How long it took them to discover what happened to us, I wouldn't try guessin', but I've an idea we were long gone before they figured it out. We taken off up the Levisa Fork and we made good time, but I was worried.
We weren't getting away that easy. They would be after us, and they could ride the river too. They would be coming and we'd be getting into wilder and wilder country. There were scattered towns along the Levisa Fork, but there were long, lonely stretches in between and had an idea they'd gone about as far as they wished.
What worried me even more was Felix Horst. Where was he? So far he'd kept from sight, but I was sure he was around, but bidin' his time.
Timothy Oats or Elmer might just take our money and run, but not Horst. He would leave us dead. He was that kind of man, and I didn't want to die, nor see Dorian Chantry laid out for burial. The thought gave me a twinge, and he saw it.
'Somebody step on your grave?' he asked.
'Not mine,' I said.
Well, he just looked at me, and when I looked over my shoulder at him again, he was dipping his paddle deep, his face serious.
When this was over, all over, I hoped there'd be time to talk, to just set by the river and talk, boy-girl talk. I blushed. Who was I to think such thoughts?
Chapter 16
The river was up but the current was slow and easy-like. We had us a start on those who followed, and we'd best take advantage of it. There was one thing workin' for us they wouldn't know. The further we went, the closer we got to Sackett country.
Dorian had laid aside his coat and was workin' in shirtsleeves. I will say for a city boy he had muscles a body wouldn't expect. Before the morning was over I spelled him on the paddle and got a glimpse of his hands. He hadn't said a word, but blisters were beginning to show. I suspect it had been a while since he'd been that long on a paddle.
The Levisa Fork curved around some, so we couldn't see very far, but I had an idea they were comin' up behind us.
The banks were forested right down to the water in most places, although here and there was a farm and sometimes cattle were down along the river. It was late afternoon before we turned into a little cove and went ashore to make coffee. I found some Jamestown weed and took some leaves from it.
'Put this on your hands,' I said. 'It will help.'
'Thanks,' he said, and glanced at the leaves curiously, then at me. But he used them, holding them in his hands.
We ate some bread and slices of meat brought from the tavern. 'This will be a killin' fight if they catch up,' I warned. 'Horst an' them won't be for travelin' any further. They figure they're in wild country now and whatever happens won't be brought home to them.'
Dorian said never a word, but I had an idea he was beginning to realize the seriousness of it. Archie, who had been up the creek and over the mountain a few times, he had no illusions.
'How far to the next town?' Dorian asked.
'Few miles. A place called Paintsville. We've been makin' pretty good time,' I added, 'maybe three miles to the hour or a mite less.'
We'd be goin' slower from now on, I suspected, with Dorian's hands blistered the way they were. My hands were used to hard work and I'd spent a sight of time in a canoe on the Holston, the French Broad, and the Tennessee at one time or another. My brother Ethan was a great one for the water, and he'd taken me along many a time when huntin' or fishin'. He had a taste for catfish. I said as much.
'They're in here,' Archie said. 'Given time, I could catch us a bait. You fix 'em proper an' there's nothin' better. Unless its yellow-jacket soup.'
'What?' Dorian looked around at him. 'Did you say yellow-jacketsoup ?'
'It's a Cherokee dish. Et it many a time when I was a boy.' He glanced at me. 'You must've had it too?'
'A time or two. We were friends to the Cherokee since the first Sackett moved into the far blue mountains. Half the youngsters I knew when I was knee-high were Cherokees. Although all the folks didn't find them so friendly. It was Cherokee and Shawnee who did for the Wiley family. Ever'body,' I added, 'knew the story of Jenny Wiley.'
'Who was she?' Dorian asked.
'Injuns attacked their station whilst all the menfolks were off huntin'. They killed Jenny's brother, and three of the youngsters were killed and scalped. They taken Jenny an' her baby prisoner, finally killed the baby by bashing its head against a tree because it cried too much. Jenny got away finally, and barely made it to safety, with Injuns right after her.' I gestured at the country around. 'It happened right up the creek from here near a place they called Harmon's Station. It's been gone a long time now.'
We paddled on, nobody talking much, and the shadows darkened the ground under the trees, and the tree trunks lost their shapes in the darkness.
Ahead of us a light showed, then another, and we saw a house and a man walkin' from the barn carryin a lantern. He went to the house and a door opened and he went in and the moment of light was gone. He would be settin' down to supper now, with no worries of trouble behind him, like us.
'All around here and back the way we've come was Lew Wetzel country. Jessie Hughes, he was mostly further east over in West Virginia. They were Injun fighters. Had folks killed by Injuns, and they declared a vendetta against them. Never let up. Wetzel, they say, let his hair grow long a-purpose to tantalize the Injuns with his scalp.
'They wanted his hair but they were scared of him, too. Some of them didn't believe him human.'
I taken up a paddle against to spell Archie. 'Village ahead.' He spoke softly. 'We'd better get some grub.'
A man was down by the river, watering a team. He looked up as we nosed in to the bank. 'You be travelin' late,' he commented.
'We're riding ahead of trouble,' I said, 'and wishful of avoidin' it.'
'Ma could put somethin' on.' He pointed toward the nearest light. 'I'm behindhand with cultivatin',' he explained. 'I was laid up with a fever.
'You go on up to the house. Ma will enjoy the comp'ny. She's a great one for comp'ny.' He turned his team away from the water. 'I can do without, m'self.'
A dog ran out, barking fiercely. 'Shep,' the man said, 'you be still. These are folks.'
A woman came to the door, a ladle-spoon in hand. 'Who is it, Jacob?'
'Strangers, Ma, right hungry ones. I said we'd put somethin' on.'
There was a basin on a bench by the door, and a roller towel. We washed up there, and Archie went down by the river again to listen into the night.
'They followin' close?' Jacob asked.
'We don't know, but they'll be along.' Archie looked at him. 'You be careful. They ain't kindly folks.'
'We never turned anybody away,' Jacob said.
'I'm not suggestin' it, just you be careful. These are mean folk.'
Jacob looked over at me.
'You know the Natchez Trace?' I asked. Of course he did, we all did. 'One of these men worked the trace like the Harpes an' Murrell. Only nobody ever caught him at it. The one time they did catch him over in the Settlements, he hired a good lawyer an' went free.'
'All right. You have you somethin'.' He turned to his wife. 'Ma? Fix them a bait of that hog meat. The roasted meat, somethin' they can carry off with them.'
He went to the barn with his horses and stripped the harness from them. I was standing tired in the night, and I knew the others were, too. When he set up to the table I could see weariness in their faces. If only we could lay up and rest!
I thought for a minute of takin' that new rifle-gun and layin' up on a bend of the creek with it. I could fix a man dead at two hundred yards with that. Maybe five hundred. But I was not wishful of killin'. Yet I remembered
