Panther in the Sky (38 page)

Even Star Watcher did not know why he was doing all this, but it was what she believed a person should do, and she helped him. Some of every little bit she had, she gave him to give to the hungry and ragged ones. Star Watcher was growing a baby inside. Stands Firm told her not to give so much away, as she herself needed much nourishment for the baby. Then one day Chiksika came and told Tecumseh almost the same thing: “Brother, you do well to share so much. But listen. You must not starve yourself to feed those who do not hunt. I can see your bones under your skin. It is a duty of the hunter to stay strong enough to hunt. Consider the wolves.”

“The wolves?”

“The wolves are like us. They depend upon each other. They hunt together and bring food home. They protect their mates and cubs. But though he is for his tribe, the hunter wolf knows he must feed himself. Because if he does not, then he will become another helpless one to feed.”

It was so good to have Chiksika telling him things again. Tecumseh felt his heart flush with warmth for the first time in two moons’ passing. Chiksika went on:

“You have not had enough chance to watch how the wolves do. Do you remember, I have told you that we will go someday to the prairies near the Missi-se-pe and hunt among the great herds of bison.”

“Yes! I remember!”

“I hope that will be soon.”

“Yes! I too!”

“When we go there, you will be able to see how the wolves do.” He sighed. “Think how much time we would have to ride to new places and find plenty of game, if we did not have to be fighting the Long Knives all the time.” Chiksika said this with a warm and yearning voice, and Tecumseh could tell that Chiksika had not mentioned fighting in a way to shame him. Chiksika had come to close the distance that had grown between them. “We lost much of everything again to Clark,” Chiksika said now. “When the ice breaks and the white men’s big rich boats start coming down the river again, we will have to go to the river as we have done in other years, and see what we can take from their boats to make it easier for our People to live.”

“Yes. You will have to do that.”

“So,” said Chiksika. “Keep yourself strong, my brother. You will be needed to help us.”

Tecumseh had to swallow hard to keep his heart from floating up and out.

O
NE NIGHT
T
ECUMSEH SAID TO
B
IG
F
ISH
, “I
HAVE SOMETHING
I have long wanted to ask you about.”

“What is it?”

Tecumseh went to his bed and reached under a corner and brought out a leather packet. He folded back the leather and held forth the two books he had been hiding for so long. Big Fish’s eyes grew big.

“Oh! Where did you get those?” he asked, taking them in his hands. He bent forward and turned them in the firelight.

“Chiksika raided a boat on the river long ago. There were many of these. He brought only these two, the prettiest. Can you read what these are?”

“Yes. Of course. This one is the Holy Bible that we have talked about sometimes.”

“Ah! That is good fortune. Most of the books went into the river. This one must have been spared because it is sacred.”

“I guess so.…” Big Fish had opened the Bible and was looking in it for people’s names. He went down the handwritten lists of marriages and births. It was a family he had never heard of before, so he put the Bible down and opened the other book, a small one with engraved pictures. “I know this book. This is
Hamlet.”

“Is this too a sacred book?”

“I had a teacher once who seemed to think so. But no, it is not a sacred book like the Bible. This is a play.” He used the only Shawnee word he knew for play, which was a verb, and Tecumseh was confused.

“This book you mean is like a game?”

“A game? No. How could a book be a game?”

“You said you play this book
Hamlet.”

Big Fish pinched his earlobe and stared at the title page and tried to figure out how to explain what a play was. He thought about actors and stages, about which he knew practically nothing himself, and decided it would be better to try to explain all that some other time, or never. “It’s a story, that’s all,” he said.

“Ah, a story!”

“About a prince, who—”

“A ‘prince’?”

“Ah, a prince is like a young chieftain. His name was Hamlet.…”

“Ah! Same name as the book! How interesting that is. Tell me this story.”

“I never understood this story very much. Somebody murdered Hamlet’s father, by sticking something in his ear, I think it was. And Hamlet wanted to get revenge, but couldn’t make up his mind. Nothing much happened in this book. People just talked a lot. To each other and to themselves. And there were ghost spirits in it. And a crazy girl.”

