She shook off the thought and led Jess after Cassie. Now the girl was able to walk without any problem, though she hung the infant in a bag on the saddle, where the young one had begun to laugh and blow bubbles and even smile, when someone paused to play with her.
There was no time for that this morning, though Judith often paced beside the gelding Cassie rode, her finger clasped in the child’s warm, damp ones. Today they moved fast, riding once they cleared the brush and trees, through the muddy streets, the throngs of shoppers and sellers, toward the road leading down the face of the bluff to the waiting ferry.
“How do you keep the thing from floating away downstream?” she asked a bearded fellow who was helping them get their animals aboard.
“Look up there,” he said, pointing to the top of the cliff.
She saw, after some effort, a thin dark line extending downward at a long angle toward the distant Louisiana shore.
“That’s a heavy rope. They replace it every few weeks, what with the strain and the wet and the mildew. The ferry travels along it, though sometimes when the river’s up like this I wonder if it’s going to hold. So far it has.” He grinned, a snaggle of brown-yellow teeth, and spat over the side into the eddying water.
“Thank you,” Judith murmured. She wondered how anyone had managed to get such a line across the river, which was wider than any she had ever seen. Then, realizing that they and all their possessions would be entrusted to that frail strand, she wondered if it would make this trip.
The river, at this level, rushed past like a great brown beast, struggling to free itself from its banks. While she watched, it broke off a chunk of the bluff upstream and carried it in a boil of mud past the dancing ferry.
“This is better than being married to Oscar Medlar,” Judith said aloud, gripping the stirrup, both to comfort Jess and to ease her own fear. “Even if we drown on the way, this is better.”
David, just ahead of her, gentling his own mount, turned and smiled. “We’ll make it,” he said. “You just watch.”
Just then the ferryman loosed the tether, and the ferry swung instantly into the current, straining to follow the impulse to go downstream. The huge rope fastened to its bow tightened, and the craft moved in a great arc from the dock behind to the low, tree-covered bank ahead. How the ferrymen managed to control their direction Judith could not see, for she had her eyes shut as tightly as possible.
When she opened them again, the dock was moving closer, and the tug of the river seemed less, probably because on this side there was a point of land extending into the stream and protecting the landing from the worst of the current.
Jess stamped and whinnied, not liking this kind of travel any more than Judith did. Patting the mare’s neck, .Judith spoke softly to her, and she quieted. Then the ferry shuddered as it made contact with the eastern dock, and the ferryman’s helper jumped ashore to drop the anchor loop over a bollard.
She heard Cassie’s small gasp of relief as the craft came to a stop or at least stopped moving over the river.
It still danced underfoot as they made their way carefully down the ramp and onto the doubtful security of the rude landing.
“We’re over the river,” she called to David. “Maybe....”
He grinned at her, also relieved, but a hint of worry still lived behind his eyes. They would go as if danger walked just behind them, she knew. It was better not to be surprised by anything, on such a journey as theirs.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pine Woods
There was a scroungy sort of town that had grown up at the western end of the ferry. Even scroungier people lolled about, leaning against mossy posts and spitting streams of tobacco juice as near the feet of passersby as they felt it safe to do. David felt uncomfortable with having women in his party as he squashed through the mud along the road leading away from the dock, feeling hostile eyes blazing from narrow, bearded faces.
The place stank of water moccasins, wet pine needles, and unwashed people. He wrinkled his nose and glanced back at Judith, who studiously kept her attention fixed on him and tried to smile as their eyes met. She was a bright girl, his wife. Even without knowing anything about such human filth as this, her instinct told her not to meet the gazes of any of the men along the way.
Cassie hunched into her shawl, holding the baby close and avoiding even looking at Joseph. He, too, walked silently, watching the horses, avoiding any notice of the watchers along the way. David had known the slave all his life, and he understood that Joseph knew their peril. Thieves and murderers, running from crimes back home in the East, haunted such places, to which travelers must come if they wanted to cross the river. They would steal anything, from gold to people, given the chance.
Turning to watch the road ahead, David kept his musket in hand and saw to it that his big knife was in clear view at his side. It wouldn’t do to allow these men to think his people were easy prey.
The splop of hooves in mud came steadily behind him, and now he kept his face turned toward the pine forest that loomed to the west of the pile of spilled garbage that was the town. Only when he moved under the outermost branches did he draw an easier breath.
“We’ll turn off on the first path we see that goes in the right direction,” he murmured to Judith, who had moved forward until she was at his elbow. “We don’t need to stay on the main trail. I wouldn’t trust a one of those ragtags not to cut our throats in our sleep, if they got the chance.”
“Or worse,” she said, and he knew she had understood their danger as well as he. For a woman there were worse things than being killed in her sleep.
But after all he didn’t take the first or even the second trail that forked from the main road westward. That would have been too obvious, if anyone followed them. He watched carefully as the day waned and a brisk wind rose to whistle through the needles of the pines.
