A pulse pounded in his brain. It did not matter that he was fighting in the dark; fury blinded him anyway. He forgot everything but the knife in his hand and the soft, bloody body under him. He screamed with rage and triumph, drowning out the agonized shrieks of his enemy.
After a while, no more cries. The body under him did not move. Raoul lay on top of the Indian, panting.
He began to think again. Carefully he slid his hand over the Indian's chest, the buckskin shirt slippery with warm blood. No heartbeat, no lifting of lungs.
By God, I did it, I killed him!He felt as if rockets were going off in his head, and he laughed aloud. He'd fought for his mine and spilled his enemy's blood to make it his own.
No goddamned Indian is ever going to steal what belongs to me.
He climbed to his feet. His knees were shaking violently under him.
His head ached so badly he felt as if his eyes were being pushed out of his skull. He realized that in the fight he'd completely lost control of himself. He'd become a wild thing, a creature without a mind. It had happened to him several times before, in fights that had ended with his killing a man.
Thoughts of triumph that he had killed his enemy, of terror at the realization that this fight could have gone the other way, chased each other around in his brain, but he felt even more alive and happier than he had last night with Clarissa.
Sudden light dazzled him. An arrow of fear shot through him. More Indians?
"Raoul!" It was Eli Greenglove's voice.
His eyes adjusted, and he could see Eli, Hodge Hode and Levi Pope standing at the entrance to the side tunnel. They looked at the body at his feet and the bloody knife in his hand, and then up at him and their eyes were wide and their lips parted.
Those looks are worth as much to me as this whole mine.
"You really chopped him into mincemeat," Eli said. "I'll have to get me one of them Arkansas toothpicks."
"Get the other two bodies in here," Raoul said, making an effort to keep his voice steady. "We'll find some place to bury them."
"Better search the whole mine, make sure there's no more redskins," said Eli.
Raoul agreed, but he felt certain this one he'd killed was theonly one in the mine. He looked down at the dead face. The Indian wasn't much more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Good, he thought. Hadn't had long enough to do much harm.
But why, Raoul wondered, had this young buck thrown his life away attacking him near the entrance to the mine? He'd have had more of a chance of escaping if he'd hidden deeper.
Maybe he'd figured there was at least a little light to see and fight by near the entrance. If he'd gotten Raoul, then somehow managed to get away, he'd probably have claimed the right to wear a brave's feather.
The thought of himself lying dead in the dark and his scalp hanging on a pole in front of a lodge down at Saukenuk made Raoul shudder.
But it was Raoul who'd won his feather. No Indian would ever kill Raoul de Marion.
And any redskin sluts, and any mongrel bastards, that showed their face around Victoire would have to deal with a man who killed Indians as easily as he killed any other sort of vermin.
Time to have it out with Pierre.
Pierre wanted to weep as he saw what was about to happen. He rushed forward and thrust out his hand to stop Raoul.
"Not the vase!" he cried. Maman had loved it so.
Raoul was too close to the mantel for Pierre to reach him in time. He got to it in two strides and, just as Pierre had expected, seized the vase that had been in the family for four generations, had stood on the mantel ever since they built this château.
"Raoul!" Papa cried. "Think what you are doing!"
Raoul turned, holding the vase high over his head. He fixed Pierre with the wide-eyed stare of a madman. His teeth flashed under his black mustache in a grimace of fury.
He dashed the vase to the flagstone floor. The white egg shape vanished with a hollow crack, and shards scattered, some hitting Raoul's boots, others flying into the huge stone hearth.
A sudden silence filled the great hall of Victoire. Pierre felt as if his heart had broken with the vase.
You killed Maman, he wanted to cry out,now you would kill the memory of her.
But he held his tongue and hated himself for even thinking what he had almost said. What an evil thought! How could he blame Raoul because Maman died giving birth to him?
Think what you are doing!Papa had cried. That was precisely what Raoul never did. Thought was for afterward, for escaping the consequences of his actions. Now he had worked himself into a rage, lost all governing of himself, because, somehow, he had heard about Sun Woman and Gray Cloud.
Pierre had to try to win Raoul over, to find a way to break through the anger that divided him from his younger brother. Raoul had to be persuaded that it was only right that Sun Woman and the boy be brought here to Victoire. If Raoul did not accept that, his rage would tear their family apart.
But how, in one afternoon, batter down a wall that had been building over the past dozen years?
Pierre realized that he was still standing with his hand held out to Raoul. He lowered it slowly, feeling his shoulders slump at the same time. He had been reading with Papa when Raoul came in. Now he took off his spectacles, put them in the silver case that hung from his neck by a velvet cord and dropped the case in his vest pocket.
Elysée de Marion clutched the arms of his leather wing chair with clawlike hands, half rising from it. Raoul stood staring at the two of them, panting and trembling.
Elysée said quietly, "Why did you do that, Raoul?"
"To make you listen." Raoul's voice was deep and strong, and it resounded powerfully against the beamed ceiling and stone walls of the great hall. But in its tones Pierre heard the screams of that hysterical boy whose tantrums and nightmares, after they'd finally succeeded in ransoming him from the Potawatomi, had wrenched the hearts of the whole household and renewed their grief over the loss of Helene.
But now that painfully thin, frightened child was a broad-shouldered man over six feet tall with a knife as big as a broadsword and a pistol strapped to his waist. A very dangerous man. A man who, they said, had killed half a dozen or more opponents in fights up and down the Mississippi.
"We have been listening," Elysée said.
"Pierre hasn't," Raoul said resentfully. "Youtell him, Papa. Tellhim he'd better leave his damned squaw in the woods where she belongs."
Damned squaw.The words pierced Pierre's chest like arrows.
