The Prophet said, "The pale eyes' paper is bad medicine."
Black Hawk held out his hand, and White Bear gave him the book. It pained White Bear to think Black Hawk might throw it into the fire.
White Bear had seen many white leaders—mayors, congressmen, military officers, once even Sharp Knife himself, Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States. He had learned about them in school and read about them in newspapers. He felt Black Hawk was a match for any of them. More than a match in some ways; he was stronger and healthier than any white man his age that White Bear had known. What pale eyes of nearly seventy years could personally lead a cavalry charge against an enemy outnumbering him by ten to one and rout them? Black Hawk's great weakness was one that he shared with most people, whatever their race or their position in life: if he wanted a thing to be true, he believed it. That was why last winter he had listened to the Winnebago Prophet and not to White Bear.
Now White Bear hoped Black Hawk would show his intelligence by respecting the value of the book. Black Hawk frowned at the leather-bound volume, weighing it in his hand. He picked the other book up with his other hand.
"They are heavy. But since there is magic in them, I will keep these talking-paper bundles by me. And I will bring them with me when I speak in council."
White Bear breathed a small sigh of satisfaction.
Black Hawk laid the books down, one on each side of him, and put one hand on each book. He sat like that for a time, staring into the fire.
"I have done with trying to surrender to the long knives," he said, and it seemed to White Bear that his face became a fearsome mask in the firelight. "They have left me no choice. Yes, we will retreat from them. But we will not run like hunted deer. We will send out war parties, big and small, in every direction. We will lie in ambush on every trail. We will fall upon every settlement. We will attack every traveling party of long knives. No pale eyes north of the Rock River will be safe from us. Until we have crossed the Great River, we will give the pale eyes no peace."
At Black Hawk's words White Bear felt that an ice-cold hand had laid itself flat on his back, between his shoulder blades. With those words Black Hawk was condemning to cruel death hundreds of people—pale eyes and his own.
And one of the largest settlements north of the Rock River was Victor.