to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (27 page)

Burned ...

"Do you see anything, Jeremy?"

Ring was studying the forest and the riverbanks through his glass.

We stood together on the poop, watching the banks slide by in the fading light of an aging day, seeing the red touch the hills with warning. Abby was beside me, large now with child, and John Tilly, calm, serious, a little worried, I think, for he approved not of our going. Jublain had told me at last that he had not the stomach any longer for the wilds. "I fear you must go from here without me, Barnabas."

Well enough I understood, and blamed him not a whit. There were other places for him, and other climes. In a way I was relieved, for I much wanted a good friend who knew where we were and what we did.

At the last I had decided to leave the ship to Tilly, for Jublain wanted it not, only passage back to Europe or to the French lands to the north. Pimmerton Burke, Tom Watkins, and Jeremy Ring would come with me, and others had chosen also to attempt the wilds. Jublain assured me he would come again on another voyage, but within days now we should be pushing upstream with Wa-ga-su as our guide.

We had hoped to find the fort intact, but it was gone, burned. Had they found the food caches? We did not need the food now but a time might come, and it was a comfort to know it was there.

We went up the hill in the morning under a sullen sky of clouds with lightning playing, and we stood among the charred timbers and felt a sadness upon it, for what man does not love that which he himself has built?

The earth above the caches was grown now with grass. If the food had been found it was long since. The nuts, at least, would keep.

We returned and went back aboard and sat at table with few words between us. "Is it all gone?" Abby asked.

"Burned," I said, "a few timbers and ashes. Grass grows where our house was, and where the wall was built. I think it must have been but a little while after we sailed."

"Nick Bardle?" she asked.

"Indians, I think. Bardle would not burn it. He would rather leave the timbers for further use sometimes, if along this coast he needed a spar. Scoundrel he may be, but he's not a wasteful man."

So we talked a little then, of old times and new times, of the fluyt, and all the while we tried to avoid the thought of good-bye.

For good friends we were and the time for parting near, and no one wished to be the first to speak of an end to what we had together.

Jublain was my oldest friend among them, of a chance meeting when he helped me escape my first serious trouble. Now I would see him no more. Or would I? Who can say, in such a world?

Yet the urge was on us, and on Abby no less than I, the urge to see beyond those blue mountains, to find a new land, to break new earth, and see our crops freshening in the sun of a new spring. For land beyond the mountains is ever a dream and a challenge, and each generation needs that, that dream of some far-off place to go.

We had crossed an ocean to come ... why? What drove us more than others? Why did Pim come with us and not Jublain? Why Jeremy Ring of the dashing manner and not John Tilly?

Thus far we had come together, and now some strange device, some inner urge, some strange thread grown into our beings was selecting us to move on westward.

Selecting? Or was it we ourselves who chose? Never would I cease to wonder at why one man and not another.

We had made our last purchases from Peter Killigrew, three light, strong boats that we carried on our decks for launching. Now we put them ready, and sliding down the river we went along to that other one to the south, a somewhat larger river, and so Wa-ga-su said, a larger one.

Much time I spent with Wa-ga-su. He knew my chart at once, put a finger on the sounds, and traced the rivers. Here and there he showed me changes in the river or parts that had been wrongly marked.

"Each year I shall come once along the coast," John Tilly said, "and shall tell others to keep an eye out for a signal from you."

Once more upon the map I showed him the area in which I planned to settle. "Of course, there is no way of knowing until upon the ground, yet I shall follow this river, I think, to the place where it comes from the mountains. Then I shall look for some valley, some cove, some sheltered, defensible place, and there we will settle.

"We have the tools, the seed corn, and much ammunition. We will plant our seed in the spring, and we shall try to find minerals, not gold so much as the useful minerals, and there we will claim land. I shall even mark out some for you if you should change your mind."

"Barnabas?" Jublain put a hand on my arm. "Cannot I, even at this last moment, persuade you not to do this thing? It will be long before other white men come, and longer before they reach the mountains. You will be very few, and you will be alone. Think of Abigail ... without women, without the friendships, the comforts ..."

"Lila will be there. We will make friends among the Indians."

"You hope! Well," he shrugged, "so be it. Perhaps it be your destiny, Barnabas.

But if you have sons, send at least one of them home to England. There will be no education here for them."

"We will teach them. I have books. Yet, that is one thing you can do, Jublain.

Do you remember where we first cached our furs? In the cave?"

"I do."

"If you come this way, bring books, wrap them well in oilskin, and hide them there. It may be that one day we shall return to the coast, and we will look for them."

Again we shook hands, and then we talked of other things, and at the last, when our ship was anchored off the river mouth, and our three boats were lowered and well stowed with our gear, two boats to be rowed, and one towed behind, Sakim suddenly came from below.

"With your permission," he said quietly, "I shall go with you. You will need a doctor where you go, and your wife will need one. I would like to come."

For a moment I could not speak. I simply held out my hand and he took it, so our party was thus the stronger, and stronger by as able a man as I had known.

In the first boat were Wa-ga-su, as our guide and interpreter, Abby, Lila, Sakim, Pim Burke, Black Tom, and myself.

In the second boat were: Tim Glasco, a square-built, strong young man, blond and cheerful, who was a journeyman blacksmith; John Quill, who had been a farm boy on a great estate in England; Kane O'Hara, who had been a mercenary soldier;

Peter Fitch, a slender, wiry, tireless man who had been a shipwright and a ship's carpenter; Matthew Slater, a farmer; and Barry Magill, who had been a cooper and a weaver; and Jeremy Bing.