Elysée sat back down in his wing chair and stroked his jaw. He looked like an old turkey cock, with fierce eyes, a hooked nose and a long, wrinkled neck. The leather-bound copy of Montaigne's essays that had been lying in his lap had slipped to the floor to join newspapers piled around his feet like autumn leaves, a mixture of local papers like Frank Hopkins'sVictor Visitor, and the GalenaMiners Journal, months-old papers from the East—theNew York Evening Post, theBoston Evening Transcript, theNational Intelligencerfrom Washington City, the even older copies ofMercure de Francefrom Paris.
"Come here, both of you," Elysée sighed.
Hoping his father could reconcile them where he had failed so dismally, Pierre went to stand before Elysée's chair. After a moment's hesitation Raoul approached too. But Pierre saw that he was pointedly keeping more than an arm's-length distance between the two of them.
Elysée said, "That's better. I can't see you when you stand far from me. These eyes are good for very little but reading, and when I can no longer read, I will shoot myself. And if I cannot see well enough to load the pistol, one of you must do it for me."
As he often did, Elysée was attempting to use humor to put out the fire. Pierre glanced at Raoul to see if their father had drawn a smile from him. But Raoul stood with arms folded across his chest, his mouth hidden under his black mustache, his eyes narrowed. Except when he smiled—and today he was far from any smiling—the mustache made him look perpetually angry.
"Raoul," Elysée said. "Be assured that we are listening to you. Tell us what has driven you to destroy one of our family treasures."
"Just because Pierre soiled himself with a squaw," Raoul demanded, "do we have to live with what came of it?"
Pierre felt his face burn. He wanted to slap Raoul.
My life with Sun Woman was as honorable as my life with Marie-Blanche.
He forced himself to control his temper. If he became as angry as Raoul was, this day would surely be the ruin of the house of de Marion.
Pierre felt a sudden twinge of pain in his belly. He fought down an urge to rub himself there. He wanted no one to know about his illness. Worse than the pain was the fear it brought on, the chilling suspicion that he was a dying man.
Fearfully he wondered what death would be like. Though Père Isaac said such notions were foolish, he could not help seeing God the Father as an enormous white-bearded judge, seated among the clouds. And what would the Father's sentence be if Pierre de Marion turned his back on a wife and a son?
He wished he could tell Raoul that he thought he was dying. Then perhaps his brother would understand why he had to do his duty to Sun Woman and the boy. But he feared that if Raoul was aware of his weakness, he would try to take over the whole estate at once.
Praying that his brother would understand, he said, "Ever since Marie-Blanche died, I have been thinking of Sun Woman. After five years of life together, I left her and our little son. Lately I have been seeing her and my son, Gray Cloud, in dreams. I know God wants me to make amends to them."
Pierre felt sweat break out on his forehead and upper lip. Why must Raoul stir up such turmoil with his hatred? Couldn't Raoul understand that not all red people were like the ones he had encountered? Pierre saw Sun Woman in his mind, so strong and wise, holding the hand of their grave, brown-eyed boy. How beautiful they were.
Elysée said, "I do not believe that Le Bon Dieu announces his intentions in dreams, Pierre."
Always the cynic. Papa had read too much Voltaire.
Elysée turned to Raoul. "But, Raoul, it does seem simple justice, what Pierre wants to do."
"What about justice for me?" Raoul came back. "Isn't this my home as much as Pierre's?"
Stung by Raoul's bluster, Pierre said, "Raoul, you live more at your trading post than you do in this home."
To Pierre's surprise, Raoul's face reddened, making Pierre wonder what, exactly, Raoul was doing at the trading post. It had seemed natural that he would spend most of his time there, since Papa had given him the Illinois Fur Company when he divided his property between the two of them. But perhaps it was not only workthat kept Raoul at the trading post night after night. A woman? Pierre found himself hoping it might be. A woman could be good for Raoul, civilize him a bit.
He had slept there last night. How, then, could he have learned about Pierre's plans for Sun Woman and Gray Cloud?
Is someone in our household spying on me?
Pierre turned to Raoul. "How did you learn about this? I was going to tell you, but you found out before I could."
Pierre took some small satisfaction in seeing Raoul's cheeks flush a deeper red, in seeing his hesitation. He had come storming in here unprepared to explain just how he knew about Pierre's plans.
Raoul said, "I overheard you and Papa talking about it."
"Absurd! We did not speak of this till this morning. You were not here."
Could Armand have heard, and told Raoul?
Armand must certainly know about Marchette, Pierre thought. But he knew Armand would never directly attack him. Armand's ancestors had come to America when this part of the country was still New France, and such people retained a feudal outlook. The poor fellow doubtless considered him far superior in birth and breeding. But he was capable of seeking some kind of revenge, such as turning Raoul against him.
Pierre opened his mouth to chide Raoul for setting one of the servants to spy on him, but he closed it again when he saw the look of self-righteous reproach in Raoul's face.
His brother felt betrayed too. He had never stopped feeling betrayed since the massacre at Checagou. Then how could Pierre expect him to be reconciled to what must be done now?
Perhaps it would be best to leave Sun Woman and Gray Cloud where they were. He could just send them gifts. Doubtless they were content. His own years with the Sauk and Fox had shown him what a good life they had, so simple, so closely attuned to Nature, so constantly aware of the things of the spirit. Those years had been the happiest of his life.
No, sending gifts from afar would not be enough. It would be as if he was hiding his Indian wife and son away, concealing his sin in the wilderness. As he had been doing all these years, to his shame. The boy, Gray Cloud, was flesh of his flesh, the only child he had in the world. He was a de Marion as much as he was a Sauk Indian.He had a right to come here and to know what his heritage was. He had a right to know his father, in the time his father had left to him.
I cannot face God and tell Him I turned my back on my son.
And that beautiful Sauk way of life, what a fragile thing it was! Powers were massing, Pierre knew, to drive them from their homeland, to force them to choose—exile in the Great American Desert, or annihilation. Knowledge might help Gray Cloud meet that threat.
From the depths of his chair Elysée said, "Pierre, it is quite obvious what is at the bottom of this. It is distasteful to speak of wills and inheritances, but it is best to be candid. Raoul is afraid that you will marry this Indian woman and make her son your heir in place of him. Can you set his mind at rest?"
