The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

by Benton, Lori

  She shivered.

  Golden eyes flicked to her. “Cold?”

  He got up to put his blanket over her.

  When she woke next in the lifting darkness, the first thing she saw was his face in profile, very near her own. She’d scooted up against him in the night, despite having his blanket and her cloak and sleeping closest to the fire. He lay on that big black fur, face upturned to the fading stars, hands folded on his chest. One gripped his rifle.

  She eased away and only then saw the moccasins tucked between them. They were small and neat, with a center seam stitched of that thick thread, and the flaps … They were cut long enough to cover her ankles if she tied them up.

  Sight of them caused a tightening in her chest, separate from the stone of grief lodged there. She reached a hand from her warm nest to stroke the supple leather, finding it buttery soft. Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back and pillowed her head on her arm and watched the man beside her sleep while morning swelled around them, closing her eyes when the tightening of his lips warned her he was about to open his.

  A mist had risen by the time Jesse checked his snares, cleaned the rabbit caught in the night, and made his way back up the mountain. They’d been blessed in the weather, though it was a blink and a sneeze till autumn. Some of the hardwoods were already tipped in red. The sun and warmth couldn’t last.

  Left to himself, he could be down on the Watauga in a day. Two at most. With Tamsen it would take longer, but not by much. Ought he to make it take longer? Could she bear it if he did? The shattered look of her, sick with grief in the clearing by the stream, haunted him still. Even had she been whole in spirit, she wasn’t used to such exertion or rough living. He knew it by that blue gown, her soft hands.

  He’d left her sleeping, yet to find the moccasins he’d made. Would they please her?

  He was wondering that as he came over a rise into their camp and stopped in his tracks. She was kneeling by the fire with her back to him, and the mist wasn’t so thick that he couldn’t see she’d taken off the jacket of her gown and was tugging at the laced-up thing she wore beneath it.

  Stays. He’d seen them on the bushes at their neighbor’s cabin, washed and spread like the wings of a desiccated bird. He’d never seen them on a woman. Was she trying to get at the ties in back? How tight did women lace those things? For a second or two, he admired her trim shape, then cleared his throat. “You needing help with that?”

  With a yelp, she scrambled back into the jacket, thrusting her arms into the sleeves. She flipped her braid over her shoulder, head bent to fasten up the front.

  “Guess that’s no,” he said under his breath.

  While he skinned the rabbit and whittled green sticks to spit it, she fidgeted, trying to adjust her various layers without seeming to do so. Finally she gave it up and reached for the moccasins he’d made. Halfway through tugging them on, she glanced at him from under her lashes.

  “Thank you for these.”

  He nodded, watching her through drifting smoke. “Best wrap your feet in the hose. Loose-like, to cushion things. There’ll be some walking again today.” The hose had dried, spread by the fire in the night. “I got a pair of breeches you can slip on under that skirt.” She shook her head at that, and her cheeks pinked up. “We’re headed higher today. Weather can turn in a blink this time of year. Could get chilly.”

  Still no. She’d maybe change her mind, later. At least she seemed to like the moccasins. She stood and took a few steps. He noted she didn’t limp. “I put the fancy shoes in the fire. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “They were ruined.”

  It was all the talk he got from her while the rabbit cooked.

  Keeping company with Cade all these years, he was used to silent stretches. But he’d seen enough of Tamsen Littlejohn before her mother’s death to guess this wasn’t her usual way. He trusted she’d talk when she was ready. That she hadn’t cried a tear since leaving Morganton … that concerned him.

  He couldn’t read with certainty what lay behind her guarded face, but the transformation happening on the outside was encouraging. Only a day on the trail and she was already taking the sun, taking it well. He’d feared her skin would burn, adding to her misery, but it was coming up golden across the bridge of her nose and brow.

  They ate the rabbit unseasoned with talk, till out of the fire-hissing silence, she said, “It occurs to me you haven’t … I haven’t asked …” She faltered when he looked at her. “What is your name?”

