Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II (27 page)

“If I leave him behind, how do I
know
he ain’t dead, tell me that?”

“You know,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “because I say that while I live no Red man will hurt this boy.”

“And while he’s with you, nobody can hurt
you
, either, is that it? My little brother’s a hostage, that’s all—”

Measure could see that Ta-Kumsaw and Tenskwa-Tawa were both about as mad as they could be without killing him, and he knew he was so mad he was ready to break his hand on somebody’s face. And it might’ve come to that, too, except Alvin stood up, all ten years and sixty inches of him, and took charge.

“Measure, you know better than anybody that I can take care of myself. You just tell Pa and Ma about what I did with them Chok-Taw, and they’ll see that I’m fit. They were sending me off anyway, weren’t they? To be a prentice to blacksmith. Well, I’m going to serve as prentice for a little while to Ta-Kumsaw, that’s all. And everybody knows that except for maybe Tom Jefferson, Ta-Kumsaw is the greatest man in America. If I can somehow keep Ta-Kumsaw alive, then that’s my duty. And if you can stop a war from happening by going home, then that’s your duty. Don’t you see?”.

Measure
did
see, right enough, and he even agreed. But he also knew that he was going to have to face his parents. “There’s a story in the Bible, about Joseph, the son of Jacob. He was his father’s favorite son, but his brothers hated him and sold him into slavery, and then
they took some of his clothes and soaked them in goat’s blood and tore them up and came and told their father, Look, he got hisself et by lions. And his father tore his clothes and he just wouldn’t stop grieving, not ever.”

“But you’re going to tell them I
ain’t
dead.”

“I’m going to tell them I saw you turn a hatchet head soft as butter, walk on the water, fly up into a tornado—that’ll just make them feel all safe and warm, knowing you’re tucked into such a common ordinary life with these here Reds.”

Ta-Kumsaw interrupted. “You are a coward,” he said. “You’re afraid to tell the truth to your father and mother.”

“I made an oath to them,” said Measure.

“You’re a coward. You take no risk. No danger. You want Alvin with you to keep you safe!”

That was just too much for Measure. He swung out with his right arm, aiming to connect with Ta-Kumsaw’s smile. It didn’t surprise him that Ta-Kumsaw blocked the blow—but it was kind of a shock that he caught Measure’s wrist so easy, twisted it. Measure got even madder, punched at Ta-Kumsaw’s stomach, and this time
he did
connect. But the chief’s belly was about as soft as a stump, and he snagged Measure’s other hand and held them both.

So Measure did what any good wrassler knows to do. He popped his knee up right between Ta-Kumsaw’s legs.

Now, Measure had done that only twice before, and both times he did it, the other fellow got right down on the ground, writhing like a half-squished worm. Ta-Kumsaw just stood there, rigid, like he was soaking up the pain, getting madder and madder. Since he was still holding on to Measure’s arms, Measure had a good notion that he was about to die, ripped right in half down the middle—that’s how mad Ta-Kumsaw looked.

Ta-Kumsaw let go of Measure’s arms.

Measure took his arms back, rubbed his wrists where the chief’s fingermarks were white and sore. The chief looked angry, all right, but it was Alvin he was mad at. He turned and looked down at that boy like he was ready to peel off Alvin’s skin and feed it to him raw.

“You did your filthy White man’s tricks in me,” he said.

“I didn’t want neither of you getting hurt,” said Alvin.

“You think I’m a coward like your brother? You think I’m afraid of pain?”

“Measure ain’t no coward!”

“He threw me to the ground with White man’s tricks.”

Measure didn’t like hearing that same accusation. “You know I didn’t ask him to do that! I’ll take you now, if you want! I’ll fight you fair and square!”

“Strike a man with your knee?” said Ta-Kumsaw. “You don’t know how to fight like a man.”

“I’ll face you any way you want,” said Measure.

Ta-Kumsaw smiled. “Gatlopp, then.”

By now a whole bunch of Reds had gathered round, and when they heard the word
gatlopp
, they started hooting and laughing.

There wasn’t a White in America who hadn’t heard stories about how Dan Boone ran the gatlopp and just kept on running, that first time he escaped from the Reds; but there was other stories, about Whites who got beat to death. Taleswapper told about it somewhat, the time he visited last year. It’s like a jury trial, he said, where the Reds hit you hard or easy depending on how much they think you deserve to die. If they think you’re a brave man, they’ll strike you hard to test you with pain. But if they think you’re a coward, they’ll break your bones so you never get out of the gatlopp alive. The chief can’t tell the gatlopp how hard to strike, or where. It’s just about the most democratic and vicious system of justice ever seen.

