Red Prophet ttoam-2

by Orson Scott Card

  Once when Alvin was actually with him long enough to set and talk, Measure asked him why he bothered. “Even when them Reds talk English I can't understand them. Talk about the land like it was a person, things about taking only the life that offers itself, the land dying east of the Mizzipy– it ain't dying here, Al, as any fool can see. And even if it's got smallpox, black death, and ten-thousand hangnails, there ain't no doctor knows how to cure it.”

  “Tenskwa-Tawa does know how,” said Alvin.

  “Then let him do it, and let's get on home.”

  “Another day, Measure.”

  “Ma and Pa'll be worried sick, they think we're dead!”

  “Tenskwa-Tawa says the land is working out its own course.”

  “There you go again! Land is land, and it ain't got a thing to do with Pa getting a bunch of the boys together combing through the woods to find us!”

  “Go on without me, then.”

  But Measure wasn't ready to do that yet. He didn't have no particular wish to face Ma if he came home without Alvin. “Oh, he was fine when I left him. Just playing around with tornadoes and walking on water with a one-eyed Red. Didn't want to come home just yet, you know how them ten-year-old boys are.” No, Measure wasn't ripe to come home just now, not if he didn't have Alvin in tow. And it was sure he couldn't take Alvin against his will. The boy wouldn't even listen to talk of escape.

  The worst of it was that while everybody liked Alvin just fine, jabbering to him in English and Shaw-Nee, not a soul there would so much as talk to Measure, except Ta-Kumsaw himself, and the Prophet, who talked all the time whether anybody was listening or not. It got powerful lonely, walking around all day. And not walking far, either. Nobody talked to him, but if he started heading away from the dunes toward the woods, somebody'd shoot off an arrow. It'd land with a thud in the sand right by him. They sure trusted their aim a lot better than Measure did. He kept thinking about arrows drifting a little this way or that and hitting him.

  Escape was a silly idea, when Measure gave it serious thought. They'd track him down in no time. But what he couldn't figure was why they didn't want him to go. They weren't doing nothing with him. He was completely useless. And they swore they had no plans to kill him or even break him up a little.

  Fourth day at the dunes, though, it finally came to a head. He went to Ta-Kumsaw and plain demanded that he be let go. Ta-Kumsaw looked annoyed, but that was pretty normal for him. This time, though, Measure didn't back down.

  “Don't you know it's plain stupid for you to keep us here? It ain't like we disappeared without a trace, you know. Our horses must have been found by now with your name all over them.”

  That was the first time Measure realized that Ta-Kumsaw didn't have a notion about them horses. “My name isn't on horses.”

  “On their saddles, Chief. Don't you know? Them Chok-Taw who took us– if they weren't your own boys, which I ain't quite satisfied about either, if you want to know– they carved your name into the saddle on my horse and then jabbed the horse so it'd run. The Prophet's name was carved in Alvin's saddle. They must've gone home right away.”

  Ta-Kumsaw's face seemed to turn dark, his eyes flashing like lightning. If you want to see a sky-god, thought Measure, this is what he looks like. “All the Whites,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “They'll think I stole you.”

  “You didn't know?” asked Measure. “Well if that don't beat all. I thought you Reds knew everything, the way you carry on. I even tried to mention it to some of your boys, but they just turn their backs on me. And all the time none of you knowed it.”

  “I didn't know,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “But someone did.” He stalked off, as best you can do that in loose sand; then he turned back around. “Come on, I want you!”

  So Measure followed him to the bark-covered wigwam where the Prophet held Bible classes or whatever it was he did all day. Ta-Kumsaw wasn't shy about showing how angry he was. Didn't say a thing– just walked around the wigwam, kicking away the rocks that helped anchor it to the sand. Then he picked up one end of it and started lifting. “Needs two men for this,” he said.

  Measure squatted down next to him, got a grip, and counted to three. Then he heaved. Ta-Kumsaw didn't, so the wigwam only lifted about six inches and dropped back down.

  Measure grunted from the exertion and glared at Ta-Kumsaw. “Why didn't you lift?”

  “You only got to three,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  “That's the count, Chief. One, two, three.”

  “You Whites are such fools. Every man knows four is the strong number.”

  Ta-Kumsaw counted to four. This time they lifted together, got it up, tipped it clean over. By now, of course, whoever was inside knew what was going on, but nobody shouted or nothing. And when the wigwam lay on its back like a stranded turtle, there sat the Prophet and Alvin and a few Reds, cross-legged on blankets on the sand, the one-eyed Red still talking away like as if nothing had happened at all.

  Ta-Kumsaw started bellowing in Shaw-Nee, and the Prophet answered him, mildly at first, but louder and louder as time went on. It was quite a row, the sort of yelling that in Measure's experience always came to blows. But not with these two Reds. Just yelled for a half hour and then stood there, facing each other, breathing hard, saying nothing at all. The silence was only a few minutes, but it felt longer than the shouting.

  “You understand any of this?” asked Measure.

  “I just know that the Prophet said Ta-Kumsaw was coming today, and he'd be very angry.”

