Ride the River (1983) s-5

by Louis L'Amour

  "He's a free man. Has never been any other way."

  "Then I'd warn him to get back across the Ohio. Some who come huntin' escaped slaves aren't pa'tic'lar who they lay hold of."

  "I'll tell him. He's a good man."

  "If he's keepin' watch for you all, tell him to set in the barn window. That way he can see a mile or two down the road." He paused, glancing from me to Dorian. "You two runnin' off?"

  Dorian was embarrassed. "No, sir. Miss Sackett had business with my uncle and he wanted Archie and me to see she got home all right, to Tennessee. She's been followed by some bad people."

  We ate, taking our time. I described Felix Horst, Tim Oats, and Elmer. "There's others, but those three are the ones we know."

  "Your name is Sackett?"

  "It is."

  "You got kinfolk in the Clinch Mountains? Seems to me I've heard tell of Sacketts down thataway."

  "Some. They're cousins, sort of."

  I carried food to Archie. "We'd best be movin', ma'am." He glanced at me. "You know how we're goin'?"

  "Up the Sandy. If we could find a canoe, we'd move a lot easier."

  Dorian was up and ready. The sandy-haired man was watching him. "You need you a rifle-gun," he said. "If those follerin' you have a rifle-gun, they'll pick you off."

  "Do you have one to sell?"

  The man shook his head. "I've my own, but we can't live without meat, and I shoot my meat. You might find one of the McCoys with an extry rifle-gun, although folks hereabouts only has what they need, mostly."

  "We'd better go." Dorian held out his hand to the man, who accepted it. We thanked his wife and waved at the children and went out by the gate.

  "They're comin'," Archie said, "a mile or two back. At least one of them has a rifle."

  That scared me. If that one could shoot, there would be places he could lay his rifle-gun on a rest and take out any one of us at a distance.

  The trail followed the Big Sandy. We crossed a meadow wet with morning dew and went into the trees. It was shadowed there, and still. Dorian led the way, and he had a considerable stride.

  There was a place where the trail curved out from the woods to the bluffs above the river. We looked back and glimpsed them, five of them.

  "They're gainin' on us," Archie said. "We've got to make our fight."

  Chapter 15

  "Not yet," I said, and they looked at me, surprised, I guess, that a girl would speak up at such a time. "We'll make ourselves hard to catch," I said. "Come on!"

  My eyes had been busy and I'd seen a dim trail taking off through the trees. As I started, Dorian hung back. "Where's that go?" he demanded.

  "We'll find out, won't we?"

  Muttering, he followed. The trail led down through the trees into a wooded hollow. There were deer tracks, but I saw no human tracks. Swiftly I led the way through the trees, past some craggy rocks, and across a small stream. Waiting there, I waved them past and then tried to make the signs of their passing less obvious. Oats was a city man, I was sure, and I suspected Elmer was. I knew nothing of Horst, but if I could confuse them a mite, it would save time.

  They had walked on, as I meant them to do, and I stood listening. There was no sound but a faint stirring of wind, and then I heard a voice, somebody calling. They had already reached the place where we'd turned off, but had they noticed? I was hoping they would continue on along the Big Sandy.

  Regal had hunted down this way a long time back, following an old trail left by Pa in his younger days, and I was hopeful of finding the trail that ran parallel to Blaine Creek, or sort of.

  A moment more lent to obscuring tracks, and then I followed along after Dorian and Archie. It was quiet in the woods, but sound carried when a body was in the open. I must caution them about talking. From time to time the trail emerged on the banks of the creek or in a meadow, but we moved on, heading south. Every step was drawing us closer to Sackett country, but we still had a ways to go. If I only had my rifle-gun!

  It was back yonder, waiting for me in a tavern where I'd left it, and far from here. Yet, I dearly wanted that rifle and I studied in my mind to find a way to get there and pick it up. The tavern was miles away to the west and south, but mostly south.

  When I fetched up with Dorian and Archie, they were resting, waitin' for me. "Where's this taking us?" Dorian complained. "We're getting nowhere very fast!"

