United States or Denmark ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But his touch, the way his arms enfolder her, told her there was no need, said everything that must be said. Three words only remained, and she spoke them with all her heart. 'I love you. Together the weary lovers walked across the wounded landscape to the sea. Reaching its margins, Kalus drew out the remaining peyote buttons. The two exchanged glances, and both understood.
She could give him peyote enough so that he should remember nothing and feel nothing of what the Spaniards should do to him. But to do that she had to make friends with one of the soldiers. She chose one Lujan, who had written his name on the Rock on the way to K'iakime. By him she sent a cake to Ho-tai, and promised to meet Lujan when she could slip away from the village unnoticed.
The peyote had begun to work on him, but its effect was entirely different than what he had hoped. Instead of giving him peace and a quiet understanding, it filled him with a dread that was almost physical. All his thoughts, worded and otherwise, seemed to crash in upon themselves like the breaking of a wave, crushing and smothering every positive impulse, every hopeful thought within him.
And yet at each pause their sense of wonder, as well as the now tenable magic of the peyote, only seemed to increase. For so, too, do Science and the indescribable beauty Nature walk -the study and living manifestation, respectively, of the enigmatic Spirit of the Universe. And as they stepped out at last onto a high platform open to the stars, both felt it so clearly.
"Was that a secret too?" asked Dorcas, for the Condor seemed not to remember that the children were new to that country. "It was peyote. Many know of it now, but in the days of Our Ancients it was known only to a few Medicine men and women. It is a seed that when eaten wipes out the past from a man's mind and gives him visions.
'What on earth made you ask that? 'Oh, nothing really. Just curious. She wished he would stop looking at her that way. 'Yes I have. Once, with Kalus. We..... It was peyote. 'How much did you do? 'Two buttons each. One right away..... Why are you laughing? 'Two peyote buttons, and you think you've seen it all. Ha!
She wished him to forget both the secret of the gold in the ground and the fear of the Padres. "From the time that she heard that the Spaniards were on their way to K'iakime, she fed him a little peyote every day. To the others it seemed that his mind walked with Those Above, and they were respectful of him. That is how Zunis think of any kind of madness.
'And maybe for that same reason he wasn't afraid. You still don't see it, do you? An animal's mind isn't less than ours, only different. He lives in his world as clearly, and understands it as well, as you and I. He is not a half-wakened child. 'Well, assuming all that's true, and that this is peyote. Do you think you're ready for it?
The Padres of Southwestern United States were Franciscan Friars who came as missionaries to the Indians. They were not all of them so unwise as Father Letrado. Peyote, the dried fruit of a small cactus, the use of which was only known in the old days to a few of the Medicine Men. The effect was like that of opium, and gave the user visions.
"Then the Padre began to exhort them to give up this evil man in their midst and rid themselves of the consequences of sin, which he assured them were most certain and as terrible as they were sure. Then the white heart of Ho-tai remembered his own anguish, and spoke thickly, as a man drunk with peyote speaks. "'He must be given up, he said.
Word Of The Day