Panther in the Sky (52 page)

But in this dream, Tecumseh was a boy and was standing in a line of the gauntlet with a whipping-stick in his hand, and the big Long Knife they called But-lah was running up the line toward him. But this time But-lah came running not naked and unarmed but carrying a rifle.

Tecumseh started out of his sleep, fully alarmed. There were men moving between him and his sleeping hunters. He could see several of them outlined by the glow of the little campfire. They were white men. They were aiming their guns at the two tents.

Just as Tecumseh sprang to his feet, a warning cry rising in his throat, a big voice at the south edge of the camp yelled, “Now!”

In that instant, as fifteen or twenty rifles roared and flashed in the night, Tecumseh recognized that voice.

But-lah!

Tecumseh was on his feet in the smell of their gunsmoke, leaving his robe behind him, and in three quick strides he was beside the nearest white man, and his stone club crushed the man’s skull. “Big Fish!” he shouted, his voice carrying over the outburst of the white men’s yelling. “Long Knives! Take them on the river side! I have these!”

Now the white men were crashing about, some into the firelight, some getting in each other’s way as they tried to turn on Tecumseh, others away from him, and he leaped among them, shoving men down, thudding against their moving shapes with his deadly club. Men tumbled in the dim, fire-tinged smoke, and he leaped over them to strike at more.

At that moment Big Fish darted out from the doorway of his tent into the firelight with his rifle at the ready. Several white men charged into the firelight brandishing guns and tomahawks. The one closest to Big Fish was a huge, leathery-faced man in deerskins, whom Tecumseh at once recognized as But-lah.

Someone just then rushed toward Tecumseh, who turned and felled him with a blow of the club on his chest. The man dropped to the ground, wheezing and gurgling. When Tecumseh glanced back to the tents, he saw Big Fish’s gun pointed straight at the broad chest of But-lah, who was so astonished that he had stopped in his tracks, knife in one hand, gun in the other. The flintlock of Big Fish’s rifle sparked and flared, but the night-damp powder fizzled. By then But-lah had sprung off into the darkness. And now the other warriors were boiling out of their tents like hornets. Big Fish and Tecumseh gave war whoops then, and Big Fish yelped, “Ai-hee! I made But-lah run!” As Tecumseh charged hard on the heels of several white men into the woods, the rest of the warriors took up the cry, and soon the camp was a vacant, firelit place surrounded by a ring of invisible conflicts in darkness.

The white men fleeing from Tecumseh dispersed noisily into the underbrush, and soon they were still, not running anymore, perhaps trying to find each other and regroup. Tecumseh crouched with the night cold on his sweaty skin and listened. He heard someone disturb the foliage a few paces away. He could smell the man. In the distance, down toward the river, he heard voices and rustling sounds.

Thinking of English words Big Fish had taught him, Tecumseh whispered in the direction of the hidden white man:

“Come here.”

The man started edging toward him, murmuring something in a querying tone.

Suddenly another voice close by whispered something that sounded like “Boone.” Then the other man whispered, “Boone.” Tecumseh cocked his head. And from a few feet away still another voice murmured, “Boone.”

Tecumseh’s scalp prickled at the belief that not only was But-lah among the attackers, but also Boone.

But on hearing all these voices saying “Boone” to each other, and no answer in Boone’s voice, Tecumseh began to suspect that they were using Boone’s name as a password to find each other in the dark. So, with a grim smile and his arm ready, he called softly:

“Boone.”

“Boone,” whispered a voice nearby, and a figure moved toward him.

“Boone,” Tecumseh murmured again, and this time when the name was repeated, the voice came from less than two paces away, and Tecumseh could sense just where he was. He swung his club. It hit something soft, and with a grunt the man fell.

“What’s that?” a voice hissed, close by. “What happened?”

“Boone,” Tecumseh called softly.

“Boone,” said this voice, revealing the location of its speaker. Tecumseh swung again. The club whipped through some twigs, but it landed a glancing blow on another man, who bellowed in pain or surprise and blundered away, now yelling something that Tecumseh could not understand. In a moment he could hear the bustle of many men hurrying off, mostly toward the south and east.

