the carcass of the bear.
My shot had gone true and the bear had dropped. They were never so difficult to
kill if the shot was placed well, and a raven had flown over, looking with a
wary eye at me and on a second flyby with a hopeful eye at the bear’s huge size.
For that raven well knew I’d take the hide and some choice cuts, but I’d never
carry that six hundred pounds over the ridges between myself and home.
“Pa? Aunt Lila told me once, you had the gift.”
“We are of the blood of Nial, Jubal.” I glanced at him. “Do you have it, too?”
“The Indians believe I do.”
“Do you know about me?”
“I … think so, Pa.”
“Do not speak of this, Jubal. It is enough for you and me and Lila. I am not
distressed, for there is a time for each of us, and we are rarely ready.
“One thing I know. I am still too young to rust. When spring comes and my crop
is in once more I shall make a pack and walk over to see some of your western
lands before I die.”
“I’ve been beyond the mountains,” said Jubal, “and have ridden the rivers down.
I’ve been to a far, far land where the greatest river of all flows south and
away toward the sea, sometimes I think I’d like to get a horse and ride off
across those plains forever, going on. and on just like that river goes.
“Beyond the bunch-grass levels where the buffalo graze, there are other
mountains, or so the Indians say, mountains that tower their icy summits into
the sky, and I’ve gone that way, but not yet so far.
“The Indians there live in tents of buffalo hide, and I’ve fought with them,
hunted with them, slept in their lodges, and I could live their way and find
happiness, I think. They’ve got horses, the southern Indians do, got them from
the ranches down Mexico way.”
“They do not have horses further north?” I asked.
“Not yet, but they’ll have them soon, and Pa, when an Indian gets a horse he
becomes a different man. I’ve seen it. The Comanche and the Kiowa have the
horses, but the Kiowa haven’t been long upon the western plains, for they have
just come from the mountains further west.
“The Indian in America is like the people you told us of in Europe and Asia,
always at war with one another, always pushing into new lands and pushing off
the people who were there, or killing them.”
“People are much the same the world around, Jubal. We are no better and no worse
… nor are they. The Picts were in England and the Celts came, and long after
them, the Anglos, Saxons, and Danes. And when they settled nicely down, the
Normans came, took all the land from the people of England, and handed it out in
parcels to the men who came over with William the Conqueror. It is the old
story. To the victor belong the spoils.
“For the Indian has done the same thing to other Indians. In Mexico the Aztecs
were a savage people who conquered an older, more civilized people, and then
marched out like the Romans and tried to conquer all about..
“Cortez found willing allies because many of the Indians of Mexico hated the
Aztecs.
“It was the same in Peru. The people we call the Incas suddenly went on the
march and welded together a vast empire of tribes and peoples, and it was done
by conquest. Yet it is not only men who do this. Plants do it also. When
conditions are right a new type of plant will move in and occupy the ground.”
“Pa? There’s been white men out yonder. After I crossed the big south-flowing
river I went by canoe up a river that flows down from the west, and in wandering
the country north of there, I found some great stones with writing on them,
writing just like on some of the old, old maps you have from Iceland.”
“Runes?”
“Yes. No two ways about it, Pa. They’ve been there.”
Long we talked while the fire burned down and the coffee turned cold in the
cups. It was the most Jubal had ever talked, I think. The sound of his voice was
warm in the room, and when at last he stood, he said, “Sleep lightly, Pa, for
the Indians will come when their medicine speaks, and those who sleep too
soundly may never awaken.”
He went outdoors then, for he rarely slept inside even in the coldest weather.
Taking wood from the bin, I built up the fire, and when the wood caught I went
outside and walked over to Jeremy’s.
Lila was kneading dough. Jeremy was weaving some cloth, for Barry Magill had
been teaching him the trade.
“Sit you,” Lila said. “The pots on. It’s sassafras tea, if you’ll have it.”
“I will,” I said, and then to Ring, “Jubal’s here. He says there’s been a
gathering of warriors to the north and the talk in the villages is that they
will come again … perhaps tonight.”
“We will need two men on the walls, then. Barry and Tom for the first watch?”
“Aye, and Sakim and Kane for the second. We’ll save the last for ourselves.”
” ‘Tis then they’ll come, Barnabas. I was thinking back, just now. Do you
remember the sailor’s wife who let us rooms? Mag, wasn’t it?”
“I think so. Aye, I recall her well. I hope her man came back and that she had a
dozen sons. She was a good woman.”
“I’d like to see Jublain again. He was a good man with a blade, Barnabas. The
best I ever know … excepting you.”
“And you.”
“Well … it was a skill I had. I could ride, too, but how long has it been
since I’ve seen a horse?”
“You’ll be seeing them again. There’s a Spanish man below the Santee who has
nine horses to sell or trade. He’s going back to the old country and he wants to
live well. He cannot take the horses for the trouble and the expense, and nobody
would wish them to go, yet his own people cannot pay the price. He has said he
will bargain.”
“When?”
“I’ve sent Kin and Yance.”
Jeremy Ring gathered up his work and put it aside, drinking the last of his tea.
“I’ll go over to John Quill’s now, but I do not think he’ll leave his place.
He’s built three cabins now, two burned by Indians, and his crop burned three
times, so he’s sworn that the next time he will stand them off or die.”
I went to warn Black Tom. He had been early asleep, and he rolled out and pulled
on his clothes, a cutlass, two pistols, and a musket, and climbed the walls.
Sakim followed, for he would stand the watch until Barry was up.
The night was cool. The stars were out but clouds were moving in. It would be a
dark, dark night.
Kane O’Hara and his wife came in from their cabin at the edge of their fields.
Kane had taken to smoking tobacco, having been taught by Wa-ga-su, who was still
much with us.
It seemed strange, at such a time, not to have Abby to think of.
The wind seemed unusually cool off the mountain. Was this to be the night?
“No … not yet.” I spoke aloud, and Kane O’Hara, who stood near me, glanced
over.
“Just thinking aloud,” I said.
He nodded. “I do it, too, when my wife is from the house.”
We watched the stars disappear beneath the oncoming clouds. The night was dark
and velvet with stillness. I moved, and the planks beneath my feet creaked
slightly. A vagrant breeze stirred the leaves of the forest, then passed on. We
listened to the sounds, for these were our woods and we understood them well.
For never are the sounds of the forest quite the same, one place to another, and
if the ear is tuned to listening it distinguishes each whisper from others in
the night.
Leaving Barry and Tom on the wall, I walked back to my cabin.
On the wide bed I lay alone, thinking of Abby, of Abigail. I remembered the
things she had said, the lift of her voice and the quiet, intimate sound of it
in the night. I thought of the times when our children had been born, and how
frightened I was when the second one came.
Why it was, I never knew, but upon that night I felt suddenly isolated, terribly
alone, and I tried to get someone to stay with me—even a little longer, for Abby
had been lying in Lila’s cabin where she could be cared for better and watched
over in the night.
All the terrible aloneness I had ever felt crowded around me then, for this was