Red Prophet ttoam-2 Page 22

  “I know,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “You promised me an army of ten thousand Reds, Ta-Kumsaw. Instead I keep hearing about a city of ten thousand Quakers!”

  “Not Quakers.”

  “If they renounce war it amounts to the same thing.” Suddenly Napoleon let his voice become soft, loving, persuasive. “Ta-Kumsaw, I need you, I depend on you, don't fail me.”

  Ta-Kumsaw laughed. Napoleon learned long ago that his tricks worked on White men, but not half so well on Reds, and on Ta-Kumsaw not at all. “You care nothing for me, and I care nothing for you,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “You want one battle and a victory, so you can go home a hero to Paris. I want one battle and a victory, so I can strike terror into White men's hearts and bring together an even greater army of Reds under my command, to sweep the land south of here and drive the Englishmen back across the mountains. One battle, one victory– that's why we work together, and when that's done I'll never think of you again, and you'll never think of me.”

  Napoleon was angry, but he laughed. “Half true,” he said. “I won't care about you, but I'll think of you. I've learned from you, Ta-Kumsaw. That love of a commander makes men fight better than love of country, and love of country better than the hope of glory, and the hope of glory better than looting, and looting better than wages. But best of all is to fight for a cause. A great and noble dream. I've always had the love of my men. They would die for me. But for a cause, they'd let their wives and children die and think it was worth the price.”

  “How did you learn that from me?” said Ta-Kumsaw. “That's my brother's talk, not mine.”

  “Your brother? I thought he didn't think anything was worth dying for.”

  “No, he's very free with dying. It's killing he won't do.”

  Napoleon laughed, and Ta-Kumsaw laughed with him. “You're right, you know. We're not friends. But I do like you. What puzzles me is this– when you've won, and all the White men are gone, you really mean to walk away and let all the tribes go back to the way they were before, separate, quarreling, weak.”

  “Happy. That's how we were before. Many tribes, many languages, but one living land.”

  “Weak,” said Napoleon again. “If I ever brought all of my land under my flag, Ta-Kumsaw, I'd hold them together so long and so tightly that they'd become one great people, great and strong. And if I ever do that, you can count on this. We'll be back, and take your land away from you, just like every other land on Earth. Count on it.”

  “That's because you are evil, General Bonaparte. You want to bend everything and everybody to your obedience.”

  “That isn't evil, foolish savage. If everybody obeyed me, then they'd be happy and safe, at peace, and, for the first time in all of history, free.”

  “Safe, unless they opposed you. Happy, unless they hated you. Free, unless they wanted something contrary to your will.”

  “Imagine, a Red man philosophizing. Do those peasant squatters south of here know that you've read Newton, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith?”

  “I don't think they know I can read their languages.”

  Napoleon leaned across his desk. “We'll destroy them, Ta-Kumsaw, you and I together. But you have to bring me an army.”

  “My brother prophesies that we'll have that army before the year ends.”

  “A prophecy?”

  “All his prophecies come true.”

  “Does he say we'll win?”

  Ta-Kumsaw laughed. “He says you'll be known as the greatest European general who ever lived. And I will be known as the greatest Red.”

  Napoleon ran his fingers through his hair and smiled, almost boyish now; he could pass from menacing to friendly to adorable in moments. “That seems to dodge the question. Dead men can be called great, too.”

  “But men who lose battles are never called great, are they? Noble, perhaps, even heroic. But not great.”

  “True, Ta-Kumsaw, true. But your brother is being coy. Oracular. Delphic.”

  “I don't know those words.”

  “Of course you don't. You're a savage.” Napoleon poured wine. “I forget myself. Wine?”

  Ta-Kumsaw shook his head.

  “I suppose none for the boy,” said Napoleon.

  “He's only ten,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “In France, that means we water the wine half and half. What are you doing with a White boy, Ta-Kumsaw? Are you capturing children now?”

  “This White boy,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “he's more than he seems.”

  “In a loincloth he doesn't look like much. Does he understand French?”

