Jubal Sackett (1985)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 04

  Itchakomi turned and looked at me. “Who is God?” she asked.

  For a minute I just stood there. How to answer such a question? I was no preacher or priest. I was no student of religion. I knew so very, very little!

  “He is the Father. He is present in all things. He—”

  “—is the Sun?”

  “That would be one way in which he reveals himself. I believe he is more than just the sun.”

  “Justthe Sun?” Her eyes were cool. “The Sun gives life to all things.” She turned her dark eyes to me. “The Sun was our ancestor.”

  Religion was a topic I avoided. I felt myself inadequate to discuss it. Each man seemed to have a different idea about it. Moreover I had discovered that few things led more quickly to anger. “Perhaps you are right,” I replied mildly. “Men have found many explanations and perhaps each contains some element of truth. I am not a scholar, only one who wishes he could be.”

  “What is it, a scholar?”

  “I suppose a scholar is one who studies the origins of things, the laws of society and how men came to be what they are and where they are. I am not a scholar, and I have known but one, my teacher Sakim.”

  “He was an Englishman?”

  “No.” I squatted above the snow and with a twig I drew a rough map of Europe, Asia, and Africa, “England is here, and Sakim came from over here.” I indicated a place in Central Asia not far from Samarkand, yet the map was unbelievably crude. “Long ago many scholars came from there. Now they seem to come from further west.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “I know only that civilizations seem to be like people. They are born, they grow to maturity, then they age and lose their vitality and they die, only to be born again in later years.”

  “And where are we?”

  I moved back, indicated the breadth of the Atlantic, and then North America and a place on it. “We are about here. The Natchee lived about there.” I indicated a place on a river above a gulf.

  For a long time she studied it. Then the wind began to grow chill, and I shifted my feet, wiggling my toes against the cold in my moccasins.

  “It is so, this?”

  Keokotah had looked at it and then looked away. I do not believe he was interested. It all seemed remote to him, remote from the lands he knew, remote from these mountains.

  “I do not believe this,” she smudged the map suddenly with her toe. “I have heard nothing of this. Even the Ni’kwana has not spoken of it.”

  “You asked.”

  We walked back to the cave together, neither of us speaking. At the path between our two caves she stopped. “You are from this place, England?”

  “My father was.”

  “The Warriors of Fire? They come from there?”

  “From nearby. They are enemies of England, most of the time. They have many ships, many soldiers. They have conquered lands to the south. They killed many, made slaves of others. They destroyed their gods.”

  “They cannot destroy the Sun.”

  “No.” I smiled. “They would not wish to. They need its warmth as we do.”

  She lingered. “The tracks in the snow? Could you do them for me again?”

  “I shall try. Maybe on a bark, or better still a deer hide.”

  “I do not believe it but I should like to see what you believe. If such strange tribes had been, the Ni’kwana would have spoken of them.”

  “Before my father came to America he had never heard of the Natchee. The Englishmen who live near Plymouth have never heard of the Natchee. Even the Indians who live nearby do not know of the Natchee, yet the Natchee are important people. No man knows all the peoples. No man knows all the lands. So far as we know I am the first of my people to come this far, and perhaps none of my people will ever know that I came here, or that I met you.”

  She was silent and then her eyes lifted to mine. “Is it important that you have met me?”

  “It is to me,” I surprised myself by saying, “perhaps not to them.”

  She turned her eyes away, and then she said, “I am a Sun.”

  “And I am not.”

  She shook her head. “No, I think you must be a Sun, too. Although from another tribe, another place.”

  “I could be a Stinkard,” I said, smiling. “I do not place much faith in names or titles.”

  “Do you have Suns in your country?”

  “They are called royalty. We have another class as you have, called the nobility, and we also have our Respected Men.”

  “And you?”

  “In our country we have another class, I believe. They are called ‘yeomen,’ and my father was one of them. It is said that there were some respected men among my ancestors, too, but my father paid little attention to that. He judged each man by himself and not by his ancestors.”

  We each returned to our caves, and on that day we restricted our moving about, fearful the men we had seen might come again, and we wanted to leave no more tracks in the snow. Yet already I was making plans. When another heavy snow came we would move into the higher valley, further back in the hills. We would need heavy snow to cover our tracks. Until then we would enjoy our caves.

  There were many deerhides among us, some simply cured, some well tanned. One of the finest I secured from a Natchee. I would have traded, but when he discovered I wished to make a present for Itchakomi he presented me with it.

  To draw a map from memory is not easy, yet Sakim had taught me well and I did the best I could, using all the space on the deerhide. Itchakomi was a girl of unusual intelligence, as I had recognized from the first, but when one is teaching one always assumes a certain degree of preknowledge or awareness, and her world was one that embraced only areas with some two or three hundred miles around, and only rumors of much of that.

  She had seen the Gulf of Mexico, but knew it only as a vast body of water. Some of her people had once been to Cuba and even to Jamaica. Long ago there had been trade with Yucatan, but that was a misty tradition from a time before the Spanishmen came, which was more than one hundred years before. Ni’kwana had been one of those who had made the last voyage to Yucatan. They had found the Spanish there and had fled.

