Grail Quest (8 page)

Now I felt uneasy. With the fire in my eyes I couldn’t see into the dark. I jumped up and stood with my back to the blaze. I couldn’t see anyone, or anything. Moyock smothered the fire. “What do you think you heard?”

“Someone or something, moving slow and quiet…maybe on wall or on mound.”

“Did you see anything move?

“No. I think I smell animal. Strange smell. I not know it.”

“We’re at a disadvantage here. A fire again might discourage an animal, but make us easy targets for humans. We’ll decamp and cross the river to spend the night…come back here when we can see what’s going on.”

We spent the night on a high sandbar near the south shore. We took turns sleeping and staying on guard. In the morning I studied the fort with my spyglass. I couldn’t see anything amiss, so Moyock looked through the scope. “I see nothing moving,” he said. “You think maybe ghosts in that place?”

“Those Naturals up the river thought so. I’ve never seen a ghost. Have you?”

“Not see one. Don’t want see one.”

“Until I see one myself…I’m not going to worry about them.”

“What you do…if you see?”

I had to laugh, not at Moyock. At myself. I had to wonder what I would do. “I don’t know. Just hope I wouldn’t disgrace myself.”

With that I began loading my canoe. “Come on. Let’s go flush whatever was looking at us. Maybe something good to eat.”

“Not smell good to eat.”

“All right. Maybe we’ll spot something else edible when we get there”

Back on the other side we pulled our canoes well up on the shore but didn’t unload them. If we had to leave in a hurry, I didn’t want to leave anything behind. I said to Moyock, “If you want to guard the canoes while I search, you can.”

“No, no. I come with you. If we see ghost, I want to see you disgrace self.”

So he thought I was a comedy act. “Ha, if we see a ghost, do you think you’ll be standing around laughing?”

We reconnoitered the wall as far as we could.
 
Without a good reason, I didn’t want to waste energy hacking our way through the brush on the north side.
 
The mound appeared to be man-made. We walked around it, which in most places filled in the lower reaches of the wall interior. I wondered if the mound wasn’t more significant than the wall.

It wasn’t an easygoing climb to the top of the mound. At the north end the mound was as impassible as the ground around the wall. I estimated the mound to be about 30 to 40 feet high at the southern end. A tremendous amount of labor had gone into its construction. And to what purpose? If not a fort of the Welsh, was it
 
some kind of burial site? Were all those murdered White Men under here? Not likely the Naturals had gone to the trouble to erect this.

Resting on the ground at the top of the mound, Moyock said, “Something watches us.”

“What? Where?”

“A strange animal. Slowly turn head, look down hill…at bottom of large oak tree.”

I did as he said.
 
“Where?”

“It blends with shadows. Two yellow eyes look out of bush by oak.”

I wasn’t sure I was looking at it. “What kind of animal is it?”

“I not know, not very big.”

“Well, what the heck.”
 
I picked up a broken branch and hurled it at the bottom of the oak. A brownish gray animal, about the size of a large dog, walked into the open. With its tongue lolling, it
 
sat down on its haunches and took us in. Its left ear appeared to be notched.

“I’ll be darned. He looks like he’s laughing at us!”

I chucked another branch at it, not even coming close. The animal got up, turned around, and sauntered into the underbrush wagging a bushy tail at us.

“You don’t know what it is?”

“Nooo. Give me creeps.
 
Strange creature.
 
Maybe spook.”

“It looked real enough to me. Let’s see where it went”

The edge of the underbrush was a tangle of berry vines, weeds, shrubs and trees. Having nothing to cut with but our knives and hatchets, getting through it seemed daunting. My saber was in the canoe, but I was reluctant to use it for chopping wood. As much as we could see over and through the thicket, there might be open spaces inside. Getting to them seemed more trouble than use. What did we care about a strange dog?

“This place is a deep puzzle to me,” I said. “The natives say there were White Men here. Yet apart from the wall, there is no visible clue to their existence.”

“Why anyone, white or red build this place?”

“Good question. Let’s go back down to the ground
 
and see if we can get around it.”

Following the wall from the shore side we came to an area of the forest that was thin enough to walk through. We made our way completely around the thicket to the west side. The thicket grew around and over the north end of the wall and mound. “I wonder if this density was encouraged for some reason. It seems like a deliberate barrier. Now I really wonder what it protects.”
 

“Maybe burial place for many dead white people. Maybe many ghosts.”

“Whatever. Someone spent a lot of time and effort. Lets probe from the north end and see if there is some kind of hidden passage through there.”

At the north end we split in opposite directions, each looking
 
for a way through. By climbing a tree I saw what looked like a break in the underbrush within reach. I climbed out on a limb as far as I dared, and dropped to the ground in a crouch.

I started to rise up. My world turned black.

When I could see again, I sat expertly trussed to a tree…looking at an apparition. “Who are you?” I said.

Facing me at a distance of about thirty paces was a startling figure. A Natural girl with flaming red hair gazed at me. She appeared to be very tall, taller than most Natural men, wore only an apron and carried a bow. A quiver of arrows hung at her side.

She said something I couldn’t understand. Holding a copper knife she came over to grab my hair and pull my head up. She was going to scalp me! I jerked my head out of her hand. I twisted to free myself. Nothing doing. Her bonds held.

She waved her hand at me, put the knife aside, and smiling, said something I couldn’t understand. She examined the cause of my head ache. Pulling up my shirt she looked at my body. Something puzzled her. She scrapped a fingernail across my stomach. After tugging my beard, she shrugged and then stepped back.

Gazing at me, beside her sat the smiling dog. Must be her pet. Trying to suggest she free me, I struggled gently against my bonds. She just chuckled. I wondered where Moyock was. Sure could use his sign language now.

