Shaman Part 67

Black Hawk made a flat, rejecting hand gesture. "You have seen what happened. Pale eyes warriors would not let you get close enough to talk to their chiefs."

A warrior came over to the fire, holding a tin cup. He offered it to Black Hawk.

"The long knives left five barrels of whiskey, but they are almost empty."

Black Hawk turned the cup over, letting the whiskey soak into the dirt.

"Pour that poison on the ground," he said. "Whiskey made the long knives so foolish that when they looked at one of our braves they saw ten."

Wolf Paw said, "They abandoned wagonloads of food and ammunition. Even some rifles."

"We will need them," said Black Hawk. "Without more provisions we cannot go on."

After the warrior went away, Black Hawk gave his pipe tomahawk to Wolf Paw to smoke. Owl Carver and the Winnebago Prophet brought out pipes of their own. Owl Carver offered his to White Bear, who declined it. Given what he had been through this day, and troubled by the fear that Black Hawk was determined to plunge his people into worse calamities, White Bear felt his stomach could not stand tobacco smoke.

Flying Cloud broke the thoughtful silence. "If forty Sauk warriors could chase away two hundred long knives, then all the Sauk warriors can chase away the long knives' whole army. I say call out the six hundred warriors who wait at our main camp. We will drive the long knives all the way back to the Great River."

White Bear wanted to answer the Winnebago Prophet with angry words, but he felt light-headed and nauseated. He decided to wait and see what the others would say.

"The Prophet of the Winnebago speaks well," said Wolf Paw. "My blade is hungry for more long knives' scalps."

_Of course_, thought White Bear.

Owl Carver said drily, "We routed some drunk pale eyes who hardly deserve to be called long knives. Let us not waste any more of our young men's lives. Let us follow the northward curve of the Rock River to its very headwaters, far beyond any pale eyes' settlements, then travel westward toward the Great River. If we can cross the Great River safely, I do not think the long knives will chase us farther."

The five men sat in silence. A sudden thought struck White Bear. _This_ was why Earthmaker had ordained that he be educated among the pale eyes--so that he could help his band understand how pale eyes thought.

If they kept going north along the Rock River they would soon cross the northern border of the state of Illinois. That might seem to them to mean very little, but it could mean much to their pursuers. The country where they were headed did not belong to any state; it was part of a large land of many waters that was called the Michigan Territory.

Eagerly he said, "We may be able to escape the long knives by going north. Most of the long knives who are pursuing us were called out by the Great Father of the Illinois country. Once we are out of Illinois, maybe they will not follow."

Wolf Paw grunted, clearly insulted at the thought of their not being pursued.

The Prophet bestirred himself. "Many of my Winnebago brothers dwell in that country to the north. They will join us in fighting the long knives."

_Like your people from Prophet's Town, who've been deserting us?_ White Bear thought.

A warrior set a long knives' saddlebag before Black Hawk, who opened it.

The war chief pulled out an expensive-looking black wool suit and some white silk s.h.i.+rts with ruffles. Finally he took out two books bound in red and white leather. White Bear leaned over for a closer look.

"Bundles of the pale eyes' talking paper," said Black Hawk.

Wolf Paw said, "They are worthless, Father. Keep the clothing and put the talking paper on the fire."

But Black Hawk handed one of the books to White Bear. "What do the talking papers say to you, White Bear?"

White Bear picked up a book and read on the spine, _Chitty's Pleadings, Vol. I_. He opened and saw close-packed type, his eyes skimming over many legal terms in Latin. White Bear wondered whether the lawyer who owned these books was still alive. At the sight of books his heart gave an unexpected lurch. He felt a longing to be not in a plundered enemy camp on the prairie, but in a library, with books, pen and paper. The feeling took him by surprise. It had been many months since he had missed the pale eyes' world. A few pages of _Paradise Lost_ now and then had satisfied any hankering for what they called "civilization."

"These papers tell about the pale eyes' laws," he said. "It is sometimes said that they have no magic. But there is powerful magic in their books and in their laws. It is the magic that binds them together."

The Prophet said, "The pale eyes' paper is bad medicine."

Black Hawk held out his hand, and White Bear gave him the book. It pained White Bear to think Black Hawk might throw it into the fire.

White Bear had seen many white leaders--mayors, congressmen, military officers, once even Sharp Knife himself, Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States. He had learned about them in school and read about them in newspapers. He felt Black Hawk was a match for any of them. More than a match in some ways; he was stronger and healthier than any white man his age that White Bear had known. What pale eyes of nearly seventy years could personally lead a cavalry charge against an enemy outnumbering him by ten to one and rout them? Black Hawk's great weakness was one that he shared with most people, whatever their race or their position in life: if he wanted a thing to be true, he believed it.

That was why last winter he had listened to the Winnebago Prophet and not to White Bear.

Now White Bear hoped Black Hawk would show his intelligence by respecting the value of the book. Black Hawk frowned at the leather-bound volume, weighing it in his hand. He picked the other book up with his other hand.

"They are heavy. But since there is magic in them, I will keep these talking-paper bundles by me. And I will bring them with me when I speak in council."

White Bear breathed a small sigh of satisfaction.

Black Hawk laid the books down, one on each side of him, and put one hand on each book. He sat like that for a time, staring into the fire.

"I have done with trying to surrender to the long knives," he said, and it seemed to White Bear that his face became a fearsome mask in the firelight. "They have left me no choice. Yes, we will retreat from them.

But we will not run like hunted deer. We will send out war parties, big and small, in every direction. We will lie in ambush on every trail. We will fall upon every settlement. We will attack every traveling party of long knives. No pale eyes north of the Rock River will be safe from us.

Until we have crossed the Great River, we will give the pale eyes no peace."

At Black Hawk's words White Bear felt that an ice-cold hand had laid itself flat on his back, between his shoulder blades. With those words Black Hawk was condemning to cruel death hundreds of people--pale eyes and his own.

And one of the largest settlements north of the Rock River was Victor.

"What is the use of more killing?" he said. "It will only madden the long knives. They will come after us till they have destroyed us."

"I have decided," Black Hawk said. "We must fight back. We must be avenged. They stole our land. They burned Saukenuk. They burned Prophet's Town. We asked them for peace, and they killed us. Black Hawk will show them that they cannot do this and go unpunished."

"So it shall be!" the Winnebago Prophet growled.

_And after that the long knives in their turn will have to be avenged._

Hopelessness lay like a heavy sodden blanket on White Bear. He saw the old warrior's determination, and said no more.

He could only pray that Earthmaker spare those he loved. On both sides.

Black Hawk stood up. "Let us go back to our camp."

Wolf Paw said, "Father, I want to stay here till tomorrow with a party of warriors. There are dead long knives scattered all over the prairie, but we cannot find them in the dark. In the morning we can take their scalps and their weapons."

His words stopped White Bear as he was about to turn away from the fire.

Otto Wegner might still be hiding in that hollow tree, waiting for dawn.

Hurriedly, White Bear said, "I, too, will stay. I will help Wolf Paw search for the dead."

What could he do if Wolf Paw and his men captured Wegner? Perhaps not save the Prussian's life, but at least persuade the warriors to kill him cleanly and not torture him.

_Haven't I done enough for Wegner? I want to go back to Redbird._

But his impulses were a shaman's impulses, and the harder to explain they were, the more he trusted them. It was important, for some reason, that he stay at Old Man's Creek a while longer.