Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume II by Orson Scott Card Page B

specially not farmers and such like us. No, it was Shaw-Nee and Otty-Wa who found him two hours after the boy turned up missing. And do you think it was White men punished that whisky-Red? Reckon not; they set that Wee-Aw down and said, ‘You want to show brave?’ and when he said yes, they took six hours killing him.”
    “Very kind,” said Lolla-Wossiky.
    “
Kind?
I reckon not,” said Armor-of-God.
    “Red man kills White boy for whisky, I never let him show brave, he die—uh! Like that, quick like rattlesnake, no man him.”
    “I got to say you Reds think real strange,” said Armor. “You mean it’s a favor when you torture somebody to death?”
    “Not
somebody
. Enemy. Catch enemy, he shows brave before he dies so then his spirit flies back to home. Tell his mother and sisters he died brave, they sing songs and scream for him. He doesn’t show brave, then his spirit falls flat on the dirt and you step on him, grind him in, he never goes home, nobody remembers his name.”
    “It’s a good thing Thrower’s out at the privy right now, or I reckon he’d wet his pants over
that
doctrine.” Thrower squinted at Lolla-Wossiky. “You mean they
honored
that Wee-Aw who killed that little boy?”
    “Very bad thing, killing little boy. But maybe Red man knows about whisky-Red, very thirsty, making crazy. Not like killing man to take his house or his woman or his land, like White man all the time.”
    “I got to say, the more I learn about you Reds, the more it kind of starts to make sense. I better read the Bible more every night before I turn Red myself.”
    Lolla-Wossiky laughed and laughed.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “Many Red men turn White and then die. But never does a White man turn Red. I have to tell this story, everybody laugh.”
    “You Reds have a sense of humor like I just don’t understand.” Armor patted the map. “Here’s us, right here just downriver from where the Tippy-Canoe flows into the Wobbish. All these dots, they’re White man’s farms. And these circles, they’re Red villages. This one’s Shaw-Nee, this one’s Winny-Baygo, see how it goes?”
    “White Murderer Harrison tells Reds that you make this land-face picture so you can find Red villages. Killing everybody, he says.”
    “Well, that’s just the kind of lie I’d expect him to tell. So you heard about me afore you came up here, did you? Well, I hope you don’t believe his lies.”
    “Oh, no. Nobody believes White Murderer Harrison.”
    “Good thing.”
    “Nobody believes any White man. All lies.”
    “Well, not me, you understand that? Not me. Harrison wants to be governor so bad that he’ll tell any lie he can to get power and keep it.”
    “He says you want to be governor, too.”
    Armor paused at that. Looked at the map. Looked at the door to the kitchen, where his wife was washing up. “Well, I reckon he didn’t lie about that. But my idea of what it means to be governor and his are two different things. I want to be governor so Red men and White men can live together in peace here, farming the land side by side, going to the same schools so someday there ain’t no difference between Red and White. But Harrison, he wants to get rid of the Red man altogether.”
    If you make the Red man just like the White man, then he won’t be Red no more. Harrison’s way or Armor’s way, you end up with no Red men at the end. Lolla-Wossiky thought of this, but he didn’t say it. He knew that even though turning all the Red men White would be very bad, killing them all with likker the way Harrison planned, or killing them and driving them off the land the way Jacksonplanned, those were even worse. Harrison was a very bad man. Armor wanted to be a good man, he just didn’t know how. Lolla-Wossiky understood this, so he didn’t argue with Armor-of-God.
    Armor went on showing him the map. “Down here’s Fort Carthage, it’s got a square, cause it’s a town. I put a square for us, too, even though we’re not