by Cameron Judd
Thias sighed to himself and nodded. “Thank you, men. I’ll go fetch my things. And Mr. Waller, since we’re to be traveling partners, just call me Thias.”
“And you can call me Jack. I’ll be pleased to have you with us. Mighty pleased.”
The snow, though deep, didn’t linger. The day warmed considerably and cleared, and by afternoon most of the precipitation had melted any place the sun could reach it. By day’s end the whiteness still lingered beneath the trees and under the shade of hills and bluffs, but the road had turned to mud that sucked at the hooves of Thias’s horse. Waller and French had no horses, so Thias kindly let them take turns riding his throughout the day. It was a common custom of the road to share rides in such situations, but he hadn’t been able to help but feel a little resentful at having to give up his mount two-thirds of the time. He reminded himself all day that at least he was safer in the company of others—yet he didn’t feel safer. He didn’t trust the shifty-eyed, rat-faced Waller at all.
Waller had shot a deer earlier in the day and carved away the tenderloins. About sunset they stopped and camped, roasting the meat on a big fire and enjoying it greatly. With a nicely full belly, Thias had begun feeling better about the overall situation—and then Billy French had brought out his father’s skull.
Now Thias was staring at the astonishing sight of a yellow-white, fleshless skull sitting on a log with a smoking corncob pipe stuck between its bony jaws. The oddest thing of all was knowing that this skull had once been inside the fleshy head of Brackston French, a man he had known. It was difficult to connect the smoking skull with his memories of Brackston until he noted the bottom row of teeth, featuring a familiar gap at the front. Thias had seen that very gap many a time when Brackston had grinned back in the old days. It surely was his very skull.
Thias wondered how French had actually wound up with his father’s skull. Had Brackston died by getting his head cut off somehow? Or had Billy French beheaded the man after he was dead? Had he boiled off the flesh and …? He tried not to think about it.
“Daddy always likes his pipe after supper,” French said. “Sometimes he smokes two or three of ’em.”
“Waste of good tobacco,” Waller said. “But what can you say to a fool?”
Thias wondered how Waller and French had come together, and why Waller kept French around if he considered him so foolish. It was hard to account for people’s ways sometimes.
“How’d your grandpap die, Thias?” French asked.
“Apoplexy, best I could tell.” His curiosity got the best of him. “What killed your daddy?”
“He got sick. Don’t know what kind of sick. Just sick.”
“Oh.”
“Critters dug up the grave after ’bout a year and scattered the bones. Billy found the head and kept it.” This information came from Waller.
“It seemed the right thing to do for my dear father,” French said piously.
“Oh.” Thias marveled anew at the strangeness of Billy French.
“Yes sir, I’ve put up with a lot from Billy’s foolishness these past months,” Waller said, digging out a pipe of his own, which he slowly filled from the same tobacco pouch that had stoked Backston French’s pipe. “But he’s a good boy, and he minds me. Does what I tell him.”
“I work for Jack now,” French said proudly.
“What kind of work?”
French started to speak, but Waller cut in quickly, “Any kind of work needs doing. Anything we can find.”
Silence reigned in the camp for the next minute or so. Waller puffed his pipe. Thias warmed his hands near the fire, and smoke curled up through the skull of the late Brackston French.
“Wise of you, leaving that money of yours with a lawyer,” Waller said. “Some folks, they’d just pack it in their bags and carry it with them.”
“I’d never take such a risk,” Thias said, casting a glance toward his saddlebags and determining to keep a close eye on them as long as he was in company with Waller.
“’Course, I suppose you got some money on you. Traveling money.”
“Almost none. I know this is a dangerous road.” He was beginning to wish he really had left his money in safekeeping back in Knoxville.
“Reckon you’ll be able to find that brother of yourn?” Waller asked.
“I’ll do my best.”
“His brother is named Clardy,” French contributed. “He’s a twin of Thias.”
“No, Billy, we ain’t twins. There’s a year’s difference in our ages. We just look a lot alike, that’s all.”
“I had a brother of my own,” Waller said. “He’s dead now.”
“They hung him,” French said.
“Shut up about that,” Waller snapped, suddenly venemous in manner. “That’s nothing for you to wag your fool’s tongue about.”
Billy French ducked his head and scooted closer to the pipe-holding skull. He reached out a hand and caressed it, like a scolded child seeking comfort.
“Pay him no heed,” Waller said. “A fool is hard to tolerate and spouts nonsense.”
Waller’s abusive talk made Thias feel protective of French. “He’ll always be a fellow I look up to,” he said. “I’d probably be dead if Billy hadn’t saved me that day at the swimming hole, and Clardy, too.”
Billy French smiled at Thias. Thias winked and smiled back.
“A fool is useful sometimes, no question about it,” Waller said. “Lord knows that Billy is often very useful to me.”
“I work for Jack,” French said again. “I do what he tells me.”
That night, Thias slept very lightly, with his saddlebags tucked beneath his head and his rifle very close at hand.
Sally Harpe heard Wiley’s approach and lifted her head to watch as he entered the camp. My husband, she thought. My husband is a murderer. He didn’t seem like her husband now. He had become a stranger.
