The Pursuit of Tamsen Littlejohn (44 page)

Jesse made a noise of acknowledgment. Too many times settlers, acting on their own, had taken revenge for deaths and thefts on the nearest Cherokees available, whether or not those Cherokees were the guilty parties. So had the Cherokees done to the settlers. “They’re certain Sevier isn’t drilling his men to fight with Tipton’s Carolina troops? Not just more Franklin trouble on the boil?”

“That one who saw them, he went to a trading post and spoke with the white man there. This man warned of Sevier’s plans for the spring.”

Tamsen could no longer stand the suspense. “Will you fight with Dragging Canoe?”

Bears glanced at her, eyes narrowed. At first she thought she’d overstepped some bounds in interrupting. But Bears said, “This may be the time, if the
Ani-yun-wiya
are ever to take back our hunting lands in the Tennessee. Now, while the Wataugans fight among themselves over what they are to be called—besides Wataugans.”

“Has your father changed his mind on the matter?”

“He has not.”

Jesse paused in his work, waiting.

“For now I will stay. There are not enough men here to hunt for our old ones. Maybe in spring …” Bears stood, radiating restlessness, clearly not at the end of his thinking on the matter.

Tamsen heard the scratch of moccasins on the frozen ground. Thunder-Going ducked beneath the buffalo hide, trouble on his brow as he looked across the fire at his son, who wore the warrior’s scalp-lock.

“I will pray and make ready to hunt,” Bears said and brushed by his father on his way out of the lodge.

Though expected to be gone for days, Catches Bears returned before nightfall with news that he had met a hunter from Chota who’d brought
down two woods buffalo and needed help bringing in the meat. For the use of a horse and travois, he would give one of the buffalo to Thunder-Going’s people.

“Take my horse,” Jesse told him at the stock pen. “He’ll welcome the exercise.”

Bears eyed him. “What of you? It is many sleeps since you hunted. Not since you got your deer for your wedding feast.”

Reminded of that day, Jesse glanced at the lodge where Tamsen was tidying away the day’s work, where soon they would seek the warmth of their bed, weighing that against a cold trek through snow to bring home buffalo meat. Turning back, he caught Bears in the act of rolling his eyes.

“I see it will be some time yet before you can be torn from the arms of your wife. So it was with my sister’s husband. Useless for two moons at least. But I will take the horse.”

Tamsen had fallen asleep to the howling of wolves. Their distant voices, at once blended and discordant, followed her into slumber to haunt her dreams through the night, jarring her awake at last and resolving themselves into the voices of men, speaking in low tones outside the lodge. She lay still, listening. One of the speakers sounded like Bears. But that couldn’t be right. Bears had taken Jesse’s horse to bring in a buffalo and wouldn’t be back until the morning had passed. She put out a hand to wake Jesse. He was gone.

A hint of dawn streamed through the half-covered smoke hole in the roof. Below it the fire was nearly out. The air felt like ice crystals in her lungs as, wrapped in her cloak, she knelt to feed the fire, still listening. She recognized Jesse’s voice now, and it
was
Bears. They were conversing in
Tsalagi
.

With the fire going, she tied her moccasins and leggings and hurried to the doorway, nearly colliding with Jesse coming in. She looked past him, but Bears was gone into the graying dawn. “He’s back awfully soon,” she began, but Jesse took her by the arm, his gaze stricken. Alarm flared beneath her breastbone. “What is it?”

“My horse is dead.”

Shock gripped her. “How? Is Bears all right?”

Jesse led her to the fire. He’d gone outside in only a breechclout but didn’t reach for shirt or leggings as he settled on the edge of the sleeping platform. She draped a fur around his shoulders. His hand came up to hold it there as he stared into the flames. “Bears met that hunter at dusk yesterday. It was bitter cold. There were wolves—you hear ’em in the night?”

“Wolves killed it?” She shuddered, not wanting to picture such a horrible end for the horse.

“No.” Jesse sounded as if he wished they had. “Bears and the other hunter were working to finish the butchering in a meadow where the herd had been grazing. They had my horse hitched to a travois, nearby.” A shiver passed over him, raising gooseflesh up his legs. “There was a shot. From a ridge to the east.”

It had taken his horse between the eyes, he told her, dropping it where it stood. Jesse met her gaze, eyes darkened to amber in the firelight. “They never saw the shooter but didn’t stay to make themselves easy targets. They took the other horse, left the rest of the meat, and ran. Bears traveled through the night to get back.”

Tamsen felt grief for the animal that had carried her over the mountains, into another life. More than sorrow clouded Jesse’s gaze. The look in his eyes made Tamsen’s heart thump with foreboding. “There’s more?”

“Bears thinks the shooter didn’t aim for him or the other hunter. My horse was the target.”

“Why would anyone shoot a horse and not …?”

“The Indians with it? To send a message. Dominic or Seth … either of ’em knows my horse on sight.”

There was a thump on the doorpost. With a rush of cold air, Bears stuck his head past the drape, panting for breath as though he’d run back to their lodge.

“Cade is here,” he said. “Men on horses come behind.”

