That got Hart’s attention. He shuddered once and then took several deep breaths. He looked around him. All of Sam’s friends had gathered in the road, and all of them were heavily armed.
“You’ve all conspired against me,” Hart said. “Me and John Jackson both. You’ve all took sides with that damn savage MacCallister boy . . .”
“That’s a lie, Hart,” Abe Caney spoke up. “You brought all this on yourself by siding with Jackson, even after he and his boy did those terrible things to Hannah... a good woman if ever I saw one.”
“She was nothing but a damn Injun’s whore!” Hart flared.
“You better be glad the Swede ain’t here, Olmstead,” a farmer called out. “For he’d sure break your back for that.”
“Time’s a-wastin,’ Pa,” Hart’s oldest boy, Carl said. “If we’re going to pick up a trail, we’d best do it now.”
“Yeah, Pa,” Ernest Olmstead said. “These folks ain’t gonna tell us nothin’.”
“I got people out looking, boy,” Hart said. “We got to wait ’til this afternoon, ’til after John buries his own. It wouldn’t be proper to go off and leave a friend alone with his grief.” he turned to once more face Sam Montgomery. “I’ll find them, Sam. And when I kill that MacCallister bastard, I’ll scalp him and bring his yeller hair back to wave under your nose.”
“I hope you don’t find him, Hart,” Sam replied. “For if you do, you will find nothing but grief. The boy is highly intelligent and brave.”
Hart snorted and spat on the ground.
Sam said, “He didn’t force your daughter to accompany him, Hart. They’ve been in love since the first evening they laid eyes on one another, right over there in that yard. Let them be, Hart. Let them build a life together.”
“When it rains in Hell, Sam!” Hart screamed. “I’ll see them both dead. And that’s a promise.”
“Are you daft, man!” Farmer Mason shouted. “That’s your own flesh and blood you’re talkin’ about killin’.”
“It’s none of your affair!” Hart returned the shout. He whirled and mounted, galloping off, his sons and friends right behind him.
“Ride, Jamie and Kate. Ride like the wind, kids. And be happy.”
* * *
Jamie changed his mind about heading south and he and Kate rode straight west. After nights of hard riding, they stopped at a crossroads store named Pekin.
In a few more years, William Clark, brother to George Rogers Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, would establish a town here and name it after a Chickasaw Indian chief, Paduke. It would later be called Paducah.
“Where are we, Jamie?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know, Kate. But I smell the river.”
“What river?”
“The Mississippi.”
“I’m told that’s a fearsome river, Jamie. People say there are monsters in its muddy waters. Great scaly beasts called alligators.”
Jamie laughed at her serious expression. “We’re not going to swim it, Kate. I think there is a ferry that crosses over to a town called New Madrid. That’s in Missouri.”
“Sometimes the ferry runs,” a man called from the porch of the store. “If the ferry ain’t runnin’, they’s usually a boat to be hired that’ll take you ’crost.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kate said sweetly, as Jamie helped her down from her horse. “My brother and I have far to travel.”
Since they both had blue eyes and hair pretty much the same color, they had agreed to pose as brother and sister until they could find a minister and be married.
“Oh? Travelin’ far, are you?”
“Central Missouri,” Jamie lied. “Our parents live there.”
“These are perilous times for anyone, especially for young folks travelin’ alone,” the man said. “But I see you be armed right well, young feller, so’s I allow to how you’ll be all right. Come on inside, young lady. My old woman will see to your needs. You’re gonna have to see to your own hoss, son. I ain’t gettin’ clost to that big black. He’s got a wicked eye to him.”
“Yes, sir. And he will live up to his looks.”
“Thought so. Biter and a kicker, is he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“See to your own damn horse, then.” The man walked into the store.
Jamie laughed and saw to the horse’s needs, then joined Kate inside the dim store. She was buying supplies. Several men lounged at a rough table, a jug of whiskey before them. They all looked longingly and lustfully at Kate, and hard at Jamie when he walked in.
