Sakim put down his cup. "Our good Khaldoun has much to say on the subject of eating. He maintains that the evidence shows that those who eat little are superior to those who eat much, in both courage and sensibility.
"Yet we readily accept the idea that a fat man is wise. Was he not wise enough to provide for himself? But we hesitate to ascribe piety to any but the lean. A fat prophet could never start a new religion, while a lean, ascetic-looking one could do it easily.
"A prophet should always come down from the mountain or out of the desert. He should never arise from the table.
"Also, he must have a rich, strong voice, but not one too cultivated. We tend to dislike and be suspicious of too cultivated a voice. A prophet's voice should have a little roughness in the tones."
"We had better get to the walls," I said, a little roughness in my own voice.
"It grows a little thick in here. At least, when I read Montaigne I can close the book when I am tired of listening."
"See? I drop my pearls and they are ignored. Well, so be it."
We climbed the ladder in darkness, feeling our way from rung to rung. Kane O'Hara loomed beside us. "Nothing," he said. "But the crickets have stopped."
As he left, he added, "If you need me, raise your voice or fire a shot. I shall not sleep, only nod a little over the table."
"I'll remain here," Sakim said, to Kane. "But don't eat all the cornbread."
The posts that made up the palisade were of uneven lengths and were deliberately left so, as that made it more difficult for attackers by night to recognize a man's head. The poles averaged between fifteen and sixteen feet above the ground with a walk running around the wall ten feet above the ground except at the gate itself. Two ladders led from the ground to the walk, and there were two blockhouses projecting from the walls to enable defenders to fire along the walls. The second blockhouse had been added sometime after the first, as we were continually trying to improve our situation. Jeremy was charging the extra muskets.
No stars were visible now. The wind was picking up, which made the detection of any approach a doubtful thing. It was intensely dark, yet our eyes were well accustomed to the night. So far as I had been able to learn, no Indian had succeeded in taking a fortified position such as ours, but I knew the dangers of over-confidence, and tried to imagine how they might attempt it.
A dozen times they had attempted this fort with no success. If they tried again, it must be because they believed they could succeed.
Something struck the palisade below me... .
Further along something else seemed to fall, and something snake-like whisked along the walk and disappeared over the wall.
Not quite over. It was a knotted rope, and the knot caught in one of the interstices between two posts. Instantly, I heard moccasins scrape against the logs outside, and almost at once a head loomed over.
His weirdly painted face was just inches away from mine and my reaction was instantaneous: a short, vicious smash in the face with the butt of my musket.
He had not seen me at all, and had thrust his head forward to look, so he took the full force of my blow and hit the ground with a thud.
"Ropes!" I shouted. "They're climbing ropes!"
Reversing my musket, I fired at a second head that was looming over the wall some twenty feet away, and which I could scarcely make out.
It was hand to hand then, and a bitter fight it was. Three Senecas, for such they proved to be, actually made it over the wall. One we shot as he dropped to the ground inside, another was killed with a sword thrust.
What was happening beyond my vision I'd no idea. It was no time for looking about. A big Indian leaped over the wall just before me, a lithe, splendid-looking rascal, although dimly seen. He no sooner lighted on the balls of his feet than he lunged at me, knife in hand.
My musket was empty and I'd put it down. There was no chance to draw a gun from my belt, and he held the knife low and came in fast. With a slap of the hand I drove the knife-wrist aside and out of line with my body, grasped the wrist, put a leg across in front of him, and spilled him to the walkway.
He hit hard, but was up with a bounce and came at me again, more warily this time. There was time to draw a pistol, but he had no such weapon. So I drew my own knife, the knife of India given me by my father long since. The Indian thrust well, but I parried and also thrust. He'd some knowledge of knife-fighting but none of fencing, and the point of my blade nicked his wrist.
He pulled back suddenly, blood upon his hand, then feinted and dove at me, grabbing at my legs. My knee lifted and caught the side of his head as he came in, and the nudge was enough to put him over the edge.
