Long Hunt (9781101559208) (9 page)

“Well, then, if she is in fact Miss Reese, then it is her account of her misadventure that is false. For I must tell you with the firmest of conviction, that woman's tongue was never removed from her head! She lives today in the condition in which she was born.”

“No.” A firm shake of the head. “No, sir. She is who she says she is. She was attacked by her own father, mutilated, then rescued by a being who well might have been an angel sent for her protection.”

“Reverend, with all respect due to you, may I ask you why, then, did the angel not present itself sooner and stop the assault aborning? If protection had been the divine intention, why was it not given before the severing of her tongue?”

“Aha!” Bledsoe said, aiming a stubby, pointing finger at the physician's face. “You admit, then, that her tongue was severed! You just said as much!”

“I am presenting a hypothetical, not a statement of fact. And that is beside the point in any case. What I say, I say on the basis of trained observation. I know scarring when I see it, and the marks left by cutting and severing. Those are absent from this woman's mouth. I must stand by what I have declared.”

“You do not know what you speak of!” Bledsoe's piping voice was getting louder and more shrill.

Houser took pains to keep his own voice calm. “I know that woman never suffered the violence described in the famed Reese narrative. That I know. What I do not know is whether or not the fraud derives from her alone, or from the both of you together.”

“You insult me, sir.”

“My intent is not to insult. I am simply making a physician's observation of the facts, sir, and—”

He had not finished his sentence before a furious Bledsoe lunged at him shoulder-first and shoved him back toward the rear of the high platform. Houser groped reflexively at the preacher's shoulder and grasped his shirt, so that when Houser fell he pulled Bledsoe down after him. They hit the ground hard, Houser landing on his back and Bledsoe on Houser's chest, driving the air from the doctor's lungs so thoroughly that it seemed it would be forever before he could draw it in again.

Simultaneously an unexplainable sharp pain exploded just to the inside of Houser's right shoulder blade. It surged through him, worsening when he tried to move. It was the last thing Houser was aware of before he closed his eyes and passed out cold.

 

Fain was looking down into Houser's face when the physician came around again. Houser looked up in puzzlement, trying to remember just what had happened, at the same time moving a little. The movement caused a new stab of pain beneath his right shoulder.

“You ought to hold still, Doc,” Fain said, touching Houser's left shoulder and hold him down. “You took a sharp root stab under your wing, and it's going to hurt you if you do much moving.”

“Root stab?”

“There was a sharp root poking up from the ground right where you and the preacher fell, and it jammed up right into your back. Long as my finger, it was. If it had struck into you on t'other side, I might wonder if it would have probed into the backside of your heart.”

“Hurts,” Houser said, closing his eyes. “Damn that preacher! He pushed me off that platform—I know he did—because he didn't like having his fraud revealed.” Houser, growing a bit impassioned, stirred involuntarily and groaned loudly at the pain.

“Easy, Doctor. Don't stir. What fraud are you talking about?”

“The woman he passes off as Molly Reese. Either she is not Molly Reese, or if she is, Molly Reese never lost her tongue to violence. That woman out there tonight was born with no tongue. As a man of medicine and science, I can say that with certainty.”

Fain did not look surprised. “I knew she was not who and what he claimed.”

“You knew? How?”

Fain smiled. “I knew.”

 

Houser's injury, though painful, was not serious. Within an hour of his fall from the platform, he was up and moving about, admitting that in doing so, he was in violation of the advice he would have given had the injury been suffered by someone else. Twice Fain had to replace the bandaging of the doctor's wound because his movement caused renewed bleeding.

“Doctor, it's no surprise your wife left you,” Fain said. “You are a stubborn man intent on doing himself harm.”

Houser frowned. “Fain, you know as well as I do that my Beth's return to Carolina is only temporary, and done for the sake of her ailing father.”

“I know, I know. I only wish she was here so she could be your nursemaid, not me.”

