Monsters of Our Own Making

by L. E. Erickson

  Wind Man made an apology with his face, but Laughing Girl’s words did not even slow.

  “When the sickness came for our people, my father prayed. Then the Master of Life himself spoke—to him. To my father, not to another. The Master of Life said, ‘Throw off your wicked ways,’ and he did. The Master of Life said, ‘Tell my children the way to live rightly. Draw them to you and teach them.’ And he has. Now the Master of Life says he will remove those people, those white-faces who do not belong, away from our land and make it clean again for us. And my father will do that, too.”

  The way Laughing Girl looked at Wind Man when she spoke of white-faces who do not belong put a deep hurt into his heart. His hand on her hip fell still, and he could not immediately regain his voice.

  “It is only difficult for me to imagine how exactly he could accomplish this,” he managed to murmur. “How can the wind and rain, however tamed, drive away all our troubles?”

  An emptiness had opened inside him. He couldn’t measure its depth or what encompassed it, but as he peered up at Laughing Girl, he wanted her answer to reassure him. He wanted to know—to believe, as she did—that Tenskwatawa could really do as the Master had said he could.

  Laughing Girl’s frown did not fade. “The Master of Life speaks, and The Open Door carries his instructions to the people. He will make the whites go by the strength of his faith. It will certainly not happen by questioning the Master’s words.”

  She pushed herself away from Wind Man and stood, leaving only chilly air beneath his hands and against his hips. But her words and tone and actions slashed through the despair in Wind Man’s gut, and anger welled up from the wound.

  “You speak in fierce defense—” Wind Man began to say, of a man who before his transformation, before he had need of you, did not so much as acknowledge your existence.

  Had she forgotten so easily the many times she had tried to reach out to Tenskwatawa, only to be snapped at or waved away? How often had she turned to Wind Man for the kind words she could not drag from her own father? And yet now—now she chose her father over her husband?

  From the woven basket where they kept their clothing, Laughing Girl took a doeskin dress and stretched on her lithe toes as she drew the dress over her head. She glared at Wind Man from beneath her mussed hair, and he realized he hadn’t finished his sentence.

  The fury of the moment cooled, and Wind Man this time managed to swallow the wrong words before he could say them aloud. She was his wife. He would not hurt her simply because he could. If only he could think of the words that would win the smile back to her face.

  “You speak in fierce and honorable defense of your father,” he managed. “And I am sorry that you believe I doubt him. Or you.”

  She sniffed as she smoothed her hair away from her face, a wordless sound that Wind Man knew meant she was done arguing but not yet done with being angry. When she rolled her hips to settle her dress into place, the movement reminded Wind Man that he would have liked to spend more time speaking without words. But the words he had spoken aloud had stolen that chance away.

  A day later, Tenskwatawa summoned Wind Man to his lodge.

  3

  The boy sent with the message did not say why Tenskwatawa wanted to see Wind Man, and the possibilities turned in Wind Man’s head as he left his fletching and walked with as little hurry as possible through the town.

  Laughing Girl had not said Tenskwatawa had any plans. But she had not said he did not, either. If he did, how could Wind Man stay his hand? He was no Tecumseh, able to talk Tenskwatawa out of whatever he intended to do. And it was important to prevent Tenskwatawa from acting—Tecumseh had given Wind Man only that one task.

  The summer was thick and green, and Tecumseh’s Town had grown far larger than usual this year, tripled or more in size by people who had come to hear Tenskwatawa speak and then stayed. As he passed between the birch bark dwellings to reach the lodge where Tenskwatawa lived and meditated and held audiences with his followers, Wind Man could not help comparing the bustling, busy sense of life to previous years. There had been winters, in times past, when the vigil-fires flickering on graves had outnumbered the embers in homes and cook fires.

  Today, people were everywhere, women and children in the fields along the river and men laughing and talking as they returned from hunting. Through all the activity buzzed a sense of what felt to Wind Man like hope.

  Or anticipation. The people gathered to make war. Even if neither Tecumseh nor Tenskwatawa had spoken the word aloud to them yet, they all knew it.

  We will take it all back. The old ways will return. The Master of Life has promised.

