Read Online Dead Americans by Ben Peek - Free Book Online

which took place before the turn of your century. In it, an Eora warrior, my first revolutionary against the English, is lying in an English hospital, shackled to the bed, dying.”
    “So the bird is his fantasy?” Twain raised his arm, reaching for the bird. “It’s not terribly original.”
    “You misunderstand. This
is
the Eora warrior. On his seventh day in the hospital, he turns into a bird, and flies out of the window to return to his people.”
    Twain’s fingers touched the bird, and its beak opened, and a small, angry chirp pierced the inky blackness, startling him. With a second chirp, the bird bit Twain’s finger, and, flapping its wings, flew around the spiral staircase, and off into the darkness.
    “The Aboriginal tribes began to die after this,” Cadi continued sadly. “They were always my favourite, but it was a mistake to take one of their men as a champion. I poured into his spirit everything that the Aboriginal culture had, everything that gave them form and purpose. It was a mistake. There was nothing for the others, and he, alone, could not change the inevitable. He could not defeat the English.”
    Twain sucked on his finger, and muttered around it, “It doesn’t sound like any of your so called revolutions worked.”
    “No,” Cadi agreed. “Gone are the days when the disenfranchised could change a path. I must rely on a celebrated kind, now.”
    “And that’s me, is it?” Twain asked, shaking his hand.
    “You are a celebrity, are you not?” the Aborigine asked.
    Twain shrugged, and then nodded. “Yeah, I am. But why bother with me? Just make your own kind and leave me in peace. People react better to their own kind.”
    “The Eora are Sydney’s own,” Cadi said softly. “But no Englishman would embrace them, just as no Aboriginal or Irishman would embrace the English. So tell me, whose kind should I make a celebrity out of?”
    Twain began to reply, then stopped. He could think of nothing to say in response, and instead said, “Well, if that’s the case, why even bother?”
    Cadi was silent. Twain watched him look around, wondering what, on his beach, he was gazing at, for nothing was offered to him but the endless black and a spiralling staircase that stretched endlessly.
    “If you could save your daughter, Mark Twain, would you?” Cadi finally asked.
    Stiffening, Twain replied hotly, “Of course—”
    “What if she was no longer the daughter you remembered? If she did things you didn’t agree with, or understand. What if, except in name, and dim memory, the presence of your daughter was a totally alien thing? Would you still offer to save her?”
    Swallowing his anger, Twain nodded in wordless response.
    “Then we must continue onwards,” Cadi said, pointing to the stairs that he did not see.
1802.
    Pemulwy could not stop the English. They continued to spread, a white herd of disease and invading culture that knew no boundaries.
    Once, the Eora warrior had believed that the strength of the English would unite the tribes, would force them all to fight, but it was not the case. Each week, young men and women left the tribes, lured by the items in the towns, and stayed there. Their family and friends would then journey back and forth, visiting, partaking in what was offered. Weekly, the base of the tribes was eroded, worn away not by individuals, but by the inevitable march of time, which Pemulwy, for all his strength, could not stop attacking even himself.
    Ten years ago, he could run all day, and rise in the morning, ready to run again. Tracks were sharp, and bright to his eyes. The night wind was soothing, and he would lie naked beneath it, gazing up into the sky until he fell asleep. But not now. Now he took breaks during his running, and after a whole day, he would awake with aches, and the awareness that he slept longer. He needed a blanket at night, and the tracks he had followed so easily were no longer clear, and the horizon, when he gazed out, was now a shifting,