TCA

A0

Muskets fell like two rows of dominoes atop stone walls built on the banks of a quiet creek. Reaching the horizontal they fired, burning eyes with the pungent smoke of spent powder.

Downstream the walls became the rails of a stone bridge. Union and Confederate soldiers converged on foot, shouting as they merged. The fighting deteriorated to bayonet thrusts and even fisticuffs. Here the federals had the greater initial momentum and nearly reached the other side of the bridge before a rebel rally bounced them back.

The boys in blue trod in reverse over a layer of bodies one deep. Some were dead, others writhed with broken bones or lead balls lodged in their innards. A few of the fallen had survived the battle of Shiloh where the war attained a high but stable plateau of savagery. A tube loaded with canister shot was lined up on the long axis of the bridge and mowed down counterattacking rebels like grass to form a second layer of bodies. Some of the fallen boys in gray had survived the artillery hell at Malvern Hill during the Seven Days.

Two guns on the Confederate side of the creek upstream maimed the Union gunners with bursting shells and another fired several rounds of solid shot. The Union gun became a pile of splinters and dented steel. Then followed another Rebel attack. The men in gray gained most of the bridge, which had become an abattoir.

A colonel on the Union side was shot, but to the wonder of his men he stood up again with a lead ball lodged in his Bible. With this apparent divine sanction the colonel led yet another attack. Men standing on the mounting pile of bodies swapped empty muskets for loaded ones handed up to them like water in a fire bucket brigade.

Inevitably the Confederate infantry ran low on gunpowder. They saw the bridge was lost, so they switched to saving their two pieces of artillery, with fresh troops firing in a rearguard action to cover the retreat. The federal general commanding the attack on the bridge saw the retreating gray backs and ordered a lieutenant to report to headquarters that the bridgehead had been secured.

But the junior officer saw the bridge was stacked with bodies and refused to desecrate the dead. Instead the messenger dropped to the creek bed and splashed across the stream on foot, bypassing all the carnage on the bridge. In so doing the officer suffered little hardship. After all, as the local farmers well knew, the water in the creek was only knee deep. A1

The Kuwapi people were more significant than a mere band of nomads scratching out their existence on the Great Plains of North America, yet they did not have the numbers nor the blood ties to mark them as a tribe or even a clan. They began as outcasts from among the Oglala Sioux. In Lakhota, kuwapi means "they follow". To the north they were beset by the Dakotas who held the entire Black Hills and the plains around them. The Kuwapi named them the northern raiders and if the mainline Oglalas helped fend them off from time to time it was more to ensure their own food supply than to do the Kuwapi any favors.

In the richer grasslands eastward there were the fierce Pawnees to contend with. To the south along the Oregon Trail the Kuwapi were buffeted by the Arapahoes and also ran the risk of encountering white settlers moving west and the US Army troops who protected them. In the scrubby furrowed lands westward they had the Cheyennes to fear. The whole northwest was put out of their minds by dread of the Crow and Blackfeet. But in the ever-moving sliver of meager grasslands left in the wake of the Oglala the Kuwapi wandered, and here their hunters rode.

Wanica led them downwind of a herd of bison drinking water at a ford in a large creek named Squaw River by the whites. When he signaled a halt, they tied their horses off to the roots of sun-bleached stumps and crept unseen through brush to approach the herd. Some of the animals grew nervous though they could not sense any of the men by sight nor sound nor smell.

Still, inexplicably, the bull stopped drinking and stared downstream, somehow sensing danger. Judging the moment to be right Wanica stood from behind a shrub and loosed an arrow. The bolt struck a cow in a flank but it was not a lethal shot. All the bison heard the cry of the victim and panicked. A rapid series of shots were made by other hunters but all of their arrows either missed outright or made non-lethal wounds.

