Jubal Sackett (1985) (9 page)

Beside the first two bodies there was a woven basket containing grain. There was a jar nearby that had no doubt contained water or some other liquid.

There were no weapons, nor was there any jewelry, yet I had a feeling that when the bodies had been left here there had been both.

Slowly, I backed away, looking about me. This cave, too, was spotlessly clean. Obviously it had been swept. In vain I looked for some clue as to who these dead might have been or where they had come from. There was nothing, and I had no wish to examine the bodies. Far better to let them lie as they had for these many years.

Years? Perhaps even centuries. The interior of the cave had a cool, almost cold temperature. It was dry. The warmth of the brief fire in the outer room did not seem to have penetrated here. I backed away, and the eyes seemed to follow me. At the opening, I paused, and something made me speak.

"I shall leave you now, as you have been. Is there anything I can do?"

No lips stirred, nor did the eyes blink. I shook my head. What was I expecting? Was I as superstitious as a child? Yet in the eyes of the young man there seemed to be a pleading, a longing, as of something unsatisfied.

"I wish I could help," I said quietly.

I crawled through the opening into the outer cave and gathered my few things. It was time to go. Yet I was slow in the gathering and felt reluctant to go.

Suddenly a voice seemed to speak. "Find them!" it said. I turned sharply, my brow furrowed. Had I actually heard a voice? Or was it in my own mind?

Find who?

Itchakomi? Or was I to find someone else? Someone akin to those buried in the inner cave? Had someone spoken? Or had it been been imagination only? No matter. It was time to go.

Slinging my pack and taking up my bow, I went out into the morning.

For a moment I stood still, listening. Every sense alert for possible danger, for it was always nearby. I heard no sound, felt nothing, saw nothing but the quiet forest and the blue sky above.

I moved out, found a trail, and began walking. As always I checked the trail to see what or who had passed. I found only the tracks of a deer and of birds and one place where a snake had crossed the path. I walked on into the morning. This was a new land for me, a land where few had been before me, and perhaps no white man after those in the cave back there.

My mind worked on two levels, as always. One was alert for danger, aware of all my surroundings, missing nothing. The other was my own inner thoughts, and this morning I was puzzled about myself.

Why had I chosen to come west? To explore new lands, I had told myself. To be the first to see, the first to experience. Yet was that all? I was uneasy with the explanation, feeling it was not enough. Was it not simply the desire to be on my own? To experience things for myself? Was I not escaping to myself?

My father and older brothers had been complete and efficient men, grown so by the demands made upon them, so when living with them I had been content to follow, to accept their judgment, and to leave the responsibility to them. I was as capable as any of them, yet lived in their shadows. To go off by myself relieved me of that tendency to go along. It left all the decisions to me and the responsibilities to them.

That might explain my actions in part, an effort to escape to myself.

Yet there was something more. There was an unheard voice that was calling me westward, something beyond my father's urge to cross the far blue mountains. I did want, however, to see what lay beyond the Great River, beyond the Far Seeing Lands, beyond the Shining Mountains. Whatever else there was might be imagination or some strange communication from someone or something. I had no explanations for that. Sakim and I had often talked of that, and my father had spoken of it.

Yance scoffed, and we were amused by his scoffing. Yance was a complete realist. He believed in things he could see, touch, taste, and feel. He had little faith in Lila's second sight or that of my father. He chided them gently or merely shrugged off their accurate predictions. He said, which was undoubtedly true, that our senses picked up vibrations of which we were unaware, warning us of changes in the weather, the approach of enemies, and other such things. He said we were aware on more than one level, of that which drew our immediate attention and of other vibrations or sensings of which our immediate attention took no notice. There was logic in what he said, and we were not inclined to argue.

The air was clear and cool. The summer sun was not yet in the sky. I moved off, carrying with me a good burden of dried and smoked meat. As I walked I chewed on a piece of this.

A squirrel chattered at me irritably. A small flock of parakeets flew up angrily, circling a crow who sat on a bare branch. The crow sat waiting, confident.

A doe started across the trace ahead of me and I froze in position. It paused, staring at me, ears wide, yet as I was not moving and the wind was from her toward me she could not make me out. She would have been an easy kill, yet I did not need meat. We watched each other until suddenly some vagrant shift of the small breeze must have brought my scent, for it bounded into the woods and was gone.

Yet the momentary halt proved a good one, for as I started to turn something flashed in my eyes, something from far away, beyond the long meadow that bordered the woods into which the deer had fled.

A spear blade? What else? Quickly I moved into the brush, careful to disturb no leaf or leave a sign of my passing. I was being followed! Or if not followed, then somebody was within too close a distance, and strangers probably were enemies.

Swiftly, weaving a careful way, I moved off through the thick woods. There was little undergrowth, but the trees, each one large, grew close together. I turned and went uphill, on the theory that someone following a trail will tend to go downhill, since that is the easiest and swiftest way.

Keokotah, I remembered, had seemed convinced we were being followed, but by whom? Kapata remained the most likely one, for who else had reason?

Luckily I came upon a small, rocky stream. There was not much water but the bed was scattered with a multitude of rocks, and I stepped from one to the other, running part of the way, moving easily from rock to rock. At midday I sat down on a rock in the shade of a huge old tree and chewed on another piece of the buffalo jerky.

The rest gave me time to study the crude map drawn for me by Ni'kwana. There had been no time to give it my full attention before this, and I was pleased to find that the western river, where Keokotah and I were to meet, was the very one up which Itchakomi must have traveled. At least, so it appeared. There were other rivers that flowed into the Great River, but this appeared to be the same.

