The Holy Road

Chapter XLIX

Though he remained the most respected man of the delegation, Ten Bears' purposeful maintenance of a certain attitude set him apart from the others. From the old man's vantage point, even Kicking Bird operated far below him as the visitors from the plains proceeded through their exhausting Washington itinerary.

Each day was packed with meetings, receptions, and sightseeing, all carefully orchestrated by an army of white officialdom. Its purpose was to overwhelm the peace leadership with an endless array of devastating impressions which would keep them reeling. Washington had practiced the same bloodless warfare for decades with striking success. Few Indians left the city without recognizing they had already been defeated by a culture whose size, energy, technology, and appetite altogether eclipsed their own.

Supposedly predicated on substance, the meetings with various government agencies followed the theme of producing an unforgettable show of power. Invariably, the men of the prairie were conducted through an inconceivably grand public building before meeting their human hosts in a room furnished with excessive and ravish distractions.

There were spirited exchanges at the Interior Department where many pointed questions about the mechanics of reservation life were asked, and at the War Department, where Kicking Bird lectured General Sherman on the limited control any elder can expect to exercise over the young. And the meetings were, of course, bracketed with eating sessions and demonstrations of magical apparatuses which effectively overshadowed the substance of the official discussions.

Apart from showing him deference owing to his age, the whites paid little attention to Ten Bears. It was a neglect the old man welcomed, for he had little to say on the issues of war and peace, and he was often seen dozing during the weightiest conferences.

That was not to say that the Comanche headman was bored. His interest in white civilization was profound, and his apparent lack of engagement was merely a way to stay focused on his more elementary agenda.

On the third morning of the stay in Washington, following a tour of the city's waterworks, he stayed behind to question the director while the rest of the delegation hurried off to see a horse race. Standing next to a set of huge turbines which pumped water to those who could afford it, Ten Bears' interpreter filtered the Comanche words into English for the director of public works, a fat, florid, and genial man who rejoiced in his work. He stood with one hand cupped to an ear, intent on all that the old man had to say.

"When refuse grows in our camp, we move," Ten Bears stated.

"Uh-huh. ."

"White men stay in one place."

"Uh-huh."

"Where does this refuse go?"

"Ah!" the director exclaimed. "Good question! Would Mr. Ten Bears like to see?"

Ten Bears nodded without hesitation and a few minutes later they were riding toward the outskirts of the city in an open carriage.

Long before they reached the dump, Ten Bears noticed a change in the sky's complexion that could not be linked to any natural element of weather. In the distance columns of dark smoke curled in the atmosphere, merging, then flattening out in a single, great blanket that dulled the sun.

All manner of conveyances piled high with garbage clogged the approach to the dumping ground, and when at last the carriage came to a stop within its confines, Ten Bears found himself surrounded by hillocks of smoldering waste, each the size of several lodges.

"Does the smoke stay here?” Ten Bears asked.

"No, no," the director replied eagerly, “it goes away. . it disappears. But I suppose you could say it's here all the time. The dump is always open."

"Too much smoke,” Ten Bears observed absently.

His every word was translated, and upon hearing his casual aside, the director was prompted to look skyward for a moment of inconclusive meditation.

"Well,” he began earnestly, “eventually there will be too much smoke. The population is expected to double in the next twenty-five or thirty years."

When this was translated, Ten Bears asked that it be repeated, and when he heard it again he was still unsure if he had heard right.

"Two times as many white people?. . In twenty-five snows?”

"Yes," the director assured him, "but we are working on alternatives. We don't possess the means yet, but it seems likely that in the future trash will be buried."

"In the earth?" Ten Bears questioned, his face frozen in shock.

"Why. . yes."

“The earth is alive.”

The director didn't fully grasp the concept.

"Well. . uh. . yes,” he stammered, “but it has to go somewhere.”

The men were silent for a time as their team jogged smoothly back in the direction of the city. Ten Bears had closed his eyes, but just his white hosts thought he might have drifted off, the old man's head jumped forward and his eyes flew open.

