The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn

by Benton, Lori

  “Which I repent me of heartily,” Spencer retorted. “But it ain’t the same as doing the deed. Look—Seth Trimble might be in shape to fight ye, but I doubt it. Might just be Parrish to contend with here, so let’s try it my way first.”

  “Your way?”

  “Aye,” Spencer said. “Here’s what I’m thinking, if’n ye want my advice. There ain’t no outer door to the lean-to where they got her, but there’s a window slit, high up. Now, Parrish knows me. I can go right up to that cabin door, get his attention—loud-like—and hold it long enough for you to find a way through that lean-to wall and pull Miss Littlejohn out. Simple as that.”

  Simple as that. Jesse was about to lose all semblance of control. Every second wasted felt like a drop of blood from his veins. Simple as that. Lord, let it be so.

  “How fast can those mules move?”

  The only thing keeping her conscious now was terror. It certainly wasn’t hope. Charlie Spencer had gone. Dominic Trimble had gone. Seth’s voice had tapered off soon after his brother left. She’d seen how inflamed the wound she’d dealt him had become in the hours they’d trekked through the cold wet hills, making their cautious way to their cabin. How long had he been silent? How long had she cowered in the dark?

  Her thoughts came thick as sorghum syrup—save for when she heard Mr. Parrish moving about in the cabin. Then her heart would lurch. She’d rouse, straining to listen. He told her she could stay there until she reconsidered her obstinacy. She knew what would happen if she didn’t. He’d leave her as she was, until she succumbed to cold or sickness. Or he’d do what he’d done to her mother, end her life by violence. Why had she left the Allards’? Why had she gone against Jesse’s warning to stay put? She’d had compelling reason. Something about murder.…? Murder … Jesse … Jesse accused of her mother’s murder! That’s what she’d been trying to rectify.

  Wedged between barrels and crates, she huddled on the dirt floor, petticoat clinging, wet and muddied, cloak heavy on her shoulders, wool and rabbit fur soaked through. Now and then she struggled at the cords pinning her wrists but had no way of knowing whether she loosened them or drew them tighter. Her hands—feet too—might have been lumps of wood for all she could feel them.

  Beyond the door, a kettle clanked against stone. Liquid poured. Longing for whatever hot thing that hateful man was drinking, she swayed, nearly toppling into a pile of sacking.

  Her body’s jerking stirred her, helped her to focus. The cords around her wrists—she had to get free of them. Was there something, anything, in that tight space sharp enough to cut through rawhide?

  First to get some feeling into her hands. All she could do at first was twitch her fingers, but a painful tingle soon indicated progress. When finally she could sense the touch of objects again, she hitched herself around, feeling among splintery crates and barrels. Her fingertips found metal. She knew the shape. An animal trap, the sort with serrated teeth. A broken one, the halves of its jaws lying in a heap.

  It took an age to find an angle that worked, backed up against it, but at last she positioned her wrists over the teeth and began an awkward sawing at her bonds. Keeping the trap from shifting and clanking proved tricky. She ended up half sitting on it to keep it anchored. She’d lost her cap in the struggle by the creek. Long wet curls straggled down from their pins, tangled in her efforts to cut the rope. She tossed her head, trying to sweep her hair out of the way, but it clung to everything it touched.

  Pain lanced her wrist. Something warm trickled down her palm, slicking her fingers. Blood.

  Shudders wracked her. She clenched her teeth. Just as she’d repositioned herself for another try, shouting erupted, along with a pounding on the outer door. She stilled, dread and hope clutching her chest. Jesse. Oh, if only …

  “Parrish? I know ye’re in there! Open up, else I aim to go on banging till cockcrow!”

  It sounded like that trapper, Charlie Spencer. He’d been shocked when the Trimbles brought her in. Even through her stupor she’d registered that much. By now he ought to know what sort of man he’d been leading. What had he expected, that she’d be treated like a princess when they finally caught her?

  Mr. Parrish growled something in reply to the banging and shouting, but Tamsen was no longer listening. She strained again at the cords, reckless now, unheeding of noise. Urgency drove her. If she could just … get … free …

  She felt the first of the bindings snap.

