Outlaw

Chapter Twenty-two

THEY STOOD side by side on the sheer cliff’s edge high above the Tulim valley. Shaka and Stephen. Silent.

A thick white fog ran the length of the valley, like creamy milk that had settled in a basin, obscuring what lurked beneath. Not even a whisper of wind disturbed the placid haze. The scene stretching out before them was inordinately quiet, as if trapped in time itself.

Not knowing better, Stephen might have guessed that the whole world was in slumber.

But he knew better. The powers of insanity never slept, always vying for a voice that justified their lies.

Insanity. The insane self. The false self. The flesh self. The ego, the mistaken mind, the costume, the roommate…all names used liberally by Shaka.

And, as Shaka had so often said: The insane self always speaks first, always speaks the loudest. It is suspicious in the least, vicious at worst, and make no mistake, it wants you dead.

It wanted the real him dead. The one that wasn’t body, or thought, or emotion, but soul. Essence. Being. Truth. I.

Still, something was in the air—a sense of impending discovery that was all too familiar to him.

Stephen stared ahead.

“Why have you brought me here, Shaka?”

His teacher and father, though not by blood, remained silent until Stephen turned his head to look at him.

“The time has come,” Shaka said.

He’d spoken many times of the others who shared the world with them, but Stephen had only seen three others in his lifetime, each from a distance, each filling him with wonder. Perhaps the time had come to enter the world of others. Mystery filled his mind as he thought this.

“Time for what?”

“For what you make of it.”

This was Shaka’s way—always leading, never pressing.

“It?”

“Him.”

Him. Another of Shaka’s words for Stephen’s body, mind, costume, self. The one called Stephen who shared a life with the real him.

“The insane one?” He looked at the man. “I already know him,” Stephen said.

“Do you?”

Stephen smirked. “He’s the one who tries to make me crazy and turn my head hazy. To do what I would not, and not do what I would.” He crouched and made claws with both hands, eyes wild. “He’s the beast that stalks in the fog of night and screams like a spoiled brat when I don’t shiver with fear.” Stephen slapped at his face with both hands, like a wild man. “Berserk, that’s what he is. Plain insane.”

Shaka regarded him with a cocked eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Stephen righted himself and smiled. “That is far too so.”

Shaka nodded and returned his gaze to the valley. He was accepting, even encouraging of Stephen’s antics. The spice of life, he called such things. The costume and all of its traditions, ways, and codes of behavior are best not taken too seriously.

“You think you know him,” his teacher said. “And yet he hasn’t fully shown himself to you.”

Shaka’s fingers eased their grip on the long spear in his right hand, then curled back around the wooden shaft. Though Stephen had watched his own body grow over the many years they’d lived together, Shaka did not seem to age. They were now the same height and, although Stephen’s strength was now greater than his teacher’s, both were equally proficient in commanding paths and trees and water and beasts with ease.

“I’ve seen enough of him to last me a lifetime,” Stephen said.

“And yet so little of him for the life you’ve lived.”

“He’s dead,” Stephen objected. “As a snake on the fire.”

“And yet he writhes with fangs spread wide.”

“Then we take the head off and eat it with sago.”

“Might taste good,” Shaka said. “Always loved snake head in a stew.”

Stephen’s mouth watered at the thought, not of the head so much as the flesh of snake, which tasted similar to bird.

“You have the head, I’ll take the rest.”

“Leave me the tail. Need a new whip.”

“Done.”

Shaka faced him, deep-set brown eyes gentle and knowing. The round emblem tattooed on his chest marked him with an eternal commitment. Deditio. A word in a foreign tongue called Latin that meant “unconditional surrender.” They spoke in the tongue of the valley below, but Shaka had taught him a language called English as well. Why? Because it was a written language, and one day reading would be an important part of his journey. How, Stephen did not yet know.

“Tell me, where does Stephen live?” Shaka asked, serious once again.

Stephen hesitated, navigating the pathways to the true question behind his teacher’s words. By Stephen, did Shaka mean his true self, or the one made of flesh and bone? The latter, he thought.

“He lives in the mountains above the Tulim valley in a world known as New Guinea.”

“Where does he sleep?”

“He sleeps in a home next to the Wagali River.” Stephen lifted his arm and stretched a finger west. “There, a short run though the thickest jungle.” Then, in jest, “Longer for Shaka.”

