She looked at me again. “You are courting me?”
The question stopped me cold. I gulped, hesitated, and then said, “Well, not exactly, I—”
“It does not matter!” she spoke sharply. “I am a Sun. You are nothing, a stranger.”
“To you I am nothing. To me I am something.”
She shrugged, but she did not walk away. “What will happen if you are not there and the Great Sun dies?” I asked.
For several minutes she did not speak, but I had an idea the question had been worrying her, also. “There will be another to take his place until I return.”
“A woman can rule?”
“It has been so.”
“Often?”
“No … once, I believe.”
“The plains are wide and very cold. There are terrible storms of wind and snow, or I would take you back—”
“I do not need to be taken. When I wish to go, I shall go.” She gestured. “This is a good place.”
A soft wind stirred the aspens into shimmering golden beauty. A few leaves fell, dropping like a shower of golden coins onto the snow. The red leaves of the scrub oak clung stubbornly, not to be worried by any such gentle wind. The stream rustled along its banks, a thin coating of ice near its edges slowly dissolving into water again.
“Did you find the place you sought?”
She hesitated. “I did not. I found where the river comes from the mountains. It is a good place.” She looked around. “This also is a good place.” She glanced at me. “It is yours?”
“We found it, Keokotah and I. It is yours if you wish it.”
“If it be not yours you cannot give it.” Her chin lifted. “The earth belongs to the Great Sun. He lives where he wishes.”
“It is a good place where you live,” I said, “a pity to leave it.”
She shrugged. “We shall not. I came to find a new place because the Great Sun wished it. I do not believe there is danger.”
“You were visited by a trader?”
“No trader. A boat with men came. They stopped with us. They traded some things. They went away.” She shrugged. “It was nothing.”
We were silent for a few minutes and then I said. “There will be change. White men are coming, and they will not come only to pass on. Some will stay. They will not believe in the Great Sun. Their way of life will be different. Some of your people may wish to trade. Some of them may change.”
“They will not. Our way is the best way. Our people know it.”
Reluctantly I said, “There are Englishmen in what we call Virginia, and in Carolina. There are Spanishmen in Florida. The people who live near them are changing. They often make war on the English or Spanish and often it is because they want things they cannot trade for.
“The tribes who live near the white man are coming to desire the white man’s things. They sometimes do not wish to live in the old way.”
“The Natchee will not change.”
For a long moment I hesitated and then I said, “I fear there will be no future for those who do not change. When there are no new ideas things can remain the same, but strangers are coming with different ways—”
“There are strangers in our villages. There has been no change.”
“I noticed one of your men with a steel knife, a white man’s knife. That is change. I saw one of your women sewing with a steel needle. That is change. Do not others want such knives and needles?”
“We do not need them.”
“Need and desire have no connection,” I said. “Many people desire things they do not need. Happiness can be measured by what one does not need, but often to see is to want.
“For many years,” I spoke quietly, “all was the same in the villages of the tribes. There were no new ideas. You knew all that lay about you. The weapons your warriors had were the same as those of other tribes. Now some tribes will have guns, and all will change. In the north the Dutch and the English have traded guns to the Iroquois, and the Iroquois—”
“I do not know Iroquois.”
“It is said that several tribes have come together to fight as one. The Seneca are one such tribe. Now they have begun destroying the tribes that live near them.
“And what of the Creeks? Your neighbors? Some of them have guns. It is whispered they are no longer friendly.”
She was silent, and I knew she was thinking of what I had said. She did not like it, but she was thinking about it. Leaves fell again from the aspen, and some fell into her hair, making there a small diadem of gold. I looked away.
This was no time for me to be thinking of a woman’s beauty. I had mountains to cross.
“You live on a great river,” I said, “and men have always sought the great rivers because they lead to the sea, and to trade with other peoples. They will come to your river, too, and they will come in greater numbers than all your people, and they will come with their weapons and their desires.
“They will know nothing of the Great Sun, nor will most of them care. They will have their own beliefs and their own rulers, and you will have to defend your land, by talk if possible, by war if necessary.”
After a moment she said, “I cannot believe what you speak. The man you call De Soto and his Men of Fire came, and they are gone, and nothing happened. The Great Sun said they would go and be forgotten, and they were.
“Whispers have come to us of other Men of Fire wearing iron shirts who came into the Far Seeing Lands, and they, too, are gone.”
“Others will come who will not go away. At first they will look for gold or pearls but then they will want land. Your people must be prepared for this.”
She shook her head. “Nothing will change. Nothing ever has.”
Well, what could I say? She spoke from her experience and the remembered experience of her oldest men. Year followed year, season followed season, and day followed day, and the rites of the seasons were performed and all remained the same.
There had to be a way to reach her, yet … “Itchakomi, your people have not lived here forever. Have you not found old graves, old stone tools, different kinds of arrowheads?”
“So?”
“Those who passed on before you did not expect change, either, but change came. Does the leaf on the tree know winter is coming? Does the leaf know it will fall and crumble away among other leaves? If your people would survive they must be prepared.
“You are here because some among your wise men believed a new home must be found, but a new home is not the answer, for when they come they will leave no place untouched.
“See? I am here. Why? Because I wanted to see, to know, to understand. I wanted to go beyond the Great River. I wanted to go beyond the plains. I want even to go beyond these mountains where we now are. I think I am in this world to find beauty in lonely places. At least, that is what I wish to think.
“My father was the same. Why did he leave his home in the fens? Why did he cross the sea to this far land? Why, when he had a home at Shooting Creek, did he wish to go beyond the far blue mountains? I do not know, but I think it is something buried within us, something that makes us long for the far places.
“Nor do I believe it will stop here. When men have gone down the longest rivers, climbed the highest mountains, and crossed the greatest deserts there will still be the stars.”
“The stars?”
“Sakim, my old teacher, told me that some wise men in India and China believed the stars were suns like ours and that somewhere out there were other worlds. Who knows if this is true or not? But do you think men will be content to wonder? Someday they will find a way to the stars and an answer to their questions.”
She looked at me with wonderment. “You talk strangely. Why are you not content with this?”
“It is man’s nature, Itchakomi, to wonder, and thank all the gods for it. It is through wonder that we come to know.” I was silent for a moment, thinking how long their world must have remained undisturbed, their people slowly becoming content with what they had and what was near. With us in Europe it was otherwise. Our rivers and our many harbors had let strangers come with strange ideas, and our people had changed. There had been migrations from other parts of Europe and Asia, each bringing new customs, new ways. It had brought war and trouble, but it had brought change also.