  But first there was the matter of the alliance Tecumseh hoped to form. And of the stories of flying guns. At least, because of Tenskwatawa’s miracles with the weather, the people would not go hungry. Perhaps they also would not sicken, would not die.

  Then Tenskwatawa’s lodge house was before him, and Wind Man hesitated.

  Keep watch over him.

  The charge was a noble one, Wind Man knew. Tecumseh looked out for the welfare of not only the people but of Tenskwatawa when he’d asked such a thing. But Wind Man could not quite shake a feeling of guilt, as if he spied on Tenskwatawa for an enemy rather than simply looking out for him.

  Tenskwatawa’s lodge house did not differ greatly from the smaller bark houses of the people. It shared the same rectangular shape and was built with the same poles and bark. But the fire pit in its center was large, and platforms formed benches around its perimeter.

  When Wind Man entered, Tenskwatawa was kneeling near the unlit fire pit with his back to the door, hands lifted and face tilted upward. Cedar and sage smoldered in a stone bowl, filling the lodge with sweet smoke.

  “I was once a wicked man.” Tenskwatawa spoke without turning. “I know what it is to doubt. To question. To fall far from the path of right.”

  Wind Man’s heart crept up into his throat. He did not know what to respond, so he said nothing.

  Tenskwatawa stood and turned. He wore his red bandana tugged low on one side to cover the puckered scar where his right eye had once been. Silver pendants dangled from his ears, rings pierced his nose, and clasps encircled his wrists and arms. Wind Man regarded Tenskwatawa with the respectful countenance due his tribe’s shaman and his wife’s father, and he waited.

  “I know those things,” Tenskwatawa said, “so I am not without compassion for those of the children who have not yet found their way to The Open Door.”

  Wind Man, still unsure why Tenskwatawa had asked to see him, said only in reply, “Compassion is a good thing, indeed.”

  Tenskwatawa studied Wind Man with a somberness that settled a great weight in Wind Man’s stomach. In the harsh, honest light of midday, Wind Man noticed how deep the lines cut at the corners of Tenskwatawa’s eye and around his mouth. He cared, Tenskwatawa did. No one, Wind Man thought, could ever accuse Tenskwatawa of having no concern for his people.

  “Compassion is a powerful thing,” Tenskwatawa said. “And yet the time is quickly coming when we must put away compassion and take a stronger stance. We must begin to ensure that the children know the truth, that they believe well enough that the voice with which I speak is that of the Master. Tell me, husband of my daughter—do you believe?”

  He had heard them, that was all Wind Man could think. Somehow, Tenskwatawa had heard Tecumseh imply to Wind Man that perhaps the Master of Life did not speak to Tenskwatawa. Wind Man’s mouth dried so quickly that he felt he might not be able to open it.

  “Who could doubt such a thing?” Wind Man finally managed to say. “Have we not seen what you can do?”

  Tenskwatawa did not smile. He looked steadily into Wind Man’s eyes.

  Wind Man hated himself, in that moment. He hated the doubt that Tecumseh had placed in his heart. What had he believed, until Tecumseh had suggested he might believe otherwise?

  “I have seen what you can do.” Wind Man felt the truth of the words settle like ca
lming waters through his being as he spoke them. Yes—these words were true.

  But he had made a promise to Tecumseh, and he owed more words because of that.

  “I believe that the people must do something to turn back the tide of white men. I believe that The Open Door loves his people well. I believe that the Master of Life will provide for his children, whatever their need.” Wind Man hesitated before adding, “I believe that waiting for Tecumseh to bring the strength of the south into our cause must surely be a part of the Master of Life’s plans.”

  “I know what Tecumseh has asked of me.” Tenskwatawa’s voice was wearily gentle. “I have said already, to him and to you, both, that the Master agrees. But do you not agree that we must do what the Master asks?”

  Wind Man’s face heated, but the confusion whirling in his thoughts brought a question from him anyhow. “What does he ask?”

  And now, finally, Tenskwatawa did smile, a fragile thing beneath the thin line of black hair over his upper lip. “It is not so much what he asks, but how. Tell me, do you think he speaks clearly, with a man’s voice and words? He speaks with the voices of all his creation, man and animal, wind and water.”

