Jubal Sackett (1985) (15 page)

Several commented on my scarcely healed wounds, the deep claw marks on my body, and Keokotah told them, with some embellishment I am sure, of my killing the panther with a knife when I had a broken leg. I could grasp enough of what he was saying to know that I lost no stature in the telling and that the panther had suddenly grown larger than I remembered.

Suddenly, and for the first time, Keokotah brought out a necklace of the panther's claws. Evidently he had taken them from the dead cat while I had been sleeping, and he had carefully strung them on a rawhide string. Looked at now, the claws were formidable and longer than I remembered. To tell the truth, I had been rather too busy to notice dimensions.

The Quapaw had treated me with respect before, but now my stature had grown. With a gesture, Keokotah put the necklace around my neck. He had said nothing about the cat's crippled leg, and who was I to spoil a good story, especially when it made me look so good?

All I could remember was the sudden attack, the wild, terrible scramble among trees and brush, and the hot breath of the panther, the scrape of his teeth on my skull and my stabbing and stabbing with the knife. All I had been was another animal fighting wildly, instinctively for life. The cat, in all honesty, had been a big one. I could remember its weight on me and my frantic efforts to escape it.

My broken leg had knitted well, though I still limped a little, but whether it was necessity or habit I did not know and began consciously trying to correct it.

We left the Quapaw and moved upstream slowly. The current was still strong, but there were fewer obstructions. We rarely saw drifting trees, although once we did paddle through a dozen or so dead buffalo. The stench was frightful, and we paddled vigorously to escape them.

Only rarely did we see the smoke of a village, and we passed no canoes on the river. There were trees close to the banks but we often caught glimpses of bare, grass-covered hills beyond.

Coming upon a clump of chokecherry bushes we camped to make arrows--many Indians favored the slender branches of the chokecherry over all others, although reeds and some other woods were used by some tribes, with much depending on what was available and light enough. The arrows made by Keokotah were about twenty-eight inches in length, and those I made for my longbow somewhat longer. His bow was about four feet long and he could use it with amazing speed and skill.

Every move was made with caution, as ambush was a favored tactic of the Indians, and we knew not what awaited us. Food during those weeks was no problem. There were fish, ducks, and geese, and now we found wild turkeys again and occasionally a deer. Lower down we had had to be watchful for alligators, but we saw them no longer.

On the second day after the arrow making we saw where several canoes had been drawn up at some time not long since. Edging in, we found a camp, now abandoned.

Three canoes, good-sized ones. Several warriors, maybe as many as a dozen. Keokotah found Kapata's moccasin print among them. After we had studied the ground we decided there were at least ten of the Tensa as well as Kapata and his few Natchee. They were but a few days ahead of us. Somehow, if we were to warn Itchakomi, we must overtake and pass them without their being aware.

Every day we saw buffalo, usually in small herds of two dozen or less, but many herds within a short distance of each other, so we might count fifty such within the range of our eyes.

Our supply of food was running low and so we needed to hunt, not only for food but for the warm robes of the buffalo. The cold season was coming on and the nights were already growing chill. Despite the numbers of the buffalo, we had no success in getting near them, for they had been lately frightened, no doubt by Kapata and his people.

We killed several antelopes, but their skins, while useful, would not do for the intense cold of the prairies. The water was growing more shallow, the river itself wandering from side to side in its sandy bed. Here and there in the bottom there were strips of gravel and even clumps of brush. Often the course of the stream was heavily walled by brush, and the trees along the banks grew very dense.

Long before Sakim had left us he had suggested to each that we learn as much as we could of the Indians, of their nature and customs. When we returned from hunts or visits with the Indians we had always gone to him to relate what we had learned, until the study had become a habit for each of us.

On the long days in the canoe I plied Keokotah with questions. At first he shied from direct questions, but after a while we began comparing notes on our peoples. He had never known a case of baldness and it was necessary that I describe it to him before he understood. He then recalled seeing a white man who was bald, but never an Indian. Nor had I. Nor had I seen one crippled by rheumatism, and decayed teeth were rare.

Coming upon a thick stand of willow and cottonwood we decided to abandon our canoe. The water had been growing less and we could see a strip ahead where it seemed to disappear completely. We lay the canoe bottom up among several dead logs, and scattered debris across it both to shelter it from the sun and to mask its appearance.

Our packs were small, for now our need for food had grown. For days we had found no fish, and the game shied from us. Yet that very night our fortunes changed.

We had been following the riverbed, keeping to the shelter of trees and brush when possible, and suddenly we came on a pool where a buffalo cow and a small bull calf were watering. The distance was great, so Keokotah yielded the chance to me and I brought the cow down with one arrow. The calf ran off a short distance and we moved in to skin the cow and cut out the meat.

On the shore, in a hollow we found, we built a small fire and cutting the meat into strips began the tiresome process of curing what meat we could. We gorged ourselves on fresh buffalo steaks, for I had acquired something of the Indian habit of eating enormously when there was food against the times of famine that would surely follow.

At daybreak when I went down to the thin stream of running water to bathe, I saw the buffalo calf. It stared at me, seeming unsure of whether to run or not. I spoke to it, and pitying it, I left a small mound of salt on a flat rock. As I walked back to camp I saw the calf sniffing at where I had stood. When I walked back to look again, the calf was licking the rock where I had left the salt.

Chapter
Fourteen.

We saw the rain from afar when we topped a ridge a quarter of a mile from the river. We saw its steel battalions arching across the plains toward us, but there was no shelter. A lone tree with arching branches offered itself but we knew better, for it is the lone trees that draw the lightning.

