Jubal Sackett (1985) Read Online Free

finished pistols to the Lorenzoni and won a place in their establishment. Much later, other such weapons were made by the Lorenzoni.
    Barnabas had never used the weapons, worried by what seemed a too complicated mechanism. When I was allowed to examine the guns it seemed to me that I could handle them. They were both beautiful and deadly, but when traveling I preferred to use the longbow and conserve my ammunition. The two pistols I carried in the scabbards provided for them.
    My father had grown up using the bow. In the fens where he had lived it was the most effective way of hunting, whether for birds or for larger game. As we grew up we boys vied with one another in shooting at marks, often at incredible distances for a bow.
    Until I killed the buffalo Keokotah had seen only the scabbards. He was aware of firearms, for he had had contact with the French in the Illinois River country, yet I intended him to believe they were single-shot weapons.
    Keokotah was not yet my friend. We were two strangers traveling together, but at any moment he might choose to kill me. The rules of conduct Europeans were supposed to apply in their dealings with each other were the product of our culture. The Indian, of whatever tribe, came from another culture with none of our ethical standards. He had standards of his own, and in most Indian languages the words stranger and enemy were the same. To attack by surprise was by far the best way, as he had long since learned, and what to us might seem the basest treachery he might consider simple logic.
    My father had gotten along well enough with Indians, but he trusted few of them and few trusted him. It was simply the way it was, and it would need many years, if ever, for the white man and the Indian to come to any understanding. What the white man considered charity the Indian considered weakness, yet if a stranger penetrated an Indian village without being seen he was treated with hospitality as long as he was within the village, for the Indian tried to keep peace in his own village. Once the stranger left he might be killed with impunity. This was the usual practice, yet there were variations.
    Keokotah might travel with me for days, and then, no longer amused or curious, he might kill me and travel on without giving it another thought. And he would expect the same from me. At every moment I must be on guard, for at any moment I might be attacked without warning.
    We might become friends, but that lay in the future, if ever. Meanwhile, I would be careful, as would he.
    Westward I had hidden a birchbark canoe when on an earlier trip to the Great River, and now we went that way, taking our time, learning the land as we passed over it.
    That English friend the Kickapoo had known--I must learn more of him. Where had he come from? A prisoner of the French? Taken at sea? Or somewhere ashore? Who was he? What was he?
    Yet I had begun to realize that Keokotah did not respond to direct questions.
    Upon the brow of a low hill we paused to study out the land. A deer moved across before us. The Kickapoo looked about, and then he looked over at me. "Somebody come."
    I had seen nothing, yet I must not betray my lack of knowledge. My abilities must seem equal to his. To surpass him might be dangerous, and in any case, unwise. He must never know how much I knew.
    I gestured westward. "Hiwasee over there," I said, "many Cherokee."
    He shrugged. "Who are Cherokee? Nobody. I am Kickapoo."
    We remained where we were, studying the country. He might be an enemy, but out there before us there were certainly enemies. The Cherokee we knew, and they knew us. So far we had been friends, but the Indian was often a creature of whim, and the man with whom I traveled was no friend. I might be judged accordingly.
    "Somebody come." That was what he had said. How did he know? What had he seen that I had not? And who was coming?
    My canoe was less than a day from where we now were, but I said nothing of that. When we came to it