  “Not a word,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “I came to ask you– can you give us guns?”

  “No,” said Napoleon.

  “'We can't fight bullets with arrows,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “La Fayette refuses to authorize us to issue you any guns. Paris agrees with him. They don't trust you. They're afraid any guns they give you might someday be turned against us.”

  “Then what good will it do me to raise an army?”

  Napoleon smiled, sipped his wine. “I've been speaking to some Irrakwa traders.”

  “The Irrakwa are the urine of sick dogs,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “They were cruel, vicious animals before the White man came, and they are worse now.”

  “Odd. The English seemed to find them to be kindred spirits. And La Fayette adores them. All that matters now, though, is this: They manufacture guns, in large numbers, cheaply. Not the most reliable weapons, but they use exactly the same size ammunition. It means they can make balls that fit the barrel more tightly, with better aim. And yet they sell them for less.”

  “You'll buy them for us?”

  “No. You'll buy them.”

  “We don't have money.”

  “Pelts,” said Napoleon. “Beaver pelts. Minks. Deerhides and buffalo leather.”

  Ta-Kumsaw shook his head. “We can't ask these animals to die for the sake of guns.”

  “Too bad,” said Napoleon. “You Reds have a knack for hunting, I've been told.”

  “True Reds do. The Irrakwa don't. They've used White man's machines so long now that they're dead to the land, just like White men. Or they'd go and get the pelts they want for themselves.”

  “There's something else they want. Besides pelts,” said Napoleon.

  “We don't have anything they want.”

  “Iron,” said Napoleon.

  “We don't have iron.”

  “No. But they know where it is. In the upper reaches of the Mizzipy, and along the Mizota. Up near the west end of High Water Lake. All they want is your promise that you won't harm their boats bringing iron ore back to Irrakwa, or their miners as they dig it out of the earth.”

  “Peace for the future, in exchange for guns now?”

  “Yes,” said Napoleon.

  “Aren't they afraid that I'll turn the guns against them?”

  “They ask you to promise that you won't.”

  Ta-Kumsaw considered this. “Tell them this. I promise that if they give us guns, not one of the guns will ever be used against any Irrakwa. All my men will take this oath. And we will never attack any of their boats on the water, or their miners as they dig in the earth.”

  “You mean that?” asked Napoleon.

  “If I said it, I meant it,” said Ta-Kurnsaw.

  “As much as you hate them?”

  “I hate them because the land hates them. When the White man is gone, and the land is strong again, not sick, then earthquakes can swallow up miners, and storms can sink boats, and the Irrakwa will become true Red men again or they will die. Once the White man is gone, the land will be stern with its children who remain.”

  The meeting was soon finished after that. Ta-Kumsaw got up and shook hands with the general. Alvin surprised them both by also stepping forward and offering his hand.

  Napoleon shook hands with him, amused. “Tell the boy he keeps dangerous company,” he said.

  Ta-Kumsaw translated. Alvin looked at him with wide eyes. “Does he me
an you?” he asked.

  “I think so,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “But he's the most dangerous man in the world,” said Alvin.

  Napoleon laughed when Ta-Kumsaw translated the boy's words. “How can I be dangerous? A little man stuck away out here in the middle of the wilderness, when the center of the world is Europe, great wars are fought there and I have no part in them!”

  Ta-Kumsaw didn't need to translate– the boy understood from Napoleon's tone and expression. “He's so dangerous because he makes people love him without deserving it.”

  Ta-Kurnsaw felt the truth in the boy's words. That was what Napoleon did to White men, and it was dangerous, dangerous and evil and dark. Is this the man I rely on to help me? To be my ally? Yes, he is, because I have no choice. Ta-Kumsaw didn't translate what the boy said, even though Napoleon insisted. So far the French general had not attempted to cast his spell on the boy. If he knew the boy's words, he might try, and it just might capture Alvin. Ta-Kurnsaw was coming to appreciate what the boy was. Perhaps the boy was too strong for Napoleon to charm him. Or perhaps the boy would become an adoring slave like de Maurepas. Better not to find out. Better to take the boy away.