They were in the spacious front room of Fain's large cabin within the walls of Fort Edohi. The door opened and Langdon Potts entered.

“He's gone,” Potts said.

“Who?”

“Preacher Bledsoe. I saw his wagon pulling away, him driving. There was a loose wheel, or so it looked to be, so I hailed him to a stop. He didn't look glad for it. He was in a hurry to leave. I checked the wheel and thought it needed fixing, but he declined it and said it would be fine to travel on. He pulled on out and as he went on, I caught a look inside the back, 'neath the wagon cover. I'll leave it to you to guess what I saw.”

“The woman,” Fain said. “The one they foist off as Molly Reese. Probably naked as the day she was born.”

Houser laughed, then yelped in pain. “Don't make me laugh, Fain. It hurts to laugh.”

“I did see the woman,” Potts said. “But she had her garments on. Still, you could tell, just kind of get the feeling. . . .”

“That the two of them ain't spending their free time studying the scriptures?” Fain suggested. “Maybe doing a little something else?”

Potts nodded.

“They are frauds, you know,” Houser said. “That woman did not lose her tongue. She never had one. I saw it for myself when I examined her.”

“So the preacher's a fraud, too?”

“Almost certainly. I suppose the woman might be fooling him, but he seems the kind to do a bit of fooling himself. She's probably some malformed whore that Bledsoe ran across somewhere, and then came up with the notion of presenting her as Molly Reese to spark up his camp meetings a bit.”

“A preacher would do that?”

“If he's a fraud and hypocrite, indeed he would,” Houser said.

 

Fain rose in the middle of the night and paced through his cabin, his rheumatic pain causing him to limp. Houser slept on a thick bearskin pallet made on the puncheon floor near the cold fireplace. Houser's own house stood not far away from the stockade, on the side opposite the great meadow where Bledsoe had held forth, but Fain had insisted that Houser remain close by in case Houser's injury proved worse than it appeared. He also wanted the physician handy should trouble arise with the bearded man who had lost his leg; that man snored on another pallet on the opposite side of the room.

Potts had a pallet of his own up in the loft overlooking the cabin's main room. He quietly slipped down the ladder and joined Fain.

“Having trouble sleeping, are you?” he asked his host.

“Tell you the truth, son, I'm thinking of Titus. Wondering where he is and why he ain't come home in such a spell of time.”

“I wish he was here, too. I came a long way to see him and to tell him about the express plans. I think he'll be interested in that.”

“I think he will. That's the kind of thing that would suit him just right.”

The express plans to which Potts referred involved a scheme by some of the backcountry leaders in the Watauga country to create a system of mounted messengers who would serve as a private postal service in the frontier country, carrying mail and messages and the like between the Watauga, Holston, and Nolichucky settlements to the area of James White's fort and Fort Edohi, and probably on beyond all the way to the Cumberland Settlements. With success, the effort could be expanded later to provide service into the Kentucky country to the north.

It would be dangerous work, requiring bold and skilled young riders to carry it out. Indian dangers would be nearly constant along the wilderness routes. But such a service would be useful beyond measure and provide an avenue of greatly enhanced communication between far-flung settlements. Potts had been drawn to the idea from the first time he'd heard it, and had known that Fain's son, Titus, would be equally intrigued and as ready to become one of the express riders.

Crawford Fain stared out into the night between the shutters of a side window and sighed. Potts drifted over to his side.

“You worried about Titus?”

Fain said, “Not so much worried as just wondering. Titus is a capable young man, and he can see to his safety as well as anyone I know. But the fact is that these are dangerous times even for capable men. I just hope the boy hasn't gotten himself into some problem he can't find a way out of.”

“He's fine, wherever he is,” Potts said. “He might come riding through the stockade gate come morning. You never know.”

“I wish I did know. He's the only son I've got. And besides that I've got a task I need his help with. A job I took on that I don't know I can do alone. With Titus, though, I think I could get it done.”

