Red Prophet Part 10

That night, with all the soldiers drinking and singing, Mike Fink was sitting up sober as you please, feeling pretty good about finally being in the likker business for himself. Only one of the poleboys was with him now, the youngest fellow, who kind of looked up to Fink. The boy was setting there playing with the fuse that used to go into a gunpowder keg.

"This fuse wasn't lit," said the poleboy.

"No, I reckon not," said Mike Fink.

"Well, how'd the water get to boiling then?"

"Reckon Hooch had a few tricks up his sleeve. Reckon Hooch had something to do with the fire in the fort."

"You knew that, didn't you?"

Fink shook his head. "Nope, just lucky. I'm just plain lucky. I just get a feeling about things, like I had a feeling about that gunpowder keg, and I just do what I feel like doing. "

"You mean like a knack?"

In answer, Fink stood up and pulled down his trousers. There on his left b.u.t.tock was a sprawl of a tattoo, six-sided and dangerous-looking. "My mama had that poked on when I wasn't a month old. Said that'd keep me safe so I'd live out my whole natural life. " He turned and showed the boy the other b.u.t.tock. "And that one she said was to help me make my fortune. I didn't know how it'd work, and she died without telling me, but as near as I can tell it makes me lucky. Makes it so I just kind of know what I ought to do." He grinned. I "Got me a flatboat now, and a cargo of whisky, don't I?"

"Is the Governor really going to give you a medal for killing Hooch?"

"Well, for catching him, anyhow, looks like."

"I don't guess the Gov looked too bothered that old Hooch was dead, though."

"Nope," said Fink. "No, I reckon not. No, me and the Gov, we're good friends now. He says he's got some things need doing, that only a man like me can do."

The poleboy looked at him with adoration in his eighteen-year-old eyes. "Can I help you? Can I come with you?"

"You ever been in a fight?"

"A lot of fights!"

"You ever bit off an ear?"

"No, but I gouged out a man's eye once."

"Eyes are easy. Eyes are soft."

"And I b.u.t.ted a man's head so he lost five teeth."

Fink considered that for a few seconds. Then he grinned and nodded. "Sure, you come along with me, boy. By the time I'm through, there ain't a man woman or child within a hundred mile of this river who won't know my name. Do you doubt that, boy?"

The boy didn't doubt it.

In the morning, Mike Fink and his crew pushed off for the south bank of the Hio, loaded with a wagon, some mules, and eight kegs of whisky. Bound to do a little trading with the Reds.

In the afternoon, Governor William Harrison buried the charred remains of his second wife and their little boy, who had the misfortune of being in the nursery together, dressing the boy in his little parade uniform, when the room burst into flames.

A fire in his own house, set by no hand, which cut off what he loved the most, and no power on earth could bring them back.

Chapter 7 Captives.

Alvin Junior never felt small except when he was setting on the back of a big old horse. Not to say he wasn't a good rider he and horses got along pretty good, they never throwing him and he never whipping them. It's just that his legs stuck way out on both sides, and since he was riding with a saddle on this trip, the stirrup had to be hiked up so far they punched new holes in the leather so he could ride. Al was looking forward to the day he growed up to be man-size. Other folks might tell him he was right big for his age, but that didn't amount to nothing in Alvin's opinion. When your age is ten, big for your age ain't nothing like being big.

"I don't like it," said Faith Miller. "Don't like sendmg my boys off in the middle of all these Red troubles."

Mother always worried, but she had good cause. All his life Al was kind of clumsy, always having accidents. Things turned out fine in the end, but it was nip and tuck a lot of the time. Worst was a few months ago, when the new millstone fell on his leg and gave it a real ugly break. It looked like he was going to die, and he pretty much expected to himself. Would have, too. Surely would have. Even though he knew he had the power to heal himself.

Ever since the Shining Man came to him in his room that night when he was six, Al had never used his knack to help himself. Cutting stone for his father, that he could do, cause it would help everybody. He'd run his fingers on the stone, get the feel of it, find the hidden places in the stone where it could break, and then set it all in order, just make it go that way; and the stone would come out, just right, just the way he asked. But never for his own good.

Then with his leg broke and the skin tore up, everybody knowed he was bound to die. And Al never would've used his knack for fixing things to heal himself, never would've tried, except old Taleswapper was there. Taleswapper asked him, why don't you fix your leg yourself? And so Al told him what he never told a soul before, about the Shining Man. Taleswapper believed him, too, didn't think he was crazy or dreaming. He made Al think back, think real hard, and remember what the Shining Man said. And when Al remembered, it come to him that it was Al himself who said that about never doing it for himself. The Shining Man just said, "Make all things whole."

