Tomorrow would be the day, so I did not go out to hunt but sat by the river and contemplated what was to be. If I was to have a wife I must have a home, and I must plan for the future. My valley was a good place, yet it was upon the path of migration for some tribes, a hunting ground for others.
We would be few, only Itchakomi, the Ponca woman, Keokotah and his woman, and myself. We would be too few to defend against an attack by the Conejeros, if they still existed, or their attackers. Yet I knew how to build a strong fortress, and would. It was something to think on. There was also the planting of crops, the gathering of seed, planning for the future. Much of this I had known from boyhood, for at Shooting Creek we had lived just that way. Only there had been more of us.
There was another defense, and it might work. Already some knew me as a medicine man. If I became a medicine man as well as a trader—
If strength could not win, one must use wit, if one has any.
Of oak leaves there was no shortage, but we had planned to use something else for the laurel until Unstwita returned from the hunt with a sprig of dwarf laurel found growing high on the mountain.
When the afternoon drew on I scouted around, making a sweep of the area, following the river down to look for tracks. But I found none. What I feared was an attack during the ceremony, and yet we had seen no recent tracks.
The morning dawned bright and clear. Unstwita had told me of the ritual and how it would proceed. When I went to the shelter they had erected for me, an old Natchee warrior waited within. He said, “Behold, you have come!”
Another old man and a woman entered then and after them, Itchakomi.
The old people asked us if we loved each other. When we had replied the old man stood beside her, representing her father. They tied oak leaves to a tuft of my hair, and Itchakomi carried a sprig of the laurel, as was the custom.
I said, “Do you want me as your husband?”
“Yes. I wish it very much and will be happy to go with you.”
In my left hand I carried the bow and arrow that signified that I would not fear our enemies and that I would provide for my wife and children.
She held the laurel in her left hand, in her right a sheaf of maize. The laurel signified that she would keep her good reputation, the maize that she would prepare my meals.
Having said she would go with me she dropped the maize from her right hand, and I took it in mine and said “I am your husband,” and she replied, “And I am your wife.”
I took her to my bed, as the rites demanded, and said, “This is our bed. Keep it clean.”
The feast was prepared and we went together to eat of it. The others gathered around, with much laughter and talk. Only Keokotah was not there. He had slipped away from the festivities, but I knew why. We knew not the land, nor who might come, and one among us must be alert.
After the feast the Natchee began to dance, a slow, shuffling dance that I knew not, though I knew many Indian dances.
While the drum beat and the Natchee danced I said to Itchakomi, “You are sure?”
“I am.”
“If your people need you, we can go back. I will take you back.”
“My place is with you. The Ni’kwana knew this.”
“We will be much alone. There will be too few of us, but we shall build a strong fort. We will trade with the Indians.”
“What of the Men of Fire?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps they will come. That we must face when they do. I have my own fire,” I added, “and will use it if I must.”
“When morning comes, my people will go,” she said. “They will go back to Natchee, our home by the Great River, but they will always know there is a place for them if they wish to come.”
“Tell them,” I said suddenly, “to send a messenger to my people at Shooting Creek, to tell them I have found you and am happy.”
“It shall be done.”
There was a moon above the mountains, and a white glow upon the camp. The water rustled swiftly by, and the aspen leaves stirred restlessly, as always. The fire burned low and the drum ceased to beat and the Indians to dance. Beyond the leafy bower where we lay the red coals smoldered, and I knew that one of the Natchee or Keokotah would be watching.
How far were we from the fens of old England! How far from the Isle of Ely, whence my father had come, so long ago! Now I was here, where no white man was supposed to be, finding my own land in a world far from others. We would go deeper into the mountains. We would leave them all behind.
The Natchee would not have a dugout. There was not time. They would use a raft and go down the river upon it until they found my canoe, and then they would use both raft and canoe unless they were so lucky as to capture another canoe.
At dawn we helped them load their meat and the few things they possessed.
At dawn we saw them push off and watched them disappear, going down with the swiftly rushing waters. When they had gone we turned and looked around. Only five were left, in a land vast and lonely, a land where the only people of whom we knew were enemies.
We walked where the wind had blown and where the autumn leaves had fallen and rotted into soil, but there was color in the sky, and on the mountains the green lay dark where the spruce were and bright where aspen grew. We killed some sage hens and ate them, and we caught some fish from a stream. Then, on the night when we had almost reached the place we were to build, we saw a flash of light from down the long wet valley, a flash of sunlight from a blade, and then we saw them coming, six mounted men and twenty marching. Of the twenty, several were battered and bloody. Of the mounted, only two rode as if unhurt.
At dawn that day Keokotah had killed an elk, so we stood and watched them come.
At last they saw us and pulled up, looking warily. Knowing them for Spanishmen I stepped out with my right hand up, palm toward them. Slowly they came on and then drew up to look again.
I spoke then, in Spanish. They came on then and drew up, wary, wounded, weary of riding and holding themselves in the saddle.
“Get down,” I said. “We’ll make a fire. Have you eaten at all?”
“Not for two days,” their leader said. He was a tall man, lean and with a sparse beard. He bore his own share of wounds, two that I could see.
“You are Diego?”
Surprised, he looked at me. “We met a man of yours, fleeing ahead of you and bound for the settlements.”
His face shadowed. “Gomez!” he said. “Ah, that one is trouble!”
“We knew nothing of him. We fed him and he went his way, but with no liking for us, I think.”
“He likes only himself,” Diego said. His men had gotten down and come to the fire as to a cold spring. These were beaten men.
“You’ve had a fight, then? With the Conejeros?”
“With some others, strange Indians. They attacked us at once. I lost two men that first time and four since. They were hard upon us until we slipped away in the night.”
We were beside a small stream with trees close by and a good defensive position.
He noticed my guns. “Handsome pistols. I would buy them from you.”
“No. They were given me by my father. They are the best of their kind, made by a master in Italy.”
“I was apprenticed to an armorer,” he said. “I knew them at once. I knew the workmanship. You have a fine pair of pistols.”
He glanced at Itchakomi, standing beside me. “Your woman?”
“My wife,” I said, “by an Indian marriage, which I hold as a true one. You don’t have a friar among you? Or a priest?”
“He was killed, died well, too. A game man.” He glanced at me. “You wish to be married again?”
“I am a Christian,” I said, “although not a Catholic. I’d like to be married again by a Christian sacrament.”
“She’s beautiful,” he said simply, “and proud.”
“Among her own people, the Natchee, she is a Sun, a princess.”