people.”
“They are among the most noted fighting men in the country, Sir Francis. And, as
it happens, most of their enemies are our enemies, too.”
I paused. “You understand, Sir Francis, that I left England rather hurriedly.”
He lifted a hand. “Please! No more of that. You are a settler here. You have
proven useful and helpful. I wish to know nothing more. I am a practical man,
Sackett, and I am interested only in the interests of the colony.” He glanced at
me curiously. “You have been here a long time?”
“More than twenty years.”
“You realize that, officially, no one has been here so long?” He refilled his
glass. “Of course, for some time there have been stories of white men in the
back country. You knew that, I suppose?”
“There were such rumors when first we came here, Sir Francis. I am sure that we
were not the first. We found initials carved upon trees, and stories among the
Indians of white men. And such stories were here before the lost colony of
Roanoke vanished.
“Juan Pardo heard such stories. It is likely that Ayllon’s captain, Gordillo,
also did. Estevan Gomez was along this coast in 1525, and contributed much to
the mapping of it. And I have had access,” I said, “to many maps. No matter how
far back you go, you still find rumors of white men. It is obvious the sea was
crossed many times, perhaps continually over long periods of time. The
Phoenicians never divulged their sources of raw material or trade goods.”
We talked long, and Sir Francis asked many searching questions about the soil,
the game, the minerals. I told him we had found but little gold, but several
mines of both iron and lead, and that we cast our own musket balls and
manufactured our own powder.
When I returned to our cabin, Pim Burke was waiting for me. He looked uneasy,
and that was unusual.
“What is it, Pim?”
He looked shame-faced, then said, “Barnabas, I—” he paused. “Well, I have been
offered a post. I shall be clerk and interpreter, and do some trading as well.
There’s a grant goes with it, Barnabas, and I’m growing no younger.”
“None of us are, and I’d advise you to accept.”
He looked relieved. “I don’t want to seem disloyal—I mean, just when you are
losing so much.”
“Nonsense! If I had heard of it first, I would have suggested it to you. By all
means, Pim, take it. You may be of more use to us here than at the colony.
Besides, I am thinking of going over the mountains.”
“Well … if you do not object, Barnabas. My first loyalty is to you.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “We have come a long way together, Pim. We are
friends, you and I, and where we are you will never find a wife, and you should
have one. You deserve one.”
“Well, to tell the truth—”
“There’s a girl?”
“A widow, Barnabas. Young, and with a bit put by, and I’ve a bit, as you know
…”
“By all means! But Pim … ?”
He looked at me. “The emerald? I’ve told only one person.” He suddenly looked
shy.
“So be it, then,” I said. “Let us keep in touch, and wherever I may be, Pim, you
have a friend.”
We shook hands and he went his way, hurrying a little as if he feared he might
turn back.
That night I lay awake, having said nothing to Abby of Pim’s going. She would
regret him, regret his being from me, for he had been a good friend and loyal
but I had been much put out these past months, seeing no future for him in what
we did.
Land, yes. We had bargained with the Catawba for land, and he had his piece as I
had mine, yet it is an empty life for a man alone, although it seems not so when
a man is young.
Yet I wished he had not mentioned the emerald. We had found several … he had
one, I had four. Three of these I had given to Abby and one to Brian. They would
serve as something in case of need, and any one of the stones was rich enough to
buy an estate if need be.
Pim’s emerald was not a large one, but struck me as exceedingly fine.
We had heard rumors of a few small diamonds being found in the lower foothills,
but of this we had no positive knowledge.
At last the day came. Several times I had met with the master of the Eagle, a
solid man, and by all accounts, a good seaman. I had twice been aboard his ship,
and she was finely kept with a competent-appearing crew.
At dawn I was up and outside, looking at the weather. A fair day … yet a
gloomy one for me.
Abby came out shortly afterward and walked beside me. We stood at the river,
saying nothing, my hand touching hers or hers mine. But no words came to us.
We talked of her returning, yet I think neither of us believed in it. There was
still a chance the warrant for my arrest might lie dusty in some drawer to be
taken out and used, and both of us knew that a frontier girl of ten does not
become a great lady in three years or four.
At the end, we kissed lightly and she said, “Be careful, Barnabas,” and little
Noelle clung to my hand with tears in her eyes.
Brian stood tall, as I expected him to, and gripped hard my hand. “I will make
you proud of me, Father.”
“I am already proud,” I said quietly. “Take care of your mother and sister.”
The other boys stood around, looking awkward and feeling worse. Lila kept saying
over and over that she should be going with them.
“You’ve Jeremy to think of,” Abby said quietly, “and your own children.”
“Come back, Abby,” I said. “Come back.”
“Wait for me, Barney, for I love you. I do, I always shall, and I always have
since that very first night when you came in from out of the storm.”
I stood on the bank then, and watched the Eagle sail down the river, and
suddenly I knew in my heart with an awful desperation that I would not see any
of them again.
Lila took my hand and gripped it hard. “They will be all right. They will be all
right. I see a safe voyage and a long life for them.”
She said nothing of me, or of my life.
33
The place on Shooting Creek was not the same. Time and again I found myself
turning suddenly to exclaim over a sunset, the dappled shadow of tree leaves
upon the water or the flash of a bird’s wing … and Abby was not there.
The blue of the mountains seemed to draw closer, and more and more my eyes
turned westward …
Yet there lay the mountains, vast and mysterious, with unknown valleys and
streams that flowed from out of dark, unbelievable distances, and always beyond,
the further heights, the long plateaus, the sudden glimpses of far, far
horizons.
Jubal slipped silently into the cabin as I sat over Maimonides, reading.
“Pa? There’s talk in the villages. They’re coming after you again.”
“You’d think they would tire of it.”
“You’re a challenge, Pa. You don’t realize how much, for their best warriors
have tried, and they have been killed or suffered from wounds. You have become a
legend, and some say you cannot die, that you will never die, but others believe
they must kill you now, it is a matter of honor. They will come soon. Perhaps
even tonight.”
Jubal nodded, then he spoke suddenly, as if with an effort. “Pa? You don’t mind
it? That I am not like the rest?”
“Of course not. You’re a good man, Jubal, one of the very best. I love you as I
do them.”
“Folks crowd me, Pa. I like wild, lonesome country. I like the far-looking
places. It ain’t in me to live with folks. It’s the trees, the rivers, the lake
and wild animals I need. Maybe I’m one of them … a wild animal myself.”
“I’m like that, too, Jubal. Almost as much as you. And now that your mother is
gone, I could walk out that door and keep going forever.”
We were silent for a time. The fire crackled on the hearth and I closed my book.
The firelight flickered on Jubal’s face, and moved the shadows around in the
back of the room, and my eyes wandered restlessly over the stone-flagged floor,
over the hide of the bear I had killed in the forest on the edge of the
rhododendrons. I remember I had recharged my musket and then slid down the
rugged slope, where flowering sand-myrtle cluug to the crevices, to stop beside