Redbird

“ The next day the sky was cloudy, and the air warmer than last night. All morning long women walked past Redbird's wickiup, looking curiously at the man who sat there motionless. Like Redbird herself, they had never before seen a man while his spirit had gone to walk the bridge of stars. When men went on spirit journeys they always retired to the forest or to caves.
In the afternoon He Who Sits in Grease, a Fox brave, came to Redbird as she and Sun Woman sat before their doorway plaiting baskets, a short distance from White Bear. ”

“ The noisy blue jays were discordantly crying in the trees, and the busy woodpeckers industriously hammering, while from lime to time a gorgeous redbird would fly by, and all the birds seemed inspired by the splendor of the morning to sing their sweetest. ”

“ Redbird trembled as she saw Fort Crawford, a great square formed by long stone lodges connected by log palisade walls. Hard-faced long knives in blue jackets surrounded the Sauk, pointing rifles at them. Redbird drew the sling in which she carried Floating Lily around from her back to hold her tight. With one hand she pulled Eagle Feather, who stumbled under a heavy blanket roll, close to her.
"You will all camp in the field beside the fort," said Wave. "If anyone tries to escape, those left behind will be punished." ”

“ Sun Woman said, "My son, you have made my heart glad. Every day of your life you have walked your path with courage and honor. May you walk the same way always."
Redbird held Sun Woman and Iron Knife, each in turn, for a long time. And after they had gone, White Bear and Redbird went together into the thick woods along the edge of the Great River.
Away from the others, White Bear became aware of the shrill chirping of choirs of crickets filling the night air. Mosquitoes shrilled around his ears and stung his hands and face. He and Redbird had long since used up the oil that kept them off. ”

“ Sun Woman opened her arms, and Redbird pressed her body against the bigger, older woman's. She felt Sun Woman's strength flow into her and she knew that she had found more comfort here than she ever would in the arms of her own mother.
In the firelit wickiup, Redbird looked around her, thinking that this was where Gray Cloud had been a baby. She looked at the bench where she knew he slept every night. Where he must sleep again.
"Do you have anything to give a person who has been very cold for a long time?" Redbird asked urgently. ”

“ The bright red of the blanket, she thought, would keep Floating Lily warm.
From some distance away the anguished cries of other people reached Redbird's ears. Others must have been hurt by the pale eyes villagers.
Yellow Hair, still crying so hard she was unable to speak, moved beside Redbird and put her hand on the blanket.
The crowd that had attacked the Sauk were gathered in a field beside the trail. The ten long knives on horseback had formed a line and had pushed them back. Too late. ”

“ She grabbed Redbird's sleeve. "All the people will laugh at you."
"Let me go!"
As Wind Bends Grass pulled at her, Redbird's eyes met those of Wolf Paw, standing beside his father, the war chief. He glared at her. She knew he, too, wanted to tell her not to run after White Bear. But if he showed that he cared that much, the people would make fun of him.
She turned her back on all of them—Wind Bends Grass, Wolf Paw, Black Hawk, Owl Carver—and began to run. ”

“ The male is entirely red except for the black face. No other redbird shows a tuft or has such a heavy, orange bill. The female is dressed more in keeping with family duties for yellowish-brown plumage offers more protection to her and the secluded nest. She always shows a reddish tinge especially on the crest, wings and tail. These markings combined with the conical reddish beak, leave little doubt as to identity. The young resemble the female.
The Cardinal, slightly smaller than a Robin, can be found in almost any area which includes thickets or tangled vines for protected nesting sites. ”

“ Summer Redbird.—A common summer resident, particularly in oak woods. It is an elegant species, as are all the members of this family, but is more retired in its habits and quicker and more restless in its motions than the preceding. The song is more varied, louder, and wilder. The nest is usually built on the horizontal branch of an oak, from seven to twenty feet above the ground. It is a very open-worked inartificial structure, and the eggs cannot with certainty be distinguished from those of the Scarlet Tanager. ”

