A Panther Crossing the Sky

by J. R. Spaulding, Jr.

[Author’s note] The text is in the form of a oral monologue to a live audience.

part 1

I have flown among the clouds, with the tree-topped, emerald green mountains floating far below. The eagle is my brother, together we are tethered in spirit. When he inhabits me, the division between us is seamless: two unique beings coalesced into a single interdependent soul. And then, as one, we fly.

This happened to me only once, yet still I know the truth of it. I flew. Not in a dream, no. Wide awake, my feet on the ground, but my spirit high above, in a different time in a different place. Or perhaps it was the same place in a different time. It happened so long ago now that the memory has become smooth with erosion. Time does that; it has a way of polishing your past. Like water trickling down a cave wall, it washes away the impurities, leaving you something glossy and perfect. And that’s how I remember my glowing moment of flight: Perfect.

Nila oushi-ka-toui Shawanwa lenawewee. That was me many summers ago, when I would fall to my death every night from a 23-foot ledge, shot by the man I called Bahdler but whose name became Kenton, only to rise again and run with my brothers through the forests and the fields along the Scioto river, near Paint Creek.

During those summers, I walked paths primed by the Shawnee hundreds of years ago. I fought and died at Tippecanoe night after night after night, as that devil, William Henry Harrison spewed his orders from beyond the artillery line at the top of the hill, and I would later carry off the body of my beloved Tecumseh after he prophesized his own death at the battle of the Thames. He would be buried in secrecy so that no man could defile his remains and to insure that he will someday come again.

All of this I did every night in an outdoor drama — a theatrical production — called Tecumseh! just outside the city of Chillicothe, or Chalahgawtha — “town of towns” — as the Shawnee had once called it. We rode horses bareback in loincloths and leggings. We danced for war, fought for peace, and chanted over the fallen bodies of our brothers and sisters. We re-created three massive battles every night: sixty or more men screaming and spitting, with tomahawks and rifles, knives or just our bare hands, trying to kill each other, then laughing and loving once it was over, knowing we would do it all again the following day.

Tecumseh was a great leader of the Shawnee tribe. And it is said that he was born under a prophetic sign. It is said that on the night of his birth, as his father, Pucksinwah, emerged from their weigiwa to present his newborn son to the tribe, right at that moment, right as he looked up, the most incredible shooting star fell in a great arc from one side of the sky to the other. It is said that in that moment, Pucksinwah knew this child was destined to do great things, and so he named him Tecumseh: “Panther Crossing the Sky.”

Tecumseh may not be as well known as, say, Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse, Sacajawea, Pocahontas, or Geronimo. In fact, let’s test it: show of hands: how many of you know or have ever heard of Tecumseh? (Scans the audience.) Yeah, not many of you, I’m not surprised. (If there are a lot of hands, the response should be different, of course.)

But of all the Native Americans throughout history, he’s the one who posed the greatest threat to the existence of America. For real. He had a plan to unite the tribes from the deep South and all across the Old Northwest Territory to create one tribe, one people who, together, would stop the expansion of the white man and drive them off the land he had taken. And Tecumseh very nearly succeeded. And if he had, most of us... (Scans the audience.) yeah, most of us, we wouldn’t be here right now.

We performed the show in an amphitheatre on the side of a mountain that was surrounded by forests older than human settlement. We were outside, among the elements. The stage was the earth itself. The only man-made part of it were the two stone promontories built on each side, stage right and stage left. Imposing structures that faded into the landscape, each was thirty feet tall with levels, ledges and steps that we could traverse from top to bottom.

A pond deeper than the height of a horse spanned the back of the stage — upstage — and had a path that ran along behind it. The water was stagnant and smelled of sulfur when stirred up. I know, because I would slither out of it and snap the neck of an unsuspecting sentry to begin the battle of Tippecanoe.

Along the sides of the main stage, two ramps ran uphill along the outside of the bowl of the audience. Each one trailed off into the woods and together they created a natural enclosure around the amphitheatre itself.

Backstage, we had hitching posts for the horses, sheds with tractors to take care of the stage, and loading stations for the rifles and the muskets that we carried. We carried and fired a lot of guns: the Kentucky long rifle and the Brown Bess, which was a flintlock smoothbore muzzle-loader that weighed 10 pounds (Points to a member of the audience.) and was taller than you.

