Kapata … he was another story. I had never wanted to kill a man. But Kapata? I might make an exception.
If we had not wanted a buffalo so desperately it might not have happened, but the buffalo was there, a big one with a fine robe. And three others trailing behind him.
They had our attention and I drew my longbow and let fly an arrow. We were directly in front of the bull and he had not seen us. His left foreleg was back at the end of its stride, just before he lifted it to bring it forward, and my shaft must have gone right to the heart.
He seemed to stagger and then stopped, evidently puzzled. Keokotah let fly with an arrow of his own at the cow that was behind the bull, and then two more before one could think. The cow staggered and fell. The bull shook his head and blood ran from his nostrils. He started forward but then slowly toppled.
From behind me there was a savage yell and they were upon us. Conejeros. Five of them. My second arrow was ready so I turned and let go. A big warrior took it right through the throat in midstride.
Then the others were upon us, with knives and spears. A sweaty body hurtled at me, my bow fell, my knife came up, and then there was blood all over my hand and I was withdrawing the knife.
FIFTEEN
Low and gray were the clouds above us, the earth damp from a shower that had passed. Fresh was the air with a hint of more rain to come, and I stood with a bared and bloody knife above the body of a man whom I had killed.
The attack had been sudden, unexpected, and must have seemed a certain victory for the attackers. Our attention had been upon the buffalo whose robes and flesh we needed, our only warning the grate of gravel under the moccasin of a leaping Indian, and then the yell. But the warning had been enough. Keokotah had turned like a cat, swift and sure, and another warrior had gone down before him.
The two remaining had disappeared, dropping off into an arroyo. Keokotah glanced at me. I thrust my knife into the earth to clean the blade and went over to the buffalo bull.
“They will come back,” Keokotah said.
“So let them come. We need the robes.”
To skin a buffalo bull weighing over a thousand pounds, and I suspected this one weighed half again that much, is not an easy thing nor one quickly done. We knew we should be off and away, but winter would soon be upon us. We worked swiftly, while keeping a sharp lookout.
Three warriors had died, and the Conejeros were fierce fighting men who would not permit them to lie unavenged.
We skinned out the bull and then the cow. We took only the tongue from the bull but from the cow we took the best cuts of meat. We shouldered our burdens and started away, but such hides are heavy and our movements were slow. We turned away from the river, heading southwest toward the mountains. It was rolling, sometimes rough country cut by a number of small creeks, some dry, some running with small streams. The bull’s hide, which I carried, was a very heavy as well as awkward burden.
Several times we paused to look back. Pursuit depended on how far the Conejeros must go to reach their camp and on whether warriors were there. The mountains toward which we were headed were hours away. The place where the river ran out from its canyon was away to the north.
Shouldering our loads we started on. The robes would be lighter in weight when they had been scraped and cleaned, but there was no time for that now.
The nearest mountain was a sort of hogback, and to the north of it were several scraggy peaks. We held our course to reach the mountains between the two. When we had gone what I believed was about five miles we found ourselves following a rocky creek. We drank and then studied the terrain.
How far had the Conejeros to go for help? By now, without burdens, they should have reached their camp.
“They might have horses,” I suggested.
He stared at me. “Horses?”
‘They could steal from the Spanish.” I waved a hand off to the south. “There are Spanish down thataway.”
We had heard stories of them from the Indians. Keokotah would have heard them as well. Even before this I had been to the Great River and touched upon the plains beyond. The Cherokees told stories of Spanishmen beyond the Far Seeing Lands.
“If they have horses they could be here soon,” I said. As I spoke I was thinking of how much better it would be if we had even one horse to carry the hides. I was unusually strong, but a buffalo hide was no small weight.
When we camped it was in a small cove against an overhanging cliff where an ancient river had cut away the rock into a shallow cave. Keokotah went out to cover as much as he could of our trail while I broiled meat over a small fire.
We ate, slept an hour or so, and then when the moon arose we moved out, heading toward the mountains again. By daybreak they were looming before us, though still some distance off. Keokotah moved on before me.
We plodded on, resting often, studying the terrain at every pause. Still, the Conejeros did not come. “Maybe farther than we think,” Keokotah suggested. “He may go far, far out!”
It was true, of course. I had assumed their camp was not far off, but the party that had attacked us might be a war or hunting party a long distance from their camp.
We saw antelope but no buffalo. Several times we saw wolves, attracted by the still-bloody hides we carried. By the time the sun was high we had fallen upon a dim game trail that seemed to come from the mountains before us. We held to the trail.
We found our way to a small elevation, a level place with a hollow behind it where we could build a small fire of dry sticks that would give off no smoke. On the flat ground we staked out our hides and began the tedious task of scraping them clean of excess flesh. The place where we worked was backed by a brush-covered cliff, so we could not easily be seen.
Our view took in a wide sweep of country, a country seen by few white men and not by many Indians except for the few who lived in the area. There were Indians in the mountains, we had heard, but whether they were real or imagined we did not know.
“Apache!” Keokotah commented. “Many tribe! All bad!”
“All?”
He shrugged. His people were The People, and all others were mere interlopers. Some he tolerated, but for most he had no use at all. Pa had been a tolerant man and we boys had grown up feeling the same. We accepted all people as they were and trusted nobody until they had proved themselves trustworthy.
We worked hard at scraping the skins and then took some time to broil buffalo steaks and eat, while watching the plains before us. We knew what to look for. Movement is easily seen, but Indians would keep under cover until close, so we studied the places that offered cover. Many times we looked straight out over the plains, letting the corners of our eyes look for any movement.
And movement there was. A wolf, a coyote, and once a great, lumbering bear. It was at least a half mile off but we knew what it was by its movement.
We saw no Indians.
Keokotah slept then while I worked at the hides. Facing toward the plain, I could work and keep an eye on all that lay before me, careful not to let my movements fall into a pattern. Often one looks up at certain intervals, and an enemy approaching can time those intervals and remain still.
Now to find Itchakomi—somewhere out there, or perhaps even in the mountains themselves. I had given my word to Ni’kwana, and I would be faithful to the promise.
Once I had found her and made sure she was warned of Kapata and told of the illness of the Great Sun, we could be on about our business.
Off to the south there were twin peaks that towered into the sky, and to the north there were others. This was where the great Far Seeing Lands ended against the wall of the mountains. From here all streams ran to the Mississippi.
Sometimes I ceased from scraping and working on the hides and took time just to look out over the vast plains. My thoughts went back to Shooting Creek. Did it survive still? For surely the Seneca would come again, or the Tuscarora. Would our small island stand against them without Pa? And what of Brian and Noelle? They were across the sea now in England, he studying for the law and she growing wise in the ways of the city and of the people there. Ways I would never know, and a city I would never see.