If I was to find Itchakomi I must seek sign of their passing. The old man of the Cherokees might have told me something but I had forgotten to mention her to them. The Natchee had been friendly to the Cherokees, I remembered, and they might well have stopped at Hiwasee.
We had tales of Spanish men being westward, beyond the plains. I believed this to be true, but we did not know. Too little was known in England of what the Spanish were doing, and we in the colonies knew even less. From time to time the Indians brought stories of Spanish men to the westward, but far, far away.
Where would Itchakomi go? She was to seek out a new land for the Natchee, and such a land must be far enough away to provide escape from their enemies. There were fierce tribes to the north, such as the Seneca, so it was unlikely they would go far in that direction. The plains had to be where they would go, but would they stop there? What would invite them? Only that the plains were empty.
I spoke of this to Keokotah. “Where would you go?”
He had been lying on the grass and he sat up suddenly. “To the mountains,” he said. “I would go where mountains are, where water is, where game can be. I would find a place hidden from eyes.”
“And to get there?”
“I would follow a river, but not too close. Where water is, enemies can be. I would walk far from streams and come to them only at night, or before night.”
We talked of this and of many things. Keokotah was learning more English from me, and he had a quick intelligence as well as a gift for mimicry that helped him to learn.
“You English—” he said.
“English? I do not know that I am English,” I said. “My father was English, but I have never seen England. I know only America. I think I am American.”
“Why you American?”
“Because I was born here. I live here. All my memories are of here.”
“So it is with me, but I am Kickapoo.”
“You are Kickapoo, but you are also American,” I explained.
“You are American. You say I am American. What of Cherokee? What of Seneca?”
“They are Americans, too.”
He shook his head. “No Seneca is American. Seneca is Seneca and my enemy.”
“Far away in Boston there are people called Puritans. They are English by birth. They do not think as I do, but they are Americans, too.”
“They are not your tribe?”
“No.”
“Spanish men your tribe?”
“No.”
“Spanish men live in Florida. That is America?”
“Of course.”
“Then Spanish men are Americans?”
“Well—”
“You say Seneca are American. I say Spanish men are American.”
“It would be better if we forgot who is Seneca and who is Spanish and just remembered we are all Americans.”
Keokotah was silent. The idea was new to him and he was not prepared to accept it. But was I prepared to accept the Spanish, our traditional enemies, as Americans?
Keokotah spoke slyly. “Next time we meet Seneca, you tell him we all Americans. No need fight. You put down your bow. Put down your knife. You walk up to him and say ‘we all Americans.’ “
“And—?”
“Your American scalp will hang in a Seneca lodge.”
“What if a Seneca came to you and said, ‘We no fight’?”
“I would take his scalp, cut off his hands and his genitals.”
“Cut off his hands?” This, I knew, was often done as well as other mutilation. It was a custom, and a barbarous one. “Why?”
He stared at me as if my words were those of a child. “If he has no hands he cannot attack me in the time after this. If he has no genitals he cannot breed sons to hunt me down. What else is there to do?”
I started to tell him white men did not do such things and then amended it. “It is not our custom.”
He shrugged. “You will have enemies waiting in the time after this, but I shall rest in peace.”
“But why not have peace here? Now? Would you not like it if you could walk in the forest without danger?”
“No. Soon Keokotah lazy, fat, useless. Indians cannot live without war. Until an Indian has taken a scalp he is nothing. He cannot get a woman, he cannot speak in council.”
“That, too, can change. In England most of the titled lords won their titles because of their ability at killing. A man was knighted because of his skill with weapons. Now often enough a man is given a title or knighted who would faint at the sight of blood.”
“The Kickapoo are strong because of our enemies. Deny us our enemies and we would grow weak. The Englishman taught me to pray to your Christian god,” he added suddenly.
“And you do?”
“Why not? All gods are useful. Who am I to say yours is not? The Englishman prayed, and he was strong in death. The Seneca who killed him sing songs of his courage.”
After a moment, Keokotah added, “If I make one last prayer I ask that your god grant me an enemy. If I have an enemy, even one enemy, I can be strong.”
“It need not be an enemy,” I protested, “any obstacle can do the same. Anything that makes one struggle to be stronger, to be better.”
“You have obstacle. I will have enemy. You grow strong in your way, I in mine.”
He was a most stubborn man, but a strong one. Yet as I protested I had to remember that England became great at sea at least in part because Spain built an armada.
Chapter Six.
We hid our canoe when the morning was bright on the water, and started inland. My father had put it upon me to find a new home for us and to spy out the land. For this I could not remain upon the water, but must explore. Besides, it was a strong craving in me to know what lay about me, and Keokotah felt as I did.
Rich were the grasses underfoot, and tall the trees when we came to them. There were numerous springs, yet not so many running streams, for this was limestone country, a place of many caves where the streams ran deep within them. Yet I began to see a reluctance in Keokotah, a hanging back at times, and he looked upon the hills with awe and seemed to wish to avoid the caves.
“The spirits of the dead are here,” he said, when I asked him the why of it. “They are all about. And there are caves where they sleep, not dead, yet not alive.”