His teacher’s mouth hinted at a smile and he offered a wink.

“You would like to see?” Stephen asked.

“Only five moons ago it would have taken you longer than me.”

“I have little use for the past,” Stephen said. “That past no longer exists. Nor did it ever. It was always and always will be just another now.”

Shaka nodded. “And once again my own teaching shows me up. Then tell me about the present. What does his costume look like?”

Stephen glanced down at his form. Black bands woven from cured angalo fiber hugged his wrists and his arms just above both elbows. Next to Shaka’s his skin was pale, marked with old scars on his right forearm, his knee, and one of his thighs, this last one from a boar. His hands were steady and strong, one gripping a hardwood spear slightly thicker than Shaka’s.

Dark wavy hair held in place by a strip of red-dyed canvas hung to his shoulders. Otherwise they were dressed the same: fox hides around their hips, mud from the run to the cliff dressing their feet and ankles. A single bone knife was strapped to his waist.

The muscles on his arms, chest, and legs had grown with Shaka’s never-ending physical challenges, all of which were designed more to assist him in stepping past the constraints of his body than to strengthen it. Still, there wasn’t a beast alive that could put him down. None that he’d met, at least. A large crocodile, perhaps, but only if he was caught unaware and couldn’t outmaneuver its powerful jaws.

“His costume is strong,” Stephen said.

“And his mind?”

“His mind is quiet. My true mind is at peace.”

“Why is this?” Shaka asked. The questions were a regular exercise.

“Because my true self is always at peace, dead to insanity. Only the insane mind offers any disturbance to the sound mind.”

“And who gave you this sound mind?”

“The One from whom I come.”

“What is his name?”

“He is called the One. The Way. The Truth. The One who first defeated death and is life. The One who is perfect and whole, one with God, the atonement, having made right all that was wrong. He has been called the second Adam. Jeshua.”

“And you?”

“My true self is now made whole, holy, without any further blame, condemnation, or need for correction. I am dead to the old and alive in him. I am my Father’s child.”

“And what wars against this knowledge?”

“The knowledge of good and evil. Insanity. Also the costume.”

“Which came how?”

“This is the most common knowledge, Shaka. Why do we repeat it again on this cliff?”

His teacher only cast him a sidelong look, which was enough. Trust me.

“By the eating of the fruit of the tree of this knowledge,” Stephen said. “And yet there is in this same garden a tree of life. My insane mind dies at the foot of this tree.”

“Can anything threaten you?”

“Nothing can separate me. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed any separation from him. I am blameless and nothing can remove me from my Master. It is impossible.”

“Still, though dead, your insane mind speaks and causes suffering.”

“Like a madman. Jabbering always, his mouth moves to a different beat. He likes to hear himself speak. Jika, jika, jawa. Madman coming.”

“And sometimes you listen,” Shaka said.

“Only when I forget he is dead.”

“And when you do listen?”

“He tempts me to feel threatened. Less than whole and therefore needing more than I already have. Love. Joy. Peace. States of being, not simple emotion.”

“And emotion is?”

“Sometimes pleasurable, sometimes not, depending on if I listen to insanity.”

“Is your insane mind speaking now?”

Stephen considered the question, searching his mind for any disturbance, knowing that only radical honesty would suffice.

“He is saying that a breeze would be nice,” he said.

“And this is insane why?” Shaka asked.

Stephen lifted his hand and slowly swept it through the hot, still air, aware of the sweat on his brow and chest. “Because the thought comes from a place of slight discontent with the heaviness of the air. My costume judges the air for not moving to cool the body, and in so doing judges me. As a result I suffer.”

“Judge not lest you be judged,” Shaka said.

Stephen lowered his arm. “And even now I release this insane judgment to what is.”

“How do you release it?”

“By accepting the comfort sent by my Father and offering the world love instead of resistance.”

“And the scars on your leg?”

“They are nothing! I forgive them as well. In fact, I love them. Are they not beautiful? Nothing poses even the slightest threat to me. I am made whole in him.”

“Nothing can threaten you,” Shaka repeated, turning to gaze down-valley. “Certainly not all of this hot air.” His eyes twinkled at his clever pun. “And yet your costume feels threatened. Far too often. It is the only reason you ever feel fear of any kind.”