Beyond the stage and the theatre itself, this is where we called home. We lived there, all of us, at the base of mountain. Just a concrete path away down the hill — though you’d never know it sitting in the audience — was the compound. It was like a commune, the way we lived.

At the center of it all were two squat, block buildings connected by a covered, open-air breezeway. Now when I say “block,” I mean it. Not brick. Block — cinder block — with no attention paid to architectural aesthetics. They didn’t even have windows; they were practically pillboxes. In one of the buildings was the costume shop, and in the other the dressing rooms, with the bathrooms; we had community bathrooms and showers. I think the girls had individual stalls with curtains, but for the guys it was like gym class all over again.

This was the base of operations, I guess you could call it. Well, it was our base at least. The real decisions were made at the administrative offices downtown, of course. But we never went there; that place didn’t exist to us. To us, the costume shop and dressing rooms were the hub of everything and everything spoked out from those two buildings.

We had a community kitchen and a pyro shed. Yes, we had a structure dedicated to pyrotechnics. And all our pyrotechnicians, I should point out, had long hair and full beards. And if you don’t know why that was a great source of comfort to us, then you clearly don’t know anything about pyrotechnics.

Spread out across the compound, surrounded mostly by trees but connected by paths and common areas were a series of rustic cabins. That’s where we lived, three of us to each cabin, and each one furnished with nothing but three beds, three tiny lockers, and a couple of shelves along the wall. We did have electricity, though — I know, so luxurious — so at least we could plug in our fans or play our music.

Even these cabins had history and tradition, names that company members had given to them long before I had arrived. For instance, cabin six was The Swamp, and number nine we called White Trash. (I happened to live in both those places.) The Swamp was in a cluster of three cabins known as Boom Alley due to their proximity to the pyro shed.

At one time, I am told, one of the cabins was simply called Hell. And the current head costumer lived there when she’d first started. This was years ago now, before I got there. In any case, the costumers were like goddesses to us, as you can imagine, and since she lived in Hell, she became known as The Costume Goddess from Hell. It’s true, you can look her up. Her name is Juliana Speakman. I didn’t ask her permission to use her full name, but she’s my sister so... y’know, too bad, right.

So, on one end of the compound was a group of cabins called Appalachia. On the other end was The Veranda. The former was somewhat isolated in the back woods — hence its name — while the latter was pretty upscale, which meant it had plastic furniture and an umbrella outside. We used to sit there before the show, have coffee together.

Nagy Land (”Nagy” is pronounced “Näzsh.”) was a cabin set farther back from the main path. We called it that because the guy in that cabin often lived in a world all his own. Or maybe it was because the world belonged to him and the rest of us just populated it. And if you’d ever met this chiseled bo-hunk of a man, you’d know what I mean.

Nagy Land also happened to be where we would convene to smoke dope after the show. Now that I think about it, maybe that’s why it was Nagy Land. But to get in you had to know the secret knock. (Demonstrates: knock-KNOCK-knock. knock-KNOCK. knock-KNOCK.) It went with the phrase: “Your MOther is ON my JIVE.” Don’t ask. That was Nagy.

We were young. We came up with all kinds of stupid stuff like that. We had a lot of down time, what can I say. During the day we bummed around like a bunch of displaced people in an old Hooverville, lounging in hammocks, reading books, organizing basketball tournaments.

And in the late hours after the show, we became fools. We drank and smoked... a lot. We got crazy stoned and then we ate without consequence as only young people can do. Some nights right after the show, we’d make late night runs to Burger King, or have midnight breakfasts at J.R. Valentine’s down on Bridge Street.

We took our clothes off and tromped around the compound wearing nothing but our boots. There was a lot of walking around naked. It was mostly in the dressing rooms, but every now and then it was wherever. Here’s a secret I’ve never told anybody: I am an unofficial member of the non-existent Naked Army. I say “unofficial” and “non-existent” because even though we were just a bunch of young, stupid guys skulking around naked and stoned out of our minds, we also knew this was something that could kill our future political aspirations, should any of us ever have them.