The herd of bison fled to a slope on the north and west and reached the cover of the low cloud bank, although they were too stupid to have planned such a move. Wanica led the hunters back to their horses so they could follow the herd away from the river. As they rose in elevation the cloud bank enveloped the hunters as a thick fog. They kept their bows at the ready, turning left and right, but none of the bison were visible to the men in the complete whiteout. But further uphill the fog cleared and patches of blue sky were seen. Three of the bison were isolated and exposed. Arrows were loosed and struck home, dropping one of the animals. The two surviving bison ran back down off the hill into the fog, seeking the safety of numbers. A2

At the end of the day the Army of Northern Virginia was bottled up against a bend of the Potomac. All the next day the federal commander watched from the long slope rising north of the river and refused to advance, even with a two-to-one numerical advantage. Were the numbers ten-to-one he would yet wire Washington to say he didn't have enough men.

The meetinghouse of the local German Baptist Brethren had been pressed into service as a field hospital for the Union army. Dried blood stained the interior walls, only to be overlaid with sprays of new blood. One doctor sedated men with chloroform while another sawed off their limbs and threw them into a pile. Daylight intruded through stray bullet holes in the walls.

A messenger arrived by horse with orders to get the wounded out by wagon. The pile of amputated limbs was set ablaze. Horse-drawn ambulances carted the wounded away with every bump in the road eliciting screams from the men inside. No one who witnessed the convoy of pain and the carnage that was left behind would again say they craved the glories of war. Certainly none of the Christian Brethren did.

Three days prior, when they first heard the sound of artillery on South Mountain the Brethren had thought it prudent to move their work horses by circuitous routes to a place far away from the men of either army who might like to "borrow" them. Upon their poor leftover mules they rode out, when it seemed safe, to bury the dead. For this task the United States paid a dollar for every man they laid to rest. There was heard a rumor that one fellow, who was not of the Brethren, took the money and dropped sixty dead men into a dry well.

Many hundreds of bodies lay near the house of prayer of the Brethren. They found their labors to be a hateful thing that, but more bitter was seeing their beloved meetinghouse riddled with holes made by bullets and even solid cannon shot, and how the interior had come to resemble a slaughterhouse. The Long Table was covered with blood, and both the east door, where the menfolk entered, and the south door, where the womenfolk entered, had been removed from the hinges and converted into operating tables. The expensive Bible gifted to the congregation by Daniel Miller was missing.

Chief elder David Long, forty-two years of age, inspected the meetinghouse thoroughly and said, "Do not grieve overmuch, my friends. We shall bury the dead and make our meetinghouse like new. If God is willing, soon all this will be but an unhappy memory." A3

Wanica ordered his youngest braves to carve up the body of the fallen animal. Meat was loaded on skids made of wooden staves and animal skin to be dragged away. Nothing of the bison was wasted. Satisfied with the progress of the young men, Wanica turned away with the older hunters. They rode up the slope until they could go no higher.

The summit of the high hill stood alone over a sea of clouds that reached the horizon. It was a rare and beautiful moment. Wanica was deeply moved by the sight. He said, "I name this place the Island in the Sky."

The herd of bison slowly wandered back out of the fog, grazing warily on the mountaintop even with the hunters close at hand. The animals sensed that the humans had done their worst and would leave the rest of them alone. But what followed scattered even the humans.

Something taller than a tree emerged from the sea of clouds on six pillars of flame. Only Wanica and his fearless steed remained to watch it touch down on the summit of the hill. At first he thought it was just white men doing one better than their smoking horse of iron. But the object grew much smaller in size and changed shape to resemble a faceless white man. Not like a European, but white as snow, with no eyes, ears, nor mouth. It shifted postion on the hilltop, and the very ground thundered and shook under its feet.

Wanica nudged his horse a bit closer as the white man-shape sat on the ground. Its head opened in six petals to reveal a gold object that rose as though it were being offered to Wanica.

He dismounted to take a closer look, approaching the shape cautiously on foot. Tentatively, respectfully, he withdrew the golden object from the splayed head while the limbs of the man-shape remained motionless at its side. The object fit neatly in Wanica's palm like the hilt of a knife. The head of the white man closed.

Wanica squeezed the gift to produce a hissing opaque black beam. When he swept the beam around it carved trenches in the stony ground of the hilltop entirely without effort. He watched the white man change again to become a dome on the summit, like a smooth igloo.

