Panther in the Sky (68 page)

This white man Galloway was aware that something extraordinary was stirring among the woodland tribes. His house being on an important road, the old Bullskin Trace, he was visited by travelers on every kind of business—soldiers, traders, judges, and
government men as well as migrants and settlers—and the activities of the Indians were always discussed. Though there had been a general peace here for more than a decade, since Wayne’s treaty, the slightest rumor could cause a wave of fear to sweep through the settlements. James Galloway was aware of the recent alarm about the Indians at Greenville, and he was aware too that his guest Tecumseh was involved in the secret councils in some important way. But he did not ask. Tecumseh had not mentioned anything, so Galloway knew better than to probe. He did not want to drive away his friend. Instead they would talk of books and stories, of how technical things worked, of their deep personal beliefs. Tecumseh remained most interested in the stories of Hamlet and of the chief in the Bible called Moses. He was intrigued with the story about Jesus, the son of the white man’s God, and he pressed for explanations of how the white men of that day could have put to death the son of their own God. To him this cast a doubt over every aspect of the white men’s religion, and Galloway would squirm and frown as he tried to explain it in a way that would make sense. Once again Tecumseh was having a good time. He camped near the site of his mother’s old
wigewa
and stayed several days, meditating on his duty in the daytime, watching for signs, and visiting the white family in the evenings. No bodyguards were with him.

The girl Rebekah, who had already read nearly every one of her father’s books and spoke with the precise grammar of a schoolteacher, was not shy about correcting Tecumseh’s awkward English. In fact, she used this task or anything else as an excuse to stay near him and get his attention. Of the dozens of men who passed through or sheltered here every year, this good-humored, musky-smelling, naked, brawny chief with his beautiful, smooth copper skin, sparkling hazel eyes, brilliant smile, and probing intelligence was by far the most splendid. He drew her like a magnet, stirred strange yearnings in her.

“I have,” she would drill him. “He has. They have.”

“I have. He has. They have.”

“I will have. He will have. They will have.”

“I will have. He will have. They will have.”

“I have had,” she would intone, secretly admiring the delineation of muscles on his shoulder or the hard, gleaming contour of his hip where it was bare between his belt and the top of his legging, muscle as solid as that of a running horse. “He has had. They have had …”

She had breasts now, swelling in the cotton front of her dress.
She was becoming a woman, and feelings stirred in her lower belly sometimes, and she had had—indeed, was now having—her monthly flow, with its sensations that made her confused and ashamed. When she was this close to this half-naked, vibrant man, the feelings would unsettle her, she felt the discomforts of her condition, and she had to concentrate to keep her mind on the phrases she was teaching him.

Tecumseh was no stranger to the admiration of young women or to what the moon did to them, and now as he repeated, “I have had, he has had, they have had,” he was surprised suddenly by the moist rutting scent in the warm closeness between them. He drew back slightly. He did not allow himself to think of it. This was the child of his friend, and besides that, she was of the white race, a different kind of people. There was supposed to be no connection of that kind between the races, according to the admonitions brought by his brother from the Creator.

Yet for a moment, as his gaze passed over the form of her body in its concealing dress, he wondered what certain portions and junctures of it must look like. He shivered. “Enough, Ga-lo-weh girl,” he said. “My head is tired of who has!”

“Mister Tecumftha Chief,” she scolded, feeling flushed and giddy, “I
do
have a name, which you should know by now after seven years, if you’re as bright as you seem. Please do me the courtesy of calling me Rebekah, if you will.”

“Courtesy?” He pronounced it carefully. “What does mean this word, Rebekah Ga-lo-weh girl?”

And later that night, when Rebekah and her mother had gone up the steep stairs to the sleeping rooms, and Tecumseh could hear the creaking of the floor above him as they moved about, and he and James Galloway sat talking about the things of the world, Tecumseh looked at this solid, happy man and wondered if he was aware that his daughter was under the moon and, if so, why she had been allowed to be here in this room with men, handling food, talking with the guest, not hiding her face or shutting away her odor. The white people had so much knowledge stored in their books, and such a fine, difficult tongue, and a grave, mythical religion. And yet they were so lax, or ignorant, about the taboo.

