Red Prophet ttoam-2 Read online

  But he couldn't say none of this, cause there was no proof. He just had to try to keep things calm, till some real evidence showed up.

  Which might be right now. They'd brought along old Tack Sweeper, wheezing his way with the best of them– it was remarkable how vigorous he was, for a man whose lungs sounded like a baby's rattle when he breathed. Tack Sweeper had him a knack, which wasn't all that reliable, he was the first to say. But sometimes it worked remarkable well. What he did was stand around in a place for a while with his eyes closed and sort of see the things that happened there in the past. Just quick little visions, a few faces. Like that time they was afraid maybe Jan de Vries killed hisself on purpose, or maybe was murdered, Tack was able to see how it was an accident when his gun went off in his own face, so they could bury him in the churchyard and not have to worry about hunting for no killer.

  So the hope was Tack could tell them something about what happened in this clearing. He shooed them all back to the edges of the wood, so they'd be out of the way. Then he walked around in the middle, his eyes closed, moving slow. “You boys shouldn't have got so mad here,” he said after a while. “All I can see is you all jawing.” They laughed, kind of embarrassed. They should've knowed better than to mess up the memories of a place before Tack got there.

  “It don't look good. I keep seeing them Red faces. Knife, all kind of knives getting slashed on folks' skin. A hatchet falling.”

  Al Miller moaned.

  “It's all just a mess here, so much happened,” said Tack. “I can't see right. No. No, I can– one man. A Red man, I know his face, I seen him– he's just standing there, just still as you please, I know that face.”

  “Who is it?” said Armor-of-God. But he knew, he had that sickening feeling of dread, oh he knew.

  “Ta-Kumsaw,” said Tack. He opened his eyes wide and looked at Armor, almost apologetic. “I wouldn't've believed it either, Armor,” he said. “I always kind of thought Ta-Kumsaw was the bravest man I ever knew. But he was here, and he was in charge. I see him standing there and telling people what to do. He stood right here. I can see him so clear cause there wasn't nobody else stood exactly in that place for so long. And he was mad. Ain't no mistake about it.”

  Armor believed it. They all did– they all knew Tack was a truthful man, and if he said he was sure, then he was sure. But there had to be some reason. “Maybe he come and saved the boys, did you think of that? Maybe he come and stopped some band of wild Reds from–”

  “Red-lover!” somebody shouted.

  “You know Ta-Kumsaw! He's no coward, and stealing them boys was a cowardly thing to do, you know that man!”

  “Nobody ever knows a Red man.”

  “Ta-Kumsaw didn't take those boys!” insisted Armor-of-God. “I know it!”

  Then everybody fell silent, cause old Al Miller was pushing his way forward, out to where Armor-of-God was standing. Faced down his son-in-law, he did, with a face like living hell he was so mad. “You don't know nothing, Armor-of-God Weaver. You are the most worthless scum ever formed on the top of a chamber pot. First you married my daughter and wouldn't let her work no hexes cause you were so cock-eyed sure it was the devil's work. Then you let all these Reds stay around here all the time. And when we thought of building a stockade you said, No, if we build a stockade that just gives them French something to attack and burn down, we'll befriends with the Reds and then they'll leave us alone, we'll trade with the Reds. Well look what it got us! Look what you done for us! Ain't we all glad we listened to you now! I don't think you're no Red-lover, Armor-of-God, I just think you're the blamedest fool ever to cross the Hio and come out west, and the only folks dumber than you is us if we listen to you for another niinute!”

  Then Al Miller turned to face the other men, who were looking at him with awe in their face like they just seen majesty for the first time in their lives. “We done it Armor's way for ten years here. But I've done with that. I lost one boy in the Hatrack River on my way here, and this town is named for him. Now I lost two other boys. I only got me five sons left, but I tell you I'll put guns in their hands myself, and lead them all into the middle of Prophetstown and blast them Reds into hell, even if it means we all die! You hear me?”

