The Seekers (22 page)

In addition to the family’s everyday furniture and utensils, and curtained areas for sleeping, the rear half of the large cabin was crowded with goods for which Clapper had no room up front: boxes of slates and slate pencils, small kegs of gunpowder, cartons of foolscap paper—even a fresh shipment of books. Waiting for Clapper, Abraham browsed through them. He discovered three copies of a Kent and Son edition of
Pilgrim’s Progress.
The moralistic work was popular among the settlers who could read.

He held the book a few moments, staring at it, then replaced it in its box, wishing he could put memories of Boston aside as easily.

Having built his cabin within sight of the others that formed the settlement around the palisaded walls of Fort Hamilton, Daniel Clapper had allowed himself the luxury of window openings with shutters. Away from a settlement, windows were a disadvantage. They could let in marauders along with sunlight and fresh air.

Now the red-bearded storekeeper pushed open one pair of shutters next to the stone fireplace. Abraham drew a deep breath between gulps of whiskey. The blazing logs in the hearth made the room stifling.

Clapper seemed to sense something important on Abraham’s mind. His forehead furrowed as he watched his guest drink. Abraham didn’t say anything. Clapper gazed outside again as a squad of mounted soldiers clattered toward the fort.

In the distance the horizon glowed orange. The light came from torches around the camp meeting tent. The weeklong event was being conducted by a Bible-brandishing Methodist evangelist who’d ridden up from the state of Kentucky. People had driven rigs or come on horseback from as far away as thirty or forty miles, just to attend tonight’s final meeting. Abraham could hear the shouts of praise and joy as the crowd replied to the evangelist’s exhortations.

Clapper’s wife Rachel and his daughter Danetta, as well as Daniel Junior and his young lady, were attending the four-hour service that combined hymn singing, hell-fire preaching, public confession of sin and the evangelist’s promise of salvation.
Maybe I should be there,
Abraham thought, pouring one more drink—

Clapper stayed his hand. “Listen, I been waitin’ ten minutes! Speak your piece!”

“I need to ask your advice.”

“Ask away.”

“The reason is—I’m going to give up the farm.”

With a sigh, Clapper ambled to the table. He poured a little whiskey for himself, then combed fingers through his long red beard.

“Figured it might be comin’ to that. Of late you been lookin’ mighty spiritless.”

“It’s Elizabeth I’m worried about. She—well—she’s been acting strange.”

“Expect you want to talk about it. Else you wouldn’t bring it up, am I right?”

Slumping in his chair, Abraham nodded. He poured out the story, finishing, “She was hunting for the baby she lost on the Ohio, not Jared.”

“Yep, I caught that drift.”

Abraham peered into his cup. “I don’t even know whether it was a boy or a girl.”

“Don’t know myself. If Miz Edna knows, she’s never said—and I ain’t asked. I
do
know what she’ll discuss and what she won’t. Women things is on the won’t list.”

“I don’t suppose a doctor could explain what’s wrong with Elizabeth. Something in her mind, maybe. Her father was supposedly half crazy.”

“Never heard that before.”

“It’s true.”

“I told you once I thought she was a mite frail—”

“I remember.”

“Why’d she ever agree to come out here?”

“Oh, a lot of reasons. I went along with them. Obviously we both made a mistake.”

He filled his cup again, ignoring Clapper’s frown.

“The point is,” he said, “I’ve got to remedy the mistake before things get worse.”

“So you’re puttin’ the farm up for sale.”

“I think I should be able to get rid of it, don’t you?”

“Lord yes! On my last trip south, the Ohia was blamed near solid with boats.”

Abraham grimaced. “We’re already being passed by—I saw that for myself when I went with you to Cincinnati.”

“Don’t get to thinkin’ it’s
too
civilized around here,” Clapper cautioned. “The Shawnee, they’re still burnin’ farms and stirrin’ up trouble. I musta seen a dozen of ’em when I was out peddlin’ the first of the week. They been a lot more active ever since ol’ Tecumseh’s brother set up his town on the Wabash. Soldiers at the fort say Tecumseh an’ the Prophet are preachin’ some sort of wild scheme to pull all the tribes together, from New York State clear down into the Creek Nations.”

