Red Prophet Page 0,101

climbed, then, and came to the top. The silver-leafed trees shook in the breeze, blinding him as the sun shone off them. He walked to one tree, and in it there was a nest of redbirds. Every tree the same, a single redbird nest.

Except one tree. It was different from the others. It was older, gnarled, with spreading branches instead of the up-reaching kind. Like a fruit tree. And the leaves were gold, not silver, so they didn't shine so bright, but they were soft and deep. In the tree, he saw round white fruit, and he knew that it was ripe. But when he reached out his hand to take the fruit, and eat it, he could hear laughter, jeering. He looked around him and saw everybody he ever knowed in his whole life, laughing at him. Except one - Taleswapper. Taleswapper was standing there, and he said, "Eat." Alvin reached up and plucked a single fruit out of the tree and took it to his lips and bit into it. It was juicy and firm, and the taste was sweet and bitter, salt and sour all at once, so strong it made him tingle all over - but good, a taste he wanted to hold inside him forever.

He was about to take a second bite when he saw that the fruit was gone from his hand, and not a one hung from the tree. "One bite is all you need for now," said Taleswapper. "Remember how it tastes."

"I'll never forget," said Alvin.

Everybody was still laughing, louder than ever; but Alvin paid them no mind. He'd took him a bite of the fruit, and all he wanted now was to bring his family to the same tree, and let them eat; to bring everybody he ever knowed, and even strangers, too, and let them taste it. If they'd just taste it, Alvin figured, they'd know.

"What would they know?" asked Taleswapper.

Al couldn't think what it was. "Just know," he said. "Know everything. Everything that's good."

"That's right," said Taleswapper. "With the first bite, you know."

"What about the second bite?"

"With the second bite, you live forever," said Taleswapper. "And that isn't a thing you'd better plan on doing, my boy. Don't ever imagine you can live forever."

Alvin woke up that morning with the taste of the fruit still in his mouth. He had to force himself to believe that it was just a dream. Ta-Kumsaw was already up. He had a low fire going, and he had called two fish out of the Licking River. Now they were spitted with sticks down their mouths. He handed one to Alvin.

But Alvin didn't want to eat. If he did, the taste of the fruit would go out of his mouth. He'd begin to forget, and he wanted to remember. Oh, he knowed that he'd have to eat sometime - a body can get remarkable thin saying no to food all the time. But today, for now, he didn't want to eat.

Still, he held the spit and watched the trout sizzle. Ta-Kumsaw talked, telling him about calling fish and other animals when you need to eat. Asking them to come. If the land wants you to eat, then they come; or maybe some other animal, it doesn't matter, just so you eat what the land gives you. Alvin thought about the fish he was roasting. Didn't the land know he wasn't going to eat this morning? Or did it send this fish to tell him he ought to eat after all?

Neither one. Because just at the moment the fish were ready to eat, they heard the crashing and thumping that told them a White man was coming.

Ta-Kumsaw sat very still, but he didn't so much as pull out his knife. "If the land brings a White man here, then he isn't my enemy," said Ta-Kumsaw.

In a few seconds, the White man stepped into the clearing. His hair was white, where he wasn't bald. He was carrying his hat. He had a slack-looking pouch over his shoulder, and no weapon at all. Alvin knew right off what was in that pouch. A change of clothes, a few snatches of food, and a book. A third of the book contained single sentences, where folks had written down the most important thing they ever saw happen with their own eyes. The last two-thirds of the book, though, were sealed with a leather strap. That was where Taleswapper wrote down his own stories, the ones he