Jubal Sackett

*

Chapter One.

A cold wind blew off Hanging Dog Mountain and I had no fire, nor dared I strike so much as a spark that might betray my hiding place. Somewhere near, an enemy lurked, waiting.

Yesterday morning, watching my back trail, I saw a deer startle, cross a meadow in great bounds, and disappear into the forest. Later, shortly after high sun, two birds flew up suddenly. Something was following me.

Warm in my blanket, I huddled below a low earthen bank, concealed by brush and a fallen tree. The wind swept by above me, worrying my mind because its sound might cover the approach of an enemy creeping closer. There he could lie waiting to kill me when I arose from my hiding place.

I, Jubal Sackett, was but a day's journey from our home in Shooting Creek in the foothills of the Nantahalas, close upon Chunky Gal Mountain.

All the enemies of whom I knew were far from here, yet any stranger was a potential enemy, and he was a wise traveler who was forever alert.

Our white enemies were beyond the sea, and our only red enemies were the Seneca, living far away to the north beyond Hudson's River. No Seneca was apt to be found alone so far from others of his kind. The Seneca were a fine, fierce lot of fighting men of the Iroquois League who had become our enemies because we were friends of the Catawba, who were their enemies.

Whoever followed me was a good reader of sign for I left little evidence of my passing. Such an enemy is one to guard against, for skilled tracking is a mark of a great hunter and a great warrior. Nor do I wish to leave my scalp in the lodge of some unknown enemy when my life is scarce begun.

What was this strange urge that drove me westward, ever westward into an empty land? Behind me were family, home, and all that I might become; before me were nameless rivers, swamps, mountains, and forests, and beyond the great river were the plains, those vast grasslands of which we had only heard, and of which we knew nothing.

About me and before me lay a haunted land whose boundaries we did not know. What little we had heard was from the tales of Indians, and they shied from this land, hunting here but always moving and returning to their homes far away. When the night winds prowled they huddled close to their fires and peered uneasily into the night. There was game here in plenty, and when the need was great they came to hunt. We did not know what mysteries lay here or why the place was shunned, but they spoke of it as a dark and bloody ground.

Why, in such a land of meadows, forests, and streams, were there no habitations? Once it was not so, for there are earth mounds, and friendly Indians had told us of a stone fort built they know not when nor by whom.

Who were those who vanished? Why did they come, build, and then disappear? What happened upon this ground? What dark and shameful deed? What horror so great that generations of Indians feared the land?

There was a legend of white men, bearded men who came to live along the rivers in a time long past. All were killed. Some said it was done by the Cherokee, some by the Shawnee, but it was an old memory, and old memories have a way of escaping their origin, carried by word of mouth or by intermarriage from one tribe to the next.

There are rumors, also, of a dark-skinned people who live in secluded valleys, a people who are neither Indian nor African, but of a different cast of feature who hold themselves aloof and keep strange customs and a different style of living. But we know nothing beyond the rumor for their valleys lie far from ours.

I do not come to solve mysteries, but to seek out the land.

My father was Barnabas, the first of our name to come to this place beyond the ocean from the England of his birth. Of Barnabas I was the third son, Kin-Ring and Yance born before me. My elder brothers had found homes among the hills. My younger brother, Brian, and my one sister, Noelle, had returned to England with our mother, my brother to read for the law, my sister to be reared in a gentler land than this. I do not believe I shall see them again, nor hear of them unless it be some distant whisper on the wind. Nor shall I again see my father.

I had been called the Strange One, like the others but different. I loved my brothers and they loved me, but my way was a lonely way and I went into a land from which I would not return.

Of them all my father understood me best, for with all his great strength and magnificent fighting ability there was much in him of the poet and the mystic, as there is in me.

Our last evening together I would not forget, for each of us knew it was for the last time. Lila, who prepared our supper, also knew. Lila is Welsh and the wife of my father's old friend, Jeremy Ring, and had been a maid to my mother ere they departed from England.

My father, Lila, and I have the Gift. Some call it second sight, but we three often have pre-visions of what is to be, sometimes with stark clarity, often only fleeting glimpses as through the fog or shadows. All our family have the Gift to some degree, but me most of all. Yet I have never sought to use it, nor wished to see what is to be.

I knew how my father would die and almost when, and he knew also when we talked that last time. He accepted the nearness of death as he accepted life, and he would die as he would have wished, weapon in hand, trying his strength against others.

We parted that night knowing it was for the last time, with a strong handclasp and a look into each other's eyes. It was enough. I would keep his memory always, and he would know that somewhere far to the westward his blood would seek the lonely trails to open the land for those who would follow.

A faint patter of rain awakened me and I eased from under my blanket, preparing a neat pack. Daylight, or as much as I was likely to see, was not far off. It had been snug and dry where I had slept, but with only a few inches of overhang to shelter my bed from the rain. I had shouldered my pack and girded my weapons before the thought came to me.

Smoothing the earth where I had slept, I took up a twig and drew four crosses in the earth. The red man was forever curious, and to most of whom we call Indians four was a magic number. He who followed would come upon this mark and wonder. He might even worry a little and be wary of seeking me out, for the Indian is ever a believer in medicine, or as some say, magic.

So it was that in the last hour of darkness I went down the mountain through the laurel sticks, crossed a small stream, and skirted a meadow to come to the trace I sought.

Nearly one hundred years before De Soto had come this way, his marchings and his cruelties leaving no more mark than the stirring of leaves as he passed. A few old Indians had vague recollections of De Soto, but they merely shrugged at our questions. We who wandered the land knew this was no "new world". The term was merely a conceit in the minds of those who had not known of it before.

The trace when I came upon it was a track left by the woods buffalo, who were fewer in number but larger in size than the buffalo of the Great Plains. The buffalo was the greatest of all trailmakers. Long ago the buffalo had discovered all the salt licks, mountain passes, and watering holes. We latecomers had only to follow the way they had gone, for there were no better trails anywhere.

When I came upon the track I began to run. We who lived in the forest regularly ran or walked from place to place as did the Indians. It was by far the best way to cover distance where few horses and fewer roads were to be found.

My brothers ran well but were heavier than I and not so agile. Although very strong I was twenty pounds lighter than Kin-Ring and thirty lighter than Yance.

Our strength was born of our daily lives. Our cabins and our palisades were built of logs cut and dragged from the forest. The logs for the palisade stood upright in ditches dug for the purpose. Only in the past few years had we managed to obtain horses from the Spanish in Florida, who broke their own law in selling them to us when they departed for their home across the sea.

Every task demanded strength, for the logs used in building the cabins were from eight to twenty inches thick and twenty to thirty feet in length. There are "slights" and skills known to working men that enable them to handle heavy weights, but in the final event it comes down to sheer muscle. So my brothers and I had grown to uncommon strength, indulging in wrestling, tossing the caber, and lifting large stones in contests one with the other.

Our Catawba friends marveled at our strength, for quick and agile as they were, and very strong, nothing in their lives called for the lifting of heavy weights. Unaccustomed to lifting, their muscles were longer and leaner. They were excellent wrestlers, however.

At an easy trot I moved through the forest, my moccasins making no sound on the damp leaves underfoot. Emerging upon a hilltop not unlike the balds found in the higher mountains, I drew back against the wall of trees, letting my soiled buckskins merge with the tree trunks and brush, scanning the vast stretch of land that lay before me.

For the moment the rain had ceased, although far off against a mountainside I could see a rainstorm drawing its gray veil across the distant hills. Never had I seen a land so lovely.

Carefully, I studied my back trail or that portion of it visible from where I stood. There was nothing in sight. Had I escaped my unknown pursuer? Not for a moment did I believe that.

Somewhere before me lay the river called Tenasee, and the long, narrow valley of which we had heard. My father had put this task upon me, to find a new land to which we could move if necessary.

My father was a fugitive from England, sought because it was mistakenly believed he had recovered King John's lost treasure from The Wash. Also, we had settled upon our land with no grant from the king or governor, although we had proved useful to the powers that were in Virginia, and they had not been inclined to cause trouble. Yet a new governor might be appointed at any time and my father had warned us that we must seek a new land further west and make our plans if something were to go wrong. We could then, at a moment's notice, pick up and move west beyond the reach of the king or his minions.

"See to it, Jubal," my father had said. "Find us a westward way. The king does not realize the size of this country nor how that size will affect its governing. In the old country, land was held by the king and given to his great lords for their services to him, and it was farmed by serfs. There one must cling to one's place or become a landless man. Here there is land for all, and no man need work for another."

He paused and looked into my eyes. "Do you remember your brothers, Jubal, and all who bear our name. 'Tis a wide and a lonely land, but if we stand together we have naught to fear."

"I shall not forget."

"And pass the word, Jubal. Let your sons remember, and your daughters.

"My envy for you is great, Jubal, for I, too, would see the lands where you will walk. I wish I might feel their rain, accept the shade of the trees, and smell the fragrance of those distant pines." After a moment he added, "I, too, shall go west, Jubal."

"I know."

"Where the chips fall, there let them lie."

"It shall be so."

For too long I stood staring across that vast and lovely land thinking of my father and the long way he had come from his birth in the fens of England to his arrival here, among the first of those who came to this land.

The far-off veil of rain diminished and then faded. A shaft of sunlight falling through a hole in the clouds revealed a long, loaflike mountain.

Chilhowee ... from there I would turn north. I did so abruptly ... and it saved my life.

A hard-thrown spear thudded into the tree where I had been standing, its shaft vibrating with the force of the throw.

Dropping to the earth I rolled swiftly over and over, coming up near a fallen tree, bow bent and arrow ready ... waiting.

Chapter Two.

My position was a good one, and above all, I had his spear before my eyes. It was a very good spear, handsomely crafted, and he would not wish to lose it. Therefore I had only to wait, and when he came for it I should have one enemy less.

It had never been my way to seek trouble, but if one is attacked by a man whose time has come, who would stand in the way of fate?

My back was well covered by a gigantic uprearing of roots and earth from a fallen tree, and scattered near were many pine cones on which nothing could step without making a sound. Nevertheless, I could take nothing for granted. My bow bent slightly, I waited.

For a long time there was no sound. The Indian is a great hunter and as such he has patience, yet my life in the wilderness had taught me patience also. One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives.

My ears were tuned for the slightest sound, my entire body alert to move or adjust. Nothing happened, and the slow minutes plodded by on lagging feet. The low-hanging branches held shadows away from the sun, and the tree trunks were dark columns with only small spaces between. It needed a quick eye to catch any movement among them.

A thrush flitted from one branch to another and then took off down a long lane of the forest toward the trace I had followed. Somewhere a squirrel chattered irritably, but I heard no other sound, and even a moccasin whispers lightly when it moves.

Glancing about I managed to keep a corner of an eye upon the spear. Suddenly, a faint sound. My head turned. Quickly I glanced back. The spear was gone!

Exasperated, I swore softly to myself. I had been a fool! That sound that had diverted me--he had thrown a stick or a chip, and like a child I had taken the bait.

Moreover, now he had his spear in hand once more and it was, perhaps, his favorite weapon. Certainly he had thrown it with skill, and only my unexpected movement had saved my life. Would I be so lucky again?

Undoubtedly on recovering his spear he had moved, but in what direction? He wanted to kill me, so he would be waiting in ambush somewhere. At the same time it was best for me to move, for he would soon discover where I lay, if he had not already done so. A moment longer I waited.

There was, alongside the great fallen tree, a narrow way that was free of the scattered pine cones, and the branches of the dead tree did not begin for at least thirty feet.

Swiftly, silently, I moved, keeping low alongside the tree and then ducking under it among the hanging bark. Waiting, I heard no sound, and I plotted my next move. Again a swift move and I was among the standing trees, flitting away, an impossible target for a spear ... if he saw me.

Months before I had come this far west, exploring a route to the Great River of which we had heard, and I knew that the trace I planned to follow made a great arc not far ahead, so moving through the thick of the forest I headed for that trace. Hours later, when I reached it, I found no tracks upon the path. Apparently, I was before him. Again I settled down to running.

What manner of man was he who followed me? A wandering hunter seeking a scalp? Few Indians traveled alone. Usually there were small parties of them when they went either hunting or seeking war. Yet this man was alone. A strong warrior, no doubt, sure of his skills, and a man to be reckoned with.

On and on I ran, running easily, smoothly. Several times I glimpsed the tracks of buffalo and once those of a deer. Later, as the afternoon drew on, I stopped for a drink at a small creek. Near the water's edge there were the tracks of a large bear. They were fresh tracks made within minutes of my arrival.

After a careful look around I made four small crosses inside the bear track.

Now I no longer ran, but walked, alert for means of obscuring my trail. I walked upstream in the water for a short distance, pausing to make sure the swift current was wiping out my tracks in the stream bed. Then I followed a smaller stream for a hundred steps, followed a log from which the bark had fallen away, and then stepped off onto a rocky ledge and followed it to the end, careful to disturb none of the leaves or gravel scattered upon it. Then deliberately I changed direction and went back toward my last night's camp, now far away.

There was a path high among the rocks of which I knew, and when I reached it I found no fresh tracks. This path ran along the way in which I wished to go. As I walked I thought of Pa and how he would have enjoyed this, but so would Kin-Ring and Yance, although Yance would have been inclined to try to ambush my pursuer and have it out with him. I had no wish to kill the man even though he had tried to kill me. If it became necessary, of course ...

Night was coming and I was alone. It was time for rest and food underneath three ancient oaks beside a small stream, one leaning far out, on a grassy bank with driftwood scattered along the stream.

A fire, meat broiling over a flame, a time of eating, of listening to the rustle of water and the subdued crackle of flames, and then of sleep. This is what I wished for, but could not quite have, for a man had followed me and might find me again.

He had come shrewdly upon me, and I did not doubt he would work out the trail I had left for him. Many another might have lost it, but not this one, I thought. Yet I would wait, for I had an idea.

