Jubal Sackett (1985) (31 page)

Keokotah would not be back for a day or two, so that other question need not arise.

Yet I slept ill. The night through I turned and tossed, getting no decent sleep at all, and when morning came I took my weapons and went up the canyon behind our fort. It was a fairly deep canyon and led back into the mountains. There was still much snow in the shaded places, and here and there boulders in the stream were icy. When I returned it was dusk and meat was cooking. I went to the fire and chose a piece for myself and sat down near the fire.

Itchakomi was across the fire from me. After a moment, she spoke. "Keokotah has gone to find a way?"

"He will find a way to the river. The water will be rough and fast, but I believe your people might slip by your enemies, passing them at night."

"You will go with them?"

"No." I looked up at her. "My place is in the mountains, so I will stay. The river is called the Arkansas and some other names as well, but it flows into the Great River. Your people can get home without trouble. Unstwita can lead them. He is a good man."

She looked at me then, for I had not mentioned her leading them. I avoided her eyes, feeling uncomfortable. Until I had spoken I had not thought of it myself, but why had I not mentioned her? Was it not her place to lead? Would she not lead if she was going back.

"There is always danger," I said, "but Unstwita is a good man. He is both wise and brave."

"It is my place to lead."

She spoke and I was silent, chewing on a piece of meat. Then I said, "You will go with them?"

"Do you want me to go?"

There it was, right out in the open. How could I answer that?

"I would miss you," I said it reluctantly, hesitantly, yet realizing as I spoke that what I said was true. I would miss her, and I would not see her again. That gave me a pang, and I moved sharply at the thought. Then I said, "But I cannot ask that you stay. You are a Sun."

There was amusement in her eyes. "And you are not even a Stinkard." She paused. "You are a yeoman. Did a yeoman never marry a princess?"

"Never! If she did she would no longer be a princess. Or so I believe."

"Then I shall no longer be a Sun."

Our eyes met across the fire and I took another fragment of meat, slicing it with my knife.

"To me," I said, "you will always be the sun, the moon, and the stars."

The fire crackled, and a low wind stirred the flames. I added sticks to the fire. "I am strange to your ways," I said, "and you to mine, but what you wish will be done. Then we shall go south to where the Spanishmen live. There will be a priest there."

"That will be dangerous?"

"It is worth the risk. I would have it done so it is right with both your people and mine."

I went down to the stream and dipped my hands in the water, washing them. When I stood up she was beside me.

"When you wish to go to the mountains," she said, "you may go, and if you wish it, I will go with you, and when you make your camp, I will cook your meat, and when you wish to sleep, I will prepare your bed. Where you go, I will go."

Chapter
Twenty-Nine.

Quickly grew the grass, and quickly came leaves to the trees. Scattered along the green hillsides the golden banner bloomed, and here and there entire hillsides turned to cascades of their yellow flowers. There were sand-lilies, too, and occasional pasque-flowers.

We all walked together, for we were few, and had no knowledge of what might lie before us. Also, there was talk among the women of a wedding. I caught them looking at me, laughing among themselves, and was embarrassed. How a bridegroom was supposed to act, I did not know, nor anything else of their marriage customs.

Itchakomi had spoken of me wearing the oak and she the laurel, but what that implied I did not know. Nor could she find laurel here, so far as I knew. I had not seen it in these western mountains, although back in the Nantahalas there were often whole hillsides blushing with its pink blossoms.

Keokotah, who had found the way, led us along the eastern side of the valley to a creek that ran into a canyon. Through this canyon we must make our way, and there was danger there, a fit lurking place for enemies.

Itchakomi walked with the women, and they did not walk in silence. There was much chattering and laughter.

Once, when we had halted to rest, Unstwita came to me. "It is better I go with them," he said, reluctantly. "I have wished to stay."

"They will need you," I said. "Tell the Ni'kwana that I did as he asked. Tell him I shall do my best to make Itchakomi happy."

"I will tell him. And I shall return."

"Return?"

"I have come to the mountains in doubt. I find them ... I find them a place for the gods to walk."

"Return, then. We shall be here, but if we leave I shall mark our way so--" I showed him the Sackett A. "You will find us."

"I will find you." He held out his hand suddenly, as he had seen me do. "You are my chief. I will follow no other."

There was a trail of sorts along the canyon. It crossed and recrossed the turbulent little creek, winding among boulders and trees below the canyon walls. We stepped carefully around stones and lifted fallen branches from across the way. We would return this way, and a little work now would make the path easier. If we did not return, it would be easier for someone else.

It had been my father's way to remove obstructions, to repair washouts in old trails, to leave each trail better than he had found it. "Tread lightly on the paths," he had told me. "Others will come when you have gone."

That was how I would remember my father. There was never a place he walked that was not the better for his having passed. For every tree he cut down he planted two.

We came at last to a place beside the river, a swift-flowing river that would become even swifter as the canyon walls narrowed. We came to an open place where aspen grew upon the slopes, and scattered cottonwoods along the river itself. We came to a place where drift logs had beached themselves on the gravelly shores. Stripped of their bark their gaunt white limbs were like skeletons among the boulders polished by the rough waters.

Here we camped, and I looked about me, for it was here that I would marry, here that I would take a wife. Watching Itchakomi, I knew my father would have approved, and my mother also.

Had we been among her people or mine the preparations would have been great. The women would have prepared a cabin for us, and there would among my people have been much sewing, cooking, planning, fussing about, all dear to a woman's heart. Here there was not the time, nor was it the place. We must make do, and perhaps make up later on for what was missed.

