Tecumseh was running at full speed, his feet deftly landing on the eight-by-eight support members, all that was not yet consumed by the flames burning the bridge that crossed McGregor Creek. Bullets flew through the flames, splintering the bridge rails and splashing in the creek below. It was as though all one thousand of Harrison’s dismounted cavalry on one side of the creek were aiming at one man while one thousand Indians on the other side watched their leader dance unharmed through the fire and the flames. He was the last to cross.
Once across, he dove into the waiting arms of his comrades. He smiled up at Chaubenee. “That will hold them until tomorrow.”
Chaubenee could not help but share the joy at not just the success but the theater of the whole thing. “I haven’t seen a fire that big since last August when we Potawatomi burned Fort Dearborn to the ground and did it without your help,” he said with a proud smile.
He received a large smile from Tecumseh in return. “This little fire will hold them long enough for Procter to get those two small field pieces of his off the field. Harrison won’t pursue until he gets it rebuilt so he can bring his own along.
“We’ll leave a few snipers to ensure Harrison’s engineers can’t work tonight. Tomorrow morning he’ll bring up those guns to chase off our snipers to let his engineers do their work. My guess is that will take them most of the day. At least all morning.” And then Tecumseh’s look turned serious. “That gives me this evening to try to get Procter to hold and him all morning tomorrow to dig in.”
Chaubenee looked skeptical. General Henry Procter, who took over command after General Brock had been killed near York, had done nothing but run ever since Harrison crossed the river.
“Why do you think he’ll stop now?” Chaubenee asked.
Tecumseh looked all around them. “Because this is as good ground as Procter will find to defend. The Thames River will cover his left flank, and that swamp”—he pointed away from the river—“will cover his right. The only way Harrison can get to him is either leave his field pieces and trudge all the way through the swamp or rebuild this bridge and cross here. It’s now or never.”
“The coward may opt for never, turn his six hundred redcoats,” Chaubenee said with a sarcastic tone, “and run.”
“Harrison will run us if Procter doesn’t stand. And the only way Procter can run before them will be to abandon his artillery. I’ve never known a British general who would do that.
“Get fifty sharpshooters in covered positions before the bridge. I’ll go talk to Procter.” Tecumseh turned to walk away but stopped suddenly. “Wasegoboah will expect to stay and command the snipers. Don’t let him. I want to talk to both of you tonight.”
By the time Tecumseh returned from Procter’s headquarters, most of his warriors had settled in. Very few had eaten, as they were preparing themselves and their weapons for tomorrow’s expected battle. Fires and conversations were going all around the small area where Chaubenee and Wasegoboah had laid out their bedrolls and built their own fire. They had also peeled Tecumseh’s bedroll from his horse and placed it between theirs. Neither rose but both looked up in anticipation as Tecumseh approached.
“He will stand. Tomorrow we meet him who has been, and remains, our greatest enemy. If Moneto smiles, perhaps it will be I who kill William Henry Harrison.”
Both men smiled and moved slightly apart to make room for their friend and leader. As he sat down, Chaubenee said, “Would you enjoy a pipe, my friend?”
Tecumseh settled next to the warmth and nodded agreement. Chaubenee rolled slightly to one side and picked a pipe and tobacco from his kit. Once he’d loaded and lit the pipe, he puffed and then passed it to Tecumseh. After taking a long pull of the satisfying smoke, Tecumseh passed the pipe to Wasegoboah, took a moment of silence to collect himself, and then began.
“We have won many victories.” He turned to gaze on Chaubenee with great affection. “You and your Potawatomi have taken and destroyed Fort Dearborn in Chicago.” Then he turned to Wasegoboah. “And you and I, my longest companion, have done what even the great Pontiac did not accomplish. We took Detroit.”
Even the stoic and grizzled old warrior could not help but smile, basking in the praise.
“But even as we win, the ants multiply. Every time we kill one, three more appear. No matter our victories, they swarm to us. It has taken me long to understand. I always knew this was about survival for the Shawnee. Only recently have I come to see that it is about survival for the whites as well. Our cultures cannot exist together, and they know it. Tomorrow it will be decided which shall continue to exist between the mountains and the father of rivers and which shall not.”
Chaubenee and Wasegoboah exchanged a brief look, sensing what came next.
“You both know the men in the family of Pucksinwah have sight. Pucksinwah himself predicted the day of his death. And you were both there when his son, Chiksika, also predicted the date and hour of his own. Now, Brothers, that vision has come to me. Tomorrow I will die.”
The two listeners looked sharply at Tecumseh, but neither objected. They both knew better. It was Chaubenee who first spoke. “Is there no other way?”
Tecumseh looked directly into the massive face and answered, “Perhaps.” And then he turned to face Wasegoboah. “I will die of a gunshot to the heart in the middle of the battle, and I will fall dead as my brother did. But you, Wasegoboah, may restore me.”