My fire was the work of a moment. A handful of crushed bark, a few slivers of pitch pine from an old stump that I had carried with me, then a blow with flint and steel, a spark, then a small tendril of smoke, a puff or two from the lungs, and a flame. It was not always so easy. To light a fire properly one must prepare it well. Fire, man's first and faithful friend, and ever a potential enemy.

He who followed might come to my fire, and something told me he would. He was curious now, as all wild things are inclined to be, and I believed he wished to know what manner of man I was.

Where I was pointed no white man went, although Indians had told me that far to the westward there were men who spoke like those of Florida and who wore iron headdresses. Westward lay the Great River, which some say was discovered by De Soto, but we who know of such things knew it was discovered twenty years earlier by Alvarez de Pineda. Who else might have seen the river we do not know, but there are rumors of others who came, of much fighting and dying.

My fire blazed up, a small, hot blaze but larger than usual. Deliberately I was inviting him in. By now he knew it was not my custom to build large or very bright fires, and he would recognize the invitation. As he was curious about me, so I was curious about him. Who was this stranger who wandered alone where all went in company?

He had tried to kill me, but that was expected where any stranger was a potential enemy. Drawing back into the shadows with a great tree at my back, I waited. My longbow was placed near in plain sight, but a pistol lay in my lap. My visitor would be friendly, I hoped, but if his destiny was to die I would not stand in his way.

Chewing on a bit of dried venison I listened and waited. Then, suddenly, he was there at the edge of the firelight, a man as tall as I but leaner. He was an Indian of a kind I knew not.

With my left hand I gestured to the earth beside the fire. He came forward on light feet, yet before he seated himself he hung a haunch of venison over the coals.

"Meat!" he said.

"Good! Sit you."

With a small stick I pushed coals under the meat and added a few sticks, which began to sizzle pleasantly.

"You go far?"

"To the Great River, and beyond."

"I have seen the river," he said proudly, "and the Far Seeing Lands beyond."

"You speak my tongue."

"I speak much with Englishman. My village."

An Englishman? So far west?

"Where is your village?"

"Far," he gestured toward the north. "Many days." He looked directly into my eyes and said with great pride. "I am Kickapoo Keokotah."

"A nation of warriors," I acknowledged.

He was pleased. "You know?"

"Every wind carries news of Kickapoo bravery. In every lodge a warrior would wish to have a Kickapoo scalp--if he could."

"It is true," he spoke complacently. "We are great warriors and wanderers."

"What of the Englishman? Where is he now?"

"He is dead. He was a brave man, and took a long time to die."

"You killed him?"

"It was the Seneca. They took us both."

"Yet you escaped?"

Keokotah shrugged. "I am here."

Our fire was dying from neglect. I added sticks as did he. He cut a sliver from the venison. "I would learn from the Kickapoo," I said. "You are old upon this land."

"We come, we go." He glanced at me. "You have a woman?"

"It is too soon. I have rivers to cross."

"My woman is dead. She was a good woman." He paused. "The best."

"I am sorry."

"Do not be. She lived well, she died well."

We sat silent, chewing on the venison sliced from the haunch. "You are from over the mountain?"

"Aye."

"You know of Barn-a-bas?"

Startled, I looked up. "You have heard of him? What do you know of Barnabas?"

"All men speak of Barn-a-bas. He great warrior. Great chief." He paused. "He was great warrior."

"Was?"

In that moment my heart seemed to stop, and when again it throbbed it was with slow, heavy beats.

"He is dead now. They sing of him in the villages."

My father ...dead? He was so strong, so invulnerable. No trail had been too long, no stream too swift, no mountain too high.

"He died as a warrior should, destroying those who attacked him. So died he who was beside him."

"Only one died with him? A young man?"

"So old as Barn-a-bas. Older." He looked hard at me. "You know this Barn-a-bas?"

"He was my father."

"A ... eee!"

Again a long silence. I remembered my father and grief held tight my chest, choking in my throat. I stared at the earth and remembered the few arguments we had had and the unkind words I must have said. I had been a fool. He had been the best of fathers and it was never easy to be a father to strong sons growing up in a strange land, each coming to manhood, each asserting himself, loving the father yet wishing to be free of him, finding fault to make the break easier. So it had been since the world began, for the young do not remain young and the time must come when each must go out on his own grass.

I had known he would die, and almost how, but I had not thought it to be so soon.

In silence by the fire with only a strange Indian for company I thought of Barnabas Sackett, who sailed first to this wild land and then returned for our mother.

Our mother? Did she know by some strange intuition of our father's passing? She had gone home to England to rear our sister, Noelle, in a gentler land. It had been a wise decision we had believed, we had hoped.

My brother Brian had gone with her to read for the law in London.

What of the others now? Of Kin-Ring and Yance? Kin-Ring, my strong, serious older brother, born on a buffalo robe in the heat of an Indian battle, with my father's old friend, Jeremy Ring, standing over my mother to fight off the attackers as the child was born.

What of Yance? Wild, unruly Yance, strong as a bear, quick to anger, quick to forget.

Would I see them again?

Deep within me a knell tolled ... I would not. I knew I would not see them again even as both my father and I had known his time was near, for we were of the blood of Nial, who had the Gift.

My brothers had their world, I mine. Theirs was in the mountains that lay behind me, and mine was the westward way.

Keokotah looked across the fire at me. "You are son of Barn-a-bas. I am Kickapoo. We will walk together."

And so it was.

Chapter Three.

Stark and black were the tall trees, growing misty green along the branches with the budding leaves of spring. I walked to drink water from a running stream and startled a perch, twenty pounds at the least. It swam away, disturbed by my presence. Downstream a deer lifted its muzzle from the water and crystal drops fell back into the stream. It glanced disdainfully at me and walked away, seemingly unworried by our coming.

With morning our wood smoke mingled with the lifting mists and we heard no sound but the soft crackle of our own fire and the slight hiss of some damp wood we used. A movement in the wild clover made us look up to see something vast and shadowy, some monstrous thing, coming toward us through the meadow grass, emerging slowly from the mist.

It stopped, smelling the fire at last, and seeing us. It faced us, massive and horned, a huge buffalo bull with a great mass of wool over its face, shoulders, and hump, wool that sparkled with morning dew. Wreaths of fog hung about it as it stared from small back eyes almost buried in the wool.

The buffalo was no more than fifteen yards away and behind it there were others.

It stared at us, undecided as to our importance. It dropped its head then, pawing at the grass.

"Meat," Keokotah said, "much meat."

With one of my two pistols I aimed at a spot inside the left foreleg and squeezed the trigger. The pistol leaped with the concussion, and I placed it on the ground beside me and took up the second, but held my fire.

The great buffalo stood stock still, staring at us; then slowly the forelegs gave way and the beast crumpled and went to its knees. Then it rolled over on the ground.

The others simply stood, staring stupidly, unalarmed by the sound because, being unfamiliar with firearms, the sound might have seemed like thunder. One young bull came forward and sniffed at their fallen leader, smelling the blood and not liking it. We stood up then and walked toward them, and the young bull put its head down, but at our continued approach it backed off and they began to walk away across the meadow.

Glancing at Keokotah I noted his features were unmarked by surprise. Had he seen or heard a gun before? Later, I learned he had not, but he was a Kickapoo, not to be astonished by such things.

With our skinning knives we went to work, each in his own way but working well together, cutting away the hide and selecting the best cuts of meat. There was fuel here, so we built up our fire and built drying racks for the meat, cutting it in strips to smoke and dry the better. Then we staked out the hide to be scraped and cured.

Nobody in our time could have been better armed than I. For general purposes I carried an English longbow, with which our father's training had made us expert, and a full quiver of arrows. I also carried a razor-sharp twelve-inch blade. My true strength, and one which I had not intended to reveal except in emergency, lay in two long-barreled firearms my father had taken from a pirate ship. Obviously a part of some booty the pirates had themselves taken, the pistols must have been made for some great lord.

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.

"Do you know where she went?"

"We know. Wethink we know."

He sat silent for a few minutes, thinking. Then he said, "Tonight, upon a skin, I shall draw a map. I do not know if it is the place, but such a place is in our memory. It was to such a place she went."

"Or planned to go. Who knows what has happened? There are other Indians." I glanced at the old man. "She is beautiful, you said? Such a one would be wanted."

"She is no ordinary woman." The old man's eyes met mine. "She can be dangerous."

"She is a witch?"

"No! No. But we Suns have knowledge--" he shrugged. "Nobody will live who tries to take her without her wish." He gestured at the young man, now across the camp. "Not even he will attempt her."

We talked longer and of many things. I did not want to look for this woman, nor did I wish to find her, but he had come to me for help, believing in the Sacketts. After all, we were going west.

In that I was like my father. From the day he landed upon our shores his one wish was to travel to the far blue mountains, yet once there he wished to see beyond them. So it was with me. All this land about us was unknown and I wished to be among the first to see it. I wanted to drink from those lonely streams, walk the high passes of the mountains, and travel down the valleys by paths I made myself.

Was that all I wanted? Until now, yes. I wished to see, to know, to find a world of my own in an unknown land. I did not know what else remained for the future, but there was in my dreams something haunting, something shadowy, something that would take no shape. Whatever it was, it was a place or a time that I must find.

We slept that night beside the stream. Keokotah was disgruntled, and I thought perhaps he might leave me and go on by himself as he had been before our meeting. Yet he did not.

Before I fell asleep I considered long the problem of the Natchee woman. My father had built a reputation as a trusted man. He was known as a warrior, yet he was also known for wisdom, and that respect and reputation had gone far afield. Such people as the Natchee, whom we did not know, knew of him. When in need they had come to him, or to us, for help. How could I do less than carry on in my father's name?

The land that lay before us was vast and unknown, even to most of the Indians. Anyone traveling west must confine himself to the rivers and streams, and all of those streams must begin in higher ground, probably in the mountains.

Every step of the way was a step into danger. There had been rumors of strange Indians coming down from the north, a fierce lot who destroyed all before them, but warlike Indians were to be expected upon the plains. Long ago an Indian had told my father they could not live without war, and certainly they did not wish to.

Our choice was simple. We would avoid trouble when possible, face it when necessary. We would have to scout the country with care. When we found Indian sign along the stream we would have to swing wide into the plains, holding to low ground. I was still thinking of this when I fell asleep.

Keokotah was irritable when morning came. "I no like," he spat, and he indicated the tall young man whose name I had not yet heard. "I will kill him, I think."

"Wait," I advised, "his time will come."

"Hah!" Keokotah said contemptuously. "His time has come and passed. He should have been drowned at birth."

Unfortunately, I agreed, and it was not fair of me. What did I know of him, after all? He seemed arrogant, and he wanted the Natchee woman, but since she was beautiful, no doubt many did. I had never seen her but I knew I did not want her. She did not seem like an easy companion.

True, I knew little of women, but I had seen my father and mother together and theirs was an easy, friendly, loving relationship of mutual understanding. Each had a role to fill and each did so, and together they made a team. In another way, Yance and his wife were the same. The examples I had were all of women who were not abrasive, each strong in her way, and each a companion as well as a wife.

Yet I was not looking for a woman. My time would come, but a wide land lay before me and it was to that land that I belonged. I would drink from a hundred streams, make paths where no men had been, and eat the meat of strange animals before I died.

Our campfire was lifting a thin smoke to the sky when the old man came to sit near me. He passed me a roll of hide, but when I made to unroll it he put a hand on mine. "Only when alone," he said. "I trust you."

Well, all right, but did I trust him? I decided that I did and wondered if I was too trusting.

"He," the old man indicated the young man who was not near the fire, "must not know. He would go to her, and there would be trouble." He paused. "I do not know how it is with your people but in ours there are people opposed to people. He is of one group, I am of another."

"And she?"

The old man hesitated. "If the Great Sun dies it is she who will say yes or no, and the Great Sun is not well. He," the old man indicated the young man, "wishes the power. If he marries her he believes he will have it."

"If they are married will he become a Sun?"

"No, he will remain a Stinkard."

I did not wish to become involved in the affairs of a people of whom I knew little and could not know who was right or wrong.

"I am going west," I told him, "and I will look for this woman, and if I find her I will tell her she is needed at home. I can do no more."

The old man stirred the coals. The fire was dying. Soon we would be moving along.

"It is a fair land," the old man said. "I envy you. Never before have I regretted my youth, but now I would be young to walk west beside you.

"I do not know what lies westward, but we have heard strange stories of ghost cities among the mountains, vast cities hidden in the folds of canyons. And we have heard of witches and wolves and of skinny, naked things that run in the night, things not to be seen by day and things that bring fear to the heart.

"I do not know what lies out there, but you will see it all, come to know it. My body is old but my heart is young. It will go west with you."

He arose suddenly from beside me. "Find her, Ju-bal. Find her for us. It will cause much trouble if you do not."

"What if she does not come back?"

He turned to look at me. "If she is happy, it will be well. You may think I only look to our people, but it is not true. She is not my daughter, but she is like a daughter. I was one of her teachers, and believe me, I wish only happiness for her."

"She will be happy with you?"

"Who can say? She would not be happy withhim . He is a bitter, ambitious man. She would rule, and not him, although he does not believe that, nor does he want that. She would kill him, or he would kill her. I feel sure of that."

"I will try to find her, and if I do, I shall deliver your message."

"Remember, she is a Sun. Elsewhere she would be less than with us. The beliefs of others are not ours, and their ways are different. She is accustomed to power and the use of power. She is a strange woman."

Why it should come to me then, I could not say, but suddenly I remembered words from the Bible. "For the lips of a strange woman are as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil."

I shook my head irritably. A vagrant, foolish thought. If I found her I would tell her to go home, although something in my mind said, not to him.

Chapter Four.

Long we sat by the fire, speaking in the Cherokee tongue. The old man was named Ni'kwana, and the fierce young man was Kapata, with an accent on the first syllable. Kapata was also the name for the hawk. The name suited him well enough.

