Panther in the Sky

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “But, brother, I mean to bring all the tribes together, in spite of you, and until I have finished, I will not go to visit your president. Maybe I will when I have finished—maybe. The reason I tell you this: you want, by making your distinctions of Indian tribes and allotting to each a particular tract of land, to set them against each other, and thus to weaken us.

  “You never see an Indian come, do you, and endeavor to make the white people divide up?

  “You are always driving the red people this way! At last you will drive them into the Great Lake, where they can neither stand nor walk.”

  Tecumseh watched Harrison keenly for some kind of response, but the governor’s face was stolid. He sat with his hands enfolded in each other on the table, his eyes never moving from Tecumseh’s.

  “Brother,” Tecumseh went on, “you ought to know what you are doing to the Indians. Is it by the direction of the president you make these distinctions? It is a very bad thing, and we do not like it. Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have tried to level all distinctions, to destroy village chiefs, by whom all such mischief is done. It is they who sell our lands to the Americans. Brother, these lands that were sold and the goods that were given for them were done by only a few. The Treaty of Fort Wayne was made through the threats of Winnemac; but in the future we are going to punish those chiefs who propose to sell the land.”

  He paused and gave Winnemac a murderous stare, forcing him to look down, and suddenly cried out, “There sits the black dog who makes lies and tells them, to cause white men and red men to hate each other!” Then he turned his eyes from Winnemac, leaving him to writhe in fury, and continued: “The only way to stop this evil is for all the red men to unite in claiming an equal right in the land. That is how it was at first, and should be still, for the land never was divided, but was for the use of everyone. Any tribe could go to an empty land and make a home there. And if they left, another tribe could come there and make a home. No groups among us have a right to sell, even to one another—and surely not to outsiders who want all, and will not do with less.” And now his voice rankled with sarcasm.

  “Sell a country!” he cried. “Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the Great Sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Good Spirit make them all for the use of his children?”

  Suddenly his whole visage changed. He turned an expectant expression upon Harrison and said: “Brother, I was glad to hear what you told us. You said that if we could prove that the land was sold by people who had no right to sell it, you would restore it. I will prove that those who did sell did not own it. Did they have a deed? A title? No! You say those prove someone owns land. Those chiefs only spoke a claim, and so you pretended to believe their claim, only because you wanted the land. But the many tribes with me will not agree with those claims. They have never had title to sell, and we agree this proves you could not buy it from them. If the land is not given back to us, you will see, when we return to our homes from here, how it will be settled. It will be like this:

  “We shall have a great council, at which all the tribes will be present. We shall show to those who sold that they had no right to the claim they set up, and we shall see what will be done to those chiefs who did sell the land to you. I am not alone in this determination; it is the determination of all the warriors and red people who listen to me. Brother, I now wish you to listen to me. If you do not wipe out that treaty, it will seem that you wish me to kill all the chiefs who sold the land! I tell you so because I am authorized by all the tribes to do so! I am the head of them all! All my warriors will meet together with me in two or three moons from now. Then I will call for those chiefs who sold you this land, and we shall know what to do with them.” Now he pointed straight at Harrison’s face and said slowly in a sharp voice: “If you do not restore the land, you will have had a hand in killing them!”

  As this was translated, and the white people began to understand that he was seriously threatening to kill other Indian chiefs, they began turning to each other and buzzing to each other their horror and consternation; it was as if they only now realized how much in earnest he was about all this. Harrison, still not showing a trace of emotion, simply raised a hand and held it up and looked around at them until this fearful clamor subsided. Then he turned again to Tecumseh, who was beginning to wonder if his logic was making the least impression upon the governor. Tecumseh was not used to using the unadorned language this subject and this audience required. When he spoke to his own race he spoke to their emotions, with figurative language that made them see glorious or terrible pictures in their heads and feel joy or remorse in their hearts, and he yearned to pour out the familiar oratory of the heart. Suddenly, then, he cried out:

