Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  And news came that far away in the eastern sea, some British warships had shot their cannons at an American warship. There was much talk then of a new war between the two white nations. Such a war would mean, of course, more solicitous attention from the British, perhaps provisions, too. Maybe even the Americans would be more careful in their actions, so as not to drive the tribes into a war alliance with the British. Always the white nations had used the red men in their wars against each other. This time the red men, wiser in the wiles of the white men’s governments, and more unified than they had ever been, might be able to use a white man’s war to their own advantage.

  In fact, one of the British traders from Canada, a man named Frederick Fisher, was in the village now, seated across from Open Door on a cattail-rush mat, talking in veiled terms about these very matters. A British trader on the prowl in O-hi-o had to be very careful what he said and how he said it in these times. He had to hint at England’s need for red allies in case of war but at the same time not make any overt invitation. England was bogged down in a distant war with Napoleon and could ill afford a conflict on this continent. England’s fur trade with the Indians was depressed by that same war, and thus the old commercial cohesion between British and Indians was eroding. And in the minds of most Algonquian tribes there was also the bitter memory of the battle at Fallen Timbers, where the British commander had shut the gates of Fort Miami in the face of the routed Indians. That being the only battle Open Door had ever fought in, he was particularly bitter and skeptical of any British promises, either straightforward or tentative. Therefore he was, in his present euphoria of self-confidence, making light of both the Americans’ threat and the friendship of the British.

  “You do not know how strong and pure the red men are now, Fisher. We do not fear the Blue-Coats, and we do not need the Redcoats. Ha, ha!” Open Door had blossomed as a man of words and enjoyed exercising his wit in a conversation like this. He could not give way to much levity when talking to his flock; that was always dead serious. So now Open Door smiled slyly, thinking in jokes. That had been a good one about Blue-Coats and Redcoats, he thought.

  Open Door had eaten only vegetables and beans and roots for days, game being so depleted in the vicinity, and his intestines were bubbling in him like a brine kettle. He could feel some of his older sort of eloquence coming down, that particular kind of mocking language he had used to use, back in the days when he was a boy underdog, to get the last word in. So now he stood up slowly, saying as he rose from his mat:

  “Do you know, Fisher, the white man is so little to me now, Long Knives or British, that I can tell you in one word what they all mean to me. Here, Fisher, is that word.”

  Turning to put his ample behind close to Fisher’s face, bending over, biting his lower lip and raising his right foot off the ground, the Shawnee prophet pronounced his singular word.

  The word started as the drumming of a ruffed grouse, increased to the growl of a bear, and then, as its last syllable, finished with the loud, wet sound of a horse blowing its lips. Fisher recoiled, his head enveloped by the fertile scent of the Prophet’s last word, and Open Door skipped about, helplessly carried away by his own cackling hilarity.

  SINCE THE SHAKERS WERE THE ONLY WHITE MEN WHO HAD been permitted to see into all the doings of the Prophet’s village, they were asked by the governor of Ohio to write a report on their sojourn there. Profoundly impressed by the prayers, the sobriety, and the selfless sharing of meager rations in the crowded town, they wrote:

  Surely the Lord is in this place! Although these poor Shawnees have had no particular instruction but what they received from the outpouring of the Spirit, yet in point of real light and understanding, as well as behavior, they shame the Christian World.

  The hearts of the Shakers had been won, and when, a few weeks later, Open Door sent to ask them for more food, the Gentle Believers again ransacked their own larders and granaries and sent another pack train to the hungry Indians.

  Soon thereafter, the Shaker settlement was disturbed by shouts and hoofbeats. The visitors were militia officers. They were slit-eyed and white-lipped with anger, and their language was un-Christian. They charged the Shakers with sustaining “a goddamned Shawnee charlatan” and even accused them of encouraging him in his preparations to make war on the settlers. The Shakers were dumbfounded by the allegations and tried to convince the officers what a good and sober and devout place the Prophet’s town was. “Surely the Lord is in that place,” they insisted.