  They heard him, ob yes they did. They heard and shouted back. This was the word they wanted right now, the word of hate and anger and revenge, and nobody better to give it to them than Al Miller, who was normally a peaceable man, never picked a quarrel with nobody. Him being the father of the captured boys just made it all the stronger when he spoke.

  “The way I see it,” said Al Miller, “Bill Harrison was right all along. Ain't no way the Red man and the White man can share this land. And I tell you something else. It ain't me that's leaving. There's too much blood of mine been shed here now for me to pack up and go away. I'm staying– either on this land or in it.”

  Me too, said all them boys. That's the truth, Al Miller. We're staying.

  “Thanks to Armor here, we got no stockade and we got no U.S. Army fort closer than Carthage City. If we fight right now, we might lose everything and everybody. So let's hold off the Reds as best we can and send for help. A dozen men down to Carthage City and beg Bill Harrison to send us up an army, and maybe bring his cannon if he can. My two boys are gone, and a thousand Reds for each of my sons won't be enough getting even for me!”

  * * *

  The dozen riders set on their way south first thing the next morning. They left from the commons, which was crowded with wagons as more and more families from outlying farms came in to town to put up with close-in friends and kinfolk. But Al Miller wasn't there to see them off. Yesterday his words set them all in motion, but that was all the leadership they'd get from him. He didn't want to be in charge. He just wanted his boys back.

  In the church, Armor-of-God sat on the front pew, despondent. “We're making the most terrible mistake,” he said to Reverend Thrower.

  “That's what men do,” said Thrower, “when they make their decisions without the help of the Lord.”

  “It wasn't Ta-Kumsaw, I know it. Nor the Prophet either.”

  “He's no Prophet, not of God, anyway,” said Thrower.

  “He's no killer, either,” said Armor. “Maybe Tack was right, maybe somehow Ta-Kumsaw's got something to do with this. But I know one thing. Ta-Kumsaw's no killer. Even when he was a young man, during General Wayne's war, there was a bunch of Reds all set to burn a bunch of captives to death, the way they did in those days– Chippy-Wa, I think they were. And along comes Ta-Kumsaw, all by himself, just this one lone Shaw-Nee, and he makes them stop. We want the White man to respect us, to treat us as a nation, he says to them. White man won't respect us if we act like this! We got to be civilized. No scalps, no torture, no burning, no killing captives. That's what he says to them. He's stuck to that ever since. He kills in battle, yes, but in all his raids down south he didn't kill one soul, do you realize that? If Ta-Kumsaw's got them boys, then they're as safe as if their mama had them home in bed.”

  Thrower sighed. “I suppose you know these Reds better than I do.”

  “I know them better than anybody.” He laughed bitterly. “So they call me a Red-lover and don't listen to a word I say. Now they're calling for that whisky-dealing tyrant from Carthage City to come up here and take over. No matter what he does he'll be a hero. They'll make him governor for real, then. Heck, they'll probably make him President, if Wobbish ever joins the U.S.A.”

  “I don't know this Harrison. He can't be the devil you make him out to be.”

  Armor laughed. “Sometimes, Reverend, I think you are as trusting as a little child.”

  “Which is how the Lord told us to be. Armor-of-God, be patient. All things will work out as the Lord intends.”

  Armor buried his face in his hands. “I sure hope so, Reverend. I sure do. But I keep thinking about Measure, as good a man as you can hope to find, and that boy Alvin, that sweet-faced boy, and how much store his papa sets by him, and–”

&
nbsp; Thrower's face went grim. “Alvin Junior,” he muttered. “Who would have imagined that the Lord would do his work through the hands of heathens?”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Armor.

  “Nothing, Armor, nothing. Just that everything about this may be exactly, exactly what the Lord intends.”

  Up the hill at the Miller house, Al still sat at the breakfast table. He didn't eat no supper the night before, and when he tried to eat breakfast he like to gagged on the food. Faith cleared it all away, and now she stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders. She never once said to him, I told you not to send them. But they both knew it. It hung between them like a sword, and neither dared reach out to the other for fear of it.

