A Gift From He Who Finds The Waters (p. 2)

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"Your performance last night was disgraceful!" admonished Pacapallu, as he and Tarmac hiked along the slope of the Mountain toward the fields of Running Man ayllu.

A dark silence came over Tarmac. Though he had been grumpy that morning at being told that they were going to Running Man, Tarmac had cheered up somewhat over the course of the hike along the stone-lined trail. The cold, thin air of the Mountain had a way of bringing life to a man's bones.

"It is not wise to offend your lord and your ancestors at your first meeting with them," continued Pacapallu, when it became apparent that Tarmac was not inclined to speak. "You will have to be especially diligent in your offerings to temper their anger.

Tarmac' s eyes remained fixed on the road before him.

Pacapallu sighed and put a hand on his son's stiff shoulder, which was covered by his blue-striped everyday poncho.

"Son, I worry that you may establish a poor relationship with those on whom our lives depend. What grudge do you hold against our gods?"

"Not the gods," replied Tarmac tonelessly.

"Then what? Did your heart cry out on behalf of the guinea pig?" He scoffed at the absurdity of that notion.

"I do not want to be a man."

Pacapallu stopped, his hand holding his son back. "You do not want to be a man? You want to be a child forever? Cleaning wool and sorting potatoes with the women? Never to know the joy of having a wife and children of your own, or of spending a day, like today, laboring with your brethren from other ayllus who have or will in their turn labor for you?"

"Mit'maq," replied Tarmac as flatly as before.

"Mit'maq? You fear the apportioning of mit'a? But how else is the Great Peace to be maintained? Just as we must feed our lord and our huaca and our ancestors with chicha and blood, so we must feed our government with labor. One cannot spend his whole life taking and never giving, like a little infant."

"But do we feed a murderer? Do we give shelter to one who steals our cache of potatoes?" Tarmac began to walk again.

"The Great Peace is not a murderer or a thieL" snapped Pacapallu, following. "It gives us safety from the bickering of the cities, security when the harvest fails, access to goods from allover the world."

Tarmac shrugged.

Pacapallu's jaw and hand (which still rested on his son's shoulder) tightened. "You did not see your father killed by the soldiers of the warring cities!"

Pacapallu's agitated tone seemed to have no effect on Tarmac. "The Great Peace is not peace. On the Day of Mit'maq, they select young men to serve in the military, fighting and dying in the suffocating, noisy jungle or in strange mountains miles upon miles from your huaca. Killing men you hold no anger toward."

Pacapallu threw open his hands in amazement. "But such is an honorable, a purposeful death! If war brings new people, new ayllus and new cities, under the Great Peace, it is for our own benefit, and theirs. And the Peace is strong enough to win wars, not just dance an awkward, bloody stalemate. What purpose did your grandfather's death serve? He was not even a soldier!"

"I do not wish to die," replied Tarmac tersely.

"War is not certain, my son." Pacapallu tried to put a note of fatherly comfort in his voice. "There is other mit'a you might pay. Perhaps you will tend the fields that support the city men's temple of He Who Finds the Waters. Perhaps you will help to construct new highways, as I did when I was of an age to pay mit' a to the Great Peace. But we won't know until next week, on the Day of Mit'maq. So why worry yourself now?"

Tarmac continued to walk, an expressionless face cast down toward the ground.

"The Great Peace is our greatest gift from He Who Finds the Waters," declared Pacapallu to Tarmac's blue-striped back.

***

Down below the fields where, in dull brown weary ranks, the stalks of the recently harvested corn rattled a soft lonely chorus in the higWand wind, dwelt the Voice of He Who Finds the Waters. Two streams joined there, the small brook that sprang from Crooked Bolt ayllu's huaca, and the larger creek that rushed away from the city. Where they met, a huge stone, black with moisture and white with ice, chopped its way up from the waters like a footplow seen by a potato, the hard wooden blade cutting uninvited into the subterranean peace. On its surface were an endless variety of strange markings, whorls and stripes and human and llama figures, each composed of smaller inscriptions. Pacapallu's father had told him that those carvings, on that stone that neither the sturdiest coracle nor the strongest bridge could reach, were the work of He Who Finds the Waters. There, like a vast quipu frozen in granite, were recorded all of the events of the past and all of the occurrences of the future. But, just as the quipus were no more than a bunch of knotted strings, inaccessible without the quipucamayocs to decipher their meaning, so the stone would be useless, and incomprehensible, but for the miracle of the confluence. In the cacophony of the waters breaking around the inscribed monolith, He Who Finds the Waters spoke to any who could decipher his language. One such man lived beside the river, in a small house of carefully fitted stones and newly laid thatch.

Pacapallu came to the house carrying a large sack and a small one. The large sack, a sturdy brown item slung over his shoulder by a wide strap, was lumpy with new potatoes, not yet dried to the rubbery texture that would keep them until next harvest. In the small sack, a brightly colored pouch on a string around his neck, was the coca that Pacapallu had bought. The potatoes were a gift for He Who Finds the Waters and his servant, known now only as the Voice. The coca was for the Voice, to open his mind to the divine mysteries of the god's words in the waves.

Pacapallu found the Voice outside his house, sitting back against the straps of his loom while his fingers plucked at the threads strung upon it like a harp player, the music manifesting itself not in pitches or harmonies but in figures woven into the wide band of cloth.

"Hello, my friend," greeted Pacapallu. The Voice was not actually his friend in any conventional sense. In fact the Voice was not a member of any household or any ayllu. Out of necessity he transcended the divisions of young and old, man and woman. He made a living for himself not as a component of the interlocking exchange of labor, working and calling on debts of work, but through his own toil and an unusual system of payment for the service of communicating the wisdom of He Who Finds the Waters.

