TCD

The lower valley  of  the  Blue River,  where  it dumped   into the Missouri  River, divided  Kansas  City  from the  town   of Independence. Elin led  Josef Lang and  his flock seven  miles from the  train  station up the Blue  River  valley  past  many small farms, crossing the river now and again, until they  were come to a large structure snuggled  hard against the west  side of the valley. The building was a single-story pile of   large interlocking  limestone  brick,  built  without  the  necessity for mortar.

Elin said Jashen had assembled the twelve foot high walls all by himself and Lange  did not doubt her  for an instant,  although many in  his flock took that to be a puzzling remark. But the building did look sound,  with a good  roof. Lange thought  it  could  do  with a  coat of whitewash. It lay  inside  a  larger fenced area with a small herd of oxen. The animals had grazed the grass to nubbins and now they subsisted on bales of hay.

Assisted  by Hadiya  Lange and the  men and some of  the  older boys, the fourteen horses that had been used to drive the  pilgrims to this place were unharnessed from the mud-wagons and led into  this area  to  mingle  with  the  oxen and  feed  on  alfalfa,  which was spread out  just for the steeds. The animals considered it to be candy.

Elin gestured at the oxen.

ELIN: 

Following Elin  the thirty-six  pilgrims stepped   through  the double doors to look inside the structure. They saw a large bay with ten prairie schooners under assembly. The hoops for their bonnets reached nearly to the ceiling. At one end of the  bay was a common  dining area. Along the walls were  set  private rooms of diverse sizes for each of the seven families.

ELIN: 

And the people of Josef's flock took B'nei Elohim to mean another congregation  of Messianic Jews, like  the  B'nei  Hannebim. Hadiya knew better, but she, like so many Americans, was allergic to  taking charity.

HADIYA: 

ELIN: 

Privately Josef thought the people  who had come to that  place needed a less awkward name to  know them by than  to just  call them "Lange's followers". In the weeks that followed  a  child among them named  Linda Bergin  learned that  some  oxen   were not easily  turned by  the touch of a pole. They  were  called "stiff  of  neck" and  this was  the source  for  many   references  in the  Bible  which referred  to  the  children  of  Israel  as  a stiff-necked people.

Elin said  such stubbornness was actually a good  thing if   it was  desired to  move toward  a single  goal without turning  to one  side or the other. Linda took to calling all the  pilgrims "Stiffnecks" and it quickly caught on.

The Stiffnecks, then, grew larger by two individuals while they wintered  over near  Westport. The first to arrive   was  baby Megan, born to Gary and Marge Bergin in the  fall of 1865. The second was  Miss Tamara  Brannen,  who  arrived by  rail   from Maryland to be wed to  Lee Henry in  the twilight days  of  the same year. But it wasn't until the following spring before  the roads, knee-high in mud, had become solid enough  to begin  the pilgrimage west.

It was a Sunday when the Sticknecks spent their  last full  day with Elin. For the last time she worshiped with  them,  though she found their practice to be odd and frequently commented  to that effect. Some of the Stiffnecks remarked in  turn how  this objection made her appear heathenish.

ELIN: 

At the  end of  the worship  service Elin rose  to say   a  few words from  her heart to the people she had served for  half  a  year and more.

ELIN: 

It took all the next morning  for the oxen to  toil just  three miles up a  ravine feeding  the  Blue River  to intersect   the infant Oregon  Trail running  south  from  Raytown. There  the twenty  oxen  pulling  the  wagons were  released  from   their burdens, and the twenty beasts that made a  leisurely walk  out of the Blue River valley were put under harness. After another eight miles the Oregon Trail bent sharply to the  west, and  in another half mile the wagon train came to a halt.

As Elin had solemnly instructed them, whenever the   Stiffnecks stopped for the evening it  was the responsibility of the  head of  each  family  to raise his wagon with a  jack,  remove  one wheel, and   paint the hub with a mix of pine tar   and  tallow carried in a  bucket slung from  the rear axle. This they were to do as though it were a ritual, before  they even took  their evening meal, on a revolving basis, one wheel per night.

