When I awakened I was cold, colder than I had ever been before. Crawling from my blanket and buffalo robes I stirred the fire and added fuel, peering from the cave mouth. Nothing moved in a white world. The sky was a dull flat gray and when I looked at the stream it was a shining path of ice.
No one stirred in the cave of Itchakomi. I walked to the opening, the snow crunching under my feet, and stepping inside I stirred their fire also and brought life from the ash-buried coals. When a good blaze was taking the chill from their cave I tiptoed out and went back to my own. Beside the fire I shivered, my face burning, my back chilled. Yet slowly the cave warmed, and I got out my deerskin and began again on the map. My fingers were cold and it was hard to work, but now I was gripped by my task. Yet as I worked, I was bothered by doubts.
What would my revelations mean to her? Would she believe? I knew most Indians doubted the stories told by Europeans, and so might she.
Suppose she did believe? What would it do to her world? Her beliefs? Her personal assurance?
She was a Sun, which among her people meant she was most important. She could walk with pride among her people and the neighboring tribes, respected and looked up to. What would happen when she realized her people were unknown in the wider world and her beliefs unaccepted? I hesitated over my map and put it aside. I added fuel to the fire and stared into the flames.
It might be well to forget my map, to let her live out her days believing what she now did. But would that happen? The French, Spanish, English, and Dutch all claimed land. They would be moving in to settle, and there was no way to prevent that. Better to prepare her for what was to come. She seemed a very intelligent girl, or was I reading something into her because I wished to find it?
That stopped me. Why should I wish it? She meant nothing to me. When the weather broke we would be moving on. Further west for me, and back to her homeland for her.
Still, if she had the map and realized what had happened in other lands she might be better prepared for what would happen here.
I went to the cave’s opening and looked out upon the white, empty land before me. Even the trees were lost under the heavy fall of snow. Everything before me was frozen in the icy grip of winter.
We had fuel, and knew where more could be had, and we had meat. We could last out this cold and longer. Then we must hunt again. It would be impossible to escape eastward across the plains. Yet we would have little to fear from the Conejeros now. They would be holed up in their lodges, as any sane Indian would be. Of Kapata I was not so sure.
He was a vengeful man, and he was also a man in a hurry. I did not believe the snow would stop him, or the cold. It might rob his followers of some ambition, but not Kapata himself.
As I stood at the cave’s mouth, half shielded by brush and trees, which both provided concealment and helped conserve our heat, I thought of Kapata and tried to decide what his next move might be.
Our tracks had vanished beneath the snow, yet his was a shrewd mind, and he would try to decide where we had gone. Our need for shelter was the same as that of others, and a first consideration was the wind. We must have shelter from the wind. A cliffside then, or a thick grove. We could have built a shelter or found a cave. If a cave, then the mountains would be the logical place.
My thinking left me uneasy. Surely, the possible hiding places along the creeks and rivers would be few and easily found. Kapata would know of the Conejeros, and if he had not allied himself with them he would know where they had been, so one by one the possibilities would be eliminated.
It was cold out there now … cold!
Kapata would be seated in a shelter now, fuming at the delay, impatient to be out and doing. At any time the cold could break, and then he would come seeking.
Itchakomi’s fighting men were few and not so fierce as those they must meet, for the Natchee by shrewd diplomacy had avoided wars and fighting more than most. The Conejeros were not interested in peacemaking.
Nothing moved out there. The snow stretched away white and endless. I looked again and then returned to my map-making.
Keokotah slept. Few Indians moved about in the cold, knowing too well the dangers and how easily a man might die if injured. It was the Indian way, the sensible way, to lie by the fire. It was storytelling time for them.
I added fuel to the fire.
Before the day was out I would have to bring more fuel into the cave, for the flames were hungry and the dry wood burned swiftly. After a while I put down my map and broke off a piece of frozen jerky, which snapped like wood. Tucking the piece into my mouth I went again to the cave mouth.
Nothing stirred.
Going to a fallen tree I broke some of the larger branches and carried them back inside. Working steadily, I had in a few minutes gathered wood for the day and most of the night.
With a last armful of wood I was turning back to the cave when a movement caught my eye. I stopped dead still, and then slowly turned my head.
Out there, in the snow, and yet far away, something moved! Something, a man or an animal, moving toward us.
Fascinated, unbelieving, I stood, watching.
How far away? A mile? Oh, more than that! Perhaps two miles?
What was it? Who was it?
I waited, watching.
NINETEEN
Keokotah was beside me. “He hurt,” he said. “No walk good.” We watched the distant figure struggling through the snow, and my feelings were not Christian. Whoever it was down there could bring us nothing but grief. Whatever else he was doing he was marking a trail right to our door at a time when we could not afford to attract attention.
He seemed to be alone, which probably meant that he was fleeing from something—perhaps he had been a prisoner of Indians and was escaping.
“He know about caves,” Keokotah said.
It was the only explanation. We had deliberately not moved about, so he could not know of our presence. The only reason he could have for coming this way was that he knew about the caves and was seeking shelter from the cold. He was still a long way off and was having a hard time of it. We looked beyond him but saw no pursuit in sight.
The man paused then and looked back. Was he followed? Or merely afraid of being followed? In this snow, following his tracks would offer no problem. All our efforts to remain hidden were being wasted.
Now he was coming toward us again. The snow was deeper out there than we had believed. Once he stopped and shaded his eyes toward the cliff where the caves were. He looked right where we stood, but we knew he could not see us, for we stood among trees and brush.
Drawing back a bit further against the cliff, where there was a depression caused by runoff water, I went to the next cave. The Natchee Unstwita was on guard there. He spoke neither English nor Creek, so I made signs to indicate a man was coming. He went at once to look, and then vanished within the cave, where I heard a low mutter of voices.
Itchakomi came to the mouth of the cave, stooping to emerge. She went to look, and then turned to me. “He is a white man.”
A white man? Startled, I looked again. Yes, it could be. But a white man? Here?
Well, I was here. And there were French far to the north and Spanishmen to the south. I drew my blanket about me to conceal my guns.
“Let them stay inside,” I suggested. “Only Unstwita and Keokotah.”
She agreed, and studied the man again. “Keokotah says he is hurt,” I commented.
“It is so.”
He must have been desperate indeed. An injured man has small chance of survival in intense cold, and the day had grown no warmer. I looked back the way he had come. There was no pursuit. Had he escaped scot-free then? Or were they taking their time, knowing he could not go far in this weather?
We waited, watching him flounder through the snow. He was quite close when he stopped suddenly, crouched as if to turn, and glanced wildly about. He had seen where we had been gathering fuel and some fragments of bark atop the snow.