  Charlie Spencer went on shouting, fists pummeling. Mr. Parrish argued through the door. Then she thought he’d opened the door because the banging stopped and the trapper’s voice grew suddenly clearer. He was fussing about payment for his services. Payment! While she was being treated like an animal.

  She’d set to working on the bindings again when she heard another sound, separate from the two men shouting.

  She froze, staring into the dark. Had she imagined …?

  Her gaze lifted to the window slit, high up in the lean-to wall. It was only a few inches wide—invisible now with a clouded night fallen. Had the sound been from there? A scrabbling noise, like a varmint trying to get in. Lord, not another squirrel …

  “Tamsen?”

  For a moment she didn’t believe her ears.

  The whisper came again, urgent. “Tamsen!”

  “Jesse.” Thirst and fear and hope knotted in her throat, choking her voice. She’d no idea if he’d heard her above the commotion Spencer was making.

  A distraction. That’s what the shouting was about. Spencer was covering up what Jesse was trying to do. And now she could hear hands pulling at the timbers around the window, breaking down the very wall to get to her. The wood in places had rotted. It was coming away by bits. She sawed at her bonds with renewed vigor, ignoring the pain.

  The cords snapped. A new pain shot through her shoulders as her arms came around, free for the first time in hours. She rubbed at her limbs, willing strength and feeling into them, then tried to stand. She made it to her knees. The scrabbling at the window paused.

  “Tamsen, can you hear me?”

  She had to work the spit into her mouth to force sufficient sound. “Jesse … I love you.”

  Silence. Then his voice again, warm as the sun pouring over her in its relief. “Thank God Almighty—I love you too.”

  She heard him murmuring to someone out there with him, then the soft thud of his hatchet as he cut away a timber in the wall. It came away with a crack. They all stilled, waiting. Parrish and Spencer went on arguing.

  “I’m getting you out of here, sweetheart,” Jesse hissed down at her. “Are you free to move about?”

  “Yes. But … I’m cold. I can’t stand up.”

  “What’s by you? Anything to help you stand? I need you to reach high as you can. I’m going to pull you through.”

  She could do this. She had to do this. She didn’t know how he’d found Spencer, got him to help, why Jesse was even here at all, but she was going through that hole in the wall to him if it killed her.

  She found a barrel and used it to push herself to standing. Leaning hard on it for support, she tried to curl her toes, move her ankles, anything to work the feeling back as she’d done her hands.

  It wasn’t happening fast enough. Could she get up on the barrel and reach the window on her knees? It was tall, broad, a hogshead. She clambered onto it, hampered by her clinging garments, tempted to shed the cloak and leave it behind … but she’d need it in the cold … and it was raining again … misting on her face.

  She saw movement at the opening. Jesse. He’d pushed himself through to his shoulders. He was reaching down to her.

  “There you are. Take my hands. I’ll pull you up. Tate’s got the other end of me.”

  On her knees, balanced precariously, she stretched as high as she could, felt the brush of his fingertips, then fell back, grasping the barrel’s lid to keep from tumbling to the dirt floor.

  Jesse’s voice reached down to her again. “A bit farther. Come on now, I’m
getting you out of here.”

  She tried again. This time their fingers clasped. He groped for a better hold, strong hands clamping her wrists, stinging fresh cuts. As he pulled, she got her feet under her and stood, then was grateful for layers of wet clothing as, with a grunt of effort, he dragged her through the ragged hole he’d made and into the night, into his arms, onto the back of the horse he’d knelt on to reach the window slit. His beautiful, blanket-rumped horse.

  Then they were moving, rain was falling cold, and the voices still shouting fell into the distance, until she no longer heard them at all.

  Jesse stepped from the Teagues’ stable, where he’d sheltered his exhausted horse, to find Tate Allard waiting for him in the yard. With nightfall, the temperature had dropped, turning rain to snow. In the lantern light, it fell in soft, fat flakes, dusting the ground and Tate’s hat brim.

  “Jesse, I hope you’ll forgive us letting her get away.”

  Jesse glanced past him to the cabin across the clearing, where Tamsen was ensconced by the fire, with Molly and the preacher busy getting her warm. Relief, joy, and concern were a tangle in his chest. He set the lantern down and took his neighbor by the arm.

