Panther in the Sky (54 page)

They came on, riding at a quick walk, straight toward the ambush. The warriors, naked and painted and greased for battle, crouched and slithered in the shade, moving to the best vantage points in the edge of the woods for good shooting. The horses were so close now that even in the rain-soft ground their hoofbeats could be heard, and the rattling of guns and gear.

Then a loud cry spun out on the air, and one gunshot, then a hundred, and the quavering war cry from hundreds of throats. Soldiers fell from their saddles. Horses fell or reared. The remaining horsemen stopped in disarray, raised their rifles, and returned
a ragged volley into the woods, and some of them were already riding away in disorderly retreat.

It was too much of a temptation for the Ottawas and Wyandots and many of the Shawnees along this front. With a howl they burst from the woods in pursuit of the fleeing Kentuckians. Thick Water was among those rash ones.

Tecumseh sprang up in alarm. He shouted, “No!
Pe-eh-wah,
come back!” It had looked too much like a decoy trick, those troops riding up so close while the main army was maneuvering around on the slope. But not many warriors heard his warning cry over the noise, only those nearby. Some who heard his voice stopped and came back, but not many. Warriors from up and down the line were darting out from their hiding places and running out to get the scalps of the fallen horsemen, ready to rush on to another great victory. Was not this just the way St. Clair’s militia had turned and run? Was not this just the way the defeat of St. Clair had begun?

Tecumseh watched, still shouting, as the hundreds of warriors rushed screaming across the open slope in pursuit of the horsemen. And then what he had feared began to happen.

Army drums, faint and dull sounding because of the damp air, thudded in the distance, down toward the river, and two cannon shots reverberated in the valley. Shouts relayed along the slope.

And then the whole Blue-Coat army, on that signal, suddenly was coming into view, moving not to the west, but straight toward the timbers. A double line of them three-quarters of a mile long had flanked right and was coming on at a very fast step. Some of them were hidden by the gunsmoke of the skirmish, but it was plain that the whole line of Blue-Coats was in a full charge now, that it would simply overrun the warriors who had rushed out into the open and would be here in the edge of the timbers within minutes. Never had Tecumseh imagined that so many hundreds of men could move in such unison. They came swiftly, the weeds and tall grasses soaking their legs, their long guns and bayonets held on a slant. This was an attacking army, coming on hard, not an army moving away in confusion.

Now these oncoming lines let the retreating horsemen pass back through to safety and closed again, still coming. The warriors who had run after the horse soldiers were now hesitating, right in the path of these hundreds and hundreds of Blue-Coats. Many of the warriors turned and raced back toward the timber; others stood bravely shooting at the ranks. Tecumseh saw Thick Water load, fire, then turn back toward the timbers.

Tecumseh clenched his jaw in dismay and in frustration, because now his warriors in the woods could not shoot at the Blue-Coats without hitting their own people, those who had been rash enough to be decoyed out. The warriors had been deceived by one of their own kinds of ruses, because they had not expected one of these marching generals to use a decoy trick.

The lines of Blue-Coats began a deep, droning cry, a monotonous bellow of fury from a thousand throats, as they clashed with the warriors in the field. Some of the warriors shot or hacked at soldiers before they themselves were speared by the bayonets or trampled by the oncoming lines. The flurry of fighting out there hardly slowed the soldiers. Down by the river the mounted dragoons were charging forward in front of the walking soldiers, who now were charging as if with lances instead of guns, and they were almost at the edge of the woods now. The warriors floundering back into the covert were in the way of those who tried to shoot at the soldiers. Tecumseh’s heart was torn with chagrin. The chance to mow down the soldiers with arrows and bullets from this covert was lost. So swiftly the advantage had been swept away! The only hope now was that the mass of fallen trees would slow the tide of Blue-Coats enough that clubs and knives and hatchets would suffice to stop them. Tecumseh could see the soldiers’ faces now, the young, pink ones, the craggy, leathery ones, the blue-eyed ones, their faces pouring sweat, their mouths open with their hard yelling and hard breathing, could see the teeth in their mouths, could see the sheen of daylight on the sweaty planes of their faces, and he screamed in desperation to his warriors, “Be strong! Kill them now! Brothers, be strong!” He discharged his rifle into the face of a gaunt soldier who had reached the woods. Then in his haste to reload, he tamped a ball down the muzzle without a charge of powder, thus rendering the gun useless. With a curse for white men’s iron inventions, he cast it down and drew his war club from his belt with his right hand and his knife with his left.
“Pe-eh-wah!” he
cried, and sprang forward. His great voice rallied some of the warriors, and they screamed their battle cries and flung themselves at the countless soldiers who came crashing and bellowing into the deadwood. Tecumseh flailed at black hats and ferocious faces, and he parried away thrusts of the long bayonets. He was desperate; his blood was full of fire. He could not bear the thought that a white army might once again win a battle in his land.

