“She think you weak,” Keokotah said, smirking a little, “I tell her you strong. Tell her you kill big animal.”
“She can think what she likes,” I replied irritably. “It does not matter to me.”
Yet I was angry with myself that I could do no more, for winter was coming on and we were ill prepared for the cold. We had found good shelter in the caves, and we had brought much wood close by, not touching that already close but bringing wood from afar, where it would be hard to go when winter brought snow and ice.
Keokotah and two of the younger braves from the Natchee ventured down into the plains where they killed several buffalo and bought home the meat and the hides.
At dusk on the day after the return of Keokotah I killed a large bear, killed him with three arrows and skinned him out, saving much fat meat.
Keokotah went again to the plains but returned only with an antelope.
“No good,” he said. “I look. Many tracks where we kill buffalo. I think Kapata find. Now he look close by.”
I did not often swear but I did then, softly and to myself. I had hoped they would not find us and would go back down the river to avoid the winter. Now we would urge them to stay on and to find us.
My leg worried me. One month, I had thought when first injured, but now the summer had gone and it was still not what it should be. Was I to be permanently crippled? I could not accept that, although I had known brave men who had been and who had achieved greatly and lived well despite it. Many hurt worse than I had gone on to lead active lives. Yet I was alone.
Keokotah was my friend but I could not impose a burden upon him, and I had no family closer than a thousand miles.
Deliberately I began going further afield. I pushed myself to hunt, to extend my movements. When I tired, I rested, but I continued to hunt, to bring wood, and to collect seeds. And then I set myself another task, to check for tracks.
Of course, along the game trail following the stream was the likely route by which an enemy might come, yet they might also come over the mountains. I tried to leave nothing to chance, but to be aware of tracks wherever I was.
Although her women dressed skins and gathered what seeds and herbs could still be found, I saw nothing of Itchakomi.
Not that I was looking. I had no business with her and no doubt she was about business of her own. Yet she was nowhere in sight, and I wondered. When Keokotah was about I never looked toward her cave. We had our own cave, our own fire. It was sufficient.
And then the snow fell.
There was a night when the skins with which we covered ourselves were not enough, there was a morning when I walked out into the crisp, cold air to find the hills about the valley white with freshly fallen snow.
That was the morning we knew winter had come. That was the morning I knew Itchakomi would not be going away downriver. It was already too late.
Icy winds would be blowing down from the north, and other Indians would be sitting warm in their lodges. Soon the rivers would freeze and no canoe would be able to travel upon them. Itchakomi had been foolish to wait so long, yet I would say nothing of that. I felt better that she … they … were staying. After all, I’d not like to think of them freezing out on those ghastly plains—ghastly in the winter, at least.
On the second morning Keokotah returned from a hunt begun before the snow, and he brought with him a prisoner, an Indian girl, an Apache.
SEVENTEEN
The girl was young and quite pretty. Furthermore, she did not seem at all put out by her capture.
“Where’d you find her?”
“She hides.”
“From you?”
“No from me. She does not see me. She is Acho Apache, and she is taken from her village in a raid. She makes runaway and hides. I see her. I tell her ‘come!’ She is here.”
“I see she is.” She drew nearer to him. “Does she wish to return to her people?”
Even as I spoke I could see how foolish the idea was. If ever I had seen anyone who was pleased to be right where she was it was this Indian girl. “She is your problem, Keokotah,” I said. “Just so she doesn’t run off and bring them back on us.”
“She no run,” he said, and I believed him.
Limping, I walked outside. The air was cool off the snow-covered mountains. We had a few more days before the snow fell here, or so I hoped. Still, we were as ready as we were likely to be. We had buffalo robes, we had meat, and we had shelter. At the edge of the brush near the creek, something stirred. My eyes held, waiting.
It moved again. It was a buffalo calf.
I spoke to Keokotah. “The calf. Tell them not to kill it.”
“They know. I speak strong to them.”
Several times when I was close to the calf I spoke to it. Once I reached out to touch it, but it moved away, though not too swiftly, and I felt the poor creature was lonely. I talked to it, and sometimes when I went down by the stream it walked along not too far away, keeping pace with me. One day when Keokotah’s Acho woman made fry bread I offered a piece to the buffalo calf. It smelled and then tugged it from my hand and ate it. Gradually, we became friends.
The snow came in the night, softly, silently, very white, very thick, and soon very deep. The Natchee stayed by their fires, as did we. However, later in the day I went out and after much persuading and tugging, got the calf into the cave. He would not stay, but ran outside and into the snow.
“He like snow,” Keokotah said. “Animal like snow.”
“Tell them not to hunt near the opening of the valley,” I suggested to Keokotah. “There will be no tracks to see.”
The days went by slowly, and when I could I talked to the Natchee or to Keokotah and his woman.
Her people hunted southeast from us, she told us. As to where they had come from she did not know, only that it had been a very good place. It was “over there” and now she was “here.” It did not seem to matter, for they had always been somewhere. Her grandfather had lived far from here, and his father still farther.
When I could I led her to talk, and when she understood that Keokotah approved she talked willingly enough. Gradually her story became the story of many small migrating tribes, moving from place to place over the years. Often they remained for many years in one general area, and then, pushed out by others or because of drouth or the scarcity of wildlife, they moved on. Their warriors went off on raids or were raided.
I saw little of Itchakomi. She held herself aloof, although once or twice I caught her looking our way. My message had been delivered and my responsibility had ended. Yet she had spoken with Keokotah and with his Acho woman.
In all this time we saw nothing of Kapata or of the Conejeros. Faithfully, we all stayed away from the opening into the valley so as to leave no visible indication of our presence. We kept our fires to a minimum and tried not to burn them when the wind would take the smoke down through the opening along the creek. Nevertheless, I knew it was merely a matter of time.
Despite the early snow the aspen trees were a river of gold flowing along the mountain and spilling down its sides. I stood by the creek one day simply soaking up the rare beauty of the late autumn, when suddenly Itchakomi was nearby.
On this day she wore white buckskins, beaded and worked with porcupine quills. She was, without doubt, a woman of rare beauty.
Standing there with a background of the golden leaves of the aspen she was something no one could look at and remain unmoved.
“You are beautiful!” I said, the words bursting from me, without warning.
She turned her head and gave me a cool, direct look. “What is it ‘beautiful’?” she asked.
The question put me at a loss for words. How to explain beauty? “The aspen are beautiful,” I said. “The sunrise is beautiful.”
“You think me like the aspen?”
“Yes.” How did I get into this? “You are slender and lovely to look at.”