Pierre stared at Raoul. Ten years ago, on the day of Pierre's wedding to Marie-Blanche Gagner, Papa announced that he was getting on in years and was transferring ownership of the de Marion estate to Pierre, the older of his sons. This January, consumption had taken poor, frail Marie-Blanche, still childless. The place of Raoul, fourteen years younger than Pierre, in the line of inheritance was now a certainty.
Surely Raoul could not be afraid that Pierre would take a Sauk Indian boy who knew no other life but woodland and make him heir to the de Marion fortune. The notion was so bizarre that it had never even crossed Pierre's mind. Papa, sitting in his chair by the fire day after day, reading, reading, would sometimes entertain the most ridiculous fantasies.
Pierre observed that Raoul looked equally startled.
Then Pierre saw Raoul's expression change from surprise to dawning anger. Papa had inadvertently given Raoul a new reason to be angry.
Hoping to pluck out the suspicion before it took root, Pierre quickly said, "My God, Raoul, I have no intention of changing my will. The boy, who is called Gray Cloud, is my natural son, that is all. Since I have no legitimate children, you are my heir. Surely you see that."
Raoul's black mustache drew back from his teeth. "What I don't see, brother of mine, is why in hell you couldn't get a proper son in almost ten years of marriage with Marie-Blanche. That squaw use you up?"
Again Pierre felt like striking Raoul. His face grew hot.
Elysée asked, "How old would this—Gray Cloud—be?"
Pierre frowned, subtracting dates. "He was born in 1810. So he would have just turned fifteen." He turned again to Raoul. Perhaps knowing what he really did have in mind for Gray Cloud would calm his brother somewhat.
He said, "Père Isaac, the Jesuit, visits the British Band regularly. I make offerings to the Jesuit mission in Kaskaskia, and I've asked him to teach the boy a little English, some elementary letters and ciphering. Now I want to see Gray Cloud for myself. See what sort of person he has become. And I want him to know me. And, if I thought he could benefit from it, I might help him to be educated. I might send him to that secondary school in New York where our cousin Emilie's husband is headmaster."
"Educate him so he can take over here?" Raoul demanded, and Pierre's heart sank. Perhaps he should not have said anything about educating the boy. He had momentarily forgotten what a disaster Raoul's year in New York had been, what with whores, drink, money thrown away at cards, brawls with street toughs and the police. The effort to educate Raoul had ended when he beat his Latin teacher so badly the man was in New York Hospital for a month. It had cost Papa a fortune to persuade the teacher not to press charges. Of course Raoul would be insulted at the suggestions that a savage Indian boy might succeed where he had disgraced himself.
"No, Raoul." Pierre shook his head vigorously. "At the most, I might want his mother and him to have a small bequest. Not even as much as will go to Nicole. So little you would never miss it. Surely you would not let greed for wealth and property come between us."
"I came here today to protect our family honor, and you call me greedy!" Raoul's broad chest heaved.
"What I proposeishonorable!"
"How could you consider it honorable to make Indians part of our family after what they did to us?"
It hurt Pierre to call those awful memories to mind. Yes, perhaps if he had been there and suffered as Raoul had, and had seen Helene raped and murdered, he might hate Indians as his brother did.
Pierre said, "Raoul, when I was with Sun Woman I knew nothing of what happened to Helene and you. Once the war broke out in 1812 I was in effect a prisoner and had no word from the whiteworld. The Sauk held me for three years from the start of the war. And then, when I found out—why do you think I left Sun Woman and Gray Cloud? And never returned, only sent messages through the priest, never tried to see them? It was because after I learned about Helene—about what they did to you—I, evenI, Raoul, could not be with Indians anymore. It has taken all these years before I could face them again."
Elysée said with a frown, "Raoul, you keep mentioning that this woman and her child whom your brother wishes to help are Indians, as if that in itself made them intolerable. Now, I could quite agree, if they were Englishmen—"
Raoul spoke in a low, steady growl. "Being Indians does make them intolerable. They're animals."
Pierre felt anger growing inside him. He was trying to understand Raoul, but Raoul's insults were becoming more provocation than he could endure.
"Animals?" said Elysée incredulously. "Come now, Raoul. Surely you do not believe that. The red people are as human as we are."
Raoul laughed bitterly. "Sure, you'd have to say they're human. Otherwise Pierre's mating with one of them would be like a half-witted farmer mounting one of his sheep."
Something exploded in Pierre's brain and he heard his own cry of anguish as if from a long way off. He felt tears running from eyes blinded with fury.
And when his eyes cleared, all he could see was Raoul's sneer. He burned to smash his fist into those so-white teeth under that black mustache, silence that filthy tongue. He lunged forward, fist drawn back.
Raoul caught his arm in an iron grip, but the force of Pierre's rush threw his brother back against the great chimney. Pierre reached to grab Raoul's neck and slam his head against the stone.
"Stop!" Elysée cried.
The old man stood up more quickly than Pierre had seen him do in years and pushed himself between them.
Suddenly afraid that his father might be hurt, Pierre forced himself to let go of Raoul. Every muscle in his body went rigid, and he trembled from head to foot.
"You must control yourselves," Elysée said. "Pierre, you raised your hand against your brother."
Pierre took a step backward, still shaking. How could this father reproachhim, after what Raoul had just said?
The voice of Reason, Pierre thought bitterly.He does not know there are some feelings that cannot be reasoned with.
Pierre realized that he was still crying. Raoul, having let go of his arm, was looking at him with disgust.
"I loved Sun Woman," Pierre stammered. "For him to speak of her so—to speak so of our love—"
"Surely," Elysée said, "Raoul spoke in the heat of anger."
"I don't take back a word," Raoul said in a hard, flat voice.
But, though it was hard to read the features behind that fierce black mustache, Pierre thought he saw uncertainty in Raoul's face. As if Raoul finally understood that he had gone too far.
