BOOK 31832Moon of StrawberriesJune
BOOK 31832
Moon of StrawberriesJune
Redbird thought,Our land by the Rock River was so good to us, and now see what we have come to.
Only starving people tried to make food from cattail seeds and the inner bark of slippery elm and willow trees.
With a small steel knife Redbird cut cattails, dropping them into a basket she carried over her arm. It would take thousands of the tiny seeds, painstakingly picked from the white fuzz and then ground into meal, to make a little bread that must be shared among five people.
Redbird moved slowly, pushing her swollen belly before her. As much as her back and her feet hurt, she was determined to spend every day out foraging until the baby was born. For the baby's sake she had to eat as much as she could, but she did not want to take that extra portion from the rest of her family without contributing as much as she could to the common supply.
She sang as she walked along, asking the Trembling Lands to yield fruits and berries. She found no fruits or berries, but singing kept her spirits up, and she thought it helped the others too. Yellow Hair smiled and nodded to her to show that she liked the song.
Sweat trickled down her back and inside her doeskin dress. Gray clouds lay heavily over the Trembling Lands, and the air was warm and wet. Even though the water of the lake was dark and muddy, Redbird was looking forward to bathing in it.
And she was looking forward to a private talk with Yellow Hair. Yellow Hair had been with them for many days and nights. It was time she went to bed with White Bear.
Yellow Hair walked beside her around the edge of the lake. Ahead of them ran Eagle Feather with a captive pale eyes boy named Woodrow. Iron Knife had brought Woodrow back from a raid, and White Bear had taken him under his protection too.
Woodrow, a few years older than Eagle Feather, was darting this way and that, uprooting plants and throwing them down, tasting berries and spitting them out. Redbird watched him with amusement. She had already grown fond of him.
Woodrow said something to Yellow Hair, who smiled and turned to Redbird.
Speaking the pale eyes' tongue slowly, adding the few Sauk words she knew and using gestures, Yellow Hair managed to explain to Redbird that Woodrow was unhappy because he did not know what to pick.
"If look good, pick," Redbird said, using the little English White Bear had taught her. "Not eat. If I say good, then eat."
Woodrow grinned and nodded to Redbird to show he understood. He ran off after Eagle Feather, who was looking for birds and squirrels to shoot with his small bow and arrow. Woodrow had been a captive only half as long as Yellow Hair, but unlike her, he seemed happy with his lot.
Redbird doubted that Eagle Feather and Woodrow would find any squirrels or birds. Very little that was edible, plant or animal, lived in this marsh, and over a thousand people had been foraging in the area for more than a moon. The last time the British Band had eaten well was when Wolf Paw brought the cattle. And among so many people, those cattle had not lasted long. Many people were digging in the ground for worms and grubs, roasting them and eating them in handfuls. Some people were even secretly killing and eating horses, though Black Hawk had decreed death for anyone caught doing that.
As for Redbird herself, she felt an emptiness in her belly from the time she woke till the time she went to sleep, and she found herself wanting to sleep longer and longer as her strength ebbed away. She worried constantly that the baby inside her was not getting enough nourishment and would die or be stunted. The people around her were starting to look like walking skeletons.
They came to a point of land covered with pale green shrubs thrusting out into the lake. Redbird called Eagle Feather.
"Go for a swim around the other side of this point and take the pale eyes boy with you."
Eagle Feather's blue eyes glowed. "Maybe I can shoot a frog."
Once the boys were gone, she said to Yellow Hair, "We take bath." Yellow Hair smiled gratefully.
As they waded naked into the greenish, murky water, Redbird eyed Yellow Hair's body, so different from a Sauk woman's. She remembered how hungrily the braves had stared at Yellow Hair when Wolf Paw's wife stripped her before the tribe.
Yet it was easy to imagine that such pale skin was a sign of sickness. Yellow Hair's face and hands were somewhat tan, but every other part of her was white as milk. Her ribs were showing, a sign of the hunger they were all suffering. Still, her breasts were round, with pretty pink nipples. Her legs were long, and her buttocks curved out sharply; those of Sauk women were flatter. Even though the hair under her arms and between her legs was light in color, she had an abundance of it, much more than the fine tufts of black hair Redbird had in those places. She had undone her braids, and her hair fell like a golden curtain down her back halfway to her waist.
What a beautiful creature she is!
What an evil, stupid thing it would have been if Running Deer and the others had been allowed to cut her to bits and burn her.
A man might find Yellow Hair's differences from Sauk women attractive. A man such as White Bear.
She felt no fear that the pale eyes woman would take White Bear away from her. He showed many times every day, with his looks, with his movements, with his words, that Redbird, and not Yellow Hair, was first in his heart.
Redbird waded into the lake until the water was up to her breasts and her feet were sinking in the ooze. Then she pushed herself forward and dog-paddled through the reeds. It was wonderful to let the water take the weight of her belly off her hips and legs, a welcome relief to feel so cool.
In the night in the wickiup she often heard Yellow Hair moving or weeping softly. And that meant that Yellow Hair must have heard White Bear and Redbird loving each other in bed. This was only to be expected. When families slept all together in lodges and wickiups, the children early came to know how their parents took pleasuretogether during the night, and were unembarrassed when they grew up and their turn came. But how did the sounds of White Bear and Redbird together make Yellow Hair feel?
White Bear had said that Yellow Hair had wanted him when he lived among the pale eyes. And lately Redbird and White Bear had been sleeping apart on their separate pallets more often, because Redbird, in the discomfort of the final moon of carrying this baby, rarely wanted White Bear inside her.
And so Redbird had searched her heart and knew that she was willing to share her husband with Yellow Hair.
White Bear and Yellow Hair could go to bed with each other.
And should.
It would be good for Yellow Hair if her yearning for White Bear could be satisfied, at least for a time. The pleasure of mating was a healing thing. It restored the ill to health, and it made the well strong and happy.
Redbird could see in Yellow Hair's eyes—such a bright blue—how much she longed for White Bear. Being close to him, Redbird thought, helped Yellow Hair forget she was a captive.
Some days ago, not long after White Bear had taken in Woodrow, Redbird had told White Bear she would not mind if he took Yellow Hair into his bed. He had laughed and patted her belly and insisted he could wait until she wanted him again.
Why should hehaveto wait, when a woman who desired him was right there in his wickiup?
