The General Zapped an Angel: New Stories of Fantasy and Science Fiction by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page B

Mr.—?”
    â€œLightfeather.”
    â€œMr. Lightfeather.”
    â€œThe best. Do you deny that?” he demanded pugnaciously.
    â€œWhat is meditation to you, Mr. Lightfeather?”
    â€œPrayer—God—being.”
    â€œThen how can I deny it?” the priest asked.
    â€œAnd you’re going to let him stay there?” Muldoon demanded.
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œNow look,” Muldoon said, “I was raised a Catholic, and maybe I don’t know much, but I know one thing—a cathedral is made for worship on the inside, not on the outside!”
    Nevertheless, the Indian remained there, and within a few hours the television cameras and the newspapermen were there and Father O’Conner was facing no less exalted a person than the Cardinal himself. The research facilities at the various networks were concentrated upon the letter m—m for meditation as well as Mohawk. Chet Huntley informed millions, not only that meditation was a significant, inwardly directed spiritual exercise, an inner concentration upon some thought of deep religious significance, but that the Mohawk Indians had been great in their time, the organizing force of the mighty Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. The peace of the forests was the Mohawk peace, even as the law was the Mohawk law, codified in ancient times by that gentle and wise man, Hiawatha. From the St. Lawrence River in the north to the Hudson River in the south, the Mohawk peace and the Mohawk law prevailed before the white man’s coming.
    Less historically oriented, the CBS commentators wondered whether this was not simply another bit of hooliganism inflicted by college youth upon a patient public. They had researched Lightfeather himself, learning that, after Harvard, he took his Ph.D. at Columbia—his doctoral paper being a study of the use of various hallucinogenic plants in American Indian religions. “It is discouraging,” said Walter Cronkite, “to find a young American Indian of such brilliance engaging in such tiresome antics.”
    His Eminence, the Cardinal, took another tack entirely. It was not his to unravel a Mohawk Indian. Instead, he coldly asked Father O’Conner just what he proposed.,
    â€œWell, sir, Your Eminence, I mean he’s not doing any harm, is he?”
    â€œReally carried away by the notion that God owns the property—am I right, Father?”
    â€œWell—he put it so naturally and directly, Your Eminence.”
    â€œDid it ever occur to you that God’s property rights extend even farther than St. Patrick’s? You know He owns Wall Street and the White House and Protestant churches and quite a few synagogues and the Soviet Union and even Red China, not to mention a galaxy or two out there. So if I were you, Father O’Conner, I would suggest some more suitable place than the porch of St. Patrick’s for meditation. I would say that you should persuade him to leave by morning.”
    â€œYes, Your Eminence.”
    â€œPeacefully.”
    â€œYes, Your Eminence.”
    â€œWe have still not had a sit-down in St. Patrick’s.”
    â€œI understand perfectly, Your Eminence.”
    But Father O’Conner’s plan of action was a little less than perfect. It was about five o’clock in the afternoon now, and the streets were filled with people hurrying home. As little as it takes to make a crowd in New York, it takes less to dispel it; and by now the Indian was wholly taken for granted. Father O’Conner stood next to Lightfeather for a while, brooding as creatively as he could, and then asked politely whether the Indian heard him.
    â€œWhy not? Meditation is a condition of alertness, not of sleep.”
    â€œYou were very still.”
    â€œInside, Father, I am still.”
    â€œWhy did you come here?” Father O’Conner asked.
    â€œI told you why. To meditate.”
    â€œWhy here?”
    â€œBecause the vibes are