He held himself aloof, disdainful of our conversation, but several times I saw his eyes straying to the buckskin on which Ni'kwana had drawn his map. I moved it closer to me. He saw the move and his eyes flared with anger.

He was taller than I by several inches, a lithe young man of uncommon strength. He could prove a dangerous antagonist.

Ni'kwana spoke of the prophecy. "We have seen no such men since the Warriors of Fire," he explained, "but each wind brings whispers to make us wonder. Is it true, then? Are the Warriors of Fire returning?"

The Natchee Indians were one of the few who had any tradition of De Soto, with his muskets and cannon, and it was his men who were known as the Warriors of Fire.

"He will not come again, but there will be others," I admitted. "You would do well to beware."

"Our neighbors, too, grow in strength," Ni'kwana said, "and as they grow stronger they become more arrogant. The Creek were once our friends but I fear they are no longer. They look with envy on our fields and our stored grain."

He was silent then, thinking as he stared into the fire. Finally he said, "I fear for our people and our way of life. Strange men come and go and the tribes are restless. Our people are uneasy in the night and the young men are restless, their eyes always looking to the horizon. You come from another world. Tell me ... what is happening?"

"There is but one thing we know, Ni'kwana, and that is that nothing forever remains the same. Always there is change. Your people have remained long undisturbed by outside influences. This may seem good, but it can be bad also, for growth comes from change. A people grows or it dies.

"Over there," I gestured toward the east, "are people without land. Others have land but wish for more. Now this land has been discovered by them and they will come seeking."

"Westward there are vast lands and no people. Will they not go there?"

"I wish it might be so, but those who come will not go further than what they can see. They will buy some land but will take more. They do not believe this is wrong, for they, too, believe they are The People, and it has been the way of the world for men, animals, and plants to move in wherever there is opportunity and where they can survive.

"In the land where my father dwelt there were a people called Picts, then Celts moved in, and after them, Romans. When the Romans moved out the Angles, Saxons, and Danes moved in, each new people taking the land and pushing the others out or making slaves of them. Then the Normans came and dispossessed all the others, and their king took all the land for his own, giving it to those who served him best."

"It does not seem just."

"It never does to those whose land is taken." I paused and then asked, "And your people, Ni'kwana? Did they always live where they now are?"

His eyes met mine and after a moment a faint smile came to his lips. "We, too, came from elsewhere. It is not remembered whence. Some say we came from the south, some from the east."

"It could be both. You may have come from the south, settled for a while, and then moved westward."

"It could be so."

We talked long into the night, and the fire burned low. The others slept. "This woman we are to seek? She has a name?"

"She is called Itchakomi Ishaia. We know her as Itchakomi, or even as Komi."

"Is it not unusual to send a woman on such a quest?"

"She is a Sun, a daughter of the Great Sun. Only he, she, or I could decide our future. Only she is young enough or strong enough to travel so far."

"And you, Ni'kwana? Are you a Sun?"

"I am." He looked into my eyes again. "I am also Ni'kwana, master of mysteries."

What we Sacketts knew of the Natchee Indians had been little enough and that mostly at secondhand, from tales told by the Cherokee, Choctaw, or Creek. These tales might or might not be true. The master of mysteries was akin to a high priest, but something more, also.

Ni'kwana then asked, "You, it is said, are a medicine man?"

This was believed of me by the Cherokee, for twice they had come to me when illnesses among them did not yield to their own practice. My father's friend Sakim had taught me much, and I had learned much from medicine men of the tribes who were friendly to me, yet Sakim had taught me much else besides, and some word had gotten about of my Gift.

"So it is said."

"It is also said that you, among your people, are also a master of mysteries."

"I am no master, Ni'kwana. I am one who lives to learn. I go west because there are lands there I do not know, and perhaps to find a home for myself."

"Perhaps your home will be ours, also."

"If the Ni'kwana is there, then I could learn from him?"

"Ah ... The way is long, and my muscles tire. I do not know, Ju-bal, I do not know. But," he added, "you could be one of us. I think your ways are like our ways." He smiled wryly. "At least, the ways of some of us.

"It is wise," he spoke suddenly, sharply, "not to trust too much. We Natchee do not all believe alike. There are factions."

"Kapata? You said he was not of your blood?"

"His mother was a Karankawa, from the coast far to the south. Kapata has much of her ways and her beliefs, and they were a wild, fierce people. His mother, it is said, was a fierce woman, and the Karankawa were eaters of men."

"This I have heard."

Rising from beside the fire I said, "Tomorrow I must go. And you, Ni'kwana? Do you return to your village now?"

"I have been too long away, and the Great Sun will need me. He grows old, and he is not well. You will find Itchakomi?"

"I will try."

With my blanket I went alone to a place beside a rock, and there I slept. When dawn came Ni'kwana still sat beside the fire as he had when I left him. Whether he had moved or slept I did not know, but Keokotah was ready and waiting, impatient to be away from these people he neither knew nor trusted.

We ate lightly, but as we moved to go, Kapata was waiting. "She is my woman," he said, glaring.

"Convince her, not me," I said, and moved to pass him.

He reached for my shoulder but my knife was drawn. "Touch me," I said, "and they will be calling you Kapata the One Handed."

For a moment I believed he would attack, but my knife was inches from his belly, so he held his hand. It was well he did so, for I am a man of peace and would not have liked to send him crippled into the time after this.

We walked away then and left them staring, some with hope, some with hatred. For myself, although I liked Ni'kwana, I was pleased to be on my way. Keokotah, even more eager to be away, took the lead and soon broke into a trot. I followed, running easily and liking the path as it wound through the greenwood.

When we came to where the path divided, I took the easternmost. Keokotah hesitated. "The other is closer to the Great River," he said.

"I have reason. We will take the right-hand path."

He shrugged and motioned to indicate I should lead, which I did. We were nearing a river now and also the place where my canoe was hidden. The river we would follow also led toward Hiwasee, where there were Cherokees. It had been the home of other Indians before them and was a well-known place. So far as I knew none of these Cherokees had known us, but as I was beginning to learn, my father was known to them, and I myself, in a lesser way.

My canoe remained where it had been hidden, and Keokotah was much pleased. Birchbark canoes were not common. The Iroquois, for example, used only clumsy dugout canoes and were not skilled in working with birchbark. Mine was light and graceful, an easy canoe to be carried across portages by one man, but preferably two.

Beautiful was the morning when we went out upon the river, with the sunlight gathering diamonds from the ripples, and overhead a few idle clouds loitering over the blue meadows of the sky. We simply allowed the current to take us along, using the paddles only to maintain direction.

Once a great cloud of pigeons flew up, darkening the sky for a full two minutes as they swept by, a dusty brown screen between us and the sun. Further along we encountered three buffaloes swimming the river, but we had plenty of buffalo meat and had killed three wild turkeys earlier in the day.

This was my world and I was at ease with it--with the river, its waters still strong from melting snow, and with the dark, mysterious walls of the forest on either hand. I had never known the ease of cities or the trading and haggling of the marketplace. What I now had was what I wanted, to know the wilderness at first hand, to wander its lonely paths, to discover, to see, to feel, to search out the unknown and meet it face to face.

"You have been to the Far Seeing Lands?" I asked Keokotah.

"I have. Others of my people have. We Kickapoo are great wanderers."

This he had said before and I acknowledged it, for so I had been told in the lodges of the Cherokees.

"No people lived there," he said, "until now. A few came, then more, but they are very few even in this day."

"Where do they come from?"

"North, they come from the north, always there are people coming down from the north. And some from the east. There are people like you who sell guns to Indians. The Indians who have guns make war against Indians who have none, and the Indians without guns come westward to escape. These Indians push against other Indians until finally some have had to go out into the Far Seeing Lands."

It made sense. We had heard that the Dutch at Hudson's River were trading guns to the Indians. One thing more I had learned: more than any other Indians the Kickapoos, because of their inclination to wander, knew most about other tribes.

The Indian did not own land. A tribe might claim an area for hunting and gathering, but a stronger tribe might push them out, or they themselves might move when game became scarce.

Other things I learned from the casual talk of Keokotah, and one of these was that only those Indians who were present when an agreement was made need abide by its terms. A chief was so by prestige alone, a prestige won by his greatness as a warrior, his success as a leader, or his wisdom in council.

That night we camped on the bank of a creek emptying into the Hiwasee. It was a grassy shore with forest all around, fuel enough, and a good place to hide our fire. We talked much, and as we talked Keokotah's tongue loosened and words forgotten returned to him. His English friend had taught him well, obviously impressed by Keokotah's quick intelligence.

Once during the night I caught a faint sound from the forest, not a sound of wind among the trees, not a sound of an animal moving, but of something else, someone or something. I lay wide-eyed, listening. Keokotah seemed asleep but with him one never knew.

Our fire was down to a few coals, our canoe bottom up on the shore, our weapons at hand. All was still, and I heard no further sounds, yet I had heardsomething.

Morning came and Keokotah said nothing. Had he heard the sound in the night? Did he not think it important? Or was it a sound he had expected? How could I know there were not other Kickapoos about? So I said nothing of what I had heard.

It was a lazy, easy, sun-filled morning. We watched the river for other Indians but saw none. Hiwasee could not be far away down the river, and many Indians would be there.

"What game is further west?" I asked him.

He shrugged. "Like here." There were deer of several kinds, one his English friend called wapiti. "I do not know what is wapiti. Much buffalo west. More than here. Bears, ver' large bears. A bear with silver hair almost as large as a small buffalo."

"A bear? As large as a buffalo?"

"Not so great. Nearly. He has a hump on his back and he is hard to kill. You see this bear you go away before he sees you. He ver' fierce bear."

He dipped his paddle and the canoe glided around a rock, and Keokotah added, "There is big animal, big as a bear, maybe much bigger. He is yellow, long hair, very long claws. He dig. Much dig.

"Then there is big animal, much meat. He have long nose, two spears."

"Spears?An animal that carriesspears? "

Keokotah made a sign for a long nose and two curved spears. An elephant?Here?

I had never seen an elephant, although Sakim had drawn pictures of them, and my father had, I believed, seen one in England.

"No," I shook my head. "Not here."

"I speak clear." Keokotah was suddenly very dignified. "I see only one time. Long time. I know old man who hunt him many times. He is big, ver' big animal. Much hair."

That was wrong. I knew about elephants and they did not have much hair. Only short, stiff bristles sometimes. "There is such an animal, but he does not live here."

That was a mistake. "He lives," Keokotah spoke stiffly. "I see him."

He did not speak again for many hours and I knew I had seriously offended him.

The idea was preposterous, yet how could he have even known of such an animal? His English friend, perhaps? But why would Keokotah lie?

Twice we sighted Indians on the shore, and once a canoe tried to overtake us, but it was no such canoe as ours and we left them far behind.

Suddenly Keokotah pointed. A land mass seemed to block the river. "Hiwasee!" he said.

As if commanded by the sound of his voice, two canoes shot into the main stream, each propelled by four paddlers. Dipping their paddles deep, they overtook us, one on either side.

"Cherokees," I spoke to Keokotah. "Hold your hand!"

Chapter Five.

They were beside us, weapons ready. To attempt escape was to die. If we fought, the odds were against us, but I had friends among the Cherokees over the mountains. Even here I might find friends.

We had traded with Cherokees at Shooting Creek, and we had carried trade goods to Cherokee towns to the south and east of us.

Of Barnabas they must surely know. His name had become legend. Kin had often gone to their villages and had many friends among them, but of these Over Hill Cherokees we knew too little and that only by hearsay.

Kin and Yance had hunted with the Cherokee, and had been on war parties with them. Yance, I had heard, was especially loved by them, my wild, rowdy, and reckless brother of great strength and an unfailing sense of humor.

How could they know of me, the Quiet One? He who walked in the shadows among the laurel sticks and stood alone on the balds when the sun was rising?

"Hold your hand," I warned the Kickapoo.

"They are enemies! I fear none of them!"

"I know you do not fear and they know it as well, but if you would live, hold your hand and be guided by me. I am not their enemy and they shall know it."

"Is it that you fear?"

"If you walk beside me you shall see if I fear, but if they will permit I shall be a man of peace. I have no feud with the Cherokee."

"They need no feud. A scalp is a scalp."

My friend the Kickapoo was no fool, but we had no choice. The friendship of the red man was based upon different considerations than with us, although there were places where our trails of belief crossed. It behooves one to be wary when among strangers and not to trust too much.

To the shore we were guided, and when we drew our canoes up on the land one of my captors reached for my bow. Their village was close-by.

Drawing it away from him I stared into his eyes and said, "I am a friend. I am Sackett."

The warrior's hand fell away."Sack-ett!" he exclaimed.

"He is Sack-ett," another said. "He has the face of Sack-ett."

"I do not know him," another said. "I do not see him."

"We come as friends, to smoke with the Cherokee. Then we go to the Great River, and beyond."

A Cherokee pointed at Keokotah. "He is Kickapoo. What do you with our enemy?"

"When he is with me he is no enemy to the Cherokee. He is a great wanderer. Together we go beyond the Great River. Perhaps we shall cross the Far Seeing Lands."

"The land is dead. There is no water. The grass is brown and old, and the rivers do not run."

"I shall find water. My medicine is strong. For me the land will not be empty."

The brave who said I had the Sackett face now spoke. "I know him. It is he of the great medicine."

They stood a little away from me. What they knew of me I had no idea, but it was no time for questions. "I would walk in your village. I would smoke with your chiefs. I would sit down with your medicine man. When I am with you my medicine is your medicine."

People had come out from the village and they stood back from us as we were escorted into the gate. The village, surrounded by a strong palisade, was a number of lodges roofed with bark. Outside one of the huts an old man sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe.

He looked up at me and then gestured that we be seated.

We sat opposite him and he took a pipe and smoked and then passed the pipe to me. I puffed and then passed it to the Kickapoo, who hesitated ever so slightly and then smoked and returned the pipe.

It seemed to me there was sly amusement in the old man's eyes. "You are Sack-ett?"