  He’d almost told her a time or two but reckoned his name, or anything else about him, was the last thing on her mind. Still he’d hoped she’d come ’round to asking. He savored the moment now, along with the last bite of rabbit, while the flames fluttered and the mist swirled down the mountain at their backs.

  “That’s a good question,” he said. “But I answer to Jesse Bird.”

  Jesse had left Tamsen Littlejohn with everything but his rifle and his horse. He’d loaded his pistol, showed her how to cock it and squeeze the trigger. “A precaution. I’ll just be down the mountain, gone an hour and a bit.”

  He was uneasy going out of shouting distance, even for an hour. He was uneasy, too, about the clouds piling dark above the mountain. He’d settled her under pines and tied up an oilcloth shelter, explaining while he worked about the wagon party Cade was guiding. “They need to see me, know I’m still part of their outfit. It’s no more’n a mile or two to where we aimed to meet up.”

  Tamsen had stood before the makeshift tent, under which he’d piled their kit, frowning at the loaded pistol set atop her little box. “Why can’t we both go?”

  “We can’t know if the hunt’s on, or if your stepfather’s learned I helped you away. Being seen together is too risky. There’ll be no one along this trail, and if there was, they won’t see you if you stay put in these pines.”

  Lord Almighty, let her stay put in those pines. He offered the prayer a dozen times before he struck the rutted trace the wagon party would be traveling. Thunder rumbled a few ridges over, menacing the air like war drums, but barely a sprinkle had overtaken him in the time it took to find Cade, camped with the settlers in the green cup of a meadow off the trace that skirted Bald Mountain. Women tended fires and young’uns at the wagons. Smells of cookery thickened the air. Jesse dismounted near the roped stock pen where Cade stood solitary guard, a grim knowing tight across his face.

  “I didn’t want you having to lie for me,” Jesse said straightaway. Thunder murmured while Cade digested that, brows pulled in fierce enough to scare a painter-cat up a tree. “You know ’bout her ma?”

  “All Morganton knows.”

  “It was her stepfather done the killing. Tamsen saw it.”

  “I figured as much, once I put it all together.” Cade’s eyes held worry, though he tried to hide it. “Tell me this, Jesse. You see this ending well?”

  “I’ll make sure it does—for her.” Jesse glanced at the wagons. Having come at the camp from behind, his arrival had gone unmarked. “Tell me quick what’s passed. Then I could use some provisions. A blanket if one’s to spare.”

  Cade gave him what news he had. Parrish had wasted a day chasing the slaves he’d brought from Charlotte Town, thinking their flight had to do with his stepdaughter’s. He’d lost that trail and turned back to Morganton, in time to meet a trapper come down from the mountains.

  “Charlie Spencer.” Jesse rubbed the back of his neck, cursing himself for letting the man set eyes on them.

  “They were heading out toward the French Broad country when I started these folk on the trail,” Cade said. “Spencer seemed of a mind that’s where you were bound with the girl.”

  “He named the place. I didn’t correct his guess.” What else Cade had said registered. “What d’you mean ‘they’?”

  “Parrish and that redheaded planter the girl refused.”

  “You get his name? The planter?”

  Cade looked at him warily, then arched a brow. “She hasn�
��t told you?”

  “She ain’t doing much talking yet.”

  Cade wasn’t liking the situation. “She’d best get to talking because folk in Morganton are. Word’s gone ’round an Overmountain man abducted Tamsen Littlejohn.”

  Back in the room where her mother lay dead and he’d offered his protection, Jesse had considered such a charge might come of it. It didn’t make it easier to hear. “I was there, Pa. I saw what was done to her ma. I had to—”

  “It may be you did,” Cade cut in, “but you need to know what else is being said.” The rain came harder now. Over at the wagon camp, folk were taking cover. “Parrish has put it about that whoever abducted his stepdaughter also killed his wife.”

  The earth seemed to tilt. Raindrops smacked Jesse’s face, cold and clammy. Cade gripped his arm.

  “They don’t know your name. Only one man knows your face. But he’s lent himself to the hunt, as guide.”

