Cheveyo started to stand as Ahiga caught hold of a low branch, pulled himself off the ground and grabbed the arrow. Cheveyo remembered too late where he was now standing. Before he could jump the noose snapped about his ankles. His feet went from under him and he hit the ground face first. He was dragged through the mud and up into the air as the sapling whipped back.
His shins throbbed and his face ached as he flailed around, suspended from the branch.
Ahiga smiled up at him with malevolent satisfaction as he picked up the last bow and arrow. 'Not a bad trap Hopi. Shame you didn't have the guts to make it work. You know what gave you away? The vine you threw down to me was the same you used to make that noose. The minute I recognised the vine I knew what your trap was. Your own stupid charity undid you.'
'Very clever,' said Cheveyo, trying to find what grace and dignity he had left. 'Now fire your arrow and cut me down.'
'Cut you down?' Ahiga said with a derisive laugh. 'Cut you down? What sort of idiot would I be if I cut you down just when I'm about to win?'
'It would be the honourable thing to do.'
'Let me tell you something about honour. The Navajo also tell the story of the hare and the snake. Only we have a different ending. The hare is not called before the Great Spirit. His soul is eaten by demons because his actions were neither brave nor wise. He died of stupidity and his offspring have no souls because of it. That is why my people hunt and eat the hare. It is a gift from the Great Spirit. It has no bravery and no soul, therefore killing it is not a sin. And leaving you to hang there is no dishonour.'
Ahiga fired the last arrow out of the copse and back on to the plain where they had begun the challenge. Then he flung down the bow and raced after it.
Ahiga was standing with the inner council around the fourth arrow when Cheveyo limped out of the wood and across the plain. He had twisted his ankle when he had eventually freed himself from the noose.
'Join us Cheveyo,' said Hiamovi with a conciliatory smile. 'In welcoming the newest member of our council.'
'I will not,' said Cheveyo, desperate to save the UTN from the duplicitous Navajo. 'His victory is dishonourable.'
'Dishonourable?' said Hiamovi turning to Ahiga. 'Is this so?'
Ahiga looked to Cheveyo. 'In what way is my victory dishonourable?'
'You know.'
'Did I break any rules?'
Cheveyo shook his head. 'No but…'
'Then how have I won dishonourably?'
'Through your underhand tactics and your disgraceful conduct, you…'
'Enough,' said Hiamovi. 'It pains me to say it Cheveyo, but the dishonour seems to be yours. You lost the challenge on fair terms and yet you refuse to gracefully accept the outcome. I am disappointed in you.'
'Old friend,' said Cheveyo with a hint of pleading in his voice. 'Please believe me when I say there is too much at stake to let the UTN fall into the hands of this scurrilous Navajo.'
'Please Cheveyo,' said the matriarch Onatah. 'Accept your defeat with good grace. There is no need to fall back on old grievances between tribes.'
'It's not about that,' Cheveyo tried to explain.
Hiamovi raised his hand to silence him. 'Your conduct is unbecoming to this council. You have forfeited your right to sit with us for four months. After that you will apologise and we will consider readmitting you.'
With that the council all turned their backs on him and walked away. Cheveyo's shoulders slumped. His chin touched his chest and the fight drained out of him. Like rain water from a leaky barrel it seemed to run out of him into the dry plain at his feet.
A cold fear filled his stomach as he thought about the coming of the Fifth Age of Man, of all it meant to humanity. A week ago it had never felt closer. Now it couldn't have been further away.
CHAPTER SIX
Colt sat in the boxing ring of the Daniel Ritchie Centre for Sport and Wellness. Once the jewel in the crown of the Denver University campus, and now another part of the head quarters of the resurgent Neo-Clergy.
Colt had moved the Colorado branch of the Clergy into the university soon after the Apostolic Church of the Rediscovered Dawn first rose to power. The arboretum surrounding the campus and its location, seven miles south of downtown made it eminently defendable. The halls of residence made a great barracks and there was plenty of space to administrate a state wide organisation. This was one of the reasons why Colt's branch of the Neo-Clergy had maintained control of Colorado.
Colt didn't spend much time around the boxing ring. His men held regular bouts. It helped them blow off steam. Betting on the matches was a sin however and strictly forbidden. He had chosen it today as the site of an important meeting.
He was alone when Simon Peter walked in and announced that the Prophet had arrived. Colt told him to show the man in. He entered flanked by two of Colt's best men. 'Mr Kinnison,' said Colt, with a genial smile. 'Or should I call you Prophet?'
'You can call me Robert if you like, Mr Colt.'
'That's Samuel to you, seeing as we're on first name terms now. Come on in.'
The Prophet climbed into the ring. 'You didn't bring me all this way to spar did you Samuel?'
'No,' said Colt, with a smile. 'Though I understand you used to box a little yourself when you were at college. Amateur State champion for a while weren't you, bantam weight division?'
'You've been doing your homework I see. And how about you Samuel, did you ever don the gloves?'
'I was a welterweight, back in reform school. Southpaw as it happens.'
'Lost my only fight to a southpaw. Couldn't box clever enough to get around his left hook. Legs just went from under me and I hung up my gloves soon after.'
'The Lord had something else in mind for you.'
'That He did,' said the Prophet. 'That He did.'
Robert Kinnison smiled a broad smile. He had charm and charisma aplenty, but he carried himself with enough gentle humility that it wasn't overpowering. It was hard not to like or trust him straight off. Colt guessed he was around five-nine in height, in good shape too, with a lean muscular figure that looked like he was in his late twenties and not his late forties. An African American whose grey beard and salt and pepper hair, made him look like a backwoodsman. His weather beaten skin and the calluses on his hands added to this impression.
Kinnison was right about Colt doing his homework too. Colt had done extensive research on the Prophet. His network of informants had been digging up everything they could.
Before The Cull Kinnison had been a ranger at Yellowstone National Park, one of the few African Americans to ever hold the job. He was also a conservationist who taught workshops in back-to-basics wilderness survival and ran a programme to get kids from inner city ghettos out into the forests to explore nature. It was on one such outing that he was caught in a landslide and fell into a coma, a matter of weeks before the Cull tore through the country.
According to rumours, while in the coma his soul left his body and was called before the Almighty. Upon meeting his creator, Kinnison was charged with bringing all of God's children back into the fold.
Kinnison woke three months later in a hospital in Buffalo, Wyoming. It was full of rotting corpses. He left the hospital and began to round up the survivors, preaching of the visions the Lord had sent him. He gathered together a band of followers and led them out of the city and on a long trek to his beloved Yellowstone, stopping along the way at places like Worland, Powell and Cody to pick up more followers.
Together with his people he formed a commune in the heart of Yellowstone. With his specialist knowledge of survival he was able to keep them alive through the hard winter and, with the visions he had received from the Lord, he was able to sustain their souls. Word spread of his commune and their numbers slowly grew. Kinnison came to be known as 'The Prophet.'
