“It belongs to everybody, this place. All Reds are at peace here. No killing, no war, no quarrels—or the tribe has no flints.”
“I wish the whole world was a place like that,” said Alvin.
“Listen to my brother long enough, White boy, and you’ll start to think it is. No, no, don’t explain to me. Don’t defend him. He takes his road, I take mine. I think his way will kill more people, Red or White, than mine.”
In the night, Alvin dreamed. He saw himself walk all the way around Eight-Face Mound, until he found a place where a path seemed to lead up the steep hill. He climbed, then, and came to the top. The silver-leafed trees shook in the breeze, blinding him as the sun shone off them. He walked to one tree, and in it there was a nest of redbirds. Every tree the same, a single redbird nest.
Except one tree. It was different from the others. It was older, gnarled, with spreading branches instead of the up-reaching kind. Like a fruit tree. And the leaves were gold, not silver, so they didn’t shine so bright, but they were soft and deep. In the tree, he saw round white fruit, and he knew that it was ripe. But when he reached out his hand to take the fruit, and eat it, he could hear laughter, jeering. He looked around him and saw everybody he ever knowed in his whole life, laughing at him. Except one—Taleswapper. Taleswapper was standing there, and he said, “Eat.” Alvin reached up and plucked a single fruit out of the tree and took it to his lips and bit into it. It was juicy and firm, and the taste was sweet and bitter, salt and sour all at once, so strong it made him tingle all over—but good, a taste he wanted to hold inside him forever.
He was about to take a second bite when he saw that the fruit was gone from his hand, and not a one hung from the tree. “One bite is all you need for now,” said Taleswapper. “Remember how it tastes.”
“I’ll never forget,” said Alvin.
Everybody was still laughing, louder than ever; but Alvin paid them no mind. He’d took him a bite of the fruit, and all he wanted now was to bring his family to the same tree, and let them eat; to bring everybody he ever knowed, and even strangers, too, and let them taste it. If they’d just taste it, Alvin figured, they’d know.
“What would they know?” asked Taleswapper.
Al couldn’t think what it was. “Just know,” he said. “Know everything. Everything that’s good.”
“That’s right,” said Taleswapper. “With the first bite, you know.”
“What about the second bite?”
“With the second bite, you live forever,” said Taleswapper. “And that isn’t a thing you’d better plan on doing, my boy. Don’t ever imagine you can live forever.”
Alvin woke up that morning with the taste of the fruit still in his mouth. He had to force himself to believe that it was just a dream. Ta-Kumsaw was already up. He had a low fire going, and he had called two fish out of the Licking River. Now they were spitted with sticks down their mouths. He handed one to Alvin.
But Alvin didn’t want to eat. If he did, the taste of the fruit would go out of his mouth. He’d begin to forget, and he wanted to remember. Oh, he knowed that he’d have to eat sometime—a body can get remarkable thin saying no to food all the time. But today, for now, he didn’t want to eat.
Still, he held the spit and watched the trout sizzle. Ta-Kumsaw talked, telling him about calling fish and other animals when you need to eat. Asking them to come. If the land wants you to eat, then they come; or maybe some other animal, it doesn’t matter, just so you eat what the land gives you. Alvin thought about the fish he was roasting. Didn’t the land know he wasn’t going to eat this morning? Or did it send this fish to tell him he ought to eat after all?
Neither one. Because just at the moment the fish were ready to eat, they heard the crashing and thumping that told them a White man was coming.
Ta-Kumsaw sat very still, but he didn’t so much as pull out his knife. “If the land brings a White man here, then he isn’t my enemy,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
In a few seconds, the White man stepped into the clearing. His hair was white, where he wasn’t bald. He was carrying his hat. He had a slack-looking pouch over his shoulder, and no weapon at all. Alvin knew right off what was in that pouch. A change of clothes, a few snatches of food, and a book. A third of the book contained single sentences, where folks had written down the most important thing they ever saw happen with their own eyes. The last two-thirds of the book, though, were sealed with a leather strap. That was where Taleswapper wrote down his own stories, the ones he believed and thought were important.
