The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (38 page)

“Jesse, wait,” Tate said, easing his grip on the trapper. “Hush a moment.”

Jesse heard it, the pound of hooves coming fast.

They were half in shadow between the smithy and the store, unnoticed as yet. Jesse looked behind him as a rider passed the gap between the buildings, headed for the Jonesborough road.

Dominic Trimble.

He eased up on Spencer’s neck. The man let out a gust of breath and choked out, “He’s gone for him. I got to tell—”

Jesse turned back, giving Spencer’s neck a shake. “They’re in on this, the Trimbles? Where is she? Here?”

Tate released the man. “I think he’s trying to tell you, Jesse. Take a breath and listen.”

He let go of Spencer’s neck. “Talk.”

Spencer did so, his hoarse words broken with coughing. “Parrish has her … mile or so off … Trimbles’ cabin. That one just rode past … he’s gone to Jonesborough for Kincaid.”

Jesse grabbed the man again, this time by the arms. “Have they hurt her?”

Spencer shook his head, but the words he next spilled demolished what little relief he’d offered. “Not bad, but it ain’t good neither. There was a scuffle. She shot the other Trimble. A graze, but he’s already taken fevered.”

Jesse stared, trying to take it in. “She
shot
Seth Trimble?”

“She did,” Spencer said. “But she was sopping wet when they brought her in, shivering like to rattle her teeth loose. Parrish has her locked in the lean-to.” The little man gazed up at Jesse, face twisting with remorse. “I’m sorrier than I can say I’d any part in her coming to this pass. I thought—”

“I know what you thought,” Jesse said through his teeth. “It was Parrish killed his wife. You been helping a murderer track down the one person who could tell what he did. You think he won’t do the same to her, if she defies him again?”

Spencer looked sick at his words. “I’d about got that worked out for myself. Best we three figure out how to make sure it don’t come to that.”

Was Spencer offering his aid, after weeks of working against them? Jesse let go of the man. “You said she’s bad off?”

Spencer bobbed his head. “They come down with her from the hills, through the rain and chill. I seen the like afore. I’ve
felt
the like. She’s been cold and wet for hours. Dominic said he hit her too.”

Jesse stifled a groan.

“She mightn’t last the night, Jesse, we don’t get to her quick,” Tate said.

“I was going for Kincaid, in Jonesborough,” Spencer said. “He’d never countenance treating her like this, whether or not he still means to marry her.”

To Jonesborough and back would have taken most of the night.

“You’d have been too late,” Jesse said under his breath. But it did put Dominic out of the reckoning for the time being. He looked at Tate. “We could bust straight through that door, take her by force.”

“The Trimbles got a lot to answer to me for,” Tate said. “Dominic’s the one I want, but I’m willing to go in fighting if that’s what you decide.”

“You’ll do it without me, then,” Spencer said. “Won’t have no part in killing. No sir.”

Jesse turned on the man, furious. “You been aiding a murderer for weeks!”

“Which I repent me of heartily,” Spencer retorted. “But it ain’t the same as doing the deed. Look—Seth Trimble might be in shape to fight ye, but I doubt it. Might just be Parrish to contend with here, so let’s try it my way first.”

“Your way?”

“Aye,” Spencer said. “Here’s what I’m thinking, if’n ye want my advice. There ain’t no outer door to the lean- to where they got her, but there’s a window slit, high up. Now, Parrish knows me. I can go right up to that cabin door, get his attention—loud-like—and hold it long enough for you
to find a way through that lean-to wall and pull Miss Littlejohn out. Simple as that.”

Simple as that. Jesse was about to lose all semblance of control. Every second wasted felt like a drop of blood from his veins. Simple as that.
Lord, let it be so
.

“How fast can those mules move?”

The only thing keeping her conscious now was terror. It certainly wasn’t hope. Charlie Spencer had gone. Dominic Trimble had gone. Seth’s voice had tapered off soon after his brother left. She’d seen how inflamed the wound she’d dealt him had become in the hours they’d trekked through the cold wet hills, making their cautious way to their cabin. How long had he been silent? How long had she cowered in the dark?

Her thoughts came thick as sorghum syrup—save for when she heard Mr. Parrish moving about in the cabin. Then her heart would lurch. She’d rouse, straining to listen. He told her she could stay there until she reconsidered her obstinacy. She knew what would happen if she didn’t. He’d leave her as she was, until she succumbed to cold or sickness. Or he’d do what he’d done to her mother, end her life by violence. Why had she left the Allards’? Why had she gone against Jesse’s warning to stay put? She’d had compelling reason. Something about murder.…? Murder … Jesse … Jesse accused of her mother’s murder! That’s what she’d been trying to rectify.

Wedged between barrels and crates, she huddled on the dirt floor, petticoat clinging, wet and muddied, cloak heavy on her shoulders, wool and rabbit fur soaked through. Now and then she struggled at the cords pinning her wrists but had no way of knowing whether she loosened them or drew them tighter. Her hands—feet too—might have been lumps of wood for all she could feel them.

Beyond the door, a kettle clanked against stone. Liquid poured. Longing for whatever hot thing that hateful man was drinking, she swayed, nearly toppling into a pile of sacking.

Her body’s jerking stirred her, helped her to focus. The cords around her wrists—she had to get free of them. Was there something, anything, in that tight space sharp enough to cut through rawhide?

