to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (19 page)

Once again we set sail and returned to the northern sound.

We were seeking out a river of which I had some small acquaintance on my previous voyage when Lila came to me with John Tilly.

"Here he is," she said.

"I see ... and a good man, too."

"Of course he is a good man. He is a man of God."

"Aren't we all?" I said gently.

"I mean," she said severely, "that John Tilly is a minister of God."

Startled, I looked at him again. "Is this true, Tilly? I had no idea."

"You had no reason to suspect it. You found me upon a ship of pirates. I was a prisoner there until they discovered I was a capable seaman."

"Well, we can always use a man of God. Nice to have you aboard, Tilly."

"Captain Sackett," Lila said severely, "you do not seem to understand. John Tilly is a minister of God. As such he is empowered to perform marriages."

I do not think I am unusually dense, yet the thought that sprang immediately to mind was the wrong one. "Lila! You don't mean to tell me! You've found a man?"

She flushed. "That is not what I mean. I am thinking of you and Miss Tempany."

Well! For a moment I just stood there looking stupid, and then I said, "Of course ... of course, Lila. I was thinking of other things, I-"

"You had better go ask her," she said gently, then.

"The Reverend and I will discuss what is to be done."

I looked around at the grinning sailors. Jeremy, who was chuckling, Jublain with his mocking smile, and Pim Burke. "Don't look so damned superior!" I said irritably. "That's why she came out here. It is just what we've planned."

"She's down in the waist," Pim said, grinning like a pleased ape. "Tell her about it."

Abruptly, I turned my back upon the lot of them and went down the ladder to where she stood alone near the rigging, watching the riverbanks not so far off.

She looked up as I drew near. "You know he loved you very much," she said.

"Who?"

"Father. He spoke to me of it many times."

"He was a good man, a strong, kindly man."

We stood by the rail looking shoreward. A heron flew up from the swamp back of the trees and banked away on slowly flapping wings.

"I want to build a stockade," I said, "with the buildings all inside, a place on a hill with a good field of fire all around. It will have to be close to the river so ships and boats can come in close.

"Then I want to get a vegetable garden and some grain growing, and to plant a small orchard."

"I'd like that."

"By the way, there's a man up on the afterdeck you should know, a very special kind of man."

She turned and looked at me. "You mean there's somebody I haven't met?"

"Well ... you've met him, I'm sure, but not in his official capacity, and that's the only way to really know him. Come ... we'll go aft and see him."

"Now? I was enjoying this."

Taking her by the arm, we started toward the ladder to the afterdeck. We were almost at the top of the ladder, and John Tilly was waiting near the whipstaff with his Bible in his hand. Lila was there, and most of the crew were arranged in respectful rows on either side.

"What does this man do?"

"What does he do? Why, he marries people. He's a minister of the Church."

She stopped abruptly. "Barnabas ... ?"

"We mustn't keep the man waiting, Abigail. You can marry me now and resent at leisure."

"I shall never resent it or you." She looked around quickly. "Oh, Barnabas! You ... I must look a sight."

"You couldn't be lovelier. Come on now."

She looked up at me. "Why! You're laughing!"

"It is a fault I have. There is something about solemn occasions that always stirs my humor. I like them, I respect them, but sometimes I think we all take ourselves too seriously."

"You don't think marriage is serious?"

"Of course, I do. It is the ultimate test of maturity, and many find excuses for avoiding it because they know they are not up to the challenge, or capable of carrying on a mature relationship."

We stopped in front of John Tilly.

Out upon the sound a slight wind ruffled the waters. The morning sun was bright upon every wavelet, and on the shore-side trees the leaves stirred occasionally in the slight wind. Three gulls winged their way overhead on slow, easy wings.

The deck tilted slightly under our feet and Tilly's low, well-modulated voice began the service.

I looked at the girl beside me, saw her hair stir slightly in the wind. Her fingers clutched at mine and held on, very tightly.

She was far from home, her father was dead, and she was marrying a man whose future was bound to a strange, lonely land.

When the brief ceremony was concluded we walked to the taffrail and stood there together, not talking, just looking out over the water.

"This can only be our first home," I told her, "for later we must go to the mountains and build there. We must have a place to go when the Queen's officers come ... and they will."

That night we remained aboard the fluyt, which we now christened the Abigail.

We stood together under the stars, smelling the strange, earthy smells from the shore of rotting vegetation, of flowers and the forest, and some faint smell of wood-smoke from the fire of some of my men, who stayed ashore.

"My mother," I said, "made a prophecy before I was born. It is thirty years ago, I think, or near to that. A man was about to attack her, and before my father came, she told the man he would die by the sword of her son, in the ruins of a flaming town."

"Lila told me the story, as you told it to her. She also told me you had the gift."

I shrugged. "I think nothing of it. It comes and it goes, but my mother, I think, was only trying to frighten the man, for how could such a prophecy be?

That I should kill the man in the ruins of a burning town? I, who shall never see another town?"

"Who knows?" Abigail said. "Who can read what is in tomorrow's wind? Shall we go to the cabin?"

Chapter
16

Green lay the forest about us, brown and silent the moving river ... the land lay still, brooding, expectant. Now was the time for dreaming past, now was the time for doing.

Oh, what a fine and handsome thing it is to sit in taverns over flagons of ale and discourse bravely of what daring things we will do! How we will walk the unknown paths through lands of sylvan beauty, facing the savage in his native habitat, far from the dust of London crowds!

