Jubal Sackett (1985) s-4

by Louis L'Amour

  A movement, and then he was in the open and running. My arrow caught him in midstride, just as he was about to disappear into the rocks. He missed a step, and then fell or dropped from sight.

  Two down, and a casualty. I doubted the last man had been killed.

  We would get no more chances here, and if we remained where we were we would be surrounded. Keeping undercover where we could, we ran, ducking and dodging, for the brush along the stream.

  The Conejeros did not see us go, so they moved slowly, carefully. They had lost men. Would they believe their medicine was bad and leave? I doubted it.

  At the nearest concealment I stopped and crouched to watch for them. Where Keokotah was I did not know, nor did I need to look. He was a fighting man and would be where he could be most effective.

  Now came a time of waiting. The Conejeros were creeping closer, using all their wiles to come within striking distance without being seen. They could not know exactly where we were but could calculate as I had where their enemies were most apt to be.

  They had the advantage of the attacker. We had a position to defend.

  We knew how many they were. They could not know how many there were of us. Suddenly an Indian darted from one rock to the next, but he was gone from sight before I could turn, and he was closer.

  Almost as if it were a signal, a half dozen others moved and vanished, still closer. An attacker suddenly raised up, but Keokotah was ready for him and the man dropped from sight. I did not see whether Keokotah had scored a hit or not.

  Then for a long time, nothing happened. The sun climbed higher in the sky, and the air warmed. Suddenly I heard a startled cry and then a scream of pain.

  It was at the other end of the line of trees, and the cry, I was sure, had come from one of ours. I worked my way undercover back toward the caves.

  If they could cut us off from the caves they would have our women, as well as our extra weapons, blankets, robes, and meat. Without them, survival would be a question.

  Keokotah had had the same idea. We met undercover near the caves. "I think they go," he whispered. "I think snow come."

  Glancing at the sky, I could see what he meant. During the last hour the sky had clouded over to a dull, flat gray.

  Snow? This might be the time to leave. Falling snow would cover whatever tracks we would leave in the mud, and when they returned they would come upon only empty caves. No doubt they had hoped to surprise us, always a favorite Indian tactic, and as surprise had failed and their medicine seemed bad, they would most likely await another time. Finally we assumed that they had been wiped out by the Komantsi.

  We had lost one man. He was a young warrior of the Natchee and he had been killed and scalped.

  "Conejero no like," Keokotah said. "Natchee strange Indian. There be much talk now. Who is Indian? Where he from? How many strange Indian?"

  Itchakomi was waiting in her cave. Explaining took only a moment. She asked no questions, simply spoke a few quick words to the other women and then to her warriors. We had known this time was coming, so were prepared. Within minutes we were leaving the caves behind, yet not without reluctance. They had been warm shelters, and when does a man leave a place he has lived without some regret? For each time some part of him is left behind. So it was with us.

  We took one last look around. If anyone was watching they would see the direction we took, but there was no help for it.

  "You sad," she said to me, her eyes searching mine.

  I shrugged. "It was a good place. We were warm there."

  Keokotah led the way, the Natchee followed, then came Itchakomi, and I was last, a rear guard, if one was needed.

  The trail we took was narrow, and the way was hard. Here and there were spots of ice and places where the bank had caved. We walked warily, and I trailed behind, pausing often to study the back trail and to see if we were followed.

  It was growing cold again. Night was coming. Uneasily, I looked about. We must take shelter quickly. The air had changed. A chill finger touched my cheek, and then another.

  Snow! It was beginning to snow.

  Keokotah needed no word from me. He led our people into the trees and quickly they began building a shelter. There were large trees close together where interwoven tops provided some protection from the snow. With our hatchets and knives we cut notches in the trees and laid poles from one to another. While three of us did this, the others gathered branches to lay across the top and to put down upon the sides. Our house was about thirty feet long, but not straight. It followed the trees we had used, most of which were six or seven feet apart. By the time the roof was in place the snow was falling heavily.

