Red Prophet Page 0,37

so I just thoughtlessly used your uncivilized nomenclature. You're supposed to take a new name, a Christian name. Not necessarily a saint's name - we're not Papists - but something to suggest your new commitment to Christ. "

Lolla-Wossiky nodded. He knew he would need a new name, if the baptism turned out to work after all. Once he met his dream beast and went back home, he would get a name. He tried to explain this to Thrower, but the White minister didn't really understand. Finally, though, he grasped the idea that Lolla-Wossiky wanted a new name and meant to get one soon, so he was mollified.

"While we're both right here, by the way," said, Thrower, "I wondered if I might examine your head. I am working on developing some orderly categorizations for the infant science of phrenology. It is the idea that particular talents and propensities in the human soul are reflected in or perhaps even caused by protuberances and depressions in the shape of the skull."

Lolla-Wossiky didn't have any idea what Thrower was talking about, so he nodded silently. This usually worked with White men who were talking nonsense, and Thrower was no exception. The end of it was that Thrower felt all over Lolla-Wossiky's head, stopping now and then to make sketches and notes on a piece of paper, muttering things like "Interesting... Ha!" and "So much for that theory." When it was over, Thrower thanked him. "You've contributed greatly to the cause of science, Mr. Wossiky. You are living proof that a Red man does not necessarily have the bumps of savagery and cannibalism. Instead you have the normal array of knacks and lacks that any human has. Red men are not intrinsically different from White men, at least not in any simple, easily categorized way. In fact, you have every sign of being quite a remarkable speaker, with a profoundly developed sense of religion. It is no accident that you are the first Red man to accept the gospel in my ministry here in America. I must say that your phrenological pattern has many great similarities to my own. In short, my dear new-baptized Christian, I would not be surprised if you ended up being a missionary of the gospel yourself. Preaching to great multitudes of Red men and women and bringing them to an understanding of heaven. Contemplate that vision, Mr. Wossiky. If I am not mistaken, it is your future."

Lolla-Wossiky barely caught the gist of what Thrower said. Something about him being a preacher. Something about telling the future. Lolla-Wossiky tried to make sense of this, but it didn't work.

By nightfall, Lolla-Wossiky was dressed in White man's clothes, looking like a fool. His likker had worn off and he hadn't had a chance to dodge back into the woods and get his four swallows, so the black noise was getting very bad. Worse yet, it looked to be a rainy night, so he couldn't see with his eye, and with the black noise as bad as it was, his land sense couldn't lead him to his keg, either.

The result was that he was staggering worse than when he had likker in him, the ground heaved and tossed so much under his feet. He fell over trying to get out of his chair at Armor's supper table. Eleanor insisted that he had to spend the night there. "We can't have him sleep in the woods, not when it rains," she said, and as if to buttress her point there was a clap of thunder and rain started pelting the roof and walls. Eleanor made up a bed on the floor of the kitchen while Thrower and Armor went around the house closing shutters. Gratefully Lolla-Wossiky crawled to the bed, not even removing the stiff uncomfortable trousers and shirt, and lay down, his eye closed, tying to endure the stabbing in his head, the pain of the black noise like knives cutting out his brain slice by slice.

As usual, they thought he was asleep.

"He seems drunker than he did this morning," said Thrower.

"I know he never left the hill," said Armor. "There's not a chance he got a drink anywhere."

"I've heard it said that when a drunk becomes sober," said Thrower, "at first he acts more drunk than when he has alcohol in him."

"I hope that's all it is," said Armor.

"I daresay he was somewhat disappointed at the baptism today," said Thrower. "Of course it's impossible to understand what a savage is feeling,