“Boone!” Tecumseh shouted after them. His laughter followed them into the darkness.

T
HE WHITE RAIDERS’ BULLETS HAD RIDDLED THE TENTS AND
even made holes in some of the warriors’ robes and blankets, but by Weshemoneto’s protection not one of the hunters had been hurt worse than a nick. As the woods grayed with the approach of morning, the Shawnees spread out cautiously from camp. They found the man Tecumseh had killed with his club, and Tecumseh scalped him. There were no more bodies but plenty of blood spots on the grass and leaves. The traces indicated that the attackers had numbered as many as twenty or thirty and that they had stolen up on the camp from two sides. The warriors felt good. That many enemies, led by the dreaded But-lah himself, yet they had foiled them and chased them away! It was like that other time But-lah had tried to catch him sleeping.

But if there were that many white men, there was still a danger that they might regroup and come back. It would be wise to take the meat and break camp.

When they went down to round up the horses, they found that several had been stolen, including Tecumseh’s own stallion. The footprints of a white man with small feet led down to where the horses had been, then hoofprints led away toward the southeast.

Tecumseh, eyes full of indignation, picked Big Fish and two other warriors to go with him and told Thick Water to break camp. Thick Water begged to go with him. “We will be enough,” Tecumseh said, and led the three out.

It was easy to follow the trail. The sun was just coming up. The ground had been damp overnight, so the hooves had made deep, distinct tracks in the humus of the woods and the short grass of the meadows. Tecumseh was able to keep his eyes on the tracks even without slowing his swift, silent running pace. The pale young spring foliage, dappled with sunlight, blurred as he sped through it. Deer and squirrels bounded away as he came into their view with his three warriors in a file behind him.

Now and then Tecumseh would stop and scan the way ahead. He must not run headlong into an ambush, particularly if But-lah and the rest of his Long Knives might have rejoined this horse stealer. So far there was no sign of them.

The Shawnees ran on for several miles like this, silent except for their shallow breathing and the pad of their moccasins on the soft earth.

Suddenly Tecumseh raised his hand and stopped. He smelled smoke and meat cooking. One of his warriors, tired and clumsy, almost ran into him and made a rustling in the brush.

Directly to Tecumseh’s left off the path, a white man squatted by a small fire, holding a piece of meat on a stick. The man had heard the warrior’s noise and turned. His face was pale and dirty and stubbled, his eyes were wild. Quick as a deer the white man dropped the meat, grabbed his rifle, and sprinted into the woods. Tecumseh leaped forward in pursuit. His warriors sped after him, refreshed by the prospect of catching a single white horse thief.

Down the shimmering green valley they raced, following flickering sunlit glimpses of the white man’s coat. He was a good runner, and he was fleeing for his life. Little by little, though, the distance between the prey and predators closed. Big Fish was abreast of Tecumseh now, his steps bounding, his teeth bared in the fierce joy of pursuit.

Suddenly the white man stopped and spun about, bringing his
rifle up to sight on his pursuers. The other warriors darted aside off the path into cover. But Tecumseh did not pause.

His warriors saw him sprint on across the space and straight into the blast and smoke of the white man’s rifle. Then they could see only the bluish smoke drifting in the green woods, and they ran forward.

When they came up panting, they found the white man on his back on the ground, wheezing desperately for the breath that had been knocked out of him; his discharged rifle lay a few feet away. Tecumseh was straddling the white man, smiling coldly down on him, his rifle pointed at his eyes.

T
ECUMSEH WAS IN A HURRY NOW TO GET THE STOLEN HORSES
rounded up and return to the rest of the hunting party, worried that But-lah and his band might surround them again or even that they might have done so already. Big Fish had startled the big white man badly last night, but But-lah was not the kind of man to be scared away.

The horse stealer sat on the ground, wrists tightly bound behind him, studying his captors furtively. “We must round up the horses,” Tecumseh urged them. “Come.”

“Let us rest a moment, brother,” one of them said. “How you ran us this morning!”

Tecumseh hopped up, impatient. “Then I will go get them. Come, Big Fish.”

They sped off up the trail toward the place where the white man had been cooking. The horses, hobbled and still bridled, were grazing within a few hundred paces of the little cookfire. Tecumseh made a chirping sound, and his horse came toward him.

