Shaman Part 103

_Or perhaps he is dead_, Redbird thought bitterly. _Like everyone else._

In miserable silence she made a little tent out of her blanket in the field by the fort, using sticks Eagle Feather found for her. She and her children huddled under the blanket, the sorrow in her belly like a wolf inside her trying to gnaw and claw its way out.

The thought that White Bear might be on the other side of those walls of white-painted limestone was more than she could stand. She could not move or speak. Long knives stood around the edges of the field, watching the remnant of the British Band with their cold pale eyes. Redbird almost wished one of them would shoot her and end her pain. But then what would her children do? She did not want Eagle Feather and Floating Lily to die.

Later that day Owl Carver hobbled over to her, followed by a thin-lipped long knife with a rifle.

"Good-bye, my daughter." He looked very old and tired. It was a miracle that he had lived through this war. She noticed that he held in his hand the owl-decorated medicine bag.

"Where are you going, Father?"

"The Winnebago Prophet, Black Hawk and I must go into the fort to meet the pale eyes war chiefs. I guess they will shoot us or hang us. I cannot see the future anymore. Wave tells me that the rest of you are to walk south to the Rock River. The long knives will keep you at their fort there till next spring. Then they will let you cross the river to join He Who Moves Alertly in Ioway country. Take care of your mother and your sister. You are the strongest and wisest of my children."

He thrust his medicine bag at her.

"If I bring this into the fort it may be lost to our people forever. You are my child. You must be the spirit walker for the British Band."

A golden glow spread through her body. She took the bag from him--it was very light in her hands--and held it against her chest. She tried to speak, but her throat closed up on her.

Owl Carver said, "Remember always, all people, even the pale eyes, are children of Earthmaker. Whatever power Earthmaker gives you, never use it against another person. If the long knives hurt you, you can ask for strength to fight them yourself, but never call on the spirits to attack them."

"Yes, Father."

_Even if they have killed White Bear, I will not use the power of the spirits against them._

"Farewell, my child."

Redbird took Owl Carver's hand. "If you meet White Bear there in the fort, tell him I am alive and Eagle Feather and Floating Lily are alive, and one day we will all be together."

Wolf Paw stood beside her, watching Black Hawk, the Winnebago Prophet and Owl Carver walk into the square of buildings. They were followed by six blue-coated long knives pointing rifles at them and by a delegation of Winnebago chiefs and braves.

She clutched the medicine bag tightly.

Her eyes clouded over. She saw a crowd of pale eyes with distorted mouths, shouting. Terror seized her, and she tried to cry aloud, but she could not. The white faces dissolved, and she saw a mound of earth in a forest. Atop it was a willow wand with a small strip of red blanket tied to it. Darkness closed in around her.

She felt strong hands gripping her arms. Her sight cleared, and she realized that Wolf Paw was holding her.

"You were falling," he said.

"I am afraid," she said. "I have seen death on the trail before us."

Wolf Paw looked down at her with earnest eyes. He had aged so much! He had untied the red horsehair crest from his head, a wise thing to do, because there were pale eyes who might recognize him as a leading Sauk brave and want revenge. He now had only a short, irregular growth of black hair on the middle of his scalp and stubble growing around it, but he still wore the silver coin around his neck.

He said, "Whatever we must face, you have more courage than any of us. I have not forgotten many winters ago when the spirit Bear came to our camp. I turned and ran while you stood fast."

She waved a hand. "It was only White Bear."

"We did not know that then. From that day when I ran and you stood, I have always wished that a child of mine might possess your courage and wisdom."

She remembered how he had pushed her aside the night she stood beside White Bear and warned the tribe against going to war. She remembered the woman's dress he had forced on White Bear. But the man she saw before her was lost and grieving. He had lost his war. He had let his wives and children be killed. He had failed himself. He had nothing left to believe in.

So she only said, "Be as a father to the children I do have. Help me protect them."

The sun beat down on her bare head, and the dust of the trail choked her. This was the Moon of Dry Rivers, the hottest time of summer. Every step hurt her heart, because every step took her farther away from that fort where the long knives might be holding White Bear. Might be. She had never been able to find out.

By the third day of their trek southward along the Great River, the soles of Redbird's moccasins had worn through. She stumbled over ruts dug in the wide trail by pale eyes' wagon wheels. The sun had baked the packed dirt of the trail till it was hard as stone.

When the long knives let them stop to rest at midday, she took from her blanket roll White Bear's knife. With the knife she cut strips away from her doeskin dress and bound them around her feet. She cut up Eagle Feather's shirt and wrapped his moccasins so they would last longer.

A long knife with a thick blond mustache was standing over her with his hand out.

"Give me that. No knives."

He spoke the pale eyes' tongue, but she knew enough of it to understand.

But she couldn't give up the knife. It was all she had left of White Bear. Her grip tightened on the deerhorn handle, and she thought she would stab the long knife--or herself--before she would let go of it.

She tried to tell him that this was precious, that it belonged to her husband who was a shaman. But she did not have the American words to say that.

He just kept saying "No knives," and his face turned a deep red. His hand rested on the b.u.t.t of his pistol.

Wolf Paw came over. He took her wrist in a strong grip and took the knife from her hand and held it out, handle first, to the blue-coat.

She understood why Wolf Paw had forced her to give up the knife, but she was angry with him.

"That was White Bear's knife from his father," she said.

"The long knife would have killed you," Wolf Paw said. "We cannot fight them." She saw the hopelessness in his eyes, and she put her hand rea.s.suringly on his arm. When the long knives ordered them to get up and start walking, he walked beside her.

She was hungry all day long. A food wagon followed the party. Three times a day the soldiers got meat and bread from it, but the Sauk got only corn mash on tin plates, which they washed out in the river and returned to the food wagon. Several times a day they were allowed to stop and drink from the river. Redbird prayed that her milk would hold out for Floating Lily.

She sang a walking song, to try to forget her pain and to help her put one aching foot in front of the other.

"We walk this trail, following the deer.

Sing as you walk, oh, braves and squaws!

Last night I dreamed my moccasins Struck fire as they touched the ground."

When she raised her voice others joined in. After a while even Wolf Paw began to sing in a deep voice.

Five blue-coated long knives rode before the Sauk and another five behind them. Redbird looked around at her people, a hundred or so, mostly women and children. The men numbered about twenty. Tired, hungry, sick, broken in spirit. All of them on foot now, the last of their horses having been taken away at Fort Crawford.

She remembered Owl Carver's parting words to her. _You must be the spirit walker for the British Band._ And Wolf Paw had said that she had the courage and wisdom to face death on the trail.

Whatever this remnant of her people might have to meet now, she promised herself that she would use all her strength to help them through it.

They came to a smaller river, the Fever, that flowed into the Great River. A flatboat to take travelers across was drawn up on sh.o.r.e. The long knives had angry words with the men who would pole the flatboat.

Redbird understood that the boatmen would not carry her people. Let them swim, their gestures said. But the river was too deep and its current too swift for these half-starved, exhausted people.