The four Kickapoo strangers approached the fire and dropped the deer they’d carried across their shoulders. Men from the expedition hastened to the carcasses, ready to clean and dress them. They had been so busy negotiating the river and the rapids, and exploring the shore, that they had settled for dried meat as their dinner, but fresh venison was far preferable.
Leaving the offerings, the Kickapoo walked around the fire, carrying themselves with immense dignity, their bronze faces set in impenetrable calm. The front man wore a cloak with as much style as any European ruler would have worn it. His hair was long, smooth and black, hanging all the way down his back; from the front he wore a sort of feather bonnet. Not in regular arrangement, like what Meriwether had seen the Cherokees wear. This headdress was a riotous affair, as if someone had put feathers willy-nilly, like flowers stuffed at random into a too small vase. The feathers ranged from black to bright red, and were of varying lengths, giving the effect of having grown in a tumult from the man’s head.
Meriwether had seen more bizarre fashions worn by women in Richmond; this was an odd and elaborate look, which suggested the man must be a person of some importance. As though to emphasize this, his three companions flanked him, one on either side, and one at the back. The two to the sides also wore deerskin cloaks, but they were shorter and didn’t convey the same momentous dignity as their leader’s. Their bonnets had fewer feathers, though the man on the right compensated with some sort of projections of embroidered fabric. The man at the rear wore a hat of brightly dyed fur, topped by an enormous feather.
Treating them with respect, Meriwether rose to greet them, pleased to see that Clark joined him. When the visitors spoke, he realized they would not speak English or even the French, which Meriwether only marginally understood. Their words had only faint echoes of the languages he’d learned from the common tribes in the east.
“Flynn!” He called to another young man, Pryor’s cousin, whom he judged to be most reliable among the various hirelings. Flynn had been keeping track of the translators or fur trappers who had joined the expedition. “We need someone to translate.”
Soon, a man of mixed race rushed forward to the campfire. Jean Baptiste LePage wore a hunting outfit similar to that worn by many men in the expedition, but he looked flustered, as though not sure of his place in the force. He bowed to Meriwether and Clark, then turned to the four Kickapoo. Meriwether saw his eyes widen, and he bowed hastily. He spoke to the visitors, introduced himself and the expedition leaders. The leader of the natives spoke in measured words, and LePage translated the introductions in turn. “These are Wagohaw, Plecheah, Kechemaqua, and Katewah, chiefs of the vermillion band of the Kickapoo. They bring you greetings, and an offering of meat to demonstrate their peaceful intentions.”
Clark formally introduced himself and Meriwether, thanking the visitors for the deer, finishing the pleasantries. The leader of the Kickapoo, Kechemaqua, spoke at some length with gestures.
Every time LePage seemed about to translate, the stranger would continue. Meriwether hoped the translator could hold in his mind everything that the visiting chief had said.
At length the speaker fell silent and looked intently at Meriwether. LePage closed his eyes like a child in Sunday school preparing to recite his lessons. “This is what Kechemaqua says. Listen as if Wisaca himself were speaking, and as though I had ridden the vulture above the sky, to see from there.
“Since the time of my father, we have seen the legends come to life, the stories our ancestors told, about Nenemehkia who lives in the sky and creates thunder and lightning. We always thought these were stories told to children, or stories of things that only shamans could see, but they have come true before our eyes. I, myself, Kechemaqua of the Kickapoo, have seen them. I have sat with such legends around the fire, in their human form, as I sit with you.
“But now there is something new in this land, something that the Kickapoos do not know. Some say the spirit of the land is outraged at the invasion of white men, and it is wounded by the intrusion of white magic. The spirits of our land are wakening and do damage or good according to their nature. The Manetoa, the great serpents of seas and rivers, have drowned many children lately.” LePage nodded gravely as he recited what he had heard.
“Worse, some tribes are taken, to serve…someone. We don’t know whom, but we know that his reach increases day by day and moment by moment until he reaches the very edge of white settlements. Those of us who do not wish to be ruled by him are fugitives, like rabbits running before the wolf.”
LePage squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as if by an effort he could see the words, internally. “But he carries a wrongness inside, a quality that is not in the mind of Kechi Manito. The Great Spirit would not approve of taking the minds of warriors, or the sanity of women. It would not approve of destroying children from within so they are nothing but willing puppets to this creature who grows in evil power. The Great Spirit would not approve of making the dead walk again so they can serve as slaves. And Kechi Manito doesn’t want the deer and the birds placed under deadly spells.
“Those of us who wish to stop this force from taking over and enslaving our land have been attacked by all manner of creatures, even squirrels and—” LePage paused, and said, “I have no words, Captain—some creatures that live in burrows in the ground and look like little dogs? He says: And this great evil one has a form that is like the Manetoa, but has wings, a monster that swoops in to burn the encampments of those who won’t obey him.
“We’ve been attacked by all of these, and also by our own dead who have fallen in battle against him. He is making the lands of Kechi Manito a mockery and a reproach.
“And so we ask you, who have the magic of firearms and the knowledge of a magic different from ours—strike at his heart! You must stop the evil one! My band and I, we will pass out of this land and go live among the white men, where we hope we cannot be reached. When we heard you were coming, though, our shaman says one of you is capable of challenging him. And so we beg of you, destroy the evil one so we can return to our hunting grounds.”
For a moment, Meriwether absorbed the horrifying story. When he had spoken to other natives back in Virginia, their words had often struck him as more allegorical than real. But what this chief related made his blood run cold. Resurrected “dead servants” and their own dead turning against them? It sounded too fantastic to believe…but Meriwether already knew that other parts of what Kechemaqua said were true. He’d almost lost his life to an attack of ravens.
He bowed to the Kickapoo chief and thanked him for his information, then he spoke with heartfelt fervor. “I will do what I can to remove this blight from the land, this danger from the native tribes.”
He offered the four visitors a place to sleep in their camp, but the men said they must go back to protect their women and children. When they left, Meriwether and Clark ate a fine meal of the freshly roasted deer meat. Strangely, the men of the expedition did not ask for an explanation of the native visitors or what they had said, though he supposed there must be great speculation and discussion where Meriwether could not hear it. He and Clark kept their own thoughts to themselves, waiting for a more private conversation. Even the translator LePage didn’t ask them anything, but shortly after the Kickapoos left, LePage also vanished from camp, and the expedition never saw him again.
There were squabbles among the men afterwards. The lack of military discipline took its toll, and the men were obviously nervous about something.
But between himself and Clark, Meriwether managed to keep an uneasy peace.