Jubal Sackett (1985)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 04

  A great valley, we heard, a greater valley by far than this where we lived. And beyond it? The sunlight glinted sometimes on snowcapped peaks, or so the Ponca woman said, of far-off mountains, incredibly high.

  Night came and the stars, but Keokotah did not come and our hearts were heavy. We did not speak of him nor of our fears, but each knew what the others thought and each knew the fear in his own heart.

  Yet he came! A stirring in the night, a faint sound at the door. I drew my knife and stepped forward to meet whatever was there.

  The door opened. It was Keokotah.

  “Ah!” I said.

  He looked at me. “They are gone … gone!”

  “Gone? Who?”

  “The Natchee, the Tensas … gone.”

  “You mean they have given up and gone home?” This I had been expecting. The Indian does not like long, drawn-out battles. He wishes to do it quickly, get it done, and go home.

  “Gone … dead. All killed.”

  All? I could not believe it.

  “Who?” Although I knew without asking.

  “The Komantsi. They have killed them. Taken their hair.”

  “Kapata, too?”

  “No Kapata. He is gone when they come, I think. I think he come back after. I see big tracks.”

  Kapata!Would we ever be rid of him?

  Chapter Thirty-Three.

  They came down the canyon in a straggling line, two dozen of them at least, with three horses and a half dozen miserable dogs. Most of the men were wounded and some of the women, and all were about to fall from exhaustion. They stopped abruptly when they saw us, hesitating until I walked out to meet them.

  In sign language we told them we were friendly, and they explained they had been hunting buffalo across the eastern mountains when attacked. Their warriors had been scattered and the Komantsi had killed many. They were Pawnees, seeking a place to rest and gather themselves for another fight.

  The old man who came forward to meet me carried himself with pride. He was Asatiki. He had lost half an ear in some bygone battle, and his body was crisscrossed with ancient scars. The mighty muscles of his youth had turned to sagging flesh, but in his eyes the fierce pride had not dimmed.

  His people were beaten but not whipped, that I saw at once. They needed to recover from their wounds and make arrows for another fight. But they were ready to fight.

  My gesture included the meadow. “Stay. We are friends. If the Komantsi come we will fight them together. Only,” I added, “do not kill the young buffalo you see here. He is a medicine bull. He is Paisano.”

  The place they chose was several hundred yards from our fort, near a small stream and a stand of trees. They gathered sticks to build their fires and I went among them to treat their wounds.

  “I am Sackett,” I said, “a man of mysteries.” The simple treatments I used were adequate, and I had gathered herbs against such an event. Best of all, these were a strong people and the air was fresh and clean.

  In their own land they lived in earth lodges that would shelter twenty people or more, domed structures built upon a framework of timbers, but here they built of bark, for these were but temporary shelters.

  Asatiki had no memories of his people that went beyond the time of his grandfather. He could tell me only stories told about the campfire in winter.

  I spoke of the Tensa and Kapata. “That one is our enemy. If he comes among you, know him not. His medicine is bad. He carries the seeds of evil.”

  My questions were about the Komantsi. “Strange Indians,” the old man said. “I do not know them. They come to steal Spanish horses, but they attack all they see. They boast of many warriors to the north, many who will come. Maybe they speak true.”

  He knew nothing more. There had been sporadic attacks before this, hit and run attacks by Komantsi seeking horses and stealing women.

  His people, the Pawnee, had a very old tradition that the Pawnee came from the southwest and once lived in houses built of stone. Another story had it they came from the southeast. Arriving in the land where they now lived, they encountered the Skidis, with whom they fought. Later, the two tribes became friends, intermarried, and became as one people.

  When we had talked much I asked about the yellow earth that both smelled and burned. There was such earth far to the southeast, he said. His Caddoan relatives used it for medicine. The old man had not been to the place where it was found, over a month of travel, but knew of it from other Indians.

