Ride the River (1983)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 05

  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.

  “Injuns attacked their station whilst all the menfolks were off huntin’. They killed Jenny’s brother, and three of the youngsters were killed and scalped. They taken Jenny an’ her baby prisoner, finally killed the baby by bashing its head against a tree because it cried too much. Jenny got away finally, and barely made it to safety, with Injuns right after her.” I gestured at the country around. “It happened right up the creek from here near a place they called Harmon’s Station. It’s been gone a long time now.”

  We paddled on, nobody talking much, and the shadows darkened the ground under the trees, and the tree trunks lost their shapes in the darkness.

  Ahead of us a light showed, then another, and we saw a house and a man walkin’ from the barn carryin a lantern. He went to the house and a door opened and he went in and the moment of light was gone. He would be settin’ down to supper now, with no worries of trouble behind him, like us.

  “All around here and back the way we’ve come was Lew Wetzel country. Jessie Hughes, he was mostly further east over in West Virginia. They were Injun fighters. Had folks killed by Injuns, and they declared a vendetta against them. Never let up. Wetzel, they say, let his hair grow long a-purpose to tantalize the Injuns with his scalp.

  “They wanted his hair but they were scared of him, too. Some of them didn’t believe him human.”

  I taken up a paddle against to spell Archie. “Village ahead.” He spoke softly. “We’d better get some grub.”

  A man was down by the river, watering a team. He looked up as we nosed in to the bank. “You be travelin’ late,” he commented.

  “We’re riding ahead of trouble,” I said, “and wishful of avoidin’ it.”

  “Ma could put somethin’ on.” He pointed toward the nearest light. “I’m behindhand with cultivatin’,” he explained. “I was laid up with a fever.

  “You go on up to the house. Ma will enjoy the comp’ny. She’s a great one for comp’ny.” He turned his team away from the water. “I can do without, m’self.”

  A dog ran out, barking fiercely. “Shep,” the man said, “you be still. These are folks.”

  A woman came to the door, a ladle-spoon in hand. “Who is it, Jacob?”

  “Strangers, Ma, right hungry ones. I said we’d put somethin’ on.”

  There was a basin on a bench by the door, and a roller towel. We washed up there, and Archie went down by the river again to listen into the night.

  “They followin’ close?” Jacob asked.

  “We don’t know, but they’
ll be along.” Archie looked at him. “You be careful. They ain’t kindly folks.”

  “We never turned anybody away,” Jacob said.

  “I’m not suggestin’ it, just you be careful. These are mean folk.”

  Jacob looked over at me.

  “You know the Natchez Trace?” I asked. Of course he did, we all did. “One of these men worked the trace like the Harpes an’ Murrell. Only nobody ever caught him at it. The one time they did catch him over in the Settlements, he hired a good lawyer an’ went free.”

  “All right. You have you somethin’.” He turned to his wife. “Ma? Fix them a bait of that hog meat. The roasted meat, somethin’ they can carry off with them.”

  He went to the barn with his horses and stripped the harness from them. I was standing tired in the night, and I knew the others were, too. When he set up to the table I could see weariness in their faces. If only we could lay up and rest!

  I thought for a minute of takin’ that new rifle-gun and layin’ up on a bend of the creek with it. I could fix a man dead at two hundred yards with that. Maybe five hundred. But I was not wishful of killin’. Yet I remembered what Regal had said: “There’s times when a body must defend himself, Echo, an’ when that time comes, you’d better win.”

  There was a fire going on the hearth, and the table had been spread with a cloth, honorin’ the company. “Ain’t often we get folks from the river,” the woman said. “They don’t travel the waters the way they did when I was a girl.”

  “They’re beginning to cut timber up yonder. Logs will be floated down to the Ohio soon.”

  “It’s cash money,” I said, “but I hate to see the trees go down.”

  “We need the money,” the woman agreed. “Jacob may take to cuttin’ an’ fallin’ hisself. Not many cash crops in this here country lest a man goes to moonshinin’, an’ we don’t hold with that. Not that we’re teetotalers. Jacob likes his nip, time to time.”

  When we’d eaten, we got up and Archie wiped his hands on his pants. “Thank you, ma’am. I am obliged.”

  “Don’t forget the bait I put up for you. Take it along in case of need.”

  “We will need it,” I said, “but take our warning. Those behind us ride with the devil. They are not kindly folk.”

  “We never turned anybody away,” Jacob repeated.

  “Don’t turn ‘em away, but keep a gun handy.”

  We went back to the canoe, hesitated, then got in and shoved off upon the dark, dark water. All of us ached with weariness.

  “Up ahead,” I said, “we’ll find a place. We’ve got to sleep.”

  Maybe it was because we were tired. Maybe it was the idea that men followed us to steal what we had, but I had a sense of foreboding, a sense of evil.

  Where was Felix Horst? It wasn’t like him to disappear and leave the stealing to such as Timothy Oats and Elmer. That man worried me.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Dorian said. “He’s away behind us, probably in Cincinnati or some such place.”

  We paddled more slowly now, moving carefully on the dark water because there were occasional floating logs and sometimes masses of debris and drift stuff all rafted together. By day a body could see them easy enough; by night it was another thing. Even a projecting root or branch could rip the bottom out of a canoe like ours.

  “Hey!” Archie was peering into the night. “There’s a landing of some sort.”

  “Let’s see what’s there,” I said.

  Archie guided the canoe in alongside the dock, and as we steadied the boat, he climbed out.

  “Cabin up yonder,” he said, “all quiet. I think it’s deserted.”

  We tied the canoe and climbed out, bringing our gear. Somewhere back in the darkness an owl hooted a question to the night.

