Red Prophet Page 0,83

goes home now, he'll be dead in three days. But you go, Measure. Today in the afternoon is a very perfect time for you to go."

"What are you going to do with Alvin? You think he's going to be any safer with you?"

"Not with me," said the Prophet. "With my brother."

"This is all a stupid idea!" shouted Ta-Kumsaw.

"My brother is going to make many visits. With the French at Detroit, with the Irrakwa, the Appalachee nation, with the Chok-Taw and the Cree-Ek, every kind of Red man, every kind of White who might stop a very bad war from happening."

"If I talk to Reds, Tenskwa-Tawa, I'll talk to them about coming to fight with me and drive the White men back across the mountains, back into their ships, back into the sea!

"Talk about whatever you want, " said Tenskwa-Tawa. "But leave this afternoon, and take the White boy who walks like a Red man."

"No," said Ta-Kumsaw.

Grief swept across Tenskwa-Tawa's face, and he moaned sharply. "Then all the land will die, not just a part. If you don't do what I say today, then White man will kill all the land, from one ocean to the other, from north to south, all the land dead! And Red men will die except a very few, who will live on tiny pieces of ugly desert land, like prisons, live there all their lives, because you did not obey what I saw in my vision!"

"Ta-Kumsaw does not obey these mad visions! Ta-Kumsaw is the face of the land, the voice of the land! The redbird told me, and you know that, Lolla-Wossiky!"

The Prophet whispered. "Lolla-Wossiky is dead."

"The voice of the land doesn't obey a one-eyed whisky-Red. "

The Prophet was stung to the heart, but he kept his face impassive. "You are the voice of the land's anger. You will stand in battle against a mighty army of Whites. I tell you this will happen before the first snow falls. If the White boy Alvin is not with you, then you will die in defeat."

"And if he is with me?"

"Then you will live," said the Prophet.

"I'm glad to go," said Alvin. When Measure started to argue, Alvin touched his arm. "You can tell Ma and Pa I'm all right. But I want to go. The Prophet told me, I can learn more from Ta-Kumsaw than any other man in the whole world. "

"Then I'm going with you, too," said Measure. "I gave my word to Pa and Ma both."

The Prophet looked coldly at Measure. "You will go back to your own people."

"Then Alvin comes with me."

"You are not the one who says," the Prophet retorted.

"And you are? Why, because your boys got all the arrows?"

Ta-Kumsaw reached out, touched Measure on the shoulder. "You are not a fool, Measure. Someone has to go back and tell your people that you and Alvin aren't dead."

"If I leave him behind, how do I know he ain't dead, tell me that?"

"You know," said Ta-Kumsaw, "because I say that while I live no Red man will hurt this boy."

"And while he's with you, nobody can hurt you, either, is that it? My little brother's a hostage, that's all - "

Measure could see that Ta-Kumsaw and Tenskwa-Tawa were both about as mad as they could be without killing him, and he knew he was so mad he was ready to break his hand on somebody's face. And it might've come to that, too, except Alvin stood up, all ten years and sixty inches of him, and took charge.

"Measure, you know better than anybody that I can take care of myself. You just tell Pa and Ma about what I did with them Chok-Taw, and they'll see that I'm fit. They were sending me off anyway, weren't they? To be a prentice to blacksmith. Well, I'm going to serve as prentice for a little while to Ta-Kumsaw, that's all. And everybody knows that except for maybe Tom Jefferson, Ta-Kumsaw is the greatest man in America. If I can somehow keep Ta-Kumsaw alive, then that's my duty. And if you can stop a war from happening by going home, then that's your duty. Don't you see?"

Measure did see, right enough, and he even agreed. But he also knew that he was going to have to face his parents. "There's a story in the Bible, about Joseph, the son of Jacob. He was his father's favorite son, but his brothers hated him and sold him into slavery, and then they took some of his