Ancient Shores

“The outside world,” said a man who looked ninety, “only knows we are here when they want something from us. However much they offer, they are trying to cheat us. Be careful.”

It was the most encouraging comment Max heard until Arky got up. “Tonight,” he said, “I am saddened at what I hear, and I worry for my people. Once again, the white man offers money, and we are quick to snatch it from him. We pay no heed to the nature of the bargain.

“The problems that you have described do not happen because we have no money. Rather, they happen because we have lost our heritage. We have forgotten who we are and what we might have been. I tell you, brothers and sisters, if we allow ourselves to be seduced again, it would be better for us if we never saw another sunrise.”

A murmur ran through the crowd. The journalists were holding up cassette recorders, aiming TV cameras, getting it all. Arky turned back to the council.

“We have been shown a new world. Maybe it’s time we stopped trying to live on pieces of land that the whites dole out. Maybe it’s time to do what our fathers would have done. Let us hold on to this forest world that April Ca

After the council had filed out to deliberate, the media jumped April. While she answered questions, Max took Arky aside. “I don’t think you convinced the crowd,” he said.

The lawyer smiled. “I wasn’t trying to,” he said. “I was pointed in their direction, but I was talking to the old warriors.”

Devil’s Lake, ND, Mar. 15 (AP)—

The tribal council of the Devil’s Lake Sioux today turned down a two-hundred-million-dollar offer from a consortium of business interests to purchase the Johnson’s Ridge property on which a controversial excavation site is located. Their action is related to the alleged discovery of a “star bridge.” (See lead story, above.) Unrest among tribe members has been reported. Several mounted a demonstration here today, and police are bracing for more….

They made a second trip through the port and took some reluctant reporters along. That night the nation developed what Jay Leno dubbed “Roundhouse fever.” Pictures of the beach and the Horsehead Nebula and of people vanishing in a splash of golden light were on the front page of every newspaper and on every cha

Security was beefed up. VIPs arrived, mostly by helicopter, from major universities, research facilities, state and federal agencies. Foreign dignitaries dropped in, and at one point a flustered Max was introduced to the French president. April put together a slide presentation, which highlighted Tom Lasker’s boat, results of the various tests of the material used to construct the boat and the Roundhouse, early stages of the excavation, and aerial views of Johnson’s Ridge at night.

By now, April had been granted leave by Colson Labs. She was the only person with the excavation group who was even remotely qualified to address the various researchers. (The waiting list to visit the Roundhouse, and with it the new world, had already grown into the thousands.) On the sixteenth she a

Columbus, Ohio, Mar. 16

President Matthew R. Taylor

The White House

Washington, DC 20003

Dear President Taylor,

I know that you are very busy, but I hope you can find time to help my dad. He lost his job last week at the paper mill. It happened to some other kids, too. I am in the fifth grade at the Theodore Roosevelt School, and I told some of my friends I was going to write to you. We know you will help. Thank you.

Richie Wickersham

April Ca

Once the pictures of the wilderness world, taken by a pool camera crew, flashed around the globe, any chance of anonymity for her and Max was shattered forever. Reporters appeared at the Blue Light in Grafton while patrons crowded around her table and asked for autographs.

There were more reporters at the Prairie Schooner. In the end they went to the Laskers’ home and held a good-natured impromptu press conference from the front porch. When April, hoping for some privacy, suggested they cut the celebration short, Max demurred. “This is part of the story,” he said. “Let them have it. It costs us nothing and gains their good will. We may need it before we’re done.”

In talking to the press, Max had pla

Within a few minutes, every major television network on the planet was breaking into its regular programming.

The Reverend William (Old-Time Bill) Addison, former beer truck driver, former real-estate salesman, former systems analyst, was the founder and driving force of the television ministry he called Project Forty, a reference to the years in the desert and the flagship TV cha

He was a recovered si

And it happened to him, as it had happened to Paul, that a highway had led him directly to the Lord. In Bill’s case, the highway was I—95. Bill was headed to Jacksonville on a rainswept evening, pla

The morning after Max’s injudicious remark, Bill broached the subject to his electronic flock. He was standing in the book-lined study set that he habitually used to lend a scholarly glow to his perorations. “Last night,” he explained, “I could not sleep very well. I don’t know why that should have been. I usually have no trouble sleeping, brothers and sisters, because I never go to bed with a heavy conscience. But last night something kept me awake. And I wondered whether someone was trying to speak to me.