Jubal Sackett (1985) (3 page)

They were matched repeating pistols with carved walnut stocks elaborately dressed with scrollwork, masks, and figures of gold. The operating mechanism was nothing less than a masterpiece, designed--according to the story my father had heard, and which he passed to us--by one Fernando, the bastard son of the Cominazzo family of armorers, of Brescia. When that noted family fell upon evil times and was taken by the Inquisitors, Fernando escaped to Florence, carrying only his tools.

Anxious to obtain a place for himself he labored in secret to create the two pistols. Charges of powder and ball were carried in tubular magazines in the butts, the openings closed by a revolving breechblock into which were cut two chambers. To load, one simply pointed the pistol toward the ground and rotated a lever on the side of the gun. This dropped a ball and a measure of powder into one chamber, sealed off the chamber, primed and closed the flash-pan.

The pistol could be fired twelve times without reloading. Fernando had taken the finished pistols to the Lorenzoni and won a place in their establishment. Much later, other such weapons were made by the Lorenzoni.

Barnabas had never used the weapons, worried by what seemed a too complicated mechanism. When I was allowed to examine the guns it seemed to me that I could handle them. They were both beautiful and deadly, but when traveling I preferred to use the longbow and conserve my ammunition. The two pistols I carried in the scabbards provided for them.

My father had grown up using the bow. In the fens where he had lived it was the most effective way of hunting, whether for birds or for larger game. As we grew up we boys vied with one another in shooting at marks, often at incredible distances for a bow.

Until I killed the buffalo Keokotah had seen only the scabbards. He was aware of firearms, for he had had contact with the French in the Illinois River country, yet I intended him to believe they were single-shot weapons.

Keokotah was not yet my friend. We were two strangers traveling together, but at any moment he might choose to kill me. The rules of conduct Europeans were supposed to apply in their dealings with each other were the product of our culture. The Indian, of whatever tribe, came from another culture with none of our ethical standards. He had standards of his own, and in most Indian languages the words stranger and enemy were the same. To attack by surprise was by far the best way, as he had long since learned, and what to us might seem the basest treachery he might consider simple logic.

My father had gotten along well enough with Indians, but he trusted few of them and few trusted him. It was simply the way it was, and it would need many years, if ever, for the white man and the Indian to come to any understanding. What the white man considered charity the Indian considered weakness, yet if a stranger penetrated an Indian village without being seen he was treated with hospitality as long as he was within the village, for the Indian tried to keep peace in his own village. Once the stranger left he might be killed with impunity. This was the usual practice, yet there were variations.

Keokotah might travel with me for days, and then, no longer amused or curious, he might kill me and travel on without giving it another thought. And he would expect the same from me. At every moment I must be on guard, for at any moment I might be attacked without warning.

We might become friends, but that lay in the future, if ever. Meanwhile, I would be careful, as would he.

Westward I had hidden a birchbark canoe when on an earlier trip to the Great River, and now we went that way, taking our time, learning the land as we passed over it.

That English friend the Kickapoo had known--I must learn more of him. Where had he come from? A prisoner of the French? Taken at sea? Or somewhere ashore? Who was he? What was he?

Yet I had begun to realize that Keokotah did not respond to direct questions.

Upon the brow of a low hill we paused to study out the land. A deer moved across before us. The Kickapoo looked about, and then he looked over at me. "Somebody come."

I had seen nothing, yet I must not betray my lack of knowledge. My abilities must seem equal to his. To surpass him might be dangerous, and in any case, unwise. He must never know how much I knew.

I gestured westward. "Hiwasee over there," I said, "many Cherokee."

He shrugged. "Who are Cherokee? Nobody. I am Kickapoo."

We remained where we were, studying the country. He might be an enemy, but out there before us there were certainly enemies. The Cherokee we knew, and they knew us. So far we had been friends, but the Indian was often a creature of whim, and the man with whom I traveled was no friend. I might be judged accordingly.

"Somebody come." That was what he had said. How did he know? What had he seen that I had not? And who was coming?

My canoe was less than a day from where we now were, but I said nothing of that. When we came to it would be soon enough. To talk too much is always a fault. Information is power. Also, these paths I knew, and I watched to see if he knew them too, yet in no way did he betray himself.

Watching Keokotah I was puzzled. His attention did not seem to be directed to any particular point, yet he was alert, listening.

His apprehension affected me. What had he sensed? What was he expecting?

A small grove of trees clustered behind us, and before us the hill sloped away toward a meadow lying along a stream. Above us the blue skies were scattered with puffballs of cloud. It was very still. The deer we had seen earlier came out of the brush again and walked to the stream.

I started to move but Keokotah lifted a hand. As he did so an Indian emerged from the forest near the stream and stood still, looking carefully about. That he was an Indian I was sure, but he was clad in garments unfamiliar to me. His head was wrapped in a turban. As he stood two others followed him, one of them an old man.

The old man looked up the slope at us and said something to them we could not hear. The first Indian then faced us. "Sack-ett?" he asked.

I stepped forward. "I am Jubal Sackett," I replied. We were separated by all of a hundred paces but in the clear air our voices sounded plain.

"Our father wishes to speak with Sack-ett," the young man replied.

Upon the grass he spread a blanket and then another for me. He stood back, waiting. The old man came forward and seated himself cross-legged. I started down, and the Kickapoo said, "It is a trap."

Two more Indians came from the woods and stood silent, waiting. "They are five," I said, "but they do not threaten us. They wish to talk."

"Five? Five is not enough. I am a Kickapoo."