  “What happened to Tamsen, it’s on me,” he said, voice cracking. “I ought to have told her everything, long since, and never let her out of my sight. I was riled when I left Janet and Beth. It was mostly at myself, but …”

  “I’m sure they know that, Jesse.”

  “Just tell them I’m sorry. I don’t blame you or them, Tate.”

  “I’ll tell ’em you’re safe and together.” Tate gave his shoulder a thump. “That’s all they’re going to care about.”

  Jesse stepped back, relieved, grateful. “Sure you want to head home in this?”

  Determined to ride back to Sycamore Shoals, then make for home, Tate waved off the gently falling snow and swung into the saddle. “If’n it gets bad, I’ll take shelter. Go on; get back to Tamsen now.”

  “I plan on it.” Truth to tell, the lion’s share of Jesse’s mind—and the whole of his heart—were pulling him toward the Teagues’ cabin like a tether. He bent for the lantern. “Just one more thing, Tate. You see hide or hair of Charlie Spencer again, you give that man my everlasting gratitude. He’s got himself a mighty set of lungs, for his size.”

  Tate grinned down at him. “You thanked him half a dozen times afore we reached the Trimbles’.”

  “Did I?” Jesse couldn’t recall a single instance. It was all a blur of terror and hope and need till he’d heard Tamsen’s voice floating up weak and hoarse from the musty chill of that lean-to. I love you.

  “He’s likely a mile up the Watauga by now,” Tate said. “You best not linger long here either.”

  “Don’t mean to. I got in mind someplace to take her.”

  He meant to say no more than that. Tate seemed to sense it. “All right, then, Jesse. God keep you both.”

  As Tate rode into the falling snow, Jesse hurried across the clearing to the cabin. Inside he found Molly at the table pouring something steaming into a cup, the preacher adding wood to a fire already going strong.

  Tamsen was curled in a chair by the hearth, her feet tucked up under a quilt. Her hair fell in long damp strands, but she was out of her wet clothes, which were spread over another chair to dry. She wore one of Molly’s shifts, he presumed, but was so swaddled it was impossible to tell. Her eyes were closed, head resting against the chair back.

  He set down the lantern and went to her, kneeling beside the chair. She didn’t open her eyes.

  “I think she’ll be fine, Jesse.” Molly crossed the cabin and put a cup of hot tea into his hands. He sipped it absently. It felt good going down. The cold in him went deeper, but it wasn’t from the weather. He’d known Parrish capable of violence. He’d feared Parrish meant to see him hanged. But Jesse knew now that he hadn’t truly believed the man would throw Tamsen’s life away so easily, that he was prepared to let her die, if not outright murder her.

  With shaking hands, Jesse set the teacup on the floor and felt along the quilt’s folds till he found a foot. It was cold, though swathed in Molly’s wool stockings. He took it between his hands, commenced to rubbing, and glanced at Molly standing over him. “Her feet look all right when you helped her change?”

  “No frostbite,” Molly assured him. “Drink that tea, now. You need warming up yourself. And when you’re done there, peel off your wet things. I’ve laid out a shirt of Luther’s for you.”

  Reverend Teague rose from the hearth. “Tate headed home?”

  “Aye.” Jesse switched to Tamsen’s other foot. “He tell you what’s happened, why we need a place to rest a spell, before we move on?” After the preacher affirmed Tate had caught him up on all that had transpired, Jesse asked, “Would it be all right if we dry our things, give Tamsen a few hours’ sleep?”

  “Anything you need, Jesse,” the preacher said, but his gaze was questioning, troubled. “But why run again? Why not stay, try and clear your name, like Tamsen meant to do when she set out?”

  Jesse stood and peeled off his heavy woolen hunting shirt, knowing there was little enough time for the garment to dry.

  “No sir. The man nearly killed Tamsen. I’m getting her away from him, never mind what he thinks he can pin on me.” He draped the shirt over another chair Molly drew near the fire’s warmth and proceeded to shrug out of the shirt he wore next to his skin, soaked through as much as the outer had been.

  Luther Teague stood by, arms crossed, Molly beside him looking concerned. “Isn’t it time to bring in the law? I’ll speak for you.”

