Slowsome I turned an’ looked.
A fat rat strutted there, stink-eyein’ me an’ twitchin’ its whisk’ry nose. Bet you’re sorryin’ you din’t jus’ cut that rope on the wall o’ my ’closure now, Zachry, yay? All this woe ’n’ grief you could o’ voided.
I din’t list’n to that liar’s liar. The Kona’d o’ attacked anyhow, yay, it weren’t nothin’ to do with me defyin’ that Dev’lish Buggah. I picked up a pot to hurl at Old Georgie, but when I taked aim the fat rat’d dis’peared, yay, an’ from the empty room to my left came a breezy sighin’ from the bed where I din’t see b’fore. I should o’ jus’ rabbited, yay, I knowed it but I din’t, I tippytoed in an’ seen a Kona sentry lyin’ there in a soft nest o’ blankies an’ skankin’ deep on Mormon Valley blissweed. See, he’d been so sure us Valleysmen was all rolled over ’n’ slaved that he’d blissed out, on duty.
So here was the fearsome en’my. Nineteen–twenty maybe he was. A vein pulsed in his Adam’s apple what was left white b’tween two lizardy tattoos. You found me, yay, so slit me, whisped that throat. Blade me.
My second augurin’, you’ll be mem’ryin’ an’, yay, so was I. Enemy’s sleeping, let his throat be not slit. This was the beat that augurin’d foreseen, no frettin’. I say-soed my hand ’n’ arm to do it, but they was locked ’n’ springed somehow. I’d been in knucklies ’nuff, who ain’t? but I’d never killed no un b’fore. See, murderin’ was forbidded by Valleysmen law, yay, if you stole another’s life no un’d barter nothin’ with you nor see you nor nothin’ ’cos your soul was so poisoned you may give ’em a sickness. Anyhow I stood there, by my own bed, my blade inches from that soft, pale throat.
That laughin’ thrush was yarnin’ fast ’n’ loud. Bird lilts sound like blades bein’ sharp’ned, I cogged for the first time there ’n’ then. I knowed why I shudn’t kill this Kona. It’d not give the Valleys back to the Valleysmen. It’d stony my cussed soul. If I’d been rebirthed a Kona in this life, he could be me an’ I’d be killin’ myself. If Adam’d been, say, adopted an’ made Kona, this’d be my brother I was killin’. Old Georgie wanted me to kill him. Weren’t these reasons ’nuff jus’ to leave him be an’ hushly creep away?
Nay, I answered my en’my, an’ I stroked my blade thru his throat. Magicky ruby welled ’n’ pumped an’ frothed on the fleece an’ puddled on the stone floor. I wiped my blade clean on the dead un’s shirt. I knowed I’d be payin’ for it by ’n’ by, but like I said a while back, in our busted world the right thing ain’t always possible.
Goin’ out I bumped Meronym rushin’ in. Kona! she hissed. There weren’t no time to ’splain what I’d done in there an’ why. Hurryin’, I stuffed my fam’ly’s icons in the saddlebags, an’ she hoicked me on the horse. Comin’ up the track from Aunt Bees’s was three–four horses cloppin’. Oh, we speeded out o’ Bailey’s for the final time like Old Georgie was bitin’ our asses. I heard men’s voices b’hind an’ glanced back an’ even saw their armor glintin’ thru the fig orchards, but by Mercysome Sonmi, they din’t see us vanishin’. One beat later we heard a shrill conchin’s echo up the Valley, yay, three blasts it was, an’ I knowed the Kona must o’ found that sentry I’d slayed an’ was sendin’ an alarm out, Valleysmen ain’t all slaved or mass’kered. I knowed I’d be payin’ for ignorin’ the second augurin’ sooner ’n I’d gambled, yay, an’ Meronym too.
But our luck din’t yet wilt. Other conchin’s answered the first, yay, but they was downgulch an’ we galloped back thru Vert’bry Pass anxin’ but we wasn’t ambushed. One whoah narrow escape it was, yay, one more beat at my dwellin’ an’ them Kona horsemen’d o’ seen an’ chased us. Avoidin’ the open Kohala Ridge ’n’ pastures, we skirted the forest for camo, an’ only then did I ’fess to Meronym what I’d done back to that sleepin’ sentry. I don’t know why it is, but secrets jus’ rot you like teeth if you don’t yank ’em out. She just list’ned, yay, an’ she din’t judge me none.
I knowed a hid cave by Mauka Waterfall, an’ to here it was I took us for what’d be Meronym’s final night on Big Isle if ev’rythin’ worked as planned. I’d hoped Wolt or Kobbery or ’nother goatherd may o’ ’scaped an’ be hidin’ there but, nay, it was empty, jus’ some blankies what we goatherds stashed for sleepin’. The trade wind was giddyuppin’, an’ I feared for the kayakers who’d be settin’ out from Maui at dawn, but it weren’t so chillsome so I din’t risk no fire, not so near the en’my, nay. I bathed my wounds in the pool an’ Meronyn bathed an’ we ate the grinds I’d got from Cluny’s an’ fig loaf what I grabbed from my own dwellin’ when I’d gone back for the icons.
I cudn’t stop mem’ryin ’n’ yarnin’ while we ate, nay, ’bout my fam’ly an’ Pa ’n’ Adam too, it was like if they lived in words they cudn’t die in body. I knowed I’d miss Meronym diresome when she was gone, see I din’t have no other bro on Big I who weren’t ’ready slaved. Lady Moon rose an’ gazed o’er my busted ’n’ beautsome Valleys with silv’ry ’n’ sorryin’ eyes, an’ the dingos mourned for the died uns. I wondered where’d my tribesmen’s souls be reborned now Valleyswomen’d not be bearin’ babbits here. I wished Abbess was there to teach me, ’cos I cudn’t say an’ nor could Meronym. We Prescients, she answered, after a beat, b’lief when you die you die an’ there ain’t no comin’ back.
But what ’bout your soul? I asked.
Prescients don’t b’lief souls exist.
But ain’t dyin’ terrorsome cold if there ain’t nothin’ after?
Yay—she sort o’ laughed but not smilin’, nay—our truth is terrorsome cold.
Jus’ that once I sorried for her. Souls cross the skies o’ time, Abbess’d say, like clouds crossin’ skies o’ the world. Sonmi’s the east ’n’ west, Sonmi’s the map an’ the edges o’ the map an’ b’yonder the edges. The stars was lit, an’ I sentried first, but I knowed Meronym weren’t sleepin’, nay, she was thinkin ’n’ tossin’ under her blanky till she gived up an’ sat by me watchin’ the moonlighted waterfall. Questions was mozziein’ me plaguesome. The fires o’ Valleysmen an’ Prescients both are snuffed tonight, I speaked, so don’t that proof savages are stronger ’n Civ’lized people?
It ain’t savages what are stronger ’n Civ’lizeds, Meronym reck’ned, it’s big numbers what’re stronger ’n small numbers. Smart gived us a plus for many years, like my shooter gived me a plus back at Slopin’ Pond, but with ’nuff hands ’n’ minds that plus’ll be zeroed one day.
So is it better to be savage ’n to be Civ’lized?
What’s the naked meanin’ b’hind them two words?
Savages ain’t got no laws, I said, but Civ’lizeds got laws.
Deeper ’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an’ if his will say-soes “Kill” he’ll kill. Like fangy animals.
Yay, that was the Kona.
Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow. He’s angry, he’ll stop ’n’ think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave, an’ if his will say-soes, “Don’t!” he won’t, nay.