  The militia officers retorted by threatening to put the Shakers to the sword for treason. And so the Shakers ended their brief association with the Shawnee prophet.

  IN THE SUMMER, TECUMSEH WAS PULLED AWAY FROM HIS duties at the holy town by an incident that threatened to fan the settlers’ fears into another Indian war.

  The decomposing body of a white man named Myers had been found under a congregation of buzzards on a trailside near a new settlement called Urbana on the Mad River. Though most of the skin was gone, those who found the body had perceived in particular that it had no scalp.

  At once the settlers were seething with fury and fear. There was only one explanation, in their opinion: this must have been the work of some of those transient Indians who were forever going to and from the town of the Shawnee charlatan! Surely this was only the beginning of a bloody uprising. The news went like the wind, and within days militia companies were mustering everywhere and standing by for orders, and farm families were moving into the safety of forts and towns.

  For a few days more the situation simmered while Ohio leaders planned some approach that would calm the fears and meet the danger. At last they decided upon a big council, to be conducted by a commission of militia officers, for the purpose of questioning the Indian leaders and producing an Indian to hang. Only this, it seemed, could ease the tension and prevent a panic or a large-scale, indiscriminate retaliation.

  Word was sent to tribes in and around western Ohio to bring their leading men to Springfield, a new settlement in Clark County near the ruins of the old Piqua. Black Hoof at once alleged that Tecumseh’s followers must have killed the man. Tecumseh asked, “Why does no one say it was Black Hoof’s?” The militia general Simon Kenton, who now lived near this town of Springfield, was put in charge of the commission, which comprised Kenton, Colonel Robert Patterson, and three other officers. The council was convened outdoors in an open field near an inn. Old Black Hoof and Blue Jacket arrived with 170 warriors. Tecumseh came with 130. Two parties of Wyandots came, Crane’s and Roundhead’s, and these two watched each other sullenly. It had been agreed in advance that all armed warriors would remain off the council ground, each faction to one side, and the white spectators on another part of the field, that only the chiefs and sharnans would come onto the council ground, and that they must stack all their weapons off to the side before entering. Waiting for them there were the commissioners with a large body of interpreters, clergymen, and other white men of the sort who feel that nothing important can be well conducted without their presence.

  General Kenton, once known as the dreaded But-lah, no longer dressed like an Indian. But at fifty-two years he still gave the appearance of a man of extraordinary physical power, and his face was benign and good-humored and shrewd.

  Black Hoof, silver-haired, dressed in a wool coat, and the solid, middle-aged Blue Jacket, led their chieftains in. Black Hoof was more than eighty years old now, but still erect and stately. He was a chief of great stature among many red men, and whites, too, for he had twice been to Washington and seen the Great White Father there. He had gone to plead for the plows and the agricultural advisers for which he had been so long awaiting.

  Black Hoof now watched with masked emotions as Tecumseh and a score of his sinewy chieftains approached. Suddenly Black Hoof pointed and exclaimed about something that the white men themselves had just noticed: Tecumseh’s men had not divested themselves of their tomahawks or knives.

  Kenton at once called to
him, in Shawnee, and reminded him that all parties on the ground were to be unarmed. Tecumseh replied:

  “I remember what happened to Cornstalk when he went unarmed among your people at Fort Randolph.”

  Kenton drew up stiff momentarily. Then he said in a cordial tone, “There will be no trouble here. Please do not try to bring your hatchets into this peaceful council.”

  Tecumseh held up his tomahawk and pointed to it. As white men crowded in close on him, he said, “But this is my pipe as well.” It had a tobacco bowl in the head and a hollow handle. “I might need to use it during this meeting.” Then he added, flashing a big smile: “One end or the other.” There were some chuckles among the Shawnees.

  At this, a tall, long-jawed clergyman stepped toward Tecumseh and proffered a deacon’s pipe, a long-stemmed pipe of white clay now very thumb-smudged and blackened by use. “Maybe,” he said, “the chief might smoke for peace with this instead.”