  “I am a Shawnee! I am a warrior! My forefathers were warriors. From them I took only my birth into this world. From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own destiny! And O that I might make the destiny of my red people, of our nation, as great as I conceive to in my mind, when I think of Weshemoneto, who rules this universe! I would not then have to come to Governor Harrison and ask him to tear up this treaty and wipe away the marks upon the land. No! I would say to him, ‘Sir, you may return to your own country!’ The being within me hears the voice of the ages, which tells me that once, always, and until lately, there were no white men on all this island, that it then belonged to the red men, children of the same parents, placed on it by the Great Good Spirit who made them, to keep it, to traverse it, to enjoy its yield, and to people it with the same race. Once they were a happy race! Now they are made miserable by the white people, who are never contented but are always coming in! You do this always, after promising not to anymore, yet you ask us to have confidence in your promises. How can we have confidence in the white people? When Jesus Christ came upon the earth, you killed him, the son of your own God, you nailed him up! You thought he was dead, but you were mistaken. And only after you thought you killed him did you worship him, and start killing those who would not worship him.… What kind of a people is this for us to trust?” Most of the white people were now gasping and muttering, some even putting their hands over their ears, but Harrison still sat expressionless.

  “Now, brother,” Tecumseh went on, “everything I have said to you is the truth, as Weshemoneto has inspired me to speak only truth to you. I have declared myself freely to you about my intentions. And I want to know your intentions. I want to know what you are going to do about the taking of our land. I want to hear you say that you understand now, and will wipe out that pretended treaty, so that the tribes can be at peace with each other, as you pretend you want them to be. Tell me, brother. I want to know now.”

  Then he billowed his cape behind him with a sweep of his arm and in a graceful motion sank to sit cross-legged on the ground. The eyes of his chieftains were on him, glittering, full of pride. But Harrison still sat with his hands before him on the table and no expression. He was angry. He had brought these Indians here to chide them for creating tension on the frontier, but instead he had been challenged and accused and put on the defensive by Tecumseh.

  After a moment he stood up and walked out from behind the table, his left wrist resting on the silver guard of his ceremonial sword. He stood in front of Tecumseh, looking down on him. At his feet Winnemac reclined like a faithful dog, his cloak draped over him.

  Harrison made no preamble but headed straight to the point, as Tecumseh had.

  “I do not see how you can say the Indians are one nation. It is absurd to say the red men are all one people. If your Great Spirit meant this to be, why did he give you different tongues?

  “Listen to me, my children. I am going to tell you why the Miamis had a right to sell us their land. When the white people came to America, the Miamis lived in all the country of the Wabash. At that time the Shawnees lived in Florida and Georgia. Since then they moved from place to place, and only lately did they come near the Wabash. The Shawnees never lived in this part of the continent.…”

  Tecumseh s
tiffened. Either Harrison was lying to advance his coming argument, or he simply did not know. The ancestors of the Shawnees had lived in this O-hi-o watershed, building mounds and living in walled towns long ago, long before being forced to the south. In fact, there was hardly any place east of the Great River where the Shawnees had not lived. The old fathers and the Singers knew every detail of the Shawnees’ history, back to the Beginning, and Tecumseh had learned it from them. Harrison was ignorant or lying deliberately, and he continued:

  “The Miamis have been here since before the memory of man. And now recently they thought they should sell some of their land to increase their annuity, which has long been of the greatest benefit to them, and which has always been paid promptly to them by the United States, in honor of its promises. So I say, this has always been the land of the Miamis, to do with as they saw fit. And the Shawnees have no justification to come from a distant country and try to control the Miamis in the use or disposal of their lands.…”

  Tecumseh had been too angry for too many years, and now, hearing Harrison throw this accusation at the Shawnees, he lost his self-control. As if his blood had boiled over into his head, he sprang to his feet, his face a snarling grimace, pointed his finger into Harrison’s face, and cried in Shawnee:

  “Oh, this man is a liar! What he says is false, and an insult! It is not the Shawnee who tries to keep this land, it is the race of red men! Hear him even now try to divide us up! He is a liar!”

  At Tecumseh’s first move and outcry, the council had been thrown into fearful confusion. Two men who understood his Shawnee words, Secretary Gibson and Winnemac, drew pistols, Gibson from his belt, Winnemac from under his cloak where he had been holding it concealed. Gibson shouted for a lieutenant to bring up the honor guard, and twelve soldiers came running with their pistols. Captain Floyd drew a dirk, and Harrison himself unsheathed his sword. At this move, Tecumseh snatched out his tomahawk and raised it, and his warriors leaped to their feet, whipping out their tomahawks and knives. They formed a defensive circle and stood fiery-eyed, ready to defend him, to do whatever he called upon them to do.

