Shaman Part 50

Then Owl Carver stood before the fire, between the bride and the groom, and raised his arms. "O Earthmaker, bless this man and this woman. May they walk with honor on the path they follow as one."

Redbird sang a wedding song to White Bear. Her voice rose clear and pure into the night air, and it seemed to White Bear that even the crackling fire quieted itself to listen.

"I will build a lodge for you, I will grind the corn for you.

I have no home but where you are; The trail you walk is also mine."

Then White Bear got up and went around the fire to Redbird. He handed Redbird a bouquet of pink roses that Sun Woman had carefully collected, dried and preserved. The orange glow of the fire danced in her black eyes, and White Bear felt an answering love blaze up within himself.

He was so much taller than Redbird that he had to bend his knees deeply so that Redbird could throw her braids over his shoulders, and he heard some chuckles and giggles from the watching people. But as her braids fell lightly on him he thought that he had never in his life been happier than at this moment.

Together they walked sunwise around the marriage fire, keeping it on their right: and on the east, south, west and north sides White Bear said loudly, "Redbird is now my wife!"

Eyes gleamed at him out of the darkness when he came back to the east side. Standing to the side and just a little behind Black Hawk was Wolf Paw. White Bear could not resist feeling a little thrill of triumph at the realization that he had won Redbird despite the best efforts of this mighty warrior, this chief's son, this man who owned many horses.

_Not because I deserve it_, he reminded himself. _Only because Redbird would have it so._

_And now, because she would have it so, we will be together forever._

Owl Carver bade them depart with the good wishes of the tribe, and White Bear and Redbird walked to the new wickiup they had built on the edge of the camp. Eagle Feather would live there with them, but tonight Eagle Feather would stay with his grandmother, Sun Woman.

Tonight they would have it to themselves.

Next day, in mid-afternoon, White Bear stood again in the center of the camp wearing the same black bearskin he had worn six years ago. Owl Carver did a shuffling sunwise dance around him, shaking a gourd rattle and chanting:

"Go forth and dance with the spirits, Become a spirit yourself.

Bring back a gift for the people, Bring back the words of the spirits."

Black Hawk, standing in the circle that had gathered to watch, stared at him with an intensity that frightened him. Sun Woman and Redbird stood with smiles of quiet pride. This time Redbird need not fear that he would freeze to death on his spirit journey.

It would be painful to be away from Redbird, he thought, as he looked into her eyes, saying a silent good-bye. Now, after a brief feast of love, they must go hungry again. But only for a night or two.

White Bear turned his back on the declining sun. The ceremonial bearskin swung heavily on his head and shoulders as he trotted out of the camp toward the trail that ran along the river's edge. As he entered the woods, another pair of eyes, hostile, suspicious, caught his. Wolf Paw again, standing with folded arms.

_Wolf Paw still loves Redbird. And hates me._

He felt much stronger than he had when he arrived at the camp.

Alternately walking and running, he moved quickly and surely down the Ioway River, and he remembered the way to the bluff of the sacred cave.

Several times along the way he met Sauk and Fox warriors. They recognized the sacred bearskin, with the bear's skull covering his own as a partial mask, and stepped aside with eyes averted as he pa.s.sed them.

The sun had sunk behind him by the time he had come to the end of the almost-imperceptible trail to the top of the bluff. He stood there a moment, looking out across the clear blue sheet of water that was the Great River. He stared at the Illinois sh.o.r.e, the rich, flat bottomland at the river's edge, the wooded bluffs, much like the one he was standing on, forming a wall, beyond which rolled the autumn-tan, endless prairie.

A beautiful and fertile land, from which his people--and he himself--had been exiled. Would his vision show them a way back?

He scrambled down the face of the bluff to the cave and swung into the entrance.

In the shadows he could barely make out Owl Carver's wooden owl standing over the row of skulls with their stone necklaces; or the white bear statue guarding the unknown depths of the cave.

He settled himself facing the entrance and chewed some sc.r.a.ps of sacred mushroom Owl Carver had given him. Nothing to do now but sit and wait.

Surely no watch made by pale eyes could measure the pa.s.sage of this kind of time.

He heard a sc.r.a.ping and a grumbling from deep in the cave. He felt no fear now, only a warmth, as at the approach of an old friend. The White Bear, he now understood, was himself in a spirit form.

The huge snuffling Bear was at his side, and confidently he rose to step out of the cave, the Bear accompanying him with its rolling walk. He stepped on clouds, violet and gold and white and soft as snow under his feet.

The pathway through the sky turned northward. Through breaks in the clouds he looked down and caught glimpses of the river, a glistening blue snake. Ahead he could see clouds piling up on clouds, shot through with pale, blended rainbow colors, like the ornaments carved from sh.e.l.ls gathered along the eastern sea.

Then he was inside the cloud tower, peering beyond the Tree of Life at the Turtle on his crystal perch. Drop by drop from the Turtle's heart flowed the waters of the Great River.

"What would you ask me, White Bear?" said the ancient voice like distant thunder.

"Is my father with you?"

"Your father walks the Trail of Souls far in the West," said the Turtle.

"He will come back to earth soon, and he will be a great teacher of the people."

"Owl Carver and Black Hawk have sent me to ask, should the British Band go back to Saukenuk?"

The wrinkled voice said, "Behold."

The clouds changed to the walls of a room big enough to hold a Sauk camp, where curtained windows alternated with mirrors in gilded frames.

Under each mirror was a fireplace. Three glittering chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. In the center of a vast flower-patterned carpet stood Black Hawk.

To White Bear's astonishment, Black Hawk was wearing the blue uniform of a long knife, with ropes of gold on his arms and fringes of gold on his sleeves and shoulders. But he carried no weapons. His face as usual was gloomy.

There were other men in the room, but White Bear could only clearly see one. A pale eyes.

He was exceedingly tall and thin; his hair was white, and his bright blue eyes stared piercingly at Black Hawk. He wore a black cutaway jacket and tight black trousers with shiny black leather shoes; and a white stock, a strip of silk, wound around his throat.

White Bear had seen this man before and recognized him at once.

He was known to red men as Sharp Knife--Andrew Jackson, President of the United States.

The man Raoul had called "a good old Indian killer."

Black Hawk was talking, and Sharp Knife was listening. But White Bear could not hear what Black Hawk was saying.

The room seemed to change. Black Hawk and Sharp Knife disappeared, and where Sharp Knife had been standing there was now another tall, thin man. He also wore black, but he had a black ribbon at his neck. A black beard covered his chin, and the expression on his sun-browned face was one of inconsolable grief. His sadness reminded White Bear of Black Hawk's.

All at once White Bear was on a broad field covered with short gra.s.s, divided by stone walls and wooden fences, with clumps of trees growing here and there. Terror clutched his belly as he saw coming at him thousands of long knives in blue uniforms with rifles and bayonets. He looked about frantically for a place to hide, but there was none. He was caught in the open.

But before the men could reach him they began to die.

Blood spurted from their blue tunics. They stopped running, staggered and fell to the ground, dropping their rifles. Faces vanished in bursts of red vapor. Arms and legs and heads flew through the air. Flashes of flame and smoke and flying shards of iron tore bodies to bits.

But no matter how many of them died, more and more of the white men in their blue jackets and trousers came marching over the horizon holding their bayonets before them. There was no end to them.