Red Prophet Page 0,57

if he died, it wouldn't be awful at all. Just different, and maybe better.

So when his ma went on and on about the Reds and how dangerous it was and how they ought get killed, he didn't give no heed. Not because he thought that she was wrong, but because he didn't much care whether he died or not.

Well, no, that wasn't quite so. He had a lot of things to do, though he didn't know yet what they were, and so he'd be annoyed about dying. He sure didn't plan to die. It just didn't fill him up with fear like it did some folks.

Al's big brother Measure was trying to get Ma to ease off and not get herself all worked up. "We'll be all right, Mama," said Measure. "All the trouble's down south, and we'll be on good roads all the way."

"Folks disappear every week on those good roads," she said. "Those French up in Detroit are buying scalps, they don't never let up on that, don't matter one bit what Ta-Kumsaw and his savages are doing, it only takes one arrow to kill you - "

"Ma," said Measure. "If you're a-scared of Reds getting us, you ought to want us to go. I mean there's ten thousand Reds at least living in Prophetstown right across the river. It's the biggest city west of Philadelphia right now, and every one of them is a Red. We're getting away from Reds by going east - "

"That one-eyed Prophet don't worry me," she said. "He never talks about killing. I just think you shouldn't - "

"It don't matter what you think," said Pa.

Ma turned to face him. He'd been slopping the hogs out back, but now he was come around to say good-bye.

'Don't you tell me it don't matter what I - "

"It don't matter what I think, neither," said Pa. "It don't matter what anybody thinks, and you know it."

"Then I don't see why the good Lord gave us brains, then; if that's how things are, Alvin Miller!"

"Al's going east to Hatrack River to. be an apprentice blacksmith," said Pa. "I'll miss him, you'll miss him, everybody except maybe Reverend Thrower is going to miss the boy, but the papers are signed and Al Junior is going. So instead of jawing how you don't want them to go, kiss the boys good-bye and wave them off."

If Pa'd been milk she would've curdled him on the spot, she gave him such a look. "I'll kiss my boys, and I'll wave them off," she said. "I don't need you to tell me that. I don't need you to tell me anything."

"I reckon not," said Pa. "But I'll tell you anyway, and I reckon you'll return the favor, just like you always done." He reached up a hand to shake with Measure, saying good-bye like a man does. "You get him there safe and come right back," he told Measure.

"You know I will," said Measure.

"Your ma's right, it's dangerous every step of the way, so keep your eyes open. We named you right, you got such keen eyes, boy, so use them."

"I will, Pa."

Ma said her good-bye to Measure while Pa came on over to Al. He gave Al a good stinging slap on the leg and shook his hand, too, and that felt good, Pa treating him like a man, just like Measure. Maybe if Al wasn't sitting up on a horse, Pa would've roughed his hair like a little boy, but then maybe he wouldn't have, either, and it still felt grown-up, all the same.

"I ain't scared of the Reds," said Al. He spoke real soft, so Ma wouldn't hear. "But I sure wish I didn't have to go."

"I know it, Al," said Pa. "But you got to. For your own good."

Then Pa got that faraway sad look on his face, which Al Junior had seen before more than once, and never understood. Pa was a strange man. It took Al a long time to realize that, since for the longest time while Al was just little, Pa was Pa, and he didn't try to understand him.

Now Al was getting older, and he began to compare his father to the other men around. To Armor-of-God Weaver, for instance, the most important man in town, always talking about peace with the Red man, sharing the land with him, mapping out Red lands and White lands - everybody listened to him with respect. Nobody listened to Pa that way, considering