“I have to say, sir, that if the woman does not wish to be found, this might be a long hunt indeed.”
The conversation went on, the depth of the clergyman’s feelings becoming more and more evident. Fain was stirred with compassion for the sad man.
And before he knew it, he heard himself agreeing to Bledsoe’s request. Yes, he would go on the trail of the young woman, determine if she was indeed the long-missing Deborah Bledsoe, and if she was, try his best to bring her back to his father.
Bledsoe tried to speak his gratitude but could only weep.
A hundred miles to the northeast, a much younger frontiersman than Crawford Fain rode slowly along the tree-lined bank of the Nolichucky River. The hour was early but the day was already warm, though overcast. His horse plodded lazily along.
A sound came from his left as he passed a sycamore undergrown with scrubby brush. He reflexively reached for the butt of the flintlock pistol tucked into the belt encircling his long, loose hunting shirt. But before he drew it he realized the noise had been no more than a loud belch, its source an obviously drunken man seated heaplike on the ground at the base of the sycamore in a thicket of ivy, clutching a crockery jug.
The frontiersman halted his horse and looked down at the unkempt, slouching man, who grinned up at him, teeth glinting dull yellow through a rough mat of dark and dirty whiskers. It was hard to tell the man’s age; the young rider had an impression that he might be younger than he appeared, having been aged, perhaps, by hard living.
“Good day, sir,” the mounted young man said. “You startled me.”
The other took a pull from his jug and belched again. “Always been explosive on the belch, like my fathers before me, Mr. . . .”
“Potts. Most just call me Potts.”
The drunk stuck up his hand, though Potts was far out of handshake range. Still grinning, the man drank again, belched even louder, and shoved the jug toward Potts in a gesture of sharing that Potts was not about to accept. “Got a first name, too, Potts?” the drunk asked.
“Langdon. But just call me plain old Potts.”
“I’m John,” the man said. “Just plain John.”
“Well, just plain John, you often get drunk this early in the day?”
John tried to get up, but his legs seemed lifeless. “Only when I’m celebrating. Man’s got a right to celebrate, don’t he?” Another pull from the jug followed while John’s bleary eyes glittered at the younger man over the grimy, fingerprinted surface of the vessel.
“What are you celebrating?”
“A new son,” John said. “Born yesterday. Healthy little fellow. Named him David, after my father.”
Potts grinned and congratulated John, commenting that this was a fine spot to be born at, with the quiet river flowing past and Limestone Creek gurgling its way into it just yards from where they were.
“It’s a good place, I reckon. But I’m restless. Looking for something better all the time. I figure I’ll move on once a better opportunity presents itself.” John’s voice was quite slurred.
“A man has to follow his opportunities,” Potts said agreeably. “Even if they lead him here and there and here again.”
“You’re wise beyond your years, young man!”
“I don’t know about that. Just got my own touch of restlessness, I reckon.”
“Sure you don’t want a swallow of this corn?” John sloshed the jug.
“Thank you, no.”
“You headed to Greeneville?”
“Just a stop for the night. I’m going from there to White’s Fort.”
“You got some miles before you, then, son. And you ain’t going to find much in Greeneville. The town is just now getting laid out. Empty lots and such is what you’ll mostly see. A few cabins and houses. Give it a year or two and there’ll be plenty more.”
“As long as I can find a place to lay my head, that’s all I need.”
“There’s always the good earth to make your bed,” John said, drinking again. Potts suspected this man had spent many nights on the “good earth,” sleeping the hard sleep of the drunken. “You’d be welcome to stay the night at my cabin yonder, but it’s crowded, and with the new baby there, I don’t know the missus would want company.”
“I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I’ll just keep on traveling.”
“What takes you to White’s?” John asked.
“I’m just passing by there, too, actually,” Potts replied. “I’ll go on beyond to Fort Edohi.”
“Crawford Fain’s station?”
“That’s right.”