It was good that she had spoken to him, even though he claimed he did not want Yellow Hair. At least he knew that if Yellow Hair did come to him in the night, they both had Redbird's blessing. But she doubted that Yellow Hair would ever approach White Bear that way. Not without encouragement.
She stopped swimming, and let her feet down into the mud so that she stood beside Yellow Hair. Here the water of the lake almost came up to Redbird's shoulders, but Yellow Hair's breasts were well above it. They smiled at each other.
Yellow Hair crouched down in the water till it was up to her neck. She dipped her hair into the water, then lifted her head and squeezed the water out of her hair with her hands.
The water was good and cool, she said, but she wished she had some soap.
White Bear had explained what soap was, and Redbird smiledand shook her head. If water would not wash dirt away, a Sauk scrubbed with sand. As for hair, Redbird left hers braided. Once at the beginning of summer and once at the end, she felt, was often enough to let water touch her unbound hair.
Now that she had decided to talk to Yellow Hair, Redbird felt a tightness in her throat. What if the idea of sharing White Bear made Yellow Hair angry? Sharing a mate was not, Redbird knew, according to pale eyes custom.
There was only one way: to begin in spite of her fear.
She said, "You know about woman and man? What they do?" She signed with her fingers to make her meaning plain, and saw that she had succeeded when the pale eyes woman's face turned a deep red. Redbird wished Yellow Hair were standing up in the water, so she could see whether the rest of her body turned red too.
Yellow Hair said she knew a little about what men and women did, but her mother had died a long time ago and her father never spoke of such things.
"You want me teach?" Redbird asked.
Yellow Hair turned red again, looked down at the water and nodded.
So, as they waded back to the shore of the lake, Redbird tried with many gestures and a few words to teach Yellow Hair, as Sun Woman many summers ago had taught her. When they were out of the water, Redbird picked up a stick and drew a little picture on the mudbank. When she was finished, she giggled. Yellow Hair took a good look and turned red again, all the way down to her waist, Redbird noticed. She turned away, but Redbird saw to her relief that she was laughing. Redbird scratched out the picture.
They sat on the bank where they had left their clothing, letting the air dry their bodies. From a pouch she had brought with her Redbird took a wood-stoppered gourd containing musk oil. She and Yellow Hair rubbed the oil on their bodies to keep mosquitoes off.
Yellow Hair wanted to know if the first time with a man hurt very much.
"Some women hurt much. Other women little."
She patted Yellow Hair's wrist to reassure her. "I think you hurt little. After that, feel very, very good." She patted herself between her legs to make plain what she was talking about, and Yellow Hair blushed again.
"Bestfeeling," Redbird added, smiling. It was surprising, Redbirdthought, that Yellow Hair could become a fully grown woman and yet still have her first time with a man to look forward to.
They sat in silence for a time, Redbird afraid again because now she had to take the next step.
But before she could speak, tears began to trickle down Yellow Hair's cheeks. She spoke brokenly, and it was hard for Redbird to follow her. She seemed to be saying that she expected to die before she ever knew those good feelings Redbird talked about with a man she loved. She had already lived for twenty summers, and now it seemed she might not live much longer. And never have a man.
It was true. There was big danger to Yellow Hair. If anything happened to White Bear, she would have no protector. Many Sauk hated pale eyes. One might get at her. Or her own people might even kill her by mistake.
Yellow Hair had missed so much. So tall and beautiful, but she had nothing to show for her life—no man, no children. Redbird felt sorry for her.
"You love White Bear?" she asked, hugging herself as she said the word "love" to show what she meant.
Now Yellow Hair turned pale—even paler than usual—and drew away from Redbird. She shook her head violently, her bright golden hair swinging all wild and loose, and said, "No, no, no!"
But she stared at Redbird too fixedly, and Redbird could see that she did not mean what she said.
White Bear wanted Yellow Hair, but said he did not want her. Yellow Hair loved White Bear, but said she did not love him.
White Bear and Yellow Hair were both being foolish. It came of Yellow Hair being pale eyes and White Bear being part pale eyes.
And so now Redbird took a deep breath and said, "When we sleep tonight, you go to bed of White Bear. He make you happy."
Yellow Hair's eyes grew huge and her face glowed with a joyous wonder. She stammered and gasped as she asked Redbird if she really meant it, if she would really let such a thing happen.
"I happy when you happy, White Bear happy," Redbird said.
Redbird had come to see Yellow Hair as a younger sister who needed her help and guidance. She liked Yellow Hair much more, in fact, than she liked either Wild Grape or Robin's Nest. Her sisters had always sneered at White Bear, and Yellow Hair saw what a fine man he was.
Yellow Hair suddenly looked frightened. She stood up abruptly, picked up her fringed doeskin dress and struggled into it. When her head appeared through the neck of the dress and she shook her hair free, she was crying again.
No, she insisted, she couldn't do that. It would be wrong.
Redbird thought she understood. This hungry, dangerous time was a terrible time for a woman to be carrying a baby.
"You not want baby? Sun Woman makes tea keeps woman from getting baby."
Yellow Hair talked for a long time. Redbird tried hard to follow what she said, asking questions and making her repeat herself. It had to do with Jesus, the pale eyes spirit Père Isaac always talked about. Jesus would not like it if Yellow Hair went to bed with White Bear.
Redbird remembered White Bear telling her that Yellow Hair was the daughter of a pale eyes shaman. The Jesus spirit might be a special spirit for her, then.
But I am also the daughter of a shaman. I can teach her what we believe.
"Jesus not here," Redbird pointed out. "We children of Earthmaker."
But also, Yellow Hair explained, by pale eyes custom a woman who slept with another woman's husband was a bad woman.
"White Bearisyour husband," Redbird said. "My father shaman. He marry you and White Bear." Surely that was more important than what a lot of pale eyes who were not even here to see might think. Among the Sauk, many would call Yellow Hair a bad woman fornotsleeping with White Bear.
"We Sauk people. What you do with my Sauk man is good."
Yellow Hair sighed and wiped her tears with her fingers. Maybe she would go to White Bear in the night, and maybe not. She spread her hands helplessly. She did not know what to do.
Redbird saw that she could tell Yellow Hair no more. The pale eyes would have to make up her own mind.
Yellow Hair gave Redbird a sad smile and thanked her for her kindness. And after Redbird had put on her dress and her moccasins, Yellow Hair gave her a little kiss on the cheek.
