Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  Tecumseh had another motive for doing this. He needed to talk to Barron.

  That night as the white man sat and smoked in the small, flickering light from the fire-ring, the soft drone of village life and the creaking of crickets and katydids filling the night outside the lodge, Tecumseh asked the question that had been in his mind. “What does your governor mean when he says, ‘Show us the rightful owners of those lands’? In our eyes, Weshemoneto is the only rightful owner, but he put us here, all of us, not just Miamis and Delawares and Potawatomis, to use it. What does he mean, ‘show him’? Tell me truly, as my friend and guest.”

  Barron’s face twisted up with the implications of this question, and finally he shrugged and said, “A rightful owner, by law, is someone who has a deed. You know of ‘deed’? Of ‘title’?”

  “A white man I know once showed me his deed. They are on paper, yes? They have words and lines on them.”

  “Yes, that’s right, I reckon.”

  “And so a land treaty, such as the one made at Fort Wayne, is a deed or a title?”

  “Well … yes, in a way.…”

  “But then a deed or title is something a white man would have but a red man would not have?”

  “Umm …” Barron shrugged and nodded.

  “And only one who has a deed or title to a land can sell that land?”

  “Well … I suppose that’s what the governor means, yes.”

  “Then, Barron, since Little Turtle and Cracking Noise and Winnemac are red men—at least on their skins—and had no deeds and titles, then they could not sell those lands to him. I believe this is what you have been saying.”

  “Umm …” Barron waggled his fingers, as if trying to pull some kind of refuting argument out of the air.

  “So, then,” Tecumseh said with some satisfaction, “I told my people in the council today that I will go talk to Harrison at Vincennes. I have just proven to you that those chiefs could not sell him that land. I will go then and prove it to him just so, and he will have to burn up the paper treaty and leave us the lands, as his letter said he would do if I proved.”

  Barron looked at Tecumseh with genuine appreciation in his eyes. But he smiled on one side of his mouth and shook his head. “Chief,” he said, “you can try that on Governor Harrison. But don’t be surprised if he disagrees.”

  “But how can he disagree? I have proven.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Barron, raising his eyebrows and bobbing his head, “he might disagree.”

  Now Tecumseh’s eyes hardened. “Then you say now that these things he said in the letter are only words, and that he does not really mean to give the land back to us, no matter what we prove. That when your governor writes his word in a letter, it is like a treaty, not to be believed.”

  Barron fidgeted and tried to smile, but he could not look in Tecumseh’s eyes.

  THE NEXT DAY TECUMSEH TOLD BARRON, WITH OPEN DOOR standing by:

  “Tell Harrison that we will meet each other in one moon from now, at which time I will have decided whether to go and see President. You can say it will be the first time I have looked upon Harrison since he was beside Wayne at the place of the Fallen Timbers, where he stood beside Wayne’s chair and listened to him talk, outside their tent near the flag. If his memory is as clear as mine, he will recall that day. Tell him that Tecumseh will come to help him understand the owning of land and to prove the truth. That I do not mean to attack his town, as the bad birds have told him. And that when I prove to him about the false treaty, I will expect him to burn it in the fire. Tell him I will bring some of my principal chiefs and, perhaps, too, a great many of the young men who like to be present on such occasions. Perhaps a hundred. Now, Barron, let me escort you to the road, with some warriors who will protect you until you are a good way along.”

  “Pr-protect me?” Barron looked at the half-dozen armed warriors Tecumseh had summoned. Suddenly he was afraid.

  “They will protect you until you are safe from our women. Go, Barron. I will take your hand again at Vincennes.”

  And Open Door stood sullen as the messenger was escorted away. He glanced out of the side of his eye at his brother.

  So, it was to be Tecumseh again going to do the big things.

  It was not that Open Door would have wanted to be bothered with another trip to Vincennes, to face Harrison again. But to sit in the palace of the president!

  And again he felt that bitter ache. He seemed to lose as Tecumseh gained.

