The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn Page 16

  “Cade must’ve told this one we got us a cow. It’s from over the ridge. One of the Allards’.”

  “I’m getting the milk into the bucket but doubt I can aim at a cat’s mouth. That seems to be what it wants.”

  “Likely so. Janet keeps cows and goats. She made the butter and cheese she brought us.”

  The cow brushed its tail across Tamsen’s head and shifted its stance, making the cat leap to a safer spot. Tamsen stroked a warm flank, her thoughts sliding away from cats and cows. They settled on Jesse’s father.

  He put her in mind of the mountains, did Cade. Earlier he’d reassured her with such strong and touching words, yet she sensed much of what went on in his mind he chose to conceal, like the misty haze that often wrapped the mountains they’d crossed. She’d learned how treacherous those mountains could be, up close. How much of Cade was still that warrior, Wolf-Alone?

  “I was wondering … about your father.” Her words broke into the shuffling of contented stock, the liquid spill of milk.

  Jesse tossed away the straw he’d been chewing. “What of him?”

  She averted her face while she moved to the last teat. “How old is he?”

  “Forty, maybe, give or take. Why not ask him?”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  A beat of silence passed. “You aren’t afraid of him, are you?”

  Afraid wasn’t the word. But before she could reply, the horse nearest the barn door loosed a whinny. Jesse snatched up the rifle so fast it seemed to leap into his hands. As Tamsen rose to see what had alarmed him, he lowered the weapon.

  Bethany Allard, capless and barefoot, stood in the stable doorway, bathed in the light of sunset, much as Tamsen had last seen her. With one difference. Instead of hostility on her peaches-and-cream face, there was a tentative smile.

  Jesse exhaled a breath. “What’re you doing here, Beth?”

  “I’ve come to say a thing to your … wife,” the girl said, faltering over that last word.

  Jesse glanced at Tamsen. She moved the piggin so the cow wouldn’t overturn it, drew herself straight, and nodded. He looked back at the girl. “She’s listening. Go on and say it.”

  Bethany took a step inside the stable. The gray cat bounded over to coil itself about her ankles, ignored. The girl’s face was shadowed, her voice childlike as she tossed back her unbound hair. “I’m sorry for my meanness yestereve. I come hoping you’ll kindly look past it so as maybe … we two could be friends?”

  The man who abducted Miss Littlejohn had done a passable job of throwing him off their tracks. That much was clear to Charlie Spencer.

  They’d crossed to the French Broad’s north bank by ferry, needing several trips to get horses, mules, dogs, men and their kit over safe. A day out from the crossing, stopped near the remains of a blockhouse once enclosed by a ridge-top palisade, Charlie fessed up to what was weighing on his mind. “Well, see, I ain’t certain for a fact now he said he was bound for the French Broad. As I recollect ’twere me named the place. All the feller did, best I remember, was say nothing to the contrary.”

  Thunder grumbled among the lowering clouds, but the heavenly muttering was nothing to the storm gathering on the brow of Hezekiah Parrish, who flung a pointing finger east at the peaks they’d crossed. “Are you telling me my stepdaughter could be anywhere west of those mountains?”

  Charlie clenched the lead mule’s rope, aware of the dogs ranging up along the crumble-down fort, leaving little squirts to mark the place. “Reckon so. Anywhere but on the French Broad.”

  With pinched-set face and burning eyes, Kincaid looked toward the Tennessee country, spreading out to the north. “Much as I am loath to admit it, I believe someone would have given her up by now, was she here.”

  Kincaid had got the notion to offer a reward for the girl’s return, hoping to spur help from folk inclined to hold their peace and protect a neighbor in his wrongdoing. Charlie’s brows had soared at the amount named, thinking he could skip a winter’s trapping on such a windfall. Twice Kincaid had upped the prize, but nary a man had claimed it, though Charlie had seen a heap of want-to in many a hardscrabble farmer’s gaze.

  Kincaid was no happier with him than Parrish, but he did what Charlie had seen him do a dozen times and more—swallowed back his anger and held himself in rigid silence.

  It’d take a bigger fool than Charlie to expect the same from Parrish.