Make all things whole. Well, wasn't his leg part of "all things"? So he fixed it, best he could. There was a lot more to it than that, but all in all he used his own power, with the help of his family, to heal himself. That's why he was alive.

But during those days he looked death in the face and he wasn't as scared of it as he thought he'd be. Lying there with death seeping through his bone, he began to feel like his body was just a kind of lean-to, a shelter he lived in during bad weather till his house was built. Like them shanty cabins new folks built till they could get a log house set up proper. And if he died, it wouldn't be awful at all. Just different, and maybe better.

So when his ma went on and on about the Reds and how dangerous it was and how they ought get killed, he didn't give no heed. Not because he thought that she was wrong, but because he didn't much care whether he died or not.

Well, no, that wasn't quite so. He had a lot of things to do, though he didn't know yet what they were, and so he'd be annoyed about dying. He sure didn't plan to die. It just didn't fill him up with fear like it did some folks.

Al's big brother Measure was trying to get Ma to ease off and not get herself all worked up. "We'll be all right, Mama," said Measure. "All the trouble's down south, and we'll be on good roads all the way."

"Folks disappear every week on those good roads," she said. "Those French up in Detroit are buying scalps, they don't never let up on that, don't matter one bit what Ta-k.u.msaw and his savages are doing, it only takes one arrow to kill you"

"Ma," said Measure. "If you're a-scared of Reds getting us, you ought to want us to go. I mean there's ten thousand Reds at least living in Prophetstown right across the river. It's the biggest city west of Philadelphia right now, and every one of them is a Red. We're getting away from Reds by going east"

"That one-eyed Prophet don't worry me," she said. "He never talks about killing. I just think you shouldn't"

"It don't matter what you think," said Pa.

Ma turned to face him. He'd been slopping the hogs out back, but now he was come around to say good-bye.

'Don't you tell me it don't matter what I"

"It don't matter what I think, neither," said Pa. "It don't matter what anybody thinks, and you know it."

"Then I don't see why the good Lord gave us brains, then; if that's how things are, Alvin Miller!"

"Al's going east to Hatrack River to. be an apprentice blacksmith," said Pa. "I'll miss him, you'll miss him, everybody except maybe Reverend Thrower is going to miss the boy, but the papers are signed and Al Junior is going. So instead of jawing how you don't want them to go, kiss the boys good-bye and wave them off."

If Pa'd been milk she would've curdled him on the spot, she gave him such a look. "I'll kiss my boys, and I'll wave them off," she said. "I don't need you to tell me that. I don't need you to tell me anything."

"I reckon not," said Pa. "But I'll tell you anyway, and I reckon you'll return the favor, just like you always done." He reached up a hand to shake with Measure, saying good-bye like a man does. "You get him there safe and come right back," he told Measure.

"You know I will," said Measure.

"Your ma's right, it's dangerous every step of the way, so keep your eyes open. We named you right, you got such keen eyes, boy, so use them."

"I will, Pa."

Ma said her good-bye to Measure while Pa came on over to Al. He gave Al a good stinging slap on the leg and shook his hand, too, and that felt good, Pa treating him like a man, just like Measure. Maybe if Al wasn't sitting up on a horse, Pa would've roughed his hair like a little boy, but then maybe he wouldn't have, either, and it still felt grown-up, all the same.

"I ain't scared of the Reds," said Al. He spoke real soft, so Ma wouldn't hear. "But I sure wish I didn't have to go."

"I know it, Al," said Pa. "But you got to. For your own good."

Then Pa got that faraway sad look on his face, which Al Junior had seen before more than once, and never understood. Pa was a strange man. It took Al a long time to realize that, since for the longest time while Al was just little, Pa was Pa, and he didn't try to understand him.

Now Al was getting older, and he began to compare his father to the other men around. To Armor-of-G.o.d Weaver, for instance, the most important man in town, always talking about peace with the Red man, sharing the land with him, mapping out Red lands and White lands everybody listened to him with respect. n.o.body listened to Pa that way, considering his words real serious, maybe arguing a little, but knowing that what he said was important. And Reverend Thrower, with his highfalutin educated way of talking, shouting from his pulpit about death and resurrection and the fires of h.e.l.l and the rewards of heaven, everybody listened to him, too. It was different from the way they listened to Armor, cause it was always about religion and so it didn't have nothing to do with little stuff like farming and ch.o.r.es and how folks lived. But respect.