  Our corn was growing, and the hunting had been good. A small herd of buffalo had strayed into the lower valley. Keokotah no longer spoke of his village, and when I spoke of it he said, “My village is here.”

  Often I wondered about his visit to his own people at the time of my visit to the caves of the mummies. He did not speak of it, but I believed he had found himself no longer at ease among them.

  The Englishman had begun it. In his loneliness he had talked long hours with the boy, until the thoughts of Keokotah had made him a stranger among his own people.

  When alone Komi and I spoke of this, and she looked into my eyes and spoke of herself. “I, too, miss my people. Here we have no fire. There is no temple and no priest.”

  “Are you not a priestess?”

  “I am.”

  “There can be a sacred fire.”

  “It would not be the same. Our sacred fire was a gift of the Sun.”

  “Am I not a master of mysteries?”

  She looked long into my eyes, seeking the truth.

  “Did not the Ni’kwana see me as such?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “If a scared fire will make you happy, I shall give you such a fire. I will give you fire from the sun.”

  “You?”

  “Soon, when the time is right, I will bring fire from the sun.”

  She did not believe me. “You do not worship the Sun.”

  “The sun gives life to all things. Without the sun this would be a dark, dead world. Perhaps,” I added, “the spirit we worship is the same, and only the names are different. The message from He who rules over us all may come to each people in a different way.”

  Our family had had little to do with organized religion, although my father when young had gone often to a village in Lincolnshire named Willoughby. This was the same village from which Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony had come. There had been a young minister there named Wheelwright, considered a dissident, but my father had liked his ideas and enjoyed his preaching. My brother Yance, who had married a girl from the Massachusetts Bay colony, had told me Wheelwright had come over the ocean and was known there.

  That night I began again the study of the stars. My father and Jeremy Ring, who both knew of navigation by the stars, had taught us much. Sakim had taught us more. How much Itchakomi knew I had no idea, but I was sure she had been instructed in such lore. To produce a sacred fire I must choose the right time and the right place.

  We had much of which to talk, for Itchakomi was endlessly curious about the English way of life, and often I wished I had listened more when my parents had spoken of their lives before coming to America. It had all seemed so remote and so unimportant to our lives in the colonies.

  The Pawnee were skillful hunters and often shared their kills with us. In the first days we fed them and they simply rested. One woman died of her wounds, and two of the warriors were long in recovering.

  It was an opportunity to learn their language and I did so, not enough to speak it well, yet enough to exchange information and for general talk. Their villages, they said, were along another river north of the Arkansas.

  We gathered nuts, roots, and berries against the winter’s coming, and fuel, also. Always, at home or on the hunt, we were alert for enemies, but when they came it was not the Komantsi but the Spanish.

  Keokotah saw them first, seeing the sunlight upon their armor when they were far away. We hid our women in the cave where I had found niter, a place difficult to find and easy to defend.
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  Old Asatiki came to me. His people were ready to fight. The Spanish had raided among them for slaves, something I knew was forbidden by their king, and the Pawnees wanted no more of it.

  “Wait,” I advised, “but be ready. We talk first. If talk is no good, we fight. But each choose a man, and at the first sign of trouble, kill him.”

  There were twelve soldiers in half armor and about twenty Indian allies of a tribe I did not know. There were two officers and a priest. One of the officers was Diego, but this time it was Gomez who was in command.

  Gomez reined in his horse near me, his eyes going from me to the fort. It was an impressive building, that I knew, the stockade of upright poles and the fort itself large enough to house us all and in a dominating position.

  “We went to your valley and did not find you,” Gomez said.

  “We have enemies,” I suggested, “and you have them also. The Komantsi.”

  He shrugged. “They have not come against us. When they do we will grind them into the earth.” He looked around. “Where is the woman?”

  “Woman? Do you see women? We are warriors here.”

