Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  THEY TALKED LOW THAT NIGHT IN THE WIGEWA OF TURTLE Mother and her children. Chiksika’s face had gone stony with hate. “The Long Knives are the spawn of the Great Serpent,” he muttered. “They crawled from the sea slime onto the shore of our land. They must be pushed back into that sea slime!”

  Turtle Mother’s mouth was drawn down in bitterness. “We should not have fought them three years ago. This is more of their vengeance. Now it is too late to have peace ever again. It is time to give up this land and go where there are no white people. There we could live in peace, as in the good days before we ever angered them.”

  Chiksika looked at his mother with astonishment. And then for the first time in his life he rebuked her. “I cannot believe what words you said! Do you think our father would be pleased to hear that? No! He believed that we must fight to keep them out of our country, as long as one of us draws breath! You know the promises he asked from me, and from Tecumseh. I will not hear those words you said! Our father told me women are strong, that they can bear anything! You talk like a weak woman!”

  She took a sharp breath, her nostrils distended, eyes drilling her son’s face. Star Watcher pressed her palms over her ears to keep from hearing more, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Tecumseh ached to soothe his mother’s hurt, though he felt that if either she or Chiksika was right, it was Chiksika.

  THERE WOULD BE MOURNING FOR CORNSTALK THROUGHOUT the Shawnee nation, and it would go on far beyond the customary mourning time, for Cornstalk had been the greatest Shawnee chief in the memory of anyone, even the most ancient. If he had refused to listen to the whitefaces’ lies about treaties and trust, they might have killed him in battle by now anyway, but they could not have murdered him helpless in a room.

  “Now the whitefaces have done themselves great harm,” Chiksika told Tecumseh as they rode out to hunt more meat for the coming winter. “They murdered a chief who pledged peace with them. Our next chief is one who does not trust them and will never stop fighting them. Our father Black Fish!”

  “Black Fish will be?”

  “You will see, little brother. When all the voices are heard in the next council, Black Fish will be the one. Some of the gray-hairs who are too weary to fight anymore, they will want a peaceful chief. This is always so. We love and respect our old men, but because of the Long Knives this is a time for warriors to lead. Listen. Some of the old ones say we should sit still and try to be friends with the white people, and share their riches. And some like our mother say we should flee to where there are no Long Knives. Beyond the Wabash-se-pe, toward even the Missi-se-pe.

  “Those who wish to do those things can go, and no one will condemn them. But Black Fish says he has not finished what he began in the Hunger Moon. There are still Long Knives in Kain-tuck-ee. He desires to chase them back over the mountains, and the murder of our greatest chief only makes him stronger in his purpose. Listen, little brother. I tell you that Black Fish is great, too. He knows the British officers well. They have told him that they will pay our warriors for every Long Knife we take to them as a prisoner. The British governor-soldier Hamilton at Detroit has sent emissaries to all the tribes, saying that he will buy the scalps of the Americans, too, if they cannot be made prisoners. And greatest of all, the British will lend us some of their brave soldiers and officers to help us in Kain-tuck-ee. You have seen the great British soldiers, in their red clothing. They are said to be the bravest soldiers in the world!”

  Tecumseh remembered that the first British Redcoats he had seen had been afraid, but he did not interrupt Chiksika to remind him of that. His brother went on:

  “And they have cannons! The great rolling-guns that can knock down a Long Knife fort at once! They have promised Black Fish that they will pull their rolling-guns down to Kain-tuck-ee and shoot down the gates of those forts so we can rush in. Listen! If there had been British rolling-guns with us last spring to knock down Boone’s Fort and Harrod’s Fort, there would not be a white man still living in Kain-tuck-ee! Black Fish is ready to do this with the British. Black Fish says this is a time for the Shawnee to be brave, not timid. Listen. He will be the principal chief, and he will do things that will make his name as great as Cornstalk’s. I am proud that he has taken us as his sons. With Black Fish before us and his British allies beside us shooting the cannons at the forts, we can drive the Long Knives out, and have our land the way it was before!”

