Outlaw

Chapter Thirty-two

One Week Later

THE TULIM valley lay in all its lush splendor beneath a bright blue sky helmed by a crystalline sun. From this vantage high upon the hill, where Shaka had first called to his mother in her dreams and later opened her eyes to see what few ever saw, the endless swamps glistened with reflected light where the canopy thinned to expose the still waters. A flock of red-and-green parrots flapped over the jungle below Stephen. He could barely hear their call.

“It’s all so clear now,” his mother said, gazing out over the expansive scene. “This was what I saw in my dreams on the night you were born.” She faced him, eyes round. Such a beautiful woman, his mother. A woven yellow headband crowned her as the queen in this valley, though she was the servant of all.

“I couldn’t see who was calling to me, but I knew, where deep calls to deep—I had to come. Even as I know now that I must stay.”

Stephen looked into her eyes, then offered her a gentle smile. He turned back to the valley without speaking. They’d spent a week on the mountain where he’d lived with Shaka, speaking little at first. Whatever could be said in the wake of such a powerful encounter with love was best left to the heart, not the mouth. As Shaka had often said, sometimes words diminished the greatest truths and experiences.

Then they’d slept and bathed and eaten and been, just as he and Shaka had been for so many years. They hadn’t discussed the awakening in the Tulim valley until the second day, and then only in simple terms, because they already knew what had happened.

Strangely, his mother seemed to know much of how he’d spent his life on the mountain, as if she’d lived there with him. But then, she had, in a manner of speaking. She recalled it all as she might a dream, distant and slightly out of focus, but remembered. Even so Stephen had taken great delight in recounting those years for her. Once they began, their talk went all day, filled with wonder and laughter. In some ways they had many years to catch up on; in other ways none.

She’d gone down to the valley on the fifth day, and two days later he’d met her on the hill where they now stood. She’d had to see the people, she said. It was her place to do so, alone. She’d found the Warik still in a daze. Confused. Stripped of all the brutality that had ordered their world for so long. Kirutu had not come out of his house once since that night of power. He’d wept like a child when she went in to see him.

“So you will stay,” Stephen said, eyes down-valley, “and I must go.”

“Yes.”

He felt some apprehension at the prospect of leaving, but he knew that his time here was finished. He had come for two reasons: to be raised on the mountain with Shaka, and to help his mother bring light into the valley. He was ready to take that same light to a faraway land so that others might awaken as well. He couldn’t deny the eagerness he felt in setting out for that discovery. This was his purpose in life.

This and to walk in the light himself.

“I’ve lived my whole life with you and Shaka,” he said. “It will be a new thing.”

“It will, and I will miss you more than I can bear to think about at times. But I send you gladly.”

She stepped up to him and took his hand in hers. Kissed his fingers.

“I’m so grateful for you. Proud beyond any mother’s right to be. You’re such a man. The world needs the light you have to share.”

She was a foot shorter than him, so he tilted his head to look into her eyes. “And what would I be without your sacrifice? Is there another woman like you on this earth?”

She chuckled. “Many. They just don’t know it yet.”

“Then I’ll help them learn.”

“I’m sure you will. And break a few hearts along the way.”

“Break them?”

“Just an expression, dear. Unknowing hearts are fragile and easily broken. Wasn’t mine?”

She had a point.

His mother stepped away, crossed her arms, and faced a slight breeze that shifted her hair. “It’s quite ironic, isn’t it? I left my home to bring God’s love to this dark valley. Now you will leave this valley to bring that same love to others. Full circle.”

He nodded. “There’s a part of me that would like very much for you to come with me. Not in a sad way, just in a hopeful way. We’ll see each other again, won’t we?”

“Of course we will! Often, I hope.” She took a deep breath and let it settle. “My work isn’t finished here, Stephen. They need me more than before now. They have so much to learn about the source of the power they saw. So many questions about the path to forgiveness, so little understanding about the Master’s Way.” A pause. “Besides, I know this valley better than I knew my own home. I belong here.”

“And Kirutu? You’ll still be with him?”

“I don’t know. We will see. It’ll be mine to decide, not his.”

He understood this. Some might think staying with such a tormentor unwise, but Kirutu had only done what he knew to do. Love would change his heart and his costume.

“What about Wilam?”

“I don’t know. The children need me most. I am mother to them all.”

“And I am son to all mothers.”

“And how fortunate they all are,” she said with a smile.

Her eyes lowered to the medallion on his neck—the tribal carving that Shaka had given him with the word DEDITIO at its center. He’d tied it to a leather thong. She reached for it and ran her thumb over the smooth surface.

“You are Outlaw still,” she said softly.

“As are you,” he said.

“Beyond the law that brings death, into the law that is life.”

“Found on the narrow way that few find and fewer follow,” he said, recounting Shaka’s words.

She smiled. “My place is to help the Warik become Outlaws, all of them. Your call will take you to places few have seen.”

“Beyond the Tulim valley.”

“He told me on this hill that you will live an obscure life. That you’re destined to find and call all of those who would step out of the law of death and find new life.”

“Then I’ll fill the world with Outlaws.”

She released the pendant. “Many will follow. All Outlaws, just as our Master was one.”

“As we will be, always.”

That brought a smirk to her face. “It’s now what? Nineteen eighty or so? Dear me, I’ve lost track of the years. It seems I’m destined to grow old in this jungle.”

“Your costume ages,” he said.

“Yes. My costume. Older than yours, but I’m sure we both still have so much to learn.”

“More to learn?” This confused him. What more could there be to learn that was not already known? The ways of the foreign lands he would see, perhaps.

“Yes, Stephen. More. You will be tested in ways we cannot foresee. As will I. The temptation to forget is woven into the fabric of these…costumes. Even our Master felt great fear, even up to the day he sweated drops of blood before the world killed him. If our Master felt such fear to the end of his life, I’m sure we will as well. We take courage from the one who rose from that grave of death and fear.”

She had quickly adopted his language. But then, it was hers as well, from her dreams. Hadn’t she been one with Shaka? The notion of that singular truth was still bound in mystery. Stephen wouldn’t try to understand—leaning on that understanding only inflamed the costume’s need to know what it could not with its limited mind.

Allow for mystery, Stephen. Shaka’s teaching. Lest you think you would be the greatest of all, feeding always on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is Lucifer’s complex. Instead, trust in the One who gives you true life.

So he would trust. And be. As he was, saved from the ravages of the law that had thrown the world into chaos. Outlaw.

“This life will give you much and then take it all away,” she said, “and yet you will gain and lose nothing you don’t already have. In so many ways your journey is only beginning, however complete it already is.”

She paused and a shadow crossed her face.

“Many people won’t understand you. Some will find great courage in your gift, others will try to kill you. When the voice of doubt cries the loudest, remember your Master’s journey. Remember mine. Eighteen years here, and now it’s only been one night. And this too will pass. If you wander the earth for as many years or longer, remember…it’s already done. Just walk the Way, abide in the Truth, and embrace the Light.”

The Way, the Truth, and the Light. She was speaking to him both as mother and as the voice of God.

He felt compelled to step up next to her, take her hand as a son, and gaze out over the valley with her. The breeze whispered its contentment.

“Yes, Mother.”

A long beat settled between them.

“Thank you, Son,” she said.

And then they said nothing for a while.

“Now what?” he finally said.

“Now I go to the Tulim to bring healing and you leave this jungle to be Outlaw.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then faced him with a bright twinkle in her eyes.

“But first, would you like to meet some beautiful children?”

He grinned wide.

“I would love nothing more.”