Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  “Mr. Jones, I ought to tell you: I had a bit of a part in helping you get free myself. I had told Japheth Deerfield that whether or not we found Thias in the prison, I thought we ought to help any of his companions there get free, if we could. It was something we could do sort of in honor of Thias. Helping his friends, you see.” Clardy smiled, hiding a huge surge of guilt. There. I’ve told the lie, Lord forgive me. Now that it’s told, I hope it helps.

  Jones gave him an odd, surprised look, then his eyes filled with tears again. “Then I owe you just as much as Japheth Deerfield. Mr. Tyler, sir, I thank you. More than you can know. I would have died in that prison if not for you and Japheth Deerfield having mercy on me.”

  Clardy thought: I’m the lowest kind of scoundrel, lying to a man about something so near to his heart as who rescued him from prison. But what was done was done—and it had worked.

  “All I ask of you is to help me find Thias,” Clardy said. “I’m taking a chance, even trusting you. If it’s gratefulness you want to show me, then do it by proving yourself worthy of that trust.”

  “I give you my pledge, sir. I’ll take you to Thias’s woman, and if we’re fortunate, we’ll find him with her. But I must tell you, Mr. Tyler, I can’t promise you he’ll be there. He didn’t tell me where he was bound, and it’s only my best guessing that he’s gone to her. He was surely talking of her a lot before he went.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” Clardy stuck out his hand. “Mr. Jones, you and me are partners. I’ll stick by you—and I will pay you for your help, even if you are willing to do it for free. All I ask of you is that you be straight and true with me, and give the best search we can give. If we find Thias at the end, then we’ll have succeeded. If we don’t, well, we’ll have done the best we could.”

  “I’ll be straight and true, sir. You can trust me. There was a time when you couldn’t have, I’ll admit, but that’s changed. The Judgment Day is coming. The earth’s going to open up and hell will swallow the unrighteous. When it swallows me, I want there to be more than just wickedness on my ledger of deeds. I’m a trusty man now. I’ve done wrong, but all that—”

  “Has been put behind you,” Clardy finished. “That’s good, Mr. Jones. That’s good. Now let me refill that pipe for you, and let’s talk more about what you know of my brother.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Clardy Tyler and Willie Jones rode away from the inn the next morning and headed to the Tyler house. There, Clardy explained to Faith what was going on, and watched her trying to hide her worry when she discovered that the stranger he would be traveling with was a man with a long criminal history. Clardy hoped she would not try to dissuade him, desiring not to part from her on bad terms—because he would not be dissuaded, no matter what she said. She voiced no argument, to his relief.

  After outfitting himself and the obviously impoverished Jones for travel, Clardy brought out and strengthened his stoutest wagon, and put together a team of his strongest horses to pull it. Upon the wagon he loaded a tightly built sealed coffin, created specifically to hold the bones of Isaac Ford during the long voyage back from New Orleans to Kentucky. The coffin had been in storage now for four years; the dust and cobwebs covering it were tangible evidence of how long Clardy had neglected his promise to Isaac Ford, and made him feel ashamed.

  Clardy’s plan was a reverse of the pattern followed by the Kaintucks who traded in the lower Mississippi market towns. He would travel by land to Nashville, and there take to the route that Nashvillians generally called the Natchez Road or Chickasaw Trail, and Natchezians called the Boatman’s Trail or the Nashville Road.

  Clardy embarked on his journey ready to merely endure Willie Jones, but the farther they went, the more he began to actually like the fellow. Jones was clearly no saint, but neither did he seem to be trying to present himself as anything more than he was. He talked openly about his criminal past, seldom making excuses for it, but talked just as much about wanting to better himself “before the end-time comes.” Clardy initially scorned Jones’s obsessed notion that the world was about to end, but the more talk he heard about it over the miles, the more it began to actually unnerve him some. What if … But no. There was no sense in believing that Jones’s dreams actually held any meaning. Clardy figured that if the Lord intended to bring the world to its closure, he would surely find some better way of announcing it than through the nightmares of a small-time backwoods criminal.

