"Louis L'amour - Sackett04 - Jubal Sackett" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

to shelter my bed from the rain. I had shouldered my pack and girded my weapons
before the thought came to me.
Smoothing the earth where I had slept, I took up a twig and drew four crosses in
the earth. The red man was forever curious, and to most of whom we call Indians
four was a magic number. He who followed would come upon this mark and wonder.
He might even worry a little and be wary of seeking me out, for the Indian is
ever a believer in medicine, or as some say, magic.
So it was that in the last hour of darkness I went down the mountain through the
laurel sticks, crossed a small stream, and skirted a meadow to come to the trace
I sought.
Nearly one hundred years before De Soto had come this way, his marchings and his
cruelties leaving no more mark than the stirring of leaves as he passed. A few
old Indians had vague recollections of De Soto, but they merely shrugged at our
questions. We who wandered the land knew this was no "new world". The term was
merely a conceit in the minds of those who had not known of it before.
The trace when I came upon it was a track left by the woods buffalo, who were
fewer in number but larger in size than the buffalo of the Great Plains. The
buffalo was the greatest of all trailmakers. Long ago the buffalo had discovered
all the salt licks, mountain passes, and watering holes. We latecomers had only
to follow the way they had gone, for there were no better trails anywhere.
When I came upon the track I began to run. We who lived in the forest regularly
ran or walked from place to place as did the Indians. It was by far the best way
to cover distance where few horses and fewer roads were to be found.
My brothers ran well but were heavier than I and not so agile. Although very
strong I was twenty pounds lighter than Kin-Ring and thirty lighter than Yance.
Our strength was born of our daily lives. Our cabins and our palisades were
built of logs cut and dragged from the forest. The logs for the palisade stood
upright in ditches dug for the purpose. Only in the past few years had we
managed to obtain horses from the Spanish in Florida, who broke their own law in
selling them to us when they departed for their home across the sea.
Every task demanded strength, for the logs used in building the cabins were from
eight to twenty inches thick and twenty to thirty feet in length. There are
"slights" and skills known to working men that enable them to handle heavy
weights, but in the final event it comes down to sheer muscle. So my brothers
and I had grown to uncommon strength, indulging in wrestling, tossing the caber,
and lifting large stones in contests one with the other.
Our Catawba friends marveled at our strength, for quick and agile as they were,
and very strong, nothing in their lives called for the lifting of heavy weights.
Unaccustomed to lifting, their muscles were longer and leaner. They were
excellent wrestlers, however.
At an easy trot I moved through the forest, my moccasins making no sound on the
damp leaves underfoot. Emerging upon a hilltop not unlike the balds found in the
higher mountains, I drew back against the wall of trees, letting my soiled
buckskins merge with the tree trunks and brush, scanning the vast stretch of
land that lay before me.
For the moment the rain had ceased, although far off against a mountainside I
could see a rainstorm drawing its gray veil across the distant hills. Never had
I seen a land so lovely.
Carefully, I studied my back trail or that portion of it visible from where I
stood. There was nothing in sight. Had I escaped my unknown pursuer? Not for a