"And I am Sackett," I said, "with whom they wish to speak. Do you come. You can help us speak."

Reluctantly, he followed, and I went down and seated myself opposite the old man.

For a long moment we simply looked at one another. His features were those of an Indian but with a subtle difference. What the difference was I could not have said, but perhaps it was only that he was a kind of Indian I had not seen before.

He was old, so very, very old, and age had softened features that once must have been majestic. Old? Yes, but there was no age in his eyes. They were young, and they were alert. He wore a magnificently tanned white buckskin jacket that was beaded and worked with colored quills in a series of designs unknown to me. On his head was a turban such as the younger man wore, tight fitting, snug. What hair I could see was white and thin.

He spoke in Cherokee, a tongue with which I had long been familiar. "I have come far to see Sack-ett," he said. His eyes were friendly and appealing. "I have come to ask for help, and I am not accustomed to ask."

"If there is anything I can do--"

"There is." He paused again. "The name of Sack-ett is known, but I expected an older man."

"My father, Barnabas. He was our strength and our wisdom, but he is gone from us, killed by the Seneca."

"I have heard. I did not believe it true."

"Nevertheless, I am a Sackett. If there is something my father would have done, it shall be done." I paused a moment. "What is it?"

One of the others had kindled a fire, and now with a coal he lighted a pipe. First he handed it to the old man, who drew deeply on the pipe and then passed it to me. I drew deeply on it also and would have handed it to the Kickapoo, but he drew back.

It seemed to me that the pipe ritual was not a customary one with him, but I did not know. That the old man was a Natchee Indian I was sure, but our contact with them had been slight, for they lived far to the south along the Great River. It seemed to me he was endeavoring to follow a ritual of other Indians and one with which he believed me to be familiar. It was an unusual experience, for the Indians I had known kept to their own ways and rarely borrowed those of others.

"The day is long," I suggested, "and you have far to go."

"I go no further. I am here."

Puzzled, I looked about me, but he only smiled. "It is Sack-ett I have come to see." He paused and laid the pipe aside, perhaps realizing I was as unused to the ceremony as he. "You are known to us. The Sack-etts are great fighting men but wanderers also."

"It is true."

"You are just men."

"We try to be just."

"You have come from afar but you take no more than you need. You do not take scalps. You do not make war until war is made upon you. This we have heard."

"It is so."

"Your people build houses, plant fields, gather in the forest for food. Sometimes you hunt."

"It is so."

"It is told that Ju-bal Sack-ett goes toward the setting sun. You are he?"

"I am."

"Why do you go?"

"I do not know. Perhaps because it is a place I do not know.

"One night I awakened in the darkness. It was very still. I lay wide awake, listening for something, and then it came to me. A voice said, 'Go!'

"One afternoon I was alone upon a mountain and I looked westward and a voice said, 'Come!' It is my destiny, I think."

The old man was silent for several minutes and when the silence grew too long I started to speak but he lifted a hand.

"The Natchee are a strong people. We are Children of the Sun. But one day a woman arose among us and spoke with a strange tongue. She spoke aloud with the voice of a man long dead and she said an enemy would come among us, an enemy who would seem to be a friend. This enemy would bring strange goods and strange presents and he would speak good words to us, but one day one among them would seek to destroy our sacred places and drive us from them to live like dogs, with no worship, with no ritual, with no memory of what we were or what we had been.

"We were to find a new place. We were to prepare to leave all behind and go into a strange, far land and prepare a place against the time of madness. We were to go where the sun goes behind the mountains and there find our place. In her man's voice she described the place and told us where to go."

"But you have not gone?"

"It was but one voice, and none of us wished to go. We love our land. It has been ours forever, I think. We lingered on, but the voice came again, and then a strange boat came and men gave presents and took things from us and went away.

"Now some began to believe, and at last it was said that some should go and find the place that is to be ours. Most did not believe, but finally one was chosen to lead the way."

"And he went?"

"Shewent. Fourteen in all. Ten men and four women went." He paused. "None have returned. We fear them dead."

The tall young man we had first seen, spoke suddenly. "She is not dead. She is mine."

I did not like him.

"They are to be joined together," the old man said.

"This has been decided? I do not know your customs."

"Shewill decide. She is a Sun, a daughter of the Great Sun." The old man paused and I thought I detected a gleam of humor in his eyes. "She is a strong woman. Beautiful, but very strong. She will decide." He paused again. "He believes he will decide. He is a Stinkard."

"I can see that."

The old man explained. "Ours is a different world from yours. First are the Suns, who rule. Second are the Nobles, third are the Respected Men, and fourth are the Stinkards. It is our custom that a Stinkard must always marry a Sun."

"So he will marry this woman?"

"As I said, she will decide."

"Iwill decide," the young man said.

"His mother was of another people than ours. Among her people women spoke when spoken to. He often speaks of this. Yet," the old man added, "he is very handsome. Many women look upon him with favor. He is a great warrior, one the greatest among us."

"And why have you come to me?"

"You go westward. You are a great wanderer. I think you could find this woman. I think you could tell her she is needed."

For a moment I thought of this. "If she is to be his woman," I said, "why does he not go?"

"He is needed. We have trouble."

"How long has she been gone?"

"Four moons. She is great among us."

Four months? There would be no tracks. How to find her? It was impossible. Nothing was known of the land to the west. There were vast plains into which no man ventured unless he could follow a stream, for none knew where the water could be found, and most said the distances between water were too great. Later, when men had horses to ride, they might venture into those plains. Now it was foolhardy and not to be seriously considered.