The Seekers (56 page)

“Take my word, it’s better that we go on to New Orleans,” he said. “The worst part’s over. The warm weather’s coming. And the wagon men said General Jackson whipped the Red Sticks for good a month or so ago. The trace from Nashville should be safe to travel—”

“We
could
stop,” she said quietly. “We could if you didn’t hate everything so much—”

“We’re going on.” His tone carried a note of finality, warning her to say no more.

She sighed again. “All right I know better than to talk to you when you’re sick.”

“Damn it, I’m not—”

“Jared, be quiet and cover up.”

She pulled up the thin blanket given them by the Konigsbergs in Pennsylvania. Then she changed her position so that he could lean against her shoulder. She started to stroke his forehead. Spent and dizzy, he didn’t protest—

Unquestionably, the fever was back, brought on by continued exposure to the elements, and poor food. Their diet lately had consisted of creek water, wild berries, and occasional corn filched from the cribs of isolated homesteads.

Her hand moved slowly, comfortingly across his damp skin. “You know what I’m thinking about now?” she asked in a drowsy voice.

The fire seemed to afford very little warmth. His bones felt locked in ice, and his teeth clicked as he answered. “No.”

“Knob Creek. I could have stayed there the rest of my life. It was such a nice, warm cabin—”

“But too small for permanent boarders. We were lucky the Lincolns took us in as long as they did.”

Lost in her memory of bright lamps and kindness, she mused on, sounding almost happy. “I could have gone to blab school with Sarah—it would have been such fun, being in a schoolroom where everyone reads their lessons out loud at the same time. I could have taught her little brother, too. Taught him his letters—Abraham was fascinated with letters. Always trying to draw them on his slate with charcoal, or in the mud with a stick. He’ll be smart when he grows up, I think. For five years old, he was very quick—”

“He was,” Jared nodded, shuddering. The owl hooted again.

“He liked me. He kept asking me to write words for him. We could have stayed somehow—”

“No. I heard Lincoln and his wife talking about moving to Illinois or Indiana, where the soil’s better for crops.”

He did remember Tom Lincoln and his wife Nancy with fondness, though. They had been much more open and generous than the German farmer in Pennsylvania. For a moment he almost wished Amanda’s dream could have come true—

“I only hope New Orleans is as nice as you say, Jared.”

“It will be,” he murmured, not at all certain.

“I never want to be cold again. I never want to be hungry again. I’ve had enough.”

“Well, we finally agree on something. I have too. Now go to sleep.”

When Amanda closed her eyes and began to breathe regularly, Jared eased away from her. He didn’t want to move, but the fire needed more wood.

He covered her with the blanket. Circled the embers, stumbling once—the fever was rapidly growing worse. He was sweating heavily.

He shuffled into the darkness at the edge of the clearing. It seemed to take an eternity to gather a small quantity of loose brush. As he worked, he glanced occasionally at the stars visible through the treetops.

He hadn’t learned the geography of the heavens well enough to use it to judge direction with complete accuracy. He tried to recall the conversation of the teamsters coming across on the ferry further up the Cumberland. The men said the north-south stream near which they’d camped was a small river known as Stone’s. It emptied into the Cumberland. A few miles west of the point where the rivers met should be the town of Nashville.

There, Jared hoped to find a place where they could rest out of the weather for a day or two.

He’d also have to find some chores to do again. He almost smiled, thinking of Amanda’s insistence that she hire herself out. Lord, how she’d changed in only a couple of months!

Once supplied with food, they’d head south along the trace, the Chickasaw Road, that would take them nearer New Orleans. And by summertime, there might be an end to the weariness and hunger and pain—

He dumped a last armload of green sticks on the fire and coughed as smoke clouded up. God, how he ached! His face was wet with perspiration—

He mustn’t weaken now. They had survived the winter, and he was thin and hard because of it. He didn’t know how many miles they’d traveled since leaving Boston, but it must be an incredible number. What seemed ironic was the possibility that something entirely uncontrollable might defeat them. Not the danger of animal predators. Not unscrupulous humans, either, but sickness. The sickness that had gripped him intermittently since late February, and threatened to reduce him to helplessness again—

He stumbled a second time as he returned to his cousin. He lay down beside her and tugged part of the blanket over his legs. The back of his head rested on the hard ground. He stared at the stars. They blurred and changed position too quickly as the fever mounted—

He opened his eyes. Felt the brush of the May wind on his face. Saw, as if through gauze, the high, budded limbs of trees against the rosy sky.