  AND SO WHEN BLACK FISH WAS ELECTED TO BE THE PRINCIPAL chief, he was strong and eager for vengeance. He said he would not give the Long Knives a chance to rest even in the winter. He had eager young warriors and chieftains who would take raiding parties into Kain-tuck-ee to harass the Long Knife settlers, capture prisoners, kill cattle, attack supply boats, and obtain horses. These raiders would be like wolves in the snow, and they would make life so hard for the Americans that they would flee back out of the country—if there were any left alive to flee.

  Black Fish favored several young men as leaders for these raids. One was his foster son, Chiksika. Another was Stands Firm. Another was the hickory-tough warrior Blue Jacket, who was brave and resourceful, who could think as white men think and thus know what they might do. Blue Jacket’s hatred of the Long Knives was so strong that it was hard to remember that he had been born a white person. Whenever Tecumseh would look at that splendid warrior, he could scarcely believe that he as a child had whipped him in a blind fury in the gauntlet, only seven years ago.

  SNOW SNAKES WERE STREWN FAR OUT ACROSS THE WHITE meadow.

  Thick Water, the long-armed, sinewy Kispoko boy who had been such a great hoop roller years ago in Kispoko Town, was looking very smug at this moment, because he had just sent his snow snake hissing and slithering about a hundred paces across the snow, so far that surely even Tecumseh could not surpass his throw. Tecumseh was much younger than Thick Water but was nevertheless the best snow snake thrower known. But that had been before Thick Water had moved to Chillicothe with his family.

  Tecumseh’s snow snake was a smooth stick of dogwood about six feet long. Its heavy end, which had been the base of the dogwood sapling, curved up slightly. Tecumseh had carved on it the eyes and mouth of a snake and had rubbed the shaft with tallow until it gleamed. It was the snake itself, almost as much as the strength and skill of the thrower, that made it slide to winning distances.

  Now Tecumseh walked to the throwing line drawn in the snow, touched it with the toe of his moccasin, and then paced back three long steps. He poised himself, looking toward that farthest stick, the one Thick Water had thrown. All the other boys were quiet, very respectful, though many now believed that Tecumseh could not possibly beat Thick Water’s throw. Tecumseh himself knew that he would have to send his stick much farther than he had ever done before if he hoped to win over that.

  He held his stick loosely in his left hand in front of him, parallel to the ground. Reaching back, he hooked his right forefinger in the worn notch in its small end.

  Loud Noise, standing near the throwing line, began now to cheer and encourage his brother. His face screwed up in a tight grimace. His fists were clenched at his sides, and his body was crouched forward with excitement. And, as usually happened when he grew very excited, that strange squealing began in his throat, that ridiculous, pathetic sound that he apparently could not control, something like the squealing of a big rodent of some kind. He even looked something like a rodent. Other boys sometimes mimicked the sound and the contorted face, but not when Tecumseh was around.

  Now Loud Noise began jumping up and down. Not long ago, this would have irritated Tecumseh so much that he might have made a bad throw. But Tecumseh had learned what to do. He turned to face Loud Noise and smile. The child at once stopped making his sounds and turned one way and another to beam at the other boys, as if to say, “Did you see that? My wonderful brother Tecumseh smiled right at me!”

  And now Tecumseh announced, “See my snake go! It is the swiftest of them all!” He stepped off with his left foot, made three q
uick strides, and at the line whipped his right arm with all his strength in an underhand thrust and sent the stick slithering across the snow, a dark streak across the blankness so fast an eye could hardly follow it.

  When it slid to a stop finally, five lengths beyond any of the others, Thick Water looked as if he would cry. But Tecumseh turned to him with a pleasant smile and said, “I was afraid I could not throw as far as you did!” Thick Water felt better. He could not dislike someone like this.

  But now Loud Noise apparently decided he would do Tecumseh’s gloating for him. He began a jerky, awkward prancing in the snow around Thick Water, pointing at him and taunting in a high, nasal voice: “Nyeh-heheh-heheh! Nyeh-heheh-heheh!” Tecumseh grabbed him by the shoulders when he came prancing around and shook him.