  The silence broke when Wastenot came in, a rifle over his shoulder. He set it beside the front door, swung a chair between his legs, and sat and looked at his parents. “They're gone, down to fetch the army.”

  To his surprise, his father only lowered his head and rested it on his arms, which were crossed on the table.

  Mother looked at him, her face haggard with worry and grief. “Since when did you learn how to use that thing?”

  “Me and Wantnot been practicing,” he said.

  “And you're going to kill Reds with it?”

  Wastenot was surprised at the loathing in her voice. “I sure hope so,” he said.

  “And when all the Reds are dead, and you pile all their bodies together, will Measure and Alvin somehow wriggle out of that pile and come on home to me?”

  Wastenot shook his head.

  “Last night some Red went home to his family, all proud because he killed him some White boys yesterday.” Her voice caught when she said it, but she went on all the same, cause when Faith Miller had aught to say, it got said. “And maybe his wife or his mama patted him and kissed him and made him supper. But don't you ever walk through that door and tell me you killed a Red man. Cause you won't get no supper, boy, and you won't get no kiss, and you won't get no pat, and no word, and no home, and no mama, you hear me?”

  He heard, all right, but he didn't like it. He stood up and walked back to the door and picked up the gun. “You think what you like, Mama,” he said, “but this is a war, and I am going to kill me some Reds, and I'm going to come back home, and I'm going to own up to it proud as can be. And if that means you don't want to be my mama no more, then you might as well stop being my mama now, and not wait till I come back.” He opened the door, but stopped before slamming it shut behind him. “Cheer up, Mama. Maybe I won't come back at all.”

  He never talked that way to his mother in his life, and he wasn't real sure that it felt good to do it now. But she was being crazy, not understanding that it was war now, that them Reds had declared it open season on White folks and so there wasn't no more choice about it.

  What bothered him most, though, as he got on his horse and rode out to David's place, was that he couldn't exactly be sure but he thought, he just suspected anyway, that Papa was crying. If that didn't beat all. Yesterday Papa was so hot against the Reds, and now Mama talked against fighting, and Papa just sat there and cried. Maybe it was getting old that made Papa like that. But that wasn't Wastenot's business, not now. Maybe Papa and Mama didn't want to kill them as took their sons– but Wastenot knew what he was going to do to them as took his brothers. Their blood was his blood, and whoever shed his blood was going to shed some of their own, too, a gallon for every drop.

  Chapter 9 – Lake Mizogan

  In his whole life Alvin never saw so much water all in one place. He stood on the top of a sand dune, looking out over the lake. Measure stood beside him, a hand resting on Al's shoulder.

  “Pa told me to keep you away from water,” said Measure, “and now look where they bring you.”

  The wind was hot and hard, gusting sometimes and shooting sand around like tiny arrows. “Brought you, too,” said Al.

  “Look, there's a real storm coming.”

  Off in the southwest, the clouds got black and ugly. Not one of them summer-shower storms. Lightning crackled along the face of the clouds. The thunder came much later, muffled by distance. While Alvin was watching, he felt suddenly like he could see much wider, much farther than before, like he could see the twisting and churning in the clouds, feel the hot and cold of it, the icy air swooping down, the hot air shooting upward, all writhing in a vast circle of the sky.

  “Tornado,” said Al. “There's a tornado in that storm.”

  “I don't see one,” said Measure.

  “It's coming. Look how. the air is spinning there. Look at that.”

  “I believe you, Al. But it's not like there's any place to hide around here.”

  “Look at all these people,” said Alvin. “If it hits us here–”

  “When did you learn how to tell the weather?” asked Measure. “You never done that before.”

  Al didn't have an answer to that. He never had felt a storm inside himself like this. It was like the green music he'd heard last night, all kinds of strange things happening now that he was captured by these Reds. But he couldn't waste another minute trying to think about why he knewit was enough that he knew it. “I've got to warn somebody.”