He drove me to try to hit him. He's never pushed me that far before.
Perhaps, Pierre thought, Raoul would now apologize. Appalled at his own words, he might seek to be reconciled.
I will make no more overtures. He meets every attempt with insults.
Pierre waited. He could see Raoul struggling within himself. Perhaps Papa's suggestion that he might lose his inheritance had made him realize what consequences a rift between them could have.
Of course, I would never disinherit Raoul. There's no one else who could manage the estate after I die. And I may be gone sooner than anyone expects.
Pierre saw Raoul's broad chest swell as he took a deep breath. Now, thought Pierre, surely Raoul was going to apologize and ask forgiveness, and they would work out some way that Sun Woman and Gray Cloud could be brought here without stirring up old hatreds.
Raoul said, "Don't bring Indians into this house, Pierre, I warn you. If any Indian tries to claim he's a member of my family, I'll make him wish he had never been born at all."
The pain that might one day kill him sank its teeth deep into his guts. Raoul's words seared him like a branding iron. He felt his shoulders sag.
Raoul turned his back on his brother and his father, and the clump of his hard leather boot heels echoed through the great hall.
"Raoul!" Elysée cried. He held his hand outstretched, as Pierre had when Raoul was about to smash the Limoges vase.
Looking down at those glistening white shards scattered over the flagstones, Pierre wondered what would happen when Raoul inherited the de Marion fortune. Would he destroy it in one of his rages as he had this beautiful object that had been part of the family treasure? Or would he use its power as he used his fists and pistol and knife, to destroy others?
The de Marion fortune.... Once it had been a huge tract of land in northeastern France dominated by the château of the Counts de Marion, held by them so long that no one knew when or how they first obtained it. Just as the origin of the de Marions themselves was something of a mystery.
Converted into gold, the de Marion fortune had sailed, with Elysée, the last Count de Marion, his countess and his children, across the Atlantic. Elysée, in the early 1780s, had foreseen the bloody upheaval that would sweep away the king and the nobility of France. He had made a friend of the American ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, and had thought much about Jefferson's new nation. Their revolution was over and done with. The de Marion fortune might thrive in those United States.
And on the American prairie the de Marion fortune had purchased a vast new estate and built a new château.
Elysée sighed and took a step toward his chair. Pierre turned the chair toward the fire so that its wings would gather in the warmth of the small fire and hold it around his father's body.
"Would you consider not bringing this woman and this boy here?" Elysée said as he sat down. "To keep the peace in our family?"
Pierre hesitated. For ten years Sun Woman and Gray Cloud had lived in their world, and he in his. Why provoke so much strife now by trying to change that?
But Gray Cloud was the only son he would ever have, and if he left things as they were, he would die without knowing him.
"She is my woman—in truth, my wife—and the boy is my child," Pierre said. "Raoul has much. They have little. Raoul is wrong to cling to this hatred. To give in to him would mean abandoning these two people to whom I owe so much. As soon as the weather is a little warmer, Papa, I mean to leave for Saukenuk. And I do dread what may happen, but, yes, I still mean to come back with my wife and my son."
White Bear. My name is White Bear.
The sun, shining down through branches dotted with budding leaves, warmed his back. He wore the knife his father had left him sheathed at his waist. His eyes searched among the branches of the trees. He did not know exactly what he was looking for, but Owl Carver said that he would know it when he found it. He stopped at the base of an oak tree and looked up.
He thought he heard something moving through the bushes on the upriver side of the island. He stopped peering at the branches and looked up at the sky.
The black trunks of the oaks and hickories rose above him. He felt as if he were standing in a circle of wise old men, who were there to advise and protect him. Ever since that time of sitting in the sacred cave when his soul had gone out of his body, whenever he was by himself he never felt alone. He felt the presence of spirits in all things—trees, birds, plants, rocks, rivers.
After a moment's listening he heard nothing strange and went back to his search. He had chosen this island because he had come here many times at different seasons with his mother, gathering plants for medicines. Today he was looking for one thing. Somewhere on this island grew the branch from which he would cut his medicine stick. Owl Carver had carefully instructed him.
It will call to you out of the forest. It may be of oak or maple or ash or cedar or even hickory. You will know it because it will not be like any other branch you see, and your eye will be drawn to it.
A cloud drifted over the sun, and his arms and shoulders suddenly felt cold. The coldness felt strange, and he remembered that his spirit guide, the White Bear, was said to live in a very cold place. He stood still. He felt he should wait for something to happen.
A shaft of sunlight fell on the black trunk of a tree a short distance in front of him. Where the light struck the tree, a branch was growing out, pointing right at him. He might not have noticed it if the light had not fallen in just that way.
At the end of the branch three bright bur oak leaves were growing. This was the Moon of Buds, and the limbs of most trees bore only the many round swellings that would, as the days grew warmer, open and spread into the first leaves.
But the three oak leaves at the end of this branch were fully grown, fat leaves with deep, irregular lobes.
It was as Owl Carver had said. This branch called out to him from the forest.
He went up to the tree, and as Owl Carver had taught him, he said, "Grandfather Oak, please let me have your arm, to take with me to make strong medicine for our tribe. I promise I will not hurt you, and I will leave all your other arms untouched so that you can grow strong in this place."
It was a small, new branch growing out of the tree at eye level. When trimmed and stripped it would be just the right size for a medicine stick. He would dry the leaves and keep them, too, he decided, as part of his medicine bundle.
With his knife he reverently cut the branch away from the tree trunk.
A voice behind him said, "My son."
He jumped, startled.
At once he recognized Sun Woman's voice. As always, a warmth flooded through him at the sound.
Still, he was angry with himself. How could he let someone slip up on him like that?
He turned. He looked into his mother's brown eyes, level with his. Not so long ago, he remembered, he had to look up to see into her eyes.
He saw pain tightening the muscles of her face. Her lips trembled as they parted. Only a few times had he seen her in such distress, and his heart beat harder. What was wrong?
