Louis L'Amour (24 page)

Once, as we paddled offshore, nearing the mouth of a great river, we beheld a sail off to the east of us, some small craft sailing up the bay toward Kent Island. Yet it was far off, and we lay low in the water and
against the shore, so they saw us not. Yet the sight of that sail left me uneasy, for there were all manner of men about, pirates and such, and many who walked a borderline between piracy and trading, ready to loot and kill where it could be done with safety to themselves.

It was with relief that we came to the mouth of the Rappahannock. Once upon the river, our days became idyllic. We had smoked fish and venison, we traded with some Indians for additional corn, and we had what supplies we brought from Kent and the
Abigail.

We had only to be wary, for no man or woman traveled in safety where war parties roamed as they did upon these rivers. Yet we met none. Our days were spent moving up the river and to the mouth of the Rapidan and thence westward along that river.

From Wa-ga-su I had learned much of the Catawba tongue, and traveling with the six warriors, I soon learned more. Diana learned quickly. She had a quick, active intelligence and an interest in all things. Here and there she collected herbs that might be of use, and the Indians showed her others that they themselves used.

Reserved though she was, she had a natural, easy manner with all people and talked to these Indians as though they were her brothers. Most tribes, I knew, had a tradition among them of certain special women, endowed with unusual gifts of leadership or wisdom. Among the Cherokee these were usually referred to as the Beloved Woman, or some such term, and many times their prestige was such as to overrule the tribal council. I could see our Catawbas were accepting Diana in that way. Part of it was her quality of stillness and inner repose, for whatever happened, she maintained her poise. As the days went by, I began to see this girl I had married was even more than I had suspected and in every way.

Yet absorbed as I was in my bride, I began to see there was increased wariness on the part of our Catawbas. They spoke no word, but from time to time
all would lift their paddles from the water and listen. One such time I took up my musket and looked to its charging.

“Is something wrong?” Diana whispered.

“Aye. Unless I mistake them, there is trouble about. We must be silent now.”

They dipped their paddles more carefully, moving with deep, powerful strokes, and I looked carefully about, scanning the river itself, the trees, and even the occasional glimpse of the blue ridge of mountains that lay before us and toward which we moved.

The water itself held my attention, for many a floating object could speak of what lay before us. I saw nothing, heard nothing. If sixth sense I had, like my father before me, it was not in working order just then.

When it came my turn to take the paddle, the Catawbas shook their heads and gestured to the musket. They preferred me armed and ready with the musket than using a paddle I must put down before I could fire.

We had come, in these past days, higher and higher toward the blue distant mountains, just as blue now but no longer so distant. The current ran stronger, but the river had grown more narrow, and there had been times, for one or another reason, when we had to take the canoes from the water and carry them about some obstruction.

It was such a place to which we now came. Several large logs or trees had fallen into the water, blocking a part of the stream. Around the end of these logs the water rushed with tremendous force, far too strong a current for three men with paddles.

The Catawbas wasted no time in debate. He who was in the lead canoe promptly turned the canoe sharply to the left and into the mouth of a small creek. He led the way up the creek to where it widened in a sort of swamp. Taking the canoe in toward the shore, he gestured for all to land.

“No more canoe,” one of them said to me. “We walk.”

Swiftly the canoes were taken into the swamp and hidden by vines; others, including myself, worked to assort the goods we carried into packs, Diana taking a somewhat smaller one without hesitation.

One of the Catawbas slipped away into the woods, going back toward the Rapidan. The rest of us started out, walking swiftly along the flank of the mountain, taking a dim trail southward.

No attention was given to he who had left us, the Catawbas taking it for granted he would take care of himself and catch up when he could. It was apparent that he had gone to have a look down the river to see who, if anyone, might be following us.

On that subject I had my own thoughts, private though they were. What Diana thought, I knew not, nor did I ask.

One name hung in the back of my mind, the name of a man who knew how to hate, a man who would not be frustrated, our enemy always.

