Midnight

great in the white man's world, Little Chief, you must make yourself as much like a machine as you can. You must be efficient. You must be relentless like a machine. You must be determined in your goals, allowing no desires or emotions to distract you."
    He moved the purring blade slowly toward Tommy's face, until the boy's eyes crossed in an attempt to focus on the cutting edge.
    "With this I could lop away your nose, slice off your lips, carve away your cheeks and ears …"
    Tommy wanted to slip off the workbench stool and run.
    But he could not move.
    He realized that the Indian was holding him by one wrist.
    Even if he had not been held, he would have been unable to flee. He was paralyzed. Not entirely by fear, either. There was something seductive about the moment; the potential for violence was in an odd way … exciting.
    "… cut off the round bail of your chin, scalp you, lay bare the bone, and you'd bleed to death or die of one cause or another but …"
    The blade was no more than two inches from his nose.
    "… but the machine would go on …"
    One inch.
    "… the knife would still purr and slice, purr and slice …"
    Half an inch.
    "… because machines don't die …"
    Tommy could feel the faint, faint breeze stirred by the continuously moving electric blade.
    "… machines are efficient and reliable. If you want to do well in the white man's world, Little Chief, you must be like a machine."
    Runningdeer switched off the knife. He put it down.
    He did not let go of Tommy.
    Leaning close, he said, "If you wish to be great, if you wish to please the spirits and do what they ask of you when they send you the sign of the moonhawk, then you must be determined, relentless, cold, single-minded, uncaring of consequences, just like a machine. "
    Thereafter, especially when they ate cactus candy together, they often talked of being as dedicated to a purpose and as reliable as a machine. As he approached puberty, Tommy's dreams were less often filled with sexual references than with images of the moonhawk and with visions of people who looked normal on the outside but who were all wires and transistors and clicking metal switches on the inside.
    In the summer of his twelfth year, after seven years in the Indian's company, the boy learned what had happened to Runningdeer's half-brothers. At least he learned some of it. He surmised the rest.
    He and the Indian were sitting on the patio, having lunch and watching the rainbows that appeared and faded in the mist thrown up by the lawn sprinklers. He had asked about Runningdeer's brothers a few times since that day at the workbench, more than a year and a half earlier, but the Indian had never answered him. This time, however, Runningdeer stared off toward the distant, hazy mountains and said, "This is a secret I tell you."
    "All right."
    "As secret as all the signs you've been given."
    "Sure."
    "Some white men, just college boys, got drunk and were cruising around, maybe looking for women, certainly looking for trouble. They met my brothers by accident, in a restaurant parking lot. One of my brothers was married, and his wife was with him, and the college boys started playing tease-the-Indians, but they also really liked the look of my brother's wife. They wanted her and were drunk enough to think they could just take her. There was a fight. Five against my two brothers, they beat one to death with a tire iron. The other will never walk again. They took my brother's wife with them, used her."
    Tommy was stunned by this revelation.
    At last the boy said, " I hate white men."
    Runningdeer laughed.
    "I really do," Tommy said. "What happened to those guys who did it? Are they in prison now?"
    "No prison." Runningdeer smiled at the boy. A fierce, humorless smile. "Their fathers were powerful men. Money. Influence. So the judge let them off for 'insufficient evidence.'"
    "My father should've been the judge. He wouldn't let them off."
    "Wouldn't he?" the Indian said.
    "Never."
    "Are you so sure?"
    Uneasily, Tommy said, "Well … sure I'm sure."
    The Indian was silent.
    "I hate white men," Tommy repeated, this time motivated more by a desire to curry favor with the Indian than by conviction.
    Runningdeer laughed again and patted Tommy's hand.
    Near the end of that same summer, Runningdeer came to Tommy late on a blazing August day and, in a portentous and ominous voice, said, "There will be a full moon tonight, Little Chief. Go into the backyard and watch it for a while. I