The Seekers

by John Jakes

  He lurched to the front of the Conestoga, the whole left side of his face bloody. For one nauseous moment he thought he might faint. He fought it, then noticed two odd things. Not one wagoner stepped forward to lend Pell a hand. And the bulldog, growling, didn’t attack as Abraham crept up behind the groaning man.

  Pell was still on his knees. Abraham wrapped the whip around Pell’s neck, pulled with both hands—

  Pell tried to lead. Only gagging sounds came from his throat. He struggled, clawed over his shoulder at Abraham’s fingers. But the fall against the wheel had weakened him. Abraham jammed his knee into Pell’s back, tightening the rawhide noose.

  Let him go, a voice cried in his mind. Don’t murder him. He’s beaten—

  But he could still hear Elizabeth sobbing. He pulled harder.

  His hands trembled from clenching so tightly, trembled and turned white as bone—

  Mercifully, he blanked out during the rest.

  He felt his fingers being pried loose. He blinked, relaxed his grip, stared down. Several torches showed him Leland Pell, cheeks purplish, tongue protruding. Pell’s trousers were still tangled around his calves. His underwear hung open to reveal a tiny penis as dead as the rest of him.

  Abraham felt so ill he almost wept. “Somebody cover him up, for Christ’s sake! And see to my wi—”

  The bones in his legs melted. He tumbled to the ground, unconscious. One hand lay across the wagoner’s distended right eyeball.

  vi

  During the night, a man who claimed to be an apothecary cleaned Abraham’s face in the tavern. He applied a stinging, sulphurous-smelling paste to the wound, then wrapped Abraham’s head with an oval of rags, as though he were a toothache patient.

  The man told Abraham he had already administered whiskey to Elizabeth. She was sleeping.

  Abraham wanted to go to the wagon and see for himself. But he hurt too much. Exhausted, he let the groggy landlord spread a filthy blanket on one of the trestle tables, help him up, then cover him with a second blanket. In a moment, his eyes closed.

  By dawn the other wagoners had disposed of Pell’s body. Where, they didn’t say. Nor did Abraham ask.

  The landlord reported that the fiddler boy had been treated by the same fellow who’d doctored Abraham’s face.

  “The boy weren’t as lucky as you. Even after the burned skin sloughs off an’ his hair grows back, his face’ll likely be ruined fer life.”

  Sickened, Abraham shoved away the fragrant cup of coffee the landlord was extending. He tottered into the frosty air where his breath plumed. He saw Elizabeth peering at him over the front of the wagon, her face as pale as marble.

  He started running. But a few long strides set his head throbbing. He walked the rest of the way, trying not to be aware of the horror in her blue eyes.

  Stopping next to the wagon, he reached up. She put her hand down to find his. Her fingers were stiff, cold as the dawn air.

  “Elizabeth, did he—?”

  “He only touched me. Just—touched me, that’s all.” Her voice shook.

  Her fingers constricted around his suddenly. “Abraham, let’s leave. Please, please, let’s leave this place!”

  Alarmed, he chafed her icy hands until she calmed down. He promised they’d drive down to the ford and cross the stream as soon as he made some necessary inquiries about the dead man’s rig.

  Staring through him, she said nothing.

  He walked back to a silent band of thoroughly sobered wagoners gathered outside the tavern. The smell of their sweat was rank in the crisp air.

  “I know the outfit belonged to Pell,” Abraham said. “Did he have any kin?”

  One toothless fellow spoke. “A wife and a flock of young’uns in Harrisburg. But the woman turned Leland out a couple of years ago.”

  “She still live there?”

  “Think so.”

  “Still under the name Pell? Not remarried?”

  “Not so’s we’ve heard.”

  Abraham nodded in a grave, tired way. “I’ll get the rig to Pittsburgh. Make deliveries of the freight as best I can, then sell the wagon and the horses. After I deduct the hundred he charged me for the trip, I’ll deposit the rest at the postal office. There is a postal office—?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the toothless man.

  “I’ll leave the money for Pell’s wife. I’ll leave it in her name. One of you see it gets back to Harrisburg.”