  “You reckon so?” Parrish spat, dropping his horse’s reins and advancing on Charlie. “Why didn’t you reckon so back in Morganton, you scruffy, inept—”

  Weren’t no knowing what Parrish meant to do with no weapon but his raised hand, on account of Kincaid bursting out of his rigid stance to step between them, catching Parrish by the arm. One of the dogs rushed over and pressed against Charlie’s knee, hackles raised. He needn’t glance down to know it was Nell, showing sharper teeth than Parrish could boast.

  Kincaid strong-armed Parrish back a pace. “How well are you able to recount the speech of the man who ferried us across that river yonder?”

  Parrish snatched his arm free. “To what purpose should I recall his blather at all?”

  “Precisely so,” Kincaid said with better grace than Charlie could’ve mustered. “What reason had Mr. Spencer to recall the exact words of a stranger met in passing, knowing naught of the need?”

  Parrish grudgingly accepted the point as fair but was no less livid for it. “What, then? Do you both mean to abandon me—and her?”

  It was a chill wind blowing those heavy clouds overhead. A cold spatter of rain pelted Charlie’s face.

  “We’ll find Miss Littlejohn,” Kincaid said. “It will simply take longer than anticipated.”

  Taking leave to doubt the simply part, Charlie saw the question coming before Kincaid put it to him. Was he willing to act their guide through the settlements to the north, perhaps along the Nolichucky? There would be compensation for his services …

  “To that we ought both to be committed.” Kincaid cut a look at Parrish, whose face closed up tight, leaving nothing to read but resentment careening across his eyes like rocks down a slope.

  Parrish’s lack of answer didn’t escape him, but Charlie had seen enough of Kincaid to trust he was a man of his word. If he said he’d pay Charlie for the aggravation they were asking of him, he would pay. If he said he’d find Miss Littlejohn, by heaven or the other place, he’d do that too.

  “I aim to be on the Holston afore snow falls,” Charlie said, reminding himself this was for the sake of that suffering girl he’d seen back in the mountains. “But I can go by way of Greenville. That’ll take us back along the Nolichucky.”

  As they led their animals down off the ridge into the trees, moods darker than the weather, Charlie resolved that, girl or no girl be found, beyond Greenville he’d be done with these two.

  The cabin was no better than a shack, a tiny porch tacked across its front. In the middle of the porch stood a strapping woman with hair red as Kincaid’s and a rifle aimed square at Charlie.

  He’d called a greeting when they glimpsed the cabin set back off the trace. Even so, it wasn’t the first time they’d been greeted by a gun muzzle. It was the first time anyone had demanded to know whether they stood for the New State or the Old before so much as a mornin’, ma’am was offered.

  “Neither, praise God” would’ve been Charlie’s answer, had Parrish not put himself forward with his usual grace and shouted that he hailed from North Carolina and would she look at a portrait of his stepdaughter and tell them if she’d seen the girl and if so when, where, and with whom.

  The first shot went high. Charlie was wheeling his mules back toward the trail as the woman followed it up with a taunt.

  “What she done, your girl? Growed the good sense t’ run off with a Franklin man? Hope she’s well on the way to raising up a passel o’ sons for our side. Now clear off my land!”

  Kincaid and Parrish, having other notions, started for the woman as if to rush the porch and
lay hands on her person while she was reloading.

  Charlie knew better. “No time—do like she says. Clear out!”

  Sure enough, she’d rammed patch and ball to powder and was aiming down that barrel again afore the fools got halfway to her. Charlie was already into the trees. Seconds later came a rattle of loose stones, and Kincaid passed him on his horse. Behind came Parrish huffing on foot, leading his mount and cringing at the rifle’s crack and the thud of a bullet smacking a tree a foot from his head.

  “She weren’t shooting to kill,” Charlie gasped out, far enough down the trace to stop and catch a breath.

  “What the devil ails the woman?” Parrish demanded.

  “Saying you was from Carolina. The Nolichucky’s John Sevier’s territory. Most folk hereabouts is Franklin to the bone.”

  Parrish slapped his hat against his thigh, raising dust. “Backwater hooligans! Who’s to know a Franklinite from a Tiptonite by the cut of his coat—or petticoat?”

  “Ye can’t,” Charlie said. “And as they take their politics with a side o’ lead here, best never let on your being from Carolina till ye know it’s safe to do so.”

  Morose and shaken, they pressed on, Charlie keeping watch for the dogs. They’d gone tearing after a deer some while before they’d spotted the cabin. When Charlie didn’t follow, they’d give up and wander back. He wasn’t worried. Not about the dogs.

