River
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River - 17 free porn video
Chapter 17
So far: Everyone on the reserve had spent a busy week preparing for
the Sunday services, when the Prophet and the Singers would leave on
their expedition.
------- ----- ----
Sunday morning River was up in the early darkness as usual, standing
in the river. She remembered a story from one of her helpers in the
store on Friday. This was Small John George, a cousin of the Tall John
who had returned safely with her brother the night before. Small John
was one of the idlers on the reserve who subsisted on welfare and a
bit of hunting and fishing. He found that it was nice to have money
that he normally would have spent on liquor within hours of cashing
his check, but the money was burning a hole in his pocket. He said how
hard it was to not go back to the liquor agency and get a few days
worth of drunk.
The river had a solution, and told River a story she could relate to
the people at the service at dawn. The service would be different from
last week's. Liesl and Carla were to be the singers in the water with
her, since Ria, Shelly and Marilyn were too busy preparing for their
trip upriver with Rod at the end of the ceremony.
Just then Carla appeared on the bank. "Come in, the water's fine,"
River joked. "Couldn't sleep?"
"No. I am super nervous and couldn't sleep. I thought you might be
here," the young girl admitted. "I've never sung for so many people
before. I mean, I've never sung at all before. Will many be here?"
"I think everybody in the band will be here," River admitted. "Last
week a few missed, and I understand that they felt quite left out.
Plus we have the Prophet and Singers going out. It is a pretty
important day."
"Nothing this cool ever happened at my old reserve," Carla said. "It
was just boring same old same old. I am so glad Nick brought me here.
I love my new family, and now I have a best friend. I never really had
a friend at the old place. The other boys there used to tease me, or
beat me up for being girly, and the people that I thought were my
parents there didn't care. They thought it would toughen me up. Now I
have real parents that love me, and a brother that loves me, and a big
sister who is doing great things. Life is so much better here."
"I'm so glad you like it here," River said. "The river usually is
pretty smart about the people it accepts into the band. Do you want to
sing for a bit? To practice your songs?"
"Yes I do. At my old reserve only the men would sing, with the women
in the background mostly. I love it here that girls get to take part
in things."
"Well, we really are half of the people," River noted. "We should have
equal rights to the men. So far we have managed to get a lot of the
singing, and we always have had dancing. Someday we might even get a
chance to do the drums. Of course, if you wanted to go back to being a
boy, you could be a drummer one day."
"No way," Carla said with a look of shock on her face. "Please don't
do that. Don't let the river make me a boy again. I am a girl.
Please."
"I'm sorry," River said, not realizing how her little quip would
affect the girl. "I was just joking. I can tell how much you are
really a girl, and I think the river knows it too. Let's sing."
The two sang for several hours, going over all the songs that Carla
would sing at the service several times, until she was confident that
she would sing them perfectly, and also a few other songs that River
felt she should know. Finally, just as the skies were starting to
lighten, people started to show up at the river bank, including the
Stormclouds. Carla climbed out of the river with a hand from her new
brother Nick, and immediately ran over to hug Liesl, her singing
partner and new best friend.
"Carla," Liesl shrieked. "You're bigger! And look, you have boobies!"
Carla noticed the same thing at the same time: she was now a bit
taller than Liesl instead of a half inch shorter. And looking down she
saw that she really did have breasts. Small A cups at best, but they
were real breasts instead of the nubbins she had before. She dearly
wanted to check to see if she was really all girl down below, but
could not think of a way to do so politely in front of all these
people.
"No, you are the same in that area," River said quietly after she got
out of the river. "The river has said it would change you, and has. It
will make one more change, just before high school starts, and then
you will change at the same rate as all other women, with the
exception of when you change down below. And only the river knows when
that will happen."
"You are going to be a grown-up," Liesl said sadly. When you go to
high school I will have to take the bus to Terrace Bay to attend the
middle school. We won't be friends any more."
"Yes we will," Carla said, taking her friend in her arms, and hugging
her tightly. "You were my first friend, my best friend, and will be my
friend forever. I might be older, but you have been a girl longer, and
I still need your help. Plus you are a lot of fun. BFF?"
"BFF," Liesl said, and then giggled.
"What's so funny," Carla asked.
"Look. My sister and your big brother," Liesl said, nodding towards
Nick and Marilyn, who were holding hands up the river a bit, and
talking softly. Carla's eyes went wide. "We may be sisters-in-law, or
whatever?"
"Now don't go rushing things," River said. She had been listening to
the girls chat. "They have just met, and Marilyn is going away for
three weeks or so. Anything could happen during that time. She could
even come back from her trip with a boyfriend."
"No way," Liesl said. "I've heard her talking to Shelly. She is crazy
over Nick, and not because he is rich. She says he is the kindest man
she ever met: bringing you here, giving everyone rides in his car,
being so nice to the elders. She really loves him. She just hopes he
loves her too. Do you know, River?"