  Wrongheaded though Jones’s apocalyptic notions might be, Clardy suspected they had done the man’s character some good. It appeared that Jones was authentically trying to be a better person. It was difficult for Clardy to ascertain whether that was because of Jones’s belief that judgment was coming soon, or how moved he’d been by Japheth Deerfield’s petition on his behalf while he was a New Orleans prisoner.

  In spite of Jones’s obvious desire to become honest and good, Clardy was not about to fully trust the man. Jones was, after all, a stranger with nothing in his record to speak good of him, and in addition, several times Clardy caught the man seemingly on the verge of calling himself a different name than Willie Jones. That was no surprise; it was common for frontier criminal folk to use any number of different names throughout their life—but it did let Clardy know that Jones was still keeping some aspects of himself a secret, and a man who held secrets was not a man Clardy intended to fully trust.

  Jones’s tendency was to talk about himself, but finally he began questioning Clardy about his relatively famous experience as a pursuer of the notorious Harpes.

  “Are you really the Tyler they call the Harpe hunter?” Jones asked.

  “Some have called me that.”

  “And you were there when Big Harpe lost his head?”

  “I was.”

  “I hear that head still hangs in the tree where it was stuck.”

  “Not no more,” Clardy replied. “It hung there for years, but it was finally took down by an old woman, or so they tell me.”

  “Why’d an old woman want a skullbone?”

  “They tell me she had her a son suffering from the fits. And you know that old remedy for the fits—imbibe the powder of a ground-up skull and you’ll be cured. Or so they say. I don’t believe it.”

  “Oh, you ought not doubt what a potion can do,” Jones replied. “I know from my own experience what power there is in mixtures put together in just such a way by somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

  “You believe in witching and such, do you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jones replied solemnly. “I’ve been witched in the worst kind of way my very self, as a boy. What my life has been ever since, you can lay at the feet of that witching. It’s because of that I’m hell-bound today, with no way to save myself.”

  Clardy was amazed at how superstitious Jones was. He saw the world through the eyes of a crude kind of mysticism. Witching, potions, dreams of revelation, signs of the apocalypse—these things were substantially alien to Clardy, who usually viewed the world on its surface without probing much deeper. But for Jones they shaped every aspect of his fatalistic worldview.

  They drove the wagon for many days, passing down through Kentucky, into Tennessee, and on to Nashville, where an accident slightly damaged the rear axle of the wagon. There they remained a few days to have the wagon repaired, and inevitably word leaked out that Clardy Tyler was back in town again, heading down to New Orleans to fetch the bones of Isaac Ford for reburial in Kentucky. He received quite a stream of visitors at the Nashville Inn, a hostelry located north of the Cumberland River with Lick Branch on its east and Cedar Knob to its north. Jones seemed quite impressed to see Clardy receiving so much attention, and thereafter acted quite proud to be in his company. Clardy noticed it and thought it was flattering and a little touching, and his liking for Jones grew.

  When the wagon was fixed, they continued. Leaving Nashville, they passed through the various stations and stands along the road toward Natchez: Franklin, Colbert’s, Pigeon Roost, and so on. One stand
that they avoided was Grinder’s, where the well-known Meriwhether Lewis had come to a bad and mysterious end two years before. They plunged deep onto the trace, still a rugged route despite increased use and various efforts through the years to improve its best portions and reroute around its worst ones. Here both men were nervous and more watchful than they had been on the first portion of their journey. Despite the passing of the worst of the outlaw years, there was still danger on this often shaded and mysterious route. Every approaching party of travelers they regarded with suspicion and caution until they were past, and at night they took turns sleeping so as not to be left unguarded.

  On they traveled, past Norton’s, McRaven’s, Gibson’s, Huntstown, Union Town … and the closer they came to Natchez, the better Clardy felt. It appeared they were going to make it safely the full length of the trace, and that was something to rejoice about.

  Jones didn’t rejoice, however. As they neared Washington, the final stop before coming to Natchez, Jones was solemn and tense. Clardy was compelled to take note of it with him and ask what was wrong.