Even the taciturn old warrior was moved to speech. “How may I do that?”
“Keep an eye on me so you see me fall. When I have fallen, rush to me, the ramrod from your musket extended. If you reach me and can tap me with that rod, I will rise. When I do, we will sweep Harrison, his two thousand foot soldiers, and one thousand mounted Kentucky horse soldiers before us. But more than that, the fifty thousand will hear of my resurrection and they will rise. We will sweep all the Shemanese and the white settlers before us. But if you do not tap me with your ramrod, I will remain dead. And with me our cause will die.”
Now he turned to Chaubenee again. “This I say to you especially, Brother, for you are young. If I die tomorrow, fight no more. Ever. Our cause will be lost and with it any possibility of stopping the white man. Do not fight it; do not fight him. Do whatever you must for you and your people to live in peace. There is no other choice save meaningless death and suffering for you and all you hold dear.”
Tecumseh stopped talking and took the pipe back from Wasegoboah. After he took several pulls he again looked at Wasegoboah. “Hand me my bedroll, please. All of it. Everything there.”
Wasegoboah stood and stepped away from the fire, returning momentarily with Tecumseh’s possessions wrapped in his bedroll, the entirety of it lying across his arms. He laid it into Tecumseh’s lap.
Tecumseh dug into the gear and pulled out the sword and scabbard, the gift given by McKee from General Brock the year before. This he took in both hands and extended to Chaubenee. “This is yours, my friend, to keep in war and peace, a memory and a trophy of all we have done together.”
Chaubenee accepted the gift and said nothing, the small tears forming in his eyes robbing his tongue of speech but saying more than it ever could.
Tecumseh again dug into the gear and came back up with a brass medal some six fingers in diameter and suspended on a purple silk ribbon. On one side was a bas-relief of King George III and on the other a Latin inscription of appreciation. “This was the other gift Isaac Brock gave to me. It was in grateful appreciation of the power of the Shawnee and the desire of the Crown that we be ever friends and allies to it. Oddly, he called it ‘The Peace Medal.’
“Do with it as you like, Wasegoboah, but I ask one thing: wear it tomorrow.”
* * * *
Tecumseh watched as Harrison’s cavalry came over the restored bridge crossing McGregor Creek. The Kentuckians seemed unable to keep any sort of order, but they did all manage to break left after crossing the creek to become Harrison’s left flank. It would be for them to confront the Indians they had fought so often, Tecumseh’s Indians making up Procter’s right flank. Harrison would use his regulars to take on Procter’s regulars in the center. The cannons would be there, and expecting volunteer horse to take on that and the redcoats was not in his plan.
The horse charged the covered Indians, but Tecumseh was ready. He had his fifty best marksmen in the swamp on his far right. The loose ground would protect them from the mounted troops and enable them to fire continually into the flank of the Kentuckians. The body of his warriors lay on the ground awaiting the main assault. They were used to this by now. He knew they would shoot calmly and for the horses. They would not turn and run. The Kentuckians, half-drunk this late in the day, charged erratically as he expected. Much of their first wave had been brought down, either unhorsed or themselves shot. But the unhorsed Kentuckians did not retreat. Dismounted, they lay on the ground and made very small targets of themselves, moving forward using whatever cover was available.
Tecumseh lay belly low in the grass—waiting. He was naked save for a breechcloth and armed with only his rifle and war club. He would wait for the Kentuckians to spend themselves getting ever closer. Only when they were close enough would he run into battle as he liked—quickly, hand-to-hand, and never standing still. Until then, he would content himself with the periodic shot at any Kentuckian fool enough or drunk enough to make a standing target of himself.
As the sun started to move low before him, the Kentuckians got closer. One, sensing the distance, stood to fire. Tecumseh’s shot hit him squarely in the chest, and he dropped like a bird taken on the wing. One of the younger Indians, with an overeager sense of timing, judged the distance short enough and rose, running the less than twenty yards now separating the forces. Every opposing musket seemed to fire at once, and the riddled warrior tumbled backward. A cloud of black powder smoke rose over him and blocked the visibility of all near.
This was the moment for which Tecumseh had waited. The cloud would cover his charge while he ran across the ground. He was running full speed before he was erect and screaming a defiant war cry as he came.
* * * *
Wasegoboah, trying to stay close, saw only the shadow of the man, pistol in hand, who fired from behind the cloud. Tecumseh had dropped without even his momentum carrying him forward. The moment arrived just as he’d predicted, and Wasegoboah pulled the ramrod from the guides below the barrel of his musket and raced as fast as his beating heart would let him. The brass medallion bounced off his chest as he ran. When he was only a few paces away from Tecumseh’s fallen body, Wasegoboah heard a shout from the enemy.
“He’s mine!”
Like Tecumseh, Wasegoboah never heard the roar of the shot that killed him.