Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Among the few warriors still in Chillicothe were some good trackers. Five of these men were sent to follow the spoor of the horse thieves, with a warning not to let themselves run into an ambush or an army of white men.

  After the trackers had ridden out, Chillicothe settled down to an uneasy but ordinary day. Lookouts were stationed outside the town, and Tecumseh again was one of them. With great willpower he kept himself from falling asleep. When he would begin to slip away into a dream, he would see a giant white man, But-lah, and would be wide awake again.

  Turtle Mother and Star Watcher and scores of other women spent the morning in the gardens and corn fields. There were vegetables and beans ready to be harvested; some of the strains of sweet corn were ready for picking. Later in the day, moccasins and clothes and shelters had to be made or mended for the coming cold season. They did this work, but they did it with partial attention. The women in the fields and at their sewing kept raising their heads to watch the bluffs, to watch the road, either for soldiers of the Long Knives or for the return of Black Fish’s warriors, or for the return of the trackers, who might overtake the horse thieves at once, or days from now, or not at all.

  Star Watcher tried to talk to her mother about the harvest, about the clothing, about the triplets. But Turtle Mother had hardly anything to say. In her face there seemed to be more anger than fear. So Star Watcher finally fell silent and daydreamed, as she worked, about Stands Firm.

  The sun went down with everybody still half watching, and the people slept restlessly again that night. The next day was much the same. The day after that there was still no news, and by the next day the tension had eased, and only now and then did the people stop in their work, or the children in their play, to scan the horizons. A cold wind had risen, and the sky was cloudy. There were rain showers for a part of one day, and then the weather grew mild again.

  On the sixth day a boy came running into the town from the southeast, running as fast as he could and shouting:

  “They come! They caught the horse stealer! He is But-lah! A-hi-ee!” Shrill, fierce cries answered from the town. “Get switches!” the boy cried, now jumping up and down in his excitement. “Everybody! They want everybody to whip the horse stealer!”

  The people needed no urging. It was not just another horse thief, it was the giant Long Knife called But-lah, the friend of Boone, the man who had saved Boone’s life in that long-ago incident at Boone’s Fort. They were going to see for themselves this legendary enemy, and they were going to get to punish him for coming and scaring their town and stealing horses. Everyone would be able to tell, from this day on, of striking a blow at the famed white warrior But-lah! “My club hit him here, on the back of his neck, and made him stagger,” they would be able to relate, even to their grandchildren, or, “My switch drew blood on his white shoulders!” Or, “He was a huge man, yes, as mighty as you have heard, but my stick made him cry out!”

  Tecumseh had heard the commotion from the woods north of the town, and when he ran into the street he saw that several hundred people were already lined up along the way to the council house, slashing the air eagerly with their switches and staffs and clubs, laughing and cheering and watching the trackers come with their prisoner toward the edge of town. They were in a state of uncommon excitement and were murderously joyous. They had been worried for a long time about their sons and husbands and fathers who were away at war with Black Fish. They had been afraid of the Long Knife army and of its appearance in the west, and they had been outraged by the audacity of horse thieves who had come near their most populous town. Now they would be able to vent some of their fear and anxiety upon this white warrior who was more than just a man, who was a symbol of the most terrible aspects of the white men. As Tecumseh wedged himself into a place in line, a fresh-cut switch of limber ash in his hand, he was hearing some of the details of the capture:

  “They tracked them all the way to the Beautiful River!”

  “They killed one of the thieves and caught this But-lah!”

  “They got all of our horses back, and the horse thieves’ horses, too! Ha!”

  “They were bold to come here, but they will learn not to do it again!”

  “Not to steal Shawnee horses! Ha, ha!”

  “Oh! Look at him!”

  “Big!”

  “There is a man big enough for Tall Soldier Woman! Ha, ha!”

  Here and there in this brave joking and boasting Tecumseh could hear the shrillness and tremor of fear. Sometimes people got hurt in the gauntlet line. Now and then a mighty warrior or soldier, tormented and defiant, would strike or kick someone who got too close, even snatch a club from someone and fight back. This one was a mighty warrior. He was a man who had run like a horse even while carrying Captain Boone in his arms. Now he would be coming down this line, which was mostly of boys and old men, women and girls, and he would be passing within inches. Yes. There was some danger that even among these hundreds, this one enemy warrior might be able to hurt somebody. It was just enough of a possibility to make some of the people nervous even in their fierce anger.

  The white man was being stripped of his deerskin clothing now. Tecumseh, who was closer to the start of the line than to the finish, was able to see clearly that this was a bigger and more powerful man than he had ever set eyes on before. His shoulders were enormous, and every muscle, from the thick chest muscles to the long muscles on the front of his thighs, was lean and hard under his skin. His face and his huge hands were as coppery brown as an Indian’s, but the rest of his body was pure white, except where bruised and reddened with small wounds inflicted by his captors. It was plain that he had not been treated gently on his trip back from the Beautiful River. His hair was long, light brown and sun-bleached. He did not look the least bit afraid.