  Tecumseh took it but gave the parson such a hard look that he backed into the crowd. Then Tecumseh looked at the filthy object, sniffed the bowl, and made an exaggerated grimace of disgust. Then he flipped it back over his shoulder onto the ground. A roar of laughter went up around the council ground. White men and red alike howled at the parson’s discomfiture, and Tecumseh’s own warm, infectious laugh overrode the rest. Suddenly the tension was gone out of the air, and when Tecumseh and his followers moved on in to take their places, no more effort was made to disarm them. Black Hoof still looked miffed, but Blue Jacket was rocking with voiceless laughter.

  Then the council was opened with the customary passing of a ceremonial pipe, and as the interpreters came forward and took their places, one of them, a big minister in a black frock and deerhide leggings, signaled toward Tecumseh with a big smile on his face. When Tecumseh saw him, the light of recognition flashed across his face, and he raised his hand in a salute. He wanted to cry out to him, “Big Fish!” But the pipe ceremony was too solemn to be disturbed by an outcry, so he and Stephen Ruddell simply stared at each other with sparkling eyes, their faces almost breaking with grins, nodding, shaking their heads. Even old Black Hoof was beaming. He, too, remembered the brotherhood of Tecumseh and Big Fish and their escapades in those long-ago skirmishes and battles. Tecumseh nodded toward Kenton and made a motion of holding a rifle, and Ruddell grinned and nodded, remembering the time his rifle had misfired at Kenton’s chest. Ruddell was now a Baptist missionary and had come to work in Black Hoof’s town. As promised, he had returned to the Shawnees.

  In the preliminary statements of the council’s purpose, Ruddell proved a skillful enough interpreter, and the council proceeded to its subject, the murder of Myers. The white commissioners said it was beyond doubt that Myers had been killed by an Indian. They demanded that whoever the killer was, he must be identified by his own chief and turned over to the white authorities for retribution. The Crane was the first chief to respond. He stood up and asserted that none of his Wyandots could have had anything to do with it. He spoke of his acknowledged friendship with the Americans, and his mark on their treaty, and his strong desire to keep this chain of friendship intact.

  When the Crane finished, Tecumseh rose gracefully and was asked to speak. As he moved to the front of the council, the Indians all leaned forward, and the white men all noticed the intensity of their attention. The commissioners and spectators all had their eyes on this striking warrior chief who, even in unadorned deerhide, made a finer sight than either the white men’s Indians in their dark suits or the garish, befeathered warriors. Some of the whites knew this Tecumseh was a legendary warrior and the brother of the notorious Shawnee prophet; others had no idea who he was but could sense his importance, not only by his bearing, but by the expectancy that had fallen over the other red men. It was feared by many that he who had at first warmed the council with laughter might now fan it to flames by accusing Black Hoof’s people of the murder.

  Tecumseh faced the crowd and looked them over. It entered his thoughts suddenly that he ought to see Ga-lo-weh here, since he was an important man in the vicinity and his home was scarcely ten miles away. But there was no Ga-lo-weh among the spectators. Tecumseh did see some familiar white faces, men he knew he had fought years ago.

  The breeze hushed in the foliage, and birds were singing in the sunlight. Stephen Ruddell cleared his throat.

  Tecumseh could have made his statement in English, for the edification of the white commissioners. But his real audience, he knew, was this gathering of red men. His oratorical skill was greatest in his own tongue, and he did not mean to let the white men think mockingly of his imperfect English. He began, and at first the white men, not understanding his words, were captivated by the sheer power, tone, and inflections of his voice, by the grace and power of his gestures, by his imposing stance—and by the intense concentration of his red audience.

  “The Great Good Spirit has brought us together so that we may speak and hear the truth about a death that has happened. We red chiefs are expected to point at one of our people and say, ‘Here is the man who killed your Myers; take him and hang him up to die.’ ” The Indians nodded and muttered.