In a few minutes they had all the hobbles off and the horses strung together and went back down the trail to get their captive. Tecumseh was satisfied with the day. Except for his anxiety about the hunters back at the camp, he was in a happy state of mind, ever more convinced that the luck of the Long Knives was running out, that the superior courage and cunning and the moral righteousness of the red men would finally prevail. Weshemoneto seemed to be rallying his powers and all the lesser spirits to help his children, while the white men’s God seemed not to be helping them at all. In the Blackberry Moon last year, American emissaries had come to the confederated tribes to negotiate peace. But the red men were full of confidence after defeating St. Clair and had replied that they could promise peace only if the white people
removed themselves entirely to the other side of the O-hi-o-se-pe and stayed there. Of course there had been no such agreement, but there was hope yet; surely the Great Good Spirit was stronger and more righteous than the God of the whites. How could he not be?

Thinking this, Tecumseh rode upon a sight that blew out the flame of his pleasure.

Lying on the trail before him was the mutilated body of the white captive. Tecumseh’s horse shied at the smell of blood.

The fresh spring foliage all around the body was spattered with red, as if it had rained blood here. The head was gone from the body. And a short way down the path stood the two warriors, grinning, smeared to their elbows in blood. Above them on the end of a pole, still dripping blood, was the head of the white man, frozen by death into an eyeless mask of agony.

The grins faded from the warriors’ faces as Tecumseh dropped to the ground and advanced on them, his eyes alight with wrath, his voice rankling with disgust.

“Oh, you are slinking dogs! You were too tired to help your brothers collect our horses, but not too tired to butcher
my
prisoner, the man I caught and made helpless! Stand away from me! You stink with cowardice! You! Never will you ride with me again! Not to hunt or to war! Since you have done this, you are no longer my brothers.” His mouth was a bitter sneer. He glared at them until their eyes fell. He wanted to tell them how they had befouled the good and honorable thoughts he had had about the righteousness of the red men. But he could say no more to them; his throat was clogged with loathing and remorse.

And so he turned and swung onto his horse and led Big Fish and the string of animals back up the trail at a fast trot. Those two could come back on foot, if they dared to come back at all.

“So they were too tired,” he snarled to Big Fish. “Good. Maybe they will never catch up with us.”

But his heart ached as he rode. His heart ached for the weaknesses and the meanness of his People, who so needed now to be strong and good.

“T
HAT ONE, THE BIG SOLDIER SITTING OUTSIDE THE BIG TENT,
is General Wayne,” Blue Jacket said, and he handed Tecumseh the English spyglass. “He-Who-Never-Sleeps.”

Even without the telescope Tecumseh could see him, a man of bulk seated beside a map table outside a white tent among many other white tents on the weedy bottomland of the Maumee-se-pe. When Tecumseh put the piece to his eye and brought it to bear on the man, he could see the general’s florid face and his elegant blue uniform all edged in gold braid. The general was moving his lips, talking to an officer nearby. Though portly and jowly, the general gave an appearance of strength and confidence.

“The word on his flag,” Blue Jacket said, “is his own name. Wayne. He thinks highly of himself.”

It was strange to be seeing the American general so close, as if standing a few paces from him, watching his lips move without sound, while hearing Blue Jacket’s voice right at his ear, even though the general was far off. It was like being in two places at once, like a Bear Walker. Tecumseh raised the tube slightly and looked at the flag on its pole near the tent. It was of alternating red and blue stripes, with the general’s name across the top. Tecumseh had been seeing that flag come farther and farther into the Indian country for weeks.

At first it had seemed that this general would make all the same mistakes that had ruined Harmar and St. Clair. He had moved his great legions of Blue-Coat soldiers slowly along in straight, visible lines with their cannons and wagons and baggage and beef cattle. He had stopped at intervals to build forts and left whole companies of men to live in them and guard them. At first he had seemed to be the same sort of general, and Blue Jacket had predicted: “In a few days his army will begin to get out of order, and the time will come when they are weak and dull and uncomfortable, and we will strike them and destroy them, as we did the other armies.”