Warmed by wine, the rolling poetry of words and a fine sweep of gesture, a young man feels the world is his, with a pearl in every oyster, a lovely lass behind every window, and enemies who fade from sight at his very presence. Yet the moment of reality comes, and no eloquence will build a stockade, nor will a poetic phrase fend off an arrow, for the savage of the woodland has his own conception of romance and poetry, which may involve the dreamer's scalp.

Forever the dream is in the mind, realization in the hands.

An easy thing it had been when England lay about us to scorn the vanishing men of Roanoke, the disappearance of Grenville's men, for the giving up of Ralph Lane's colony. That was all very well for them. They had failed where we would succeed.

We had gone beyond help. If a man here should take a misstep on a path and fall with a broken bone, he need expect no doctor, no litter. If savages closed about him, no Queen's men would come with banners in bold ranks marching, nor would there be a skirl of pipes and the movement of kilts and the claymores swinging.

One would be a man alone, and alone he must fight and die, or fight and live.

The entry into a new land is a hard, hard thing as Black Tom Watkins said, and upon me lay responsibility for all of these who came with me. All men wish to be captains, but few men wish to shoulder the burden of decision, and in coming here with these others, I had staked a claim that I must wall against misfortune.

First, our food. We had come well-provided, but for how long? Well I knew how precious were the foods of home, so these must be carefully used, and we must hunt, gather, and plant, to prepare for the cold winter to come.

At once I drew a plan for a stockade, showed it to Jublain, John Tilly, and the others. A change was made here, an addition there, then the men went forth with axes. With Black Tom and Pim Burke I went to the woods, for meat Two were left with the ship's boat, and they were to fish.

We were twenty-seven men and two women, and to feed such a lot is never a simple thing.

Steadily, we walked into the woods, for I had no wish to hunt close to camp and so frighten away what game was near. Several times we saw wild turkeys, but it was deer I wanted, and more than one.

Yet each such venture was more than a hunt for food, it was an exploration, and after each venture of my own or others it was in my mind to note down what was observed and to piece together a map of the area for all to see.

Suddenly, we came upon deer, a half dozen of them feeding in a meadow, some hundred and fifty yards off. It was far to risk a shot upon which so much depended, so I began my stalk. Having hunted deer in England I believed these would be no different.

All were feeding. Indicating the one I would attempt to kill, I suggested to the others that they choose their target and shoot when I shot.

Slowly, silently I began moving upwind toward them. Suddenly I saw their tails begin to twitch, and knowing they were about to look up, I stood fast. Their heads lifted and they stared at me, but I made no slightest move, and waited.

Soon they decided I was harmless and resumed their feeding.

Moving on, I closed some fifteen yards closer before their tails began to twitch again. They looked about, looked longer at me for they must have realized that strange object out there was closer, then back to feeding. Again I moved, again I stopped.

Now I was within less than a hundred yards of my target, and lifting my gun, I took aim. My ball took the buck through the neck just forward of the shoulders.

He leaped, fell to his knees, then rolled over.

Tom and Pim had come closer also, and instantly, both fired. Pim's was a clean miss as his target, startled by my shot, made an abrupt move, paused, then began to walk away.

They came up to me and we waited, hoping the deer might stop not far off, but they continued to move on into the brush, and we let them go.

"The neck shot is best," I commented, "if chance allows. If shot through the heart or lungs they will often run a mile or more before dropping."

Tom was the most skillful butcher among us, so he began skinning the animals out, while Pim and I followed in the way they had gone. A deer will rarely travel more than a mile from his home grounds if it can be avoided, so we hoped they had but circled around. Whatever they had done, we saw them not again.

With our meat and the skins we returned to our camp, killing three turkeys on the way.

So there was meat that night, but scarcely enough, and I knew we must go far afield, must kill and dry the meat and prepare for the winter to come. Supplying my small force was to be no small problem.

The days went swiftly by, working, hunting, clearing and planting land. During this time I kept several men aboard the fluyt, now rechristened the Abigail, cleaning her up, making minor repairs, and adding to her armament two guns recovered from the burned vessel.

The stockade was completed and four swivel-guns were mounted on the walls. Two more of the recovered guns from the burned-out wreck were hauled to the hilltop where the stockade had been built and mounted to cover the river itself.

We saw no Indians, yet from time to time their tracks were seen, and twice we saw canoes passing swiftly along the river in the dark.

"I do not trust them," Jublain protested irritably. "These, if I mistake them not, are Chowanokes."

"I know nothing of them," I said.

"Nor I," he admitted, "but I served with a soldier who came with Lane, and he spoke of them with no favor. They were allied to Wingina, who was a chief to the south and a great enemy to all whites.

"If the Roanoke colony vanished, he would be the likely culprit."

"And not the Spanish?"

"Aye, mayhap the Spanish, too."

It was a lovely land, alive with flowers and richness of soil, but except when cutting logs we avoided the swamp. There were alligators there as well as snakes, and a dismal place it was. Yet it was the easiest way for us to procure the timbers we needed, for a tree felled there could be towed by a boat easier than it could be moved upon land. Nor had we any wish to make our position more obvious by cutting trees. Taken from the swamp they left no gaping holes, nor any sign of activity likely to be seen.

If the Indians left us alone we were content that it be so, although it was trade with them I most desired, I preferred that we make our own position secure first, for in dealing with a people of so vastly different a culture and background we must ever be wary, for their understanding is not ours, nor is it based on the same considerations.