Panther in the Sky (100 page)

I
N THE FIRST SMOKY LIGHT OF DAWN, DISTANT CRIES OF
alarm could be heard coming from the fort and the town. The Americans could see many rowboats on the river downstream. Brock’s Redcoats were crossing to the American shore. They landed, using the lowest ground to stay covered from the line of artillery fire from the fort. By the time the rising sun was beginning to lighten the hazy, smoky lowlands, the green fields were impressively covered with units of men in red-and-white uniforms, maneuvering into positions for an assault upon the walls of the fort. And while the Americans in the fort were watching this ominous sight, Tecumseh’s warriors began trotting in files through a glade visible from the fort, howling their war cries. Once concealed by the trees, they circled back to the end of the line and trotted through the glade again. By the time that ruse had been completed, Hull’s observers had counted five or six thousand Indians on two consecutive days, which seemed to confirm the captured message about the horde of warriors coming down from the north.

Now Tecumseh mounted a gray stallion and galloped down past the fort, just a little out of musket range, to the fields where Brock’s army was forming. Brock was already prominent on the field, on a high-spirited gray war-horse, and the two leaders galloped to greet each other, within the sight of the fort. They then rode side by side inspecting the fort from a distance, looking confident and nonchalant. But they were aware that this was the point of their greatest risk.

“Now, my friend Tecumseh,” Brock said, “let us see whether we’ve got General Hull appraised right. I’ll start the assault. If he resists, we’ve got a deadly job ahead of us. That’s an awful fort to storm, and he’s got more fellows in there than you and I have together. You can wager that those cannon pointing down on us are loaded with grapeshot. Oh, how I hate grapeshot! We may not be able to take that fort without a long siege, my friend. Even that’s a very long chance.…”

“Brock! See that!”

Brock followed Tecumseh’s pointing finger. Then he began humming an impromptu little song in his throat and smiling. “Oh, my good fellow,” he chortled. “This is just utterly preposterous! It worked!”

A white flag was being raised over the American fort.

T
ECUMSEH GATHERED HIS WAR CHIEFS AND LAID DOWN HIS
law.

“I have made a promise to our friend Brock, and it is
our
promise:

“When we go into the town and the fort, we will harm no one. The Americans are our prisoners, and the women and children in Detroit are innocent. I have told you many times that prisoners must not be hurt. If you wish to remain allied with me and win more great victories like this one, you must not let your warriors harm any of the people, nor steal or destroy anything. Remember what I have told you: in my eyes it is the act of a coward to hurt the helpless. The American general has surrendered to Brock in order to save himself and his people from the knife and tomahawk. For the honor of Brock’s word and my own, see that your warriors are merciful.”

M
ANY OF THE
A
MERICAN SOLDIERS IN THE FORT WERE WEEPING
with frustration as they watched the American flag come down the flagpole and the British flag go up. Hull had consulted not one officer before making his decision to surrender. They had all been ready and eager to fight and were so astonished when Hull sent his aides out to raise the truce flag that they had hurriedly tried to relieve the old general of command and go on with the battle. But that had failed, and now they were all prisoners—all 2,500 of them, the entire United States Army of the Northwest. Even those 350 who had ridden down the road two days before were included in the surrender terms, though they did not yet know it. Some of the American officers had had tantrums, broken their swords in disgust, or thrown themselves on the ground and wept. Others swore that if they ever got back to their country, they would see to it that Hull was tried as a traitor and a coward.

The misery and depression of the Americans were matched by the jubilation of the British and Indians. As the king’s flag went up the flagpole, General Brock was so moved that he untied the beautiful silk sash from around his waist and gave it to Tecumseh.
“You deserve the honor for this day of triumph, my friend,” he said. Then, as if this token were insufficient for the good feelings overflowing in him, he unbuckled his silver-trimmed pistols and gave them to Tecumseh also, and all the British soldiers and Canadian militiamen who were close enough to see it gave a cheer.

