Sackett's Land

by Louis L'Amour

  "A pessimist," Rufisco agreed, "but no fool."

  "We will enter our hiding place at night," I said. "Of that we must be sure. We will cache our furs there, get more trade goods, and be off once more."

  "But not to Potaka's people," Sakim suggested. "We have the best of their furs."

  That was another thing I had not considered. Who next? And where? I must prepare and plan.

  We eased downstream, making good time with the current, and slipped from the narrow waters of the Eno stream into the main current of the larger river up which we had come. We saw no one.

  Later in the day, under the drooping branches of a tree on the shore of a small island, we fed ourselves. Ashore, we gathered some grapes, drank from a small spring, and waited out the remainder of the day. Only when it was full dark did we slip away from our moorings, and slide down stream with the current. Midnight was long past when we saw the loom of our rocks.

  All was quiet and still. For a moment after we glided into the inner channel we sat very still, listening. There was the lap of water against our hull ... nothing more.

  At daybreak we were awake and moved our furs ashore, restocking the gig with trade goods, taking the same amount as before. Yet we did not at once move out.

  We lay about resting, mending clothes, preparing for what lay ahead. And I busied my hands with making a bow and arrows.

  For three days we rested, doing the small chores, the mending and fixing that needed being done, and each day, several times each day, one of us climbed on top and climbed a tree. We saw no sign of the Jolly Jack, nor of any other ship on the sound. On the fourth day I killed a fair-sized buck with my bow. We butchered it, and began drying the meat. On the fifth day I killed again, another buck, smaller and younger.

  We sorted and repacked our skins. They were fox, mink, otter, beaver and muskrat.

  On the fifth night, well after dark, we eased from our hideout and started upstream once more. This time we went not so far, turning left up the river we had passed en route to Potaka's people. We traveled up this river some distance and, seeing the smoke of a village in the light of the moon, we turned toward the shore. When we were quite close in we stopped, dropped our anchor and lay offshore in such wise that if the natives appeared warlike we could up our anchor and sail and go quickly hence.

  Then, while Sakim and I slept, Rufisco watched. And when dawn was close, he slept and remained on watch. Then all of us saw the village awaken, saw them see us and heard their alarmed cries. Soon a number of warriors were coming toward the shore. I had made ready a fishing line and now I threw it into the water and sat placidly, fishing.

  They came to the water's edge and shouted at us, and I lifted a hand, then motioned to the fishing line. After a moment the nibble I had became a bite, and I swiftly pulled in a good-sized fish.

  I held up the big fish, then rubbed my stomach, and several Indians chuckled. I made signs to ask if I might come ashore.

  They motioned for me to come, so guiding the gig in close, after heaving up the anchor, I let it drift close, keeping an eye that she did not ground. I dropped the anchor again, bade Sakim and Rufisco cover me, and went ashore.

  My eyes went quickly over them. Only a few were armed, those who happened to be when our boat was seen. But all wore knives, most of them chipped obsidian. I saw but one steel knife among them, obviously old, and quite rusted.

  Soon my companions were also ashore. This village was not so prosperous as Potaka's, yet well situated, and the Indians were friendly. We ate with them, talked of trails with sign language, and we traded. We saw numerous scalps, some of them quite fresh, and learned they had recently returned from a war party far to the north. One of the Indians, named Nikonha, had a few words of English. With words, sign language and a twig in the sand, we managed to converse. He was quick to perceive, and when he asked how we had come, I drew him a quick sketch of the ship.

  He nodded quickly, then pointed eastward toward the shore.

  He had seen the pinnace, he assured me, two suns past at a river-mouth. The pinnace was in the river, concealed in a bight near the south shore.

  "Sakim," I spoke quietly, not to warn the Indians that anything was amiss, "this one has seen the Jack."

  "Laying for us," Rufisco said.

  We continued to trade.

  I had put forward a handsome hunting knife when suddenly a big hand shot out and grasped it.

