CHIEF MUNCHANG AND THE WHITEMAN'S TREASURE
"John! If you don't get your hands out of my hair, I'm going to knock you down."
That's exactly how the day had begun for John Redding, and those were the words Tanya chose. To the boy, it made no difference. Tanya was a beautiful girl, but she'd begin to talk with John and
say, "I don't look very good, John. My hair looks like a bunch of stringy black rope."
Then John Redding would say, "You're a fine looking girl, Tanya. Stop saying those things about yourself. I'm tired of hearing you run yourself down that way. It makes me mad. You bare a close resemblance to Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. I've seen her on one of the pyramids. You're beautiful, and you're just like her. She won the love,
loyalty, and heart of Ceasar Constantine II. I'm not Ceasar, but you've won me in the same way. Tanya would then forget about her hair, nose, and slighty bronze skin. She'd forgive John Redding for touching her dark hair and for tieing a stran of it in a knot, and they'd walk away together somewhere. Tanya's mother and father
didn't care. As they went to where ever they chose and did whatever they wanted, Tanya would say gruffly, "Don't ever tie my hair in a knot, John! Why in the world
do you keep on doing that? You're the only one I ever knew who would do that. It's
impossible to get the knot out when you do that".
Before John Redding had awakened on that day, he had dreamed. In that sleep world
were the eyes of Tanya- dark and deep; strings of shining hair touching her shoulders and brushing his face as fingers caressed by wind; as an incense daring one near, luring, and giving. She had conquered John Redding. Would she be a just queen or one who was wicked? The boy had become trapped within a web as some spider had woven. There was a sudden awakening, and John was suddenly released; its trap not really there. It's spider had crawled away somewhere. John Redding was happy to find himself free. Only Tonya, the girl he loved, was real.
Later during that day, the boy and Tanya entered onto the sands of an ancient seabed. Parts of the Okefenokee Swamp were spread-out in that way- a kind of carpet where little or nothing would grow. It was dead, but not from demons. It allowed no footprints; just brush strokes of diamond-backs and land tortoises. With two reed whistles they had made of palmetto split with a knife and filled with leaves as vibrators, they would call Chief Munchang, his mate, and a child. "Come here, Tanya
and John Redding!" the chief would say.
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