  Jesse knew he’d made a poor impression on that man. Add to that word of Tamsen’s disappearance from Morganton, a murder besides, and he could imagine the trapper feeling moved to help Parrish track down his missing stepdaughter—the only other person who knew how her mother truly died.

  But what of her thwarted suitor? Parrish wouldn’t have told him the truth. Not if he still had his sights set on the man’s wealth as a prize in trade for Tamsen.

  “His name’s Kincaid” was the clipped answer Jesse got after asking a second time. “He hadn’t much to say, just watched our faces while Parrish asked his questions.”

  His pa’s face was guarded, strained no doubt by Jesse’s tangling them in the girl’s messy plight.

  “Why wouldn’t she have him?”

  “She took a powerful dislike to the man is all I know.” It was a thing Jesse aimed to find out.

  Cade looked like he wanted to utter a few choice curses—most of them aimed at Jesse. He breathed hard through his nose, then met Jesse’s gaze with resignation. “Keep her from him, then. Keep her far away.”

  Keep her from him. Oughtn’t Cade to have said them?

  Jesse hadn’t time to question. One of the settlers, braving the rain, was heading over from the wagons. They had seconds to themselves. “How’re these folk settling in?”

  Cade’s mouth quirked, but there was no humor in it. “They say with an Indian guide they figure they’ve less to fear from Chickamaugas, though their eyes sometimes say different. They’ll be glad to see you.”

  The settler reached them, rain sluicing off his drooping hat brim. While Cade went to gather provisions, Jesse talked about the trail ahead—hoping his memories of last autumn would hold true, with no new slides or trees down or streams overrunning their banks. He came into camp, greeted the watchful men, the women busy keeping all and sundry dry as possible. He’d no more chance for a private word with Cade before he was back on his horse, provisioned and riding up the trace Cade would follow come morning.

  Clouds hugged the ridges, ragged as old men’s beards. Lightning sheeted the landscape, thunder cracking on its heels. A fresh torrent of rain overtook him as he left the trace, slowing his progress. Though barely evening, under the forest canopy twilight lay thick.

  Way he saw it, he’d a choice to make. Get Tamsen to the Watauga and hole up, hope for a respite, be ready to bolt again at sign of pursuit, or lose themselves in the mountains for an indefinite spell, wait out the hunt until her stepfather gave her up for lost. There were places he could survive on next to nothing, even in winter. But Tamsen?

  He’d lay it out to her, let her have a voice in deciding.

  Just let her have stayed put. He hurled the prayer heavenward again as his horse threaded a stream already swollen from the trickle of half an hour past.

  From childhood Tamsen had thrilled to the clash and drama of a thunderstorm. Until now. With nothing but an oilcloth above her head, every flash of lightning prickled her scalp. Every wet wind gust stippled her arms with gooseflesh. Rain drummed, pounding in its fury. Thunder rolled down the mountain like cannon blasts. Hunched low, hardly able to draw breath for the press of her stays, she put her back to the driving rain and covered her mother’s box with her bedraggled petticoat.

  Had Mr. Bird found his settlers? She’d no idea how long it had been since he abandoned her—half the promised hour? Nor did she fathom how he could make his way with such confidence through these jumbled mountains, riddled with creeks and bluffs, impenetrable thickets and brakes, and trails all but invisible to her eyes. She felt herself folded into their savage embrace, swallowed by their immensity. If he never made it back to her …

  Before the fretful thought was finished, the wind fell off. The rain slackened, then ceased with a suddenness as unnerving as its violent falling had been. Runnels spilled down the oilcloth and dripped from laden pines. Light beneath the trees was dim and green. Thunder rumbled, but the storm was moving off, leaving her a scrap of muddied flotsam in its wake.

