to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (29 page)

"If they are your people," I said, "they are our people."

The remark pleased him, and he repeated what he had said before, that it would be well for us to live with his people until the winter had come and gone.

"It may be," I said, "if it pleases your people. But we must try to find a place near the mountains ... in a small valley, with water and timber."

"There are many, and many more over the mountains."

"What people live over the mountains?"

He shrugged. "All people hunt there, no people live."

Together we went back to our camp. The fire was burning, the boats tied along the bank now, and an awning of sailcloth had been raised, under which Abby was lying.

Sitting down beside her, I told her we would remain where we were until our child was born, and I told her of the Indians, whom she had not yet seen, and of the buffalo I had killed.

"It is a good place," I said, "and we can hunt nearby and gather fruit and nuts to help our eating. It is such another place as this that we will find."

"Why not here, Barnabas?" she asked me.

"No. It is lovely, but it is not the blue mountains. I think in those mountains we will find a place we love, and another place, as well."

"Another?"

"Someday we may wish to move on, or our children. We must think of our children.

The land we have passed through is too fair a land to lie empty as it is, and more men will come and settle there."

Abigail was listening, a smile on her face.

"There are mines to be opened here. I have heard much of metals the Spanish found. And the furs we can trade with Peter Tallis."

Holding her hand, I talked long of what we must do, of the planting of grain, the saving of seed, the planting of fruit trees and vegetables.

Sakim came up to join us. "There are many plants here that I know, plants used for medicine in other countries."

Around the campfire, we talked. "It would grow whatever we need. Is it not so, John?"

John Quill nodded. "It is true." He looked around him and shook his head. "I cannot believe it, Captain. So much land, and so few people, when in our country people long for the land and have none, for it all belongs to the great lords.

Even the wild game is theirs."

"Aye," Tom Watkins agreed, "but trust not the red man. Have you seen their eyes when they see what we have? Each of our boats becomes a treasure ship to them, worth as much in their eyes as the richest Spanish galleon is to us."

Tim Glasco spoke then. "We have come far, and we follow wherever you go, but what is it you plan?"

So I told them, talking quietly, of the valley I sought. A place with good water, good land, and timber for fuel and for building. Then to build first, as before, a stockade and shelter, and then to survey for each a square mile of land.

They stared at me. "A square mile?"

"Aye, and why not? There is land in plenty, and each should have, if we can arrange it so, some stream frontage, some timber, some meadow. But at first I think we should remain together, inside the stockade at night.

"During the day we can work our land. Perhaps a piece close by that belongs to all, and which all work, and then each his own, further out. Within the stockade we must have stores, a granary, and the blacksmith shop, and a shop where Magill can weave and make barrels for us.

"There, with luck, we can build a small community, a world of our own. We will also trap fur, and when we have sufficient we will go down to the sea and trade, for more ships will come, and colonies will be established."

Well I know that what I said would require doing, and no easy thing it would be, and also now that we had come to a stop ... or soon would ... there would be more chance of trouble among us. Circumstances had tended to weed out many of those who might cause problems, but being human, there would be differences of opinion, for the ideal situation may exist but not ideal people. Wise I might not be, but I was wise enough to know that I myself would make mistakes. I was subject to anger, to sorrow ... I do not think to discouragement.

If we lived among the Indians we would soon become Indians, and it seemed best that we keep to ourselves, be friendly, exchange gifts and favors, and with the buffalo bull we had begun well, for the bringer of meat is welcome at any fire.

Up to now we had been fortunate, but now we faced a winter, perhaps not a hard winter, for from what Wa-ga-su had said the winters were not bad ... except occasionally. Nonetheless, we would need fuel, food, and shelter, and much hard work to have them.

All of us would change, and I myself had already changed, for suddenly I had become a leader of men who depended upon me to lead them well. Now I had to think carefully, and to plan, I had to be sure the work was evenly shared, and the food as well. I wished not to interfere with the Indians nor their way of life, but to learn from them. They knew the plants and animals of this country, they knew the seasons and how high up the rivers a man could go by boat.

Whatever their thinking they had found a way of life in tune with the country, a way that seemed good with them.

Abby was not one to lie long upon her bed, and soon she was with Lila, cooking, sewing, and mending garments for the other men as well as myself. Her time was soon, and I walked into the forest alone, worried, thinking of her, and knowing little of such things as births, yet glad of the presence of Lila and Sakim.

Dark flowed the river past our grassy banks, whispering through the reeds and rustling in eddies near the roots of old trees. Dappled was the water with light and shadow, and above the water the changing leaves, for frost had come and brought autumn colors to the forest. Soon the leaves would be gone, and the trees bare until spring.

The forest aisles were a place for thinking, for all was still, with only the rustling of small animals and birds. There was little time left to us to find our winter haven and prepare for the cold and storms, so little time. And yet it would be best to wait, to wait just a little longer.

My thoughts prowled the forest and saw in the mind's eye the place we might find, and one by one I went through the moves to be made, so many at work on a stockade, so many on shelters, and so many for hunting and gathering. And there must be changing about to give all a taste of each.

A move well planned is a move half-done, and I tried to think through every phase. We would go, I decided, a little farther by water.

It was a Catawba who warned us.

He came suddenly, running from the trees beyond the clearing, screaming "Occaneechee!" And he ran toward us, darting swiftly from side to side. I saw an arrow strike near him and grabbed my musket at a rush from the trees along the shore.