When Pa talked, other folks listened to him, all right, but they just scoffed sometimes. "Oh, Alvin Miller, you just go on, don't you!" Al noticed that, and it made him mad at first. But then he realized that when folks was in trouble and needed help, they didn't go to Reverend Thrower, no sir, and they didn't go to Armor-of-G.o.d, cause neither of them knew all that much about how to solve the kind of problems folks had from time to time. Thrower might tell them how to stay out of h.e.l.l, but that wasn't till they was dead, and Armor might tell them how to keep peace with the Reds, but that was politics except when it was war. When they had a quarrel about a boundary line, or didn't know what to do about a boy that always sa.s.sed his ma no matter how many lickings he got, or when the weevils got their seed corn and they didn't have nothing to plant, they come to Al Miller. And he'd say his piece, just a few words usually, and they'd go off shaking their heads and saying, "Oh, Alvin Miller, you just go on, don't you!" But then they'd go ahead and settle that boundary line and build them a stone fence there; and they'd let their smart-mouth boy move on out of the house and take up as a hired man on a neighbor's farm; and come planting time a half-dozen folks'd come by with sacks of "spare" seed cause Al Miller mentioned they might be a little shy.

When Al Junior compared his pa to other men, he knew Pa was strange, knew Pa did things for reasons known only to himself. But he also knew that Pa could be trusted. Folks might give their respect to Armor-of-G.o.d and Reverend Philadelphia Thrower, but they trusted Al Miller.

So did Al Junior. Trusted his pa. Even though he didn't want to leave home, even though having been so close to death he felt like apprenticing and suchlike was a waste of time what did it matter what his trade was, would there be smiths in heaven? still he knew that if Pa said it was right for him to go, then Al would go. The way folks always knew that if Al Miller said, "Just do this and it'll work out," why, they should do the thing he said, and it'd work out like he said.

He had told Pa he didn't want to go; Pa had said, Go anyway, it's for your own good. That's all Alvin Junior needed to hear. He nodded his head and did what Pa said, not cause he had no s.p.u.n.k, not cause he was scared of his pa like other boys he knew. He just knew his pa well enough to trust his judgment. Simple as that.

"I'll miss you, Pa." And then he did a crazy fool thing, which if he stopped to think about it he never would've done. He reached down and tousled his father's hair. Even while he was doing it, he thought, Pa's going to slap me silly for treating him like a boy! Pa's eyebrows did go up, and he reached up and caught Al Junior's hand by the wrist. But then he got him a twinkle in his eye and laughed loud and said, "I reckon you can do that once, Son, and live."

Pa was still laughing when he stepped back to give Ma s.p.a.ce to say her good-bye. She had tears running down her face, but she didn't have no last-minute list of dos and don'ts for him, the way she had for Measure. She just kissed his hand and clung on, to it, and looked him in the eye and said, "If I let you go today, I'll never see you with my natural eyes again, as long as I live."

"No, Ma, don't say that," he told her. "Nothing bad's going to happen to me."

"You just remember me," she said. "And you keep that amulet I gave you. You wear that all the time."

"What's it do?" he asked, taking it from his pocket again. "I don't know this kind."

"Never you mind, you just keep it close to you all the time."

"I will, Ma."

Measure walked his horse up beside Al Junior's. "We best be going now," he said. "We want to get to country we don't see every day before we bed down tonight."

"Don't you do that," said Pa sternly. "We arranged for you to stay with the Peachee family tonight. That's as far as you need to get in one day. Don't want you to spend a night in the open when you don't have to."

"All right, all right," said Measure, "but we at least ought to get there before supper."

"Go on then," said Ma. "Go on then, boys."

They only got a rod or so on the way before Pa came running out and caught Measure's horse by the bridle, and Al Junior's, too. "Boys, you remember! Cross rivers at the bridges. You hear me? Only at the bridges! There's bridges at every river on this road, between here and Hatrack River. "

"I know, Pa," said Measure. "I helped build them all, you know."

"Use them! That's all I'm saying. And if it rains, you stop, you find a house and stop, you hear me? I don't want you out in the water."

They both pledged most solemnly not to get near anything wet. "Won't even stand downstream from the horses when they spurt," said Measure.

Pa shook a finger at him. "Don't you make light," he said.

Finally they got on their way, not looking back cause that was awful luck, and knowing that Ma and Pa went back into the house well before they was out of sight, cause it was calling for a long separation if you watched a long time when folks were leaving, and if you watched them clear out of sight it was a good chance somebody'd die before you ever saw them again. Ma took that real serious. Going inside quick like that was the last thing she'd be able to do to help protect her boys on their way.

