“Something must be wrong, Moses!” He jumped up again and Moses grabbed him again. “Turn me loose.”
“If something was wrong, Jamie, my woman would have yelled for us. Just settle down. This could take some time.”
“But Kate is suffering!”
“We’s all born into pain with love, boy. That’s the way life begins. Kate probably ain’t doin’ no more sufferin’ than any other birthin’ woman. Maybe less than a lot of ’em. Just settle back down.”
“I feel like I should be doing something.”
“Kate’s doin’ it for the both of you, boy.”
It seemed like hours, but Kate actually had a quick and relatively easy birth. When Jamie and Moses were finally allowed into the cabin to see Kate and the twins, the babies had been cleaned up and wrapped in soft warm cloth, and Kate was lying on the bed in a clean gown. Liza had washed her face and helped with her hair. But Kate looked tired.
“We have a son and a daughter, Jamie.” Jamie was amazed at how strong her voice sounded. “Get the Bible.”
Jamie fetched the Bible and quill and well. He entered the date of birth and looked up when it came to names. “Just like we discussed, Jamie,” Kate said.
Jamie wrote: Jamie Ian and Ellen Kathleen. Born in the wilderness of Big Thicket, Texas. He looked up as Liza placed the babies beside Kate and shooed Moses outside before Kate began nursing them. “You still want eight kids, Kate?”
“More than ever. I want this name of MacCallister to ring clear all over the land.” She smiled. “But we’ll wait awhile before we start working on that again.”
Jamie looked at the twins. “Amazing,” he said.
* * *
Jamie, Kate, and the twins sat snug in their cabin during the winter. It was amazingly mild, when compared to the winters the young couple had known in their past. Jamie was over at Moses’s every day, weather permitting, helping him build a new cabin. He was putting off going to the trading post down south, and Kate was beginning to give him looks that told him he would have to go, and do it quickly.
The weather began turning warmer and Jamie knew he’d have to make the trip for seed — it would be planting time soon — and the trip was necessary for the many things that Kate had listed. He saddled up one of the fine horses left behind by the movers over by the river in Arkansas, and cinched the pack frames on two pack horses. The big black, Lightning, was too recognizable, and Hart Olmstead might have signed arrest warrants against Jamie, describing the horse he rode.
“I still think I should go with you, Jamie,” Moses said for the umpteenth time.
“No. It’s too risky.”
“Young man,” Moses said. “I could go as your slave. Think about it.”
“No.” Jamie put cool eyes on him. “Moses? Have you ever killed a man?”
“No.”
“I have. Several of them. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. Can you truthfully say that?”
“I would kill if my life were threatened,” the runaway slave said. “Or the lives of my family.”
“Of course, you would. But that’s not what I mean and you know it.”
Moses sighed and nodded his head. “All right, young Jamie. All right. Which post do you travel?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind. But I think I’m going south. To that trading post north of Pirate City . . . or whatever it’s called now.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Now.”
Jamie kissed Kate and the babies, shook hands with Moses, and pulled out, once more riding into the unknown — alone. He carried two pistols in his waistband, two more in holsters on his saddle, his rifle was at hand, the short-barreled carbine saddle-booted. The trip down was, for the most part, uneventful. Twice he took to cover to avoid groups of mounted men. One of the groups was all dressed up in fancy uniforms, with banners on long poles flapping as they rode. Jamie did not know who they were, and was not that interested in finding out. The other group was a rough-dressed bunch that looked like trouble. Jamie kept to his cover until they were well out of sight.
As he drew nearer to the settlement, he began to see more signs of people, and there was no way he could avoid being seen. But his caution was needless. The people he encountered were all friendly, many of them speaking in a strange language... a beautiful language that seemed to flow from their mouths. Jamie had discovered while a Shawnee prisoner that he had a gift for languages. But he knew he had no time for lessons on this trip.
