Sacketts 00 - The Sackett Companion (v5.0) Page 7

  At one time an Indian might be known by his costume but this is scarcely true today. At the various intertribal ceremonies, powwows, and such they have mingled and often have borrowed ideas for costume from each other, each seeking to add beauty or interest to his clothing, his headdress, his dancing.

  It was much the same in the past. During the warfare between tribes young women were rarely killed. The Indian’s idea of conservation in this respect could not have been improved, and these women were taken to wife by warriors of the victorious tribe and brought with them the stories and rituals they knew. Naturally, this was what they taught their children. A story that began as a Seneca story might be found among the Sioux or Blackfeet, or among any other tribe. Good stories have a way of traveling, and stories such as Cinderella or Jack And The Beanstalk have been known in virtually every part of the world in one form or another.

  We do not know the origin of all the American Indians or how much communication there might have been in times long past. Certainly many tribes migrated over the land-bridge from Asia. There is sufficient evidence for that, but many Indians have legends of arriving across the sea, and without a doubt there was much going and coming due to changes of climate, movements of game animals, and warfare, as well as population pressures.

  As our archaeologists delve into the ruins left by primitive Indians here as well as in Central and South America, the picture of early American man is slowly taking shape. Pot hunters, seeking immediate profit, may destroy much that is vitally important. The particular clue that may open a door to unexpected knowledge may come from anywhere. We still are but scratching the surface insofar as ancient trade is concerned. A pot that cannot be dated according to its location has lost much of its value to the archaeologist and the historian.

  We know there was trade and undoubtedly an exchange of ideas between the peoples of Central America and Mexico and those of our Southwest, and those of Louisiana such as the Natchez. How much of an exchange of ideas or what were the patterns of migration we do not know. It is at least possible that some of our Indians may have fled Mexico to escape the rising tide of human sacrifice by the Aztecs or those who preceded them.

  One of the greatest joys of human life is that there is so much to be learned and gradually we are getting the tools with which to learn, and knowledge enough to know some of the questions that must be asked of the past.

  The story of Jubal Sackett is but one chapter in the saga of the Sacketts, and a glance at what could have been a chapter in our history. My reason for writing it was threefold: first, to continue the story of the Sackett family; second, to explore a possible phase of our history; and last but perhaps most important, I have always wished I could have been the first man west, or one of the first to ride or walk into that country when only the Indians were there, to see it unblemished, unchanged, in all its original beauty. I came too late for that, so I wrote a story about a man who did.

  RIDE THE RIVER

  First publication: Bantam Books paperback, July 1983

  Narrator: Echo Sackett

  Time Period: c. 1840s–1850s (before Civil War)

  In which Echo Sackett goes from her mountain home in Tennessee to Philadelphia to collect an inheritance. There are others who plan to keep that inheritance for themselves and want no interference from some hillbilly girl who has just come down from the mountains.

  Echo is small, dainty, and determined. Moreover, she is a Sackett, accustomed to taking care of herself, and she comes from an area where people are accustomed to doing just that. She is not about to be put down by any city thugs.

  In Philadelphia she recognizes the name of Chantry, and seeks out Finian Chantry, who had fought in the War of the Revolution alongside Daubeny Sackett and has reason to remember the Sackett name. Now a distinguished lawyer, a man of great prestige as well as knowledge of the law, he wonders a little whether at eighty-odd years he can still handle himself when physical action appears. In his youth he had walked a quarter-deck on his own ship and handled some tough crews. Could he still do it?

  He comes to Echo’s aid, and then sends his nephew, Dorian Chantry, to follow her and see she gets home all right. Dorian is a young man with much to learn but he learns quickly when necessity demands.

  Echo figures to take care of herself but if a handsome young city feller wishes to trail along, she’s willing. What follows is what might be expected, but what the thugs sent by lawyer James White do not understand is that the mountains are filled with Sacketts.

  Echo’s Uncle Regal has been clawed by a bear and is out of action, but there are others, and when a Sackett is in trouble.…

  Echo’s brothers have gone west to the Shining Mountains where Ethan has become a trapper and free hunter (see BENDIGO SHAFTER) and Colborn has disappeared in the western mountains looking for treasure. Possibly he has been killed by Indians, but he has left behind a widow and several sons.