  A maelstrom of emotions whirled in Wind Man’s chest, by turns flushing and chilling him.

  Tenskwatawa regarded Wind Man with his one good eye. For a moment, Wind Man thought he glimpsed stars in the blackness of that eye, as if the cosmos dwelled inside Tenskwatawa.

  “If you could hear what I hear,” Tenskwatawa whispered. “You could not help but believe.”

  The air inside the lodge felt suddenly hot as fire and as impossible to breathe. A sound like a rushing river filled his ears, as if whispers echoed inside whispers.

  As if a voice spoke, so vast and great that Wind Man’s small mind could not grasp its entirety.

  Wind Man’s heart pounded and his tongue felt thick, but he heard himself speak anyhow. “I cannot help but believe.”

  Tenskwatawa’s one-eyed gaze was steady. “There are things which may need doing. The Master of Life may ask difficult things. We will be delivered, but it will not be without a price.”

  Are you strong? Tenskwatawa’s gaze asked. Are you brave enough?

  Wind Man wanted suddenly, more than anything, to answer yes. Absolutely, unconditionally, no-questions-asked yes.

  “I believe,” Wind Man replied.

  The sound of wind and water faded, until all Wind Man heard was the racing of his own heart.

  With the silence, Wind Man’s thoughts returned to Tecumseh. Keep him from making wrong choices. Wind Man’s wish to not say the things he knew he would have to say became a physical ache.

  “I believe,” Wind Man repeated. He would have liked to leave it at that. But he had promised Tecumseh, and Tecumseh was not wrong. “But we have promised Tecumseh we would not aggravate Harrison.”

  “Of course.” Tenskwatawa chuckled, but it was a brittle sound. “We will not aggravate Harrison. And yet, there are other things we may do.”

  Tenskwatawa clapped Wind Man on the shoulder in much the same way that Tecumseh had when he had asked Wind Man to watch over Tenskwatawa.

  “Be strong of heart, as you have made my heart strong, son of my father and husband of my daughter. But here, let us step outside.”

  Wind Man took two steps for the door, his lungs yearning for the cooler air outside. When he realized that Tenskwatawa was not behind him, he stopped and turned.

  Tenskwatawa had returned to the unlit fire pit where he had been kneeling when Wind Man arrived. In front of the fire lay a piece of deerskin so pale it seemed like a patch of pure snow.

  To one side of that deerskin sat a small hide pouch, aged and well-worn. The leather thong to which the pouch was attached coiled beneath the pouch—Tenskwatawa’s medicine bag, that most sacred of any of the people’s possessions.

  Alongside the pouch, in the very center of the deerskin, sat a smooth gray stone. The gray was delicate, and veins of white crystal shot through it, sparkling as if with a light of its own. Wind Man could not recall having ever seen a stone quite like that one.

  Tenskwatawa scooped the stone into his medicine bag, straightened, and unhurriedly looped the thong around his neck. The pouch dropped against Tenskwatawa’s chest and inside his shirt, away from Wind Man’s sight.

  When he caught Wind Man watching him, Tenskwatawa only smiled.

  “Outside, where the air is not so close. Then let me tell you what task the Master has set before us.”

  4

  August 1806

  Indiana Territory: The Vincennes Trace

  “Don’t talk to me again. Don’t even look at me.”

  Kellen’s voice was calm and steady, and Ger didn’t bother turning in his saddle to look back at her. If anyone was in trouble, it was more likely to be Robert Langston than Kellen.

  “Oh, c’mon. Tell me you don’t want some of what I’m packing. And I don’t mean my gun.” Langston sat tall in his saddle, blond-haired and blue-eyed and wearing a face that Ger suspected a woman might find attractive, if she could overlook Langston’s faults.

  Possibly Langston intended for his voice to be conspiratorial, but if so then he failed miserably. Ger glanced sidelong and caught Dale Ackermann shaking his head. In the weeks since they’d left Philadelphia—and before—a few things had proven to be unfailingly consistent. That Langston would behave like an ass was one of them.

  “Early in the day for obnoxious behavior, even for Langston,” Ger remarked to Ackermann.