Micajah Harpe left the fireside and walked out to meet his brother.
“Was I right?”
“Yep. There’s a camp back yonder. It was their fire you seen.”
“How many?”
“Three of ’em, camped together, biggest portion of a mile back behind us.”
“Men?”
“All of them.”
“Packhorse or anything?”
“Just one horse, for riding. They didn’t ’pear to have much on them from what I could see.”
They are thinking of robbing again, Sally thought. Perhaps killing again. I don’t want them to kill anyone else.
Micajah scratched his beard, thinking. “I’m inclined to let them be.”
Sally closed her eyes, welcoming those words.
Wiley was clearly disappointed. “I believe we could deal with them easy, Micajah.”
“There’s three of them. That makes it a question in my mind. More danger with three.”
“Hell, Micajah, we can best them!”
Micajah thought some more. “No. Too much danger. Not worth it for only one horse. We don’t need another horse now no ways.”
“I still believe we could take them.”
“No. I’ve made up my mind. There’ll be easier pickings on this road. We’ll let them be.”
Wiley frowned. “I trudged a mile in and a mile out just for a look, and no takings?”
“Let it be, brother. Like I said, there’ll be easier pickings. We’re doing well enough as it is. Let them be.”
Wiley argued no more. He strode off to the fire and warmed himself, fuming and muttering beneath his breath. Micajah Harpe stood off by himself, thinking.
After a few minutes Wiley came to Sally’s side and sat down. “How are you, sweet thing? You staying warm enough here in the cold?”
“Yes.” She did not look at him and did not want to talk.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re acting frettish.” He touched her arm. “Sweet thing, you’re trembling!”
“It’s cold.”
/> “You said you was warm enough.”
“I am. But it’s still cold.” Go away. Leave me be. She wished she dared do more than think the words.
“If you’re cold, I know a good way to warm you up.” He winked.
“Don’t want to right now.”
“I do.” He touched her cheek and smiled.
“Not now, Wiley.”
“Yes, now.” He grabbed her and pushed her back.
She closed her eyes and as best she could shut off her mind. He was rough and harsh and had no shame; the presence of the others would not deter him from what he wanted. She turned her face away and willed herself to endure, wishing she had never met and married Wiley Harpe, wishing she were still back in her girlhood home, where people were good and kind. She wished she could run away and return to her family, but Wiley would certainly kill her if she tried.
As she lay beside him later that night, hearing him snore and feeling his gnarly form pushing up against her, she touched her belly and thought of her unborn baby. I’ll make it better for you, somehow, she pledged in her mind. I’ll not let them hurt you. I promise. A few moments later she fell asleep, still thinking about her child. Her child. She would think of it that way from now on. Her child and hers alone. Not his, not ever.
CHAPTER 18
Waller was taking his turn at riding, leaving his two fellow travelers afoot, when Thias saw the face in the forest the next morning.
Or he thought he saw a face. It was just a glimpse, a flash that was there one moment, gone the next, as if the person it belonged to had ducked out of sight when he saw he was detected. Thias stopped in his tracks, staring, wondering if he had imagined it.
“What’s wrong, Thias?” French asked.
“I thought … nothing. Nothing. Just thought I saw something.”
“Where?”
“Yonder in the woods.”
“I don’t see nothing.”
“Neither do I, now. It was a mistake, most likely.”
But he was unsettled as he went on. The face he had seen, or thought he’d seen, appeared to be that of Wiley Harpe.
The Harpes … here? It was possible. They had fled the Knoxville area, so they could have headed toward Kentucky. And if so, Thias thought, he would have been almost on their heels. He had traveled fast. He could have overtaken them.
But he hoped he had merely imagined seeing Wiley Harpe’s face. As he and his companions traveled farther, it became easier to convince himself that such was the case. He hadn’t slept well the prior night, was tired from the trail anyway, and worried about his missing brother, who happened to be on the run from the Harpes. And there was the fact he himself had gone through a row with Wiley Harpe on the street in Knoxville. If his weary and overwrought mind was going to play tricks on him by showing him phantom faces in the forest, was it any surprise the face of Wiley Harpe would be one of them? He was tired and worried, that was all. He really had just imagined the face.
Even an imagined face, however, reminded him that this was dangerous country indeed. No one could know what, or who, hid in the forests of the Dark and Bloody Ground.
He decided he was glad not to be traveling alone, even if his company was no better than a rat-raced “man of the road” and a fool who carried his father’s skull around in a bag.
Wiley Harpe spoke intensely, eyes narrowed. “It was him, Micajah. It was one of them Tylers! Him and two others, passing right down the road!”
“Which one? Clardy, or the one you had that tangle with?”
“I couldn’t tell. I only seen him a few moments, through the trees. And them two look so damn much alike.”
“You didn’t see it was a Tyler last night, spying in their camp?”
“No. I didn’t have a clear look at them then.”
Micajah’s eyes glittered. “If it is Clardy Tyler, I’d crave to get my hands on him. He didn’t keep his word to us. Left us to get shut of old Cale ourselves. I’d like to remind him ’bout that.”
