Long Hunt (9781101559208) (26 page)

“That's true. The reverend is a fellow lodger in this very inn and is paying my own lodging because I'm working for him now.”

“I saw Abner Bledsoe the night I visited Dixon's near Greeneville. He came in to announce his camp meeting soon to be held at Fort Edohi.”

“That was the very meeting that was taking place when I lost my leg, but was given angelic rescue.”

“As we've been saying, small world it is.”

“Destiny is at work, gentlemen, bringing us all together in one place,” said John Crockett, a far more philosophical comment than he was typically prone to give.

“I'm not sure I believe in destiny,” Littleton noted. “It's not truly so strange that folks would meet up more than once, considering how new this country is and how few still the towns and settlements are. Men move about, their paths will cross.”

At that moment, Michael Harkin walked into the common room, tossing and catching a coin. As he'd been taught to do, he smiled politely at the visitors and nodded his head. “Always be cordial to our patrons,” his mother had directed him.

“You've come into some money, son!” Crockett said.

“Yes, sir,” replied Michael, holding the coin between thumb and forefinger and showing it to the men. “It's pay I earned from Mr. Stuart for carrying supper to old ‘Jingo' down in the log jail. Mr. Stuart didn't want to do it himself this time, and had had no one else handy for the task, so he hired me. Paid me good, too.”

“Who is this ‘Jingo'?” asked Littleton.

“Oh, that ain't his real name,” said Michael. “It's just what I called him because he says it all the time. ‘By jingo' this and ‘by jingo' that.”

Littleton scooted quickly to the edge of his seat. “What's this fellow's real name? For I used to know a man who turned that phrase every few minutes when he spoke.”

“This fellow's name is Clark, I think,” said the boy.

“Is this the fellow who was seemingly hanged, yet lived?” asked Crockett.

“That's the one, sir. The mark on his neck is clear to see.”

“I heard talk of him on the street today,” Crockett said.

“Hanged?” Littleton queried. “What story is this?”

Michael waited to see if Crockett would answer, but he did not. All eyes turned to him.

“Well, sir, Clark is a man who was carried into town by night and left on the church doorstep. He'd been injured about the neck, the marks showing that he'd been hanged alive, but taken down before he had time to die. The one who took him down, not the same as who had hanged him to begin with, carried him into town on his shoulders and left him. Mr. Stuart, who owns the finest house in town, took him in to let him recover. Clark is being kept down in the log jail building, and Mr. Stuart is keeping him fed from his own larder.”

“What's this fellow Clark look like?”

“Very thin, small-framed fellow. That's how he was able to live for a time while hanging, Mr. Stuart thinks. If he'd been heavier he'd have choked faster.”

Littleton nodded. “And this Clark says ‘by jingo' frequently?”

“He said it three times just during the time I was bringing in his supper tonight,” said Michael.

“Why is he locked in the jail?”

“He ain't locked in, sir. He's just there because there ain't no prisoners there just now, and it's a safe place for him to heal up. He could leave anytime he wanted, if he wasn't lame.”

“Lame?”

“Broken ankle. It seems likely that it happened when he was took out of the noose. He dropped and broke it. Then the one who'd taken him down heaved him up on his shoulder and marched him all the way here into Jonesborough, dead of night.”

“Sounds like another ‘angel rescue,' ” Crockett observed, his eye on Littleton.

Littleton spoke: “So this hurt fellow now is laid up in an unlocked cell room in the big log jail building. And if he was able to walk, he could get up and leave whenever he wanted.”

“That's right, sir. He's free to come and go as soon as he's able, and other folks can just as easy get to him.”

“That's what I wanted to know. I may have to pay a visit to Mr. Jingo before long.”

“I can take you there if you want me to,” the boy offered.

Littleton shook his head. “I can find him. I'd rather go see him alone.”

 

Shortly after one o'clock the next morning, Gilly Cobble woke up to find a stranger standing by his cot and looking down at him by the light of a candle in his hand. Gilly looked up at the face in the flickering light and noted the smile, but also a familiarity in the looks that he couldn't quite pin down.

