Long Hunt (9781101559208) (18 page)

The outlaw Gilly had no idea where he was or any memory of how he came to be there. Only when his murky vision began to clear did he see anything familiar, that being the three faces gazing down at him: Harlow Jones, Bart Clemons, Nathan Sikes. Three longtime associates in crime. Fellow members of the gang that had until recently operated under the leadership of Jeremiah Littleton, until the need for flight and hiding had fragmented the group.

“Boys, have I been out?” Gilly asked, mumbling. His head hurt and he was very disconcerted. He sat up but felt too dizzy to come to his feet.

“You have been, Gilly. Bart had to clout you on the skull bone to calm you down. You was ready to kill us all, and I think you'd have tried.”

Gilly frowned, utterly confused. He was seated on the ground, back leaned against a tree. He didn't remember any argument or altercation, didn't remember even being with these men. Hard as speaking was, he said as much.

“Gilly, we run into you by chance,” said Jones. “It was plumb providential. We was riding in toward Watauga from over near White's Fort, wondering what had become of you and of Jeremiah, and lo and behold, we got over past Greene County and there you was, camping. You didn't act glad to see us, Gilly. You cussed and fought us and we had to knock you in the head, knock you cold. We need to talk to you about all that, and a few other things.”

“Before we hang you,” threw in Sikes.

“Hang me? By jingo, boys, what the hell you talking about?”

“Gilly, where is Littleton?”

“How would I know? Hell!”

Jones knelt before Gilly. “Gilly, there's a lot of rumors flying around about Jeremiah, and about you. All of us here know he was mighty angry with you over the murder you done during that robbery, and truth is we're all just as mad about that as he was. When you killed that man you made it all the more likely for all of us that we'll come to our ends on a gallows.”

“No more so than you would anyway, with all the robberies we've done. Hell, a man can get hanged for stealing a horse or robbing a coach!”

“But that horse thief will get hanged a lot quicker if he's also a murderer, or part of a gang of outlaws that has a murderer amongst them.”

“I killed that man because he killed my father a long time ago. I told Littleton that, too.”

“That don't help us none, not now nor when they haul us out to the hanging beam.”

“Wait,” said Sikes. “When did you tell that to Littleton?”

“What month is it now?”

“September. What? You don't know what month it is?”

“You clouted me on the head. You knocked the memory of it out of me.”

“When did you see Littleton?” Sikes asked again.

“Last month. Over by Fort Edohi.”

“Where is he now?”

Gilly hesitated, unsure what he should say. As someone who had vied with Littleton for leadership of this gang, he didn't mind these men learning that Littleton was dead in the bottom of a cliff-side pit, as Gilly believed he was. At the same time, Sikes and Clemons had both been quite loyal to Littleton, and he wasn't sure what might happen if they ascertained that Gilly had killed him.

“Where is he?” Sikes asked again, more forcefully.

“He's dead,” Gilly said. “He took a fall off that bluff near the big meadow at Fort Edohi and broke his neck. Fell into a big pit there, quite a drop. I tried to get him out, but he died before I could.”

“So Littleton is dead. Mighty handy accident to happen, and mighty big co . . . co . . .”

“Coincidence?” Clemons suggested for his companion.

“Mighty big coincidence, you just happening to be nearby when he fell.”

“I didn't just happen to be there. Littleton had called me to meet him on that hill, wanting to talk to me about the same thing we just talked about here. He wanted to know why I shot that man.”

“Littleton falling over that bluff didn't happen with any kind of help from you, did it?” Clemons asked.

“Not a bit of it. He just fell.”

“Know what, Gilly?” Jones said. “You saying that ain't a surprise to me. Fact is, we already knew about Jeremiah falling into that pit.”

“But nobody else was there but me and him. By jingo, boys, I swear it's the truth!”

“That's the same thing he told us. Just you and him there. Nobody else.”

Gilly went pale. Then his eyes narrowed and brows lowered. “You're lying. He couldn't have told you nothing. He's dead.”

