to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (31 page)

Below us was a level stretch of ground and on the far side a huddle of boulders, cast off by the mountain into a jumbled shape. There was a small spring there, as we had lately learned, and Wa-ga-su led us there, at a fast trot.

We had almost reached it when there was a sudden whoop behind us and a flight of arrows, yet we scrambled into the rocks and I turned at once to look the way we had come.

Nothing ...

Wa-ga-su had retrieved one of the arrows. "Seneca," he said, "very old enemy of Catawba."

There were four muskets amongst us, and Jeremy and I each carried two pistols.

"We must not let them catch us unloaded," I said. "Wa-ga-su, do you fire with me. Let Jeremy and Tim hold their fire while we reload."

Several times I glimpsed movement at the forest's edge, but they were wary. I think they knew not how many we were, but guessed at once where we lay, for the rocks offered a good position, and perhaps they, too, although from far away, knew of the spring.

Abby put Kin in the shelter of some rocks and we lay still, waiting. A Seneca near the edge of the timber lingered too long in one place, and Wa-ga-su fired.

We saw the Indian stagger, then fall. A chorus of angry yells sounded again and there was a flight of arrows, and two of them fell within the cluster of rocks.

It was not a circle, rather a mere cluster perhaps sixty feet long, half again as wide, with some rocks looming up in the center. Kin lay in a narrow crack in one of the largest of these.

They circled closer, daring us to fire. An Indian darted into the open, then dove back to shelter. Several times they darted out, trying to draw our fire. It was obvious they had encountered guns before, probably from the French or English far up the country from which they had come, for the home of the Senecas was several hundred miles away to the north. Yet Wa-ga-su assured me they often raided the Catawba as well as other peoples of the area.

The Catawba, he said proudly, were such noted warriors that every Seneca wished to kill one, to have his scalp to boast of.

Suddenly, they charged. The distance was scarcely twenty yards, and there were at least a dozen. Wa-ga-su had reloaded. He fired first, catching the big Indian in mid-stride. Deliberately, I held my fire, then when they had come on two strides further, I fired. Passing my musket back to Abby to reload, I drew both my pistols.

Jeremy fired, then Glasco, and I fired a pistol. Four Senecas were down and the attack broke, the Indians scattered in all directions. Wa-ga-su fired again ... missing.

Yet they had managed to carry off three of their men. Two others lay exposed.

One was in plain sight upon the grass, the second lay over a slight rise and we could see only his hand, although the rise was of a few inches only. Yet the hand did not move.

The cold wind blew, a few spatters of rain fell. "Keep your powder dry," I said, needlessly, for we all understood the necessity.

Five Indians down ... it had been a costly attack for them.

"How many were there?" I asked.

Wa-ga-su shrugged. "I think not many, but they are strong fighters. We must watch. They will try to get others and return."

Wa-ga-su lay quiet, watching. I could not but reflect on what our coming had meant to him, and what he had gained in knowledge he had lost in prestige within the tribe. He had no place among them now, for his word was doubted. At the same time, they could see that he stood high with us, as indeed he did.

He had indeed traveled farther, perhaps, than any member of his people. He spoke English very well, for he had much opportunity. That he was a man of keen, active intelligence was obvious.

Rain began to fall, a light, misting rain. I took a blanket and covered the crack where Kin lay. He laughed at me and waved his arms, making small noises.

In one hand he clutched an arrow that must have fallen near him. When Abby saw it she was frightened and hastily took it from him lest the point be poisoned.

Suddenly a Seneca darted from the brush. I fired, but he dropped as my musket came up and the shot was a clean miss. The Seneca lay on the grass, nowhere visible, yet there. He lay perfectly still, and we watched, determined to get him when he should rise from the ground.

Only he didn't rise. Some minutes later, Ring nudged me and pointed. The hand that we had seen was gone. Somehow the Seneca had succeeded in retrieving that Indian, and had vanished with him.

The other lay in plain sight. We waited. "Two muskets," I said. "We must get him."

Suddenly, Wa-ga-su darted from the rocks. He ran swiftly forward, dropped flat beside the dead Indian, and with his knife made a quick circular cut, then grasping the hair he jerked off the scalp.

Rising to full height, he shook the bloody scalp and shouted taunts. Instantly, there was a flight of arrows, but he wheeled and ran, darting this way and that, to the shelter of our rocks.

I had heard of scalp taking, but had not seen it done before.

Slowly, the winter passed. The springs which had frozen into crystal cascades over the edges of cliffs-sheets of glistening ice that could be seen from afar -now began to melt. The ice disappeared from the higher courses of the rivers, and the water began to rush with greater speed.

There were several bales of furs, a few freshwater pearls, and many skins, including four great buffalo hides.

"We will go to the coast," I said that night when all were together. "With luck we shall meet Tilly and the Abigail."

"Who will go and who will stay?" Fitch asked.

"All will go who wish it," I replied. "We should go down very swiftly, but the return will be slower."

"I do not know," John Quill said. "I may stay. I have found land that I like, and I may build my own cabin, plow my own land." He looked up at me. "I never owned my own land, Captain. I farmed all my life on land owned by others.

"It is good earth. I like to see it turned by the plow, I like to feel it in my fingers. It is fine soil, and it will grow a fine crop."

"Aye," Slater agreed. "I feel the same. I have laid out a square mile alongside John's, and I cannot believe it. I walk through the forest, along the banks of the stream, and I see blackberries growing in thickets, and nuts falling from trees, and it is mine."

"The Catawbas," I said, "can teach you much of planting. You are farmers, but they know this land, this climate. It is well to listen. I think you each know more than they, but what they can teach is important, so learn from them."