“Confusing, ain't it, Gilly, seeing me without my whiskers?”

Gilly sucked in a hard breath. Oh God. Oh no. Not
him
! But he knew the voice. And now that the whiskers had been mentioned, he recognized the face. Particularly the eyes. He'd always be able to know Jeremiah Littleton by his eyes if nothing else.

“Jeremiah . . .”

“Yep, it's me. And you thought I was dead, didn't you!”

“I—I'd heard you got out alive. I'm glad you did, Jeremiah. I never wanted no harm to come to you!”

“That right? Is that why you shoved me over the edge of a bluff and just ran off and left me there in that hole?'Cause you didn't want no harm to come to me? You figured I'd be safe and sound down there?”

“I'm mighty sorry, Jeremiah. Mighty sorry.”

“You ain't even started being sorry yet, Gilly. But don't fret. You'll get your chance. But it won't last long. You'll not be feeling anything at all when I'm done with you. Except maybe fire and brimstone in a place you and me are both bound to go.”

Gilly sat up, wincing with pain as his ankle scooted on the cot. “Dear God!” he said tightly.

“Why, what's the matter, Gilly?” Littleton asked with deep sarcasm. “Are you feeling some pain? Let me tell you about pain, partner. Pain is having your leg shattered and crushed up until there ain't much left but a kind of meat pudding or bloody mush, and having it stuck down in a pinching rock hole with your own weight pushing down on it. But you can't pull out because if you tried it would hurt even worse. That's pain.”

“I'm mighty sorry that happened to you, Jeremiah. I am.”

“I bet you are. 'Cause you know how a man like me is prone to deal with such things. I'm an eye-for-an-eye kind of fellow. Hurt me and I hurt you.”

Gilly began to cry, and instinctively pulled away on the cot to increase the distance between him and Littleton.

Littleton glared at him bitterly. “You know what also hurts, Gilly? Taking your own knife and carving your own flesh away, cutting off the pulp that used to be your leg, just so you can maybe get free if somebody helps you. But all the time you're figuring that there ain't nobody going to come, and you're going to just be where you are until you die. That's pain. That's more than one kind of pain, all put together.”

“I heard you were walking on a peg now. I hope it works good for you.”

“You're just full of kind wishes, ain't you, Gilly! Just as kindhearted a soul as a man could hope to meet. Yeah, my peg works good. I hobble along as well as anybody could, I reckon. But it ain't a real leg, and I know that every time I bear down on it and feel the squeeze and pinch on the stump where a leg is supposed to be. And that makes me think of you, every time it happens. Ain't it nice, knowing there's somebody been thinking of you every time he takes a step, Gilly?”

“Jeremiah, please . . . please . . .” Gilly looked longingly at the open cell door.

Littleton laughed. “You want to leave, Gilly? Then leave! Get up and walk out. Oh, wait. I forgot. You got a busted ankle, right? Can't walk at all.”

Gilly wailed childishly.

“Get out of that bed, Gilly. Get out and lie down on this good puncheon floor. On your back, please.”

“I—I can't get out of bed. My ankle. It would hurt too bad.”

“I'll help you.” Littleton grabbed Gilly's arm and dragged him off the cot. He hit the floor hard, and screamed terribly in pain as his ankle struck the puncheons. The sound was intense in the little room, but the thick log walls guaranteed that no one who might be outside at this late hour of the night could hear anything.

Gilly's screams faded to moans, and his lip quivered like a dead-of-winter shiver.

“Time for settling up, Gilly. And I know just how I'm going to do it. Had it planned for a little while now. My wooden peg leg broke on me, see. Fractured right in two, though the two parts didn't come full apart. That's why I have that iron band around it. Holds them back in place just like it ain't even broke. But that band can be slipped off.” Littleton bent and worked at the band, which soon loosened and slid down to the floor. He stepped out of it, letting part of the broken peg leg tilt away to reveal the sharpened splinter tip of the other portion.