  BEFORE IT WAS TIME TO GO TO VINCENNES, RUNNERS CAME to Prophet’s Town from Harrison. Their only message was that Tecumseh should come with just a very small party, in order that the town of Vincennes should not be alarmed.

  Once again Tecumseh’s blood grew hot. Did not Harrison understand that the number of people traveling to council with their chief was a sign of their support for him, an acknowledgment of his importance to them?

  “Beware,” said some of the chieftains. “This governor wants you to come with few warriors so that he may seize you or kill you!”

  Tecumseh decided to take with him only a select retinue of two dozen, made up of his bodyguards and his tribal chiefs. “But,” he added, “if any more choose to follow us, that is a matter of their own hearts. And if they wish to bring their wives and children, to have a look at the white governor’s town, I will not stop them. The presence of women and children would ease the white people’s fears that we are a war party.”

  30

  FORT KNOX, ABOVE VINCENNES

  August 11, 1810

  “THEY’RE HERE, CAP’N,” EXCLAIMED THE ORDERLY. “THEY just showed up round the bend, and they’re some spectacle!”

  “Well, then, let’s go have us a look at this spectacle,” replied Captain George Rogers Clark Floyd, commanding officer of the little fort overlooking the Wabash. Captain Floyd was a nephew and namesake of the old Long Knife general and bore himself with an authoritative posture and self-confidence befitting the name. He professed to be in awe of no man, nor afraid of any, and he was hard to impress.

  But after that day, he wrote home in a letter:

  The four hundred Shawnee Indians have come; they passed this garrison above Vincennes in eighty canoes. They were all painted in the most terrific manner. They were stopped at the garrison by me, for a short time. I examined their canoes, and found them well prepared for war in case of attack. They were headed by the brother of the Prophet—Tecumseh—who perhaps is one of the finest-looking men I ever saw—about six feet high, straight, with large, fine features, and altogether a daring, bold looking fellow.…

  Tecumseh made his camp near a Shaker village between Fort Knox and Vincennes. All the warriors and women had been exhorted to make their best appearance, to be polite but reserved with any whites who came around the camp, to accept no presents, especially liquor, and to get into no trouble. The Shakers hosted and helped them.

  Barron came out to greet Tecumseh the next morning. It was a Sunday, and the tones of a church bell came through the sycamores and willows from Vincennes. The bell made Tecumseh think of Ga-lo-weh and Rebekah. Now here he was, again visiting white people in their own place. But such a difference in the circumstances now! There with Ga-lo-weh he had been a private friend; here it seemed that every whiteface west of the mountains was looking on, and not in a friendly way. The town was full of Blue-Coats walking in ranks, dragoons in helmets riding the streets, white women in voluminous dresses and sunbonnets that hid the shapes of their bodies and almost hid their faces as well, and all the officers and Supreme Court judges of the territory. They were all waiting for the council to proceed, and Harrison had called for it to begin the next day.

  But Tecumseh had come as an equal and was not going to have his schedule dictated. He wanted time for the Shakers to look over the town and be sure that no tricks or traps had been arranged.

  On Monday he decided to let Harrison fidget and sweat for another day and sent Barron to inquire whether Harrison would be attended by armed me
n in the council. Soon Barron came puffing and sweating back into Tecumseh’s camp with Harrison’s reply that the matter could be at Tecumseh’s choice. So Tecumseh sent Barron puffing back to say that the men ought not to have muskets and rifles on the council ground, but only side arms. To Tecumseh that meant only knives and tomahawks, which his warriors always kept at their sides to defend themselves against treachery. At last all that was settled, and Tecumseh believed Harrison should be well aware by now that a Shawnee chief was not one to be hurried or shoved around. Just to make sure Harrison understood, though, he did not hurry over to the town on Tuesday morning, either; in fact, while the guests and dignitaries waited and milled around Harrison’s veranda and under a canopied arbor, sweating in the muggy heat of an overcast day, Tecumseh stayed in his camp until afternoon, praying with his people, pondering on his speech, and making sure the companies of Blue-Coats were too confused and weary to plan any treachery. Even at that, it required courage and faith for the two dozen warriors and chiefs to walk down the road into the heavily armed town of their enemy, leaving their guns behind.