With a wooden comb Redbird had given her, Yellow Hair combed out her long blond locks and began to braid them again.
They rejoined Eagle Feather and Woodrow and spent the rest ofthe afternoon searching for food, returning to camp when the clouds overhead turned purple and the sun made a brief appearance, blazing like a prairie fire on the flat horizon of the marshland.
Redbird bit her lip anxiously as they walked back to the camp. If Yellow Hair decided not to go to bed with White Bear, she might think, according to her pale eyes custom, that Redbird was a bad woman for saying she should. But what if Yellow Hair went to bed with White Bear and he came to love Yellow Hair more than he did Redbird? She had thought that could not happen, but now that she had spoken out, she was not so sure.
That night Redbird curled up on her solitary pallet of blankets laid over a mat of reeds on one side of the wickiup. Yellow Hair lay in her sleeping place, and the boys were in the one they shared. White Bear was still visiting and treating ill people. Many people, especially the very old and the very young, were falling ill in the Trembling Lands. There had been many deaths since they crossed the Great River. Bit by bit the band was losing the wisdom of the old and the promise of the young.
White Bear came in long after the two women and the boys had settled down for the night. He went to his own pallet on the east side of the wickiup.
Now that Redbird was ready for sleep, the baby within her woke up, and its kicking, along with burning feelings that rose from her stomach to her throat, kept her awake.
The stillness was disturbed only by the chirping of countless frogs.
Where were those frogs today when we were looking for food? We must ask the Frog spirit to let us catch some of them.
Then she heard another movement. Someone was crawling across the reed-covered floor of the wickiup. She caught her breath. Yellow Hair's sleeping place was on the side opposite White Bear's, and the movement was unmistakably from her bed to his.
A little later she heard other sounds that were also easy to recognize—the crackling of a bed's reed matting, whispers, little gasps and groans, loud, fast breathing.
Yellow Hair's cry of pain sounded as if it had come through clenched teeth. She still did not want anyone to know. Redbird smiled to herself.
As she listened to White Bear's heavy panting, Redbird rememberedthe sharp pain inside her when she first received him on the island near Saukenuk.
White Bear sighed loudly, and then everything was still for a time, and Redbird heard the frogs once more. They were probably mating too. How wise of Earthmaker to make his creatures into woman and man, so they could give each other such wonderful pleasure. Earthmaker knew everything, but it was hard to see how he could have invented man and woman without having seen something that gave him the idea.
Him? Redbird had always pictured Earthmaker as a man, a giant warrior, but now she wondered whether the spirit that gave life to the world and all things in it might be a she. Or, better yet, maybe there were two Earthmakers, a he and a she.
As she had so many times before, she wished now that the tribe's custom would permit her to become a shaman, so that she might see into these mysteries with her own eyes, as White Bear and Owl Carver had.
The sounds started up again from White Bear's bed, the movements, the whisperings. Redbird thought about how good it was to have her man filling her solidly, giving her delicious feelings as he moved in and out. And she felt herself warm with desire.
She smiled ruefully in the dark.
Now I want him and I cannot have him, because I sent Yellow Hair to his bed.
I hope this baby will be born soon, so I can lie with White Bear again. Of course, even then I will still let Yellow Hair have him, sometimes.
When Redbird awoke at sunrise and got up to begin the day's foraging, Yellow Hair was back sleeping in her own place. In the faint light that filtered through the wickiup's elm-bark skin, her pink mouth looked soft and childlike.
White Bear was seated cross-legged on his bed, loading the rifle he had brought with him when he came back to the tribe. With food so short, even the shaman had to go out and try to hunt to supply his family; the people he treated had no gifts to give him. She stood looking at him, waiting for him to speak to her, but he kept his eyes on his rifle with foolish shyness.
Did he think she was angry at him, or that she was going to tease him, the way Water Flows Fast might?
Poor Water Flows Fast—she made few jokes since her husband, Three Horses, was killed at Old Man's Creek.
Redbird said, "I know what happened last night. I am glad that it happened. It was good for her and for you."
Now White Bear's dark eyes met hers, troubled. "Yes, it is good for me and Nancy—Yellow Hair—but only for now."
"What troubles you?" she asked him.
"One day, when Yellow Hair must leave us and go back to her own people, I think she will be very sad. That is why I did not lie with her when she wanted me to at Victor. I knew we would have to part."
"Now she has what she wants, at least for as long as she stays with us. Now she will have something to think about besides how afraid she is."
He smiled at her. "And you made it happen. I know that you sent her to me. You are a great troublemaker."
He stood up and stroked her cheek with his fingertips, and she felt a glow inside, certain now that speaking to Yellow Hair had been right.
The afternoon sun heated the interior of the birthing wickiup till it felt like a sweat lodge.
Redbird screamed. It was not a baby; it was a wild horse down there, kicking its way out. She felt about to faint.
The pain died away. Groaning, Redbird went limp between Wind Bends Grass and Yellow Hair, who held her arms. Sun Woman crouched before Redbird, observing the progress of the birth by the light of a single candle.
Her skin slick with sweat, Redbird was squatting naked over a pile of blankets in the center of the wickiup. Her back and legs ached unbearably.
"You don't have to scream so loud," Wind Bends Grass said abruptly. "It doesn't hurt that much."
Redbird wished her mother could feel this pain and know how much it hurt. She felt like telling Wind Bends Grass to leave the birthing wickiup.
Sun Woman said gently, "No one knows how much another person hurts."
I don't remember this much pain when Eagle Feather was born. Maybe I am going to die.
Sun Woman stood up and wiped Redbird's forehead with a cool, wet kerchief, then cleaned her bottom for her, where a little blood was dripping.
"I can see the top of the baby's head," Sun Woman said. "It will be a good birth. You are almost done now."
Redbird looked up at the mare's tail, dyed red, that hung over the wickiup doorway, medicine to make the birth go easier.
Let it be over soon, she prayed. Her pains had started at dawn, and now it was past midday. Sun Woman had used up four candles, and in the whole band there were hardly any candles left. It had not taken this long with Eagle Feather.
Yellow Hair rubbed the arm she was holding, and Redbird managed to look at her and smile. Though Redbird had meant to honor Yellow Hair by asking her to help here, she was not sure now that she had done the right thing. The pale eyes woman's face was icy white, and she kept biting her lips as if trying to keep from being sick. She had probably never seen anything like this before.