  “I can’t go to Natchez,” Jones replied.

  “Why not?”

  “I got my reasons.”

  “I can think of one good reason to go. You’ve been talking about how much it meant to you that Japheth Deerfield petitioned you free in New Orleans. Now’s your opportunity to go and thank him in person.”

  “No!” Jones replied sharply. “That’s the one thing I can’t do.”

  “Why the devil not?”

  “I have my reasons. That answer suit you well enough, Mr. Tyler?”

  Clardy knew better than to ask again after that, though he was curious. Was having to look Japheth Deerfield in the eye, a man to whom he owed his very freedom, simply too much for Jones to bear? An answer to that was unlikely to come.

  Jones’s unwillingness to go to Natchez changed Clardy’s plans. He had intended to go into town and maybe even pay call on Japheth, who surely would be interested both in the fact that he was going after the remains of Isaac Ford and that Thias was alive after all. Clardy was also curious about how the Deerfields were doing; the last time he was in Natchez, years ago, he had heard that vague mention of some sort of trouble having beset the family.

  That mystery would have to go unresolved. If Jones was determined not to enter Natchez, Clardy wasn’t going to go in alone. He had come to substantially trust Jones, but not enough to leave him alone for any lengthy period and risk having him change his mind and vanish. Without Jones, it might be impossible to find the woman who would, he hoped, ultimately lead to Thias.

  They were between Washington and Natchez when the robber appeared. He was alone, very young, very nervous. When Clardy saw him step out from among the moss-covered trees along a lonely stretch of the road, he immediately saw himself many years ago, stepping out of hiding along Kentucky’s Wilderness road to try and hold up a peddler named Peyton.

  “You two stop where you are,” the rifle-bearing young man said. The gun’s barrel was shaking so badly that sometimes it aimed at the men, other times at the ground or the treetops. “Drop your weapons on the ground. Do it easy!”

  “Young man, put that rifle down and go away,” Clardy said. “You don’t need the kind of trouble that comes with thieving.”

  “Put wickedness behind you, boy,” Jones contributed. “You’d best be getting ready for the day of judgment.”

  The young man apparently took that as a veiled threat. He also appeared to have just noticed, to his agitation, that the wagon being driven by his victims carried a coffin. “I said for you to drop them weapons!” he said, still nervous but now growing angry, too. “I’ll shoot you dead if you don’t!”

  “If you shot one of us, you’d be left with an empty rifle. Whichever of us you hadn’t shot would then be able to kill you at his ease,” Clardy pointed out.

  The robber gritted his teeth and did his best to level the wavering rifle at Clardy’s chest. “I’ll kill you right now,” he said. “Then we’ll see how much wise-arse talk comes from a dead man’s throat.”

  Jones, seated beside Clardy, stood and lifted a hand. “You put that rifle down,” he said. Turning, he climbed down out of the wagon. “Give it to me. You don’t want to hurt nobody.”

  “Willie, I don’t think you should be doing that,” Clardy said.

  “Come on, boy, hand me the rifle. I’ll take it on up the road ahead and leave it for you, and you can fetch it safe and sound, and without having to worry about the jail or stocks for having robbed travelers. Come on, now, hand it to—”

  The robber fired the rifle into Jones’s midsection. Clardy let out a yell as Jones collapsed like a puppet with the strings cut. He raised his rifle and fired it at the robber, but he missed and was instantly glad he had. He didn’t want to kill anyone. The robber turned and fled into the woods. Clardy leaped down from the wagon, stilled the disturbed horses that threatened to trample right across Jones’s crumpled body. Then he knelt beside his fallen companion.

  “Willie, Willie—are you alive?”

  Willie Jones moaned but said nothing. Clardy rolled him over and saw his eyes roll up into his head just before the lids fluttered closed. He put his head to Jones’s chest. He was still breathing. But the wound was bad. It was in the general area of his stomach, and bleeding badly.

