Chesapeake Read Online Free PDF

a bewildering maze of headlands and bays, each its own exemplification of beauty; to the south a new definition of vast loneliness, for there lay the marshes, refuges for innumerable birds and fish and small animals; the noble view lay to the west where the island glowed in sunlight, with the blue waters of the bay beyond. From this headland Pentaquod could see across the bay to the mysterious lands where the Potomacs ruled, but if he looked downward instead of out, he saw on all sides his river, peaceful and reassuring.
    On this headland, speculating as to what prudent steps he must take next, Pentaquod spent some of the quietest weeks of his life. The loneliness of the first days of his flight had now vanished, and he was at ease with his decision to quit the Susquehannocks. The spaciousness of his surroundings infected him, and he began to think in slower, less frantic terms. The natural fear that he might be unable to survive in a strangeworld dissolved, and he discovered in himself a courage much more profound than that required to flee downriver past strange villages; this was a mature courage capable of sustaining him in a confrontation with an entire world. Sometimes he would sit beneath the oak tree under whose protection he had built his small wigwam and simply survey his universe: the fascinating arms of water to the north, the vast marshes to the south, the western shore of the bay where the warlike tribes paraded, and he would think: This is the favored land. This is the richness.
    One morning as he worked on his canoe down by the creek he heard a sound which caused him to catch his breath with joy:
‘Kraannk, kraannk!’
It was one of the ugliest sounds in nature, as awkward and ungainly as the creature that uttered it, but to Pentaquod it meant the return of a friend, and he rushed to the water’s edge to welcome Fishing-long-legs as that inelegant bird landed in a crash and a clutter, throwing mud and water as it dug its feet in to stop.
    ‘Bird! Bird!’ he called joyously as the fisher landed. His cry startled the bird, who ran a few additional steps and took off again, flapping its huge blue wings and soaring slowly, spaciously into the sky. ‘Come back!’ Pentaquod pleaded, but it was gone.
    He stayed by the small stream all that day, irritated with himself for having frightened the bird, and toward dusk he was rewarded with another utterance of that sweet, raucous cry.
‘Kraannk, kraannk!’
the long-legged creature shouted as it wheeled in for a new try at the fishing grounds. This time Pentaquod did not speak; in fact, he remained quite motionless so that the feeding bird would not be aware of him, and after a while it came probing close to where he stood.
    Suddenly the bird looked up, saw him and at the same time saw in the waters below the choicest morsel in the bay. With a swift dart of its beak the small head dived, caught its prey and raised its head exultantly, throwing the catch in the air, then snapping it in two.
    ‘What is that bird eating?’ Pentaquod cried aloud petulantly as he watched one of the many-footed halves disappear down its gullet. Ignoring the man, the bird reached into the waters to retrieve the second half, and this, too, it sent down its very long neck. Pentaquod could watch the progress of the mysterious meal, eaten with such relish, and determined to catch a fish for himself.
    Unfortunately, he had no concept of what he was trying to catch and so did not succeed. He did, however, find scores of trees with ripening nuts and new kinds of berries and different succulent fish in the river and haunts of deer that seemed so plentiful that no man need ever go hungry.
    But now, as autumn approached with an occasional cold day warning of winter, he began to ponder seriously the matter of establishing contact with whatever tribes inhabited this area. All he knew of them were the legends of his youth: Below us at the end of our river is a larger river,much larger. On the west