The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

by Benton, Lori

  For the first time since their arrival in his dooryard, Reverend Teague seemed taken aback, maybe a little amused, and—Jesse hoped he wasn’t imagining this part—impressed. But when he spoke, it was to caution, “This isn’t a wedding, Jesse. You understand that?”

  “I do, sir. But I meant what I said, and I needed you to hear it.” To keep him honorable. Accountable.

  It wasn’t the vow he’d hoped to make this day, but it was as binding as the other would have been. Tamsen would have what she needed, time to decide whether she wanted the life he could provide her—and him with it—or something else entirely.

  He’d give her that freedom, whatever it cost in the end.

  With the distance home too far to travel so late in the day, they’d spent the night with the Teagues, Jesse in the barn, Tamsen on a quilt by the hearth. The next morning Molly Teague accompanied them the few miles to Sycamore Shoals, where she went into the trade store and obtained for Tamsen items neither Jesse nor Cade could have known they’d need back in Morganton—things it wouldn’t raise an eyebrow for a woman to purchase.

  Molly wasn’t much of a horsewoman. It had taken them the morning to reach Sycamore Shoals. Jesse and Tamsen ate a bite of dinner while they waited, concealed along the Stony Creek trace. Jesse was thankful for the reverend’s offer to extend him credit for the purchases, as well as his promise to keep Tamsen’s presence a secret and hold his peace about the murder charge. Luther Teague wasn’t happy about that last, but Jesse had insisted. Tamsen didn’t need another reason to feel obligated. If ever they married, he didn’t want it to be out of duty on her part, or fear, or anything but …

  He hobbled that thought as Molly came riding along the trace with the purchases, bid them blessing, and they were on their way. Up the creek without a paddle, or much of a plan for what came next, it seemed to Jesse.

  October was upon them. The air had a tang of autumn. The press of Tamsen’s arms around him as they rode double for the first stretch was both pleasure and torment. She didn’t ask where they were headed. He was too busy running the vow he’d made over in his head to say much of anything. He wasn’t surprised when she fell asleep against his back, about the time he turned the horse away from Stony Creek to make their way along a feeder creek, closed in by wooded slopes.

  The sun was an hour or more away from setting, but the western slopes lay in dusk, when he felt Tamsen stir.

  “Jesse? I need to find a spot.”

  He looked ahead along the trail. “There’s a likely thicket, other side of that rock.”

  She leaned around his shoulder, saw the boulder he meant, tall and mossy. “You know this place that well?”

  He stopped the horse and slid to the ground, reaching up to help her down. “Every rock, tree, and bush along this creek. Every game trace, salt lick, and fishing hole too.”

  She looked about her, still blinking sleepily. “Has this creek a name?”

  “Tate Allard’s the only one farming up this way. He calls it Greenbird Creek. Guess that makes this Greenbird Cove.” He gestured at the tree-thick hills. “It opens up some, ’bout a half mile on, where Tate’s land starts.”

  While she saw to the necessary, he filled the canteen.

  She came around the rock at last, drooping with fatigue, still the loveliest sight he could imagine. It struck him with fresh wonder, as if she came walking to him out of a dream and might vanish did he dare touch her. But she was real, and plain worn from the journey they’d made, and now he was taking her to stay with him and Cade, and he couldn’t guess what the coming weeks would hold. She wasn’t his wife. Wasn’t his in any way, save to protect.

  He cleared his throat. “Not much farther now. You want to walk a spell? Horse is tired, so I’ll be afoot.”

  “I can walk.” She surprised him by wrapping her arms around the chestnut’s neck, patting the horse with affection, then planting a kiss on its velvety nose. He took up the reins and led on, hiding how much that gesture pleased him.

  There was room on the trail to walk abreast, but minutes passed before she broke the silence. “What crops do you raise on your land, or do you raise cattle?”

  “We grow some corn. It’s not our land, though, where we’re living.”

  “You aren’t squatters, are you?”

  “No ma’am. When we aren’t on a long hunt, we live on the edge of Tate Allard’s land—by his leave. In return we share what meat we bring in, drive Tate’s cows to market in the fall, lend our backs when needed. Neighborly stuff.”

