Red Prophet

Chapter 2 -- Ta-Kumsaw

While Hooch was watching Jackson cross the river, Ta-Kumsaw watched the White whisky trader and knew what he did. So did any other Red man who cared to watch—sober Red man, anyway. White man does a lot of things Red man don't understand, but when he fiddle with fire, water, earth, and air, he can't hide it from a Red man.

Ta-Kumsaw didn't see the saddle leather burn on Jackson's horse. He didn't feel the heat. What he saw was like a stirring, a tiny whirlwind, sucking his attention out across the water. A twisting in the smoothness of the land. Most Red men couldn't feel such things as keen as Ta-Kumsaw. Ta-Kumsaw's little brother, Lolla-Wossiky, was the only one Ta-Kumsaw ever knew who felt it more. Very much more. He knew all those whirlpools, those eddies in the stream. Ta-Kurnsaw remembered their father, Pucky-Shinwa, he spoke of Lolla-Wossiky, that he would be shaman, and Ta-Kumsaw would be war-leader.

That was before Lying-Mouth Harrison shot Pucky-Shinwa right before Lolla-Wossiky's eyes. Ta-Kumsaw was off hunting that day, four-hands walk to the north, but he felt the murder like a gun fired right behind him. When a White man laid a hex or a curse or cast a doodlebug, it felt to Ta-Kumsaw like an itch under his skin, but when a White man killed, it was like a knife stabbing.

He was with another brother, Methowa-Tasky, and he called to him. "Did you feel it?"

Methowa-Tasky's eyes went wide. He had not. But even then, even at that age—not yet thirteen—Ta-Kumsaw had no doubt of himself. He felt it. It was true. A murder had been done, and he must go to the dying man.

He led the way, running through the forest. Like all Red men in the old days, his harmony with the woodland was complete. He did not have to think about where he placed his feet; he knew that the twigs under his feet would soften and bend, the leaves would moisten and not rustle, the branches he brushed aside would go back quick to their right place and leave no sign he passed. Some White men prided themselves that they could move as quiet as a Red, and in truth some of them could—but they did it by moving slow, careful, watching the ground, stepping around bushes. They never knew how little thought a Red man took for making no sound, for leaving no trace.

What Ta-Kumsaw thought of was not his steps, not himself at all. It was the green life of the woodland all around him, and in the heart of it, before his face, the black whirlpool sucking him downward, stronger, faster, toward the place where the living green was torn open like a wound to let a murder through. Long before they got there, even Methowa-Tasky could feel it. There on the ground lies their father, a bullet through his face. And by him, silent and unseeing, stands Lolla-Wossiky, ten years old.

Ta-Kumsaw carried his father's body home across his shoulders, like a deer. Methowa-Tasky led Lolla-Wossiky by the hand, for otherwise the boy would not move. Mother greeted them with great wails of grief, for she also felt the death, but did not know it was her own husband until her sons brought him back. Mother tied her husband's corpse to Ta-Kumsaw's back; then Ta-Kumsaw climbed the tallest tree, untied his father's corpse from his back, and bound it to the highest branch he could reach.

It would have been very bad if he had climbed beyond his strength, and his father's body had fallen from his grasp. But Ta-Kumsaw did not climb beyond his strength. He tied his father to a branch so high the sun touched his father's face all day. The birds and insects would eat of him; the sun and air would dry him; the rain would wash the last of him downward to the earth. This was how TaKumsaw gave his father back to the land.

But what could they do with Lolla-Wossiky? He said nothing, he wouldn't eat unless someone fed him, and if you didn't take his hand and lead him, he would stay in one place forever. Mother was frightened at what had happened to her son. Mother loved Ta-Kumsaw very much, more than any other mother in the tribe loved any other son; but even so, she loved Lolla-Wossiky more. Many times she told them all how baby Lolla-Wossiky cried the first time the air grew bitter cold each winter. She could never get him to stop, no matter how she covered him with bearskins and buffalo robes. Then one winter he was old enough to talk, and he told her why he cried. "All the bees are dying," he said. That was Lolla-Wossiky, the only Shaw-Nee who ever felt the death of bees.