  I looked up from where I sat into the eyes of a squatting Indian. He was a big fellow, very muscular, with a scar on his cheekbone. There was no friendliness in his eyes. "No trade," he said. "You give."

  "Trade," I replied quietly, staring right back at him.

  He grunted. "No trade," he repeated, and then he said, "I take."

  The other Indians stood about, watching.

  "Trade," I replied.

  He started to sheath the knife but my hand grasped his wrist. "Trade," I said quietly, and my grip tightened.

  He tried to lift his hand but could not. I saw the surprise, almost shock in his eyes. He tugged but his hand, grasping the knife, could not budge.

  Angry blood flushed his face, but he could not move his hand. He tried to exert the strength of his thighs to lift it, but I held tight, not moving, undisturbed.

  "Trade?" I asked quietly.

  "Trade," he said sullenly.

  Chapter 11

  Through the dark waters the gig glided smoothly. Sakim was in the bow.

  Our sail was furled as we wished to offer no silhouette to be seen from the shore. We were loaded to the gunwhales with furs, excellent furs, though perhaps not of the quality of our first load.

  None of us had any illusions about what would happen if Bardle discovered our whereabouts, so we approached our base in the rocks with great caution.

  It had began to rain, a soft, drizzling rain. We huddled in our boat, edging in toward shore. The rocks loomed before us, barely visible, like the shore. We touched the water with our oars.

  Working in closer, ghostlike, we ran our gig up into the sand. Sakim got out to haul it firmer aground. Fowling piece in hand, I stepped down to the sand.

  It was very quiet, only the soft rain falling, and the whisper of the rain upon the water. "Stay with the boat," I whispered, and then walked forward alone in the darkness.

  The space under the over-hang was empty, yet I was not reassured. Something about the place was wrong, very wrong. Retreating to the boat, I whispered, "Ease her back on the water, Sakim, and stand by to shove off."

  "There is something?"

  "Nothing ... only I have a feeling."

  "I, too."

  Could they have found the cave where lay our furs? Were they waiting there? It was possible they could find the cave but not the furs.

  "I want to sleep." Rufisco said, irritably. "And I am hungry."

  "Better to wait for food," I said, "than try to digest cold steel."

  Moving back along the shore, I circled warily toward the cave. Suddenly I heard uncalled-for sounds. I stood stock still and listened.

  The crack of a breaking stick, then another. The sound of flint against stone. Somebody was building a fire. I turned around.

  Rufisco! He had come ashore and already had a small blaze going.

  I swore bitterly, under my breath, and had taken a step toward him when suddenly the night exploded with a rush of human bodies. They charged the fire.

  The attackers had eyes only for the fire, perhaps could see only it.

  Suddenly, Nick Bardle's voice roared through the falling rain: "Damn you all to Hell! There's only one! Who gave the word? Where are the others?"

  Turning, I crept toward the shore, hoping, praying, that Sakim would be near and waiting in the boat. I eased through the dark water, over my ankles, my knees ... A hand from utter darkness caught me. It was Sakim.

  Handing him my fowling piece and sword, I swung silently and thankfully aboard.

  Rufisco was dead or a prisoner. There was nothing we could do
to help him at the moment. We could help him best by retaining our freedom, our mobility.

  Sakim wasted no time. He dipped the oars into the water very gently and sculled the boat deeper into the darkness.

  Ashore there were angry arguments and shouts. Then I clearly heard Bardle. "Where are they? Damn you! Tell me or I'll slit your gullet!"

  "I am alone," Rufisco's voice carried well, as no doubt he intended. "The others have gone upstream after furs. I was left to hunt for meat ..."

  Then their voices were lost.

  How long until dawn? Dared we try to slip around the rock into the river? We might be visible a few minutes only, but if they saw us ...

  How had they found us? By boat? Or overland, on foot through the woods?

  We eased the boat along by pushing with our hands upon the rock wall. Now the voices were less plain.