First to get some feeling into her hands. All she could do at first was twitch her fingers, but a painful tingle soon indicated progress. When finally she could sense the touch of objects again, she hitched herself around, feeling among splintery crates and barrels. Her fingertips found metal. She knew the shape. An animal trap, the sort with serrated teeth. A broken one, the halves of its jaws lying in a heap.

It took an age to find an angle that worked, backed up against it, but at last she positioned her wrists over the teeth and began an awkward sawing at her bonds. Keeping the trap from shifting and clanking proved tricky. She ended up half sitting on it to keep it anchored. She’d lost her cap in the struggle by the creek. Long wet curls straggled down from their pins, tangled in her efforts to cut the rope. She tossed her head, trying to sweep her hair out of the way, but it clung to everything it touched.

Pain lanced her wrist. Something warm trickled down her palm, slicking her fingers. Blood.

Shudders wracked her. She clenched her teeth. Just as she’d repositioned herself for another try, shouting erupted, along with a pounding on the outer door. She stilled, dread and hope clutching her chest.
Jesse
. Oh, if only …

“Parrish? I know ye’re in there! Open up, else I aim to go on banging till cockcrow!”

It sounded like that trapper, Charlie Spencer. He’d been shocked when the Trimbles brought her in. Even through her stupor she’d registered that much. By now he ought to know what sort of man he’d been leading. What had he expected, that she’d be treated like a princess when they finally caught her?

Mr. Parrish growled something in reply to the banging and shouting, but Tamsen was no longer listening. She strained again at the cords,
reckless now, unheeding of noise. Urgency drove her. If she could just … get … free …

She felt the first of the bindings snap.

Charlie Spencer went on shouting, fists pummeling. Mr. Parrish argued through the door. Then she thought he’d opened the door because the banging stopped and the trapper’s voice grew suddenly clearer. He was fussing about payment for his services. Payment! While she was being treated like an animal.

She’d set to working on the bindings again when she heard another sound, separate from the two men shouting.

She froze, staring into the dark. Had she imagined …?

Her gaze lifted to the window slit, high up in the lean- to wall. It was only a few inches wide—invisible now with a clouded night fallen. Had the sound been from there? A scrabbling noise, like a varmint trying to get in.
Lord, not another squirrel …

“Tamsen?”

For a moment she didn’t believe her ears.

The whisper came again, urgent. “Tamsen!”

“Jesse.” Thirst and fear and hope knotted in her throat, choking her voice. She’d no idea if he’d heard her above the commotion Spencer was making.

A distraction
. That’s what the shouting was about. Spencer was covering up what Jesse was trying to do. And now she could hear hands pulling at the timbers around the window, breaking down the very wall to get to her. The wood in places had rotted. It was coming away by bits. She sawed at her bonds with renewed vigor, ignoring the pain.

The cords snapped. A new pain shot through her shoulders as her arms came around, free for the first time in hours. She rubbed at her limbs, willing strength and feeling into them, then tried to stand. She made it to her knees. The scrabbling at the window paused.

“Tamsen, can you hear me?”

She had to work the spit into her mouth to force sufficient sound. “Jesse … I love you.”

Silence. Then his voice again, warm as the sun pouring over her in its relief. “Thank God Almighty—I love you too.”

She heard him murmuring to someone out there with him, then the soft thud of his hatchet as he cut away a timber in the wall. It came away with a crack. They all stilled, waiting. Parrish and Spencer went on arguing.

“I’m getting you out of here, sweetheart,” Jesse hissed down at her. “Are you free to move about?”

“Yes. But … I’m cold. I can’t stand up.”

“What’s by you? Anything to help you stand? I need you to reach high as you can. I’m going to pull you through.”

She could do this. She had to do this. She didn’t know how he’d found Spencer, got him to help, why Jesse was even here at all, but she was going through that hole in the wall to him if it killed her.

She found a barrel and used it to push herself to standing. Leaning hard on it for support, she tried to curl her toes, move her ankles, anything to work the feeling back as she’d done her hands.

It wasn’t happening fast enough. Could she get up on the barrel and reach the window on her knees? It was tall, broad, a hogshead. She clambered onto it, hampered by her clinging garments, tempted to shed the cloak and leave it behind … but she’d need it in the cold … and it was raining again … misting on her face.

She saw movement at the opening. Jesse. He’d pushed himself through to his shoulders. He was reaching down to her.

“There you are. Take my hands. I’ll pull you up. Tate’s got the other end of me.”

On her knees, balanced precariously, she stretched as high as she could, felt the brush of his fingertips, then fell back, grasping the barrel’s lid to keep from tumbling to the dirt floor.

Jesse’s voice reached down to her again. “A bit farther. Come on now, I’m getting you out of here.”

She tried again. This time their fingers clasped. He groped for a better hold, strong hands clamping her wrists, stinging fresh cuts. As he pulled, she got her feet under her and stood, then was grateful for layers of wet clothing as, with a grunt of effort, he dragged her through the ragged hole he’d made and into the night, into his arms, onto the back of the horse he’d knelt on to reach the window slit. His beautiful, blanket-rumped horse.

Then they were moving, rain was falling cold, and the voices still shouting fell into the distance, until she no longer heard them at all.