and will hold them there until there is ice to cross. Later, when it gets colder, we'll cross over and hunt for whiter meat. Buffalo and wild cattle. A runner came in last night and said there are a lot of them on the prairies."

Jason frowned. "A week, you say. You shouldn't have waited so long. If you didn't have time yourself, you should have sent a runner. I'd have come down to visit you."

"The time went fast. There was much to do. We are trying to get the corn ground into shape. The fields have grown up to brush and weeds. We ran out of corn and got hungry for it. Tried to grow some up north, but the season was too short. Got it in late and the frost caught it. Had some roasting ears, but that was all."

"We have corn," said Jason. "A lot of it, ground and ready. I'll send some down to the camp before the day is over. What else do you need—bacon, eggs, flour? We have some good wheat flour. More by far than we can use. Cloth, if you want it. The wool has been good and the looms busy."

"Jason, I didn't come begging…"

"I know you didn't. For years we've shared things back and forth. I hate to think of how much meat and fish and berries and other things your folks packed up the hill for us in days gone by. Thatcher says you brought some rice…"

"All right," said Red Cloud. "You'll not object to a supply of buffalo meat when we make the hunt?"

"Not at all," said Jason.

"Better yet, how about coming along on the hunt?"

"There is nothing I'd like better."

"Good! It will be like old times. We'll let the others do the work. We'll sit around the fire, you and I, and talk and eat hump meat."

"You live a good life, Horace."

"I think we do. There were so many ways we could have gone. We could have settled down. We could have taken over some good housing and good fields and put in crops and collected us some livestock. We could have become good farmers. But we didn't. We took up the old ways. I guess we never were too far from them. In the heart of each of us, we'd dreamed of them time and yet again. The pull was there. The call was there. Our ancestors had lived the life for thousands of years. We had only a few hundred years of the white man's way and they had been far from good years. We never fitted in, we never had a chance to. It was a relief to shuck off all of it and go back to the flowers, the trees, the clouds, the seasons and the weather, the running water, the creatures of the woods and prairies—to make them a part of us again, more a part of us than they'd ever been before. We learned something from the whites, that we can't deny—we'd have been stupid if we hadn't. And we used these white man's ways to make the old way of life an even better life. Sometimes I wonder if we made the right choice, then I see an autumn leaf—one leaf alone, not a lot of leaves—or hear the sound of a little stream of water running in the woods, or catch a forest scent, and then I know we were not wrong. We went back to the earth, linked ourselves with the hills and streams, and that is the way it should be. That is the way we were meant to live. Not back to the old tribal concept, but back to a way of life. We were a woodland tribe to start with, but now we are no longer woodland. Maybe we're simply Indian. We adopted the skin tepee of the Western plains tribes and, in large part, their way of dress and their use of horses. But we kept the birch bark canoe, the wild rice harvest and the maple sugar. It has been a good life. You and I, old friend, have caught the feel of life—I in my tepee, you in this stone house. You never went to the stars and you may be better off for never having gone. I suppose they find great things out there…"

"A few things," Jason said. "Many interesting things. Perhaps even some useful items. But we put few of them to any use. We have seen them, observed them, even studied them, in some cases arrived at an understanding of what is going on. But we no longer are a technological race. We lost technology when we lost the manpower and the knowledge and the machines broke down and there was no one to start them up again and no energy to run them. We don't mourn that lost technology, as I think you know. At one time we might have, but not any longer. It would be a bother now. We have become competent observers and we gain our satisfaction from our observations, achieving minor triumphs when we are able to reach some solid understanding. Knowing is the goal, not the using. We aren't users. We have somehow risen above using. We can rest content to see resources lying idle; we might even think it shameful to try to use or harness them. And it's not only resources; it's ideas and…"