Abby kept her eyes firmly set on the river before us, her face slightly pale, her eyes large and solemn. Lila gave never a backward glance, nor had she ever, I think, once her mind was set upon a way to go.

As we moved upriver, I assayed again the strengths and weaknesses of our party.

We were strong in body and spirit, I knew, but we faced our first winter in the wilderness, yet winter on the coast might be even fiercer.

We saw no Indians, we saw no wild game. The boats moved slowly and steadily upstream, holding well to the center of the river except when we could escape the direct current and move in shallower, quieter water near one shore or the other.

Each man pulled an oar, myself not excepted. Only Wa-ga-su, who sat in the bow, was free of that labor, because we wished his eyes and attention solely for the river and its banks.

On that first day we made what I felt was ten miles. Toward dusk, Kane O'Hara killed a deer, and Sakim speared a large fish. We moved to an island and made a small camp with a carefully screened fire.

The river flowed softly seaward, a faint wind rustled the leaves, then was still. Our driftwood fires threw a warm glow upon the faces of the men as they gathered about, eating and talking. Our boats had been drawn into a small cove, sheltered by trees and moss hanging from their branches. Peter Fitch had remained aboard, and I walked down from the fire to talk with him, and to listen to the night.

An owl flew by on slow, prowling wings. "Big one," Fitch said.

"Yes, it was." I hesitated. "Why did you come, Fitch?"

He looked around at me, and seemed a little embarrassed. "I did na wish to go home wi' empty hands," he said, "for I made big talk of what I'd do when away upon the sea. Back yon in the village, I had dreamed dreams of going to battle and winning a princess, maybe, or a lot of gold.

"Well, I've been four years gone and nothing to show for it but scars and the memories of bad times.

"Bad times were never in the dreams. Oh, I kenned enough to know there's many a slip, but I had high hopes, and they laughed at me for big expectations.

"Maybe it come of a-settin' in the chapel listening to the sermon, and thinkin' more on that chap buried in the stone box beside the altar. They had his figure carved in stone atop it, although I knew little enough about him who was buried there. He'd built the church himself, there at Acaster Malbis ... that was our village ... back in 1306 or some such time. He came of a Norman family who'd come with William the Conqueror, and they had lands from him.

"The name of the first one was Sir Hugh de Malebisse, which somehow became Malbys or Malbis, and they do say that when he came over he had little but a name and a sword, although there may be no truth in that.

"But I'd set there thinking of what he won with a sword, and it seemed to me that what one could do another might. Captain Sackett, I talked big. I can't go home with empty hands."

"Why should you?" I said. "There will be land here for all, and once located, we shall scout each his piece, and all adjoining they'll be."

"I'd like that. Will there be a stream on it? And trees?"

"Aye. We'll see to it."

Turning away, I added, "Keep a sharp eye and a listening ear or you'll not make it. The savages don't even need to see the color of your hair to want it."

There was a good smell of food in the air, pleasing because it was of the country. The cooks had boiled venison and wild turkey together, which all relished.

Seated, Abby and I ate and talked of our son to be ... or daughter. And with our food we drank the water of the Roanokes, as fresh and clear as water could be.

We talked of our home in the blue mountains, the home that was to be, and they were fine, bold dreams we had.

Wa-ga-su came suddenly from the darkness and spoke softly to me, and I did not move, but reached out with my swordcase and touched Jeremy upon the shoulder. He glanced from me to Wa-ga-su and got up slowly, walking to the pot for another helping, then back to us.

"Three canoes," Wa-ga-su said, "twenty, thirty men. They are on warpath."

"Jeremy," I said, "as quietly as can be, send Slater, Magill, and Black Tom Watkins to the boats to join Fitch, and do the rest move one by one to the shadows and to the fallen trees near the boats. Leave the fires burning."

"What is it, Barnabas?" Abby asked.

'There will be a fight. Get to the boats, you and Lila."

No sound disturbed the quiet night. Men walked away and darkness remained. The men looked to their muskets. As for myself, I put three pistols in my belt and carried a musket also.

The night was still. Somewhere a nightbird called.

They came with a rush.

They came with savage yells, intending to strike terror to our hearts, and had they found us unawares or sleeping, the yells and the sudden attack might have done so. Nor was the attack so well planned as I thought them usually to be.

They had seen our fires, and without closer inspection, decided we must be gathered around them. They must have waited some time.

When they finally charged toward the firelight, spears and tomahawks poised to strike, they came upon emptiness. One warrior, quick to perceive, had turned sharply back when Slater shot him.

It was taken as a signal, and all of us fired. And in an instant they were gone ... vanished.

Three bodies lay upon the earth, two obviously dead, the third only wounded. Yet he lay still.

I could see his eyes. They were open and alert, although he had been hit hard.

We reloaded our guns. The night was so still I could hear the rustling water among the reeds at the shore. Pim was beside me and I whispered to him, telling him to get the boats afloat and all aboard.

He slipped away. There was still the faint smell of powder smoke mingled with the dampness of mud, wet foliage, and the smoke from our now dying fires. Behind me I heard faint movements, and Glasco came up to my side. "I don't like it," he muttered. "It was too easy."

"You're right. We're going to pull out. I'd rather row all night than lose a single man."

From down the shore we heard a splintering crash, then another, and then a third.

Then all was silent again.

At the last moment, with all aboard, I waited ... listening. There were faint, whispering movements, then silence. Overhead there were stars.

My hands touched the rough bulwark, and in utter silence we moved away. So silently that I heard but once the sound of a paddle.

"Will they follow?" I asked Wa-ga-su.