Jubal Sackett (1985) (38 page)

This was my land. Here I would sink roots. Here I would grow and help things grow. Here, I hoped, my sons and daughters would grow and be here to greet the westward travelers when they chose to come.

Another musket lay where it had fallen. Somehow the Pawnees had missed it. It lay fallen among the rocks and brush, but there was no powder horn. Further on lay a dead Spanish soldier, a handsome boy, now minus his scalp. Another one who had come seeking his fortune, accepting the chances of battle in a far country. Others might be killed, he had thought, but not him. He would survive. Now all the bright dreams were ended with his hair hanging in a Pawnee earth lodge.

Asatiki was coming toward me, walking his strange, bow-legged walk, lifting his knees toward the outside as he stepped. He paused facing me. "It is time," he said.

"Time?"

"We go. We go back to our lodges, back to our village. Our people wait and are wondering."

"I shall miss you, Asatiki." I held out my hand. "I have known a warrior."

"And I."

We stood together, looking down the long green valley. "If you come to us, you will be welcome. Our villages are north and east, along the second great river."

"One day, perhaps."

We stood a moment longer sharing the silence, and then he walked away. I watched his back as he retreated. We would miss them, and we would miss him.

Turning, I glanced toward where the cave was. They must know the fighting was over, but they had not appeared. Impatient to see Komi, I started across the grass toward where the cave was hidden.

The Pawnees were not waiting any longer, but they were going now. Pausing, I watched their thin line point itself into the mountains, watched them go, each with a burden of hides or meat. They now had seven horses, and I was still without one. Of course, I had Paisano.

As I neared the cave, I called out. There was no reply. Suddenly worried, I quickened my step and called again.

I reached the small opening and abruptly I stopped. In the dust outside the cave there was a confusion of footprints, but one stood out.

A large, clearly imprinted moccasin track. Only one man I knew made so large a track.

Frightened, I ducked into the cave, calling out.

Nothing, no sound, not so much as a whisper.

They were gone!

Somehow, during the fighting, while all had been engrossed, Kapata had slipped in and stolen my wife away, stolen her and the others.

One more futile call, and a moment of listening. My heart beating heavily I came into the open air.

Keokotah was there.

"They are gone. Kapata has taken them."

He ducked into the cave and was back in a moment. "My woman is gone," he said. "Do you get meat. I find trail."

At a trot, I returned to the fort. Scarcely thinking. I made two packs of meat and what else we had.

How long had they been gone? An hour? Two hours? Three?

They would travel fast and they would strive to leave no trail. No trail unless to an ambush.

Quickly I loaded what powder I had into two powder horns and gathered a double handful of my silver bullets.

Keokotah was waiting for me. He pointed toward the canyon where grapes grew. "They have gone that way. They go to the river, I think."

"Of course."

We walked steadily on but my heart was numb. Once, I glanced back. Paisano was following us. My brain had only one thought.

Itchakomi was gone! Itchakomi, my love ... gone!

Chapter
Thirty-Six.

Keokotah had followed this trail to the Arkansas not long after we had begun building the fort, but I had never gone to its end.

We ran, for our enemy was time. If they had boats waiting at the river we might never overtake them, and Kapata, now that he had captured Itchakomi, would waste no minutes.

It had been a long, bitter day, but we ran smoothly and easily. A mile, another mile. We slowed our pace. It would soon be dark, and their tracks would no longer be visible. Now we had to pick our way among the rocks, weaving through trees. In the bottom of the canyon it would grow dark quickly.

Also, they might try an ambush, although I doubted that.

Kapata had taken them during the fighting, with the end of the fighting still in doubt. He would not know if I were alive or dead, and I doubted if he would think of anything but getting safely away.

At the same time, I knew he would welcome a meeting with me. Particularly as he would like to show Itchakomi he was the better man.

Here and there we stopped to listen, while trying to make no noise ourselves. The canyon rocks carried sounds. How long had they been on the trail? At most, two hours. Hence they must be at the river or nearing it now.

They would have no campfire to help us to find them. They would offer no such invitation to the Komantsi that might still be about. My feeling was that the Komantsi had gone on to the south to steal horses in Mexico, but other enemies might be about. It was a time of change, and many tribes were on the move, displaced by others to the east who had obtained firearms.

We ran no longer, but walked, pausing often to listen. The canyon was behind us and we were moving into an area of scattered clumps of trees and occasional ridges. The general trend of the ground was sloping toward the river.

Here we were beset by a problem, for we had no idea whether they had gone directly to the river or had angled off to the east or west.

We stopped at a small stream, drank, chewed on some dried buffalo meat and listened. We heard nothing. It was completely dark and despite the stars overhead we could see nothing beyond a few feet.

Somewhere, within a mile or so, our women were prisoners. Itchakomi would be taken back to Natchez and the villages on the great river, but there was no reason to believe they would keep either the Ponca woman or Keokotah's woman alive.

"We will go now," I said at last. "You go toward the river and mountains. I will go toward the river and the plains. If you find nothing, come here at daybreak. If I am not here I have found them, and you can come to me. And if I return and you are not here, I will know you have found them.

"If either of us finds them, he will do what he can."

We parted in the night. He went westward and north, and I turned toward the east and north, angling across the country, feeling my way at first, and then weaving through the trees. My route was a zigzag, to cover as much ground as possible.

How many warriors did he have with him now? It would be a good-sized party, a dozen at least. He might have lost men. It was doubtful if he had recruited any.

The trees were thick along the slope, and I edged between them, taking each step with care and testing the earth before resting my weight. A snapping branch could be the end of me.

