Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Tecumseh’s choice to stay had most rent Turtle Mother’s heart and his own. There had been long, sorrowful talks in their house over the night fires. He had spent days talking with the old grandfathers about what he should do. At last he had come to his mother and said, “I have the sign. I must stay and serve the People.”

  “But we who go are the People as well. Perhaps you are meant to help the People make a new homeland.”

  “Mat-tah, no,” he said. “I was given a promise to keep by my father, and that is not what he wanted me to do.”

  Loud Noise, who idolized Tecumseh and who had come to depend upon Star Watcher as much as his mother for pampering and comfort, had whined that he did not want to go away. The other two triplets had wanted nothing but for the family to stay here together as it had always been in their memory.

  Finally it had come out this way, that the children would all remain together here, foster children of the Chalagawthas, in this familiar land where the Shawnees were accustomed to making a living and getting food, instead of uprooting to that unknown new place beyond the Missi-se-pe.

  Out there, for all anyone knew, the migrating Shawnees might starve and sicken with new diseases before they learned to survive. A move to a new land customarily was made only after long study of sites by the shamans, who would note the plants and the animal populations, the quality of the soil and water and the winds, and make a careful divination of the spirits attendant upon those sites. Though the Shawnees had lived almost everywhere on the land between the Eastern Sea and the Mother of Rivers, they had not moved, like this, without preparation. Who even knew how their strains of seeds would grow on that side of the Missi-se-pe?

  So now Turtle Mother was parting from everything good in her life. It was not an ordinary thing to do, this splitting of families, but it could not be seen in the way of usual things because never had the Shawnee nation broken apart before, and now there were no usual things, there was just this, which was like the ending of their world. It was as if Kokomthena had finished weaving her seine, and her little dog had failed to unravel it.

  There had been many big councils in all the Shawnee towns about this, all through last fall and winter. Chiefs and warriors and women had spoken eloquently about what should be done. The young warriors had snarled and shouted of their hatred for whitefaces. The old men had spoken sadly of the futility of fighting a race of men who poured over the mountains and down the river in growing numbers from some inexhaustible source in the east, especially now that the Long Knife chief Clark had taken control from the British.

  Some women had cried that they wanted to lose no more of their sons in useless wars against the white men’s forts, while other women had cried that the lives of their lost sons and husbands must be avenged in an unending fight here in the homeland.

  News of the war between the British and the Long Knives in the east would sometimes come to these councils, but it was hard to interpret what it might mean for the Shawnee destiny. If the soldier chief called Washington had defeated the British somewhere, the councils would tend to be gloomy. If the British won a battle, the councilors might hope that the flood of American white men might yet somehow be stopped. Once in the winter there had been a joyful report that the British chief Hamilton from Detroit had gathered several hundred Redcoat soldiers and Lakes Indians and had recaptured Vincennes on the Wabash-se-pe from the Long Knives, and that he was calling on all the tribes to join a war council in the spring and make plans together to drive all the Long Knives back over the mountains for good. For a while the councilors had hoped that this might indeed end their troubles with the whites, and those who had wanted to stay and fight had rejoiced at the news.

  Thus these councils had gone on and on through the winter, with the two factions forming, with hopes rising and falling and then rising again, and might have gone on for years more without any resolution. But only a few days ago some more stunning bad news had come from the Wabash-se-pe, news that made the discouraged ones feel fully hopeless and the angry ones even more desperate to fight.

  The Long Knife chief named Clark, instead of running away from the British chief Hamilton, had made another of his surprises. He had crossed the Illinois lands in winter flood time and recaptured not only the fort at Vincennes but also the British father Hamilton himself and all his soldiers and cannons.

  “What is the use now?” cried the old men in the councils. “How can we keep fighting the Long Knives when they are all the way around us and the British can no longer help us? Look what the other tribes are doing. Some are leaving. Others have been going to see this Clark and offer him the pipe of peace. Are we the Shawnees the only people stubborn and blind enough to keep resisting an enemy who does such things? Are we so foolish that we will sit here in the middle and wait for him to fall upon our towns with his cannons, and shatter our homes, and turn our women into carrion for the vultures?”

  And by crying these questions they had at last made it necessary to decide.

  And so the nation had divided itself, and the septs had divided themselves, even families had divided themseves.

  So now on this bleak day, that part of the Shawnee nation, four thousand of them with everything they owned, stood in the cold among the steam-breathing packhorses. Their whole history had been one of wandering from place to place; now once again they were going to somewhere unknown, but this time it was worse because they had broken their oneness.

  There were low calls and cries. Men and women were beginning to move, pulling the bridles of the horses. People too old or sick to walk rode with the bags and packs upon the horses’ backs or lying on travois litters behind them; anyone able to walk was on foot. The farewells were muffled and subdued. Many of the people who were staying would not come out of their houses to watch the others go, because they felt they were being betrayed, yet behind their sulking faces their souls were crying of loss and their hearts were like bullet lead.

  Turtle Mother took her lower lip between her teeth and bit hard to make it hurt worse than her heart so that she would not whimper or groan aloud from the heart pain.

