That Chased By Owls could have so many fighters would have been unthinkable even a year ago. He had begun his terror with perhaps twenty troops, not a few of them boys and old men. His early raids had been bloody but practical, the killing confined to the amount necessary to take the supplies his party needed. A sack of flour might cost one life—a beef cow, two or three.
But as he continued his attacks, renegades from every corner of the territory had rushed to join him, eager to serve the warrior who defied the whites. Members of tribes that had been enemies a hundred years formed uneasy alliances in pursuit of plunder and vengeance. Chased By Owls welcomed all into his band, commanding the hated Pawnee as well as the friendly Omaha. For the warriors, it meant food and pride and the spoils of victory. For the chief, it meant the death of the invaders who had turned the Indian into a diseased mendicant beholden to his enemies for the bread in his mouth.
Then came the incident at Bradley.
As he rode toward the meeting point Miles recalled the first time he had seen the settlement. It had been little more than a collection of tents and lean-tos, struggling against an autumn wind and echoing with the sound of hammers on nails. By his second visit, Bradley had begun to show the signs of a proper town. The tents were giving way to houses. The shops had put up signs, and a primitive newspaper had begun circulation. Franklin Stoves arrived from Chicago, and women kept peddlers busy haggling over a yard of gingham or the weight of a stockpot. The citizens had even voted to build a school and advertised in Baltimore for a teacher. The young woman who accepted the position would forever be grateful that her wedding delayed her arrival.
Then, two days ago, Miles paid his third visit to Bradley.
Even the day after the incident, the smoke was overpowering. Every tent and building lay ruined, consumed by the fires Chased By Owls now employed as his primary weapon. The soldiers coughed and pulled their bandannas tight; their horses’ hooves crunched over a carpet of fine black ash. Children as young as two were discovered alive in storm cellars; others crouched frozen in grief over the bodies of their dead parents. Miles’s new adjutant spurred his horse and deserted when he came upon a woman hanging halfway out her kitchen window, her crowning glory stripped from her skull.
Now, Miles rode out alone toward a depression in the plain—the agreed-upon place of meeting. He stood there perhaps an hour, then he saw four riders approaching.
Their flesh and their horses were a riot of color and pattern. One man appeared to be Pawnee, his hair cut in the “roach” style—shaved on the sides and full on the top—the opposite of a scalping. The porcupine quill beadwork on the breastplates of two of the men indicated that they might be Winnebago, although trade among the renegades had probably rendered any uniqueness of costume moot. In this army, the Ponca wore the jewelry of the Lakota; and the Lakota carried the shields of the Otoe.
Still, there was no mistaking the man at the center.
He sat tall. His clothing was covered with the tiny figures of his enemies. His face was painted blue around the eyes and nose and stark white below. Around his head he wore an explosion of eagle feathers, not set in the formal manner of the war bonnet, but stuck into a mass that made his head appear as large as a buffalo’s. His lips were stained blood-red. Even carrying a flag of truce, he looked like death come calling.
Leaving two of his companions, he bade one follow him. Together they galloped to the spot where Miles stood waiting.
“This is Big Both Ways,” he said. “He will say my words for me.”
Miles looked amused. “I thought Half Horse spoke for Chased By Owls.”
The tall brave smiled back. “I wished to be understood.”
The colonel shook his head and laughed. “A wise policy.”
“Apache Killer has aged much since our last meeting. Perhaps war no longer sits well with him—or maybe he is not getting enough attention from a woman. A man is like a horse, you know. If he is not ridden well and often, he pulls up lame.”
“Chased By Owls is remarkably the same,” Miles said. “He looks very much as he did the day I drove him across the Dismal River.”
Chased By Owls grinned. “I remember that battle. For instance, I recall that after that night, there were far fewer bluecoats than had awoken that morning. As to my vigor, I am nourished by the good food so generously provided by your soldiers and settlers and heartened by the sight of their blood on my land and their hair on my lance.”
