He kept his eyes lowered, not looking at her. Nest did not know what to say.
"I will tell you because we are friends," he offered. "And because there is no reason not to tell you." His eyes lifted again to find hers. "I am an Indian, little bird's Nest, but I am something more as well. I am something no one should ever be. I am the last of my kind."
He brought the index finger of his right hand to his nose. "I am Sinnissippi, the only one left, the only one in all the world. My grandparents died before I went to Nam. My father died of drink. My mother died of grief. My brother died of a fall from the steel towers he helped to build in New York City. My sister died of drugs and alcohol on the streets in Chicago. We were all that remained, and now there is only me. Of all those who were once Sinnissippi, who filled this valley for miles in all directions, who went out into the world to found other tribes, there is only me. Can you imagine what that is like?" Nest shook her head, transfixed.
"Do you know anything of the Sinnissippi?" he asked her. "Do you study them in school? Do your parents speak of them? The answer is no, isn't it? Did you even know that we existed?"
"No," she said softly.
His smile was flat and tight. "Think on this a moment, little bird's Nest. We were a people, like you. We had traditions and a culture. We were hunters and fishermen for the most part, but some among us were farmers as well. We had homes; we were the keepers of this park and all the land that surrounds it. All of that is gone, and no record of us remains. Even our burial mounds are believed to belong to another tribe. It is as if we never were. We are a rumor. We are a myth. How is that possible? Nothing remains of us but a name. Sinnissippi. We are a park, a street, an apartment building. Our name is there, preserved after we are gone, and yet our name means nothing, says nothing, tells nothing of us. Even the historians do not know what our name means. I have studied on this, long ago. Some think the name is Sauk, and that it refers to the land. Some think the name is Fox, and that it refers to the river that runs through the land. But no one thinks it is the name of our people. No one believes that."
"Have you ever tried to tell them?" Nest asked when he fell silent.
He shook his head. "Why should I? Maybe they are right. Maybe we didn't exist. Maybe there were no Sinnissippi, and I am a crazy man. What difference does it make? The Sinnissippi, if they ever were, are gone now. There is only me, and I am fading, too."
His words trailed away in the growing silence of the park. The light was almost gone, the sun settled below the horizon so that its brilliant orange glare was only a faint smudge against the darkening skyline west. The buzzing of the locusts had begun, rising and falling in rough cadence to the distant sounds of cars and voices as the last of the ballplayers and spectators emptied out of the park.
"What happened to your people?" Nest asked finally. "Why don't we know anything about them?"
Two Bears' coppery face shifted away again. "They were an old people, and they have been gone a long time. The Sauk and the Fox came after them. Then white Europeans who became the new Americans. The Sinnissippi were swallowed up in time's passage, and no one who lived in my lifetime could tell me why. What they had been told by their ancestors was vague. The Sinnissippi did not adapt. They did not change when change was necessary. It is a familiar story. It is what happens to so many nations. Perhaps the Sinnissippi were particularly ill suited to make the change that was necessary to ensure their survival. Perhaps they were foolish or blind or inflexible or simply unprepared. I have never known." He paused. "But I have come back to find out."
His big hands clasped before his rugged face. "I was a long time deciding that I would do this. It seemed better to me in some ways not to know. But the question haunts me, so I am here. Tomorrow night, I will summon the spirits of the dead from where they lie within the earth. I have shaman powers, little bird's Nest, revealed to me in the madness of the war in Nam. I will use those powers to summon the spirits of the Sinnissippi to dance for me, and in their dance they will reveal the answers to my questions. I am the last of them, so they must speak to me."
Nest tried to picture it. The spirits of the Sinnissippi dancing at night in the park–in the same park where the feeders prowled, unfettered.
"Would you like to watch?" Two Bears asked quietly.
"Me?" She breathed the word as she would a prayer.
"Tomorrow, at midnight. Are you afraid?"
She was, but she refused to admit it.
"I am a stranger, a big man, a combat veteran who speaks of terrifying things. You should be afraid. But we are friends, Nest. Our friendship was sealed with our handshake. I will not hurt you."
The dark eyes reflected pinpricks of light from the rising moon. Darkness cloaked the park, the twilight almost gone. Nest remembered the promise she had made to her grandfather. She had to leave soon.
"If you come," said the big man softly, "you may learn something of your own people's fate. The spirits will speak of more than the Sinnissippi. The dance will reveal things that you should know."
Nest blinked. "What things?"
He shook his head slowly. "What happened to my people can happen to yours as well." He paused. "What if I were to tell you that it is happening now?"
Nest felt a tightening in her throat. She brushed at her short, curly hair with her hand. She could feel the sweat bead on her forehead. "What do you mean?"
Two Bears leaned back, and his face disappeared momentarily into shadow. "All peoples think they are forever," he growled softly. "They do not believe they will ever not be. The Sinnissippi were that way. They did not think they would be eradicated. But that is what happened. Your people, Nest, believe this of themselves. They will survive forever, they think. Nothing can destroy them, can wipe them so completely from the earth and from history that all that will remain is their name and not even that will be known with certainty. They have such faith in their invulnerability.
"Yet already their destruction begins. It comes upon them gradually, in little ways. Bit by bit their belief hi themselves erodes. A growing cynicism pervades their lives. Small acts of kindness and charity are abandoned as pointless and somehow indicative of weakness. Little failures of behavior lead to bigger ones. It is not enough to ignore the discourtesies of others; discourtesies must be repaid in kind. Men are intolerant and judgmental. They are without grace. If one man proclaims that God has spoken to him, another quickly proclaims that his God is false. If the homeless cannot find shelter, then surely they are to blame for their condition. If the poor do not have jobs, then surely it is because they will not work. If sickness strikes down those whose lifestyle differs from our own, then surely they have brought it on themselves.
"Look at your people, Nest Freemark. They abandon their old. They shun their sick. They cast off their children. They decry any who are different. They commit acts of unfaithfulness, betrayal, and depravity every day. They foster lies that undermine beliefs. Each small darkness breeds another. Each small incident of anger, bitterness, pettiness, and greed breeds others. A sense of futility consumes them. They feel helpless to effect even the smallest change. Their madness is of their own making, and yet they are powerless against it because they refuse to acknowledge its source. They are at war with themselves, but they do not begin to understand the nature of the battle being fought."
He took a long, slow breath and released it. "Do even a handful among your people believe that life in this country is better now than it was twenty years ago? Do they believe that the dark things that inhabit it are less threatening? Do they feel safer in their homes and cities? Do they find honor and trust and compassion outweigh greed and deceit and disdain? Can you tell me that you do not fear for them?"