“What do you want me to do, Sam?” Jamie asked.
“Charge your rifle and pistol, lad.”
Jamie shook his head. “No, Sam. Wait, Sarah. Don’t ring that bell. We have a few minutes; probably more than an hour. Listen to me. There will be a dozen or more men and boys ready to swear that I provoked this trouble. You know that. I don’t know if I killed that fellow or not, but I think I did. It was close range, and my ball was true. The jury will be rigged, and I’ll hang.” Sarah started crying and Sam was trembling with rage. “It’s over here for me.”
“No!” Sam shouted, his big fists clenched.
“Yes,” Jamie said softly. “I’ve been expecting this. And I’m ready for it. Even if I should beat this false charge, those who hate me will never let me live in peace. Not here. I have a place chosen in the dark timber two day’s ride west of here. I’ve food and blankets ready to go in the barn. It’s better this way. You both know it in your hearts. I love you both dearly, but I can’t stay. I don’t want blood spilled over me. The wilderness is my home. I’m as comfortable there as a wolf, a panther, or an eagle. I’ll see you both from time to time. Tell Kate that I love her and to wait for my return. I will be back for her.” He hesitated. “Sam, I will soon have the name of an outlaw. The sheriff, Hart Olmstead, and John Jackson and their kind will have me known as a highwayman. Don’t you believe it.” A twinkle came into his eyes. “Oh, I might take something from them every now and then, to help those they’ve taxed into poverty and the like...”
“Jamie,” Sam said. “I ...”
The young man waved him silent. “I must go. Be sure to tell Kate I will be back.” He kissed Sarah, shook Sam’s hand, and walked out of the house. He did not look back.
WANTED FOR MURDER
JAMIE IAN MACCALLISTER
Jamie unfolded and looked at the badly faded wanted notice he’d found tacked to a tree and smiled. There was a fairly accurate description of his likeness on the page.
“So I did kill the man,” Jamie muttered. “But what else could I do? He was trying to kill me!”
He was sitting in his camp, deep in the woods of unsettled Kentucky, and in 1826, there were a lot of those places. It had been months since he’d left the comfortable home of Sam and Sarah Montgomery, and just as many months since he’d seen Kate. But he’d been back to their secret place several times for the messages she would leave in a hollow tree. It was on the way back west to his camp that he’d found the wanted notice. Now, sitting by his lonely fire in the cave in Western Kentucky, Jamie allowed himself the luxury of a few moments of feeling sorry for himself. Would he ever find peace? The summer was nearly gone, and soon he would have another birthday. His fifteenth. These were supposed to be the fun years of life... so he’d read. If these were the fun years, he sure wasn’t looking forward to the bad years.
He shook those thoughts away and once more reread the letter from Kate. Even under these dangerous and dire circumstances, it was difficult for Jamie to get very low for very long. It just wasn’t his nature. He was a survivor.
My darling Jamie,
First of all, let me tell you how much I love and miss you. I have bad news. I told you last time that Hannah was to marry the Swede. The date was all set and everybody was rejoicing. Then, just last week she was set upon by brigands and raped. She claimed John Jackson’s oldest boy, John Jr., and his father. I believe her. Of course, they alibied for each other and the sheriff laughed it off. I positively loathe that stupid oaf! The Swede says he doesn’t care if the entire Shawnee nation assaulted her, he loves her and wants her to be his wife. But Hannah feels that given time, he would grow to hate her. I don’t believe that.
Jamie folded the letter carefully. He had read the letter several times and had memorized it all.
Sitting by his fire, he cooked his supper and then rolled up in his blanket. His mind was made up. He was going back and speaking to Hannah. She had been his friend and deserved some happiness. And maybe he’d just settle some old scores with the Jackson family while he was at it.
Seven
Jamie just about scared the Swede out of his boots when the door was opened and there stood Jamie. There was a confused look on his face, for Jamie had cut his long hair. Then the big man recognized him, hollered one, grabbed him in a bear hug, and hauled him inside the snug cabin.
“Swede, you’re crushing me! Put me down, you ox!”