  Alvin insisted on seeing the cathedral. One priest looked horrified to see men in loincloths come into the place, but another rebuked him and welcomed them inside. Ta-Kumsaw was always amused by the statues of the saints. Whenever possible, the statues were shown being tortured in the most gruesome ways. White could talk all day about how barbaric it was, the Red practice of torturing captives so they could show courage. Yet whose statues did they kneel at to pray? People who showed courage under torture. There was no making sense of White men.

  He and Alvin talked about this on their way out of the city, not hurrying at all now. He also explained to the boy something of how they were able to run so far, so quickly. And how remarkable it was for a White boy to keep up with them.

  Alvin seemed to understand how Red men lived within the land; at least he tried. “I think I felt that. While I was running. It's like I'm not in myself. My thoughts are wandering all over. Like dreaming. And while I'm gone, something else is telling my body what to do. Feeding it, using it, taking it wherever it wants to go. Is that what you feel?”

  That wasn't at all what Ta-Kumsaw felt. When the land came into him, it was like he was more alive than ever; not absent from his body, but more strongly present in it than at any other time. But he didn't explain this to the boy. Instead he turned the question back to Alvin. “You say it's like dreaming. What did you dream last night?”

  “I dreamed again about a lot of the visions I saw when I was in the crystal tower with the Shining– with the Prophet.”

  “The Shining Man. I know you call him that– he told me why.”

  “I dreamed those things again. Only it was different. I could see some things more clearly now, and other things I forgot.”

  “Did you dream anything you hadn't seen before?”

  “This place. The statues in the cathedral. And that man we visited, the general. And something even stranger. A big hill, almost round– no, with eight sides. I remember that, it was real clear. A hill with eight straight sides to it, sloping down. Inside it there was a whole city, lots of little rooms, like in anthills, only people-sized. Or anyway bigger than ants. And I was on top of it, wandering around in all these strange trees– they had silver leaves, not green– and I was looking for my brother. For Measure.”

  Ta-Kumsaw said nothing for a long time. But he thought many things. No White man had ever seen that place– the land was still strong enough to keep them from finding that. Yet this boy had dreamed of it. And a dream of Eight-Face Mound never came by chance. It always meant something. It always meant the same thing.

  “We have to go there,” Ta-Kumsaw said.

  “Where?”

  “To the hill you dreamed of,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “There is such a place?”

  “No White man has ever seen it. For a White man to stand there would be– filthy.” Alvin didn't answer that. What could he say? Ta-Kumsaw swallowed hard. “But if you dream of it, you have to go.”

  “What is it?”

  Ta-Kumsaw shook his head. “The place you dreamed of. That's all. If you want to know more, dream again.”

  It was near night when they reached the camp; wigwams had been erected, because it looked like more rain tonight. The others insisted that Ta-Kumsaw share a hut with Alvin, for his safety's sake. But Ta-Kumsaw didn't want to. The boy made him afraid. The land was doing things with this boy, and not giving Ta-Kumsaw any idea what was happening.

  But when you saw yourself at the Eight-Face Mound in your dreams, you had no choice but to go. And since Alvin could never find the way alone, Ta-Kumsaw had to take him.

  He could never explain it to the others, and even if he could, he wouldn't do it. Word would get out that Ta-Kumsaw had taken a White to the ancient holy place, and then many Reds would refuse to listen to Ta-Kumsaw anymore.

  So in the morning he told the others he was taking the boy off to teach him, as the Prophet had told him he must. “Meet me in five days where the Pickawee flows into the Hio,” he told them. “From there we'll go south to talk to the Chok-Taw and the Chicky-Saw.”

  Take us with you, they said. You won't be safe alone. But he didn't answer them, and soon enough they gave up. He set off at a run, and once again Alvin fell in step behind him, matching him stride for stride. It was almost as far again as the journey from Mizogan to Detroit. By nightfall they would be at the edge of the Land of Flints. Ta-Kumsaw planned to sleep there, and find dreams of his own, before daring to lead a White boy to Eight-Face Mound.