"I am."

The old man studied my clothing and then my longbow. Then his eyes went to the scabbards at my waist. "What?" he asked.

"The voices of thunder," I said, "the voice that kills at a distance."

The first Cherokee extended a hand. "I will see."

"They are medicine. I give them to no man."

His eyes were hard. "Perhaps we take?" he suggested.

"Many would die."

"You would die!"

"Man was born to die. It is our promise at birth." I looked at him coolly and tried to make it no threat. "Do not hasten the time."

The old man appeared to take no notice of what had been said. "We of the Cherokee hear much of He Who Tells of Tomorrow. We hear of your great medicine."

A fire blazed between us, just a small, flickering blaze.

"There is a magic on the wind, and there are spirits that wait in the shadows. They belong to no man but they sometimes favor we of the great medicine." My hand moved over the fire, opening in a smooth gesture above the flame, but the fire suddenly turned blue and green.

The Cherokees drew back, muttering, but the old man did not move. "Ah? I have heard of he who makes the fire change."

"The spirits are kind," I said, modestly. "It is nothing."

The old man was amused. "My spirits are sometimes kind," he said, "although not in the same way."

"I have no doubt," I said. "Beyond the blue mountains your name is known."

"You go beyond the Great River? It is a far way, often bloody. Some have gone from here. Some returned. Many were lost." He paused. "It was from there the white men came, the white men who wore iron shirts."

"White men in iron shirts? The Warriors of Fire?"

He shook his head. "It was later. When I was a young boy. With my own eyes I saw them.

"He came to eat in our village and he was much hungry. When he came to leave we gave him food and he went quickly away. I was a boy then, and curious. I followed."

We waited, and even the other Cherokees were curious, for the story seemed new even to them.

"He was weak, this white man. He had eaten, but still he was weak. Twice he fell down before he came to the fire where two others waited, so weak they could not stand. He gave them food."

"They wore iron shirts also?"

"They did. Two carried bows such as yours, and one carried a spear. All had long knives. They ate. They rested. They went away. I watched them as they went."

"Which way did they go?"

"Up the Great War Path. The Warrior's Path."

"You did not follow?"

"For a little way. They met with two other men, also with longbows and also with long knives, but only one had an iron shirt. This one had killed a deer. He had meat with him, and I watched them eat again. When they started on I went back to my village."

Five white men? Only the English used the longbow, and an Indian would remember the bows.

Who could they have been? The old man to whom I talked must be close to eighty, and it had been when he was a boy. Vaguely I recalled a story told by Jeremy Ring, my father's old friend, a story of some of Sir John Hawkins's men who had been left ashore in Mexico, and of how some of those men, not wishing to be imprisoned by the Spanish, had struck out to walk to the French settlements of which they had heard, not realizing how long a journey it would be. Yet three men had gotten through, walking to Nova Scotia in eleven months, from which place they were carried away to France and then to England. These could have been the men.

"You have come in peace," the old man said. "You will find peace here, and you shall leave in peace."

"With my friends the Cherokee I would have it no other way."

We were shown a lodge where we could sleep, but I knew that what had been said was spoken to me only. The Kickapoo would be left alone while in the village, but after that--

It was only then that I realized that the Cherokee who had wanted my guns had left the group before the old man had given us his permission to stay. That Cherokee would not be party to the old man's agreement. It was a thing to remember. Perhaps not intended that way, but who could be sure?

What of our canoe? Would it be safe? From the lodge to which we had been taken I judged the distance. Perhaps it would be well if we slipped away in the night, if that were possible. All we could do now was wait and see.

The village was larger than I had at first believed. There were many Indians about, and they had dogs, dozens of them, constantly moving around. Yet at night they would sleep. Or would they? Certainly they would be aware of us, and any movement at night might be considered unfriendly.

We would wait until day. We would eat, we would talk, and we would take our departure quietly, as guests should.

What happened after that was another thing, and we would be ready.

Keokotah seemed to sleep soundly, yet who could be sure? Long before daybreak I was up, my small pack prepared, my weapons ready. I expected no trouble within the village, but all did not like us here, nor had they all approved of the old man's welcome.

A voice from the door of our lodge spoke. "Sack-ett?"

"I am here."

"Come! It is time to go!"

Six warriors waited outside. We faced them, prepared for whatever would come. "We are friends." The speaker was a barrel-chested Indian of some forty years. "We have come to see you safely on your way. Sack-ett has been a friend to our people. We are friends to Sack-ett."

They formed on either side of us and walked with us to our canoe. Two men guarded it. Getting into two canoes they paddled beside us until we were well on our way. Finally, they backed water and let us go on ahead. The older Indian lifted his spear. "Go in peace!" he said, and we did.

Obviously they had feared we would be attacked and had come to see us on our way in safety. Would our Cherokee enemies pursue? I doubted it. The warrior faction had made their position known in no uncertain terms, and it was unlikely that a few malcontents would dare oppose them.

But we were wary, as it is wise to be, trusting to nothing and prepared for anything.

My father's reputation had preceded us. He had been known as a brave and honorable man, often settling disputes among the Indians. Often they brought their sick or wounded to us for treatment that seemed beyond what their own medicine men could do. The place on Shooting Creek had become known among not only the Cherokees but other tribes as well.

We moved on through sunlight and shadow, taking our time on the river, seeing no one. Nearly every day clouds of passenger pigeons flew over us, and we also began to see flights of parakeets, adding touches of brilliant color to the bare trees.

Many trees were leafing out and much of the brush along the streams as well. Once, glancing back, I thought I caught the flash of sunlight on a paddle blade, yet I did not see it again.

We put twenty miles behind us before we made camp at a cove near a small creek, drawing our canoe well up into the willows and out of sight. Making a small fire of dry wood that offered almost no smoke, we ate some of the buffalo meat and stretched out on the grassy slope to rest.

From where we lay we could see upstream for almost a mile, and by turning our heads and looking through the willows we could see downstream for a short distance. It was a quiet, lazy time, but a time I needed to think, to plan.

If I was to find Itchakomi I must seek sign of their passing. The old man of the Cherokees might have told me something but I had forgotten to mention her to them. The Natchee had been friendly to the Cherokees, I remembered, and they might well have stopped at Hiwasee.

We had tales of Spanish men being westward, beyond the plains. I believed this to be true, but we did not know. Too little was known in England of what the Spanish were doing, and we in the colonies knew even less. From time to time the Indians brought stories of Spanish men to the westward, but far, far away.

Where would Itchakomi go? She was to seek out a new land for the Natchee, and such a land must be far enough away to provide escape from their enemies. There were fierce tribes to the north, such as the Seneca, so it was unlikely they would go far in that direction. The plains had to be where they would go, but would they stop there? What would invite them? Only that the plains were empty.

I spoke of this to Keokotah. "Where would you go?"

He had been lying on the grass and he sat up suddenly. "To the mountains," he said. "I would go where mountains are, where water is, where game can be. I would find a place hidden from eyes."

"And to get there?"

"I would follow a river, but not too close. Where water is, enemies can be. I would walk far from streams and come to them only at night, or before night."

We talked of this and of many things. Keokotah was learning more English from me, and he had a quick intelligence as well as a gift for mimicry that helped him to learn.

"You English--" he said.

"English? I do not know that I am English," I said. "My father was English, but I have never seen England. I know only America. I think I am American."

"Why you American?"

"Because I was born here. I live here. All my memories are of here."

"So it is with me, but I am Kickapoo."

"You are Kickapoo, but you are also American," I explained.

"You are American. You say I am American. What of Cherokee? What of Seneca?"

"They are Americans, too."

He shook his head. "No Seneca is American. Seneca is Seneca and my enemy."

"Far away in Boston there are people called Puritans. They are English by birth. They do not think as I do, but they are Americans, too."

"They are not your tribe?"

"No."

"Spanish men your tribe?"

"No."

"Spanish men live in Florida. That is America?"

"Of course."

"Then Spanish men are Americans?"

"Well--"

"You say Seneca are American. I say Spanish men are American."

"It would be better if we forgot who is Seneca and who is Spanish and just remembered we are all Americans."

Keokotah was silent. The idea was new to him and he was not prepared to accept it. But was I prepared to accept the Spanish, our traditional enemies, as Americans?

Keokotah spoke slyly. "Next time we meet Seneca, you tell him we all Americans. No need fight. You put down your bow. Put down your knife. You walk up to him and say 'we all Americans.' "

"And--?"

"Your American scalp will hang in a Seneca lodge."

"What if a Seneca came to you and said, 'We no fight'?"

"I would take his scalp, cut off his hands and his genitals."

"Cut off his hands?" This, I knew, was often done as well as other mutilation. It was a custom, and a barbarous one. "Why?"

He stared at me as if my words were those of a child. "If he has no hands he cannot attack me in the time after this. If he has no genitals he cannot breed sons to hunt me down. What else is there to do?"

I started to tell him white men did not do such things and then amended it. "It is not our custom."

He shrugged. "You will have enemies waiting in the time after this, but I shall rest in peace."

"But why not have peace here? Now? Would you not like it if you could walk in the forest without danger?"

"No. Soon Keokotah lazy, fat, useless. Indians cannot live without war. Until an Indian has taken a scalp he is nothing. He cannot get a woman, he cannot speak in council."

"That, too, can change. In England most of the titled lords won their titles because of their ability at killing. A man was knighted because of his skill with weapons. Now often enough a man is given a title or knighted who would faint at the sight of blood."

"The Kickapoo are strong because of our enemies. Deny us our enemies and we would grow weak. The Englishman taught me to pray to your Christian god," he added suddenly.

"And you do?"

"Why not? All gods are useful. Who am I to say yours is not? The Englishman prayed, and he was strong in death. The Seneca who killed him sing songs of his courage."

After a moment, Keokotah added, "If I make one last prayer I ask that your god grant me an enemy. If I have an enemy, even one enemy, I can be strong."

"It need not be an enemy," I protested, "any obstacle can do the same. Anything that makes one struggle to be stronger, to be better."

"You have obstacle. I will have enemy. You grow strong in your way, I in mine."

He was a most stubborn man, but a strong one. Yet as I protested I had to remember that England became great at sea at least in part because Spain built an armada.

Chapter Six.

We hid our canoe when the morning was bright on the water, and started inland. My father had put it upon me to find a new home for us and to spy out the land. For this I could not remain upon the water, but must explore. Besides, it was a strong craving in me to know what lay about me, and Keokotah felt as I did.

Rich were the grasses underfoot, and tall the trees when we came to them. There were numerous springs, yet not so many running streams, for this was limestone country, a place of many caves where the streams ran deep within them. Yet I began to see a reluctance in Keokotah, a hanging back at times, and he looked upon the hills with awe and seemed to wish to avoid the caves.

"The spirits of the dead are here," he said, when I asked him the why of it. "They are all about. And there are caves where they sleep, not dead, yet not alive."

"You have seen this?"

"I have."

"Will you take me to them?"

"I will not."

"I will make strong medicine," I said, "medicine that will protect us from evil."

That he had respect for my magic I knew, and I must keep him respecting it, but to do that it must be used sparingly and with care.

"I have much to learn," I said, "and mayhap those who once lived here were of my people." I did not know this was true, but knew the story of Prince Madoc of Wales, and suspected a connection.

Night was coming on when we spoke of this, and we made a small camp near a spring in a nest of rocks and trees. It was a hidden place and such as we needed, for we must make fresh moccasins from skins we carried. Moccasins did not last like English boots, but we were skilled at cutting out the patterns and shaping them to our feet.

What had Keokotah meant when he had said "they lived yet did not live"?

I knew the folly of asking direct questions, on some topics at least. I said no more, but waited, wishing for him to talk but knowing he would talk of these things only when the mood was upon him.

The night was very still. We sat late beside our fire building moccasins for tomorrow and other days. Knowing we had the time we each made several pairs, and I wished to wait and hope Keokotah would decide to speak.

Finally, he did. "Cold came early that year. I saw no bears, and even the birds flew low and fluttered from bush to bush. When the snow fell it fell thick, and soon it was deep and my tracks were deep like the tracks of pasnuta."

"Pasnuta?"

He looked at me with no friendly eyes. "The big one with the long nose. The Poncas call him pasnuta."

"I did not know there was a name," I said.

"All things have names." He spoke with dignity. "Pasnuta means 'long nose.' "

After a moment he explained. "Pasnuta ver' heavy. He makes deep tracks in snow."

"It was an early snow?" I prodded him.

"I was not prepared. I had meat and a skin, but the skin was not ready. There was no time to build a lodge, and the snow was falling ver' thick. I looked along the mountain for a place where trees had fallen or great rocks. I looked for shelter from the strong wind that was coming."

"And?"

"I found a cave. Not a big cave." He held his hands not two feet apart. "A broken rock, black inside. I looked and found a big room, big as three lodges together. I went inside and it was dry, no animal, nothing.

"Outside I broke branches from a dead tree. Gathering wood for my fire. Inside there was no wind but there was a place for fire. Ver' old, this place. Ashes, but no sticks, no coals. Stones, like so." His gestures indicated rocks placed in a circle for a fireplace.

"I make a fire. The room grows warmer. Not warm ... warmer. I think in that place it is always cool." He was silent and we worked on the moccasins. "The fire is burning. I put sticks. It burns brighter. Shadows move upon the walls. I look ... and then I am frighten."

"Frightened? Why?"

He did not speak for some minutes, and I waited, impatient but knowing I must wait.

"Too many shadows." He looked up at me. "Shadows made by the firelight, but other shadows, too. Shadows that move not with the others, taller, thinner shadows. I am frighten, but it is cold outside, cold enough to die with no shelter from wind, no fire. And I am Keokotah, who is a Kickapoo, and not afraid."

He paused. "I say to my thoughts, 'no more sticks.' If the fire go out there can be no dancing shadows, so I let the fire die, but when there are only red coals, there are still shadows, only they dance slow.