Yet, why not? It was a large river and offered access to the western lands. It was an obvious route.

It was not our way to trust to maps, for few were to be found in the western lands or anywhere in America west of Jamestown, and those few were faulty and mostly drawn by hearsay or guesswork. The Indians we had known had a good sense of country and could often, with a few lines, explain it well.

First I must come to the valley my father had wanted me to find. Had I come straight there I should have been at the valley long since, for it was but a few days travel westward of Shooting Creek, but Keokotah and I had traveled by devious routes, as had I since, partly to reach the cave, partly to throw off pursuit.

I had found no minerals, and we needed lead or copper as well as sulphur. For this reason I must now travel slower and study the country with greater care, for it was in the vicinity of the valley that we hoped to find what was needed. Yet if necessary we could travel many days to find lead.

Once, years before, my father had been shown a good-sized chunk of lead that had come from the westward. It was from an outcropping not many days from the river toward which I must travel. There might be other sources as well. One reason for our slow travel had been my quest for evidences of such things, although I was far from expert and knew of few indications.

Being alone I felt better. The decisions and responsibilities were mine and I need lean on no one or trust to their judgment. A man who travels with another is only half as watchful as when traveling alone, and often less than half, for a part of his attention is diverted by his companion. Several times I stopped to examine outcroppings of rock, but found nothing of which I could be sure.

Several times I paused to study my back trail but saw nothing to disturb me. I was growing tired and began looking for a place to camp, but a hidden place that would allow me to see any who might approach. The evening was far along before I found a bench back from a creek in a notch of the hills, but I avoided it because there was no back way out.

I finally settled upon a place under a couple of large old trees facing a willow thicket near a stream. Under cover of the willows I could obtain water, and the foliage of the trees would dissipate my smoke.

I went past my camping spot and then doubled back in the stream and went through the willows to the place under the trees. It offered shelter from the wind and rain, a hidden place for my fire, and access to water. Above all it was inconspicuous, a place to be passed by unseen.

My fire was small. In a dish made of bark I fixed a small stew from buffalo meat and a few herbs gathered by the way. With this I ate some cattail roots baked in the ashes of my fire. When the meal was finished and my coffee made of chicory was ready, I carefully put out my small fire.

It would soon be night. My bed was made of cattail rushes and willow leaves and I spread my oilskin on them and covered myself with my blanket. I was tired. It had been a long day. Tomorrow, with luck, I should find my valley.

According to various Indians who knew of it the valley was three or four days travel in length, which might make it anywhere from thirty-six to eighty miles, depending on the Indian and how far he liked to travel in a day.

The night was warm, for since I had left Shooting Creek spring had faded into summer. The trees, just leafing out then, had their leaves now. It seemed just a few days ago that I had left the settlement we called home, but the country changed from day to day and I was lower in altitude here and the weather was warmer.

Where was Keokotah? Had he reached his village? Or did he travel still?

And who was following me, if anybody at all?

Of these things I thought as I lay under the trees. The water rustled, the leaves brushed gently, and occasionally something splashed out in the stream. It was very quiet, very still.

And then I was asleep.

Stars were above me when my eyes opened. I knew I had not slept long, but now I was wide awake. Something was moving out there in the night. A bear? A panther? It was some large creature.

A snort, a sound of drinking, and then of water dripping. It moved again.

A buffalo ... no, several buffaloes. I listened, wondering if they had scented me, for they were suddenly still. I could picture them standing, their great, dark heads lifted, nostrils sensing the air, testing it for--

They moved off suddenly in a great rush. Something had frightened them.

There was another long silence and then a rustling as of movement, and I heard someone speak in a language I did not know. Another voice answered him and I caught a word which meant buffalo. There was a brief conversation in which I was sure I recognized a voice, and then they moved off.

How many? Three ... perhaps four. I waited, listening, but heard no more.

After a while I slept, and it was full daylight when I awakened. For a time I lay still, listening to the morning sounds, placing each. There was nothing more.

Rising, I looked all around and then went down to the stream, making my way through the willows. Listening again, I scooped water in my palm and drank. On the opposite bank there were tracks where the buffalo had come into the water, although some had walked upstream. When frightened they had rushed downstream and out at some other place.

Gathering my things I took my bow and quiver and scouted around carefully. Fifty yards upstream I found tracks. At least five warriors, traveling at night. That was unusual unless they planned a surprise. Were they hunting for me?

That voice? I could not place it, yet there had been a familiar ring. Perhaps only my imagination.

Returning to camp I completed packing my things, tore off a piece of jerky to chew on, and then hesitated, thinking. The Indians seemed to have gone downstream but they might have camped nearby. I sniffed the air, but caught no smell of smoke.

Staying close to the willows I went back upstream, found a thick patch of forest, and went into it, moving quietly, scouting for tracks. I found none.

Beyond the patch of forest lay a wide meadow, and here I did find tracks. Five warriors again, no doubt the same ones. Whenever I could get a distinct print I studied it and filed it away in a corner of my mind for future reference.

The morning was bright and sunlit. From the slight elevation there was a splendid view of forest, meadow, stream, and pool. What a lovely land!

By noon I was traveling over a plateau, forested and still. Twice now I left marks on trees. I knew about what trace my relatives would follow, and now I was back in their area of travel. High on a tree I cut an A with my knife, cutting deep through the bark. The A was my mother's initial and one not likely to be associated with us.