Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II (4 page)

“Since I appreciate your already having this man in custody when I arrived,” said Jackson, “I am glad to tell you that under Appalachee law the apprehending officer is entitled to ten percent of the funds collected.”

Harrison leaned back in his chair and grinned at Hooch. “Well, Hooch, maybe you better set down and let’s all get better acquainted. Or I guess maybe we don’t have to, since Mr. Jackson here seems to know you better than I did.”

“Oh, I know Ulysses Brock all right,” said Jackson. “He’s just the sort of skunk we had to get rid of in Tennizy before we could lay claim to being civilized. And I expect you’ll be rid of his sort soon enough here, too, as you get the Wobbish country ready to apply for admission to the United States.”

“You take a lot for granted,” said Harrison. “We might try to go it alone out here, you know.”

“If Appalachee couldn’t make a go of it alone, with Tom Jefferson as President, you won’t do any better here, I reckon.”

“Well maybe,” said Harrison, “just maybe we’ve got to do something that Tom Jefferson didn’t have the guts to do. And maybe we’ve got a need for men like Hooch here.”

“What you have need for is soldiers,” said Jackson. “Not rummers.”

Harrison shook his head. “You’re a man who forces me to come to the point, Mr. Jackson, and I can calculate right enough why the folks in Tennizy sent you on up here to meet with me. So I’ll come to the point. We’ve got the
same trouble up here that you’ve got down there, and that trouble can be summed up in one word: Reds.”

“Which is why I’m perplexed that you let drunken Reds sit around here in your own headquarters. They all belong west of the Mizzipy, and that’s as plain as day. We won’t have peace and we won’t have civilization until that’s done. And since Appalachee and the U.S. alike are convinced that Reds can be treated like human beings, we’ve got to solve our Red problem
before
we join the Union. It’s as simple as that.”

“Well, you see?” said Harrison. “We already agree completely.”

“Then why is it that you keep your headquarters as full of Reds as Independence Street in Washington City? They have Cherriky men acting as clerks and even holding government offices in Appalachee, right in the capital, jobs that White men ought to have, and then I come here and find you keep Reds around you, too.”

“Cool down, Mr. Jackson, cool right down. Don’t the King keep his Blacks there in his palace in Virginia?”

“His Blacks are slaves. Everybody knows you can’t make slaves out of Reds. They aren’t intelligent enough to be properly trained.”

“Well, you just set yourself there in that chair, Mr. Jackson, and I’ll make my point the best way I know how, by showing you two prime Shaw-Nee specimens. Just set down.”

Jackson picked up the chair and moved it to the opposite side of the room from Hooch. It made something gnaw in Hooch’s gut, the way Jackson acted. Men like Jackson were so upright and honest-seeming, but Hooch knew that there wasn’t no such thing as a good man, just a man who wasn’t bought yet, or wasn’t in deep enough trouble, or didn’t have the guts to reach out and take what he wanted. That’s all that virtue ever boiled down to, so far as Hooch ever saw in his life. But here was Jackson, putting on airs and calling for Bill Harrison to arrest him! Think of that, a stranger from Tennizy country coming up here and waving around a warrant from an Appalachee judge, of all things, which didn’t have no more force in Wobbish country than if it was written by the King of
Ethiopia. Well, Mr. Jackson, it’s a long way home from here, and we’ll just see if you don’t have some kind of accident along the way.

No, no, no, Hooch told himself silently. Getting even don’t amount to nothing in this world. Getting even only gets you behind. The best revenge is to get rich enough to make them all call you sir, that’s how you get even with these boys. No bushwhacking. If you ever get a name for bushwhacking, that’s the end of you, Hooch Palmer.

So Hooch sat there and smiled, as Harrison called for his aide. “Why don’t you invite Lolla-Wossiky in here? And while you’re at it, tell his brother he can come in, too.”

Lolla-Wossiky’s brother—had to be the defiant Red who was standing up against the wall. Funny, how two peas from the same pod could grow up so different.

Lolla-Wossiky came in fawning, smiling, looking quickly from one White face to the next, wondering what they wanted, how he could make them happy enough to reward him with whisky. It was written all over him, how thirsty he was, even though he was already so drunk he didn’t walk straight. Or had he already drunk so much likker that he couldn’t walk straight even when he was sober? Hooch wondered—but soon enough he knew the answer. Harrison reached into the bureau behind him and took out a jug and a cup. Lolla-Wossiky watched the brown liquid splash into the cup, his one eye so intense it was like he could taste the likker by vision alone. But he didn’t take even a single step toward the cup. Harrison reached out and set the cup on the table near the Red, but still the man stood there, smiling, looking now at the cup, now at Harrison, waiting, waiting.