“ He told Redbird what he had been saying to Nancy.
"Does she not see that the braves would kill you if you tried to set her free?" Redbird asked.
"She is too frightened to see anything," he said, and turned back to Nancy.
"The only man who can free you is Black Hawk. I'll try to convince him that he should, but he is away with a war party now."
"Killing more innocent men and women and children?" Her teeth and eyes gleamed in the faint light within the wickiup. ”

“ Redbird pointed out. "We children of Earthmaker."
But also, Yellow Hair explained, by pale eyes custom a woman who slept with another woman's husband was a bad woman.
"White Bear is your husband," Redbird said. "My father shaman. He marry you and White Bear." Surely that was more important than what a lot of pale eyes who were not even here to see might think. Among the Sauk, many would call Yellow Hair a bad woman for not sleeping with White Bear.
"We Sauk people. What you do with my Sauk man is good." ”

“ Redbird said, "But pale eyes prisoners are no good to Black Hawk now." White Bear was pleased to see that she had learned to get the drift of English conversations between him and Nancy. He did not like to feel that he was leaving Redbird out of anything, especially since he knew Nancy now.
"True," White Bear said to Redbird in Sauk. "And if we meet up with long knives again they will shoot first and not think to look for pale eyes among us. I want to get Yellow Hair and Woodrow away from the tribe before there is another battle." ”

“ In its localities it is rather more abundant and less retiring than is the latter bird in the north, and more often dwells in public parks. This bird is often called the Redbird and in localities where both the Scarlet Tanager and this species are found, they are frequently known by the same name, as their habits and notes are similar. ”

“ But what if Yellow Hair went to bed with White Bear and he came to love Yellow Hair more than he did Redbird? She had thought that could not happen, but now that she had spoken out, she was not so sure.
That night Redbird curled up on her solitary pallet of blankets laid over a mat of reeds on one side of the wickiup. Yellow Hair lay in her sleeping place, and the boys were in the one they shared. White Bear was still visiting and treating ill people. Many people, especially the very old and the very young, were falling ill in the Trembling Lands. ”

“ It did not take these sharp fellows long to discover that the young redbird was the easier prey, and soon every youngster on the ground was attended by a sparrow or two, ready to seize upon any fragment that fell. The parent's way of feeding was to shell a kernel and then give it to one of the little ones, who broke it up and ate it. From waiting for fallen bits, the sparrows, never being repulsed, grew bolder, and finally went so far as actually to snatch the corn out of the young cardinals' beaks. ”

“ The air was fragrant with mingled wood scents and honeysuckle. A sky of flowerlike blue shone overhead. Now and then a redbird, flying low, darted across the road, and far off in the trees there was the sound of a joyous chorus.
“I never saw so many redbirds, Uncle Moab.”
“Yas’m. Dar sutney is er plenty er dem dis yeah. Hit’s a bird yeah, sho nuff. Hit pears ter me like I cyarn’ put my foot outside er my do’ dat I don’t moughty near step on er robin, en I ain’ never hearn tell er sech er number uv blue jays. De blue jay he’s de meanest bird dat ever wuz, but he sutney is got er heap er sense. ”

“ But before she could speak, tears began to trickle down Yellow Hair's cheeks. She spoke brokenly, and it was hard for Redbird to follow her. She seemed to be saying that she expected to die before she ever knew those good feelings Redbird talked about with a man she loved. She had already lived for twenty summers, and now it seemed she might not live much longer. And never have a man.
It was true. There was big danger to Yellow Hair. If anything happened to White Bear, she would have no protector. Many Sauk hated pale eyes. One might get at her. ”

“ More Sauk men and women were coming over now to see the newcomers. The two Winnebago were men of courage, Redbird thought, coming alone as they had into a camp of fifty or more desperate people.
Redbird's mother came to stand beside Owl Carver. She asked what was wrong with Eagle Feather, and Owl Carver explained in a whisper.
"Children will eat anything they can get their hands on," Wind Bends Grass scolded. "Now he will probably grow up to be a madman." Redbird held back a shriek of rage. [393]
Black Hawk and the Winnebago Prophet strode through the gathering crowd to face the newcomers. ”