Max Bauer.

W
e hastened on into the gathering dusk and at last came to a hollow among great trees where boulders lay about and there was a spring from which a small branch flowed.

The place was shadowed and gloomy when we entered, and the fire we made was small, for hasty cooking. Among themselves the Catawbas muttered, and I knew from a word I caught it was of their brother they spoke.

“What is it?” Diana whispered.

“The other one has not come. They talk of it now.”

She was silent. We ate then and put out the fire. About us the dark columns of the trees lost their shape in the shadows, and only overhead could we see the black fringe of leaves against the starlit sky. A wind stirred. In the aisles of the forest, leaves skittered, and cool was the wind from off the high ridges.

Three Catawbas slept, and two remained awake. After a time I, too, slept, yet for minutes only, awakening with eyes coming wide and ears stretched to hear the slightest sound.

At dawn we awakened, chewed on jerked venison, and moved swiftly away. There was no sign of him who had left us.

“He is dead,” one said when I spoke of him. “If he has not come, he is dead.”

“You wish to go back? We will go, also.”

“No. There is another time. There is always another time.”

We crossed over the mountains at Swift Run Gap and descended into a lovely valley beyond and turned south once more. Diana, although the hard travel left her tired, made no word of complaint, yet I was worried, fearing for her but hating to be driven by whoever it was who came behind us. If the young Catawba had been killed, the blood feud was mine as well as theirs, for he had been acting for us. It was all very well to say they would have come this way, and all might have happened, anyway, yet I liked it not. Had Diana not been with us, I would myself have turned back to see who our enemies were and to take toll of them.

Yet there was wariness in me, too, for if the Catawba had been killed, someone among them was a woodsman, and one skillful indeed. To hunt down and kill a Catawba warrior was no small thing; of course, even the best made mistakes.

We held close to the mountains, traveling in the forest when possible.

On the last morning I came upon a tree that I myself had blazed upon a trail my feet had often trod. “We will be home soon,” I said to Diana, and she put her hand on mine, touching it lightly.

The trail opened upon a meadow where fresh-cut hay was stacked and beyond it a cornfield. Melons lay on the ground among the rows of corn. This would be a good harvest.

We saw the palisade before us, low upon its knoll near the creek. The gate stood open, and two men faced us, shading their eyes to see us. I lifted a hand, and there was an answering wave.

The first to reach me was Yance.

“Where you been, lad?” he asked, smiling. Glancing at Diana, his smile widened. “I told Temp you'd be bringin' a lass with you, but not who it was. She's been devilin' me for a name, but I haven't told her a thing!”

“There's somebody behind us, Yance. Somebody
who wants us real bad. He's killed one of our Catawba friends, or must have.”

“It is a bad time, Kin. Two of our men are down sick with chills and fever. Will they be many or few?”

“Few, I think, but not easy men.”

He grinned widely, cheerfully. “When have they ever been easy? We were born to hard times and hard men, Kin, and I am thinking we are hard men ourselves.” He glanced at the Catawbas. “Where did you come by them?”

So I told him as we walked, and he listened, nodding from time to time. He shook his head. “You took a long chance going to the islands, Kin. A long chance.”

“White women are not so many, Yance, and they are noticed. Yet without Henry I could not have done it.”

“He is a good man and welcome amongst us.” He nodded toward the settlement. “They know you are coming, and they have prepared a feast for the prodigal.”

“Me? A prodigal? It should be more likely you.”

They were waiting for us, and Temperance ran forward when she saw Diana. “Oh, Di! You're my sister now! If I could have chosen, it would have been you.”

“Come within,” Lila said quietly. “There is food upon the table, and you be hungry folk.”

My eyes went to her, this woman who had once served my mother and had married one of my father's best friends. The size of her never ceased to astonish me, for she was nearly as tall and broad as I, who am larger than most. There was a little gray in her hair now, and it pained me to see it. Yet she was older than my mother.