He fell ten feet but landed standing up. He came back up instantly, and I leaped at him. He sprang back, but not soon enough and I hit him and knocked him back to the ground. I jumped down to continue the fight. I hit him with my fist under the chin.
He staggered. The force of my fist had hurt him. I hit him twice more. He was totally unused to the boxer's style and the blow in the wind hurt him anew.
Again I hit him and he fell back into the dirt. I grabbed him up by the lot of necklaces at his throat and slammed him hard against the gate.
He hit with tremendous force, and I thought he was out. I found his knife on the ground.
The first light of dawn was in the sky and I saw him plain. He had got up and was running away. I took the knife and threw it at him, yelling, "You'll need that!"
He turned and caught it from the air as one might catch a ball. "I will bring it back!" he shouted, and was gone.
For a moment I stood stock-still, staring after him. He had yelled in English!
"Wait!" I shouted, but he was gone and away.
My shout was the fight's end, and I walked slowly around, making a circuit of the walls. Kane had taken an arrow through his upper arm and Black Tom Watkins had a bad knife cut. Jeremy hadn't a scratch but it developed that I had three-a slight puncture wound and two slight cuts, troublesome if not cared for.
We believed that three of them had died, but as they had taken the bodies away we could not be sure.
What had turned the tide was not of our doing. For just at the moment of the hardest fighting, Kin, Yance, and a dozen Catawba, aided by Wa-ga-su, had come storming up and broke the back of the attack upon us.
Moreover, Kin and Yance were riding horseback!
Chapter 34
How swiftly roll the years! How lonely keep the nights!
At last I am westward going, over the blue mountains into the land beyond, and long have I dreamed of this! How many, many times have I looked with longing at those smoky mountains against the sky?
Pim Burke is back, if only for a little time. His fair lady proved unfair. She took his emerald and what gold he had and fled upon a ship for England, and may no good come to her.
Yet he is back, and for that I am grateful. He will stay but for a little while, for he returns to the coast to set up an inn in one of the new towns. It is a business at which he will do well.
John Quill has been to Williamsburg to make a claim for his grant of land. He has spoken for his piece here, and for another on the Chowan, and has persuaded Jeremy to do the same.
Kin and Yance have again gone beyond the mountains following a path of the Indians, worn by the feet of centuries going yonder. Soon I shall be meeting them, for it is into this land I am going at last.
Not in two years have we seen Jubal. Somewhere he roams beyond the great river of De Soto, somewhere across the vast plains that lie yonder toward the sun, and I think he will stop no more until he walks the shining western mountains of his dreams, and this I understand, for I have followed my dream of mountains, too.
And so must it be for each generation, for they must ever look to the mountains, ever seek to pass over them. Their bodies will mark the trails, their blood will feed the grass, yet some will win through and some will build and some will grow ...
Brian is reading law at the Inns of Court
in London, a handsome gentleman, they say. And Noelle is a young English lady now, a beauty and a girl of spirit. A fine horsewoman, an elegant dancer. Does she ever remember our blue mountains?
Or long for her father, who remembers her small hands in his hair, the first tears in her eyes, and the laughter never far from her lips? When William dies, the old fenlands will be hers.
We write, our letters crossing on the Abigail and other ships. And I continue my trade with Peter Tallis.
And Sakim, our teacher, our physician, our friend ... one day word came from his own land, and I know not what it said, but he came to me with a farewell, and between two suns he was gone.
Now, I Barnabas Sackett, no longer a young man yet not quite an old one, am bound, west again. Black Tom Watkins rides with me. My old companion from the fens now rides the high ridges where waits the wind. At the last, when Jeremy would have come, Lila would have none of it, and for once he listened well.
Now the shadows rise from the valleys, and another night comes creeping. We have all day followed a trail made by buffalo, who wind the contours of the hills and seem ever to find the easiest way.
