Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II, Page 3

  “Which is why I’m perplexed that you let drunken Reds sit around here in your own headquarters. They all belong west of the Mizzipy, and that’s as plain as day. We won’t have peace and we won’t have civilization until that’s done. And since Appalachee and the U.S. alike are convinced that Reds can be treated like human beings, we’ve got to solve our Red problem before we join the Union. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Well, you see?” said Harrison. “We already agree completely.”

  “Then why is it that you keep your headquarters as full of Reds as Independence Street in Washington City? They have Cherriky men acting as clerks and even holding government offices in Appalachee, right in the capital, jobs that White men ought to have, and then I come here and find you keep Reds around you, too.”

  “Cool down, Mr. Jackson, cool right down. Don’t the King keep his Blacks there in his palace in Virginia?”

  “His Blacks are slaves. Everybody knows you can’t make slaves out of Reds. They aren’t intelligent enough to be properly trained.”

  “Well, you just set yourself there in that chair, Mr. Jackson, and I’ll make my point the best way I know how, by showing you two prime Shaw-Nee specimens. Just set down.”

  Jackson picked up the chair and moved it to the opposite side of the room from Hooch. It made something gnaw in Hooch’s gut, the way Jackson acted. Men like Jackson were so upright and honest-seeming, but Hooch knew that there wasn’t no such thing as a good man, just a man who wasn’t bought yet, or wasn’t in deep enough trouble, or didn’t have the guts to reach out and take what he wanted. That’s all that virtue ever boiled down to, so far as Hooch ever saw in his life. But here was Jackson, putting on airs and calling for Bill Harrison to arrest him! Think of that, a stranger from Tennizy country coming up here and waving around a warrant from an Appalachee judge, of all things, which didn’t have no more force in Wobbish country than if it was written by the King of Ethiopia. Well, Mr. Jackson, it’s a long way home from here, and we’ll just see if you don’t have some kind of accident along the way.

  No, no, no, Hooch told himself silently. Getting even don’t amount to nothing in this world. Getting even only gets you behind. The best revenge is to get rich enough to make them all call you sir, that’s how you get even with these boys. No bushwhacking. If you ever get a name for bushwhacking, that’s the end of you, Hooch Palmer.

  So Hooch sat there and smiled, as Harrison called for his aide. “Why don’t you invite Lolla-Wossiky in here? And while you’re at it, tell his brother he can come in, too.”

  Lolla-Wossiky’s brother—had to be the defiant Red who was standing up against the wall. Funny, how two peas from the same pod could grow up so different.

  Lolla-Wossiky came in fawning, smiling, looking quickly from one White face to the next, wondering what they wanted, how he could make them happy enough to reward him with whisky. It was written all over him, how thirsty he was, even though he was already so drunk he didn’t walk straight. Or had he already drunk so much likker that he couldn’t walk straight even when he was sober? Hooch wondered—but soon enough he knew the answer. Harrison reached into the bureau behind him and took out a jug and a cup. Lolla-Wossiky watched the brown liquid splash into the cup, his one eye so intense it was like he could taste the likker by vision alone. But he didn’t take even a single step toward the cup. Harrison reached out and set the cup on the table near the Red, but still the man stood there, smiling, looking now at the cup, now at Harrison, waiting, waiting.

  Harrison turned to Jackson and smiled. “Lolla-Wossiky is just about the most civilized Red in the whole Wobbish country, Mr. Jackson. He never takes things that don’t belong to him. He never speaks except when spoken to. He obeys and does whatever I tell him. And all he ever asks in return is just a cup of liquid. Doesn’t even have to be good likker. Corn whisky or bad Spanish rum are just fine with him, isn’t that right, Lolla-Wossiky?”

  “Very so right, Mr. Excellency,” said Lolla-Wossiky. His speech was surprisingly clear, for a Red. Especially a drunken Red.