  We slanted the sides out, lean-to fashion, and thatched them with spruce branches and slabs of bark from fallen trees. With all of us working, it was little time until we had our shelter and had gathered wood for the fire. We had left a hole for the smoke and soon had a fire going and meat broiling.

  The snow fell thick and fast, covering our tracks. An astute tracker, one wily enough to think of it, might still find our tracks frozen in the mud under the snow. Not all Indians were good trackers, although all could track and had spent much of their lives doing it.

  When there was time to look about I saw how well Keokotah had chosen, for our shelter was well back in the trees in an unlikely place and well situated for defense. In just a short time we had made it snug, and once we were inside and had a fire going we were warm enough.

  The snow continued to fall. We would not be easily found.

  Itchakomi and I began talking again. She was forever curious about English women and how they behaved themselves, what clothes they wore, and what they did with themselves.

  Pa had talked much of theaters. He had never cared much for bull or bear baiting, but loved the plays, and a man named Will Kempe was a great favorite. So I told her of the theaters and of the innyards used as theaters when companies were on tour. Speaking of such things kept her from asking questions of me, questions that disturbed me and left me uneasy and asking questions of myself.

  Pa had talked much of the theaters, for the England in which he had grown up was much given to playgoing, and the players were well known to everyone.

  "What of the women? Were there no women in the plays?"

  "No, not in England. Pa said there was talk of women players in Italy, but not in England. Boys played the parts of women."

  She thought that was foolish, and when I thought on it, so did I, but that was the way it was.

  She plied me with questions until I told her more than I knew, things Pa had told us, forgotten until her questions dredged them up. Memory holds much more than we suspect, I found, and began to wonder what else there was I had forgotten.

  Outside the snow fell, and the others fell asleep, even Keokotah, who was curious in his own mind and wishful of knowing more of England.

  "And did your father know the king?"

  "My father? I should say not! Kings had nothing to do with yeomen and only a little, sometimes, with knights. That's as I understand it, at least."

  "The Great Sun knows his people, knows every one," she told me. "Does your king have a Ni'kwana?"

  "Sort of. I guess he might be like the chancellor or an archbishop. I don't know half enough about it." I spoke irritably, for I did not like to discover that I knew less than I should.

  "You speak of a king, but did you not tell me that a queen ruled in England?"

  "Queen Elizabeth. My father approved of her, although it was little she would have cared for one man's approval. However, as he says it she was a good queen."

  "Was?"

  "We are gone from there, although my mother is there, and a brother and sister, but in any case Queen Elizabeth is gone. There is a king now." I said it with some satisfaction. "King James is on the throne."

  "Will you go back?"

  "I cannot go back. I have never been. Also, this is my land. I shall stay here."

  "I am glad."

  Here
we were, getting down to personal things again. "We'd better sleep," I suggested. "Tomorrow I must hunt again."

  She seemed in no way disposed to sleep, and said so, but I spread my robes close to the edge of the shelter.

  Spring was going to be late this year no matter how soon it came. The cold and snow trapped a man, keeping him within the lodge and close to women. Not that I disliked women, far from it, but I was not ready to set up my own lodge or stay in one place. There was a wide land out there no man had seen, and as Pa had longed for his far blue mountains I was longing to walk these Shining Mountains to their utmost limits.

  Itchakomi had said nothing lately of returning, although if she returned now she might become the Great Sun herself. I spoke of that, but she was quiet, and before she got around to speaking I was asleep, or pretending to be.

  When morning came the mountains were gone, vanished under a cloak of snow, their towering black peaks lost in a whiteness that covered all. Scarcely a dark branch showed or an edge of rock. It was still, the only sound my moccasins pressing down the snow, crunching into the silence.

