A long rifle barrel appears at the Captain's temple. He starts and then looks cautiously to the side and then up the barrel to the man standing there, his finger tight on the trigger. "She ain't fer sale, soldier boy," he says, with real threat in his voice. Lightfoot is well named—I did not hear him coming and neither did Richard Allen.
"You watch your mouth, man," says the Captain, his eyes gone as flinty as Lightfoot's. His hand goes to the sword that hangs by his side.
I quickly sign This Man. I. No. Speak. Paleface.
Lightfoot nods, understanding what I mean. "And you watch what you're doin' when you're here in this place, soldier boy," he says.
Captain Allen gets to his feet. Lightfoot moves the barrel of the gun to point between the officer's eyes. I get up and stand behind Lightfoot, my hands on his waist, my face all wide-eyed and wondering as I peer at the officer.
"And if I do not do that, renegade?" asks Allen, unabashed.
"I'll kill you and take yer scalp and put it on my belt here with the others. Tell ever'body it come all the way from London just to hang here," says Lightfoot. "And you watch yer own mouth when it comes to callin' a man sumthin', y'hear?"
Captain Allen's eyes go to the grisly bunches of hair and dried skin that hang at Lightfoot's middle and he says nothing. Lightfoot grins at the man's discomfort.
"Draw that pigsticker and you're one dead Englishman," he says. "Remember, soldier boy, you're on Shawnee land here, and I am Shawnee and you sure as hell ain't."
"She's a white girl. You have no right to keep her here," says the Captain. He is not smiling.
"She's Shawnee, too, and you got no right to take her away from here." I reflect on the truth of this statement, in that I was made a member of the tribe just yesterday. Then I hear sounds of drumming coming from the direction of the village. Lightfoot puts up his gun and says, "You best go tend to yer lobsterbacks, soldier boy. Sounds like the great man's comin' in."
With a final glare, Captain Allen turns and goes to form up his men for the arrival of Tecumseh.
"I thank you, Lightfoot," I say, putting my hand on his arm and looking up at him gratefully.
"Wah," he says, striding off. "Go sit with the women, girl."
Meekly, I go do it. But before I do that, I go back to the tepee I share with Lightfoot and get the bundle of clothes that I wore here, pull out the drawers and, with my knife, cut them off just below the crotch. Then I put them on under my leather skirt. I reflect that I might have cut them a little bit farther down, but too late now.
I join up with Tepeki and the other girls, and we watch the coming of the great Chief Tecumseh and his band of about twenty warriors. He's a tall man, almost six foot, with a fine, proud bearing. He has a long, thin nose and olive skin and hazel eyes that flash with determination and a certain cheerfulness. On his head he wears a red turbanlike headdress from which hangs a single feather on a string of wampum, and on his body buckskin leggings and a jacket of the same, bound around by a red sash. All in all, a splendid-looking man. I wish I could have Lightfoot by my side to translate what's being said by him and others as the welcome is made, but I can't. For one thing, he can't be caught hanging around with a girl, and for another, I can't draw any more attention to myself than I already have. So I'll just have to guess at things. One thing I don't have to guess at is the amount of esteem in which everyone here holds this man.
After Tecumseh has settled into the largest tepee in the town, to hold court with all the other chiefs, and all the young warriors have been thoroughly checked out by us girls, we are of a mind to sneak off for another swim at the women's bathing place. There are some new girls with us, undoubtedly girls from other tribes. From their looks in my direction, I suspect my Shawnee friends wish to show me off, and that's all right. After all, I am a performer by trade.
But it is not to be. Not now, anyhow, for when the mob of us, chattering away, are no more than halfway to the bend in the river, an older woman bursts upon us, waving a long ladle and pointing downstream, reminding me of nothing so much as good old Peg, back at the Lawson Peabody, scattering us serving girls back to our chores when we would grow lazy of a summer's afternoon.
It becomes plain to me that we are to gather food, and we all change direction and head for a group of canoes tied up to the bank. The girls take this change of plans with good grace and run laughing and calling out yiyiyiyiyiyiyi! to the boats and clamber in. Tepeki chooses one and motions me to join her and I do, picking up a paddle and shoving us off into the water.
When we head downstream, I find that there is a paddling song in which all the girls join and to which I try to add my voice, mainly in wordless harmony, and then when we pull into the marshes where the food grows, they fall into what I know are call-and-response songs—songs wherein one voice calls out a verse, mainly concerning another member of the party, like, say, what particular boy one particular girl has her eye on, and there are hoots of laughter and that particular girl gets to pick another girl or boy or whatever to comment on, and so on and so on.
We come to a thicket of rushes, and Tepeki puts up her paddle and pulls the tall greenery over into the boat and begins shaking it, and wonder of wonders, black kernels of wild rice fall into the bottom of the canoe. It is early in the summer, so not all the rice is ripe, but some is and we gather what we can. We then move on to a growth of cattails, and the girls take both the brown-capped stalks and the roots of the plant.