“Jamie!” Swede said. “It’s so good to see you. But you are taking a terrible chance, lad!”
“Sit down, Swede. I want to talk to you,” Jamie said, sitting down at the rough kitchen table. The Swede first poured them coffee and then sat down, his face serious. “Pack it up, Swede. Sam will buy your land at a fair price. You get Hannah and head for Illinois. I’ve talked to people and they said the land there was fine. The soil so rich and black it’ll grow nearly anything. I — ”
“But Hannah won’t even talk to me, Jamie!” the big man said with nearly a sob. “Not since the... trouble.”
“I’m going to her cabin as soon as I leave here, Swede. I can talk some sense into her. She’ll listen to me. Swede, you have to know this: she was the wife of a Shawnee.”
The man smiled. “I guessed that, Jamie. It makes no difference to me. None of that matters. What matters is here and now, lad.” He sobered for a few seconds. “You’re heavily armed, Jamie.”
“I’m an outlaw, Swede. A young desperado who is wanted for murder. I have a price on my head.”
Swede nodded his head. “And Sam’s place is watched all the time, Jamie. Don’t go there.”
“I must. I have to say goodbye when all that I have returned to do is done.”
“You’re going to kill John Jackson and his son.” It was not a question.
Jamie nodded. “And then I am taking Kate and we are heading west. We probably will never see you and Hannah again, Swede.”
“Damn! but it’s a sorry time. Lad, if you run off with Kate, her father and brothers will pursue you both to the ends of the earth.”
“Let them. I’m taking Kate and leaving.”
“Jamie, think about this. You’ve killed one man... let it alone, lad. Just take your loved one and leave.”
Jamie smiled. “Swede, you are the biggest, strongest, yet the gentlest of men. You couldn’t harm anything. It even upsets you to have to kill game for food. Yet, I can understand that. And I know this too: Hannah must be avenged. And I can do that.” He stood up. “After I am gone, you and Hannah leave. Make a fresh start. Will you promise me that?”
“If you can bring my Hannah back to me, Jamie, I will promise to move Heaven and Earth for you... and do it.”
After Jamie had left the cabin, Swede sat for a time. “That’s a boy?” he questioned the silence. “No. He left his boyhood back at that damnable Shawnee town. He became a man at age seven.”
* * *
Kate almost fainted when she opened the shutters to her bedroom and saw Jamie. “No time for anything but this, Kate,” he said. “Start packing a few things, including blankets. But just enough to get by. I’ve left a packet of food by the hollow tree. When the house is quiet, you go there this night and wait for me. I have things to do that are dark and suited for the night. It might be noon tomorrow before I can meet you there. But the place is safe and no one will find you there. When I do come, I will have a mount for you with a proper saddle for a lady.” He leaned in and kissed her lips. “I’ll see you at the tree, Kate. And then we’ll be rid of this damnable place forever.”
Jamie was gone in the night. Kate closed the shutters and smiled. Then she set about packing a few things.
* * *
The guard who was assigned to guard the Montgomery house never knew what hit him and laid him out cold on the ground. But what hit him was the butt of one of Jamie’s pistols. Jamie hog-tied the man — he knew him as a thug and ne’er-do-well who would do anything for money — and left him trussed up tight. Jamie had circled the house twice, and knew there
was only this one guard. He boldly walked in the back door and called out his presence.
Sarah threw her arms around him and Sam shook his head. “You’ve grown some in the months, Jamie. And you’ve a hard look in your eyes. Sit down, lad, and have some food and drink.”
“I would like that, for I’ve eaten little this day.” Over food, Jamie said, “I want the gelding for Kate. The bay.”
“Take him. He’s yours. And take the saddle, too. Jamie, I’ve a poke of money for you. It’s enough to last you several years if you’re careful. What else is on your mind?”
Jamie lifted eyes that were a cold and bright hard blue. “You don’t want to know, Sam. Leave it at that.”
“All right, Jamie. Jamie! The guard outside... ?”
“Will not be moving for several hours. I didn’t kill him because I want no harm to come to either of you.”