Harrison turned to Jackson and smiled. “Lolla-Wossiky is just about the most civilized Red in the whole Wobbish country, Mr. Jackson. He never takes things that don’t belong to him. He never speaks except when spoken to. He obeys and does whatever I tell him. And all he ever asks in return is just a cup of liquid. Doesn’t even have to be good likker. Corn whisky or bad Spanish rum are just fine with him, isn’t that right, Lolla-Wossiky?”

“Very so right, Mr. Excellency,” said Lolla-Wossiky.
His speech was surprisingly clear, for a Red. Especially a drunken Red.

Hooch saw Jackson study the one-eyed Red with disgust. Then the Tennizy lawyer’s gaze shifted to the door, where the tall, strong, defiant Red was standing. Hooch enjoyed watching Jackson’s face. From disgust, his expression plainly changed to anger. Anger and, yes, fear. Oh, yes, you aren’t fearless, Mr. Jackson. You know what Lolla-Wossiky’s brother is. He’s your enemy, and my enemy, the enemy of every White man who ever wants to have this land, because sometime this uppity Red is going to put his tommy-hawk in your head and peel off your scalp real slow, and he won’t sell it to no Frenchman, neither, Mr. Jackson, he’ll keep it and give it to his children, and say to them, “This is the only good White man. This is the only White man who doesn’t break his word. This is what you do to White men.” Hooch knew it, Harrison knew it, and Jackson knew it. That young buck by the door was death. That young buck was White men forced to live east of the mountains, all crammed into the old towns with all their lawyers and professors and high-toned people who never gave you room to breathe. People like Jackson himself, in fact. Hooch gave one snort of laughter at that idea. Jackson was exactly the sort of man that folks moved west to get away from. How far west will I have to go before the lawyers lose the trail and get left behind?

“I see you’ve noticed Ta-Kumsaw. Lolla-Wossiky’s older brother, and my very, very dear friend. Why, I’ve known that lad since before his father died. Look what a strong buck he’s grown into!”

If Ta-Kumsaw noticed how he was being ridiculed, he showed no sign of it. He looked at no person in the room. Instead he looked out the window on the wall behind the governor. Didn’t fool Hooch, though. Hooch knew what he was watching, and had a pretty good idea what Ta-Kumsaw was feeling, too. These Reds, they took family real serious. Ta-Kumsaw was secretly watching his brother, and if Lolla-Wossiky was too likkered up to feel any shame, that just meant Ta-Kumsaw would feel it all the more.

“Ta-Kumsaw,” said Harrison. “You see I’ve poured a drink for you. Come, sit down and drink, and we can talk.”

At Harrison’s words, Lolla-Wossiky went rigid. Was it possible that the drink wasn’t for him, after all? But Ta-Kumsaw did not twitch, did not show any sign that he heard.

“You see?” said Harrison to Jackson. “Ta-Kumsaw isn’t even civilized enough to sit down and have a convivial drink with friends. But his younger brother is civilized, isn’t he? Aren’t you, Lolly? I’m sorry I don’t have a chair for you, my friend, but you can sit on the floor under my table here, sit right at my feet, and drink this rum.”

“You are remarkable kind,” said Lolla-Wossiky in that clear, precise speech of his. To Hooch’s surprise, the one-eyed Red did not scramble for the cup. Instead he walked carefully, each step a labor of precision, and took the cup between only slightly trembling hands. Then he knelt down before Harrison’s table and, still balancing the cup, sank into a seated position, his legs crossed.

But he was still out in front of the table, not under it, and Harrison pointed this out to him. “I’d like you to sit under my table,” said the governor. “I’d regard it as a great courtesy to me if you would.”

So Lolla-Wossiky bent his head almost down into his lap and waddled on his buttocks until he was under the table. It was very hard for him to drink in that position, since he couldn’t lift his head straight up, let alone tip it back to drain the cup. But he managed anyway, drinking carefully, rocking from one side to the other.

All this time, Ta-Kumsaw said nary a word. Didn’t even show that he saw how his brother was being humiliated. Oh, thought Hooch, oh, the fire that burns in that boy’s heart. Harrison’s taking a real risk here. Besides, if he’s Lolla-Wossiky’s brother, he must know Harrison shot his daddy during the Red uprisings back in the nineties sometime, when General Wayne was fighting the French. A man doesn’t forget that kind of thing, especially a Red man, and here Harrison was testing him, testing him right to the limit.