That was the boy standing beside his father when Colonel Bill Harrison shot him dead. H Ta-Kumsaw felt that murder like a knife wound, half a day's journey away, what did Lolla-Wossiky feel, standing so close, and already so sensitive? If he cried for the death of bees in winter, what did he feel when a White man murdered his father before his eyes?

After a few years, Lolla-Wossiky finally began to speak again, but the fire was gone from his eyes, and he was careless. He put his own eye out by accident, because he tripped and fell on the short jagged stump of a broken bush. Tripped and fell! What Red man ever did that? It was like Lolla-Wossiky lost all feeling for the land; he was dull as a White man.

Or maybe, Ta-Kumsaw thought, maybe the sound of that ancient gunshot still rings in his head so loud he can't hear anything else now; maybe that old pain is still so sharp that he can't feel the tickling of the living world. Pain all the time till the first taste of whisky showed LollaWossiky how to take away the sharp edge of it.

That was why Ta-Kumsaw never beat Lolla-Wossiky for likkering, though he would beat any other Shaw-Nee, even his brothers, even an old man, if he found him with the White man's poison in his hand.

But the White man never guessed at what the Red man saw and heard and felt. The White man brought death and emptiness to this place. The White man cut down wise old trees with much to tell; young saplings with many lifetimes of life ahead; and the White man never asked, Will you be glad to make a lodgehouse for me and my tribe? Hack and cut and chop and burn, that was the White man's way. Take from the forest, take from the land, take from the river, but put nothing back. The White man killed animals he didn't need, ammals that did him no harm; yet if a bear woke hungry in the winter and took so much as a single young pig, the White man hunted him down and killed him in revenge. He never felt the balance of the land at all.

No wonder the land hated the White man! No wonder all the natural things of the land rebelled against his step: crackling underfoot, bending the wrong way, shouting out to the Red man, Here was where the enemy stood! Here came the intruder, through these bushes, up this hill! The White man joked that Reds could even track a man on water, then laughed as if it wasn't true. But it was true, for when a White man passed along a river or a lake, it bubbled and foamed and rippled loud for hours after he had passed.

Now Hooch Palmer, poison-seller, sly killer, now he stands making his silly fire on another White man's saddles, thinking no one knows. These White men with their weak little knacks. These White men with their hexes and their wardings. Didn't they know their hexes only fended off unnatural things? If a thief comes, knowing he does wrong, then a good strong fending hex makes his fear grow till he cries out and runs away. But the Red man never is a thief. The Red man belongs wherever he is in this land. To him the hex is just a cold place, a stirring in the air, and nothing more. To him a knack is like a fly, buzz buzz buzz. Far above this fly, the power of the living land is a hundred hawks, watching, circling.

Ta-Kumsaw watched Hooch turn away, return to the fort. Soon Hooch sells his poison in earnest. Most of the Red men gathered here will be drunk. Ta-Kumsaw will stay, keeping watch. He does not have to speak to anyone. They only see him, and those with any pride left will turn away without likkering. Ta-Kurnsaw is not a chief yet. But Ta-Kumsaw is not to be ignored. Ta-Kumsaw is the pride of the Shaw-Nee. All other Red men of every tribe must measure themselves against him. Whisky-Reds are very small inside when they see this tall strong Red man.

He walked to the place where Hooch had stood, and let his calm replace the twisting Hooch put there. Soon the buzzing, furious insects quieted. The smell of the likkery man settled. Again the water lapped the shore with accidental song.

How easy to heal the land after the White man passes. If all the White men left today, by tomorrow the land would be at rest, and in a year it would not show any sign the White man ever came. Even the ruins of the White man's buildings would be part of the land again, making homes for small animals, crumbling in the grip of the hungering vines. White man's metal would be rust; White man's stone work would be low hills and small caves; White man's murders would be wistful, beautiful notes in the song of the redbird—for the redbird remembered everything, turning it into goodness when it could.