As Jamie walked to the counter, one of the men laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh.
“The Newby brothers,” the lady behind the counter whispered. “Percy, Howard, and Dick. They’s eight of them, all told. They’re all bad. Ride on, lad, and watch behind you for a time.”
“What’re you whisperin’ about over there, you old hag?” one of the men yelled.
The man who had greeted Jamie and Kate looked nervously around him. “They’re liquored up and snake-mean, young feller,” he whispered. “I cain’t be held good for what they’ll do.”
“Old man,” one of the Newby brothers hollered. “I done tole you ’bout that damn whisperin.’ We don’t like it.”
“Sorry, Percy,” the man called.
“You there,” another brother called. “Gal with the gold hair. I ain’t seen you afore. What’s your name?”
Kate and Jamie had decided on trail names to help throw off Olmstead and Jackson. Jamie turned to face the loudmouth. “Tess,” he said.
“I ain’t talkin’ to you, boy.”
“You are now,” Jamie replied, a cold calmness to his voice.
One of the brothers laughed at the expression on his brother’s face. “I do believe, Dick, that there young feller tole you square, didn’t he?”
“Run!” the woman behind the counter hissed.
Dick Newby stood up. He was dirty, unshaven, and smelled bad. “You need to be larned some manners, boy.”
“Choose your purchases, Tess,” Jamie said, placing money on the counter.
“Boy’s got gold, Percy,” Dick said.
“Has he now?” the brother replied. “Where’d you get that there gold, boy?” he tossed the question to Jamie.
“That is none of your affair,” Jamie said, feeling the old wildness well up strong within him.
Percy stood up, standing beside his brother. “Mayhaps I think it is. Mayhaps I think a young couple like y’all might need bodyguards on the trail, seein’ as how you’re totin’ all that money. Travel ain’t safe these days.”
“So we’ve been told,” Jamie fought the wildness down. “Thank you for your concern. We’ll do nicely as we are.”
“My, but don’t he talk proper?” Howard Newby said. “He’s a regular little prince, ain’t he?”
A calmness took Jamie. He was familiar with it. But with the calmness came cold, a freezing wind that blew across the highlands of his ancestry. Hooded Druids, their faces hidden, began chanting, their voices all combined with the ancient and strong warrior sounds of Celts, Anglos, and Normans. It was a volatile and dangerous mixture, and Jamie would fight with it and for it all his life.
“I’m no prince, sir,” Jamie said, a tightness to his voice. “But what I am is a person who minds his own business and goes his own way in peace, if others will let me. Will you be so kind as to allow that courtesy?”
The Newby brother smiled, exposing a mouth full of yellow, rotting teeth. “No,” he said softly.
“Then state your intentions, sir.”
The brigand looked at Kate and licked his lips. He cut his eyes back to Jamie and smiled. “Lay your poke on the counter and walk out that door. Leave the girl.”
Kate hissed in fright and Jamie said, “Do you not be afraid, Tess. No harm will come to you.”
The third Newby brother stood up. “Old man, take your hag and go to the back. Close the door.”
The man and woman scurried to their living quarters and close
d the door. The sound of the door being barred chilled Kate. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Jamie seemed not to have noticed, his eyes never leaving the Newby brothers.
“Last chance, lad,” Percy said.
“The same might be said for you,” Jamie replied.
“He’s a game one, Percy,” Howard said with an ugly laugh. “Give him that.”
“Pick up your purchases, Tess,” Jamie said. “And step to the door.”
“You stay where you is, wench,” Percy said.
“Do what I say, Tess,” Jamie told her. “You do not take orders from this wretched hulk.”
Holding her purchases, Kate started for the door. Percy stepped around the table and started for her. Jamie shot him.