  "Talk soft," I said. "Voices carry. They've passed by where we turned off, but they'll realize something's wrong and they'll come a-lookin'."

  We had a chance to gain time, so I led off along the trail. This was wild country, and strange to them, and Dorian didn't like it much, me leading off thataway. He wanted to go places that he knew, and that meant to towns or settlements.

  This was lonesome country; until a few years back, Injun hunting country. We were on the Kentucky side now, but most of those West Virginia mountains had belonged to nobody. Here and there Indians lived in the low country but stayed out of the mountains except when in pursuit of game.

  It was wild country, rough, cut by many small streams, heavily timbered, country but it was my kind of country, the kind where I'd grown up. Settlements were all right for most folks, but a body was too easily seen and followed where other folks abide.

  There were folks along the river, however, and once in a while a place hidden back in the hollow. It came to me suddenly that somewhere ahead was the little town of Louisa and that while I'd been thinking poor, I needn't do so longer. We could go into that town and I could buy me a new rifle-gun, biding the time I could recover my own. At least I wouldn't feel so plumb undressed as I did now.

  That meant takin' a chance on being caught up with, but having a rifle-gun meant all the difference.

  "Mr. Chantry," I advised, "there's a town yonder on the river. I think we'll amble thataway. You better keep your shootin' hand ready, because we'll almost surely run into Felix Horst and some of his outfit."

  "At least we can buy a decent meal!" he said. "I am not worried about Horst."

  "That's where you an' me differ," I said. "I worry considerable about him. All he's got to do is kill us an' he can take my money and be off with it."

  "I don't kill very easy," he commented.

  "I hope you don't," I agreed. "You're a right handsome young man and there's not too many about, but that there Horst, he isn't going to come up an' give you a break. He doesn't want to die and he knows he can, so he'll be no damn fool. He'll shoot you from the brush and take what he wants off your body."

  We came into the town with the sun hanging low in the sky, and I went first to a store to buy my gun. I'd taken coin from the carpetbag, and sure enough I found what I wanted. I bought me a brand-new rifle-gun like those made in Pennsylvania. Nor did I waste time charging it.

  There was a tavern there, and we went to it and put our feet under their table for supper. "We'll stay here through the night," Dorian said.

  Well, I looked at Archie and he shrugged his big shoulders. Both of us knew we'd better light out of there because this was right where Horst and them would come. I will say that meal tasted good and it would give us a chance to wash up.

  There was a room with a bed for me, but they'd sleep in the outer room on the floor, wrapped in whatever they wore. There was one window to my room and the one door that opened into the main room of the tavern. The window was shuttered and locked from the inside. I taken my bag inside and put it down with the rifle-gun and peeked out through the shutter slats. Not far away was the river and a great big old stone house somebody said had just been completed.

  The tavernkeeper fetched me a wooden tub filled with hot water, and when I'd bathed and cleaned my clothes some, I felt a whole lot better. I was even beginning to feel Dorian might be right, and then I heard a voice in the taproom and it was Timothy Oats. He was having a drink. Through a crack where the door didn't fit that well, I could see him. He was settin' with Elmer and a big swarthy man, and Dorian was across the room with Archie, a glass of
beer on the table in front of him.

  Well, I got dressed. By now they would know I was here, and they would have some kind of a plan worked out. Nothing to happen right here in town, maybe, but after we'd gotten out on the road.

  This was where the Big Sandy River started, I guess you'd say, the Tug Fork and Levisa Fork joining here to make the Big Sandy. Sometimes, although I'd not have said it aloud, I almost wished I was alone and didn't have those men to worry about. Archie, he was a swamp boy, a swamp and timber boy, and I could see it. If you wanted to call him a boy, that is. He wasn't much older than Dorian but he'd grown up scratchin' for a livin' back in some swamp. I could see it.

  He was a trouble-wary man. Part of that came from being black them days. A black man had to ease himself around the tight spots and learned how to keep himself from trouble. Dorian Chantry never had to worry about trouble. Everybody in his part of the country knew who he was and had respect. The trouble was, this wasn't his country.

