Dark flowed the river past our grassy banks, whispering through the reeds and rustling in eddies near the roots of old trees. Dappled was the water with light and shadow, and above the water the changing leaves, for frost had come and brought autumn colors to the forest. Soon the leaves would be gone, and the trees bare until spring.
The forest aisles were a place for thinking, for all was still, with only the rustling of small animals and birds. There was little time left to us to find our winter haven and prepare for the cold and storms, so little time. And yet it would be best to wait, to wait just a little longer.
My thoughts prowled the forest and saw in the mind's eye the place we might find, and one by one I went through the moves to be made, so many at work on a stockade, so many on shelters, and so many for hunting and gathering. And there must be changing about to give all a taste of each.
A move well planned is a move half-done, and I tried to think through every phase. We would go, I decided, a little farther by water.
It was a Catawba who warned us.
He came suddenly, running from the trees beyond the clearing, screaming "Occaneechee!" And he ran toward us, darting swiftly from side to side. I saw an arrow strike near him and grabbed my musket at a rush from the trees along the shore.
Turning, I fired from my hip at a charging Indian and saw the bullet strike him, yet his step scarcely faltered. Even in that desperate moment I felt awe at the man's courage and his strength. He came on, and I dropped my musket and fired a second time, with a pistol. He staggered then, but came on, and I killed him with a knife, breast to breast.
There was firing everywhere, and then a sudden charge from the Catawba, taking the attackers on the flank. Their presence was a total surprise, and the Occaneechee attackers broke and fled. Turning sideways, I lifted a pistol, brought it down in line, and shot another as he fled into the trees.
We moved out then in a rough crescent, those of us who could. I recharged my musket and pistol and sank my knife hilt-deep in the soft, black loam to cleanse it of blood, and we went after them. There was still a bit of fighting here and there. I saw an Indian bending a bow at me and fired quickly ... too quickly.
My shot barked the tree at his head but he was no squirrel and merely sprang away, his arrow wasted into the brush.
Another came at me with a spear, but I parried the thrust with my musket barrel and sprang close, grasping the musket in two hands, shoulder-high, and driving the butt into his face. He took the full force of it and went back and down, and for a moment there was fierce fighting on all sides, but when the attack broke I called out, "Fall back on the camp! Fall back!"
Some heard my hail and passed on the call, and slowly we did fall back, for I had no desire to waste our strength by scattering in the woods.
Quill came from the brush near me, and then O'Hara a bit farther along. Glasco, Peter Fitch, Slater. ... Anxiously, I counted them off as they gathered, moving back, pausing here and there to recharge their muskets.
Barry Magill was the last to come, bleeding from a gash on the face. Now all were present but Jeremy.
"Ring?" I asked.
"He did not come," Pim said. "He stayed in camp."
"Jeremy?" I could not believe it.
"Aye," Pim said, and there was an odd look to his eyes that puzzled me.
The Catawba came back, too. Not a few of them with scalps. We had struck the Occaneechee a blow ... five men dead, and no losses to us, despite their surprise. But we had been thinking of this for weeks, and were ready. And the Catawba were always ready.
Two Catawba were wounded, only one seriously. We had come off better than we deserved, but somehow the attackers had not known of the presence of the Catawba, who were old enemies and fierce fighters. It was their sudden attack that had saved us.
"I want to see Jeremy Ring," I said, and he heard me speak and came toward me.
He bowed low, sweeping the ground with his ragged plume. "I regret my absence," he said with mock seriousness, "and nothing less could have kept me from your side, but I thought it best to stand by your kin," he said.
"My kin?" I stared at him, stupidly.
"Your wife," he said, "and your son."
Chapter 24
So my son was born on a buffalo robe in the heat of an Indian battle, under a tree by the side of a stream in a wild and lonely land, and he was given his name by a chance remark, a name he would carry forever. For we called him Kin, and thought of no other, and kin he was to all of us, to the meadow, the woodland, and the forest.
Abby was healthy and strong, and came from her labor smiling, proud she had given me a son. For a second name we called him Ring, for the man who had stood above them, sword in hand, musket and pistols hard by, stood there in case any Indian should break through our ranks and come upon them.
Kin Ring Sackett ... the name had a sound, and it was a sound I loved.
Lila brought him to me, my hands still hot from battle, the smell of powder smoke about me, and I took him carefully, for I'd no knowledge of babies, and held him gently and looked in his face, his eyes squinted and dark, his face still red and pinched, but he looked at me and seemed to laugh and grasped my thumb and tugged strongly. Oh, he was a lad, that one!
Two days later we left our river camp and moved up the river. For three full days we moved, but the water was becoming less for the season was late and the rains had not yet come. We beached our boats at last in a small bayou, unloaded them upon the shore, then drew them deep into a forest of reeds and hid them there.
We cached some goods on the spot, and hid them well, then moved out upon the trading trail, carrying the rest, and my own pack the heaviest of all. Yet strong I was to bear it, and the more willing that now I had a son, the first of my name to be born in the new land, a son who would know no civilization, but only the wilds.
He would grow up on woodland paths, riding rough water in a canoe down lonely streams and hunting his own meat in the wilderness. Looking about me I knew I could wish no better life for any man than that I was giving to him. A lonely life, but a wild, free life.
"There must be more than that, Barnabas," Abby said. "He must learn to live with civilized men also, for how can we know who will come to these shores and live upon these hills?"
The way we went was long, but the Catawbas traveled with us, returning to their country, and I set myself to learn from them, their language, their customs, their knowledge of wood and savanna. Never would I learn all they had to teach, for so much was natural to them that they assumed all would know it, things so obvious in their way of life that they would never think of teaching anyone, presuming knowledge.
We traveled slowly with them, for they hunted and gathered along the way, and late though the season. I relished the slower travel for the chance it gave to know the country.
The path we took was an ancient trading path that led across the country with many branches. Traders were usually respected and left to travel unmolested, as trade was desired by all, yet there were always renegades, outlaw Indians or war parties from afar that might not respect the trade route.
Wa-ga-su was much with us, and I began to notice a certain aloofness toward him by the others of his people. He seemed moody, sometimes puzzled, often downcast.
"What is it with my friend that he is troubled?" I asked.
He glanced at me, then shook his head. After awhile he said, "When I went away I was a great man among them. They loved and trusted me. No man was greater on the hunt, none brought more meat to the village, and none was greater upon the path of war. Now all is changed."
"What is the trouble?"
"They no longer trust me, Sackett. I told them of the great water, and they shook their heads in doubt, then of the great stone cities you have, and of the many people who live without hunting ... they think me a liar, Sackett.