Wind Bends Grass had insisted that it was bad luck to have Yellow Hair present, but Redbird had ignored her.
The next pain came, and Redbird, to show her mother how much it hurt, screamed even louder and longer than she had to. This time the pain gave her hardly any rest before it came again. And another came stepping on its heels. And another.
Her screams were continuous now, and she was hoarse and coughing and did not have to pretend. Her eyes were blind with tears. She dug her nails into the arms of Wind Bends Grass and Yellow Hair and bent forward, pushing as hard as she could.
She felt the enormous mass breaking out of her, and found her voice again in a scream that could split the very sky open even as the baby was tearing her in two.
Her ears rang. She felt broken and useless, like an empty eggshell. She hurt terribly, but a great weight was gone from inside her.
Wind Bends Grass said, "You have done well, my daughter."
Redbird started to cry, from pain, from relief, and because she had finally pleased her mother.
From the floor she heard a tiny cough, and then a drawn-out wail. She looked down and saw the little bright red figure in SunWoman's arms, its eyes screwed shut, its mouth wide open, at the joining of its legs the life-giving crevice. A glistening blue cord coiling up from the baby's belly joined her still to Redbird's body.
She felt another pain now, and pushed out the afterbirth with a groan. Wind Bends Grass and Yellow Hair helped her to stumble to the bed against the wall of the wickiup. They wrapped her in a light blanket, while Sun Woman cut the cord and set it aside to be dried and put in the baby's medicine bag. Then Wind Bends Grass bathed the tiny body first with water, then with oil. She put her granddaughter in her daughter's arms.
"What will you call her?" she asked.
Redbird had thought of a name in the lake where she and Yellow Hair had been bathing several days ago. "I will call her Floating Lily."
"A good name," Sun Woman said.
Floating Lily's voice was strong. Hungry already, and she had only been in the world a few moments. Redbird pressed the little mouth against her breast. She prayed that she would have milk. She had eaten as much as she could; now she must give nourishment.
She felt the rhythmic pull on her breast. The baby's mouth was full of milk; no more crying. A warm feeling spread through Redbird's body.
After Redbird had fed Floating Lily, they both slept. It was near sundown when the three women attending her helped her limp with the baby back to her own wickiup. Each time she took a step it felt as if a club hit her between her legs, but her heart rejoiced that the ordeal was over.
Yellow Hair said that she would go and look for Woodrow and Eagle Feather. She was crying. Redbird was not sure why.
In the wickiup, White Bear was waiting for her. As she lay on her bed with Floating Lily, his eyes lit up with joy at the sight of his daughter. He picked the baby up, which made her cry, and he laughed and handed her back to Redbird.
"I was not with you to see our son born," he said. "I have never been happier in my life than I am at this moment."
The hide curtain over the wickiup doorway was pulled aside and Owl Carver entered, holding his owl's head medicine stick in one hand and a bowl of smoking aromatic herbs and wood shavings in another. His white hair was getting thinner and thinner, Redbirdnoticed, and he walked with a permanent stoop. He blew the smoke over Redbird and Floating Lily to bless them.
"May she walk her path with honor," he said, laying his hand on Floating Lily's head. He left, the scented smoke lingering behind him.
When Redbird bared her breast, White Bear leaned over and kissed her nipple, his lips catching a droplet of milk that had formed there. She put Floating Lily to her breast and lay in contented silence with her husband sitting beside her.
He took up his book and read aloud:
"Whence Hail to thee,Eve, rightly called Mother of all Mankind,Mother of all things living, since by theeMan is to live, and all things live for Man."
"Whence Hail to thee,Eve, rightly called Mother of all Mankind,Mother of all things living, since by theeMan is to live, and all things live for Man."
"What does that mean?" she asked.
He translated the words into Sauk, and said, "It means that all life comes from woman."
Iron Knife's head suddenly appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide, his mouth drawn down.
"White Bear! Long knives coming this way, thousands of them."
Redbird's body went cold, and she clutched the baby to her. How could she keep this tender new life safe in the midst of flight and fighting?
"Maybe they will not be able to find us," White Bear said.
"No, the scouts say they have Potawatomi guides riding with them, who know where to look for us. Potawatomi dogs! To side with the long knives against us."
"The Potawatomi must have been forced to help," said White Bear quietly.
Iron Knife said, "Black Hawk says we must break camp right now. We will head west as quickly as we can toward the Great River."
Redbird tightened her arms around Floating Lily until the baby cried out in pain. Instantly she relaxed her grip, but in her mind she saw the long knives coming, with their cruel, hairy faces, murdering them all with their guns and their swords. She saw the people she loved sprawled dead in the mud of the Trembling Lands. White Bear had told her that Black Hawk's war parties had killed many paleeyes, even women and children. Now the long knives would take terrible vengeance. Even as she stroked the baby and whispered to soothe her, her heart pounded in her chest.
There would be hard traveling ahead and even less food, thought Redbird. Trying to walk after just giving birth, the pain would kill her.
For an instant she hated Black Hawk for having led them into this suffering. If only the British Band had listened last winter to White Bear. And to her. Then hatred gave way to sick despair. She would die before they ever reached the Great River. And Floating Lily, who had just come into the world, would die too.
Iron Knife left them. White Bear turned to Redbird, and she saw in his eyes the same hopelessness she felt. But if he gave up, too, they were truly lost. Why, then, go through the agony of a flight from the long knives? They might as well stay here and let the long knives come and kill them.
White Bear said, "The Turtle told me, 'The many who follow Black Hawk across the Great River will be few when they cross back.'" A chill went through her as she saw how those prophetic words were coming true.
The little bundle in Redbird's arms stirred. Anger rose in her. Despite Black Hawk's blundering, despite the deadly hatred of the long knives, she and her husband and her son and her baby daughter would not let themselves be killed.
"Then if we do not cross the Great River we will escape in some other direction," she said firmly. "Go and find Eagle Feather and Woodrow. I will start to pack our belongings."
He smiled gratefully at her, reached for her and held her. She felt herself gaining strength from his strong arms around her.
"For a few days I will not be able to walk or ride. You will have to tie me to a travois and pull me along, as we do with old people."
"If I have to carry you in my arms," said White Bear, "I will do that."