  Sleep was what I was wishful for, but I couldn't lay my head in comfort with him out there in the same room with Tim Oats. Peekin' through the slats, I could see Archie was worried, too. He knew as I knew that Tim Oats probably felt if they could be rid of Chantry they could handle me.

  The keeper of the tavern was no fool. When you run a place like that, you learn to sense trouble coming before it happens, and I caught him throwing a glance, one to the other.

  If he was worried, he wasn't the only one. What Tim Oats had in mind, I don't know, but something was cookin' and he had the mixture in mind. Tim Oats was between Dorian and the door, and so was that big swarthy man, to say nothing of Elmer.

  Dorian finished his beer and stood up. Archie had finished his beer too, but he was still holding the mug. Dorian glanced over at the host. "Do we sleep here? On the floor?"

  "It will be warmer, with the fire going." The tavern-keeper wanted no trouble. "You can bed down right here."

  Tim Oats exchanged a quick look with the big man, and I guessed this hadn't been a part of whatever they had in mind. Maybe they expected Chantry and Archie to go past them out the door.

  Archie moved their table over closer to Oats and his group, putting it between them. He carefully moved the benches, too, kind of walling themselves away from Oats. It was done naturally, like he was just clearing a place to lie down, but I must say it was going to make it hard for that outfit to start anything in the night without making some noise.

  Dorian drew his pistol and checked the loading, then stretched out on the floor near the fire. Oats glared at the pistol. "What's that for?" he demanded.

  Dorian smiled that lovely smile of his. "Indians!" he said. "Wild Indians! Lots of them in these woods! Or haven't you heard?"

  "They been cleared out," Oats protested uneasily.

  "Don't you believe it. They come around during the night, looking for scalps. A man can't be too careful." He hesitated and his face was innocent as a girl's. "Now, don't you boys move around too much. If that door opens in the night or somebody creeps around, I'm liable to go to shooting."

  "Ain't been any Indians around here in years!" the swarthy man argued.

  "Well," Dorian said cheerfully, "if they come, you are closer to the door than we are, so please stop them."

  Looked to me like everything was going to be all right, so I went to bed, and tired as I was from the long night and day of walking, I slept until day was breaking.

  When I came out for breakfast in the morning, they were all at a table. Two tables.

  "Ah? Miss Sackett! You do look as if you slept well! Won't you sit down?" Dorian was smiling and cheerful, but Oats looked sour. He shot me a quick glance but I ignored him, making as if I'd never seen him before. Elmer looked mean, but I would expect that. He was a young man who needed his sleep.

  "Buckwheat cakes and honey!" Dorian said. "This is living!"

  He glanced over at Oats. "Are you gentlemen going far? I mean, if there is any way we can help ... ?"

  "We don't need no help," Oats said. "Tend to your own affairs!"

  "Oh, but we intend to!" Dorian was almighty cheerful, and a body would almost think he welcomed trouble. "It will be no problem."

  The buckwheat cakes were good. The coffee was fresh ground like it should be. Once the food was on the table, nobody was inclined to talk, and I was giving thought to what lay ahead. Somewhere to the south was Pikeville, and it would surely be easier if we could find a boat. A canoe would be best, or even a skiff.

  When the rest of them had gone outside, I went to the tavernkeeper. "What's going on?" he asked. "I thought there would be trouble."

  "They are thieves," I said, "and we're wishful of getting away from them. Is there anybody with a skiff or a canoe?"

  "There's an old birchbark canoe..." He pointed. "Yonder, back of the barn there's an inlet. The canoe lies there."

  When I started to reach for money, he put up a hand. "No, don't worry about money. I heard them call you Sackett, was that right?"

  "It is. I am Echo Sackett, from Tuckalucky Cove, or thereabouts."

  "Before we started the inn," he said, "there was a time down on the Big Sandy when I was laid up. I was almighty sick, with a wife and two young-uns. There was a man came through, found us hard up for meat, and he stayed around for a week, huntin' for us, cookin' until we got well, and carin' for us generally. Then he taken off and I haven't seen hide nor hair since. He was a Sackett. So you just take that canoe and do what you've a mind to."

  "Bread on the waters," I said, "and thank you."

