Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  When the flatboat was past, Celinda began to think about her situation. She was free, true enough, but possessed nothing but a meager bit of clothing and a stolen skiff. Lack of food was her biggest problem. She lacked even a container to carry clean water.

  Watching the passing flatboat, she realized that the river was still a dangerous place. Recapture was possible if she grew careless and let herself be seen by her remaining former companions and—she shuddered at this thought—they felt inclined to enjoy her company without the respectively determined and sullen protection of Queen Fine and Jim Horton.

  As she mulled her situation, Celinda thought back to words her father had spoken as he awaited death: “In the end, you’ll have only yourself and God above to rely on. Trust in your feelings, and count on God to guide them.”

  She nodded. Very well. So it will be. Lord, I pray you will heed my prayer. I pray you’ll guide my feelings so that I don’t trust the wrong folks, like I did Jim Horton. I pray that you’ll give me a sign to let me know I’m making the right choice. A clear sign, a sure one. One there’ll be no mistaking. That is my prayer, Lord. Amen.

  She rose, returned to mid-island and drank heavily at the little brook, letting the water fill her belly and momentarily obtund the gripping pains of hunger. Time to leave? No. Not yet. She would remain awhile longer, wash her clothes, bathe. This island was secure and peaceful. She was reluctant to go onto the open river. She felt right now that, if not for hunger, she could stay on this island, hidden from the world, forever.

  Celinda scrubbed out her feminine clothing, let it dry, then put it on in place of her male clothing, which she also washed out, except for the coat. Hanging that clothing to dry on the leafless brush around her, she settled down to rest again. It was too late to set off today; dark would be upon her before she made many miles. Though hunger was becoming a torment, she was content to remain here one more night.

  She was about to fall asleep as the sun set when she heard the sound of an approaching craft. Rising, she headed toward the bank where she had hidden the skiff and looked upriver from behind a mat of bushes.

  Coming toward the island with the evident purpose of tying up for the night was a boatload of people on a massive, bargelike craft powered by a team of horses that turned a mill-like propellor in the center of the craft. The craft was so large that a full-sized cabin, larger than the old Ames home place, stood on its rear.

  Hot panic flashed. She would be found! Why had she lingered here? She should have gone on when she had the chance.…

  Calm yourself, Celinda. There is no running now. All you can do is face them—and remember that most who come down this river are good folk, not the kind you’ve been among until now. These people may help you. Look! There are women among them!

  She watched the boat land, studied the folk who came off it, particularly the women. The sight of them brought tears to her eyes; she had not realized how much she had missed the fellowship of the kind of women she had known throughout life—good women, solid women, like her mother had been. Even Queen had not been able to fill that role. Some of the women had small children. This was surely an emigrant party! Even the cargo on the huge boat supported that inference: dismantled wagons, tied-together heaps of furniture, casks of flour and meal, tools, chests that probably contained domestic goods, cutlery, cookware, comestibles, even a big cage of chickens.…

  It did not take long for Celinda’s eyes to settle on a dark-haired, striking-looking man with a trusty look and the mien and manner of a leader. That would be the man to approach, she decided. Steeling her will, she prepared to rise and reveal her presence. What a sight she would be, emerging from the brush, her face bruised and battered because of McKee’s cruelty!

  She dreaded the inevitable stares, the outcries of surprise, the initial shock that would greet her, but dread was overwhelmed by her hunger for good human companionship. Lifting her eyes heavenward for a moment—A sign, Lord … remember to give me a sign—she drew in her breath, stood, and advanced toward the gathering on the beach, eyes locked on the tall, dark-haired, well-dressed man she was sure led them. A child was the first to see her—“Pap! Look coming yonder!”—and then every eye turned, and the response was just as she had expected.

  The surprised people formed a rough and unplanned gauntletlike double line through which she passed. She heard murmurings, shocked whisperings about her battered appearance. Eyes fixed on the tall man, she walked up to him and said, “My name is Celinda Ames. I have been a captive of river pirates, but I’ve escaped them. I’d like to ask you and your people for food and protection, and if I could, to become one of you and voyage on down the river.”

