Running along like that, Al and Measure didn't have no chance to talk till getting on nightfall, when they came to a Red village on the curve of a dark deep river. Ta-Kumsaw led them right into the middle of the village and then walked off and left them. The river was just down the slope from them, maybe a hundred yards of grassy ground.

“Think we could make it down to the river without them catching us?” whispered Measure.

“No,” said Al. “And anyways I can't swim. Pa never let me near the water.”

Then all the Red women and children come out of the stick-and-mud huts they lived in and pointed at them two naked Whites, man and boy, and laughed and threw sods at them. At first Al and Measure tried to dodge, but it just made them laugh harder and run around and around, throwing wet dirt from different angles, tying to catch them in the face or the crotch. Finally Measure just sat down on the grass, put his face to his knees, and let them throw all they wanted. Al did the same. Finally somebody barked a few words and the sod-throwing stopped. Al looked up in time to see Ta-Kumsaw walking away, and a couple of his fighting men come out to watch and make sure nothing else happened.

“That was the farthest I ever run in my whole life,” said Measure.

“Me too,” said Al.

“Right at the start there I thought I was like to die, I was so tired,” said Measure. “Then I got my second wind. I didn't think I had it in me.”

Al didn't say nothing.

“Or did you have something to do with that?”

“Maybe some,” said Al.

“I never know what you can do, Alvin.”

“Me neither,” said Al, and it was the truth.

“When that hatchet come down on my fingers I thought that was the end of my working days.”

“Just be glad they didn't try to drownd us.”

“You and water again,” said Measure. “Well I'm glad you done what you done, Al. Though I will say it might've worked out better if you hadn't made the chief slip like that when he was set to arm-wrassle me.”

“Why not?” said Al. “I didn't want him to hurt you–”

“There's no way you should know it, Al, so don't blame yourself. But that kind of wrassling ain't to hurt a body, it's kind of a test. Of manliness and quickness and what all. If he beat me, but I put up a fair fight, then I'd have his respect, and if I beat him fair, why, there's respect in that, too. Armor told me about it. They do it all the time.”

Alvin thought about this. “So when I made him fall, was that real bad?”

“I don't know. Depends on why they think it happened. Might be they'll think it means that God is on my side or something.”

“Do they believe in God?”

“They've got a Prophet, don't they? Just like in the Bible. Anyway I just hope they don't think it means I'm a coward and a cheater. Things won't go so good for me then.”

“Well I'll tell them it was me done it,” said Al.

“Don't you dare,” said Measure. “The only thing saved us was they didn't know it was you doing them changes on the knives and hatchets and such. If they knowed it was you, Al, they would've hacked your head open, mashed you flat and then done what they wanted with me. Only thing that saved you was they didn't know what was causing it.”

Then they got to talking about how worried Pa and Ma would be, speculating on how Ma would be so mad, or maybe she'd be too worried to be angry at Pa, and there must be men out looking for them by now even if the horses never came home, cause when they didn't show up for supper at the Peachees they wouldn't waste a minute giving the warning.

“They'll be talking about war with the Reds,” said Measure. “I know that much– there's plenty of folks from down Carthage way who hate Ta-Kumsaw already, from his running off their livestock earlier this year.”

“But it was Ta-Kumsaw who saved us,” said Al.

“Or that's how it looks, anyway. But I notice he didn't take us home, or even ask us where home was. And how did he happen to come along right at that very minute, if he wasn't part of it himself? No, Al, I don't know what's going on, but Ta-Kumsaw didn't save us, or if he did he saved us for his own reasons, and I don't know as how I trust him to do good for us. For one thing, I really ain't much for setting around naked in the middle of a Red village.”

“Me neither. And I'm hungry.”

It wasn't long, though, before Ta-Kumsaw himself came out with a pot of corn mash. It was almost funny, seeing that tall Red man, who carried himself like a king, toting a pot like one of the Red women. But after that first surprise, Al realized that when Ta-Kumsaw did it, pot-toting looked downright noble.

He set down the pot in front of Al and Measure, and then took a couple of strips of Red-weave cloth from around his neck. “Wrap up,” he said, and handed each of them a strip. Neither one of them knowed the first thing about tying on a loincloth, beginning with the fact that Ta-Kumsaw was still holding the deerskin belts that were supposed to hold them on. Ta-Kumsaw laughed at how confused they were, and then made Al stand up. He dressed Al himself, and that showed Measure how it was done so he could cover himself, too. It wasn't like proper clothes, but it was sure better than being buck naked.

Then Ta-Kumsaw sat down on the grass, the pot between him and them, and showed them how to eat the mash-dipping in his hand, pulling out a tepid, jelly-thick glop of it and smacking it into his open mouth. Tasted so bland that Alvin like to gagged on it. Measure saw it, and said, “Eat.” So Alvin ate, and once he got some swallowed he could feel how much his belly wanted more, even though it still took real persuasion to get his throat to take on the job of transportation.

When they had the pot cleaned right down to the bottom, Ta-Kumsaw set it aside. He looked at Measure for a while. “How did you make me fall down, White coward?” he said.

Al was all for speaking up right then, but Measure answered too quick and loud. “I ain't no coward, Chief Ta-Kumsaw, and if you wrassle me now it'll be fair and square.”

Ta-Kumsaw smiled grimly. “So you can make me fall down with all these women and children watching?”

“It was me,” said Alvin.

Ta-Kumsaw turned his head, slowly, the smile not leaving his face-but not so grim now, neither. “Very small boy,” he said. “Very worthless child. You can make the ground loose under my feet?”

“I just got a knack,” said Alvin. “I didn't know you weren't aiming to hurt him.”

“I saw a hatchet,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Finger-marks like this.” He waved his finger to show the kind of pattern Measure's fingers had left in the blade of the hatchet. “You did that?”

“It ain't right to cut a man's fingers off.”

Ta-Kumsaw laughed out loud. “Very good!” Then he leaned in close. “White men's knacks, they make noise, very much noise. But you, what you do is so quiet nobody sees it.”

Al didn't know what he was talking about.

In the silence, Measure spoke up bold as you please. “What you plan to do with us, Chief Ta-Kumsaw?”

“Tomorrow we run again,” he said.

“Well why don't you think about letting us run toward home? There's got to be a hundred of out neighbors out now, mad as hornets. There's going to be a lot of trouble if you don't let us go home.”

Ta-Kumsaw shook his head. “My brother wants you.”

Measure looked at Alvin, then back at Ta-Kumsaw. “You mean the Prophet?”

“Tenskwa-Tawa,” said Ta-Kumsaw.

Measure looked plain sick. “You mean after he built up his Prophetstown for four years, nobody causing him a lick of trouble, White man and Red man getting along real good, now he goes around taking Whites captive and torturing them and–”

Ta-Kumsaw clapped his hands once, loudly. Measure fell silent. “Chok-Taw took you! Chok-Taw tried to kill you! My people don't kill except to defend our land and our families from Wbite thieves and murderers. And Tenskwa-Tawa's people, they don't kill at all.”