Ted Dekker - Outlaw

For a few moments I stood there, heaving, aware of my swelling fear.

But having seen the truth, I also knew that I was not mother or wife or child or woman.

Shaka’s words came to me again like a song spun from the light that swept through my mind.

The roles you identify with are not the true you, they are only the costume you wear for a short time. The time has come to put your eyes on the light of the world, which shines brightly. All who follow need not walk in darkness. They walk instead in that kingdom within, where there is no darkness, beyond the laws which bring suffering. This is the Way.

The fear ebbed.

I ran.

With each step the roar grew, as if it could hear me coming.

And then I crested the hill and the Tegalo valley came into my sight, spread out in all of its own feigned glory.

Far below me a massive river of black bodies flowed in a circle of writhing flesh, brightly colored with red, yellow, and white feathered headbands and body paint. Ten thousand strong from all three clans formed the Tulim tribe in that distant jungle paradise, that hole ripped out of hell, hidden where no white woman in all the world had seen it except one.

Her name was Julian Carter and she thought she was me, but I was far more than her.

I say paradise because I knew that there was great beauty behind the seething anger; light hidden by the blood.

I say hell because they were blind to both beauty and light. Death had been conquered and its law abolished, but they were its prisoners still.

Chants, low and ferocious from the throats of thousands, punctuated the din—two choruses in as much conflict as the warriors’ spears and arrows and blades. A large pyre of wood rose from the center of the circle, and heaped around it were the bodies of those already killed.

I saw immediately the method of their warfare. Rather than form two lines approaching head-to-head, they circled in a thick band from which individual warriors broke out to meet their enemies in single combat. The pace didn’t slow when a warrior was gutted by his opponent’s blade. His body was simply dragged and dumped by the piled wood, where it likely would be burned with all of the dead later, an offering to the spirits.

My heart hammered there on the hill as I stared down at the carnage. It was all so pointless. So misguided. Such insanity.

Then I saw Wilam, the husband who had claimed me for the son I would bring him. My heart surged. Such a magnificent man, spinning out from the thick band of fighters to meet a Warik warrior in the open.

Like a black stallion formed into a man, he loped toward one as strong and tall as he. The sweat on his dark skin glistened in the sun as he leaned into his gait, rushing headlong for his prey.

His opponent showed no sign of fear. Surely their hearts were pounding with terror, gripped by the certainty that one of them would lie dead within a matter of minutes.

The rest of the valley fell away from my consciousness as I focused on the imminent collision of flesh. Time slowed and I watched their precise movements.

Wilam held his spear wide like a sword in one hand; a bone-handled club with a polished gray stone head was in the other. The Warik warrior ran crouched low like a lion, bearing a long bone dagger and shield.

They did not slow or feint or duck or jump.

They collided shield against body in open field, the Warik slashing up with his dagger, Wilam spinning from the blade. And as he spun, Wilam’s cry of rage rose above the din. His extended spear cut through the air as he twisted beyond the man, spun through a full turn, and sliced back around to meet the Warik warrior from behind.

Astonished, I watched as his sharpened spearhead sliced through the man’s neck like a sword and dropped him in a heap.

For a moment Wilam stood his ground, half-crouched, muscles taut, still crying his rage, glaring in the direction of Kirutu across the field.

I had the impression that all of this was preamble to a direct confrontation between the two brothers. And it occurred to me in that moment that Kirutu would prevail.

He had drawn Wilam to his death through the law so that he could emerge as the leader who had upheld the law without compromise.

But I was now the bearer of a new law.

Wilam broke from his kill and jogged back into the thick of his men as their chants marked his victory.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa…

Two Warik warriors peeled off the main circulating body, grabbed the arms and legs of the fallen man, hauled him like a pig to the center of the valley, and dumped him among the dead.

It was absurd.

It was insane.

It was the way of all humans.

And then, as if someone had spoken to them in a single voice, the huge band of Warik warriors slowed. Stopped. Stared down-valley. A cry rose from the Impirum, who quickly pulled up and turned to look down-valley with the Warik.

The form of Sawim, shaman of the Karun tribe, could not be mistaken. He walked slowly but deliberately using a cane, standing tall. From his shoulder hung a net bag. My heart lurched.

Sawim walked into the valley as one who cannot be touched, in much the same way that Shaka had once walked in to save me under the tree. Among the Tulim, power conquered—but not at the expense of the law, and the law was administered by the will of the feared spirits.

I wanted to run then, down into the battleground where my fate awaited me. But I knew that these three men—Kirutu, Wilam, and Sawim—all had to agree with what I would propose. So I waited high upon the hill behind them, allowing my blood to run through my veins like hot light.

I spent precious seconds remembering what I had seen. Hearing again Shaka’s words and those I’d heard on the wind while my eyes were wide open. I fixed my eyes on the net bag Sawim carried so nonchalantly.

The circle had parted already, half with Kirutu, half with Wilam, both of whom had stepped away from the warriors and now stood waiting with heaving chests near the strewn bodies of the dead. I didn’t know how long they’d been in battle—long enough to satisfy Sawim.

The shaman knew precisely what he was doing. As did Kirutu. Only Wilam did not know.

My heart broke for my husband. It hardly mattered that I had been taken by him as a person might take a loaf of bread. In their eyes I was his wife, and I had come to respect him as such despite all that I knew.

And now, knowing more, I loved him. Having seen, I found it nearly impossible to harbor any resentment for any of the Tulim. They were simply doing what they knew to do.

But I wasn’t there for the Tulim. Not yet.

I was there for Stephen.

Sawim stopped before Wilam and Kirutu, and for a few long seconds silence hung over the valley. He wasn’t wearing a mask, and even from that distance I could see that he saw me. It likely gave him some pleasure.

He slowly lifted his hand and spoke in a voice for all to hear.

“Beyond the valley given to all Tulim by the Creator of all, the wam wait for us to fail our ancestors by allowing evil into our hearts,” he cried, turning slowly to address the whole crowd. “The law of our people must be fulfilled on this day or all Tulim will die at the hands of this evil. There is among us one defiled, out of the law, and this one must die.”

He waited a moment for any challenge, but none came. Then he set the net bag on the ground and reached into it with both hands.

I began to walk then. On feet that were numb as much from what I was about to do as from the run, I strode down the grassy slope, eyes fixed on that bag.

Without fanfare Sawim lifted a small, sleeping child out of the bag and lifted him over his head.

Stephen’s small naked body lay still in the shaman’s boney grasp. They’d surely sedated him. I knew that I was far more and far less than mother to him, but in that moment I wanted only to save him. It was now my sole purpose, mother or not.