Jubal Sackett (1985) (14 page)

My wounds had healed well. There were scars on my skull from the teeth of the cat, and there would always be claw marks on my thighs and one hip.

Without doubt Keokotah had been correct. The panther who had attacked me had had one injured leg and could no longer capture and kill a deer except with the greatest good luck. It must have depended upon slower, less agile game. I must have seemed a perfect catch. I had been fortunate in seeing the beast before it leaped.

The wounds had healed, but the scars would be mine forever. There were none on my face. Not that it mattered. I smiled at myself. Where I was going no one would care about my looks, and my mother and Lila were far away.

The Arkansas wound about as much as had the Mississippi, and its banks were heavy with fine timber. One of the cargoes we had often sent to England for sale or trade was timber for the masts of ships. Here there were many tall, fine trees. My eye had learned to measure them, for often as a boy I had gone timber cruising with my father or Jeremy Ring.

Often we had sat long hours studying the crude charts we had and maps my father had put together from the stories of Indians and our wanderings. Somewhere to the south was a great gulf into which the Mississippi must flow. Someday men would build ships here and send their timbers, furs, and whatever else there was down the river to that gulf and to the sea.

The great civilizations had often been born of rivers or at river crossings. The Nile, the Tigris-Euphrates, the rivers of India, the Tiber, the Seine, and the Thames. One day such a civilization might grow along the Mississippi.

Always my eyes were alert for what could be found. This had been our way at Shooting Creek, for whenever we returned from a hunt our father had questioned us as to what we had seen. He wanted not only animal or Indian sign, but the kind of rocks, the timber, possible sources of minerals of which we always stood in need.

We had located deposits of sulphur, iron, and lead and of course were always alert for gems. Some had been found of real quality, and one such might buy the entire cargo of a small ship.

We had double reason for being alert now. Any Indian whom we saw was a possible enemy, and we must now watch for signs of Itchakomi and her party.

Several times we stopped at places that offered campsites, but we found nothing. How were they traveling? By canoe or over the land? The Natchee were a river people, so they must have canoes.

Our first discovery was by chance. Weary with a long day's struggle against a strong current, we had sighted a creek entering the river, and we turned our canoe into the mouth of the creek and pulled it up on the muddy bank. Keokotah had leaped ashore to scout the place and as I tugged the canoe higher and made it secure with a length of rawhide rope tied to a root I glimpsed something in the mud.

Taking hold I started to pick up what seemed like a bit of metal, and it resisted. Surprised, I dug around it and found that what I had was chain mail.

It needed time, but I dug the mud from around it and then dipped it into the stream to rinse more mud away. It was a coat of mail once worn by some Spanish soldier. One of De Soto's men? Probably not, but it was possible. De Soto had come to the Mississippi something like a hundred years ago, but other Spanish soldiers might have been around since then.

Keokotah had a fire going, and when I came up with the coat of mail he showed me the remains of another fire. He had built his own away from it so I might see. It was an Indian fire, and just back from it at the edge of the woods a shelter had been built of woven branches, some from living trees.

"Natchee," he said.

It had been a shelter for one person, and a bed of boughs and cattails had been carefully prepared. It was old. Weeks, but more likely months, had gone by. The cattails, evidently green when laid in place, were dried out and dead now.

It was a shelter for one person. Itchakomi?

There were no tracks. No other signs. Yet others had camped here; probably the wearer of the coat of mail had been one of them, in some bygone year.

Sitting by the fire that night I cleaned the mail still more, working the rust out of it and rubbing it with sand to bring back the brightness. I explained its purpose to Keokotah.

We kept our fire small, for we had no wish to attract attention. The finding of the coat of mail on the same site as what could have been Itchakomi's camp did not surprise me. Others had stopped here for the same reason we had, and as still others would in years to come. A good campsite for one is also good for another.

Looking down at the bed where Itchakomi could have slept I wondered how she fared? Was she still alive? Had she found the place she sought?

She was a Sun, a great lady among her people, yet when she traveled it must be like any other. Among the Indians we had known there was nothing comparable, although we had heard many stories of the Natchee. She was seeking a new home for her people just as my father had done, and as I had been doing when I sought the valley of the Sequatchie. I wished her success.

As for Kapata ... we would meet again.

I was sure of it, and when we did I would be on my feet and armed.

I hoped it would be soon.

Chapter
Thirteen.

There was sunlight on the water that morning, but shadows still lurked under the trees along the banks. The trees leaned over the river, brushing our heads with their leaves as we passed. We paddled on into the morning, wary of what might come, knowing that danger could await beyond every bend of the river.

Kapata was somewhere ahead of us, I believed. Our good fortune was that he did not know we followed. How long we would have such fortune we did not know.

Peace lay upon the land, the ripples caught diamonds from the sun, and a kingfisher flew up, skimmed the water ahead of us, and then veered suddenly. Keokotah shipped his paddle and took up his bow, notching an arrow. Something had startled the kingfisher, something ahead of us, just beyond the point of trees. I handled the paddle as gently as possible to provide a good shooting platform for Keokotah.

A tumble of dead trees on the point obscured what lay before us. Dipping the paddle deep I propelled the canoe past the point, ready to backwater into the protection of the driftwood.

Smoke slowly rising from burned lodges, a bloody man standing erect amidst a welter of sprawled bodies, skulls stripped of their flesh bobbing on stakes or poles, broken pots and kettles strewn about--a village destroyed, looted, its people slain. Never had I seen the like.