Now that she was determined to fight to stay alive, she smiled up at White Bear and pressed herself against him. Shewaslove. The power of a great spirit, perhaps that she-Earthmaker she had once thought of, filled her.
The Turtle, she thought, had said that many would die. But he had also said that a few would live.
She and her husband and her children, they would live.
The setting sun, warming the flat land at the foot of a hill beside the Great River, cast deep shadows in the hollows of Redbird's and Nancy's faces. How thin they were getting to be. Fear for them wriggled snakelike through White Bear's own empty stomach.
Has Earthmaker abandoned his people? No—worse—this is the fate he has chosen for us. He bestows evil as well as good on his children.
Redbird said wearily, "What did the council decide?" She unfastened the sling in which she carried Floating Lily on her back and cradled the baby in her arms, frowning into the tiny brown face. White Bear knew what she was thinking. Floating Lily was too quiet.
White Bear said, "Black Hawk wants to go north and seek refuge with the Chippewa. He took the compass my father gave him out of his medicine bag and showed it to the chiefs and braves. He said we must follow its arrow north. But Iron Knife disagreed with him."
Redbird's eyes widened. "My brother never disagrees with Black Hawk. Black Hawk has lived three times as long as he has."
"Iron Knife spoke for many of the younger braves," White Bear said. "They want to cross the Great River here, now, and bring the war to an end. Black Hawk reminded them that we have only three canoes. Each canoe can hold only six people, and two of those six must paddle back and forth. They would have to ferry nearly a thousand people. He said the long knives would reach us long before we all got across. Iron Knife said they would make rafts and more canoes. In the end the three chiefs and most of the braves saidthey would cross the river. Only a few have agreed to go north with Black Hawk."
It had taken a whole moon to cross from east to west, from their camp in the Trembling Lands to this place where the Bad Axe River emptied into the Great River. The land through which they passed, following an old Winnebago trail, was rolling prairie at first. Then they plunged into country that was ever wilder and more mountainous as they struggled westward. At the last they had to cut their own trail. They marked their passage with kettles, blankets, tent poles and other possessions too heavy to carry—and their dying old people who could walk no more, and their dead children. The only good thing about this rugged land was that it slowed down the long knives even more than it did Black Hawk's people, who knew by the time they reached the Great River that their pursuers were two days behind them.
White Bear told Nancy in English what he had just told Redbird about the council.
"If the band is dividing, where willwego?" Nancy asked.
"I asked Black Hawk—I begged him—to let you and Woodrow go." Anger crept into White Bear's voice as he recalled Black Hawk's stubbornness. "He still refuses. He wants to take the two of you north with him."
Redbird said, "But pale eyes prisoners are no good to Black Hawk now." White Bear was pleased to see that she had learned to get the drift of English conversations between him and Nancy. He did not like to feel that he was leaving Redbird out of anything, especially since heknewNancy now.
"True," White Bear said to Redbird in Sauk. "And if we meet up with long knives again they will shoot first and not think to look for pale eyes among us. I want to get Yellow Hair and Woodrow away from the tribe before there is another battle."
There had been one great battle with the long knives halfway through their trek, on the south shore of the Ouisconsin River. Many had died on both sides, but Black Hawk had managed to get most of his people away after nightfall. Right now White Bear could almost hear the huge army of long knives crashing through the forests behind them.
But Nancy shook her head violently. "I feel safer with you." Her eyes glistened with tears.
Ever since Redbird had encouraged Nancy to seek his bed, White Bear had feared that when the time came for their parting, it would hurt her badly.
And him as well. In the moon just past he and Nancy had joined bodies and hearts many times. Now it seared his throat to speak aloud his decision that Nancy must leave the British Band.
He sat down on a fallen tree trunk and reached out to her. Nancy came over and took his hands and sat beside him.
"With the band going in two different directions, this is your best chance to get away. You and I have loved each other, but you are still a white woman, and my people murdered your father. Why should you share our fate? And what about Woodrow? If you and he go together, you have a better chance of reaching safety."
She bent over, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "If you're going to die, I want to die with you."
A moon ago, he thought, she had desperately wanted to escape from the British Band. Now her own heart was holding her captive.
Eve's words to Adam as they left Paradise rose unbidden in his mind:With thee to go, is to stay here; without thee here to stay, is to go hence unwilling.
"But no one wants to die," he said gently. "For you to stay now when you can escape would be madness."
It was a madness he felt himself. There was a part of him that wanted to keep her with him, to let her stay, however all this might end. He had to force himself to keep to his plan to help her get away.
Eagle Feather and Woodrow came from the woods along the south bank of the Bad Axe River, arms loaded with boughs for the wickiup that now they would not bother to build.
White Bear squatted down before Woodrow and grasped his shoulders.
"Tonight I am going to help you and Miss Nancy to get away from our band and back to the white people." He would be sorry to lose the boy.
Eagle Feather, standing nearby, said nothing. But his face, full of woe, told White Bear that he understood.
"I guess Miss Nancy and me could find our way to white folks if we follow the river," Woodrow said uncertainly. With the beaded headband Iron Knife had given him wrapped around his high forehead,and his face browned by the summer sun, he looked like a Sauk boy, except for his light brown hair. He seemed not much happier about leaving the band than Nancy.
"I'm not going to send you to find your way alone," White Bear said. "I'll go with you until I see you in safe hands. Prairie du Chien and Fort Crawford are south of here on the river. If we go in that direction we're bound to meet some of your people."
"I got no people but you," said Woodrow. "You treated me better than my folks ever did."
White Bear felt a catch in his throat. He remembered how, seven years ago, he had fought against being sent from the tribe when Star Arrow came looking for him.
Eagle Feather's blue eyes rested gravely on White Bear. "What about Mother and Floating Lily and me? Are we going to cross the Great River now?"
White Bear remembered again what the Turtle had said in his vision. He looked out at the river, tinged with red by the sunset, and felt a chill. Calamity, his shaman's sense told him, awaited those who tried to escape by crossing the river again.
"No." White Bear looked over at Redbird, who held Floating Lily to her breast. "Day after tomorrow at the latest, the long knives will be here. I want you to go with Black Hawk. Though I think Black Hawk has led us unwisely, still, to go north is safer. Three lodges, about fifty people, are going with Black Hawk. Owl Carver, Flying Cloud, Wolf Paw—they will follow him."
He shook his head sadly.