  Murmurs of consent. Abraham stumbled back to the Conestoga. Elizabeth had disappeared.

  The eastern sky was empty of clouds. But in the west, gray banks promised rain, or even early snow, reminding him of the lateness of the season.

  He climbed up the front of the wagon, glanced into the crowded interior. Elizabeth was sprawled on her blanket pallet, hands over her face. She was crying, almost inaudibly.

  He thought about going to her, decided she might respond more favorably to the feel of the wagon in motion. As if in penance, the other wagoners helped him hitch up in record time.

  Abraham dragged himself into the saddle on the left wheel horse, picked up the jerkline. He didn’t have Pell’s whip. He wouldn’t have used it if he had.

  Just as he was maneuvering the rig into the water at the ford, he heard a loud bark. He leaned out to the left, looked behind, saw the bulldog, tongue lolling, wet old eyes red in the dawn.

  “Come on, Chief.”

  With a bound and another bark, the bulldog shot to his customary place beneath the bright blue bed. Abraham smiled, but the smile was empty. It made his face hurt.

  He started the six horses into the purling stream. Listened—

  Inside the huge wagon there was only silence.

  Chapter VIII

  Ark to the Wilderness

  i

  THE BRIM OF ABRAHAM’S hat and the shoulders of his thick wool coat were as white as the sugared buns he remembered with longing from breakfasts in Boston. Tonight, as he climbed the unlit stairs of the Pittsburgh rooming house in sodden boots, feeling thoroughly downhearted, he thought of all the splendid meals he had quite taken for granted as he was growing up.

  What a contrast between the luscious aromas memory conjured and the stenches of this old building that creaked in the winter wind. He smelled tobacco. Unwashed linen and unclean bodies. The ghastly fish stew served by the bad-tempered landlady for the evening meal—

  Elizabeth hadn’t eaten the wretched stew. She hadn’t felt well enough to go downstairs with him. Poor health did have its blessings—!

  Ah, that was a shameful thought. He should be, and was, desperately worried about his wife. Of late she’d been unusually pale and fatigued. He supposed it was the result of living cramped in a single combination bedroom-sitting room for most of the winter—and eating the landlady’s swill when hunger overpowered good sense.

  Even Chief, laboring up the rickety stairs behind him, looked bedraggled, moved with rheumatic slowness. The old bulldog acted as tired as he felt.

  On the second floor landing, a single lamp shed a feeble light. Abraham paused, his attention captured by sounds from behind one of the closed doors. With bleak eyes he listened to the unmistakable rhythm of a bed being strained up and down. He heard a woman’s strident moan—

  At least one of the transient couples paying the landlady’s gouging prices while waiting for winter to loosen its grip on the Ohio was managing to take comfort in each other.

  The reflection was more sad than angry. Elizabeth had retired early every night for six or seven weeks. She seemed incapable of any affection save a prim, dutiful kiss now and then. How long had it been since they’d last lain in each other’s arms? Centuries! he thought, though the truth was less melodramatic: early January—

  He climbed on toward the third floor, Chief panting behind him.

  Abraham blamed the dead wagoner for the apprehensive look in Elizabeth’s blue eyes whenever he tried to touch her. She still refused to tell him exactly what Pell had done that night. But it was obvious th
at scars remained.

  He blamed himself a little, too. He lacked the ability—the right words, the proper degree of tenderness—to cut through her moods, her aura of remoteness.

  His failure in another area didn’t help either. He had been totally unable to find a way for them to leave cold, crowded Pittsburgh with its heartless profiteers and its hordes of gray-faced immigrants who wore their hope like a badge. Again today he’d tramped the docks along the Monongahela, kept making inquiries and returning to the notice board even after the snow began to rage out of the northwest.

  Yawning and shivering, he tapped the door of their room, murmured a few words to identify himself. He heard Elizabeth’s slow, shuffling tread as she came to lift the latch.

  The room was unbelievably small. They’d moved the ancient bed against the wall to make room for their trunks. Little extra space remained—and two scarred chairs, a plain table and a washstand took up most of that.

