Long Hunt (9781101559208) (16 page)

“You've been a great help, Nelly. I have a name, or possible name, to attach to her now. That will make it easier as I ask others about her.”

“So you're going to be looking further for her.”

“I have to. It's a hired job, and I agreed to take it on.”

“Where will you go from here?”

“On to the next town or station, I suppose. And ask the same questions. If she has been roaming about, and if there's somebody following her and asking after her, somebody will be able to tell me something.”

“Seems a daunting task, sir,” Nelly said.

“It is. Could be a long hunt. But I must do it.”

A
long the way over the next month, Fain presented to Potts, several times, the option of leaving. The quest for the yellow-haired woman was Fain's, not Potts's. The only reason Potts was involved at all was his own unselfish spirit and loyalty to his friend Titus and, by extension, to Titus's father. So Potts stayed on, having no better way to spend his time at the moment.

Besides, the advance payment Fain had received from Eben Bledsoe was providing Potts food he did not have to purchase or kill himself, and, on many nights, lodging in good inns, all in exchange for nothing more than his willingness to travel with, and stick with, Crawford Fain.

“Why were you looking for Titus, anyway?” Fain asked. “Last I'd heard of you, you were up at Sapling Grove at your grandfather's.”

“I'd gotten a letter from Titus,” Potts replied. “He'd sent it by messenger in care of my grandfather, before he left for the Cumberland with that friend of his. . . .”

“Micah Tate.”

“That's him. Anyhow, Titus had an idea he thought I might be interested in, and I was, so I came to talk to him about it. Truth is, I'd been looking for a reason to get away from Sapling Grove, anyway. I was growing a touch restless there.”

“What was Titus's idea?”

“He had come up with the thought of setting up an express rider service between the Watauga settlements and them in the vicinity of White's and Edohi's forts. Something that would operate regular, rider stations all along the way, a whole little troop of riders who would move parcels and letters and such pretty much all the time. He talked to some of the leaders of the settlements about it, and they thought it a good idea.”

Fain was nodding briskly. “It's a good idea indeed. But it ain't Titus's. It's mine.”

“He took credit for one of your ideas?”

Fain shrugged. “It don't really matter. He's my boy, and there's no jealousy. I'm glad he thought it was a good enough idea that he'd try to put some feet under it and make it run.”

“I'm ready to sign on, if it turns to something real.”

“It's going to happen sooner or later,” Fain said. “One of the things that makes life in the backcountry hard is just getting things from one place to another and back again. And the more people come in, the more an express will be needed.”

They traveled on, passing through Cumberland Gap and entering the Kentucky country. At the first settlement they reached, they found no news of Deborah Bledsoe Corey. They lodged one night and moved on.

At the next station the results were just as unpromising, but at Bryan's they discovered that the yellow-haired woman had been there, her marked eye had been noted, and someone at the settlement had heard her say she was going on to Harrodsburg. So on to Harrodsburg Fain and Potts went. There they picked up the surprising information that the woman had indicated she was heading back down again, intent on reaching Jonesborough in Franklin.

“Why is she following such a twisting pattern, turning back on herself like that?” Potts asked Fain.

“I think she may be trying to make her trail hard to follow. . . . Trying to shake somebody off.”

“Us, you mean?”

“Maybe, though I doubt she knows we're after her. More likely she's trying to shun the other follower, the one Talbott talked about.”

“Who do you reckon he is?”

“No way to know. A husband, maybe. Or somebody who wants to be a husband.”

“Maybe we'll encounter him since we're both on the same track. But let me ask you something. If she's trying to shake him or us or whoever off her trail, why is she telling folks at every stop where she's going next?”

“Again, Potts, I have no answer for you. Maybe she's just not thinking things through very clearly. Scared of something, or somebody, maybe.”

“We need to find this fellow who's tracking her.”

“I'd rather just find her,” Fain replied. “That's what I'm hired to do—and I would as soon avoid butting heads with some stranger if I don't have to.”