  “Again, sir, no. I won’t risk it, or her. What if Parrish or Kincaid has the law on their side already—Franklin, Carolina, or both?” Jesse stood in breechclout and leggings, shivers racing up his bare back, though his chest was hot from the roaring fire. “Besides, you weren’t in Morganton. You weren’t a witness. No one was, save Tamsen—and it’s clear to me now the man wants her silenced.”

  Molly spoke. “What about this Mr. Kincaid? Surely he doesn’t want her dead.”

  Jesse snorted. “Just me, more’n likely.” He rubbed the back of his neck, gazing at Tamsen, wishing he’d a better plan. “When I have her safe away, maybe I’ll come back then, see if between you, me, and Tate Allard we can make these charges go away.”

  Spencer would have been a help with that, but the man was gone his way and God bless him for all he’d done this night.

  “Whose will are you heeding, Jesse? Is it the Almighty’s or your own?” Jesse jerked his gaze to the preacher. “Truth to tell, Reverend, if I heeded my will, I’d leave Tamsen here with you, ride back to Sycamore Shoals, and make that charge of murder one in truth.”

  “Jesse,” Molly said, clearly shocked.

  Jesse ground his teeth. “I ain’t going to do it.” Hard as that was to say with the need churning in him, rage burning like a cold blaze, another look at Tamsen’s sleeping face and he knew she was all he must think of now. “I’m giving over vengeance.”

  “Good,” Molly said. “It’s the Lord’s anyhow. He’ll repay.”

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Neither Teague replied to that. There came a silence, tense, waiting. Finally Luther spoke. “Where do you mean to take her?”

  Jesse sat down to pull off his wet moccasins and untie his leggings. “West. To Thunder-Going’s town.”

  “No, Jesse. Not yet.”

  Jesse whipped his head up, gazing at the mound of quilt in the chair beside him. Tamsen was awake, peering from her patchwork nest, dark eyes fixed on him. He put a hand to her. Hers snaked out of the quilt to grasp his tight. “Tamsen, we can’t stay this nigh to Sycamore Shoals. If the hunt’s not on already, by morning it’ll be. Thought we’d get us a few hours’ rest—the horse too—then be on our way before sunup.”

  “I understand.” Her voice was hoarse, but she sounded otherwise in possession of herself. Holding the quilt around her shoulders, she let go of his hand and rose
from the chair, setting her feet gingerly on the puncheon floor. Molly was beside her in an instant to help, but Tamsen was steady.

  She took them in, looking back at her, and lifted her chin with a determination Jesse recognized well. “I’ll go anywhere you see fit to take me, Jesse Bird. But I won’t set foot out of this cabin again till I’m a married woman. This time I’m going to insist.”

  Though he was bone-aching tired, Jesse knew there’d be little sleep for him this night. Not with the day’s perils still swirling cold through his blood, the hunt they’d yet to evade weighing on his mind, and the sight and feel and smell of Tamsen nestled like a spoon beside him in the firelight doing its best to distract him from everything else.

  “Ulethi equi’wa … ni haw-ku-nah-ga,” he whispered. Beautiful woman … you are my wife.

  They’d stood before the preacher scarce an hour past, Tamsen swathed neck to heels in Molly’s shift, he in breechclout and borrowed shirt, and pledged their vows to each other: to have and to hold … for better, for worse … for richer, for poorer … in sickness and in health … to love and to cherish …

  “Till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance.” He’d been unable to stem the tears, seeing his joy reflected in her weary, happy eyes. “And thereto I plight thee my troth.”

  It had been quick and to the point, as was the kiss they’d shared when the preacher pronounced them married before God. For all her insistence, Tamsen barely made it through her vows still awake on her feet.

  Jesse might’ve believed he’d dreamt it, but here she was lying next to him, the curve of her shoulder bared by the wide neckline of the borrowed shift, smooth skin an inch below his lips as he lay propped on an elbow, arm curved around her, watching her sleep, and marveling. She was bone of his bone, never mind they’d yet to consummate their vows. Soul of his soul, for the moment he’d known her missing, something inside him had wrenched crooked, like a joint torn from its socket.

  That part of him was slipping back into place now, leaving but a memory of crippling pain. He held his wife, and the refrain singing through him was no less profound for its plainness. Thank You … thank You.