  The man blinked, seemingly not knowing what to make of this strange, battered young woman before him. “Miss, this is not my group in any sense but that I am traveling with them, but they are good folk and I am sure will be glad to help you.”

  “You are not the leader?”

  “No, miss. Just a traveler, bound for Natchez. My name is Deerfield, and I—”

  He cut off and reached out, catching Celinda just before she would have struck the rocky ground. “Help me, someone!” he called out. “This poor girl has fainted, dead away!”

  They swarmed around her, voices mixing in a clamor of concern that she heard through the murk of half-consciousness. She felt her face gently massaged; someone put cool water on her forehead. Awareness began to return.

  Deerfield … his name is Deerfield … Her eyes opened and fixed on him fearfully. “Let me … go.…”

  “Miss, calm yourself. There’s nothing to fear. These are good folk, all of them. My name is Japheth Deerfield. Did I startle you in some way?”

  “Japheth … Japheth … not John …”

  Astonishment showed in his face. “John Deerfield is my brother. How do you know him?”

  Celinda could not answer at once, being too overwhelmed. Her eyes closed. Japheth Deerfield, his broad hand behind her head, looked around and said, “This girl needs nourishment, quickly!”

  The next several hours were filled with eating, resting, and the sharing of mutually astonishing stories between Celinda and Deerfield. It was late in the night before Celinda retired to a bed made of heaps of blankets. She nestled among them, losing herself to a sleep of utter peace.

  She had asked for a sign, and in the person of Japheth Deerfield had received one. She was sure of it now: All was going to be well. She had found refuge, and the next morning would embark on the final leg of her voyage to Natchez among companions who would not harm her. Her night of trouble had passed; a better morning dawned.

  CHAPTER 21

  The sky, oddly enough, was a deep wooden brown, and as flat as could be. Thias examined the odd phenomenon through half-shut eyes, trying to make sense of it. He couldn’t, so he began trying to make sense of himself and his situation instead. Where was he? What had happened? He smelled food cooking. Bacon. Was he back at the farm, with Grandpap burning up another breakfast?

  He moved his head, opened his eyes wider, and gained more perspective. The wood-brown sky was in fact not sky at all but a wooden ceiling, and he was not at the farm, but inside a building he could not recall ever having been in before. And of course it couldn’t be his grandfather cooking bacon. Grandpap was dead and buried.

  Thias tried to sit up and experienced an explosion of pain in his head that stirred a heartfelt groan up from deep inside, followed by a burst of overwhelming dizziness that made him sink back and feel like he was spinning in circles where he lay.

  A man’s face loomed up before him in the swirl. “You’re back with us, are you? Thanks be! I had worried you might die.”

  The seeming motion of the face stilled. Thias found his voice. “Where … am I?”

  “You are in my inn, young man. My name is Farris. And your name, I’m willing to wager, is Tyler. And you hail from Tennessee. Am I right?”

  “Yes … but how—”

  “Don’t try to talk too much.
It will make you feel all the worse. It was easy to guess your name, Mr. Tyler. There was another fellow in here some days ago, nearly the very image of you. Clardy Tyler, he was. Your brother, maybe?”

  “Aye.” Thias was hardly able to absorb this unexpected bit of news about Clardy and totally unable to display any response to it, but inwardly he was stirred. Clardy had been at this inn! He was on the right course.

  “I figured you for his brother the moment I saw you,” Farris went on. “Well, actually I thought you were him until I had a good look at you. Remarkable, how much you look alike! There’s similarity in your situation, too. Your brother was sickly when he was here, and we put him up until he was better, in the very bed you now lie in.” Farris chuckled. “It seems we have a tendency to play host to ailing Tennesseans named Tyler in this place.”

  “Clardy … sick?”

  “He was. A malady of the belly, brought on, he said, by drinking bad water. He recovered quickly. You needn’t worry about it. Ah, but you, you are in much worse shape. Someone struck you very hard on the noggin, young fellow. Robbery?”

  Memories of what had happened on the trail and in the forest returned in a flood. Thias closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Robbery.”