“He'll be back,” Potts assured again.

“Littleton,” Fain said abruptly. He turned and looked Potts square in the face. “Littleton! I just remembered it.”

“Who?”

“Littleton. Jeremiah Littleton. You heard of him?”

“I don't know. Who is he?”

“A bad man. Outlaw. Been known to rob travelers and emigrants. Runs with a band of outlaws as bad as he is. They killed a man recently while he was kneeling down and giving no trouble. That's the story, anyway.”

“Why do you mention his name now?”

“I think that's who old stub-leg over there might be. I'd heard him described before, and his looks fit what I heard.”

“He looks like any number of men you see every day, to me,” Potts said, looking over to where Littleton continued his snoring, lying flat on his back.

“He's got the scar. Little one up near his eye, right side. Runs back toward his ear a thumb-width or so. Littleton's got that, they say. That's what was tugging at my mind but I couldn't get a full grip upon.”

“Is he the one who killed the man?”

“He leads the gang. Has made bargains with the Indians, and has a few who rob with him sometimes. He's as guilty as any of them, in my book, whether he directly did the killing or not.”

“Guess we have to keep him from getting away, then.”

“That leg will help with that. Hard to run on a stump.”

“But what if it ain't Littleton?”

“Let's go see.”

They walked over to the sleeping bear of a man, whose lips vibrated with each snore. One eyelid flickered but he did not waken.

“Littleton!” Fain said in a sharp, loud whisper.

The man flinched some but slept on. “Littleton!” Fain said a little more loudly. Still he slept. A third call of the name, louder yet.

Littleton started and opened his eyes. For a moment he looked past the two faces staring down at him, then focused in blearily on Fain.

“Littleton, right?” Fain asked.

“What do you want from me?”

“Your name's Littleton. Jeremiah Littleton. Ain't that right?”

Littleton shook his head. “No . . . no. Name's Kirk. Lyle Kirk.” He tried to sit up, then winced sharply. “God!” he swore. “Why's my leg hurt so?” Then he managed to lift himself enough to see, and the memory came back. “God . . . I'd forgot. Damned Gilly . . .”

Fain looked over at Potts. “Gilly's the name of one of Littleton's robbers. I think this is our man.”

“Name's Kirk,” Littleton repeated.

“Hell you say,” muttered Fain.

“Don't know no Littleton.”

“Very well, Mr. Kirk. Whatever you say.” And he and Potts withdrew, leaving Littleton alone. A minute later the bearded man was snoring again.

“That's him, I'm right sure,” Fain said. “I thought maybe he'd spill the truth if we caught him just waking up, but he's smart. Came up with a false name without so much as a hitch.”

“I suppose he'll be staying put awhile, whoever he is,” Potts said. “With that leg and all.”

Fain was silent. He went to the bench against the wall and sat down. Potts joined him.

“That task you mentioned . . .”

Fain said, “Man has hired me to make a hunt for him. Not a hunt for bear or deer or any such as that. He wants me to find his daughter who went missing years ago, thought to have been taken by Indians. He thinks she may still be living. He's heard tales of somebody matching her, of a blond-haired woman.”

“That's all? Blond hair? Not much to go on, just that.”

“She's got a marked eye, gray streak in the brown. If I can find a yellow-haired woman with a gray streak in the brown of her eye, she might be his gal. Name's Deborah, if she's still using the name she was given at birth.”

Potts was thoughtful a few moments. Littleton snored and Houser rolled over a bit and groaned. Fain pondered the oddity of being in a roomful of injured men when there had been no Indian attack or bandit raid, just a revivalist camp meeting.

“Tell you what,” Potts said. “If Titus don't get back in time, and you're still of a mind to make that long hunt for the yellow-haired woman, I'd be glad to go with you and help you just like Titus would.”

“You'd do that?”

“I would.”

“You're a good boy, Potts. Just like Titus.”