  Hooch saw Jackson study the one-eyed Red with disgust. Then the Tennizy lawyer’s gaze shifted to the door, where the tall, strong, defiant Red was standing. Hooch enjoyed watching Jackson’s face. From disgust, his expression plainly changed to anger. Anger and, yes, fear. Oh, yes, you aren’t fearless, Mr. Jackson. You know what Lolla-Wossiky’s brother is. He’s your enemy, and my enemy, the enemy of every White man who ever wants to have this land, because sometime this uppity Red is going to put his tommy-hawk in your head and peel off your scalp real slow, and he won’t sell it to no Frenchman, neither, Mr. Jackson, he’ll keep it and give it to his children, and say to them, “This is the only good White man. This is the only White man who doesn’t break his word. This is what you do to White men.” Hooch knew it, Harrison knew it, and Jackson knew it. That young buck by the door was death. That young buck was White men forced to live east of the mountains, all crammed into the old towns with all their lawyers and professors and high-toned people who never gave you room to breathe. People like Jackson himself, in fact. Hooch gave one snort of laughter at that idea. Jackson was exactly the sort of man that folks moved west to get away from. How far west will I have to go before the lawyers lose the trail and get left behind?

  “I see you’ve noticed Ta-Kumsaw. Lolla-Wossiky’s older brother, and my very, very dear friend. Why, I’ve known that lad since before his father died. Look what a strong buck he’s grown into!”

  If Ta-Kumsaw noticed how he was being ridiculed, he showed no sign of it. He looked at no person in the room. Instead he looked out the window on the wall behind the governor. Didn’t fool Hooch, though. Hooch knew what he was watching, and had a pretty good idea what Ta-Kumsaw was feeling, too. These Reds, they took family real serious. Ta-Kumsaw was secretly watching his brother, and if Lolla-Wossiky was too likkered up to feel any shame, that just meant Ta-Kumsaw would feel it all the more.

  “Ta-Kumsaw,” said Harrison. “You see I’ve poured a drink for you. Come, sit down and drink, and we can talk.”

  At Harrison’s words, Lolla-Wossiky went rigid. Was it possible that the drink wasn’t for him, after all? But Ta-Kumsaw did not twitch, did not show any sign that he heard.

  “You see?” said Harrison to Jackson. “Ta-Kumsaw isn’t even civilized enough to sit down and have a convivial drink with friends. But his younger brother is civilized, isn’t he? Aren’t you, Lolly? I’m sorry I don’t have a chair for you, my friend, but you can sit on the floor under my table here, sit right at my feet, and drink this rum.”

  “You are remarkable kind,” said Lolla-Wossiky in that clear, precise speech of his. To Hooch’s surprise, the one-eyed Red did not scramble for the cup. Instead he walked carefully, each step a labor of precision, and took the cup between only slightly trembling hands. Then he knelt down before Harrison’s table and, still balancing the cup, sank into a seated position, his legs crossed.

  But he was still out in front of the table, not under it, and Harrison pointed this out to him. “I’d like you to sit under my table,” said the governor. “I’d regard it as a great courtesy to me if you would.”

  So Lolla-Wossiky bent his head almost down into his lap and waddled on his buttocks until he was under the table. It was very hard for him to drink in that position, since he couldn’t lift his head straight up, let alone tip it back to drain the cup. But he managed anyway, drinking carefully, rocking from one side to the other.

  All this time, Ta-Kumsaw said nary a word. Didn’t even show that he saw how his brother was being humiliated. Oh, thought Hooch, oh, the fire that burns in that boy’s heart. Harrison’s taking a real risk here. Besides, if he’s Lolla-Wossiky’s brother, he must know Harrison shot his daddy during the Red uprisings back in the nineties sometime, when General Wayne was fighting the French. A man doesn’t forget that kind of thing, especially a Red man, and here Harrison was testing him, testing him right to the limit.

  “Now that everybody�
��s comfortable,” said Harrison, “why don’t you set down and tell us what you came for, Ta-Kumsaw.”

  Ta-Kumsaw didn’t sit. Didn’t close the door, didn’t take a step farther into the room. “I speaking for Shaw-Nee, Caska-Skeeaw, Pee-Orawa, Winny-Baygo.”

  “Now, Ta-Kumsaw, you know that you don’t even speak for all the Shaw-Nee, and you sure don’t speak for the others.”

  “All tribes who sign General Wayne’s treaty.” Ta-Kumsaw went on as if Harrison hadn’t said a thing. “Treaty says Whites don’t sell whisky to Reds.”

  “That’s right,” said Harrison. “And we’re keeping that treaty.”

  Ta-Kumsaw didn’t look at Hooch, but he lifted his hand and pointed at him. Hooch felt the gesture as if Ta-Kumsaw had actually touched him with that finger. It didn’t make him mad this time, it plain scared him. He heard that some Reds had a come-hither so strong that didn’t no hex protect you, so they could lure you off into the woods alone and slice you to bits with their knives, just to hear you scream. That’s what Hooch thought of, when he felt Ta-Kumsaw point to him with hatred.