  Farris shook his head and clicked his tongue reproachfully. “It’s a dangerous country, and this road can be a bloody stretch for those who travel alone. A man needs companions to be safe.”

  Thias cleared his throat, which made his head throb but did enable him to speak more easily. “It was my companions who robbed me.”

  “No! Who were they?”

  “One was Billy French … I knew him as a boy. The other, a man named Jack Waller. A stranger until I met him on the road.”

  “Waller! That scoundrel! I know him well. And French, too. I cast both those out of this inn one night some months ago when they were caught going through the baggage of two other men who had stopped here on their way to Crab Orchard.”

  “Waller said that you are a thief. He didn’t want to stop here.”

  “Oh, I’d say he didn’t! But no, Mr. Tyler, I’m no thief, I assure you. It’s Waller who is the rascal, as you can well attest yourself now. If he didn’t want to come here, it was only because he knew that he wouldn’t be accepted, and that his foul nature would be revealed to you before he could get his hands on your possessions. What is your Christian name, by the way?”

  “Thias. Thias Tyler.”

  “Thias, I regret you were hurt and I’m sorry for whatever you lost—but you are fortunate at least that you have your life. My daughter-in-law Jane found you yesterday morning, lying in leaves beside the road. She had seen dogs sniffing about where you were, and investigated, for which you can be grateful. Those leaves about you may be what kept you from freezing. Since then you’ve been here, and we’ve been awaiting either your awakening … or your death.”

  “Yesterday morning … I’ve been lying senseless that long?”

  “Indeed. During that time we cleaned away the blood, bandaged your head, and said many a prayer for your life. It wasn’t at all certain you would ever wake up.” Farris suddenly pounded his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Oh, I’m a thoughtless fool, Thias. You’re surely very thirsty. Jane, Jane! A dipper of water, please—our guest has come ’round!”

  The water, administered by the gentle hand of a plain but appealing young woman with a look of tender concern on her face, made for the most satisfying, quenching draught that he had ever imbibed. “Not too much, nor too fast,” Farris’s daughter-in-law directed. “You must take all things slowly for now.”

  Thias lay back, wincing as his bandaged head resettled itself in the feather-stuffed pillow. “Thank you for finding me,” he said.

  She smiled. “I’m glad you have made it through. You’ll be up and about soon.”

  Farris had risen while Thias was drinking, and he now paced about with an angry expression on his face. “Called me a thief, did he? I’ll see Jack Waller flayed if ever I lay my hand on him again! And the same for that empty-headed French!”

  “It was French who hit me,” Thias said. “Struck me with the blunt part of a belt axe.”

  “Doing Waller’s dirty job for him, no doubt. Waller controls the man. Directs him like a mule. French is his tool for wickedness.”

  “Yes. But it was French who spared me, too.” Thias briefly recounted how French had dragged him into the woods for a final dispatching at Waller’s behest, but had left him alive. “I owe French my life, in a way. Not once, like before, but twice.”

  “Twice? I don’t understand.”

  Thias was rapidly growing weary of talking, but he did manage to get out a shortened version of how French had saved him and Clardy from drowning when they were boys. Farris declared that the tale was remarkable. To be saved, assaulted, and then spared by the same person was an oddity indeed. “It only shows more the devilishness of Jack Waller that he would push off murder on a weaker partner,” Farris said. “But it seems there’s yet some heart left in French.”

  Thias rested the balance of the day, and that night took some welcome food, after which he felt much stronger. There were no other lodgers in the inn, so Thias was the center of Farris’s attention.

  Thias brought up the subject of the Harpes. “Mr. Farris, there were some travelers on the road about the time I was hurt. I saw them on the road, and their horses being taken into your stables. Two men together, and a third younger one, and three women, all with child.”

  “Why, yes indeed. Interesting group, that one. The young man you mention was Stephen Langford. A cheerful soul, that boy, very pleasing company. It happens that I knew some of his family in Virginia, so I was pleased to have him as a guest. He’s bound for Crab Orchard. As for the others, they were folk who had run across Mr. Langford on the road. A motley bunch …” Here Farris lowered his voice and leaned closer. “… and the three women, all carrying babes—I don’t know what to make of that. Two men, three women with child … there’s scandal there, I’ll wager you. They were a poor group, though they did have horses. Roberts was the name they gave.”