“I met Fain once. Two years back.”
“I know him, too,” said Potts. “Through his son, Titus, who’s the very image of his father, and nigh as skilled a woodsman.”
John tried again to come to his feet, and to Potts’s surprise, succeeded. He wobbled a moment, then stepped clumsily forward, drawing nearer to Potts with the look of a man intent on sharing important information.
“Let me tell you what to do, son,” he said in alcohol-tainted gusts that made Potts flinch. “You want to have a good evening tonight, you steer up toward the north side of Greeneville and look for Ott Dixon’s place. Kind of a cabin, but it’s walled only halfway up, with a tent finishing out the top of the walls and the roof. Old Ott hisself you’ll know from his homely face. Uglier than Crale’s lump, that man is.”
“What’s a Crale’s lump?”
“Hell, I don’t know! It’s just something folks say in these parts, ‘uglier than Crale’s lump.’ ”
“Does Ott provide lodging?”
“He provides drink. Rum. And whiskey from east of the mountains. I got this very jug from Ott three days back.” He sloshed it again, gauging how much was in it. “Surprised I ain’t drunk more than I have in that time.”
“I ain’t much of a drinker, myself,” Potts said.
“You’re missing one of life’s blessings, then,” John said.
“I’ll be moving on now, John. Need to find me a bite to eat somewhere.” Potts looked ahead, around a clump of trees. “That your cabin yonder?” He would never directly ask, but was hoping John might offer food, if he had any to spare. Quite possibly he didn’t. . . . John seemed to be a very poor man.
“That’s my house, yes,” John said. “Not much of a place, is it?” No invitation followed.
“Well, a home is a home. My best to your wife and your new son. David, was it?”
“Yep.”
“Take care of yourself and your brood, Mr. . . .”
“Crockett. Name’s John Crockett.”
“Mr. Crockett. All best to you.”
“Right back to you, Potts. And don’t forget to stop at Dixon’s later on.”
As Potts passed the Crockett cabin, he heard from inside the open door the quacklike squall of a newborn, and smiled. But his accompanying thought was sad: that the little Crockett born in that humble cabin had little chance for success—not as the product of such a father as just plain John Crockett.
CHAPTER TWO
John Crockett proved to have been right about Greeneville. Though the town was officially three years old, it was yet early in its transformation from empty land to village.
Despite the rolling terrain on which the town lay, it was lined out in gridlike fashion, with relatively straight streets and squarely shaped lots.
Potts waved and nodded to those working on structures going up in the little town, which was situated where it was because of a rich spring rising near its main avenue. Potts took his horse to the spring, and man and beast enjoyed a refreshing drink. Then they progressed up through the northern side of town, through the dusk and toward the place Crockett had urged Potts to visit.
Potts found Dixon’s quickly and easily. A cabin had been started, built none too squarely and with uneven, round-notched logs, and rising only to the height of a man’s chest. The upper part of the structure was mere sailcloth, stretched up and across a central ridge pole running from the front
to the back, giving the building a decent but flimsy imitation of a peaked roof. Half cabin, half tent.
Potts found a place to sit in the back corner; there he could quietly observe the grubby humanity in the place and ponder his options for passing the night. As darkness thickened, torches were lighted, some burning so close to the tent cloth that Potts worried the place might suddenly flare up. He eyed the front exit and made plans to bolt should it become necessary.
A big, ugly brute of a fellow clad in badly stained, heavy trousers came stumbling across the splintery puncheon floor and looked stupidly down at Potts. “Whatcha drinking?”
“Don’t fancy anything to drink, sir,” Potts said, wondering if this might be the Dixon whose name was attached to this obviously short-term enterprise. From the look of the place, Potts guessed that the proprietor probably carried a packhorse load of liquor from new town to new town, throwing up temporary log-and-canvas taverns on unclaimed lots and vending liquor to the locals, then moving on when things began to be more settled.