  “Stop! Stop!” he hissed in his ear. The taunts ceased at once, and the strange, ugly little face was looking up at him in bewilderment. Tecumseh wanted to take the infuriating child aside and give him a talk about being pleasant to people. But he heard something, something in the distance through the snowy woods, and it was something he had been listening for, even when not thinking about it, for weeks. It was the joyous chanting and yelling of a returning war party.

  Chiksika had ridden out toward Kain-tuck-ee weeks ago with a war party of more than a hundred young men under the leadership of Blue Jacket, one of the winter raids of Black Fish. They had gone equipped with new guns and knives and plenty of powder provided by the British. These were young men who had been so eager to avenge the murder of Cornstalk that they had exposed themselves to the hardships of winter warfare. For weeks the weather had been miserable and severe, with much sleet and snow, and the women had been acutely worried about their absent sons and husbands. All of Chillicothe had been praying for them and always listening and watching for their return.

  The other boys had now heard the distant voices and were all looking that way down the trail, listening, their eyes glittering with excitement. Tecumseh suddenly ran out onto the meadow, snatching up his precious snow snake, and with a wave of his arm to summon his little brother, he raced down the trail through the snow, wanting to be the first to meet the returning band.

  The warriors were a glorious sight. They came riding three abreast, their faces brilliantly painted, wrapped in their robes or in red blankets, waving feathered lances and muskets decorated with ribbons and feathers and scalplocks. A hundred warriors made a long and impressive parade coming across the bleak white landscape. And now Tecumseh could see that this war party was even larger than it had been when it had left; as he ran toward them he saw that they were leading a large group of white men, dozens of them, it looked like, ragged figures slogging on foot, led and pulled along by ropes tied around their necks.

  Prisoners!

  The boys stopped in their tracks and stared in awe. Never had they seen so many white prisoners at once. Usually a war party might bring home two or three or four at the most, sometimes a family, women and children. But these were all men! Tecumseh tried to count them as they came on, and it looked as if Blue Jacket and his warriors somehow had managed to capture some twenty-five or thirty Long Knives!

  Chiksika rode with Blue Jacket at the head of the column, and he and Tecumseh recognized each other at the same time. They yelled each other’s names and waved.

  Now the boys ran alongside the column as it moved toward the town, ran alongside staring and yelling at the white prisoners. These were mostly big men, but they were not elegant soldiers like the British. Their faces were hard, dirty, and stubbly. They were clad in muddy, drab wool, in tattered canvas hunting shirts, in leather leggings wet and mud-spattered to the knees, in rent, frayed woolen hose. Several were limping, some were barefoot in the snow. Most were hatless, their hair matted and wild, their eyesockets deep and dark. Their noses and fingers were red from cold. Most of them looked miserable and hopeless.

  But there were no wounds, no bloody bandages, no splinted limbs, neither among the prisoners nor among the warriors. Usually when a war party returned, there were warriors grim-faced with pain, feverish with infections, or sagging from loss of blood. But here there was no sign of anyone hurt. It was a wonder. Except for the war paint, this column looked like a hunting party.

  “Tecumseh,” Chiksika called down to him, and pointed back toward the file of prisoners. “Look at that man in front! We caught the chief called Boone!”

  “Boone! Boone!” echoed several of the warriors, laughing. And the boys responded, shrilling the name of Boone, and they all ran toward that part of the column for a look at the one whose name they had all known since Black Fish’s campaign a year ago, the one who had killed the son of Black Fish!

  Hearing the name, the first prisoner in the line broke into a wide smile. “Boone!” he yelled in response, then laughed, his head thrown back.

  The Shawnee boys were astonished and stared at the prisoner, mouths hanging open. This prisoner seemed to be unafraid—even happy.

