'Probably not very much,' I agreed meekly, 'but I could try.'
'Stay out of it. I do not want you hurt.' Then he took the fun out of it by adding, 'Uncle Finian would never let me hear the last of it.'
There was a rustle of water about the bow, the low murmur of others' voices.
'Are you going into law like your Uncle Finian?'
He shrugged a shoulder. 'I haven't decided. I've thought of raising horses. I like the country life.'
'You will see some beautiful country in the next few days. Not the best of Kentucky, but some of it. If you wish to raise horses, there's no better place to go.'
'Maryland,' he objected, 'Maryland or Virginia. Who would wish to be out in this wilderness?'
'But it isn't wild anymore. Only in the mountains.'
He turned his back to the rail and rested his elbows on it so he could see what the others were doing. 'But some of the people even live in log cabins!' he protested.
'I live in one. I love it.'
He was astonished. ' You? In this day and age?'
'My grandfather built our cabin. It was the third one built on the spot or close to it. The first two were burned by Indians during the War of the Revolution.'
'A log cabin?In 1840 ?'
'It is warm and snug and we have a beautiful view of the mountains.'
He glanced at her face in the moonlight and the slight glow from the main cabin windows. Shewas pretty. But living in a log cabin? In these modern times?
'We have a log barn, too, and we churn our own butter, bake our own bread. Mostly we make do with what the land provides, barrin' a few things from the pack peddler, like needles an' such.'
'But don't you ever want to get away? Don't you think of leaving? Coming to the city?'
'Oh, yes! I've thought of it, and talked of it, too, with Regal. Only we Sacketts have lived in the mountains for quite a spell.
'You've got to wake up of a mornin' with the clouds lyin' low in the valleys between the mountains, the tops of the peaks like islands. You've got to see the mountains when the rhododendrons are all abloom, or the azaleas or mountain laurel. We don't have much in worldly goods, but we're rich in what the Lord provides.'
'Have your family always stayed in the mountains?'
'No, I reckon not. There was Jubal Sackett, a long, long time back. He taken off to the west, crossin' the Mississippi. He returned once, but when he left the second time, it was reckoned he'd never come back. Jubal had the Gift.'
'The 'Gift'?'
'Second sight. He often knew things before they happened.'
'I don't believe in that.'
'Some don't. I never had the Gift, but it runs in our family.'
'It's superstition.'
'I reckon so, but it has played a big part in our family story.' Glancing around, I whispered, 'They are going in.'
'But we shall have to wait. From the sketch you showed me, it must be some distance yet.'
'An hour or more, with the current.' I hesitated, then added, 'When the stage is lowered, we must go ashore at once, before anybody will think to watch.'
'We'd be better off to wait for Cincinnati,' he protested. 'We will be better off where there are people.'
No use telling him I wasn't used to people caring for me. Where I came from, a body took care of himself and did not look to other folks for protection or even help. If it came, and among mountain folks it often did, then you accepted it and returned the favor when you had the chance, only you did not look for it or expect it.
Once we got ashore along the Big Sandy, I could make myself mighty hard to find. Out there where the forest brushes the sky, that's my kind of country.
Something stirred in the shadows and I put my hand on his sleeve. Surprised, he looked down. I was standing very close, and I liked it. 'There's somebody there,' I whispered, 'near the ladder from the Texas deck.'
Maybe we had done all the wrong things, waiting out there until everybody else turned in. Being wishful of standing in the moonlight with him, I'd forgotten they might not wait for Cincinnati or anywhere. We were here, in the night and alone, and they were coming for us.
'I hope you can fight,' I whispered. 'We've got it to do.'
They were between us and the main cabin, which would be empty at this hour. We were closer to the steps leading down to the main deck, where cargo was stowed. Minute by minute we were drawing closer to the Big Sandy. There was no way we could get off now without them knowing, but I had an idea they just intended to kill us both and throw us into the river.
They came out of the shadows, and there were not three of them, but five. They moved toward us, moving in a sort of half circle. None of them looked familiar. Horst must have hired himself some thugs.
Dorian Chantry spoke, and I must say he was cool enough. 'Come, Miss Sackett, we must be going in. I promised the captain I would speak to him before I turned in.'
He took me by the elbow, but I withdrew it from his hand. Not that I did not like it, but I wanted my hands free for what was coming.
I'll give him this. He did not stand waiting for invitations. Suddenly they rushed, and he stepped to meet them. He struck hard with a left and a right, and the man he hit went down.
A big sweaty, smelly man grabbed at me. 'Now, little lady ...!'
Two of them were swinging on Dorian and time was a-wasting. As that big man grabbed at me, I slid that pistol from my reticule and eared back the hammer.
He heard the click and seemed to catch himself in mid-stride. I let the hammer fall, there was an explosion, and that big man taken a quick, staggering step back, then fell against the rail.
Somebody, somewhere up on the Texas yelled, 'What wasthat ?'
There was a sound of running feet, and almost at once the attack broke off and those men just scattered.
'Was that a shot?' Dorian grabbed my arm as I slid the pistol back into the reticule. 'Are you hurt?'
'Let's get away from here,' I said.
The steamer was nosing in to the bank and I could hear men down below getting the rigging away to lower the stage. Swiftly we went down the ladder. The man Dorian had hit was struggling to get up; the man I'd shot was just lying there. People were coming from the main cabin as we disappeared down the steps to the bow.
As the stage lowered into place, we ran ashore. A big deckhand called out, 'Hey? You folks! You can't go ashore here!'
By that time we were in the shadows of a shed, and I heard Dorian's friend Archie whisper, 'This way,quick !'
There was a landing, a shed, and a road leading back into the country. We got into the darkness under some big old trees and stopped there, catching our breath.
There was confusion on the landing. Cargo had been waiting and there had been some heavy boxes waiting to be off-loaded. I heard somebody call out that a man had been shot.
'Thug,' somebody else said. 'What's he doing on this deck? He's no passenger!'
'I think we had better move,' Archie whispered. 'The further we get, the better.'
Glancing back, I could see, in the light from the stage, a tall man wearing a planter's hat. He was looking off our way, although I knew he could not see us. It was Horst. There was a cluster of houses and barns, then a land that led away along the Big Sandy. As we moved away, the sounds from the Ohio receded. We stopped a couple of times to look and listen. Had we gotten away? I was not at all sure. Felix Horst was no fool, and he wanted the money I had.
Nobody had much to say, walking that muddy road up the Big Sandy, climbing a mite, passing a farm here or there. Dogs barked at us but nobody came to the doors, and it was graying sky before we fetched to a halt under a big old sycamore. One limb of it, big as the trunk itself, ran parallel to the ground and we sat on it, resting our feet.
'Maybe we could get horses,' Dorian suggested.