  My father’s last crossing of the Atlantic had taken him, if I remembered correctly, sixty-two days. It was difficult for her to imagine such a great body of water. I tried to explain about the many countries, the large cities, the riverboats.

  We had food and fuel so there was no need to stir outside the caves. Nor did we wish to attract attention. Always, there was someone on guard. Often I was the one, sometimes Keokotah or one of the Natchee. We saw no movement. A little snow fell, but only a very little. Within the cave, by firelight, I began the drawing of the map.

  Long ago, when only a small boy, Sakim had each of us draw this map, and he tried to explain to us the world as he knew it, and the world we should know. Sakim was a Moslem, and Mecca was the center of the Moslem world. To it other Moslems came on pilgrimages from every part of the world bringing with them their knowledge of peoples far away and lands strange to any but themselves.

  Only within the past century had Europe become aware of the many lands and beliefs that lay in the farthest corners of the world. It was required of a good Moslem that at least once during his lifetime he make a pilgrimage to Mecca, and they came by the thousands.

  Pausing to replenish the dying fire I looked about to discover that everyone slept. Several of the Natchee had begun coming to our cave to sleep, to leave more freedom to Itchakomi and her women.

  The night was still, with only an occasional crackle from the fire or a hissing whisper as the flames found dampness.

  Why was I doing this? Why was I drawing a map of the world she would never see for an Indian girl who probably had no wish to know of it? Even when the map was finished how could I make her comprehend the vastness of that world out there? Moreover, was it fair to her? She had been the center of her world, but now she would find it pitifully small. Did she want that? Di
d I want it?

  For a moment I thought to cast my map into the flames, but the task itself now engrossed me. I had a desire of my own to complete it. Supposing someday I became the father of a child? Would I not want him or her to know the world in which we lived?

  Irritably, I shook my head. Such an idea was foolish. I had no plans for a family, nor plans for a wife. When spring came I was going deeper into the mountains. There was a lot of country out there I wished to see.

  Yet I returned to the map, slowly tracing in the Black Sea and the Caspian. Sakim himself had come from a land near the Caspian Sea and had wandered on to Tashkent and Samarkand before going to Bagdad and Aleppo. Finally, I rolled up the map and lay down to sleep.

  For a long time I lay awake, my mind alive with ideas. How to make Itchakomi understand my world? How to make her realize her own would never be the same again? If she found a place in the mountains, it would be only a temporary refuge, and one could not hide from change. One must adapt or die.

  Already among my own people I had seen it. I had seen them shed the old customs and adapt to the new. I had seen them find ways of doing things never tried before.

  When I awakened I was cold, colder than I had ever been before. Crawling from my blanket and buffalo robes I stirred the fire and added fuel, peering from the cave mouth. Nothing moved in a white world. The sky was a dull flat gray and when I looked at the stream it was a shining path of ice.

  No one stirred in the cave of Itchakomi. I walked to the opening, the snow crunching under my feet, and stepping inside I stirred their fire also and brought life from the ash-buried coals. When a good blaze was taking the chill from their cave I tiptoed out and went back to my own. Beside the fire I shivered, my face burning, my back chilled. Yet slowly the cave warmed, and I got out my deerskin and began again on the map. My fingers were cold and it was hard to work, but now I was gripped by my task. Yet as I worked, I was bothered by doubts.

  What would my revelations mean to her? Would she believe? I knew most Indians doubted the stories told by Europeans, and so might she.

  Suppose she did believe? What would it do to her world? Her beliefs? Her personal assurance?

  She was a Sun, which among her people meant she was most important. She could walk with pride among her people and the neighboring tribes, respected and looked up to. What would happen when she realized her people were unknown in the wider world and her beliefs unaccepted? I hesitated over my map and put it aside. I added fuel to the fire and stared into the flames.

  It might be well to forget my map, to let her live out her days believing what she now did. But would that happen? The French, Spanish, English, and Dutch all claimed land. They would be moving in to settle, and there was no way to prevent that. Better to prepare her for what was to come. She seemed a very intelligent girl, or was I reading something into her because I wished to find it?

  That stopped me. Why should I wish it? She meant nothing to me. When the weather broke we would be moving on. Further west for me, and back to her homeland for her.

  Still, if she had the map and realized what had happened in other lands she might be better prepared for what would happen here.

  I went to the cave’s opening and looked out upon the white, empty land before me. Even the trees were lost under the heavy fall of snow. Everything before me was frozen in the icy grip of winter.

  We had fuel, and knew where more could be had, and we had meat. We could last out this cold and longer. Then we must hunt again. It would be impossible to escape eastward across the plains. Yet we would have little to fear from the Conejeros now. They would be holed up in their lodges, as any sane Indian would be. Of Kapata I was not so sure.

  He was a vengeful man, and he was also a man in a hurry. I did not believe the snow would stop him, or the cold. It might rob his followers of some ambition, but not Kapata himself.

  As I stood at the cave’s mouth, half shielded by brush and trees, which both provided concealment and helped conserve our heat, I thought of Kapata and tried to decide what his next move might be.