  “I do not know who killed that man,” Tecumseh said. “Ask Black Hoof. Perhaps he knows.” At once there was an uproar. Black Hoof rose to his feet with a swiftness amazing for a man of his years and shouted that Tecumseh was a liar. His chieftains formed around him, facing Tecumseh’s followers. For a few minutes the armed men around the field hesitated and milled, readying their guns, while the commissioners shouted for order. Black Hoof was yelling that Tecumseh’s renegade Indians at the Prophet’s town or the many visiting Indians there must have killed the white man. For a moment a great fight seemed imminent, and the town of Springfield had its first big scare. At last the hubbub died down. Tecumseh and Black Hoof stared at each other. Black Hoof had broken the protocol by interrupting a speaker, and at last he sat down, realizing that he had acted like a white man. Then Tecumseh resumed, in a mild voice:

  “No, I do not truly think even Black Hoof knows. I do not believe that anyone here knows.

  “If I did know the name of a warrior who killed that man, would I deliver him to you white men, for you to hang him up? Would you be able to prove he had done it? Would you even bother to try to prove it? I do not think so. You do not seek justice. You seek a red man whom you can hang up, to satisfy the cries of your people.

  “Why do I say you do not seek justice? I can remember many times since the Greenville Treaty when red men and women were killed, and though you had the murderers in your hands, your judging councils turned them loose, as if justice were of no importance to you.

  “I remember when an Indian family gave shelter to three white men, who killed the family in their sleep. Those three white men were not hung up.

  “I remember when a white man made a red man drunk and killed him after he went to sleep. You had that white man and you knew what he had done, but you did not hang him up. Earlier, I remember when your Captain McGary killed the old Chief Moluntha with a hatchet, while the chief stood prisoner, holding a peace treaty and your flag, and many soldiers stood and watched him do it. But was McGary executed?

  “Still more seasons back, our great Chief Cornstalk, his son, and Chief Red Hawk were murdered while unarmed in a room at Fort Randolph, where they were visiting on a peace mission.”

  Whenever Tecumseh paused and let Ruddell translate, the commissioners grew more gray and grave. And Tecumseh went on, his voice now harder:

  “I remember when all the family of Logan the Mingo were murdered by Greathouse, whom they had trusted. Was Greathouse executed for that? No, not until the Shawnees caught him seventeen years later on the Beautiful River and made their own justice.

  “I remember when your militiamen went to Gnadenhutten and put one hundred Jesus Indians, men and women and children, into a big room and smashed all their heads even while they prayed to your Jesus Christ. Were any of those militiamen ever executed? No.


  “If you wish to hear of more, I am able to talk for a long time without tiring, or without repeating any names, or running out of such stories.

  “But you brought us here to talk instead about the death of a man called Myers, who you say was murdered, although you do not really know if he was killed by a red man who had to defend himself against this Myers. Or maybe he was killed by a white man.” There was a rumble of consternation among the spectators at this suggestion. Tecumseh waited till it subsided, then went on. “Maybe this Myers was killed by an Indian woman whom he had molested. Your white men seem to like to bother our women, when there are no warriors around. If you want to hear of such cases, I can recite them for a day or two.” This conjecture made the commissioners squirm, and the men writing down the words of the council did not even put their pens to their paper. It was not the kind of allegation that should be written on a record.

  The commissioners looked as if they might like to cut Tecumseh off here, but in a council with Indians every speaker was allowed to talk until he was through. At each of Tecumseh’s pauses, the congregation of red men nodded and made throaty noises of agreement.

  “So,” he went on now, “maybe your Myers was killed because he was doing harm to a red man or a woman, as your lawless people think they can do. If so, then justice has already been done in this case. No one will ever know what happened, because Myers cannot speak anymore, and the person who took his scalp, whether it was a red man or one of the many white men who also take scalps—did you not know that?—that person has surely passed on out of the country. I do not believe any of our people did this killing of Myers. A warrior takes a scalp for one reason only: so that when he tells a story of a victory, he can show that his story is true. Would a secret murderer take a scalp and come home and boast to me that he had killed a helpless white man? No. Because all red men know that in my town, the Prophet teaches against violence. He teaches for peace. Every morning and every night in my town, all the People pray that we will not have violence with the whites. And so a man would not come there to brag of such a thing, so why would he take the scalp?