“Littleton, what are you thinking of doing?” Gilly asked pleadingly. “Jeremiah, please . . . please . . .” Littleton grinned at him again, cruel-eyed.

“Just going to show you how I can walk on my peg leg,” he said.

“Please, Littleton. Have some mercy!”

“Let me stand for a minute and think on that,” Littleton said matter-of-factly. Then, unhesitating, he lifted the peg leg, aimed the point of the broken piece at the center of Gilly's chest, and stepped forward.

Gilly did not scream this time. There was not time. His life ended too quickly.

Littleton stood there a full minute, the sharp point of the peg leg piercing all the way through Gilly's chest to touch the floor below. At last Littleton pulled it free of the corpse, pushed the halves of the peg together, and set about to working the iron band back into place around the splintered pieces.

“No, Gilly,” he said to the man who was beyond all hearing now. “No mercy.”

With the peg leg put together again, he studied by candlelight the copious amount of blood staining it. Someone would be sure to notice if it remained that way. But it was dark and the street would be empty at this hour. He could make it back to the inn without anyone detecting the bloodstains. Then, in his room, he could whittle away the stained wood and burn the shavings in his fireplace.

He didn't do it, however. As he considered the inevitability of the discovery of Gilly's death come morning, and the fact that it would immediately be detected that Gilly had been murdered, he realized he needed to be gone. He went to the stable where his stolen horse was, saddled it, and sneaked it out. Within minutes he was riding out of Jonesborough, heading in the direction of the Doe River country, where the surrounding terrain was rugged and mountainous and a man could find a hundred places to hide.

He pondered the fact that he was abandoning the preacher Bledsoe, who would be furious that yet another “angel-rescued” human display had left him in the lurch. The hell with him, Littleton thought. Bledsoe was nothing but a fraud and deserved any hard times he found.

Littleton was a murderer now. And murderers had to flee. It went with the status.

J
ames Corey awakened from a deep and very restful slumber, and had no immediate notion where he was. He lifted his head from the feather pillow, then sat up and looked around the cabin. Only when he looked out the window to his right, a window built into the rear wall of the one-room cabin, did he see the woman and feel the murk of alcohol-enhanced sleep lift sufficiently to let him remember.

He'd met her on the road while he was traveling with the preacher and the one-legged man. They had not seen her, hidden as she was in roadside brush, but he had, and had caught her signal to leave her presence unrevealed. He had subtly signaled back, hoping she could rightly interpret his silent instruction to stay where she was; then he'd ridden on nearly a mile with his companions until they had drawn near enough to their destination of Jonesborough to see the first cabins on the far outskirts of the settlement. Then, making the excuse of having dropped his knife somewhere along the last mile or two, he'd parted from his traveling companions and gone back.

She was still there, as he had hoped. And also as he had hoped, he soon learned that she was exactly what he'd thought she would be: a “woman of easy virtue.” He'd known so many women like this one that he could usually tell the breed with little more than a glance. This one he found more appealing than most he'd encountered through life: She was raven-haired and well proportioned and possessed a starkly beautiful pale-skinned face that contrasted intriguingly with the black of her hair. He learned from her that she had been sleeping in the brush along the trail when he spotted her. The noise of the first two travelers passing had awakened her and she had sat up in time to see Corey, and for him, alone of the three, to see her in turn.

Her name was Sadie Cleaver, and she was a woman of road and trail. Much like Ott Dixon plying his liquor trade from settlement to settlement, she moved through the countryside selling the only thing she had to offer: her “favors,” as people tended to so delicately put it. And though she was often lonely and felt of little worth in the world, she was happy at least to be unencumbered and to make her home wherever she happened to be. She was sure she knew the backcountry as well as any scout or hunter, or even Indian. She doubted there was a single hunter's shed or unused cabin or dry cave she did not know the location of, and had not occupied at one time or another, sometimes alone, sometimes with paying male company.

Sadie had led Corey to the cabin in which he had just awakened and had entered the place so casually he was sure it must be her own. There were signs the place had been occupied and used recently.