Cause that’s who it was, Taleswapper, who Alvin never thought to see again in his life. And suddenly, seeing that old friend, Alvin knew why two fish came at Ta-Kumsaw’s call. “Taleswapper,” Alvin said, “I hope you’re hungry, cause I got a fish here that I roasted for you.”
Taleswapper smiled. “I’m right glad to see you, Alvin, and right glad to see that fish.”
Alvin handed him the spit. Taleswapper sat him down in the grass, across the fire from Alvin and Ta-Kumsaw. “Thank you kindly, Alvin,” said Taleswapper. He pulled out his knife and neatly began flaking off slices of fish. They sizzled his lips, but he just licked and smacked and made short work of the trout. Ta-Kumsaw also ate his, and Alvin watched them both. Ta-Kumsaw never took his eyes off Taleswapper.
“This is Taleswapper,” Alvin said. “He’s the man who taught me how to heal.”
“I didn’t teach you,” said Taleswapper. “I just gave you some idea how to teach yourself. And persuaded you that you ought to try.” Taleswapper directed his next sentence at Ta-Kumsaw. “He was set to let himself die before he’d use his knack to heal himself, can you believe that?”
“And this is Ta-Kumsaw,” said Alvin.
“Oh, I knew that the minute I saw you. Do you know what a legend you are among White people? You’re like Saladin during the Crusade—they admire you more than they admire their own leaders, even though they know you’re sworn to fight until you’ve driven the last White man out of America.”
Ta-Kumsaw said nothing.
“I’ve met maybe two dozen children named after you, most of them boys, all of them White. And stories—about you saving White captives from being burned to death, about you bringing food to people you drove out of their homes, so they wouldn’t starve. I even believe some of those stories.”
Ta-Kumsaw finished his fish and laid the spit in the fire.
“I also heard a story as I was coming here, about how you captured two Whites from Vigor Church and sent their bloody torn-up clothes to their parents. How you tortured them to death to show how you meant to destroy every White—man, woman, and child. How you said the time for being civilized was past, and now you’d use pure terror to drive the White man out of America.”
For the first time since Taleswapper arrived, Ta-Kumsaw spoke. “Did you believe that story?”
“Well, I didn’t,” said Taleswapper. “But that’s because I already knew the truth. You see, I got a message from a girl I knew—a young lady now, she is. It was a letter.” He took a folded letter from his coat, three sheets of paper covered with writing. He handed them to Ta-Kumsaw.
Without looking at it, Ta-Kumsaw handed the letter to Alvin. “Read it to me,” he said.
“But you can read English,” said Alvin.
“Not here,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
Alvin looked at the letter, at all three pages of it, and to his surprise he couldn’t read it either. The letters all looked familiar. When he studied them out, he could even name them—T-H-E-M-A-K-E-R-N-E-E-D-S-Y-O-U, that’s how it started, but it made no sense to Al at all, he couldn’t even say for sure what language it was in. “I can’t read it either,” he said, and handed it back to Taleswapper.
Taleswapper studied it for a minute, then laughed and put it back into his coat pocket. “Well, that’s a story for my book. A place where a man can’t read.”
To Alvin’s surprise, Ta-Kumsaw smiled. “Even you?”
“I know what it says, because I read it be
fore,” said Taleswapper. “But I can’t make out a single word of it today. Even when I know what the word is supposed to be. What is. this place?”
“We’re in the Land of Flints,” said Alvin.
“We’re in the shadow of Eight-Face Mound,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
“I didn’t think a White man could get here,” said Taleswapper.
“Neither did I,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “But here is a White boy, and there is a White man.”