Turning, I fired from my hip at a charging Indian and saw the bullet strike him, yet his step scarcely faltered. Even in that desperate moment I felt awe at the man's courage and his strength. He came on, and I dropped my musket and fired a second time, with a pistol. He staggered then, but came on, and I killed him with a knife, breast to breast.

There was firing everywhere, and then a sudden charge from the Catawba, taking the attackers on the flank. Their presence was a total surprise, and the Occaneechee attackers broke and fled. Turning sideways, I lifted a pistol, brought it down in line, and shot another as he fled into the trees.

We moved out then in a rough crescent, those of us who could. I recharged my musket and pistol and sank my knife hilt-deep in the soft, black loam to cleanse it of blood, and we went after them. There was still a bit of fighting here and there. I saw an Indian bending a bow at me and fired quickly ... too quickly.

My shot barked the tree at his head but he was no squirrel and merely sprang away, his arrow wasted into the brush.

Another came at me with a spear, but I parried the thrust with my musket barrel and sprang close, grasping the musket in two hands, shoulder-high, and driving the butt into his face. He took the full force of it and went back and down, and for a moment there was fierce fighting on all sides, but when the attack broke I called out, "Fall back on the camp! Fall back!"

Some heard my hail and passed on the call, and slowly we did fall back, for I had no desire to waste our strength by scattering in the woods.

Quill came from the brush near me, and then O'Hara a bit farther along. Glasco, Peter Fitch, Slater. ... Anxiously, I counted them off as they gathered, moving back, pausing here and there to recharge their muskets.

Barry Magill was the last to come, bleeding from a gash on the face. Now all were present but Jeremy.

"Ring?" I asked.

"He did not come," Pim said. "He stayed in camp."

"Jeremy?" I could not believe it.

"Aye," Pim said, and there was an odd look to his eyes that puzzled me.

The Catawba came back, too. Not a few of them with scalps. We had struck the Occaneechee a blow ... five men dead, and no losses to us, despite their surprise. But we had been thinking of this for weeks, and were ready. And the Catawba were always ready.

Two Catawba were wounded, only one seriously. We had come off better than we deserved, but somehow the attackers had not known of the presence of the Catawba, who were old enemies and fierce fighters. It was their sudden attack that had saved us.

"I want to see Jeremy Ring," I said, and he heard me speak and came toward me.

He bowed low, sweeping the ground with his ragged plume. "I regret my absence," he said with mock seriousness, "and nothing less could have kept me from your side, but I thought it best to stand by your kin," he said.

"My kin?" I stared at him, stupidly.

"Your wife," he said, "and your son."

Chapter
24

So my son was born on a buffalo robe in the heat of an Indian battle, under a tree by the side of a stream in a wild and lonely land, and he was given his name by a chance remark, a name he would carry forever. For we called him Kin, and thought of no other, and kin he was to all of us, to the meadow, the woodland, and the forest.

Abby was healthy and strong, and came from her labor smiling, proud she had given me a son. For a second name we called him Ring, for the man who had stood above them, sword in hand, musket and pistols hard by, stood there in case any Indian should break through our ranks and come upon them.

Kin Ring Sackett ... the name had a sound, and it was a sound I loved.

Lila brought him to me, my hands still hot from battle, the smell of powder smoke about me, and I took him carefully, for I'd no knowledge of babies, and held him gently and looked in his face, his eyes squinted and dark, his face still red and pinched, but he looked at me and seemed to laugh and grasped my thumb and tugged strongly. Oh, he was a lad, that one!

Two days later we left our river camp and moved up the river. For three full days we moved, but the water was becoming less for the season was late and the rains had not yet come. We beached our boats at last in a small bayou, unloaded them upon the shore, then drew them deep into a forest of reeds and hid them there.

We cached some goods on the spot, and hid them well, then moved out upon the trading trail, carrying the rest, and my own pack the heaviest of all. Yet strong I was to bear it, and the more willing that now I had a son, the first of my name to be born in the new land, a son who would know no civilization, but only the wilds.

He would grow up on woodland paths, riding rough water in a canoe down lonely streams and hunting his own meat in the wilderness. Looking about me I knew I could wish no better life for any man than that I was giving to him. A lonely life, but a wild, free life.

"There must be more than that, Barnabas," Abby said. "He must learn to live with civilized men also, for how can we know who will come to these shores and live upon these hills?"

The way we went was long, but the Catawbas traveled with us, returning to their country, and I set myself to learn from them, their language, their customs, their knowledge of wood and savanna. Never would I learn all they had to teach, for so much was natural to them that they assumed all would know it, things so obvious in their way of life that they would never think of teaching anyone, presuming knowledge.

We traveled slowly with them, for they hunted and gathered along the way, and late though the season. I relished the slower travel for the chance it gave to know the country.

The path we took was an ancient trading path that led across the country with many branches. Traders were usually respected and left to travel unmolested, as trade was desired by all, yet there were always renegades, outlaw Indians or war parties from afar that might not respect the trade route.

Wa-ga-su was much with us, and I began to notice a certain aloofness toward him by the others of his people. He seemed moody, sometimes puzzled, often downcast.

"What is it with my friend that he is troubled?" I asked.

He glanced at me, then shook his head. After awhile he said, "When I went away I was a great man among them. They loved and trusted me. No man was greater on the hunt, none brought more meat to the village, and none was greater upon the path of war. Now all is changed."

"What is the trouble?"