Wanica discovered that when he no longer actively squeezed the Golden Gift the immaterial black shaft retracted and disappeared. A4

Deacon Mark Lange objected to Elder Long's words of hope, saying, "Nothing will stop the same thing from happening once more, Brother David. Virginia lies over yonder river and last month there was a second battle of Manassas. This is an easy spot to get across the water. We should build anew at my uncle's farm north in Pennsylvania. By his leave our horses have already been moved there to guard against thieves.”

Elder Jacob Reichard said, "For a decision of this import we must let the Lord make his will known. So let us pray on it, each one of us. And there is no prayer better than work.”

After the Brethren finished burying the dead soldiers Elder Long insisted he would stay at Sharpsburg, as did the Sherrich family. Also Samuel Mumma, the farmer who had donated the land on which to build the meetinghouse, was intent on restoring the farm the armies had demolished. The men who were originally deeded the plot for the Mumma meetinghouse also chose to stay.

But Daniel Miller sold his corn field for pennies on the dollar, as it was now really just a battlefield cemetery. Joining him, ten other families joined Mark Lange in seeking a quiet new life in Pennsylvania far from the threat of war, or so they hoped.

Before the battle the horses of the Brethren had been taken to Gettysburg by five male cousins from Lange's father's side. As the families prepared to move the horses were returned. It was Mark's cousin Joanna who brought them all back, and this she did entirely by herself. Joanna's own horse was groomed better than she was, yet Mark fell stone in love with her at first sight. But he persistently had four-legged competition.

On the way north when the weather turned bad Joanna let her horse have the tent while she slept outside. Joanna spent more time cleaning her horse than helping her mother clean the house. Mark thought the house was a pigsty but the barn was as neat as a pin. Her mother said Joanna needed a male companion to quiet some of the rumors going around, so she got a stallion. Joanna's father looked askance when Mark began courting her, but his wife was overjoyed at Joanna's new interest in something other than equines. One time he grew jealous at finding a strange hair on her coat but Joanna was easily able to produce the horse to match. At her bridal shower Joanna received a large number of gifts. Most of these were actual bridles.

When the happy day finally arrived and it was time to show up for her wedding Joanna came in late because she took too long cleaning the stalls. Mark married her anyway. A5

The curiosity of Wanica's companions overcame their fear. They slowly returned to the summit, together with some of the bison. There the hunters saw the white dome on the very summit of the hill, and they also saw Wanica standing next to it with his horse. Wanica lifted a large stone and set it down near the artifact. The companions of Wanica joined him stacking stones around the egg as though they were building a second dome out of rock. When the men finished they stood back to look. The shape was concealed by a cairn.

By the time the People were feasting on bison the animal's horns had been fastened to leather thongs. One of Chief Tatanka's women pinned the horns to his shoulder as though he had actually departed the tipi where he roiled in womanflesh and killed the animal himself. Briefly Tatanka and Wanica eyed each other, but there was with no mutual respect whatsoever.

The chief said, "There are five stories how this animal was taken."

Wanica looked away and blew a ring of smoke.

"About the hunt, then. What say you, Squaw Who Hunts?"

Wanica's gaze returned to the Chief sharply as though he had been slapped, but he controlled his rage and answered. "We followed the herd into a low cloud. I could not see the other hunters. Each man ascended alone. When the clouds parted we took the animal."

"And the Great Spirit appeared out of the cloud to bless our hunt!" blurted Plenty Lice out of turn.

"You have taught your hunters to lie so easily, Squaw Who Hunts," said Tatanka. "I should give you another name."

Even Wanica was annoyed by the outburst of Plenty Lice, but he said, "Wakan Tanka was white like snow. He sat on the top of the mountain. His head and arms and legs shrank until he became an egg.

The hunters who had been with Wanica nodded their assent and grunted. Chief Tatanka refused to believe the tale his hunters were telling. Staring at Wanica with his perpetual sneer, he demanded to know what they did after they saw the 'egg'.

