Red Prophet Page 0,113

felt something warm and wet and sticky on his hands. Some of them cried out when they saw. From elbow to hands, they dripped with blood. Some tried to wipe it off on their shirts. Some searched for wounds that might be bleeding, but there were no wounds. Just bloody hands.

"Do you want your hands to be clean of the blood of my people?" asked the Prophet. He wasn't shouting anymore, but they all heard him, every word. And yes, yes, they wanted their hands to be clean.

"Then go home and tell this story to your wives and children, to your neighbors, to your friends. Tell the whole story. Leave nothing out. Don't say that someone fooled you - you all knew when you fired on people who had no weapons that what you did was murder. No matter whether you thought some of us might have committed some crime. When you shot at babies in their mothers' anus, little children, old men and women, you were murdering us because we were Red. So tell the story as it happened, and if you tell it true, your hands will be clean."

There wasn't a man, on that meadow who wasn't weeping or trembling or faint with shame. To tell of this day's work to their wives and children, their parents, their brothers and sisters, that seemed unbearable. But if they didn't, these bloody hands would ten the story for them. It was more than they could bear to think of.

But the Prophet wasn't through. "If some stranger comes along, and you don't tell him the whole story before you sleep, then the blood will come back on your hands, and stay there until you do tell him. That's how it will be for the rest of your lives - every man and woman that you meet will have to hear the true story from your lips, or your hands will be filthy again. And if you ever, for any reason, kill another human being, then your hands and face will drip with blood forever, even in the grave."

They nodded, they agreed. It was justice, simple justice. They couldn't give back the lives of those they killed, but they could make sure no lie was ever told about the way that they were killed. No one could ever claim that Tippy-Canoe was a victory, or even a battle. It was a massacre, and White men committed it, and not one Red raised a hand in violence or defense. No excuse, no softening; it would be known.

Only one thing remained - the guilt of the man on the prancing stallion.

"White Murderer Harrison!" called the Prophet. "Come to me!"

Harrison shook his head, tried to turn his horse; the reins slipped from his bloody hands, and the horse walked briskly down the hill. All the White men watched him silently, hating him for how he lied to them, stirred them up, found the murder in their hearts and called it forth. The horse brought him to the water's edge. He looked downward at the one-eyed Red who had once sat under his table and begged for drops of whiskey from his cup.

"Your curse is the same," said the Prophet, "except that your story is much longer and uglier to tell. And you won't wait for strangers to come along before you speak - every day of your life you'll have to find someone who has never heard the story from your lips before, and tell it to him - every day! - or your hands will drip with blood. And if you decide to hide, and live with blood-soaked hands rather than find new people to tell, you'll feel the pain of my people's wounds, one new wound each day, until you tell the story again, once for every day you missed. Don't try to kill yourself, either - you can't do it. You'll wander from one end of this White man's land to the other. People will see you coming and hide, dreading the sound of your voice; you'll beg them to stop and listen to you. They'll even forget your old name, and call you by the name you earned today. Tippy-Canoe. That's your new name, White Murderer Harrison. Your true name, till you die a natural death as an old, old man."

Harrison bent onto the mane of the horse and wept into his bloody hands. But his were tears of fury, not grief or shame.