  Trulove, all of six feet and six inches, with two hundred and fifty pounds of beef on him, is still around, as are Macon, and the weird one, Mordecai. Somehow or other they will have to cope with whatever comes.

  Echo is a lady and comports herself as such, whether it is coping with the clumsy advances of White’s clerk or going out to dinner with the distinguished lawyer, Finian Chantry. In the mountains people did things that needed doing when they had to be done, and of course, she has her pistols and best of all, her pick.

  REGAL SACKETT: Echo’s uncle, a stalwart, handsome young man who had a way with the ladies whether in the mountains or down to the Settlements. A hunter and a fighter, he was ready for anything from a hand-to-hand fight with a mountain lion or to dance a fandango. He took to singing, as mountain folks did, but he was a hard-working man who was usually a bit better off than most.

  He knew where the best fur could be found, occasionally logged some timber, and had been known to pan a bit of gold from a mountain stream down Georgia way. He’d listened a lot at storytelling time and knows where a man might find a gemstone or two.

  He’d been down to the Settlements and met some fancy ladies and some aristocratic ones, and they all had an eye for Regal.

  FINIAN CHANTRY: Former seafaring man and soldier, a handsome elderly attorney in Philadelphia, respected by all. In his younger years a noted fighting man, now he wondered if he still had what it takes. He had been mentioned as a possible Justice of the Supreme Court, but with all this he looked back with some nostalgia to the days when he trod a quarter-deck and fought the Barbary Pirates.

  DORIAN CHANTRY: His nephew; a young man about town in Philadelphia who suddenly found himself “protecting” a very pretty young lady who somehow did not seem to need much protection. He also found himself dealing with men who had no sense of gentlemanly behavior, and surprisingly, he found himself enjoying it. He had more of Finian in him than he had realized.

  JOHNNY GIBBONS: A young Philadelphia lawyer who was writing a history of that city’s waterfront. He knew his way around sailors’ hang-outs, and knew a bit about lawyer James White, too.

  THE DUTCHMAN’S: On Dock Street in Philadelphia; a waterfront dive, located in Gaff Tops’l Corner, a part of the waterfront just coming into its own. A tough place for tough men, with crimps about, ready to shanghai a crew for a price, and not a bit particular about whom they shanghaied. Everybody sailing the western ocean knew the Dutchman’s. So did the police, so they avoided the place.

  PENANG LAWYER: A strip of rattan used to encourage discipline on Far Eastern ships. A vicious kind of whip that could with only a few strokes leave a man’s back lacerated and bloody.

  KISSING THE GUNNER’S DAUGHTER: Bending a man over the barrel of a cannon before applying the Penang Lawyer or perhaps a rope’s end.

  DAUBENY SACKETT: Echo’s grandfather; great-grandfather to Tell, Orrin, and Tyrel, among others. Fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain and before that at the Second Battle of Saratoga and Sullivan’s Raid on the Iroquois Villages. There will be much of him in my book on t
he American Revolution.

  DAVY LEWIS: An historical character; an outlaw from the Dickey Mountains of Pennsylvania. Locally famous.

  DOUNE: A type of pistol created in the Highlands of Scotland. John Murdoch made those carried by Echo. Good guns were treasured and passed down in the family.

  JOHN McHENRY: An historical character; a famous hunter in the mountains.

  TIM OATS: A former bare-knuckle prizefighter, thief, and thug. Employed by James White.

  JAMES WHITE: A shyster lawyer, skirting the thin edge of crime, prepared to take any advantage, even if it meant a murder.

  FELIX HORST: A thief, a murderer, and formerly one of those who haunted the Natchez Trace, murdering travelers along one of the most dangerous strips of road in America.