"We built a lodge of stones for the Great Spirit to honor him for his blessing." A6

The following summer the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River once more, but federal movements in response forced the Confederate commander to concentrate his forces at Gettysburg, which was a dense node in the road network, and this brought on the biggest battle of the war.

On the third day of the conflagration Mark Lange walked to the meetinghouse and found all the pews scattered outside. Union officers were seated upon them idly smoking cigars and playing tic tac toe on them with pocket knives. Inside the meetinghouse the Army of the Potomac's commander poured over maps laid on the Long Table and concluded the next hammer blow would land on the center. The short-tempered commanding general angrily demanded who he was. Mark said, "I'm the the pastor of this church!"

The general replied, "The hell you say, sir! This is the headquarters of the Army! Now get out of my sight, parson, or I'll put a musket in your hand and stand you up on yonder stone--"

His tirade was interrupted by a crash as the church filled with flying wood splinters. Confederate artillery had opened a furious barrage. He ran out of the meetinghouse picking splinters out of his skin and barking orders. His officers on the pews began to scatter as shells burst nearby.

Union artillery was brought up to answer Confederate guns but Lange remained inside. Perhaps he thought his presence would move God to spare the building, but solid shot made gaping holes in the walls. Mark clasped his hands and prayed, "Lord, forgive your stiff-necked servant. Now I know your will was that we move west, not north!"

Two shells from the rebel's main battery burst over the roof of the church. It was dark and Mark felt enormous pain wracking his entire body. He heard a male voice say, "Take great care, Anael. There is a man alive in this pile of wood and he is injured."

Another voice acknowledged him. With each painful motion of debris the light seemed to increase. A last huge pine beam was removed and Mark saw this Anael was not a woman as he first thought from the sound of the voice, but perhaps a very tall boy. Anael moved the wood as though it weighed very little.

Then Mark saw who was speaking in the more masculine voice. He was much shorter than Anael, with a face filled with compassion and dark eyes that glittered in light filtering through trees that surrounded him. A7

Tatanka pulled out his knife and drew near to Wanica. "You built a lodge of lies. There is no white egg!" He flicked just the tip of his blade across Wanica's face. Tatanka was satisfied to draw only a little blood. Maiming his best hunter wouldn't do. He said, "I name you Hole In Cheek!"

Wanica put his hand to his face to staunch the bleeding and walked with dignity out of the range of the fire's light. Chief Tatanka laughed but nobody else did.

Wanica's wife Yuha left the circle of light as well and followed her man to their tipi.

While she dressed Wanica's wound his son Shy Bear said, "Father, did you truly see the Great Spirit, or did you just want to annoy Bad Heart Bull?"

Wanica shifted his eyes to the boy and appraised his son but did not answer until Yuha finished staunching the cut. At length he said, "Yuha, what we spoke about before, now it is time."

Yuha nodded that she understood and retrieved a leather pouch. The pouch contained many pigments and the implements to apply them. Using what she had stored in the pouch, Yuha began to paint the face of Shy Bear.

For his part Wanica retrieved a ceremonial dress made of bison skins and feathers and many beads.

Shy Bear turned his head to look at what his father held, which smeared some of the paint caused his mother to grow annoyed. She said, "Stand and be still, son."

Wanica laid the ceremonial dress on Shy Bear and fastened it as his wife continued to work. he aid, "You will get no answers from me." He put the boy's own bow in his hands and said, "I will give you no morsel of food."

Yuha finished painting her son's face and stood apart from him. His father said, "To this day I only lent you the name Shy Bear." Wanica opened the flap door. "Go now, into the night, nameless one. Kill your own food, if you can. And if you cannot?" Wanica shrugged. "Perhaps in your hunger Wakan Tanka will give you a vision."

Astonishment marked Shy Bear's face at all these words. His glance traced along his father's arm to the finger pointing outdoors and he nodded, understanding at last. A8

No one among the Brethren disputed the house of prayer of the Five Corners Free Congregation was demolished by two shells that burst overhead while Mark Lange huddled within. But after he crawled out from the pile of timber unharmed it became a matter of faith that he had literally met the Lord Jesus Christ, as he solemnly claimed to have done.

