Jubal Sackett (1985) (39 page)

He leapt to his feet and came at me and we circled and fought. Minutes passed, our blades clashed, there were lunges and parries. My boxing skills, little though they were, proved sufficient to counteract his greater reach. My refusal to accept the easy victory he had taken as a sign of contempt for him, and now he fought with unbelievable ferocity. A half dozen times I was nicked by his blade, and once I left a thin red line along his left arm.

The footing beneath us was uneven and scattered with broken branches, bits of bark, and small stones. Suddenly a stone rolled under my foot and I fell on my back and he came at me.

Thrusting up with my leg I caught him as he rushed upon me, my toe taking him in the pit of the stomach. I shoved up and back and threw him over my head to the ground beyond.

We came up as one and I thrust quickly, missed and fell on my face. Instantly, he was upon me, astride my back, and I knew his knife was lifting for the final stabbing blow. Swinging my arm up and back I drove my knife into his side between the ribs. His knife came down but I jerked hard to one side and the blade went into the earth alongside my neck.

Off balance, he was unable to properly resist my tremendous heave to get him off me and he fell free. Our knives clashed, but mine slipped by his and sank deep. He struggled to rise, throwing me back. Stabbed twice and deep, he came at me like a wildman, cutting and slashing.

Driven back, I slipped and fell, and he sprawled over me. Instantly I was up, and he came up also, but slower. He poised, eyes alive with hatred and fury, his blade steady.

"Now," he said, "I kill!"

He did not even seem aware that he was wounded, but rushed at me. Sidestepping away, I watched him. He was bleeding badly but was as intent on killing me as ever. He lunged at me, but I was prepared and sidestepped. But this time he was also prepared and moved aside with me. My knife was held low and I brought it up hard.

It went in to the hilt and for an instant we were eyeball to eyeball.

"You could have stayed in Natchez," I said in a conversational tone. I withdrew my knife, pushing him away. He fell to his knees, struggled to rise, and then just rolled over on the ground and lay still.

Kapata was dead.

Slowly, I turned about. Their eyes were on me. "Itchakomi is my woman," I said. "I have come for her."

A Tensa spoke, but I did not know his words. Keokotah explained. "He says she is your woman. They will go home now."

We watched them as they gathered their few belongings. I glanced at the three Natchee Indians, who stood uncertainly, unsure of their course.

"Komi? Are they good men?"

"I reminded them that I was a Daughter of the Sun. They guarded me. They knew their duty."

"If you wish they can remain with us. The choice is yours and theirs."

It had been obvious to me that they hesitated to return to Natchez. They had left with Kapata, who was considered a renegade by their people, but they were young and he had been persuasive. At the end they had proved their loyalty to Itchakomi.

She spoke to them and they listened, and then assented eagerly. They would stay with us, and I was not displeased. The addition of three strong warriors and hunters could only make us more secure.

"Now we shall go home, Itchakomi Ishaia. When again we come to our place I shall do what I have promised. You shall have your sacred fire. Never again will you be without it.

"Did not your Ni'kwana recognize me as a master of mysteries? Are you not a Child of the Sun? You shall have your sacred fire."

Chapter
Thirty-Seven.

We walked again along the canyon trail, but now we walked in daylight, walked where no shadows were but those beneath the trees, walked among the blooming columbine, the cinquefoil, and the fireweed. We walked in quietness, for there was no need to speak.

Once, when we stopped to rest beside a spring, Itchakomi said to me, "You can do this? Bring fire from the Sun?"

"I can."

She was silent for a long time, stirring the water with a small twig, idly, thoughtfully. "I have missed the Fire." She looked up at me, her eyes large and beautiful. "I am happy with you, but I grew up tending the Fire. It is a part of me, a part of my life."

"I know."

"Have you known many Indian women?"

"Only a few. There was one. I saw her but once. She lived close to Jamestown and was friendly with the people there. Her name was Matoaka, but she was called Pocahontas. Pocahontas was what her father called her. In their language it means playful. She spoke our language quite well, I think."

"No others?"

"No Indians lived close to us. They came to trade and sometimes we went among them for the same reason, or to hunt with them."

"You do not take scalps. We heard that long before we met any of you, but we did not believe it. If one of our men falls in battle we take his scalp rather than let an enemy have it."

"Our child will be a Sun?"

"He will. If it is a boy, only during his lifetime; if a girl, for always. With us rank descends through the woman. Is it not so with your people?"

"Rank descends through the man."

"Hah! You must trust your women very much."

"Some of us do."

We walked on, and before us our valley opened and we looked upon the fort, our cornfield lying in the sun, and the wide meadows beyond where the long grass rippled in the slight breeze.

For a moment I stopped, considering. I must plant more corn, and melons as well. It was a rich valley, and here a man could build for the future. It was a wide land, a new land, and I was among the first to see it. Others would come. Oh, I had no doubt of that, for mine were a restless people, ever moving, ever seeking, ever reaching out.

They would come, and when they arrived I would be waiting for them. Some would have goods to trade, all would be needing food, advice, and knowledge of the country.

Now I had a child to consider, as well as a home for Itchakomi. But first, her sacred fire. We all are children of the sun. We had been given the sun to bring warmth and life to an otherwise dead world.

First, I needed to choose a place sufficiently impressive, and the rawboned mountain beyond our fort was such a place. I would clear a place of stones and debris, and then gather the fuel for a fire. And I would choose a day of bright sun, but first there was much else to do.

The Pawnees were gone. When time permitted I walked over their campsite and cleaned up what debris was left, little as it was.