Tecumseh thought about his own father, who had been killed by white men, and about revenge, which had become the main thing in everybody’s life since the coming of the white men. “Why could not this chieftain make up his mind about the revenge?”
Tecumseh asked. “Was he not brave?” He was thinking of everything in terms of what had happened to him.

“I don’t know. These people talked grand, and I couldn’t understand them much. Hamlet even talks to a, uhm, skull.”

“What is ‘skull’?”

Big Fish touched himself on the forehead. “The head bone. From a grave that was dug up. Named Poor York, I think it was.”

“Oh, yes! In the book is a picture of somebody holding up a head bone. Look, look through the leaves for it!” He gestured with his forefinger, and Big Fish paged through, looking for it. “Yes, there it is,” Tecumseh exclaimed. “I thought he dug that head bone up from that grave to steal it, as the Long Knives did when they burned Chillicothe. White men disturb our bones, you know? Girty says they are looking for silver. So! So I am glad this Hamlet was not stealing from this grave, but instead”—he chuckled—“talking to this head bone. Did the head bone answer?” He laughed. “Perhaps it was a contrary’s head bone!”

Big Fish laughed, too, then said, “Maybe it was. In that story, only the skull had nothing to say!”

I
N THE
G
REEN
M
OON
, T
ECUMSEH WAS ONCE AGAIN WITH
Chiksika and his warriors. One of them was Thick Water, who had already been in a few ambushes against the Long Knives and was said to be very bold. Thick Water had never run from any battles. Tecumseh was glad that Thick Water had not been at the ambush where he had disgraced himself last fall.

Tecumseh knew that if he lost heart and fled this time, he probably would never again get to be with Chiksika in a dangerous place. Chiksika had taken a big step in trusting his brother enough to give him this second chance. Chiksika himself did not want to be embarrassed again. And it was more than embarrassment; a warrior who fled from danger made the danger worse for his fellow warriors.

Nenothtu,
Tecumseh addressed himself silently. Warrior.

Now at this moment Chiksika was watching his young brother out of the side of his eye as the ten warriors eased down a wooded slope of the river bluff toward the cookfire of the white men from the boat. The foliage on the trees was still light green and half-open and thus did not provide much cover. The warriors were creeping down from rock to rock and tree to tree, careful not to show themselves too soon, careful not to dislodge any stones that might clatter down.

These white men—there were thirteen of them, all well
armed—had been spied from the Raven Head Rock, landing on the O-hi-o shore instead of the Kain-tuck-ee shore, near the mouth of the Scioto-se-pe. It was a cloudy, windy day, and the waves on the Beautiful River were rough, capped with white, and probably that was why they had put to shore here. The wind in the trees and along the narrow bottomland was rushing through the new foliage and whiffing over the water. The white men were trying to cook over whipping flames, so they were less vigilant about their surroundings, and the noise of the wind helped cover the little sounds of the warriors’ approach. Most of the white men stood with their backs to the wind, but some were kneeling on the other side of the fire, squinting against the blown smoke. Three had left their guns in the boat, which was tied to a large snag at the shore. The others held their guns or leaned on them or had propped them against a willow trunk that stuck up near the fire. These men looked big and bulky and dirty in their long brown coats and three-cornered black hats. There were kegs and bundles and instruments in their big rowboat, which had an awning over the stern. One could only guess what kind of men these were, surveyors or traders, hunters or militiamen. Chiksika had a notion that they were army suppliers and hoped they were because of the things they would have. Whatever they were, they looked dangerous enough, and there were enough of them that they would have to be taken by surprise if this raid was to succeed.

Tecumseh had a weapon he had never used before. Stands Firm had given it to him. It was a war club, made of a fist-sized rock sewn into a rawhide casing that also enclosed the handle, a slender hickory stick as long as his forearm. By a loop this weapon could be hung from the right wrist, leaving the hand free for shooting and loading a rifle.