  He was not the giant he had grown to be in their imaginations. He was not even a big man; he was not any taller than an average Indian warrior and was, in fact, smaller than most of the other prisoners. And his face was not the hard, ferocious devil mask they had imagined. It was instead one of those open, unlined faces one sees rarely and inexplicably likes: a face strong but serene, rugged but kindly. The eyes were like summer sky. And Tecumseh, despite his fierce excitement at seeing the hated enemy, the killer of Black Fish’s son, being brought in helpless, felt merry and friendly when he looked at those light blue eyes. This Boone was not a young man, judging by the gray in his thick, sandy hair; but his face was unwrinkled, his physique, even in the bedraggled wool and leather clothes, gave an impression of spare, sinewy power, and he alone of the prisoners walked along with springy ease instead of trudging. It was as if he were a white man who had a pa-waw-ka. Tecumseh could not take his eyes off him for a long time as the cheering, chanting column moved toward Chillicothe. Loud Noise had run up squealing and joined Tecumseh, who now held his hand as they moved along. “That one is Chief Boone,” Tecumseh told him, and Loud Noise rolled his strange eyes and wailed, “Wa! Wa!”

  Now there were many people running out of the town to greet the homecoming warriors, and Tecumseh’s attention was drawn away from the jaunty Boone by a boy’s cry:

  “Look! Here comes the Man-Eating People!”

  “Look!” someone else called. “Here come the Peace Women!”

  Tecumseh turned now to watch these two groups race toward the prisoners.

  There were only a few of the Man-Eating People in the Shawnee nation at this time. They were not in favor. They were a society, men and women, some of whom were thought to be witches, with their own secret rituals. When prisoners of war were brought in, the Man-Eating People called to each other through the town and raced out, their lips painted red, to claim them. If they could reach and touch the prisoners before the Peace Women did, they could claim them to kill and eat. But if the Peace Women, who were mostly the wives of chieftains, reached the prisoners and touched them first, then the Man-Eaters could not claim them.

  “Ha, look!” cried Stands Firm, who was riding near the prisoners. “Here come the buzzards, and they are hungry!” Stands Firm was one of the many Shawnees who detested the eaters of human flesh. “Run, you Peace Women!” he cheered them. “Pe-eh-wah, come this way!”

  The Peace Women, running so hard their breasts jounced and their moccasins kicked up snow, closed in on the column and swarmed around the prisoners, touching them and screaming with triumph. But some of the Man-Eaters were right behind them, and a few of these sped past to the rear of the file of prisoners and began touching some of them with their sticks, to claim them. Here and there, Peace Women and Man-Eaters began shoving and fighting each other, all cheered on by the laughing boys. And the prisoners, having no suspicion that this struggle was over the fate of their own flesh, just squinted and flinched and plodded on, bewildered by the scuffle around them. The man called
Boone was laughing as if all this were simply an uproarious game and he a spectator.

  Then Blue Jacket turned his horse out from the head of the column and rode back, his heavy black brows knit, and he was yelling angrily. He rode his mount into the scuffle and forced the people away from the prisoners. “No!” he was yelling. “No! These prisoners are not for you, or for you! No! Get away! These we are taking to Detroit! These we sell to the British chief! Get away!” Blue Jacket’s voice was loud and his presence was mighty, and in a moment he had restored order and made the people understand. Then he rode to the head of the column again to lead the procession on into the town, where Black Fish would be waiting to receive Boone, the man who had killed his son.

  THE PRISONERS WERE TIED TO POSTS OUTSIDE THE GRAND council lodge where everybody could look at them. Tecumseh stood ten paces from them and gazed thoughtfully at these shabby, sooty men with stubbled faces. It looked to be as Black Fish had said. These Long Knives were not rich and splendid men, like the Redcoat soldiers who had been in the town before. And yet, though these prisoners did stink in their soiled clothes, though they were prisoners who did not know their fates, Tecumseh did not smell fear on them as he had upon the great Redcoats that long-ago day. They just stood staring straight back at the taunting crowd. These were not cowards. When an ill-tempered warrior, one who had lost his hand at the battle of the Kanawha-se-pe, went close and spat in the face of one of the prisoners, the Long Knife spat back on him.

  Boone himself was tied to a post inside the council house, where he remained standing while Blue Jacket told of the capture. Chiksika, who had developed a grudging admiration for Boone, watched him, amazed at his serenity. Several times Boone, turning to see Black Fish staring at him, smiled at him with apparent goodwill. Surely he was not aware that this chief was the father of a warrior he had killed.