At last he asked, “Logic, Guig?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
“Oh, we had a dozen rational possibilities — the Group is tracking them down — but I related.”
“Ah. Home.”
I grunted.
“How long since you’ve had a family and a home, Guig?”
“A couple of centuries, more or less.”
“You poor orphan.”
“That’s why the Group tries to stick together. We’re all the family we have.”
“And now it’s going to happen to me.”
I grunted.
“It is, isn’t it? You weren’t shooting me through a Black Hole?”
“You know it is. You know it’s happened already.”
“It’s like a slow death, Guig.”
“It’s a long life.”
“I’m not so sure you did me a favor.”
“I’m positive I had nothing to do with it. It was a lucky accident.”
“Lucky!”
We both grunted.
After a few minutes he asked, “What did you mean, ‘tries to stick together’?”
“In some ways we’re a typical family. There are likes and dislikes, jealousies, hatreds, downright feuds. Lucy Borgia and Len Da Vinci have been at each other’s throats since long before I was transformed. We don’t dare even mention them to each other.”
“But they gathered around to help you.”
“Only my friends. If I’d asked the Rajah to come and lend a hand he wouldn’t even bother to turn me down; he hates me. If Queenie had come it would have been a disaster; Edison and Queenie can’t abide each other. And so it goes. It’s not all sweetness and light in the Group. You’ll find out as you get to know us.”
We broke off the talk and continued the walk. Each time we passed one of those luxury wickiups I saw handicrafts in progress: looms, pottery wheels, silversmiths, ironmongers, leatherworkers, wood-carvers, painters, even a guy flaking arrowheads.
“Souvenirs for the honk tourists,” Sequoya explained. “We convince them that we still use bows and arrows and lances.”
“Hell, man, you don’t need the money.”
“No, no, no. Just goodwill. We never charge the tourists anything for souvenirs. We don’t even charge an admission fee at the gates.”
God knows, Erie seemed to be up to its ass in goodwill. It was all silence and smiles. Dio! The blessed quiet! Apparently the cushion fence blocked broadcasts as well as unwelcome visitors.
“When they squeezed the nations and tribes out of our last reservations,” Sequoya said, “they generously gave us the bed of Lake Erie for our very own. All the fresh water feeding the lake had been impounded by industry. It was just a poisoned bed, a factory sewer, and they moved us all in.”
“Why not the charming, hospitable South Pole?”
“There’s coal down there that they’re hoping to get at some day. The very first job I had was working on techniques for melting the cap for Ice Anthracite Inc.”
“Most farsighted.”
“We dug channels to drain the pollution. We put up tents. We tried to live with the rot and the stench. We died by the thousands; we starved, suffocated, killed ourselves. So many great tribes wiped out…”
“Then what turned this into a paradise?”
“A very great Indian made a discovery. Nothing would grow in the poisoned land except poppies, the Ugly Poppies.”
“Who made the discovery?”
“His name was Guess. Isaac Indus Guess.”
“Ah, I’m beginning to understand. Your father?”
“My great grandfather.”
“I see. Genius runs in the family. But why do you call them Ugly Poppies, Chief? They’re beautiful.”
“So they are, but they produce a poisoned opium, and ugly drugs are extracted from it; new drugs, unheard-of drugs with fantastic effects — they’re still exploring the possible derivatives — and overnight, in a drug culture, the reservation became rich.”
“That story’s a fairy tale.”
He was surprised. “Why do you say that, Guig?”
“Because a benevolent government would have taken Erie away from you for your own good.”
He laughed. “You’re absolutely right, except for one thing: There’s a secret process involved in getting the poppies to produce the poisoned opium, and they don’t know it. We’re the only ones who do and we’re not telling. That’s how we won the final war with the palefaces. We gave them the choice: Erie or poppy poison, not both. They offered all sorts of treaties, promises, deals, and we turned them down. We’ve learned the hard way not to trust anybody.”
“The story’s still thin, Chief. Bribes? Blackmail? Treason? Spies?”
“Oh, yes, they’ve tried them all. They still are. We handle them.”
“How?”
“Oh, come now, Guig…”
He said that with such merciless amusement that a chill ran down my spine. “Then what you’ve got, in effect, is a Redskin Mafia.”
“More or less. The Mafia International wanted us to join them but we turned them down. We trust no one. They tried to use muscle, but our Comanches are still a tough tribe — too tough, I think. But I was grateful for that little war. It cooled the Comanche feist and they’re easier to live with now. So’s the Mafia International. They won’t start pressuring again. We gave them a bellyful of traditional barbarism they’ll never forget. That’s our college.”
He pointed to about forty acres of low, white, clapboard buildings. “We built it in the Colonial style to show there were no hard feelings for the early settlers who started the great robbery. Firewater distillery. Ugly synthesis. Education. It’s the best college in the world and we’ve got a waiting list a mile long.”
“Students?”
“No. Professors. Research fellows. Teachers. We don’t admit students from the outside; it’s reserved for our own kids.”
“Are any of your kids on junk?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of. We don’t run a permissive society. No drugs. No bugs.”
“Firewater?”
“Now and then, but it’s so horroroso that they quit pretty soon.”
“Is it a secret process, too?”
“Oh, no. It’s alcohol, strychnine, tobacco, soap, red pepper, and brown coloring.”
I shuddered.
“Anyone can have the recipe because we’ve got a lock on the brand name. The honks want Erie Firewater and no substitutes.”
“And they can have it.”
He smiled. “Hiram Walker gave us a hard fight with Canadian Firewater — they must have put a hundred million into the promotion — but they lost out because their advertising made a stupid mistake. They didn’t realize that the honks don’t know there are Indians in Canada. They think all the Canadian originals are Eskimos, and who wants to drink Eskimo icewater?”
“Do you trust me, Chief?”
“Yes,” he said.
“What’s the Ugly Poppy secret?”
“Oil of wormwood.”
“You mean the stuff that drove absinthe drinkers mad back in the nineteenth century?”
He nodded. “Distilled from the leaves of Artemisia absinthium, but it’s a highly sophisticated process. Takes years to develop expertise if you’re thinking of learning it. We’ll make an exception and admit you to our college.”
“No, thanks. Genius doesn’t run in my family.”
Meanwhile he led me to an enormous marble pool, the size of a small lake, filled with crystal water. “We build them for our kids,” the Chief said. “They’ve got to learn to swim and handle a canoe. Tradition.” We sat down on a bench. “R,” he said. “I’ve told you everything. Now you tell me. What have I got myself into?”
This was no time for hard sell. I spoke matter-of-factly. “This has to be secret, Sequoya. The Group has always kept it a secret. I don’t ask for your word of honor, pledges, any of that S. You know we trust each other.”