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.