"You must come back to Saukenuk, my son," she said.
"I have found my medicine stick, Mother. But now I must trim it here and peel the bark in the place where I found it. Owl Carver told me how it must be done."
She swept a hand across her body to say no to that. "It is Owl Carver who says you must come now. Leave the stick here. The spirits will protect it, and you can come back to it later. A man has come to our village. You must meet him."
Tears on her brown cheeks reflected the bright sun.
"What is wrong, Mother? Who is this man?"
Again the hand gesture, rejecting his question. "It is better you see for yourself."
"But you are sad, Mother. Why?"
She turned away, the fringe of her doeskin skirt swirling about her shins.
He laid the severed oak branch at the base of the tree he had cut it from, and with thanks to Grandfather Oak, turned away.
Baffled and apprehensive, he followed Sun Woman through the forest to the edge of the island, where he saw her small elm-bark canoe pulled up beside his.
Silently they paddled their canoes side by side upstream along the narrow stretch of black-green water that separated the island from the riverbank. The Rock River was in its spring flood. Paddling against the powerful current strained White Bear's muscles. He glanced over at his mother and saw with envy how easily she wielded her paddle. She seemed to know how to do everything well. But an expression of sorrow was frozen on her face.
They left the island behind, and soon White Bear saw the hundred lodges of Saukenuk through the weeping willows, hackberries, maples and oaks that grew along the riverbank.
They grounded their canoes on tree roots growing on the edge of the river. Sun Woman beckoned, turned her back on him abruptly and started walking through the woods by the riverbank. White Bear followed.
They passed two newly made graves in the shelter of the trees, mounds of earth, each marked with a willow wand with a strip of deerskin attached to it. Coming out of the woods, they walked, amidst the band's grazing horses, through the blue-grass meadow surrounding the village. Beyond the meadows, as far up and down the river as White Bear could see, stretched stockade-fenced fieldswhere the first shoots of corn, beans, squash and sweet potatoes dotted the freshly turned black earth like pale green stars in a night sky.
White Bear followed Sun Woman into the concentric rings of long lodges with peaked roofs, built of wooden poles and walled with bark sheets, laid out in the sacred circular pattern. Here the Sauk lived all summer, three or four families to a lodge. But today the outskirts of Saukenuk seemed empty. White Bear was surprised to see no one at the riverbank or about the lodges.
Sun Woman walked past the lodges with back straight, legs stiff, her arms rigid at her sides, her head high. Never once did she look back at him.
Reaching the heart of Saukenuk, he saw that all the people were gathered in the central clearing around Owl Carver's medicine lodge. As Sun Woman approached the crowd, a child spied her and tugged its mother's skirt. The mother looked first at Sun Woman, then at White Bear, then whispered to another woman standing next to her. That woman turned, and then the whispers spread in every direction and more and more people looked. The crowd parted, making a path through which Sun Woman walked with her stiff stride. White Bear followed.
At the end of the pathway through the crowd sat Owl Carver and another man, side by side at the door of the sacred lodge. Owl Carver's long white hair spread like a snow-covered spruce tree. His chest was bare save for his necklace of megis shells, and was painted with diagonal stripes of blue and green, the colors of hope and fear.
White Bear slowed his steps, studying the man seated beside Owl Carver. His heart thumped hard when he saw who it was.
This was the man he had seen in his vision with the White Bear and the Turtle. He stood still, his mouth open.
The vision-man had black hair streaked with white, tied with a ribbon at the back. His face was dominated by a powerful beak of a nose. He must have spent much time in the sun; his skin was tan, though not as rich and dark as the skins of White Bear's people.
A beloved face caught White Bear's eye. Redbird was standing among the people, looking not at the stranger, but at White Bear. Their eyes met, and hers were wide with worry. He wanted to take Redbird's hand and run with her into the forest, away from all thesepeople and from whatever made Redbird and his mother look so miserable.
And especially away from the thin, pale man who was now staring at him as intently as a hunter with drawn bow watches a stag.
And yet, the pale eyes stranger had been part of the vision that had given White Bear his new name and put him on the path to becoming a shaman.
He must be a good man if he appeared to me with the White Bear and the Turtle. And he must be important to me.
"Sit here, White Bear," said Owl Carver, and White Bear walked slowly toward him. Owl Carver gestured that he was to sit beside the pale eyes. White Bear felt his heart fluttering as he sat down. Owl Carver pointed to a place beside himself for Sun Woman. The four formed a semicircle, backs to the medicine lodge, faces toward the crowd of curious people.
As was the way of the Sauk, the four sat for a long time with no one speaking. White Bear's body grew colder and colder, and he had to fight to keep from trembling.
After a time, White Bear turned to the stranger and saw in the gaunt face a mixture of pain and joy. The man's pupils were a strange, almost frightening gray-blue color. From such eyes, White Bear knew, the Sauk took their name for this man's people.
As the man looked at White Bear and then over at Sun Woman, it seemed that his heart was glowing with happiness. But it was a happiness tinged by regret, the glow of a setting sun.
White Bear's inner sense told him that something was hurting more than the pale eye's spirit, was draining his life away. White Bear wished at once that he could work a healing of this good man's body.
But why was Sun Woman so unhappy? And why was Redbird frightened?
Owl Carver whispered to a small boy who stood beside him. The boy ran off.
Now the shaman sat nodding his head slowly. White Bear could see that Owl Carver stood at the branching of several paths and was trying to decide which one to take. White Bear's fear grew.
Owl Carver turned to White Bear. "This man is your father."
Yes!
Taught by Owl Carver that rather than puzzle over a vision it isbest to let it reveal its meaning in its own time, White Bear had chosen months ago not to ponder who the pale eyes in the Turtle's lodge might be. Owl Carver must have known when White Bear described the vision to him, but thought it better not to tell him.
White Bear turned and looked again at the man seated beside him, who raised his arms tentatively, as if he wanted to reach out to him. White Bear kept his hands in his lap, and the man lowered his arms again.
