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them, for it is into this land I am going at last.
Not in two years have we seen Jubal. Somewhere he roams beyond the great
river
of De Soto, somewhere across the vast plains that lie yonder toward the sun,
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and
I think he will stop no more until he walks the shining western mountains of
his
dreams, and this I understand, for I have followed my dream of mountains,
too.
And so must it be for each generation, for they must ever look to the
mountains,
ever seek to pass over them. Their bodies will mark the trails, their blood
will
feed the grass, yet some will win through and some will build and some will
grow
...
Brian is reading law at the Inns of Court in London, a handsome gentleman,
they
say. And Noelle is a young English lady now, a beauty and a girl of spirit. A
fine horsewoman, an elegant dancer. Does she ever remember our blue
mountains?
Or long for her father, who remembers her small hands in his hair, the first
tears in her eyes, and the laughter never far from her lips? When William
dies,
the old fenlands will be hers.
We write, our letters crossing on the Abigail and other ships. And I continue
my
trade with Peter Tallis.
And Sakim, our teacher, our physician, our friend ... one day word came from
his
own land, and I know not what it said, but he came to me with a farewell, and
between two suns he was gone.
Now, I Barnabas Sackett, no longer a young man yet not quite an old one, am
bound, west again. Black Tom Watkins rides with me. My old companion from the
fens now rides the high ridges where waits the wind. At the last, when Jeremy
would have come, Lila would have none of it, and for once he listened well.
Now the shadows rise from the valleys, and another night comes creeping. We
have
all day followed a trail made by buffalo, who wind the contours of the hills
and
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seem ever to find the easiest way.
The Shawnees speak of this as the dark and bloody ground, and no Indian now
lives here, although they come to hunt. Yet there are evidences of ancient
habitation ... stone walls, earthworks, and some things found in caves. In
one
of the old forts Tom found a Roman coin.
Preposterous, you say? I only say he found a coin, lost by someone, not
necessarily a Roman, yet perhaps someone who traded with a Roman, for the
greatest myth is that of the discovery of any country, for all countries were
known in the long ago, and all seas sailed in times gone by.
We are alone, Tom and I. Soon we will camp. Yet I am restless upon this night
and if there were a moon would be for moving on.
Twice in the past few minutes I have glanced along our back trail, yet have
seen
nothing ... yet something is there, bear, ghost, or man ... something.
Ah! A wind-hollowed overhang, a sort of half-cave, with great slabs of broken
rock lying about, and some few trees and many fallen ones. "Tom? If there's
water, we should stop here."
While he searched about, I sat my saddle. Dusk was upon us and the trails
were
dim ...
Tom came from the darkness. "There's a good spring, Barnabas. This is the
place."
Ah? This is the place? The words have a sound to them. Tomorrow we will meet
the
boys in the cove that lies ahead, the cove where grow the crabapples of which
they have spoken.
Swinging down, I stripped the gear from my horse and drove deep the picket
pin
to let him graze. While Tom gathered wood for the fire, I staked out his
horse.
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
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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
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