They moved between scraps of cleared land, from time to time, but the wet year had obviously drowned any crop sowed in spring. Log cabins had stood on two of the farms, but they seemed abandoned, possibly to the flooding. High water marks rose to the third log on one of them.
The country seemed deserted, but David had a good notion that they were being watched from hidden coverts as they passed; he felt that no horse or bag or person in his troop was overlooked. That was why, once they were deep in the forest again, he turned off between two overgrown pine trees into the wood itself, trusting to the deep mat of pine needles to hide the tracks of their horses.
The pines were tremendous, rising some forty or fifty feet before thrusting out a lateral branch. Below, the needles made a carpet heavy enough to silence even the horses’ hooves. So dense was the greenery above that few bushes or even low-growing vines cluttered the forest floor.
Except for the shrill calls of a jay and a distant caw from an occasional patrolling crow, it was almost silent as they moved down the great nave of trees into the depths of the wood. It was also very dark there, with the sky shut away beyond a roof of black-green pine tops.
David knew they must camp soon or move blindly through unfamiliar country. Only when it became really dangerous to keep on did he call a halt in a hollow among big pines and hickories.
“No fire tonight,” he said, as Judith and Joseph helped him unload the beasts. “We’ll stand watch two at a time, first Joseph and Judith, then Cassie and me, and we’ll keep an ear open even when we take our turns resting.
“I talked to a man in Natchez who told me that a lot of those who take the ferry west never are heard of again. From the look of the dockside folks back there in Vidalia, I’m not surprised. They’re likely moving after us right now.”
Joseph helped his wife spread the tarpaulin and smooth blankets beneath it. The breeze was now filled with moisture, and it was clear they might expect a shower before daylight.
When they were done, Joseph moved to stand beside David. “I don’t like the looks of this country. Looks even snakier than the places we been. And the snakes is
the nice folks. The human bein’ snakes is worse’n the ones that got no legs.”
David laughed, relieved to find he still could. Judith and Cassie joined him, and for a moment there was a ring of human warmth there in the dark space among the pines. Then Judith opened the pack of food and shared out raw bacon, cornpone they had baked while camped in Natchez, and fruit he had bought from a peddler.
Judith took the musket, not even fumbling in the darkness, and she and Joseph moved to opposite sides of their small clearing. David felt for his knife, freed it from its sheath, and stretched himself in his blankets, leaving the shelter for Cassie and the baby. In two minutes he was fast asleep.
When he woke he could see a pale mist of moonlight sifting down through the branches. Judith’s hand was on his arm, shaking gently. “Time, husband. The moon is overhead, and most of the clouds seem to have blown away. Maybe we won’t get a rain tonight.”
“Pray we do,” he told her. “Rain washes out tracks.”
Yawning, he took his place, hearing Cassie settling herself in the hidden nook between oak roots that he and Joseph had chosen for her. Although she had not fully recovered from the birth, the girl didn’t lack courage; he knew she would give warning in good time. Her eyes were sharp, and she was becoming a more accurate shot, when they had time for her to practice with the spare musket.
David sat with his back to a rough-barked trunk, his legs folded Indian style and his musket primed and ready. It was so dark beneath the canopy of needled crests that even the misted moon above them could do little to relieve the blackness.
That was good. Though he could see nothing, anyone trying to follow their trail could certainly manage to do no more.
Straining to see was futile. He closed his eyes and listened intently, sorting out the night sounds of hunting animals from the trills of mockingbirds sitting high above in the moonlight. A mournful cry in the distance told him a red wolf was calling to his pack, and a gruff snarling nearer at hand spoke of bobcats quarrelling over a kill.
The gunshot made him open his eyes again, rising to hear better. It was far away, and he thought it came from the road they had left behind. Had someone followed them, only to tangle with someone else from one of the farms, who also intended to rob the travelers? There was no way of knowing.
Joseph had checked their track, after the horses passed, removing dung and smoothing out disturbed patches of pine needles. Surely sloppy villains like those in Vidalia couldn’t find where his group turned off the main trail. Particularly not in the dark. Those who had watched them might, though he doubted it.
David sighed, shaking his head. Some things could never be known, but it was frustrating to wonder without any hope of learning what was going on. Still, he had learned the hard way that life was like that, and there was nothing to do but go ahead with your own business and let the rest go hang.
The slivers of pale sky darkened as the moon went down the west. Occasionally he could hear a snore from Joseph or a sigh from Judith. Cassie was silent, and he wondered if she had fallen asleep.
Then he heard a whimper from the baby, and she slipped across to the shelter. Soon contented gurgles told him she was nursing her daughter. He should have known. New mothers had ears that missed nothing. In a bit she settled the sleepy infant back in its nest beside Judith and crept back to her post.
David smiled. He knew a lot of people back home who discounted women and blacks as equally worthless except for having babies and working in the fields. He wouldn’t have swapped his wife and Joseph and Cassie for a whole troop of the red-necked idiots who were better at drinking and bragging than anything else.
Already his companions had proved their worth in a scrap. He was learning it could be a good thing for enemies to underestimate you. That tended to make them careless.