“Let’s go after them, Micajah. We’ll carve him from loin to throat.”
Micajah thought about it, eyes bright and eager. Wiley Harpe licked his lips, knowing his brother’s hungry expression well, and sure that this time he would approve the hunt—and a hunt was all this was to Wiley Harpe. They were hunters, no different than a man stalking a deer. The only difference was the prey, and the heightened degree of devilish satisfaction that stirred in Wiley Harpe’s soul when that game was brought down. To kill beasts was a pleasure—in boyhood, Wiley had done plenty of that just for the fun of it—but taking the life of a human being was more than pleasure to him. It was a sweet taste in his mouth and a soothing murmur inside his head, a murmur that whispered deliciously to him in gentle words he could not quite make out.
But again Micajah disappointed him. There were still three of them, and only two Harpes, he said. Too great a risk. Better to wait for other prey and easier.
Wiley was silent the rest of the morning. The blood lust had been stirred but left unsated. The voices in his head no longer soothed. They sounded angry. They were thirsty for blood.
They stayed in their camp a couple of hours more, Micajah lounging about, eating, smoking, and Wiley pacing and restless. Then they mounted and rode, the brothers in the lead, the heavily pregnant women slumping heavy in their saddles, riding ten paces behind in utter silence and with faces as lifeless as death masks.
“Don’t go? Why not?” Thias made no effort to mask the irritation in his voice.
“That inn’s a bad place,” Waller replied. “Dangerous. That man that runs it, name of Farris, kills folks who stay there.”
“I ain’t never heard you say that before, Jack,” Billy French said. “When we stayed there, he never—”
“Shut up, you babbler!” Waller snapped at French, face burning hot with sudden anger. The expression blanked away at once when he looked again at Thias. “Billy don’t know what he’s talking about. We’ve never stayed at that inn. Too dangerous.”
“We did stay there!” French replied, growing angry himself. “And that man Farris throwed us out after you—”
Waller wheeled and shoved French with both hands, making him stagger backward and almost fall. “You sodding fool, one of these days I’ll knock that empty head of yours with the blunt end of a belt axe and give you an excuse for being so deuced foolish!”
“That’s enough of that!” Thias declared. He was quickly growing fed up with Waller, an untrusty man if ever he had seen one. He deplored the way Waller was treating French, too. French was unsophisticated, but probably far more honest than Waller. “Mr. Waller, is Billy telling it true? Have you been throwed out of that inn sometime past?”
“If I had, I’d hold my head high and admit it right out,” Waller said. “Billy’s mistook. That was another inn he’s thinking about, back in Tennessee.”
French opened his mouth; a harsh glance from Waller made him shut it again. He glowered silently.
“And he wasn’t throwed out,” Waller went on. “We left of our own free will when an old woman there objected to me gambling with dice.”
He’s a liar. I can tell it in his eyes and his voice. “I’m not sure what to think,” Thias said.
Waller chuckled. “Why, you wouldn’t believe that dummy over me, would you?”
“I don’t know who to believe.” He cast a longing glance at the inn, still a long way off. “All I know is I’d like to spend a night on a real bed, under a real roof.”
“I tell you, young man, you’ll not leave that inn with your packs full,” Waller said. “That innkeeper is a thief.”
Thias glanced at French, whose glum expression verified anew that Waller was lying and also made Thias realize that Billy was completely under the domination of his companion. “I’m inclined to take my own chances,” Thias said to Waller.
“If you stay there, me and Billy will have to part ways, then. I’ll not put my throat at risk.”
A chance to be freed of Wal
ler! Now the inn seemed even more attractive to Thias. “I thank you for your company as far as you’ve shared it.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Waller replied.
“I’ll take the risk,” Thias said.
Waller had been on the horse. He dismounted unhappily and watched Thias climb into the saddle. “Sorry to have to take the horse,” Thias said.
Waller grunted, said nothing.
Thias rode on toward the inn. French, watching him go, had a sad look.
Thias was well away from Waller and French when he heard French’s voice: “No! No, Jack! I don’t want …” The words became muddled and undecipherable. Thias resisted the temptation to turn around and look back at the pair.
He heard more words, more plaintive sounds from French, and then French’s voice calling. “Thias, wait!”
Thias twisted his head and looked back. French was running toward him, looking very distressed. “What’s wrong, Billy?”
“Thias, you’ll … you’ll have to get down from there a minute.”
“Billy—you’re crying! What’s wrong?”
“Thias, I’m mighty sorry … please, you’ll have to get down.”
Thias was utterly bewildered. He looked back at Waller, who had dropped to a crouch in the middle of the road, hands together, fingers steepled. He nodded and smiled slightly. Thias’s bewilderment only grew. He debated whether to get down or to heel his horse into a run.
“Thias, please … if you don’t, there ain’t no telling what will …” French faded out, blubbering, tears running down his face.
Despite the alarm surging inside him, Thias dismounted. Maybe something was wrong with French. Maybe he needed help. “Billy, what’s wrong with you?”