  A drum thumped at the council lodge, and the rangy warrior standing by But-lah swung a staff, striking him so hard across the back that the blow was audible even over the drone of the crowd. And with that blow, which would have felled an ordinary man, the prisoner bellowed, sprang forward, and came bounding up the line with such speed that most of the blows aimed at him missed, and many barely managed to flick his back and shoulders as he shot past. When But-lah, now looking as large as a horse, loomed abreast of Tecumseh, the boy swung his stick with all his might. In that instant he heard the man’s breath slumping in his wide chest like the breath of a galloping horse, heard the bare feet pelting the ground, saw the strong teeth bared in a grimace and the ferocious blue eyes slicing into everyone ahead.

  Tecumseh’s blow did not miss; it connected with But-lah’s right arm so smartly that the stick split and stung Tecumseh’s palm. And then the boy was standing there with his heart pounding, watching as the man sped on through the storm of whistling switches, his powerful buttocks and haunches pumping, crisscrossed with welts.

  A few paces farther along the line something happened with such quick violence that Tecumseh could hardly perceive it. A zealous warrior had stepped out between the ranks with upraised club. He and the white man collided somehow. In the next instant the warrior’s senseless body thumped to the ground. A moment later But-lah himself was collapsing under a barrage of blows, and soon his blood-streaked whiteness was lost to sight under the swarm of people who were beating him. Tecumseh remembered the time when the young prisoner who was now Blue Jacket had collapsed and lain under such a punishment and Tecumseh himself had gone blank in the passion of whipping that white skin. The memory, which he had seldom thought of in the years since, troubled him, made him feel a little queasy.

  And so when But-lah was brought staggering, bleeding, and gasping back up the line to start the gauntlet all over again, Tecumseh did not like the sight of the bloody white skin. And when the white man ran past a second time, still fast and powerful but less steady, Tecumseh swung halfheartedly at him and was not disappointed that he missed.

  But-lah never made it to the council lodge. On this second run he whooped, veered, and crashed through o
ne of the lines, bowling over a woman. But another woman turned and felled him outside the line with a hard blow of a hickory staff. And then the crowd converged on him again, and this time they beat him unconscious and kept beating on him for a long time afterward, as if afraid he might yet rise up.

  The great white warrior and horse thief had finally been subdued, and Shawnee women had done it. It was a time for great merriment. But Tecumseh had drawn into himself, feeling a strange shame, an unworthiness. He wanted to be away from the people and stop hearing what they were saying. He wondered if there might be something wrong with him, that he did not rejoice in the enemy’s humiliation and pain. All his life his mother had talked to him about being kind and merciful to people.

  But that, he had always understood, meant his own people. Surely not the enemy, an awful enemy like the Long Knives.

  The battered prisoner was dragged unconscious to a lodge where, under guard, he would be doctored and fed and kept alive until Black Fish and the other chiefs came home and decided his fate.

  WHEN BLACK FISH RODE INTO CHILLICOTHE UNDER A LEAD-gray sky a few days later, it was not a triumphant return. His huge Shawnee force had failed again to capture Boone’s Fort, even with a two-week siege. Thirty-seven warriors had died by the marksmanship of Boone’s defenders; everyone in Chillicothe had at least one relative to mourn. Many came home wounded, including Chiksika. Black Fish had been blaming the British, who still had not brought cannons. The failure had been made worse by the word of Clark’s victories in the Missi-se-pe and Wabash-se-pe valleys. Black Fish was in a dark, tormented mood.

  And so when he was told of the capture of the white giant But-lah, a vicious glitter appeared in his eyes, and it was evident that the lone white horse thief But-lah was not going to find a merciful heart in the head chief of the Shawnees. On the contrary, this prisoner seemed certain to become the outlet for all the pent-up fury and frustration that now boiled in Black Fish’s soul. Black Fish wasted no time. Since so many of the nation’s war chiefs and subchiefs were already present, he called for a council to settle But-lah’s fate. It would be held as soon as the great mourning for the thirty-seven warriors had been done.

  When that day came, the huge council house was filled with chiefs and warriors, hundreds of them. But-lah, still naked, tied up, his body a mass of healing wounds, was led out of the lodge and toward the council house by a rope halter. People spat on him as he went. Almost every inch of his body was marked by welts and bruises, but he was still the strongest-looking man they had ever seen, and he still walked unbowed and looked unafraid as he went in. Tecumseh watched him with awe and hatred, then crowded into a place by the door to watch. He saw Chiksika sitting inside, a bloody bandage on the side of his neck.

  The council opened. Several chiefs spoke at length, praising the trackers for catching But-lah and recommending that he be burned to death. Almost all agreed, and he was painted black, the symbol of death. Then Black Fish made his recommendations. But-lah should be killed, but not yet. Black Fish said:

  “He should be taken from village to village and shown. He should be made to run the gauntlet in every town. In every town there are parents and mates and children of our dead warriors. They should all whip him for their grief. Let this horse stealer, who was too bold, take the punishment for Boone and all the whitefaces in Kain-tuck-ee!

  “If he dies in the gauntlets, that will be well enough. But if he lives through them, let him be taken at last to Wapatomica Town, in the heart of our country, where all the people can go easily to see him burned! That is what should come of this man! This friend of Boone! This horse stealer who came here and troubled our women and children!”

