Red Prophet Page 0,90

and they couldn't see a thing from the house at all. It was bare-hands digging, but this was rich Wobbish soil. He'd come out looking more like a Black than a Red, but he didn't much care.

Trouble was, the back wall wasn't dirt, it was wood. They'd walled it in, right to the bottom. Tidy folks. The floor was dirt, all right. But that meant digging down under the wall before he could tunnel up. Instead of being something he could do overnight it'd take days. And any time, they might catch him digging. Or just plain drag him out and shoot him. Or maybe even bring back them Chok-Taws, to do what they started - leave him looking like Ta-Kumsaw and the Prophet had him tortured. All possible.

Home wasn't ten miles away. That's what plain drove him crazy. So close to home, and they didn't even guess it, had no idea they ought to come to help. He remembered that torch girl from Hatrack River, years ago, the one who saw them stuck in the river and sent help. That's who I need right now, I need me a torch, somebody who'd find me and send h6p.

But that wasn't too likely. Not for Measure. If it was Alvin, now, there'd be eight miracles, whatever it took to get him out safe. But for Measure, there'd be just whatever he could work up for hisself.

He broke a fingernail half off in the first ten minutes of digging. The pain was real bad, and he knew he was bleeding. If they dragged him out now, they'd know he was making a tunnel. But it was his only chance. So he kept digging, pain and all, every now and then stopping to toss out a potato that rolled down into the hole.

Pretty soon he took off his loincloth and used it in his work. He'd loosen up the soil with his hands, then pile it onto the cloth and use that to hoist it up out of the hole. It wasn't as good as having a spade, but it sure beat moving the dirt out one handful at a time. What did he have, days? Hours?

Chapter 11 - Red Boy

It wasn't an hour after Measure left. Ta-Kumsaw stood atop a dune, the White boy Alvin beside him. And in front of him, Tenskwa-Tawa. Lolla-Wossiky. His brother, the boy who once cried for the death of bees. A prophet, supposedly. Speaking the will of the land, supposedly. Speaking words of cowardice, surrender, defeat, destruction.

"This is the oath of the land at peace," said the Prophet. "To take none of the White man's weapons, none of the White man's tools, none of the White man's clothing, none of the White man's food, none of the White man's drink, and none of the White man's promises. Above all, never to take a life that doesn't offer itself to die.

The Reds who heard him had heard it all before, as had Ta-Kumsaw. Most of those who had come to Mizogan with them had already refused the Prophet's covenant of weakness. They took a different oath, the oath of the land's anger, the oath that Ta-Kumsaw offered them. Every White must live under Red man's law, or leave the land, or die. A White man's weapons can be used, but only to defend Reds against murder and theft. No Red man will torture or kill a prisoner - man, woman, or child. Above all, the death of no Red will go unavenged.

Ta-Kumsaw knew that if all the Reds of America took his oath, they could still defeat the White man. Whites had only made such inroads because the Reds could never unite under one leader. The Whites could always ally themselves with a tribe or two, who would lead them through the trackless forest and help them find their enemy. If Reds had not turned renegade - like the unspeakable Irrakwa, the half-White Cherriky - then the White man could not have survived here in the land. They would have been swallowed up, lost, as had happened to every other group that came from the old world.

When the Prophet finished his challenge, there were only a handful who took his oath, who would go back with him. He seemed sad, Ta-Kumsaw thought. Weighed down. He turned his back on the ones who remained - on the warriors, who would fight the White man.

"Those men are yours," said the Prophet.