Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  This image, the frightened eyes in the blanched face, and the ridiculous patches of dark hair on the pallid body, began to work its way through the rambunctious mood of the warriors. This was a white man, maybe even one belonging to the hated Clark who had destroyed their homes once and again. This was a white man who had not only come down the river bringing weapons—weapons no doubt for the killing of red men—but had had the arrogance to land and make a camp on the Shawnee side of the river and build a fire here to cook his disgusting pig meat. He was a symbol of all the things that had hurt and killed and insulted the proud Shawnees for so many, many seasons, and here he was, helpless in their hands and afraid.

  The warriors began to go over and visit him one by one. Stands Firm spat in his face, croaking in Shawnee through his bruised throat: “Here is a taste of your spirit water.”

  The next tugged down his loincloth and urinated on the white man’s feet, saying, “Here is more of your spirit water.” Most of the others were gathering around now.

  Then Chiksika stepped up to the prisoner. He pointed at the patch of hair around the white man’s genitals and said, “One should not let hair grow on the passah-tih.” Then he clutched a handful of the hair and, with a powerful yank, pulled most of it out. The white man yelped so loudly that his echo came back from across the dark river. And this cry of pain inflamed the contempt of the warriors. The next one stood in front of the captive and drew out his knife. It was a thin-bladed skinning knife, rusty, only its cutting edge shiny from whetting. The warrior held the blade before the white man’s eyes and smiled, while reaching down and taking hold of the man’s testicles. The prisoner began to moan, tossing his head and rolling his eyes, and only then did Tecumseh, on the far side of the fire still trying not to become sick from the liquor in him, become aware of what was happening. He came around to see what was causing these pathetic pleadings.

  The warrior with the knife said, “Let us see if these blow up like gunpowder in the fire!” And with a swift motion he brought down the knife and severed the scrotum from the man’s body. His exultant whoop and the prisoner’s agonized scream were simultaneous and sounded like one wild animal. The warrior spun away and hurled the bloody handful into the bonfire, then, turning an expression of mock disappointment on the shrieking, gasping prisoner, exclaimed: “Oh! They did not blow up! Had they no power? Too bad!”

  The warriors, most of them, laughed and howled at this joke, and they were excited by the prospect of making this white man feel still more pain for the sins of his race. Tecumseh and Thick Water stood nearby, the two boys among these men, and they were not rejoicing. Thick Water’s face was in a grimace; he was inhaling through clenched teeth in empathy with the prisoner’s pain, probably because he was more sober than the others. Tecumseh was stunned, too, but his feelings were complex. The dark blood running down the insides of the prisoner’s white thighs brought back that vague feeling of shame he had experienced at the gauntlets. And in the back of his mind were many old teachings of Star Watcher, who had always said it was unworthy of a good Shawnee to inflict pain unnecessarily or to hurt any helpless creature. And his father, and Black Fish, and Black Hoof, too, had said that a brave man, even an enemy, should never be reduced to humility. But these warriors were men, and Tecumseh was only a boy. They had been in many battles, and he had fought only in this one. His own brother Chiksika, their leader, was allowing this to happen; how could Tecumseh dare to object? Maybe this was the true way of war; maybe the noble and humane things the chiefs taught were only ideals to be told to boys. But Tecumseh was not dizzy from the rum anymore. The cruelties being done by his brother warriors had shocked him and cleared his head, and all that remained of the rum was an ache in his skull and an evil taste in his mouth.

  Now the warriors had begun clamoring around the prisoner. He had not fainted from the pain, and his wailings had dwindled to gasps and whimpers, and the warriors were not satisfied. One was yelling:

  “He is no good for anything now! Burn him! Ha, haaaa!”

  “Burn this pale dog! Yes!”

  “He should not have come here! He came to burn!”

