The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (36 page)

“We get her to Brose,” Dominic was saying in reply to something she’d missed. “Then you’ll see. He’ll keep his word and forget he ever saw us here.”

“ ’Cept it ain’t no good,” Seth retorted. “ ’Cause you gone and made it
as hot for us on the Watauga as it was in Virginy. We ought to be moving on, not helping Brose get his girl back.”

That jarred her into sharper focus. She made a noise of protest in her throat. She was not and never had been Ambrose Kincaid’s girl.

Dominic cast her a withering look. “Get used to the notion. Jesse’s gonna hang for murder.” He made a tsking sound, mocking her. “What sort of woman spurns a man like Kincaid for one that kills her ma and carries her off Overmountain?”

Even in her misery, Tamsen could tell Dominic Trimble didn’t believe a word of the accusation he’d just spoken. Nor did he care. He wanted to see Jesse come to harm.

Seth got to his feet and winced back into his wet coat. “Get the horses. We’ll have to pick our way from here, can’t take the trail.”

The shiver had become a shudder by the time she was hoisted back onto the horse, dripping wet and numb with cold.

Leaving the dogs and mules at the Trimbles’ cabin, Charlie Spencer backtracked the mile or so to Sycamore Shoals, with more coin to spend than he’d seen in many a season. The fellow in the trade store was happy to take some off his hands. He chose his supplies while thinking over the route he meant to follow come morning, up the Watauga. He only wished he felt better about what he’d be leaving behind.

He wasn’t easy about the latest turn the hunt for Miss Littlejohn had taken or that Kincaid knew nothing about it, having stayed in Jonesborough to do his asking ’round. Charlie didn’t know what Parrish told Kincaid to explain his setting out for Sycamore Shoals without him, but Charlie had been forced to agree with the man—those Trimbles knew more’n they’d let on about Miss Littlejohn. Following them to
Sycamore Shoals made a certain sense, never mind how badly Charlie wished it hadn’t when Parrish asked him to lead the way. He could hardly refuse, having admitted he was headed there directly. So off they’d gone, Parrish on horseback, Charlie leading his long-suffering pack train, the dogs happily roaming the trace’s borders, looking to scare up something to chase.

The Trimbles might’ve ridden hellbent out of Jonesborough, but they hadn’t gone far. They overtook the pair five miles out, camped off the trace behind a scrim of buttonbush. The two sprung up from their fire at Parrish’s call of greeting but eased seeing Kincaid wasn’t in their company.

Twilight was creeping in thick, but the clouds had parted to show stars. The Trimbles had shot themselves a turkey and seemed inclined to share the bounty. Parrish put his horse to graze, then he and Charlie and the dogs joined the brothers at their fire.

“See you parted ways with Mr. High-and-Mighty,” Dominic said once they’d settled down to eat.

Charlie, parceling out bits of turkey meat to the dogs, glanced at Parrish. He didn’t take offense on Kincaid’s behalf, though Charlie felt unease cinch his belly. The girl-dog, Nell, whined to him. A string of drool dropped from her lips. He tossed what remained of his turkey to her.

He hadn’t unloaded his mules right off but hobbled them near the horses in good grass. He hadn’t made up his mind about staying the night in that company.

“Seems he’s set on marrying your girl,” Dominic pressed. “Guess you agreed to the match, coming all this way together. I take it she didn’t?”

Parrish had been about to put meat in his mouth. He lowered it and stared with level brows at Trimble. “You would be mistaken in that assumption. The last words I heard out of her mouth were of an agreeable nature.”

The pair across the fire exchanged a glance, heavy with meaning.

“Well, then,” Dominic said after taking a swig from a flask. “What’s
the story about this kidnapping and murder business? Did Kincaid tell us everything? Who is it you think done the deed?”

Dominic kept his eyes on Parrish, who calmly tore off another bite of turkey from a leg, then nodded toward Charlie. “He’s the one you ought to ask, though I’ve a fair idea I had a run-in with the villain myself. I caught him menacing my stepdaughter in the stable the day prior to her disappearance. I never learned his name.”

“But you’ve seen him too?” Seth asked, looking across the flames at Charlie.

“West of Morganton,” Charlie admitted. “Miss Littlejohn in tow. They looked to’ve been travelin’ the night through. The girl never spoke a word—she was plain done in. The feller claimed they’d just been married.”

“A lie.” Parrish said it with such venom that both Trimbles raised their brows. He met their gazes square. “I think you both know it to be.”

Charlie mistrusted the mocking eyes of the sandy-haired Trimble. He’d a cunning look, that one. He caught Charlie’s gaze and the look vanished, washed out by a ready grin. “Can’t say as we do or don’t. We’re late coming into this tale. There’s a lot we ain’t got straight yet. Like what’s Kincaid doing now, hanging back in Jonesborough?”

“We figured he’d be the one hot on our trail,” Seth added.

They were hedging, unwilling to admit whatever they knew, or thought they knew. Charlie reckoned they wanted to get the girl to Kincaid so he’d keep his word and not haul them back to Virginia.

“He thought to stay on another day,” Parrish said. “Make further inquiries before he heads for Sycamore Shoals. He talked of gathering a posse. My guess is such won’t be necessary.”