"Hello, my friend. What brings a man this way?"

"I need the wisdom of He Who Finds the Waters."

The Voice nodded knowingly, unhooking himself from the loom. That was the only reason anyone ever came. The Voice had no kin to pay visits, for he was no longer a true man. Isolated from the interaction of society , his soul merged with the spirit of He Who Finds the Waters. When the Voice died, somebody would simply shove his body into the river to get rid of it, for it would be empty, like the corpse of an animal.

"Have you a sin to confess, or do you look toward the future?"

"Well..." Pacapallu briefly considered asking whether Tarmac would be assigned to the army for his mit'a. But the Voice never gave such specific answers. "A sin, I guess. My son has transgressed, and I wish to know what caused it, and what atonement is necessary.

The Voice thought for a moment, then nodded. "Come." Then he turned and led the way toward the confluence.

In a broken and tilted stone outcrop that elbowed its way stubbornly into the corner of the confluence, defying the waters to wear it away, a seat had been painstakingly pecked out. The Voice climbed confidently over the slick basalt and lowered himself into the stone throne, which aimed his sight at the bewilderingly patterned stone and the waters around it which shouted their god's will.

Pacapallu followed more cautiously, steadying himself with both hands on the wet, and in places ice-rimed, rock. The water beat at the foot of the stone in an incomprehensible rhythm of white hands, daring Pacapallu to contemplate the consequences if he were to slip into their grasp. With a silent sigh of relief and self-chastisement, he dropped into a crouch on the flat place chipped out next to the Voice' s seat. He pulled the colorful coca pouch from around his neck and handed it to the Voice.

Turning toward Pacapallu, the Voice accepted the satchel of leaves and clutched it, squirrel-Iike, to his chest.

"For what sin do you seek forgiveness?"

"My son ... offended our ancestors, and our huaca, and our lord He Who Finds the Waters when he underwent his initiation into manhood."

"How?" A blissful calm was woven into the Voice' s words.

"He faltered and dropped the guinea pig that he was to sacrifice. The priest nearly had to hold his hand to get him to finish the job."

"Ah." The Voice did not seem shocked or concerned. "And his name?"

"Tarmac. Of Crooked Bolt Ayllu."

The Voice nodded and turned back to face the stone in the river. Protectively, he pulled the small wad of coca leaves from the pouch and placed them in his mouth. He chewed slowly and meaningfully as he reached beneath his richly patterned poncho and brought out a fist-sized, lumpy sack. Holding the sack before him and pushing the coca to one side of his mouth, he called out a litany with its own peculiar rhythm, alien to the conventions of music and yet akin to a song:

"0 mighty lord! Our father, and our uncle, and our brother!
He Who Finds the Waters, I call you!
You who led each ayllu to its place,
Listen, and speak in the sacred waters here!
Put your hand upon these stones.
Guide my hands by your divine words.
Allow me to see your will.
A man, Tarmac of Crooked Bolt ayllu,
Has transgressed, and desires atonement.
Guide me to an answer in the stones!"

The Voice untied the drawstring at the top of the pouch and spilled a quantity of small, round pebbles onto the flat surface at the front of the seat, cupping his hand to be certain that none tumbled into the stream below. The Voice cocked an ear to the great stone projecting from the meeting of creeks. Pacapallu held his breath, not daring to disrupt the Voice's comprehension of the god's words. Worries charged around his head like llamas in heat. What if Tarmac had incurred some dire punishment? What if hhe had violated the rites, and could not be counted a full man?

The Voice moved his hand back and forth over the pile of stones, all the while listening intently to the river. Then, at some signal comprehensible only to him, he chopped it down, splitting the pile in two. Carefully, using his other hand to cup the pebbles lest they fall into the river, he separated them into two piles. Pacapallu let out his breath. Now the Voice began to remove stones by pairs, one from each pile, placing them back in the pouch. The piles shrank -- far too slowly for so few stones, Pacapallu thought -- under the Voice's intense stare and darting hand.

And suddenly, the left-hand pile was gone. Yet on the right, one pebble shouted its grayness in defiance of the black stone seat. The Voice lifted it between his first two fingers, contemplated it a moment, then rolled it back into his fist and deposited it in the pouch.

Pacapallu's innards collapsed. A single stone left was a bad omen, or so he had heard. Pacapallu looked beseechingly up at the Voice. But he cannot help, lamented Pacapallu's mind, He Who Finds the Waters told him how to divide the piles. And the outcome of this oracle does not change what Tarmac did.

"He Who Finds the Waters tells me," the Voice said carefully, "That all will be put right on the Day of Mit'maq. No further atonement is necessary."

Pacapallu's eyebrows jumped. Could such a seemingly huge misstep be so easily passed over? One stone is a bad sign. How is this, unlikely as it is, an ill omen? A sudden weight formed in Pacapallu's stomach. All will be put right on the Day of Mit'maq. Does He Who Finds the Waters mean to punish Tarmac through his mit'a?

Already, the Voice was down from his perch. Pacapallu reluctantly followed, trying unsuccessfully to block out the chorus of the waves that seemed to mock him.

Another thought jumped giddily on Pacapallu as he returned to dry earth. Perhaps the system of mit'maq will in and of itself resolve what fears drove Tarmac to his shameful performance. Perhaps He Who Finds the Waters sees it as a boy's nervousness, which will be put to rest when he affirms his manhood by paying his first mit'a.

Pacapallu clung desperately to that interpretation as his feet crunched the gravel of the path back to the village. The Great Peace is an instrument of justice, he told himself. My worries and Tarmac's transgression will be straightened out in a civilized manner.

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