The Shawnees speak of this as the dark and bloody ground, and no Indian now lives here, although they come to hunt. Yet there are evidences of ancient habitation ... stone walls, earthworks, and some things found in caves. In one of the old forts Tom found a Roman coin.
Preposterous, you say? I only say he found a coin, lost by someone, not necessarily a Roman, yet perhaps someone who traded with a Roman, for the greatest myth is that of the discovery of any country, for all countries were known in the long ago, and all seas sailed in times gone by.
We are alone, Tom and I. Soon we will camp. Yet I am restless upon this night and if there were a moon would be for moving on.
Twice in the past few minutes I have glanced along our back trail, yet have seen nothing ... yet something is there, bear, ghost, or man ... something.
Ah! A wind-hollowed overhang, a sort of half-cave, with great slabs of broken rock lying about, and some few trees and many fallen ones. "Tom? If there's water, we should stop here."
While he searched about, I sat my saddle. Dusk was upon us and the trails were dim ...
Tom came from the darkness. "There's a good spring, Barnabas. This is the place."
Ah? This is the place? The words have a sound to them. Tomorrow we will meet the boys in the cove that lies ahead, the cove where grow the crabapples of which they have spoken.
Swinging down, I stripped the gear from my horse and drove deep the picket pin to let him graze. While Tom gathered wood for the fire, I staked out his horse.
Firelight flickered on the bare rock walls. The broiling venison tasted good.
Kneeling, I added fuel to the blaze. The warmth was comforting, and suddenly I was glad to be resting, for we had come a far piece since the dawning.
No sound in the night but the wind, no whisper but the leaves. The higher ranges lay behind us. The crabapple cove lay just below. Beyond that a long, long valley that ends or seems to end at a river, a strong-flowing river that goes, they say, to the great river of De Soto. Jubal has ridden that river down. He has spoken of it to me.
Tom handed me a chunk of venison. "Indians say there were white folks here, in the long ago time. Cherokees say they wiped 'em out. The Shawnees say the same.
Likely somebody from one tribe married into the other an' carried the tale, or maybe they came together on the war party."
The wind moaned in the pines and the land was dark around us. The fire fluttered in the wind, and I added fuel. I should not be looking into the flames ... the eyes adjust too slowly to darkness, and somebody, I think, is out there, waiting.
Somebody, perhaps, and some ... thing.
This was my land. I breathed deeply of the fresh, cool air from off the mountains. This was what I had come for, this wide land, those tall boys who rode down the mountain paths toward me. It was a land for men. Here they could grow, here they could become, here they could move on to those destinies that await the men who do and are.
My father had given me much, and I had given them a little of that, I think, and a wide land in which to grow. Had I done nothing else, I left them this birthright ... for I knew that out there beyond the great river, beyond the wide plain, beyond the shining mountains ... beyond ... there would be, for the men of this land, forever a beyond.
Many would die ... do not all die, soon or late? Yet many would die in combat here, many would die in building, yet each in passing on would leave something of himself behind. This land waited long for the hard-bellied men to come, waited, snugged down for destiny. Hard though the years may be, and the moments of doubt, there will always be the beyond.
I looked again to the stars. Even there ... even out there, given time ...
Black Tom Watkins stirred the fire again. He added sticks. "You got the notion something was behind us out there?"
"Bring the horses close, Tom. Yes, I think there is something out there. Yet even so, I'd like an early start. We are to meet the boys in the cove where the crabapples are."
He looked around at me. "D' you reckon we'll make it, Barnabas?"
"Do you wonder, Tom?"
He was silent, and the fire crackled. Somewhere out there the wind moved through the trees. "I reckon not, Barnabas. I reckon I knew from the moment we straddled a horse for this ride that we wasn't goin' but one way this time."
"We've ridden a good trail together, Tom, a long ride since that night on the edge of the fens."
"Aye, an' the boys are old enough now to git on without us." He looked up at me, embarrassed. "Barnabas, I hope you won't mind, but sometimes I think those boys are my own."