  Our tracks had vanished beneath the snow, yet his was a shrewd mind, and he would try to decide where we had gone. Our need for shelter was the same as that of others, and a first consideration was the wind. We must have shelter from the wind. A cliffside then, or a thick grove. We could have built a shelter or found a cave. If a cave, then the mountains would be the logical place.

  My thinking left me uneasy. Surely, the possible hiding places along the creeks and rivers would be few and easily found. Kapata would know of the Conejeros, and if he had not allied himself with them he would know where they had been, so one by one the possibilities would be eliminated.

  It was cold out there now … cold!

  Kapata would be seated in a shelter now, fuming at the delay, impatient to be out and doing. At any time the cold could break, and then he would come seeking.

  Itchakomi’s fighting men were few and not so fierce as those they must meet, for the Natchee by shrewd diplomacy had avoided wars and fighting more than most. The Conejeros were not interested in peacemaking.

  Nothing moved out there. The snow stretched away white and endless. I looked again and then returned to my map-making.

  Keokotah slept. Few Indians moved about in the cold, knowing too well the dangers and how easily a man might die if injured. It was the Indian way, the sensible way, to lie by the fire. It was storytelling time for them.

  I added fuel to the fire.

  Before the day was out I would have to bring more fuel into the cave, for the flames were hungry and the dry wood burned swiftly. After a while I put down my map and broke off a piece of frozen jerky, which snapped like wood. Tucking the piece into my mouth I went again to the cave mouth.

  Nothing stirred.

  Going to a fallen tree I broke some of the larger branches and carried them back inside. Working steadily, I had in a few minutes gathered wood for the day and most of the night.

  With a last armful of wood I was turning back to the cave when a movement caught my eye. I stopped dead still, and then slowly turned my head.

  Out there, in the snow, and yet far away, something moved! Something, a man or an animal, moving toward us.

  Fascinated, unbelieving, I stood, watching.

  How far away? A mile? Oh, more than that! Perhaps two miles?

  What was it? Who was it?

  I waited, watching.

  Chapter Nineteen.

  Keokotah was beside me. “He hurt,” he said. “No walk good.” We watched the distant figure struggling through the snow, and my feelings were not Christian. Whoever it was down there could bring us nothing but grief. Whatever else he was doing he was marking a trail right to our door at a time when we could not afford to attract attention.

  He seemed to be alone, which probably meant that he was fleeing from something—perhaps he had been a prisoner of Indians and was escaping.

  “He know about caves,” Keokotah said.

  It was the only explanation. We had deliberately not moved about, so he could not know of our presence. The only reason he could have for coming this way was that he knew about the caves and was seeking shelter from the cold. He was still a long way off and was having a hard time of it. We looked beyond him but saw no pursuit in sight.

  The man paused then and looked back. Was he followed? Or merely afraid of being followed? In this snow, following his tracks would offer no problem. All our efforts to remain hidden were being wasted.

  Now he was coming toward us again. The snow was deeper out there than we had believed. Once he stopped and shaded his eyes toward the cliff where the caves were. He looked right where we stood, but we knew he could not see us, for we stood among trees and brush.

  Drawing back a bit further against the cliff, where there was a depression caused by runoff water, I went to the next cave. The Natchee Unstwita was on guard there. He spoke neither English nor Creek, so I made signs to indicate a man was coming. He went at once to
look, and then vanished within the cave, where I heard a low mutter of voices.

  Itchakomi came to the mouth of the cave, stooping to emerge. She went to look, and then turned to me. “He is a white man.”

  A white man?Startled, I looked again. Yes, it could be. But a white man?Here?

  Well, I was here. And there were French far to the north and Spanishmen to the south. I drew my blanket about me to conceal my guns.

  “Let them stay inside,” I suggested. “Only Unstwita and Keokotah.”

  She agreed, and studied the man again. “Keokotah says he is hurt,” I commented.

  “It is so.”

  He must have been desperate indeed. An injured man has small chance of survival in intense cold, and the day had grown no warmer. I looked back the way he had come. There was no pursuit. Had he escaped scot-free then? Or were they taking their time, knowing he could not go far in this weather?

  We waited, watching him flounder through the snow. He was quite close when he stopped suddenly, crouched as if to turn, and glanced wildly about. He had seen where we had been gathering fuel and some fragments of bark atop the snow.

  “It is all right,” I spoke quietly, “you may come in.”

  His only visible weapon was a stout stick that he must have taken up from the ground somewhere. He stared toward us but could see nothing, for we had remained behind the brush and trees.

  “Who is it?” He spoke in Spanish.

  “A friend,” I replied in the same language, “if you are friendly.”

  He came on few steps further and then halted. Now he could see me, and he could see Keokotah. “Who are you?”

  “Travelers,” I said, “and you?”

  He did not reply, but came a few steps closer. “I am hungry,” he said.

  “Are they far behind you?”

  “Who?” He stared at me. “Nobody is behind me.” He peered at me. “I need a horse. I can pay.”

  “We have no horses,” I replied.

  “Nohorses? ” He almost screamed his frustration. “I must have a horse! At once!”