“I dreamed you last night,” said Alvin. “I dreamed I was on top of Eight-Face Mound, and you were with me, explaining things to me.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Taleswapper. “I doubt there’s a thing on Eight-Face Mound that I could explain to anybody.”
“How did you come here,” asked Ta-Kumsaw, “if you didn’t know you were coming to the Land of Flints?”
“She told me to come up the Musky-Ingum, and when I saw a white boulder on the right, I should take the fork that led left. She said I’d find Alvin Miller Junior sitting with Ta-Kumsaw by a fire, roasting fish.”
“Who told you all this?” asked Alvin.
“A woman,” said Taleswapper. “A torch. She told me you saw her in a vision, Alvin, inside a crystal tower, not more than a week ago by now. She was the one who pulled the caul from your face, when you were born. She’s been watching you ever since, in the way a torch sees. She went inside that tower with you and saw out of your eyes.”
“The Prophet said someone was with us,” said Alvin.
“She looked out of his eye, too,” said Taleswapper, “and she saw all his futures. The Prophet will die. Tomorrow morning. Shot by your own father’s gun, Alvin.”
“No!” cried Alvin.
“Unless,” said Taleswapper. “Unless Measure comes in time to show your father that he’s alive, that Ta-Kumsaw and the Prophet never harmed him, or you either.”
“But Measure left days ago!”
“That’s right, Alvin. But he got captured by Governor Harrison’s men. Harrison has him, and today, maybe even right now, one of Harrison’s men is killing him. Breaking his bones, breaking his neck. Tomorrow Harrison will attack Prophetstown with his cannon, killing everybody. Every soul. So much blood that the Tippy-Canoe will flow scarlet and the Wobbish will flow red clear to the Hio.”
Ta-Kumsaw leaped to his feet. “I have to go back. I have to—”
“You know how far you are,” said Taleswapper. “You know where your warriors are. Even if you ran all night and all day, as fast as you Reds can go—”
“Noon tomorrow,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
“He’ll be dead already,” said Taleswapper.
Ta-Kumsaw shouted in anguish, so loud that several birds cried out and flew away from the meadow.
“Now, hold your horses, just wait a minute. If there were nothing we could do, she wouldn’t very well have sent me on this chase, now, would she? Don’t you see we’re acting out a plan that’s bigger than all of us? Why did it happen that Alvin and Measure were the two boys that Harrison’s hired Chok-Taw kidnapped? How do you happen to be here, and me also, at the very day when we’re most needed?”
“They need us there,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
“I don’t think so,” said Taleswapper. “I think that if they needed us there, then there we’d be. They need us here.”
“You’re like my brother, trying to make me fit into his plans!”
“I wish I were like your brother. He has visions and sees what’s going on, while all I get is a letter from a torch. But here I am, and here you are, and if we weren’t supposed to be here, we just plain wouldn’t, whether you like it or not.”
Alvin didn’t like this talk of what was supposed to happen. Who was doing all this supposing? What did Taleswapper mean—they were all poppets on sticks? Was somebody making them move any old way, whatever he felt ought to happen? “If somebody’s so all-fired in charge of everything,” said Alvin, “he hasn’t been doing too good a job of it, getting us into a fix like this.”
Taleswapper grinned. “You really don’t take to religion, do you, boy?”
“I just don’t think anybody’s making us do anything.”
“Nor did I say so,” said Taleswapper. “I’m just saying things never get so bad we can’t do something to make them better.”
“Well I’ll be glad to take suggestions. What did this torch lady think I ought to do?” asked Alvin.
“She said you’re supposed to climb the mountain and heal Measure. Don’t ask me more than that—that’s all she said. There isn’t a mountain worthy of the name in these parts, and Measure’s in the root cellar behind Vinegar Riley’s house—”
“I know that place,” said Alvin. “I been there. But I can’t—I mean I’ve never tried to heal somebody who wasn’t right there in front of me.”
“Enough talking,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Eight-Face Mound called you in a dream, White boy. This man came to tell you to go up the mountain. Everything begins when you climb the Mound. If you can.”