  About a mile down the trace, the scalp-creeping feeling came over him, putting him in mind of two summers back, on the Cumberland, when a Chickamauga got him in his sights unawares. That feeling, and fast feet, had spared him an arrow through the neck.

  Traveling last with the mules, he looked left and right into the sun-flecked woods. Glanced at their back trail. Over the ridges between them and the cabin they’d been chased from, smoke was going up. He halted the mules. Parrish and Kincaid turned their horses back and saw the smoke.

  “Chimney fire?” Kincaid asked.

  The smoke was too dark, too thick. A dirty great pillar. “That cabin’s burning. Likely fell on ’em just after we left.”

  “Fell on them?” Parrish echoed.

  “Chickamaugas. Like to be coming this a’way next. Ain’t no sign of their passing the other way.”

  Weren’t nothing for it but to get off the trace. It mightn’t save them, but short of abandoning his mules to leg it out of there, he’d no other recourse. Spying a rock outcrop high up a wooded draw, Charlie pointed. “Get up among them rocks. Keep hid and your horses quiet. I’ll find ye once the danger’s past.”

  “We’d do better not splitting up,” Parrish argued, wasting precious seconds. “Meet them together, if it comes to it.”

  “He’s trying to prevent it coming to that.” Kincaid edged his horse off the trail. Parrish threw a distrustful look at Charlie and then followed, weaving his horse upslope between the trees.

  Charlie concealed what he could of their passing. Hiding himself and the mules wouldn’t be as easy. His heart bumped along as he pondered letting himself be overtaken. He’d full packs. Spoke passable Cherokee. Might be he could barter his way out of a scalping.

  Or they’d lift his scalp and then his goods. You never could tell with Indians, and these were raiding.

  Picking a spot of rocky ground with no brush to trample, he got the mules up into a hazel thicket, hitched them, and hurried back down to see he’d left no sign Indians on the run couldn’t miss.

  He almost made it.

  Sighting them coming along, painted and befeathered, Charlie dropped behind a tree-fall. He belly-crawled to the log’s end to peer at the warriors passing below. They’d come with no whooping or popping of gunshots, so he reckoned they’d missed Parrish and Kincaid. He heard their labored breathing, the thud of moccasined feet. The first one passed, russet skin agleam, musket clenched. The second. Third. Ten in all, three with fresh scalps at their belts. The last was one of these, the scalp dangling from his waist uncommon bright. At first Charlie thought they’d got Kincaid, after all, then saw the hair was far too long for a man’s. The woman from the cabin porch.

  A second later he forgot the woman. Back down the trace, a dog set to barking.

  The last Chickamauga drew up short. Charlie’s guts seized tight. He knew which dog it was like he’d know his ma’s voice. Nell, always first back from roaming.

  To a man the Indians had stopped, alert and muttering. The one with the red scalp aimed his musket back down the trace. Charlie couldn’t see if Nell was nigh enough to hit. He watched the Indian sight along that barrel, knowing he’d seconds to act. Kill that one, then die with Nell?

  Another of the party grabbed the musket barrel, shaking his head. Charlie waited, gripping his sweat-slicked rifle. His dog went on barking. The Indian who’d stopped the shooter squatted on the balls of his feet, put out a hand, made a cupping motion.

  Nell hushed her noise. To Charlie’s everlasting amazement, she came into view, belly to the ground, tail tucked. Come creeping in at an Indian’s call. Letting an Indian fondle her ears. And showing her teeth in that smiling way she had, right afore she sometimes bit.

  It went on for an eternity—four, maybe five seconds—before the lead Indian barked a word. The one petting his dog stood, made a motion with his hand and a gruff noise in his throat as clear as “git.”

  Nell didn’t budge. The other Indians laughed. The one who’d petted Nell scooped a rock off the trail and hurled it. Nell leapt like she’d springs for legs. The stone sailed by, harmless. More laughter from down the trace, but the Indian trotted after his fellows, leaving Nell milling, fretted and confused.

  Charlie raised his head, then sat. His knees were too weak to stand him up. He made a tch sound with his tongue. Seconds later Nell plowed into him, dirt caked and wiggling. He hoisted his rifle clear of her flailing paws. With his other arm he pinned her to his racing heart.