"I build the fire again. The shadows have not hurt me and if I let the room go dark ... who knows what can be? Maybe the fire is for the shadows. Maybe they love the fire because it makes the shadows live?

"The shadows live again. Only the tall shadows, the thin shadows, they dance slower than the others. I am frighten to sleep. All night long I feed the shadows with their firelight. I give them life and make offering of sticks. Yet I am frighten. What if my sticks are no more? I get up and the shadows seem to grow taller. Yet I show how small is the pile of sticks and I go out into the cold for more. I bring them back. I build up the fire.

"And then I think now I am slave to the shadows. When morning comes, will they let me go? I watch the fire. I watch the sticks. When morning comes I put sticks on the fire and then go out as if for more. And I run!

"Away through the snow! I run, I dodge among trees, I keep running until I can run no more. I am no longer frighten. I am free! I have escape!" He looked at me. "I will no go back. It is enough."

"And your skin? The one you took to the cave?"

He shrugged. "I think it is there. I do not want the skin. I will not go to the cave."

"You will show me?"

He shrugged. "I show you. I wait two days. If you do not come, I walk away, far away, ver' fast."

For a long time we worked in silence, and the moccasins shaped themselves in our fingers. And then I said, "You spoke of 'they live yet do not live' or some such thing. Did you mean the shadows?"

He was again silent, and when almost an hour had passed and we had put aside our moccasins he said, "There was a deeper cave. I went to it."

"Another room?"

"I do not know what is 'room.' Another cave, deeper into the mountain. I looked."

"And--?"

"Three lay sleeping. Three wrapped tight in skins. Skins hard tied about them. Only their faces showed, and their hands and feet."

"Tied?"

"Like buried. Like dead. A skin tied about each, but their faces looked old ... so ver' old! Wrinkled--" he squeezed up the skin of his face until it wrinkled. "When I lifted the pine torch their eyes were alive! They stared at me. They were blue eyes like the Englishman, only fierce, wild, strange! I was frighten. I run back to other cave. The shadows are better than they who lie sleeping with open eyes."

The story was strange, yet I believed him. Keokotah did not lie. What he told me was what he saw, but what is it we see? Is it not often what we expect to see? Or imagine we see? He was frightened, so what part was reality and what part imagination? Sakim had taught me to be wary of evidence given by others, for in all evidence there is some interpretation. The eyes see, the mind explains. But does the mind explain correctly? The mind only has what experience and education have given it, and perhaps that is not enough. Because one has seen does not mean one knows.

I, coming from another world, would have a different supply of information than Keokotah. My explanation might be different. Moreover, I was curious. Blue eyes? Unlikely, but possible, and the three bodies wrapped in hides sounded to me like a burial, and the bodies might be mummified.

By now I believed Keokotah was my friend. To keep a friend is important and to shame him would be to lose him. Therefore I must not make light of his belief in what he had seen or believed he had seen. I must prepare for what I was to see in a way he would comprehend.

I would make medicine.

I must convince him I was making medicine to prepare myself for the ordeal that lay before me. I must make sure he knew that I was impressed by his story and that only the strongest medicine would ward off the evils I must face. I went to sleep that night thinking of what I must do and how to do it.

At the same time I was intensely curious. Seagoing men have many stories that do not reach their landlubberly friends; some are merely superstition but some are dim memories of voyages made long ago by mariners long since lost.

Many an ancient archive has been lost in fires, destroyed in sieges, or simply allowed to decay through lack of interest or awareness. Among the greatest of seamen, for example, were the Carthaginians. Descendants of the Phoenicians, who were themselves among the greatest of seafaring peoples, the Carthaginians were denied access to many sources of raw material by their rivals and enemies the Romans. Eventually the Romans destroyed Carthage, but in the meanwhile their ships were continually at sea bringing back cargoes of raw materials and much else. Hanno the Phoenician had circumnavigated Africa hundreds of years before Christ. Crossing the Atlantic would have been much less difficult.

We do not know where the Carthaginians went except in a few cases, but like their relatives the Phoenicians they were great traders and travelers. The Arabs, who were among the greatest of seafaring peoples, had access to more of the Phoenician records than had Europeans through their captures of such great trading ports as Tyre, Sidon, and Alexandria.

It was little enough I knew except from sailors' tales or from the lips of Sakim. As the Moslem religion demanded a pilgrimage to Mecca from each of its followers, many succeeded in making the long trip from wherever they lived, and in so doing brought to Mecca many accounts not only of their homelands but of other lands of which they knew or had heard.

Hence my mind was not closed to the possibilities of who the bodies might have been. Long ago, when I was a small boy, my father had walked along the outer banks where the Atlantic curls its foaming lips against the shores of America. I had not seen the sea before although there had been much talk of it at home, for my father had sailed his own craft across that ocean.

The sea, busy moving sand as always, had uncovered an ancient wreck. There was a colony in Virginia by then, but theMayflower had not yet crossed the Atlantic with its Pilgrims, and the wreck we looked upon was old. Only a few gray ribs protruded from the sand. Perhaps only an abandoned ship that washed up here, perhaps some early venture. Not enough showed itself to explain its construction but my father examined it curiously. When I asked whose ship it might have been, he shrugged. "It is a construction I find strange," he said, "but I know so little of such things."

He kicked one of the timbers, as one will. "Solid," he said, "and built for the deep sea. This was no coasting craft."

Keokotah knew nothing of ships and the sea, and of all this speculation I said nothing. I knew too little myself, just enough to tantalize me and make me long to know more. Yet when I thought back to my opportunities I knew that few boys had grown up exposed to more than I.

My father's men had been soldiers, sailors, and wanderers. Sakim had been a seaman aboard a ship with my father, a prisoner taken at sea as my father had been, and several of his men had been soldiers who had fought in foreign wars.

Soldiering was an honorable trade, and many of England's men had fought on the continent or in Mediterranean lands. Each had stories to tell and we boys were avid listeners. Yet I had learned more because I was not the hunter and fisherman the others were.

After Keokotah had fallen asleep I lay long awake remembering my mother. A thought took me: she was in England ... suppose she, too, had died and I did not know? But then I would never know now if she were alive or dead.

I thought of Brian and Noelle. I had been closer to them than the older boys had.

How different their lives would be! In the England I had never seen they would live, grow, become educated. I longed for them then, and longed for my mother, too. But my star hung over the western mountains and I knew it.

What would I find there? What, besides a Natchee princess or priestess, or whatever she was? But I had nothing to do with her, only to find her and tell her the Great Sun was dying and she was needed. Remembering Ni'kwana, however, I began to wonder whether he really wished her to return or not. I think he feared Kapata and his ambition. But if she did not return, what life would there be for her? Where could such a one find happiness in our wild western world?

My mind was busy with that when my lids closed. How long they had been closed--it seemed but an instant--I do not know, but suddenly they were wide open, staring.

Something had moved in the forest! Some sound, some vague whispering of movement against leaves.

I put out a hand and touched Keokotah. The hand I touched held a knife.

Chapter Seven.

Ghostlike, I slid from under my blanket and into the trees. As always, I had chosen my retreat before lying down. Often it is too late when the moment comes, and I wished to make no sound to give away my position. There was no need to worry about Keokotah. He had known nothing else since childhood and knew well what must be done.

We waited then. I knew not where Keokotah was, nor did the red coals give any light. Our blankets looked heaped as though we still slept. That, too, was an immediate reaction to attack.

There was no moon, only stars and scattered clouds above the trees. I heard no sound, but there would be none. These Indians knew what they did. The sound that had awakened me might have been a natural sound of the forest or an attacker, momentarily clumsy.

There would be no chance to use my bow in a first attack. Later--if I survived.

A wind stirred. Often Indians chose such moments in which to move, covered by the wind sounds. I waited, knife in hand. A low wind sifted through the leaves. I felt body warmth near to me, and when I looked to my right a faint gleam from a metallic armlet told me an Indian lay beside me, not two feet away!

My knife was ready, gripped in my right hand. He was lying parallel to me, and to stab he must rise up and strike with his right hand. I had known perhaps a thousand Indians and none had been left-handed. When he raised up to strike I would stab him, and it would be only an instant before he was aware of me.

He must have been a young Indian with not too many warpaths behind him, for he had eyes only for his chosen point of attack. He raised up to his knees, spear poised to throw into my heaped-up blankets. My blade cut sharply back and up, the point going in below the middle of his rib cage, driving to the hilt.

His eyes met mine in a moment of awful awareness. His spear was thrown as he took the blade. He realized death in that instant and I put my hand against his shoulder and drew back my knife. He started to cry out, but could not. His hand went back for a tomahawk at his belt but there was no strength in his fingers. He fell forward, made an effort to rise, then moved no more.

The fire blazed up from a handful of leaves and sticks thrown upon it. An Indian lay dead near the fire. Nothing else moved. Wind stirred the leaves again, and the blaze dipped in obedience to the moving air. And then there was a long silence, while the fire crackled.

A hand reached from the brush toward the fallen Indian's foot, but before I could rise to bring my bow into position an arrow drove through the air. The hand tightened convulsively into a fist and was withdrawn. And that was all.

When morning came the two dead Indians lay where they had fallen. The warrior who had taken Keokotah's arrow was gone, the arrow with him.

He looked at my Indian with approval and then gestured at the scalp. "You no want?"

"No. It is not my custom."

He did not hesitate, but took the scalp for himself as he had the other.

"What if they come again?"

"Their medicine bad. They go home now. He"--Keokotah indicated the Indian he had killed--"was chief. He dead. He medicine no good. Maybe pick another chief, maybe stay home. Two men die, medicine no good."

"How many were there, I wonder?"

He shrugged. "Maybe six, maybe eight. No more."

They were of a tribe strange to us both, but there were many such, some even now disappearing. There were Indians my father had met when first he landed in Carolina who were no more. Wars with other tribes, diseases ... who knew what had happened to them?

Keokotah stooped and cut the string that held a medallion on the Indian's throat. He held it out to me.

It was a Roman coin. A silver coin of about the size of a nine-penny piece, dated in the third year of Antoninus Pius. The date and other inscriptions were much worn, so that I could not be sure but I figured the date to be about 137 after Christ.

This was not the first Roman coin we Sacketts had come upon, for once before an Indian had traded us another coin dated only a few years earlier than the one I now had. The dates of both were close enough that they could have been carried by one man or one group of men.

The coin did not surprise me. For every documented voyage there must have been a thousand of which no record was kept. What reason had the average ship's master or merchant for keeping records, especially when they might betray his sources of raw material or trade?

Our travel was no longer swift, for if my people were to relocate so far from known sources of material they must find new sources. They would have to make their own gunpowder, which we had done for much of the time, but they would need lead, also, or copper, from which we had occasionally made bullets.

Keokotah was sullen. He spoke little and I began to realize he did not wish to go to the cave. Moreover, when he did speak he often spoke of his own village, and I realized I might lose my companion. His own village lay not many days travel away to the north, and he had long been gone.

At night I now built a small, separate fire, and over this I muttered prayers and recited doggerel learned from my parents. To Keokotah I was making medicine, preparing for entering the cave of the shadows. All this was pure mumbo-jumbo but I liked Keokotah and did not wish him to believe I made light of his fears. "Bad," I said to him, "much bad! Bad spirits!"

The cave lay on the south side of a large river, but nearer a branch of that river which forked. He led the way, but he walked slower and slower.

One night in a camp on a shelf above the river I said to him, "Keokotah, your home is near. If you go to the Far Seeing Lands with me it will be long before you again see your village."

I had all his attention. "You could visit your village and meet me in the western lands." I took up a stick and in the clay I drew a line. "Here is the Great River, running north to south. Here," I drew a line joining it from the west, "is another river. It is almost due west from here toward the setting sun. Perhaps a little south? You could meet me there. I will return to the canoe, and will go to the Great River and then to this river.

"It has been told me that this river," I indicated the one flowing into the Great River from the west, "flows down from the Shining Mountains. That river I shall follow westward.

"It is also," I added, "the way Itchakomi was to go. If I am to find her I must seek signs of their passing."

"The signs will be gone."

"I do not think so. You see, Ni'kwana spoke to me alone. He told me of signs that were to be left for those to follow if Itchakomi did not return. I shall look for the signs."

He hesitated for a long time and then he asked, "You do not want Keokotah with you when you face the spirits of the Shadow Cave?"

"If he wishes," I said carefully, "but I think this is something my medicine is strong against. It is a trial for me." An inspiration came to me. "When you won your name, your totem, did you not go out alone to fast? To dream? So it is with me. The spirits tell me this I must face alone. It is for me. It is great danger for anyone else. If I come not to the place by the Great River you will know I have failed."

Keokotah did not wish to leave me, but two things tugged at him: his desire to visit his village and his fear of the Shadow Cave.

"I will go with you even though I fear," he said. "You are my friend."

"My medicine will often protect all who are with me. In this case it will protect only me, I think. I must go into the cave alone.

"Perhaps," I suggested, "you were sent to bring me this knowledge. Perhaps those who lie in the cave are my ancestors who have words for me. I do not fear the shadow things, for they know of me. I will go to them. Do you go to your village. In two moons you will meet me at the river of which I speak. I shall leave signs for you to follow."

I held up the Roman coin. "This speaks to me across many years." I showed him the picture of the old man on one side and the young man on the other. "These were great chiefs long ago in a land far from here, but I know who they were and what deeds they did.

"Those who lie in the cave may also have words for me. We shall see."

We parted when the sun arose, and no more was said. Neither knew what lay between us and the river of which I spoke, but each knew he could find the other if he was there.

I watched him go with sadness, for I have had few friends and did not know if I would have another.

Now was my time of trial. I had said much to Keokotah because I desperately wished to see the cave where the bodies lay, but I had no faith in my charms against the shadow things. That was spoken for him, to put his fears for me at rest. I am no braver than any man, and the thought of entering the cave filled me with doubt and fear. Yet I am a curious man, and wherever I had gone I had had the feeling that I followed in the footsteps of others. This was a clue I could not, dare not, avoid. I must see, not only for myself but for that most sacred thing, the knowledge of others.