As we pushed our canoe ashore the standing warrior fell and we went to him. His skull was bloody, for his scalp had been ripped away when they believed him dead or did not care. A terrible gash, straight and clean, had laid open his body for all of twenty inches, and there were similar gashes in his thighs. The wounds had bled badly, but his eyes were open and aware.

He had fallen among other bodies, mutilated and dead, so we lifted him away and Keokotah brought the campfire to life and dipped water from the river into a piece of broken pot, to be heated.

We bathed his wounds clean and with sinew such as we always carried we stitched the slashes in his legs and body. He lay still, perfectly conscious, but making no sound as we worked.

No others lived. I put out a few fires, wandering about through the scene of horror. Everything of value had been carried away or destroyed. It was apparent the raid had caught them still asleep and had been totally unexpected. What weapons that had not been carried away had been thrust into the dead or dying.

I brought water from the creek, and the wounded Indian drank thirstily. When I took the cup from his lips, he spoke, looking at me.

"He say he is Quapaw," Keokotah said.

I gestured to Keokotah. "He is Kickapoo," I said.

"He knows what I am," Keokotah said. "He knows not you."

What could I say? That I was an Englishman? He would not recognize the tribe, and who was I, really? I had been born here, in this land, so I could be called an American. But what did that mean? The Quapaw was born here, too.

"I am Sackett," I said, "a son of Barnabas."

"Ah?" he whispered. "Sack-ett!"

He knew the name. Had my father's reputation traveled so far, then? It was true that he had been in America for most of thirty years, and much of that had been lived at Shooting Creek. Indians of many tribes had traded with us and we ourselves had wandered.

We moved the bodies to one side. We straightened up the camp nearest the shore and we prepared a broth for the wounded man, scarcely believing he would survive. Our treatment was whatever we each knew, Keokotah from his own people and I from mine. Sakim had spoken of the necessity of cleaning wounds, and this we had done. He had commented on the fact that wounds healed more quickly in America than anywhere he had been. Fewer people? Cleaner air? More simple food? I did not know, nor did he.

Who had attacked the village? We gathered it was a tribe from the south, the Tensas, but they were led by a man not a Tensa, and some of the warriors had been Natchee.

"They look for woman," the Quapaw said, "a beloved woman."

I knew the term from the Cherokee--a beloved woman was one who through wisdom, bravery, or both had won a revered place among her people. She was a woman whose word could stop or turn aside a war party, could overrule a chief. They occurred but rarely.

"A Natchee woman?" I asked.

"Natchee ... gone, long time gone."

We had fumbled together a way of speaking. He knew some Cherokee, as we did, although Indians who knew the language of another tribe were rare, usually the sons or daughters of captured women or adopted sons. It was a custom among many tribes to adopt a son from among prisoners taken to replace one lost or slain.

"Big Natchee warrior want her. He lead war party. Say to Tensa he get many scalps for them. Come with him, his medicine is strong."

Kapata ...

Yet why attack a village where he must know she would not be? To win prestige and gain followers?

Keokotah agreed when I expressed my thoughts. "He big man now. Take many scalps. His medicine strong."

Young warriors eager for renown would follow any leader who promised success. Now, after taking the Quapaw scalps, the young men of the Tensa would be eager to follow this leader. No matter that he was not of their tribe. Such things had happened before and no doubt would again.

Kapata would have no following from among the Natchee beyond the two or three who had come west with him. He would need to win followers to make up a strong party.

Who knew with what eloquence he had spoken to persuade them? But the young men of all tribes were eager to take scalps and the prestige that followed. No doubt Kapata had scouted the Quapaw village and knew that most of its young men were away and that it would be an easy victory. He would have known that Itchakomi was not there.

The passions that stir Indians are no different from those of Europeans or Asiatics. Ambition, hatred, fear, greed, and jealousy are ever-present. Kapata was the son of a Natchee man and a Karankawa woman, and the Karankawa were despised by the Natchee. Kapata must have grown to manhood righting to overcome that stigma and striving to assert himself and his manhood. To marry a Sun would be the ultimate, to be himself regarded as a Sun ... He knew of no such thing happening before, but his fierce Karankawa mother had instilled in him the feeling that he could do anything. She must have told him of the Karankawa warriors, feared by all.

Sitting beside the wounded warrior, who was now either unconscious or asleep, I tried to understand he who had become my enemy.

It was not until the third day, when we had moved well upstream, that the men of the massacred village returned. We heard their wailing and I went down by canoe, approaching them warily.

Seeing me, they rushed to the shore, and I motioned for them to follow. After a moment of hesitation, several armed and dangerous warriors did follow.

Akicheeta--for that was the name of the wounded Quapaw--was awake when they entered our camp, and he explained what had taken place. He also explained that we were seeking the Natchee woman.

I asked about the river. "Spring much water," he drew a route with his finger in the earth. Making zigzag lines to indicate mountains, he showed how the river emerged from a great cleft in the rock. Between us and where the river emerged from the canyon he showed a place where the waters would be shallow at midsummer. "No canoe," he said, making signs to indicate the water would be only a few inches deep.

"How far to the mountains?" I asked.

He shrugged, and I held up ten fingers. "More!" he replied.

"Spanishmen?"

He shook his head. "Conejeros!" He swept a wide area before the mountains and made a gesture of lifting my scalp. "You see!" he warned.

The name was strange to me, but Keokotah spoke longer with him and told me later it was the name of a very fierce tribe of Indians who lived at the edge of the mountains. They hunted buffalo and then retired in the hotter months into higher country. In the winter they hid their lodges in sheltered places where there was wood to burn.

The Quapaws treated Keokotah with respect while he ignored them, holding himself aloof for the most part.