It was a slow, painstaking search, and I was filled with impatience. What I would do if I found them I had no idea.

On cat feet I went down over the rocks and into the trees again. Not far away was the river, and it was likely they had gone where they knew there would be water. They might not have a fire, but they would wish to drink and they would eat and rest.

There was a musty smell of rotting vegetation, the smell of pines--after a time the nose becomes sensitive to the very slightest odor. I was going steeply down a slope now, using the trees to help, gripping first one and then another.

How dark was the forest! My eyes, accustomed to the darkness, identified the trees and the shadows. A heavy odor in the air, a dampness on a tree against which I rested my hand. My fingers felt around on the bark and snagged a long hair.

A wet bear had come this way, perhaps within the last thirty minutes, a very large bear that had probably just swum the river. That stopped me. I had no desire to come upon a full-grown grizzly bear in the night.

Abruptly I changed direction, starting once more toward the river. Suddenly I stopped. What it was I had no idea, but I stopped on one foot, hesitating to lower the other.

Something, some sound in the night! I waited. A sound? Or a smell?

Something rustled, moved, and then I heard a faint mutter as of a sleeper in the night. Waiting, listening--a smell of fresh-cut wood! Of pine boughs for ... a bed? A bed for Itchakomi?

There were some Natchee Indians with Kapata. They would prepare the bower in which Itchakomi would sleep. They had done so, and she was near, very near.

With infinite care I drew back my foot and put it down, testing the earth as it came to rest. Slowly, carefully, I backed away. When a dozen yards away, I stopped and crouched at the base of a tree to think.

Their camp was here. They would move at dawn. Had I stepped into their camp I might have been overpowered by a half dozen braves.

At daybreak they would move. At daybreak Keokotah would come to join me, so I must stop them. I must not permit them to move.

Before daybreak I would attack. Or ... the thought came suddenly, should I challenge Kapata?

Should I challenge his courage? His leadership? Demand he fight me for Itchakomi?

If I appeared and challenged him, would he accept the challenge? Or would they all attack me at once? He was several inches taller than me, and he was heavier.

Dawn was hours away. I would rest, and when the day came, make my decision then. On a bed of moss near several trees, I lay down and slept, tuning my mind to awaken before the first hint of light in the sky, and when I slept the great beast came again, the red-eyed monster with the elephant's trunk and the long hair. It loomed through the trees and came at me. It had great tusks that curved out before it and one was red with blood. It charged, but I stood my ground. Why did I not flee? Why did I stand there, spear in hand, as it rushed upon me?

My eyes wide open in the dark I stared up at the canopy of leaves above, and then I sat up, wiping sweat from my face. Was it a warning? If so, a warning of what? Was it a pre-vision of something to come? Of my death, perhaps?

At least it was a monster that would kill me, not Kapata.

Where was Keokotah? Had something happened to him? Or was he even now lying somewhere near and waiting for the dawn, as I was?

Standing up, I moved my arms about and my shoulders, loosening the muscles. I checked my weapons. The sky was faintly gray, and easing myself down through the trees again, I could make out their camp.

The fire, Indians lying about, and among the trees, Itchakomi's bower, and wonder of wonders, three Indians lying guard before it!

The Natchee! Had they proved loyal, after all? Or would they protect her only up to a point? Kapata was half a Natchee, and a warrior respected among them. Yet, obviously, the Natchee had moved to protect her as a Sun.

Taking up my bow and spear I walked down from the trees into their camp, and it was a Natchee who saw me first. He came to his feet suddenly, facing me.

"She is my woman," I said.

"She has said this. She bears your child."

Startled, I stared at him. Was this true? Or was it a trick she had used that might protect her?

A child? Well, why not? Now there was more than ever a reason to fight.

All about me the others were rising. My eyes swept the camp. Kapata was sitting on the grass where he had slept, his eyes alive with hatred.

"I have come," I said, "to fighthim ." I glanced around again. "None of you.Him! He wanted my woman. Very well, let him fight for her."

They sat still, staring at me. The Tensa were fierce warriors and they wished to kill me, but I had challenged Kapata, so the fight was his.

Keokotah stood up in the trees away from the camp, overlooking all of it. "Let them fight," he said.

Itchakomi came from her bower and stood tall, looking across the fire at me. Crossing to her I took the twin guns from my waist and placed them on the ground at her feet.

"The voice that kills at a distance I shall leave with Itchakomi," I said. Turning on Kapata I drew my knife. "Come!" I invited. "We will see if a Karankawa can bleed!"

He came off the ground like a large cat, his knife drawn, and he walked across the intervening grass to meet me. His contempt was obvious. "You fool!" he said. "I kill!"

His reach was much greater than mine, but my father had taught us all something of English boxing, so when he made a sweeping cut from right to left I used a boxer's sidestep to my left. The wicked slash of his knife cut only the air where I had been, and my backward cut scratched the skin above his hip bone and drew blood.

Furious, he wheeled and came at me. The man was fast, faster than I would have believed, but I parried his blade with mine and we circled, warily. He thrust suddenly, right at my face, coming in with a long stride, and my head shifted only just in time. I had moved to the right, which put my knife blade too far from him, so I struck him in the stomach with my left fist.

It was totally unexpected. I doubt he had ever been struck with a fist before this, and it stopped him in his tracks. He gasped, for I had hit him in the wind, and before he could adjust I swung back with my blade. In stepping back, he fell and lay on the ground almost at my feet. I could have and should have killed him then but was averse to striking a man when he was down. So I stepped back, waving for him to come on.