“Gotta drink to stay here,” the ogre said.
Potts stood and faced the man, who was a handbreadth shorter than he was, but much thicker. “Then I suppose I’ll move on,” he said in a cordial tone. “Know any place a man can find a place to sleep for a night?”
The man pointed a finger that wavered in any and all directions. “Go see Katherine Parr up yonder way. Two mile. Only cabin south of the road. She’ll bed you down.” The man, suddenly friendly, chuckled and winked. “Aye, she’ll bed you down, no two ways ’bout it! You know what I’m talking about, young man! You be sure to tell her Dixon steered you there and would favor having some business steered back to him in turn.”
“I’m just looking for sleep. That’s all,” Potts said. “I reckon you might be thinking I’m looking for something that I ain’t, Mr. Dixon.”
“No drink, no women . . . bah!” The man lost his smile and waved his hand toward the door in a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. Potts wasn’t the kind of patron he needed.
Potts had turned to head out when suddenly a figure filled the doorway and made him stop. A voice with the kind of piercing edge that could be heard half a mile away suddenly burst forth: “Sin is a reproach to the God of heaven and earth, and shall be driven forth before him like dried and husky leaves before a divine wind! And no drunkard, so says the holy word, shall inherit the kingdom of God!” The declaration was given in a distinctly British accent.
Groans and drunken protests rumbled through the place, and Dixon stepped toward the newcomer, who was shadowed by two stoutly built men of mixed Indian and white blood, seemingly bodyguards. They glared menacingly at Dixon as he neared.
“Bledsoe!” Dixon bellowed. “You think the Lord would want to find you here in this den of sinfulness?”
“Dixon, you rank and randy son of a libertine and his unwashed whore, the Lord calls me to bring the good news even to such as you, and even in such places as this pit of hell you call a tavern!”
Dixon fixed a scornful glare on his face. “Well, you Bible-spouting pox, the Lord calls me to deliver good strong drink to his thirsty children! And I heed that call. Why you in here, anyway?”
Potts put the pieces together quickly. The newcomer was obviously a preacher, and Dixon had called him Bledsoe. That narrowed the field as to who this righteous warrior probably was: one of two Bledsoe brothers, both of them well-known clergymen in this western country, but of decidedly different styles and religious traditions. Both Bledsoes were making names for themselves on the new frontier, one as an educated Presbyterian cleric devoted to the spread of classic Christian institutional learning in an academic environment, the other a much more roughly hewn, self-educated devotee of the kind of fiery revivalism associated with camp and brush arbor meetings. One brother an “old light churchman,” the other a “new light man.”
There was little doubt in Potts’s mind that this was the latter Bledsoe, the new light revivalist, who had just come in. Potts struggled to remember his name. Abner, he thought. Yes, Abner Bledsoe. And his brother, the academic—his name was Eben Bledsoe.
“I want you out of this place,” Dixon commanded Abner.
Abner Bledsoe’s crimson face twisted into a snarl and for a few seconds he looked very dangerous. His bodyguards stepped up, but he abruptly waved them back, seeming to think better of escalating the confrontation to a physical level.
“Dixon, I’ll leave you and your den of perdition happily if I may but tell your patrons here of a great meeting soon to happen that can provide a pathway to a better life for them . . . and for you, too, if you’ll have it.”
Dixon huffed and snorted, then said, “Well and good, preacher, have your say. No preaching, though! Just announce your meeting and be gone. Ain’t going to help you none. My people here ain’t your churchgoing type.”
Bledsoe stepped over to a bench that sat against a wall and climbed onto it. “Friends!” he said in a voice meant to pierce the thickest alcoholic murk, “there will be”—he paused, counting on his fingers—“four days hence from this night, a great outpouring of the power of God in the broad meadow nearby Edohi Station. I shall preach the word of truth to all who come, and shall also share the story of Molly Reese, late of the city of London, whose life was given back to her through the power and mercy of God after she fell victim to one who misused her sorely, leaving her with the very tongue cut out of her head! And hear this, friends: Molly Reese herself will be there, in the flesh, so that you may better understand her tale!”
