Again I looked across the snow, but my mind was puzzling over the Spanishman. I could not make him out. Well, he wished to be on his way, and the sooner the better.
When I went back inside he was sleeping. He was a powerfully built man and seemed quick in his movements despite the cold that must have stiffened his muscles. He would be a dangerous antagonist.
Keokotah glanced at me but said nothing. I knew he did not like or trust the Spanishman and would be alert for mischief.
Let the Spanishman rest and eat and be off. He would have caused us trouble enough.
He thought only of his destination and what he would do there and had given no thought to hiding his trail, even had he been capable of it.
Outside I looked toward the mountains, white with snow under the cold gray sky. A low wind stirred the snow, sending faint waves of it dusting across, settling, and then stirring again. It was bitterly cold still. I carried wood into the cave, then more wood.
How lonely those icy ridges! Yet what treasures might lie there? Gold and silver, yes. Beauty intrigued me more, beauty and the glorious wonder of walking where none had walked before me. What else might await discovery? Strange plants and animals, unknown hollows in the hills, green and lovely in the summer. I could not wait to be wandering along their flanks, following nameless streams into nameless valleys. What more could man want than this? A land to discover, food for the hunting, a quiet place to rest when night falls.
When I came back into the cave the Spanishman was sitting up.
“We must talk together, you and I,” he said. “We are men of the world, and we can settle this small matter between us.”
“What have you in mind?”
He smiled, that quick, assured smile. “I want to buy the woman,” he said. “The tall one.”
For a moment I was stunned. “You want to buy her?”
“Why not? She is an Indian, is she not? There are many women for you, and she can be useful to me for trading purposes. With her I could buy—”
“I do not traffic in women,” I said, “nor is she mine to sell. She is her own woman.”
“Bah!” He waved a careless hand. “No woman is her own, least of all an Indian woman. If you will not sell her or trade, I shall simply take her.”
TWENTY
The man’s audacity amazed me. For a moment I just looked at him. “Tomorrow,” I said, “you will be fit to travel. I would suggest you do just that.”
“Of course,” he said.
“You will leave here at daybreak and you will leave alone.”
He smiled, showing a fine set of white, even teeth. “And if I do not choose to?”
“Bodies do not lie long upon the ground. The coyotes dispose of them.”
His eyes were mocking but suddenly wary. He measured me carefully. Then his eyes shifted to Keokotah.
“Do not think of him. It is I who would kill you. Itchakomi is one of our party. I am the head of that party. If she needs protection, I shall protect her.”
“You said she was not your woman?”
“She is not, yet she is under my protection.”
We had not heard her enter. How long she had been standing there I did not know. We saw her at the same moment standing tall and still inside the cave mouth. A slight movement of air stirred her skirt.
“She who is not your woman thanks you, but I shall need no protection.” As she spoke the Spanishman sat up, his eyes on hers.
For the first time he realized the kind of woman she was, and certainly no queen upon a throne could have been more cool and imperious.
“My name is Gomez,” he said. “You would be wise to remember it.”
“Kitch!” She used the word contemptuously, and although he knew not its meaning he recognized the tone, and his face flushed.
Ignoring him, she spoke to me. “We talk, you and me. We talk soon, yes?”
“Of course.”
She left the cave and he stared after her, his anger showing. “What does it mean, ‘kitch’?” he asked.
“It is a Natchee word for dung,” I said cheerfully. “In this case it was an expression of opinion, I believe.”
His face flushed with anger. “I’ll show that—!”
Keokotah spoke suddenly. “You think fool! She brave! She strong! She have strong medicine! You nothing to her.”
Gomez swore. He got to his feet, staggering a little. I watched him, noting that he favored his side. He started to speak again but I interrupted.
“You are a guest here. Tomorrow you go. We will give you meat. Your settlements are to the south. Whatever you are, have been, or wish to be I do not know or care. You are conducting yourself as no gentleman would, and if you raise your voice or speak against anyone here, you will leave tonight.”
His hand rested upon his waistband. He had a pistol there that I had glimpsed.
“I do not wish to kill you, but if you were to draw that pistol under your hand, I would.”
He had not seen my guns, but I was wearing them under the buffalo coat, which I had not removed since returning to the cave.
He wanted to call my hand. It was in his mind, and I was ready.
“What could you have better than a pistol?”
My smile was cheerful. “A better pistol,” I said, “or something of the sort.”
Abruptly, he sat down. “All right!” He waved a dismissing hand. “Forget what I have said! I am impatient! I did not know what manner of woman she was.” He looked at me. “She is truly an Indian?”
“She is. She is like no Indian you have met. Pizzaro might have met someone similar in Peru.”
“She is an Inca? Here?”
“There may be a connection. I do not know. She is with us now, but she was the leader of her group.”
“Group?”
He had seen only four of us. I smiled at him. “She has ten strong fighting men with her, and some women. She has my protection if she wishes, but she does not need it. She has ten men who would have your scalp in no time, or they might simply geld you.”
“Geld me?” His face flushed and then paled. “What kind of talk is that?”
“It has happened,” I said, “to men who thought themselves too important.” I smiled again. “You are in a different land, my friend, and before you swagger too much you had best learn the customs of the country and the people.”
A cold wind was blowing up outside, swirling the snow. We added fuel to the fire and then I went to my bed beyond the flames. Gomez, if that was his name, was staring into the fire, thinking.
He was a bright man, and brave enough, I suspected, but his plans had gone awry, and now he would be considering his next move. That he did not wish to arrive back among his people empty-handed was obvious, as it also was that he had contempt for anyone’s feelings but his own. Yet he was no fool. He was a man of whom to be wary. In this, the smaller cave, there were but three of us.
Whatever else Gomez was, he was now desperate. Beaten and driven from Diego’s expedition, he had stumbled upon us, hoping for a horse. Now he must head south through the snow to Santa Fe. I did not know the distance but it was many days travel, and I could not believe he was anxious for it.
That night I slept not well. At every move he made my eyes flared open, and Keokotah was equally on edge, yet at daybreak he shouldered the small pack of food we gave him and without so much as a thank-you he walked off into the snow, going back the way he had come.
We watched him move away, and Keokotah followed him, after he disappeared from sight, to see if he continued on his way.
When he was gone I went to Itchakomi’s cave.
Two women were making moccasins, another was stitching furs together for a robe, a fourth was cooking.
We seated ourselves together near the wall. No men were in the cave. “They hunt for meat,” she explained. “The winter is long, and we eat much.”
“This place is good,” I said. “You will bring your people here?”
She was silent for several minutes. “I do not know. My people have lived long beside the river. It is warm there and what they plant will grow. Here they must learn new ways. The planting seasons will be different. I do not believe they will wish to leave the warmth and the river. They will stay, and hope for the best.”