Atop the mountain I cleared a spot of broken rock and debris, and then carefully constructed a cairn, or altar, using rocks that lay about, fitting them together with infinite care. The altar was four feet high and three feet to a side, with a large flat stone as the centerpiece. From trees not far away I gathered several old, long-deserted birds' nests, and about them I laid a network of twigs and small branches and then larger, heavier pieces. At the outer edge of the pile I placed a part of a bird's nest, several thin pieces of pitch pine, and shreds of bark. Unfortunately the wood of the white walnut could not be had, so I had chosen cedar instead.

Cedar was used in purification ceremonies in several tribes, and I believed it would be acceptable. We who are latecomers are forever curious as to the why of rituals, but the Indian asks no such questions. Having no written history or account of their rites, they have often forgotten the reason for certain rites, but the reason is not considered important. The ritual itself is enough. Many such ceremonies have continued for hundreds if not thousands of years. If Itchakomi would be happier with a sacred fire, she would have one, and her fire would be truly a gift of the sun.

With a wooden hoe carved by my own hands, I cultivated the corn. Often in the evenings I worked to create furniture for our house, and there was always much to do.

When the evenings were cool we walked out under the trees to look across at the Sangre de Cristos, bathed in the blood red of the setting sun, a red that lingered long after our valley was deep in shadow.

"What will your mother and sister be doing now?"

"Their home is in London now, I believe. They will be at home, or dressing to go out for the evening. I know so little of the life there.

"Brian will be with them, I expect. He will be quite the Englishman now, I believe. I wonder if he will have gone to visit the fens which were my father's home. The fens," I added, "are a vast lowland, some of it under water, but drained by many channels and openings. There is wild game there, many eels, geese, ducks, and pigeons, as well as deer.

"My mother returned to England with several valuable gems found in Carolina. She inherited property from her father, also, I believe. They will be well off."

"Is it important to be well off?"

"It helps. Life is very hard for the poor, and for a young woman to marry well it is important that she have independent means. I believe young men think more of improving their position than of love."

"Your sister will marry there?"

"I expect, but about Noelle, one does not know. She is a girl of independent mind. She will go her own way, like the rest of us."

Deer had come from the woods and were grazing on the meadow before us. From where we stood I could see at least a dozen and several elk, bunched near some rocks some distance away.

Paisano came up from where he was feeding and stood near us, and I scratched his ear. He was huge now, a great shaggy bull that was like a puppy around us. Buffalo were considered stupid animals, but I did not find him so. I had, with some effort, convinced him to stay out of my cornfield, which I had fenced off with poles. Fences, I had learned, mean nothing to buffalo, who usually go where they wish, but Paisano had learned that the cornfield was off limits for him, and as there was no shortage of grass, he left the cornfield alone.

Winter was coming, however, and I resolved to cut some hay, enough to feed Paisano occasionally and to keep him reminded of where his home was.

There were tools we needed, but I dared not approach Santa Fe, where I would be considered an interloper and would be imprisoned and then sent down into Mexico for a trial, if I got one. Diego had implied he was interested in trade, but we had little to offer. We had some buffalo hides, as well as a few skins trapped the previous winter. This year I resolved to make a more thorough job of trapping.

Hand in hand, Komi walked with me to the fort. Keokotah was there, seated by the fire. The others were sleeping or busy with some of the many activities of our day-to-day lives.

For days now I had been watching the weather, and the days of mixed clouds and occasional rain seemed to be dwindling away for the time. When the sun was bright and the day hot I would bring the fire down for Itchakomi. Now there was something else of which I must know.

"Keokotah, long ago you spoke of the animal the Poncas call Pasnuta?"

He remembered only too well my doubts, and his features stiffened, his eyes blazing a challenge.

"I was wrong to doubt you. We who have not traveled this country as have you think such animals only appear in other, faraway places. I would have you speak of this animal."

He knew nothing of my dreams or nightmares. These dreams were not like the occasional flashes of the future that had sometimes come to me, but I was disturbed by them. Was this a foresight of my hour of death? Was I to die impaled on a tusk or trampled under the feet of such a monster?

Keokotah did not answer but turned to the Ponca woman. "Tell him of pasnuta," he said.

She came over to us and sat cross-legged on the floor. "Pasnuta beeg! Ver' beeg! We kill pasnuta. Much meat at one time."

"They surround the beast," Keokotah said. "Drive him into a swamp or over a cliff or several will challenge him, seeming to attack, and while he looks at them others come from behind with spears."

"Where do you find them?"

The Ponca woman shrugged. "Wherever. Out on long grass. In mountains. Who knows where? We find, we kill. Much meat."

Her eyes lit with memory and remembered excitement. "Long winter, much, much cold! There is hunger in the lodges! Many long hunt, nothing! Spring no come! One day Running Bear, he find track. Beeg, beeg track! He say come, and many warrior go. They follow track. Push pasnuta in deep snow. They follow, follow, follow. Pasnuta get in deep snow, no can move good. Warrior surround.

"Pasnuta charge! He keel one. He throw one far, but that one fall in snow, not much hurt. They stick pasnuta with spear! Many spear! Much meat! No more hunger in the lodges."

"Do you see them often?"

"No many! One time many! Old man say so. In my life we keel three, maybe four."

All the descriptions tallied. They were hairy elephants, huge creatures, some with tusks, some without. Once there had been many, now they found them but rarely. They were fierce, but not hard to kill when there were a dozen or more warriors.

Yance, when wandering, had come upon some huge bones near a salt lick. The flesh had long been gone, but the skeleton of the beast had been intact. Yance had brought back, with the help of some Indians, two large tusks that we had sold to a trader who came into the sound with his ship.