“Somebody helped him out of that pit, Gilly, and it wasn't his neck that was broke; it was his leg. He lost that leg, Gilly. Had to cut it off to free himself. But he's still alive. Clemons talked to him nine, ten days ago. Remember Jimmie Clute? Old horse thief out of Virginia? He's living in the woods near Cumberland Gap now, and Littleton was staying with him awhile. Teaching himself to walk on a wooden peg leg one of Clute's neighbors had carved out for him. Clute said he was getting right able on that leg.”

Gilly was paler yet. “You're a liar. If he came out of that pit, he didn't come out alive!”

“Oh, but he did,” Clemons said. “And he said it wasn't no accident that he fell into that pit. You
pushed
him. And he ain't forgot it, nor forgave it. He's going to find you, he says. And he's going to kill you when he does.”

“Hell!” Gilly spat, beginning to feel like a man riding a runaway horse of a situation. “He ain't going to do nothing to me! Even if he found me, I reckon I'm able enough to outrun a peg legger. He won't have a chance to do me no harm. I can deal with him as easy as I did the first time.”

“Aha! So you admit you caused him to fall!” Jones said.

Gilly, realizing he'd just made an error of judgment, turned a burning eye on Jones. “I didn't say—ah, damn it all, what does it matter now? Hell yes, I pushed him into that hole. And if it didn't kill him, next thing I do to him will. I'll make sure of it!”

Jones shook his head and said, “You'll never have another chance.” He stood and stepped back from Gilly. “Gentlemen, we have a confession there from Gilly's own lips that he tried to murder the leader of our sworn gang, and in fact believed he
had
murdered him. So as far as I'm concerned, he's guilty of the crime, same as if he'd succeeded at it, and the proper penalty is his own life. Gentlemen, I say we hang him, for the attempted murder of Jeremiah Littleton, and for endangering all of us without necessity through the murder of that man in the house we robbed.”

Gilly looked as if the very soul had just drained from him as the others gave a very ragged “Hurrah!” at Jones's words.

Gilly came to his feet, wobbling, head throbbing terribly now from the blow he had received earlier. “You men ain't going to hang me,” he said. “We're friends. Have been a long time.”

“I got a rope over on my saddle,” said Clemons. “I'll fetch it . . .
friend
!” The word was heavy with sarcasm.

“Boys, boys, listen to me. I ain't done nothing any worse than any of you—'specially you, Sikes. You know the kind of man you are. I shot that man we were robbing, sure. And I pushed Littleton into that pit. I admit it all. But what you did, Sikes, was a lot worse than that. That poor little girl over in Virginia, just a child, and you treated her worse than if she was a common whore! She was a
child
, Sikes! Anything I done don't compare to such a crime and sin as that! And what's wrong with you, anyway, that would make you have that kind of a lust in you? It ain't normal, a man wanting a child in that kind of way!”

Sikes glared silently and hatefully at Gilly. The others said nothing at all, but proceeded with their preparations.

They performed the deed in the simplest manner, pulling Gilly up off the ground by the neck rather than dropping him. He was in tears when they did it, and unsettled his executioners rather badly by managing to stare at them accusingly even as he swung, eyes bulging and red, tongue emerging between lips.

Clemons said, “He's dying slow. Maybe I should pull down on his legs, make him choke faster. That's what kinfolk of hanged people used to do over in England, I heard once. Made them die quicker.”

Harlow Jones shook his head. “Let him alone,” he said. “Let him choke. He don't deserve no kindnesses.”

“But he's so light of weight, it might take him so long. . . .” Clemons looked up at Gilly's face, the eyes now nearly absent of light. He shuddered and turned away. He was not a man of strong stomach.

“Let's go. I don't want to see this no more.” Jones wrinkled his nose. “Good God, I think he lost his bowels.”

“It happens sometimes, I hear.”

