Shaman Part 51

White Bear felt as if his heart might stop. He put his hands over his eyes.

And when he looked again he was back in the cloudy hall of the Turtle.

"What have you shown me?" he asked.

"I have shown you the future of both the red people and the white people on this island between two oceans," the Turtle rumbled. "It is given to you to know two futures because two streams of blood flow in you. You belong to both, and to neither."

It was painful to hear this. The Turtle was uttering thoughts that had occurred to White Bear many times; he had always tried to put them out of his mind. Could he not forget his years among the pale eyes and become entirely a Sauk?

Wisps of cloud drifted around the Turtle's scaly body. White Bear heard the drip-drip of water from the Turtle's heart into the blue-black, fish-crowded pool that fed the Great River. The sound was like the ringing of a hammer on an anvil, reverberating through the vast s.p.a.ce in which they stood.

The Turtle spoke again. "Earthmaker has willed that the pale eyes shall fill this world of ours from the eastern sea to the western sea."

"_Why?_" cried White Bear in anguish.

"Earthmaker bestows evil as well as good on his children. Sickness and hunger and death come from Earthmaker, just as strong bodies, and good things to eat, and love."

"Will all Earthmaker's red children die?"

"Great numbers will die, and those who remain will be driven to unkind lands."

"What of the Sauk?" White Bear asked, trembling.

"The many who follow Black Hawk across the Great River will be few when they cross back."

_Oh, no!_

This was what he had come here to learn, but hearing it was like being cast down from this lodge in the clouds to crash to the earth.

"Then the British Band should not go back to Saukenuk?"

"You cannot stop them. For you as for all of my people, this is to be a time of testing and pain. I charge you to see that those who hurt my children do not gain from it. You will be the guardian of the land that has been placed in your keeping."

"But I have already lost that land," White Bear cried.

As if he had not heard White Bear, the Turtle said, "Know that long after all who live now have walked the Trail of Souls, my children will be many again, and let the knowing lift up your heart." The Turtle touched his own claws to the deep crevice in his under-sh.e.l.l from which the water perpetually dripped.

White Bear knew it was time to go.

When he awoke in his body he would grieve. He saw nothing but heavy, unending sorrow ahead for him and for those he loved.

Black Hawk slowly stood up. A mantle of buffalo fur draped over his shoulders and a crown of red and black feathers woven into his scalplock made him look even bigger and taller than he was.

White Bear sat close to the fire for its heat. The day was cold and overcast, and the damp air around him and the chill ground under him made him s.h.i.+ver in the white doeskin s.h.i.+rt he had worn for his wedding.

Because Owl Carver had asked him, on the band's behalf, to seek a vision, he could now consider himself fully a shaman. He had costumed himself accordingly--three red streaks painted across his forehead, three more on each cheekbone, silver disks hanging from his ears, a three-strand necklace of megis sh.e.l.ls around his neck. Silver clasps on his arms and silver bracelets around his wrists. All these things had been supplied by Owl Carver or traded for by Sun Woman. If he had to speak he might at least hope his words would be greeted with respect.

Redbird pressed against him, and her nearness warmed him. Flames danced over the pile of blackened logs in the center of the British Band's winter camp. Light gray smoke rose from the fire, the same color as the blanket of cloud that hid the afternoon sun.

Fear twisted its knife in White Bear's stomach. He did not want to tell this a.s.sembly what he knew. Most of them would hate him. The chiefs and braves and warriors of the British Band, Black Hawk and all the rest, would never forgive him. Owl Carver would feel betrayed.

_Let them settle this without me._

But he knew it was a forlorn hope. When Owl Carver had asked him what he learned in his vision, he had answered evasively. And now Owl Carver was counting on him.

Around the fire sat the council of seven chiefs who governed the Sauk and Fox tribes, including Jumping Fish, Broth and Little Stabbing Chief.

