to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (21 page)

They had immediately followed, but he eluded them. Then, wounded, sick, exhausted, he had fallen down near the edge of the swamp, where, smelling blood, the alligator had come for him.

With the coming of night the great gates to our fort were closed and barred. The smaller gate which opened on the river side was also barred. Two sentries walked the walls at night, and a system of signals was arranged with those men who remained aboard the fluyt, where a watch was also kept.

Nothing in my nature permitted me to trust to fortune, for it was my belief that good luck came to those who work hard and plan well. So far we had remained free from trouble with Indians. Hopefully, it would remain so.

Each night a different man was officer of the watch, a duty I divided with Jublain, Pirnmerton Burke, and Sakim. On this night, Pim was on duty, and he awakened me at a few minutes past midnight.

"Barnabas? Can you come?"

"What is it?" As ever, I was immediately awake.

"I don't know. But you'd better come."

He disappeared soundlessly. I got up and began quickly dressing.

"What is it, Barnabas?" Abigail was awake.

"I don't know. But I fear it is trouble, for Pim is not easily alarmed."

Taking up my pistols, buckling on my sword, and then taking a musket, I slipped out into the night. Behind me I heard Abigail stirring about. I mounted the ladder to the wall.

A guard loomed beside me. It was a man I knew as a Newfoundlander, a good, sturdy man, Ned Tanner. "They're out there, Cap'n," he whispered, "and it is I who thinks there's a-plenty of them."

"Stand by, then."

Walking on around the walk below the wall to the other guard, I found Pim Burke.

"Tanner says there's a lot of them out there. What say you?"

"Aye," the guard, a swarthy, husky chap from Bristol, spoke softly. "They've something in mind, Captain. They've been all about below the walls."

Listening, I could hear the movements of men, but what they planned I could not guess. "Pim," I said, "do you go below and roust out six good men. Let the others rest, if they've the will to. It may be a long day before us."

Now to take a stockaded position is not an easy thing if the defenders be alert.

With cannon, it was a simple thing, without them almost impossible without negligence on the part of the defenders. Yet the very fact they had not yet attacked spoke of some preparation, which implied some knowledge of making war and strong positions. This implied there might be a white man among them.

The Spanish, who had settlements in the land of Florida, were not happy with England's attempts to settle Virginia, and it might be that a small party of Spanish were directing this effort. Of course, that was pure speculation, I had no facts.

A glance at the stars told me almost an hour had gone by since I had first been awakened. The ladder behind me creaked as the men climbed to their positions.

With moving about upon the walkway and listening, much time had passed, yet I had no idea of what they planned. Below me at least two and perhaps more of them were moving about, perhaps only seeking to find a way to enter.

I spoke softly. "What is it you want?" And I used the Catawba tongue.

There was abrupt silence.

"We do not sleep," I continued, "but we wish no trouble. If you would talk, come to us in the light, and we shall speak. If you come by night, we have no choice but to believe you enemies."

Again a silence. Then a voice, "Release the Catawba. He is ours."

"He is his own. You do not have him. We do not have him."

"Put him outside, and we will take him and go."

"He is a good man. He works beside us. We will not put him away. He has come to our village for protection."

"Then we shall take him. I, whom am Naguska, say this."

"You are a Tuscarora?"

"So it is."

"The Tuscarora are a proud people. They are fine warriors. But I am English. We do not surrender those who have come to us for aid."

"So be it." He seemed not too displeased. "You will die for it. All of you."

Then, surprisingly, he said in English, "You are a weak people, you English. And you tell lies about your country beyond the water. You are a small people. You cannot hunt. You have no fur. You have no big trees. You have only your big canoes and a hunger for things that belong to others."

"You speak English?"

"My father was English. He taught me many words before I saw his weakness. He was no warrior. He was no hunter. He could do nothing ... nothing that becomes a man."

"In our land only some men are warriors, and there is little game, so few of us are hunters. We obtain what is needed by barter."

"Bah! It is a woman's wayl A warrior takes what he needs!"

"Who was your father?"

"He was nobody. He could only scratch marks upon paper, upon bark, upon whatever he had. He told me they were charms, so we did not burn them, but they did him no good."

"He is dead?"

"Long ago. It is well that he died. I had great shame to have no other father."

"I thought with you it was the mother's brother who was important to the boy?"

"Well, it was so. My mother's brother was a great warrior!"

He seemed willing enough to talk, and while he talked there was no fighting. I whispered as much to Pim, but advised him to be doubly alert.

"Come to the gate by day, and come alone. I would speak with you, Naguska."

"By day? By day you shall all be dead. Or prisoners, to die by the torch."

"You said your father made marks upon paper and bark. Do you have that paper and the bark? I should like to see it."

"I have them. I know where they are hidden. My father was a weak man. He could use no weapon, he could not hunt. He was much laughed at for his weakness. With him always it was only what he could put upon paper."

I heard a series of strange sounds. I tried to identify them.

Suddenly, I knew! Ladders! They had ladders!

Along various spots in the wall were small bundles of grass and twigs that could be quickly lighted. Taking one from its cubbyhole, I struck a light and touched it off with a spark. As it sprang into flame, I held it over the wall In the brief flare of light a dozen savage, painted faces glared up at me, then the ladders started to rise.

An arrow struck near me. Aiming at the nearest man's chest, I fired.

They came with a rush.

Chapter
18

"Ladders!" I shouted the word so all would know what to expect.