When they crossed  into  the state  of  Kansas the   Stiffnecks dipped into the stash of salt pork stored under  a false  floor in their wagons, and ate them with dried peaches.

To cross rivers the bottoms of the wagons were painted with tar to make them waterproof and they were floated across after  the animals were  safely on  the  other  side. But sometimes   the pilgrims were brought to a halt by a severe rainstorm and had to huddle inside their wagons.

Still, everyone remained in good spirits. Most of the  younger children had ridden  by pairs  on  the backs  of the   fourteen horses, while the adults  and older children  switched  between riding  in the  wagons or  walking  on foot  beside  the   oxen pulling them to lead  them along  the track  at a  stately  two miles per hour. Breakfast frequently featured eggs laid by  the chickens the people had brought along, but on  Sundays some  of these chickens were slaughtered and roasted for a midday feast.

They reached  the  eastern  edge of  the  regions  crossed   by migrating  bison. Ida Porter, Roy  Hilling, and  Robert  Krause began collecting buffalo chips to use as cooking fuel, and they made it seem so fun the  other children pitched in.

When they reached  streams or  rivers Alfred  Porter  and   his son George angled for  catfish and  caught enough for  everyone to have a baked fish for lunch the next day.

A family living in  a farmhouse along the trail sold the   pilgrims  a  meal of boiled  beans and  chipped beef,  served  with fresh bread  and topped off with oven baked pies. But on most days the pilgrims opened their cans of cheese and sardines, and consumed these with hardtack bread and  tea.

When they reached the Hollenberg farm  there were nine boarding rooms available. The men among  the  Stiffnecks   were   glad for  the  change  from sleeping outdoors on the ground. Breakfast was bacon, eggs, and gooseberry cobbler.

A war party of some two hundred Pawnees crossed the trail  from the south, passing Lange's group quite by chance. Most of the plains Indians knew  settlers on  the Oregon  Trail were   just passing through  and in  the  main  they  did  not go  out   of their way  to antagonize  them, lest  it brought  down  unwanted retaliation from the United States Army.

JOSEF (to his followers): 

The Pawnees swarmed around their wagons out of pure  curiosity, inspecting  the hatchets  and mallets  they found   within  and took turns to  lie on  the feather-bed  mattresses  one-by-one. They took no  food or  tobacco,  and eyed  the weapons   stored inside but  they let them be. Some of them took a  very  close look at  the women, perhaps the first  white females  they  had ever seen, but they kept  their hands  to  themselves. If such were  the  orders of their chief they were a  very  disciplined force at the very least.

When they  mounted  their  horses once more  the  Pawnee  chief scanned the whole  scene, drew himself  up in his full   battle regalia, crinkled  his face,  and plugged his  nose. All  the braves broke  into laughter, then they all rode  away. It was clear they would not return. Josef Lange led his congregation in a prayer of thanksgiving to God.

When there was  no  local water  for the  oxen  and horse   the pilgrims watered the animals from cisterns in the wagons. One of the oxen in the trailing  wagon had thrown  a shoe and  no  one could guess how far back along  the trail it might  be. Hadiya Lange applied pitch to the ox's injured hoof. He was  released from pulling  the wagon and two of the horses were set  in  his place.

After passing  the future location  of Kenesaw the  trail  drew near to the Platte River in another seven miles, with the  purfume of cottonwood  trees in the air. The water was silty, but when let still in a bucket for an hour it grew clear. The oxen were less discerning.

At length the Stiffnecks reached Fort Kearney, the last outpost of civilization  they would  find until they built   their  own settlement. There they telegraphed messages  to family  members left behind  in Gettysburg  and  traded  their   worn-out  oxen for rested ones. At the general store they obtained more chickens and many  of the sundries  they had  consumed on the   trek, but prices were dear.