“Why?”

“To push out the white people that took Injun land, why else?”

“The tribes signed a treaty with Wayne—”

“Not that Tecumseh. ’Cording to what you told me, he never set foot in the door at Greenville.”

“That’s true. We’re off the subject. I’m going to sell the farm, but I don’t know the next step. I hate like hell to crawl back to Boston and tell my father I failed.”

“This father of yours—the one what printed the Bunyan book in the box yonder—he a pretty strong-minded soul, is he?”

“A banker friend of his once said my father could make Satan look indecisive.”

“Sounds like an all-right sort. You an’ Elizabeth
could
go back an’ see him if things really got bad, couldn’t you?”

“I’d rather not. I was hoping maybe I could find a way to make a living here in the settlement. Elizabeth might be more comfortable with more people around.”

Quietly, Clapper asked, “Did the two o’ you ever sit yourselves down and decide what it is you want?”

Abraham shook his head. “Pointless. We don’t know. I’ve come to believe what you told me on the ark, Daniel—that most people who chase after some vague hope are only running away from problems.”

“Absolutely right! Mebbe I got one answer for you, though—”

Abraham noticed a peculiar glint in Clapper’s eyes. The storekeeper fingered his beard a while before he continued.

“The urge is on me again, Abraham. I want to pick up an’ head out. Injuns or no, this part o’ the country’s gettin’ crowded. Ten years ago there wasn’t more’n three or four thousand souls settled north o’ the river. Now I hear there’s ten times that many. People are sayin’ there’ll soon be enough folks in the territory to make Ohia state number seventeen. I need elbow room, Abraham! Next spring, I’m goin’!”

“Does your family know?”

“Miz Edna’s been watchin’ me mighty close lately. She can feel it comin’. You’re the first to hear, though.”

Abraham thought a minute. “Are you suggesting maybe I could take over the store?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t know as I’d be any better running a place like this than I am at running a farm, Daniel.”

“Hell, it’s easy! Everythin’ practically falls off the shelves—”

“Except that china I traded to you.”

“Well, that’s fancy stuff. The necessary things sell themselves—an’ like you say, Miz Elizabeth might be easier in her mind livin’ closer to the fort. Havin’ womenfolk to visit with regular—”

Abraham did see how the plan could work. With a little more animation, he said, “If the pattern of the last couple of years holds next year too, there’ll be new families arriving in the spring. I could sell the farm to one of them, buy you out and pay you every penny I owe you—”

“I’ll only sell you the building an’ half my goods. I’ll need some stocks to set up when I get where I’m headed.”

“Got any idea where that is?”

Clapper grinned. “Nope. I’ll light there same way as I lighted here. But once I take a notion to go, I want to git—fast. So I won’t gouge you on the price, an’ it’ll be a fair deal all around.”

For the first time in weeks, Abraham laughed aloud. “By God I think I’ve found the answer, thanks to you.”

Now it was Clapper’s turn to stare into his whiskey cup. “Hope so.”

“You don’t think I have?”

The big storekeeper’s eyes locked on Abraham’s. “I don’t want to discourage you, boy. You need encouragement—”

“But you think we won’t find living here any easier than on the farm?”

“Easier, maybe. Not better. Even this far west, I see a mighty lot o’ people movin’ on, Abraham. Movin’ on for the fifth an’ sixth time—”

“I think Elizabeth can be happy here. I’ve got to believe that, Daniel. The only other choices are to go on west—and she’s not strong enough—or to head home to Boston—and I’m not ready to give up
that
completely. The settlement will make everything right—”

“Sure.” Clapper nodded. “Forget what I said.”

A hymn thundered by scores of voices drifted from the camp meeting. Clapper squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “What’s true for me ain’t necessarily true for you. Things’ll get a lot better if you move in here. Provided you don’t pickle your liver in the meantime—gimme that cup!”

“No, let’s have one more. To celebrate.”

Abraham poured whiskey to the brim, raised the cup.

“I give you Mr. Abraham Kent, merchant.”

Daniel Clapper raised his own cup but for some reason wouldn’t look Abraham squarely in the eye.