  ELMER: A thin, pimply youth of no standards, moral or otherwise, who was traveling in dangerous company, a situation where he was expendable. For the first time he was out of the city and into the woods, walking forest trails, remembering what Echo was like, and gradually becoming uneasy about himself and his associates. The cheap, thieving, cocky notions have begun to seem just what they are, and for the first time he has begun to think of somebody other than himself. He discovered he was not happy with what he was doing. Despite himself, he found himself admiring Echo Sackett, appreciating her courage and shrewdness, and began to understand what the money would mean to her and hers.

  ARCHIE: A free black man, former sailor, now a waiter; accompanied Dorian on his way west to watch over Echo.

  LEW WETZEL: An historical character, also referred to by Zane Grey; a famous frontiersman and Indian fighter. Maintained a lifelong vendetta against Indians after they wiped out his family.

  PATTON SARDUST: Another Natchez Trace outlaw, a tough, vicious man who, unfortunately for him, encountered Mordecai Sackett.

  MACON SACKETT: Like Mordecai, a Clinch Mountain Sackett, descended from Yance. A ginseng hunter. Ginseng, a valuable plant for shipment to China or medicinal use here, grew in the Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee mountains. The hunters of ’seng or ’sang, as mountain folks called it, carefully guarded their sources which they gathered for sale. The market for ’seng was always a good one, and the hunters were usually solitary men given to spending months on end alone in the forest.

  JOHN IRWIN’S ROPE-WALK: John Irwin established the first rope-walk (for making rope) west of the mountains. After his death, his son and mother continued the business until 1812. This was on Liberty and Third in Pittsburgh. After 1812 the rope-walk was removed to a new site near Irwin’s home, and continued at that spot for many years.

  GINERY WOOSTER: A somewhat fat, gray-haired man, his hair thinning. He took the news to the Sacketts that a Sackett girl left the steamboat at the mouth of the Big Sandy and seemed to be in trouble.

  SIDELONG OR SIDELING HILL: In the Tuscaroras of Pennsylvania. A steep and difficult hill in those years.

  NOBLE’S TAVERN: A well-known stopping place on the westward route in Pennsylvania.

  GINSENG: A most valuable herb; tea has been made from its leaves but it was the root that was most eagerly sought. In China it is the most valued herb, considered an aphrodisiac. From the time it was first discovered in the eastern mountains it has been hunted for use and for profit.

  BIG SANDY: A tributary of the Ohio River, and at the time it was Indian country. The red man loved it and with reason, for there was plenty of game, and there were salt licks. The Levisa Fork was especially attractive. Most of the tall hats worn by the grenadiers of Napoleon were made from bear skins taken along the Big Sandy and the Levisa. The skins were taken down the river to New Orleans and shipped to France.

  There were fine forests there, and some beautiful valleys, loved by the Indians and by those who replaced them.

  CLINGMAN’S DOME: One of the highest peaks in the Smoky Mountains, over sixty-six hundred feet. A noted landmark.

  SILER’S BALD: Roughly four miles west of the Dome and 1,000 feet less in altitude, it is a difficult climb over slippery rocks for a part of the way. It has a beautiful growth of rhododendrons, and a superb view toward North Carolina, if the weather is clear.

  MORDECAI SACKETT: A long hunter, a man of the woods, rarely seeing other people, living off the country. Occasionally he visited his people, then was gone again for months, nobody knew where. Perhaps the most dangerous of all the Sacketts, friendly to the Indians, wise in the ways of birds and animals, living among them but leaving no traces behind. A man with no need for any of the things upon which most people base their lives. He still used the wild, wavering cry adopted by the first of the Clinch Mountain Sacketts when they discovered how far such a cry could be heard when in the mountains.

  TRULOVE SACKETT: A big man, roughly handsome, a hand-logger and hunter. Skilled at handling unwieldy logs in rough country. From trial and error and much work alone he had learned how to use leverage and balance and many sleights in getting his logs to rivers where they could be floated down stream. Much of his logging was for special timbers, huge maples and oaks that were fine timber for the making of furniture. For years, since he was a small boy, he had been roaming the forest and knew where to find the kind of logs he wanted. Wherever he went he was studying not only where the right timber could be found but how to get it to water where it could be floated. Some of the huge logs were immensely valuable in themselves, eagerly sought after by builders of fine panels or furniture.