Miles looked into the death-mask face. Moving slowly, he reached into a leather pouch and produced a document bearing the seal of the United States Senate.
“I have been sent today not to kill Chased By Owls or his men, but as a messenger of the president. He wishes to make a trade with Chased By Owls that he hopes will bring peace to both our peoples. I am charged to tell you the terms of this accommodation. Will Chased By Owls listen?”
“Apache Killer has his orders and I am a general. It would be against all rules of this parley not to allow him to carry them out. Only, my friend, please don’t read them. It grows cold and there are only so many hours in a day.”
“Very well,” Miles said. “I shall summarize. As of the signing of this document, the government of the United States provides Chief Chased By Owls an amnesty for him and all of his men. The bounty placed upon your heads will be removed. The death sentences called for over previous infractions will be lifted. In return, you and your followers will surrender any and all weapons, down to the last tomahawk. You will then be granted safe passage under the protection of the United States Army to the Quapaw reservation in the Oklahoma territory. There, you will join other tribes and work the land. Land and tools will be provided and all hostilities will cease.”
Chased By Owls rested his flag across the pommel of his saddle. “Is that all the paper says?”
Miles nodded.
“I appreciate that Apache Killer has come with this treaty. I know that in the course of killing many Indians he has become sympathetic to us. But like Chased By Owls, Apache Killer is a soldier. To do his duty he must have pride in his army and honor in his life. So tell me—what would he do if strangers came to his house and told him that it was now their house? What would he do if these strangers told him that he could stay on—but only as a slave in the cellar or a dog in the backyard? Would Apache Killer say yes to such a bargain, or would he take up his fine sword and hack the strangers in two?”
“To fight is a fine thing,” Miles said. “But Chased By Owls cannot fight alone and forever. Whether he or I like it, the whites will keep coming. More soldiers will come with them. Chased By Owls will watch his brave men die and in the end will die himself.”
“Better a corpse that killed a hundred whites than a farmer. Better dead than to hear your storytellers say that every Indian lay down and offered his ass to the white man. A thousand years from now, Chased By Owls wants there to be at least one good answer for the child who asks, did none of them fight back?”
Miles leaned forward in his saddle.
“When Standing Bear was on trial there were those among the whites who used you as a demon to terrify their fellows. They said that your chief must be sent to prison lest he go renegade as well—and that your bloodlust is the true nature of the Indian.”
The tall brave’s smile exploded into laughter.
“Chased By Owls thanks Apache Killer for his compliment. I am a demon. I have worked night and day to become one. As for Standing Bear, he may as well be a white man; only one of you could be so craven, so attached to this temporary earth. So I say let a white be tried in a white court. The judgment that awaits him in the next world will be far worse than anything you devils could impose in this one.”
Miles raised his flag above his head and clutched the reins of his horse. “I will inform my superiors of your refusal,” he said. “I will tell them Chased By Owls would rather die than live to see his children grown. This will, of course, make up their minds for them. They will hunt you down—you and
every man who offers you allegiance.”
Chased By Owls’s smile disappeared.
“Good! Tell them we welcome death—theirs as well as our own. Tell them we wish to meet the Wakanda as soon as possible and are happy to send them to the Man Nailed To A Tree. Tell them that they will see more fire from me on Earth than there is in their bible’s hell. And tell them I am waiting. Tell them that!”
The tall brave and his interpreter spurred their ponies in a wide circle and galloped hard back toward their camp, screaming. Miles looked after them until they disappeared into a copse of stunted trees, then turned his horse around and rode for his men. Tonight he would call retreat and they would try to make Kearney before they were overwhelmed.
In his mind, Nelson Miles saw the valley that had once cradled the settlement of Bradley. He could not see the town or camp that lay beneath the rise, only an angry red glow rising from it. As he dug his spurs into his mount, the picture multiplied in his brain until an entire civilization was ablaze in a fire of hatred. He kicked the mare again and again, but it was no use. Tonight, it seemed his horse could run a million miles and never reach home.