White Bear felt a strangeness, such as he had never known before. This man looked at him with love. He was certain, now, that because this man had come today, everything was going to be changed.
"Your father is called Star Arrow," said Owl Carver. He turned to Star Arrow and said, "Your son is called White Bear."
"I greet you, White Bear," Star Arrow said. White Bear was glad to hear this man speaking the Sauk language.
"I greet you, Star Arrow, my father," White Bear said. The wordfatherfelt strange on his tongue.
Star Arrow.He liked that name and wondered what it meant.Father.A shiver of joy went through him.
He spoke in the English Père Isaac had taught him. "Good day to you, Father."
"My son," said Star Arrow in the same tongue. White Bear saw now that tears were running down his father's face, just as they had in the vision.
He heard a commotion at the back of the crowd. People were stepping aside.
A thrill went through White Bear as he saw that Black Hawk was coming toward them. The leader's careworn face glowed as if he were seeing a long-lost brother. He shifted his feather-adorned war club to his left hand and raised his empty right hand in greeting to Star Arrow. White Bear was amazed. He could not remember seeing Black Hawk smile so happily.
Star Arrow raised his hand in reply. White Bear felt himself surrounded by giants—Black Hawk, Star Arrow, Owl Carver. He remembered the circle of trees he had been standing in when Sun Woman called to him.
"Star Arrow has come back to us," Black Hawk declared. "It is well."
Wolf Paw, Black Hawk's oldest son, now strode down the line of people. His presence, as always, made White Bear uneasy.
Sun Woman made room for Black Hawk to sit beside Owl Carver. The chief handed his feathered war club to Wolf Paw, who sat down behind him and rested the club across his knees.
Three more men pushed their way through the crowd. When they came to the front, White Bear saw that they were three chiefs, members of the council that ruled the day-to-day affairs of the Sauk and Fox in peacetime. One, Jumping Fish, was older than Black Hawk. Another, Broth, was a deep-chested man and a well-known orator. The third, Little Stabbing Chief, was a prominent member of the Fox tribe.
With a courteous gesture Black Hawk invited the three chiefs to join the sitting circle.
The nine sat quietly for a time before their people while a breeze whistled over the bark rooftops of Saukenuk.
Black Hawk broke the silence. "Our fathers and our grandfathers have known many kinds of pale eyes. The French pale eyes traded with us. The British pale eyes made us their allies in war. But the American pale eyes drive us from our land and kill us when we resist. American pale eyes are not our friends. But this man, Star Arrow, we call friend. We trust Star Arrow.
"Thirteen summers ago the British long knives made war on the American long knives. The great Shawnee chief, Shooting Star, led braves and warriors of many tribes to fight on the side of the British against the Americans. We among the Sauk and Foxes who followed Shooting Star have been known ever since as the British Band. This man was living among us then, seeking to trade with us and to know us better. When the war began there were some who said, 'He is an enemy. Kill him.' And I might have said so, too, but I did not, because already I knew that he was a good man. We could not send him back to the Americans, but we let him live among us. We even let him share the bed of Sun Woman.
"After the war, when Star Arrow went back to his own people, he left with us this boy, White Bear." Black Hawk turned to White Bear, and when their eyes met, White Bear trembled under Black Hawk's gaze. The chief's eyes were infinitely black, like a night without stars.
"He left us another gift," Black Hawk said.
He reached into a beaded bag hanging at his belt. He took outa shining metal disk on a thin silvery chain and held it up so that the people could see it.
"Inside this disk of metal there is an arrow that points always to the north. Even on a day when I cannot see the sun, on a night when I cannot see the stars, I know where the sun should be and I know where the Council Fire Star is, the star that does not move all night long. He gave us this magical gift. And so we give him his name among the Sauk—Star Arrow. His heart is as constant as the Council Fire Star and as true as the arrow."
There was a murmur of assent among the people.
Black Hawk raised his hand. "Let Star Arrow now tell us why he comes back." Black Hawk folded his arms.
White Bear, his heart beating as hard as a drum in a dance, turned to the pale eyes. Star Arrow turned his own head to look long and gravely at Sun Woman, then at White Bear.
Star Arrow said, "Chief Black Hawk, I lived with Sun Woman as her husband, and then I left her with a son, this young man, White Bear. I wronged Sun Woman and White Bear. He should have had a father as well as a mother. I went back to my people and married a pale eyes woman. Earthmaker has punished me by giving me no children by my second wife and at last taking her from me. Because of this my heart is like the ashes of an old fire."
He held out his arms toward Sun Woman. "Now I want to make it right."
Owl Carver leaned forward into the circle of speakers. "You want to come and live with us again, Star Arrow?"
At the thought of Star Arrow returning to the band, White Bear's heart leaped with happiness. All his life he had been hoping to meet his father, waiting for his father's return, but never believing it possible. So that his father, returning, might be pleased with him, he had even let Père Isaac teach him things he could never use.
To have this strange new man who was so respected by the Sauk living with him and Sun Woman—this was almost as thrilling a prospect as his dream of becoming a great shaman.
Star Arrow said, "No, I cannot stay among you. Nothing, I think, would make me happier, but I have many things to do among my own people. I own much land."
Owl Carver said, "If your land keeps you from doing what you want, then it ownsyou."
Star Arrow smiled ruefully. "Owl Carver speaks truly, but I cannotchange this. I must care for my land myself, because there is no one who can do it for me."
Star Arrow turned to look at White Bear, who sensed a question:Could you be one who helps me care for my land?
Again White Bear felt the presence of a death-with-claws that had its grip on Star Arrow's body. He must speak to Owl Carver. Perhaps Owl Carver could tell him how to help his father.
Owl Carver said, "We know about your land, Star Arrow. You traded honorably with us, and gave us many valuable goods, so that you and your family could live on that land to the north and farm it and graze your animals on it."