For a few moments then the close wet air was a din of blows, screams, curses, crackling twigs, commands, groans, a few pistol
shots. The warriors fought in a way that surely would have stopped any other army that had ever come against them. Even Loud Noise in his desperation was standing his ground and hacking away with his great strength, drunkenly brawling to defend his life.

But these soldiers were not scared. They did not stop pushing their way into the woods. It does not take long to determine whether an enemy is just obeying orders or is truly strong-hearted, and these men had the spirit that Clark’s soldiers had had. They ducked under and clambered over trunks and branches to get into the combat, crunching ever forward with their deadly steel spikes probing the way, as eager as hungry bear hunters closing in. Tecumseh saw his warriors being impaled and twisted to the ground. He saw them being slammed back against the dead trees and clubbed to death with rifle stocks. The long bayonets on the long guns outreached tomahawks and clubs and knives. And when a Blue-Coat soldier fired one shot into the massed warriors, several could be hit by the mixed load of ball and shot.

Tecumseh had a glimpse of Stands-Between fighting beside him, and when the youth glanced toward him, Tecumseh saw that his eyes were filled with the most terrible desperation Tecumseh had ever seen in a life of conflicts. There had never been soldiers like these. Tecumseh was sore with bruises, and though the leather of his war club was soaked with soldiers’ blood, his own blood seeped over his skin from many places where the probing steel or buckshot had gouged him. It was impossible to go forward against them; it was impossible to stand still in front of them. The woods were full of the blue coats and white belts now. If the warriors had been here who had gone back to get food, there might have been enough to stop the army. But there were not. And the mass of fallen timber that was to have been the warriors’ defense was proving to be their death trap. As they fell back they were blocked by it and pinned against it. And in their hunger these frantic exertions were weakening them quickly. Tecumseh found it hard now even to swing his club. He was gasping for air and squirming and dodging and twisting for his life. Loud Noise was out of Tecumseh’s sight now. Stands-Between was still at Tecumseh’s right hand and was fighting without flinching, his arms covered with blood. He struck a soldier in the face with his tomahawk. When the soldier fell, the bloody-slick tomahawk handle was wrenched out of his bloody hand. Another soldier thrust at Stands-Between, who grabbed the long bayonet with both hands and strained to tear the gun from the soldier’s grasp.
As they struggled, Tecumseh lashed out with his club and knocked the soldier into the other world.

“Back, brother,” Tecumseh cried. Stands-Between, holding the gun by its bayonet and barrel, cocked it back to swing at an officer who was coming forward with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other. The officer fired his pistol point-blank in Stands-Between’s face. Tecumseh glanced at his brother in that moment and saw part of his head pop open, felt flying bits of his flesh and drops of his blood. As Stands-Between swayed on his feet, Tecumseh screamed in outrage, leaped at the officer, yanked the smoking pistol from the officer’s hand, and cracked his skull with the butt of it. When he turned to his young brother, Stands-Between was already on the ground. His body was still twitching, but his face had a hole of torn meat and gristle where his nose had been, with grains of gunpowder still smoking in it.

Crazed with grief, Tecumseh knelt and grasped Stands-Between under the arms and raised him up. Sobbing, straining, his throat burning from thirst and smoke, he cradled him in his arms and stood up. Then he turned his back on the Blue-Coats and began staggering deeper into the fallen woods. To his left and right, warriors were fleeing into the thickets, many of them bleeding and limping. The soldiers could be heard close behind, still yelling, still crashing and crushing through the deadwood like a herd of heavy-footed animals, still sending ball and buckshot snapping through the foliage. Flying splinters stung Tecumseh’s back. There were still blows and screams of pain back there, as a few warriors fought on. But the battle was lost. The thick, damp woods were blurry with smoke, and among the fallen trunks and split limbs flitted the forms of the retreating red men.