The settlement was a few buildings, and that was all. But the post was large, and Jamie swung down from the saddle by the side of the building. He saw to his horses and then entered the trading post. A familiar smell struck him, the mixture of odors taking him back to Caney’s General Store, hundreds of miles away to the north and east. Leather and tobacco and foodstuffs assailed his nostrils as he stepped into the post. One end served as the bar, and half a dozen men lounged there. All turned to look at the tall young man who walked like a big cat.
“Set your rifle over here, son,” a man behind the counter said. “You won’t need it in here.”
“I’ll carry it,” Jamie told him.
“Suit yourself.”
“Boy must be a-skirred,” a man at the bar said. “Maybe his mamma just cut him a-loose from her dress-tail.”
His companions thought that was very funny. The man behind the counter did not. There was something about this tall young man that spelled trouble with a capital T.
Jamie contained the flare of wildness that leaped up strong within him and turned to the counterman, handing him a list. “Would you please fill this?”
“Be glad to. Say! This is quite a list.”
“I live a long way off. Don’t figure on getting here more than once a year.”
“Ain’t he polite, now?” one of the rough dressed men at the bar said. He put one hand on his hip and mimicked, “Please!”
The counterman watched Jamie’s eyes narrow and his features grow taut. And he watched the young man’s inner struggle to maintain control. At first he had guessed Jamie’s age to be twenty-four or five. Now he revised that, figuring the lad to be no more than twenty-one.
Jamie was in his sixteenth year.
“Which direction you come from, Slim?” the same loudmouth asked.
“South,” Jamie replied shortly.
“South? Hell, I just heared you say you come a-far. You didn’t come far from the south.”
“Me and my horses swam over from China.”
The counterman and several others in the large store, none of them associated with the thugs at the bar, had a good laugh at that. One of those who saw the humor in it was a well-dressed man of middle age. He had been quietly giving the tall young frontiersman a careful inspection and liked what he saw.
The loudmouth flushed under his tanned and dirty face. “Yeah? Well, I don’t think that’s a damn bit funny.”
Jamie turned slowly and the counterman and the well-dressed man both watched him. There was something in the way that he moved that made both of them think of a big panther, or a huge, stalking timber wolf.
Both men watched the young man once more control his temper. But both knew it was being done with an effort.
“I don’t really care what you think,” Jamie said evenly. “And where I came from is none of your business, now, is it?”
The lout stiffened in anger. “I just might decide to make it my business.”
“That is your choice,” Jamie replied.
“Bradford,” the counterman warned. “I’ve told you before, I’ll not have trouble in my place. Now, by the Lord, back off, man.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Smith,” Bradford said, his back stiff with anger. “This kid is makin’ light of me, and I’ll have my due respects from him ’fore I’m through.”
“I have a thought that you might get more than you bargained for here, Bradford,” the well-dressed man said, his words soft.
Bradford turned
to him. “Nor do I need advice from the likes of you, Fontaine. When I want advice from a damn Injun lover, I’ll ask for it.”
The well-dressed man did not take offense. Instead, he merely smiled. “Bradford, I think before this moment passes, you will never need advice from anyone again.”
Bradford blinked, the message in those words going right by him. He shook his head and turned back to Jamie, who had turned his back to him and was shopping for something for Kate.
“Boy!” Bradford’s tone was sharp. “You do not turn your ass to me.”
Bradford did not see the tight smile briefly pass Jamie’s lips. The lout had no way of seeing into Jamie’s soul; of being a witness to the cold savage wildness welling up within him. The ruffian had no way of knowing how close he stood to death. Jamie turned, ever so slowly and faced the man. His blue eyes blazed with fury.
Jamie said, “Sir, I do not know who you are, nor do I care. But you are pushing me. And I do not like to be pushed. I beg you to leave me alone. I will say no more on the matter.”