My mother, would I ever see her again?

She was gone across the sea to England with Noelle and Brian, but I remembered her well.

Jeremy came up from the field, his hand hard from the work there but his smile as bright as ever. “It has been too long, lad. You must stay now.”

This man had stood over me when I was being
born during a battle with the Senecas, guarding my mother during her labor. He had been my father's friend and had left England with him, a down-at-heel gentleman, a wandering swordsman, and a farmer now but holding broad acres with excellent crops and a good trade in furs with friendly Indians.

“I have brought trouble,” I said, and explained.

“The men are coming from the fields,” Jeremy said.

They started within where the food was upon the table, but I lingered to look about. There was a place where some of the logs were blackened near the ground, a place where fire started by Indians had seared the logs before being put out. My father and his men had come into this country when no white man was nearer than the coast and had remained here until he went beyond the mountains scouting for fresh land. For this was our way, bred into us, and we knew it well, always to go beyond the mountains to open new lands.

Within all was bright and cheerful—sunlight through the windows upon burnished copper pots and the dull shine of pewter. The floors were spotless as always and the windows hung with curtains. Muskets stood in their racks near the walls, and the heavy shutters were thrown back now but could be drawn quickly shut.

A strongly built man with a shock of flaxen hair pushed back from the table. “I go to the wall,” he said.

When he had gone, Jeremy said, “He is Schaumberg, a German. He heard of us and came looking, one man and his woman with a baby son. They came through the forest alone.”

“He belongs here, then,” I said. “He is a good man?”

“He works hard, and he is handy with tools. He seems to fear nothing.”

“It is better,” I replied, “to fear a little. One is cautious then.”

“Aye, but he is a careful man.”

One by one they slipped away to the walls, and
when I looked again at the rack of muskets, it was half empty. I started to rise. “Sit you,” Lila said. “There will be time enough when the fighting begins, if fighting there is to be.”

She filled my glass again and stood across the table from me. “I like her. Does she have family?”

“A father. A good man. He should be amongst us. He would make a teacher,” I added, “and we will need such.”

We talked long then and of many things. Yance came in and sat beside us. When I asked about our enemies, he shrugged. “We have seen nothing, but they are there. A fawn was crossing our field where they always cross, and suddenly it turned sharp away and trotted back almost the way it came.”

“If it is Max Bauer,” I said, “he will want victory without cost. He will wait, or he will find a way.”

I turned my head to Yance. “I want him,” I said. “I want the man myself.”

Yance shrugged. “Let it happen, Kin. If he comes my way or Jeremy's, so be it.”

My hackles rose at the thought of him. There were few men I disliked, none that I hated but him. But this went beyond hate, for we were two male creatures of strength who saw in the other an enemy. No matter how we met, we should sooner or later have fought. It was in our natures, deeply laid, and he knew it as well as I. We ached to get together; we longed for the moment.

The man was a monster of cruelty, a savage man but cold and mean in his savagery. I had hated no Indian whom I fought. Warfare was their way of life, and they fought because it was their way. They were splendid men, most of them, and although they had slain my father, he himself would have felt no hatred for them. They were men, opposed to him but men, and warriors. They fought, but there was respect there, also.

It was not so with Max Bauer and myself. We must fight, and one must destroy the other, and each was aware.

Lila needed no urging to keep me from the walls, for it was in my mind that he would not attack. He would come, he would look, he would go all about us in the forest, and then he would try to find some way he could hurt or injure me or mine before he killed me. He was that sort of man, and he knew that death can be an end to suffering. He wanted me dead but only after I had suffered all a man can suffer. It was his advantage, perhaps, that he wished to kill and I did not. I wanted to fight him, to destroy what he was, to break him. I did not care about killing.

Jeremy came back and sat down opposite me. “Kin,” he said, “since the death of your father, you are the accepted leader here, but we have troubles coming that you have not, perhaps, considered.