  Still, they were fierce and formidable enough to make the onlookers draw back to the edges of the streets as they walked in, in a double file, with Tecumseh at their head. They were all lithe and erect; all wore only breechclouts and clean, fringed deerskin leggings and beaded moccasins; all were naked from the waist up, and their bodies and faces were decorated with red paint. All had shaved or plucked their heads bare except for the scalplock. Tecumseh himself was shirtless and wore over his shoulder a long scarlet cape that billowed as he walked. His black hair was still long, hanging to his shoulders, bound around by a colorful head-kerchief decorated with one eagle feather. Barron showed them the way onto the grounds of Harrison’s estate, through a grove of trees on level lawn.

  As they approached the mansion, Tecumseh saw that an arbor by the veranda had been covered with a canopy to give shade for a large number of chairs. Behind the elegantly dressed white people stood a platoon of honor guards, with pistols in their belts. He saw the figure he took to be Harrison and saw also among those people the contemptible Winnemac, dressed in a light cloak, and he saw the young captain named for Clark who had stopped him at the fort.

  Suddenly a prickling of caution was set up in him by the sight of this arrangement; he felt as if he were walking into a trap. His warriors were like animals being funneled into a dead end during a hunting drive.

  So he stopped in the grove of trees, a hundred paces from the veranda, and his warriors stopped behind him. Barron, unaware, went on a few more steps until the chuckles of the spectators stopped him. He hurried back, red-faced, perspiring. “What now?” he asked.

  “Tell Harrison we will talk here.”

  Barron made an exasperated motion toward the elaborate arrangement on the veranda. Tecumseh said:

  “My people talk in the council circle, where no man is higher than the other. I will not go before that … thing they sit on, and look up to Harrison. He may come out here.”

  “But, Chief,” Barron now pleaded, “you’re to sit up there with him!”

  “And my people on the ground looking up? No. Let him come out here. I have traveled many days to see him. He can come off the side of his house.”

  Barron looked as if he might explode. “It would be so much trouble to move all those chairs! Be reasonable, Chief!”

  “Barron, only the white men’s chairs need be moved. We do not require chairs.”

  So Barron bustled back and forth two or three more times, and finally the arrangements were modified and all the white men’s chairs had been brought out into the grove. Harrison stayed on the distant veranda until all this milling around was done and then at last came down and walked toward the grove with his dignitaries behind him. Tecumseh’s eyes flashed.

  “Barron! Those men, and all those soldiers, they have pistols in their belts! I do not like this! I said sidearms, and he agreed!”

  “Sidearms,” Barron answered with a sigh, “means pistols, to them.”

  “You did not tell me that!”

  Barron had had enough. “Is the chief afraid?”

  Tecumseh’s eyes froze on him. “I saved you from angry women once, Barron. You owe me a life, and I might take it, for what you have said. Now stand away. I want to have a clear look at this governor.”

  Harrison came with his retinue. He wore an elegant frock coat with a high collar despite the close heat, and a shiny ceremonial sword hung at his left side from a silken sash. He was hatless, and his short hair was combed forward on the brow and temples. There was a strange, barely perceptible lopsidedness about his eyes, which, as Open Door had said, made his penetrating stare hard to look at. Though his physique was not imposing, there was something in his carriage that suggested uncommon strength, and in the hard, arrogant look of his visage, no timidity was revealed. He shook hands with Tecumseh, looking him over quickly, then went to the biggest armchair a few feet away and stood in front of it. Then he pointed at the chair next to it and said something to Barron. Barron told Tecumseh:

  “Your father says for you to sit by his side.”

  Tecumseh, head high, looked at Harrison for a moment, then suddenly raised a brawny arm to point at the sky, and his strong voice filled the grove.