  For a long moment I stood and looked out over the land, my breath a white cloud. Hunching my shoulders against the snow I looked carefully around. There were no enemies I could see, and no moving game, only the snow, the ice, and the cold. I broke off a heavy branch, the sound like a pistol shot, and then another, bringing them back to the hungry fire, waging its own desperate fight against the chill.

  This was a land for me, these mountains, this forest, these silent streams, their voices stilled only for the time.

  Keokotah came out and stood beside me. "Is good," he said, "all this."

  "It is," I agreed.

  "When grass comes, what you do?"

  "I shall walk along the mountain where the aspen grows, and beside the lakes where the moon goes to rest. I want to find the places where the rivers begin. I want to drink where the water comes from under the slide rock. I want to walk the way of the elk, the deer, and the bear."

  "You are not elk or deer or bear. You man. What you do when your knees are stiff? When the earth no longer soft for sleeping? When the cold does not leave your bones? Who will share your lodge when the last leaves fall?"

  Wind breathed among the trees. Some snow fell from the stiff leaves of an oak and from the spruce.

  "What of Itchakomi? Such a woman walks with the wind. Such a woman must be fought for or stolen."

  "She will go home to her people. She may be the Great Sun."

  "Hah! You think she go back safe? You think she pass by the Conejero? The Pawnee? The Osage? She will be taken to some warrior's lodge. You see."

  "So?" The thought made me uncomfortable, but I did not like to say so, or even think of it.

  "You speak, she stay. I tell you this."

  "It is not possible."

  He shrugged. "I think you fool. Once in a lifetime a man finds such a woman. Once! I have watched her with you. She will keep your lodge if you speak."

  "She is curious about our customs, as you are. She is not interested in me."

  "Hah!"

  A veil of snow lifted from a peak and hung suspended against the gray sky, and then sifted softly away as though it had not been. A chill wind stirred, and frozen leaves scraped against the stiff branches. Snow drifted down from the trees and I shivered.

  "You my friend. I speak as friend." For a moment he was silent. "I have no other friend."

  Neither of us spoke for a long time and then I said, "And what of you?"

  "I have a man to kill, if you do not."

  "What?"

  "He is out there. He looks for us. He looks forher . If we do not find him first, he will find us. It is better to hunt than be hunted."

  A chaos of granite lay at the foot of the mountain, covered now with snow. Lightning-struck trees showed their stark dead stumps against the sky. My toes were cold from standing, and I half turned to go. He looked at me coolly, waiting for some word from me.

  Curling my toes against the cold, I shrugged my shoulders under the buffalo robe, seeing a dream slide away down the icy hill, and another born.

  "Maybe you are right," I said. "Maybe I am a fool."

  "He leave his mark. He leave his challenge."

  Turning toward our lodge I looked back. "What do you mean?"

  "The young Natchee who was killed. He no dead when scalp taken. He alive."

  I still looked at him, waiting.

  "He know who kill him. He leave a sign in the snow where he die. He leave one sign."

  Everything in me waited. I knew before he said it. I knew what the sign would be and that when Keokotah spoke I must begin to seek, to hunt. And I did not want to hunt down any man.

  "He left one sign:Kapata !"

  Kapata? Well, I could make an exception.

  Chapter Twenty-Six.

  I am Itchakomi Ishia, a Daughter of the Sun, sent to find a new home for my people. This land is a good land. There is beauty here and much wild game, but there are enemies, also. The Conejeros are a fierce people, making war upon everybody. They would make war upon us.

  We could defeat them, but many of our young men would die.

  The Ni'kwana has sent this man to find me, to speak to me of returning. He has done so. But he says the Ni'kwana left it to me to decide, and the Ni'kwana has been my guide and teacher.

  Why did he send this man to me? Why did he not say, "Come back, Itchakomi, come back to your land by the river"?

  He left the decision to me. Why did he think I might not wish to return?

  The Ni'kwana traveled far to meet this man, and then sent him to find me. What did the Ni'kwana know that I do not?