  Tecumseh and Thick Water hung back and watched. For a while the quiet of the night was broken only by the sounds of frogs and owls and whippoorwills, and the moans of the bleeding prisoner, and the voices of the warriors and the cracking of wood as they gathered driftwood to pile around the willow trunk where the prisoner was tied. They piled it in a circle around his feet and as high as his knees. Then each warrior took a long pole and thrust one end of it into the sinking bonfire and held it there until the end was burning. They were hooting and yipping in anticipation. The prisoner had stopped moaning, and now he held his head up and began talking to the sky. Thick Water leaned close to Tecumseh and said:

  “He prays, I think. Why did I not just choke him to death while I was doing it?” He wiped his palms down over his face and shuddered. “Young brother,” he said to Tecumseh, his pained eyes darting to him, “do you like this?”

  “No. I do not believe in this. I will never have a part in this. I wish they would stop.”

  The warriors picked their long poles out of the bonfire and carried them to the place where the prisoner was praying. They whipped the poles through the air until the burning tips were glowing bright. Then they began poking him with them, pressing the burning ends against his skin in the places where they thought they would hurt him most. Several jabbed him in the groin, and one teased the tip of his penis with his smoking brand. The white man’s screams again echoed over the river, one pulsating scream after another, and he thrashed in vain against his bonds. A warrior jabbed his stick into the screaming mouth. Another carefully seared off some of the prisoner’s beard and then tried to singe off his eyebrows, but the man’s head was jerking too violently. Still another Shawnee went around behind him and stabbed into his anus. Now the man was thrashing as if in a fit, and his screeches sounded as if they would tear his throat out. Tecumseh could smell the burning hair and scorching flesh now, and he turned away, swallowing hard, teeth clenched, fists clenched, and looked out over the darkness of the serene river. Behind him Thick Water was beginning to retch.

  Suddenly the screams broke off and the praying started again. The warriors yipped and jabbed and tried to make him start screaming again. One screamed at him, “Just so, the Jesus Indians prayed to the same God while you killed them! Just so! Just so!”

  They could not make him scream anymore; apparently he was in such total pain now that no single point of pain even came through to him.

  And so now the warriors whipped their smoldering staffs into flame again and put them into the circle of kindling on the ground around him. It caught and went up quickly, with a crackling rush, its light brightening the whole beach and bluff. Tecumseh turned and looked. In the center of the conflagration he could see the skin of the victim’s torso and shoulders bubbling and blistering, the hair and eyebrows smoking and vanishing, the mouth a hideous dark hole, wide open in a now voiceless scream or prayer, the head and body still jerking. And then it sagged and moved no more. The flames dwindled.

  Something enormous was shrieking through Tecumseh’s soul, in the silence where the victim’s screams had been, a great storm of outrage and revulsion. He saw the ring of crumbling yellow-red embers and the scorched, blackened, smoking corpse hanging slumped from the willow trunk, the skin of the lower body crisped up in black flakes, and the evil, stupid expressions on the faces of the torturers, and he could no longer contain what was roaring through his soul.

  He broke the stillness suddenly with an ear-splitting howl of anguish and fury, startling the warriors out of the stupor of their satiated cruelty. Chiksika turned, wide-eyed, as Tecumseh stalked over and stopped near them. The boy’s eyes were afire, and his chest was heaving as he looked each of them in the face and pointed at each one.

  “You,” he cried. “You! You! And you! Are you creatures of Matchemoneto? Our Grandmother would not have made you wh
o do this!”

  Astonished, they stiffened and stared at him, at this boy. He pointed at the charred corpse.

  “Look at that! Then you should look at the ground and never raise your eyes again!”

  “Brother …” Chiksika tried to interrupt Tecumseh for his own good; he moved toward him with his hand outstretched. But Tecumseh shoved past him and stood between the warriors and the corpse and pointed his finger at them, in a sweeping motion back and forth that included them all.

  “Look at this disgrace you have made! I did not have any hand in this, yet my heart is stained with shame because I stood back and did not try to stop you! I am ashamed that I was here as it was done, ashamed that it was done by people of my own blood I am ashamed that my own brother and my sister’s husband did this! I say look at what you have done, and never again look up!”

  Some of them were muttering drunkenly and scowling at Tecumseh with eyes red-rimmed from heat and smoke and rum. The eyes of some were wavering.

  “Our chief Black Hoof says do not burn prisoners!” Tecumseh cried. “Black Fish said do not torture anyone who is helpless. Do you forget their words?”

