Jubal Sackett (1985) s-4

by Louis L'Amour

  The top of the knoll made for good drainage, and again I used the device of cutting notches into the living trees to support my roof poles.

  By nightfall I had the frame of the roof in place for a house of several rooms and considerable space. Around the perimeter of the hill I had rolled rocks to fill natural gaps in the rocks that rimmed the hill. It was a good defensive position with a view to all approaches.

  During the days that followed I worked unceasingly, from dawn until dark and often long after dark, sitting by the fire to carve spoons, cups, and trenchers, the large wooden platters from which we would eat, just as they did in England.

  Keokotah hunted far afield, eyes alert for enemies. He brought in a deer, an antelope, and several sage hens. He found no tracks of men but several of the huge bears of which we had heard. "Leave them alone," I advised. "We don't need meat that bad."

  West of our valley were the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, so named by the Spanish, as we had learned from Diego. They were a long, high ridge beyond which lay another, much larger valley. Keokotah had seen it from afar.

  The Ponca woman, sturdy and quiet but always busy, found a granary in a natural rock shelter. An overhang had been walled in, leaving only a small window for access, and had been made into a storage place for grain. Some scattered corncobs lay about, all very small, but on the floor of the granary we found a half dozen cobs that still had grains of corn and maize.

  With a sharp stick she made holes, and into each she dropped a kernel of corn. How old the corn was we had no idea, but we hoped it would grow.

  Here and there we found signs of previous occupation, where some unknown people had lived for a time and passed on.

  Every day I worked to build the cabin and to make our small fortress stronger. There were solid logs enough to build the cabin, and many for the stockade. Those logs in contact with the soil had usually rotted or begun to rot, but many had fallen across other logs and had only seasoned and grown stronger.

  It was, I suppose, brutally hard work, but I'd been accustomed to little else, and manhandling the logs into position, sometimes rolling them, sometimes turning them end over end, simply took time. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed building. I always had.

  Keokotah was ever restless, wandering the hills, scouting the possible trails, alert always as we all were. Each night when he came in we talked of what he had seen and where he had been. Occasionally, taking time off, I scouted the country myself.

  Spring passed slowly into summer, and the cabin walls were up. A steeply slanted roof to shed the snow was in place. The meadows and hillsides were scattered with flowers now, Indian paintbrush, sunflower, larkspur, locoweed, and the ever-present golden banner.

  Twice I ventured up the gulch, scouting my way, careful to leave no tracks, a simple thing for there were many rocks. Always, I tried to keep under cover and not to frighten any of the wildlife that might betray my presence. I found no moccasin tracks, or pony tracks, either.

  We hunted far out, and often I took Paisano with me. Paisano was the name I had given the buffalo, who seemed happy to accompany me anywhere. He often carried packs for me, following me around like a puppy, a huge puppy, however, for he seemed to grow larger with every day. He would follow no one else, although he did allow Itchakomi to touch him.

  We gathered roots and leaves and wild strawberries as soon as they began to appear. We smoked and dried venison, preparing for the winter to come.

  It was well into the summer before I found the cave. It was well hidden, just a hole in the bottom of a small hollow behind some brush. A sage hen I had shot had dragged itself into the brush before dying and when I went to retrieve it and to recover my arrow I bent over and found myself looking into a black hole under a rocky ledge.

  Taking up a small stone, I dropped it into the hole. It fell but a few feet. I tried again, with the same result. Taking my bow, I reached down and touched bottom, extending the bow and my arm, at no more than four to five feet.

  I kindled a small fire and made a torch. Leaning down, I held it into the cave. I found myself looking into a room roughly oval and about ten feet wide but all of twenty to twenty-five feet deep. Several openings suggested further passages. The formation was limestone. I lowered myself into the cave, excited by my discovery. I scraped the wall with a bit of rock, bringing down a grayish-white dust.

  Saltpeter!

  Having nothing in which to carry it I took none with me, but crawling out I took careful sightings on nearby landmarks to find the exact spot again. Charcoal was easily had, so all that remained was sulphur.

  Several times I had seen indications of ore while hunting, and at least one good outcropping that looked to be silver. And lead was often found in conjunction with silver.

  Now I must conduct a serious search for sulphur, and if I could find it I could make my own gunpowder, as we had at Shooting Creek.

  Excited, I started back to camp. Keokotah was awaiting me among the rocks. He stood up as I approached, Paisano following.

  "I find tracks," he said.

  I stared at him. "Indians?"

  He spat. "Kapata!" he said. "He come, stay in rocks over there." He gestured toward the entrance to the gulch. "He watch, watch a long time."

  Well, we had been expecting him. We had known he would come, yet--

  "He come again. I think he come soon. He come forher , and he come for you!"

  Chapter Thirty-One.

  Itchakomi had come out from camp. "I see him," she said. "Yousaw him?"

  "He thinks he hidden, but from lodge I see him. He does not see me, as I am inside. He is not alone."

  Well, I had not believed he would be. So now we must be prepared. Our season of peace was over, even though it had been a watchful peace.

  As we ate, I considered the situation, and was not happy with it. Desperately, I needed more powder and more lead for bullets. My guns were loaded, and there might be enough powder to load them one more time.