  It had proved a fitting arrangement for the past four years. Cade had raised him thinking it best not owning land, staying free to pick up stakes when game grew scarce or a place got too tricky to live in—like the State of Franklin was fast becoming.

  Now, though, contrary notions were swirling through Jesse’s head, laying waste to old thinking—thoughts of digging in more permanent-like, acres of his own in a hollow somewhere, land he could make yield a living. He looked down at Tamsen trudging along in the clothes he’d borrowed and the moccasins he’d made, dark hair falling in a thick braid, sun-glossed features set in weariness. Was she disappointed he hadn’t land of his own?

  “I’m thinking …,” he began, but stopped. Thinking he’d left the Watauga country content getting by the Indian way, with enough to eat and some to share with his neighbors. Thinking he’d come back more a white man than he’d ever been, with a heap of new concerns on his shoulders.

  She cut her eyes toward him. “Thinking what?”

  “Lots of things, but never mind. Let’s not think beyond getting home so you can rest.” He couldn’t be sure but thought he heard her mutter “amen” under her breath.

  The hollow opened up as Jesse said it would. They passed a sloping field standing in corn, fenced with rails. Beyond it, forest rose again in a leafy wall, running up to the crest of a ridge where the trees were tipped in gold, save for a natural bald midway up catching the westering sun.

  It was a wild, isolated place where squirrels and jaybirds protested their passage and the tracks of deer and bear crossed the dim trail. Once, passing a break in the trees, she glimpsed smoke drifting over a rise and supposed it was the home of Janet Allard, to whom she must return the pecan-brown petticoat and gown as soon as she could ply her new needle.

  At Sycamore Shoals, according to Molly Teague, all the talk had been about the Jonesborough courthouse raid. She’d heard no mention of a missing woman, abducted or otherwise, or talk of men called Parrish or Kincaid while she’d procured yards of striped homespun, bleached linen, thick-ribbed stockings and other sundries, including the sturdiest, ugliest pair of shoes Tamsen had ever owned, all wrapped inside a quilt behind the saddle.

  After she saw the smoke, the trail curved back into forest, climbing along the meandering creek that tumbled over stones and deadfalls, lively and pretty. The sun was setting, and her legs burned with the strain by the time they emerged into a clearing nestled between the shoulders of a low mountain. Trees ringed three sides of the clearing. A cornfield edged the fourth. Where the ground rose toward a wall of forest stood a cabin built of peeled logs, squared and fitted.

  It was smaller than the Teagues’ cabin, with a door in the center and a covered window to one side. Because the land lay lower to the west, the cabin caught the burnished light of sunset, making it look as if it hadn’t lost the luster of new-cut wood. She licked her lips, aching for the comfort of a feather tick—though straw would do, she’d not be picky—but hesitant to mention one.

  They came first to a stable, just up from the creek bottom. Jesse stopped, untied the quilt bundle and handed it to her. He began unsaddling the horse, while she stood swaying, yawning. He was about to lead the horse into the stable when he noticed.

  “Go on up; have a look at the place.” He gave her a half smile. “I think we left it tidy, but don’t hold me to it.”

  His eyes told her he wasn’t worried, but she began to be—not about what she might find inside that
cabin. What sort of role was she meant to play in Jesse Bird’s life now? She was a guest, she supposed, but that notion didn’t sit right. If the reverend hadn’t talked them out of marrying, this might, in some ways, have been easier. More straightforward, at least.

  Clutching the quilt bundle, she followed a path up to the cabin door, pulled the latch string, and pushed her way inside.

  Her first reaction was relief. While the stale muskiness of hides lingered, the place didn’t smell too bad. And the floor wasn’t dirt. Puncheon logs spanned the space, fitted with hardly a crack between. Leaving the door open for light, she stepped inside.

  It was two rooms, between them a wide stone hearth with a crane for cooking. A few pots and skillets lined the hearthstones. The ceiling was open beamed, but a loft reached by a pole ladder was built above the room behind the chimney.

  A rough-hewn table with benches occupied the main room. Smaller tables and shelves lined the walls, holding possessions her eyes skated over until they landed on the books—half a dozen at least, lined up neat with their spines facing out. The sight was a welcome surprise.

