Ted Dekker - Outlaw

Shaka flipped a fist-size fruit—a guava—into the air, sending it far from the cliff.

“Through the heart,” he said.

With practiced ease Stephen strung the arrow, calmly lifted the bow, made the appropriate reckonings for distance, wind, and trajectory, and released the string. The arrow sliced through the heavy air and struck the fruit as it fell. The impaled guava jerked away from them and dropped lazily toward the jungle far below.

“Bang! Dead. She falls into the abyss to be plucked by a lucky bird.”

“What do we say of this?” Shaka asked.

“That I never miss my mark.”

Shaka’s brow arched. “Never? I’ve sent you chasing after a thousand spent arrows in my time.”

“That was the past. It no longer exists. Now it’s never.” He could not hide his whimsical grin.

“Touché yet again. Clever boy. A miss means what?”

“To miss the mark is to be separated from the truth. In another land they call it sin. Evil. Missing the mark. If I separate myself even a fraction from my true identity, I suffer.”

“It’s harder to hit the mark when strong winds blow.”

“True enough.”

Shaka faced him. “You must know that a storm is coming.”

Stephen dipped his head. “My heart will fly true.”

Shaka studied him for a long moment, and for the first time since coming to the cliff, Stephen felt a prick of concern.

“Do you doubt me, Shaka?”

“The insane secretly crave suffering. It gives them an identity, however absurd.”

“I am not insane.”

“I don’t doubt you, Stephen. The question is whether you will doubt yourself. For this day you were born. You are Outlaw, dead to the laws of separation and death that cause insanity. Soon those laws will try to reclaim you as they have the whole world. The storm will blow and your aim will be tested. Then you will be tempted to forget who you are and deny the truth.”

“Never.”

“But you will, Stephen. More than once.”

He stared at Shaka, confused.

“But have no fear,” Shaka said. “This too is necessary. Only by walking through the valley of darkness do you realize that death is only a shadow.”

“I’m going to the valley?”

“I have raised you as a son, teaching you all you must know to be who you are. For this day I also came. And then my work will be done.”

“Done? I will be alone?”

His teacher smiled. “Alone?”

This too was Shaka’s way, always pressing for precision. In that place of knowing his true identity, there could be no true loneliness, because Stephen was one with his Father.

“I am never alone. Only my costume feels alone because he is afraid he is not enough. But I am complete. I will never be alone.”

“No. In fact, you will soon be surrounded by many. Then you may wish you were by yourself. Which is only more insanity.”

“Insanity. Always insanity. Jika, jika, jawa . Madman coming.”

“ Jika, jika, jawa . Madman coming.” Shaka turned from the cliff. “The time has come.” He strode toward the tree line thirty paces distant. A tangle of vines and thick moss was draped from heavy branches that blocked the fading sun’s light from reaching the muddy trail beneath.

“It’s time for you to see.”

See what, Stephen did not ask, nor did he care to. His trust in Shaka had been forged over many years. Whatever his teacher wanted him to see or learn, he simply would, in its right time.

Chapter Twenty-three

IT WAS dark when they broke from the trees and approached the clearing in which they’d constructed their three huts—one for cooking, one for sleeping, one for individual reflection if the training called for it.

It was in this third hut, which was built high on stilts, that Stephen had learned to be perfectly still for hours, sometimes days, searching the deepest parts of his mind. And then going beyond his thoughts to the place where the mind had to be stilled to truly know .

He was now twenty, Shaka said. He could recall being sequestered in the tall hut through the night at age six, feeling alone until that great warmth came to his soul and assured him that he was not alone. Rather he was in a world of light and color, oddly one with it, as if he himself were made of the same fabric as the light.

It was then, only after Stephen had informed Shaka of his experience, that his teacher had begun his bodily training, because unless one was connected with his true self, all else was futile, he said.

Stephen could not remember the last time he’d truly felt alone. Even when Shaka headed into the mountains, often for days at a time, Stephen felt no loss. The darkness offered him no threat, nor did anything.

He remembered the words of his teacher when he was only seven or eight years old:

“How big is God, Stephen?”

“As big as a bull,” he’d cried, citing the beasts Shaka had told him about

“A bull. Fine, let’s make him a bull. Can this bull be threatened by any other?”

“No, he’s far too powerful.”

“And evil…If we say that God is a big bull, how big is evil? What animal should we make evil?”

Stephen had considered this question for a moment.

“Like a mouse.”

“Can this mouse threaten the bull?”

“He could bite it on the leg.”

“And make the bull snort away in pain?” Shaka asked, brow raised.

Again Stephen had gone deeply into consideration for a solution, because he knew that God could not fear any threat.

“Then we must make the bull bigger,” he said.

“How big?” Shaka asked.

“As big as the jungle. Then this mouse wouldn’t threaten him.”

“Why don’t we make the bull as big as the sea?” Shaka asked.

“Yes! The sea!” Stephen had cried, thrusting both fists into the air.

Shaka had laughed, joining his delight.

“As big as the world!” his teacher said.

“The whole world. Then the bull would not even feel the mouse if it bit him on his leg.”

Shaka had nodded. “The truth, my son, is that you still make your idea of God far too small. He is as big as the sun. As a thousand suns. As the universe. And this is only his mouth, which speaks all that is into existence.”

Stephen had stared up into his teacher’s eyes, lost in wonder.

“And the mouse?” Shaka asked.

“Is still only a mouse,” Stephen said.

“And that mouse is like a speck that cannot threaten, nor harm, nor even disturb such a bull.”

Shaka had looked into the fire with glassy eyes, and Stephen thought he could see the sun in them.

“The people of this world make a god for themselves in their own image, and in doing so they make God far, far, far too small. His power is infinite. Evil is finite. Finite to infinite is like a speck of sand to a billion suns. This is your Father. You are his. In him, you cannot be threatened or harmed or disturbed. Your costume alone holds the illusion that such harm is possible and so it screams.”

The truth of this had stayed with Stephen through many dark nights.

They subsisted mostly on fruits and vegetables taken from the jungle, small game, and boars. Occasionally crocodile meat and fish, but only when they headed south to the swamps, where Shaka first told Stephen about what it meant to be a Water Walker and then guided him in becoming one. By this he meant the art of forgiving. Of letting go.

Shaka dipped beneath the overhang of the cooking hut’s grass roof and led Stephen into the small round room, lit by only glowing embers in the shallow pit at the center. Without a word he placed several large splinters of wood on the dying ash and gently coaxed the hot coals to life. The embers sprouted flame, fed on the fuel, and lapped hungrily for more wood, which Shaka supplied.