The double-shotted, heavy caliber balls struck the outlaw in chest and face, making a dreadful mess of the man’s head. Dick Newby grabbed for his pistol and Jamie jerked out his second pistol, cocked, and fired. One ball went wide and the other ball struck the brigand in the throat. He went down, making horrible gurgling sounds. Jamie leaped at the third Newby brother, clubbing him to the floor before he could free his pistol. Again and again, Jamie smashed the man’s face and head with the butt of his pistol, working with the rage of an ancient Viking berserker.
“Enough!” Kate screamed from the door. “He’s done, love.”
Jamie let the thug fall to the floor, his face and head streaming blood. The old couple threw open the door and ran from the rear and looked with a curious mixture of horror and satisfaction at the scene.
“Finish him, lad!” the old man shouted. “Kill him for sure or he and his kind will forever be on your trail.”
The old man grabbed up an axe and ran to the Newby brother. Before Jamie could stop him, he had brought the axe down on the unconscious man’s head.
“Now it’s done and good riddance,” the old man said, leaning the bloody axe against a table leg. “Run, lad. Take your sister and run. I’ll tell their brothers you was headin’ south for New Orleans. Go, boy. Now! Them other brothers could show up anytime.”
Several miles from the store, Jamie halted and dismounted. He knelt by the trail and retched up the contents of his stomach. He wiped his mouth and said, “I swear before the Almighty God, Kate, I just want some peace for us.”
Kate came to him and put her arms around him and held him close. “You did what you had to do, Jamie. They would have killed you and then passed me around like a common whore and then murdered me... or worse. You did the only thing you could do.”
He nodded his head. “There is terrible, furious wildness in me, Kate. I’ve had it all my life. When I’m angered, it’s like... like a freezing rain that blots out all else. I’m afraid of it, Kate. When it takes control it’s all-consuming in me. I have no fear of those who challenge me. And that’s not a normal thing. Now I know why my father rarely spoke of his father. I’m like him, Kate. I’m like that man who rode west and lived in the mountains... maybe he still lives there. Maybe he’s more savage than white. I don’t know. But I have my grandfather’s hot blood within me.”
“Perhaps that isn’t a bad thing, Jamie. We’re heading into a savage land where it will take that wildness to survive. You have to look at it that way.”
“Did you see me back there, Kate? The pistols actually seemed to be a part of my arm and hand. I don’t even remember jerking and firing. It was... it was... a natural thing to do. Three men are dead, Kate. Two at my hand. And if you had not screamed, I would have surely killed that third man.”
She did not know how to respond to that, so she said nothing.
After a moment, Jamie said, “If the remaining brothers are as bad as those we saw back there, they’ll torture the truth out of that old man and woman.”
“They wouldn’t!”
“Oh, yes, they would. And they will. And I’ve seen brave warriors break under pain. We’ve got to ride, Kate. And ride far.” He shook his head. “I’ve got you in an awful mess, Kate.”
She smiled and kissed him. “We got ourselves in the mess, Jamie. Us. Together. Just like we planned for months. Together. Forever.”
I just hope forever isn’t as short as the future looks right now, Jamie thought, helping Kate to her feet and giving her a hand up into the sidesaddle. ’Cause right now, it looks bleak.
Nine
Jamie and Kate had no choice but to head for the river crossing at New Madrid, for this was all new country to Jamie, and he didn’t know where else to cross. The river curved just north of the store, effectively trapping them in its upside-down U. He kept them as close to the river as possible, and they saw a few boats on the mighty river. Once they came upon a band of Chickasaw Indians, but they were friendly, and friendlier still when one of them recognized Jamie as Man Who Is Not Afraid.
“Tall Bull and Little Wolf hunt you, Man Who Is Not Afraid,” the Indian said. “They have sworn that you will die.”
“They don’t worry me as much as those white men behind us,” Jamie said, in tongue and in sign. “If you see them, stay away, for they are bad.”
“As are most white men,” the leader of the band said. “Even though you were taken by the hated Shawnee, you are a good white man. You learned the true ways and follow them.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You are good even though you are a white man,” he added. “Go in peace.”