Ladders. I had never heard of an Indian using such things, yet Naguska was only half Indian, and he might have learned many things from the father he seemed to despise.

There was a burst of firing. Somebody dropped another lighted bundle, and then another. Two Indians were attempting to take a wounded man away, and a ladder dropped into place near me. I grabbed the top of it and shoved it from the wall.

One man let go and fell off, another one rode the ladder back toward me.

My blade was there to meet his chest as he fell against the wall. For a moment his face was very near to me, and then I was drawing the blade clear.

Other men were climbing up from below. The whole lot of our men had been brought up by the firing but, suddenly, there was a lull.

"More bundles!" I shouted. "Don't let them get away with the ladders!"

Here and there a shot followed. Then all was silence. Around us the velvet of night lay gently. A faint breeze stirred in from die sea, and there was left a smell of burned wood, grass, and gunpowder.

Then there was another aroma ... fresh coffee! Some of the men had not tasted it, for the substance was new in England, yet Abigail had long been familiar with it from her travels on her father's ship in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

There was a cup for each of us, and a pleasant, warming drink it was.

Jublain and Pim came to me. "Will they attack again, think you?"

"I do not know. The ladders failed only because we were alert, but they will think their medicine was bad. We must wait and see."

The attack had lasted only minutes, and now all was still. We drank more of the coffee and some men returned to their rest. A slow hour passed by, and then another. There was a faint gray fight in the east, or perhaps I but wished it so.

Watkins came to me beside the parapet. "There's two ladders outside near the gate. Request permission to go out and get them."

I hesitated. To open the gates was a risk, but I wished to keep as many ladders from their hands as possible. Always before Indians had failed to succeed in attacks against stockades unless they could get in before a gate was closed.

"How many men will you need?"

"Twelve, I think. Two men for each ladder, the others to stand by in case of attack."

"Very well. Only it must be done quickly. At the first move from them retreat within the gate and close it."

We waited ... the creak of the heavy gates was unnaturally loud in the stillness. Surely, the Indians could hear it, but what would they think? That we were pursuing them?

Yet Watkins and his men moved swiftly indeed. Within minutes the gates had swung shut again, and at least two of the ladders were within.

He came to me. It had grown a little lighter and his grin was easy to see.

"There was a third we could not carry so I almost cut the rawhide bindings through," he said. "Wait until they try climbing that one!"

Watching toward the dark line of forest, I thought of Naguska.

The threads that hold a man to leadership be thin indeed, and he had trusted his success to a new thing, an un-Indian thing, and it had failed. Some of them were sure to think that it was this strange thing that led to their defeat, they would blame him. I could not but feel regret for him, for he seemed an able man, although I was sorry he respected his father so little.

Yet, might it not be that he secretly loved him? That all this was a mask, a thing to shield him from such an emotion? For few of the Indians we had met thus far regarded the father with veneration, for the maternal uncle was he who drew the respect we gave to a father.

We waited, and waited, yet no further attack came, and slowly the sky grew lighter.

Here and there we saw patches of darkness on the grass, left by the blood of a victim, but there were no bodies, alive or dead. All had been spirited away in the darkness. We found four more ladders, one abandoned almost at the edge of the brush.

How well for us and all who lived behind stockades that this new way of war had failed them. I wondered how often it might have happened-that a truly great discovery was cast aside because of initial failure. The ladders were well-made, the uprights notched slightly, and the crosspieces bound in place with rawhide.

Abigail had breakfast ready when I came below. She had not waited for the main table to be set, knowing I would be hungry. I told her of Naguska, and she looked at me, smiling with amusement. "You are a strange man, Barnabas, for you seem almost regretful that he failed, when his success might have meant death to us all."

"It was a new idea to them, Abby, the ladders. And he must have argued many hours to convince his warriors of their worth." I reflected. "Yes, I do feel regret for him, and someday I hope we can meet again ... under other circumstances. I would know more of this father of his. How he came to be here and what his name was. And whence he came."

Sakim and Pim came in to share coffee with me, and I told them of my thinking.

"How strange it is to think that all our knowledge, all our skills can seem worthless to a people not accustomed to them."

Sakim shrugged. "It was ever so. Long ago I was on a ship to the Moluccas, and we stopped by an island to trade. No steel was known there, nor any metal at all. The tools, axes, knives ... all were of stone.

"One such was beautifully made and I wished it for something to take home with me, and offered to trade a steel hatchet for his of stone. He looked at my hatchet, turned it over, used it, looked astonished at how easily it cut, then returned it to me and took up his own. He would not trade. He wanted what was known and familiar, not this strange tool of whose properties he knew nothing."

Sakim sipped his coffee. "It is good," he said, "but thin to my taste. I must show you someday how it is made in my country."

He put down his cup. "I have come tonight to talk to you of that."

"Of your country? My father knew a little, but too little. Peter talked some of the Eastern lands, but I know too little except that spices come from there, and gold and tea and coffee and much else."

Sakim smiled, and turned his cup upon the table. "Much else, indeed." He looked at me, his black eyes amused and a little doubtful, I thought. "That young man, Naguska. I am very like him in that I, too, have learning that may be despised, as his was."

"How so? I despise no learning, Sakim. That you know."

"Perhaps, my friend, and that is why I have decided to tell you what I have told no man since my first captivity to Europeans. It was easier to let them believe I was a Moor, for all understood what was a Moor, and to explain what I really was ... it would have been useless, and worse, puzzling.