35
ISADOR HAMERSCHMIDT FIRST ARRIVED IN LONDON IN September of 1835. He carried one pound and ten shillings, a tourist visa, and the dream to be an artist—something impossible back in Tarnopol, the provincial capital of the region known as Galicia in Austria-Hungary.
He spent those first days trudging the city’s Jewish quarter, going door to door asking for work. Employ me, landsman, he had begged. I will stoke fires, black boots, pluck chickens, deliver any and all things. Some of the merchants were sympathetic, but had nothing for him; even more instantly banished the boy from their shops. Galicians were seen among many of their co-religionists as little better than gypsies—fools and knaves not to but trusted. Go away, they screamed. There is no place here for a thieving Galicianer! We left to get away from you! Go back and steal horses!
Isador’s first weeks in London were spent sleeping in the doorways of the East End and resorting to the behavior of which the Litvaks and Polacks and Daytchers had accused him. He stole enough to eat: an apple, a bottle of milk from a doorstep, a loaf of bread delivered too early to a restaurant.
Without work, he wandered. Every day he would rise from wherever he had slept and explore the strange new city. The new sights took his mind off his hunger and gave him visions of the pictures he would paint someday; besides, it was now November, and the long walks kept him warm.
One sunny afternoon, Isador wandered into the Bloomsbury district, a wealthier section of town than any he had yet seen. Ladies and gentlemen of the neighborhood floated past him in their high hats and parasols. As he made his way down Guilford Street, he stayed close to the walls of buildings, hoping to become a less visible target for the police.
At Southampton Row, he crossed to Russell Square. As he turned toward a series of low benches, he saw a knot of people pointing and smiling at something beyond his vision. He walked around to the far left of the crowd and looked down at the pavement.
He was amazed by what he saw.
A small, neatly dressed man in a dull topper and checked trousers lay on his hands and knees, a thick piece of chalk in his hand. Beneath him was a huge drawing of a race track: crowds in the stands, touts taking bets, proud thoroughbreds galloping toward the finish line. As Isador watched, the little artist busily filled in the sky, creating a cloudless block of blue. The onlookers nodded and shouted their approval at his work, suggesting he add some yellow to a jockey’s silks or red to the petals of a rose. At the top corner of the big creation sat a small leather box with the words “much obliged” written on it. As Isador looked on, members of the public dropped pennies into the box, sometimes two or even three at a time.
The next day, he returned to Bloomsbury with ten pieces of colored chalk he had bought for tuppence and a cardboard box rescued from a rubbish heap. He did not know what the words meant, but he wrote “much obliged” upon it. Finding a spot in the Conduit Fields near the Foundling Hospital, he began a drawing of a farm. By lunchtime, there was a barn, a windmill, and dozens of animals and birds. He managed to attract a small crowd and went back to his doorway that night with near eleven shillings. The next day, he drew a country fair—and a larger crowd—and fifteen shillings; the day after that, a joyous wedding party with bride, groom, vicar and a dozen attendants. This time, he earned eighteen shillings. Within a week, Isador had earned more than four pounds, rented a room, and bought a suit of clothes in keeping with his rising station.
His drawings drew regular spectators, but soon Isador began to notice that one patron returned nearly every day. The man was bearded and well dressed, wearing a bright silver waistcoat with a gold fob and a hat of the finest American beaver. The stranger watched his progress intently and then left after depositing thruppence in his box. Isador wanted to ask the man about his interest and generosity, but the words he had learned in English amounted to little more than “yes,” “no,” “thank you,” and “tea.”
After about a month, the man finally approached him.
“Landsman?”he said. “Redstu Yiddish?”
Isador grinned. “Yo. Ich redn Yiddish.”
The stranger smiled back. “Gut! I am very happy that we can speak together.”
“But how did you know I was a Jew?” Isador asked.