Sam waved that aside. “No harm will come to us, Jamie. We’ve formed our own militia here in New Town and are left strictly alone. We outnumber those in old town. And they are mightily afraid of us. But that will do you no good, for the warrant against you came after a true bill.”
“I’m not worried about that, Sam. For when I leave here this night, I will not be heard from or seen again in this area.” Jamie explained what he wanted Sam to do, and the man instantly agreed.
“You’ve seen Hannah? We have not been able to convince her that the Swede doesn’t care what happened. He just loves her.”
“I just left her cabin. I managed to get through to her. She’ll be leaving with the Swede.”
Sarah put her hand over his. “Oh, Jamie. Where did your childhood go? You’re shouldering a terrible burden to be so young.”
“I guess I’m like the eagle, Sarah. I am what I am and can no more change than the eagle.”
“I’ll fix you enough food to last several days, and we’ve had your buckskins and other clothes packed ever since you left.” She rose from the table and busied herself so Jamie would not see the tears in her eyes.
Sam left the room and returned with a small leather sack. He placed it on the table. “With care this should last you for quite some time, Jamie. Take it with our love and blessing. Why don’t you go up to your room for one last time and change into your buckskins.”
Viewing his old room was hard, for Jamie knew he would never see it, or Sam and Sarah, again. He was not yet out of his teen years and was starting over — again. For the first time in years, he fought back tears. He stepped out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him, forever sealing off another part of his life. When Jamie came back to the kitchen, Sarah had composed herself and a packet of food was on the table.
“I’ve saddled the horse for Kate,” Sam said. “Both of you go with our blessings, Jamie. And Godspeed.”
Sarah kissed him and then fled from the room, her apron to her face, no longer able to control her tears. Sam stuck out his hand and Jamie took it.
“Goodbye, Jamie Ian MacCallister. Man Who Is Not Afraid.”
“Goodbye, sir. And... thank you and Sarah for everything.”
Jamie picked up the food packet and turned away, walking from the warm home, out into the cool and dangerous night. He rode straight to the Jackson farm. During the months of his fleeing the false charges, he had learned that John Jackson’s wife had left him, unable to endure the abuse any longer. So there would be John, John Jr., and Abel at home.
Jamie left the horses a few hundred yards from the darkened cabin. He knew that John Jackson hated dogs, so he did not have to worry about any barking to announce his presence. He slipped up to the cabin and looked through the slightly cracked shutters into Abel’s sleeping quarters. The pallet was empty. Abel was probably staying with his friend, Jubal. Good. One less to worry about.
Jamie opened the shutters and climbed into the cabin, making his way carefully through the home. John Jackson was snoring in his bed, and his son John Jr. was snorting and blubbering in his bed. Jamie, a pistol in each hand, walked up to the elder Jackson’s bed and stuck the muzzle against the man’s temple. Jackson jerked awake, his eyes wide with fear.
“John Jackson,” Jamie said softly, just loud enough for the man to hear. “I’m judge and jury and I find you guilty of rape and sentence you to die.”
The cocking of the heavy pistol was enormous in the quiet house.
“Get up, John Jackson, and go awaken that scum you call a son.”
The man rose from the tick, dressed in a long nightshirt. He padded barefoot to his son’s room and called out, his voice quaking with fear.
The son stood up, also dressed in a long nightshirt.
“In the big room,” Jamie said. “Build up the fire so you can see the man who kills you.”
John Jr. started squalling out his fear as he stoked the coals into flames.
“Now tell me the story about how you two brave men raped Hannah. And you’d better speak the truth.”
John Jr. broke apart, babbling out the rape, telling the awfulness of it.
Jamie cocked the second pistol, both of them double-shotted. Jackson started crying, the tears running down his face, begging for his life. Not his son’s life, just his. Jamie leveled a pistol and both father and son began weeping and begging, the snot running from their noses and slobber dripping from their lips.
Jamie couldn’t do it. He just could not kill the men, although both of them surely deserved it. He slowly lowered the pistol.
“God knows I should kill you both,” he said, his voice hard. “But I cannot. I see you now for what you are. Cowards, the both of you. Live in your own private hell, for you created it.”
