He shouted again, demanding our surrender. The skies were gray now, although heavy with clouds over the western mountains. The trees stood out, stark and black against the gray. The shadows of men, or rather their dark forms that seemed like shadows, moved at the edge of the woods and on the meadows below, reminding me of those other shadows, the dancing shadows in the cave.
Unbidden there came to mind the voice that had seemed to speak from where the skin-wrapped bodies lay. An eerie feeling as of some effort at communication had come to me, and standing alone in the silence I had asked if there was anything I could do.
A foolish thing, to speak into an empty cave where lay only the mummified bodies of the long dead, but as I had turned away I had heard, or had seemed to hear, a voice saying, “Find them!”
Find who? Where? Why?
Waiting in the darkness of the fort, the air soft with impending rain, I remembered, and was sad.
What had the dead left undone? Had they spoken? Or had the voice only been in my brain? Had there been some communication, some desperate wish, some great desire that lived beyond death?
I, who might die this day, thought of that. What desire could be so driving, so compelling that it lived beyond death?
For me there could be but one. The safety of Komi and my child to be. Nothing mattered beyond that.
Was it so with them? Was this the wish of the nameless dead? But too many years, perhaps too many centuries, had passed. Their children and their grandchildren would have died long since, and yes, their great-great-grandchildren, for the bodies, I believed, had been hundreds of years old.
“Find them!”
Find who? Find what? Where?
Suddenly Komi was beside me, in her hand a cup of the coffee that had come with Diego’s trade goods.
“Komi? What do you know of the Ni’kwana? Who is he?”
“He is the Ni’kwana, the master of mysteries. What else?”
I shook my head. “I do not know, only—somehow he did not seem like an Indian. There was something about him, something different.”
“Ah!” She was silent, turning her own cup in her fingers. “I have heard—I do not know, but I have heard—he was not one of us. I have heard there was a people, a very few, who came to live with us long ago. He was the last of them.”
“You know nothing more?”
She shrugged. “They came from the river, long, long ago. I do not know whether they came from up or down the river, but they were priests, they were teachers. I do not know where they came from or when this was, only that they carne among us and taught many things. Our Ni’kwanas always came from that group. I do not know why that was, either.”
She paused. “My grandmother was one of them. She was related, somehow, to the Ni’kwana.”
Outside there was movement. I peered through a porthole in the palisade, but saw nothing.
“The Ni’kwana wished something more for you, I think. Why were you chosen to come west?”
She shrugged. “I was a Sun. It was I who could decide whether to go or stay. Only the Great Sun was above me, and he was unwell. It was my duty to come.”
“And the direction you chose?”
“The Ni’kwana directed me. He told me he knew of a place far to the west where we would be safe. He wished me to go and see.”
“It was where the river comes from the mountain?”
“No, it was beyond. It … it might be here, but I—”
My mind was busy, searching, examining, prying. There was something strange here, something eerie, something frightening.
The Ni’kwana was old. He was the last of his kind except for Itchakomi Ishaia, who was at least part of his blood. Did he wish to save her from something? Did he wish, and this thought came unexpectedly, her to find something, someplace?
Was her trip west directed back into the past of his people? Was he trying to protect her from something he knew was inevitable? To bring her back to their beginnings?
I spoke of this, speaking softly. “You must try to remember, Komi. He was your teacher, but what did he teach? Was there something only for you? Some story? Some idea?”
“Find them!”
Was there a connection between the mummified bodies in the cave and the Ni’kwana? It was absurd. Yet—I shook myself. My mind was too busy. Too much imagination. I must forget all this and tend to the business at hand. My first consideration was survival. There would be time, I hoped, after that.
Find them—find what? People? Things? Places?
Had something been lost? People left behind? Were there some lessons to be learned, and left somewhere?
The Ni’kwana had said he expected an older man. My father, perhaps? But then he knew my father was dead. But he could not have known that when he left Natchez and his people. It could not have happened by that time. My father had died later. The Ni’kwana had come expecting an older man, but when he saw me—
How much of what followed had been accident and how much direction? Had he, somehow, wished me to find the mummies? But that was ridiculous.
What remained was that I was here, in this far place, and I had married Itchakomi. An Indian marriage, but in its form not unlike the common law marriages that were legal in England, or had been. It was little enough I knew of such things, but there had been talk at home around the table of an evening or beside the fireplace, talk of weddings, customs, all that sort of thing. I should have listened more carefully.
But what child in his later years does not wish he had listened when his parents talked among themselves, about themselves, their families, the way they had lived? So often we do not realize how much we could have learned until it is too late and there is no going back.
It was growing light. Again the call for surrender. Impatiently, I replied, “Gomez!” If you are so eager for surrender, why don’t you come and fight me? You and I alone.”
There was silence and then his voice cool, mocking. “As the challenged party, I choose the weapons. That is the way in civilized countries.”
“Why not? Belly to belly with pistols? Knives? Whatever you wish. Let us settle this, man to man.”
“Of course!” His tone was genial, yet mocking still. “I choose the weapons.”
“Choose them, then. If I win, your men leave now, at once.”
Gomez laughed. “And if I win? I take all!”
“And I will be the judge!” The voice was that of Diego. “Four muskets will cover your people, Gomez. If there is any attempt, during the fight, to take advantage, they will kill!”
Gomez walked down from the trees. There was a fine swagger to the man. He stood there in his coat of mail, hands on his hips, smiling.
“Pistols, then?” I suggested.
He laughed. “Not pistols, my fine friend! You shoot too well! No, we shall have swords! It will be a proper duel!”
Diego started to protest, but Gomez waved a dismissing hand. “You I shall take care of later, Diego. Sackett offered me the choice of weapons. He challenged me! So now we shall see how our buckskin savage does with a gentleman’s weapon!”
“Cover me,” I whispered, and stepped through the gate, which closed behind me.
“What would you know of a gentleman’s weapons?” I asked Gomez. “You are no gentleman. You are a coward, a betrayer, a slave dealer, and a pimp, who deals in women for other men.”
He started to speak and almost choked on his fury. Then he calmed down. “We shall see! Swords, my friend! Let us see how you do!”
Diego’s protest was brushed aside. Yet he called out to me. “Sackett! Think what you do! The sword is his weapon!”
Perhaps it was, but there had been those hours and hours of fencing back at Shooting Creek when my father, Jeremy, and Sakim had all instructed me in the art. It had been nearly two years … still, I had been rather good, the best of them, in fact, except for my father.
Diego came down from the trees. “You may use my blade,” he said. Then leaning closer he said, “Think what you do! The man is a superb swordsman! He will make a fool of you and then kill you!”
I gripped the hilt of the saber. “A fine blade, Diego. I thank you for this. I shall try not to disgrace it for you.”
“Save yourself, Sackett. Run! I’ll not hold it against you! Get out before he murders you!”
“Murder? It is not easily done, amigo.”