  Anger came quickly to him. He did not like being frustrated, and he was in a position of power. I was wearing my guns, but they were concealed beneath the poncho I wore. My only visible weapon was the spear in my hand.

  “We have come for the woman you would not sell,” he said. “All here belong to His Majesty.”

  I smiled. “And His Spanish Majesty has forbidden the enslavement of Indians.”

  His expression changed. “His Majesty does not understand conditions here. He will change that rule.”

  “At your behest? Since when does a minor captain instruct the king?”

  His expression was not nice to see. ” ‘Minor’ captain? We shall see.” He gestured to his soldiers. “Take him. He will tell us where the woman is.”

  They started forward. I stepped back into the rocks where their horses could not easily follow and threw my spear. Gomez leapt his horse after me and the spear missed, striking a soldier behind him, glancing from his helm, and stunning him. Two soldiers fell, arrows in their throats, and suddenly the Pawnees raised up around them. One warrior leapt to a horse behind a soldier and wrapped an arm around his throat, wrenching him from the horse. As the soldier fell another Pawnee killed him.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the attack was over. The soldiers broke and fled. Brave men they were, but their hearts were not in this fight and I suspected none of them liked Gomez, who was a petty tyrant.

  Diego was the last to turn away. “This was not my doing,” he said, “but he is in favor and not I. Protect your woman.”

  He rode away after them, and I noticed that several of the retreating soldiers gathered about him. Three soldiers and an Indian lay on the ground, and one soldier was limping away.

  All but three of us had been hidden, so our attack had been a surprise. I suspect Gomez had expected resistance and welcomed it. He could have seen the lodges of the Pawnees, but they were some distance off. Their fires were smoking and they looked to be occupied. He had not expected them to be hidden in the trees and rocks.

  The Pawnees stripped the coats of mail and the helmets from the soldiers. I recovered a musket and a fallen sword.

  Clouds gathered over the Sangre de Cristos, and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Gomez and his men had fled down the valley, but I did not for a moment believe we had seen the last of them. They would come again, for he dared not return without the woman he had undoubtedly promised. Diego would not have been so careless or overconfident, nor would Gomez when he returned.

  We had revealed our strength, and he had more men. He also had muskets, and our Pawnee friends were soon to leave. I had wished for the iron shirts for my men, but the Pawnees had taken them, although I still had my own, found so long ago upon the banks of the Arkansas, and it was a better, tighter coat of mail than these.

  Keokotah came from the trees, where he had used his bow. “I go,” he said. “I follow.”

  It was an idea that had occurred to me, also. To follow and strike them in their own camp, strike them before they could gather to come against us.

  Gomez was no fool. Overconfident, yes, but he would be so no longer. He was a tough, seasoned soldier and he had good men with him. The men we had killed would have mates who would resent their death. From now on there would be no surprises, no quick victories.

  On one of the dead soldiers I found a powder horn of gunpowder for the firing of his musket. It was a treasure, more to be valued than gold.

  Night came and I checked the loads in my pistols. There was food in the cave and water. The women would be safe there. If I went now to see them, my going might betray their presence, so I stayed away.

  The Pawnees were in their camp, and I was alone in the fort. Keokotah had gone out, scouting Gomez and his men. There was no thought of sleep, for I must be ready for an attack at any moment.

  Seated by a high port that allowed me to survey the approaches, I ate some nuts and waited. My bow was beside me with a quiver of arrows. Nor did I like the waiting. I would rather be out there in the darkness with Keokotah, but if our fort was taken then all our carefully hoarded food would be lost.

  Where was Paisano? He had been turned loose but would stay close.

  The hours dragged. I paced the floor, went from port to port, looking into the night. Inside there were no lights, and I needed none.

  There was no moon, but the stars were out. From the high ports I could see beyond the stockade. Nothing moved. Nothing—

  My eyes held on an edge of brush. Had there been movement there? Or was my vision tricking me? Or perhaps a leaf moving?

  Taking up my bow, I waited.

