THE LAST KNIFE

History sliced and served forth. . . to fill resentful Rick with appreciation of older brother Howard's absolute pacifism. Rick had berated Howard on his return from prison; now he seeks him out in the Indian ruins that once housed a like-thinking commune; and there he becomes a captive audience for an old Indian, Chief, a black, a Chicano, a Harvard Law WASP, and a biker -- each of whom imparts an ancestral tale of fighting forsworn: Good-skunk doubts the vengeful traditions of his tribe; Rue Beckwourth, son of mountain man Jim, learns there's no freedom without dignity; revolution and contrarevolucion appear equally futile to Bent without justice; etc. In each episode, too, there's a knife -- until at the close Rick dreams of a final holocaust and the last knife thrust in the earth like a crucifix. So contrived is this whole rigamarole, and so crudely polemical, that the occasional moment of truth is falsified. And, man, what's said in the present will be yesterday's jive tomorrow.