  Clothing hung on pegs—breeches, leggings, shirts—as well as traps and snowshoes. Heavy winter moccasins stood in pairs beneath. Everything was tidy. More surprising, the cabin bore a woman’s touch. Checked curtains hung at the window, matching a runner that spanned the table under a burl-wood bowl heaped with red-striped apples. Fresh apples?

  Frowning, she stepped closer, the quilt in her arms.

  “Well, forevermore. Where on earth did you come from?”

  Tamsen’s heart leapt to her throat as she froze midstep. Framed in the doorway between the cabin’s rooms, hands on slender hips, a girl in faded blue homespun stood scowling at Tamsen.

  The girl looked about fifteen. She was small boned and pretty—even with the scowl—with pale hair loose to her waist and eyes so blue Tamsen could see their color from across the dim room.

  “We … Jesse and I …” It took a moment for a suitable reply to surface through startlement and weariness. “We’ve just come from Reverend Teague. Who are you?”

  Tamsen set the quilt on the table.

  “Don’t put that there—I just prettied that table!” The girl rushed forward as if to snatch the quilt away. Tamsen placed a hand between it and the girl.

  “You haven’t told me who you are—or what you’re doing here.”

  Fury twisted the girl’s features. Instead of going for the quilt, she raised a hand to Tamsen, who stepped back out of reach.

  “Bethany!” Jesse thundered from the doorway. He strode across the cabin and took the girl by the arm. “What in blazes are you doing?”

  Instead of pulling away, the girl flung her slight person against his broad chest, one fist striking him, the other clinging.

  Jesse got hold of her by the wrists. “What’s got into you? Do Tate and Janet know you’re here?”

  She pulled out of his grasp, stricken face shining with tears. “I came to tidy the place for you, but … you got married? Why?”

  Jesse’s face drained of color. Ignoring the question, he crossed to Tamsen and touched her cheek. “What happened? Did you walk in and give her a fright?”

  Behind Jesse’s back the girl glared venom.

  “I must have.” Impulsively Tamsen took his hand in hers and heard a sound from the girl as she did so. Quite possibly a growl. “I’m all right.”

  Jesse’s fingers squeezed. Then he drew a breath and glanced around the cabin. “Those are nice curtains, and the table looks pretty. It was kind of you, Beth, ’specially as you couldn’t know I’d be bringing home …” Seeming at a loss for what to call her, he said simply, “Tamsen. But I’d take it kinder still,” he added with an edge to his voice, “if you’d make your apologies to her.”

  The girl’s face went a humiliated red. There was a moment when Tamsen thought she might actually say the words. Then her vivid eyes iced over.

  “I shan’t.” She whirled toward the door, the movement fanning out her pale hair. On the threshold she looked back, gaze raking Tamsen. “And those are my mama’s clothes you’re wearing.”

  She fled as the last of the sun’s angled light vanished, throwing the dooryard into shadow. Tamsen and Jesse stood in thundering silence, staring after her.

  Tamsen heard him swallow.

  “That,” he said, “was Bethany. Tate and Janet’s daughter.”

  Come morning, Jesse was wishing Cade hadn’t hung a sturdy door between the cabin’s rooms. Best he could tell, staring at it, Tamsen hadn’t stirred off the bedstead that used to be his own. He’d gone down to see to the horse, come back up, fixed breakfast, and was just rising from the table when he finally heard the pad of feet behind the door.

  He sat back down, rubbed a hand down his face. Waited.

  A crash in the next room had him leaping up, heart doing a jig. At the door he stopped, chary of barging in.

  “Tamsen? You all right?”

  Silence. Then her voice, tear filled, muffled through the door. “I’m fine.”

  He took leave to doubt it. “You dressed decent? Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  Presuming that answered both questions, he leaned against the door-jamb, hand hovering on the latch. “Don’t reckon you’d come out?”

  “Not now.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Mr. Bird … Jesse. Please. I’m fine. Really.”

  Behind the cabin he split up a hickory trunk, hurling pieces into a stack. Time, the preacher had said. Time was what she needed. Time wore on, and the morning with it. He was sitting in the cabin threshold sipping from a canteen, sweaty from work, when Tate and Janet Allard came into view on the path that crossed the ridge to their homestead.

