Firelight flickered on the bare rock walls. The broiling venison tasted good.
Kneeling, I added fuel to the blaze. The warmth was comforting, and suddenly I was glad to be resting, for we had come a far piece since the dawning.
No sound in the night but the wind, no whisper but the leaves. The higher ranges lay behind us. The crabapple cove lay just below. Beyond that a long, long valley that ends or seems to end at a river, a strong-flowing river that goes, they say, to the great river of De Soto. Jubal has ridden that river down. He has spoken of it to me.
Tom handed me a chunk of venison. "Indians say there were white folks here, in the long ago time. Cherokees say they wiped 'em out. The Shawnees say the same.
Likely somebody from one tribe married into the other an' carried the tale, or maybe they came together on the war party."
The wind moaned in the pines and the land was dark around us. The fire fluttered in the wind, and I added fuel. I should not be looking into the flames ... the eyes adjust too slowly to darkness, and somebody, I think, is out there, waiting.
Somebody, perhaps, and some ... thing.
This was my land. I breathed deeply of the fresh, cool air from off the mountains. This was what I had come for, this wide land, those tall boys who rode down the mountain paths toward me. It was a land for men. Here they could grow, here they could become, here they could move on to those destinies that await the men who do and are.
My father had given me much, and I had given them a little of that, I think, and a wide land in which to grow. Had I done nothing else, I left them this birthright ... for I knew that out there beyond the great river, beyond the wide plain, beyond the shining mountains ... beyond ... there would be, for the men of this land, forever a beyond.
Many would die ... do not all die, soon or late? Yet many would die in combat here, many would die in building, yet each in passing on would leave something of himself behind. This land waited long for the hard-bellied men to come, waited, snugged down for destiny. Hard though the years may be, and the moments of doubt, there will always be the beyond.
I looked again to the stars. Even there ... even out there, given time ...
Black Tom Watkins stirred the fire again. He added sticks. "You got the notion something was behind us out there?"
"Bring the horses close, Tom. Yes, I think there is something out there. Yet even so, I'd like an early start. We are to meet the boys in the cove where the crabapples are."
He looked around at me. "D' you reckon we'll make it, Barnabas?"
"Do you wonder, Tom?"
He was silent, and the fire crackled. Somewhere out there the wind moved through the trees. "I reckon not, Barnabas. I reckon I knew from the moment we straddled a horse for this ride that we wasn't goin' but one way this time."
"We've ridden a good trail together, Tom, a long ride since that night on the edge of the fens."
"Aye, an' the boys are old enough now to git on without us." He looked up at me, embarrassed. "Barnabas, I hope you won't mind, but sometimes I think those boys are my own."
"That's the way I want it, Tom. You've been a second father to them, and a fine example."
"Example? Me?"
"You're a man, Tom Watkins, a man to ride down the warpath with ... or any path.
You were there when the long guns spoke, and you were beside me when the blades were drawn ... and when they were sheathed ... and you never shirked a job that needed to be done."
"Lila knew, didn't she? That why she wouldn't let Jeremy come?"
"She knew."
He brought the horses closer to the fire, and I walked out in the night and listened. Suppose I was wrong? Well, then ... we'd meet the boys tomorrow.
I went to the spring and drank deep of the cold, cold water.
When I straightened up, I heard the faintest of sounds. My musket lifted and I faded deeper into the shadow of a boulder. A quick glance showed me Tom was gone ... the fire flickered alone. Suddenly, off to my left a shadow shifted and I heard the blast of Tom's musket. The shadow stopped, then fell forward ... and then they came swiftly, silently, and there were too many.
My musket accounted for one. A warrior loomed up from the shadows almost at my feet, and I shot him with a pistol, then ran forward, clubbing my musket to stand over Tom.
An arrow struck me. I felt the blow, then a stab of pain.
They were all around me then. The musket wrenched from my hands. My knife was out ... that knife from India and a gift to my father, and from him to me.
It swung up and in. I heard a gasp and an Indian fell from me. Suddenly, with all my strength I swung into them, stabbing, slashing. Fire was kicked into the grass and a great flame went up, crackling and angry.
A huge warrior loomed before me, striking with a club. I went in quickly, under the blow. I put the knife into his ribs and he fell from me, jerking it from my grip. He fell and I swung a fist and knocked another sprawling, then stooped to withdraw the knife and felt a tremendous blow on the skull.
I was bleeding, I was hurt. I went down again, got up again. I grabbed a pistol, but the hammer clicked. Tom still had one unfired. I lunged for his body, knocked an Indian sprawling and threw three from me. Coming up with Tom's pistol, I fired into the Indians who loomed before me, then clubbed the pistol and struck another. I was down. An Indian loomed over me with a lance. I struck it aside and grasped it, pulling myself up. They fell back in a circle, staring at me, and I stood weaving before them, the lance in my grasp.
They were going to come for me again. I reached down and caught up my powder horn, pulled off the stopper and threw it into the fire. There was an explosion and a puff of fire shot out, and the Indians leaped back.
Tom, who had evidently been knocked out, came up then, and for a few minutes we stood back to back. I retrieved my knife and we fought, working our way back toward the cave mouth.
"Barn ... I'm goin', I-"
He went down again but I caught up his cutlass. For a minute or more I held them off with that swirling, thrusting blade, but I was weaker.
I was bleeding ... I was hurt.
Suddenly, I was down. There was a thrown lance in my chest. I tried to move, could not.
I gripped the knife. "Come on, damn you! I can kill another of you!"
They stared at me, and drew slowly back. I was dying and I knew it.
They knew it, too.
Suddenly one of them dropped to his knees and began to sing a death-song.
My death-song. He was singing it for me.
Turning my knife, I handed it to him, hilt forward. "Th ... anks," I said.
Or thought I said.
"Ah-? Abby? I-I wish-" In the dust, my finger moved ... stirred.
Kin ... Yance ... the boys and Noelle. Had they found a path, as I had? Did they know the way to go?
Who would live to tell the story-our story?
My finger wrote in the dust. I looked, my gaze blurred.
I had written: Give them tomorrow ...
Dead I was, yet not quite dead, for I felt the Indian stoop above me, covering me gently with a blanket.
There was a whisper of moccasins, withdrawing ...
The dawn wind stirred the corner of the blanket. One of the horses whinnied ... for a long, long time, there was no other sound.
In the lodges of the Senecas there was silence. And into the darkened lodge of the old chief the four warriors came and they stood tall before him.
For a long time they stood in silence, arms folded. Then one said, "He is finished."
"You have his hair?"
"We were twelve. Four came away. We left his scalp with him ... and the other, also."
Another spoke. "We covered them with blankets, for they were brave."
"He was ever brave." The old man was silent. "You have done well."