“ The redbird is singing in the tree, his plumage all the brighter for the winter's bleaching. The day is not long enough, the night is consumed. The boys from all the country about gather at the camp. The moon was a book and every star a word that read fun and frolic to the jolly crowd at the camp at Uncle Jake's that night.
Alfred sang songs, and told jokes. ”

“ Redbird's head was bowed so that he could not see her face. "You are a man many women would want. I cannot hate them all."
"When I asked you to untie Nancy today and take her to our wickiup, you could have refused me, as Running Deer did to Wolf Paw. Then the women would have cut her to pieces. ”

“ She will care for you."
"Your wife?" Even in the semidarkness of the wickiup White Bear could see pain in her eyes.
"Yes." He had no time now to ease her suffering on that score.
He turned to Redbird and said in Sauk, "Do what you can for her. She saw her father and many others of her people killed."
"I must know who she is," said Redbird, fixing him with her slanting eyes.
He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Have no fear. I will tell you everything, tonight. See that she eats. Give her maple sugar. Help her to rest." ”

“ It was for Redbird and Eagle Feather, and for the baby growing inside Redbird, that he was risking his life today. His family was going hungry. It had been over six weeks, by pale eyes reckoning, since Black Hawk had led them across the Great River into Illinois. White Bear and Redbird, like other British Band families, could carry little food with them, and most of that was gone. With the long knives pressing behind them, White Bear had no time to hunt or fish, nor Redbird to gather food from the woodlands.
She must not go without food, especially not while carrying their child. ”

“ After the nesting-period the male becomes colored like the female. They inhabit both high and low woods and usually nest in oaks. Our other tanager is the summer redbird, a more southern species, which ranges north to New Jersey and southern Illinois. ”

“ II When orchards are in bloom again
My heart will bound, my blood will beat,
To hear the redbird so repeat,
On boughs of rosy stain,
His blithe, loud song,—like some far strain
From out the past,—among the bloom,—
(Where bee and wasp and hornet boom) —
Fresh, redolent of rain.
When orchards are in bloom once more,
Invasions of lost dreams will draw
My feet, like some insistent law,
Through blossoms to her door:
In dreams I'll ask her, as before,
To let me help her at the well;
And fill her pail; and long to tell
My love as once of yore. ”

“ Now they would not have to winter over at Fort Armstrong, but could cross over at once to join the rest of the tribe in Ioway.
The wound in Redbird's heart ached constantly, and she sat bent [501] forward on the buggy seat, her hands gripping her knees. As they rattled down the road to Fort Armstrong she felt some small relief at leaving the place where she had lost so much. She tried to tell herself that she was on the way to a new life.
Yellow Hair said she didn't understand why White Bear was not with them. She wanted to know if he would follow Redbird when he got better. ”

“ Squeezing Floating Lily against her chest, Redbird looked around frantically at the sound of her name.
At the edge of the crowd she saw yellow braids and blue eyes [407] and arms waving. Yellow Hair, her face twisted with anguish, was trying to force her way through to her.
There were other people with Yellow Hair. A very stout woman was pushing and pulling at the angry men and women around her, shouting at them to stop what they were doing. And a man with sandy hair was also fighting the other villagers.
White Bear had an aunt and uncle in this village. ”

“ Vieill. Summer Redbird.—A male of this species was shot at Memphis, another at Vicksburg, and a male and a female at Jackson. It is apparently a very common bird.
24. Spizella pusilla (Wils.) Bonap. Field Sparrow.—A single specimen of this species was shot at Jackson. Its occurrence there at that season was hardly to be expected. This individual may have been left behind in its winter quarters by its migrating comrades; or it may be that the species will be found to breed even as far south as Jackson. ”

“ After a while, as the youngsters learned strength and speed on the wing, they came to the table with the grown-ups, and then I saw there were three spruce young redbirds, all under the care of their gorgeous papa.
No sooner did they appear on the ground than trouble began with the English-sparrow tribe. The grievance of these birds was that they could not manage the tough kernels. They were just as hungry as anybody, and just as well-disposed toward corn, but they had not sufficient strength of beak to break it. They did not, however, go without corn, for all that. ”