 

Titus Fain and Micah Tate reached Crockett Spring in late afternoon and almost inevitably made their way to Dill Talbott's inn. Once Titus's identity was realized, the Talbotts rushed to welcome them and tell them of the earlier visit of Potts and Fain.

“Glad to hear of it,” Titus said. “It was in hope of finding them that we came here.”

“You've come too late,” Dill said. “They moved on north into Kentucky to try to find the woman they're looking for.”

“Eben Bledsoe's missing daughter.”

“Yes. So you know about that?”

“We learned of it when we got back from the Cumberland River country to Fort Edohi. So we left there and followed Pap's path.”

“Who is this Potts fellow?” Micah asked. “I don't know him.”

“He's a friend of mine, about our age. Good woodsman, smart, pleasant fellow to be around.”

“Just like me, then.” Micah grinned.

“Uh . . . yep. Just what I was about to say.”

Dill laughed. “Young gentlemen, what fare can we serve you? We have an excellent stew available.”

That served the purpose nicely, and the two tired young frontiersman dined well. Dill refused any payment.

The next morning Titus and Micah departed, heading again along the route taken by Fain and Potts, hoping that, with any luck, they might find them.

 

The encounter came by pure chance, on the famed Wilderness Road. Fain's mind was drifting back to a hunt he'd made with Casper Mansker years before on a day when the breeze was cool and blustery as it was this day. Fain turned to speak to Potts, who was riding along at his side, when at the same moment Potts beamed and called out, “Titus!” his hand shooting up and waving broadly.

Fain followed Potts's gaze and saw, riding over a hump on the trail and coming back toward them, his son and Micah Tate. Both stopped and gaped, Fain gaping right back, Potts still gleefully waving.

After halting for a few moments to comprehend the situation, the two parties quickly closed the gap on the trail to give greeting. Hands were clasped, broad grins exchanged, and in the case of Potts and Micah, introductions made.

“Where are you heading?” Titus asked his father. “We'd heard from Dill Talbott that you'd headed into Kentucky on the trail of Eben Bledsoe's daughter.”

“You know about that, do you?”

“Houser told us about it at the fort. I was a mite surprised to hear you were hunting people instead of deer, for once. Not exactly what an old long hunter is known for.”

“No, and this hunt may turn out to be the longest kind of them all,” Fain said. “We managed to pick up track of this woman, who it seems is going now by the name of Deborah Corey. But she is following an odd route. We trailed her as far as Harrodsburg and discovered she'd turned back the way she'd come and was heading for Jonesborough.”

“Lord, have mercy. We could have made Jonesborough easy from Crockett Spring if we'd known all of this at the right time,” Micah said.

“Yes, but then we'd not have met up here,” Fain said. “Now, at least, we get the pleasure of traveling together.”

No inn that night. They made camp along the trail and stayed up far later than any of them had intended, talking and catching up on what had gone on over recent weeks.

The story of the massacre at the Deveraux cabin, the taking in of young Mary, and the tragic end of the “white Indian” Sisalee shook Fain, and it showed. Titus and Micah presumed Fain was impacted by the story simply because he had known and hunted with Sisalee, but Potts, having heard the conversation regarding Cecil Watson between Fain and the Talbotts, recognized who Sisalee was and understood the true delicacy of the subject to Fain.

“Pap, you look to be upset,” Titus said. “The old man said you and him had hunted together. You were good friends, were you?”

“I'd . . . I'd as soon not talk of it,” Fain replied.

He had little to say thereafter, and was the first to take to his bedroll that night.

 

In his bed at White's Fort, Eben Bledsoe stirred and mumbled as something sought to intrude itself into his sleep. Rolling over, he began to sink deeper into slumber again, but then came a repeat of the intrusion, which he was able this time to recognize as a persistent knocking on the door of his log-walled room. He sat up, leaning back on one hand and rubbing his face with the other, and stared at the dimly visible image of the door.