“Now that everybody’s comfortable,” said Harrison,
“why don’t you set down and tell us what you came for, Ta-Kumsaw.”

Ta-Kumsaw didn’t sit. Didn’t close the door, didn’t take a step farther into the room. “I speaking for Shaw-Nee, Caska-Skeeaw, Pee-Orawa, Winny-Baygo.”

“Now, Ta-Kumsaw, you know that you don’t even speak for all the Shaw-Nee, and you sure don’t speak for the others.”

“All tribes who sign General Wayne’s treaty.” Ta-Kumsaw went on as if Harrison hadn’t said a thing. “Treaty says Whites don’t sell whisky to Reds.”

“That’s right,” said Harrison. “And we’re keeping that treaty.”

Ta-Kumsaw didn’t look at Hooch, but he lifted his hand and pointed at him. Hooch felt the gesture as if Ta-Kumsaw had actually touched him with that finger. It didn’t make him mad this time, it plain scared him. He heard that some Reds had a come-hither so strong that didn’t no hex protect you, so they could lure you off into the woods alone and slice you to bits with their knives, just to hear you scream. That’s what Hooch thought of, when he felt Ta-Kumsaw point to him with hatred.

“Why are you pointing at my old friend Hooch Palmer?” asked Harrison.

“Oh, I reckon nobody likes me today,” Hooch said. He laughed, but it didn’t dispel his fear after all.

“He bring his flatboat of whisky,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

“Well, he brought a lot of things,” said Harrison. “But if he brought whisky, it’ll be delivered to the sutler here in the fort and not a drop of it will be sold to the Reds, you can be sure. We uphold that treaty, Ta-Kumsaw, even though you Reds aren’t keeping it too good lately. It’s got so flatboats can’t travel alone down the Hio no more, my friend, and if things don’t let up, I reckon the army’s going to have to take some action.”

“Burn a village?” asked Ta-Kumsaw. “Shoot down our babies? Our old people? Our women?”

“Where do you get these ideas?” said Harrison. He sounded downright offended, even though Hooch knew right well that Ta-Kumsaw was describing the typical army operation.

Hooch spoke right up, in fact. “You Reds burn out helpless farmers in their cabins and pioneers on their flat-boats, don’t you? So why do you figure your villages should be any safer, you tell me that!”

Ta-Kumsaw still didn’t look at him. “English law says, Kill the man who steals your land, you are not bad. Kill a man to steal his land, and you are very bad. When we kill White farmers, we are not bad. When you kill Red people who live here a thousand years, you are very bad. Treaty says, stay all east of My-Ammy River, but they don’t stay, and you help them.”

“Mr. Palmer here spoke out of turn,” said Harrison. “No matter what you savages do to our people—torturing the men, raping the women, carrying off the children to be slaves—we don’t make war on the helpless. We are civilized, and so we behave in a civilized manner.”

“This man will sell his whisky to Red men. Make them lie in dirt like worms. He will give his whisky to Red women. Make them weak like bleeding deer, do all things he says.”

“If he does, we will arrest him,” said Harrison. “We will try him and punish him for breaking the law.”

“If he does, you
not
will arrest him,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “You will share pelts with him. You will keep him safe.”

“Don’t call me a liar,” said Harrison.

“Don’t lie,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

“If you go around talking to White men like this, Ta-Kumsaw, old boy, one of them’s going to get real mad at you and blast your head off.”

“Then I know you will arrest him. I know you will try him and punish him for breaking the law.” Ta-Kumsaw said it without cracking a smile, but Hooch had traded with the Reds enough to know their kind of joke.

Harrison nodded gravely. It occurred to Hooch that Harrison might not realize it was a joke. He might think Ta-Kumsaw actually believed it. But no, Harrison knew he and Ta-Kumsaw was lying to each other; and it came into Hooch’s mind that when both parties are lying and they both know the other party’s lying, it comes powerful close to being the same as telling the truth.

What was really hilarious was that Jackson actually
did
believe all this stuff. “That’s right,” said the Tennizy lawyer. “Rule of law is what separates civilized men from savages. Red men just aren’t advanced enough yet, and if you aren’t willing to be subject to White man’s law, you’ll just have to make way.”

For the first time, Ta-Kumsaw looked one of them in the eye. He stared coldly at Jackson and said, “These men are liars. They know what is true, but they say it is not true. You are not a liar. You believe what you say.”