  “Roberts? No, that’s not right. The name of the men is Harpe—they’re brothers—and as for the women, the youngest is the wife of Wiley Harpe, the smaller brother. The other two women keep company with the brothers, but they aren’t married, or so I’m told. The older brother is named Micajah.”

  Farris wrinkled his nose like he had smelled something bad. “I knew there was badness in that bunch. Harpe, you say?”

  “Yes. They’re evil men, Mr. Farris. They’ve stolen horses, swine, cattle. I have good reason to believe they are the ones who murdered a man named Van Zandt down at Knoxville.”

  “Murderers!”

  “Yes.” Thias’s manner grew very sober. “I worry for this Langford man, if he continued on in their company.”

  “He did.” Farris recounted what had happened. The Harpes, along with Langford, had come to the inn seeking lodging and food, which Farris had gladly offered, though he felt some instinctive worry about all but Langford. The Harpes, though obviously hungry, had declared themselves too poor to pay for a meal, and Langford had cheerfully offered to pay the bill for them, and produced a purse heavy with silver coins. He seemed proud of his money. And the next morning, just before he left, he argued briefly with one of the Harpes over one thing or another, leading Farris to scold them both for using bad language in the presence of women. Langford had repented like a gentleman, saying that he regretted his words and wouldn’t have desired to offend Mrs. Farris even if it would double the five-hundred-dollar value of all the things he carried in his saddlebags.

  “Careless words, those were, and as soon as he said them, I wished he hadn’t,” Farris said. “It’s unwise to boast about carrying wealth in a region so full of scoundrels. I could see the glitter in the eyes of the Roberts brothers … the Harpes, I should say. But when they left, they had settled whatever their argument was and all of them seemed happy with t
he notion of traveling together. They ate their breakfast—Langford paid for it, and the Harpes in turn paid for refilling his little glass flask for them all to share on the road—and they went on their way. It was shortly after that when Jane found you.”

  Thias said, “All I can say is, if I was traveling this road with money in my bags, the Harpes are the last folk I would want to keep company with. Stephen Langford made a fool’s voice in taking up with them.” He paused, then chuckled sadly. “Though I made just as foolish a one when I took up with Jack Waller and Billy French. Now I’ve lost everything—my horse, my rifle and packs, and every cent from the sale of my grandfather’s old farm. I was planning to divide that money with Clardy as soon as I found him. Now I have nothing.”

  “But you are alive, young man. You are alive. And life is the dearest of a man’s treasures. It is one of the few things that, once taken, can’t be given back or replaced. You are fortunate to be living.” Farris’s brows sank low over the hollows of his eyes. “I can only hope that young Mr. Langford comes through as fortunate as you.”

  The physical strength and great endurance Thias had developed in years of farm labor served him well as he struggled to recover from his head injury. As severe as it had seemed to begin with, the injury was already healing, and Thias began to regain his bearings and strength. He was eager to get fully well and set about finding Clardy. He was greatly encouraged by the fact Clardy had come this way and stayed at this very inn. It made him seem close.

  Having lost the money from the sale of the farm had a paradoxical affect on Thias’s desire to reunite with his brother. There was the natural dread of having to share bad news on the one hand—Hiram Tyler’s death, the loss of their inheritance—but on the other was a desire for brotherly company that was heightened by the fact that now the Tyler brothers had nothing left in the world but each other. Despite separation, Thias felt closer to Clardy right now than he had in years.

  Fast though he was healing, it was evident it would be many days yet before Thias would be able to go on. As long as he didn’t exert himself, he felt fairly well, but every time he tried to do anything even mildly straining, sharp pain, a feeling of sickness, and dizziness came rushing back. Billy French’s axe had done quite a job on him, even if it hadn’t taken his life. Thias would have to wait and heal for a time, and the waiting was more frustrating by the hour.