Another knock. “Eben?”

Now he was almost fully awake. He had recognized the voice, but having done so, was not at all sure he wanted to answer the door.

“Open up, Eben! We've got to talk.”

Eben rose from his bed, the straw of the tick making a loud rustle, dust stirring from the fabric, unseen in the dark room but detected by his nose. He let out a magnificent sneeze, then stood, rubbing his nose on the sleeve of his well-worn and dirty nightshirt. He went to the door and opened it.

“Hello, Abner,” he said to his brother, who waited outside with an eager look on his tropia-distorted visage. “Come in.”

Abner was halfway inside before the short invitation was complete.

Eben, so at a loss from this unlikely visit that he seriously wondered whether he was dreaming, waved his brother toward a nearby stool. Abner sat down, but without relaxation. He perched in a stiff posture, hands cupping his knees, fingers drumming audibly on kneecaps. It made Eben nervous just to hear it.

Eben fetched his flint-and-steel from the split-log mantel on the fireplace, and soon had a lamp burning. With the room lighted, Abner looked around with constantly moving eyes, which, being crossed, gave him a memorable but disconcerting aspect indeed.

“Why are you here, brother?” Eben asked.

“She's gone, Eben. Gone away and left me. And took every penny I had to my name.”

“Who are we talking of?”

“My woman, Eben. Who do you think?” Abner's voice was shaking suddenly, as if he might weep.

“Your woman . . . You're talking of Molly Reese?”

“Eben, you know she isn't really Molly Reese. I don't even know what her true name is. She's just a woman I met who, for her lack of a tongue and lack of any moral scruples about living out a falsehood, was willing to take on the role I needed played.”

“So you openly admit you're a fraud now.”

“Unlike you, brother. Unlike you, who never admits it. You know me, and there's no point in me putting on false airs with you. What you forget is that I know you, too.”

“Yes, but I have nothing to hide.”

Abner threw his head back and laughed.

Eben stood and paced back and forth in a small space. “Why are you here, Abner?”

“I told you. She took everything I had.”

“So you want me to give you money because your harlot left you empty.”

“What else would I want from you, Eben? Your respect?”

It was Eben's turn to laugh. “You will have neither money nor respect from me, Abner. You might as well leave.”

Abner closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. “Eben, why can't we be friends? We're brothers, yet you treat me like an enemy. We're both in the same work, serving the same big purpose.”

Eben wouldn't hear more. He shook his head firmly. “We are far from serving the same purpose, Abner. I believe in what I preach and teach. You do what you do for the sake of fame and gain.”

“How do you know what I truly believe, and what I'm truly trying to achieve? Have you seen the crowds my preaching draws, Eben? Have you seen the people who see their lives made better and brighter? Have you seen—”

Eben interrupted. “I've seen you put forth a woman professing to be someone she is not, and I've seen you live with that same woman in a state of fornication, all the while pretending to be a man of God. You are false, Abner.” He paused, then said, “It is just as well that your Molly Reese pretense can no longer be done. It could not have gone on much longer even had the woman not deserted you. Eventually it would have been noticed that the Reese narrative has been around too long for the ‘Molly Reese' of your camp meetings to be the actual woman. The real Molly Reese, if such a woman even exists or ever did, would be older than the woman who has now abandoned you.”

“How do you know her age, Eben? Have you attended my meetings?”

“I have observed them, hidden among the crowd. As a teacher of true religion, I find it worthwhile for me to acquaint myself with religion that is false, so that I may know my enemy. And as much as I regret it, you, my brother, are an enemy of the truth, and an enemy of me.”

“And what of you, Eben? You and I both know the kind of man you have been for years.”

“The past is past, Abner. And what God has forgiven, let no man bring up again. Especially one so false as you, yet unrepentant of it. My sins are past. Yours are ongoing and willingly embraced.”