Two  days  they spent  at   the  fort. Taking   their   rest, the Stiffnecks witnessed several  other  wagon  trails  passing through. Blacksmiths willing to labor on Sunday put new  iron shoes on the horses and oxen. Lange's money was depleted  that much more, but after Fort Kearney there would be little need for it.

During the following week the  Stiffnecks passed south  of  the future townsite of North Platte. Had they left Gettysburg only two years after they did North Platte would be the western rail terminus and they could have begun their  pilgrimage that  much closer to their final destination.

After another stretch Josef Lange led the wagon train  off  the Oregon Trail entirely. They struck north, cross-country,   to reach  a  vast wilderness called the  Nebraska  Sandhills. This is a sea of sand dunes anchored by grass and  dotted with innumerable  small  freshwater lakes. There was plenty  of   green stuff for  the animals  to graze, but  the going was  slow.

No sooner did someone wonder aloud where  the water came   from than they were inundated by the first  of many rainstorms  that slowed their passage even more.

The way twisted between the hills but sometimes a ridge  twenty miles long and two hundred feet high lay directly across  their path and   they were compelled to climb over it. Other  times they reached brush in draws which had to be cleared by men using axes and scythes. The Stiffnecks were to  spend as  many  days traveling off the Oregon Trail as they had  spent traveling  on it.

It seemed they had entered  a purgatory and only Josef  Lange's regular additions  to the  Printer's Manuscript  prevented  them from losing track of the days. But at last they reached  what Josef Lange  guessed  to be the Squaw River  and  the  pilgrims turned west to follow it toward its source.

In her tipi Yuha had been sobbing quietly for days. Wanica tried his best to comfort her, but there was really nothing he  could do other than express his confidence, which was fully justified, that they would see their son alive and well.

YUHA: 

WANICA: 

Hearing this,  Yuha let the full force of her grief  wash  over her, and all Wanica could do was hope she didn't blame him personally  for proceeding with the ritual. Yet there had been  no choice, really. The Kuwapi were already the outcast dregs of the Oglala Sioux. If Wanica had denied the boy his test of manhood, he would be outcast even from the Kuwapi, forever a boy. And he would have never forgiven his father.

Yuha recovered a bit.

YUHA 

WANICA: 

He remembered how Shy Bear always called the leader of the People "Bad Heart Bull" and how even he had to agree. Tatanka piled upon Wanica daily indignities, until even his great inborn  patience  had been tested nearly to the breaking point. This day was no exception.

Chief Tatanka  barged into the tipi unannounced and  pointed  a finger at Wanica.

TATANKA: 

WANICA: 

TATANKA: 

WANICA: 

TATANKA: 

Before the  Chief  left the tipi he let his  eyes  wander  over Yuha's legs. She saw his gaze and tucked her legs under a bison hair blanket.

When Tatanka departed, Wanica retrieved the Golden Gift from the place he had hidden it. He had shown no one the extensible staff he received from the daughter of Wakan Tanka, not even his wife Yuha. He knew that while he was hunting, nothing might restrain Tatanka from pillaging his tipi.

Wanica and his hunters prepared their horses for  the  journey, and packed their share of the People's dwindling supply of dried meat. Wanica mounted his own horse, Kaleetan, and pondered that his horse had a right name but his own son did not.

The fires were burning far away, even from the vantage  of  the Island in the Sky, but Wanica led the hunting party toward that small mountain to better survey the devastation and to  see  if the cairn they built to Wakan Tanka was in need of repair.

The party  crossed over an abrupt line to the  grasslands  that were burned. They ascended the Island in the Sky, which was entirely seared black, and when they reached the summit Wanica saw that his son Shy Bear was restoring the stone he had  once  removed  to take shelter. He was still dressed in the  ceremonial dress that Yuha had made for him, but it was altered in a curious way to fit better, and it had been covered in a riot of colored beads that was clearly no artifice of the Kuwapi, though it echoed the craftsmanship of the People.