"What is it?" Redbird asked.
"Even Wolf Paw disagrees with Black Hawk about going north. He himself will remain at his father's side, but he is sending his two wives and his children across the river. He thinks they will be safer. I think he is wrong."
He gazed out at the reddened river and shook his head again.
"Wolf Paw made the right choice for his family," said a deep voice behind him. White Bear turned to see Iron Knife's huge figure, silhouetted by the setting sun. Behind him trudged a much smaller shadow whom White Bear recognized at once—Sun Woman.
White Bear hurried to his mother, put his arm around her shoulders and led her to the fallen tree to sit down. He could feel her bones under her doeskin dress.
"How is my mother?"
She patted his hand. "Very tired. But alive."
"Are you hungry?"
"One good thing about getting old is that I do not want as much food."
White Bear felt immediate relief that they did not have to share their few boiled roots and their bits of meal cake, and then he hated himself for begrudging food to his own mother.
Getting old, she had said. She was not an old woman. From what she had told him, he guessed her age was less than fifty summers. But the woman before him was terribly gaunt and stooped. The privations of the moons just past had aged her beyond her years.
He felt a stone block his throat as he realized that his mother might not have much longer to live.
Iron Knife bent down and hugged Redbird, then patted Woodrow's head with a big hand while the boy looked up at him with shining eyes. It was Iron Knife, leading the war party that had captured Woodrow, who had insisted the boy be allowed to live.
Like everyone else in the band, Iron Knife was mostly brown skin stretched over a skeleton, but his was a very big skeleton, a head taller than White Bear's. Studying Iron Knife, White Bear wondered whether he could ask his help in getting Woodrow and Nancy safely away.
Iron Knife said, "There is no safety in following Black Hawk. He said the British and the Potawatomi and Winnebago would join forces with us, and they did not. Now he says the Chippewa will help us. He is sure to be wrong again. And before he gets to the Chippewa he must travel through Winnebago country for many days, and now most of the Winnebago are helping the long knives hunt us."
Sun Woman said, "Black Hawk knows that if we join the rest of the tribe in Ioway, he will no longer be leader. No doubt those who accepted He Who Moves Alertly as their chief have prospered as much as we have suffered. Black Hawk will have to take second place to He Who Moves Alertly. That sticks in his throat like a fishbone. He would rather lead us on and on until we all die."
White Bear had to force his voice from a chest tight with urgency. "You will not have time to build enough canoes and rafts before the long knives are upon you."
And the heads of the long knives would be full of names likeKellogg's Grove, Old Man's Creek, Apple River Fort, Indian Creek and Victor, and their hearts would be ravenous for revenge.
Iron Knife sat down on the tree trunk beside Sun Woman and pointed at the river. "If they attack us before we can cross, we can defend ourselves on that island."
White Bear followed Iron Knife's gesture. The sun had just set behind the western hills, and the Great River now reflected a pale blue back at the sky. A long, low island covered with spruce and hemlock trees bulked darkly an arrow's flight from shore. White Bear shivered. His shaman's senses told him that this was a place of grief and horror, an isle of death. He did not like the name of this river at whose mouth they were camped—the Bad Axe.
Trying to ignore the rapid thudding of his heart, White Bear readied himself to talk to Iron Knife about Woodrow and Nancy. He hated having to reveal his plan. If Iron Knife was against letting the two pale eyes escape, all would be lost. He opened his mouth, hesitating.
But he needed Iron Knife's help getting horses and avoiding the warriors guarding the camp. He reminded himself that Redbird's brother had always given him help when he needed it. He decided to go ahead and talk to him.
He said, "It would not be good for Yellow Hair and the boy to cross the river or to go with Black Hawk. I have taken them into my care, and now I am afraid for them. If there is a battle, the long knives may kill them by mistake."
Iron Knife grunted. "I would be sorry to see that happen."
White Bear's heartbeat steadied. He felt more sure of himself now.
He took a deep breath and said, "I have been thinking of helping them to get away."
Iron Knife smiled at White Bear, reached across Sun Woman and patted his knee. "That is well."
"It honors you, my son," said Sun Woman.
White Bear felt knots released in his chest and shoulders. "I was hoping you would see this as I see it."
"I will offer to watch the horses tonight," Iron Knife said. "Come when you are ready, and I will have three picked for you."
Sun Woman said, "If the long knives see you with Yellow Hair and the boy, they will try to shoot you."
White Bear put an arm around her bony shoulders and pulled her to him. "There is danger all around us, Mother. I think those who follow Black Hawk to the north will be safest. Redbird and the children will go that way. I think you should too. Do not try to cross the Great River."
"I have walked enough," said Sun Woman. "My legs ache and my feet are bruised. If I follow Black Hawk, I will end like the old people who sit down by the trail and wait for death."
"I speak as a shaman," White Bear said. "I have a bad feeling about this river crossing."
Sun Woman stood up. "And I speak as a medicine woman. I have seen many kinds of death, and I would rather drown or be shot than die little by little of hunger and weariness."
White Bear hugged his mother again. "I know we will meet again in the West," he said. That, as they both knew, could mean across the river or at the other end of the Trail of Souls.
Sun Woman said, "My son, you have made my heart glad. Every day of your life you have walked your path with courage and honor. May you walk the same way always."
Redbird held Sun Woman and Iron Knife, each in turn, for a long time. And after they had gone, White Bear and Redbird went together into the thick woods along the edge of the Great River.
Away from the others, White Bear became aware of the shrill chirping of choirs of crickets filling the night air. Mosquitoes shrilled around his ears and stung his hands and face. He and Redbird had long since used up the oil that kept them off. But the scratches and bruises of the trail of hardship they had walked these past moons had toughened their skins and their spirits so that mosquito stings meant little.
White Bear found a clear spot in the midst of a stand of young maples, and they lay down side by side. He put his hand on her breast, fuller than he had ever felt it, swollen with milk for Floating Lily. She slipped her dress down off her shoulders and let him touch her bare flesh. Very gently, knowing it was tender from nursing, he caressed her nipple with his fingertips.
"Before I leave tonight I will give you the deerhorn-handled dagger my father gave me," he said softly. "I must go unarmed, so that the long knives will not kill me if they catch me. Keep it for me till I come back."
"I am afraid," she whispered. "When you and Yellow Hair and Woodrow are gone, Black Hawk will know you helped them escape. What will he do to you when you come back?"