  Alvin took off down the dune, sliding so that each step was like leaping off the face of the hill, then landing on one foot and leaping again. He'd never run downhill so fast before. Measure chased after him, shouting, “They told us to stay up there till–” The wind gusted and whipped away his words. Now they were off the hill, the sand was even worse; the wind lifted big sheets of sand off the dunes, hurled it a ways, then let it fall. Al had to close his eyes, shield them with his hand, turn his face out of the wind– whatever it took to keep the sand from blinding him as he ran to the group of Reds gathered at the edge of the water.

  Ta-Kumsaw was easy to spot, and not just cause he was so big. The other Reds left a space around him, and he stood there like a king. Al ran right up to him. “Tornado coming!” he yelled. “There's tornadoes in that cloud!”

  Ta-Kumsaw leaned his head back and laughed; the wind was so loud Al barely heard him. Then Ta-Kumsaw reached over Al's head, to touch the shoulder of another Red standing there. “This is the boy!” shouted Ta-Kumsaw.

  Al looked at the man Ta-Kumsaw touched. He didn't carry himself like a king at all– nothing like Ta-Kumsaw. He was stooped somewhat, and one eye was missing, the lid just hanging empty over nothing. He looked taut, his arms wiry rather than muscled, his legs downright scrawny. But as Al sat there looking up into his face, he knew him. There wasn't no mistake.

  The wind died down for just a minute.

  “Shining Man,” said Al.

  “Roach boy,” said Tenskwa-Tawa, Lolla-Wossiky, the Prophet.

  “You're real,” said Al. Not a dream, not a vision. A real man who had stood there at the foot of his bed, vanishing and reappearing, his face shining like sunlight so it hurt to look at him. But it was the same man. “I didn't heal you!” said Al. “I'm sorry.”

  “Yes you did,” said the Prophet.

  Then Al remembered why he'd come running down the dune, busting into a conversation between the two greatest Reds in the whole world, these brothers whose names were known to every White man, woman, and child west of the Appalachee Mountains. “Tornadoes!” he said.

  As if to answer him, the wind whipped up again, howling now. Al turned around, and what he'd seen and felt was coming true. There were four twisters forming, hanging down out of the storm like snakes hanging from trees, slithering lower toward the ground, their heads ready to strike. They were all four coming right toward them, but not touching the ground yet.

  “Now!” shouted the Prophet.

  Ta-Kumsaw handed his brother a flint-tipped arrow. The Prophet sat down in the sand and jammed the point of the arrow into tfie sole of his left foot, then his right foot. Blood oozed copiously from the wounds. Then he did the same to his hands, jabbing himself so deep in the palm that it was bleeding on the top side of his hands, too.
/>   Almost without thinking, Al cried out and started to cast his mind into the Prophet's body, to heal the wounds.

  “No!” cried the Prophet. “This is the power of the Red man– the blood of his body– the fire of the land!”

  Then he turned and started walking out into Lake Mizogan.

  No, not into the lake. Onto it. Alvin couldn't hardly believe it, but under the Prophet's bloody feet the water became smooth and flat as glass, and the Prophet was standing on it. His blood pooled on the surface, deep red. A few yards away, the water became loose and choppy, wind-whipped waves rushing toward the smooth place and then just flattening, calming, becoming smooth.

  The Prophet kept walking, farther out onto the water, his bloody footprints marking the smooth path through the storm.

  Al looked back at the tornadoes. They were close now, almost overhead. Al could feel them twisting inside him, as if he were part of the clouds, and these were the great raging emotions of his own soul.

  Out on the water, the Prophet raised his hands and pointed at one of the twisters. Almost immediately, the other three twisters rose up, sucked back up into the clouds and disappeared. But the other came nearer, until it was directly over the Prophet, maybe a hundred feet up. It was near enough that around the edges of the Prophet's glassy smooth path, the water was leaping up, as if it wanted to dive upward into the clouds; the water started to circle, too, twisting around and around with the wind under the twister.

  “Come!” shouted the Prophet.

  Alvin couldn't hear him, but he saw his eyes– even from that far away– saw his lips move, and knew what the Prophet wanted. Alvin didn't hesitate. He stepped out onto the water.