The posts that made up the palisade were of uneven lengths and were deliberately left so, as that made it more difficult for attackers by night to recognize a man's head. The poles averaged between fifteen and sixteen feet above the ground with a walk running around the wall ten feet above the ground except at the gate itself. Two ladders led from the ground to the walk, and there were two blockhouses projecting from the walls to enable defenders to fire along the walls. The second blockhouse had been added sometime after the first, as we were continually trying to improve our situation. Jeremy was charging the extra muskets.
No stars were visible now. The wind was picking up, which made the detection of any approach a doubtful thing. It was intensely dark, yet our eyes were well accustomed to the night. So far as I had been able to learn, no Indian had succeeded in taking a fortified position such as ours, but I knew the dangers of over-confidence, and tried to imagine how they might attempt it.
A dozen times they had attempted this fort with no success. If they tried again, it must be because they believed they could succeed.
Something struck the palisade below me... .
Further along something else seemed to fall, and something snake-like whisked along the walk and disappeared over the wall.
Not quite over. It was a knotted rope, and the knot caught in one of the interstices between two posts. Instantly, I heard moccasins scrape against the logs outside, and almost at once a head loomed over.
His weirdly painted face was just inches away from mine and my reaction was instantaneous: a short, vicious smash in the face with the butt of my musket.
He had not seen me at all, and had thrust his head forward to look, so he took the full force of my blow and hit the ground with a thud.
'Ropes!' I shouted. 'They're climbing ropes!'
Reversing my musket, I fired at a second head that was looming over the wall some twenty feet away, and which I could scarcely make out.
It was hand to hand then, and a bitter fight it was. Three Senecas, for such they proved to be, actually made it over the wall. One we shot as he dropped to the ground inside, another was killed with a sword thrust.
What was happening beyond my vision I'd no idea. It was no time for looking about. A big Indian leaped over the wall just before me, a lithe, splendid-looking rascal, although dimly seen. He no sooner lighted on the balls of his feet than he lunged at me, knife in hand.
My musket was empty and I'd put it down. There was no chance to draw a gun from my belt, and he held the knife low and came in fast. With a slap of the hand I drove the knife-wrist aside and out of line with my body, grasped the wrist, put a leg across in front of him, and spilled him to the walkway.
He hit hard, but was up with a bounce and came at me again, more warily this time. There was time to draw a pistol, but he had no such weapon. So I drew my own knife, the knife of India given me by my father long since. The Indian thrust well, but I parried and also thrust. He'd some knowledge of knife-fighting but none of fencing, and the point of my blade nicked his wrist.
He pulled back suddenly, blood upon his hand, then feinted and dove at me, grabbing at my legs. My knee lifted and caught the side of his head as he came in, and the nudge was enough to put him over the edge.
He fell ten feet but landed standing up. He came back up instantly, and I leaped at him. He sprang back, but not soon enough and I hit him and knocked him back to the ground. I jumped down to continue the fight. I hit him with my fist under the chin.
He staggered. The force of my fist had hurt him. I hit him twice more. He was totally unused to the boxer's style and the blow in the wind hurt him anew.
Again I hit him and he fell back into the dirt. I grabbed him up by the lot of necklaces at his throat and slammed him hard against the gate.
He hit with tremendous force, and I thought he was out. I found his knife on the ground.
The first light of dawn was in the sky and I saw him plain. He had got up and was running away. I took the knife and threw it at him, yelling, 'You'll need that!'
He turned and caught it from the air as one might catch a ball. 'I will bring it back!' he shouted, and was gone.
For a moment I stood stock-still, staring after him. He had yelled in English!
'Wait!' I shouted, but he was gone and away.
My shout was the fight's end, and I walked slowly around, making a circuit of the walls. Kane had taken an arrow through his upper arm and Black Tom Watkins had a bad knife cut. Jeremy hadn't a scratch but it developed that I had three-a slight puncture wound and two slight cuts, troublesome if not cared for.
We believed that three of them had died, but as they had taken the bodies away we could not be sure.
What had turned the tide was not of our doing. For just at the moment of the hardest fighting, Kin, Yance, and a dozen Catawba, aided by Wa-ga-su, had come storming up and broke the back of the attack upon us.
Moreover, Kin and Yance were riding horseback!
Chapter 34
How swiftly roll the years! How lonely keep the nights!
At last I am westward going, over the blue mountains into the land beyond, and long have I dreamed of this! How many, many times have I looked with longing at those smoky mountains against the sky?
Pim Burke is back, if only for a little time. His fair lady proved unfair. She took his emerald and what gold he had and fled upon a ship for England, and may no good come to her.
Yet he is back, and for that I am grateful. He will stay but for a little while, for he returns to the coast to set up an inn in one of the new towns. It is a business at which he will do well.
John Quill has been to Williamsburg to make a claim for his grant of land. He has spoken for his piece here, and for another on the Chowan, and has persuaded Jeremy to do the same.
Kin and Yance have again gone beyond the mountains following a path of the Indians, worn by the feet of centuries going yonder. Soon I shall be meeting them, for it is into this land I am going at last.
Not in two years have we seen Jubal. Somewhere he roams beyond the great river of De Soto, somewhere across the vast plains that lie yonder toward the sun, and I think he will stop no more until he walks the shining western mountains of his dreams, and this I understand, for I have followed my dream of mountains, too.
And so must it be for each generation, for they must ever look to the mountains, ever seek to pass over them. Their bodies will mark the trails, their blood will feed the grass, yet some will win through and some will build and some will grow ...
Brian is reading law at the Inns of Court in London, a handsome gentleman, they say. And Noelle is a young English lady now, a beauty and a girl of spirit. A fine horsewoman, an elegant dancer. Does she ever remember our blue mountains?
Or long for her father, who remembers her small hands in his hair, the first tears in her eyes, and the laughter never far from her lips? When William dies, the old fenlands will be hers.
We write, our letters crossing on the Abigail and other ships. And I continue my trade with Peter Tallis.
And Sakim, our teacher, our physician, our friend ... one day word came from his own land, and I know not what it said, but he came to me with a farewell, and between two suns he was gone.
Now, I Barnabas Sackett, no longer a young man yet not quite an old one, am bound, west again. Black Tom Watkins rides with me. My old companion from the fens now rides the high ridges where waits the wind. At the last, when Jeremy would have come, Lila would have none of it, and for once he listened well.
Now the shadows rise from the valleys, and another night comes creeping. We have all day followed a trail made by buffalo, who wind the contours of the hills and seem ever to find the easiest way.
The Shawnees speak of this as the dark and bloody ground, and no Indian now lives here, although they come to hunt. Yet there are evidences of ancient habitation ... stone walls, earthworks, and some things found in caves. In one of the old forts Tom found a Roman coin.
Preposterous, you say? I only say he found a coin, lost by someone, not necessarily a Roman, yet perhaps someone who traded with a Roman, for the greatest myth is that of the discovery of any country, for all countries were known in the long ago, and all seas sailed in times gone by.
We are alone, Tom and I. Soon we will camp. Yet I am restless upon this night and if there were a moon would be for moving on.