Laylah stood next to him. Wanica and the hunters found her to be striking, like  a woman of the People but lighter of  skin  and more round of face. Laylah, too, was attired in something much like Jashen's raiment, but a little more simple.

A tame bison from Kemen was also trodding slowly on the  summit of the Island in the Sky amid the blackened  ground,  wondering perhaps if there was any green thing lying around to eat.

Wanica searched his son's face and saw how he seemed  a  little taller and a little older. Wanica was so overjoyed to see  him that he  entirely forgot the night he took away  his  name  and turned him out into the night. Heran toward his boy to embrace him.

WANICA: <Shy Bear!>

But Jashen was having none of that. His body language halted his father at a single pace. He extended his hand and gripped  his father by the lower arm near his elbow, after the manner of the people of Kemen.

JASHEN: <You forget yourself, Father. No more am I to be called Shy Bear. My name of manhood is Jashen. I have brought my wife Laylah, daughter of Wakan Tanka and Queen Lilith. Her father has commanded us to return to the People and live among them>

In the camp of the People word quickly spread that the  hunting party was arriving several days before they were expected,  and it was feared they would bring news that it was  impossible  to reach  the roaming herds by reason of the fire. Yuha was  among the women who went out to greet them.

What she saw brought her joy beyond measure, such that she, too, forgot herself and cried out the boyhood name of her  son. She repeated "Shy Bear" many times as both mother and son embraced.

JASHEN: <Jashen, mother. I am to be called Jashen>

Yuha's hands roamed over her son as she tried to assure herself he was not a spirit. When they stopped at the little dome on the back of his head he gently took his mother's hands in  his  own and stood apart, so that she could see what had been  added  to her beadwork.

Her eyes then turned to Laylah, wearing something like a ceremonial dress of har own but skillfully fitted for her curves.

JASHEN: <Mother,  this is my wife, Laylah, who  is  a  princess among her people>

LAYLAH: <I greet Yuha, mother of my husband. In the lodge of my father  not a day passed that Jashen did not speak of  both  you and his father with a love that could not be hidden. And it was not long before his love for me also could not be hidden,  much though he tried!>

The return of Wanica with his hunters and a slain bison was news big enough. The return of the boy Shy Bear as the man Jashen was bigger news. That he brought with him a wife was the  biggest news of all.

But Chief  Tatanka cared little for any of those  things. That evening, when the People were sharing their communal meal  once more, the most important thing to the chief was why  his  women did not bring the horns of the bison to add to his war  regalia as they did before.

He said no words of gratitude to Wanica for bringing  the  kill after one day rather than five. Instead the missing horns occupied his mind and pushed out everything else. He waxed more and more angry, until he flat out accused Wanica of hiding the  bison's head.

Wanica said nothing in reply, but he did not take his eyes away from the Chief after this accusation was made. Tatanka, already wroth, grew absolutely infuriated at the defiance. The leader of the People took out his knife once more. It was an genuine steel blade he claimed he took as war booty from a white trapper, but many said he really took it from a corpse he had stumbled  upon by mere chance.

TATANKA: <This will loosen your tongue, Hole In Heart!>

He moved toward Wanica, fully expecting the hunter to run as he had  done so many times before. But Wanica knew he now had  the favor of  Wakan Tanka. So Wanica stood his ground  fearlessly, which unnerved the Chief. Everyone saw him hesitate. The Chief lost precious face with each passing heartbeat, and he knew it.

Wanica calmly reached within his leather garments and  withdrew the Golden Gift, a staff that could be closed as small  as  the hilt of a knife. He extended the weapon to its full length.

Tatanka's rage boiled over. He closed the gap between  himself and Wanica but he never reached striking distance.