He once more turned to look at a glass case containing women’s brooches and other foofaraws that women liked so much. Jamie heard boots thud against the floor and watched in the reflection from the glass as the angry man rushed toward him. Just as he could smell the whiskey on the man’s breath and the smell of his unwashed body, just as he watched the man reach for him, Jamie drove the butt of his rifle into the man’s stomach. The air whooshed out of the man and he doubled over, dropping to his knees on the floor. Jamie returned his gaze to the assortment of jewelry.
Fontaine smiled. He had been right in his assessment of the lad. This young man was one calm and collected person to be so young.
Bradford struggled to his feet, one hand holding his bruised belly. The hand hovered near the butt of a pistol jammed behind his wide belt.
“Don’t,” Jamie warned him, his tone icy cold. “I wish no further trouble with you. Just leave me alone.”
Bradford looked about him. The others in the store, except for his few equally dirty and untidy friends at the plank bar, were frowning at him. Several of the men had their hands ready to jerk pistols in defense of the tall young man. The women in the store had taken cover behind counters.
“You put that rifle down and step outside,” Bradford threw down the challenge. “We’ll settle this man to man.”
“Fists or knives?” Jamie asked coolly.
Fontaine smiled and cut his eyes to Smith, standing behind the counter. Smith minutely nodded his head in silent agreement.
Bradford was taken aback by the coldness of the question.
“Watch him, young man,” a man called from the depths of the store. “He’s a bad one.”
“No,” Jamie said. “He just smells bad, that’s all.”
Bradford cried out and jumped at Jamie, one big fist swinging at Jamie’s head. Jamie caught the arm, one strong hand gripping the wrist and the other hand gripping the forearm, turned, and threw the angry thug over his hip and shoulder. Bradford landed near the doors with a thud that shook the contents of the shelves.
Several men customers drew their pistols and faced Bradford’s friends. One of them held out his hands. “It’s his fight. We’ll not interfere. But Bradford was only funnin’ with the lad. There was no need for it to go this far.”
Jamie laid his rifle on the counter. “Keep an eye on that for me, please, sir. I shall be back in a moment.” Jamie stepped around the still addled Bradford and walked outside. He stood in the road, waiting.
“Bradford,” one of the men at the bar called, as the fallen thug was getting slowly to his boots. “Return to the bar and have a drink. Don’t pursue that lad. There’s something almighty queer about this.”
“Sound advice, Bradford,” Fontaine said. “Take it.”
“You go to hell!” Bradford said, and stormed out the open doors. He hit the covered porch on the run and threw himself at Jamie.
Jamie sidestepped and Bradford kissed the dirt of the road, landing on his belly and face and knocking the wind from himself. He crawled to his knees, spitting out dirt and fouling the air with his wild cursing.
The customers in the store all gathered on the porch, well-dressed gentlemen, buckskin-clad men, and ladies with parasols. Entertainment was where one found it in the young settlement.
“You’ll die for this!” Bradford said.
Jamie said nothing. He stood in the road and waited. Bradford rushed him, making the same mistake as before. Jamie tripped the man and sent him stumbling along like a drunkard. Bradford recovered only when a hitchrail stopped him. He caught his breath and turned around, finally learning his lesson. He raised his fists and advanced slowly toward Jamie.
When Bradford drew close, Jamie suddenly leaped at the man, both his moccasins striking the older man in the chest and knocking him to the ground. Jamie landed gracefully on his feet and waited.
No one noticed the lone dusty rider who had come in from the north and dismounted. He now stood watching the fight with undisguised interest.
Angry to his core, for he was known throughout as a rough and tumble fighter who rarely was bested, Bradford lost all sense of reason and charged Jamie, wanting to crush the life from the tall young man. Jamie stopped the man cold with a crashing right fist that pulped the man’s lips and sprayed blood. Jamie followed that with a left to the stomach and another right to Bradford’s jaw that rocked the man back. Jamie hammered at the lout with lefts and rights that smashed his nose, split the skin under his eyes, and knocked out several teeth. As Bradford stood nearly helpless, swaying in the road, Jamie struck him over the heart and Bradford’s face paled with the sometimes deadly blow. Jamie backheeled the man and sent him tumbling to the ground.
