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

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Author: Robert Shea

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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."[402]

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.[403]

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 butt 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 reassuringly 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.[404]

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 shore. 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.

While the long knives argued with the boatmen, more pale eyes came to watch. They must have a town nearby. Redbird felt a chill of fear at the hatred she saw in their faces. How frightened of the British Band they must have been only a moon or two ago. Now they had what was left of the British Band at their mercy.

The long knife leader shouted and drew his pistol and waved it. Shaking his head, the chief of the boatmen made an angry gesture toward the flatboat. The long knife took coins from his saddlebag and handed them down to the boatman. The long knives began to herd Redbird's people on board.

It took three trips to carry all of the Sauk across the Fever River. By this time hundreds of pale eyes men, women and children had gathered at the riverbank.

Redbird and her children were in the last group to cross. She heard angry cries. The pale eyes were throwing rotten vegetables, clumps of dirt and small rocks. She pulled Floating Lily around from her back to hold her in her arms. A soft tomato hit Redbird in the ear. She heard laughter. She wanted to keep both hands on the baby, so she did not wipe away the pulp and seeds that dripped down her neck. She ran on board the boat.[405]

When she stumbled off on the other side of the river she was panting, breathless with relief. She felt a hand wiping the tomato pulp from her neck—Wolf Paw. It was good to know he was nearby.

The next morning when they set out, Wolf Paw picked up Eagle Feather, whose ragged moccasins had fallen from his feet. He lifted him over his head and set him on his shoulders. Redbird smiled her thanks, and Wolf Paw returned a sad look, then sighed and lowered his gaze to the ground. All that day he trudged beside her with Eagle Feather on his back. That night he slept near Redbird and her children.

The following day the trail led past flat fields, mostly planted with corn, stretching to the edge of the Great River. For a moment, reminded of the cornfields around Saukenuk, Redbird's heart lifted. Then she recalled that from now on only pale eyes would plant corn in this country.

On her left bluffs rose up, overlooking the river like the statues of spirits. Ahead she could see many pale eyes lodges built on the side of a hill. At the top of the hill was a fort surrounded by a wall of upright logs. She saw a dark mass of people spread across the trail ahead.

They were not standing to one side, as those at the last town had. They were blocking the way.

She felt that she knew this place, though she had never been here before. After a moment she understood why. White Bear and Yellow Hair had both talked to her many times about the village where White Bear had lived with his father, Star Arrow. The great lodge they lived in must be somewhere beyond that hill. And the walled building at the top of the hill would be the trading post of White Bear's uncle, the one who had driven him away from here and who had tried to kill him at Old Man's Creek.

As she got closer she heard angry voices. Again she took her baby in her arms. She looked around for Wolf Paw and was grateful to see him at her side. He set Eagle Feather down, and the boy seized her skirt.

But if this was the town where White Bear had lived, this was where Wolf Paw's war party had killed many men, women and children. This was where the big gun had fired into Wolf Paw's body the silver coin that still hung around his neck. What if these people recognized him? She was glad again that he had taken off his red[406] crest. The coin, she noticed, had disappeared, too, inside his buckskin shirt.

But whether they recognized Wolf Paw or not, these people would hate her people.

Terror seized her as she remembered her vision at Fort Crawford—death on the trail. She tried to stop walking, but the people behind her pushed her on. The mounted long knives behind them were driving everyone forward.

Closer to the pale eyes standing in the trail, she saw that most of those in front were men, and they were holding clubs and rocks. Her legs turned to water and she felt that she might fall down. She did not have the strength to go on, to walk toward the death she had foreseen days ago. Her own people jostled her. The long knives were calling orders, trying to make the Sauk move ahead, but nobody wanted to be the first to come near that angry crowd.

The long knife with the yellow mustache rode ahead and spoke to the crowd, waving his hand at them to clear the way. They shouted back at him.

The crowd surged forward.

And the blue-coats rode into the fields on either side of the trail.

She could not see