Rincewind and the Redskins 3
Rincewind found himself swaying gently along, hanging upside-down from a long unyielding pole by his wrists and ankles. Al sensation in his hands and feet had gone, and his shoulders hurt abominably, but worse had happened, he supposed. At least this meant he had a chance of continuing to live – they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of bringing him in alive, otherwise. Minus points – he was still firmly tied up, which led him to suppose that he wasn't entirely a guest and blood-brother of the tribe.
While dangling, he searched his memory for what he could remember about Howondaland Central Plains Indians. It wasn't exactly encouraging. The tribes came in four distinct groupings. Widdershins, out in the desert country, were the relatively civilised Navaho, who lived in towns, even small cities, built of adobe (what they hoped was only mud), or carved into the living rock. They co-existed with the savage Apache, a nomadic people who practiced warm hospitality to travellers, of the hot-knife-and-nice-hot-fire variety. Other Indian races, such as the gentle and unworldly Yaqui, had been hunted almost to extinction by Apache and neighbouring Kwa'Zulu both. Well, it's hard to fight when you're stoned out of your brains on peyote cactus and tequila, the two things the Yaqui had devised to make desert existence bearable. In the deepest jungles way out widdershins, you got the Tezuman Indians, who Rincewind had already encountered. (1) Their concept of hospitality to visitors revolved around pioneering heart surgery, but with no resident Igor to put everything back properly afterwards.
In the Turnwise and Rimwards woodlands, which as you went further Rimwards shaded into the true deep forest and jungle, lived the Iroquis confederation of tribes, who were continually fighting a guerrilla war against incursion from their nearest neighbour, the Union of Rimwards Howondaland, originally composed of white settlers – well, if you washed enough grime off, they'd have been white – from Ankh-Morpork and Sto Kerrig. Something nudged at Rincewind's memory, to do with the year being 1903. He nudged it off for now. Anyway, the Iroquis attitude to encroaching white-skinned people usually involved scalping and death on a ceremonial bonfire, didn't it…
Over on the coast, you got the settled Indian peoples, the Pince-Nez and the Blackfeet and the Scalbies and others, who made a living from the sea and were as peaceable as it got. After some historic disagreements and early misunderstandings with horned-helmeted white-skinned people coming by sea in their longboats for the traditional Hubland purpose of rape, pillage, and land appropriation, the coastal Indians now tended to welcome white-skinned visitors by ceremonially sacrificing them to the Sea Gods, to ensure smooth waters and good fishing.
Rincewind, sensing a pattern emerging, sighed. From his upsidedown position, he could see no coast, smell no salt water, nor hear no seagulls. Nor could he see dense deciduous forest, and there was a definite lack of sand and loose arid stone underneath. Just this rolling prairie and tall green grass fading to corn-yellow. Must be the Plains Indians, then. Let's see… the nomadic and pitiless pony-soldiers of the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne and Sioux. The more pastoral and settled Crow and Cherokee, but still capable of fighting like demons when annoyed. The Arapaho, who occupied the border where the plains gave way to desert, hard fighters, as anyone living in a semi-desert with Apaches for neighbours had to be. Now according to the guidebooks in the Library, the Kiowa practiced hospitality to visitors, of the skinning-you-alive-slowly-and pitilessly-over-a-period-of-three-days sort. The Comanche allegedly removed your liver, made pâté out of it, then fed it back to you while you still lived. Now One-Man-Bucket had said his people were Latoka Sioux, hadn't he? What did they do to captives…
Rincewind saw the scenery slowly alter, and a hubbub as of many voices came to meet his ears. Children appeared, running alongside the returning scouting party and its captive. By straining his neck, Rincewind could see the beginnings of a massive encampment of… strange-looking roughly conical tents, made out of animal-hides wrapped around long thick poles. Men, women and children were moving around, the men dressed as the warriors who were bringing him in, more indolent, whilst the women appeared to be doing all the work. And the smell…. a mixture of long-unwashed bodied wholly uncontaminated by soap. Cooking fires. Dung. Lots of dung. Animals. Both living, and butchery smells of ones who weren't, in varying stages from dinner to decomposition. It pervaded, like Foul Ole Ron on a summer's day.
Rincewind took a long and blissful breath of the air.
"I know. Just like home, innit?" said One-Man-Bucket. Even his brother smiled. You could be nostalgically reminded of Ankh-Morpork in even the strangest places.