“No more, lad!” Fontaine called from the porch. “You’ll kill the man.”
Jamie turned, his blue eyes cold. “And that would be a loss to this community?”
“Nay, lad,” Smith called. “But the man is down now. He can’t get up.”
Jamie looked at the battered and bloody man lying in the dust of the street. Bradford was near unconsciousness. Jamie turned his back to him and walked to the porch and then into the store.
Smith turned to Bradford’s shocked friends. “Get him out of the street and see to him. And don’t return here until you can conduct yourselves with some degree of civility.” He followed Jamie into the store and set about filling the young man’s shopping list.
“The lad is a cool one,” Fontaine remarked, as he watched Bradford’s friends drag the man off to the shade of a tree.
“Aye,” a man agreed. “The kind we need in this country... when the time comes.”
“Curb your tongue,” Fontaine said, cutting his eyes all about him. “Words of Texas independence falling on the wrong ears means death in the night. I shall befriend this young man and sound him out.”
A few buildings away, the lone rider had slapped the dust from his clothing and was walking toward the huge general store. He carried two pistols behind his waistband. That in itself was not unusual, for most men carried at least one pistol and oftentimes several of them. It was the way this man carried them: the butt of each pistol facing forward and slanted toward the other, enabling the man to draw with either hand.
And the placement of the pistols did not escape the attention of Jamie as the man walked into the store. He had learned long ago to miss nothing. Jamie put some tobacco on the counter for Moses — the ex-slave made his own pipes — and watched as the pile of articles began to grow.
“You must really live a long way off, lad?” Smith said with a smile.
Jamie returned the smile. If he was a bit ruffled by the savage fight he’d just been in — savage for Bradford, not for him — he did not show it. Fact is, he wasn’t. “A very long way,” he said.
And Smith knew he was not about to get more out of the lad. But he did know by what Jamie was purchasing that he was buying for several women and babies. And for several men, judging by t
he clothing sizes.
Smith noticed the stranger edging closer to Jamie, pretending to be looking at goods. And he knew that Jamie was very aware of the man. The lad’s eyes had lost their friendliness and had taken on that cold frosty look once more.
“Quite a fight out there,” the stranger spoke from just behind Jamie. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“From my father and his friends,” Jamie replied. Not exactly a lie, for Tall Bull had adopted him.
“Queer way of fightin’. Don’t see many white men fight like that.”
“Whatever it takes to win.”
“You know a mite of Injun wrestlin,’ I’d say.”
“Could be.” Jamie tensed as the man moved closer.
The ladies had not reentered the store after the fight, choosing to be escorted back to their homes, and the place was empty except for Smith, who owned it, and Fontaine, who was one of Austin’s men and who, back when he was working openly for the U.S. government, had been one of those instrumental in persuading the pirate, Lafitte, to leave Galveztown, as it was then called, only a few years back.
Smith said, “Can I help you, Mister?”
“No. But Jamie here can.”
Jamie smiled. This did not come as a surprise; he knew he’d be found eventually, for Kate’s father was a vengeful man, and hate ran strong in him. And Caddo Indians had told Jamie that while visiting over across the river in Louisiana they’d heard that Jamie had a price on his head.
He lifted his eyes to Smith. “I’m no highwayman, sir. And I killed in self-defense. Killed one of the men who beat and raped a dear friend of mine. I suspect that my wife’s father has placed a bounty on my head for running off with his daughter. Is that not true, Mr. Whoever-You-Are?”
“You’re comin’ back to Kaintuck with me, Jamie Ian MacCallister,” the man said.
“I doubt it,” Jamie said calmly. Jamie’s right hand was hidden from the bounty hunter by his body and from Smith by the rough counter. Only Fontaine saw him slip the razor-sharp knife from the sheath. “How much is Olmstead paying you for this travesty of justice?”
“That ain’t none of your concern.”
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