They simply left Gilly dangling there, bug-eyed and swinging and self-soiled, and departed. The weak-stomached Clemons could not resist looking back, as hideous as the sight was to him. With embarrassment he turned again and retched.

 

Two minutes after they were gone, something stirred in the forest, and a big, strange figure emerged and stood a moment before the dangling Gilly. After moments of silent staring, the figure moved forward, reaching toward the hanged man with powerful arms.

C
rawford Fain had expected to be in Jonesborough several days sooner than he actually got there. What slowed him down was illness, a rarity for a man of usual robust health. It arose quickly and knocked him off his feet. Pain in every muscle and joint, a head that would not quit aching, bone-shaking chills that alternated with bursts of furnacelike internal heat that drenched him with sweat. He could hold down no food for three days, and only a little water.

Titus built a half-faced camp in the woods beside the trail and put his father there to recover his health and strength—and neither he nor Micah was willing to mention to each other how similar the arrangement felt to the time they had spent with the doomed Sisalee lying in that hunter's shelter. The difference was that Fain's illness was transitory and not life-threatening, nothing like the apoplexy that had laid the old “white Indian” low. Nor was there an unstable little girl with a hidden pistol and a grudge ready to find lethal expression.

After a couple of days of rest, Fain had begun to improve, slowly. Micah brought in a deer, and from the meat cooked up a thin broth that he swore Fain would be able to tolerate, and which would give him strength.

It did. Fain remained unbalanced, aching, and weak, but his stomach settled and the nourishment did much good. He sat up on his bedroll in the half-faced shelter and, though he would never admit it, found he was enjoying the opportunity for rest and the chance to be tended to. In particular, he valued the time he could spend with his son, who seemed now to actually want to be at his father's side and hear what he had to say. A few years ago Titus had displayed almost no interest in his sire.

“I've come to realize there's a lot about you I don't know,” Titus said. “And a lot less I know about your parents. This might be a good chance for you to tell me a few things.”

Fain nodded, staring out the open front of the shelter and enjoying the feel of the light breeze on his face. “Son, you're right. And there's some things I didn't tell you when you were a boy because I didn't know you needed to hear them then. Like the fact that your grandfather was in some ways not a good man.”

“How so?”

Fain looked over at his son. “He was a thief and bandit, Titus. He broke houses and operated as a highwayman back in his homeland, in England. Might have wound up on the gallows had certain things never happened. And if he'd ended up doing the Tyburn dance, I would never have landed in the Colonies, and you and me wouldn't be sitting here talking right now.”

“Tell me more.” Titus was surprised and troubled, his father having never given a hint of this kind of thing before.

“Your grandfather was a man of poverty, and of a poor raising. It sent him down the wrong path early on, and he turned to theft as the surest way to make a living.” Fain paused for several seconds. “I'm not sure I should be telling you this part even now, but as a boy I was involved with some of his crimes, too. The housebreaking in particular. I was small of frame, you see, and a good climber, and your grandfather would find ways to sneak me into houses, where I would hide myself through the day and then let him in under cover of night. Then Father, with me helping, would take whatever was valuable that we could get out with without waking anyone up. Your grandfather knew places he could sell it. It was a simple system, but it worked. We kept operating like that till I was twelve, thirteen years old. I'm sorry to admit it to you, but you're a man now and you can deal with knowing your father ain't lived a perfect life.”

“Pap, you were just a boy, doing what your father told you. Even so, I'm . . . to borrow your word, I'm ‘smote.' I had no notion of anything like this.”

“I've kept it from you. Best to raise a boy to believe the blood in his veins comes from generations of righteous-living folk, not sinners. But you're no boy any longer, Titus, and you should know the truth about those who came before you.”

“What about the highway robbery? Were you involved in that as well?”

“Never. Father kept me from that because it was the most dangerous side of what he did.” Fain paused again, then gave a dark little chuckle. “Funny thing, Titus. There were things that happened on both sides of my father's criminal life that didn't just kind of vanish once they happened. Things that had longer-lasting aspects.”