Tecumseh’s heartbeat was going fast, but for once his hands were steady. He did not mean to disgrace himself again, and to prevent it he had done two things before starting this stalking of the whites’ camp. He had gone into the woods to relieve himself. And then he had held his
pa-waw-ka
stone in his hand and clenched his fist over his heart and had asked through it for Weshemoneto to keep him brave and steady while he did this for the good of the People. Even now as he edged his way down around a mossy boulder closer to the white men, he could feel the warmth still glowing in his palm, and it was this, he believed, that kept his hand steady now, because he
was
scared, scared of what could happen in the next few moments. An attack like this
one could turn out any way; there were more of the white men than of the warriors. Stands Firm had wanted to go up the Scioto-se-pe to the war camp and get more warriors and come back in canoes. But Chiksika had argued: “No. They could get away. This boat they have is a fast rowing boat, not a float boat.”

One of the white men squatting beside the fire rose to his feet, looking toward the slope. He had a sharp, narrow face, dark with stubble. He was staring up at a place on the steep bluff. Tecumseh tensed. If that man had detected a warrior, things would have to be done with no hesitation. Tecumseh cocked his flintlock and aimed it at the man’s chest.

The man suddenly began raising his rifle and yelled to the others, who burst from their positions like quail from a covert, snatching up their guns. In that same instant Chiksika screeched a tremolo and fired at the white men. Tecumseh pulled the trigger of his rifle, and several other guns went off at the same time. He yelled at the top of his lungs and sprang out from cover and ran like a deer, but this time he was running down the slope toward the enemy instead of the other way. In the edges of his vision he could see the naked, painted bodies of Chiksika and Stands Firm and Thick Water and others speeding and darting down through the fresh young foliage. Some of the white men’s guns were going off. In ten quick strides the warriors were off the slope and onto the muddy, pebbly beach and in among the white men, some of whom were already on the ground. All that happened then was a whirl, and yet Tecumseh’s senses were perceiving everything around him, and his reflexes were controlling his every move. He felt almost unbearably alive and vital. He wasted no motion. A big, broad-faced man with blue eyes and bared yellow teeth was aiming a pistol at him, but Tecumseh darted under its muzzle flash, and with the knife he held in his left hand, he stabbed up under the man’s ribs. The turning of the man’s falling body wrenched the knife out of Tecumseh’s hand, and he saw now that another white man was in his way, his rifle barrel in both hands, starting to swing the gun like a club at Tecumseh. Tecumseh sprang like a cat at the man’s legs, hitting them with all his weight, and then as he rolled over on the muddy ground, the white man fell with a grunt, his feet in the air. Tecumseh was immediately up in a crouch, and with his own gun butt he crushed the back of that man’s skull. All around were yells and thuds and groans and pistol shots, and bodies lurching and turning and grappling. Chiksika was crouched in front of a thick-bodied man; both had their tomahawks ready and were about to strike each
other. Tecumseh swung his rifle in a wide sweep that broke the handle of the white man’s tomahawk, and then Chiksika lashed out and sank the long, narrow blade of his hatchet through the man’s nose and into his brain. Chiksika uttered a triumphant syllable of a laugh for Tecumseh, but the boy had already spotted his next opportunity. Stands Firm had been thrown onto his back, and a white man was on top of him, with all his weight on both hands pressing his rifle barrel across Stands Firm’s throat. Stands Firm was flailing and trying to get breath. The tomahawk blow had smashed the flintlock of Tecumseh’s rifle, and he cast it aside. Now, with the long war club in his right hand, he leaped close to the struggling pair and aimed a curving side-armed blow at the white man’s temple. The velocity of the swinging club head was so great that the man’s skull exploded and the scalp burst open and a mass of bloody pink-gray brain matter was protruding when the man slumped to his side on the ground.

In an instant Stands Firm was up and fighting again, wielding the very rifle with which the man had been strangling him. He was exulting but could not yell because of his crushed windpipe.

Momentarily having no foe within reach, Tecumseh stood in a ready crouch, turning on the balls of his feet, getting his first glance at the whole battle. Twenty feet away, Thick Water, sweaty with desperate exertion, having lost or used up all his weapons, was bellowing like a madman and trying to wring the life out of a lanky man whom he held under his right arm in a powerful headlock. Thick Water needed no help.