  “Pull the canoe under the landing,” I suggested. “If somebody comes along, they aren’t apt to see it.”

  There were big trees here, tulip, sycamore, oak, and suchlike. There was a smell of decay and a sense of emptiness about the place. There were no cows in the lot, no smell of hogs or horses.

  “Deserted,” Dorian said. “I wonder why.”

  “They couldn’t cut the mustard,” I said. “Many try, only a few make it. Some find the work too hard, some can’t stand the loneliness.”

  “Let’s see what’s in the house,” Dorian suggested.

  “Leave it be,” I said. “If anybody comes a-lookin’, that’s where they’ll go. We can sleep under the trees yonder, and if anybody comes, we’ll hear them.”

  Archie had taken a stick he found leaning against a tree and was brushing around. “Snakes,” he explained.

  When we sat down and listened, here and there things rustled in the far-off leaves, branches rubbed one against the other, and now that we were quiet, the frogs started to talk it up again. Occasionally we saw a bat dip and swoop, chasing bugs.

  Stretching out on the ground with my arm for a pillow, I stared into the night, wondering where Regal was and if the family worried about me.

  It was very dark but our eyes became accustomed to it and we could make out the dim outlines of the cabin, a shed, and a corral. Somewhere we could hear water running, from a spring or a branch, no doubt.

  My eyes opened suddenly. I had slept, I do not know for how long. I could hear the breathing of Dorian Chantry, and somewhat father away, that of Archie. The night was still. Yet, what had awakened me?

  Something, some sound, some …

  I listened, and seemed to hear something moving near me; there was a faint smell. Then the movement sound ceased, but the smell remained.

  What was it? It smelled, faintly, like something wet and slimy. A crocodile? Or alligator? I doubted if there would be one this far north, but a body never knew, and they had been found in swamps and bayous off the Mississippi, but the smell was unlike what I would expect from them.

  A wet smell, like a wet dog.

  That was it! It was the smell of a wet dog, yet what would a dog be doing here, alone? Or was it alone? A dog was rarely a soliatry creature; dogs liked people, were happiest when with people.

  My new rifle-gun lay beside me, my pistol was close to hand, the other Doune pistol was still in the carpetbag, also close by.

  Something stirred among the leaves and I drew my pistol. I did not want to shoot, for a shot in the night can be heard a far piece, yet …

  A few stars were out. I could make out the shadows of things, and through the leaves I could see the silver gleam of the river. I listened, straining my ears. All was quiet.

  I wanted to be at home. I wanted to be in my own bed, getting up in the morning to familiar chores. I wanted to sit and talk with ma, I wanted to sew, to darn socks, I wanted to behome!

  I was tired of running, tired of being hunted, tired of being forever watchful. I wanted to sit with a cup of coffee beside me and watch the shadows lift from the hills of home.

  Regal seemed far away now, and Finian Chantry was in another world. I wanted to be home, among decent folks, I wanted to stand beside Ma in church of a Sunday and sing one of the old hymns or maybe set by the fireside of a night and sing “Greensleeves,” “Lord Lovell,” “Black Jack Davy,” or “Rickett’s Hornpipe.”

  Something moved again, and I could just make him out. It was a dog, and he was lying near us, seeming to want company.

  “It’s all right, boy,” I whispered. “Go to sleep now.”

  And I did.

  Chapter 17

  He was a shepherd dog, mostly black and brown but with some white on his chest and legs, and he looked like he’d been seeing hard times.

  “Where’d he come from?” Dorian wanted to know.

  “Joined us in the night. Looks like he’s been missing some meals.”

  Archie was putting together a fire. “Coffee in a bit,” he said, “and we can broil some meat.”

  The landing where we’d left the canoe was made of home-cut planks and was old, all gray and silvery and no place for a body to walk with bare fe
et. There was moss growing on the pilings and every sign it had been there for a long time.

  What happened here? I wondered. It was a good place to live, with water and fine timber. Some fields had been cleared but lying unused for a long time now.

  We fed the dog some scraps and when we climbed into the canoe he whined, wanting to come. Dorian looked over at me. “What do you think?”

  “Why not?” I said, and Archie spoke to the dog and he hopped into the canoe like he’d ridden in one all his life.

  “We may be stealing somebody’s dog,” Dorian said.

  “He’s homeless,” Archie replied. “I can see it in him. Whoever his folks were, they’re gone.”

  Dorian and Archie did most of the paddling but I’d spell first one, then t’other from time to time, giving them some rest. Once in a while there’d be a long straight stretch and we’d look back and see nothing. Nevertheless, I was worried.

  “I’d like to ride this river down, sometime,” Archie said, “get back some of the work I’ve put in goin’ upriver.”

  “There’s easier ways to go back,” I said, thinking of the steamboats that sometimes came up the river from the Ohio to Nashville.

  “I can’t wait to get back,” Dorian said, and I just looked at him, not wishing for him to go at all.

  “Have you a girl back there?” I tried to keep my voice casual.

  “A few,” he said. “It’s a wide field and I play the field.”

  Well, I told myself, that’s better than if there was a particular one.

  “We’ll have you home soon,” he added. “Right back with your folks where you belong. Then I’m catching the first stage, steamer, or whatever back to Philadelphia.”

  Archie glanced at me but he said nothing, nor did I. Maybe Dorian would be better off in Philadelphia. He did not look as handsome as when he started. His clothes were shabby now, and he hadn’t shaved in several days. He always combed his hair real careful and he took time to clean up from time to time.

  “Even with the water runnin’ high,” I said, “we’re not goin’ much further with this canoe. This turns into just water runnin’ over rocks a mite further along.”