  “You, boy,” growled one of the warriors, “this man was our enemy—”

  “You,” Chiksika snapped, raising his hand toward the warrior. “Close your mouth and hear him.”

  “Oh, yes, this man was an enemy,” Tecumseh exclaimed. “We kill our enemy to keep him from killing our People. I killed four of them today to keep them from killing us, and I helped my brother to kill another. No one of you did so much today to protect us.

  “But can our enemy harm us when he is naked and tied to a tree? Were you so afraid of this white man, even as he hung there crying and unable to move, that you had to kill him to protect yourselves? Are you such cowards as that?

  “Listen! Listen!

  “It is true I am only a boy yet. And you can say, This boy knows nothing, I do not have to listen to this boy. No, you do not have to heed what I say, but I have to say it or my heart will burst, and it is this:

  “Never will I do such a low thing as you have done, Weshemoneto hears my vow. This too I vow:

  “Anyone who does this disgrace upon a helpless man from this day on will cease to be my friend or my brother. I will not again stand still and let anyone stain my heart as you have stained it tonight by this cowardice. Someday you might need me, when I am a man. But if ever again you do this, I will turn my back on you forever, and never give you my hand unless it is to strike you! That is what I have to say.” He stood now breathing hard, looking from one to another of them with contempt in his face, his eyes both fierce and glimmering with tears. Perhaps he had said too much; he was only a boy.

  But the warriors were not staring back at him now, not one of them; they were not challenging him with their eyes. Most were blinking and looking at the ground as he had told them to do. The hush of the river and the wind and the voices of the night creatures were all the noise in the black night around this little firelit circle. The wind chilled the sweat on Tecumseh’s gleaming skin. His nostrils were full of the smells of rum and river mud, buds and flowers of spring, woodsmoke and burned manflesh and singed hair.

  No one moved or spoke for a long time, until Chiksika at last came and stood beside Tecumseh, and he said to the warriors:

  “Something has happened that will never be forgotten by our People. One who is a boy in years has proven himself a man in bravery and an elder in wisdom.

  “Did you see him? Do you know of anyone of this age in the memory of our People who fought with such quickness and strength that he killed four strong men in moments?

  “And did you hear him? What he said was true. He blew the mist of the rum from my eyes so that I can see. Oh! Sometimes I am blind in my hatred. When I hurt that white man whose hands were tied back, I was blind. When you cut him and burned him, you were blind. The Long Knives have struck the spark of hatred in us, and they have fanned it again and again, and it is no wonder we have been blinded by its burning. But the law of our People is Weshecat-welo k’weshe laweh-pah, let us be strong by doing good!

  “When I look at the burnt meat of that white man, though my vengeance is satisfied, I do not feel that I have done good. I have helped burn our enemies before, in the passion of vengeance, but when the sun came up again and I saw what we did, I did not feel like a worthy man. I do not feel like a worthy man now, as I look upon this man we destroyed.

  “But, my brothers, the mist is gone from my eyes. Now I add my vow to that which Tecumseh has spoken: Never will I do this again. If Weshemoneto gives me power enough and years enough, I will kill white men as long as they come to our land. You know I have sworn to kill a hundred for the death of my father, and a hundred more for each time Chillicothe was destroyed, and a hundred for the Jesus Indians. Yes! I will kill them until I can no longer lift my hand! But never again like this.

  “I remind you that my brother was born when the green Eye of the leaping Panther crossed the sky of the night. I myself saw it. I have long known that this boy beside me will be the greatest of us all, and now I see that already he is. Always when he asks me to teach him something, I learn more from his questions than I understood before. This is not the first time my brother has blown the smoke from my eyes. Perhaps it is the first time he has done so for you. So I say this: When he is a man in years, we will need him. When that time comes, I will not want him to walk away from me. And so I add my vow to his. I will not do this evil thing again. Weshecat-welo k’weshe laweh-pah!”

  “Weshecat-welo k’weshe laweh-pah,” some of the warriors responded.