  As usual, the plank floor fairly radiated cold. Elizabeth was already robed for bed. He shut the door after Chief lurched in, flung off his snow-soaked hat and coat.

  “Still no luck,” he said, sinking into a chair. “Every man I approach seems to have a full load by the time I get to him.”

  “Nothing new on the notice board?”

  “Nothing. We may have to buy another wagon and go along Zane’s Trace after all.”

  Abraham referred to a new road cleared the preceding year. It ran from Zane’s Station, on the Ohio’s northeast-southwest salient, to Maysville, where the river flowed generally westward again. Traveling by land part of the way to their destination would be possible, if extremely difficult.

  Abraham and Elizabeth had arrived in Pittsburgh in the late fall, just as the first snows fell. After disposing of Pell’s horses and wagon and seeing to the delivery of his goods, Abraham and his wife had agreed to make the remaining portion of their trip by riverboat. It was relatively safer, for one thing. The great number of boats shuttling upstream and down had sharply reduced the danger of Indian attack.

  But even after recouping the hundred dollars paid to Pell, Abraham couldn’t afford to buy his own flatboat. More important, the arks that plied the Ohio required more than one man to handle them, particularly if the boat was going on past Cincinnati to the shallow but treacherous rapids at the falls of the Ohio. A shared-cost, shared-labor arrangement was the only solution.

  Now it seemed no solution at all. He’d trudged the docks literally for weeks, unable to find anyone who needed an extra man come spring. Part of the problem was the fact that a partner would also have to transport Elizabeth and their baggage. Space was precious on most of the riverboats.

  Abraham sat motionless in the chair, listening to the whine of the February wind. Snow ticked at the windows. His eyes seemed to be focused on Chief. The bulldog lay under the foot of the bed, sleeping. But Abraham really wasn’t looking at the animal. He saw instead the comfortable house on Beacon Street—

  Aware of Elizabeth standing near him, he glanced up and pointed to his sodden coat. “I did buy a recent paper. Just came in with a pack train from Harrisburg. In December, John Adams was elected to the presidency. But the second highest total of votes cast by the electors went to Jefferson, so he’s vice president. I doubt Papa’s happy about that. It shows the Democratic-Republicans are gaining strength and influ—”

  He broke off, startled. Elizabeth was staring at him in a most peculiar way. There was a glow in her eyes such as he hadn’t seen for months.

  She was smiling!

  He shot to his feet, seized her chilly hands. He could only infer the smile was the result of some new abnormality in her physical health or her mental state. “Elizabeth, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, darling. In fact, for the first time since we set foot in this wretched town, I’m happy.”

  The smile grew. At first, he couldn’t believe what he suspected. But that smile gave him encouragement. Happiness surged through him like a tonic, washing away his exhaustion, his frustration—

  Yet he still didn’t dare to believe it. Not until she spoke. “I’ve been making a count of the days and weeks. I think enough time’s passed so that I can say with fair certainty we’re going to have a child.”

  “Oh my God, that’s wonderful!”

  He whooped, wrapped her in a hug, then leaped back. He’d practically crushed her—

  She laughed, really laughed. Faint spots of color showed in her cheeks.

  “Yes,” she said softly, “I think so too.”

  Abraham whooped again, did a little dance step on the cold floor. Chief’s head came up. The wet, ugly eyes opened. They were already closing by the time Elizabeth added, “I just wanted to be sure before I raised any false hopes.”

  Abraham started pacing. “I know there are doctors in Pittsburgh: We must get you to one immediately. No matter how much he charges—”

  He stopped, faced her. “And I think we should stay right here until the baby’s delivered.”

  “Not see our own land till the autumn? I won’t hear of it! I want the child born where we’re going to make our home.”

  “But traveling just this far was taxing enough. And you haven’t been yourself since the first of the year—”

  “Because I’m going to have a baby! It—it frightens me more than a little.”

  “That’s why you’ve been so—?”

  He didn’t finish.