Then, to his total surprise and delight, Brock received a present in return. Tecumseh turned to Billy Caldwell, and the half-breed rode forward and gave a bundle to Tecumseh, who extended it to Brock, saying:

“This was made by the women of Prophet’s Town, and I am pleased to put it in the hand of a brave ally. The American governor always tried to tell me that British officers have no courage to help the red men. But you have shown how a great English warrior stands and moves.”

Tears welled up in Brock’s eyes when he saw the priceless thing Tecumseh was giving him. It was a six-foot wampum belt depicting an oak-leaf design in green-and-white beads.

“For one strong like the oak,” Tecumseh said.

“My brother and gracious friend!” Brock said, his voice husky with emotion. “I’ll keep this near me till the day I die.”

“May that day be far from now,” said Tecumseh, who felt that this was perhaps the happiest day of his life, that this was only the first of many victories with Brock’s help, which would lead to the salvation of his people. Brock was so important to the outcome of the great task that Tecumseh wondered why he had never seen him in any of the dreams or visions.

F
OR A FEW DAYS AFTER THE CAPTURE OF
D
ETROIT
, T
ECUMSEH
and Brock shared a deepening friendship and high hopes for more such successes. Brock set up his headquarters in a comfortable house in Detroit, and Tecumseh lived in two rooms of it. Here he was visited by several of the captured American officers who had met him in Vincennes and O-hi-o in past years. They came to thank him for the merciful restraint of his warriors. One of these officers introduced himself as a friend of James Galloway’s family. That family, the major reported, was as usual prospering. The major then astonished Tecumseh by referring to Rebekah as “the girl you courted.” Tecumseh said nothing about that but listened until he was able to deduce the story: that Rebekah had told people he had proposed marriage to her. It had become the family story.

“Ah,” Tecumseh said, looking thoughtfully down at the floor beside the officer’s feet. “Such a thing could not be.” He remembered
her, wistfully, for a moment, remembered the readings, the grammar lessons, the writing, her strange loneliness—their pitiful misunderstanding about the gift she had called dowry.… “Is that girl well, then? Perhaps she is a man’s wife by now, and the mother of children?”

“Not yet but soon, I hear. They say she’s fixing to wed a cousin of hers—‘Pennsylvania George,’ he’s called.”

Tecumseh was quiet for a while, half smiling. “That is a good thing to hear,” he said. “One should not marry another kind.”

Coming now, at this time of his swelling friendship with Brock, the news of Rebekah caused a strange wave of poignancy to move through Tecumseh. Once again, for the first time in many rushing, eventful years, he wondered at this deep affinity he had for a few members of the race that was ruining his world.

Later that day Tecumseh sat in his room, wearing a white man’s cloak and no headdress, while a picture maker painted his portrait, which Brock had insisted upon commissioning.

In these heady and pleasant few days, Tecumseh’s leg wound finished its healing. The limp went away, and his hopes for the success of his mission grew. With the bold energy of Brock, he felt, the tribes might yet defeat the Long Knives so soundly and so often that they might actually recover their lands in Indiana and O-hi-o and hold those lands forever. Had that region not been considered by the British to be a part of Canada before the Revolution? Might it not be again, if the British won this war? And might not the English king give it back to Tecumseh’s people as a reward for their help in the wars? Tecumseh thought of discussing these possibilities someday with Brock. He sniffed the strange paint smell, pondering the notion. He kept it within himself, and would until he might have time to talk deeply with Brock. But first there was this war to win, and it had started out well indeed. By such victories as this, the disaster at Tippecanoe might be fully compensated. He had summoned all the tribes that had followed him before Tippecanoe, telling them of the conquest of Detroit and inviting them to join him in the rebuilding of the alliance and more great victories. Even as he was sending out these calls, still there came warriors who had been roused by the shaking of the earth.