  Not a mile from the lodge I had discovered a ledge of silver and lead, and I was less interested in the silver than in the lead at this point. I now had niter, and there was charcoal from our fires and more to be burned. Sulphur I needed.

  We had arrows, and at every available moment, seated by the fire or on lookout, we worked at making more. Our life was to be guided by the skills of our hands, and all we would have we must either find or create ourselves from materials at hand. Fortunately, I had never known any other way of life. At Shooting Creek we had had utensils from the ships, but never enough. Most of what we had we made.

  Desperately, I needed a source for sulphur, but I had found no deposits, although I kept a constant watch. Each foray we made into the country around was not only for hunting, but for sources of raw materials and for the best fuel. All woods were not equally good for making fires, particularly fires that would last and leave the best coals. For these the hardwoods were best, but there were not many to be found aside from oak.

  Nor did I like our situation. We were committed to defending a position, when I preferred movement. I believed in attack as a principle of war, yet our lodge and the few possessions we had committed us to defense. Keokotah was no happier with the idea than I, and spoke his mind.

  "I no like," he said. "He who attacks chooses the time and the place and the how."

  My feelings were the same.

  "Go!" Itchakomi said. "We fight. We are three women who can use the bow and the spear."

  It was tempting, yet I hesitated. The place was not easy to attack, situated as it was, and their water supply was inside the lodge. I doubted Kapata would use fire, for he did not wish to destroy Itchakomi but to capture her and return with her to Natchez. Yet we were only two, and he would have a dozen at least. Our only chance was to cut them off and kill them one by one, a thing not easily done.

  It was Itchakomi who reminded me. "You are shaman. You master of mysteries. The Natchee who walk with Kapata know this."

  The Indian was a believ
er in magic, in medicine. He was a man of many superstitions, as were we the English, only the superstitions of the English were different. Superstition could be, might be, a formidable weapon. If I could create doubt, if I could make them hesitate--

  The Natchee with Kapata knew their Ni'kwana had met with me and treated me with respect. Already I was known among them as a medicine man, so if I could build upon that and use it as a mantle to protect us all, so much the better.

  It would be a feeble defense, yet I had lived long enough and learned enough to know that victories are won in the mind before they are won upon the ground. Perhaps I could offer them symbols that would project the idea of magic. They need not even know what the symbols meant or were supposed to mean.

  Of this I said nothing to those who were with me. Keokotah, at least, was convinced that I had strong medicine.

  When evening came I went out alone. Keeping under cover I gathered the skulls of four deer we had eaten that winter, and I suspended them from a tree branch over the trail leading to our lodge.

  Four deer skulls, looking up the trail.

  I knew where others lay and went to find them. Soon I had skulls suspended in groups of four at various places in the trees that surrounded our lodge.

  Medicine to an Indian means power, and his life is spent in seeking the right medicine. He wishes for strong medicine for himself and those he follows, and he fears it in the possession of others.

  The Indian in his native land did not seek for material wealth. He hunted, gathered, and lived. What he sought was stronger medicine, greater wisdom, a power within him that could equal the power of the spirits that surrounded him and could endanger him if he could not enlist their aid.

  Kapata was driven by anger, hatred, jealousy, and the desire for power among the Natchee. Those who followed him believed his medicine was strong, but what if I could cause them to lose faith in him?

  It was worth the chance. It was worth anything I might do.

  Within the small pack I carried I had my own medicine bag, such as every Indian has, usually wearing it about his neck. Mine possessed not the things an Indian might carry but my own small medicine makers, one of them a prism, a burning glass. Now I took it from the bag and slipped it into a small pocket in my belt. I had no idea how I would use it, but somehow, somewhere, it might be useful.

  Now I must think. I must plan.

  We were well supplied with meat, and the women had gathered plants from the meadows and mountainsides or along the creeks. They were stores for winter, yet if need be those stores could feed those within the fort until the issue was decided.

  Kapata was out there, waiting. Nor would he wait long. He was eager and angry, and now that he had found us he would want it over quickly.

  Suddenly I thought of caltrops, the devices made to throw out in the grass to impede cavalry. They were made so when thrown into the grass a point was always up, and a horse who stepped upon one was either crippled or frightened of advancing further. In the ancient days of knights and castles they had ended many a charge. Now if I could make smaller ones and scatter them in the grass about our place, leaving openings known only to us, we might slow them or stop them. At least, it would help to fend off any night attack.

  A caltrop was simply a four-sided object with a point on each face, and once I hit upon the idea I began cutting pieces of wood with projecting spikes or using porcupine quills or sharp bits of bone, whatever was available.

  When the women saw what I was doing they immediately went to work. It needed but a minute to make one, and by nightfall we had many. Sighting on distant trees I chose paths we would know, but elsewhere I scattered the caltrops in the grass.

  Wild animals rarely approached a place where people were, at least not in wilderness areas where food was plentiful, so I had no fear of crippling an animal. Paisano would be with us for his own protection, for other Indians might kill him for meat. In any event, he preferred to be with us inside our stockade.