"I didn't see any feces or urine. Where do you put that?”

The director's stare was so incredulous and intense as to cause Ten Bears to wonder briefly if his question had not provoked a spell of insanity in his companion. But a moment later a grateful smile spread across the director's small mouth.

"Thank you, Mr. Ten Bears, thank you for asking,” he said.

The director's thankfulness was heartfelt. Not a day went by that he didn't long to hear the question Ten Bears had asked. His longing usually went unrequited, for the disposal of human waste was not a topic that excited public interest. But here was a man who wanted to know. It didn't matter to the director if he spoke a language of grunts or dressed in the skins of animals or attached eagle talons and eagle feathers to his head. The director was happy to share his excitement.

The sewer system, which had finally become operational only six months before, was the crown jewel of his career. He launched into an animated technical explanation of the system but had barely spoken a few sentences before the translator threw up his hands and explained to the director that most of what he was saying could not be turned into Comanche.

"Ask Mr. Ten Bears if he would allow me to show him the system."

The translator passed this on, listened to the response, and turned again to the director.

"He says he would like that very much."

Shortly after arriving back at the administrator's office they were off again, traveling for only a few minutes before turning up a broad residential avenue flanked by enormous houses that Ten Bears was astonished to learn held but one family each.

Halfway up the street they pulled behind an empty wagon apparently belonging to a pair of burly, taciturn workmen who had taken up a position in the center of the street. Ten Bears noticed that one of the men was shouldering a length of stout metal and, when they reached the middle of the street, he discovered that the men were standing over a large metal disc fitted perfectly into the roadway.

"Have you defecated in a water closet, Mr. Ten Bears?" asked the director.

“Yes."

"And have you pulled the chain and seen your feces disappear?"

"Yes, I did that. It went down a hole and didn't come back."

"Good. Now. ." Here the director paused to pick out the first mansion he chanced to see. "If you were in that house and defecated in its water closer and pulled the chain, your feces would disappear into a tube. The tube would carry your feces out here."

Ten Bears understood the various parts of the director's explanation but could not put them together, and, thinking he might have missed something, glanced regularly at the interpreter.

“If you please, gentlemen, lift off the manhole,” the director commanded, as if he were about to reveal a fabulous jewel.

The man with the steel bar inserted it into the disc's edge and, in a show of prodigious strength, levered the heavy plate high enough to be grasped by his companion. Together they rolled the huge wheel of metal to one side, leaving a hole in the street.

Ten Bears peered into the hole and caught the unmistakable odor of excrement. At the same time, he picked up the sound of moving water.

Ten Bears glanced at the director. The white man smiled knowingly, as if in concert with Ten Bears, and began to gesture expansively at the houses of the rich.

"Every house has such a tube and all the tubes flow into this big one."

"A river," Ten Bears offered.

"Exactly," the delighted director replied. “We have made a river to carry away the waste from our bodies.”

Ten Bears gazed deeper into the hole.

"But where does it flow?” he asked.

"Ah-ha!" the director exclaimed, raising an emphatic finger in front of his face. "I will show you."

They clambered back into the carriage and in a few blocks turned east on a road parallel to the brooding river that hugged the city, following it to the desolate outskirts of town.

The carriage pulled up to a fenced portion of the adjacent waterway's banks and Ten Bears was escorted to a spot where a door had been made in the fence. The director pushed a key into the door and a few steps later Ten Bears was gazing down at four enormous tubes, all of them spewing effluent into the river.

Though the air was heavy with stink, Ten Bears stood mesmerized. At last he looked at the director and lifted an arm over the Potomac River.

"Is this a river of feces, too?”

"No, this river only carries the sewage away.”

"Where does it go?"

"To the ocean."

"The great water that goes forever?"

“Yes,"

Ten Bears looked downriver. He regarded the gushing tubes once more and sank into thought.

"What will happen when the great waters fill with feces?”

“Oh, no,” the director chuckled. “The ocean cannot be filled."