Keokotah spoke again, some word which they understood but I did not. We walked down to their camp, and soon he was talking to them. From time to time they looked at me, and I could see he was explaining me. How, I had no idea. It developed that only one of them had ever seen a white man before. The Pawnees were a strong tribe, only moving into the area now, and where they originated I did not know. What was important was that they had seen Itchakomi.
They had also seen Kapata, but had remained hidden among the trees atop a long ridge as the Natchee and the Tensa went along the valley bottom a half mile away.
Much talk went on of which I understood nothing until Keokotah translated for me. Apparently they were fleeing back to their own people. The Conejeros—a branch of a people called Apache, of which there were many tribes—were on the warpath.
The Conejeros were destroying any other Indians they came upon, and had even killed some of the Spanishmen who had gotten too far from home. They were fierce and desperate fighting men who seemed to have conquered all between the river we followed and another great river to the south.
“What of Itchakomi?” I asked.
“They are near the mountains, but the Pawnees believe they will be killed.”
“What of the Tensa?”
“They believe the Tensa are friendly to the Conejeros, but they do not know.”
We talked long, and Keokotah at my prodding asked many questions about the country, the rivers, the mountains, and the game.
There were many buffalo and great herds of antelope, too. There were several kinds of deer, including a large kind that must be the wapiti or elk. There were not many Indians apart from a few small tribes of Apaches, some of whom planted cornfields along the rivers when the season was right.
When we left them to move on, the rains had ceased, although it was still muddy along the hillsides and the river still ran with a strong current in a wide bed. More clouds hovered in the west. Soon, the Pawnees told us, we would see the mountains.
The growth along the riverbanks was less dense now, and the country away from the river was prairie country, covered with buffalo. We moved cautiously, knowing our danger and wanting no trouble.
Overhead the sky was a vast blue dome, dotted with drifting clouds. Around was a sea of grass with only occasional groves of trees along the ridges. We saw no Indians, found no tracks. Several times we sighted black bears, and once a bobcat that leaped away at our approach and then returned to where it had been feeding on a recently killed rabbit.
Twice we came upon the tracks of a gigantic bear, the tracks dwarfing those of the black bears we often saw.
When we first saw the mountains they appeared as a low blue cloud on the western horizon, and when they became clearer I thought of my father and his love of those far, blue mountains he had wished to explore. Well, he had seen them and he had gone beyond them, but what would he have thought of these?
Suddenly, Indians were there. On the open plain not more than one hundred yards off! Keokotah and I crouched in the willows from which we had been about to emerge. My heart was beating heavily, for there were at least twenty warriors in the group yonder, obviously a war party.
They had not seen us and they were following a route that took them away from us.
“Conejeros!” Keokotah whispered.
The group paused at the stream, some of them dropping down for a drink. One mounted a low hill to look around. Had we been a few steps further along we should have been seen.
That night we lighted no fire and made our beds in a thick stand of aspen. We had advanced what I believed to be about eight miles that day, leaving our tracks to mingle with the tracks of the war party ahead of us in the event anyone was following.
We had moved with great care, always studying the land before and around us before crossing any open space. The river, its waters no longer depleted by evaporation or the thirsty sand, ran with a strong current.
Where was Itchakomi now? Had Kapata found her yet? If so, we might be too late. The thought worried me and I could not sleep. I slipped out of camp and climbed a small bluff nearby. In the distance I could see the faint glow of a campfire, probably reflecting off a clay bluff. It could have been a mile off, or even further. In such clear air distances deceived.
A long time I sat in silence upon the bluff, drinking in the beauty of the night and the stars. We had traveled far in an almost empty land and now the mountains lay before us, far greater mountains than any I had seen, and the most distant seemed covered with snow. The thought brought back the need for buffalo robes and warmer clothing. Autumn would bring cold winds and more rain and we were ill-fitted for it.
We crossed the river at a rocky ford, wading waist deep in the water. Finding no fresh tracks, we started off at a swinging trot, keeping to low ground and what cover we could find. As the war party was moving slowly we felt sure we had passed them by. Although the season was late we walked through many wildflowers, most of them of varying shades of yellow.
We were in camp among some cottonwoods when Keokotah spoke suddenly. “The Englishman, he say he live in big city,” Keokotah swept a wide gesture, “many big house. Some Kickapoo think he lie. Did he speak false?”
“He spoke the truth. I have not seen it but my father had been there, and some of the other men who lived with us. They had seen it, and one at least was from there. It is called London.”
“Yes … London. It is true then, the things he said?”
“That much was true. I believe all he said was true.”
Keokotah was pleased. “I think he speak true. I think so.”
He was silent for a time and then after a while he said, “After they say he lie he talk only to me of wonders. Not to them.”
“I can understand why.” Pausing, I then went on, trying to choose my words. “There are many nations. Kickapoos do not think like Natchees. But Kickapoos live much as do other Indians. It is so in Europe. The tongues they speak are often different, but the way they live is much the same.”
“They hunt?”
“Only for sport. Because they wish to hunt.”
“No hunt for meat?”
“There is not enough game to feed them. Many villages. Many big, big villages. No place for game. They plant corn. They raise cattle, sheep.”
“Cattle?”
“Some men own many cows. Like buffalo. They keep them in big corrals and when they want meat, they kill one.”
He considered that. “No hunt buffalo?”
“We have no buffalo. Cows.”
“Ah? I see him, Spanishmans have cows. He talk ‘city’? City is big village?”
Slowly, taking my time, I explained what was meant by a city and described the many occupations of the people who lived there, trying to keep to those occupations he would understand the best.
“Clothing is made by tailors, and there are men who make weapons—knives, guns, and armor. There are houses in which strangers can sleep, and places where they can go to eat.”
This he had been told before, but his was a curious, interested mind. Uninformed he might be, unintelligent he was not, and I could see why the Englishman had been drawn to him. Undoubtedly the man had been lonely and he had taken on the teaching of the young Indian, opening his mind to possibilities Keokotah could not have imagined.
The mountains loomed before us, and now the river was running with a strong, powerful stream, sixty or seventy yards wide. Rains had been falling in the upper mountains and there was more snow upon the peaks. We saw fewer and fewer buffalo but we pushed on. Now I was searching for tracks, for some indication of Itchakomi’s direction.
We had seen occasional indications in the past, a place where they had camped long since, a place where they had crossed a stream. I had come to know her footprints, partly from their small size and delicate shape, unusual for an Indian woman, for most of them were accustomed to carrying heavy burdens.
I wished to find her, discharge my mission, such as it was, and go on about my business. If business it could be called, for I wished to wander, to explore, to learn, to see. And with winter coming on we must find shelter and kill some buffalo or gather other skins for warm clothing. I had no time to waste.