In a world of many mysteries there are a few doors left slightly ajar for us to see. He who passes one of those doors may deny man knowledge precious to us. How long might men wait before another told of the cave? How many could know of it? The knowledge had been given to me. The mission was mine.

If I could not solve the mystery of those bodies I could at least report their existence.

The opening of the cave was small, not easy to find, and such an opening as one might easily pass by, thinking it nothing at all.

That night I made camp on a branch of a fork on the river. Tomorrow I would venture into the cave. Tomorrow...

And when the morning came there were no stars, but only a flat black sky, and there was a smell of rain in the air. I broiled a piece of venison and ate slowly, making coffee from chicory. The wild plants grew along old buffalo trails and elsewhere. There were no blooms this early, but within a few weeks the bright blue flowers would be visible in many a corner and meadow.

My fire burned low, a sullen flame that brought no cheer. I thought of the cave into which I was going and hesitated. Need I go? Why take the chance? I had never liked caves much, anyway. I gave myself excuses but none of them worked. The cave was there and I would see what it contained.

When the fire was low and I had drunk the last of my chicory brew I gathered my few things together, put my fire out carefully, and made up my small pack. With my knife firmly in place and my guns ready, I took up my bow and started up the narrow, scarcely discernible path. Now for it, I told myself.

Trees like black bars against the gray rock. Moss hanging, moss clinging. The track was slippery. If it rained I must be careful along here. Below there was a tangle of dead trees, trunks crossing trunks, all blown down by some violent gust long ago. It was a trap above which the track wound along. I could hear the water rustling by. Suddenly there was a crack in the limestone wall.

Here it probably was then. I looked all around and saw nothing. A small flock of parakeets flew from one tree to another, in pursuit of some unseen food supply.

The cave was not just as I had heard it was, but no matter. I had found it.

Black and ominous. I gathered material for a torch but then thought of the candle I forever carried in my small pack. Such a candle can keep a man from freezing in a small space. I got it out, crouched low through the opening, and lighted it. I edged forward and then stood up.

Before me was where Keokotah had built his fire. The remains of it as though it had just gone out. Some sticks lay close by to add to the fuel. The room was bare and clean, with nothing besides the fire and its ashes.

My candlelight flickered on the walls but I saw no shadows but those that should be there ... or did I? I shook my head, angry with myself.

Imagination! Was I a child to be frightened by ghosts? Or such a savage as Keokotah, who knew no better?

Yet what did I know? Were there ghosts? Were there spirits? Who was I to say? All my life I had heard stories of such things. All my child's life I had been pleasurably frightened by such stories. We had longed for them and had begged my mother, or Lila, or Jeremy Ring to tell us such stories. Now they returned to haunt me.

I looked at the small opening into the next room. Was that where the bodies lay, with their blue eyes watching? Were they dead? Were they even there? Or were they merely waiting, lying there, waiting for me to enter?

Don't be a fool, I told myself. You're not a child. You are a man. You are not afraid of the dark or of shadows.

What wasthat? Had something moved? Or was it some sound from outside? I drew my knife. What good was a knife against a ghost? Yet was this a ghost? What kind of creatures could they be? They were but bodies, and Keokotah had seen them.

Carefully, I looked around again. I edged back toward the entrance hole and listened.

Nothing.

Again my eyes went to the walls. The candle cast few shadows, but against the limestone walls the candle gave much light. My eyes searched for shadows, not wanting to find them but not daring to miss them.

The silent dead lay within that other room. They were the ones I had come to see.

How long ago had Keokotah seen them? Suddenly I realized I did not know. Had it been just now? A few days ago? Or had it been months? Even years?

I moved then, and something else moved. I was suddenly still, my heart pounding.Had something moved? Or was I dreaming? Had expectation created the sound? I took a step, and something else stepped.

It was an echo, that was all. My footstep against these walls. How carefully clean it was! As if the floor had been swept, and not long since.

My eyes went to the sticks left by Keokotah. They were neatly piled, and ready to be added to the fire, had there been a fire.

But of course there had been. He had spoken of it, and the ashes were there. This was the fire that brought the shadows to life. Should I light it again? Should I make that experiment too?

Ridiculous. I was not cold. I did not need a fire. Outside thunder rumbled. Maybe I would need a fire. It was going to rain.

Well, it was warm and dry in here. I swallowed. It seemed warm, and that made no sense. Such caves were always cool, always almost cold. Had not I heard somewhere that caves kept an even, cool temperature?

Regardless of that, this cave was warm. Almost as if there had been a fire.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled and I felt my skin crawl. For a moment I looked at the gray, dead ashes. Suddenly, impelled by what impulse I know not, I bent over and touched the ashes with my fingers.

They werewarm!

Chapter Eight.

I felt of them again. Soft, gray wood ashes but definitely warm.

Well, why not? Was there anything so mysterious about that? I had come to the cave seeking an answer to a puzzle, but Keokotah had come seeking shelter, so why not others after him? And before?

Again my eyes went to the entrance to the inner cave. I started forward and then stopped. There was a cobweb in the opening. Whoever had been using the cave had evidently not entered the inner cave at all.

Brushing the cobweb away I ducked into the inner cave, holding my candle before me.

The three bodies lay side by side, each wrapped in a neat cocoon of skins. They were very, very old skins and looked as if they might disintegrate at a touch. Two of the bodies were those of women, one obviously an old woman, one young. Their faces were shrunken, the skin on their hands and feet also. It was tight to the bone, but I could still tell that one had been much younger than the other. The third figure was that of a man who seemed to have been buried later than the first comers. His skin looked fresher, his face composed as though he had died in his sleep, yet his eyes were open and they seemed to be looking at me as if he were about to speak. I shuddered.

Beside the first two bodies there was a woven basket containing grain. There was a jar nearby that had no doubt contained water or some other liquid.

There were no weapons, nor was there any jewelry, yet I had a feeling that when the bodies had been left here there had been both.

Slowly, I backed away, looking about me. This cave, too, was spotlessly clean. Obviously it had been swept. In vain I looked for some clue as to who these dead might have been or where they had come from. There was nothing, and I had no wish to examine the bodies. Far better to let them lie as they had for these many years.

Years? Perhaps even centuries. The interior of the cave had a cool, almost cold temperature. It was dry. The warmth of the brief fire in the outer room did not seem to have penetrated here. I backed away, and the eyes seemed to follow me. At the opening, I paused, and something made me speak.

"I shall leave you now, as you have been. Is there anything I can do?"

No lips stirred, nor did the eyes blink. I shook my head. What was I expecting? Was I as superstitious as a child? Yet in the eyes of the young man there seemed to be a pleading, a longing, as of something unsatisfied.

"I wish I could help," I said quietly.

I crawled through the opening into the outer cave and gathered my few things. It was time to go. Yet I was slow in the gathering and felt reluctant to go.

Suddenly a voice seemed to speak. "Find them!" it said. I turned sharply, my brow furrowed. Had I actually heard a voice? Or was it in my own mind?

Find who?

Itchakomi? Or was I to find someone else? Someone akin to those buried in the inner cave? Had someone spoken? Or had it been been imagination only? No matter. It was time to go.

Slinging my pack and taking up my bow, I went out into the morning.

For a moment I stood still, listening. Every sense alert for possible danger, for it was always nearby. I heard no sound, felt nothing, saw nothing but the quiet forest and the blue sky above.

I moved out, found a trail, and began walking. As always I checked the trail to see what or who had passed. I found only the tracks of a deer and of birds and one place where a snake had crossed the path. I walked on into the morning. This was a new land for me, a land where few had been before me, and perhaps no white man after those in the cave back there.

My mind worked on two levels, as always. One was alert for danger, aware of all my surroundings, missing nothing. The other was my own inner thoughts, and this morning I was puzzled about myself.

Why had I chosen to come west? To explore new lands, I had told myself. To be the first to see, the first to experience. Yet was that all? I was uneasy with the explanation, feeling it was not enough. Was it not simply the desire to be on my own? To experience things for myself? Was I not escaping to myself?

My father and older brothers had been complete and efficient men, grown so by the demands made upon them, so when living with them I had been content to follow, to accept their judgment, and to leave the responsibility to them. I was as capable as any of them, yet lived in their shadows. To go off by myself relieved me of that tendency to go along. It left all the decisions to me and the responsibilities to them.

That might explain my actions in part, an effort to escape to myself.

Yet there was something more. There was an unheard voice that was calling me westward, something beyond my father's urge to cross the far blue mountains. I did want, however, to see what lay beyond the Great River, beyond the Far Seeing Lands, beyond the Shining Mountains. Whatever else there was might be imagination or some strange communication from someone or something. I had no explanations for that. Sakim and I had often talked of that, and my father had spoken of it.

Yance scoffed, and we were amused by his scoffing. Yance was a complete realist. He believed in things he could see, touch, taste, and feel. He had little faith in Lila's second sight or that of my father. He chided them gently or merely shrugged off their accurate predictions. He said, which was undoubtedly true, that our senses picked up vibrations of which we were unaware, warning us of changes in the weather, the approach of enemies, and other such things. He said we were aware on more than one level, of that which drew our immediate attention and of other vibrations or sensings of which our immediate attention took no notice. There was logic in what he said, and we were not inclined to argue.

The air was clear and cool. The summer sun was not yet in the sky. I moved off, carrying with me a good burden of dried and smoked meat. As I walked I chewed on a piece of this.

A squirrel chattered at me irritably. A small flock of parakeets flew up angrily, circling a crow who sat on a bare branch. The crow sat waiting, confident.

A doe started across the trace ahead of me and I froze in position. It paused, staring at me, ears wide, yet as I was not moving and the wind was from her toward me she could not make me out. She would have been an easy kill, yet I did not need meat. We watched each other until suddenly some vagrant shift of the small breeze must have brought my scent, for it bounded into the woods and was gone.

Yet the momentary halt proved a good one, for as I started to turn something flashed in my eyes, something from far away, beyond the long meadow that bordered the woods into which the deer had fled.

A spear blade? What else? Quickly I moved into the brush, careful to disturb no leaf or leave a sign of my passing. I was being followed! Or if not followed, then somebody was within too close a distance, and strangers probably were enemies.

Swiftly, weaving a careful way, I moved off through the thick woods. There was little undergrowth, but the trees, each one large, grew close together. I turned and went uphill, on the theory that someone following a trail will tend to go downhill, since that is the easiest and swiftest way.

Keokotah, I remembered, had seemed convinced we were being followed, but by whom? Kapata remained the most likely one, for who else had reason?

Luckily I came upon a small, rocky stream. There was not much water but the bed was scattered with a multitude of rocks, and I stepped from one to the other, running part of the way, moving easily from rock to rock. At midday I sat down on a rock in the shade of a huge old tree and chewed on another piece of the buffalo jerky.

The rest gave me time to study the crude map drawn for me by Ni'kwana. There had been no time to give it my full attention before this, and I was pleased to find that the western river, where Keokotah and I were to meet, was the very one up which Itchakomi must have traveled. At least, so it appeared. There were other rivers that flowed into the Great River, but this appeared to be the same.

Yet, why not? It was a large river and offered access to the western lands. It was an obvious route.

It was not our way to trust to maps, for few were to be found in the western lands or anywhere in America west of Jamestown, and those few were faulty and mostly drawn by hearsay or guesswork. The Indians we had known had a good sense of country and could often, with a few lines, explain it well.

First I must come to the valley my father had wanted me to find. Had I come straight there I should have been at the valley long since, for it was but a few days travel westward of Shooting Creek, but Keokotah and I had traveled by devious routes, as had I since, partly to reach the cave, partly to throw off pursuit.

I had found no minerals, and we needed lead or copper as well as sulphur. For this reason I must now travel slower and study the country with greater care, for it was in the vicinity of the valley that we hoped to find what was needed. Yet if necessary we could travel many days to find lead.

Once, years before, my father had been shown a good-sized chunk of lead that had come from the westward. It was from an outcropping not many days from the river toward which I must travel. There might be other sources as well. One reason for our slow travel had been my quest for evidences of such things, although I was far from expert and knew of few indications.

Being alone I felt better. The decisions and responsibilities were mine and I need lean on no one or trust to their judgment. A man who travels with another is only half as watchful as when traveling alone, and often less than half, for a part of his attention is diverted by his companion. Several times I stopped to examine outcroppings of rock, but found nothing of which I could be sure.

Several times I paused to study my back trail but saw nothing to disturb me. I was growing tired and began looking for a place to camp, but a hidden place that would allow me to see any who might approach. The evening was far along before I found a bench back from a creek in a notch of the hills, but I avoided it because there was no back way out.

I finally settled upon a place under a couple of large old trees facing a willow thicket near a stream. Under cover of the willows I could obtain water, and the foliage of the trees would dissipate my smoke.

I went past my camping spot and then doubled back in the stream and went through the willows to the place under the trees. It offered shelter from the wind and rain, a hidden place for my fire, and access to water. Above all it was inconspicuous, a place to be passed by unseen.

My fire was small. In a dish made of bark I fixed a small stew from buffalo meat and a few herbs gathered by the way. With this I ate some cattail roots baked in the ashes of my fire. When the meal was finished and my coffee made of chicory was ready, I carefully put out my small fire.

It would soon be night. My bed was made of cattail rushes and willow leaves and I spread my oilskin on them and covered myself with my blanket. I was tired. It had been a long day. Tomorrow, with luck, I should find my valley.

According to various Indians who knew of it the valley was three or four days travel in length, which might make it anywhere from thirty-six to eighty miles, depending on the Indian and how far he liked to travel in a day.

The night was warm, for since I had left Shooting Creek spring had faded into summer. The trees, just leafing out then, had their leaves now. It seemed just a few days ago that I had left the settlement we called home, but the country changed from day to day and I was lower in altitude here and the weather was warmer.

Where was Keokotah? Had he reached his village? Or did he travel still?