  We rounded a corner of the rock. The opening was before us, seeming much too light now for our wishes, but Sakim sat to the oars, and taking breath, he dipped deep and shot the boat forward as best he might, laden as she was. She moved well and he dipped his oars again. Suddenly from the shoreside there came a great shout and somebody fired, yet I had slight fear now of a hit, for we were some distance off and moving faster. Another dip of the oars and we caught the first suggestion of the river's current, then more, and we were swept through the passage.

  It was no part of my plan to desert Rufisco. First we must find a place to cache our furs. Then, with the gig lightened, we might move with more freedom.

  When dawn was brighter, we lifted our sail and started across river to the far side. There was little time, but we made to the shelter of an unpromising island and pointed toward shore. It was low, offering less visible shelter, yet there were some trees and shrubs about and clumps of willows.

  "They would not think to look there," Sakim said, as if reading my mind. "We can find a place."

  We sailed into shore, dropped our canvas and tied up to a huge old drift log with more branches than a porcupine, and waded ashore, keeping low.

  Sakim betook himself to one end of the island, I to the other. Then a low call from him and I turned back.

  He was waiting for me, and led me into the willows where I stopped, astonished indeed.

  There lay, among the willows, the bow and a portion of the hull of a goodly vessel, almost buried in sand. How many years she had lain there, no man could say, but the stout oak timbers were still strong, and her sides formed a roof. Entering the shelter thus formed, we found the Captain's quarters intact, although lying sideways and half-filled with sand. Yet here was a shelter from the weather for our furs, though hopefully for a few days only.

  We carried the bales inside, covering them with broken willow branches and reeds.

  Returning to the gig, we shoved off, raised our sail and crossed back to a safe distance from home shore.

  Our gig anchored, we crept back overland to the rocks, but they were deserted. All was still as death in the cloudy light, the sand churned by charging feet, a spot or two of blood.

  "They will have returned to their vessel," I said. "We must follow."

  "You will try to get him back?"

  "He is one of us. We will have him back, if he lives."

  "He is but bait for the trap," Sakim replied. "It is you they want."

  "Nevertheless, he was one of us. You are with me?"

  "Where you go, I follow."

  If there was a sun that day it remained unseen, for there were lowering clouds and raindrops dripping from leaves in branches. We found the narrow game trail they had taken, but we turned aside from it and searched out another, almost parallel.

  The fowling piece I left on the gig, but took my sword, dagger, bow and arrows. Sakim recharged a brace of the pistols and took them along, tucked in his sash. He also carried his scimitar and a spear.

  It was wet under the trees. The path was slippery, but we moved in silence, pausing from time to time to listen for what we might hear, and we heard nothing. We covered what must have been a mile, then found ourselves climbing, ever so slightly. At the end of the second hour we reached the crest of a low hill that gave us a view of all that laid east and south of us, and there, not half a mile away, was the Jolly Jack.

  For all my confident talk I knew not what to do to recover our companion, only that it must be done. And done by wit and wile rather than strength of arm and hand.

  We worked our way down through brush and trees, avoiding the trail that might be guarded, until finally we came to the edge of a high woods not one hundred and fifty feet from the Jolly Jack. We were well hidden.

  There could be but one reason for Bardle not killing Rufisco immediately. They hoped to have from him our hiding place. To save him suffering, we must somehow free him at once.

  "What is there to do?" Sakim whispered, staring at the vessel.

  A man with a crossbow loitered near the ladder. On the shore nearby were several crude huts, hastily built of ship's canvas, driftwood poles and the like. A fire was blazing on the shore.

  This was no place found by accident, but one known to Bardle or someone else aboard, for the bank was steep and the vessel lay in close, one line running from the bow to an oak tree, the other from the stern.

  "They are close," I commented.

  Sakim shrugged. "In my country we run our ships on the sand, then let the tide float them clear. It has always been so."

  "Here there is a current," I said thoughtfully, studying the water on which they lay, as much as it could be seen. "Another river must come into the sound from somewhere west of them."