When the painter was finished, Tecumseh saw the brooding image and laughed at it. “But it does not show how happy Tecumseh is!”

Word soon came of another victory over the Americans, but it was a victory that saddened and angered Tecumseh. His
Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, and Winnebago allies had captured the entire garrison of Fort Dearborn and the people of the village of Chicago near the end of Lake Mis-e-ken. Among the captives had been the Indian agent William Wells. But the warriors had been too tempted by the helplessness of their captives and, forgetting Tecumseh’s repeated preachings for mercy, had massacred most of the captives. One of the Potawatomi chiefs in his frenzy had cut Wells’s heart out and eaten it. The death of Wells was not bad news to Tecumseh, but this repeated reversion to blood lust twisted his heart. How could the red men expect to become a nation recognized among nations if they never would learn mercy and restraint?

“Yes, I have incited them to fight the Americans as long as they have strength to raise an arm,” Tecumseh confided to Brock. “But they forget my pleas to spare the helpless, and are untrained children, who know not what is good or bad, and each time they do that they step farther back from the building of a respectable nation. Every act of cruelty will be repaid a hundred times by the Long Knives, who welcome any excuse to make us be no more. Brock, what am I to do with my poor People?” Tecumseh had never trusted any other white man enough, even Galloway, to say such a thing to him, and to be able to say it to such a friend was an exquisite release of his anguish. He could see in Brock’s eyes that he understood.

But the time was coming when there would have to be a distance between them. Activities of the American forces at the other end of Lake Erie compelled Brock to return there. In shipyards at the far end of the lake, the Americans were trying to build a navy fleet. There were raids and battles going on there that threatened the British supply route to Upper Canada. Here at Amherstburg, a young and dignified British navy commander named Barclay was building and arming a huge ship of war to keep control of the lake even if the Americans did succeed in building their fleet. Barclay had lost one arm in a great naval battle somewhere else in the world, and Brock esteemed him highly.

Now Brock put his senior subordinate, Procter, in charge of the western theater and prepared to sail east to Niagara for a while. “But I will always answer to your needs, my friend,” he told Tecumseh. “Only send me a message.” He gave Tecumseh a gold compass engraved with both their names.

Before boarding a warship for Niagara, Brock penned his report to the Crown on the capture of Detroit. Determined that
his country should appreciate the value of its ally, he wrote of Tecumseh:

“Remember, my friend,” Brock said, “I cherish this green belt as much as anything I possess. As I told you when you gave it to me, I shall keep it till the day I die.”

T
ECUMSEH AND THE
R
EDCOAT GENERAL RODE OUT ON THE
grassy slope of the bluff above the rapids of the Maumee-se-pe.

This place was full of bad memory, even after almost twenty summers. Here Tecumseh had lost a brother and the Shawnees had lost everything that was important. Tecumseh would have spoken of these memories if the British general riding beside him had been Brock. But it was not. It was Procter, with whom Tecumseh would never have tried to share a sentiment. Procter did not seem to believe Indians could have sentiments.

It was Procter riding beside him, an ally only because of the circumstances of war. Tecumseh knew Americans, his enemies, whom he liked better than Procter, his ally, but this fat-jowled Procter was his ally because it was he who had the cannons and supplies and boats and Redcoats Tecumseh needed to wage war on American forts. Thus it was Procter who rode now beside him onto the bluff of the Maumee overlooking the old battleground and the huge new American fort that had been built across the river from it.

It was not Brock, the white man to whom Tecumseh had felt
the strongest bond of friendship, because Brock was no more. Where the high spirits and hopefulness of Brock had glowed briefly in Tecumseh’s heart, there was now only caution and a kind of despair that would sometimes pull him down and make him doubt that the things that needed to be done could be done after all. Tecumseh had always been confident that the Great Good Spirit would help him do the task, and the inspiration from Brock had made him even more sure, for those two brief moons, but since the news of Brock’s death, Tecumseh sometimes had doubted.