A fallen branch crackled, off to his left. Had someone taken an incautious step? Or had a browsing deer or roaming cougar crossed it?
A screech owl began to quaver right above him and almost made him jump out of his skin. The creature spoke three times before taking off in an almost soundless rush of air through ruffled feathers, and David knew something had disturbed it as it sat digesting its nightly ration of mice or small birds.
He flattened to the mat of needles and slithered toward the spot where the branch had cracked, pausing frequently to listen. He found that when he looked upward, shapes ahead of him were silhouetted against the tiny patches of paler sky, so when he located the cause of the disturbance he had no trouble in identifying it.
A black bear ambled across his route, stopping to sniff the air. Now why was he out at night? Nothing bothered bears as they scrounged for food by day, so it was a good bet something had disturbed the creature at rest. He seemed to be heading away from the road, which David estimated wound along from east to west some three or four miles distant.
It was a good bet someone was moving on the road, and the critters were moving away from it because of that. Good thing they’d cut away from the main trail, he thought. If they’d stayed on it, they might be right in the middle of whatever was going on.
He eased backward, as soon as the bear moved on, and resumed his watch while the sky paled and night drew away among the giant trees. Another mockingbird tuned up, and its repertoire of borrowed calls waked his companions. He heard Joseph cough and spit; Judith gave the small grunt he had come to know and sat up.
“All well,” he said in a voice aimed to travel no farther then his listeners. “We’d better move. I think somebody’s back there on the road, and there’s no guarantee they’ll miss the place where we turned off.”
Cassie came out of her hiding place and fed the baby again while they packed the loads onto the horses. Then, chewing on cornpone, they headed west again, guided by the slanting rays of the rising sun that struck through the canopy of branches.
Joseph came behind, as usual, making as sure as possible that they left no plain track for any bandit to follow. Only after they crossed many miles that included two big creeks, bank full and very swift for lowland streams, did David call a halt and risk building a cookfire.
Joseph pulled from his pack two possums he had killed with a stick the evening before. The stupid animals, crossing their trail, had played dead, and that was all the opportunity any experienced possum hunter needed.
Possum was a staple, back home, and they spitted them on sticks and roasted them over the fire, reveling in the drip of fat into the coals and the smell of cooking meat. It was time they had cooked food, David knew, for they needed to sustain their strength in this mosquito-ridden country, where they could expect to come down with fever before long.
Sickness was a thing to be feared, and he had no intention of neglecting anything that might help his people avoid that. When they all sat about the remnant of the fire, grease dripping from hands and faces, he felt reassured.
They were all healthy people, even Cassie, who seemed to be recovering nicely. Fed well and rested from time to time, surely they could all make it to the Sabine River and their new home in Texas.
He felt his heart speed up when he thought of that good soil, the big timber he had heard about, the wide spaces that were uninhabited except by occasional Indians. He glanced aside at his wife, and she smiled. Sometimes he thought she could read his thoughts, for he felt the same excitement in her grip as she took his hand and squeezed it.
Only a matter of days now lay between their present position and that new home. Even as he thought it, there came a rumble of thunder, and rain began to patter overhead on leaves and pine needles, coming through like drips through a leaky roof.
“Damn!” said David, rising to kick out the fire and cover it with ash and dead leaves. “Looks as if we have to travel wet for a while.”
He was right. It rained steadily, sometimes flooding down so hard they had to halt and huddle against the horses beneath the huge pines, sometimes just pattering through the canopy above. It was miserable traveling, but nobody complai
ned.
He knew they had all heard that gunshot in the night. He had told them about the bear. Rain or not, they were lucky still to be on their way, alive and uninjured.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Damn Hard Trail to Follow—Jonas Bluth
Jonas climbed onto Mossback for the tenth time in two hours. There was just no way to know if this batch of riders was the right one or not.
In the past weeks he’d only lucked out once, and that was when he located McCarran’s cousin. Though the man and his wife played dumb, there were others in the Settlement, and Jonas had learned for certain that the runaways had been married by a preacher. At the time he’d thought that was the best thing, because it gave him leave to kill the whole crew.
Now he was wondering if these might be the only blots on his record. He’d followed them pretty well as long as they stuck to the main trail westward, but suddenly they seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He’d backtracked, talked to long-boned men working in skimpy fields, questioned crippled grandmas who could only sit on their porches and card out cottonseeds or shell beans. After a certain point along the route, nobody had seen his quarry.
He decided at last just to head for Natchez, which was the nearest crossing over the Mississippi. They’d have to use a ferry someplace, and it was too far through terrible swampy country to make it to New Orleans. Greenville was way out of the route, too far to the north.
Sure enough, once he reached the riverside town he found idlers who would have seen anything coming through. He camped in the forest outside town, rested a bit, and proceeded on foot to the dock below the bluff, mixing easily with the lowlifes who lounged there. Two in particular caught his fancy.
Born Rebel and The Guns of Livingston Frost - Two Short Novels Page 5