  "There he is. They did not take him aboard," Sakim said suddenly. He pointed. "Two of those with him just came from that hut."

  I could see them. If they would just leave Rufisco there, and if we could create a diversion ...

  They were a rough, ugly lot, and I had no desire to see them go to work on Rufisco. He was a good man, if surly and given to sarcasm and doubt—too good a man to be tortured by this lot of scoundrels, who were little better than pirates.

  It worried me that they should have chosen to stop at this place, for it was my wish to establish good relations with the savages. With such a lot as the crew of the Jolly Jack it would be impossible, for they were a pack of greedy brutes.

  "There is a thought, Sakim," I said, "a thought that has come to me."

  He glanced at me. "It must be a good thought," Sakim suggested, "I think there is not much time, and they are very many."

  Turning, I led the way back into the woods, circling wide around toward the shore. There was a thing I must know. My father had always told me the way to win was to attack. No matter how outnumbered, there was always a good way to attack.

  It was a little time before we came to our objective. It was the tree to which the upstream line was made fast. "It is a strong current," I said.

  Sakim squatted on his haunches, his teeth flashing through the darkness of his pointed beard. "A strong current," he agreed. "And if this line were cut—?"

  Crouching close, I noticed there was no watch on the line. Nobody was closer than us to the ship itself, and the line was a good long one. It was made fast around the lower trunk of the tree, and heavily screened by brush.

  "The big roots will help," I said, "but we must build up some shelter with mud."

  "Mud?"

  "We will not cut the line," I said, "because both of us will be needed to rescue Rufisco. We must be there when the line breaks, not here. We will start a fire, a very small fire, and leave it burning. It will be screened by roots and mud as well as the brush. When the line gives way, we will be ready and waiting."

  Sakim considered, then nodded. "Allah be with us," he said. "It is a fearsome thing we do."

  Carefully we prepared our small fire, and added fuel. It began to burn; flames touched the heavy line. Adding a little fuel, we turned and went swiftly back to our former place.

  Now we must hope. If the fire did not die out, or if it was
not discovered and killed, then the line must part. Caught by the current the stern would swing into the stream, turning counterclockwise. All hands would immediately rush to save their ship, and then, if all went as we hoped ...

  We waited ... and waited. Nothing happened.

  The same two men stood at the door of the hut where Rufisco was likely imprisoned. Others were gathered about their cooking fires. I notched an arrow and looked at the man nearest me by the hut.

  All was quiet. The vessel lay gently upon the waters, only straining a little at the lines. Had our fire gone out? Had someone discovered it?

  Suddenly there was a sharp cracking sound as the line parted, and instantly the stern of the ship swung into the current. Somebody let go with a wild yell, and there were shouts and running from aboard the vessel. Men dashed toward the bow where a rope ladder hung.

  "Now," I said, and we went forward, not running, but walking carefully, swiftly. A step, two steps ... The heavier guard turned and I let fly my arrow. It was high, but lucky. It took the guard in the throat and he fell, grasping the arrow's shaft with both hands.

  Around the shore there were wild yells, shouts, orders, recriminations.

  The second guard had run out a small way, and Sakim put an arm across his throat and a knife into his ribs. I ducked into the hut.

  Rufisco, barely visible in reflected firelight, was struggling. I slipped my blade under his bonds and the razor edge parted them. "Rub your legs," I said. "We'll have to run."

  "I can run," he replied grimly, and we ducked outside. I sheathed my sword and took up the bow again.

  I notched an arrow and followed, backing up, watching to cover our retreat.

  My eyes were seeking Nick Bardle. An arrow for him and I would consider myself well paid.

  Just one arrow!

  He was there, but shifting about among the running men, and there was no good target.

  "Another time, Captain," I told myself. "Another time." I turned and walked into the woods, and in a few minutes had caught up with my friends.

  We had been quick, but lucky too. I had no good feeling about that luck of ours. It was too good. It was building us for a smashing blow... I could feel it in my bones.