  “Why are you pointing at my old friend Hooch Palmer?” asked Harrison.

  “Oh, I reckon nobody likes me today,” Hooch said. He laughed, but it didn’t dispel his fear after all.

  “He bring his flatboat of whisky,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “Well, he brought a lot of things,” said Harrison. “But if he brought whisky, it’ll be delivered to the sutler here in the fort and not a drop of it will be sold to the Reds, you can be sure. We uphold that treaty, Ta-Kumsaw, even though you Reds aren’t keeping it too good lately. It’s got so flatboats can’t travel alone down the Hio no more, my friend, and if things don’t let up, I reckon the army’s going to have to take some action.”

  “Burn a village?” asked Ta-Kumsaw. “Shoot down our babies? Our old people? Our women?”

  “Where do you get these ideas?” said Harrison. He sounded downright offended, even though Hooch knew right well that Ta-Kumsaw was describing the typical army operation.

  Hooch spoke right up, in fact. “You Reds burn out helpless farmers in their cabins and pioneers on their flat-boats, don’t you? So why do you figure your villages should be any safer, you tell me that!”

  Ta-Kumsaw still didn’t look at him. “English law says, Kill the man who steals your land, you are not bad. Kill a man to steal his land, and you are very bad. When we kill White farmers, we are not bad. When you kill Red people who live here a thousand years, you are very bad. Treaty says, stay all east of My-Ammy River, but they don’t stay, and you help them.”

  “Mr. Palmer here spoke out of turn,” said Harrison. “No matter what you savages do to our people—torturing the men, raping the women, carrying off the children to be slaves—we don’t make war on the helpless. We are civilized, and so we behave in a civilized manner.”

  “This man will sell his whisky to Red men. Make them lie in dirt like worms. He will give his whisky to Red women. Make them weak like bleeding deer, do all things he says.”

  “If he does, we will arrest him,” said Harrison. “We will try him and punish him for breaking the law.”

  “If he does, you not will arrest him,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “You will share pelts with him. You will keep him safe.”

  “Don’t call me a liar,” said Harrison.

  “Don’t lie,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “If you go around talking to White men like this, Ta-Kumsaw, old boy, one of them’s going to get real mad at you and blast your head off.”

  “Then I know you will arrest him. I know you will try him and punish him for breaking the law.” Ta-Kumsaw said it without cracking a smile, but Hooch had traded with the Reds enough to know their kind of joke.

  Harrison nodded gravely. It occurred to Hooch that Harrison might not realize it was a joke. He might think Ta-Kumsaw actually believed it. But no, Harrison knew he and Ta-Kumsaw was lying to each other; and it came into Hooch’s mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party’s lying, it comes powerful close to being the same as telling the truth.

  What was really hilarious was that Jackson actually did believe all this stuff. “That’s right,” said the Tennizy lawyer. “Rule of law is what separates civilized men from savages. Red men just aren’t advanced enough yet, and if you aren’t willing to be subject to White man’s law, you’ll just have to make way.”

  For the first time, Ta-Kumsaw looked one of them in the eye. He stared coldly at Jackson and said, “These men are liars. They know what is true, but they say it is not true. You are not a liar. You believe what you say.”

  Jackson nodded gravely. He looked so vain and upright and godly that Hooch couldn’t resist it, he hottened up the chair under Jackson just a little, just enough that Jackson had to wiggle his butt. That took off a few layers of dignity. But Jackson still kept his airs. “I believe what I say because I tell the truth.”

  “You say what you believe. But still it is not true. What is your name?”

  “Andrew Jackson.”

  Ta-Kumsaw nodded. “Hickory.”

  Jackson looked downright surprised and pleased that Ta-Kumsaw had heard of him. “Some folks call me that.” Hooch hottened up his chair a little more.

  “Blue Jacket says, Hickory is a good man.”

  Jackson still had no idea why his chair was so uncomfortable, but it was too much for him. He popped right up, stepped away from the chair, kind of shaking his legs with each step to cool himself off. But still he kept talking with all the dignity in the world. “I’m glad Blue Jacket feels that way. He’s chief of the Shaw-Nee down in Tennizy country, isn’t he?”

  “Sometimes,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “What do you mean sometimes?” said Harrison, “Either he’s a chief or he isn’t.”

