Shaman by Robert Shea (nice books to read TXT) 📖

Great River, he means the rest of us will be dead."

Her words were greeted not with anger but with shouts of scornful laughter. White Bear knew that the chiefs and braves did not care what she said; they were merely amused that a woman dared[221] try to speak to them at all. He burned with shame for himself and Redbird.

Beyond the circle of firelight he saw the shadows of men and women standing in the twilight. Word of the dispute at the council fire must be spreading through the camp and drawing more people to hear, perhaps to speak their own minds, as was their right. He glimpsed Sun Woman hurrying toward him, picking her way through the seated men.

Wolf Paw strode toward White Bear, holding in his hands the bundle of red and blue cloth Little Crow had brought him. He glared at Redbird.

"It is bad medicine for women to speak to the council."

Redbird stepped in front of White Bear to face Wolf Paw. "A medicine woman tells you: the words of White Bear are good medicine."

"How can White Bear tell the British Band what to do when he cannot make his wife behave as a woman should?" Wolf Paw said. "Sit down, Redbird." And he pushed her aside.

Rage shot White Bear forward like an arrow from a bow, arms outstretched to grapple with Wolf Paw. He lifted his medicine stick as if to strike at the red-crested brave.

Hands gripped his arms. He struggled, blind with fury, flailing his arms and kicking. Wolf Paw, his teeth bared, wrenched the medicine stick from White Bear's hand.

"Do not harm the medicine stick!" shouted Owl Carver.

Without looking at the old shaman, Wolf Paw handed him White Bear's medicine stick. Two big warriors held White Bear as Wolf Paw approached him, stretching his lips in a grin.

"A woman speaks for peace with the pale eyes," Wolf Paw said, "because peace is women's way. I once saw Redbird going to White Bear when he was on his vision quest. Maybe he gets his visions from her."

More and more men were on their feet, and they roared with laughter at Wolf Paw's gibe.

Sun Woman had made her way into the inner ring around the fire and now held Redbird.

"Come away, daughter," she said in a strong but soothing voice. "This does not help White Bear."

"Look!" shouted Wolf Paw. "Now he has both his wife and his mother at the council fire."[222]

He shook out the red and blue cloth. It was a woman's dress.

"He speaks like a woman," Wolf Paw said. "He says what women tell him to say. Women speak for him. Let him dress like a woman. A pale eyes woman."

Wolf Paw flung the dress over White Bear's head, and the two men who held him pulled it down around him. White Bear felt wrapped in hopelessness as the cloth covered his head.

And he had wanted to be a prophet for the Sauk.

The truer his words, the less they hear him.

He struggled halfheartedly. He no longer cared what they did to him. His own failure and the sure destruction of his people chained him so that he could barely move. The warriors pulled the dress straight down over his arms, pinioning them to his sides. As his head emerged through the collar, laughter battered at him. Teeth gleamed in the firelight.

He saw Sun Woman holding Redbird. Tears squeezed through his wife's tightly shut eyelids. The face of his mother was heavy with woe.

Too despairing to resist, he let Wolf Paw and his men push and drag him away from the council fire and run him through the camp. He was blind to the laughing faces around him, deaf to the mocking cries.

But he saw one sight that all but killed him—looking up at him from somewhere in the crowd, the hurt, bewildered eyes of his son, Eagle Feather.

[223]

13
The Volunteers

Nicole and Frank had walked halfway across the main room of the trading post blockhouse when Nicole heard Raoul's voice thundering from the stone-walled counting office in the far corner.

"You and the boys will stay at Victoire!"

Nicole touched Frank's arm, and they stopped and drew back a little, standing beside the long black barrel of the six-pounder naval cannon Raoul had set up in the blockhouse. It would be best not to intrude on Raoul when he was in the midst of a quarrel.

"But none of them French people there like me," a woman answered, high, nasal, with a Missouri twang. "It's downright lonesome." Nicole recognized Clarissa Greenglove's voice.

"I'm going to be gone and your father's coming with me. Where the hell else would you stay?"

"With my Aunt Melinda in St. Louis. That'd be a perfect place. You could send me down on the Victory.'"

"Of course I could." Raoul's voice was creamy with sarcasm. "And then do you know what would happen? Half those men who are out in the courtyard now volunteering for my militia company would quit. Because if I send you and Phil and Andy away, it means their families aren't safe. And so they'd insist on staying home to protect them."

His voice rose to a shout. "Do you understand now, goddamn it? Then get the hell out of here."

A moment later Clarissa scurried out past the iron-reinforced[224] door of Raoul's counting room. The two small boys she'd borne to Raoul ran beside her floor-length calico skirt. She'd gotten to be round-shouldered, Nicole saw.

Clarissa nodded. "Mister, Miz Hopkins."

"Morning, Clarissa," said Nicole. To call her by her first name felt not quite respectful, but to call her "Miss Greenglove," especially with her two sons right there with her, seemed cruel.