  Star Watcher stood with the triplets gathered around her. Chiksika was not here; he was near the front of the column, part of an escort of young warriors who would go along and protect the people until they were safely out of the country controlled by the Long Knives.

  Tecumseh stood near his sister, tall and erect, his coppery face stoical, looking at his mother. They had all agreed to part with dignity and not make themselves weak and miserable by touching or embracing; they had done all that in the privacy of the lodge a while ago. To weep and wail as a loved one went away would make that one’s steps heavy and the way gloomy. They would not do that to their mother. Her journey was going to be hard and dark enough without that. Tecumseh’s heart felt as if it were quaking. He wanted to run to her and bury his face against her warm bosom once more before she turned and went away. Turtle Mother with clenched fists and bitten lip crossed her wrists upon her breast and then stretched her arms toward her family, whose beloved brown faces swam beyond a curtain of tears. Then she turned her back on them and led the horse up the street with the other horses, between the familiar houses of gray bark, past the place where the chiefs Black Fish and Blue Jacket and Moluntha stood watching the departure. As Turtle Mother trudged by them, Black Fish put his fist over his heart and looked at her with a glitter in his black eyes. Beside Black Fish was Black Snake, her husband’s friend and successor, who had now given up his role as chief of the Kispokos to stay and fight the Long Knives. Black Snake raised his head and clenched his jaw to acknowledge her passing, and she nodded. Then she let her gaze fall to the ground. It had been a winter of almost constant snow, sleet, and cold rain, and the ground was saturated and the rivers high. Turtle Mother trudged along with her head down and watched the horses’ hooves step down, squeezing water out of the grass, then rise up, dribbling mud, then step down, disturbing a puddle, then rise up again dripping and step d
own again and rise up from the mud with a sucking sound, and the hooves of her horse left prints among thousands of other prints slowly filling with muddy water, all leading toward the west.

  After a while she raised her head and looked back toward the place where her children had been standing.

  All she could see now were more packhorses and people coming along, their hooves and feet squishing the sodden earth of what had been their homeland.

  11

  CHILLICOTHE TOWN

  July 10, 1779

  TECUMSEH WOKE UP NEEDING TO MAKE WATER AND SLIPPED naked out of the wigewa into the warm summer night air to do it. He saw the slightest paling of the morning sky in the east. The town, now with so many empty houses, seemed a forlorn place. Everything had been strange and sorrowful all spring and summer, usually the happiest seasons for a Shawnee boy. He kept remembering his mother going away in the gray weather. When he went back into the wigewa to lie back down, a figure stirred under a blanket beyond the fire-ring. It had always been his mother who had slept in that place. Now it was Star Watcher. He sighed. Then he turned onto his side and tried to go back to sleep for a little while. But he could not, for But-lah had entered his mind, and now he began worrying about But-lah.

  But-lah had escaped. It was a wonder that he was still alive, but he had escaped.

  But-lah had not been executed after all. After surviving the gauntlet in a dozen Shawnee towns, he had been taken to Detroit instead of being burned at Wapatomica, and the British had kept him—for as long as they could. Just days ago the news had come to Chillicothe that But-lah had escaped from Detroit.

  It was unsettling news. But-lah was one of the few Long Knives who knew exactly where Chillicothe and all the other major Shawnee towns were. Having been taken from one to another of them, he was surely capable of leading a Long Knife army to any Shawnee town.

  The towns were weak now, since the division of the nation. Most of Chillicothe’s houses had stood empty since then. Chillicothe had been left with only about a hundred warriors who were well and able. And now most of those, Chiksika among them, had gone away to a council in another village. In Chillicothe now there were only about three dozen young men and boys, and some old men, who could help defend the town in case of trouble. Black Fish was here, having been ill, and the chieftain Red Pole was here also. That was all. The rest of the people in the nearly deserted town were women and children. Chillicothe lay almost helpless. It would be terrible if white soldiers came.

  Tecumseh was lying awake listening to the first peeps of morning birds and worrying about such trouble when he heard a distant cry:

  “Puck-a-chee, danger!”

  Then almost at once there were deep-voiced shouts east of the village and a sputter of faraway gunshots, then more yelling and more shots and the whinnying of horses. Tecumseh leaped up and put on his loincloth and reached to shake Star Watcher’s foot and wake her. She was already rising and pulling on a dress, listening to the banging gunfire. Just then someone ran by in the half-light outside, crying:

  “Up! Up! Get up! Long Knives are here!”

  Immediately then the town was full of yelling and screaming. In the east part of town there was much more gunfire. It had grown to a storm of noise. Tecumseh, helping his sister rouse the sleeping children, heard a bullet whack against the roof of the wigewa, and fragments of bark rained down in the darkness.

  Now from the center of town, Black Fish’s resonant voice was bellowing:

  “Pe-eh-wah! Pe-eh-wah! To the council house! Women! Take the children to the council house!” His voice could be heard anywhere in the sprawling town, even over the gunfire that was banging in the east and southeast quarters. Tecumseh was terribly frightened and was angry with himself for his terrible haste and clumsiness. He did not believe he was as brave as he was supposed to be. He dropped his bow twice and had to grope for it. But when Loud Noise awoke enough to begin howling in terror, Tecumseh had to try to be brave, to calm and control his little brother, to help Star Watcher. He was uncertain whether he would be expected to go out and help fight the Long Knives or go with the children to the council house. Maybe only those with guns would go out against the attackers, and he did not have a gun yet, although Chiksika had been teaching him to shoot one and had promised to bring one back to him from the council.