  “When he talks straight, he is chief,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “Well, I’m glad to know he trusts me,” said Jackson. But his smile was a little wan, because Hooch was busy hotting up the floor under his feet, and unless old Hickory could fly, he wasn’t going to be able to get away from that. Hooch didn’t plan to torment him long. Just until he saw Jackson take a couple of little hops, and then try to explain why he was dancing right there in front of a young Shaw-Nee warrior and Governor William Henry Harrison.

  Hooch’s little game got spoiled, though, cause at that very moment, Lolla-Wossiky toppled forward and rolled out from under the table. He had an idiotic grin on his face, and his eyes were closed. “Blue Jacket!” he cried. Hooch took note that drink had finally slurred his speech. “Hickory!” shouted the one-eyed Red.

  “You are my enemy,” said Ta-Kumsaw, ignoring his brother.

  “You’re wrong,” said Harrison. “I’m your friend. Your enemy is up north of here, in the town of Vigor Church. Your enemy is that renegade Armor-of-God Weaver.”

  “Armor-of-God Weaver sells no whisky to Reds.”

  “Neither do I,” said Harrison. “But he’s the one making maps of all the country west of the Wobbish. So he can parcel it up and sell it after he’s killed all the Reds.”

  Ta-Kumsaw paid no attention to Harrison’s attempt to turn him against his rival to the north. “I come to warn you,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “Warn me?” said Harrison. “You, a Shaw-Nee who doesn’t speak for anybody, you warn me, right here in my stockade, with a hundred soldiers ready to shoot you down if I say the word?”

  “Keep the treaty,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “We do keep the treaty! It’s you who always break the treaties!”

  “Keep the treaty,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “Or what?” asked Jackson.

  “Or every Red west of the mountains will come together and cut you to pieces.”

  Harrison leaned back his head and laughed and laughed. Ta-Kumsaw showed no expression.

  “Every Red, Ta-Kumsaw?” asked Harrison. “You mean, even Lolly here? Even my pet Shaw-Nee, my tame Red, even him?”

  For the first time Ta-Kumsaw looked
at his brother, who lay snoring on the floor. “The sun comes up every day, White man. But is it tame? Rain falls down every time. But is it tame?”

  “Excuse me, Ta-Kumsaw, but this one-eyed drunk here is as tame as my horse.”

  “Oh yes,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “Put on the saddle. Put on the bridle. Get on and ride. See where this tame Red goes. Not where you want.”

  “Exactly where I want,” said Harrison. “Keep that in mind. Your brother is always within my reach. And if you ever get out of line, boy, I’ll arrest him as your conspirator and hang him high.”

  Ta-Kumsaw smiled thinly. “You think so. Lolla-Wossiky thinks so. But he will learn to see with his other eye before you ever lay a hand on him.”

  Then Ta-Kumsaw turned around and left the room. Quietly, smoothly, not stalking, not angry, not even closing the door behind him. He moved with grace, like an animal, like a very dangerous animal. Hooch saw a cougar once, years ago, when he was alone in the mountains. That’s what Ta-Kumsaw was. A killer cat.

  Harrison’s aide closed the door.

  Harrison turned to Jackson and smiled. “You see?” he said.

  “What am I supposed to see, Mr. Harrison?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you, Mr. Jackson?”

  “I’m a lawyer. I like things spelled out. If you can spell.”

  “I can’t even read,” said Hooch cheerfully.

  “You also can’t keep your mouth shut,” said Harrison. “I’ll spell it out for you, Jackson. You and your Tennizy boys, you talk about moving the Reds west of the Mizzipy. Now let’s say we do that. What are you going to do, keep soldiers all the way up and down the river, watching all day and all night? They’ll be back across this river whenever they want, raiding, robbing, torturing, killing.”

  “I’m not a fool,” said Jackson. “It will take a great bloody war, but when we get them across the river, they’ll be broken. And men like that Ta-Kumsaw—they’ll be dead or discredited.”

  “You think so? Well, during that great bloody war you talk about, a lot of White boys will die, and White women and children, too. But I have a better idea. These Reds suck down likker like a calf sucks down milk from his mama’s tit. Two years ago there was a thousand Pee-Ankashaw living east of the My-Ammy River. Then they started getting likkered up. They stopped working, they stopped eating, they got so weak that the first little sickness came through here, it wiped them out. Just wiped them out. If there’s a Pee-Ankashaw left alive here, I don’t know about it. Same thing happened up north, to the Chippy-Wa, only it was French traders done it to them. And the best thing about likker is, it kills off the Reds and not a White man dies.”