He heard a ball whiz past his head. They must have stopped riding to reload and take better aim.
Another ball smashed into the boat just ahead of the wooden oarlock.
His body was coated with the cold sweat of fear. There was nothing he could do but sit here, a target in the moonlight, and pull on the oars with all his strength. If he missed one stroke it might be his death.
_Earthmaker, do not let Raoul take revenge on Frank._
Pistol b.a.l.l.s splashed water into the boat.
11
Redbird"s Wickiup
White Bear rowed upstream on the Ioway River past stands of weeping willow whose yellowing fronds drooped into the dark green water. Even though the current was at its weakest now, his arms and shoulders felt as if they"d been beaten with clubs. If only Frank had been able to find a canoe for him instead of this heavy bateau that he"d had to push across the Great River and now up the Ioway.
His heart fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird as he sensed himself coming closer to the British Band"s winter hunting camp. He had thought he would be happy at this homecoming, but he was terrified.
How would they receive him? After six years they must think he had forgotten all about them. Would they despise him? Maybe they would just make fun of him.
And in what state would he find the British Band? They"d had to get through the summer without the crops they always raised. Had any friends been shot by white snipers during the siege of Saukenuk? How many, weakened by hunger, might be ill or dead? Would his mother be alive?
And what of Redbird?
He had already met, just by chance, one member of the band, Three Horses, who had been fishing in the shallows on the Ioway sh.o.r.e of the Great River. And Three Horses had certainly been happy to see him. He"d jumped on his pony and had said he would ride back to the camp with the news that White Bear was back. He was so excited that he did not wait for White Bear to ask any questions about how his people had fared.
So they would all be waiting for him by the time he got there. The thought frightened him all the more.
Ahead, a row of bark and dugout canoes lay bottoms up on a dirt embankment.
He saw a flash of red in the trees near the canoes. For a moment he thought, with a joyous leap of his heart, that it might be Redbird. Then a man wearing a deep red blanket stepped out of the woods. He stood over the beached canoes with his arms folded.
Wolf Paw.
His eyes were like splinters of coal, and the black circles he had painted around them gave him a terrifying aspect. The crest of red-dyed deer hair that sprouted from his shaven skull seemed strange and savage to White Bear after six years away from the Sauk.
White Bear rowed in close to the riverbank, uncertain how to greet Wolf Paw. The brave said nothing, did nothing. A maple branch swayed in the wind. Red leaves fell, and sunlight flashed from a steel-headed tomahawk that Wolf Paw was holding.
White Bear"s belly knotted.
He skidded the boat to a halt on the bank a short distance downriver from Wolf Paw. He climbed out the front end, pulled the boat up on the bank, unloaded it and turned it over.
Wolf Paw watched in silence as White Bear slung his pack and bags on his back, picked up his rifle and rested it on his shoulder. Looking at Wolf Paw"s red crest and blanket and buckskin trousers, White Bear realized how strange he himself must seem to Wolf Paw in the green clawhammer jacket he had worn to his father"s funeral.
Now they were face to face.
_I will wait for him to move, if I have to stand here till sunset and all through the night. He chose this strange way of meeting me. Let him show me what is in his mind._
He heard the boughs creaking in the wind around him. River water rippled over the stones along the bank. He heard a redbird whistling in the distance.
Wolf Paw drew a deep breath, opened his mouth and let out a war whoop.
"_Whoowhoowhoowhoo!_"
White Bear"s heart gave a great thump, and he fell back a step. He heard rage in the whoop, and the frustration. Wolf Paw was angry at him. Why?
Maybe just for coming back.
Wolf Paw held the tomahawk high. Corded muscles and dark veins stood out in his rigid arm. Two feathers dyed red danced just under the steel head. He repeated his war whoop, and then his lips drew back from clenched white teeth.
He whirled and plunged into the woods, leaving White Bear shaken and open-mouthed. He stood still, listening to Wolf Paw crashing through the trees and shrubs, kicking piles of leaves, until the noise died away in the distance. No Sauk ran noisily through the woods like that, unless driven by some madness.
White Bear sighed. Oddly, he felt less frightened than he had before he met Wolf Paw. Before, he had not known what to expect. Now he felt ready for anything.
He strode into the woods following Three Horses" directions. As he walked he began to hear the sounds of people"s voices and dogs barking.
Gradually they drew nearer, until at last he broke through the trees into a clearing.
The sight made his eyes brim with tears.
A hundred or more women in brown, fringed skirts were facing him, and as he came forward they rushed to form a ring around him. His vision blurred as he recognized faces he had not seen in six years.
Beyond the women he could see the camp of the British Band. In his joy it seemed to him that the wickiups were bathed in a golden light. Rings of gray domes began near the trees where he stood and spread into the tall yellow prairie gra.s.s. Before the wickiups he could see what the women had been working at, tasks abandoned for the moment, clothing being mended, skins stretched, meat and fish cleaned and set on frames to dry.
"White Bear is here!" cried one woman, and he recognized Water Flows Fast, plump wife of Three Horses.
Three Horses, a short man with broad shoulders, stood beside his wife.
His nose was flat and spread out. White Bear did not remember it that way. Something must have happened to Three Horses while he was gone.
_Much has happened to them while I was gone._
"I told you White Bear had come back," Three Horses said over and over again.
White Bear breathed in the familiar smells of campfire smoke and roasting meat, of leather and freshly cut wood and tobacco smoke. His delighted eyes took in quillwork and beadwork and paint, blankets and ribbons, bodies clad in fringed buckskin, warm brown faces, dark, friendly eyes.
Murmuring greetings, he searched the crowd for specially loved faces.
"Where is Owl Carver?" he asked. After such a long time the Sauk language came awkwardly to his lips.
Three Horses said, "Owl Carver visits the camps of the Fox and the Kickapoo, to invite them to Black Hawk"s council."
_What is Black Hawk planning now?_
White Bear did not like the sound of the news, but there would be time to think about it later.
"Where is Sun Woman, my mother?"
Water Flows Fast spoke up. "She has gone to gather medicine plants." She looked as cheerful as, he remembered, she always had, but her eyes penetrated him.