"By the time I return to you, he will not be angry. He will realize he did not really need them."
And then, too, White Bear might be captured or killed. The last time he had gone to the long knives they had nearly killed him. The sight of Little Crow's head bursting, blood flying everywhere as Armand Perrault's bullet smashed it, would never leave his memory.
If that happened to him, Black Hawk's anger would not matter.
Redbird wriggled closer to him, her hand stroking his chest as his stroked hers. "I do not think any Sauk warrior would be willing to steal prisoners away from his chief. I think you do this because you have lived so long with pale eyes."
White Bear felt desire for her swelling in him. They had coupled twice only since Floating Lily was born. He pulled her skirt up so he could stroke her belly and the smooth insides of her thighs.
"From what I saw among the pale eyes," he said, knowing a bitterness even as he sought the joy of Redbird, "they are more obedient to their chiefs than we are. And though it makes our hearts weep, if our people are not to disappear, we must learn to obey our leaders as the pale eyes do. But this night I must disobey our war chief."
"We must change," said Redbird. "But if we become like the pale eyes it will be the same as disappearing." Then she whispered, "Oh!" as his touch in a warm, moist place pleased her.
She loosened his loincloth, and his breathing quickened as her fingertips played awhile with him; then she grasped his hard flesh firmly. He sighed as he felt her fingers squeezing him. He should save his strength, he thought, because he would be awake and traveling all night, and probably all day tomorrow, with Nancy and Woodrow. But he and Redbird might never be together like this again. He rolled over on top of her and let her small, gentle hand guide him into her as he groaned aloud with the pleasure of it.
A tiny sliver of a new moon had risen just above the hills on this side of the river. White Bear, Nancy and Woodrow made their way south of the band's camp to a meadow in a hollow between hills.
Here the band had turned out their few remaining horses to graze and sleep. From the north end of the camp, beside the Bad Axe River, came the sound of men's voices and the light of fires. Men were stripping the bark from elm trees to make simple canoes and tying driftwood logs together to make rafts.
White Bear, Nancy and Woodrow worked their way around the edge of the meadow. The horses were dark shapes standing quietly. White Bear could hear Nancy stifle a sob every now and then. She had been crying all evening.
He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close and tell her she did not have to leave him. He was the cause of her pain and could do nothing about it. He could, possibly, save her life, but he could not make her happy.
A tall shadow suddenly stood in his path.
"I have three horses ready for you," said Iron Knife. "I even found saddles, to make it easier for you to ride. They belonged to men who died at the Ouisconsin River battle."
White Bear had been carrying the rifle and powder horn Frank had given him. He thrust them at Iron Knife.
"I want you to have this rifle. A pale eyes uncle of mine—a good uncle—gave it to me. If I meet the long knives now, a rifle will not help me."
Iron Knife took the rifle and slung the horn over his shoulder. "May the spirit of the Great River watch over you."
His heart aching, White Bear opened his mouth, wanting to tell Iron Knife again to go with Black Hawk, not to stay here at the mouth of the Bad Axe. But he knew Iron Knife's mind was made up. Redbird's brother was strong, not only in body, but in doing what he had decided.
Instead of speaking, White Bear reached up and grasped Iron Knife's broad shoulders and squeezed hard.
White Bear, Nancy and Woodrow led their horses quietly along the riverbank, finding places where the shrubbery was thin enough to allow passage. White Bear kept glancing over his shoulder, and when he could no longer see the band's fires to the north he whispered to Nancy and Woodrow to mount.
He let his horse find its own path beside the rippling water.Many times as they rode southward he caught himself dozing off, fatigued not only by exertion and lack of sleep but by hunger. He watched the thumbnail-shaped moon slide across the sky over the river. As it sank in the west he called a halt and told Nancy and Woodrow they could rest till sunup.
They tied their horses to saplings and crawled in under the boughs of a big spruce tree. Woodrow fell asleep at once, but Nancy crept into White Bear's arms.
By her movements she told him that she wanted him.
"Forgive me," he said. "I am so tired." She stroked his cheek reassuringly. But her face against his was tear-wet.
She fell asleep with her head on his chest.
Daylight and a loud chorus of birdsong woke them. Soon after they started riding, they passed through an empty village of bark-covered lodges, Winnebago he was sure, beside the river. Winnebago friends of Black Hawk had said that the long knives had ordered all Winnebago to camp within sight of the forts to show that they were not helping Black Hawk.
A clear trail led south from the village along the riverbank, and White Bear, Nancy and Woodrow rode along it. By the end of the day they should be near the settlement of Prairie du Chien and the long knives' Fort Crawford.
When the sun was high over the river, White Bear heard a sound that sent fear rustling down his back—the drawn-out shouts of long knife leaders calling orders. The cries came from somewhere to the south.
With horror, he saw it at once in his mind: One long knife army coming from the east. Now another marching up from the south. Both heading for the mouth of the Bad Axe where the people were trying desperately to get across the river.
A little later he heard the rumble of many hooves.
He wanted to turn and gallop back to warn the band. They had no notion that this second army, much closer to them, was coming.
Nancy said, "You'd better leave us here. They'll shoot at you."
Fear for himself and for his people tempted him to agree, but he firmly shook his head.
"I must stay with you until I'm sure you're safe. It is a matter only of minutes."
Soon White Bear glimpsed the Stars and Stripes fluttering amongdistant trees and the noon sun glittering on brass buttons. Federal troops. At a clear spot on the trail, where Nancy and Woodrow would be visible from a distance, he called a halt.
"You two stay on the trail. Nancy, pull your braids around to the front so they can see your blond hair. Woodrow, take that headband off. You want to make sure they see that you're white. Just hold your horses still, and when you see the first soldiers, raise your hands above your heads. And call out to them in English."
Oh, Earthmaker, keep them safe.This was the best he could do for them.
Nancy kissed him hard on the mouth.
"I love you so much," she said, her voice breaking. "And I know I'll never see you again. Go on, get away from here!"
White Bear led his horse back into the woods between the river and the bluffs. He tied the horse and then crept back through the shrubbery to watch Nancy and Woodrow.
Terrified by the thought that he might see them shot down before his eyes by careless soldiers, he held his breath.
He heard hoofbeats approaching at the gallop.
He heard Nancy cry, "Help us, please! We're white people!"