  “Good girl,” he murmured into the silky spot between her ears. “What say we find them other varmints and see did they die of fright?”

  A body couldn’t help hearing the argument raging at the edge of the firelight, though Charlie fixed his gaze on the pot of squirrel meat simmering on the coals. Nell had made herself his shadow since the run-in with the Chickamaugas. Now and then he’d drop his hand to touch her head when a harsh tone from the camp’s edge flattened her ears.

  “… all well and good, but you have the resources to neglect your affairs. I have not.”

  That was Parrish, still heated over getting shot at by a Franklinite and chased into the brush by Indians—so heated that other matters he’d been stewing on were boiling over.

  Kincaid was finding them bitter to his taste.

  “Do you put the concerns of your purse above your daughter? Will you now abandon her to the very perils we narrowly escaped?”

  “I’ve said nothing of abandonment. I won’t rest until I’ve heard what she has to say for herself.”

  “Say for herself?”

  He’d been about to give the stew a poke, but this was a question Charlie wouldn’t mind hearing answered. He waited.

  “I mean,” Parrish said, voice shaking like a man who has imagined the worst, “while we have spent weeks traipsing these hills, what do you imagine the girl has been doing? Will you be as keen to have her to wife as you were in Morganton? She’s bound to have been sullied—repeatedly.”

  Charlie cringed.

  “She was taken against her will,” Kincaid replied in a voice so tight it was hardly recognizable. “Whatever has befallen her, she is not to blame.”

  “That remains to be seen!”

  Charlie sensed, in the silence following, that Parrish hadn’t meant to speak that thought aloud. A breeze rattled the turning leaves in the surrounding thickets as he shot a look at the pair. Smoke fanned across his eyes, leaving no hope of reading Parrish’s face, even if he could’ve seen it in the dark.

  He stirred the stew.

  “Do you imply she had a hand in her mother’s death?” Kinca
id’s voice shook. “I have spent all of an hour in your daughter’s presence, yet I know that to be impossible. How it is you do not?”

  “I misspoke.” The bite had bled out of Parrish’s tone. “In my frustration, I misspoke. Of course the girl isn’t to blame.”

  Another silence, then Kincaid said with chilling resolve, “I will find Miss Littlejohn and avenge her honor and her mother’s murder—on the body of whomever holds her captive. As for your monetary concerns, Mr. Parrish, if what you’ve been attempting to extract from me is a promise of remuneration, then you have it. Now let us be finished with the subject until she is found.”

  Despite Kincaid’s words in the girl’s defense, Charlie sensed the exchange had shaken the younger man, as if Parrish’s insinuations had stirred up doubts he’d been denying for some time. Sullied. What man who cared at all about the girl wouldn’t be thinking on it? Even that woman on the cabin porch, God rest her feisty soul, had jumped to a like conclusion. If pretty Tamsen Littlejohn was still the marriageable miss who stared at Kincaid from that portrait … well, Charlie wouldn’t have laid odds on it. But even if, in the end, she proved ruined goods to the likes of a Virginia gentleman, she was still Parrish’s stepdaughter. All this coldblooded talk of finding the girl sounded less like a man seeking his kin than a master tracking a runaway slave.

  Parrish ate his stew in thankless silence. Kincaid avoided the fire, seeing to the horses, till the merchant rolled himself in his blanket.

  Charlie shared supper with Kincaid while the dogs gazed on. Clouds overhead broke apart to show stars. Kincaid stared into the flames, stirring his stew with a wooden spoon, seeming to forget he was meant to eat it.

  “You actually see the dead woman—the girl’s ma?”

  At Charlie’s question, Kincaid shook off his brooding. “Sadly not until after her death. Strange you should mention it. I was thinking of her just now.”

  “About Parrish’s wife?”

  “Something about her has bothered me.” Kincaid lowered his voice, glancing at Parrish’s sleeping form. “He’d entreated me to see Miss Littlejohn again, that she’d had a change of heart toward me. I confess I was relieved to hear it and accompanied him readily to the house where they were staying, wanting a more private exchange than our first had been. There we found chaos—furniture overturned, that glorious gown Miss Littlejohn had worn burnt to ashes in the hearth, Miss Littlejohn vanished, and her mother … The woman was laid out on the bed, hands folded, composed as though she’d lain down to sleep. Aside from the blood, of course, and her battered face.”