Prophecy Read Free Page A

outa here!” she screamed at Rob. “And take my poor, sick baby with you!”
    Rob nodded in defeat and signaled the ambulance attendants to head for the door. He followed them but paused, gazing back at the weeping woman surrounded by her children.
    “She don’t mean what she says,” a man said from the crowd. “It ain’t your fault that you can’t help us.”
    Rob felt a sudden swelling in his throat. He turned and left the room.
    Outside the tenement, the streets were filled with bodies stripped to the waist in the unseasonably warm weather. As Rob pushed through them toward the ambulance, he knew that if it got too warm too fast, it would be chaos here by summer. The shower of bricks and bottles that rained down on government vehicles came in direct proportion to the duration of summer heat. By all indications, it would be a deluge by July.
    Taking his seat in the back of the ambulance, he paused to wipe his forehead, then turned his attention to the baby. Its eyes were riveted upward; it had suddenly ceased to move. The ambulance siren began to wail and Rob lunged for his bag, pulling out a syringe with trembling hands. Then he stopped, his face white with fear, and lowered his ear to the infant’s unmoving chest. He listened for a moment; then, suddenly, unexpectedly, Rob began to cry. The baby began to cry, too. It was alive. And Robert Vern realized how close he was to cracking.
     
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    “The situation in our forest, Mr. Senator, can be likened in the following way …”
    In the Senate Subcommittee Hearing room, five Senators sat behind a long table, illuminated in an island of light, listening to the words of a young American Indian who testified with eloquence and passion. He was there to protest the theft of his tribal land, a three-hundred-square-mile wilderness area that was about to be leveled by the lumber industry.
    “If I came to your home, you would likely welcome me. If I needed food and shelter from you, it would likely be given. Indeed, if I demanded my own room within your house, and if you had such a room, you might be kind enough to give it to me.”
    The Indian paused, his voice becoming tense.
    “But if I claimed that your house and everything in it belonged to me, and I ordered you out, you would no doubt become angry! And that is exactly what is happening to the original people of this land!”
    A smattering of applause rose from isolated spots in the darkened viewers section, quieted by the sound of a gavel. Victor Shusette strained to see his watch. It was plain that Robert Vern was not going to be here. Shusette would have rather not been here either. At the age of fifty-six he felt too old and tired to face the pressure of the position that his Agency was being placed in. The Environmental Protection Agency was supposed to be nonpolitical. But it was being forced into a hotbed of politics.
     
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    “I can appreciate your feelings, Mr. Hawks-” a Senator said.
    “Can you appreciate the facts, Mr. Senator?”
    “That’s what I want to deal in. I want to deal in the facts …”
    “Then let us deal in these facts. The purchase of all Indian land in the Northeast Territories was accomplished under the provisions of Treaty Nine …”
    The Senator raised his voice. “Will you let me finish, please-?”
    “And Treaty Nine was never ratified by Congress!”
    “Mr. Hawks-”
    “There has never been another treaty in the history of this country that has been implemented without the full approval of Congress. This is your constitution I’m talking about! These are your laws I’m talking about! This is your so-called justice I’m talking about. And I’m asking you a question!”
    The Senator had begun to bang his gavel.
    “I’m asking you a question! Would this have been done to people whose skin is white?”
    Another burst of applause came from the darkened auditorium. The gavel continued banging until there was silence.
    “Are you finished, Mr.