They’d dressed in haste, Tamsen donning her doeskin tunic and skirt over her shift. The frosted ground beneath her moccasins felt hard as fired clay as she ran to keep pace with Jesse. Morning was brightening around them, but clouds were coming in fast, obliterating the fading stars. Outside
lodges, people stirred. Voices queried as they made for Thunder-Going’s lodge, where Cade was unloading one of the packhorses. They converged there with the few warriors not out on their winter hunts—a grand total of three, counting Bears. Tamsen glanced aside as White Shell appeared at her shoulder. She’d brought her grandmother out of her winter house, blanket wrapped, to hear what news Cade brought.

“They’ve come. Kincaid, the Trimbles, maybe Parrish too, with half a dozen men they’ve rounded up besides.” His gaze swung to Tamsen. “They’re searching the Overhill towns, showing around that portrait of you.”

Tamsen’s stomach lurched. “Do they know we’re here—here and not some other village?”

“My horse,” Jesse said. “They’ll know I’m close by, and you with me.” He grabbed for Cade as he straightened from tossing down the last of the hides. “How close?”

“Very.” Cade’s face, shaded by the brim of his feathered hat, was as fierce and impassive as those around them taking in their words or listening while others translated. He turned to Thunder-Going. “We’ll go, and pray we don’t bring our trouble down on you. I leave you these hides.” He gestured to the pile outside the lodge door. “And the others I have stored here. What the other horse carries we’ll take.”

Thunder-Going gave a short nod. “There are not enough of us to fight, even if you stayed, but still we will know nothing of you here.”

The two clasped arms.

“God be with you,” Cade told the older man.

“As He is with you.”

It seemed to take a moment for Cade to register Thunder-Going’s words. When he did, Tamsen saw a thing that by now she never truly expected to see. A full-blown grin crossed Cade’s features, blazing joy in its wake.

Amusement lit Thunder-Going’s eyes. “For many moons now.”

“Then I leave you with peace in my heart.” Features radiant despite their urgency, Cade turned to remove the packsaddle from the horse,
meeting Jesse’s gaze. “We got to move fast while we’ve still a lead. Pack your things and—”

A new disturbance across the town—barking, shouting—drew their attention. Tamsen spotted a figure coming toward them, running full out. It was White Shell’s husband, who had left to hunt days ago, coming with his rifle held low. The crowd of mostly women and children outside Thunder-Going’s lodge parted to admit him. Jesse grabbed Cade’s horse as it shied from the arrival, who staggered in, gulping breath and releasing it in clouds. White Shell was at her husband’s side, speaking rapidly in
Tsalagi
. He responded, still gasping. She raised her face and looked at Tamsen, her features frozen. “There is no time. They are just behind him. A mile, maybe.”

White Shell’s husband had spotted their fires across a valley and raced to warn the people, who were already melting away in the burgeoning dawn, racing for livestock, vanishing into lodges and hurrying out again with packs, baskets, bundled children. Before Tamsen could grasp what was happening, Jesse had her by the hand, running. With her heart pounding and her blood racing, she no longer felt the brutal cold.

“What are they doing?”

“Same as us. Getting out of trouble’s path.”

“Everyone?” Her foot hit an icy patch, but Jesse bore her up, pulling her along. They reached their lodge. He held aside the door drape.

“There ain’t enough men left to put up a fight. If all the hunters were here … but I wouldn’t risk their lives. They need every man they got to survive the winter. Best thing we can do for them is clear out—fast.”

Tamsen needed no further urging than the panic nipping at her heels. Inside, Jesse doused the fire with creek sand. He donned his buckskin coat over his hunting shirt, while she wrapped her cloak around her shoulders. There was jerked venison in a knapsack; Jesse’s rifle, bullet-bag, and horn; his bearskin rolled tight and tied to shoulder straps.

“Leave the rest,” he told her from the doorway. “God willing, we’ll be back for it.”

Looking up at him, for a moment she was thrust back across time and distance to Morganton, to Jesse standing in another doorway urging her to haste, her mother lying dead, her dazed and brittle thoughts scattering like leaves on a fearful wind. She heard hooves on icy ground, the snort and blow of horses. The sound froze her until Cade’s voice called from outside.

“Jesse—now!”

Tamsen forced her limbs to move, legs to carry her out into the cold. Cade was in the saddle, holding the reins of both packhorses, one still loaded. They’d be riding bareback.

Jesse hoisted her astride the horse, then handed up his rifle and mounted in front of her, agile as a panther.

Women and old men were leading children and horses up into the surrounding forest, where little shelter waited. Blackbird, led by White Shell, turned back at the forest’s edge, seamed face drawn in frustration as though she still felt the call of the warrior beating within her withered frame. White Shell looked across the clearing at Tamsen. The young woman’s fear snapped on the air like the breaking of creek ice.

The same fear twisted Tamsen’s belly.

“We can make for home,” Jesse was saying. “Gather what’s left there, head into the mountains.”

Tamsen broke White Shell’s parting gaze to see Cade shaking his head. “We won’t go back to Sycamore Shoals.”

“We can’t light out in this cold with nothing but our rifles and a stack of hides,” Jesse argued as the horse beneath them fidgeted.