  “Well, if he knowed, why didn't he do something to change it?”

  “Oh, he's real careful about that. He's got everything going just the way it needs to, for the land to be divided right between White and Red. If he goes and changes something because he knows what's going to happen, he might undo everything, mess it all up. So he knows what's going to happen, but he don't tell a soul who might change it.”

  “Well, what good does it do to know the future if you ain't going to do nothing about it?”

  "Oh, he does things," said Alvin. "He just doesn't necessarily tell folks what he's doing. That's why he made the crystal tower when that storm came by. To make sure the vision was still the way it was supposed to be, to make sure things hadn't gotten themselves off the right path.

  “What's all this about? Why are they fighting?”

  “You tell me, Measure. You're the one helped him turn over the wigwam.”

  “Beats me. I just told him about his and the Prophet's names being carved on our saddles.”

  “He knowed that,” said Alvin.

  “Well, he sure acted like he didn't hear of it before.”

  “I told the Prophet myself, the night after he took me into the tower.”

  “Didn't it come to your mind that maybe the Prophet didn't tell Ta-Kumsaw?”

  “Why not?” asked Alvin. “Why wouldn't he tell it?”

  Measure nodded wisely. “I have a feeling that's the very question Ta-Kumsaw's asking his brother about right now.”

  “It's crazy not to tell,” said Alvin. “I figured Ta-Kumsaw must've sent somebody by now to tell our folks we were all right.”

  “You know what I think, Al? I think your Prophet's been playing us all for fools. I don't even have a guess as to why, but I think he's working out some plan, and part of that plan is keeping us from going home. And since that means all our family and neighbors and all are going to be up in arms about it, you can figure it out. The Prophet wants to get a real hot little shooting war going here.”

  “No!” said Alvin. “The Prophet says no man can kill another man who doesn't want to die, that it's as wrong to kill a White man as it is to kill a wolf or a bear that you don't want for food.”

  “Maybe he wants us for food. But he's going to have a war if we don't get home and tell our kin that we're safe.”

  That was right when Ta-Kurnsaw and the Prophet fell silent. And it was Measure who broke the silence. “Think you boys are about set to let us go home?” he asked.


  The Prophet immediately sank down into a crosslegged position, sitting on a blanket across from the two Whites. “Go home, Measure,” said the Prophet.

  “Not without Alvin.”

  “Yes without Alvin,” said the Prophet. “If he stays in this part of the country, he will die.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What I saw with my eyes!” said the Prophet. “The things to come. If Alvin goes home now, he'll be dead in three days. But you go, Measure. Today in the afternoon is a very perfect time for you to go.”

  “What are you going to do with Alvin? You think he's going to be any safer with you?”

  “Not with me,” said the Prophet. “With my brother.”

  “This is all a stupid idea!” shouted Ta-Kumsaw.

  “My brother is going to make many visits. With the French at Detroit, with the Irrakwa, the Appalachee nation, with the Chok-Taw and the Cree-Ek, every kind of Red man, every kind of White who might stop a very bad war from happening.”

  "If I talk to Reds, Tenskwa-Tawa, I'll talk to them about coming to fight with me and drive the White men back across the mountains, back into their ships, back into the sea!

  "Talk about whatever you want, " said Tenskwa-Tawa. "But leave this afternoon, and take the White boy who walks like a Red man."

  “No,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

  Grief swept across Tenskwa-Tawa's face, and he moaned sharply. “Then all the land will die, not just a part. If you don't do what I say today, then White man will kill all the land, from one ocean to the other, from north to south, all the land dead! And Red men will die except a very few, who will live on tiny pieces of ugly desert land, like prisons, live there all their lives, because you did not obey what I saw in my vision!”

  “Ta-Kumsaw does not obey these mad visions! Ta-Kumsaw is the face of the land, the voice of the land! The redbird told me, and you know that, Lolla-Wossiky!”

  The Prophet whispered. “Lolla-Wossiky is dead.”

  "The voice of the land doesn't obey a one-eyed whisky-Red. "

  The Prophet was stung to the heart, but he kept his face impassive. “You are the voice of the land's anger. You will stand in battle against a mighty army of Whites. I tell you this will happen before the first snow falls. If the White boy Alvin is not with you, then you will die in defeat.”

  “And if he is with me?”

  “Then you will live,” said the Prophet.

  "I'm glad to go," said Alvin. When Measure started to argue, Alvin touched his arm. "You can tell Ma and Pa I'm all right. But I want to go. The Prophet told me, I can learn more from Ta-Kumsaw than any other man in the whole world. "

  “Then I'm going with you, too,” said Measure. “I gave my word to Pa and Ma both.”

  The Prophet looked coldly at Measure. “You will go back to your own people.”

  “Then Alvin comes with me.”

  “You are not the one who says,” the Prophet retorted.

  “And you are? Why, because your boys got all the arrows?”

  Ta-Kumsaw reached out, touched Measure on the shoulder. “You are not a fool, Measure. Someone has to go back and tell your people that you and Alvin aren't dead.”

  “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 Al.

  “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.