On the hunt Wanica only took the animal's head, offering it  to the  Sky Father rather than allowing it to be dishonored by  Tatanka. But here before the eyes of all the Kuwapi in a series of repeated snaps  he took away the Chief, the  whole  Chief,  and nothing but the Chief, all the way down to his moccasins, leaving the very ground he stood upon untouched.

The group of men who had been with Wanica on the recent hunt had seen the Golden Gift in action, but the rest of the People  had never seen  such an obvious and deadly display of  real  magic. Even his own squaw Yuha was afraid. Even so, Yuha came to stand at Wanica's side.

To Wanica's left stood his son Jashen, arrayed in the fine ceremonial dress that had been painstakingly embellished by artisans in Haaretz over the course of a year. And at his side was  his wife, the Ophan Laylah.

WANICA: <I sent the Chief to answer to the Great Spirit. I will lead the People now>

Wanica stood with the Golden Gift crossing his chest. One by one the hunters, warriors, and braves of the Kuwapi sank  to  their knees before  Wanica, with hands open to show they  carried  no blade. Their wives, the widows, and unmarried girls of the People hit their knees before Wanica and before his standing family as well.

Wanica then gave his first command as the new Chief.

WANICA: <In the morning we will decamp and march south, to dwell at the Island in the Sky, near the place where the Great Spirit came and made himself known to us, where Shy Bear came back  to us as the man Jashen>

So it came to be that the Kuwapi, first among all of the original inhabitants of the high plains and the only ones to do so of their own free will, ceased to be a wandering people and awaited the coming  of the followers of Mark  Lange.

Early in Wanica's chiefdom the Northern Raiders paid their last unwelcome visit to the People. A small party advanced to  make demands of the Kuwapi. Wanica met them with only his son at his side.

The demands were not to Wanica's liking, and he said as much to his  son. The rifles and bows of the Lakota party were flipped out of their grasp by, it seemed to them, an invisible hand  of surpassing strength.

Then, before their eyes the Lakota chief was cut in half by the Staff of Melchizedek.

The terrified survivors fled.

Wanica knew the Northern Raiders operated like pack animals with no stomach for sticking around once they lost their own leader. Now the  Lakota knew Coyote himself was  aiding  the  cast-out Kuwapi misfits. Never again did they return to the river ford at the foot of the Island in the Sky claimed by the People.

A bison  gets  thirsty eating grass all day out  on  the  Great Plains and the Squaw River was a reliable source of water. The herds frequently  came near to the source of the river  at  the Island in the Sky where the stream was narrow.

When the animals were taking drink Wanica struck with the Golden Gift, removing  the head of just one of them according  to  the needs of the Kuwapi People. It was done in such a stealthy way the rest of the herd barely noticed. In this way the Kuwapi were able to sustain themselves without ranging far afield to hunt.

Later the People saw the first white settlers use the  ford  at the river. The whites used their fire sticks to drop some of the animals merely to clear the way and they did not even take  the animals for food. Fair enough, Wanica thought, there were plenty animals for all. But by the second year the herds had grown noticeably  thinner,  and many of the People remembered  the  fire sticks.

The year after that no large game animals were seen at all. The People had  to scratch a living from small game,  or  from  the scrawny solitary black-tail deer they sometimes found by chance. A few of of the hunters murmured openly, recalling with fondness the good old days of Chief Bad Heart Bull,  perhaps  forgetting that even during that golden age it was still Wanica who led the hunts.

The army  of the Whites set up an outpost six  land  miles  and twelve river  miles  eastward of the Island in  the  Sky. They called it Fort Price.

Captain John Smalley commanded a company of mounted rifles  detached  north  from the 6th Cavalry Regiment, and  despite  his bitter hatred for the dead-end post that he had been  assigned, snack in the middle of the biggest zone of nothing in the American West, Smalley maintained good relations with  Chief  Wanica and the Kuwapi.