  Then Stands Firm came and stood beside them. “Tecumseh is my brother, for I have been favored as the husband of Star Watcher, the best of women. Her kindness I see in him also. This boy is gentle and good not because he is weak or timid. When I was of his age, bold though I was, I would not have been bold enough to speak before men as he has just spoken to us. Nor wise enough to speak so true about this thing. He has made me see, and he has made me feel shame. What we have done was not good for the People. And so I too add my vow to his. I will not do this evil anymore. That is what I have to say.”

  The other six warriors one by one then murmured their vows and turned their backs on what they had done. They were now as sober as they had ever been in their lives. Then Thick Water, eyes brimming, full of pride for his friend, came forth. He was scared about speaking before all of these warriors. But he said:

  “I have never done it, and I never will.” Then he cast an almost worshipful glance at Tecumseh and met his eyes. “That is my promise, brother, for I will always want your friendship!”

  17

  KEKIONGA TOWN

  October 1786

  NOW HE WAS A WARRIOR, NOT JUST A BOY THROWN INTO A band for a desperate ambush or a plundering raid, but a warrior with a name for bravery, of warrior age at last and riding with chieftains at the head of a long column of Shawnee warriors, hundreds of warriors, going to join a great war chief to attack the hated army of Clark himself. This, he felt, was what he had been born for; at last he seemed to be under the guidance of his star sign, and his heart was a war drum. Chiksika was beside him on one side and Blue Jacket on the other, young Thick Water and old Black Snake behind. And ahead on the trodden path beneath the yellowing maples and sycamores was Kekionga Town, the place of Michi-kini-qua, Little Turtle, principal chief of the Miamis, whom they were going to join. The night had been cold, and the air was fresh and bracing, the sky clearest blue. Tecumseh was eighteen summers of age now and feared no weaknesses in himself, and he was eager to do this worthy cause.

  Here in the Miamis’ country the land lay different, and Tecumseh could sense the difference. In all the Shawnee lands the rivers ran southward into the Beautiful River. Now the war party had crossed the high land, and here the rivers flowed northward into the Great Lakes or westward toward the Wabash-se-pe. While the Shawnees had struggled for many years to keep the whites from coming up from
the Beautiful River, the Miamis had had peace and trade with the Canadians. Only recently, after Clark arrived in the west, had the Miamis and their allied tribes been forced into conflict with the Long Knives. Now, after six years of conflict, Little Turtle had formed a confederation of twenty hundred Miamis, Weas, and Piankeshaws, and the worried Long Knives had called on their famed war chief Clark to lead an army against the confederation. Learning of this oncoming army, Little Turtle had invited the Shawnees to join him in a war to stop it, and Blue Jacket, now the chief of the Maykujay Shawnees, had accepted eagerly. Many tribes that had been separate for years were now beginning to join together because they could feel the ring the Americans were tightening around them.

  And although the British had been beaten in their war with the Americans, they were still in Detroit, and still had trading posts in the Great Lakes region, and still encouraged the tribes to resist the Long Knives. Everyone knew the Long Knives coveted Canada, too, and none of the tribes wanted the Americans to close the ring around them in the north.

  When Old Moluntha had stepped down as chief of the Maykujay sept because of his great age and failing vision, he had favored Blue Jacket to succeed him because of Blue Jacket’s insight into the minds of the white men. Blue Jacket could understand what the Americans were doing in the east and could explain how those actions affected the red men in the Middle Ground. Now he was talking about these things as they rode toward Little Turtle’s town.

  “In the three years since they threw the king of England on his back, the Thirteen Fires have been giving land to their soldiers as their reward. And it has been as Black Hoof told us it would be: the land they give is the land Clark drove us out of.

  “To give land, the white men have to have markings that prove it is theirs to give. So they called some chiefs of the Ottawa, Ojibway, Wyandot, and Delaware nations to a treaty council, and persuaded them with rum and strong talk to mark away lands to the Thirteen Fires. It was easy for those chiefs to say, ‘Take it,’ because their people did not live on it. We, the Shawnees and Miamis and Mingos, lived on it! That is why the Long Knives did not invite Shawnee and Miamis and Mingos to the treaty. Do you see? They are cunning that way.”