Jamie turned to leave. John Jr. leaped for the shotgun over the fireplace and started to bring it down just as Jamie turned. Jamie fired, one ball striking the man in the chest and the second ball tearing into his throat, drenching the father with the son’s blood. John Jr. fell into the fire, his nightshirt catching on fire and his greasy hair exploding. The shotgun discharged, the blast blowing a hole into the roof, and sending dust showering down into the cabin.
“No!” the father screamed. “My boy. Oh, you’ve killed my fine boy.” He pulled his son from the fire, spreading flames across the floor. “My God, MacCallister, help me.”
“Not damn likely,” Jamie said.
“Goddamn you!”
Jamie turned and walked out into the night. He wasn’t worried about pursuit, for the father would be too busy trying, in vain, Jamie hoped, to save his cabin from the flames.
Jamie charged his pistol as he walked and holstered it before stepping into the saddle and taking up the reins of the horse for Kate. The flames from the burning cabin were beginning to dance in the night sky.
“I’ll kill you!” John Jackson’s wild screaming reached him. “As God is my witness I’ll track you to the gates of hell, you Injun bastard.”
“Wrong, I’m not an Indian, you ignorant oaf.” Jamie turned Lightning’s head.
“Do you hear me, you sorry son? I swear on my boy’s dead body you’ll pay.”
Jamie ignored the man’s howling.
“You’re a dead man, MacCallister! Do you hear me?”
“Not by your hand, Jackson,” Jamie muttered, and put his horse into a gallop. He rode westward, toward Kate and a new life.
Eight
By dawn, the young couple had put miles behind them. Jamie had traveled no roads, staying with game trails that he knew well. By dawn, both he and Kate and their mounts were exhausted. He had chosen their first stop earlier, on the way east, and the closest settlers were miles away. Jamie made a bed of fresh cut boughs for Kate and she was asleep in seconds.
He rubbed down the horses and picketed them on good grass, then made a walk-through of the area surrounding the camp. He ate a biscuit and sat with his back to a tree and dozed. Lightning would wake him if anyone drew near. He was better than any watchdog Jamie had ever seen.
They both awakened at noon and were ravenous. Jamie built a small fire, using
dry wood and placing the fire directly under a low overhang of branches to break up the smoke.
“We’ll start cutting slightly south tonight, Kate. I’ve not been much in that country. But I’m thinking John and your father will feel that we plan on joining Hannah and Swede in Illinois. I hope.”
“I don’t care where we go, Jamie. Just as long as we’re together.”
“We will be together, Kate. Forever. When we get down into the southern part of Tennessee, we’ll find a parson and get married.” Kate smiled and nodded her head.
“I want no union between us until that time. I want us blessed by God.”
She again nodded her head solemnly. “Jamie? What happened last night at the Jackson’s?”
“I went there to kill them both, but I found I could not. I tried to give them their lives even after John Jr. confessed to Hannah’s debasement. It was disgusting. I turned to leave and John Jr. grabbed a shotgun. I fired in self-defense. He fell into the fire and the cabin was destroyed, I think. It was an ugly scene. I do not think I shall ever forget it. Kate? Do you understand that if your father or brothers ever catch us, they will kill both of us?”
“More than you do, Jamie. My father swore that many times over, making sure I heard it each time.”
Jamie sat silent for a time. “We must put many miles behind us before we stop, Kate. I think your father will never stop searching for me. And I believe John Jackson will be just as determined.”
She scooted over and sat next to him. He put an arm around her and held her close.
“What are you thinking, Jamie?”
“That I wish for us a long and uneventful life together, Kate.”
“Uneventful it may not be, Jamie. But we will be together.”
* * *
“Liar!” Hart Olmstead shouted at Sam, pointing a trembling finger at the man. “You do know where that young killer took my daughter.”
“You’re crowding me awfully hard, Olmstead,” Sam told the man, barely holding his own temper in check. “Back off, man. Now back off, I say! I do not know where they went. Deliberately so. I don’t even know in which direction they went. Now curb your tongue, Hart Olmstead. Curb it before this becomes a matter of honor and I call you out with pistol or blade.”
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