Dawn.

He heard the soft rush of Stone’s River. And another sound, totally unexpected—

The stamp of a horse.

He lay still, trying to clear his throbbing head. Where was his pistol—?

In his canvas bag. But his knife—

He felt its reassuring hardness at his belt.

Only then did he lift the blanket so as not to disturb Amanda. He rolled on his side, scrambled up—

A lean man hunkered beyond what was left of the fire: a few red coals glowing amidst white ash. The man wore a filthy beaver hat with a hole in it. Behind him, a swaybacked gray horse fretted, tied to a low branch.

“Morning, boy. Trust you don’t mind sharing your fire with another traveler—?”

At the sound of the voice, Amanda stirred, sat up. Jared put his hand behind him, moved it back and forth, a wave of warning. He heard her quick intake of breath. She understood. She got to her feet, hid behind his back.

“Who are you?” Jared asked. “Where’d you come from?”

The man chuckled. “Why, I might ask both questions of you.”

He rose, dusted off his hands—big, hard-looking and bruised. As he turned slightly, faint eastern light pinked his face beneath the brim of his beaver hat.

Tufts of gray hair showed around the man’s ears. His linen and stock had a yellow cast—like the teeth he displayed in a smile that struck Jared as false. The man’s fingers hung nearly to his knees. His abnormally long arms looked powerful.

He extended his right hand in greeting. Jared didn’t offer to shake. “I want to know where you came from.”

Frowning, the man lowered his hand. His arm brushed the flap of a coat pocket aside. A small black-bound book stuck out of the pocket. A testament—?

The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Came up Stone’s from Nashville. I’m headed for a little place I own a few miles east of here. Left Nashville late, and without supper. So when I saw the fire—”

He shrugged. “I stopped to get warm, that’s all.”

The glow of dawn set small fires in the pupils of the man’s sunken eyes. Jared had grown through the winter. He was approaching six feet; but the stranger was taller. The man’s slumping shoulders tended to minimize his height but not his aura of, strength.

“Hardly expected to find two youngsters camped in these woods,” the man said. “You realize we’re all trespassing—”

Jared said, “I didn’t see any signs posted.”

The man swept his hand in a wide arc. “Belongs to the judge all the same. Oh, but I doubt he or any of his niggers will be out this far this early. We can eat breakfast in peace and go our respective ways.”

Just then Jared noticed two other odd things about the stranger. Bruises showed not only on his hands but on his throat. And part of his right earlobe was missing; a half-moon of tissue had somehow been torn away.

The man swept off his disreputable beaver. “My name is Blackthorn, Reverend William Blackthorn. Who do I have the pleasure—?”

“Never mind. Amanda, let’s get our things together.”

“You mean you’re not going to eat?” Blackthorn’s heavy brows hooked together. He gestured to the bags hanging on his saddled horse. “I’d be happy to split some of my biscuits and wild honey—”

“No, thanks. We’re going on to Nashville.”

Jared got busy folding up the blanket while Amanda peered at the stranger, her dark eyes sleepily curious. The man acted polite enough. But for no reason he could pin down, Jared didn’t like him.

The Reverend Blackthorn sniffed. “Traveling on an empty belly certainly isn’t good stewardship of the health the Almighty granted you, boy. Strikes me that you and your ladyfriend—”

“My sister,” Jared snapped, angered by the lingering emphasis the Reverend put on the last word.

“Is that a fact?” Blackthorn ran a palm down the side of his patched trousers. “You’re fair and she’s dark—and you’re shoots off the same tree? Wondrous are the ways of God. Eh, boy?”

The sunken eyes—greenish, Jared noticed—seemed to stray past him again. He stepped to Amanda’s side. He wondered whether the Reverend actually deserved his title. The bruises, that bitten place on his earlobe—those hardly seemed appropriate for a man of the gospel.

Blackthorn scratched his groin. “How old are you, girl? Fourteen?”

“You’re way off,” Jared said, stuffing the blanket into the canvas bag. He had trouble speaking; the fever thickened his tongue and made his teeth click.

