Shaman Part 116

"I want you to consider staying here in Was.h.i.+ngton City, Mr. de Marion,"

Jackson said abruptly. "I think you can be of great service to your Indian people and to the United States. I'm impressed by the way you prepared that speech for Black Hawk. Zack Taylor has written me that you're a remarkably learned fellow. There are plenty of men and women who straddle the border between the white and the red races, but most of them are trash--illiterates and drunks who hang around Army posts. You seem to be an important man both in the white world and among your fellow tribesmen."

Auguste's body went cold. Jackson did want him to work for him. He found himself resenting the President's apparent expectation that he could easily be won over. But he was afraid that if he refused outright Jackson might take it out on the Sauk.

He shook his head. "You overestimate me, Mr. President. I have no importance in the white world. I had a place, but it was taken from me.

Among the Sauk--yes, I am what you would call a medicine man, but I begged them not to go to war against the whites and they did not listen to me."

Jackson waved that away with a long, bony hand. "I can see that you are capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng much. I have a situation for you in my Bureau of Indian Affairs. If you do well in that post you might one day head the bureau as Commissioner, responsible for the welfare of all the Indian tribes under the protection of the United States."

Auguste felt overwhelmed. Jackson's proposal went far beyond anything he had imagined. Was he wrong in thinking that he must refuse?

No, he must reject Jackson's offer. The President meant to use him against his own people.

Auguste looked straight into Jackson's steel-splinter eyes. "You expect more trouble with the Indians, don't you, Mr. President?"

Jackson frowned. "Why do you say that?"

"Up to now you've been a.s.suring the red men that they could live in peace on the west side of the Mississippi. But now you can't promise them that anymore."

"You _are_ a medicine man, de Marion. How have you divined that?"

Auguste felt as if he were walking on bad ice and might at any moment break through and drown. He should not be so bold with this all-powerful man.

"I know that General Scott has signed a treaty with He Who Moves Alertly whereby the Sauk give up a strip of land fifty miles wide running down the _west_ side of the Mississippi."

Jackson clenched his fist until the knuckles showed white. "You were not supposed to learn about that treaty till you returned to Sauk country."

"We traveled over a thousand miles, Mr. President. We talked to many people, and they talked to us."

"And with someone who speaks English as well as you do in the party, you were bound to learn. Does Black Hawk know about this?"

"No, sir."

Jackson's smile was knowing. _He thinks I'm willing to betray Black Hawk._

Before Jackson could speak, Auguste said, "He would be angry if he knew.

He would protest to you. And it would do no good. It would only mar the meeting between you and him."

Sharp Knife's smile broadened. "Exactly the sort of tactful decision I'd expect of you. Just why I want you to help me."

Auguste was frightened, but felt he must make it clear to Jackson where he stood.

"Mr. President, when you force the red people to give up land west of the Great River, how will they live? Soon there won't be enough land for them to hunt on."

Jackson spread his hands. "If their food supply runs short, our Indian agents can supply them until they find other means of livelihood."

To depend on government agents for the very food they put into their mouths? That would be a kind of prison.

His heart galloping, Auguste decided to speak even more boldly. "You are looking for someone to reconcile the red man to having his land stolen from him, Mr. President."

"Mr. de Marion, the United States is not a thief." A fierce glare lit Jackson's eyes.

_I must try to be bold without being rude._

"I meant no insult, Mr. President. The red man _thinks_ his land is being stolen from him."

Jackson frowned at Auguste as if he was not sure whether he was being sarcastic, and, indeed, hearing his own words, Auguste was not quite sure how he meant them.

"Exactly," Jackson said. "The red man doesn't understand what is happening. You can help to see that this _must_ be."

Auguste hesitated. He had not had time to think. He was not ready to decide his whole future and perhaps bargain away the future of his people in a moment. Staying here in Was.h.i.+ngton City just might be the best thing he could do for the Sauk. Working for and with Jackson, he could protect his people, warn them of danger, avert attacks on them.

But his choosing to refuse Jackson was not the outcome of a momentary impulse. His whole life had taken him to this place on his path. The path might wind; its direction might sometimes be lost in shadows. But it did not lead to Sharp Knife. Jackson was a far better man than Raoul, but they were both on the same side, the side of the dispossessors.

"What the red men don't understand, Mr. President, is how much they are giving up."

"Black Hawk said land can't be bought and sold," Jackson said. "Then it belongs to whoever can make the best use of it."

Each man owning his own land and defending it against all comers, thought Auguste, that was the centerpost of the white way of life.

"I understand that you feel a responsibility to your people, to provide them with land," Auguste said. "But whether it is legal or illegal, just or unjust, I can't help you to move my people or any other red people off the land they are living on."

Jackson's face seemed to sharpen. "You could have done much for Indians by working for me. I'm surprised that a man of your intelligence and education would prefer running around in the woods wearing a loincloth."

Auguste was reminded of Nancy's words, _hunting and living in wigwams_.

Jackson reached into an inner pocket of his black jacket and took out a pair of spectacles. To Auguste they looked somewhat like Pierre's.

Auguste thought with sorrow of Sun Woman and wondered what had happened to the spectacles he had given her. Jackson bent forward and picked up a sheet of paper from one of the piles on his desk.

"Ask one of the soldiers in the next room to help you find the rest of your party."

A few days later Jefferson Davis came to see Auguste in his new room, a small wedge-shaped chamber in one of the towers of Fort Monroe.

"I see they've moved you," said Davis with a smile.

Auguste nodded. "I believe President Jackson prefers that I no longer a.s.sociate with Black Hawk and his party."

"Seems so," Davis said. "President Jackson plans to send Chief Black Hawk and Owl Carver and the Prophet on a tour of our big cities.

Jackson's up for reelection next month. And, of course, he wants Black Hawk to see at first hand what he's up against. The President has made it clear that you are not to go along."

Auguste shrugged. "He offered me a position. I refused."

A smile warmed Davis's pale, gaunt face. "People don't ordinarily say no to the President of the United States. Well, you'll go home all the sooner. Black Hawk and the others won't get back to the Sauk reservation in Ioway till sometime next year. But I'm leaving tomorrow to rejoin Zachary Taylor's command at Fort Crawford, and I'm to take you with me, to return you to your people."

Auguste did not answer. He sat down heavily on his bed, which he had pulled next to the one small window in his room, overlooking the strait called Hampton Roads.