Clarissa gave Nicole a woebegone look that seemed to be asking for something—Nicole wasn't quite sure what. Then she ducked her head, and her bonnet hid her eyes.

Phil, the five-year-old, looked up at Nicole. He had very light blond hair, almost silver, and large eyes that seemed set deep in his pale, thin face. A little ghost.

"My dad's gonna fight Injuns."

"That's fine." Nicole didn't know what else to say. Clarissa, who had taken a few steps ahead, reached back and jerked Phil's arm so hard that he hollered.

Raoul, when they entered his office, seemed unperturbed by his argument with Clarissa. But his eyes widened and flashed with momentary anger when he saw Nicole. Then he grinned, teeth white under his black mustache.

"Well, Nicole and Frank. Come to lay your hatchets to rest? Now that the Indians are waving theirs around?"

"That's why we're here, Raoul," said Frank.

"Yeah, I've read your paragraphs in the Visitor," said Raoul, one side of his mouth twisted up in a contemptuous smile. "Seems you'd just love to give Illinois back to the Indians."

"Nothing of the kind," Frank said gruffly.

How unfair, Nicole thought. Frank had written only that if the 1804 land agreement had been obtained through fraud, it would be better to negotiate a new treaty with the Sauk and Fox rather than meet them with armed force.

Raoul's tanned face reddened and his nostrils flared. "Give back Illinois," he persisted, "just like you wanted to give Victoire to Pierre's mongrel bastard."

Nicole saw not a trace of guilt on that broad, hard face over what he had done to Auguste. She clenched her fists. She must try to contain her anger.

Frank spoke. "Don't bring up Auguste now, Raoul. He's what[225] divides us, and we oughtn't to be divided now. We want to talk to you about protecting Victor."

Heat lightning flickered in Raoul's eyes, shifting quickly to a derisive gleam. "Well, that should be easy, Frank, with your attitude. You can make a white flag out of any bedsheet."

Nicole thought, He's just using our coming here as an opportunity to rub our faces in the dirt.

"Don't make this so hard for us, Raoul," she said. "We need each other."

"Really? What do I need you for?" His eyes were cold.

Many answers crowded Nicole's mind, but she thought for a moment before speaking.

"You need the people of this town to make a success of the estate, now you've taken it over, your orchards and farms, your shipping line, your trading ventures. Most of the people who live in Victor work for you, directly or indirectly. And you're leaving them unprotected."

Before Raoul could answer, Frank joined in. "From what I've seen, you plan to march every man who knows how to shoot a rifle away from here to fight the Indians down by the Rock River. If you take all the fighting men away, who's going to defend Victor and Victoire?"

Raoul threw back his head and roared with laughter. "God, I can't believe I'm hearing you right. Ever since last fall you've wished I would disappear from the face of the earth. Now you come to me begging for protection."

"It's not for ourselves that we're asking," said Nicole. "We just want you to leave enough men behind to defend the women and children and noncombatants who stay here."

Raoul's eyes narrowed and fixed on Frank. "Noncombatants like you, Frank? You won't pick up a rifle yourself, but you want some of my men to stay and guard you."

Frank looked back steadily. "I'm learning to shoot. Your father is teaching me." Nicole felt a rush of love for Frank, and pride in his willingness to learn to do something he hated, because he had to.

Raoul spread his hands. "Good for you, and good for Papa." He looked down, and his face reddened slightly. When he looked up, his dark eyes met Nicole's.

"How is Papa?"[226]

Nicole checked the urge to remind him that he had nearly killed their father, and said, "He's tolerably well. The little house Frank has been building for him is finished. And he's able to walk. Guichard takes care of him."

Raoul clapped his hands together. "Good, good! Then that's two riflemen you've got right there. And I'll bet old Guichard could even shoot if it came to that. And you'll have David Cooper, he's a veteran of 'Twelve. He's going to keep an eye on the trading post for me, along with Burke Russell. I'm sure there'll be a few others. As for the rest of the men, if I didn't lead them down to the Rock River, they'd go anyway. They're raring to hunt redskins."

Nicole recalled the line of men she had seen just now in the trading post courtyard signing up for the Smith County volunteer militia. There must have been over a hundred of them, some wearing coonskin caps and fringed buckskins, others with straw hats, calico shirts and tow-linen pantaloons, two dozen or so sporting the head kerchiefs favored by men of French descent. They'd been in high spirits, laughing and talking about bringing back scalps.

Frank said, "Of course you don't want to think there'll be an Indian attack on Victor while you're gone. What you want is to go down to the Rock River country with the militia and win a great victory over the Indians. Or something you can call a great victory."

Raoul held out his hands. "Frank, you printed Reynolds's proclamation in your damned paper."

He pointed over his shoulder, where a copy of the Illinois governor's call to arms, cut from the Victor Visitor for April 17, 1832, was nailed to the wall. Nicole's eyes traveled over the opening lines.