“Moyock! Moyock,” I hollered.”

Then in the distance I heard him. “Squire, Squire, where are you?”

“In the thicket! I’m prisoner of a huge girl! Be careful. She has a companion. I haven’t seen him.”

I heard Moyock again. “Squire. The big dog is out here. I think he wants me to follow him. I think he is very odd. I do not like this.”

“Moyock, he was in here with me and the girl. I don’t know where my flintlock is. Arm yourself with my pistol and saber.”

The Amazon laughed. Since we were at an impasse I studied my captor. I guessed she was in her twenties, had a comely face with high cheekbones. Her
 
skin was slightly darker than Moyock’s but nowhere as red as most Naturals. She was very fit and muscular for a female… and very pretty. She utterly fascinated me: A Red-Indian Athena. Could she be a remnant of the Welsh? Certainly her hair and skin color differed from most Naturals. Was she the girl of my dreams…and why?

A while later I heard Moyock again. “I not afraid of girl. I follow dog.”

The Amazon laughed.
 
After hearing the dog yip she got up and dashed behind me into the thicket.

“Be Careful! Be wary! Someone struck me from behind!”

“I’m coming Squire, cautiously.”

Then I heard him shout, “No you don’t,
Back off!
”

The Amazon ran back in front of me. Grabbing up her bow she notched an arrow and shot at me. I jerked my head.
 
My reflexes saved my life. Her arrow quivered beside my throat. She notched another arrow. Before she could loose it, Moyock ran into the clearing. He charged into her…knocked her flat! Knocked her breathless. The bow and arrow flew out of her hands. He held the saber poised over her. Looking up at his enraged mien, her face broke, she closed her eyes and began a keening wail.

“Her death song.” Moyock said.

“She thinks she is doomed, Moyock. Back away. Lower the saber. Cut me loose.”

As Moyock moved away from her, the girl turned to watch us. She reduced the volume of her dirge. She didn’t interfere with Moyock. I stood, stretched and took the saber from him. I pointed it at the ground. “Tell her we mean her no harm. Tell her we are friends.”

Moyock placed his hand over his heart and said “friend.” Then he gestured with
 
sign language. Calm now, and sitting up, the girl replied in kind. At first they weren’t on the same page. Back and forth they ‘talked’ until they got close enough to exchange words.

“She wants to know who we are? What are we doing here? What will happen to her?”

I placed my hand over my heart.” First of all, tell her again that we want to be friends, that we will not harm her in any way.”

When Moyock finished assuring her that she was safe, she smiled and placed her hand over her bare left breast. She probably had no idea how provocative that movement was.

Moyock told her our names, introducing me as the ‘White Chief Squire.’ He asked with signs, “How do we call you?”

She said her name was “Le-ah-na.” She repeated “Le-ah-na.”

Moyock explained that we searched for other White Men like Squire Allen. “Naturals up the river told us White Men used to be at this place.”

“Maybe long, long time ago.” Leahna said. “My grandmother say some of our ancestors had white skin. They married into Natural tribe.”

“Where are they now?”

“They all gone. Many killed by murderous neighbors. Only my clan stay. Others flee to west. Now they called Mandan.”

“Who else lives here with you?”

“No one. I all alone. I last of my clan. When others leave, we retreat to cave in mound.”

“Ask if she knows anything about the Grail.”

“She doesn’t know what I’m talking about.”

“How has she managed to survive alone here?”

“Enemies think this place haunted by spirits, and we help them think so. Now I alone…with Coyote.”

“Ask her why they built the wall and mound.”

After she replied he said, “They don’t build, don’t know. Maybe build by ancient people. They find cave and use it.”

“From what you see and know, do you think we are in friendly hands?”

“She alone, peaceful now.”

“She may not be alone. I was struck from behind.”

Moyock and Leahna hand palavered again. “Very strange. I not understand her. She maybe not want to say. Coyote name of animal. Maybe she say Coyote hit you.”

Both of us stared at the grinning dog-like creature. “You must have misunderstood her. No way that dog could hit me on the head from behind.”

Moyock looked at my scalp. “You have bump. Not bleeding.”

“We’ll have to be on guard. Someone around here is not as friendly as she seems.”

We hadn’t eaten since this morning, so I asked Moyock to tell her we had tea and food in our canoe. She was invited to eat with us.

“She will not go out to the shore in daylight. If we bring our things here, she will share her meat with us.”

“Will she show us how to get out of the thicket?”

“She will not. We follow Coyote along a path.”

Following Coyote was difficult. He zigzagged under the foliage causing us to crawl at times.
 
When we returned with our supplies he was waiting to guide us back. I wondered how Leahna could train him to lead us. When we passed the tree from which I leaped, I recovered my flintlock. She, or ‘they,’ probably couldn’t realize it was a weapon.

Once again in her company, she led us to the mouth of her cave. Here there was no sign of the wall. Evidently it ended somewhere to either side of the cave. For a distance of six or seven feet in front of the entrance a canopy of branches and sticks provided outside shelter. At the back of it, just inside the cave, she had a fire pit ringed with stones for cooking. She cooked a squirrel on a spit above it, leaving room for us to boil our tea water. She was amazed at our metal kettle. We shared everything. She wasn’t taken with our hardtack.

From here, I could see that whoever built the mound, did so over a hill which contained the cave. Inside was an irregular livable space of roughly twenty by thirty feet. She had a pallet covered with a deer hide to sleep on.
 
Some small tree trunks had been wedged between the floor and low places in the ceiling on which she’d hung some deer hide dresses, or wraps, and some furs. Although barefoot now, she also had moccasins hanging on the wall, some of them high like boots. I hoped she would start wearing the dresses. Her bare breasts were too inviting.