And who was following me, if anybody at all?

Of these things I thought as I lay under the trees. The water rustled, the leaves brushed gently, and occasionally something splashed out in the stream. It was very quiet, very still.

And then I was asleep.

Stars were above me when my eyes opened. I knew I had not slept long, but now I was wide awake. Something was moving out there in the night. A bear? A panther? It was some large creature.

A snort, a sound of drinking, and then of water dripping. It moved again.

A buffalo ... no, several buffaloes. I listened, wondering if they had scented me, for they were suddenly still. I could picture them standing, their great, dark heads lifted, nostrils sensing the air, testing it for--

They moved off suddenly in a great rush. Something had frightened them.

There was another long silence and then a rustling as of movement, and I heard someone speak in a language I did not know. Another voice answered him and I caught a word which meant buffalo. There was a brief conversation in which I was sure I recognized a voice, and then they moved off.

How many? Three ... perhaps four. I waited, listening, but heard no more.

After a while I slept, and it was full daylight when I awakened. For a time I lay still, listening to the morning sounds, placing each. There was nothing more.

Rising, I looked all around and then went down to the stream, making my way through the willows. Listening again, I scooped water in my palm and drank. On the opposite bank there were tracks where the buffalo had come into the water, although some had walked upstream. When frightened they had rushed downstream and out at some other place.

Gathering my things I took my bow and quiver and scouted around carefully. Fifty yards upstream I found tracks. At least five warriors, traveling at night. That was unusual unless they planned a surprise. Were they hunting for me?

That voice? I could not place it, yet there had been a familiar ring. Perhaps only my imagination.

Returning to camp I completed packing my things, tore off a piece of jerky to chew on, and then hesitated, thinking. The Indians seemed to have gone downstream but they might have camped nearby. I sniffed the air, but caught no smell of smoke.

Staying close to the willows I went back upstream, found a thick patch of forest, and went into it, moving quietly, scouting for tracks. I found none.

Beyond the patch of forest lay a wide meadow, and here I did find tracks. Five warriors again, no doubt the same ones. Whenever I could get a distinct print I studied it and filed it away in a corner of my mind for future reference.

The morning was bright and sunlit. From the slight elevation there was a splendid view of forest, meadow, stream, and pool. What a lovely land!

By noon I was traveling over a plateau, forested and still. Twice now I left marks on trees. I knew about what trace my relatives would follow, and now I was back in their area of travel. High on a tree I cut an A with my knife, cutting deep through the bark. The A was my mother's initial and one not likely to be associated with us.

Three miles further I cut another. In each case I cut one side of the A a bit longer to indicate direction. It was an agreed-upon code, but one any of us would have understood after a little thinking.

It might be a year, two years, or twenty before I was followed, but whenever I was followed the route could be traced by a Sackett.

Further along, I cut another A and was about to extend one side of it when looking beyond the trunk of the tree I saw a vast gulf. Stepping around the tree, I halted.

There opened before me a long valley, extending off toward the south as far as I could see. To the north it seemed to end, from where I stood, in a group of low hills. This must be Sequatchie. There were glimpses of a stream running along the bottom. Meadows, trees, it was a fair land.

An hour later I looked down into an elongated bowl, a grassy cove of what must be more than two thousand acres. A quiet, secluded, lovely place!

This was where I would return. This would be my home. I started down a steep game trail and stepped on a fallen log that broke under me. I fell. My leg caught between two deadfalls and I heard a sharp snap. I lay still, trying to catch my breath. I started to move, felt an excruciating stab of pain, and looked down.

I had broken my leg.

Chapter Nine.

For a long moment I lay perfectly still, my brain a blank. Then I began to think.

I was alone. I could expect help from no one. If anyone came my way it would be an enemy or a potential enemy, and there were wild beasts that might flee from a man but not from a helpless one. Wolves and cougars were very quick to sense when anything was injured and helpless.

My present position, sprawled on the ground among deadfalls and brush, was impossible. Despite the pain I had to move, I had to do something.

As near as I could see, my broken bone was not far out of line. I had never set a bone, although I had once seen my father do it for an Indian. Hooking my toe under a fallen limb I pulled slightly, and the bone seemed to slip back into place. Backing off from the trap I was in I cut several strips from a green branch and made a rough splint, tying it with rawhide from a small twist I always carried for rigging snares.

Several times I had to stop and lie still, my brow beaded with sweat. Then I would force myself to continue. Every movement brought excruciating pain, but I could not remain where I was. I had no water and no shelter, and very little of the buffalo jerky was left. Yet if I ate carefully there would be enough to sustain me for several days. I tried to recall what Sakim had taught me about broken bones, but beyond what I had done I could remember nothing.

One fact was stark and clear. I would be unable to travel for several weeks. I would miss my meeting with Keokotah. Moreover, even to get where there was water I must improvise some sort of crutch, but there was nothing nearby.

Using my longbow as a staff and taking a good grip on a lower limb of a tree, I managed to pull myself erect. With great care, using the longbow, I moved from tree to tree. In my first view of the grassy cove at the head of Sequatchie I had glimpsed what seemed to be a stream. Perhaps the same one that flowed the length of the valley. It was far away, yet if I could reach it at least one part of my survival would be arranged for. I would have water.

In such a condition, what would my father have done? He would have survived. So would I surive.

The hill was steep but slowly, carefully, I edged my way to the bottom. Here the grass was shoulder high, but among some debris from fallen trees near the base of the cliff I found some sticks, one of them of proper height had a branch that grew out on a slight curve. It would make an admirable crutch until I could fashion something better. I would need it, for there were no trees to cling to in the cove's bottom unless I stayed to the edges, making my journey that much farther.

My leg was badly swollen by now and I had to slit the leg of my buckskin pants. It hurt and I cringed at each step. Twice I startled deer, but they were gone too quickly for me to bring my bow into play, even had I been able.

The sun was low in the sky before I was even halfway to where I believed I must go. Perhaps there was a curve of the stream that was closer but the tall grass prevented me seeing it. Yet fortune suddenly conferred a favor. I found a game trail.

It crossed the cove at an angle different from that I had been pursuing, but undoubtedly would lead to water. When darkness came I simply sat down. There was no going any further and I was brutally tired. My leg had swollen enormously with the exertion, and when I sat down I simply collapsed. I lay right where I was in the grass, making no effort at a camp. I got a piece of jerky from my once-heavy pack and began chewing on it. Fortunately it was very tough and took a lot of chewing. When I had finished with the jerky I slept, and if wild beasts prowled near me I did not know and scarcely cared.

When I awakened it was broad daylight and the sun was in my face. My leg had swollen to thrice its size and I slit my pants further and rolled the buckskin high, baring my leg. Getting to my feet was a desperate struggle and twice I fell back, each time sending a stab of pain up my leg. Yet at last I reached my feet and once more began hobbling toward the stream.

The skin beneath my arm where my crude crutch rode heaviest was raw. My leg hurt and my back seemed out of kilter. Desperately I wished to sit down but doubted if I could again get to my feet, so I struggled on.

My mouth was dry and I could scarce swallow. I had upon rising licked some of the grass leaves for the dew that was upon them but it was all too little. In all this struggle I had gone but a pitifully small distance, or so it seemed, but doggedly, desperately, I struggled on. That I had a fever, I knew. That my wound might be infected was possible, for the skin had been broken although the bone had not pushed through. Then my crutch went into a gopher hole and I pitched forward to my face in the grass. The pain was almost unbearable.

I lay there, all sprawled out, and then slowly began to pull myself together. I struggled to one knee and then pushed myself erect again. Grimly, I struggled on, and then when I was about to fall from fatigue I heard the rustle of water. There was some low brush and a few scattered trees, and then a grove that seemed to climb the hill.

The creek was there, flowing out of the trees, and when I stepped back into their shade I saw that the creek came from a cave.

Water and shelter!

There was a big old fallen tree near the entrance that made a perfect seat. Sitting down I shucked my small pack from my shoulders and carefully removed my guns and put them down behind a log with my bow and quiver. There were several broken branches about and a couple of them stout enough to make a decent crutch, but for a few minutes, with the water in sight, I just sat there, not wanting to move.

When I did move I hobbled to the water, scooped up a handful and drank and then drank again. It was only three steps back to the log, and I went there, sat down, and dozed.

The sun was warm, the afternoon well along, but I had water and I had the cave. Deep inside I had a feeling that I was going to make it. I hoped I would. So many plans, so many dreams, and all ahead of me.

And a woman I had promised to find.

Just before sundown I looked into the cave. It was large enough, and it was dry but for the place where the water ran. I crawled into a corner and slept.

When morning came I got outside to my log and took stock of my surroundings. There was very little strength in me. I needed rest, treatment, and a food supply. If I was careful I had enough of the buffalo jerky left to get me through the week. By then I might be stronger. Sitting on the log I tried to plan my next step. There might be plants about that I could eat. From where I sat I recognized two or three. There were seeds I could gather, and I must get all within the area around me.

The opening of the cave was fairly hidden from any who did not approach closely, but activity was sure to attract the attention of anyone living nearby. Yet I had seen no signs of any Indian camp, although it was a sheltered and logical spot.

Again I dozed, or perhaps I just passed out. I did not know. My head buzzed and I felt lost and vaguely too warm. I peered at the plants but lacked the energy to rise and gather them. Fumbling with my pack I got out another piece of the precious jerky. I took a bite, and then with sudden awareness I reached behind me and moved my guns to a place atop my pack to keep them from the damp ground. They were my most precious possessions, not only for what they could do but because they were given me by my father.

"Take them," he had said. "You understand them well. Someday they may save your life." He had paused, turning them in his hands to savor their beauty, their balance. "He who made these was skilled. He worked long and lovingly upon them. If what we have heard is true he staked his future upon them."

The sun was warm and pleasant. I did not wish to move. My great, swollen leg was heavy and uncomfortable. Yet if I was to survive, I must move.

Slowly, with great effort, I got to my feet and limped to the water. It was painful to get down to drink, but I succeeded. Then I noticed some watercress growing nearby. I gathered some from the water and ate it. Then I took my guns and limped back to the cave. Suddenly, fearing what might happen if I became unconscious again, I hid the guns under some dead wood in a corner of the cave.

On the following day I succeeded in setting several snares. I had seen rabbits about and squirrels. I gathered some seeds from the edge of the forest. My leg was badly swollen, so I made a bark dish in which I boiled water, and taking a bit of buckskin cut from my pant leg I used it as a cloth to bathe my leg with hot water. If it would do any good I had no idea but it felt better afterward.

That night I slept better and in the morning heated more water, not only to bathe my swollen leg but to bathe my face and hands. I changed the splints on my leg and did a better job. Now what I needed was meat. If only--

There was a barely visible track near one of my snares! A moccasin track, a foot larger than my own.

For a moment I stood very still. My bow and my quiver of arrows were in the cave. I had only my knife, for when using the crutch I could not carry water back from the stream and carry the bow as well.

Was I being watched? Leaning down I dipped my bark container into the stream and then straightened up. Using my crutch I hobbled back to the log, near which I had a small fire. With two forked sticks and a bar across them I had rigged a place to suspend my bark dish above the fire. To prevent the dish from burning I must be sure the flames did not reach above the water level.

I hesitated. Should I go into the cave for my other weapons and so betray my hiding place? For I doubted anyone had discovered the cave's existence, hidden behind trees and brush as it was.

Desperately, I wanted my weapons, but I controlled myself. Someone might be watching, but I must seem not to be aware of it.

Shaving a small corner of jerky into water I added some bits from cattails. These were pieces cut from where the sprout emerges from the root. I added some watercress and some of the inner bark of a poplar. This stew I concocted was nothing resembling what a skilled cook might have created, but it was all food, and I needed whatever I could get.

Working about the fire I contrived to get on the back side of the log, using it as a work table on which to prepare my food, but ready to drop behind it if necessary.

Every move was painful and clumsy. There was no chance of swift movement, but I tried to use what cover there was from surrounding trees and brush to make myself as difficult a target as possible. Whether I was observed or not I did not know, but must carry on as if an enemy was out there, waiting.

When my stew was ready I ate it slowly, dipping it from the bark pot with a spoon shaved from a piece of wood, and a good spoon it was. Most of those used at Shooting Creek had been made by ourselves.

As I ate I considered my position. How long it would take for my broken leg to knit, I did not know. Wounds had a way of healing much faster in this mountain country. Very few festered or became troublesome, in part because of the fresh air, the scarcity of dirt, and the simple food. Sakim had told me that in the high mountains of Asia they rarely had trouble with festering wounds.

At least a month. I had that idea in mind, and it might be wrong, but I'd have to plan for at least that long and probably longer. Which meant I would need food. I would need meat.

The last of the buffalo meat, which Keokotah and I had carefully avoiding using, as it was dried and smoked and would keep, would carry me but a few more days.

Unless I could make a kill of a fairly large animal I was faced with starvation. So far my snares had brought nothing, nor could I expect much from them. Whatever I caught would be a help, but the herbs and plants I could find within the range I could cover with my broken leg would not last long. I was under no illusions as to hunting and gathering. I had practiced it and had known Indians who did. It needed a lot of walking and searching to keep even one person alive.

I had wished to be alone, to trust to myself only, but I had not bargained for this.

Yet as I slowly ate my stew, savoring every taste and taking my time, I considered the edible plants I had glimpsed. The trouble was that with my crutch I could do little, and my range was limited. Of course, I told myself, I would come to be more adept with using the crutch. It would become easier.

The necessity for keeping my presence hidden was another factor. It was not easy to search for food and hide at the same time. The floor of the cove was covered with tall grass, grass that would move as I passed through it, betraying my presence. To work around the edges under the trees would be more difficult. Yet that was what I must do. I dare not be caught out in the middle of the cove without a place where I could fort up if need be.

Behind the log I prepared a bed for myself. I had to hope they, whoever "they" were, would not know of the cave. I listened, straining my ears for any sound, pausing to listen from moment to moment as I worked. Finally, I lay down and took a short nap. It was coming on to dusk when I awakened.