“I see you’re afraid of that,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

“Of course I am,” said Measure. “I’d be a fool not to, specially with your boys already thinking I’m a coward.”

“I’ll run the gatlopp before you,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “I’ll tell them to strike me as hard as they strike you.”

“They won’t do it,” said Measure.

“They will if I ask them,” said Ta-Kumsaw. He must
have seen the disbelief on Measure’s face, cause then he said, “And if they don’t, I’ll run the gatlopp again.”

“And if they kill me, will you die?”

Ta-Kumsaw looked up and down Measure’s body. Lean and strong, Measure knew he was, from chopping trees and firewood, toting pails, lifting hay, and hoisting grain bags in the mill. But he wasn’t
tough
. His skin was burnt something awful from being near naked in the sun out here on the dunes, even though he tried to use a blanket to cover up. Strong but soft, that’s what Ta-Kumsaw found when he studied Measure’s body.

“The blow that would kill you,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “it might bruise me.”

“So you admit it ain’t fair.”

“Fair is when two men face the same pain. Courage is when two men face the same pain. You don’t want fair, you want easy. You want safe. You’re a coward. I knew you wouldn’t do it.”

“I’ll do it,” said Measure.

“And you!” cried Ta-Kumsaw, pointing at Alvin. “You touch nothing, you heal nothing, you cure nothing, you don’t take away pain!”

Alvin didn’t say a word, just looked at him. Measure knew that look. It was the expression Alvin got on his face whenever he had no intention of doing a thing you said.

“Al,” said Measure. “You better promise me not to meddle.”

Al just set his lips and didn’t speak.

“You better promise me not to meddle, Alvin Junior, or I just won’t go home.”

Alvin promised. Ta-Kumsaw nodded and walked away, talking in Shaw-Nee to his boys. Measure felt sick with fear.

“Why are you afraid, White man?” asked the Prophet.

“Cause I’m not stupid,” said Measure. “Only a stupid man wouldn’t be scared to run the gatlopp.”

The Prophet just laughed and walked off.

Alvin was sitting in the sand again, writing or drawing or something with his finger.

“You ain’t mad at me, are you, Alvin? Cause I got to
tell you, you can’t be half as mad at
me
as I am at
you
. You got no duty to these Reds, but you sure got a duty to your ma and pa. Things being how they are, I can’t make you do nothing, but I can tell you I’m ashamed of you for siding with them against me and your kin.”

Al looked up, and there was tears in his eyes. “Maybe I
am
siding with my kin, did you think of that?”

“Well you sure got a funny way of doing it, seeing as how you’ll keep Ma and Pa worried sick for months, no doubt.”

“Don’t you think about anything bigger than our family? Don’t you think maybe the Prophet’s working out a plan to save the lives of thousands of Reds and Whites?”

“That’s where we’re different,” said Measure. “I don’t believe there
is
anything bigger than our family.”

Alvin was still writing as Measure walked away. It didn’t even occur to Measure what Alvin wrote in the sand. He saw, but he didn’t
look
, he didn’t read it. Now, though, the words came to his mind. RUN AWAY NOW, that’s what Al was writing. A message to him? Why didn’t he say it with his mouth, then? Nothing made sense. The writing probably wasn’t for him. And he
sure
wasn’t going to run away and have Ta-Kumsaw and all them Reds sure he was a coward forever. What difference would it make if he ran away now? The Reds’d catch him in a minute, there in the woods, and then he’d run the gatlopp anyway, only it’d even be worse for him.

The warriors formed two lines in the sand. They were carrying heavy branches fallen or cut from trees. Measure watched as an old man took the beads from around Ta-Kumsaw’s neck, then pulled off his loincloth. Ta-Kumsaw turned to Measure and grinned. “White man is naked when he has no clothes. Red man is never naked in his own land. The wind is my clothing, the fire of the sun, the dust of the earth, the water of rain. I wear all these. I am the voice and the face of the land!”

“Just get on with it,” said Measure.

“I know someone who says a man like you has no poetry in his soul,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

“And I know plenty of people who say that a man like you has no soul at all.”