  There!

  Another movement! Something or somebody was creeping closer.

  A quick scurry of feet in the grass, and then another. Two, at least, and right under the stockade. Taking up an arrow I bent my bow.

  A head, ever so slowly, appeared over the wall. I waited.

  Then suddenly the shoulders and chest appeared, and a leg was thrown over. I loosed my arrow.

  It was no more than twenty paces, and the target for. an instant was sharp against the night. In the stillness I heard the arrow’s impact, a man’s grunt, and a fall. He fell on the inside, and I could see his body lying still. But was he dead? Was he even badly wounded? Might he not be waiting to suddenly rise and rush to the gate to open it for the others?

  He moved, and I let go a second arrow.

  And then I heard them coming, not one, but many. And I was alone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four.

  My eyes were accustomed to the darkness. Each shadow near or within the fort was known to me. I went down into the yard. I could not win this fight while seated in safety. I had my spear, my guns, and my blade.

  They were coming over the wall when I reached the yard, not one but at least three. I met the first with a sharp, upward thrust of the spear. His hands were grasping the wall, and he saw the spear too late. He let go with one hand to ward it off and fell, right onto the point. The force of his fall tore the weapon from my hands just as I heard a sharp scuffing of moccasins behind me.

  Swiftly I turned, striking wildly with the blade. It sliced something, and then I was facing two men, one with a spear. I had fenced long hours with my father and the others back at Shooting Creek and my blade was quick to deflect the spear’s point, and thrust. He staggered back, for the thrust had gone deep, but the other man was at the gate, removing the bar.

  Running toward him, I was too late. The gate burst open—a rider! I drew a pistol and fired, and then dropped the muzzle to reload.

  Yet I believe it was the shock of the gunfire more than its effect that stopped them.

  My first shot killed a man. It could scarcely have been otherwise, for he was within ten feet of me and my pistol had a long barrel. He fell from his horse and it clattered over the stone-flagged yard. Then it wheeled and
dashed out again.

  The sudden shot ended the attack. Waiting, my heart pounding, I shoved the gate back into position and dropped the bar.

  They were brave men out there but they had not expected gunfire, and they had lost two men—

  Two?

  Three had been coming over the wall. One I had impaled on my spear, the second with the knife. Yet the third, he who had run to open the gate?

  Where was he?

  My pistol went back into its scabbard. I had had to let go my knife when I had drawn the pistol. Now I squatted, groping for it.

  Ah, I had it! Now?

  There was a man inside, I was sure. A man who waited to kill me. An Indian, I thought, one of the Indians serving with the soldiers of Gomez.

  He was here, somewhere in the darkness.

  Yet three men were down, including the rider of the horse whom I had shot. He lay without moving. Had my shot been good, then? But where was the other? Somewhere in the shadows there was an enemy. If they attacked again he would attack when I faced them, attack from behind me.

  What were they thinking outside? They could not know that they had a man alive inside the fort, yet they must know by now they had lost three or four men. It was expensive, but Gomez was ruthless. He had a contempt for all human life but his own.

  Fire?

  That would be in his mind, yet he could not know that Itchakomi was not inside the fort. He dared not risk burning his prize.

  Crouching, I studied the shadows. Nothing moved, and the shadows were dark and deep. My spear was nearby, in the body of the fallen Indian. I might need it.

  Where would my enemy be hiding? Each shadow was in my mind and one by one I checked them over for hiding places trying to remember each detail, each corner.

  Where was he?Did he plan to open the gate when I was distracted?

  The minutes plodded by on gentle feet, and my eyes searched the shadows. Had he gone around the side of the fort? Or inside? Suppose he started a fire?

  There was a moment of wild panic. We would never be able to rebuild before snow fell, not if we were burned out. In the moment of anxiety I almost moved, yet somewhere my enemy was watching for me, even as I watched for him. Again it was the old story that he who moved first would die first.