  Chapter 12 – Cannons

  Measure heard them coming only seconds before the door swung open and light flooded the root cellar. Time enough to dump out the dirt and tuck his loincloth into the deerhide belt, then scramble forward onto the potatoes. The breechclout was so filthy it was like wearing dirt, but this wasn't a time to get finicky.

  They didn't waste no time on prison inspection, so they didn't see the hole that was now reaching a good two feet under the back wall. Instead they reached in and drug him out by the armpits, slamming the root cellar doors shut behind him. The light was so sudden it dazzled him, and he couldn't make out who had him, or how many they were. Didn't much matter. Anyone local would have known him right off, so they had to be Harrison's boys, and once he knew that, he knew it wasn't nothing good going to happen to him.

  “Like a pig,” said Harrison. “Disgusting. You look like a Red.”

  “You put me in a hole in the ground,” said Measure. “I ain't about to come out clean.”

  “I gave you one long night to think about it, boy,” said Harrison, “Now you got to make up your mind. There's two ways you can be useful to me. One is alive, you telling all about how they tortured your brother to death, him screaming every second. You make it a good story, and you tell all about how Ta-Kumsaw and the Prophet were there, getting their own hands into the boy's blood. You tell a story like that, and it's worth keeping you alive.”

  “Ta-Kumsaw saved my life from your Chok-Taw Reds,” said Measure, “That's the only story I'll tell. Except to mention how you wanted me to tell another story.”

  “That's what I thought,” said Harrison. “Fact is, even if you lied to me and promised to tell the story my way, I reckon I wouldn't've believed you. So we both agree– it's the other choice.”

  Measure knew Harrison meant to produce his body, with the evidence of torture on it. Dead, he couldn't tell anybody who did the cutting and burning. Well, thought Measure, you'll see I die as brave as any man.

  But because he wasn't one to welcome death with both hands, he thought he'd give talking a bit more of a try. “You let me go and call off this war, Harrison, and I'll keep my mouth shut. Just let me wander in, and you allow as how it was all a terrible mistake and take your boys on home and leave Prophetstown in peace, and I won't tell a word otherwise. That
's a lie I'm glad to tell.”

  Harrison hesitated just a moment, and Measure allowed himself to hope he might actually have some spark of godliness left in him, to turn away from the sin of murder before it was fully done. Then Harrison smiled, shook his head, and waved his hand at a big ugly riverman standing right up against the wall.

  “Mike Fink, this here's a renegade White boy, who has joined in with all the evil doings of Ta-Kumsaw and his gang of child-killers and wife-rapers. I hope you'll break several of his bones.”

  Fink stood there, contemplating. “I reckon he'll make a-powerful lot of noise, Gov.”

  “Well, jam in a gag on him.” Harrison took a kerchief out of his own coat pocket. “Here, stuff this in his mouth and tie it there.”

  Fink complied. Measure tried to keep his eyes off him, tried to calm the dread that made his belly so tight and his bladder so full. The kerchief filled his mouth so full he choked on it. He only got control of himself by breathing slow and steady through his nose. Fink tied his own red scarf so tight around Measure's face that it forced the gag down into his throat even farther; again it took all his concentration just to breathe evenly and stop from gagging and retching. If he did that, he'd sure breathe the that kerchief, right down into his lungs, and then he would die.

  Which was a crazy thought, seeing as how Harrison meant to have him dead no matter what. Maybe choking on a kerchief would be better than the pain Fink meant to cause. But Measure had too strong a spark of life to choose to die like that. Pain or not, when he died he'd go out gasping, not smothering himself just to get off easy.

  “Breaking his bones ain't the way Reds do it.” Fink was being helpful. “They usually cut and bum.”

  “Well, we don't have time for cutting, and you can burn the body after he's dead. The point of this is to have a colorful corpse, Mike, not to cause this boy pain. We're not savages, or at least some of us aren't.”