Elizabeth greeted Abraham’s plan with complete agreement and overwhelming enthusiasm. As winter approached, she began taking better care of herself. She watched Jared more attentively; Abraham was busy making frequent trips to the settlement mill. There he had his corn ground, retaining what the family would need during the cold months and selling off the rest.

There were no repetitions of the search for the lost child.

During January and February, Elizabeth kept busy cooking, mending, doing laundry—and teaching Jared how to recognize and pronounce part of the alphabet. Watching his mother print large block letters on a slate, the little boy seemed happier than ever before. He enjoyed trying to say the names of the letters correctly. Elizabeth, surprisingly patient, encouraged him. Before long he had progressed to the letter M.

At least once an evening, Elizabeth’s conversation returned to the forthcoming change in their lives. Abraham was glad. She was affectionate again. Amenable to lovemaking. Several times she clasped him with an ardor that reminded him of the first night she came secretly to his room.

According to the way Abraham figured it, new families should be starting up the Great Miami about the first of April, either to squat or to settle on ground whose deed they held. At the end of February he began thinking about the wording of a notice for the settlement’s public message board. He felt confident that if he could find some squatters with money, he could convince them that buying his prime bottomland was a better investment than occupying free land someone else might eventually claim. Most good river acreage in the district was already taken, and that was in his favor.

The first of April 1801 began to loom as a magic date: the end of their hardships, the start of a new, more rewarding life. Abraham consciously avoided thinking about Clapper’s dour philosophy. For Elizabeth’s sake, he couldn’t permit himself to believe that disillusionment always waited, no matter how far a man roamed, or where he settled.

Occasional traders working their way through the icebound forests brought trickles of news. Congress had at last convened in the district christened Columbia. There, the new capital city was rising, named in honor of the country’s first president.

The unwieldy electoral college system had turned January’s national election into a shambles. Jefferson and Aaron Burr deadlocked in a first-place tie with seventy-three votes each. John Adams, his popularity waning, ran third with sixty-five.

The tie vote threw the contest to the pro-Federalist House of Representatives. After thirty-six ballots and much behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Jefferson was named president in February, with Burr vice president. Whereupon, the traders said, certain devout Federalist ladies in New England buried their Bibles in their gardens, fearing secret agents of the “godless” chief executive would seize and burn them.

The results of the election reached the Great Miami in mid-March, just as the weather turned unusually warm and sunny. Elizabeth took to singing as she worked around the cabin. Abraham too was anticipating the day that symbolized a fresh start for the Kents. Six days before the month ended, the Indians came.

S
HE TOUCHED HIS ARM
in the chilly darkness. Her fingers closed, rousing him from the fog of sleep. He felt her homespun nightdress touching his forearm, heard the murmur of the March winds. He heard other sounds he didn’t recognize.

“Abraham—”

Her anxiety brought him upright, knuckling his eyes.

“What—?”

She covered his mouth with her other hand. “Be still and listen! There’s someone outside.”

His mind sorted out sounds: Jared breathing on the small bedstead he had built in the opposite corner, the low of the ox, the thump of a hoof on the side of a stall—perhaps that was Henrietta Knox.

Then, alert and alarmed, he made out a human voice, barely audible.

There was a louder thump, as of someone stumbling against a wall. Two voices overlapped one another; the second was angry.

The ox bellowed. Abraham wiped his upper lip.

“They’re out by the barn,” he said.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?”

“Not clearly. But I don’t think they’re white men.”

Elizabeth covered her face. “Oh God help us—”

“Sssh!”

As quietly as possible, he crawled out of bed. He struggled into his trousers. With the tail of his nightshirt still hanging out, he pulled on his boots. He guessed the time to be dawn. A thin line of light defined the edges of the cabin door.

His heart lubbed loudly in his inner ear. He crept toward his rifle propped against the wall, listening for the intruders. Either the men were being exceptionally quiet now or they were gone—

Another bellow from the ox told him his hope was false. His throat felt parched. He returned to Elizabeth, knelt and whispered, “Whatever you do, don’t wake the boy. And stay inside with the door barred.”

He could just discern the white oval of her face as she leaned close. “You’re not going out there—?”

“Yes, I’d better. Maybe I can frighten them off.”