“You mumble as you work,” the man said. “And anyway, one Galicianer can always recognize another. I must tell you that your chalk drawings are the finest of any I have seen in London. I am especially impressed with your excellent lettering and calligraphy. The inscription you created for Westminster Abbey is a fair copy of the original. This is truly a rare skill—one worth far more than a sidewalk art monger can bring in. How’d you like to make some real money by your talent?”
Thus began Isador Hamerschmidt’s illustrious career as Britain’s greatest forger.
The stranger, whose name was Kristol, brought the young man to a large loft in Soho, where other young men sat at tables elbow to elbow, copying documents: wills; contracts; estate records; property settlements and indentures of all kinds in a dozen languages. After a short training period, Isador quickly distinguished himself as one of the operation’s finest. By the time he had been in the business a year, he had successfully falsified a royal land grant, a certificate of medical graduation, and a page from a “medieval” Hebrew Bible that sold at auction for a thousand pounds. He was also able to create for himself the Resident Alien visa and work papers that allowed him to remain in the kingdom of Victoria.
At night after work, Isador attended English and elocution lessons. On Sundays, he received instructions in etiquette from a Madame Mayakovsky, who specialized in helping immigrants learn the manners and mores of their new land.
Within two years, his accent had been trained away; within three, he had taken on the good British name of Ivor Hammersmith and opened an exclusive shop in Knightsbridge, offering rare prints and drawings on the first floor and the finest in false documents on the second. For nearly thirty years, he served both constituencies with distinction. He married the daughter of a prominent surgeon named Barrymore in a ceremony at St. Paul’s (his forged baptismal certificate was a wedding gift from Kristol), and both of his sons attended Cambridge, where one read mathematics, the other law.
Now, on a fine day in September, the bell above the shop door rang, and a young sales clerk rose to meet the customer. The man was tall and bearded, dressed all in dark blue and carrying a leather portfolio. As had been prearranged, the clerk led him through a cluttered back office filled with prints large and small. When they came to an ornate oak door, the clerk opened it, bowed, and announced the visitor.
“Mr. Alexander Herrmann, sir.”
Smiling, Ivor Hammersmith rose to greet his new patron. Over the past three decades, the artiste had gone from a gaunt refugee to a man of substance, carrying just enough excess to inspire confidence in his success. His su
it was of a rich, heavy gabardine, and a pair of golden pince-nez hung from a chain about his neck.
“This is indeed an honor, Professor Herrmann,” Hammersmith said. “I have lost count of the number of times I have enjoyed the marvelous phenomena that you so effortlessly create. In fact, I daresay I am even old enough to have seen your brother before you. Pray be seated.”
“Thank you,” Alexander said. “I must also compliment you on the excellent business you have built here. I have ordered many a fine print from Hammersmith for my homes in America. My guests often remark upon them with appreciation and, I am delighted to say, a little jealousy.”
Hammersmith chuckled. “That is a reaction we always appreciate.” He reached into the center drawer of his desk and pulled out a large writing tablet.
“And now, what wonders can Hammersmith & Company work for the great magician today?”
Alexander leaned forward in his chair. “I am in rather urgent need of a passport.”
“I see. For yourself, or someone else?”
“No, in this case, for a young lady who came into this country as one person and must, of necessity, leave as another.”
“I understand. Would you be so kind as to provide me with the name by which the lady now goes?”
“I am afraid the spelling may prove both unusual and difficult,” Alexander said, “but she is currently known as Her Royal Highness Princess Noor-Al-Haya.”
Hammersmith’s pen came to a dead stop above the cream-colored paper.
“Of course. Who has not heard of the exotic princess? Then am I to understand that your celebrated assistant wishes something by which she may travel incognito?”
Alex’s face darkened. “Unfortunately, my dear Hammersmith, her highness’s wishes have little to do with this request. I have deemed it essential that she return to the United States under her original identity; and for this she will need a document the quality of which only you can provide.”
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