“You have seen this?”
“I have.”
“Will you take me to them?”
“I will not.”
“I will make strong medicine,” I said, “medicine that will protect us from evil.”
That he had respect for my magic I knew, and I must keep him respecting it, but to do that it must be used sparingly and with care.
“I have much to learn,” I said, “and mayhap those who once lived here were of my people.” I did not know this was true, but knew the story of Prince Madoc of Wales, and suspected a connection.
Night was coming on when we spoke of this, and we made a small camp near a spring in a nest of rocks and trees. It was a hidden place and such as we needed, for we must make fresh moccasins from skins we carried. Moccasins did not last like English boots, but we were skilled at cutting out the patterns and shaping them to our feet.
What had Keokotah meant when he had said “they lived yet did not live”?
I knew the folly of asking direct questions, on some topics at least. I said no more, but waited, wishing for him to talk but knowing he would talk of these things only when the mood was upon him.
The night was very still. We sat late beside our fire building moccasins for tomorrow and other days. Knowing we had the time we each made several pairs, and I wished to wait and hope Keokotah would decide to speak.
Finally, he did. “Cold came early that year. I saw no bears, and even the birds flew low and fluttered from bush to bush. When the snow fell it fell thick, and soon it was deep and my tracks were deep like the tracks of pasnuta.”
“Pasnuta?”
He looked at me with no frie
ndly eyes. “The big one with the long nose. The Poncas call him pasnuta.”
“I did not know there was a name,” I said.
“All things have names.” He spoke with dignity. “Pasnuta means ‘long nose.’ “
After a moment he explained. “Pasnuta ver’ heavy. He makes deep tracks in snow.”
“It was an early snow?” I prodded him.
“I was not prepared. I had meat and a skin, but the skin was not ready. There was no time to build a lodge, and the snow was falling ver’ thick. I looked along the mountain for a place where trees had fallen or great rocks. I looked for shelter from the strong wind that was coming.”
“And?”
“I found a cave. Not a big cave.” He held his hands not two feet apart. “A broken rock, black inside. I looked and found a big room, big as three lodges together. I went inside and it was dry, no animal, nothing.
“Outside I broke branches from a dead tree. Gathering wood for my fire. Inside there was no wind but there was a place for fire. Ver’ old, this place. Ashes, but no sticks, no coals. Stones, like so.” His gestures indicated rocks placed in a circle for a fireplace.
“I make a fire. The room grows warmer. Not warm … warmer. I think in that place it is always cool.” He was silent and we worked on the moccasins. “The fire is burning. I put sticks. It burns brighter. Shadows move upon the walls. I look … and then I am frighten.”
“Frightened? Why?”
He did not speak for some minutes, and I waited, impatient but knowing I must wait.
“Too many shadows.” He looked up at me. “Shadows made by the firelight, but other shadows, too. Shadows that move not with the others, taller, thinner shadows. I am frighten, but it is cold outside, cold enough to die with no shelter from wind, no fire. And I am Keokotah, who is a Kickapoo, and not afraid.”
He paused. “I say to my thoughts, ‘no more sticks.’ If the fire go out there can be no dancing shadows, so I let the fire die, but when there are only red coals, there are still shadows, only they dance slow.
“I build the fire again. The shadows have not hurt me and if I let the room go dark … who knows what can be? Maybe the fire is for the shadows. Maybe they love the fire because it makes the shadows live?
“The shadows live again. Only the tall shadows, the thin shadows, they dance slower than the others. I am frighten to sleep. All night long I feed the shadows with their firelight. I give them life and make offering of sticks. Yet I am frighten. What if my sticks are no more? I get up and the shadows seem to grow taller. Yet I show how small is the pile of sticks and I go out into the cold for more. I bring them back. I build up the fire.
“And then I think now I am slave to the shadows. When morning comes, will they let me go? I watch the fire. I watch the sticks. When morning comes I put sticks on the fire and then go out as if for more. And I run!
“Away through the snow! I run, I dodge among trees, I keep running until I can run no more. I am no longer frighten. I am free! I have escape!” He looked at me. “I will no go back. It is enough.”
“And your skin? The one you took to the cave?”
He shrugged. “I think it is there. I do not want the skin. I will not go to the cave.”
“You will show me?”
He shrugged. “I show you. I wait two days. If you do not come, I walk away, far away, ver’ fast.”
For a long time we worked in silence, and the moccasins shaped themselves in our fingers. And then I said, “You spoke of ‘they live yet do not live’ or some such thing. Did you mean the shadows?”
He was again silent, and when almost an hour had passed and we had put aside our moccasins he said, “There was a deeper cave. I went to it.”
“Another room?”
“I do not know what is ‘room.’ Another cave, deeper into the mountain. I looked.”
“And—?”
“Three lay sleeping. Three wrapped tight in skins. Skins hard tied about them. Only their faces showed, and their hands and feet.”
“Tied?”