  “Hurry!” Star Watcher cried to him. “Help me bring your little brothers!” The triplets were bewildered, having been awakened to such terror, and were stumbling around and whimpering like four-year-olds. Loud Noise in particular was bawling and bumping into everyone, worse than helpless. Tecumseh grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward the door, following Star Watcher, who had just rushed out leading the other two boys, one by each hand. Loud Noise, who would usually do anything Tecumseh urged him to do, now balked at leaving the wigewa and going out into the noisy outdoors. He shrieked and tugged. Tecumseh had to yank him out the door, and then to keep him moving along the street he had to jerk his arm with every step. Naked women and children were running, crying, among the houses, stampeding toward the council lodge in the dim gray morning twilight.

  Black Fish was outside his lodge near the council house, shouting to the warriors who were gathering around him. With him was Red Pole, the chieftain. Black Fish had been very ill, but that did not diminish the power of his voice. Not knowing whether the town was surrounded, he was directing the women and children into the refuge of the council house, which was built of tree trunks thick enough to stop bullets and had small ventilation holes in the walls through which guns could be fired out.

  “Now, come!” Black Fish cried to his warriors. “The whitefaces at last have come out of their forts, and we can get them!”

  This was the right thing to say. The warriors gave the tremolo cry, and Black Fish led them at a run toward the uproar of shooting and shouting.

  Tecumseh shoved Loud Noise in among the people who were crowding into the big building, then turned and ran after the warriors.

  And then he saw the fires.

  In the direction of the shooting there was a yellow glow against the dark woods below the dawning sky. Smoke, yellowed by the flames, boiled up. The warriors screamed in their rage as they ran: the Long Knives were setting fire to the edge of the town.

  Now the warriors spread out and began moving at a crouch toward the fires, their weapons ready. Tecumseh drew an arrow and, heart pounding, darted among bark huts, trying to stay near Black Fish and watching for the shouting Long Knife soldiers. He was listening for two particular voices: But-lah’s and Boone’s. He expected to hear those two and was sure he would recognize them. But he did not hear them yet. Now he had reached a place close enough that he could see a few of the soldiers moving in the distant fireglow between houses. Some of them were on foot, some on horseback. They wore long, pale-colored hunting shirts and strange hats. The noise of their yelling told him there were many, perhaps hundreds. There were enough surely to sweep through the weakened town and kill everybody, burn every building. Surely they could just ride their horses straight through the town and set fire to the grand council lodge with all the helpless people in it. Surely Black Fish and his three dozen men and boys could not keep them from it.

  Tecumseh saw several warriors nearby aim their guns and fire. Powder flashed and acrid smoke billowed. Black Fish was yelling at them to be strong and fight hard to protect the People. He knew they would fight with their greatest courage now because they were trying to save their own wives and children and sisters and grandparents. They fired their guns and reloaded, shouting and trilling like demons, sounding like many more than they were, and they kept moving closer and closer to the army of the Long Knives, as if they had no fear of them no matter how many they were. Tecumseh got near Black Fish and followed him toward the fires. He had still seen no good target at this distance for his arrows.

  “Look!” Black Fish roared in exultation. “Ha! They are going back!” Some of the whiteface soldiers actually were turning and running aw
ay beyond the burning huts, running from these few screaming, shooting Shawnees, and Tecumseh for the first time felt exultation instead of fear. Black Fish was howling in fury and triumph, “Make them run back! Kill them! Be—”

  His voice was broken by a strange grunt, and Tecumseh glanced aside and saw Black Fish’s leg collapse under him. The chief toppled sideways with his eyes squeezed shut in pain and his teeth bared in a grimace, dropping his musket and clutching at his hip with both hands. Tecumseh was so stunned by this that he forgot about his readied weapon, even about the burning houses and the soldiers. He stood for a moment watching his foster father fall to the ground like a great tree, falling sideways it seemed for a long time before he was on the ground. It was one of those strange and awful moments, like the time when he had felt the earth shake; it was terrible enough to see his great chief and teacher fall in pain; it was even more terrible because for a moment the falling man seemed to be not only Black Fish but Tecumseh himself!

  Tecumseh knelt at Black Fish’s side, and other warriors had come to him, too, their faces in the fire-tinged dawn full of anguish and doubt. The shooting and yelling went on everywhere, and the air was thick with smoke. A few yards away a dry-bark wigewa, roaring with bright orange flames, caved in, sending up a high swirl of sparks.

  Black Fish had been shot in the hip socket. He could not move his leg. A sheen of sweat covered his contorted face, and though his mouth was working he could not yet make a voice because of the pain. It was a frightful wound. Black Fish had several bullet scars on his body, but never before had a wound hurt so much that he had grown faint.

  When at last he could say something, it was, “Bring Red Pole.”

  And then he let out a long breath and went unconscious.