Instead of indulging Taylor’s obvious desperation for tutelage, Wolf allowed what he had said to act as a tide, pulling him deep into the ocean of his own angst. He addressed Aria and Taylor as if they themselves had been the offenders. “The killin’ of us has been so effective that many of us Natives can barely say a word in our own language, much less recite the prayers the ways our ancestors did. This is what they did to us. The pain and the anger is so deep and ancestral that I got no idea what the fuck’s going on inside me or how to deal with it. But our perspectives and truths are met with deaf ears. The futility and hopelessness in all the people of Turtle Island is a wild fire destroying us from within.”

Wolf beat his chest as he spoke. He paused for a moment and then went on, letting his anger spill forth from wherever it was stored within him.

“It’s been like this ever since the moment they set foot on Turtle Island over 500 years ago in 1492 … when that murderer and sickened spirit Christopher Columbus stepped foot on the continent that’s been our home for thousands of years. He and his conquistadors tore Arawak babies from their mothers and fed them to their dogs alive. Tortured and raped our women in front of our Native men to break our spirits. We became infected with ’em.”

Aria and Taylor had stopped eating and were instead watching Wolf guardedly. Neither of them was sure whether they were entering into a conflict with him or were simply watching a process of self-implosion. In truth, they had unintentionally wandered into a war that he had been waging long before meeting them, one that had started long before he was ever born.