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.
'My words are no longer heard in the village. When I speak they turn their backs upon me. They believe me a liar or that the whites have bewitched me.
'You see, they think you a small people, a weak people, even though your firearms make you great in battle. They say, 'Why do not they trap their own furs? Hunt their own game? If they do not, it is because they can not. Therefore they must be a weak people.' '
'I am sorry, Wa-ga-su. It might be the same with my people if I told them of the vast lands here, with so few people, of the great rivers, the tall trees ... they might not believe me, either.'
'Yes, I think it is so, Sackett. We grow wise, you and I, but in wisdom there is often pain. No man of my people has traveled so far. None but me has crossed the great water, none but me has seen the great cities and the horses and carriages.
But if they will not believe what I have seen, if I am no longer great among my people-then I am an empty man, Sackett.
'Who is it for whom one becomes wise? Is it not for the people? For his people?
Do I become wise only for myself? I become wise to advise, to help ... but they do not believe and my voice is only an echo in an empty canyon. I speak for my ears only and the sound is hollow, Sackett.'
'You have a place with us, Wa-ga-su, a place as long as you live.'
'Ah? I thank you. But of course, it is not the same, is it?'
We walked on together and the great forest was green about us.
'They believe the horses, do they not?'
'Horses they have seen, or their fathers or grandfathers have seen. The Espanish men had horses. I have heard it there is a people beyond the mountains have horses, but only a few taken from the white men or left behind by them.'
'What game lies beyond the mountains, Wa-ga-su?'
'The buffalo are there, the deer, the mountain cat, a still bigger deer, and there is the animal with the long nose and big white teeth.'
'What?'
'It is true. I have not seen it myself. My grandfather told us of them. They were a large animal that men used to hunt. They had great teeth ... curving like so, and a long nose like an arm. They were very hairy.'
The elephant? Here? It was not possible. There were elephants in Africa, and my father told me of the Carthaginians using them in war against the Romans, and the bones of still more ancient ones had been found in Europe. But here?
'You know of the great sea beyond the mountains?'
He shook his head. 'There is a sea to the north, very far off. There is a sea to the south, also very far, but beyond the mountains there is no sea. There is only land.'
No great western sea beyond which lay Cathay? No land of Cipango? Wa-ga-su must be mistaken. All the best minds said there was a sea beyond the mountains.
For days upon end we walked. We carried our burdens and we hunted for game, and somehow we lived, and somehow at last we came to the land of the Catawbas, after fording another great river. We moved into the foothills of the mountains, and Wa-ga-su led us to a small valley, its steep sides heavy with forest, and a stream that ran though the meadow at the bottom.
Abby came up beside me and stood, looking about. 'We will stop here,' I said, 'and here we will build our home.'
'Our home, Barnabas?'
'For a time, Abby. For a time ... there are still the mountains ... and the land beyond.'
Chapter 25
Once again we were at work, felling trees, hewing them into timbers, building a series of cabins and the stockade that would surround them. Tom Watkins and Kane O'Hara went to the woods, a-hunting. Near the slope of yellow mountain, in an open meadow, they killed two buffalo. This meat we dried against the winter's coming.
Our skills were the greater for what we had built before, and the houses and stockade went up easier, despite our lesser numbers.
Kin had filled out amazingly, and was a laughing, energetic little fellow as befitted the first of our name to be born in the new lands. Abby was much with him, and Lila with them both.
Peter Fitch, who was the best of us all at timber work, having been a shipwright, paused in his work one day. 'I think of Jonathan Delve,' he said. 'I did not like the man. There was a crossgrain of evil in him, but he was strong.'
'He was that,' I agreed.
'And dangerous,' Peter added.
'Aye. He is well gone.'
Fitch stooped to take up his broadaxe. 'If he is,' he said.
I had turned away, but at that I stopped. 'You do not think he is?'
'If he finds not what he went after, he will think of you. He will know you had some money from furs and timbers, and he will come to believe the story of King John's treasure. He will also begin to wonder why you go west into an unknown land.
'He will not believe you are what you are. He believes all men are evil, that all will steal, connive, do whatever is necessary to obtain wealth. He will think you very shrewd. He will say to himself, 'He goes to the western sea, there to build a ship and sail away to the Indies or Cathay.' '
I shook my head. 'The Indians know of no western sea, and when Hawkins' men marched up the country, they saw no western sea, nor heard of it. Some say they walked from Mexico to the French lands in the north, some say only from Florida, but they covered a deal of country.'
'No matter. Let the Indians believe what they wish, and you as well, but Delve will believe what pleases him best. He hates you, Captain, as he hates us all.
Mark it down ... we have not seen the last of Jonathan Delve.
'He proposed to us once to leave you and join Bardle, or to open the gates to Bardle when he attacked.'
Later, talking to Jeremy and Pim, I spoke of Fitch's words. 'Aye,' Jeremy agreed, 'I have been thinking of the man. It is far to follow, but who knows?'
Yet there was little time to think of such things. When men live by hunting it is a constant task with all our mouths to feed, and usually the Indians who came visiting. The amounts of fresh meat they could put away was astonishing.
Often I went with Abby and Lila to the woods, gathering nuts, and whenever we went, Kin was along, carried by one of us.