The procession wound on, through what felt like several miles of tepees, encamped along a riverbank and associated flood-plain surrounded by hills and bluffs on all sides. Finally, it halted, and Rincewind was unceremonially cut free, slumping to the ground with an "oof". He laid there for a while, encouraging the blood-flow back to hands and feet. Finally, he was jerked upright by the unfriendly Indians, who half-dragged him to a tall bare pole. Two long hide cords hung from it. These were secured to Rincewind's wrists, which were tied up above his head, but not so firmly that he couldn't move around his pole to see in all directions.
(Hold him here. Until the women-who-sew are ready.}
{Won't the Chief want to see him first? The idiot, Man-With-White-Man's-Metal-Water-Gourd, thinks he is a white medicine man. Maybe the one Chief Bullshitter told us to look out for.}
{If the Chief has come down from his Vision Quest (the Indian sniggered) then we tell him.}
{Hai! Funny how Chief Bull has Vision Quest every night with sacred herbs. His squaw get sent out for munchies too often!}
"Mr Bucket? What are they saying?" Rincewind asked, politely.
"Oh, you'll have to wait here till the Chief's ready to see you. Just, what do you call it, a formality." Bucket said, shiftily. Rincewind wondered if he was being told everything. An agonised burbling scream cut through the air.
"What the hell was that?" Rincewind asked, alarmed.
"Oh, just Crazy Horse." One-Man-Bucket said, dismissively. "Stupid sod always wants to be last man standing in the Sun Dance. Renowned for it, he is. That's four days and nights now."
"Er… this Sun Dance thing." Rincewind said, doubtfully. "Goes on a while, does it?"
"You might say that, yeah. Once you're in it and they've skewered you through the chest muscles and tied you to the pole by the skewers, you don't have the option of sitting it out."
"Run that by me again, would you?" Rincewind requested. "With specific attention paid to little details like skewer and chest muscles and being tied to a pole…"
One-Man-Bucket obligingly explained, from the cheerful point of view of one who knows he is never, ever, going to volunteer himself for this sort of Vision Quest, ever. This sort of explanation, by universal narrative custom, involves lots of cheerfully related lavish detail of the cumulative effects of pain and blood loss and exhaustion and dehydration over several days. Rincewind threw up.
"I'll leave you to it, then." One-Man-Bucket said, cheerfully. "Look, there's no ban on bringing you water. I'll try to get back here with a drink. Oh, here's your hat. I rescued it."
He put the WIZZARD hat on Rincewind's head, thoughtfully adjusted it to the correct angle, waved, and walked off. Rincewind suddenly felt all alone. He also felt a little bit peeved about being ignored. Nobody appeared to be paying him the slightest bit of attention. Once, an Indian child stood and looked thoughtfully at him for a while, industriously excavating a nostril, as children will, then decided he was boring and wandered off.
The long hot day moved on.
Rincewind's next bit of excitement occurred when an elderly Indian woman, trailing a group of excited and giggling young women and girls, walked up to him and studied him critically while the old woman chattered on, in the Voice of Authority.. It felt innocent enough, but he was not deceived.
It all reminded him of seeing a class of girls from the Assassins' School being marched between classes on different School sites. They had passed, on the way, a Watch patrol who were trying to recover the body of a roofing worker who had fallen from a height. No teacher will waste the opportunity for an impromptu lesson, and the teacher supervising the class had stopped, said "Just one moment, if you please, Lance-Constable", and explained to her girls, with forensic detachment, that these are the sort of wounds that YOU, Petley Minor, might get if you lose focus and fail to concentrate while edificeering! I know Miss Band's worried about that, as she asked me to have a word with you! Regard the un-natural twist in the neck just there . Broken between the? Miss Acle-Brandon? Spit it out, girl, I haven't got all day! Anyone? Fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae!. Just beneath the skull and exactly the point where the human neck is weakest, a point to bear in mind if using the garrotte!"
No, Miss Sanderson-Reeves could learn – and give – a class or two out here. (2)
Rincewind went "Hey!" with alarm as the old woman pulled he front of his robes open.
(Hmmm. A bit scrawny. We'll be lucky to get much out of this one! Maybe one big hunting panorama using skin continuously removed from the chest and back. What do you think… Gazelle-Drinking-From-Stream?}
(I think perhaps we use the small blue glass beads and the red dyed wooden beads to make a decorative edging motif all the way around, together with the dyed linen yarn}
{Hmm. A bit showy, and for maximum pain we need the greatest number of stitches per inch. Remember, girls, the more pain, the more fitting it is to the God when the client finally dies! Although from the look of this one, I'd give it no longer than a day, maybe less. Doe-Deer-At Edge-of-Wood? Come on, girl, the client might have all day, but I don't! }
(Errr.. Lady Kill-Man-With-Single-Lash-Of-Her-Tongue, the very best beads and braiding are reserved only for the true heroes who endure for days. On a specimen like this, materials of the third or fourth grade only should be employed.}
It was lucky for Rincewind that a group of Indian men passed at that point, carrying the limp body of a warrior he presumed to be Crazy Horse, with two metal skewers protruding lengthwise from his chest, dried blood staining his torso and breeches, white flecks of foam at his mouth, jerked up, pointed weakly but excitedly at Rincewind and shouted something in the Lakota tongue.
