Norseman Chief Read Online Free PDF Page A

things because I did not want to dishonor the dead.  Knowing this aspect of the past would not have changed your life.  But now it is important that you know the truth since my friend Halldorr has come to us.”
    “What does he have to do with it?  His people killed many of our men!  Men I knew and hoped to become.”  I looked down at the earthen floor, unable to meet his intense stare.  “I am overjoyed that Megedagik was eventually killed by a woman of the fair-haired giants, but I had plans to do that myself.  Why should Halldorr’s presence be important to my life at all?”
    Ahanu, which means “he laughs,” lived up to his name, chuckling softly.  This infuriated his grandson, but the boy showed great strength and remained silent, looking back and forth between the two of us.  I waited for an answer too, because I did not know why my being in their company would have an effect on whether or not Kesegowaase should know the truth.  “Oh, young people are a delight,” said the chief.  “Do you find the young enchanting, Enkoodabooaoo?”
    “I do, especially the young women,” I said trying to bring some levity to the heavy room.
    Ahanu chuckled more, “I too, like to watch the young women walk away from me, as they are wont to do.  But I mean all the young.  They think that I know the whys .”  He then laughed himself into a small fit, coughing once or twice before regaining his composure.  The boy’s face flushed as his grandfather laughed at his questions.  “Kesegowaase, I do not know why the truth had to be revealed to you in this way, only that it was.  I do not know why Halldorr is important in your knowledge of it, but he is, for he brought it to you.  Halldorr has a place in our world because he is here!  Without him I would have remained silent and you would have had the whispers of women around the cook pots to bring you knowledge of the past.”  Seeing his grandson still carried anger, the old man added, “I don’t laugh because you are foolish.  I laugh because young people have all the promise that the old do not.  Perhaps you will grow to know more of the why’s than I have ever been able to know.”
    “My people have killed your people, at times with no provocation.  That has happened.  Perhaps the opposite occurred in Thorfinn’s pasture.  I do not know.  I am here as a friend of your people to learn and live.  Perhaps we can work together to build understanding so that we may trade combs instead of arrows,” I said.
    The boy again looked at the comb, considering the words he heard from the two older men in the room.  He turned it over in his hands, running his fingers along the teeth on each side, one set fine, the other coarse.
    “Do these symbols have any meaning?”  Kesegowaase asked, scratching a thumb along the Norse runes.
    “Aye, they do,” I smiled.  “They proclaim the mighty Thor to be god.”
    The three of us talked long into the night about the gods I had known and compared them to those they had known.  I spoke about the One God and my encounters with him and his son, the Christ in my dreams.
    The conflicts of the past were forgotten.

 
    CHAPTER 3
     
    By the time winter settled in to its full depth around the tribe, I had fully recovered from the damage Etleloo and his men saw fit to inflict upon me when I first came to their beach in the autumn.  Most of the wounds and bruising healed completely, however, the old hag left her mark as a permanent scar of seared flesh on my chest where she dumped the hot embers.  The skin was pulled taught with melted permanent lines set into my hide.  No hair would even grow in the burn’s wake.  I had seen the woman several times carrying buckets to and from the creek since that day, but she would not even meet my eyes, clearly fearing my friendship with the chief.  I never spoke a word about it, though I dreamed of seeing her accidentally drown in the river nearby.
    I was given the task of