All day Ta-Kumsaw stood outside the fort, watching Red men go in to buy their poison. Men and women from every tribe—Wee-Aw and Kicky-Poo, Potty-Wottamee and Chippy-Wa, Winny-Baygo and Pee-Orawa—they went in carrying pelts or baskets and came out with no more than cups or jugs of likker, and sometimes with nothing more than what they already had in their bellies. Ta-Kumsaw said nothing, but he could feel how the Reds who drank this poison were cut off from the land. They did not twist the green of life the way the White man did; rather it was as if they did not exist at all. The Red man who drank whisky was already dead, as far as the land knew. No, not even dead, for they give nothing back to the land at all. I stand here to watch them be ghosts, thought Ta-Kumsaw, not dead and not alive. He said this only inside his head, but the land felt his grief, and the breeze answered him by weeping through the leaves.

Come dusk, a redbird walks on the dirt in front of Ta-Kumsaw.

Tell me a story, says the redbird in its silent way, its eyes cocked upward at the silent Red man.

You know my story before I tell it, says Ta-Kumsaw silently. You feel my tears before I shed them. You taste my blood before it is spilled.

Why do you grieve for Red men who are not of the Shaw-Nee?

Before the White man came, says Ta-Kumsaw silently, we did not see that all Red men were alike, brothers of the land, because we thought all creatures were this way; so we quarreled with other Red men the way the bear quarrels with the cougar, the way the muskrat scolds the beaver. Then the White man came, and I saw that all Red men are like twins compared to the White man.

What is the White man? What does he do?

The White man is like a human being, but he crushes all other living things under his feet.

Then why, O Ta-Kumsaw, when I look into your heart, why is it that you do not wish to hurt the White man, that you do not wish to kill the White man?

The White man doesn't know the evil that he does. The White man doesn't feel the peace of the land, so how can he tell the little deaths he makes? I can't blame the White man. But I can't let him stay. So when I make him leave this land, I won't hate him.

If you are free of hate, O Ta-Kumsaw, you will surely drive the White man out.

I'll cause him no more pain than it takes to make him go away.

The redbird nods. Once, twice, three times, four. It flutters up to a branch as high as Ta-Kumsaw's head. It sings a new song. In this song Ta-Kumsaw hears no words; but he hears his own story being told. From now on, his story is in the song of every redbird in the land, for what one redbird knows, all remember.

Whoever watched Ta-Kumsaw all that time had no idea of what he said and saw and heard. Ta-Kumsaw's face showed nothing. He stood where he had been standing; a redbird landed near him, stayed awhile, sang, and went away.

Yet this moment turned Ta-Kumsaw's life; he knew it right away. Until this day he had been a young man. His strength and calm and courage were admired, but he spoke only as any Shaw-Nee could speak, and having spoken, he then kept still and older men decided. Now he would decide for himself, like a true chief, like a war chief. Not a chief of the Shaw-Nee, or even a chief of the Red men of this north country, but rather the chief of all Red tribes in the war against the White man. He knew for many years that such a war must come; but until this moment he had thought that it would be another man, a chief like Comstalk, Blackfish, or even a Cree-Ek or Chok-Taw from the south. But the redbird came to him, Ta-Kumsaw, and put him in the song. Now wherever Ta-Kumsaw went throughout the land that knew the redbird song, his name would be well known to the wisest Red men. He was war chief of all Red men who loved the land; the land had chosen him.

As he stood there near the bank of the Hio, he felt like he was the face of the land. The fire of the sun, the breath of the air, the strength of the earth, the speed of the water, all reached into him and looked out on the world through his eyes. I am the land; I am the hands and feet and mouth and voice of the land as it struggles to rid itself of the White man.

These were his thoughts.

He stood there until it was fully dark. The other Red men had returned to their lodges or their cabins to sleep—or to lie drunken and as good as dead till morning. Ta-Kumsaw came out of his redbird trance and heard laughter from the Red village, laughter and singing from the White soldiers inside the fort.