  “He called you a liar,” Gibson told the governor.

  Harrison scarcely heard him over the slamming of his heart. The alarm had spread beyond the council ground, and the bellowing of sergeants and the tramp of running feet could be heard all around. Some of the men in the crowd were drawing pistols and daggers and unsheathing sword canes, others rushed to the governor’s kitchen house woodpile to grab billets of wood, and some caught swooning ladies in their arms.

  For a minute that seemed to be forever, the Shawnee chief and the governor stood poised with their steel to strike each other, their eyes locked, glittering with hatred. An awesome, tense, wordless stillness rang in their ears. Tecumseh’s arm, thick with tense muscle and sinew, banded with silver, held his polished, silver-mounted tomahawk high. Harrison had never in his life felt death so close, seen so vividly this much swift power coiled to strike directly at him. His heart was hammering, and his face was pale, but he would be damned if he would show fear before this insolent savage.

  Tecumseh heard Seekabo whisper behind him to the others: “Weshecat-too-weh, be strong. I will take Winnemac myself.” And the Potawatomi, who had not dared to stir from the grass where he lay; cocked his pistol, a ghastly sound in the stillness.

  Harrison had to do something. This deadly situation had erupted in his own backyard. Though there was no doubt that Tecumseh and his few warriors could be killed by the hundreds of soldiers in the town, it was plain that much white men’s blood would be spilled, probably including his own, before they were dead. And then there were many more warriors outside of town, who might rush in if they heard gunfire.

  So, slowly, in order not to set off Tecumseh’s arm, which was cocked like a hair-triggered flintlock, Harrison took a deep breath, made his facial muscles relax, and lowered his sword. He slipped it into its scabbard with a metallic sliding sound, stepped back a pace, stood straight, and raised a calming hand toward Gibson, toward the guards and officers. Then, still not taking his eyes off Tecumseh’s, he swallowed and said:

  “I see no reason for this to go on. Gentlemen, this council is adjourned. Let’s all retire peaceably.”

  Finally, when he saw Tecumseh lower that terrible tomahawk and heard him breathe some words to his warriors, only then did Harrison dare to move, to step out of that dreadful radius. Once out of it, he walked quickly toward his house, face and ears aflame, and the guests and dignitaries followed him, leaving the warriors in their little circle, the vacant chairs by the table, the soldiers standing awkwardly nearby. Some sheets of paper were lifted from the tabletop by a breeze and floated to the ground. Winnemac had slithered back a few feet and now rose with his pistol still in his hand and trotted after the governor. Barron stood in the distance looking at Tecumseh but seemed afraid to come close and had no idea what to say or do. This momentous council in which he had been forced to play such a thankless part had turned into a debacle and nearly into a disaster.

  At last Tecumseh slipped his tomahawk into his waistband and turned to his warriors.

  “You have been brave and good,” he said. “Come. Let us try to go back to our camp. But be ready. All the Blue-Coats are in motion, waiting for orders, and I do not trust Harrison.”

  TECUMSEH ASKED TO BE LEFT ALONE WHEN THE WARRIORS were back in the camp. He sat in the midst of his buzzing encampment and smoked and went back over the incident in his mind, and his heart cooled. He began to be angry now at himself, for losing control. Here was this opportunity to make Harrison and his officials aware of his viewpoint, and even though Harrison seemed impervious to reason, Tecumseh knew he should have remained patient and reasoned with him as long as possible. How often had he himself counseled his followers not to let themselves be provoked, told them even to suffer lies and insults, if necessary, to keep peace until the alliance was completed? And now he who was supposed to be their wise leader had let himself be provoked; perhaps Harrison even now was deciding that councils were useless, that it was time to attack Prophet’s Town.

  Tecumseh sat with his fists clenched, and now he was as angry with himself as he had been at Harrison. Even poor Open Door, volatile and foolish as he was, could not have handled this any worse!

  BARRON CAME UP TO THE INDIAN CAMP IN THE MORNING AND was brusque. He said Harrison wished to know what Tecumseh’s plans were. Was he going to stay encamped so near to the town with all his warriors, or would he be going back up the river to Prophet’s Town? The governor would like to know, so that his people and soldiers could return to their normal pursuits.

  Tecumseh’s reply surprised Barron.