  She needed to stand up straight, but dared go no more than a step or two from her shelter. Having removed the moccasins Mr. Bird made and tucked them into one of the bags to keep dry, she stood barefoot on soggy pine needles. The back of her gown was soaked to the waist. Mr. Bird had used a branch as a rooftree to ensure the sides of the shelter shed the rain, but runoff had created a rivulet on the uphill side of the tent—which her gown had wicked up. Trickling through unhindered now, the water nipped at the corner of her mother’s box. Ducking down to rescue it, she saw something that alarmed her as deeply as the storm had. The lock was empty, the key gone.

  Fallen under one of the bags, perhaps? She crawled beneath the oilcloth and shifted the knapsack, the bow case and quiver, their bedding, frantic fingers scrabbling through wet pine straw.

  “No—no.” The key had to be somewhere.

  She’d worked up a sweat in her search despite the chilling air. She unpinned her jacket, then untied the petticoat with its ripped hem soiled and sopping. She shook out the grubby linen, but no key tumbled free. She dropped the garments onto the bags. She checked her pockets. No key.

  She tried to think. And breathe. Wretched stays … Could she have slipped the key down inside them and forgotten she’d done so?

  She yanked. Tugged. Slid her hand down the clammy front of her chest but could barely wedge her fingers a few inches in. Her mother, in anticipation of her winning back the approval of Mr. Kincaid, had drawn the lacings of her stays as tight as Tamsen could bear them, squeezing her into the narrow shape required by the blue gown. There was nothing between her flattened breasts save the sweat-sour linen of her shift.

  She must have let the key fall on the trail.

  Mr. Bird had told her to stay put. Told her most emphatically. But all her mother’s secrets were in that box. She had to have that key.

  Leaving the camp barefoot, she descended from the pine thicket and searched with care along the faint path they’d followed, among weeds and rock crevices, anywhere a key might have tumbled from the back of the horse.

  With her eyes on the ground, she heard the rushing creek before she saw it, at the bottom of a winding draw. It had widened since the storm, moving faster over its rock-tumbled bed. Mr. Bird had led the horse across at that spot, but it didn’t look safe for foot crossing now.

  She climbed a few yards up the draw over stone outcrops, fingers and toes grasping the wet surfaces. Not far above was a level stretch where the stream widened into a pool, before rushing off over rocks and flood-washed limbs, but just above the pool, matters proved more promising. A few stones, evenly spaced, spanned the creek. With only her shift to hamper, Tamsen thought she could cross. Then it would be a matter of climbing back down to the path on the other side.

  Trying not to think of the possibility that the key might have fallen into the creek, she stepped out onto the first stone. It wobbled, but she kept her balance. Three more stones lay between her and the far bank, which rose to an overhang of berry shrubs. Huckleberries, she thought, catching sight of a few clingi
ng late to their stems, peeking dark through leaves tinged with autumn scarlet.

  The second stone was lower, cushioned in moss that squished between her toes. Water foamed an inch below her heels, cascading over submerged tree limbs. She glanced down, but the pool below was too brown and churned to judge its depth.

  The third stone wobbled worse than the first. Her arms flailed as fear shot up the backs of her knees, but she steadied herself—in time to see the thicket above her on the bank erupt with a shedding of leaves. A bear, big and black, stood up among the berry shrubs and looked at her with its small, startled eyes.

  With a cry she stepped back. Her foot landed in the creek, shot from under her, and she pinwheeled over the edge into the pool.

  It was deep and shockingly cold. Her head went under before her foot touched bottom. She kicked up from pebbly silt, thrashing, and broke the surface. She choked on water that rushed straight into her mouth and was dragged under again.

  The current swept her into something hard. Her fingers clawed it, but the surface refused her a hold. She pushed off from it, hoping she was propelling herself up and toward the bank, not into deeper water.

  Her shin struck stone. She scrabbled for it with her toes, finding purchase enough to launch herself out of the sucking, swirling hole. Still in water above her waist, she floundered for something to catch hold of.

  A shape loomed above her. With the bear still lurking at the edges of her panic, she screamed and flailed. Something closed over her wrist, clamping hard.

  “Tamsen—take hold of me!”

  “Mr. Bird!” She gulped down water as she cried his name and came out of the creek retching it back up as he hauled her to safety.