I made coffee from chicory root, speculating on how quickly the plant had gone native. Indians had told me it was unknown to their older people, but had first been seen in what the Spanishmen called Florida.

Several attempts to establish western bases in the Carolinas had been made by the Spanish, and at least one outpost had been built and occupied by Juan Pardo for a time. It was very possible he had tried plantings of vegetables and herbs, but birds, the winds, and wild animals could easily have played a part.

My fire was small, the fuel dry wood, and I had placed the fire under a tree so the smoke would dissipate in rising through the foliage. The fire itself would have filled a small cup, no more.

The chicory tasted good, and when it was ready I carefully put out my fire.

The longing for home was in me and I thought of Shooting Creek and the good food that was there. I thought of Ma, away in England, and of Kin-Ring, my eldest brother, now head of the family. He would handle it well, for he was an able man. I eased my broken leg, and tried to find a more comfortable position. If they knew the fix I was in they'd come running. That was the Sackett way, but they did not know, and could not know, and unless I used my head I would die here, in this place.

Suddenly I decided I must have my weapons, even if I betrayed the cave. I must--

He was standing over me then, a spear poised for a thrust.Kapata!

And three others.

It was light enough for me to see his features, and to know that he meant to kill me. I had my knife, but I could not move toward him.

Kapata raised the spear.

"No!" One of the others lifted a hand. "Ni'kwana has spoken! He is not to be harmed! Ni'kwana has said this."

"Bah! I--"

The warrior lifted a spear toward Kapata. "Take the skin, but do not kill!" That much I understood although what followed I did not. There was a moment of fierce argument, but the others joined in against him. They had followed to get the crude map Ni'kwana had given me.

One of the Indians stepped over to where my pack lay. It had been there for the food and the chicory, and the map was in the pack. Quickly, he dumped it all out, picking up the map. He shook it at Kapata and made a move to go.

Grumbling, Kapata made as if to follow, but then he stopped. He looked at me and then kicked my leg. Agonizing pain shot through me but I did not wince. I merely stared.

"Coward!" I spoke in Cherokee. "If I were on my feet--"

"I would kill you!"

Deliberately, he stooped and picked the pieces of buffalo jerky from the ground, the few, carefully hoarded bits of food to keep me from starvation.

One of the others spoke. I could make out but little of what he said but something about my leg, and leaving me to die. Then in Cherokee he said, wishing me to understand. "Let him die. Ni'kwana said no kill, so leave him, and he will die."

They walked away without a backward glance and I was alone, and alive.

I had a broken leg, and my last food was gone.

What now, Jubal Sackett? What now?

Cool was the wind. I huddled against the log as against another human and tugged my blanket around me. My leg throbbed and the night wind stirred the leaves.

Chapter Ten.

When morning came there were no stars, only low clouds and a hint of rain. My leg felt heavy and when I struggled to sit up there was pain. I sat, half leaning against the fallen tree. My head throbbed with a dull, heavy aehe and my mouth was parched.

My carefully hoarded buffalo jerky was gone. Now I must hunt, no matter the risk. Today was not good for hunting, for most animals would be lying up. Knowing there would be rain, they would stay in their beds unless starving, and there was no chance of that now. The grass was green and there were spring flowers everywhere.

All about was beauty, but the dull gray of the clouds was in my brain also. I felt heavy and tired. I had slept badly.

Slowly, I tugged myself into a better position, ever careful of my leg. I forced myself to think, to consider. First, a fire, and some chicory. A hot cup might help.

The forest was silent. The stream rustled along, making no unfamiliar sound. Hunting today would be all but useless. True, I might startle a deer from its bed, but I could never get my crutch dropped and my bow in action in time for a kill.

After the chicory I would check the snares. One thing at a time, and I must fight despair. I must survive. After all, I was my father's son, and he had survived worse than this. Grasping a root, I pulled myself to sit on the fallen tree. Then for the first time I saw my crutch. It was broken.

Deliberately it had been placed against the log, and then stepped on and snapped. I stared at it and then looked carefully around. As always in the forest there was debris, fallen branches, slabs of bark hanging down from fallen trees, leaves and brush. I must make a new crutch, and I must make it now, or I could not move. First, a fire.

Carefully I took some shredded bark, a few broken twigs from the lower trunks of nearby trees, and some leaves from a dead branch and put together the makings of a small fire. With flint and steel I struck a spark, yet on this morning my hands were clumsy and I must have tried a dozen times before a spark landed in the leaves and shredded bark. It caught, smoked a little, and went out. Again I tried, and still again. Finally, when I was tiring from my efforts, a flame mounted and I added fuel.

Hitching myself along the tree I then rolled over and, dragging my injured leg, crawled to the stream, where I dipped up water. Inching along, I crawled back to my fire, rerigged the forked sticks and bar from which I had suspended my bark dish, and shaved chicory from the dried root into the dish.

When I had finished I was exhausted. My injury, the scarcity of food, and my exhausted condition had left me with little strength. Hitching myself into a sitting position against the fallen tree I rested, staring at my fire. From time to time I added sticks to the blaze.

The loss of the map, if such it could be called, was no great problem. From boyhood we had traveled after only a glance or two at a hastily drawn sketch in the earth or wet sand to indicate streams, paths, and mountains. Every detail of the map was in my mind and I knew where I must go and what I must do. If I got out of this.

The worst of it was that I would miss Keokotah. What would he do when I did not appear? Shrug, no doubt, and go on about his business. Traveling in wild country is never easy and many accidents can befall one. He knew that better than I.

Yet I had come to like him. We were still wary of one another, and I particularly, for the thinking of an Indian is not like that of a white man. We grow from different roots, different beliefs, and different customs. But he was a strong, courageous man and a good companion.

One is strongest when one is alone. Whenever there is a companion there is a certain reliance placed upon him, one's attention is shared, one leaves part of the alertness to him. This is a danger. Yet traveling alone is also ever dangerous, and even the most careful man can have an accident, as I had proved.

When the chicory was hot, I sipped it slowly. My stomach was hollow with hunger, but the hot drink helped, and I felt better. Adding fuel to keep some coals alive I used a tree limb to pull myself erect. First, a crutch.

Yet all the broken limbs I could see were twisted or rotted, and nothing on nearby trees was such as I needed. Using a shorter stick as a cane I hitched along to check my snares.

Nothing in the first, nor in the second. For a time then, I rested. I lay on my back on the grass staring up at the sky through the leaves. I must not get too far from shelter, for the sky looked more than ever as if there would be rain. Yet tired as I was it was not in me to lie still when there was so much to be done. I drank from the stream and then using whatever handholds I could reach on deadfalls and trees, I struggled erect. My leg was stiff because of the splints, and walking with a cane was almost impossible.

Again I studied the ground, the nearby trees, everywhere, to find a branch suitable for a crutch. Then I found one.

The branch was long and straight and still a living branch, for which I was grateful. Green wood is much easier to cut than that which is dead and seasoned. With my knife I cut a notch near the tree trunk and then cut it deeper, working to both sides. Then I broke off the branch and cut loose what remained. Then I found a bent branch that I cut from the tree to make the top of my crutch. Now I must return for the rawhide string I had used in tying the piece to the top of my former crutch.

It needed an hour for me to return the few hundred yards to my camp, and another few minutes to fashion my crutch. This was my third and by far the best. The first had been merely a branch found by chance, the second somewhat better. If I remained crippled longer I might become quite skillful. God save me!

Returning I found a bed of saxifrage lettuce, and picked as many leaves as I could find, chewing on some of them as I made my way to camp.

My coals were still warm and I nourished them back to life, ate some more of the leaves, and rested. I was exhausted and my leg hurt. The saxifrage, while it gave me something to chew and was said to be nourishing, did not satisfy.

Crawling into the cave, dragging my leg behind me, I recovered my bow and arrows, leaving the guns where they lay. If I could not stalk a deer, I could at least wait where one might come en route to water. The chance was slight, yet I must have meat and it was better than lying here where nothing would come.

Nearby was a meadow, and deer must cross it going to the stream. The grass was tall, yet there were places where it had been flattened by wind or rolling animals.

Using my new crutch I hobbled out to a large old tree and sat down to wait. I judged my distance carefully and sighted several times at openings from which deer might come. Then I settled down to wait.

The sun was still high and I dozed, waiting. I could expect no deer until after sundown, although there was always a possibility. At that time they would be feeding down toward water. They would drink, browse a little, and feed back to where they wished to bed down.

Once, lying still and resting, I thought I heard a faint whispering of leaves as of something moving among them, but when I sat up cautiously and looked around I saw nothing. Nonetheless, I was disturbed. I slipped off the thong that held my knife in place.

I was hungry. More than that, I was starving. I had eaten too little in the days before breaking my leg, and even less since.

Just before me was a faint game trail down which deer and possibly other animals had come to drink. It was upon this I placed my hope. Sitting up, I pulled myself back against the trunk of a good-sized tree, a position from which I could see anything emerging from the woods. I placed my quiver at hand and drew one arrow out for my bow. Another I placed close by in the event I missed or one was not good enough.

From the position I was in, using the longbow was difficult, but it was my only chance. I waited, dozing a little as the time was still early. Suddenly I was wide awake.

Something had moved near me!

Carefully, I looked all around. I saw nothing, heard nothing.

Something moved close by me. My eyes turned and looked directly into the yellow eyes of a giant cat.

A panther!

It was crouched, watching me. It was on my right, not thirty feet away, and there was no doubt as to its intentions. Had it been on my left loosing an arrow would have been easy, but I had to turn to my right, hitching my injured leg around, turning my whole body to face it. I wouldn't have a chance.

The cat's tail was slowly twitching. I saw the shoulder muscles bunch. I turned sharply, feeling a stab of anguish in my leg, and I loosed an arrow just as the panther leaped. Then I fell.

Turning sharply as I had I lost the support of the tree. I fell headlong to the ground, losing hold on my bow. Yet my fall was fortunate, for the panther overleaped. Spinning swiftly, it was at me with a snarl of fury.

As I fell I had drawn my knife and as the beast leaped at me I drove sharply up with the knife. It cut into the cat's soft belly to the hilt.

Claws tore at me, jaws reached for my head. I stabbed again and then again. I knew the claws were tearing me. The teeth ripped my scalp, I felt the cat's hot breath and I swung my left fist into its ribs.

The cat sprang away, gasping. I could see blood along a shoulder where my arrow had cut the skin. The cat was bleeding, but maddened by pain and bloodlust it wanted only to kill.

Desperately, I rolled over and as the cat leaped I rolled over again and came up sitting. The cat knocked me back to the ground, its teeth going for my throat. With my left hand I grabbed the loose skin of its neck and we fought, desperately, the cat to reach my throat, I to hold him back. At the same time I swung again with my knife.

The blade sank deep, and as it did so I turned my left fist which gripped the loose skin, turned it so my knuckles pressed hard against the cat's neck. A paw came up, clawing at my hand. It ripped the buckskin of my jacket, tore the flesh on my forearm, but to let go was to die. I stabbed again and again with the knife.

It was ripping with one hindleg, but the fierce claws were digging the earth, not me. There were only short, convulsive movements from the other hind foot.

I stabbed again, and it seemed the struggles grew weaker. Again and again--suddenly I threw the cat from me.

It lay there, bloody and exhausted, staring at me with all the insane fury such a beast contained. The grass and leaves were spattered with blood. Some of mine was mingled with it, but my knife had stabbed deep, again and again. The cat stared, tried to move, and then fell over. Once more it tried to come to itself and failed to rise. The wild eyes glared their hatred, and the beast died.

My one good leg was ripped and raw, with deep lacerations. My arm had been bitten, when I did not recall, but my forearms and shoulder had also been clawed. My scalp was also torn by teeth, and a string hung near my eye. Yet I was conscious and aware.

Whatever had been my troubles before, they were more than doubled now. The claws and fangs of a wild beast are poisoned from the fragments of decaying meat around them. I needed to get to the stream, cleanse myself, and try to patch up this poor creature I had become.

Taking my bow and quiver, I started to crawl, and then I stopped. I had come for meat, and I was leaving meat behind me. A Catawba whom we knew had once said that panther meat was best of all, and Yance, who had eaten it on one of his forays into the deep woods, agreed. So I peeled back the hide and cut a fair-sized chunk from the panther. Then, on my feet and with my crutch and bow, I hobbled back to my camp.

Falling on the ground I crawled to the stream and lay in its shallow waters near the edge, letting the cool water run slowly over me. And when I looked up, there were stars. My fingers dug into the mud of the stream and I plastered my wounds with it.

Weak from exhaustion and loss of blood I crawled from the stream applying more mud to my wounds. Somewhere I had been told mud was useful, but I did not remember why. I cared only that it was here and that somehow the bleeding must be stopped.

Crawling to my bed I pulled the blanket over me and lay shivering. Whether I simply lost consciousness or slept I do not know, but when I opened my eyes I fumbled some sticks into the fire before passing out again.

It was daylight when my eyes opened. A few tendrils of smoke lifted from my coals and I coaxed them to flame once more, dipped water into the bark dish, and suspended it above the fire. I cut a piece of the meat and dropped it in with some other things gathered when crawling about.

After a long time I opened my eyes and the water had boiled down leaving a kind of mush of my stew. With my wooden spoon I managed a few mouthfuls before passing out again.

There was a long while then when I fought wild battles with gigantic cats, when buffalo stampeded over me and Kapata returned with his spear. It was delirium, and I knew it, and from time to time I crawled to the stream and drank. Once I made chicory coffee and then passed out still again.

Once I chewed on raw meat, and finally I slept, a deep, long sleep almost like the sleep of death.

In it I felt gentle hands--my wounds were being treated and I was home again.

Consciousness returned and my eyes opened. I was clearly awake and there was no delirium. I turned my head. An Indian sat by the fire, eating.

It was Keokotah.