Galloway was saying: “Have you ever seen an eclipse?”

“I do not know. Have I? What does mean this word, my friend?”

“Eclipse. It’s when the moon passes over the face of the sun, and makes it dark.”

“Ah! When the sun is black!”

“Well, yes, it looks black.”

“Our elders know much of the Black Sun. They call it
Mukutaaweethe Keelswah.
It is a sign of war trouble. Once when I was a boy I saw it happen, and less than one moon later, the Long Knife Clark was in the valley and had thrown our British allies down. Have you seen a Black Sun in your years, Ga-lo-weh?”

“I saw the one you speak of. In June of seventy-eight it was. But it seems we will see another one soon enough. There’s to be one this year on June the sixteenth. Several gentlemen from Harvard and the government have been through here, going west to set up stations in the prairies for watching it. President Jefferson’s quite a scientist, you know.”

Tecumseh’s brain was humming. Suddenly he had a dozen questions to ask. Putting a hand on Galloway’s wrist to slow him down, he asked first, “What is ‘thsi-enisth’?” It was a hard word to say, and likewise it proved a hard word for Galloway to define.

“A scientist is a, ah, a man who studies the things of earth and heaven, who watches them to see how God governs them … how they move and grow … how man can use them.…” He grasped at the air with both hands, trying to pull out the right words for his meanings. “Scientists watch plants and animals, they watch stars, they watch clouds and rain, and the earth.…”

“Does not all white men do this?” Tecumseh asked. “All Shawnee does this.” But without waiting for the reply, he hurried on to the question that loomed largest in his mind. “How does this scientist
know
this will happen on the day you told me? Is scientist a prophet?”

This question precipitated a long explanation with slow, sweeping movements of the hands, showing where the sun moves and the earth and the moon, until finally, beyond his depth on certain details, Galloway turned to his bookshelves and drew out one that was illustrated with diagrams of circles lined up within circles, this one called Earth, this one Sun, this one Moon, this one Mars, and so on. When these diagrams had been fully explained, Tecumseh for the first time since he had learned of books began to suspect that some of them must be as full of wrong ideas as were the heads of white men. If the white man could believe that the earth was a ball that spun around another ball, the sun, staying up forever with no Turtle under it to hold it in place, and believe it so strongly as to put it in a book and thus misguide other men, then it would not be wise to put as much faith in books as he
had tended to do. So, shutting his mind to these absurdities to keep his head from spinning off like another ball in the sky, he asked simply:

“But can you promise me, Ga-lo-weh, on your heart as my friend, that on the day you said, there will be
Mukutaaweethe Keelswah?”

Galloway chuckled. “Absolutely! At high noon. Harvard says so. Nine professors can’t be wrong.”

“Then you promise, Ga-lo-weh? I can stand in front of my lodge on that day and know you say truth?”

“Ha, ha! Yes, my friend! I promise.” But now Galloway himself looked just a bit dubious, to find himself making a promise it was out of his personal power to keep. “I, uh, I can’t say it won’t be a cloudy day, but mark my word, it will be dark at noon.”

Tecumseh slapped both hands down on his knees and laughed. “Good! I will stand outside in the middle of the day, and I will see. How many days do I count before this one you call June the sixteenth, Ga-lo-weh?”

W
HEN
T
ECUMSEH RETURNED TO THE TOWN AT
G
REENVILLE
, Open Door greeted him with important news. Young Wyandots in villages on the Sandusky in northern Ohio had sent messages down. They feared witches in their towns, and they wanted their prophet to come and reveal them as he had in the Delaware town. He was very pleased with this request. Though he did not have many followers yet among the Wyandots, this meant that the ones he did have placed great faith in him. He would go and help them.

Tecumseh was not so pleased with this request. The hunting of witches and execution of nonbelievers was an aspect of Open Door’s code that he did not like. It went against all his personal convictions about merciful treatment of captives and the helpless. In particular the execution of the woman Ann Charity had disgusted him. But if the Prophet’s followers sought help in this unsavory way, he obviously would not deny them, as he had first called for it.