We moved to lower ground, skirting the trees along the riverbed. Within minutes that riverbed was no longer dry sand with a trickle of water but a rushing river, a flash flood brought by the rain.

The oilskin preserved from my father's seagoing days was quickly donned, more to shelter my guns and keep their powder dry than for myself.

The storm approached and we could see the metallic veil it drew across the country. Then it hit us and in a minute we were dripping. But we walked on, the grass slippery under our feet. Then there was mud, and we turned down the hill toward the forest along the river where we might find fuel. Glancing back I saw the buffalo calf, woebegone and lonely. "Come on!" I called. "Come with us!"

It lingered, staring after us wistfully. I called again and it advanced a few steps and then hesitated. We dipped down a slippery bank into the trees.

All was wet and dripping, but we found a place where the tightly woven branches of several trees had kept the leaves almost dry. We stopped there and wove a few branches and slabs of bark from fallen trees into the mesh of branches above to offer more protection.

Under the canopy lay a network of fallen trees and limbs, crisscrossing each other. It reminded me too much of the place where I had broken my leg, and I walked with care. From some of the fallen trees great slabs of bark hung down, and beneath their shelter bark and leaves were still dry. We gathered some and nursed a small fire into being.

Ours was a sheltered place, deep among the trees. We laid boughs above us from one tree to the next, resting them on branches or the stubs of branches until we had made ourselves a crude but effective shelter. Large cold drops fell but they were nothing, and outside the rain poured down and winds blew.

Keokotah began working on the buffalo robe taken from the cow we had killed. He scraped away what flesh was left and staked out the hide to stretch it. All this should have been done completely before this but there had been no time. I set myself to making a pair of moccasins from the hide of a deer killed long before.

Looking around, I saw the buffalo calf not over fifty feet away, and I spoke to it. Keokotah looked and grunted something and when I looked at him again he made a derisive gesture implying the calf thought I was his mother.

"He'll leave us when we come up to some other buffalo," I said, and believed it.

From time to time we arose and added to our shelter, placing more bark to keep out especially disturbing drips. It was a makeshift camp, but pleasant enough and well hidden.

Moving about, I pushed further away from our camp and came on several elms weighted down with grapevines. A bear had been feasting here but many grapes still hung, and I gathered as many as could be carried and took them back to camp. We ate, enjoying the change from a diet of fresh meat. I carried a couple of bunches to the calf but it moved off. Still, I left the bunches I carried and later saw him nuzzling them. I suspect he ate them but did not watch, for as I returned to camp I heard the sharp crack of a breaking branch.

Crouching where I was, I wished for my bow, two dozen feet away. Instead, I drew my knife, waiting.

Our fire smoldered. Keokotah had disappeared but would be waiting somewhere near. A bow would do little good in this dense stand of trees and brush, anyway. He would have his spear.

All was still for a long moment, but then I heard something stirring not far off, and the sounds of movement such as a man might make. Then there was a sort of clicking as of sticks being piled together. Easing a step to one side, I peered through the trees.

There was a small open space nearby, and an old Indian was gathering firewood. He seemed uneasy, straightening up to look around, and I glanced around also, watching him from the corners of my eyes. He gathered more sticks, picked up his bundle, and started away, pausing to look back.

His eyes missed me, as I did not move, and finally he turned away again, walking through the trees. I had only to follow some dozen yards to see the camp, a small cluster of Indians, at least three women, several children, and a half dozen men. All but one of the men were getting on in years.

That one was a boy, not yet sixteen, at a guess. At that age or older he would be out with the warriors.

Keokotah had followed. Now he whispered, "Pawnee!"

The name was unfamiliar, but there were many tribes of which I did not know.

"We speak." He spoke softly, and then he called out. The Indians turned to face him as he stepped out, lifting a hand, palm out.

Several held weapons and they waited. Then I appeared and there was a murmur of surprise from among them. Although the sun and wind had made me almost as dark as Keokotah it was obvious that I was not an Indian, or at least none such as they had ever seen.

Keokotah spoke again, some word which they understood but I did not. We walked down to their camp, and soon he was talking to them. From time to time they looked at me, and I could see he was explaining me. How, I had no idea. It developed that only one of them had ever seen a white man before. The Pawnees were a strong tribe, only moving into the area now, and where they originated I did not know. What was important was that they had seen Itchakomi.

They had also seen Kapata, but had remained hidden among the trees atop a long ridge as the Natchee and the Tensa went along the valley bottom a half mile away.

Much talk went on of which I understood nothing until Keokotah translated for me. Apparently they were fleeing back to their own people. The Conejeros--a branch of a people called Apache, of which there were many tribes--were on the warpath.

The Conejeros were destroying any other Indians they came upon, and had even killed some of the Spanishmen who had gotten too far from home. They were fierce and desperate fighting men who seemed to have conquered all between the river we followed and another great river to the south.

"What of Itchakomi?" I asked.

"They are near the mountains, but the Pawnees believe they will be killed."

"What of the Tensa?"

"They believe the Tensa are friendly to the Conejeros, but they do not know."

We talked long, and Keokotah at my prodding asked many questions about the country, the rivers, the mountains, and the game.

There were many buffalo and great herds of antelope, too. There were several kinds of deer, including a large kind that must be the wapiti or elk. There were not many Indians apart from a few small tribes of Apaches, some of whom planted cornfields along the rivers when the season was right.

When we left them to move on, the rains had ceased, although it was still muddy along the hillsides and the river still ran with a strong current in a wide bed. More clouds hovered in the west. Soon, the Pawnees told us, we would see the mountains.