A drunk man hollered, “Going to be mighty hard for her to tell that tale with no tongue in her head!” Several laughed.
Bledsoe pointed at the man. “True enough, sir! You shall hear her story from my lips, my tongue, reading from the narrative written by Molly herself, recounting her sufferings, her rescue, and ultimate salvation through the power of our Lord! And you shall see her with your own eyes!”
“I done read all that Molly Reese jabber on a broadside over in Charleston,” said a man whom few would have identified, by appearance, as a likely literate. “No reason to hear you spew it all over again!”
Indeed, the story of London-born Molly Reese was widely known and had been published frequently on broadsides and in newspapers both British and American. Preachers often recounted paraphrased versions of the Molly Reese saga from pulpits, particularly on the American frontier, where tales of redemption and apparent supernatural intervention were popular. There was even an ongoing stage dramatization of the bloody tale in Boston, a play much discussed for its remarkably believable and graphic depiction of the gore involved in severing a human tongue. “How did they do that?” was the question most frequently asked, post-performance, by those who attended the play.
Potts personally had heard Molly Reese’s story on three occasions, all proclaimed from pulpits. At mention of her name by the loud preacher, the details of her grim adventure began to spill through his mind.
Those of a religious bent almost invariably saw the experiences of Molly Reese as evidence of the power of divine intervention to save those in distress and danger. Some found in her story specific evidence of protective angelic activity. Less spiritual souls simply believed the woman was just unusually lucky.
There had been little enough evidence of luck in the early life of Molly Reese, beyond the fortunate accident of familial affluence. Raised in a landed family, Molly was brought up without benefit of her mother, who had died during Molly’s birth. It was said that her father harbored some related resentment toward Molly, while others believed the man simply to be especially perverse and cruel.
In any case, at around a decade of age, Molly began to fall victim to mistreatment and abuse by her father, who drank heavily. Initially his treatment of her was simple meanness, striking her with his fists at the slightest provocations or hitting her with such objects as fireplace pokers, kitchen implements, and the like. As the girl grew, though, his abuse achieved a darker, depraved aspect, and
Molly became the victim of treatment her own narrative euphemistically called “invasions of the most harsh and lewd variety.” Yet the more he misused the girl, the more her father seemed to despise her.
At length Molly’s father came to realize that his actions put him at great risk of exposure, because Molly was a highly intelligent and articulate girl. A whisper to a sympathetic domestic servant, a neighbor, a constable, or clergyman, and Molly could easily bring destructive public humiliation and punishment upon her sire. When Molly’s father realized this, his molestations ceased for a time. Then came an inevitable renewal of his perverse passions, bolstered by the weakening effect of liquor on his moral character. Molly Reese was placed in her most dangerous circumstance yet, though she was too young to fully comprehend the depth of her danger.
There had been a time when John Reese had been a decent man and citizen, and even, in the earliest days of his daughter’s life, an occasionally tender father. But alcohol did terrible things to the man, corrupting him body, soul, and mind. His thinking became irrational, his reasoning addled—so much so that he actually became able to believe, one night when he was drunker and more irrational even than usual, that rendering his daughter physically unable to speak would keep his sins hidden forever. He persuaded himself that he could protect his secrets without taking such an extreme step as murdering his own child, an action he had been pondering secretly. Ruined as it was by his drinking, his mind was actually able to fully accept the fallacious notion as not only sensible, but clever.
Thus came the horror that changed the life of Molly Reese forever. Alone one evening in the house with her father, she was caught by him in an upper hallway and dragged into his dark bedchamber, where he clouted her severely with a heavy brass candlestick and knocked her unconscious. He drew out a thin-bladed knife, pried open the senseless girl’s mouth . . . and began cruel and bloody work.
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