"That is so," said Chief Jumping Fish. "Star Arrow gave me a fine rifle, and he made our tribe rich with what he paid us."
White Bear felt a chill of fear when he heard that Star Arrow lived to the north. There was danger, it seemed, in the north. Three Fox men, including Sun Fish, a youth his own age who had been a playmate of his, had gone north two moons ago to work a lead mine and had not been heard from.
Star Arrow said, "I have come to ask Sun Woman and White Bear to live with me in my home."
White Bear heard an amazed murmur from the crowd, and he himself felt his heart drop as if he plummeted unaware into a deep pit.
Leave the tribe? He could not picture it. It made no sense. Being without the tribe would be like trying to live without his arms or legs.
White Bear's eyes met Redbird's. Her slanting eyes were big with fear, and he tried to tell her with a look that he did not want this. Now he understood why she looked so unhappy. She must have guessed what Star Arrow would ask.
To leave Redbird. No longer to learn from Owl Carver. Give up hope of being a shaman. Leave the forest. Leave Saukenuk. He had heard that no spirits lived among the pale eyes. In the land of the pale eyes the tall prairie grass was burned away and the trees were cut down.
Black Hawk and Owl Carver looked at each other. In the glances that passed between them White Bear saw surprise, questioning, but no disapproval. He felt his hopes sink. Would he have to fight this fight alone?
No—his mother would say no to Star Arrow.
She stood up to speak, tall and stately. She turned to Star Arrow, and White Bear saw love mingle with the pain in her dark brown eyes.
"I am happy to call Star Arrow husband. He has not wronged me. It is right that a man should live among his people."
White Bear thought,Now she will say that we must stay with our people and cannot go with him.
"I am glad that Star Arrow remembers me and White Bear, that he comes to ask us to live with him. But I cannot go. I have my work, the gathering of medicines, the healing, the teaching of what I know." She turned to Redbird, who smiled uncertainly.
Sun Woman spoke on. "I could not look into pale eyes faces all day long. My heart would dry up."
In the long silence that followed, White Bear waited uneasily. Why had his mother not spoken of him?
Star Arrow unfolded his long, thin limbs, went over and stood before Sun Woman. He put his hands on her shoulders. A sudden breeze rattled the bark walls of Saukenuk.
"I understand what Sun Woman says."
Sun Woman and Star Arrow both looked at White Bear. He felt as if the ground were trembling under him. He wished it would open up and swallow him.
"This young man," said Sun Woman. "Your son, White Bear. Half of him is you. It is right that he should see the pale eyes who are also his people."
The earth was tilting. White Bear was falling.
His own mother—betraying him. Sending him away.
"I have always believed that Earthmaker meant some special destiny for White Bear," Sun Woman said.
The shout burst from White Bear. "No!" He did not even remember getting to his feet, but he was standing.
Heads turned toward him. Eyes opened wide. He saw Black Hawk lift a hand to silence him, then lower it again. The three chiefs stared angrily.
Words tumbled out of him. He spoke to his mother, who had turned against him.
"Earthmaker meant me to be a shaman. How can I learn to be a shaman if I live among pale eyes? If I spend many summers and winters away from the tribe I will no longer be a Sauk."
White Bear could see the pain-taut lines in Sun Woman's face.This was hurting her, he knew that. But his anger at her burned in his chest. She was trading his life for hers. She would stay here in Saukenuk, but she would give Star Arrow part of what he wanted—his son. Why should he be sacrificed to make Star Arrow happy? It was she who had chosen to take this pale eyes into her lodge.
Sun Woman turned to Owl Carver. "We need to learn much more about the pale eyes if we are to protect ourselves from them. Some of us must live with them and come to understand them from within their tribe. Such a one must be young enough to learn new ways. And he should be specially gifted, a favorite of the spirits."
Then Owl Carver stood up to speak, facing White Bear.
"White Bear, listen to the words of your teacher. There is more than one way to become a shaman. Here in Saukenuk live many people of the Fox and some of the Winnebago, Piankeshaw and Kickapoo tribes. Who says their lives are over because they live among the Sauk? If you live with the tribe of pale eyes, it will make you a man of greater knowledge. To go among them will take the courage of a warrior and more. Of knowledge, of courage, is a shaman made."
Owl Carver turned to Black Hawk. "Sun Woman is right. Let the boy go with Star Arrow. I know Earthmaker has blazed this trail for White Bear." He crossed his arms before his chest and sat down again.
White Bear cast about desperately for words that would answer Owl Carver. He felt helpless to fight the current that was sweeping him away.
"If Earthmaker wants this for me, how is it thatIdo not know it?" he cried. He went cold inside, realizing that in his desperation he was defying Owl Carver before all the people. He was questioning Owl Carver's powers.
He wanted to say that he hoped to be the great prophet of the Sauk after Owl Carver had departed to the land of the spirits. But he did not dare say such a thing. Earthmaker himself might punish him for such presumption.
"Did I not come back to you from the sacred cave with the very words of the Turtle?" he said, holding his hands out in appeal. "Surely I will bring you other great visions if I stay with you. Among the Sauk I have grown to manhood. Why does this man come now to tear me away from the only tribe I have known?"
He was surprised to see Star Arrow smile warmly at him.
"This man is your father," Owl Carver declared. "You are a Sauk. A Sauk never shirks the demands of honor. A Sauk is loyal and respectful and obedient toward his father."
"I am proud of my son," said Star Arrow. "He speaks with power before the people."
At that, a hopeless feeling swept over White Bear. Star Arrow was not fighting him, any more than water fights a drowning man. Star Arrow was a current dragging him away from his people, his village.
And the village was not trying to hold him. Sun Woman, Owl Carver, Black Hawk, were pushing him out, as they would a man who was so wicked he could not be allowed to live with the people. He felt utterly alone.
What did he know of the pale eyes? Only the little that Père Isaac had taught him. And that they were great land thieves. Always they were scheming to take land away from the people who had held it since the Great River first began to flow from the Turtle's breast. Why must he live among his people's enemies?