“Beware, though,” Tecumseh admonished him, “of the Crane, Tarhe. He is a friend of the Americans, and he is jealous of your power. Be careful what you do there.”

Then, while Open Door was preparing to leave for the Wyandot country, a delegation of Delawares arrived from their White River towns. They brought a letter that had been written to them
by the governor named Harrison at Vincennes. Tecumseh read it in silence. He recognized most of the words. Then he translated it for Open Door, who was at first amazed that his brother had learned to speak the marks on paper. He knew he had been taught some by Big Fish, but he did not know of all the help that Tecumseh had gotten from Ga-lo-weh and his daughter.

Then as he got the gist of the challenge in the letter, Open Door began to look stricken. Tecumseh turned to the Delawares. “Did you reply to this?” They said they had.

“We told Harrison this. We said, You white men also try your bad people, and you kill them if they are guilty. We only do among ourselves what you do among yourselves. These witches were guilty of bad things.”

“A true answer,” Open Door said.
“Weh-sah.
” But he looked worried, and then he said, “What did you tell him about … about proving me?” This, plainly, was worrying him.

Their leader looked almost apologetic. “We told the Governor Harrison, ‘The Prophet may choose to prove himself. We will not demand it.’ ” But then the Delawares looked at Open Door expectantly, as if a miracle would be very welcome. Open Door glanced at Tecumseh. His pleasure at the prospect of going witch-hunting among the Wyandots apparently was being overshadowed by Harrison’s challenge, which seemed to hang in the air. It was one thing to have visions. But even if one understood and believed them, it was another thing to prove oneself by making a miracle. Open Door knew in his heart that he was not even a very good healer. He had not the slightest faith in his ability to make miracles on call.

But as the Prophet’s face darkened, Tecumseh’s brightened. Extending his hand to the Delawares, he said, “You have come far to bring us your letter. Thank you. The white man Harrison must esteem the Delawares highly to show fear of what you do. Now, rest in our holy town, and eat, and we will talk more about miracles after a while. We do not have to satisfy this land stealer, but we do want you to remain firm in your faith and friendship. Maybe my brother will decide to do a miracle to teach this Harrison not to be so smug.”

I
N THE PRIVACY OF
O
PEN
D
OOR’S LODGE
, T
ECUMSEH LEANED
toward him, looking very happy and playful, and he chuckled and said, “Brother, the white governor gave you many suggestions for miracles in his letter. What would be the best miracle? Oh, let us think hard.…” He put his hand on top of his head
and shut his eyes and grunted as if thinking very hard. Open Door scowled at him as if he resented being teased about something this serious. “Ah!” exclaimed Tecumseh, opening his eyes and pointing upward. “Let us have a miracle that is easy for all to see. Let us have, ah, a
Mukutaaweethe Keelswah!”

“A Black Sun?” Open Door was looking at him as if he were a crazy man.

“Yes! A Black Sun. Of course you could darken the sky right now or at any time just to show the Delawares, but maybe it would be better to do it one or two moons from now, so that people can come from far away to see you do it. Think how that would make an impression in their bosoms! Think how your fame would spring up then! Yes! We could summon people from far away, and hundreds from many nations could be here to see you do it!”

“Brother,” Open Door groaned, “if I were to call upon the sun to grow dark, I would not want hundreds to watch it refuse. I would not want one!”

“Ah, my brother! You lack faith in yourself! How can all red men have faith in you if you have no faith in yourself?”

“But I have never promised them I can make the sun go dark!”

“Then do! Ha, ha!”

And then he told his miserable brother about the scientists who were moving into the prairies of the Illinois country and into the Iowa land west of the Missi-se-pe, to watch what was called an eclipse, on a day that would be called June the sixteenth.

Open Door wanted to believe there was such a splendid opportunity, but after a moment’s thought he had the very same question Tecumseh had had. “Can we be sure of this?”
“Listen,” Tecumseh said. “These scientist men always know when it will happen. Not by magic, but just by a way of writing down and counting up. They are right every time.” He recited from his memory of Ga-lo-weh’s book all the times they had been right.