{That's him! That's the White Medicine Man! See how unlucky he is! Tied up and with the Ladies' Sewing Circle gathered round him! Tell the Bull! Tell the Bull!"}
Then he subsided into delirium again.
Kill-Man-With-Single-Lash-Of-Her-Tongue clucked disappointedly and led the girls off.
{It's all for the best, girls. He wouldn't have lasted five minutes and we'd only have been blunting needles and wasting beads.}
Nothing else happened for a long time. One-Man-Bucket was as good as his word, returning with water and apologetically helping Rincewind to drink. He said it looked as if the Chief will see you, but only after this big pow-wow with all the other chiefs.
"Could be an hour, could be tomorrow morning. But at least you're not going to be tortured. Then again, I expect you've got a spell or two up your sleeve, hey?"
He nudged Rincewind in the ribs and winked.
" You won't let it get that far. Not a wizard from Unseen. Just remember who brung you water, hey? "
The evening darkened, slowly. A large red-coloured dog came and squatted in front of Rincewind. The camp was full of dogs: several had in fact excused themselves over the post Rincewind was bound to. Rincewind sighed. That was the usual way of things. He looked at the dog. This one seemed to have more intelligence in its eyes than a dog should have. It was long, scrawny and fox-like, with long thin ears. Its eyes, however, were bright yellow. It sat and regarded him for a while, and hen said:-
"Looks like you're in a spot of bother, friend."
Rincewind smiled, grimly.
It's the end of a long day, I'm tired, hungry and tethered to a post. So I'm hallucinating, right? That you're talking to me. As if this is some sort of vision quest or something."
"Could be, friend. Could be." the animal said, with a canine shrug. "Or I could be a God of these people. What do you think?"
"Assuming I'm not imagining you, and you are a dog that can speak. You're not related to somebody called Gaspode, are you?" Rincewind said, suspiciously.
"Nah, mate, don't know any Gaspode. Round these parts they call me Coyote. (3) But I'll make it easier for you, Rincewind."
"Hah! Lucky guess!"
"You might remember when we last met?"
Coyote vanished, In his place was a large red-brown kangaroo, oddly incongruous in the central Howondalandian plain. A couple of late Indians ambled past, not giving it a second glance.
"G'Day, mate. The name's Scrappy. Or was Scrappy."
"Oh, no!" moaned Rincewind. "Not you again!"
The kangaroo preened its nose with a forepaw.
"The same! You know how it works, Rinso. You've met Gods before. Blind Io moves around a lot with seventy-nine different disguises doing all the lightning, right? The Goddess of Negotiable Affection works wonders with a selection of wigs and a Wonderbra? Me, I'm Scrappy on Fourecks. I'm Coyote here. I have to drag up in Llamedos and Hergen to be Morrigan, Goddess of Pissed-Off-Women. Same in Ephebe where I'm Errata. Then, you learn about drag on Fourecks and you pick up a few tricks, dont'cha? But on most of your home continent, I'm Hoki. Haven't you worked it out yet?"
"OK, so what do you want?"
"Bonzer, mate! You're willing to co-operate!. Well, it's like this. There's a war brewing. It could end up wiping out ninety per cent of the Indians if the white man ain't stopped here. I can't let it happen, as these people are my best believers. They're a banker, Rinso! Lose them and I drop a few rungs at Dunmanifestin. If they lose this fight, they're progressively wiped out over the next century by those joyless white Boor bastards with no sense of humour who don't believe in me."
The kangaroo became a coyote again.
"You're going to make sure these guys win a war, Rincewind. Trust me. I'll even get you back to your right time and place afterwards. "
"Can you get me off this pole?"
Coyote shook his head.
"No can do, old sport. The rules say I can't directly physically intervene. I can persuade a human to do it, though. Give me an hour or two!"
And Coyote sped off. Leaving Rincewind alone in the night.
Great, thought Rincewind, dangling dejectedly. Another bloody mission. And things were working out so well at the University…
(1) – refer to Eric
(2) See my novella The Graduation Class which discusses the education on offer to modern gels at the Assassins' School.
(3)Coyote is depicted here as the Trickster god of the north American Indians, as best described by trainee Yaqui shaman Carlos Castenada in his books about his apprenticeship to the elderly medicine man Don Juan.