  “Father? The Great Good Spirit is my father! The earth is my mother, and on her bosom I will recline!” He seated himself on the ground, and all his warriors immediately sat down in a semicircle behind him.

  Harrison puckered his lips. Then he began:

  “Well, if our guest is finally satisfied with everything, we can begin at last. As you know, it is my desire to discuss with Tecumseh the relations between my people and his …” A damp wind suddenly turned the leaves of the trees underside up, and drops of rain sprinkled cool on heated faces. A rushing, hissing sound was coming from the river, and the finely dressed white people murmured and stirred. Harrison hurried on, glancing up: “And to give him a chance to carry his grievances to the president, if he so desires it.…”

  And then suddenly a deluge of summer rain came hushing across the estate, and the white people were scurrying toward the canopied arbor and the porch, and Harrison, his caesarean hairdo plastered wetly to his head, his shoulders so hunched that his coat collar covered his ears, shouted the obvious fact that the council was adjourned and slogged off after his guests toward the canopy.

  Tecumseh and his warriors walked unescorted back through the town to their camp in the downpour, convinced that Weshemoneto had not meant for them to talk with the governor on this day. When they came into their camp, the women cried out in alarm; the dissolved paint running down their bodies had made them appear blood-soaked.

  A WEEK HAD GONE BY WITH WEATHER AND OTHER INFLUENCES postponing the council, but at last the chief and the governor were face to face again in the grove, under a clear sky, and it looked as if the council could proceed. Now there was a table in front of Harrison’s chair. Beside him sat old John Gibson, secretary of the Indiana Territory, a gray-haired man whose face was so long that he was known to the Indians as Horsehead. Gibson, who had been married for decades to a Mingo woman, understood the Shawnee tongue. He, like most of the white men, wore a pair of pistols. On the other side of Harrison was Captain Floyd from Fort Knox. On the grass between Harrison’s table and Tecumseh sat Winnemac the Potawatomi. Harrison had chosen him as one of the interpreters, which had annoyed Tecumseh tremendously. But Tecumseh was not going to let an unpleasant detail like that prevent him any longer from saying what he had come to say. He stood looking at Harrison and began:

  “Brother …” He noticed the flicker of anger that crossed the governor’s face because he had not called him “Father.” “I wish you to give me close attention, because I think you do not clearly understand. I want to speak to you about promises that the Americans have made.

  “You recall the time when the Jesus Indians of the Delawares lived near the Americans, and had confidence in their promises
of friendship, and thought they were secure, yet the Americans murdered all the men, women, and children, even as they prayed to Jesus?”

  This immediate mention of the Gnadenhutten massacre made Harrison set his face hard. But Tecumseh had not come here to please Harrison with sweet words. He went on: “The same promises were given to the Shawnee one time. It was at Fort Finney, where some of my people were forced to make a treaty. Flags were given to my people, and they were told they were now the children of the Americans. We were told, If any white people mean to harm you, hold up these flags and you will then be safe from all danger. We did this in good faith. But what happened? Our beloved chief Moluntha stood with the American flag in front of him and that very peace treaty in his hand, but his head was chopped by an American officer, and that American officer was never punished.

  “Brother, after such bitter events, can you blame me for placing little confidence in the promises of Americans? That happened before the Treaty of Greenville. When they buried the tomahawk at Greenville, the Americans said they were our new fathers, not the British anymore, and would treat us as well. Since that treaty, here is how the Americans have ‘treated us well’: They have killed many Shawnees, many Winnebagoes, many Miamis, many Delawares, and have taken land from them. When they killed them, no American ever was punished. Not one.

  “It is you, the Americans, by such bad deeds, who push the red men to do mischief. You do not want unity among the tribes, and you destroy it. You try to make differences between them. We, their leaders, wish them to unite and consider their land the common property of all, but you try to keep them from this. You separate the tribes and deal with them that way, one by one, and advise them not to come into this union. Your states have set an example of forming a union among all the Fires; why should you censure the Indians for following that example?