Quill nodded. "I have talked with their head men. I have agreed to give them one-third of my crop for five years and then the land is mine. Slater did the same."

"You will go or stay, Slater?"

"I feel as John does. I will stay. I wish to get in a crop, and to know my land better."

The others would come, and we talked much of the going, for there were other streams down which we might go to the coast, others that called for a shorter trip overland, and we could build boats or rafts for the trip.

In the end it was decided to go back the way we had come, but then to sail down the coast, and return up one of the nearer rivers.

Lying abed, and before sleep came, Abby and I talked of this. "I want to go," she said, "but so much can happen. I worry about Kin."

"He will travel well," I said, "and it is our way. He can learn no younger."

The wind whispered around the eaves, a soft wind, a spring wind. I stirred uneasily. Was I doing the right thing? Should I dare such a long trip?

Yet we all needed a change, we all looked forward to seeing a ship from home.

Three days later, at the break of dawn, we started our trek to the boats.

Chapter
26

The water was a mirror, polished and perfect. Only our oars made a ripple, only our oarlocks a sound. A gull sailed by above, no wing moving, and our boats moved slowly outward from the land, moved toward the Outer Banks lying warm in the midday sun.

There was no ship upon the water, no sign of sail against the sky. Here all was quiet, and we watched, straining our ears for something beyond silence.

How many ships had come this way in times past? How many an eye had looked across this empty water? For no man may know the history of the sea, nor does the sea have a memory, or leave a record, save its wrecks.

To cross the wide ocean must never have been a problem. All that was needed was the courage, the desire, for men had sailed farther, long before. The Malays had sailed from their islands south of the Equator, from Java and Sumatra to Madagascar. And Cheng Ho, the eunuch from the court of Imperial China, had sailed five times to Africa before Columbus or Vasco Da Gama.

What wrecks might be buried in the sand out there where the warm Gulf current from the south came up to meet the cold Arctic current from the north? What unknown ships might here have ended their days?

Hanno had sailed around Africa ... and where else? For long the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians had kept the Straits of Gibraltar guarded so that no other ships but theirs might sail to the seas beyond, and thus to the markets they wished to keep for themselves. In later times men had begun to call the Straits the Pillars of Hercules, whereas, in truly ancient times, the Pillars had been far to the east, on the coast of Greece. But this men had forgotten, and names are easily transferred, one place to another.

Of these things I had learned much from Sakim, who was a scholar, a wise man in his own land, and versed in many sciences.

The Philistines, he told me, were a sea people who came to the shores of what they call the Holy Land from somewhere to the west. They sailed over the seas in their high-prowed boats to attack the shores of the Levant and of Egypt, and they settled there and brought the first iron known to that coast.

Many nations had sailed far upon deep water before them, and even before the sailors of Crete and Thera, called Atlantis by some, had gone west of Africa.

The idea that the world was flat was never put forth by a seafaring man. It was a tale told to landsmen, or to merchants who might be inclined to compete for markets, for in those days the source of raw material was closely guarded.

Coming up to the inner shores of the Outer Banks, I remembered the sunken ship and the alligator, and wondered idly what had become of Jonathan Delve ... and of Bardle, too, for that matter.

The thought of Bardle was worrying. If he should appear now, with a ship, we would be helpless before his guns. Yet it was unlikely he would spend much time along these shores, and after months of absence he would not expect to see us again.

A low, sandy shore lay before us, topped with brush and some scattered groves of trees. These Outer Banks stretched along the coast for a great distance ... nearly two hundred miles, I had heard, but I suspected it was not quite so far.

We took shelter in a deeply notched bay of fair extent almost exactly opposite the tip of the mainland that extended down from the north into the smaller sound. The Bank was at that place scarcely more than a mile wide, and we had drawn our boats close in shore. We waded to the beach.

We made camp there.

For days we camped on the beach, keeping always a lookout on the farther shore, but we saw no ship. Yet it was a quiet time, enjoyed by all. With Abby I took long walks along the shore where one could see for miles. We searched the shore for whatever the tide might have washed up. Obviously, no Indian had been along for some time for we found a cask of good brandy, and the wreck of a lifeboat still containing a sail and a boat hook. We found several gold coins, the skeleton of a man, half buried in sand, many logs, ships timbers, and other debris. We found three boxes, close together on the sand, with water-soaked clothing, all of which we took back to our boat for ourselves or the Catawba.

Despite all this, for miles the beach was bare and empty.

We kept our fires low, used dry and relatively smokeless driftwood, and kept a sharp lookout at all times.

Each day brought an increase of doubt and worry. Despite the pleasure of camping, it was beginning to pall, and still no ship came.

Was our voyage downriver all for nothing? Should we wait longer? Or once more return to our fort?

Then on the twenty-fourth day, while we were gathering driftwood, I looked up and saw the ship.

She was not more than a mile offshore, and feeling her way south. I looked at her long through my glass, and Jeremy studied her as well.

"British," he said, after a bit, "let's give her a hail."

"We shall," I said, "and then do you, Pim, O'Hara, and Magill stay from sight.

Peter and Sakim can stay with the boats, and also keep out of sight. I'll meet them with Watkins and Glasco."

"If it is going aboard a ship there is," Abby said, "we shall go as well. I want Kin to see a ship, and all of us to have a bite of English food."

"All right," I agreed reluctantly, "come along."

Yet I took the time to charge two pistols and conceal them under my buckskin hunting shirt, and my knife as well. My sword and my musket were in plain sight.

The ship hove to, then dropped her hook and put a boat over the side. We waited, standing on the beach.