Good.
Two men wearing tall, cylindrical black shakoes and blue jackets with white crossbelts rode up to Nancy and Woodrow, who lowered their hands. After a brief conversation, all four rode off down the trail.
In a burst of relief, White Bear let his breath out. For a moment he could not move, so limp had his fear for Nancy and Woodrow left him. He whispered a prayer of thanks to Earthmaker.
He crept back to his horse and walked it till he found a deer track the horse could follow, then mounted and trotted northward.
He was back riding on the trail when an arrow, thrumming, buried its head in the dirt just in front of him. It startled him so that he nearly fell out of the saddle. He reined in his horse.
Men on horseback emerged from the trees ahead of him. They rode toward him silently, five of them. Two pointed rifles at him, the other three bows and arrows. They were red men, but wore pale eyes' shirts and trousers. Their hair was long, bound by brightly colored sashcloth bands, and they grew it full, not shaving part of their heads as most Sauk men did.
He sighed and held his hands out from his sides to show that they were empty. The Winnebago could have shot him off his horse without warning, so he supposed they meant to let him live.
The man on the right side of the trail, who held a bow with an arrow aimed at White Bear's heart said, in Sauk, "I am called Wave. We are looking for Black Hawk. Where can we find him?"
White Bear decided to make a joke of that. "Do you want to help him fight the long knives?"
Wave laughed, and translated it for his companions, who laughed also. He wore a brave's red and white feathers dangling from earrings, with two more standing upright in his hair.
He said, "The long knives have offered horses and gold to whoever captures Black Hawk. We are not enemies of the Sauk, but we want the long knives' friendship." The man spoke Sauk fluently and without an accent.
"It is a shame that the Winnebago fight on the side of the long knives," White Bear said. "One day they will take your land from you, as they have taken ours from us."
Wave shrugged. "Look what has happened to you, who fought against them."
Red man betrays red man, and only the whites gain. It is as I told Redbird. If we want to live in this land, we ourselves must become like the whites.
"Come," said Wave. "We must take you to the long knives' war chief."
White Bear slumped in despair, realizing that he was no longer a free man. He looked about him. The trees, the birds, the Great River, they were all free, but he was in the power of his enemies. The world was a darker place. Black Hawk's war, for him, was over. He wished he could have warned his people about the approaching army of long knives. And also, his heart ached for the Sauk he was unable to warn of the second long knife army. A yearning for Redbird and Eagle Feather and Floating Lily seemed almost to pull his heart from his body. He prayed that they had safely left the Bad Axe country by now and headed north with Black Hawk. Probably he would never see them again. Probably the long knives would kill him. With a sigh, he turned his horse's head in the direction Wave had pointed.
While his regiment rode by, the long knife war chief, a stocky man with a long face, thick eyebrows and hard blue eyes, stood by the side of the trail facing White Bear. He was Colonel Zachary Taylor, he had told White Bear. A burly, red-faced soldier with a sergeant's three chevrons on his forearm stood beside Taylor staring at White Bear with open hatred.
"What are you, a renegade white man?" Taylor demanded. "How come you speak good English?"
"I am Sauk, Colonel. My name is White Bear. My father was white, and he took me to be educated among the whites for several years."
"Well, White Bear, what were you doing on this trail? Chasing the white woman and the boy we just picked up?"
"It was I who brought them to you."
Taylor snorted. "You expect me to believe that?"
"Miss Hale will tell you it is true."
"Well, we already sent her and the boy back to Fort Crawford with an escort, so that will have to wait. But you do have her name right. Where are the rest of the Sauk? Trying to cross the Mississippi?"
"I cannot help you, Colonel. Any more than you would give information to the Sauk, if we captured you."
Taylor's sergeant said, "Sir, let me and a couple of my men take this half-breed for a stroll in the woods. We'll find out what you want to know."
"No, Benson, no." Taylor brushed the suggestion aside with an irritated wave of his hand. "Showing how they can resist torture is a regular game with Indians. He'll just sing Indian songs till he dies, and listening to that would be worse agony for you than anything you could do to him."
"Well, then let's shoot the bastard, sir, and be done with him. The militia don't take no prisoners. Why should we?"
Taylor threw back his head, and even though he was shorter than the sergeant, managed to look down his nose at him. "We're professional soldiers, Sergeant. I trust we know how to conduct ourselves better than the state militia. No, we'll just take him along with us. An Indian who speaks both Sauk and English could be of use to us, alive. I see you have a full head of hair and you wear no feathers, White Bear. That mean you haven't killed anybody? Or just that you don't want the fact known?"
"I haven't killed anybody." White Bear thought of adding thathe had saved more than one white life. But he couldn't expect them to believe that. He would not expose himself to their scorn.
He said, "I am a medicine man, a shaman."
Taylor looked at him gravely. "Educated as a white man and educated in the way of the spirits, too, eh? And with all that learning you couldn't warn Black Hawk away from this disaster?"
White Bear shook his head. "He listened to other voices."
Taylor's eyes narrowed. "Well, whatever advice you gave him, it's all over for your chief now. God pity your people."
White Bear said, "All they want now is to go back across the Mississippi and live in peace. Those who are left."
Taylor fixed him with an angry stare. "It's too late for that. Things have gone too far. You people are going to have to suffer for what you've done."
White Bear felt his limbs go cold as he heard the steel in Taylor's voice. This was not a bad man, White Bear sensed, not a man like Raoul. But whatever mercy was in him had no doubt long since been washed away by the blood shed by Black Hawk's war parties.
No doubt while he talks about making my people suffer he thinks of himself as quite a civilized man.
"Revenge, Colonel?" White Bear said. "I thought you were professional soldiers."
The sergeant balled his fists. "Please, sir, let me teach him some respect."
Taylor cocked his head, listening to a distant sound, then turned to look downriver.
"He's got a much more bitter lesson to learn, Sergeant. As do all his people."
White Bear heard it too. A chugging sound. It had been a while since he had heard a noise like that. He followed Taylor's gaze down the river. All he could see was a column of gray smoke in the sky to the south. But he knew what it was.
A steamship.
Because he could not ride to warn his people, he wanted to cry out in agony. He saw what would happen—those few frail canoes, the steamship bearing down on them, two long knife armies marching inexorably toward the mouth of the Bad Axe.
The many who follow Black Hawk across the Great River will be few when they cross back.