Shaman Part 101

Cold crept over her as she remembered Eagle Feather's cry: _The Bad Axe!

The Great River runs red!_

Black Hawk gave a cry of anguish. His paper bundle dropped to the ground with a thud. He sat down on the ground, picked up a handful of ashes from Redbird's campfire and threw them on his head. The people around him screamed and wept and held one another in their grief.

Wind Bends Gra.s.s fell against Owl Carver, and both of them sank to the ground weeping. Redbird saw Wolf Paw standing slumped and motionless, his arms hanging helpless at his sides, his face gray. He had insisted that both his wives and his four children try to cross the Great River at the Bad Axe, thinking they would be safer.

Sobbing and clutching her baby, Redbird watched the orange sun disappear behind the pointed treetops on the western sh.o.r.e of the little lake. She thought, Iron Knife, so strong and always there when she needed him, must be gone. Her two sisters and their new husbands, probably dead.

The people mourned, some sitting on the ground, some walking about distractedly, some standing, holding each other.

And now Eagle Feather was stricken. She could not get the chill out of her body.

When it was dark she relit her fire. Floating Lily woke and cried, and Redbird held her to her breast. Then she crawled under her lean-to to look at Eagle Feather. His eyes were still shut. He had not moved since his outcry, and his breathing was shallow.

_I cannot bear this. Eagle Feather lying as if dead, White Bear vanished, most of my people dead._

_Why have I been spared to suffer so?_

Black Hawk began to mourn aloud for his lost people:

"Hu-hu-hu-u-u-u-u ... Whu-whu-whu-u-u-u-u ..."

The rest of the people joined in the wailing. Redbird noticed that Wave and He Who Lights the Water cried out, too, and tears ran from their eyes. She liked them for joining the mourning.

Owl Carver was sitting beside her, holding the hands of weeping Wind Bends Gra.s.s. His own features, as much of them as she could see in the twilight, were still and drawn, shrunken by sorrow.

Redbird thought, the Sauk were known far and wide as a people who never s.h.i.+rked the demands of honor. If even one man of Black Hawk's party smoked the calumet with Wave, that would oblige Black Hawk and his remaining braves to surrender to the Winnebago and make peace.

Redbird said, "Now, with so many dead, can we have peace? Will you smoke the pipe with these two men?"

Owl Carver said, "If I were alone, I would smoke the pipe with them. But I will not go against Black Hawk."

"We are all that is left of the band," she said. "Someone must take the calumet and smoke it."

And by that odious Sauk custom, she thought, clenching her jaw, it would have to be a man.

As darkness deepened, the wailing died down. Wave and He Who Lights the Water made a little fire at the edge of the lake near Redbird's lean-to.

One by one the last people of Black Hawk's band drifted close to Wave's fire.

The Winnebago brave stood before the fire holding the peace pipe.

Twilight lingered in the sky behind him while the firelight before him illuminated his heavy features.

Sitting near Eagle Feather, Redbird looked around and saw silent figures standing in the shadows as the people waited to hear what Wave had to say. Gravely he took tobacco out of a pouch at his waist and filled the bowl of the calumet. Then he touched a dry stick to his fire and carried the flame to the pipe. It flared up bright yellow over the pipe bowl as he puffed on it.

Wave cleared his throat and spoke in a strong voice. "Earthmaker gave us the sacred tobacco as a means of making peace among us. No one may break a promise sealed with tobacco. Our chief, Falcon, asks me to say this to you:

"Black Hawk, you have frightened the long knives greatly, brought them much sorrow, and forced them to pursue you over rivers and swamps and mountains. Black Hawk, your honor has been satisfied. Falcon offers this tobacco to you and asks that you end this war, for the sake of your women who are hungry and sick and your children who are without fathers."

_Yes, let it be done. Let this war be over before all of us are dead._

Redbird's heart leaped with hope as she saw Black Hawk reach toward the pipe that Wave held out to him. He was about to take it and smoke it!

But his hand, instead of grasping, only pointed at the pipe.

"I will not smoke this pipe. I believe the Sauk should fight on until they cannot fight anymore."

_Please, Earthmaker, let at least one man be moved to stand for peace._

Wave added more tobacco to the pipe and puffed on it again. He stood before the Winnebago Prophet.

"Show your wisdom, Uncle. Smoke the sacred tobacco."

Flying Cloud took a step backward and raised both arms. "It is wrong for the Winnebago to turn against us in our time of need. Go back and tell your Chief Falcon that if he does not join us in making war on the long knives, they will take his land from him as they have taken ours from us." He crossed his arms before his chest.

Despairing, Redbird realized that the Winnebago Prophet could not smoke the pipe because that would be admitting that all his advice up to now had been wrong.

"What will you do, Sauk shaman?" Wave said to Owl Carver. "Do not the spirits tell you to smoke the calumet?"

"Please do it, Father," Redbird whispered.

She wanted to shout it aloud. But she held her tongue. She remembered with pain the derision of Wolf Paw and the others when she spoke out at the war council.

She bit her lip. Maybe, by speaking out that time, she had turned people away from the path she wanted them to take. She would not make that mistake again.

Owl Carver said, "Black Hawk has always been my chief. I follow where he leads."

Redbird groaned. Now she wished she had spoken out.

Eagle Feather stirred beside her. Heart frozen, she looked down at him.

But he was motionless again.

Wave turned next to Wolf Paw, who closed his eyes, bowed his head and made no move to accept the pipe. Redbird saw that the red crest on his head was faded and limp.

She could only watch as the two Winnebago went from man to man in the circle of firelight, holding out the pipe, each man refusing.

"Please," Wave pleaded, "is there not a man here wise and strong enough to smoke the calumet and save the lives of his people? Please--more pain and death is needless."

In a day or two a war band of Winnebago would come after Black Hawk's party. They would greatly outnumber these fifty people. They would have rifles with plenty of powder and shot, given to them by the long knives.

They would slaughter the men and take the women and children into captivity.

_Earthmaker, I beg you, do not let your children die._

She heard a rustling beside her. She gasped in fright and her hands went cold.

Eagle Feather was up on his hands and knees.

The boy crawled out from under the lean-to, climbed to his feet and stood straight.