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

Jubal SackettRelease Info
Jubal Sackett
by
Louis L'Amour



1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
Author's Note About the Author



ONE
A cold wind blew off Hanging Dog Mountain and I had no fire, nor dared I strike
so much as a spark that might betray my hiding place. Somewhere near, an enemy
lurked, waiting.
Yesterday morning, watching my back trail, I saw a deer startle, cross a meadow
in great bounds, and disappear into the forest. Later, shortly after high sun,
two birds flew up suddenly. Something was following me.
Warm in my blanket, I huddled below a low earthen bank, concealed by brush and a
fallen tree. The wind swept by above me, worrying my mind because its sound
might cover the approach of an enemy creeping closer. There he could lie waiting
to kill me when I arose from my hiding place.
I, Jubal Sackett, was but a day's journey from our home in Shooting Creek in the
foothills of the Nantahalas, close upon Chunky Gal Mountain.
All the enemies of whom I knew were far from here, yet any stranger was a
potential enemy, and he was a wise traveler who was forever alert.
Our white enemies were beyond the sea, and our only red enemies were the Seneca,
living far away to the north beyond Hudson's River. No Seneca was apt to be
found alone so far from others of his kind. The Seneca were a fine, fierce lot
of fighting men of the Iroquois League who had become our enemies because we
were friends of the Catawba, who were their enemies.
Whoever followed me was a good reader of sign for I left little evidence of my
passing. Such an enemy is one to guard against, for skilled tracking is a mark
of a great hunter and a great warrior. Nor do I wish to leave my scalp in the
lodge of some unknown enemy when my life is scarce begun.
What was this strange urge that drove me westward, ever westward into an empty
land? Behind me were family, home, and all that I might become; before me were
nameless rivers, swamps, mountains, and forests, and beyond the great river were
the plains, those vast grasslands of which we had only heard, and of which we
knew nothing.
About me and before me lay a haunted land whose boundaries we did not know. What
little we had heard was from the tales of Indians, and they shied from this
land, hunting here but always moving and returning to their homes far away. When
the night winds prowled they huddled close to their fires and peered uneasily
into the night. There was game here in plenty, and when the need was great they
came to hunt. We did not know what mysteries lay here or why the place was
shunned, but they spoke of it as a dark and bloody ground.