Satisfied that we have done enough, we head back to the village to prepare lunch. The rice is divided up by the women, the cattail roots are peeled and pounded to a pulp, and the cattails themselves are twisted from their stems to form a golden yellow powder that, when water is added, turns into another paste, which can be baked into a bread. Crafty people, these Shawnees, I reflect, biting into a hot cattail cake and again looking out on the festivities of the day.
It is then that I finally spy the two English Special Agents. They have come out of their tepee and stand blinking in the sunlight, with an Indian man dressed in white man's clothing by their side. The older one, a disagreeable toadish-looking man with thick lips and a half-bald head, is dressed all in black, while the other one, a large and very handsome fellow, is dressed in navy blue, suggesting a possible naval officer. The younger man looks damned familiar, but I can't quite place him, and I can't stand there staring at him, that's for sure. I duck back out of sight behind a tepee and tuck the shawl tight about my face and peek out.
The Indian man, whom I take to be their interpreter, says something to them and points down the row of tepees to one near where I am standing.
Tepeki, her own chores done, has come to seek me out, and when I see her come up to me, I sign to her Quiet. I. Listen. Palefaces. and nod at the men entering the tepee. She glances over, then nods, and we go around the back and lie down on the ground such that we can put our ears to the opening below the hide covering of the tepee. This Tepeki doesn't lack for cheek, that's for sure. I grin at her and put my finger to my lips in the universal shush! sign and she grins back. I c*ck my ear to the conversation inside.
"Please tell Blue Hand, Great Chief of the Cherokee, that His Majesty King George of England sends his fondest greetings." This from the older cove, I'm thinking.
The translator speaks and Blue Hand says something in return.
"He says he is happy to receive greetings from his brother King George and welcomes you gentlemen to his tepee."
"Thank the Chief and tell him that King George sends his Cherokee brother this fine pistol as a token of his esteem. Lieutenant, if you would?"
Lieutenant ... hmm...
There is the sound of a case being opened and then an appreciative wah! from Blue Hand. I hear the hammer being cocked. Then the Chief speaks again.
"He says many thanks for the pistol and asks what he can give his brother George in return."
I hear the agent take a deep breath before he begins on what I feel will be the heart of the matter.
"Chief Blue Hand, it has come to your brother King George's attention that the American settlers have been moving into the lands of the Cherokee, and this has filled his heart with sorrow..." Here he pauses to let the translator do his job. After the Chief hears it and gives an ugh! of agreement, the agent goes on.
"This taking of the sacred land of the Cherokee has saddened him so much that he wishes that he could rise up and smite these settlers and free his Cherokee brothers from their transgressions, but, alas, he cannot do that, for he is too far away, across the great ocean from here." Again a pause, and then again he goes on.
"But the great and noble Cherokee and their brothers the Shawnee, the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Chickasaw are here, and the King urges them to rise up and take the path of war against these invaders who, in their great numbers, will not stop coming on Indian land till the last red man and his woman and his child are thrown into the great waters to drown!"
There is more translation, and angry sounds now from Chief Blue Hand. On the agent presses.
"The King will help his Indian brothers in their rightful anger against these settlers," says the agent, "by putting in your hands five American dollars for every white man's scalp, three dollars for every woman's, and two for every child's."
I am barely able to suppress a gasp. This can't be true! Englishmen can't be doing this!
As this is spoken in Cherokee, Tepeki, too, understands and looks at me in sorrow. Our happiness with our little adventure in eavesdropping is now gone. How can people be so cruel?
Blue Hand responds that he will have to talk it over with his fellow chiefs, but he has taken the white man's words to heart and it has brought gladness to him.
Farewells are said and the Special Agents take their leave.
I stand up, fuming. Tepeki also gets up and signs sorrow to me, her eyes cast down. I take her to me and whisper, "Tepeki and Wah-chinga," and by putting both of my hands into fists and then crossing my arms on my chest, I make the sign affection. Then I take her by the shoulders and put a kiss on her forehead. She nods and I motion for her to follow me.
We stride along the backs of the tepees, me intent on following these bastards back to their lodging to see what else they've got to say when they think no one else is listening. A very subdued Tepeki comes along with me and again we lie down with our ears to the bottom of a tepee.
There is the sound of shuffling as the men make themselves comfortable. I hear a bottle being uncorked and the tink of a bottle laid against a glass and then the gurgle of liquid being poured, then...
"Ah, that's much better," one of them sighs, the older one, I believe. "So what do you think? Will they go for it?"
"I think it's all up to Tecumseh. If he goes for it, the rest of the bloody savages'll fall in line. At least we've gotten Half Red Face to sign on now—the rest of the malcontents from this bunch should fall into line with him even if Tecumseh refuses to sign on." This from the younger man, and it's plain their Indian translator is no longer with them, or else they don't care about insulting him. "When do we get to talk to the main man?"
"Tonight, after they've all had a chance to powwow with him. That Blue Hand seemed ready to go on the warpath, though. You could see the greed in his eyes."