“Excuse me, Ta-Kumsaw, but this one-eyed drunk here is as tame as my horse.”

“Oh yes,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “Put on the on the bridle. Get on and ride. See where this tame Red goes. Not where you want.”

“Exactly where I want,” said Harrison. “Keep that in mind. Your brother is always within my reach. And if you ever get out of line, boy, I'll arrest him as your conspirator and hang him high.”

Ta-Kumsaw smiled thinly. “You think so. Lolla-Wossiky thinks so. But he will learn to see with his other eye before you ever lay a hand on him.”

Then Ta-Kumsaw turned around and left the room. Quietly, smoothly, not stalking, not angry, not even closing the door behind him. He moved with grace, like an animal, like a very dangerous animal. Hooch saw a cougar ofice, years ago, when he was alone in the mountains. That's what Ta-Kumsaw was. A killer cat.

Harrison's aide closed the door.

Harrison turned to.Jackson and smiled. “You see?” he said.

“What am I supposed to see, Mr. Harrison?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Mr. Jackson?”

“I'm a lawyer. I like things spelled out. If you can spell.”

“I can't even read,” said Hooch cheerfully.

“You also can't keep your mouth shut,” said Harrison. “I'll spell it out for you, Jackson. You and your Tennizy boys, you talk about moving the Reds west of the Mizzipy. Now let's say we do that. What are you going to do, keep soldiers all the way up and down the river, watching all day and all night? They'll be back across this river whenever they want, raiding, robbing, torturing, killing–”

“I'm not a fool,” said Jackson. “It will take a great bloody war, but when we get them across the river, they'll be broken. And men like that Ta-Kumsaw– they'll be dead or discredited.”

“You think so? Well, during that great bloody war you talk about, a lot of White boys will die, and White women and children, too. But I have a better idea. These Reds suck down likker like a calf sucks down milk from his mama's tit. Two years ago there was a thousand Pee-Ankashaw living east of the My-Ammy River. Then they started getting likkered up. They stopped working, they stopped eating, they got so weak that the first little sickness came through here, it wiped them out. Just wiped them out. If there's a Pee-Ankashaw left alive here, I don't know about it. Same thing happened up north, to the Chippy-Wa, only it was French traders done it to them. And the best thing about likker is, it kills off the Reds and not a White man dies.”

Jackson rose slowly to his feet. “I reckon I'll have to take three baths when I get home,” he said, “and even then I still won't feel clean.”

Hooch was delighted to see that Harrison was really mad. He rose to his feet and shouted at Jackson so loud that Hooch could feel his chair shake. “Don't get high and mighty with me, you hypocrite! You want them all dead, just like I do! There's no difference between us.”

Jackson stopped at the door and eyed the governor with disgust. “The assassin, Mr. Harrison, the poisoner, he can't see the difference between himself and a soldier. But the soldier can.”

Unlike Ta-Kumsaw, Jackson was not above slamming the door.

Harrison sank back down onto his chair. “Hooch, I've got to say, I don't much like that fellow.”

“Never mind,” said Hooch. “He's with you.”

Harrison smiled slowly. “I know. When it cornes to war, we'll all be together. Except for maybe that Redkisser up in Vigor Church.”

“Even him,” said Hooch. “Once a war starts, the Reds won't be able to tell one White man from another. Then his people will start dying just like ours. Then Armor-of-God Weaver will fight.”

“Yeah, well, if Jackson and Weaver would likker up their Reds the way we're doing ours, there wouldn't have to be a war.”

Hooch aimed a mouthful at the spittoon and didn't miss by much. “That Red, that Ta-Kumsaw.”

“What about him?” asked Harrison.

“He worries me.”

“Not me,” said Harrison. “I've got his brother here passed out on my floor. Ta-Kumsaw won't do nothing.”

“When he pointed at me, I felt his finger touch me from across the room. I think he's maybe got a come-hither. Or a far-touch. I think he's dangerous.”

“You don't believe in all that hexery, do you, Hooch? You're such an educated man, I thought you were above that kind of superstition.”

“I'm not and neither are you, Bill Harrison. You had a doodlebug tell you where firm ground was so you could build this stockade, and when your first wife had her babies, you had a torch in to see how the baby was laying in the womb.”

“I warn you,” said Harrison, “to make no more comment about my wife.”

“Which one, now, Bill? The hot or the cold?”

Harrison swore a good long string of oaths at that. Oh, Hooch was delighted, Hooch was pleased. He had such knack for hotting things up, yes sir, and it was more fun hotting up a man's temper, because there wasn't no flame then, just a lot of steam, a lot of hot air.

Well, Hooch let old Bill Harrison jaw on for a while. Then he smiled and raised his hands like he was surrendermg. “Now, you know I didn't mean no harm, Bill. I just didn't know as how you got so prissy these days. I figured we both know where babies grow, how they got in there, and how they come out, and your women don't do it any different than mine. And when she's lying there screammg you know you've got a midwife there who knows how to cast a sleep on her, or do a pain-away, and when the baby's slow to come you've got a torch telling where it lays. And so you listen to me, Bill Harrison. That Ta-Kumsaw, he's got some kind of knack in him, some kind of power. He's more than he seems.”

“Is he now, Hooch? Well maybe he is and maybe he ain't. But he said Lolla-Wossiky would see with his other eye before I laid a hand on him, and it won't be long before I prove that he's no prophet.”

“Speaking of old one-eye, here, he's starting to fart something dreadful.”

Harrison called for his aide. “Send in Corporal Withers and four soldiers, at once.”

Hooch admired the way Harrison kept military discipline. It wasn't thirty seconds before the soldiers were there, Corporal Withers saluting and saying, “Yes, sir, General Harrison.”

“Have three of your men carry this animal out to the stable for me.”

Corporal Withers obeyed instantly, pausing only to say, “Yes sir, General Harrison.”

General Harrison. Hooch smiled. He knew that Harrison's only commission was as a colonel under General Wayne during the last French war, and he didn't amount to much even then. General. Governor. What a pompous–

But Harrison was talking to Withers again, and looking at Hooch as he did so. “And now you and Private Dickey will kindly arrest Mr. Palmer here and lock him up.”

“Arrest me!” shouted Hooch. “What are you talking about!”

“He carries several weapons, so you'll have to search him thoroughly,” said Harrison. “I suggest stripping him here before you take him to the lock-up, and leave him stripped. Don't want this slippery old boy to get away.”

“What are you arresting me for!”

“Why, we have a warrant for your arrest for unpaid debts,” said Harrison. “And you've also been accused of selling whisky to Reds. We'll naturally have to seize an your assets– those suspicious-looking kegs my boys've been hauling into the stockade all day– and sell them to make good the debt. If we can sell them for enough, and we can clear you of those ugly charges of likkering up the Reds, why, we'll let you go.”

Then Harrison walked on out of his office. Hooch cussed and spit and made remarks about Harrison's wife and mother, but Private Dickey was holding real tight to a musket, and that musket had a bayonet attached to the business end; so Hooch submitted to the stripping and the search. It got worse, though, and he cussed again when Withers marched him right across the stockade, stark naked, and didn't give him so much as a blanket when he locked him into a storage room. A storage room filled with empty kegs from the last shipment of likker.