The old man looked up the slope at us and said something to them we could not hear. The first Indian then faced us. 'Sack-ett?' he asked.
I stepped forward. 'I am Jubal Sackett,' I replied. We were separated by all of a hundred paces but in the clear air our voices sounded plain.
'Our father wishes to speak with Sack-ett,' the young man replied.
Upon the grass he spread a blanket and then another for me. He stood back, waiting. The old man came forward and seated himself cross-legged. I started down, and the Kickapoo said, 'It is a trap.'
Two more Indians came from the woods and stood silent, waiting. 'They are five,' I said, 'but they do not threaten us. They wish to talk.'
'Five? Five is not enough. I am a Kickapoo.'
'And I am Sackett,' I said, 'with whom they wish to speak. Do you come. You can help us speak.'
Reluctantly, he followed, and I went down and seated myself opposite the old man.
For a long moment we simply looked at one another. His features were those of an Indian but with a subtle difference. What the difference was I could not have said, but perhaps it was only that he was a kind of Indian I had not seen before.
He was old, so very, very old, and age had softened features that once must have been majestic. Old? Yes, but there was no age in his eyes. They were young, and they were alert. He wore a magnificently tanned white buckskin jacket that was beaded and worked with colored quills in a series of designs unknown to me. On his head was a turban such as the younger man wore, tight fitting, snug. What hair I could see was white and thin.
He spoke in Cherokee, a tongue with which I had long been familiar. 'I have come far to see Sack-ett,' he said. His eyes were friendly and appealing. 'I have come to ask for help, and I am not accustomed to ask.'
'If there is anything I can do--'
'There is.' He paused again. 'The name of Sack-ett is known, but I expected an older man.'
'My father, Barnabas. He was our strength and our wisdom, but he is gone from us, killed by the Seneca.'
'I have heard. I did not believe it true.'
'Nevertheless, I am a Sackett. If there is something my father would have done, it shall be done.' I paused a moment. 'What is it?'
One of the others had kindled a fire, and now with a coal he lighted a pipe. First he handed it to the old man, who drew deeply on the pipe and then passed it to me. I drew deeply on it also and would have handed it to the Kickapoo, but he drew back.
It seemed to me that the pipe ritual was not a customary one with him, but I did not know. That the old man was a Natchee Indian I was sure, but our contact with them had been slight, for they lived far to the south along the Great River. It seemed to me he was endeavoring to follow a ritual of other Indians and one with which he believed me to be familiar. It was an unusual experience, for the Indians I had known kept to their own ways and rarely borrowed those of others.
'The day is long,' I suggested, 'and you have far to go.'
'I go no further. I am here.'
Puzzled, I looked about me, but he only smiled. 'It is Sack-ett I have come to see.' He paused and laid the pipe aside, perhaps realizing I was as unused to the ceremony as he. 'You are known to us. The Sack-etts are great fighting men but wanderers also.'
'It is true.'
'You are just men.'
'We try to be just.'
'You have come from afar but you take no more than you need. You do not take scalps. You do not make war until war is made upon you. This we have heard.'
'It is so.'
'Your people build houses, plant fields, gather in the forest for food. Sometimes you hunt.'
'It is so.'
'It is told that Ju-bal Sack-ett goes toward the setting sun. You are he?'
'I am.'
'Why do you go?'
'I do not know. Perhaps because it is a place I do not know.
'One night I awakened in the darkness. It was very still. I lay wide awake, listening for something, and then it came to me. A voice said, 'Go!'
'One afternoon I was alone upon a mountain and I looked westward and a voice said, 'Come!' It is my destiny, I think.'
The old man was silent for several minutes and when the silence grew too long I started to speak but he lifted a hand.
'The Natchee are a strong people. We are Children of the Sun. But one day a woman arose among us and spoke with a strange tongue. She spoke aloud with the voice of a man long dead and she said an enemy would come among us, an enemy who would seem to be a friend. This enemy would bring strange goods and strange presents and he would speak good words to us, but one day one among them would seek to destroy our sacred places and drive us from them to live like dogs, with no worship, with no ritual, with no memory of what we were or what we had been.
'We were to find a new place. We were to prepare to leave all behind and go into a strange, far land and prepare a place against the time of madness. We were to go where the sun goes behind the mountains and there find our place. In her man's voice she described the place and told us where to go.'
'But you have not gone?'
'It was but one voice, and none of us wished to go. We love our land. It has been ours forever, I think. We lingered on, but the voice came again, and then a strange boat came and men gave presents and took things from us and went away.
'Now some began to believe, and at last it was said that some should go and find the place that is to be ours. Most did not believe, but finally one was chosen to lead the way.'
'And he went?'
'Shewent. Fourteen in all. Ten men and four women went.' He paused. 'None have returned. We fear them dead.'
The tall young man we had first seen, spoke suddenly. 'She is not dead. She is mine.'
I did not like him.
'They are to be joined together,' the old man said.
'This has been decided? I do not know your customs.'
'Shewill decide. She is a Sun, a daughter of the Great Sun.' The old man paused and I thought I detected a gleam of humor in his eyes. 'She is a strong woman. Beautiful, but very strong. She will decide.' He paused again. 'He believes he will decide. He is a Stinkard.'
'I can see that.'
The old man explained. 'Ours is a different world from yours. First are the Suns, who rule. Second are the Nobles, third are the Respected Men, and fourth are the Stinkards. It is our custom that a Stinkard must always marry a Sun.'
'So he will marry this woman?'
'As I said, she will decide.'
'Iwill decide,' the young man said.
'His mother was of another people than ours. Among her people women spoke when spoken to. He often speaks of this. Yet,' the old man added, 'he is very handsome. Many women look upon him with favor. He is a great warrior, one the greatest among us.'
'And why have you come to me?'
'You go westward. You are a great wanderer. I think you could find this woman. I think you could tell her she is needed.'
For a moment I thought of this. 'If she is to be his woman,' I said, 'why does he not go?'
'He is needed. We have trouble.'
