News of the World

by Paulette Jiles

To go through our first creation is a turning of the soul we hope toward the light, out of the animal world. God be with us. To go through another tears all the making of the first creation and sometimes it falls to bits. We fall into pieces. She is asking, Where is that rock of my creation?

They were all odd, the returned captives. All peculiar with minds oddly formed, never quite one thing or another. As Doris had said back in Spanish Fort, all those captured as children and returned were restless and hungry for some spiritual solace, abandoned by two cultures, dark shooting stars lost in the outer heavens.

There was anarchy in Texas in 1870 and every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Loss of reputation and the regard of our fellow persons is in any society, from Iceland to East Indies, a terrible blow to the spirit. It is worse than being penniless and more cutting than the blades of enemies.

Joy and liveliness had come back to his readings now. His voice had its old vibrancy again and he smiled as he read the amusing things, the Hindi women who would not say their husband’s names, odd telegraph messages caught by a reporter, and recalled how dull his life had seemed before he had come upon her in Wichita Falls. He saw her bright, fierce little face break into laughter when the crowd laughed. It was good. Laughter is good for the soul and all your interior works.

He broke down the .38, cleaned it, reassembled it. He made a list: feed, flour, ammunition, soap, beef, candles, faith, hope, charity.

She never learned to value those things that white people valued. The greatest pride of the Kiowa was to do without, to make use of anything at hand; they were almost vain of their ability to go without water, food, and shelter.

Life was not safe and nothing could make it so, neither fashionable dresses nor bank accounts. The baseline of human life was courage.