Jubal Sackett (1985) (42 page)

He was trying to anger me, to draw me in, so I did as he wished and made as if to attack, and then retreated as he attacked. His movements were wide, flamboyant and careless. My blade caught his thrust, parried, and slid along his blade. He moved even as my point touched his shoulder. He backed away, circling, looking at me with a question in his eyes. I had been too good on that one. He would be more cautious now. But he was not, he attacked again with wide-sweeping cuts and I retreated. He came on, suddenly impatient, yet I had taken his measure and caught him out of time. I thrust, quick, low, and hard.

Whether it found a break in his chain mail or drove through, I did not know, but my point went in, deep and hard. Cutting left with the edge, I withdrew sharply, and blood followed.

His face was ghastly. It had suddenly turned mottled and yellow and he staggered, trying to regain his poise. He tried an attack, but his timing was gone and I thrust again, this time at his throat. Turning the blade at the target I cut sharply left and laid open his throat. His blade dropped and he tried to speak. Then he fell over on his face.

There was a chorus of shouts and some wild yells. Looking up I beheld a circle of Indians, at least fifty of them on horseback, watching.

Keokotah came from the trees. "Utes," he said. "Speak well."

I lifted my sword to them in a salute, and then bowed with a wide, sweeping gesture.

Keokotah stepped toward them, speaking. They listened and watched as he used sign language with the words.

He who appeared to be chief listened and then spoke.

"He says you are much warrior," Keokotah said. "Offer them gifts. Tell them we are friends in their land. We wish them to come often to trade. Tell them we have come to bring the Utes presents and wish to stay in this small corner of their land and help them against their enemies, the Komantsi."

There was a brief exchange. Keokotah said, "He wishes to see your presents." Then he added, "I think you've a friend. He likes the way you fight."

Wiping my blade, I returned it to Diego, who was now talking to the men of Gomez. Picking up Gomez' sword I wiped it clean. Then I took it to the Ute chief and presented it to him with a bow.

Gravely, he accepted the sword, and I said, "I, your friend, present you with this sword to be used against your enemies. Your friends are my friends. Your enemies are my enemies."

Bowing again, I took two steps back and then turned to the gate. Now was the time to show them my medicine. Inside the gate, waiting, was Paisano.

"Food, Komi! We must feed them! We must feed our new friends!"

Paisano walked from the gate, a huge, massive beast, and I heard gasps of astonishment. Coolly, I gathered the reins and stepped into the saddle. Calmly, gravely, I walked Paisano out upon the clay to mutters of awe and astonishment. Saluting them again, I rode Paisano back into the gate as the women began to emerge with trays of food.

Much depended upon this first meeting, and well I knew it. They had seen me win a victory and they had seen me ride a buffalo, which to them was big medicine, but now to more practical things.

Showing the chief and some of the elders to seats on a log outside the gate, I warned all against walking in the grass. Then I brought out several bolts of red calico, a dozen knives, another dozen of hatchets. The Utes came to stare at what to them, at this time, was a veritable treasure.

All things are valued according to their scarcity, and a time might come when this gift would seem as nothing. What was worth little to us was worth much to them because they were things they could not get elsewhere.

Keokotah's woman and the Ponca woman brought food to put before our guests, and they seated themselves and ate.

Suddenly, two Natchee Indians emerged from the gate, each holding a torch. For a moment they stood, until all eyes were upon them. Then slowly, with grace and poise, Itchakomi Ishaia emerged between them .

Looking neither right nor left she walked down the open space before the chiefs, and it was only then that I noticed that one of our benches, covered with a buffalo robe, had been placed opposite them.

She seated herself, and the torch bearers moved to right and left. For a long moment she said nothing, as all stared.

Then she said, "I am Itchakomi Ishaia, Daughter of the Sun, Priestess of the Eternal Fire." She waited again until one might have counted to five very slowly, and then she said, "I walk with this man, who is Jubal Sackett, the Ni'kwana, master of mysteries!"

Chapter
Forty.

Never had I been so proud of my wife as at that moment. Indians dearly love ceremony, as do many of us, and there could be no doubt in the mind of anyone that she was no less than a beloved woman.

Keokotah, who knew much of the Ute language, which was similar to that of tribes he had known, spoke to them, translating her words and telling who she was.

"In the cave," he indicated the place near our fort, "lives the fire that burns forever. She is its guardian, its priestess.

"He--" he pointed at me, "brought the fire from heaven. The fire is the gift of the Sun. I have seen it."

"And I!" said a Natchee torch bearer.

"And I!" the other repeated.

Diego moved to my side. "She iswonderful! " he whispered. "She has won them all!"

Awed, I looked at her. This beautiful woman, this goddess--could she be mine? Beautiful, yes, but intelligent also. She had come among them when the time had been right, and they would never forget her.

I smiled to myself. "And she didn't have to ride a buffalo to do it!"

Long after they were gone, the effect remained with me. Surely, I would remember her always in that beaded white buckskin costume, a band about her dark hair, standing between the torches. She had beauty then, and magic, also.

One by one the Utes went to see the sacred fire, to look upon it and pass on. When they rode away with their gifts I knew we had won some friends. More than my buffalo, more than my fighting, more than my gifts, it had been Itchakomi who had done it.

"They will be friends now," Keokotah commented complacently. "We will have no trouble."

Yet as I looked down the darkening valley, I wondered. Suddenly, I shuddered. We used to say when that happened somebody had just stepped on our grave.

Perhaps--

Suddenly, just for a moment, I seemed to see a vast beast rising before me, a mighty monster with tusks like spears, lifting his great head, winding his trunk back against his brow, a red-eyed monster who looked at me and started to move, coming at me. Instinctively I reached for a spear, and there was none, and I was alone.

I shuddered again.