The Natchee people built a shelter of boughs, and the men went to the forests to find game for a feast. It was to be the wedding of a Sun, and I was not sure the people approved.

Tomorrow would be the day, so I did not go out to hunt but sat by the river and contemplated what was to be. If I was to have a wife I must have a home, and I must plan for the future. My valley was a good place, yet it was upon the path of migration for some tribes, a hunting ground for others.

We would be few, only Itchakomi, the Ponca woman, Keokotah and his woman, and myself. We would be too few to defend against an attack by the Conejeros, if they still existed, or their attackers. Yet I knew how to build a strong fortress, and would. It was something to think on. There was also the planting of crops, the gathering of seed, planning for the future. Much of this I had known from boyhood, for at Shooting Creek we had lived just that way. Only there had been more of us.

There was another defense, and it might work. Already some knew me as a medicine man. If I became a medicine man as well as a trader--

If strength could not win, one must use wit, if one has any.

Of oak leaves there was no shortage, but we had planned to use something else for the laurel until Unstwita returned from the hunt with a sprig of dwarf laurel found growing high on the mountain.

When the afternoon drew on I scouted around, making a sweep of the area, following the river down to look for tracks. But I found none. What I feared was an attack during the ceremony, and yet we had seen no recent tracks.

The morning dawned bright and clear. Unstwita had told me of the ritual and how it would proceed. When I went to the shelter they had erected for me, an old Natchee warrior waited within. He said, "Behold, you have come!"

Another old man and a woman entered then and after them, Itchakomi.

The old people asked us if we loved each other. When we had replied the old man stood beside her, representing her father. They tied oak leaves to a tuft of my hair, and Itchakomi carried a sprig of the laurel, as was the custom.

I said, "Do you want me as your husband?"

"Yes. I wish it very much and will be happy to go with you."

In my left hand I carried the bow and arrow that signified that I would not fear our enemies and that I would provide for my wife and children.

She held the laurel in her left hand, in her right a sheaf of maize. The laurel signified that she would keep her good reputation, the maize that she would prepare my meals.

Having said she would go with me she dropped the maize from her right hand, and I took it in mine and said "I am your husband," and she replied, "And I am your wife."

I took her to my bed, as the rites demanded, and said, "This is our bed. Keep it clean."

The feast was prepared and we went together to eat of it. The others gathered around, with much laughter and talk. Only Keokotah was not there. He had slipped away from the festivities, but I knew why. We knew not the land, nor who might come, and one among us must be alert.

After the feast the Natchee began to dance, a slow, shuffling dance that I knew not, though I knew many Indian dances.

While the drum beat and the Natchee danced I said to Itchakomi, "You are sure?"

"I am."

"If your people need you, we can go back. I will take you back."

"My place is with you. The Ni'kwana knew this."

"We will be much alone. There will be too few of us, but we shall build a strong fort. We will trade with the Indians."

"What of the Men of Fire?"

I shrugged. "Perhaps they will come. That we must face when they do. I have my own fire," I added, "and will use it if I must."

"When morning comes, my people will go," she said. "They will go back to Natchee, our home by the Great River, but they will always know there is a place for them if they wish to come."

"Tell them," I said suddenly, "to send a messenger to my people at Shooting Creek, to tell them I have found you and am happy."

"It shall be done."

There was a moon above the mountains, and a white glow upon the camp. The water rustled swiftly by, and the aspen leaves stirred restlessly, as always. The fire burned low and the drum ceased to beat and the Indians to dance. Beyond the leafy bower where we lay the red coals smoldered, and I knew that one of the Natchee or Keokotah would be watching.

How far were we from the fens of old England! How far from the Isle of Ely, whence my father had come, so long ago! Now I was here, where no white man was supposed to be, finding my own land in a world far from others. We would go deeper into the mountains. We would leave them all behind.

The Natchee would not have a dugout. There was not time. They would use a raft and go down the river upon it until they found my canoe, and then they would use both raft and canoe unless they were so lucky as to capture another canoe.

At dawn we helped them load their meat and the few things they possessed.

At dawn we saw them push off and watched them disappear, going down with the swiftly rushing waters. When they had gone we turned and looked around. Only five were left, in a land vast and lonely, a land where the only people of whom we knew were enemies.

We walked where the wind had blown and where the autumn leaves had fallen and rotted into soil, but there was color in the sky, and on the mountains the green lay dark where the spruce were and bright where aspen grew. We killed some sage hens and ate them, and we caught some fish from a stream. Then, on the night when we had almost reached the place we were to build, we saw a flash of light from down the long wet valley, a flash of sunlight from a blade, and then we saw them coming, six mounted men and twenty marching. Of the twenty, several were battered and bloody. Of the mounted, only two rode as if unhurt.

At dawn that day Keokotah had killed an elk, so we stood and watched them come.

At last they saw us and pulled up, looking warily. Knowing them for Spanishmen I stepped out with my right hand up, palm toward them. Slowly they came on and then drew up to look again.

I spoke then, in Spanish. They came on then and drew up, wary, wounded, weary of riding and holding themselves in the saddle.

"Get down," I said. "We'll make a fire. Have you eaten at all?"

"Not for two days," their leader said. He was a tall man, lean and with a sparse beard. He bore his own share of wounds, two that I could see.

"You are Diego?"