  We worked and we talked. Itchakomi was endlessly curious about my people and the land from which they had come. She also had come to love our songs. Not that I sang well, for I did not. However, I did sing the old ballads from England, Ireland, and Scotland sung by my father or Jeremy or O'Hara or one of the others.

  On the second night after we had glimpsed Kapata, I took my bow and went outside and stood in the darkness, listening. This we had been doing at intervals, even before Kapata had appeared, and solely for the reason that sound carries better at night and we might hear our enemies.

  All was very still. There were scattered clouds but many stars. Looking up at the stars I wished I could remember more of the constellations Sakim had taught us, but I remembered only a few.

  There had been a brief shower earlier in the day, but now there were no more signs of rain. Tomorrow should be a clear day. Waiting, listening, I heard nothing. It was like many other nights.

  Starting to go inside, I stopped suddenly. Had that been a sound? My heart seemed to slow, and my ears strained for the slightest sound. Slipping an arrow from my quiver I held it ready. It was very dark, yet from an opening in the logs, I peered out into the darkness, waiting.

  There was a faint stir in the grass. An animal? My eyes could find no shape, no deeper shadow.

  Then I saw them! Several shadows moved at once, coming toward us. I notched an arrow and waited. Distance was hard to estimate in the darkness, but I believed they had almost reached the edge of the area where we had scattered our miniature caltrops.

  Should I call Keokotah and alert the others?

  They needed sleep, and perhaps, just perhaps, they would not be needed. I lifted my bow, waiting.

  They were closer now. I could make out dim shapes. Suddenly there was a startled, barely suppressed cry of pain. A figure lunged upward, and I loosed my arrow.

  My target was scarcely thirty yards off, bulking black, and my arrow went true. He straightened up, I saw his hands grasping at his chest, probably at the arrow.

  Others ran forward and right into our field of caltrops. In a moment they were leaping about. I tried another arrow but doubted if it reached a target. Then the night was silent except for a faint moan.

  For an hour I waited, but there was no further sound, no further movement.

  The arrow in my hands was returned to its quiver. I waited, paced the enclosure, and then finally went in and lay down upon my blankets. I doubted they would come back, for they had run into something unexpected and would have to decide what to do about it.

  Tomorrow we would make even more caltrops. We had sown the grass with needles, and they had yielded us a minor victory.

  Something moved beside me. It was Itchakomi. "What is it?" she whispered.

  I told her in whispers, and after a bit we fell asleep.

  Morning came, bright and clear, and we were out looking over the grass. I saw my arrow lying some distance out. The first arrow had gone straight to its target and had evidently still been in the warrior when they carried him away.

  Looking out over the valley that fell away to the west of us, but ran north and south, I thought again that we had come upon one of the most beautiful spots in the mountains, and here we would stay. Kapata might try, but he would neither kill me nor drive me from this place, nor would whatever others came, Indians or Spanish. I wished no trouble with either, but here I had found my home.

  How long before others of my kind came west? There was much land still in the east, but there would always be some restless one, some wanderer who would want to see what lay beyond the Great Plains.

  Our corn was coming up! Our first crop and if we could keep the deer from it we would have a bountiful harvest. We had found wild strawberries and raspberries. There were several other kinds of berries whose names we did not know, and there was other wild fruit. We would make pemmican, and we could dry some of the fruit.

  We found blood upon the grass, blood where the man I had hit had fallen. Had I killed him? Or was he
only wounded? It made little difference to us, yet I hoped he was only wounded--not from a sense of mercy, but simply because a wounded man would be a burden to them.

  For those who had attacked me when I had done them no wrong I felt no mercy.

  We had won a small victory, but Kapata was a wily man and a fearless one. He would be back.

  Always there was the need for fresh meat. We had supplies within our fort, but they were intended for winter and if we ate them now the winter would be a starving time. Moreover, we had other enemies. The Komantsi were coming, sooner or later, and of course there was Gomez.

  From a ridge a mile to our south I collected some silver and lead ore from an outcropping. That it was largely silver mattered little. Whatever the value of the silver might be, it was worth more to me in the shape of bullets.

  Sulphur? Where was I to find sulphur? In some volcanic formation or perhaps a mineral spring. Butwhere?

  Keokotah returned from his hunt with three sage hens. He had found only old tracks of deer. Returning he had found moccasin tracks. They had come down from the east, keeping undercover until they had seen the skulls I had hung over the trail. There the tracks were confused.

  "Much talk," Keokotah explained. "Many track, much moving! Nobody like skulls!"

  Again I went to look for sulphur, but also to hunt. I found nothing. Too many Indians were moving about, and the game had been frightened away, had gone to the higher mountains, where I must go. Some of the peaks were volcanic, and I might find sulphur.

  The next day when Keokotah started out, two arrows came at him. One cut a small gash in his shoulder, but the other missed. And they let themselves be seen. The implication was plain. They would kill us if we emerged, or we would die of starvation if we did not.

  "Your medicine strong," Keokotah said. "The braves are far from home. He has not brought them victory. Soon they go."

  Well, maybe. But we were eating food we had planned to eat in the coming winter. Moreover, their presence and their hunting would drive the game to the high mountains and the far meadows, game we needed to survive.