“Like buried. Like dead. A skin tied about each, but their faces looked old … so ver’ old! Wrinkled—” he squeezed up the skin of his face until it wrinkled. “When I lifted the pine torch their eyes were alive! They stared at me. They were blue eyes like the Englishman, only fierce, wild, strange! I was frighten. I run back to other cave. The shadows are better than they who lie sleeping with open eyes.”
The story was strange, yet I believed him. Keokotah did not lie. What he told me was what he saw, but what is it we see? Is it not often what we expect to see? Or imagine we see? He was frightened, so what part was reality and what part imagination? Sakim had taught me to be wary of evidence given by others, for in all evidence there is some interpretation. The eyes see, the mind explains. But does the mind explain correctly? The mind only has what experience and education have given it, and perhaps that is not enough. Because one has seen does not mean one knows.
I, coming from another world, would have a different supply of information than Keokotah. My explanation might be different. Moreover, I was curious. Blue eyes? Unlikely, but possible, and the three bodies wrapped in hides sounded to me like a burial, and the bodies might be mummified.
By now I believed Keokotah was my friend. To keep a friend is important and to shame him would be to lose him. Therefore I must not make light of his belief in what he had seen or believed he had seen. I must prepare for what I was to see in a way he would comprehend.
I would make medicine.
I must convince him I was making medicine to prepare myself for the ordeal that lay before me. I must make sure he knew that I was impressed by his story and that only the strongest medicine would ward off the evils I must face. I went to sleep that night thinking of what I must do and how to do it.
At the same time I was intensely curious. Seagoing men have many stories that do not reach their landlubberly friends; some are merely superstition but some are dim memories of voyages made long ago by mariners long since lost.
Many an ancient archive has been lost in fires, destroyed in sieges, or simply allowed to decay through lack of interest or awareness. Among the greatest of seamen, for example, were the Carthaginians. Descendants of the Phoenicians, who were themselves among the greatest of seafaring peoples, the Carthaginians were denied access to many sources of raw material by their rivals and enemies the Romans. Eventually the Romans destroyed Carthage, but in the meanwhile their ships were continually at sea bringing back cargoes of raw materials and much else. Hanno the Phoenician had circumnavigated Africa hundreds of years before Christ. Crossing the Atlantic would have been much less difficult.
We do not know where the Carthaginians went except in a few cases, but like their relatives the Phoenicians they were great traders and travelers. The Arabs, who were among the greatest of seafaring peoples, had access to more of the Phoenician records than had Europeans through their captures of such great trading ports as Tyre, Sidon, and Alexandria.
It was little enough I knew except from sailors’ tales or from the lips of Sakim. As the Moslem religion demanded a pilgrimage to Mecca from each of its followers, many succeeded in making the long trip from wherever they lived, and in so doing brought to Mecca many accounts not only of their homelands but of other lands of which they knew or had heard.
Hence my mind was not closed to the possibilities of who the bodies might have been. Long ago, when I was a small boy, my father had walked along the outer banks where the Atlantic curls its foaming lips against the shores of America. I had not seen the sea before although there had been much talk of it at home, for my father had sailed his own craft across that ocean.
The sea, busy moving sand as always, had uncovered an ancient wreck. There was a colony in Virginia by then, but theMayflower had not yet crossed the Atlantic with its Pilgrims, and the wreck we looked upon was old. Only a few gray ribs protruded from the sand. Perhaps only an abandoned ship that washed up here, perhaps some early venture.
Not enough showed itself to explain its construction but my father examined it curiously. When I asked whose ship it might have been, he shrugged. “It is a construction I find strange,” he said, “but I know so little of such things.”
He kicked one of the timbers, as one will. “Solid,” he said, “and built for the deep sea. This was no coasting craft.”
Keokotah knew nothing of ships and the sea, and of all this speculation I said nothing. I knew too little myself, just enough to tantalize me and make me long to know more. Yet when I thought back to my opportunities I knew that few boys had grown up exposed to more than I.
My father’s men had been soldiers, sailors, and wanderers. Sakim had been a seaman aboard a ship with my father, a prisoner taken at sea as my father had been, and several of his men had been soldiers who had fought in foreign wars.
Soldiering was an honorable trade, and many of England’s men had fought on the continent or in Mediterranean lands. Each had stories to tell and we boys were avid listeners. Yet I had learned more because I was not the hunter and fisherman the others were.
After Keokotah had fallen asleep I lay long awake remembering my mother. A thought took me: she was in England … suppose she, too, had died and I did not know? But then I would never know now if she were alive or dead.
I thought of Brian and Noelle. I had been closer to them than the older boys had.
How different their lives would be! In the England I had never seen they would live, grow, become educated. I longed for them then, and longed for my mother, too. But my star hung over the western mountains and I knew it.
What would I find there? What, besides a Natchee princess or priestess, or whatever she was? But I had nothing to do with her, only to find her and tell her the Great Sun was dying and she was needed. Remembering Ni’kwana, however, I began to wonder whether he really wished her to return or not. I think he feared Kapata and his ambition. But if she did not return, what life would there be for her? Where could such a one find happiness in our wild western world?
Jubal Sackett (1985) Page 5