  He, Mordecai, and Macon exchanged ideas and information, and the other Sacketts, woodsmen all, added what they discovered to the total of their knowledge of timber land and forest. Meeting occasionally, they could talk with knowledge of the mountain areas.

  Often, returning to his cabin after an absence Trulove would discover on his table a crudely drawn map on birchbark showing him where a fine maple had been seen, or a stand of chestnut still untouched by blight.

  The wilderness, be it desert, plains or forest, will take care of man, if man will but care for it. There is beauty there, but there is life, and a living for many, but there is death, too, if one becomes too casual. The wilderness is waiting, but one must live with it, and not against it.

  If we strip away the forests, man will die, and the wild life will die. Man needs the forest, for it gives us the oxygen by which we survive. It cleanses the air we breathe so we can breathe, it removes impurities and leaves the air clear for far-seeing men.

  And that is what we need, what we need desperately, those far-seeing men.

  How small a man are you? Or how big?

  THE DAYBREAKERS

  First publication: Bantam Books paperback, February 1960

  Narrator: Tyrel Sackett

  Time Period: c. 1870–1872

  This is the story of Tyrel and Orrin Sackett, who went west after the War Between the States, and what happened to them in that new land where they went to find a home for Ma. Somehow, Tyrel believed, Ma figured if she was west she would somehow be closer to Pa, who died or was killed out there a long time ago.

  There were stories in the family, too, of another of them; Jubal Sackett to be exact, who had gone west away back before anybody else. They had heard stories that he married an Indian girl out there and had been trading with Spanish folks, but that was all a flimsy rumor from an Indian who told another Indian.

  Orrin was fixing to get married when trouble came. The trouble was Long Higgins. Now they’d fought and feuded with the Higginses for quite a spell, and good, tough men they were, and they salted away some good Sackett men before they tapered them down to size. Long, he was the mean one. He knew Orrin was shapin’ up to marry and figured he’d not be armed. What he didn’t figure on was Tyrel.

  So when they buried Long Higgins Tyrel had nothing to do but get out of there because the law was Ollie Shaddock and Tyrel did not want to confront him. Away back somewhere Shaddock and the Sacketts were kinfolk. The Sacketts feuded some but never faced up to the law.

  “Pa taught us respect for the law so I hit the trail for the western land
s.”

  Those last words were Tyrel himself speaking, but Orrin had started west, too, and not far behind him, for Long Higgins’s bullet had killed Mary Tripp, the woman who was to be his wife. Without her, he figured why not go, and started west following Tyrel, and trying to catch up.

  What happened after that the stories will tell you, but it was what was happening to many men headed west. Most of them weren’t holding anything. I mean they didn’t have cash money, so they tied their rope on the first job that showed itself, no matter what the brand, so long as it was honest.

  Their first job was driving cattle, and living in the mountains since they were boys, they’d herded cows from time to time, and even flocks of turkeys and sometimes hogs. Back yonder whatever they had to sell had to get to market on its own legs. A body can pack only so much. Driving cattle was easy enough after what they’d been doing. Learning to rope was something else, but all their lives they had been adapting themselves to work of one kind or another. They learned quickly.

  CAP ROUNTREE: He looked as old as the mountains around him and just as tough. He’d been over the Santa Fe Trail as a boy, had trapped for fur, hunted buffalo, and prospected some. He’d been up the creek and over the mountain, probably all of them. He had lived through border troubles, Indian fights, and whatever was happening where he was. He had lived with the Sioux and the Nez Perce. He never looked for trouble but he could handle it.

  TOM SUNDAY: Foreman for Belden when he met the Sacketts, a disbarred lawyer who had killed man in a gun duel in Louisiana and gone to prison for it. Well-educated, and a gentleman born, but the years had used him hard. Very good with a gun. A man going west to begin again, to find a place for himself in the political life of the West where it did not matter what you had been or had done, but only that you did your part wherever you were and could stand the rough going. It was what you did now that mattered, and what you were now. Too many men had pasts they had ridden away from but the West was a place to start over.