Witch Clan: Warriors! by John Stormm (good book club books txt) 📕

a part of the Six Nations, but I never really thought of us so much as 'Indians'. Maybe Hollywood had something to do with that."

"The Six Nations were a very civilized federation of Natives," John related, "of which the Mohawk were considered the guardians of the eastern gateway into Six Nations territory. No teepees, but long houses and cabins. Were you aware that the structure of the United States government is based on our own? Of all the different peoples who have contributed to this great country, our own are nothing to scoff at."

"I've been hearing that your own contributions to our country have been nothing to scoff at," Willard said, with a note of admiration. "Our new friend is a Korean war hero," He announced to the others.

"If you don't mind," John said, blushing, "of the one hundred best days of my life, none of those days in Korea, ever made the list. I like them better behind me."

"I'll keep that in mind, my friend," Willard replied, noting that Johnny was watching the newcomer with his head cocked to one side. This usually meant that the boy was intensely intrigued by someone or something. Knowing that Emma wanted some positive exposure for the boy in Indian culture, he thought it might help to encourage a bit more interaction.

“With two John’s present, we’re going to have to designate a ’Big John’ and a ’Little John’ to keep ’em straight,” he said with a gruff chuckle.

“Well, I guess that makes me ’Little John’, “ Johnny said, staring down at his feet self consciously. “Sort of like in Robin Hood.”

“You?” Little Fox asked incredulously. “How old are you boy?”

“I’ll be ten in two weeks,” Johnny replied.

“Look at you, then,” John said, appraising him, “Only ten years old and already you have a couple inches on me. I dare say you will probably grow to be a giant of a man. No sir. You are ‘Big John’ and I am ‘Little John’.”

“But you’re older than me,” Johnny observed, “and that would be disrespectful to treat you as little.”

“The Creator made no mistakes,” John explained, “when he made you or me. I am happy with who and what I am and I don’t feel even a little bit disrespected here. I do okay for myself, Big John. It’s not a person’s size that should gain them respect, but how big their heart is. Besides, I am the Little Fox. How could I all of a sudden become a ‘Big John‘?”

“Giants come in all sizes,” Emma remarked.

“It never fails to amaze me,” Willard said, “the things an old geezer like me learns everyday.”

“I’ve been told once,” John said, “by a very wise man, that when you get to the age where that no longer happens, you have become too old.”

“God forbid,” he exclaimed, with a horrified expression on his face.

“I think my young man, here,” Emma said, pecking him on the cheek, “has more than a few good years left in him before he can qualify as ‘too old’.”

Willard blushed and changed the subject again. Finishing lunch on the porch, and extracting a promise from John to come over for supper at five o'clock, he set off to get Whitey his rental papers. John went back to the apartment to unpack and Johnny volunteered to help. Before he took off to go visit the Schneider residence, Emma stopped him at the door.

"You never cease to amaze me, Willard," she said. "You knew he would be our boy's next mentor."

"We'd talked about it months ago," he replied. "If you tell me you think it's going to rain, I know enough to bring an umbrella. What good is it having a witch for a wife, if I don't listen to her?"

"You are a very unusual man, Willard," she said, pecking him on the cheek.

"It's a requirement when you're married to a very unusual woman," he said, tipping his hat and leaving.
Breaker, Birthday Boy!

Hanging from a line, thirty feet above the pavement, John Little Fox pondered his life at this point in time. Ten year old, Johnny stood in the driveway holding his safety line, but the real line that would control his descent was attached to the clip in his harness. John took very few things in life for granted. The boy seemed to have a similar attitude and followed him about in near hero worship. Having been in leadership positions before, he could take this in stride. Besides, the boy seemed to be uncomfortable with himself and that is one state of mind that he well knew the remedies for. It was time to share some of life’s lessons with another.

Willard and Emma, the boy’s grandparents, were a remarkable mix of people and cultures. Willard was an independent, semi-retired carpenter who was well known for his work around the neighborhood. Emma was a woman of some wisdom in how she scrutinized the little things that most people missed. She would not look out of place in buckskins and beads, but there was something else about her that gave her an undeniable presence. He couldn’t place it, but it was as if he had met her before and it was very important that he be here with them. The job opening at Barthemes Steel Manufacturing and the apartment his worker at the V.A. so emphatically recommended to him seemed nearly too good to be true. The neighborhood was a friendly mix of Italians, Irish, Puerto Ricans and Negroes. For a mid-sized, industrial city, this neighborhood had a small town feel to it, which did much to add to his comfort here. Everybody knew everybody else, and it was only days before folks were calling his own name out on the street and introducing themselves. He was going to like it here.

Fastening the last bracket to the chimney, his ground plane antenna looked like it would hold up through a hurricane. He attached the coaxial cable to its base and dropped the cable coil to the eaves near his living room window to run to his set.

“Johnny,” he called down to the anxious lad below, “Did you get that grounding rod hammered into the ground near the house yet?”

“Yes,” the boy shouted up to him, “all but four inches are sticking up to attach the ground wire to. Just like you said.”

“Good boy,” he said. “Stand back a little bit because I’m going to drop that wire to you now.”

Having attached his ground wire to the antenna base securely, he tossed the remaining wire on its spool down the side of the house. He descended slowly. Every few feet down the side of the house, he tucked and fastened the wire and hid it in the trim of the house so that it was undetectable from the street. These houses were old, but well kept. It wouldn’t do to deface the structure with dangling wires. He had already endeared himself to his new landlord by offering to install a television antenna on the opposite peak. Dropping gently to the ground, he unclipped his safety line and it slid free of its attachment on the roof. Pulling his sheath knife from his belt, he cut, stripped and spliced the ground wire to the loop on the top of its rod.

“Now we attach these to the base station upstairs,” he said to Johnny, “and see how far we can talk tonight. Maybe we’ll catch some good ’skip’. ”

“What’s a skip?” Johnny asked.

“That’s when things shift in the atmosphere,” he explained, “usually from sunspots or shifting ionosphere and it causes our radio signals to bounce over greater distances and we can talk to people in other states or countries.”

“How far can you talk?” Johnny asked.

“It depends,” he said, “but I have some QSL cards from as far west as Idaho and as far north as Nova Scotia.”

“What’s a QSL card?” the boy asked.

“It’s a radio operator’s calling card,” he explained as they walked up the stairs to his apartment. “Whenever you make contact with a remote operator somewhere, you make arrangements to exchange QSL’s by mail, and hang them on the wall by your rig. But don‘t ask me what‘s a rig. Let‘s go hook it up and you can see the QSL‘s and the whole thing for yourself..”

The Lafayette HB20-C citizens band base station sat on a card table in the living room. On a cork bulletin board above the set, were a host of postcards hailing from various states with radios, antennas and lightning bolts announcing hellos with ornate call letters from operators all over the United States and Canada. His own QSL greeted them with: "A big HELLO from the Little Fox in Northern New York, KEC 5191," in the center of the array. He pulled his coax cable in through the window and attached it to the back of his set and powered it up. A moment or two for the tubes to warm up and the friendly local radio chatter began to fill the room.

"Break on one eight, for a radio check, please," he said, keying his desk mike.

"Go ahead, breaker," said a voice