  Outside, Dorian was squatting on his heels, looking off down the street. Timothy Oats was down there with Elmer, talking to another man.

  "Come on," I said. "We've got a canoe."

  We moved fast, slipping away and into that canoe. A stroke or two of a paddle and we were out of that inlet and turning upstream against the current. I was a fair hand with a paddle myself but I had to admit it, Dorian was better. Of course, he was bigger and stronger. Archie took to a paddle like he was born to it.

  How long it took them to discover what happened to us, I wouldn't try guessin', but I've an idea we were long gone before they figured it out. We taken off up the Levisa Fork and we made good time, but I was worried.

  We weren't getting away that easy. They would be after us, and they could ride the river too. They would be coming and we'd be getting into wilder and wilder country. There were scattered towns along the Levisa Fork, but there were long, lonely stretches in between and had an idea they'd gone about as far as they wished.

  What worried me even more was Felix Horst. Where was he? So far he'd kept from sight, but I was sure he was around, but bidin' his time.

  Timothy Oats or Elmer might just take our money and run, but not Horst. He would leave us dead. He was that kind of man, and I didn't want to die, nor see Dorian Chantry laid out for burial. The thought gave me a twinge, and he saw it.

  "Somebody step on your grave?" he asked.

  "Not mine," I said.

  Well, he just looked at me, and when I looked over my shoulder at him again, he was dipping his paddle deep, his face serious.

  When this was over, all over, I hoped there'd be time to talk, to just set by the river and talk, boy-girl talk. I blushed. Who was I to think such thoughts?

  Chapter 16

  The river was up but the current was slow and easy-like. We had us a start on those who followed, and we'd best take advantage of it. There was one thing workin' for us they wouldn't know. The further we went, the closer we got to Sackett country.

  Dorian had laid aside his coat and was workin' in shirtsleeves. I will say for a city boy he had muscles a body wouldn't expect. Before the morning was over I spelled him on the paddle and got a glimpse of his hands. He hadn't said a word, but blisters were beginning to show. I suspect it had been a while since he'd been that long on a paddle.

  The Levisa Fork curved around some, so we couldn't see very far, but I had an idea they were comin' up behind us.

/>   The banks were forested right down to the water in most places, although here and there was a farm and sometimes cattle were down along the river. It was late afternoon before we turned into a little cove and went ashore to make coffee. I found some Jamestown weed and took some leaves from it.

  "Put this on your hands," I said. "It will help."

  "Thanks," he said, and glanced at the leaves curiously, then at me. But he used them, holding them in his hands.

  We ate some bread and slices of meat brought from the tavern. "This will be a killin' fight if they catch up," I warned. "Horst an' them won't be for travelin' any further. They figure they're in wild country now and whatever happens won't be brought home to them."

  Dorian said never a word, but I had an idea he was beginning to realize the seriousness of it. Archie, who had been up the creek and over the mountain a few times, he had no illusions.

  "How far to the next town?" Dorian asked.

  "Few miles. A place called Paintsville. We've been makin' pretty good time," I added, "maybe three miles to the hour or a mite less."

  We'd be goin' slower from now on, I suspected, with Dorian's hands blistered the way they were. My hands were used to hard work and I'd spent a sight of time in a canoe on the Holston, the French Broad, and the Tennessee at one time or another. My brother Ethan was a great one for the water, and he'd taken me along many a time when huntin' or fishin'. He had a taste for catfish. I said as much.

  "They're in here," Archie said. "Given time, I could catch us a bait. You fix 'em proper an' there's nothin' better. Unless its yellow-jacket soup."

  "What?" Dorian looked around at him. "Did you say yellow-jacketsoup ?"

  "It's a Cherokee dish. Et it many a time when I was a boy." He glanced at me. "You must've had it too?"

  "A time or two. We were friends to the Cherokee since the first Sackett moved into the far blue mountains. Half the youngsters I knew when I was knee-high were Cherokees. Although all the folks didn't find them so friendly. It was Cherokee and Shawnee who did for the Wiley family. Ever'body," I added, "knew the story of Jenny Wiley."

  "Who was she?" Dorian asked.