美国故事 2005-0514-Feature

Our story this week is called "The God of His Fathers". It was written by Jack 1 London in the year 1901. Here is Shep O'Neal with the story.

Silently, the wolves circled the herd 2 of caribou 3 deer. Gray bellies 4 closed to the ground. The wolves in the pack surrounded a pregnant 5 deer. They pulled her down and tore out her throat. The rest of the caribou herd raced off in 100 directions. The wolves began to feed. Once again, the Alaska territory was the scene of silent death. Here in its ancient forests, the strong had killed the weak for thousands and thousands of years.

Small groups of Indians also lived in this land at the Rainbow's End but their Stone Age life was ending. Strange men with blond 6 hair and blue eyes had discovered the lands of the north. The Indian chiefs ordered their warriors 7 to fight them. Stone arrow met steel bullet. The Indians could not stop the strangers. The white men conquered the icy rivers in light canoes. They broke through the dark forests and climbed the Rocky Mountains.

One of these men sat in front of a tent near a river. His name was Hay Stockard. Over the smoke and flames of his fire, he watched an Indian village not far from his own camp. From inside his tent came the cry of a sick child and the gentle answering song of its mother. But the man was not concerned now with them. He was thinking of Baptiste the Red, the chief of the Indian village, who had just left him. “We do not want you here.” Baptiste had told him. “If we permit you to sit by our fires, after you will come your church, your priests 9 and your God. “

Baptiste the Red hated the white men’s God. His father had been an Englishman; his mother, the daughter of an Indian chief. Baptiste had been raised among white men. When Baptiste was a young man, he fell in love with a Frenchman’s daughter. But her father opposed the marriage. A Christian 10 priest 8 refused to marry them. So Baptiste took the girl into the forests. They went to live among his mother’s people. A year later, the girl died while giving birth to her first child. Baptiste took the baby back to live among the white people. For many years he lived in peace with them as his daughter grew up, tall and beautiful. One night, while Baptiste was away, a white man broke into their home and killed the girl.

(No voice here …)

”… go and go quickly.” “And if I stay,” Hay Stockard had asked quietly as he filled his pipe. “Then soon you will meet your God, your bad God, the God of the white men. The Indian chief rose to his feet and left Hay Stockard's camp to return to his village.

The next morning, Hay Stockard watched with angry eyes as 3 men in a long canoe came to the riverbank. Two of the men were Indian. The third, a white man, wore a bright red cloth around his head. Hay Stockard reached for his gun and then changed his mind. As soon as the canoe landed, the white man jumped out and ran up to Stockard. “So, we meet again, Hay Stockard. Peace be with you. I know you are a sinner, but I, Sturges Owen, am God’s own servant. I will bring you back to our church.” “Listen to me,” Stockard warned, “if you stay here, you will bring trouble to yourself and your men. You all will be killed and so will my wife, my child and myself." Owen looked up to the sky, “The man who carries God in his heart and the Bible in his hand is protected."

Later that morning, the Indian chief Baptiste came back to Stockard's camp. “Give me the priest,” Baptiste demanded, “and I will let you go in peace. If you do not, you die.” Sturges Owen grabbed 11 his Bible, "I am not afraid,” he said, “God will protect me and hold me in his right hand. I am ready to go with Baptiste to his village. I will save his soul for God.” Hay Stockard shook his head, “Listen to me, Baptiste, I did not bring this priest here, but now that he is here, I can’t let you kill him. Many of your people will die if we fight each other." Baptiste looked into Stockard’s eyes. “But those who live,” he said, “will not have the words of a strange God in their ears.”

After a moment of silence, Baptiste the Red turned and went back to his own camp. Sturges Owen called his two men to him and the three of them knelt to pray. Stockard and his wife began to prepare the camp for battle. As they worked, they heard the sound of war drums in the village. As Sturges Owen waited and prayed, he began to feel his religious fever cooling. Fear replaced hope in his heart. The love of life took the place of the love of God in his mind. “The love of life,” he could not stop himself from feeling it. Owen knew that Stockard also loved his life, but Stockard would choose death rather than shame.

The war drums boomed 12 loudly. Suddenly, they stopped. A flood of dark feet raced towards Stockard’s camp. Arrows whistled through the air. A spear went through the body of Stockard’s wife. Stockard’s bullets answered back. Wave after wave of Indian warriors broke over the barrier. Sturges Owen ran into his tent. His two men died quickly. Hay Stockard alone remained on his feet knocking the attacking Indians aside. Stockard held an ax in one hand and his gun in the other. Behind him, a hand grabbed Stockard’s baby by his tiny leg and pulled it from under his mother’s body. The Indian whipped the child through the air, smashing 13 its head against the log. Stockard turned and cut off the Indian’s head with his ax. The circle of angry faces closed on Stockard. Two times, they pushed up to him but each time he beat them back. They fell under his feet as the ground became wet with blood.

Finally, Baptiste called his men to him. “Stockard,” he shouted, “you are a brave man. Deny your God and I will let you live.” Two Indians dragged Sturges Owen out of the tent. He was not hurt. But his eyes were wild with fear. He felt anger at God for making him so weak. Why had God given him faith without strength? Owen stood shaking before Baptiste the Red. “Where is your God now?” demanded the Indian chief. “I do not know,” Owen whispered. “Do you have a God?” “I had." "And now?" "No.” “Very good,” Baptiste said. "See that this man goes free. Let nothing happen to him and send him back to his own people. So he can tell his priests about Baptiste the Red's land where there is no God."

Baptiste turned to Hay Stockard. "There is no God." Baptiste said. Stockard laughed. One of the young Indian warriors lifted the war spear. “Do you have a God? “ Baptiste shouted. Stockard took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said, “the God of my fathers.” The spear flew through the air and went deep into Stockard’s chest. Sturges Owen saw Stockard fall slowly to the ground. Then the Indians put Owen in a canoe. Sturges Owen went down the river to carry the message of Baptiste the Red in whose country there was no God.

You have just heard the story "The God of His Fathers”. It was written by Jack London and adapted for Special English by Donald Sanctus. Your narrator was Shep O'Neal. I am Susan Clark. Listen again next week for another American Story in Special English on the Voice of America.