A few more days and they found a boatman who would cross them, for a fee that Jamie felt was a bit high, and then they were in New Madrid. The town had been destroyed during the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, when the upheavals had been so tremendous the Mississippi River had actually run backward and the town they were seeing now had been forced to relocate several times.
Jamie found a boarding house and got a room for Kate, so she could bathe and change clothes, while the lady who ran the place kept an eagle eye on him. Then they found a minister who agreed to marry them and Jamie slipped the ring that Sarah had given him onto Kate’s finger and kissed her. They decided to ride on that day, rather than risk a night in the town, for Jamie was sure that the Newby Brothers were hard on their trail. They cut straight across Missouri, heading for the hills. That night they were truly joined and it was magic for both of them, as they made the sweetest of love under God’s canopy of diamonds set in velvet. They promised their undying love for each other.
They were both fourteen years old.
When the young couple reached a series of foothills, Jamie cut south, into Arkansas, still a few years away from being admitted into the Union. Behind them and still on the east side of the Mississippi River, Hart Olmstead and John Jackson and their sons were trying to pick up their trail. The country store where Jamie had encountered the Newby Brothers was nothing but charred ash. The surviving Newby Brothers had tortured the old man and woman until they told them that the young couple had planned to cross the river at New Madrid. The Newby Brothers then killed the man and woman and burned down the store.
On the banks of the east side of the river, the brothers cleaned up as best they could and then paid to cross the Mississippi. In New Madrid, they made a few polite inquiries and found that a young couple had been there a few days earlier and had been married. The last anyone saw of them they were heading west, toward Crowley’s Ridge.
The Newby brothers were riding westward five minutes later.
* * *
Jamie and Kate were near adults for their time, but really they were still kids, and this trip was a grand adventure for both of them. They were in a wilderness, where few white people lived and Indians still roamed. Here they would find a few Osage, but mostly Quapaw and Caddo. Jamie did not know if the Indians here were warlike or peaceful, and he wasn’t about to take any chances.
Jamie led them on game trails, staying away from what few roads there were, and being very careful to stop every so often and check for smoke. Jamie used his bow to hunt game, choosing the silent kill over the more accurate and long-range rifle, which might have attracted unwanted attention.
For day
s they rode south and slightly west, through heavily forested hills and valleys. They saw the smoke from cabins and a few settlements, but stayed clear of them. Their supplies ran out when they were a few miles north and west of the territorial capital, a place called Little Rock, which was once a Quapaw Indian settlement, then a trading post, founded by a French trapper named Bernard de la Harpe back in 1722.
Now the young couple had a hard decision to make.
“If we go into Little Rock,” Jamie said, “for sure we’ll attract attention, even though I’m told it’s a huge place, with maybe a thousand people there.”
“All together?” Kate asked.
“That’s what I was told. And I feel that those tracking us will go there to make inquiries. There are sure to be trading posts along the river, but going to one of them would be worse than the city.”
“I’ve never seen a thousand people all together,” Kate said wistfully. “The city must be filled with all sorts of grand shops.”
“Do you want to go there, Kate?”
“That’s up to you, Jamie. But we’ve got to have supplies; we’re out of everything.”
“And we’ve got to pick up a pack horse and a new tent,” Jamie said with a sigh. At times he felt like the weight of the world was on his strong young shoulders. “Well... it can’t be helped. We’ve got to go there, and we’ve got to outfit. We’ve got to stock up with powder and lead. Kate, when we leave the city, we’ll head straight west, into the Ouachitas. That Quapaw I talked to said we could lose our pursuers in there.” The friendly Quapaw had also told Jamie it was a dandy place for him to set up an ambush, and kill those tracking them, but Jamie didn’t tell Kate that. Although he certainly kept that thought in the back of his mind.
“Whatever you say, Jamie.”
Kate was tired and her face showed the strain of traveling through the wilderness. Having known nothing but brutally hard work since childhood, this venture was no more than a lark to Jamie. But he knew it was tough on Kate. Riding sidesaddle through the wilderness was awkward and uncomfortable.
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