Ta-Kumsaw glared at him, barked a few words to his men, and then stepped between the lines.

He walked slowly, his chin high and arrogant. The first Red struck him a blow across his thighs, using the skinny end of a branch. Ta-Kumsaw snatched the branch out of his hands, turned it around, and made him strike again, this time in the chest, a harsh blow that drove the air out of Ta-Kumsaw’s lungs. Measure could hear the grunting sound from where he stood.

The lines ran up the face of a dune, so that progress up the hill was slow. Ta-Kumsaw never paused as the blows came. His men were stern-faced, dutiful. They were helping him show courage, and so they gave him pain—but no damaging blows. His thighs and belly and shoulders took the worst of it. Nothing on his shins, nothing in his face. But that didn’t mean he had it easy. Measure could see his shoulders, bloody from the rough bark of the branches. He imagined himself receiving every blow that fell, and knew that they’d strike him harder. I’m a royal fool, he said to himself. Here I am matching courage with the noblest man in America, as everybody knows.

Ta-Kumsaw reached the end, turned, faced Measure from the top of the dune. His body was dripping with blood, and he was smiling. “Come to me, brave White man,” he called.

Measure didn’t hesitate. He started toward the gatlopp. It was a voice from behind that stopped him. The Prophet, shouting in Shaw-Nee. The Reds looked at him. When he was finished, Ta-Kumsaw spat. Measure, not knowing what had been said, started forward again. When he got to the first Red, he expected at least as hard a blow as Ta-Kumsaw got. But there was nothing. He took another step. Nothing. Maybe to show their contempt they meant to hit him in the back, but he climbed higher and higher up the dune, and still there was not a blow, not a move.

He should have been relieved, he knew, but instead he was angry. They gave Ta-Kumsaw help in showing his courage, and now they were making Measure’s passage through the gatlopp a walk of shame instead of honor. He
whirled around and faced the Prophet, who stood at the bottom of the dune, his arm across Alvin’s shoulders.

“What did you say to them?” Measure demanded.

“I told them that if they killed you, everyone would say Ta-Kumsaw and the Prophet kidnapped these boys and murdered them. I told them that if they marked you in any way, when you went home everybody would say we tortured you.”

“And I say I want a fair chance to prove I’m not a coward!”

“The gatlopp is a stupid idea, for men who forget their duty.”

Measure reached down and grabbed a club from a Red man’s hand. He struck his own thighs with it, again, again, trying to draw blood. It hurt, but not very bad, because whether he wanted to or not, his arms flinched at causing pain to his own self. So he thrust the branch back into the warrior’s arms and demanded, “Hit me!”

“The bigger a man is, the more people he serves,” said the Prophet. “A small man serves himself. Bigger is to serve your family. Bigger is to serve your tribe. Then your people. Biggest of all, to serve all men, and all lands. For yourself, you show courage. For your family, your tribe, your people, my people—for the land and all people in it, you walk this gatlopp with no mark on you.”

Slowly, Measure turned around, walked up the dune to Ta-Kumsaw, untouched. Again Ta-Kumsaw spat on the ground, this time at Measure’s feet.

“I ain’t no coward,” said Measure.

Ta-Kumsaw walked away. Walked, slipped, slid down the dune. The warriors of the gatlopp also walked away. Measure stood at the top of the hill, feeling ashamed, angry, used.

“Go!” shouted the Prophet. “Walk south from here!”

He handed a pouch to Alvin, who scrambled up the dune and gave it to Measure. Measure opened it. It contained pemmican and dried corn, so he could suck on it on his way.

“You coming with me?” Measure asked.

“I’m going with Ta-Kumsaw,” said Alvin.

“I could’ve made it through the gatlopp,” said Measure.

“I know,” said Alvin.

“If he wasn’t going to let me go through it,” said Measure, “how come the Prophet allowed it to happen at all?”

“He ain’t telling,” said Alvin. “But something terrible’s going to happen. And he
wants
it to happen. If you’d’ve went before, when I told you to run away—”

“They would’ve caught me, Al.”

“It was worth a try. Now when you leave, you’re doing just what he wants.”

“He plans for me to get killed or something?”

“He promised me you’d live through this, Measure. And all the family. Him and Ta-Kumsaw, too.”

“Then what’s so terrible?”

“I don’t know. I’m just scared of what’s going to happen. I think he’s sending me with Ta-Kumsaw to save my life.”