Owl Carver sprang from his seat. He leaped at White Bear and crouched before him. His eyes opened wide as those of his totem bird. White Bear felt himself pulled toward their black centers, as if they were whirlpools in the Great River. Owl Carver's long white hair fanned out like wings on either side of his head.
"You will listen!" Owl Carver said in a soft voice of terrible intensity. "You will hear!"
Silently White Bear stood looking at the shaman.
"You are the son of my spirit as much as you are the son of Star Arrow's body. I tell you to live with this man as I told you to go to the sacred cave in the Moon of Ice. This is a far greater test for you. Going to live with the pale eyes will be like journeying to another sacred cave. And you will bring back other visions."
White Bear saw in the blackness of Owl Carver's eyes that if he defied this decision he would lose his place in the tribe. There was no way to break free from the current that was sweeping him away from Saukenuk.
White Bear felt as if something in him had broken. He held his face expressionless. He did not want to show his hurt before the tribe. But he knew he would soon be unable to stop himself from weeping.
Among the witnessing people he saw anguish and determinationstruggling in Sun Woman's face. Others looked at him only with curiosity, not sympathy. In all the people around him, the only face that shared his unrelieved wretchedness was Redbird's. His gaze met hers, and the pain they felt together deepened his despair.
Black Hawk spoke in a low voice over his shoulder to Wolf Paw, who stood up. As he left the circle before Owl Carver's medicine lodge, Wolf Paw glanced at White Bear, and White Bear saw the light of triumph in his eyes.
Black Hawk held a hand out to Star Arrow. "If we let you take White Bear, you must one day let him return to us, bringing his new knowledge to help the Sauk."
Owl Carver moved from his crouching position before White Bear and sat down again, facing Star Arrow. "This young man is most precious to us. The mysteries have been told to him, and he has seen visions of the past and future."
At this White Bear's heart was eased a bit. The tribe did want him to return.
I am both red and white.
And both his tribe and the pale eyes wanted him.
To go among the pale eyes will make you a man of knowledge, Owl Carver had said, and Black Hawk had agreed. Perhaps he could become a star arrow, pointing the way for his people in the troubled days the Turtle had foretold.
"I promise to keep him with me only for a time," said Star Arrow.
He has not long to live. That is why he can promise.
And that meant that White Bear's time of exile from the Sauk would be short. But knowing that brought White Bear no relief. He did not want his father, whom he had just met, to die so soon.
"I ask one more thing," said Star Arrow. "It will be harder for the boy to learn the ways of the pale eyes if he always feels the pull of his Sauk people. For the first few summers and winters that he is with us, I ask that he not return to you even for a visit, and that you send no messages to him and he send none to you."
"That is much to ask," said Owl Carver. "That is hard. The boy may die of longing for his people."
Star Arrow shook his head. "I would never let that happen. If I see that it is unbearable for him, I will send him back to you. But I will do everything I can to make him happy, and if he does not seethe British Band or hear from them, the pain of parting will go away sooner."
"I understand what Star Arrow says," said Black Hawk. "It is granted."
White Bear sat down slowly, feeling as if he had been mortally wounded. Never to have a word from his mother or from Redbird—how could he bear it?
Star Arrow continued, "He will go to a fine school in the East. And when he has learned all he can learn, I will send him back to you."
"Let it be done," Black Hawk said.
Wolf Paw came through the crowd, holding up in both hands a calumet, a sacred pipe. Its hickory stem was as long as a man's arm, wrapped in blue and yellow bands, and its high, slender bowl was of dark red pipestone, quarried in a valley far to the west.
Black Hawk took the pipe from Wolf Paw and filled the bowl with tobacco from a beaded pouch at his waist. Owl Carver went into his lodge, and brought back a burning twig that Black Hawk used to light the pipe.
Black Hawk said, "By the smoking of the sacred tobacco let all these promises be sealed."
White Bear went cold as he saw the light gray smoke curl up from Black Hawk's pipe and smelled its sweet scent. Once he put the pipe to his lips and drew the smoke into his mouth, he would be bound to go with Star Arrow as firmly as he was bound to the Sauk tribe.
Holding the pipestem with one hand in the middle and the other at the end, Black Hawk ceremoniously drew on the pipe and let a cloud of smoke out of his mouth. He handed the pipe to Star Arrow, who fixed his gaze on White Bear and did the same. Next the pipe went to Owl Carver, who took the single puff that bound him to the agreement. Owl Carver took the pipe in turn to Jumping Fish, Broth and Little Stabbing Chief. Each puffed on it, bearing witness.
Then Owl Carver walked over to White Bear and handed him the pipe.
Trembling with fear that what he was about to do might be the ruin of him, White Bear took the pipe in his hands. His fingers felt the ridged wrappings and the smooth, warm stone of the bowl. He had never smoked a sacred pipe before.
He could hand the pipe back to Owl Carver and refuse. But he knew that this had gone so far that if he did that, not only would he never be accepted as a shaman, he might not even be accepted as a Sauk.
He wanted to look at Redbird, but he dared not. He looked instead at Sun Woman and saw her eyes warm with the wish that he would smoke the pipe.
He put the calumet to his lips and pulled the hot smoke into his mouth. It burned his tongue and the insides of his cheeks. He took the pipe away and held the smoke for a moment, then puffed it out. As he did so, a sigh went up from the watchers.
Black Hawk was standing before him. White Bear handed the pipe up to him.
"May you walk this path on which we send you with courage and honor," Black Hawk said.
He turned to the people. "This council is at an end."
White Bear knew he could not hold back his tears any longer. He sprang to his feet and blindly hurled himself into the crowd that was already beginning to disperse. He felt a hand on his arm, but he pulled away from it.
He began to run. He ran through Saukenuk, through the meadow, into the trees by the river's edge. He ran past the graves. He ran with the hard, steady stride of one carrying a message.
But a messenger did not run sobbing, with tears streaming down his face.