For one  reason, they all somehow spoke passable  English,  and Jashen, the son of the Chief, actually spoke it better than most Whites. He considered the People to be relatively peaceful, but relations were minimal, as the Kuwapi were  practically  destitute.

One day eight whiteskins came mounted on horses, cracking whips, two on Point, two on Flank, and two on Drag, with a  cook  with his own wagon in the rear and a man riding way out front picking the best  path for five hundred animals bulkier than  any  game animal save the bison. The whites drove their herd to an island in Squaw River where the best grass grew. They did this without the basic courtesy of offering Chief Wanica one or two head as a toll.

Miffed, the  Chief dispatched hunters to take payment  in  kind with a few well-placed arrows. The eight white men fired back. Two Kuwapi hunters were killed, which was more than Wanica could afford to pay for meat. The Kuwapi withdrew halfway up the eastern flank of Green Dome and watched as the herd was  driven  to the  north  bank.

John Morrison, the man on Point who owned the cattle, told  his boys to stand fast and defend the herd while he rode  hell-for leather  downstream  to Fort Price and told Captain  Smalley  he wanted to donate twenty head to the United States Army but  there was a slight Indian problem.

Chief Wanica knew what was coming, and made his plans accordingly. He rode back down to the island with a brave named Tashunka sitting behind him, They started to field-dress one of the fallen cows.

A bugle sounded and Fort Price vomited seventy mounted men plus John Morrison.

Wanica and Tashunka were slicing the guts out of a cow, and the rest of his hunters, maybe twenty men, were four  hundred  feet above them on the slope of the Island in the Sky. When the cavalry showed up the Kuwapi rode down the hill and down the river, commanded by  Jashen, with his wife Laylah leading the  way  on foot,  which  thing  still  amazed  even  the  warriors  of  the People.

Smalley rode with nearly all of his men after the  hunters. As ordered, Lt. Lambert Welles stayed behind with John Morrison to deal  with the chief. On horseback they begin circling  Wanica and the boy. They orbited the scene at a stately trot.

WELLES: <God damn it Chief, you know better than to start acting like the Northern Raiders>

MORRISON: <What are you going to do to him?>

WELLES: <Take him in for cattle rustling. That'll have to  do. The boy can go free. The rest of the red fellows too,  whoever survives. They were just following orders and they got families to feed. Now they can pick themselves a new chief>

Wanica, from  the English taught to him by  Jashen,  understood perfectly what Lieutenant Welles wanted to do to him, and he decided not to go peacefully. The clear bulb appeared at the end of his staff and sliced off the head of the officer's horse with a hideous snap. Then Welles himself was rendered in two.

The young man, Tashunka, stood in open-mouthed wonder.

It was such an unexpected thing, so otherworldly, that Morrison, too, was frozen in hesitation. His horse came down when Wanica took a  leg. Morrison tumbled to the ground partly  under  the screaming steed. Lying prone, Morrison pulled out his pistol to bring  it to bear, but Wanica took that too, and unavoidably  he took the hand that held the weapon. Morrison's arteries were cut clean in one arm.

Wanica knew Morrison had brought the soldiers of Fort Price down upon his people. He let the man bleed out.

After that he used the Golden Gift to completely eliminate  the bodies of the two men and their horses. But he knew the killing range of  the  Golden Gift was not any  longer  than  a  spear. Against a full troop of whites armed with fire sticks he would be helpless. Little did he know his son Jashen had already solved the problem for him.

Along the river a chase had ensued. Three miles from Fort Price is a  low ridge running north to south, and  the  Squaw  River, which is really just a large creek, cut straight through it in a short twisting little canyon with steep walls and no path except for the stream itself. Here Smalley got his T crossed.

Sixty soldiers were riding in single file and ten Kuwapi warriors waited at the mouth of the canyon firing arrows as they came up one-by-one.

So Smalley ordered a countermarch, which was an even worse tactic. The other ten Kuwapi braves rolled boulders down on  them and broke  the  legs of their horses. After that it  was  like shooting fish in a barrel.