  “Go and tell the governor that Tecumseh makes an apology for that anger which happened yesterday. We rose only to defend ourselves because the soldiers came running with their guns. Say that I have no wish to give personal offense to him, that this should not be one angry man against another, but a talk of principles between two peoples, a talk that should be finished, so each understands the other. Tell him that I would welcome him in my camp if he wants to visit me here, and that no harm would come to him here.” It had occurred to Tecumseh that Harrison might be more reasonable if he did not have to put up an appearance of strength and firmness before crowds of his own white people. “Or,” Tecumseh added, “if he wants me to go there and explain my thoughts to him, I will go.”

  HARRISON RODE INTO THE INDIAN CAMP THAT AFTERNOON on a great, light gray war-horse. He made a brave appearance; except for Barron, he was alone, though companies of soldiers and dragoons had quietly taken places all around the Indian camp.

  In the midst of the camp, surrounded by the aromas of cedarwood and hickory smoke and baking Shawnee cake and roasting meat, Tecumseh offered Harrison his hand and showed him a place where they could sit to smoke and talk as man to man. It was a large section of a log two feet thick and ten feet long, the top side hewn flat to serve as a bench. They smoked from the pipe in the he
ad of the same tomahawk that Tecumseh yesterday had held ready to strike Harrison, which the governor noted with a strange feeling in his breast.

  Now Tecumseh felt pleasant and expansive. This was the proper way for two strong men to start building an understanding, if such a thing could possibly be done. Tecumseh was satisfied that Harrison was in his own way quite a strong man. And the governor had shown a certain nobility in accepting the invitation to come to the camp so soon after what had happened between them. As a man, if not as a representative of a policy, Harrison had risen a bit in Tecumseh’s esteem.

  Harrison had surprised himself by agreeing to come. He had spent much of yesterday evening in a turmoil of novel feelings. He had been drained to exhaustion by the fright and the anger, then tormented to distraction by the yammerings of praise and sympathy and advice that his wife and staff and officers and guests had poured upon him for the rest of the day. He had cursed himself for not taking the war secretary’s suggestion and seizing Tecumseh—but then had cursed himself again for even considering such a treacherous recourse. Upon retiring finally and lying in the dark, he had found one image in his mind: that of this splendid savage standing ready to strike him—with this very pipe-tomahawk—and he had felt that never in his entire life had there been a moment of such exquisite dread. For that instant he had felt what the prey must feel in the claws of the predator. Harrison had lain in the dark remembering. He could hardly recall having drawn his sword, more a decoration than a weapon. He had apparently done that by reflex alone. He could vaguely remember that he had held it for some time pointed at that deep, wide, muscle-girt chest, that heaving, red-painted, dark-oak barrel of a chest, and only by the old conditioning of the fencing school had he managed to hold it steady. He had lain thinking of Tecumseh’s eyes, which he had plumbed for so long, those curiously light, hazel-colored eyes, and recalled that he had looked through them as if into a long tunnel that stretched back through all time, back through the leafy silences of the wilderness, back to the dire beginnings of man, back even to the panthers and the wolves.… That incredible notion he had had, and then he had marveled that from this aboriginal soul with its deadly passions and dark superstitions there had come such a formidable line of reasoning, such an accurate recital of pertinent grievances. Harrison well knew that some of the grievances were valid. He was all too aware of the overbearing, lawless behavior of the white roughnecks who did the actual breaking through on the frontier, and he knew that those complaints of Tecumseh’s were, alas, justified. Late into the night, then, strangely, despite the requirements of his own principles and the doctrines of the administration toward the Indians, Harrison had come to admit to himself that this Tecumseh might be as brave and incorruptible a man as he had ever met, as perfect a man, in the natural sense of the word “man.” Here in this chief—not in that magnetic but murky-headed and vainglorious shaman Tenskwatawa, but here—was the Moses of the poor bewildered savages, and Harrison had regretted that such a wall of bitterness and hatred had built up between Tecumseh and himself. Some things had come to him only in retrospect, as he had lain in the dark alone with his mind: how he had loved the sound of this man’s voice and the rich music of the Shawnee tongue played in that voice—the lisping consonants, the orotund vowels. And how fearless the chief and his warriors had been, armed only with steel, two dozen of them in a town full of hundreds of armed troops; every one of the chieftains had looked as if ready to die to protect their chief—and most of them were not even Shawnees!