  Ackermann, a barrel-chested Dutchman with a thick accent and thicker beard, chuckled and squinted at the sky visible through the encroaching trees. They’d crossed the Ohio a few days back, and Vincennes Trace, the road linking the Louisville settlement along the Ohio to Vincennes along the Wabash, was wide and well-cleared. Even so, full-leafed branches still crowded close in places. Drops of water glistened on the emerald foliage—rain left over from the previous day’s storms or lingering dew, who knew? The rich, earthy smell of forest sometimes reminded Ger of a river’s edge, dank and muddy.

  “If you come sniffing around me again,” Kellen said, still in the same conversational tone, “I will tie your pecker into a knot and rip off your balls with my bare hands.”

  Ger grinned. Another given—Kellen could take care of herself. Listening to her shoot down Langston, watching her in her uniform with tattoo wings across her face as she worked her Crow and fired her .36 and held her own as a Crowmaker, those were things that filled Ger with a sense of what resembled pride.

  Not that he could take credit for Kellen’s strength, of course. That had always been there. It looked a lot like stubbornness, sometimes—but it had been there. Ger was pretty sure he’d have been dead a couple of times over if it hadn’t been.

  She didn’t leave me. Not in the graveyard after Ripley beat me, not when Ripley trapped us in the Widow’s burning house, not when Bradley tried to leave me in Philadelphia.

  Things had been fair to good between Kellen and him. Ger might almost have believed he’d imagined that kiss back in the barracks, before they’d left Philadelphia, but every once in a while Kellen would look at him in a certain way, and he knew—just knew—that she was thinking about it. There was no really good time or place right now to do anything more than think about it, but Ger thought he could stand that, as long as he had hope.

  And he had hope. He wasn’t sure he deserved it, not after he’d let Burke Ripley take life and hope alike from so many. But Ripley was gone, and Ger was still there. And if Ger sometimes swore he heard Em Jacobs’s voice mingled with those of the other men, and it brought a lump to his throat, then he could only offer yet another silent apology to Em, along with a promise that he’d do his best to live a life that was worthy of Em having died for it.

  Ger’s life seemed new, and his future as wide open as the brilliant blue sky sparkling through the gaps in the vibrant green of the trees over their heads.

  “Is a fair road,” Ackermann said. �
��Not so good as the turnpike back in Pennsylvania. But not bad.”

  Ger nodded, but he knew Ackermann required no more than that in reply. The burly Dutchman was perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation all by himself—so long as you nodded or “uh huh”‘ed at him once in a while, all was well. Ger didn’t mind Ackermann’s talkative nature all that much. Ackermann was, all in all, a good-natured man, and Ger enjoyed listening to the roll and rhythm of Ackermann’s accent. So long as Ackermann stayed on the topic of roads and nature and Ellis’s leadership tactics and off more personal subjects, Ger was fine with listening.

  “We are making good time,” Ackermann went on. “In spite of the weather.”

  The estimation was Ellis’s and not Ackermann’s, Ger knew. Ackermann had a tendency to repeat knowledge without mentioning how he’d come by it. Ger nodded again anyhow.

  Kellen’s gelding nosed up next to Ger’s. He glanced back at her.

  “What?” he said. “Tired of Langston’s company already?”

  Kellen responded with a roll of her eyes, and Ger let the smile he was already wearing settle comfortably onto his face.

  “We will stop soon,” Ackermann said.

  Seconds later, a pair of Crows dropped through the canopy and descended toward Viktor Kalvis and Petras Juszkiewicz, who rode side by side at the head of the company. The two Lithuanians, one older and one young, put their blonde heads together for a moment, and then turned to speak to the men riding closest to them, who in turn passed the word to the men behind them. Word of the impending midday halt rippled back toward Ger and Kellen and Ackermann.

  It took the better part of an hour to actually make the halt, by the time they reached the location Petras and Kalvis had scouted and the wagons lumbered into place, with the Irishmen Colley and Byrne bringing up the day’s rear guard. The Locktons and Mrs. Epler set about putting together the day’s one big meal. Ger was on firewood duty that day. By the time he’d tromped around in the woods and cut enough dead wood to replace what the servants had taken from the wagon, the bitter tang of coffee and sweeter scent of meat and beans was wafting up from the cooking kettles.