  “Willie, it seems we’ll be going to Natchez after all,” Clardy said. “We’ll get you care. We’ll get that rifle ball out of you and get you better.”

  He managed to get Jones into the wagon, but it was very difficult and he feared that in the process of it all he had done the wound even more damage. He leaped into the seat, took up the leads, and sent the wagon rolling toward Natchez as fast as he dared drive it with a badly wounded man in the back, lying up against the tied-down future coffin of Isaac Ford.

  The three-storied, brick Natchez Hospital, built in 1805, was one of the finest of the Natchez improvements since Clardy had last been in the town. He hauled the gray-faced, badly drained Willie Jones directly to the hospital and did his best to stay out of the way as a doctor began working on him.

  Clardy felt terribly upset, and did not like to admit to himself that much of the reason was purely selfish. It seemed likely that Jones was going to die, leaving him without a guide. Why had he been so foolish as not to demand that Jones give him a written description of the woman Thias loved, directions as to how to find her, and so on? All he knew about her was that her name was Elizabeth Ridge, she was a widow with two children, and lived near the levee in New Orleans the last time Jones had seen her. With that information Clardy knew he might be able to find her alone, but he’d counted on having Jones with him. He swore at his luck, then at himself for good measure for caring more about how this was going to affect him than the fact that a man was dying.

  The surgical work on Jones went on for a long time, and finally Clardy left the building for some fresh air. He sat outside, seated on the ground with his back against the brick wall, and ducked his head low, hiding from the world behind the brim of his hat. He had the terrible feeling that this new quest for a lost brother was going to turn out as badly as his earlier tries. He felt like cursing the very world.

  “Sir?”

  The voice made Clardy look up. It was growing on toward evening, but enough light remained in the sky to cast the man standing before him into silhouette. At first Clardy thought this was someone from the hospital, come to tell him the outcome of the surgery. “Yes?”

  “My Lord, it is you … or I believe it is. Clardy Tyler?”

  Clardy stood, quickly brushing himself off and then sticking out his hand. “Japheth Deerfield, it’s good to see you. I didn’t expect to encounter you.” He moved a little to alter the angle of the light and get a better view of Japheth. When he did, he was shocked. Japheth was thin and pale, with dark rings beneath his eyes and a generally sickly complexion. As he shook Japheth’s hand he noticed that the grip seemed weak.

  “What b
rings you to Natchez, Mr. Tyler?” Japheth asked.

  “I’m passing through. On my way to New Orleans. I’m fetching back the body of Isaac Ford. I plan to sail it up to Kentucky and bury him where he wanted to be laid. I should have done it years ago.”

  Japheth said, “Well, I’m fascinated. But why are you here at the hospital? Is something—ah, Celinda! Come here, Celinda! Look who I’ve run into!”

  Clardy turned and slipped off his hat. He nodded at the woman who approached. This was Celinda as he remembered her, but with a few lines of the years on her face. But no. It would take more than the years that had passed since he last saw her to account for those lines. Celinda’s face was that of a woman who had suffered, either mentally or physically, maybe both.

  “Celinda, it’s Clardy Tyler. You recall him, I suppose?”

  Clardy remembered how Celinda Deerfield had disliked him, and wondered if such feelings lingered after all this time. From the look of her, he could not tell. But she gave a polite nod of the head and extended her slender hand in a friendly enough manner. He shook it, nodded back. “Mrs. Deerfield. Good to see you.”

  “Mr. Tyler was telling me he is on his way to New Orleans to bring back the body of Isaac Ford. We met Mr. Ford about the same time we met Mr. Tyler.”

  “I remember him,” Celinda replied, and as she spoke it was as if a cloud passed over her features for a moment.

  Yes, Clardy thought. She has suffered. I can tell it so easily. And her husband, too.

  “Mr. Tyler, we were on our way home. Would you come and join us … if it’s all right with you, dear.” The last phrase was spoken to Celinda.

  Clardy looked at her face. Again that dark cloud passing. “Of course. He is welcome,” she said, in a way that made it impossible to know whether it was sincere or forced.