Shaman Part 91

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 s.h.i.+ning 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 like Kellogg'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 sh.o.r.e. White Bear s.h.i.+vered. 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 hards.h.i.+p 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.