Shaman Part 64

He opened his eyes. It was now very dark; full night had fallen. He was lying on his left side in tall gra.s.s. He took a chance and raised his head a little way. Raoul had said he wanted no men to stay behind, but there might be someone about.

He dropped his head and tensed his hands and arms. The rope around his wrists had loosened. He could twist his wrists till the fingers of his right hand reached the knot. Pale eyes knew little about tying secure knots. After working patiently for a long time he freed his hands.

He still felt sick with grief, and did not have the strength to move away from this place where his comrades had died. Why not just lie here and wait for the long knives to come back and kill him?

But he thought of Redbird and Eagle Feather. And the fullness that had appeared in Redbird's belly before they crossed the Great River from Ioway to Illinois. Using his knees and elbows to push himself through the gra.s.s, he began to crawl.

Slithering like a snake, his body and limbs flat to the ground, he wriggled along the edge of the creek till he felt sure any men that might be nearby could not see him; then he slid down the embankment. The side of his head throbbed with every movement.

He crossed the creek on all fours, the rocks biting into his palms and knees. Where the swift, cold water was deepest he lowered his head into the water to wash it. Agony exploded in his brain and he came close to fainting. But he forced the muscles of his neck to raise his head, and his arms and legs to push him along, out of the creek.

Soon he was in the shelter of the woods. He stood up and staggered through the shrubbery. Now that he was safer, the pain in his torn right ear pounded harder than ever.

He remembered that Raoul and his hundreds of mounted long knives had ridden toward the place where Black Hawk, with only forty braves, was waiting to learn how his peace emissaries fared.

He had stayed alive so far by luck, but he had no real hope of escaping to his people. Probably some of the long knives who had ridden out with Raoul would come across him, and that would be the end. As he neared the farther edge of the woods, a newly risen half-moon, like a white wickiup in a black field, shone at him through the trees ahead.

He was about to step out on the prairie when he heard the rumble of hooves coming toward him. He stopped in the shelter of the trees. He heard shots, screams of pain and terror.

Against the lighter prairie gra.s.s, men on horseback were dark shapes rus.h.i.+ng at him from the horizon.

Their voices were high-pitched, fearful. They were crying out in English.

"Make a stand in the woods!"

"No! There's too many of them!"

"Just keep a-running. Follow the river."

White Bear looked about for a hiding place. The moon showed him that he was standing beside a big old oak, with branches low enough for him to jump to.

_Grandfather Oak, will you shelter me?_

Just before he jumped for a branch he noticed that a hollow had rotted out in the base of the tree. It was big enough for him to hide in, but then he would be on the same level as the militiamen. Safer up high.

He forced his tired legs to spring, managed to grip the lowest limb, one hand on each side of it, bark scratching his palms. He pressed the soles of his moccasins flat against the trunk and walked his body up, panting, until he was able to pull himself up over the limb and reach for the next one. The branches were stout and close together, and soon he was high above the floor of the wood.

_You made a ladder for me. Thank you, Grandfather Oak._

Dozens of mounted militiamen were streaming past his tree, galloping right under him. The hoofbeats of the horses and the shouts of the men to one another, pitched high with terror, shattered the night air.

He saw the black shapes of more horses and riders swimming through the prairie gra.s.s. Their elated cries were Sauk war whoops.

The braves of his tribe, racing toward him as if to rescue him. A sun rose in his breast.

Rifles boomed and arrows whistled through the air after the fleeing militiamen, and he was thankful that he was up this high. He heard screams. Somewhere nearby a body crashed into shrubbery.

Some long knives, he saw, were trying to go around the woods, but the greater distance they had to travel gave the Sauk riders time to catch up with them. Rifle shots flashed like lightning in the darkness.

Two shadowy figures on foot, so close together they seemed one, stumbled out of the tall gra.s.s and pushed their way into the woods, careless of the noise they were making. White Bear held his breath, hoping they would not discover him above them.

A voice below him said, "You got to keep going. They'll catch you and tomahawk you sure."

Now the two men were standing by the tree in which he had taken shelter.

He strained his ears to listen.

"Save yourself," said another voice, rasping with pain. "I cannot run.

The arrow is under my kneecap. I will stay here and try to hold them off."

_I know that voice, that accent. It is the Prussian, Otto Wegner._

White Bear remembered how Wegner had disappointed him back at Raoul's camp. Now his life was in danger; he deserved that.

"Hold them off? There's hunnerds of them." He'd heard the other man's voice before, but he sounded like so many long knives, White Bear could not be sure that he knew him.

"Well, maybe if I shoot a few of them, you can get away."

At that White Bear felt anger heating up in his chest. So Wegner would like to shoot a few Indians, would he? Being willing to stay and fight while his comrade got away, though--that was worthy of respect.

"d.a.m.n! I don't like leaving you, Otto."

"You have a wife and children."

"So do you."

"But you have a chance to get away. I don't. What good is it, two of us dead? Go!"

White Bear heard a sigh. "All right. Here's all my powder and shot. I ain't planning to stop to use them. Remember, keep your head low so you can see them above the horizon. If they ain't wearing hats, you can figger they're Injuns."

"Please, Levi, my wife and my children, tell how I died."

That was who the other man was--Levi Pope, another of Raoul's men.

"I'll tell them you was brave. Make sure they don't catch you alive, Otto. You know what Injuns do to white people. Use your last bullet on yourself."

White Bear felt his cheeks burn with shame. For himself, the idea of torturing a prisoner was unthinkable, and he did not believe Black Hawk would allow it. But he could not be sure. Many men and women of the British Band, he supposed, would enjoy making one of the dreaded long knives suffer.

White Bear heard Pope scurry off through the brush while Wegner, gasping with pain, settled himself in position at the base of the tree.

The boom of Wegner's rifle below him so startled White Bear that he almost fell from his perch. He heard an agonized cry from out on the prairie, saw a brave fall from a horse.

_He killed one of my brothers. I can't let this happen._

He heard quick, metallic sounds of clicking and sc.r.a.ping below him, the sounds of a man loading his rifle.

_In a moment another Sauk warrior will fall._

The racking grief White Bear had felt since the deaths of Little Crow and Three Horses changed all at once into a whirlwind of rage. He remembered Little Crow, bound and helpless, his head blown apart. He pictured Three Horses' body, torn by bullets. In his whole life up to now he had never killed a man, but surely now, after what he had suffered and seen, he had to kill.