Jashen left  one soldier alive, tied to a tree, with  one  hand free to scoop up river water to drink, and the knot was too far away to unravel. This he did to leave a witness to the  battle prowess of the Kuwapi people.

At Fort Price there were five soldiers on the sick list who didn't make  the raid but were supposed to hold the  place. When Fort  Price   was   overrun it  was  witnessed  by  pronghorns, badgers, coyotes and prairie dogs jumping up to  check out  the cacophony of  hoofbeats. Ten Kuwapi women had been used as sex slaves at  the fort. The five sick soldiers gave them  up  and Jashen was entreated.

While the  women were being set upon horses  Jashen  began   to smell  something strange, as did his wife Leliel who walked  beside  him. After that he grew filled with wonder when he  saw the ten wagons of the pilgrims  of the Five Corners  Free  Congregation  plodding  west along  the north  bank of   the  Squaw River. But they were still too far away to identify.

LAYLAH: <It's not a respectable  wilderness anymore!>

Jashen's wife muttered that to herself in the language and idiom of the whites. She saw how exasperated her husband was over what seemed to be  a  sudden  infestation  of  white  soldiers   and now white settlers.

When the Stiffnecks  approach  they saw the fort with its  gate thrown open and pointed  rifles at the warriors of the  Kuwapi. Then Jashen  saw the  lead wagon  was driven  by a  man he recognized   from his  vision quest  several years   prior. Jashen smiled, dismounted, and took off his headdress so he  could  be recognized in turn.

JASHEN: <We meet again, Josef Lange, even as you foretold>

And  the settlers  were entirely  thrilled by  his words,  even as they had been when Elin  met them in Missouri.

JOSEF: <Jashen! Laylah!>

Josef  brought his  own  wagon to  a halt  and jumped  down  to embrace the young man. The rifles among the wagon train were all lowered and put out of sight.

Jashen  voiced well-wishes  to  Josef and  his fellow   travelers. Lange pointed to the prominent butte a few miles  upriver to the west.

JOSEF: <Is that Green Dome?>

JASHEN: <Yes. Some of the People call it Lone Mountain, but my father calls it the Island in the Sky>

LANGE: <Then  we have reached our destination!>

He gave ample thanks to God not a single member of his flock had been lost to disease or misadventure.

JASHEN: <The army of the whites have taken  to hunting the People,   but now  the hunters  have  become the  hunted. I  must hasten to see if my father is  well, but I bid  you to continue upstream until Green Dome lies at your feet. When we meet again, Josef Lange, we shall make you more than welcome>

The pilgrims of  Five Corners  Free Congregation  first arrived at the lower slopes of  Green Dome at dusk  on the last day  of August   in 1866. There, with their journey finally at an  end, they saw four  fallen warriors of  the People,  Left Hand, Half Yellow Face, Kill Eagle, and Hairy Moccasin lying on a bier  of branches  taken  from woody shrubs. And it was on  this  solemn occasion when the Kuwapi People and the settlers of Mark Lange's group were first gathered all together.

In full view of  everyone Chief  Wanica, with  words of  reverence for Wakan  Tanka, struck off the Golden  Gift and made  the bodies  of  his  dead men disappear. The Whites  were  struck speechless. Coming as they did from a religious background, such a display could be  nothing other  than the  power of  God made manifest.

Josef exclaimed it was a sign. He recognized the relic from the translation of the White  Scroll that Laylah had made for  him. It was  the same weapon  wielded by Prince Melchizedek when  he  first encountered father Abraham. Not merely the same kind, but literally the same artifact.

JOSEF: <God has brought us all together, white man and Red  man alike,  in this  land of His  choosing, flowing with milk   and honey!>

At Lange’s words the Stiffnecks looked about themselves in the fading sunlight to take in the parched grass of the rocky and nearly treeless high plains wilderness.