Lange told his fellow parishioners his leg had been broken by falling timber and a large splinter of wood had become lodged in his kidney, but he was healed by Christ himself. This claim Joanna readily believed, not merely because she knew her husband was not a liar, but she saw a new scar in Mark's back where previously there was none. Still, some of the Brethren thought some of the timber in their ruined Meetinghouse had perhaps fallen on Elder Lange's head.

Lange never spoke of one peculiar thing, not even to Joanna. To Lange, it seemed he had been away for at least a year, yet he was deposited back in the ruins of the Meetinghouse just moments after it was struck by the two artillery shells.

Lange did say Christ had commanded him to lead his flock away to settle far in the west. But for the time being the matter was set aside. The Brethren were preoccupied with burying the fallen soldiers of both armies, as they had done once before in Maryland. They were adequately compensated by the United States for their labor, if not for the loss of much of their farm land to many hundreds of burial plots.

The following Sunday when the Brethren met in a tent on the grounds of their ruined meetinghouse Mark read aloud from a book he called the Printer’s Manuscript, which he had written during that missing year. The Sunkel, Clark, and Martin families decided he was trying create new scripture from his own mind. A new bible was something they simply could not accept. These three families returned to Sharpsburg, Maryland where Elder David Long welcomed them home as prodigal sons and daughters.

After the work of burying the fallen soldiers of both sides had been completed the nine families who remained in the congregation made preparations to sojourn west. Some of them sold their homes outright, while others deeded them to kin who would remain behind. It took until the end of the war for the Porters, Bergins, Henrys, Zinters, Hillings, and Krauses to rovision themselves for the pilgrimage. But the Savitts and the Brannens dwindled in their ardor. After Atlanta fell, just before the presidential election, they deemed it safe to return to Maryland, and this they promptly did. A9

Shy Bear also saw that his mother did not understand what was happening, not really. She was doing this under duress. This was a ritual, with a strict form. As was required of her, she said, "The boy will go out from us. The man will return." Shy Bear sincerely hoped the worry on his mother's face was not rooted in another one of her well-known premonitions.

He obeyed his father and stepped out into the night. In the moonless dark Shy Bear stumbled across the prairie until the fires of the Kuwapi people were like flickering orange stars far behind him. By midnight he reached the first slopes of the Island in the Sky and ascended slowly, reaching the summit just before sunrise. In the light of dawn the boy sat to let his shadow fall upon his father's stone cairn. He watched all morning until his shadow no longer touched the rocky mound.

By dusk he had not received a vision from the Great Spirit. There was a strong breeze. When the sun sank below the horizon the boy grew cold. He gathered brush growing on the summit and cut it with the edge of a flint scraper, which he also used to spark a fire to burn them. But the flame and smoke kept changing direction. The boy took the changing winds to be an invitation to spend the night with Wakan Tanka within the lodge that his father built. He removed stones from one side to create a door.

When he crawled inside he saw the white egg that Wanica spoke about to Bad Heart Bull. The boy was hungry but it was too dark to try to kill a hare. No heat came from his fire outside but least he was shielded from the wind. There was no room to lie down straight, but he could sleep on his side if he curled around the white egg.

In the middle of the night Shy Bear was awakened by the smell of smoke. The boy stood up and went outside. Shy Bear saw that his fire had become glowing coals, but that earlier the wind must have carried embers halfway down the slope and kindled a brush fire that threatened to form a ring around the whole small mountain. He knew that if he stayed on the summit he was dead. Small game was running up and over the summit to flee the fire and the boy could have shot his dinner then, but with every wasted moment he risked being roasted himself.

Shy Bear moved toward the fire to have enough light to see, then moved west to get around the flames. But he could not go far. A chasm of the Squaw River lay before him. He could hear it flowing over rocks far below as wrapped around the entire southern half of the mountain. He needed light to try to cross it. The fire spread to cut off any escape north.