Beside them sat He Who Moves Alertly, the friend of the long knives, the war chief who had never made war. Prominent braves like Wolf Paw sat with them. The older and the younger shamans of the British Band sat there, Owl Carver and White Bear.

And there was another shaman at the fire as well, Flying Cloud, better known as the Winnebago Prophet. He was a broad man with a wolfskin thrown over his shoulders. Unlike nearly all the men of the tribes that lived along the Great River, he had a thick black mustache that drooped over the corners of his mouth. A silver nose ring rested on the mustache. He was head man of a Winnebago village called Prophet's Town, a day's journey up the Rock River from Saukenuk.

In the quiet that greeted Black Hawk, White Bear heard, over the crackle of the fire, the rattle of the war chief's bone bracelets as he held out his hand.

"I only want to go back to the land that belongs to me and dwell there and raise corn there. I will not be cheated. I will not be driven out."

Black Hawk did not have a pleasing speaking voice; it was hoa.r.s.e and grating. But the a.s.sembly listened intently, because for over twenty summers there had been no greater warrior among the Sauk and Fox.

"With this hand I have killed seventy and three of the long knives.

Every Sauk and Fox brave, every Winnebago and Potawatomi and Kickapoo, can do as much. Yes, we know the long knives outnumber us. But we can show them that if they want to steal Saukenuk from us, they will have to trade too many of their young men's lives for it.

"Last summer the long knives surrounded us and drove us out of Saukenuk.

But that was because we were not ready to fight, and some of us were not _willing_ to fight."

Black Hawk looked pointedly at He Who Moves Alertly, who sat expressionless, as if unaware of Black Hawk's disapproving gaze. His face was round and ruddy, like the full moon when it first appears above the horizon. He wore his glossy black hair long under an impressive buffalo headdress with gleaming horns, and had wrapped himself in a buffalo-hide robe painted with sunbursts.

Black Hawk said, "Next summer, it will be different. I have had messages from the Winnebago and the Potawatomi promising to help us if the long knives attack us. The Chippewa, up in the north, say they want to help us."

A burning log split in two with a noise like a gunshot, and the halves fell deeper into the fire with a shower of sparks.

Looking over the heads of those seated near him, White Bear saw columns of smoke from a dozen or more other campfires rising into the late afternoon sky. Around those campfires, feasting and gossiping, sat most of the people of the British Band and their guests from other Sauk and Fox bands, as well as some Winnebago, Potawatomi and Kickapoo braves.

What was being decided here now would mean life or death to all who chose to follow these leaders.

Black Hawk said, "The pale eyes say we sold our land. I say that land cannot be sold. Earthmaker gives land to those who need it to live on, to grow food on, to hunt on, as he gives us air and water.

"The land has been good to us. It has given us game and fish, fruit and berries. It has let us grow our squash, beans, pumpkins and corn on it, and bury our mothers and fathers in it. The pale eyes are destroying the land, cutting down the trees, fencing off the prairie and plowing it up.

The land is the mother of us all. When a man's mother is dishonored, he must fight. Earthmaker will give us this victory, because he is our father and he loves us."

With a chill that did not come from the air, White Bear remembered the words of the Turtle: _Earthmaker bestows evil as well as good on his children._

White Bear prayed his own prayer to Earthmaker: that he not be asked to speak to this gathering.

Black Hawk lifted his rasping voice in a shout. "I, Black Hawk, raise the war whoop!"

He threw out his chest, lifted his head, and let loose an ululating cry that seemed to pierce the very clouds that hung over the camp. Wolf Paw, Iron Knife, Little Crow, Three Horses and a dozen other Sauk and Fox braves leaped up, waving rifles, tomahawks, bows and arrows, scalping knives, screaming their battle cries. Owl Carver beat furiously on a drum painted with a picture of the Hawk spirit.

The Winnebago Prophet lunged to his feet and joined the outcry, his gestures so wild and his shouts so loud that he almost seemed to be competing with Black Hawk.

Redbird spoke softly, close by White Bear's ear. "They are drunk on war."