Shaman Part 52

The outcry died down. Black Hawk crossed his arms over his chest to show that he had finished speaking. The Winnebago Prophet remained standing and raised his arms.

"I have come to promise Black Hawk and his braves that if he goes to Saukenuk and the long knives attack him, the warriors of Prophet's Town will help them to fight back."

The chiefs and braves seated around the fire greeted this with much stamping and clapping. White Bear glanced at He Who Moves Alertly, who sat a quarter of the way around the circle from him. The face under the buffalo headdress was as still as if carved from wood.

Flying Cloud said, "I have sent messages to all the tribes that live near the Great River--Winnebago, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw, Chippewa. When Black Hawk raises the tomahawk, they will raise the tomahawk too. And I have had a message from our allies of old, the British in Canada, who say the Americans have done us a great wrong, and we should not give up any more land to them. If American long knives attack us, the British long knives will come to our aid. With ships, with big guns, with rifles, powder and shot and food for us, with hundreds of red-coat soldiers. Now is the best of times to tell the long knives they cannot push us any further. Let all who are truly men take to the trail of war with Black Hawk!"

White Bear sensed deadly falsehood in the words of the Winnebago Prophet. When White Bear was in New York City he had heard many times that the enmity between Americans and British was a thing of the past.

White Bear did not believe that the British up there in Canada had any intention of getting into a war between whites and Indians in Illinois.

But how could he prove that what Flying Cloud said was untrue?

With a cry of "Ei! Ei!" Wolf Paw shook his rifle over his head. He snapped it to his shoulder and fired it with a deafening boom and a red flash and a big cloud of white smoke.

_Someday he may wish he had not wasted that powder._

As White Bear and Redbird sat silently, braves all around them were up and shrieking, waving rifles and tomahawks, thrusting out arms and legs in the movements of a war dance. Owl Carver and some of the chiefs slapped the palms of their hands against the taut, painted deerskin of their drumheads.

A few other men did not join the shouts of approval, among them the round-faced He Who Moves Alertly.

White Bear sat with his fists clenched in his lap, wondering whether anyone would notice that the youngest of the three shamans among them was not shouting for war. He felt Redbird's hand grip his arm tightly, helping him to feel stronger.

Only to Redbird had White Bear told all of his vision. She shared his fear that if the British Band followed Black Hawk to war they would be destroyed, and she had insisted on sitting with him at the council fire.

White Bear knew it was not the custom for a wife to sit with her husband at a council, but she had argued and pleaded until he had given in and brought her with him.

Her presence beside him both comforted him and made him uneasy. Owl Carver, when he came to the fire, had stared at his daughter, frowned and looked away. Wolf Paw had eyed them and smiled scornfully.

As the tumult inspired by the Winnebago Prophet quieted down, He Who Moves Alertly looked around the circle of chiefs and braves, his eyes pausing at anyone who had not joined the outcry for war. His gaze met White Bear's for an instant, and he nodded almost imperceptibly. White Bear had an eerie feeling that He Who Moves Alertly knew what was in his mind.

The chief who favored the long knives stood up.

A sullen muttering spread through the men around the council fire. Most of those who agreed with He Who Moves Alertly had stayed away from this council. White Bear felt admiration for anyone who could look so confident, standing before a crowd in which so many were against him.

"War is loud, and peace is quiet," He Who Moves Alertly began. "But peace keeps us alive. The real way to defeat the long knives is to stay alive."

His voice was deep and pleasant, and he smiled as if every man there were his friend.

"When is it right for a brave to go to war? When he must avenge himself on those who have done wrong to him. Black Hawk says we should fight the pale eyes because they have stolen land from us. But I have seen the papers with the marks of our chiefs on them. Seven different times Sauk and Fox chiefs have made their marks on papers agreeing to give up all claim to the land east of the Great River. The long knives say our chiefs were paid in gold for the land."

As his benign gaze swept the a.s.sembly, he said, "It is right for a brave to go to war when he is strong enough to make war. He does not go because he wants to be killed, because he wants to leave his women and children unprotected. He knows he may die, but he does not look for death."

He Who Moves Alertly was no longer smiling. He touched his fingertips to his eyes, then raised his arms to the sky. "May Earthmaker strike me blind if I do not speak the truth.

"We are not strong enough to make war on the long knives. I have traveled in the lands of the Americans, all the way to the eastern sea.

I have seen so many long knives that I could not count them all."

White Bear felt more and more uneasy as he listened. Black Hawk and all the other braves of the British Band looked on He Who Moves Alertly as an enemy. But White Bear knew that the chief in the buffalo headdress was speaking the truth. Perhaps not about the treaties, but surely about the vast numbers of long knives.

White Bear saw again the thousands of blue-uniformed soldiers he had seen marching in New York on the Fourth of July a year ago, and the other thousands he had seen in his vision, fighting and dying but still advancing on some strange battlefield.

