'Only for sport. Because they wish to hunt.'
'No hunt for meat?'
'There is not enough game to feed them. Many villages. Many big, big villages. No place for game. They plant corn. They raise cattle, sheep.'
'Cattle?'
'Some men own many cows. Like buffalo. They keep them in big corrals and when they want meat, they kill one.'
He considered that. 'No hunt buffalo?'
'We have no buffalo. Cows.'
'Ah? I see him, Spanishmans have cows. He talk 'city'? City is big village?'
Slowly, taking my time, I explained what was meant by a city and described the many occupations of the people who lived there, trying to keep to those occupations he would understand the best.
'Clothing is made by tailors, and there are men who make weapons--knives, guns, and armor. There are houses in which strangers can sleep, and places where they can go to eat.'
This he had been told before, but his was a curious, interested mind. Uninformed he might be, unintelligent he was not, and I could see why the Englishman had been drawn to him. Undoubtedly the man had been lonely and he had taken on the teaching of the young Indian, opening his mind to possibilities Keokotah could not have imagined.
The mountains loomed before us, and now the river was running with a strong, powerful stream, sixty or seventy yards wide. Rains had been falling in the upper mountains and there was more snow upon the peaks. We saw fewer and fewer buffalo but we pushed on. Now I was searching for tracks, for some indication of Itchakomi's direction.
We had seen occasional indications in the past, a place where they had camped long since, a place where they had crossed a stream. I had come to know her footprints, partly from their small size and delicate shape, unusual for an Indian woman, for most of them were accustomed to carrying heavy burdens.
I wished to find her, discharge my mission, such as it was, and go on about my business. If business it could be called, for I wished to wander, to explore, to learn, to see. And with winter coming on we must find shelter and kill some buffalo or gather other skins for warm clothing. I had no time to waste.
Kapata ... he was another story. I had never wanted to kill a man. But Kapata? I might make an exception.
If we had not wanted a buffalo so desperately it might not have happened, but the buffalo was there, a big one with a fine robe. And three others trailing behind him.
They had our attention and I drew my longbow and let fly an arrow. We were directly in front of the bull and he had not seen us. His left foreleg was back at the end of its stride, just before he lifted it to bring it forward, and my shaft must have gone right to the heart.
He seemed to stagger and then stopped, evidently puzzled. Keokotah let fly with an arrow of his own at the cow that was behind the bull, and then two more before one could think. The cow staggered and fell. The bull shook his head and blood ran from his nostrils. He started forward but then slowly toppled.
From behind me there was a savage yell and they were upon us. Conejeros. Five of them. My second arrow was ready so I turned and let go. A big warrior took it right through the throat in midstride.
Then the others were upon us, with knives and spears. A sweaty body hurtled at me, my bow fell, my knife came up, and then there was blood all over my hand and I was withdrawing the knife.
Chapter Fifteen.
Low and gray were the clouds above us, the earth damp from a shower that had passed. Fresh was the air with a hint of more rain to come, and I stood with a bared and bloody knife above the body of a man whom I had killed.
The attack had been sudden, unexpected, and must have seemed a certain victory for the attackers. Our attention had been upon the buffalo whose robes and flesh we needed, our only warning the grate of gravel under the moccasin of a leaping Indian, and then the yell. But the warning had been enough. Keokotah had turned like a cat, swift and sure, and another warrior had gone down before him.
The two remaining had disappeared, dropping off into an arroyo. Keokotah glanced at me. I thrust my knife into the earth to clean the blade and went over to the buffalo bull.
'They will come back,' Keokotah said.
'So let them come. We need the robes.'
To skin a buffalo bull weighing over a thousand pounds, and I suspected this one weighed half again that much, is not an easy thing nor one quickly done. We knew we should be off and away, but winter would soon be upon us. We worked swiftly, while keeping a sharp lookout.
Three warriors had died, and the Conejeros were fierce fighting men who would not permit them to lie unavenged.
We skinned out the bull and then the cow. We took only the tongue from the bull but from the cow we took the best cuts of meat. We shouldered our burdens and started away, but such hides are heavy and our movements were slow. We turned away from the river, heading southwest toward the mountains. It was rolling, sometimes rough country cut by a number of small creeks, some dry, some running with small streams. The bull's hide, which I carried, was a very heavy as well as awkward burden.
Several times we paused to look back. Pursuit depended on how far the Conejeros must go to reach their camp and on whether warriors were there. The mountains toward which we were headed were hours away. The place where the river ran out from its canyon was away to the north.
Shouldering our loads we started on. The robes would be lighter in weight when they had been scraped and cleaned, but there was no time for that now.
The nearest mountain was a sort of hogback, and to the north of it were several scraggy peaks. We held our course to reach the mountains between the two. When we had gone what I believed was about five miles we found ourselves following a rocky creek. We drank and then studied the terrain.
How far had the Conejeros to go for help? By now, without burdens, they should have reached their camp.
'They might have horses,' I suggested.
He stared at me. 'Horses?'
'They could steal from the Spanish.' I waved a hand off to the south. 'There are Spanish down thataway.'
We had heard stories of them from the Indians. Keokotah would have heard them as well. Even before this I had been to the Great River and touched upon the plains beyond. The Cherokees told stories of Spanishmen beyond the Far Seeing Lands.
'If they have horses they could be here soon,' I said. As I spoke I was thinking of how much better it would be if we had even one horse to carry the hides. I was unusually strong, but a buffalo hide was no small weight.
When we camped it was in a small cove against an overhanging cliff where an ancient river had cut away the rock into a shallow cave. Keokotah went out to cover as much as he could of our trail while I broiled meat over a small fire.
We ate, slept an hour or so, and then when the moon arose we moved out, heading toward the mountains again. By daybreak they were looming before us, though still some distance off. Keokotah moved on before me.
We plodded on, resting often, studying the terrain at every pause. Still, the Conejeros did not come. 'Maybe farther than we think,' Keokotah suggested. 'He may go far, far out!'
It was true, of course. I had assumed their camp was not far off, but the party that had attacked us might be a war or hunting party a long distance from their camp.
We saw antelope but no buffalo. Several times we saw wolves, attracted by the still-bloody hides we carried. By the time the sun was high we had fallen upon a dim game trail that seemed to come from the mountains before us. We held to the trail.
We found our way to a small elevation, a level place with a hollow behind it where we could build a small fire of dry sticks that would give off no smoke. On the flat ground we staked out our hides and began the tedious task of