  “So cool? Yes. I suspected I might be pregnant right after New Year’s, but as I told you, I vowed I wouldn’t speak until I was positive.” Her radiant expression dimmed as she surveyed the cobwebbed corners of the mean, dingy room. “I simply won’t stay here once the weather breaks. It’s a prison. And a filthy one at that.”

  She put her hands on his shoulders, smiling again. “Besides, everyone we’ve talked to says river travel is much smoother than going overland in a wagon.”

  “Yes, I know, but—”

  “We must double our efforts to find passage.”

  Her blue eyes narrowed. He had seen that prologue to an angry outburst many times before.

  “I mean it, Abraham. I will not stay in this dreadful room, this vile town, any longer than is absolutely necessary. I’m strong enough to make the river trip—”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “I am! We must go!”

  He doubted her claim about her strength. But he didn’t doubt her determination. He knew further argument would be useless. So he gathered her into his arms while the snow of February 1797 whined the lodging house windows, and he said, “All right, Elizabeth. We will.”

  iii

  The luck of the Kents seemed to change with the coming of sunshine and a late February thaw. The notice board near the docks, where new arrivals posted their partnership propositions, sent Abraham running to a wagon camp at the edge of town. There he located the Clappers, a family from the Genessee River valley in upper New York state.

  The Clapper clan consisted of Daniel, the father, a barrel of a man with a gray-streaked red beard and huge, hair-matted arms; his wife, a leathery little woman named Edna; and their two youngsters. Daniel Junior was sixteen; tiny, doll-like Danetta, nine.

  Yes, Daniel Clapper said, Abraham had read the notice correctly. He meant to sell his wagon—but not his horses or all the merchandise the wagon had carried—and invest in a one-way ark.

  “What’s your destination, Mr. Clapper? The notice didn’t say.”

  “Destination?” Clapper combed out his beard with thick fingers. “Wherever it strikes my fancy to squat, I reckon. I’m a storekeeper, y’see—”

  He led Abraham to the wagon, showed him an assortment of goods from bolts of cloth to kegs of nails.

  “Had a right good location up New Hampshire way for eleven years. All of a sudden one day, I just got sick of it. We packed up our goods, toted ’em cross country and opened a new store near the falls of the Genesee. Kept that seven years—till the movin’ fever come on me again. We been bogged
down north of here for a whole month, waitin’ for the snow to melt. I can’t get out o’ Pittsburgh fast enough—just look at all these damn people—!”

  His wave encompassed fifteen to twenty cook fires glowing in the twilight among immigrant wagons of every description.

  “I’m fixin’ to go towards the Ohio land, where there’s a tad more room,” Clapper continued. “Got all I need to open me a store the day I arrive. Put up my tent, lay a board ’twixt two kegs and I’m in business. I’ll sell what I brung with me till I can pick up more from the packets comin’ downriver. I’ll use my horses to peddle in the back country, an’ there I am—set up as pert as you please!”

  Abraham tried to put the conversation back on course. “According to the sheet you posted, you need three men for your ark. One more besides you and your son—”

  “I need some cash, too.” From his coat pocket Clapper pulled two paper-covered pamphlets, opened the first, shut it again. “Wrong one. That’s the river map with the islands an’ hazards marked—I can’t afford me one of them high-priced pilots—”

  Tucking the pamphlet away, he handed Abraham the other one. “This here Compleat Guide to the Western Territories says arks run four dollar a foot. I need one about sixty feet, I guess, to haul the wife and Daniel and Danetta and my horses and goods.”

  “That’s about two hundred and forty dollars.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’d be willing to put in half.”

  “She wouldn’t all go to waste, y’know.” Clapper pointed at the pamphlet. “Says in there someplace that you can recover about a quarter o’ what you spend for a boat if you tear her up and sell the lumber at the other end.”

  “Fine with me. Do we have a deal?”

  “Hold on, Mr. Kent! We ain’t covered all the details.”

  “What details?”

  “Well, f’rinstance—are you travelin’ all by yourself? I never seed so blasted many bachelors in one place in my life!”

  “I’m married. I have my wife to take along—a small amount of luggage—a bulldog—”