"No I don't," River said. "I see the way he looks at her, but I really
don't know how deep it is. Come on, we have a service to start, and
you two have the opening songs to call all the people to the river."
Liesl and Carla sang, and while they didn't have the adult voices of
the older girls, their efforts were well beyond the expectations of
the band. When their song ended River spoke.
"This is a day of departure," she said solemnly, her voice amplified
as it flowed along the river so that all of the several hundred on
shore could hear clearly. "The Prophet and the Singers will leave
right after this ceremony, and I hope all of you will stay to
celebrate their departure. Shortly after that much of my family will
return to Toronto. My father will be back tomorrow, but my mother and
brother will be gone for months, and I will miss them dearly. Tomorrow
two of our members are leaving for a short while to deliver product to
people across the west, showing that the influence of the river is
spreading. Finally, all of you will depart from the river soon and go
back to your homes, hopefully to come back again next Sunday so that
we can again honor Manitou and the river and all the land."
"But I have heard that some of you have been wondering about the vow
of abstinence or at least temperance that most of you made at our
first ceremony. Why should the people not partake of alcohol if they
want? It makes life easier, they say, or bearable. I spoke to the
river about this, and it gave me a story that you should all hear."
"This story goes back two hundred years. Back to the time of Tecumseh
and the first Prophet, his brother Tenskwatawa. The Prophet had been
given great powers by Manitou, and had brought together many of the
peoples into one new nation, dedicated to holding their land from the
whites, who always wanted more, and more, and more, leaving only small
bits of poor land for the people. The Prophet preached that this must
stop."
"His brother, Tecumseh was the greatest warrior of his people, the
Shawnee, and he managed to bring together warriors from all tribes. At
this time the whites, in their blue jackets, and the British, in their
red coats, were fighting a big war, and Tecumseh sided with the
redcoats, who had treated the natives better. He formed a great army,
and as our history says, many Ojibwe warriors joined the other peoples
to form a great army of over 5,000 warriors. The prophet came before
this army, and blessed them with a spell that made it so that the
enemy would not be able to see them in battle, so their deadly rifles
could not harm them. This made the army joyous, and they promised to
obey the rules of the Prophet, which included a prohibition from
drinking the firewater of the white people."
"The army then headed out towards Moravian, in Canada, where the
Prophet said the great battle was to take place. They did not travel
as one great army the way the whites do, but split up into small bands
of one or two hundred, and went towards the meeting place by different
routes. One of the larger groups went through the western lands to the
mouth of the great lake, and crossed over the great river there in
many canoes. Once they landed, they found a small group of several
dozen bluejackets, and attacked them. The bluejackets saw them, and
ran, leaving their wagons behind."
"It turns out that the wagons contained firewater, enough that all the
warriors had a huge share, drinking themselves silly, and then still
having a bottle or two to go into their pockets for the march to the
meeting place the next day."
"When they arrived at the meeting place, hung over, some still
drinking, and completely useless as warriors, Tecumseh was irate. He
slew the chieftain leading the men on the spot, and went amongst the
warriors, breaking bottles and slapping the men, who were suddenly
ashamed at what they had done. Then Tecumseh made what was his big
mistake. He ordered that the men who had been drunk would stand at the
front of his great army, and try to atone for their sins with
bravery."
"The battle happened the next day. The redcoats did not want to fight
there, but to retreat back to York, but Tecumseh knew that he could
not keep such a large army together for so long, nor raise another as
large again the next season. He knew it was time to fight where his
brother had prophesied, and managed to convince the redcoats to join
him. They did, unwillingly."
"The bluejackets came up and saw the shamed warriors at the front of
the army. They had failed the Prophet by drinking firewater, so his
magic did not keep them hidden. They were picked off easily by the
bluejacket rifles. What is more, the warriors behind saw that the
magic did not work for those in the front, and lost faith in the
Prophet. They also became visible and were shot, causing more and more
warriors to lose faith and become visible. Soon warriors were falling
left and right as the deadly bullets flew through the woods of
Moravian. One stray bullet hit Tecumseh, as he stood directing the
shambles of a battle with his personal guard of twenty warriors. Ten
of these warriors were Shawnee, with others from the other tribes,
including two Ojibwe. Those men never lost faith, and so remained
invisible as the bluejackets killed almost all the rest. The redcoats
ran away as they saw the warriors were losing."
"These men gathered up the body of Tecumseh, and took it away so that
the bluejackets could not claim it. They went up the river to near
what was later to become the town of London, and buried Tecumseh
there. He was buried on a hill overlooking the river Thames, and the
warriors planted an acorn over the grave, which later grew into a
mighty oak. Ojibwe people kept the tree, and the grave, safe and
secret for 200 years. When the tree aged, and eventually died, another
was planted in its place, and was known to the people there as the
Warrior Tree, commemorating the death of the warriors at Moravian.
People there no longer know that Tecumseh was buried there."
