A startled yell, and then another. The Indians scrambled out of the cave, filling the air with angry complaints. Squatting under a tree I watched for Kapata.
A few managed to save their blankets, although they were soaked. In the darkness I could not distinguish one from the other, so content with the mischief I had created I arose and skirted their camp in the darkness and then made my way to a quiet part of the forest where I remembered that some old deadfalls had created a sort of natural shelter large enough for a man. Arriving, I crawled in and slept.
Morning came with clear skies, and taking my bowstring from a dry inner pocket I strung my bow.
A smell of smoke led me to their camp, some fifty yards from the old one, which was still overrun with water. A pot was on the fire and a man bending over it. Lifting my bow I took careful aim and then let fly, the arrow taking him through the thigh just above the knee. He cried out, dropping the pot.
The others vanished as if they had been but phantoms, and I turned and went into the woods, moving swiftly away and around. When I next approached the camp it was from the bluff above the overhang cave.
No one was in sight but the Indian I had wounded. He had extracted the arrow, which lay on the earth beside him, and he was trying to stop the flow of blood from the wound. Nothing else moved and he had troubles enough, so I retreated back up the bluff a few yards, still keeping the camp in view.
After a while they began to filter back into their camp. I counted seven, including Kapata, who towered inches above all but one of the others. There was much grumbling.
Knowing I could not fight them all, I eased back up the slope and into the trees. What I wanted was to find Kapata alone, yet I had given them trouble. No one likes to endure discomfort, and if the Tensas could be disillusioned with Kapata’s leadership they might simply go home. Already they had been long from home and endured much.
When the morning sun broke through the clouds I watched a distant rainstorm far across the valley against the vast wall of the Sangre de Cristos. Above the rainstorm the morning sun had painted the peaks as those first Spanish must have seen them, when they called them the “blood of Christ,” for surely they were crimson as blood.
Lying quiet in the wet brush I waited for movement from Kapata’s camp.
It was he I wanted, none of the others unless they got in the way. They had come hunting me and deserved no mercy from me, yet I had no wish to kill any man who did not seek me out.
Smoke lifted in a thin, questioning column. From a pocket I took a twist of jerky and bit off a piece, worrying it with my teeth to get a proper bite.
A fawn came from the brush and with high, delicate steps went down to the meadow. Truly we needed meat, but I was after bigger game and did not wish to kill a fawn. Let it grow into bigger meat.
One of the Tensas came from their camp and went down to drink at the creek. He was too far off and I had no desire to give away my presence. He stood up, a quick, graceful movement, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked around slowly, once seeming to look right at me, but I was well hidden.
He was a lithe, fine-looking brave, probably not yet twenty.
Another Indian came to join him and they stood talking, with much gesticulation. That they were angry about something was obvious.
Enemies they might be, but I could not escape the beauty of the situation, the green backdrop of the mountains, the forest, the small stream sparkling in the sun, and the two Indians talking. No sound came, as they were too far off, but their manner was eloquent.
A movement caught my eye, a movement from the slope behind them, but closer. The merest stirring and then nothing. Puzzled, I waited.
The two Indians squatted on their heels near the water. One wore three feathers, the other but one.
That movement again, lower down the slope. Suddenly I knew!
Keokotah!
Startled, I half came to my feet. Did he know of the hidden camp? Or was he so intent on the Indians he stalked as not to realize the nearness of the others?
Crouching, careful to move no leaf, I went down the slope toward them, to get within bow shot before anything happened. When I had Keokotah clearly in view and not over fifty yards away, I squatted down in the brush with a log before me.
The Indians were on their feet now. They would return to camp. Sunlight danced on the water, and the aspens trembled. The Indians turned, and one died, an arrow in his throat. The other Indian had started on, unaware. Yet when he had taken two more steps he turned to speak and saw his companion lying dead in the trail.
The first Indian dropped to his haunches and then dove forward into the brush. Keokotah was quick, and his arrow went through the calf of the brave’s leg as he jerked it from sight.
There had been seven, but now there were six, with one wounded slightly. There was one in camp wounded, too.
Waiting in the brush, I saw no further movement and believed Keokotah had gone. Slowly, careful to move no leaf, I slipped back up the slope and circled for home. Our corn had grown tall, and circling through it I took time to pull a few weeds. It was not a large patch, but it would give us a few bushels of corn to supplement our meager diet. The earth was rich and our crop had grown well. When I looked up from the corn I saw smoke.
It was several miles away, back beyond where Kapata’s warriors had camped. It was a single finger of smoke, lifting skyward. As I looked, the column broke. A single puff went up, and then another.
A signal, but for whom? Not for the Tensas, of that I was sure. It was too far away and in the wrong direction.
The Komantsi? I felt a chill. Those dreaded Indians, destroying all before them. Had they found my valley or the trail of the Tensas?
When I was near the stockade, Keokotah appeared. He had a bloody scalp at his waistband. I had seen the Tensa die, but how had Keokotah scalped him? I pointed to the smoke. He nodded his head.
“Komantsi,” he said. “They come.”
His tone was grim and I understood why.
Itchakomi looked up when we came in and gestured toward a pot on the fire. We ate in silence, saying nothing. She had seen the scalp and needed no explanation.
At the meal’s end I bathed my hands at the stream and then went to her. “The Komantsi come,” I said. “We have seen their smoke.”
And I had found no sulphur.
To look for it was automatic now, for it was ever in my mind. At night now I spent some time casting bullets, killing my mold time and again. But the balls were of no use without gunpowder.
Sulphur was sometimes found in old volcanic craters, for it appeared in the last stages of volcanic activity. Sometimes pockets of the crystals could be found, often contaminated with arsenic.
When darkness was almost upon us and visibility cut to within a few yards, I went out to move my caltrops, not wishing to mark their absence by a worn trail. It would be necessary to move them every few days if there was much going back and forth. The moccasins these Indians wore had thin buckskin soles, and the spines would penetrate them. Unless there was infection the wounds were not serious, but one was sufficient to keep an Indian inactive for several days.
Kapata was no longer mentioned. His presence and his danger were very real, but that of the Komantsi even more. We kept our fires to a minimum and were thankful that our fort was fairly hidden in the trees and brush. It could not be seen except from quite near.
On the second day after his taking of the scalp, Keokotah went again to the mountains. It was a day of low clouds and impending rain, yet he went, hoping for game. Uneasy, I remained in the fort, watching restlessly for enemies, working at making bullets, planning forays into the mountains to look for sulphur.
Often I thought of the Natchee who had returned. Had they gotten through? Had they ridden the rough waters down and slipped by the Komantsi and the Conejeros? Had they found their way back to their villages beside the Great River?