“But I do not, Shaka. Only this air that—”

“He does, Stephen.”

He. Stephen’s false self. The one that died a long time ago, when the true Stephen first accepted the truth.

“He does,” Shaka said. “And he has not yet walked through the valley of the shadow of death.”

Stephen studied the valley below them, feeling no fear. Shaka had turned his attention to the Tulim valley more often of late, but the shift in his focus caused Stephen no concern. Evidently there was something down there that would test him further, and yet, knowing nothing of it, Stephen felt no disturbance. Only curiosity.

“Beneath the fog a struggle looms,” Shaka said. “A grand stage for those threatened by death’s shadow face every day. In this valley, insanity runs amok.”

“I feel no threat.”

“No. Not yet. Darkness has swallowed them, Stephen. They are blind. Captive in the night. And if you forget who you truly are, their insanity will call you into its dark pit.”

He’d never heard his teacher speak so bluntly about the valley. Still, they were only words and they held no meaning for him and so he felt nothing.

“Get your bow.”

Stephen spun, stepped to the ledge behind him, and snatched up the bow.

“One arrow,” Shaka said.

He plucked up one of the reeds they’d formed into arrows over the night fires. Then returned to the precipice.

Shaka flipped a fist-size fruit—a guava—into the air, sending it far from the cliff.

“Through the heart,” he said.

With practiced ease Stephen strung the arrow, calmly lifted the bow, made the appropriate reckonings for distance, wind, and trajectory, and released the string. The arrow sliced through the heavy air and struck the fruit as it fell. The impaled guava jerked away from them and dropped lazily toward the jungle far below.

“Bang! Dead. She falls into the abyss to be plucked by a lucky bird.”

“What do we say of this?” Shaka asked.

“That I never miss my mark.”

Shaka’s brow arched. “Never? I’ve sent you chasing after a thousand spent arrows in my time.”

“That was the past. It no longer exists. Now it’s never.” He could not hide his whimsical grin.

“Touché yet again. Clever boy. A miss means what?”

“To miss the mark is to be separated from the truth. In another land they call it sin. Evil. Missing the mark. If I separate myself even a fraction from my true identity, I suffer.”

“It’s harder to hit the mark when strong winds blow.”

“True enough.”

Shaka faced him. “You must know that a storm is coming.”

Stephen dipped his head. “My heart will fly true.”

Shaka studied him for a long moment, and for the first time since coming to the cliff, Stephen felt a prick of concern.

“Do you doubt me, Shaka?”

“The insane secretly crave suffering. It gives them an identity, however absurd.”

“I am not insane.”

“I don’t doubt you, Stephen. The question is whether you will doubt yourself. For this day you were born. You are Outlaw, dead to the laws of separation and death that cause insanity. Soon those laws will try to reclaim you as they have the whole world. The storm will blow and your aim will be tested. Then you will be tempted to forget who you are and deny the truth.”

“Never.”

“But you will, Stephen. More than once.”

He stared at Shaka, confused.

“But have no fear,” Shaka said. “This too is necessary. Only by walking through the valley of darkness do you realize that death is only a shadow.”

“I’m going to the valley?”

“I have raised you as a son, teaching you all you must know to be who you are. For this day I also came. And then my work will be done.”

“Done? I will be alone?”

His teacher smiled. “Alone?”

This too was Shaka’s way, always pressing for precision. In that place of knowing his true identity, there could be no true loneliness, because Stephen was one with his Father.

“I am never alone. Only my costume feels alone because he is afraid he is not enough. But I am complete. I will never be alone.”

“No. In fact, you will soon be surrounded by many. Then you may wish you were by yourself. Which is only more insanity.”

“Insanity. Always insanity. Jika, jika, jawa. Madman coming.”

“Jika, jika, jawa. Madman coming.” Shaka turned from the cliff. “The time has come.” He strode toward the tree line thirty paces distant. A tangle of vines and thick moss was draped from heavy branches that blocked the fading sun’s light from reaching the muddy trail beneath.

“It’s time for you to see.”

See what, Stephen did not ask, nor did he care to. His trust in Shaka had been forged over many years. Whatever his teacher wanted him to see or learn, he simply would, in its right time.