  He leaned his rifle against the logs and rose.

  Janet, blond as her daughter but nigh as tall as her husband, came forward holding out a pie, and an uncertain smile. Jesse took the pie, never one to turn down his neighbor’s cooking. It was apple.

  “Thankee kindly. What a fine welcome home.” Compared to the one they’d had last night, he didn’t say.

  Tate, toting a covered basket, darted a gaze into the cabin. But Janet took the basket and the bull by the horns, stepping inside and asking brightly, “What’s this we hear of you bringing home a wife from back east?”

  Tate followed her in, Jesse on their heels. He set the pie on the table while the Allards took in the barefaced lack of anything resembling a wife. Their gazes rested on the door beside the hearth.

  A wife from back east. Bethany had rushed out before he could correct that misunderstanding. Till last night he hadn’t credited that she’d fixed romantic notions on him. Of late she’d taken to dogging his steps more often than he liked—like a pesky little sister, he’d thought. He’d been patient, tried to be kind. Had he misled her in some way? Had Tate and Janet been thinking he was sweet on their girl?

  Janet dropped her voice. “She sleeping this far up into the day?”

  Jesse busied himself emptying the basket of cornbread, cheese, butter, and huckleberry preserves. “Tamsen’s awake, I think. She just hasn’t come out of that room today.”

  The Allards shared a look. “Is she your wife?” Janet asked. “We weren’t sure Beth got the story straight.”

  Jesse’s mind raced over how much truth to tell. While he trusted the Allards, and having Tate looking out for anyone asking after Tamsen might be the wiser course, there was another thing. Here was Tamsen living under his roof. Even if the Teagues knew about his vow to keep his distance, why should anyone else presume it?

  “We saw Reverend Teague yesterday.” Jesse watched those words do their work, expecting Tamsen to come barging out to dispute their implication. She didn’t, though she must have heard.

  Janet cleared her throat. “I was happy lending you my gown, but you didn’t mention you were marrying the woman needing to borrow it.”

  When he’d run over the ridges yesterday morning to fetch somet
hing decent for Tamsen to wear, it happened a calf had busted its pen and Tate had taken Bethany and her little brothers traipsing after it, leaving Janet the only one home. She’d assumed one of Cade’s settlers needed the gown for a hasty wedding. Jesse hadn’t amended the notion.

  Janet Allard had a sweet smile—and a forbearing nature. She graced Jesse with both now. “Not that I mind.”

  Knowing he was in the midst of deceiving her again, the tightness in Jesse’s chest didn’t uncoil.

  Tate offered a callused hand to shake. “Think she’ll come out so we can meet her?”

  Tamsen had suffered enough to make anyone shut themselves in a room for a week. “It was a rough crossing. Reckon she’ll come out when—”

  The door opened, silencing him. All three turned to look.

  Tamsen’s hair was neatly parted, pinned up under a cap that covered the back of her head. She wore the top part of Janet’s gown, with a petticoat made of the new homespun—basted, it looked like, and hastily hemmed. Janet’s petticoat draped her arm. Her eyes were a bit puffy, rimmed in red.

  “Tamsen.” He wished mightily they’d talked before now. Last night she’d been so tired she’d fallen onto the bed tick with barely two words left to speak to him—a mumbled “good night.”

  She came into the room, eyes on Jesse’s tall blond neighbor. “Are you Mrs. Allard?”

  Janet paused a beat before smiling in welcome. “I am. And you’ll be Jesse’s wife? Tamsen, is it?”

  Tamsen’s glance at Jesse was brief. She’d heard him tell the lie. “Yes,” she said, and Jesse let out a breath.

  “Tamsen Bird,” Janet said. “What a lovely name. This is my husband, Tate.”

  “Mr. Allard.” Not quite hiding her startlement at the sound of Jesse’s name paired with hers, Tamsen dipped a curtsy to Tate, who whipped off his hat.

  “Pleased to meet ye, ma’am. I’m Tate to my neighbors.”

  Jesse had never seen Tate blush, but in that rough-hewn cabin, Tamsen was as dazzling as an angel come to earth, even if she’d spent the morning in tears, which he feared was the case.