Al and Measure stopped in a stretch of woods between Hatchs' and Bjornsons' farms, where the last storm knocked down a tree half onto the road. They could get by all right, being on horseback as they were, but you don't leave a thing like that for somebody else to find. Maybe somebody in a wagon, hurrying to make home before dark on a stormy night, maybe that's who'd come by next, and find the road blocked. So they stopped and ate the lunch Ma packed for them, and then set to work with their hatchets, cutting it free from the few taut strands of wood that clung to the ragged stump. They were wishing for a saw long before they were done, but you don't carry a saw with you on a three-hundred-mile trip on horseback. A change of clothes, a hatchet, a knife, a musket for hunting, powder and lead, a length of rope, a blanket, and a few odd tokens and amulets for wardings and fendings. Much more than that and you'd have to bring a wagon or a pack horse.

After the trunk was free, they tied both horses to it and pulled it out of the way. Hard work, sweaty work, cause the horses weren't used to pulling as a team and they bothered each other. Tree kept snagging up on them, too, and they had to keep rolling it and chopping away branches. Now, Al knew he could've used his knack to change the wood of that tree inside, to make it split apart in all the right places. But that wouldn't have been right, he knew. The Shining Man wouldn't've stood for that it would've been pure selfishness, pure laziness, and no good to anybody. So he hacked and tugged and sweated right alongside Measure. And it wasn't so bad. It was good work, and when it was all done it was no more than an hour. It was time well spent.

They talked somewhat during the work, of course. Some of the conversation turned on the stones about Red ma.s.sacres down south. Measure was pretty skeptical. "Oh, I hear those stories, but the b.l.o.o.d.y ones are all things somebody heard from somebody else about somebody else. The folks who actually lived down there and got run out, all they ever say is that Ta-k.u.msaw come and run off their pigs and chickens, that's all. Not a one ever said nothing about no arrows flying or folks getting killed."

Al, being ten years old, was more inclined to believe the stories, the bloodier the better. "Maybe when they kill somebody, they kill the whole family so n.o.body talks about it."

"Now you think about it, Al. That don't make sense. Ta-k.u.msaw wants all the White people out of there, don't he? So he wants them scared to death, so they pack up and move, don't he? So wouldn't he leave one alive to tell about it, if he was doing ma.s.sacres? Wouldn't somebody've found some bodies, at least?"

"Well where do the stories come from, then?"

"Armor-of-G.o.d says Harrison's telling lies, to try to get people het up against the Reds."

"Well, he couldn't very well lie about them burning down his house and his stockade. People could plain see if it got burnt, couldn't they? And he couldn't very well lie about it killing his wife and his little boy, could he?"

"Well of course it did burn, Al. But maybe it wasn't fire arrows from Ta-k.u.msaw started that fire. You ever think of that?"

"Governor Harrison isn't going to burn down his own house and kill his own family just so he can get people hot against the Reds," said Al. "That's plain dumb."

And they speculated on and on about Red troubles in the south part of the Wobbish country, because that was the most important topic of conversation around, and since n.o.body knowed anything accurate anyway, everybody's opinion was as good as anybody else's.

Seeing how they weren't more than a half mile from two different farms, in country they'd visited four or five times a year for ten years, it never even came to mind they ought to keep their eyes open for trouble. You just don't keep too wary that close to home, not even when you're talking about Red ma.s.sacres and stones about murders and torture. Fact is, though, careful or not there wasn't much they could've done. Al was coiling ropes and Measure was cinching up the saddles when all of a sudden there was about a dozen Reds around them. One minute n.o.body but crickets and mice and a bird here and there, the next minute Reds all painted up.

It took a few seconds even at that for them to be afraid. There was a lot of Reds in Prophetstown, and they came pretty regular to trade at Armor-of-G.o.d's store. So Alvin spoke before he even hardly looked at them. "Howdy," said Alvin.

They didn't howdy him back. They had paint all over their faces.

"These ain't no howdy Reds," said Measure softly. "They got muskets."

That made it sure these weren't no Prophetsotwn Reds. The Prophet taught his followers never to use White man's weapons. A true Red didn't need to hunt with a gun, because the land knew his need, and the game would come near enough to kill with a bow. Only reason for a Red to have a gun, said the Prophet, was to be a murderer, and murdering was for White men. That's what he said. So it was plain these weren't Reds that put much store in the Prophet.

Alvin was looking one right in the face. Al must've showed his fear, cause the Red got a glint in his eye and smiled a little. The Red reached out his hand.

"Give him the rope," said Measure.

"It's our rope," said Al. As soon as he said it he knew it didn't make no sense. Al handed both ropes to him.

The Red took the coils, gentle as you please. Then he tossed one over the White boys' heads, to another Red, and the whole bunch of them set to work, stripping off the boys' outer clothes and then tying their arms behind them so tight it was pulling on their shoulder joints something painful.