“Some things end on Eight-Face Mound,” said Taleswapper.
“What does a White man know about this place?” asked Ta-Kumsaw.
“Not a thing,” said Taleswapper. “But I knelt by the bed of a dying Irrakwa woman, many years ago, and she told me that the most important thing in her life was, she was the last Irrakwa ever to stand inside Eight-Face Mound.”
“The Irrakwa have all turned White in their hearts,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Eight-Face Mound would never let them in now.”
“But I’m White,” said Alvin.
“Very good problem,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “The Mound will tell you the answer. Maybe the answer is you don’t go up and everybody dies. Come.”
He led them along the path the land opened up for them, until they came to a steep hill, thickly grown with trees and brambles. There was no path. “This is Red Man’s Face,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “This is where Red men climb. The path is gone. You can’t climb here.”
“Where, then?” asked Alvin.
“How do I know?” said Ta-Kumsaw. “The story is that if you climb a different face, you find a different Mound. The story is that if you climb the Builders’ Face, you find their ancient city, still alive on the Mound. If you climb the Beasts’ Face, you find a land where a giant buffalo is king, a strange animal with horns that come out of his mouth and a nose like a terrible snake, and huge cougars with teeth as long as spears all bow before him and worship. Who knows if these stories are true? No one climbs those faces now.”
“Is there a White Man’s Face?” asked Alvin.
“Red Man, Medicine, Builder, Beast. Four other faces we don’t know their names,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Maybe one of them is White Man’s Face. Come.”
He led them around the hill. The Mound rose on their left hand. No path opened. Alvin recognized everything they saw. His dream last night was true, at least this much: Taleswapper was with him, and he circled the Mound before climbing.
They came to the last of the unknown faces. No path. Alvin made as if to go on to the next face.
“No use,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “All eight faces, none will let us up. The next is Red Man’s Face again.”
“I know,” said Alvin. “But here’s the path.”
There it was, straight as an arrow. Right on the edge shared by Red Man’s Face and the unknown face beside it.
“You are half Red,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
“Go on up,” said Taleswapper.
“In my dream you were with me up there,” said Alvin.
“Maybe so,” said Taleswapper. “But the fact is, I can’t see this path the two of you are talking about. It looks just like all the rest of the faces. So I reckon I’m not invited.”
“Go,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Hurry.”
“You come with me, then,” said Alvin. “You see the path, don’t you?”
“I didn’t dream of the Mound,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “And what you see there, it will be half what the Red man sees, and half a new place that I should never see
. Go now, don’t waste time anymore. My brother and your brother will die unless you do whatever it is the land brought you here to do.”
“I’m thirsty,” said Al.
“Drink there,” said Ta-Kumsaw, “if the Mound offers you water. Eat if the Mound offers you food.”
Al set his feet on the path and scrambled up the hill. It was steep, but there were roots to grab, plenty of footholds, and before long the path crested, leveled, and the underbrush ended.
He had thought the Mound was a single hill, with eight slopes. Now, though, he could see that each of the eight slopes was a separate Mound, arranged to form a deep bowl in the middle. The valley seemed much too large, the farthest Mounds much too far away. Hadn’t Alvin walked around the entire Mound this morning with Ta-Kumsaw and Taleswapper? Eight-Face Mound was much more inside than it seemed to be outside.
He walked carefully down the grassy slope. It was tufted, irregular, the grass cool, the soil moist and firm. It seemed much farther going down than it had been going up. When he finally reached the valley floor, he stood on the verge of a meadow, with silver-leafed trees, just like in his dream. So his dream had been true, showing him a real place that he could not have imagined.
But how was he supposed to find Measure and heal him? What did the Mound have to do with anything at all? It was afternoon now, they’d taken so long circling the Mound—Measure might already be dying, and he didn’t have any idea how to go about helping him.
Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II Page 24
