“It is,” I agreed.
“When grass comes, what you do?”
“I shall walk along the mountain where the aspen grows, and beside the lakes where the moon goes to rest. I want to find the places where the rivers begin. I want to drink where the water comes from under the slide rock. I want to walk the way of the elk, the deer, and the bear.”
“You are not elk or deer or bear. You man. What you do when your knees are stiff? When the earth no longer soft for sleeping? When the cold does not leave your bones? Who will share your lodge when the last leaves fall?”
Wind breathed among the trees. Some snow fell from the stiff leaves of an oak and from the spruce.
“What of Itchakomi? Such a woman walks with the wind. Such a woman must be fought for or stolen.”
“She will go home to her people. She may be the Great Sun.”
“Hah! You think she go back safe? You think she pass by the Conejero? The Pawnee? The Osage? She will be taken to some warrior’s lodge. You see.”
“So?” The thought made me uncomfortable, but I did not like to say so, or even think of it.
“You speak, she stay. I tell you this.”
“It is not possible.”
He shrugged. “I think you fool. Once in a lifetime a man finds such a woman. Once! I have watched her with you. She will keep your lodge if you speak.”
“She is curious about our customs, as you are. She is not interested in me.”
“Hah!”
A veil of snow lifted from a peak and hung suspended against the gray sky, and then sifted softly away as though it had not been. A chill wind stirred, and frozen leaves scraped against the stiff branches. Snow drifted down from the trees and I shivered.
“You my friend. I speak as friend.” For a moment he was silent. “I have no other friend.”
Neither of us spoke for a long time and then I said, “And what of you?”
“I have a man to kill, if you do not.”
“What?”
“He is out there. He looks for us. He looks for her. If we do not find him first, he will find us. It is better to hunt than be hunted.”
A chaos of granite lay at the foot of the mountain, covered now with snow. Lightning-struck trees showed their stark dead stumps against the sky. My toes were cold from standing, and I half turned to go. He looked at me coolly, waiting for some word from me.
Curling my toes against the cold, I shrugged my shoulders under the buffalo robe, seeing a dream slide away down the icy hill, and another born.
“Maybe you are right,” I said. “Maybe I am a fool.”
“He leave his mark. He leave his challenge.”
Turning toward our lodge I looked back. “What do you mean?”
“The young Natchee who was killed. He no dead when scalp taken. He alive.”
I still looked at him, waiting.
“He know who kill him. He leave a sign in the snow where he die. He leave one sign.”
Everything in me waited. I knew before he said it. I knew what the sign would be and that when Keokotah spoke I must begin to seek, to hunt. And I did not want to hunt down any man.
“He left one sign: Kapata!”
Kapata? Well, I could make an exception.
TWENTY-SIX
I am Itchakomi Ishia, a Daughter of the Sun, sent to find a new home for my people. This land is a good land. There is beauty here and much wild game, but there are enemies, also. The Conejeros are a fierce people, making war upon everybody. They would make war upon us.
We could defeat them, but many of our young men would die.
The Ni’kwana has sent this man to find me, to speak to me of returning. He has done so. But he says the Ni’kwana left it to me to decide, and the Ni’kwana has been my guide and teacher.
Why did he send this man to me? Why did he not say, “Come back, Itchakomi, come back to your land by the river”?
He left the decision to me. Why did he think I might not wish to return?
The Ni’kwana traveled far to meet this man, and then sent him to find me. What did the Ni’kwana know that I do not?
The Ni’kwana fears for me. He does not like or trust Kapata, and the Ni’kwana knows many things others do not.
Who is this man Jubal? What does he believe? What am I to believe? He speaks of marvels, of customs strange to us, of peoples far away of whom I know nothing.
Why have I not known of these people? He speaks of us as Indians. I do not know that name. The Ni’kwana has spoken of Spanishmen who came long ago, who killed some of our people and then went away down the Great River. We heard of such Spanishmen out upon the long grass, also, and one of them who ran away lived in our lodges for a time.
I do not know this man or his people. I do not know his tribe or where his home is. Jubal speaks of great houses in some land beyond the sea, of customs strange to us, but how can I believe him?
A sea is a great water. It is not a river. It must be like the great water we saw when long ago we traveled south with the Ni’kwana.
What manner of man is he? Will he walk among us for a time and then go away to his own people? I have heard men speak of his tribe. He is a Sackett. I am Natchez.
He says he is not a Sun. His father was a yeoman, but I do not know what that is. It is a good thing to be, I think.
He is a warrior and a hunter. Keokotah says he is very brave, that he fears nothing. I think it is good to fear some things.
He speaks of things strange to me, but I like to hear him speak. I listen and try to understand, but his words are not ours. I have learned much of his tongue but not of his meanings. To know words is not always to know thoughts. He speaks from his custom, I from mine. When I use his words I cannot speak the ideas I think. I do not make myself known.
He is a wise man, I believe, a Ni’kwana among his own people.
I am a Sun. What is my duty? To return to my people or to stay with this man who does not seek to know me?
I am a beautiful woman. I know this because I have seen myself in the Pool of the Moon’s Reflection. Does he not see that I am beautiful?
Or is it that I am so different from the women of his people? Why does he avoid me? Am I not to his liking? Am I a bad taste in his mouth? A bad sound in his ears? What am I, a woman, to do?
He speaks of the Shining Mountains, and when he speaks of them his voice has a ring to it. The mountains were a far land of which he dreamed, and now he is among them, yet he has seen too little, he says. He wishes to wander down the days, through their forest and meadows and along their streams, but has it not always been so, that men prefer to wander and women to keep them close?
I could wander the far lands, too. I am not afraid.
He has terrible scars upon his head and upon his back and shoulders. I have seen his head when his hair falls a certain way, and I have seen his back when he bathed. He does not speak of the scars. He limps a little and has broken his leg. Keokotah spoke of that. He broke his leg when alone in the forest.
I am a Sun. Among my people I command men. Among my people I could choose whomever I wished, but he is not of my people and does not understand our ways, although he listens when I speak.
He does not know me. Should I return then to my own people? Should I leave him among his mountains and go back to my home beside the Great River?
I have walked beside him through the snow. I have helped to skin the buffalo he killed. Does he not see that I am a fit companion for him?
Keokotah has taken a woman. She is happy with him, but Keokotah also speaks of the far mountains. He is a Kickapoo and they are great wanderers. Are the Sacketts wanderers, too? The Natchee are not.