Tecumseh staggered on with his burden, gasping for breath, stumbling, his heart torn apart by grief, his feet and legs being scratched and gouged by briers and broken branches. Twisting dead limbs reached out like hostile arms trying to wrench Stands-Between’s body away from him. He fell to his knees, and the body slipped from his arms. Panting, hardly able to breathe the close, smoky air, Tecumseh carefully gathered up the youth, lurched to his feet, and staggered on. There was no movement in the body now. Another brother was dead. He could still hear the shouts and uproar of the advancing army a few paces back. He was not afraid of being shot in the back. It did not matter now whether he lived or not. But he could not lay his brother’s body down, he could not leave it where the Blue-Coats would scalp it and skin it and take fingers and ears and genitals as trophies. He must
keep going, as the rest of the shattered tribes were going, back through to the far side of the fallen timbers and up the road into the safety of the new British fort.

Yes! he thought. Yes! When we come out of these woods, our British friends will take us in through the big gate, and then their cannons will boom and blow these Blue-Coat soldiers down. The fort will stop them!

“My brother,” he gasped to the bloody-faced corpse in his arms, “it is not lost yet!” And he floundered on with the great dead weight in his sweat-slick arms, its bloody head hanging and bobbling with every step, and he tried to hope even as the last strength of his body wore down.

L
OUD
N
OISE CAME LUMBERING THROUGH THE BRUSH, HIS
body fat quivering with every step, exhausted but trying to run to Tecumseh. He was wet with blood from many small wounds. His face was smeared with sweat and blood and war paint, and he was totally sober. When he saw his dead brother in Tecumseh’s arms, he clenched his jaw and groaned.

Hundreds of warriors were moving around them, going down the river bluff toward the British fort. Many were carrying or supporting wounded ones. Thick Water, whom Tecumseh had given up for dead, came limping. More of Tecumseh’s warriors saw him now and came to gather around him. “Let us help you carry your brother,” Seekabo said, and quickly they grasped his arms and legs, and the four of them carried the corpse. But Stands-Between’s death was no lighter on Tecumseh’s heart, only on his arm. As they moved on toward the British fort, Big Fish joined them, then Stands Firm, face set in bitterness. He kept looking back, watching the warriors emerge from the timber. He looked down at the body, and his face set still harder.

“Turkey Foot they killed,” he said. “I saw him down. Many chiefs are dead because they rushed out of the woods for the decoys.” Thick Water, hearing this, looked abashed.

Now they could see the British flag ahead, and soon they emerged onto a clearing at the top of the curving bluff, full of stumps where trees had been cut to make the fort. Tecumseh spoke now of his hope.

“When the Long Knives come out of the woods, the cannons in the fort will shoot them and turn them around. We have not lost this day! The British soldiers will help us, as they promised, and we will destroy the enemy!”

They limped on in the hot sun. Then Stands Firm said, “Look
below! McKee, in a boat!” Several men in a vessel were rowing fast, downstream, and the Indian agent was among them. They swept down the current of the river, and soon they were close offshore from the landing wharf below the fort. McKee was standing up in the boat, shouting something up to the fort, but his words could not be heard from this distance.

Now as the warriors thronged up the road toward the gate of the fort, Tecumseh saw that something was going wrong there. Hundreds of Indians were crowded around the outer gate where the road passed through an abatis of sharpened limbs. They were roaring in anger, shaking weapons and fists. Up on the wall of the fort within, the British commander Campbell stood silent with some of his officers, using a telescope to study the distant woods where the Americans were. The warriors were all shouting up at him, but it seemed as if he did not hear them—even as if he could not see them. The cannons’ black muzzles pointed over the river and toward the woods, and there were many Redcoat soldiers up on the parapets, but both the outer gate and the inner gate were shut, and no one in the fort was moving to open them.