But in between those times, when the day wound down to evening, before the night collapsed in on us, this part of our day was deadly serious. Showtime. Company call was at 7:00 but most of us began putting on make-up before then. We had pre-show responsibilities: bringing the horses up from the barn, which was about a quarter mile down the road; raking and prepping the stage; checking our props and putting our costumes backstage for quick changes between scenes.

I had to make sure my highfall pad had been situated properly. That was pretty important; I didn’t want to die. By ten minutes to eight, we were all in places. And from that point on, from the first driving music cue to the final moment when we carried the body of Tecumseh off, we were transformed.

Because in performing this show every night, it was understood we took on the responsibility of reliving the lives of actual men and women who had long ago bled and died for their people and their land. This wasn’t just some play. These things actually happened. These events had massive historical implications, and we treated the entire process with great respect.

We covered our bodies in red liquid make-up to make ourselves look more Native American. And yeah, I look back and wonder: Was that insensitive? Is that okay to do? But it was. We had the utmost respect for the culture. And in fact, the production itself has the blessing of the Shawnee nation.

We immersed ourselves in that culture. I took part in a sweat lodge ceremony that was lead by a Lakoda man who played Tecumseh’s brother, Tenskwatawa. We read the history and learned as much of the Shawnee language as we could to create atmosphere and verisimilitude on stage. And even though our grasp of it was still rudimentary by the time we opened — what we spoke was barely more than a pidgin version — we could still communicate with each other on a very basic level. For instance, I can say, “I love you”: nila dah-quel-e-mah ki-i-ya (NEE-la Dah-kwuh-LEH-muh kee-EE-yuh) but I can’t say, “I’m in love with you.” We didn’t have any understanding of the grammar or the syntax — the rules of the language. But that didn’t stop us. We spoke it as though we knew it. We were actors.

For many of us, it was our first acting job. We were getting paid, man. And what a gig. The show was tough, physically challenging, but incredibly satisfying. Two and a half hours of running and climbing. Fighting. We would recreate three major battles every night: Blue Licks, Tippecanoe, and the Thames in Ontario during the War of 1812.

By the middle of the season, most of us were in great shape. Imagine this: a bunch of super-fit twenty-somethings running around wearing nothing but loincloths. If you were a girl on the mountain — or gay — there was no lack of eye candy. At least, that’s what my friend Brian said, and he’s gay.

But despite our fitness, there were still plenty of injuries. Sprained ankles and wrists; jammed and broken fingers. An occasional concussion. I sliced my hand open on a sharp rock at the bottom of the pond when the trampoline that was rigged to an explosive charge blew me into it. (To the audience) Oh, that was supposed to happen — me being blown into the pond, I mean. Not the rock slicing my hand.

One guy, they called him Cocoa, he actually managed to shoot himself in the gut. Don’t worry, we didn’t use live rounds; we’d wrapped black powder in toilet paper wads and loaded that into the barrel. But other than having a lead ball as a projectile, it was just like firing an actual gun. When black powder ignites — even without the projectile — if there’s any debris in the barrel — sand, dirt, whatever — it all comes flying out, and if you’re right there in front of it... well, you get the picture.

Cocoa was seriously burned, and probably still has the scars, but after a trip to the ER, a few stitches, some ointment and plenty of good drugs, he was okay. And it wasn’t just the guns. There were bombs exploding all across the stage, people fighting with live torches, all happening at the same time: choreographed mayhem.

And yet, even with all that, the real danger, the most serious injuries, came from the horses. My friend, Teddy Canéz — I love Teddy. Built thick as a tree, and he had this great mohawk; looked mean as hell in character but, when he smiled, you knew he was gentle, a dude just full of love. Anyway, Teddy broke his arm when Bandit — a young horse, really skittish — decided it’d had enough and just threw him off during rehearsal.

I’d seen plenty of people fall off horses — I’d fallen off horses plenty of times — but to be thrown is an entirely different thing. Like I said, Teddy’s no small guy, but he flew that day: right over the top, and nose-dived straight into the hard, flat dirt. That’s when I learned, you never let a horse put its head down. It can’t throw you unless its head is down.

Proceed to part 2...