"That's the way I want it, Tom. You've been a second father to them, and a fine example."
"Example? Me?"
"You're a man, Tom Watkins, a man to ride down the warpath with ... or any path.
You were there when the long guns spoke, and you were beside me when the blades were drawn ... and when they were sheathed ... and you never shirked a job that needed to be done."
"Lila knew, didn't she? That why she wouldn't let Jeremy come?"
"She knew."
He brought the horses closer to the fire, and I walked out in the night and listened. Suppose I was wrong? Well, then ... we'd meet the boys tomorrow.
I went to the spring and drank deep of the cold, cold water.
When I straightened up, I heard the faintest of sounds. My musket lifted and I faded deeper into the shadow of a boulder. A quick glance showed me Tom was gone ... the fire flickered alone. Suddenly, off to my left a shadow shifted and I heard the blast of Tom's musket. The shadow stopped, then fell forward ... and then they came swiftly, silently, and there were too many.
My musket accounted for one. A warrior loomed up from the shadows almost at my feet, and I shot him with a pistol, then ran forward, clubbing my musket to stand over Tom.
An arrow struck me. I felt the blow, then a stab of pain.
They were all around me then. The musket wrenched from my hands. My knife was out ... that knife from India and a gift to my father, and from him to me.
It swung up and in. I heard a gasp and an Indian fell from me. Suddenly, with all my strength I swung into them, stabbing, slashing. Fire was kicked into the grass and a great flame went up, crackling and angry.
A huge warrior loomed before me, striking with a club. I went in quickly, under the blow. I put the knife into his ribs and he fell from me, jerking it from my grip. He fell and I swung a fist and knocked another sprawling, then stooped to withdraw the knife and felt a tremendous blow on the skull.
I was bleeding, I was hurt. I went down again, got up again. I grabbed a pistol, but the hammer clicked. Tom still had one unfired. I lunged for his body, knocked an Indian sprawling and threw three from me. Coming up with Tom's pistol, I fired into the Indians who loomed before me, then clubbed the pistol and struck another. I was down. An Indian loomed over
me with a lance. I struck it aside and grasped it, pulling myself up. They fell back in a circle, staring at me, and I stood weaving before them, the lance in my grasp.
They were going to come for me again. I reached down and caught up my powder horn, pulled off the stopper and threw it into the fire. There was an explosion and a puff of fire shot out, and the Indians leaped back.
Tom, who had evidently been knocked out, came up then, and for a few minutes we stood back to back. I retrieved my knife and we fought, working our way back toward the cave mouth.
"Barn ... I'm goin', I-"
He went down again but I caught up his cutlass. For a minute or more I held them off with that swirling, thrusting blade, but I was weaker.
I was bleeding ... I was hurt.
Suddenly, I was down. There was a thrown lance in my chest. I tried to move, could not.
I gripped the knife. "Come on, damn you! I can kill another of you!"
They stared at me, and drew slowly back. I was dying and I knew it.
They knew it, too.
Suddenly one of them dropped to his knees and began to sing a death-song.
My death-song. He was singing it for me.
Turning my knife, I handed it to him, hilt forward. "Th ... anks," I said.
Or thought I said.
"Ah-? Abby? I-I wish-" In the dust, my finger moved ... stirred.
Kin ... Yance ... the boys and Noelle. Had they found a path, as I had? Did they know the way to go?
Who would live to tell the story-our story?
My finger wrote in the dust. I looked, my gaze blurred.
I had written: Give them tomorrow ...
Dead I was, yet not quite dead, for I felt the Indian stoop above me, covering me gently with a blanket.
There was a whisper of moccasins, withdrawing ...
The dawn wind stirred the corner of the blanket. One of the horses whinnied ... for a long, long time, there was no other sound.
In the lodges of the Senecas there was silence. And into the darkened lodge of the old chief the four warriors came and they stood tall before him.
to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) Page 28