That, now? After all of this? Would it come now? But how could it be? There was no such beast. An elephant with long hair?

Yet that night I slept and slept well, with no nightmares, no dreams.

We had given much meat to feeding the Utes, and if we were to last the winter it must be replaced, so now was the time for hunting. Also, there was the matter of the sulphur. If we could find a workable deposit we could make our own gunpowder.

"Komi," I suggested, "let us go together to the mountains. We will visit the caves, hunt, and look for sulphur. Also, we can take a bit of food to eat as the English do on a Sunday."

"How do they eat?"

"On Sunday they do not work, so sometimes one family, sometimes several, will go together to the seashore, a lake, or a river and there in the shade of trees they will eat their food. It is a quiet time for all, a relaxing time.

"The children will run and play, the older people will laze about, talking, sleeping, sometimes singing. It is sometimes called a picnic."

"Good! We will eat a picnic. Paisano will carry the lunch and some robes to sit upon."

We were like children, and happy children at that. Sometimes back at Shooting Creek when we were very young we had gone out like this with our father and mother and others of the family or our friends. It brought good memories, and as we walked along I shared them with Komi.

"I was the quiet one. I did not run and play as much as the others, but I loved it all very much. I liked just to sit and watch, although they were always trying to get me into their games. They could never understand that I was happier just watching them be happy."

As we neared the place where the creek flowed down from the mountains there was a meadow, a deep pool in the creek, and a place where aspen came close to the water's edge. The aspen leaves whispered in the slightest movement of air and it was quiet and serenely beautiful.

"Jubal, why don't we stay right here? We will find nothing up on the mountain that is half so beautiful."

Well, why not?

We spread our robes by the pool and I started a small fire to make coffee, of which we now had a good quantity from Diego.

When the smell of coffee was in the air I took up my bow and walked out, looking for a deer or an elk. The meadows I could see were empty, yet far away something stirred in the trees. Shading my eyes, I looked toward it but could see nothing. The mountain loomed above us. The Ponca woman who had been there as a young girl had said there were lakes up there, too. Someday we would go there, Komi and I.

It was time we started back. There would be time for hunting after we had eaten.

Where was Paisano? He had followed me, but now he was nowhere about. I called and then started back, walking slowly. The sun was warm and pleasant.

Far across the valley, back along the way we had come, I saw a lone figure. Someone was coming toward us, still a long way off.

Smoke lifted from our fire. Komi was nowhere in sight.

Putting down my bow I began gathering sticks for the fire, stopping now and again to call out for her. Still no response.

Worried, I dumped my load of sticks, glancing around. In the distance the lone figure was still coming, drawing nearer but still far off. Yet he was walking not running, and if it was somebody from the fort and there was trouble, he or she would be running.

Something large and dark moved in the edge of the woods. "Paisano?"

What could he be doing that he did not come when I called? And where was Komi? Our coffee would bubble away.

She might be looking for herbs, which we gathered against times of trouble. Placing my bow beside the quiver of arrows near where our coffeepot bubbled, I started into the woods.

"Komi? Come on! The coffee's ready!"

Walking through the small patch of woods I came on an open place covered with clumps of scrub oak. And as I came in sight of it, Komi burst from the woods, running wild and frightened.

"Komi!Here! "

She screamed at me, waving frantically for me to leave."Run!" she screamed the word, and I ran toward her.

"No! No!Run! "

Catching her arm, I said, "What is it? What'swrong? " She started to run again, tugging at me. "Please!Run!" Her panic bread panic in me, catching her arm I, too, started to run. Behind me there was a crashing in the clump of oaks, and glancing over my shoulder, I saw it.

A monstrous thing with great ears spread wide, two gleaming white tusks. Suddenly I was choking with horror. This was my dream! My nightmare! This beast, this impossible thing, this--

It saw us.

For one frightening, awful moment it stared, and then with a blast as from a great trumpet, it started for us. We turned to flee, and Komi tripped and fell flat.

It charged.

Lifting my gun, I fired, dropped the muzzle to load, and fired again. Whether the balls took effect, I could not say. I only know that as the elephant charged, I steadied my hand and fired again, aiming for the gaping mouth. I dropped the muzzle--

This was why I had not fled. Komi lay at my feet, struggling to rise. The mammoth, for such it was, was almost upon us. Then there was a bellow, and something charged across my vision.

Paisano!

Head down, he charged the mammoth and hit him just back of the foreleg, knocking the larger beast into the brush. Before it could so much as swing around, Paisano whipped his head about, ripping the monster's hide with a horn.

Struggling erect, the mammoth swung its great head around and lunged at Paisano. Amazingly, the buffalo veered away and then charged again, raking the mammoth left and right with his horns.

Grabbing Itchakomi's arm I jerked her to her feet. "Run!" I gasped. "Run and hide!"

I could not leave Paisano.

The huge buffalo had a streak of blood along his side where he had been raked by a tusk, but he charged again, smashing the mammoth back into the trees. Whether by accident or intent Paisano had attacked from the side, avoiding the tusks. Now the monster reached for a grip on a horn with its trunk, but Paisano lowered his great head and butted the mammoth again.

Steadying my hand, I held my fire, and when the monster swung his great head to bring his tusks into play, I shot him in the ear.

It was as if I had struck him with a fly whisk. He shook his great head and turned again to confront Paisano.

What could I do? The monster was three or four times the size of Paisano, but the buffalo bull was undaunted. He bellowed a challenge as the mammoth swung around and charged. Tusks low, trunk curled back out of harm's way, his little eyes red with fury, he drove at Paisano. I would have expected Paisano to meet him head on, but the buffalo bull was a wily fighter. He swung suddenly aside, avoiding the long tusks and hooking a short sharp horn at the monster's shoulder, ripping a gash.