Shaman Part 9

His sombre gaze fell upon Redbird like a stone striking her from a great height. She felt as if the war chief of the British Band knew every one of her secrets. She ducked her head and looked down at her mittened hands in her lap.

Owl Carver raised his arms, and the people fell silent.

"I have called on Black Hawk, our war chief, to see Gray Cloud, and he has heard great prophecies from Gray Cloud's lips," the shaman cried in a high, chanting voice.

Then Gray Cloud had lived through the night!

Owl Carver blurred in Redbird's sight, and if she had not already been seated, she might have collapsed. Relief made her heart swell up in her chest, feeling as if it might burst.

The people around her murmured in surprise, pleasure and curiosity.

The shaman stretched out his hand. "Sun Woman, stand before the people."

Nothing happened for a long moment. Then Owl Carver beckoned insistently. There was another silence. Then Black Hawk's hand emerged from under his buffalo mantle, and he crooked his finger.

A tall woman wrapped in a buffalo robe rose from among the seated people. People sighed happily and called out a welcome to her.

Sun Woman turned to face the crowd. To Redbird she seemed calm and unruffled, even though she had hesitated about standing up.

"This woman brought her son to me and asked me to train him as a shaman," Owl Carver declared. "I did not want to, because he is not a pure Sauk. She said to me, only try him for a little time and see what he can be. I tried him for a little time and I saw something in him. I saw sleeping powers!"

The people murmured in wonder. Water Flows Fast and the woman with her whispered to each other, darting curious glances at Redbird, who carefully kept her face as impa.s.sive as Sun Woman's.

"I tested him and saw that his dreams could foretell the future, that he could send his spirit walking while his body lay still, that he could talk to the spirits in trees and birds. I saw that he had the power to be a shaman and more ..."

Owl Carver paused and stared at them fiercely.

"And so I sent him up to the sacred cave, knowing that he might meet spirits so powerful that to encounter them destroys the souls of men.

"And Gray Cloud went into the sacred cave, and he met the great spirits, and he journeyed with them," Owl Carver cried. People gasped.

"He has met the White Bear. He has spoken with the Turtle, father of the Great River. He has brought back a message for Black Hawk," said Owl Carver. "The Turtle told Gray Cloud that Black Hawk might tell others as he saw fit." The rumble of voices rose at this, and then quieted as Owl Carver raised his medicine stick.

"After the Turtle created our Mother the Earth, he mated with her, and all tribes were born in her womb," Owl Carver said. "They lived there in a warm darkness, but they had to go forth and find their way out of our Mother. Then there came to our ancestors an elder spirit, the White Bear, who led them out the womb of our Mother.

"When they were in the light, they found themselves in the midst of a ring of fiery mountains. Our people are called Osaukawug, or Sauk, the People of the Place of Fire, because that fiery place is where we first walked in the world. There was nothing to eat. There was nothing around the people but stones and fire. And they were hungry and greatly afraid, and they were angry at the White Bear for leading them out of our Mother to this place.

"But the White Bear showed them a way through the fiery mountains and over many fields of snow and ice, until he brought our ancestors to this good land where there is fish and game, where the gra.s.slands are green and the woods are full of berries and fruit. And our friends the Fox, the Yellow Earth People, came to be our allies and to unite with us. And the Turtle opened his heart and the Great River flowed forth. Our ancestors hunted and fished in the land where the Rock River flows into the Great River. On the Rock River they built our village of Saukenuk, where they would dwell in the summer and their women would grow the Three Sisters, corn, beans and squash, in the fields around the village.

And there at Saukenuk, as our ancestors died, they were buried.

"The White Bear told us we should spend our summers in that land east of the Great River. In the winter it should be our custom to cross to the west of the Great River and hunt here in the Ioway Country. And here by the Great River we Sauk, the People of the Place of Fire, have lived ever since."

Redbird felt warmth on her back through her buffalo robe. The sun had risen higher.

Owl Carver called out in his high voice of prophecy, "The White Bear has come again. He has led Gray Cloud on his spirit journey. Now Gray Cloud is a true shaman. He still must be trained to use his powers, but his powers no longer sleep. And in sign that he is a shaman with another self, he shall have a new name. Let him be known to all the people as White Bear!"

Redbird heard cries of a.s.sent from the people around her.

Owl Carver crossed his arms before his chest to show that he was finished speaking, and turned to Black Hawk.

"So let it be," said Black Hawk in his harsh, grating voice. "Earthmaker has willed that the British Band shall be blessed with a mighty new spirit walker. Let his name hereafter be White Bear."

_If I could make a spirit journey_, Redbird thought, _I too could stand before the people and advise them_.

She came to a sudden resolve. _One day I will._

"Now you shall see our new shaman," Owl Carver declared. He stepped back and pulled aside the buffalo-fur curtain that covered the door of his wickiup.

A tall young man came out, stooping to pa.s.s through the doorway and then standing straight before the people. Redbird's heart beat faster, and she half rose to her feet.

His slender body, despite the cold, was bare to the waist. Redbird gasped as she saw what was on his chest.

Five long, deep scratches, side by side. The blood had dried and turned black. Five long black marks down the middle of his pale chest, running almost from the base of his neck to the bottom of his rib cage.

Cries of awe and wonder arose from the people. They had all seen such marks, sometimes scratched in the bark of trees, sometimes on the half-eaten bodies of animals found in the forest in summer.

The claw marks of a bear.

And now his name was White Bear. She whispered it to herself. Her eyes saw nothing but the s.h.i.+ning slender form, and her ears heard nothing but the sound of his name.

4

Master of Victoire

Raoul threw himself into the lake, the giant Potawatomi chief Black Salmon roaring behind him. The water resisted his legs like mola.s.ses.

Black Salmon seized Raoul's neck, cutting off his breath. Strangling, he was helpless as the Potawatomi dragged him back to sh.o.r.e.

The huge Indian's whip tore into Raoul's back. Raoul felt the skin ripping and the blood running. He was nothing but a helpless lump of bleeding flesh, paralyzed with pain.

Other Potawatomi had torn Helene's clothes off. The warriors danced around her on the beach as she cowered, white skin, s.h.i.+ning blond hair, trying to cover herself.

The Indian bucks were naked, too, and flaunted their erect purple c.o.c.ks, big as war clubs. One of them darted into the circle and bit a piece out of poor Helene's shoulder. Bright red blood flowed down her arm.

Raoul ran to save his sister. He broke away from Black Salmon and fought his way through the Potawatomi warriors around her. She lay on her back on the sand, twisting her body from side to side in pain. Hideous bite wounds all over her body lay open like red mouths silently screaming.

One breast was covered with blood.

The Indians fell upon Raoul. They had their scalping knives out and they threw him down on the ground beside Helene. Black Salmon caught up with him and whipped him till every inch of his body was slashed. The redskins tore away the last few rags of Raoul's clothing.

A circle of grimacing dark faces painted with yellow and black stripes closed in on him. They bared sharp teeth like snarling dogs. They were going to eat him alive.

Raoul's father and Raoul's brother, Pierre, faces marble and calm, appeared in the midst of the Indians. They looked down at Raoul's agony.

Just curious.

Raoul tried to cry out, "Papa! Pierre! Help us! They're killing us!"