Ta-Kumsaw walked away from the place where he had stood so many hours. His legs were stiff, but he did not stagger; he forced his legs to move smoothly, and the ground yielded gently under his feet. The White man had to wear rough heavy boots to walk far in this land, because the dirt scuffed and tore at his feet; the Red man could wear the same moccasins for years, because the land was gentle and welcomed his step. As he moved, Ta-Kumsaw felt soil, wind, river, and lightning all moving with him; the land within him, all things living, and he the hands and feet and face of the land.

There was a shout inside the fort. And more shouts:

"Thief! Thief! Stop him!"

"He's got a keg!"

Curses, howls. Then the worst sound: a gunshot. Ta-Kumsaw waited for the sting of death. It didn't come.

A shadowy man rose above the parapet. Whatever man it was, he balanced a keg on his shoulders. For a moment he teetered on the very peak of the stockade poles, then jumped down. Ta-Kumsaw knew it was a Red man because he could jump from three man-heights, holding a heavy keg, and make almost no sound upon landing.

On purpose maybe, or maybe not, the fleeing thief ran straight to Ta-Kumsaw and stopped before him. Ta-Kumsaw looked down. By starlight he knew the man.

"Lolla-Wossiky," he said.

"Got a keg," said Lolla-Wossiky.

"I should break that keg," said Ta-Kumsaw.

Lolla-Wossiky cocked his head like the redbird and regarded his brother. "Then I'd have to take another."

The White men chasing Lolla-Wossiky came to the gate, clamoring for the guard to open it. I have to remember this, thought Ta-Kumsaw. This is a way to get them to open the gate for me. Even as he thought that, however, he also put his arm around his brother, keg and all. Ta-Kumsaw felt the green land like a second heartbeat, strong within him, and as he held his brother, the same power of the land flowed into Lolla-Wossiky. Ta-Kumsaw heard him gasp.

The Whites ran out of the fort. Even though Ta-Kumsaw and Lolla-Wossiky stood in the open, in plain sight, the White soldiers did not see them. Or no, they saw; they simply did not notice the two Shaw-Nee. They ran past, shouting and firing randomly into the woods. They gathered near the brothers, so close they could have lifted an arm and touched them. But they did not lift their arms; they did not touch the Red men.

After a while the Whites gave up the search and returned to the fort, cursing and muttering.

"It was that one-eye Red."

"The Shaw-Nee drunk."

"Lolla-Wossiky."

"If I find him, I'll kill him."

"Hang the thieving devil."

They said these things, and there was Lolla-Wossiky, not a stone's throw from them, holding the keg on his shoulder.

When the last White man was inside the fort, Lolla-Wossiky giggled.

"You laugh with the White man's poison on your shoulders," said Ta-Kumsaw.

"I laugh with my brother's arm across my back," answered Lolla-Wossiky.

"Leave that whisky, Brother, and come with me," said Ta-Kumsaw. "The redbird heard my story, and remembers me in her song."

"Then I will listen to that song and be glad all my life," said Lolla-Wossiky.

"The land is with me, Brother. I'm the face of the land, the land is my breath and blood."

"Then I will hear your heartbeat in the pulse of the wind," said Lolla-Wossiky.

"I will drive the White man back into the sea," said Ta-Kumsaw.

In answer, Lolla-Wossiky began to weep; not drunken weeping, but the dry, heavy sobs of a man burdened down with grief. Ta-Kumsaw tried to tighten his embrace, but his brother pushed him away and staggered off, still carrying the keg, into the darkness and the trees.

Ta-Kumsaw did not follow him. He knew why his brother was grieving: because the land had filled Ta-Kumsaw with power, power enough to stand among the drunken Whites and seem as invisible as a tree. And Lolla-Wossiky knew that by rights whatever power Ta-Kumsaw had, Lolla-Wossiky should have had ten times that power.

But the White man had stolen it from Lolla-Wossiky with murders and likker, until Lolla-Wossiky wasn't man enough to have the redbird learn his song or the land fill up his heart.

Never mind, never mind, never mind.

The land has chosen me to be its voice, and so I must begin to speak. I will no longer stay here, trying to shame the wretched drunks who have already been killed by their thirst for the White man's poison. I will give no more warnings to White liars. I will go to the Reds who are still alive, still men, and gather them together. As one great people we will drive the White man back across the sea.