After the Thunder (15 page)

They hadn’t bound his hands, and that was a comfort to her. But that didn’t mean anything—every Choctaw accused of a crime was assumed to have the honor not to try to escape, the honor to come in to Tuskahoma whenever he was told to be present for his trial, and the honor to return again to accept the court’s punishment whenever it was decreed to take place.

People began falling in behind the little procession as it passed and inevitably, as if they’d been carried there by a river’s current, Cotannah and Emily found themselves in the middle of a crowd outside the white frame building that held the courtroom and the other tribal offices. The Lighthorsemen and Walks-With-Spirits
stopped their horses at the foot of the steps.

“The witch will be shot,” somebody yelled. “He’ll be judged guilty at the trial.”

Cotannah’s blood ran faster. That couldn’t be true. It could not.

But another man shouted agreement.

“Now he’s proved he’s a witch, and we know his magic is evil.”

“Olmun Charley will see to it that justice is done,” a different voice called.

“Yes. Now Olmun Charley can see that the man he’s been calling
alikchi
is a witch!”

That was a woman’s shrill voice. Dear God, how many of the People believed it?

Cotannah’s stomach turned as she looked around her, reading the dozens of faces intently turned toward the courthouse. They looked hard and mean, scared and determined. None of them was looking at Walks-With-Spirits with sympathy. They looked as if they could watch him be declared guilty and shot to death without turning a hair.

“T
his investigation won’t take long, my brothers!” some other voice called. “They’ve found a witness.”

Quiet fell over the crowd, immediate and complete.

A man Cotannah didn’t know, a man who moved with authority, came out of the building and stood on the steps. A moment later, a younger man, one who looked familiar, followed and stood beside him.

“Who’s that?” she whispered to Emily.

“Moses Prettywater, the head of the Lighthorse,” she whispered, “and you know that workman from Jacob’s mercantile—he’s the one who said the bricks couldn’t have fallen on you and Sophie unless someone moved them.”

“Yes. I couldn’t think who he was.”

“William Sowers saw Jacob Charley fall dead,” Moses Prettywater said, in a loud, carrying voice. “I asked him to step out here and tell you all about it because I know that many among you are decrying the fact that my men have arrested a medicine man.”

He paused for a moment, looking over the crowd.

“We don’t want any trouble here today while we’re
performing our duties with this arrest,” he said. “After William speaks, we’ll let the shaman speak, too.”

“He’s certainly taking elaborate precautions not to look prejudiced,” Cotannah said bitterly.

Emily squeezed her hand to comfort her.

William Sowers moved forward into the morning sunlight. His narrow dark eyes stared out at the street as if he could still see what he was about to relate.

“I came to work right after good daylight this morning,” he said. “I was in front of Brown’s when I saw Mr. Charley come out of his mercantile. He paused and called back to somebody over his shoulder, then he walked on out into the middle of the street like he was crossing to come talk to me. Next thing I knew, he stopped right quick and then he just crumpled up and fell on the ground.”

“Who was he talking to?” a man’s voice yelled.

“I don’t know. After I ran to try to help him and saw he was gone, I went in and searched the store, but the place was empty.”

An older man, his face horrible in anguish, appeared in the wide doorway of the building. Tay moved up beside him, one hand supporting his elbow.

“William,” Tay said, “what was it that Jacob called out to whoever was behind him?”

William gave a start of surprise and turned around.

“I don’t know, Chief Nashoba. All I caught was the tail end of it and it sounded like he said, ‘out of the Nation’ or something close to that.”

“Poor Olmun,” Emily whispered. “Poor, grieving old man. There must be no worse pain in this life than to see your child lying dead.”

Suddenly, for the first time, the reality of the truth Cotannah had been holding in her mind struck her heart.
Jacob was dead
. Jacob was dead and this pitiful old
man, eyes glittering bright with sorrow and anger, didn’t have a son anymore.

“Did you look carefully all through that store?” he shouted suddenly.

William Sowers looked at him.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Charley. Nobody was there.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was somebody who had the power to change himself into a
shilup
, a ghost.”

Olmun Charley glared down at Walks-With-Spirits, still seated on the horse at the foot of the steps.

“Aren’t you the evil one in disguise?” he said. “I thought you were an
alikchi
, and I told everyone I met that that was true. Now you prove me wrong in the cruelest way.”

He and the crowd waited in silence for Walks-With-Spirits’s answer. None came.

“You put a curse on my son,” he said. “Three days later, he is dead.”

Cotannah couldn’t bear to do it but she couldn’t stop herself—she stood on tiptoe to see Walks-With-Spirits’s reaction. His face told her nothing. But his handsome, chiseled features, hardened in place to accept Olmun’s blows, struck at her heart.