  THAT NIGHT TECUMSEH SAT BY THE FIRE AND WATCHED HIS mother work silently and gloomily at her duties. Chiksika had come to eat a little, but then with a fever from the wound in his neck he had gone away to his own little lodge by the river, to rest without children around. Star Watcher had gone with him, to clean his wound and make a new poultice for it. Perhaps then she would go by the wigewa of the family of Stands Firm and offer them condolence upon the death of one of their cousins, one of the thirty-seven who had not returned from Kain-tuck-ee. Above all she wanted to be near Stands Firm.

  Turtle Mother’s face seemed to have grown slack and heavy and sagged at the jowls. She muttered as she worked. “War has made Chiksika hard. Did you see? He cared not about his little brother’s lost eye. But then he has never cared for the little one.”

  “Perhaps he is too troubled because so many friends died.”

  She answered without looking up. “The whitefaces have laid a curse over all our country. They have made the people bad.” She worked for a while longer in silence. Then, perhaps feeling Tecumseh’s intense stare on the top of her head, she looked up at him and said, “This big man they have condemned to burn. Do you, my son, believe a man should suffer so much?”

  Tecumseh hesitated, not quite sure what he really did believe. It was hard to think that Black Fish and all the other great men in council could be wrong or unfair. But then Tecumseh’s feelings of the last few days returned, and he slowly shook his head.

  “To burn men is bad,” his mother said. “But cruel times make good people cruel.” She sighed, then set her mouth hard and looked at the fire, and the fire glinted in her angry eyes. “This white man chose the wrong season to come here and steal horses. He should have stayed out of our country. Too bad for him. But will torturing and burning him keep more from coming? It would be foolish to hope so.”

  A piece of rabbit flesh fell into the fire and began sizzling and flaring. She watched it burn. “Wapanzo-ah, cut-ta-ho-tha,” she murmured. “Rabbit, you are condemned to burn up.” She sneered and snorted a laugh through her nose. Then she sighed again.

  “We should leave this bad country,” she said.

  10

  CHILLICOTHE TOWN

  March 19, 1779

  TURTLE MOTHER STOOD IN MUD BESIDE A LOADED PACKHORSE in a long line of packhorses and people and looked at her children for what she knew might be the last time. They stood forlorn in the muddy street before her, in front of the wigewa that had been their home for more than four years, and her tears blurred their faces. In the days since the terrible decision had been made, her heart had hurt so much that she had hoped it would kill her or grow numb, as other wounds do. But it had not, and she knew it never would. This was the saddest day she had ever lived; it was even more terrible in a way than the time of her husband’s death, because then she had been able to draw some consolation from her children and from the Shawnee people. Now neither could console her. For her children would no longer be with her, and the rest of the People, if they could still be called a people, were inconsolable themselves.

  Never since the Beginning, when Our Grandmother and Rounded-Side had created the septs and brought them together as a nation, never during all the nation’s persecutions and migrations, had anyone dreamed that the nation could be divided or defeated by anyone, not even by the Iroquois or the white men. The Shawnee nation had remained strong enough to endure, simply because of its oneness. Sometimes the parts of the tribe had migrated different ways and lived in places far from each other, but the oneness had not been destroyed. And any Shawnee person had remained strong enough to endure, simply because of his or her inclusion in that oneness.

  But the white man’s curse on the Shawnee country had at last penetrated and split even that oneness. The nation had separated along that split line, and on this terrible day the broken parts were moving away from each other. Four thousand warriors and women, children, and old people milled among the laden packhorses, their hearts as chilled and dismal as the mud around their feet, and waited for the column to begin moving west, leaving their own lands forever. Most faces were blank. The breakdown of the nation had left many of the people too stunned to think or to talk of anything but the small details of packing and moving. But from every house came sounds of misery.

  This split passed t
hrough not only the nation, but through the septs and even through families. Twelve hundred residents of Chillicothe were leaving, but not all the Chalagawthas. Twenty-eight hundred people from the other four septs were going west, but some members of each sept—Kispokos, Thawegilas, Peckuwes, and Maykujays—were staying. Every Shawnee adult was free to choose according to the wisdom of the heart, and each had made the choice: whether to stay in the O-hi-o homelands and contend with the problem of the white people or to go west of the Missi-se-pe and help build a new homeland. Over beyond the Great River the Spanish governor had granted them a parcel of land to settle on, in the land near the Missourias. It was not a very large parcel of land, and no one even looked forward with joy to going there. They were not going to something, they were fleeing from something. A trader named Loramie had made the arrangements and would lead them there, those who had chosen to go.

  Turtle Mother, bitter, heart-weary of the whiteface threat, had elected to go with the Kispoko sept of her husband. A large part of the Kispoko had voted to leave, along with most of the Peckuwes and the Thawegilas.

  But Chiksika had vowed to stay with his foster father Black Fish and resist the whitefaces. Star Watcher would stay also. She was twenty-one years of age and would marry Stands Firm, who like Chiksika had sworn to fight the Long Knives as long as he drew breath.