“Am I, now? Remarkable! I’d have sworn she was a young woman—”

Blackthorn’s eyes flicked back to Jared. “It’s strange indeed to find two persons your age abroad in the Tennessee wilderness. Run away from home, did you? Or maybe you’re indentured people? Give the slip to your masters?”

“None of your affair, Reverend.”

“Here, now!” Blackthorn’s voice roughened as he approached. “That’s no way to speak to a pilgrim who only seeks to share your fire—”

“We’re leaving. The fire’s yours.”

“You don’t look well, boy. Don’t sound it, either. Your teeth are knocking so loudly, I’m surprised it doesn’t wake the judge in his bed. Are you sick too, girl?”

Blackthorn reached around Jared, brushed his fingers across Amanda’s forehead. She retreated quickly. “Don’t you touch me!”

Jared’s hand dropped to the hilt of the Spanish knife. He made sure the man saw the move.

“Come!” Blackthorn exclaimed. “I meant no disrespect to your—ah—sister. I only intended to see to her health—in the manner of the man of Samaria.”

His eyes fastened on Jared’s, hostile despite the yellow smile. “I’d hardly say your behavior’s Christian, boy—”

“And you don’t act much like a preacher.”

Blackthorn rubbed his chin with one bruised hand. “I am. At the same time, I claim to be the best free-for-all fighter in half a dozen counties. I’ve had some setbacks in Nashville. Circumstances make it necessary for me to move on after a stop at my cabin for a few belongings. Traveling takes money if a man wants to sleep under a roof and partake of decent food. No doubt you have a little money—”

Dropping his pretense of cordiality, he extended his hand.

“Give me that canvas bag.”

Dizzy with fear and fever, Jared jerked out the knife.

He was totally unprepared for the astounding speed with which Blackthorn moved.

The man grabbed Jared’s arm with both hands, twisted. Jared’s fingers opened. The knife fell into the coals. Bobbing down, Blackthorn closed his big yellow teeth on the back of Jared’s hand.

Jared yelped. Blackthorn let go, stepped back, wiping his lips.

“All’s fair in free-for-all, boy. Now may I examine that bag?”

Jared launched himself with fists up. Blackthorn sidestepped, brought his knee up savagely. Pain erupted in Jared’s groin.

He tumbled into the ashes and embers, yelped again, rolled away. Amanda’s cry of terror sounded above the chatter of birds and the burble of the river.

On his back, Jared started to get up. Blackthorn dropped on Jared’s belly with both knees. The tall man’s face twisted with glee as he jabbed his thumbs into the outer corners of Jared’s eyes.

“I can pop ’em neat as grapes,” he breathed. “There’s several in Nashville who can testify to that—”

The thumbs dug deeper. Jared kicked, to no avail. Tried to tear at the massive wrists against his jaw. Futile—

The edge of a thumbnail scraped Jared’s left eyeball. Wildly, he hammered at the tall man’s forearms. He couldn’t dislodge the huge hands.

“Shame to blind someone so young,” Blackthorn panted. “Shame to rob you of the sights of God’s bountiful creation. But you’re not Christian—”

He wrenched his left knee over, drove it into Jared’s crotch a second time. Jared screamed.

Amanda leaped on Blackthorn, trying to claw his face.

“Goddamn you for a spiteful child!” Blackthorn roared, battering her with one fist. Amanda sprawled, the wind knocked out of her.

Jared jerked his head to escape the darting thumbs. Blackthorn pounded his nose twice. Already dazed, the boy watched the tall man and the rustling trees blur and distort—

Gasping, Blackthorn lurched to his feet. One huge boot lifted; Jared saw the hobnails on the bottom. Blackthorn stomped his stomach, leaving him retching and half conscious.

“Now I’ll have that peek in your bag.”

Amanda crawled toward her cousin, repeating his name. Jared locked his hands over his middle, thrashing from side to side. He
had
to get up—

He heard Blackthorn open the canvas bag, dump its meager contents: the pistol, the fob, the blanket, items of dirty clothing—

“Nothing!”

He flung the bag on the ground.

“You’ve not been Christian, either of you. I think I’ll repay that in kind before I ride on—”

He pointed down at Jared. The bruised hand seemed huge, the fingertip even bigger. “I’m glad I didn’t take your sight. I want you to watch what happens next. William Blackthorn’s fought boys and made ’em grow up right while they bled. Done the same thing for girls in a different way—”