“The only good thing I can find about this awful day is that it falls during the six months of the year that the Court is in session,” Olmun shouted. “Justice for my son will be done and done quickly.” His hard, black eyes ranged over the faces below him.

“I want to tell every one of you who ever heard me say that Walks-With-Spirits is an
alikchi
, a good man, a medicine man, a man of magic that now I know better. He is a witch! He is evil!”

A murmur of agreement ran through the crowd.

“His medicine is evil, and he killed my son!”

“Mr. Charley,” Tay said, speaking loud enough for
all to hear. “The Lighthorse must look into this. Jacob may have died of natural causes. There is no wound on his body. We don’t know what killed him.”

“I know he was murdered by magic and I know who is guilty!” Olmun said it in a quavering scream, his glaring eyes again fixed on Walks-With-Spirits.

“Listen to him! He doesn’t deny it! Has he one time said that he did not kill my son?”

A loud murmuring ran through the crowd.

“No,” they said. “He surely hasn’t denied it.”

Somebody else laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

“He thinks it’s all right to kill but not to lie.”

The murmuring grew louder.

Tay let go of Olmun and stepped forward, eyes blazing, both hands in the air signaling for silence.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing here today,” he shouted. “You should be ashamed to judge this man guilty before he’s even seen the inside of a courtroom. Why do we have a Constitution? Why do we have laws?”

He paused and glared at each portion of the crowd before he shouted some more.

“Are we really the red savages that the white Boomers who covet our land say that we are? Do you want to prove them right when they write that in their vile rag of a newspaper?”

The cold anger in his voice made everyone fall silent.

“What has happened to our minds?” he demanded. “When have we decided that the courts cannot make such a judgment?”

He waited a long moment for that to soak in, then he spoke again, not as loudly but with just as much determination.

“Let the Lighthorsemen finish investigating this crime,” he said, looking directly into his people’s eyes.
“And don’t let me hear any more talk about who is guilty until the Judges have spoken.”

He reached out and touched Olmun’s arm again.

“I have no more respect for any other elder of this Nation than I do for you, Grandfather,” he said, using the old-fashioned term of respect. “Please hear me. Do not say more. Do not say words you will wish someday that you could call back out of other men’s ears.”

Olmun seemed to wilt, suddenly, and he turned and went back inside the courthouse.

“Walks-With-Spirits is a witch!” someone shouted, as the Lighthorse started dismounting and motioned for him to get down, too.

“Our people root out witches when we find them in our midst!”

“Of course he’s a witch,” someone else yelled. “He sucked out Jacob’s breath by magic.”

Cotannah’s nerves snapped. She stood up on tiptoe and looked fiercely all around her at all the dreadful faces.

“Walks-With-Spirits is not a witch!” she yelled. “Can’t you all see that he could never kill anyone?”

Her voice broke with the weight of her fear for him. She pushed her way through the crowd to where Walks-With-Spirits could see her, then climbed up onto the bottom step.

“Tell them!” she cried, pleading to him with her voice and her eyes. “Tell them you didn’t kill Jacob.”

He looked straight at her with his face solemn and calm.

“The earth is the mother of us all,” he said, “and the Great Spirit is the father. We are only a part of the Creation, we stand in a world that is only a part of Life.”

Stunned, sickened by disappointment that he didn’t say he was innocent, she waited for more. Everyone
there, everybody in the Nation, waited for more. But he didn’t say another word.

The murmurings rose up again, all over the crowd, most them against him, most of them saying that if he was innocent, he would say so. Dear Lord in Heaven, what if the Judges thought the same and found him guilty?

Panic beat in her throat like a trapped bird’s wings. He was in this danger because of her stupidity in teasing Jacob. God help her, the consequences of her actions just went on and on.

Tay said a few more things in a loud voice, then the next thing she knew, he and Emily were on each side of her. The Lighthorse took Walks-With-Spirits into the courthouse, and the crowd began scattering, forming smaller knots of talking people in front of every store, all up and down the street.

Tay started them walking down the middle of the street, toward the rail where she and Emily had left their horses tied.

“Why didn’t he say he’s not a witch?” Cotannah cried. “Why? Now even more people think he is because he won’t deny it. All on the basis of one bad curse! Why did he just talk in riddles?”

“Walks-With-Spirits always makes cryptic remarks,” Emily said, tugging on her arm so she could catch Cotannah’s eye and try to calm her.

“I don’t care! The least he could do is to say he didn’t kill Jacob, if he didn’t,” Cotannah said furiously. “And I know good and well he didn’t and you all do, too.”