The brothers shared another speaking look. Seth asked, “What’re you thinking, Dom? Ought we to ride on up—”

Dominic tossed his flask at his brother, who broke off to catch it—and his brother’s glare.

Parrish watched them close, a cat waiting to pounce.

Charlie let on like he hadn’t noticed. “Reckon I’ll see to the mules.”

When he rose, so did the dogs. He motioned them back and went into the dark beyond the firelight’s reach. He unloaded the mules, piled their burdens beneath a spreading oak tree, and started back to find himself a dry spot to sleep—could such be found—when he saw first one Trimble, then the other, rise from the fire and head in different directions, as if to answer nature’s call. Parrish watched them go, then went back to finishing off the turkey remains while the dogs looked on, hoping in vain.

Paused in the dark beneath the oak, Charlie heard Seth Trimble first, a faint crackle of movement through the brush. Trimble paused. Half a minute later, a second set of footsteps came out of the forest. Dominic had circled ’round to his brother. The two stood close, shadows in the starlight, too far off for Charlie to catch all their words, but scraps of their talk reached him. He dared not take a step lest even moccasins on wet leaves betray him.

“… meanin’ to steal her out from under Jesse’s nose? How?”

Charlie strained to hear an answer, but it was too low to catch. He glanced over to see Parrish tossing bones into the fire.

A breeze shifted, carrying its secrets.

“You know Jesse Bird didn’t murder no one, ’specially not a woman.”

“Her old man thinks it. That’s good enough odds on him gettin’ paid for what I know he did.”

Jesse Bird. Was that the man he’d seen in the mountains, leading Miss Littlejohn on his horse?

He shifted his weight. A stick snapped under his foot.

The voices hushed.

Charlie came walking out from under the oak. “Think I’ll be turning in,” he told the Trimbles.

The younger of the pair stepped across his path. “Name’s Spencer,
ain’t it? I reckon Brose won’t ever admit to it, but maybe you will. Did that girl y’all are after really get taken, or did she run?”

“Can’t say as I know for a fact,” Charlie admitted. “I’d reason enough to think she was kidnapped at the time. Why? You fellers know the man?”

That had ended the conversation quick.

They’d passed through Sycamore Shoals next day, with its old fort and shallow ford, and on to the Trimbles’ cabin. Around midday the pair rode off without a word.

Charlie waited a bit, wanting to see what would unfold, but Parrish was ill company at the best of times. Finally he’d gone for his supplies, back the mile or so to the trade store near the fort, taking one of the mules. It had come on to rain again while he was inside the store, and though it was already letting up as he headed back, the air had taken on a deeper chill. Likely it was snowing in the high passes. Charlie hoped it wouldn’t be more’n a dusting as yet. Fair weather or foul, he was heading out in the morning. Weren’t nothing going to persuade him otherwise.

The barking of his dogs greeted him as he came in sight of the Trimbles’ place—a clearing hacked out of forest, little more’n a lazy shack raised with a lean-to tacked on back, a clay chimney, a pole corral out back where the mules and Parrish’s horse grazed.

It was the Trimbles returning that had his dogs in a state. They hadn’t come by road, but over hill, leading their horses afoot. On the back of one rode a woman in a sorry state, looking ready to tumble from the saddle.

Face ghastly white. Eyes half-glazed. Dark hair straggled down. Clothes sopping wet.

Charlie’s chest constricted. First in shock. Second in outrage. Third in recognition.

Stopped in the yard with his mule nuzzling his shoulder, dogs rushing over to sniff him in greeting, Charlie felt like he’d come full circle, only the men who had Miss Littlejohn in custody now had bound and gagged her.

On second glance, Seth Trimble wasn’t looking well either. Both the brothers were rain soaked, but Seth’s face was clenched in pain, nigh as white as the girl’s.

All that suffering was nothing to match what Charlie saw as the cabin door opened and Hezekiah Parrish stepped out. The man stood, arms crossed, rage and satisfaction chasing across his glowering face. Miss Littlejohn’s head snapped up, swaying on its slender neck. Though she was gagged, Charlie read the terror that cleared her widened eyes at sight of her stepfather.

The man had nary a smile for her. No sign of pleasure. No question for the Trimbles as to where they’d found her. No cry of protest at the state in which they’d brung her in.

All Parrish said was, “Look at you. You’ve undone it all.” And to the Trimbles, “Bring her inside. Leave her bound.”

The sun was in the west when Jesse, rain-wet and wearied as his horse, crested the trail from the creek. The forest rose beyond the cabin, gray and piney green. No sound broke the stillness but the swollen creek, and the
cruck
of a raven in the dripping wood. He rode up to the dooryard, dismounting long enough to step inside.

The cabin looked as he’d last seen it. For the first time since leaving Thunder-Going’s village, relief took root in his mind.

He’d ridden hard for days. He ought to wash, change into a clean shirt, but he couldn’t wait. Eagerness propelled him back into the saddle, and he rode up the ridge to the Allards’.

“There’s no good way of saying this, Jesse.” Janet, not Tamsen, met him in the dogtrot between the cabins, features strained with worry. “She’s gone.”

His heart dropped clear to his heels before his mind could take in the words. The place was still, no sound of boys at play, no Bethany bustling about. Even the parakeets stared from their perches, voiceless. In the unnatural quiet, Jesse echoed, “Gone?”