He Who Moves Alertly said, "Owl Carver and Black Hawk say the Potawatomi and Winnebago will aid the British Band, and other tribes from farther away. I say none of them will help. This quarrel over Saukenuk is not their quarrel, and they have made their own peace with the long knives.

"The Winnebago Prophet says the British will send us guns and ammunition, even men. I say this is foolish talk. You call yourselves the British Band, and think the British are your great friends. Many summers ago, yes, the British were at war with the Americans and got Sauk and Fox and many other tribes to help them. But when that war was over, our people gained nothing and lost much. Many tribes had to give up land to pay for fighting on the British side. Now the British do not care about us. The British pale eyes and the American pale eyes are at peace.

"I say to those who will listen to me--come with me. I will lead you deep into this Ioway country, where there will be no pale eyes farmers to bother us. Their Great Father will show his grat.i.tude to those who do not fight them. He will give us money and food and help us find good land. We will live!

"For those who follow Black Hawk, I grieve. They will not live."

He Who Moves Alertly's closing words rang. He crossed his hands over his chest and sat down amidst a silence touched by the crackling of the fire.

White Bear heard in his mind the rumbling voice: _The many who follow Black Hawk across the Great River will be few when they cross back._ He trembled inwardly.

The clouds overhead had broken up, and the rays of the sun, about to set, fell upon many faces full of anger and contempt. But White Bear also saw lips pursed in thought, eyes lowered.

White Bear could find little wrong with what He Who Moves Alertly said, but he did not like the way it pointed. To admit that the long knives could do whatever they wanted to the Sauk, to hope like little children that if they obeyed the Great Father in Washington City he would be kind to the Sauk and give gifts of food, clothing and shelter--was that not merely a slower kind of death?

He Who Moves Alertly did not seem to see that if the Sauk let the whites push them westward, there would be no end to it. Eventually the pale eyes would take all the land there was.

_To drive a people from their home is to make them prey to hunger, disease, enemy tribes. It is to destroy them, even if not a single shot is fired._

_If we must die, would it not be better to avenge ourselves on the pale eyes for their cruelty to us? Is it not better to die with pride than to just give up our good hunting and farming lands and go meekly into the desert?_

He felt Redbird press against him. He had a sudden, strong feeling that they should follow He Who Moves Alertly farther into the Ioway country.

That way they would surely live. How could he, White Bear, demand or permit that his wife and son endure the sufferings and the danger those who followed Black Hawk would face?

But at the thought of deserting the British Band he felt an unbearable anguish. One winter long ago he had found a trap that had been sprung.

In the trap was the rear paw and part of the leg of a racc.o.o.n, ending in a b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s. The animal had chewed its own leg off to escape. He had seen a trail of blood leading into the woods. The racc.o.o.n had limped off to die, but to die free.

What He Who Moves Alertly offered was a trap. What Black Hawk offered was freedom, but with it the prospect of death.

He and Redbird could pack their belongings and leave after this council was over. White Bear was sure other families would be doing that.

But could he turn his back on Black Hawk, who had just spoken for him at his marriage, on Owl Carver, the father of his wife? On Sun Woman, who he was sure would stay with the British Band? On the people who had been part of his life as far back as he could remember?

Staying meant facing the long knives' guns. It meant starvation. It meant pain. Those who whooped for Black Hawk tonight did not see that.

Or maybe they did see it but still embraced it. To see it clearly and accept it, not only for himself but for Redbird and Eagle Feather, hurt like biting off one of his own limbs. But he would not abandon his people. He had run away from his last fight over land. He would not run away from this one.

Owl Carver, holding up his owl-headed medicine stick with its red feathers, stood before the council fire. "He Who Moves Alertly thinks he is the only one who knows the Americans. But one of our own British Band has been to the big towns in the East. And he is a shaman to whom the Turtle has given special visions. I ask White Bear to tell us what he has seen."

At the sound of his name, White Bear felt a coldness spread upward from the base of his spine. He saw the look of earnest invitation on Owl Carver's face, he saw Black Hawk's expectancy. He would as soon spit at these two men he respected so much as disappoint them deeply. But now he must.

Redbird's fingers dug into his arm. Her slanting eyes were wide.

"Speak truly," she whispered.

Slowly he stood up. It hurt to pull his arm from Redbird's grip, as if he was stripping his own skin from his arm. His eyes momentarily met those of He Who Moves Alertly, who stared at him intently.

As Owl Carver had, he raised the medicine stick he had cut for himself after his first vision, decorated with a single string of red and white beads. He held it up uncertainly. He hoped his shaman's adornments, the paint, the earrings, necklaces and bracelets, would impress them.

He was prepared in another way, as well. He had never spoken before the leaders of his band; but at St. George's School each boy was required to give a short speech to the members of his cla.s.s once a week and a longer one before the whole school twice a year. Those speeches had to be written and memorized, and now White Bear must speak as the spirit moved him. But he knew how to stand, how to project his voice, how to measure his words. In his heart he thanked Mr. Winans for teaching him all that.