They walked a little farther in silence.

“Don’t you?”

“Yes,” they said, speaking in chorus.

“Walks-With-Spirits would never kill anyone, and he
didn’t really mean that death curse,” Tay said. “I’d stake my own life on that.”

“For one thing, he believes too strongly in the Great Spirit and the Earth Mother and the natural rhythm of things, as he just said in what you called his riddles,” Emily said. “He wouldn’t presume to decide the time when Jacob should die.”

“Then why won’t he say that he’s been wrongly arrested?” Cotannah cried, breaking free of their hands so she could walk ahead and see both their faces at once. “Why wouldn’t he at least say that I was right when I was proclaiming his innocence in front of hundreds of people?”

“All I could gather from his riddles was that he believes his arrest is also in the natural order of things,” Tay said. “So I guess he thinks he’ll somehow ‘naturally’ be found innocent; therefore, he doesn’t need to protest and say that he is.”

“I’m afraid that most people will believe he did it anyway, no matter what,” Emily said thoughtfully. “All they can think of is the curse he put on Jacob.”

“But it had no force. He didn’t mean it! And he must say so or it’ll hurt him, and badly!” Cotannah said.

Tay put on a forced smile to try to comfort her.

“Maybe he’ll say it yet,” he said. “The Lighthorse are questioning him now and perhaps he’ll tell them he didn’t kill Jacob, that the curse wasn’t one he invested with any of his spirit.”

Cotannah gave a disgusted snort.

“I doubt it. And fat lot of good it’ll do to tell just them,” she said. “Those Lighthorse are so scared he’s a witch and will use black medicine against them for arresting him that they’ll probably tell the Judges he confessed, no matter what he says, just trying to get rid
of him once and for all. What can we do? We have to do
something
to clear him!”

Emily put her arm around Cotannah’s waist.

She growled in frustration and beat her fists against her thighs. “He makes me crazy,” she cried. “I can’t bear to think of him being called a witch, or, God forbid, being found guilty of murder!”

“Right now there’s nothing else we can do,” Tay said, “until the Lighthorse finish their investigation. Maybe they’ll find out how Jacob really died and who the real killer is and let Walks-With-Spirits go.”

“And maybe we’ll all sprout wings and fly from here to Tall Pine,” Cotannah said sarcastically. “Maybe we should just turn these horses loose right now and rise into the air.”

They walked up to hers and Emily’s mounts.

“I’m assuming you’re sending us home now,” Emily said to Tay, “since you’ve brought us to our horses.”

“Yes,” Tay said. “Go on and take care of Sophia and oversee the place. Send Cornelius back here to run messages for me and have him bring me some fresh clothes, just in case I sleep in my office for a day or two. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Don’t leave Walks-With-Spirits,” Emily said. “And try to talk him into defending himself.”

“I’ll do all I can for him,” Tay said, and looked straight at Cotannah as if to comfort her.

She stepped into the stirrup, swung up into her saddle.

Nothing on earth could comfort her except an official ruling that Walks-With-Spirits was innocent. She tried to think how to make that happen all the way back to Tall Pine.

A line of terrible thunderstorms with wicked lightning and whipping, slashing rains moved across the Nation
that evening, hitting Tall Pine just after dark. The day had grown warmer and warmer until at sundown the air felt sultry as spring.

“Sounds like the Great Spirit and the Earth Mother are as upset as we are,” Cotannah said tightly, as she and Emily ran upstairs to close the windows while Rosie and Daisy got the ones downstairs.

“I’d think so,” Emily said. “It’s a travesty of nature for a man as good as Walks-With-Spirits to be accused of murder.”

She longed to see him, to listen to his low, beautiful voice. Now, more than ever, she wanted to know him, to understand him. Maybe she would after he had told her about his childhood.

The lightning and thunder and the rain lashed the farm unmercifully, coming in waves, for what seemed most of the night. Then, around morning, the cooler air moved in behind a storm as it usually did in the Nation. This time, though, the rain lingered on and on, falling in solid sheets from the gray sky. The creeks and rivers rose and filled up and ran raging, overflowed their banks and spread through the bottomlands belly deep to a tall horse.

“Nobody can go anywhere for days and days, except in a boat,” Cotannah said, pacing from one window to the next on the morning of the third day of rain.

“I know,” Emily said, rolling a ball of yarn to Sophia, who was sitting waiting for it on the floor. “It’s surely a good thing I sent Cornelius to Tay just as soon as we got home.”

Cotannah whirled to stare at her.

“Do you think they’ve decided to have a trial for Walks-With-Spirits?”