  The Ni'kwana fears for me. He does not like or trust Kapata, and the Ni'kwana knows many things others do not.

  Who is this man Jubal? What does he believe? What am I to believe? He speaks of marvels, of customs strange to us, of peoples far away of whom I know nothing.

  Why have I not known of these people? He speaks of us asIndians . I do not know that name. The Ni'kwana has spoken of Spanishmen who came long ago, who killed some of our people and then went away down the Great River. We heard of such Spanishmen out upon the long grass, also, and one of them who ran away lived in our lodges for a time.

  I do not know this man or his people. I do not know his tribe or where his home is. Jubal speaks of great houses in some land beyond the sea, of customs strange to us, but how can I believe him?

  A sea is a great water. It is not a river. It must be like the great water we saw when long ago we traveled south with the Ni'kwana.

  What manner of man is he? Will he walk among us for a time and then go away to his own people? I have heard men speak of his tribe. He is a Sackett. I am Natchez.

  He says he is not a Sun. His father was a yeoman, but I do not know what that is. It is a good thing to be, I think.

  He is a warrior and a hunter. Keokotah says he is very brave, that he fears nothing. I think it is good to fear some things.

  He speaks of things strange to me, but I like to hear him speak. I listen and try to understand, but his words are not ours. I have learned much of his tongue but not of his meanings. To know words is not always to know thoughts. He speaks from his custom, I from mine. When I use his words I cannot speak the ideas I think. I do not make myself known.

  He is a wise man, I believe, a Ni'kwana among his own people.

  I am a Sun. What is my duty? To return to my people or to stay with this man who does not seek to know me?

  I am a beautiful woman. I know this because I have seen myself in the Pool of the Moon's Reflection. Does he not see that I am beautiful?

  Or is it that I am so different from the women of his people? Why does he avoid me? Am I not to his liking? Am I a bad taste in his mouth? A bad sound in his ears? What am I, a woman, to do?

  He speaks of the Shining Mountains, and when he speaks of them his voice has a ring to it. The mountains were a far land of which he dreamed, and now he
is among them, yet he has seen too little, he says. He wishes to wander down the days, through their forest and meadows and along their streams, but has it not always been so, that men prefer to wander and women to keep them close?

  I could wander the far lands, too. I am not afraid.

  He has terrible scars upon his head and upon his back and shoulders. I have seen his head when his hair falls a certain way, and I have seen his back when he bathed. He does not speak of the scars. He limps a little and has broken his leg. Keokotah spoke of that. He broke his leg when alone in the forest.

  I am a Sun. Among my people I command men. Among my people I could choose whomever I wished, but he is not of my people and does not understand our ways, although he listens when I speak.

  He does not know me. Should I return then to my own people? Should I leave him among his mountains and go back to my home beside the Great River?

  I have walked beside him through the snow. I have helped to skin the buffalo he killed. Does he not see that I am a fit companion for him?

  Keokotah has taken a woman. She is happy with him, but Keokotah also speaks of the far mountains. He is a Kickapoo and they are great wanderers. Are the Sacketts wanderers, too? The Natchee are not.

  Kapata hunts for me. He has killed Atasha, who was a young warrior, although brave. Kapata has taken his hair, although they grew up together.

  Kapata is fierce and strong, yet I do not fear him. If he tries to take me I shall kill him. I know the ways and he does not. There are ways secret to the Suns and known to no other.

  Kapata does not understand the Natchee. He does not wish to understand. He has hatred for us because we have contempt for his mother's people, who are Eaters of Men.

  I will go back. When the grass grows green again and the trees have buds. I shall go to my home beside the Great River. If Jubal Sackett does not see me I will take myself from his sight.

  Why did the Ni'kwana send him? The Ni'kwana who knows all and sees all?

  Thus I have been thinking. I have no one to whom I can speak. I am a Sun and we speak our thoughts only among ourselves. If I spoke to the other women here they would be ashamed for me.