Fireside

The wrinkled old chief sits crosslegged, glowing reddish orange from the heap of mesquite coals. He says: “You landed in small boats and you looked around and gasped and wept and said Praise be to your Great Spirit. You told us that this, truly, is your Jehovah’s own Promised Land, which he has given to you. You said ‘He has brought us here to multiply and make this beautiful land our own and sing His praises, amen.’

“We told you: 'The land, she does not belong to us, nor to you. Go. Or stay. As you wish, but in peace. We will be brothers. Like your King David and his friend Jonathon in your holy book.'

We pronounced holy oaths and exchanged meat and skins and corn for whiskey and beads and smallpox. And then you, our new brothers, began marching to the west. You marched 3000 miles. The old man holds out one long hardened arm and pointed toward the sunset, his other fingers hang loosely. “You came through the impenetrable forests, across those eternal plains, clawing your way inch by inch across the merciless mountains. You buried your emaciated dead along the trails as you picked your way through our sacred deserts.

“And when you finally dipped your weary and broken feet in the western sea, the one you call Pacific, you said: ‘Ah, it is good and it is beautiful and desirable, we must put up fences or these savages will take our land and murder our wives and children and steal our horses and cattle.’ And once you had fenced off all that was livable, you said: ‘Now we must have an army, for these savages are great in number and they will surely come and murder and rape and pillage and take from us what Jehovah has promised us.’