"The result of this sad tale is that the great army of Tecumseh was
destroyed because a few warriors could not resist firewater. Had they
not gotten drunk, then the First Nations would have destroyed the
bluejackets. The war was settled a few years later, but the voice of
the First Nations was not at the bargaining tables. Had Tecumseh won,
he would have been there, and a nation for the people would have been
carved out of the lands that the whites stole over the next fifty
years. A few cases of whiskey destroyed the chances of a homeland for
the people."
"If you know all that, and you want to still drink firewater, feel
free to do so. Just don't complain if your neighbors shun you, as the
drunken warriors would have been shunned: had any of them lived
through the battle. The firewater has been the bane of our people for
200 years. Do not fall for it again. Instead, let us all work together
to make our nation strong again."
River stopped talking and turned her back on the people to face her
singers. She smiled faintly at them, wondering what the reaction to
her longest speech ever would be. She noticed the eyes of the two
girls widen, and then she heard the reaction. It was a roar. There
were war chants not heard in 100 years, and other whoops and calls.
There was thunderous applause as well. The wolves of the band were
scattered through the crowd, and they too howled. River slowly turned
back and looked on in amazement. These were her people, and they loved
her. And she loved them. Initially it was the river that she loved,
but now she realized that she loved every man, woman, and child in the
band, as well as every tree, rock and blade of grass, every wolf,
deer, otter, rabbit and bear. She loved the land, and its people. She
was the rivertalker.
Finally she lifted her hand, and within seconds the crowd quieted, and
soon after the wolves. "Do not cheer for me," she said. "That story
came from the river, and it is Manitou and the river that you must
honor. I am merely the vessel that delivers their word to you."
"However, there is one more departure coming up soon, and I ask Wayne
Beartalker to enter the river to join me. In less than two weeks Wayne
will return to his second year of studies as Western University, which
happens to be close to where the Warrior Tree ? Tecumseh's grave ? is
located. As I speak the river is showing Wayne where to go. He will
hike and canoe from the university to where the tree is, a trip of two
days, and his task is to honor the tree, and the grave, and if
possible to bring back three acorns from that tree. Two of these will
honor the two Ojibwe who remained with Tecumseh to the end, and never
lost faith. The other will be our own Tecumseh Tree, and all three
will be planted on the banks of the river, here, where we have our
ceremonies."
Again the cheers rang out. "Thanks, River," Wayne said sarcastically
in a voice only River could hear. "I really needed a campout during
school. Nothing better to do."
"Has the river shown you where the tree is?" River asked.
"Yes, I can see the picture clearly in my mind," Wayne said with a
smile. "Thanks for choosing me for this. It really is a great honor."
"I know of no one who could do it better," River said.
The applause had started to die down, but suddenly jumped again. River
turned and looked to see that two loaded canoes were being lowered
into the water. Ben Stormcloud was at one end, while Rod and Nick held
the other as the canoes were launched one at a time. Ria and Rod got
into the front one, while Shelly and Marilyn got into the rear one.
They each paddled up the river, as Silver the wolf loped alongside on
the other side of the river from the people watching. Finally the
canoes reached River, standing in the water. River shook Rod's hand,
and then kissed and hugged each of the three girls. Her young singers,
Carla and Liesl also hugged and kissed their counterparts in the
canoes, and then broke into the departure song. River joined in, and a
few seconds later, every voice on the shore was singing.
Then the most amazing thing happened. The canoeists had had to work
hard to paddle against the current to get up to River, but from that
point on, the canoes shot forward. Everyone could see that for five or
six feet around each boat, the river was flowing backwards. The
current they thought they had to fight was now with them, and they
continued to gain speed as they shot off up the river and around a
bend that obscured them from sight. The people kept singing though,
until it was clear that they would be out of earshot.
Liesl and Carla then sang their final two songs, and the ceremony was
over. The three girls left the river and headed through the crowd, all
of whom wanted to congratulate them: the girls on their fine singing,
and River on her moving story.
River, however, wanted to get back to the campsite and finally Edith
realized what she was doing and began running interference for her.
They made it to the campsite just in time. Dale was itching to get
going on the long drive to Toronto, while Alison was holding him back,
wanting to see River again. She managed to hug each of the members of
her family one last time before watching the van head out on the long
trip.
(Those eager people who like to look things up might find the Battle
of Moravian on their computers and learn that Wikipedia has a few
different facts. It will claim that there were only 500-1000 warriors
at the battle, not 5,000. And they may learn that the Prophet lost his
leadership position two years before that battle. The story River told
her was given to her by the river. So you need to decide whether the
memories of Manitou are more accurate than a computer in Florida (or
wherever). It is not disputed that the body of Tecumseh was never
found, nor that there is an Ojibwe band reservation on the banks of
the Thames near London. There is no named "Warrior Tree" there,
although there are several old oaks in the area and one might be the
one that protects the grave of Tecumseh.)
Uma
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