Michael Blake - The Holy Road

"Well,” he began earnestly, “eventually there will be too much smoke. The population is expected to double in the next twenty-five or thirty years."

When this was translated, Ten Bears asked that it be repeated, and when he heard it again he was still unsure if he had heard right.

"Two times as many white people?. . In twenty-five snows?”

"Yes," the director assured him, "but we are working on alternatives. We don't possess the means yet, but it seems likely that in the future trash will be buried."

"In the earth?" Ten Bears questioned, his face frozen in shock.

"Why. . yes."

“The earth is alive.”

The director didn't fully grasp the concept.

"Well. . uh. . yes,” he stammered, “but it has to go somewhere.”

The men were silent for a time as their team jogged smoothly back in the direction of the city. Ten Bears had closed his eyes, but just his white hosts thought he might have drifted off, the old man's head jumped forward and his eyes flew open.

"I didn't see any feces or urine. Where do you put that?”

The director's stare was so incredulous and intense as to cause Ten Bears to wonder briefly if his question had not provoked a spell of insanity in his companion. But a moment later a grateful smile spread across the director's small mouth.

"Thank you, Mr. Ten Bears, thank you for asking,” he said.

The director's thankfulness was heartfelt. Not a day went by that he didn't long to hear the question Ten Bears had asked. His longing usually went unrequited, for the disposal of human waste was not a topic that excited public interest. But here was a man who wanted to know. It didn't matter to the director if he spoke a language of grunts or dressed in the skins of animals or attached eagle talons and eagle feathers to his head. The director was happy to share his excitement.

The sewer system, which had finally become operational only six months before, was the crown jewel of his career. He launched into an animated technical explanation of the system but had barely spoken a few sentences before the translator threw up his hands and explained to the director that most of what he was saying could not be turned into Comanche.

"Ask Mr. Ten Bears if he would allow me to show him the system."

The translator passed this on, listened to the response, and turned again to the director.

"He says he would like that very much."

Shortly after arriving back at the administrator's office they were off again, traveling for only a few minutes before turning up a broad residential avenue flanked by enormous houses that Ten Bears was astonished to learn held but one family each.

Halfway up the street they pulled behind an empty wagon apparently belonging to a pair of burly, taciturn workmen who had taken up a position in the center of the street. Ten Bears noticed that one of the men was shouldering a length of stout metal and, when they reached the middle of the street, he discovered that the men were standing over a large metal disc fitted perfectly into the roadway.

"Have you defecated in a water closet, Mr. Ten Bears?" asked the director.

“Yes."

"And have you pulled the chain and seen your feces disappear?"

"Yes, I did that. It went down a hole and didn't come back."

"Good. Now. ." Here the director paused to pick out the first mansion he chanced to see. "If you were in that house and defecated in its water closer and pulled the chain, your feces would disappear into a tube. The tube would carry your feces out here."

Ten Bears understood the various parts of the director's explanation but could not put them together, and, thinking he might have missed something, glanced regularly at the interpreter.

“If you please, gentlemen, lift off the manhole,” the director commanded, as if he were about to reveal a fabulous jewel.

The man with the steel bar inserted it into the disc's edge and, in a show of prodigious strength, levered the heavy plate high enough to be grasped by his companion. Together they rolled the huge wheel of metal to one side, leaving a hole in the street.

Ten Bears peered into the hole and caught the unmistakable odor of excrement. At the same time, he picked up the sound of moving water.

Ten Bears glanced at the director. The white man smiled knowingly, as if in concert with Ten Bears, and began to gesture expansively at the houses of the rich.

"Every house has such a tube and all the tubes flow into this big one."

"A river," Ten Bears offered.

"Exactly," the delighted director replied. “We have made a river to carry away the waste from our bodies.”

Ten Bears gazed deeper into the hole.

"But where does it flow?” he asked.

"Ah-ha!" the director exclaimed, raising an emphatic finger in front of his face. "I will show you."

They clambered back into the carriage and in a few blocks turned east on a road parallel to the brooding river that hugged the city, following it to the desolate outskirts of town.

The carriage pulled up to a fenced portion of the adjacent waterway's banks and Ten Bears was escorted to a spot where a door had been made in the fence. The director pushed a key into the door and a few steps later Ten Bears was gazing down at four enormous tubes, all of them spewing effluent into the river.

Though the air was heavy with stink, Ten Bears stood mesmerized. At last he looked at the director and lifted an arm over the Potomac River.

"Is this a river of feces, too?”

"No, this river only carries the sewage away.”

"Where does it go?"

"To the ocean."

"The great water that goes forever?"

“Yes,"

Ten Bears looked downriver. He regarded the gushing tubes once more and sank into thought.

"What will happen when the great waters fill with feces?”

“Oh, no,” the director chuckled. “The ocean cannot be filled."

Ten Bears was still awake when Kicking Bird came back and they talked about the events of the day over a pipe.

Kicking Bird had been, impressed with the races. Just like Comanches, the white people got very excited when the horses ran, though some were demonstrably sad or angry when wagers were lost. Both men agreed that it was one more sign among many that the whites lacked pride.

"What did you do, Grandfather?”

"I was shown a river,” Ten Bears answered.

"That big river we saw?”

"No, this one runs under the earth. It was made by the hair-mouths. I think one of its streams runs below this place where we are sitting.” Kicking Bird was too stunned to speak.

"Do you know what it carries?” Ten Bears asked.

Kicking Bird moved his head numbly back and forth.

"It carries the white man's excrement.” Kicking Bird's mouth fell open and the blood drained from his face.

Two days before their scheduled departure, the meeting with the generals at the War Department took place. As the delegation filed out, Ten Bears paused at a balcony while the others down a long line of steps to a convoy of carriages which were to them to an afternoon portrait session at one of the city's leading photographic studios.

His position behind the balcony's stone railing afforded a comprehensive view of the sprawling city, and as Ten Bears filled his eyes with the evidence of white proliferation, he was struck with a question that had been haunting his thoughts.

A high-ranking, crisply groomed colonel had escorted the delegation to the exit, and, seeing Ten Bears standing alone, he sidled over and commented on the grandeur of the view.

Ten Bears responded with an uncomprehending nod, then thought to himself, Maybe this soldier knows.

The old man caught the attention of one of the interpreters, calling him over with a few flicks of a hand. Out of courtesy Ten Bears asked for a translation of the colonel's remark.