Dorothy Garlock (23 page)

*  *  *

It was nearer to dawn than to midnight when Will opened the door and stepped into the dogtrot. When one lives in the wilderness one acquires a quality of stillness and learns to listen. He stood with his back to the building, absorbing the sounds. He had cultivated the art of listening. There is never complete silence, and one learns to distinguish between the sounds such as birds rustling after food among the leaves and squirrels scrambling in the branches. He heard both of these sounds and yet another. It was the sound of light, running footsteps.

Will sidled to the end of the dogtrot, blending into the shadows. Now he heard faint, panting breaths. The runner had stopped. The moon was shining brightly and he didn’t dare move from the shadow of the house. He stood waiting, his hand on his knife, carefully scrutinizing every shadow, every clump of brush between the house and the woods.

A slim shadow at the edge of the woods caught his eye. It jumped lightly from one shadow to the other, staying close under the trees. He watched, fascinated as the human figure flitted across an open space, coming even closer to where he stood beside the house. Not even Light could move so lightly and so swiftly in the darkness. Will had no time to think of what or who it was. He scarcely breathed as he waited to see what the creature would do.

He knew the instant his presence was known. The creature froze, hunkered down, and waited. It was no more than two dozen paces away. The stillness was almost complete. Will decided to wait a moment longer. He heard a sharp intake of breath and then a small hiss. The hissing sound came again, urgently, and still he waited.

“Mister.”

Gawdamighty! It was the voice of a woman or a child. Even realizing this did not lessen his caution. He remained perfectly still, his eyes glued on the small figure squatting beside the bush.

“Are you Will or Jeff?” The slim shadow stood, poised for flight.

“Who are ya?” Will whispered.

“I got a message from Light.”

“But who are ya?”

“Maggie.”

“I’m Will. C’mon out where I c’n see ya.”

Maggie hesitated for a second and then raced for the shadow of the house. She was as tiny as a child, but her long, flowing hair and rounded breasts beneath a tight cloth shirt said she was more woman than child. She wore britches tucked into knee-high moccasins.

“I’m Maggie,” she said in a voice that was barely a
whisper.

“Where’re ya from?”

“Over yonder, t’other side a the Cornicks.” She waved her hand toward the woods. “Light told me ta come and tell ya he’s watching men on the trail from Saint Charles, and two more’re comin’ upriver by canoe.”

“Does he think they’re comin’ here?”

“They travel by night. They be comin’ here.”

“He sent ya through the woods to tell us this?”

“He knows I c’n find my way. Light’s very much a man. We meet at night. I’m a goin’ ta be his woman,” she said proudly.

“Ya’ve been here before?”

“The dog didn’t bark.” She laughed softly, musically. “He don’t bark if I come at night, but he barks when Light comes. I laugh at Light fer this. I got to go now.”

“Wait. Who’re the men Light is watching?”

“Light don’t tell me. He says they’re bad men. He may kill them.” She jerked her head toward the river. “Light says they’re a comin’ to kill you.”

“Tell Light that we’ll be waitin’ for the men in the canoe.”

Will knew it was useless to ask her to stay. Somehow he knew she was as wild and as free a creature as Light. He watched her speed across the clearing and disappear into the woods. It was like watching a wood nymph from a story he had heard long ago.

After she had gone, he circled the house and tapped on Jeff’s window, then stood beside the door and waited for him to open it.

Jeff caught the horses and the mules and put them in the fenced area next to the barn while Will went to get Henry and Jute. Both men knew Light well enough to know he wouldn’t have sent the girl through the woods to warn them if the danger wasn’t real. Jeff had told Will about meeting the settlers on the raft, but he had failed to tell him that, even then, he thought there was something curiously different about the girl. It didn’t surprise either man that Light hadn’t mentioned the girl on any of his frequent trips to Berrywood.

Henry and Jute appeared, suddenly and quietly.

“Will and I have got to go downriver, Henry. Keep an eye out and don’t let anyone near unless you know them.”

“We do dat, Mista Jeff,” Henry said. “Jute, tak dat ol’ dog ’n sit yo’self down by de smokehouse. Me, I hide me out on de utta side.”

“I think the women were goin’ to wash today. Tell ’em not to start till we get back,” Will said.

“I do dat.”

The hour before dawn is the quietest time of night in the wilderness. Jeff and Will took off in a trot toward the river, their running steps scarcely breaking the silence. No words were needed between these two men who had faced death together more times than they had fingers and toes. Each knew he could count on the other in any situation. Will was leading the way and veered off into the woods before they reached the river. Several times they stopped and listened. Their ears were trained to tune out the usual noises, ignoring them. It was the strange sounds they listened for, or the lack of the normal sounds. Each time they stopped they would wait patiently to see if the insects would begin their singing again, or if something other than themselves was near, something not known or understood by them.

The ground began to slope down gradually and they followed a gulley, leaping over rotting logs. When they left it, they came up the other side and took a well-worn game trail. They trotted eastward and came out on a bluff overlooking the river. When they stopped, Jeff touched Will on the shoulder. Both men had heard the rhythmic splash as a paddle hit the water. Silently, as shadows, they moved down through the thick stand of oak and ash trees toward the river. Instinctively, Jeff knew where the men would beach the canoe. They had passed bluffs all along the river’s edge, and in the faint light they would see only bluffs ahead of them.

Waiting was something Jeff and Will were used to doing. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they watched the river patiently. The shadow that was the canoe turned toward shore as they expected it to do. It never entered Jeff’s mind that the men were on any mission other then to kill him and Will. Burr must be getting desperate, he thought, to send such unskilled hunters to do what two groups of assassins had failed to do. The men were rivermen. That was evident from the way they handled the canoe, their cloth clothing, and the knit caps on their heads.

The canoe was pulled up out of the water, turned over, and the oars stored underneath.

“I ain’t a budgin’ from here till daylight. I ain’t traipsin’ off through them woods not a knowin’ where I’m goin’.”

“All ya’ve done is bellyache! I wisht I’d a ast Farnan to come ’stead a you.”

“I wisht ya had. I ain’t a likin’ none of this here.”

“Ya’ll be likin’ yore part of the purse,” the smaller man sneered.

“Ain’t no purse gonna do me no good wid my gullet slashed,” the other grumbled. “’Sides, ya ain’t set eyes on ’em. How’re ya gonna know ’em?”

“I ain’t got me no worry ’bout that. I heared the man say bring the scalp of the white-haired bastid, and the upper lip of the other’n and he’d pay.”

“Wal . . . soon’s it gets daylight we kin walk in a sayin’ we’s lost. Seems like hit’s jist too easy.” They sat down on the overturned canoe. Both men took guns from their belts and checked the load.

Jeff motioned to Will and they moved back among the trees. Will was grinning. He reached up and stroked his mustache.

“I didn’t know this hair on my lip was so valuable.”

Ordinarily, Jeff would have laughed with him, but his life had suddenly become so precious to him that he couldn’t laugh off the threat to it even if it was from the two fools beside the river.

“We’ll face them before they get in the woods.”

“Why face ’em? Call out ’n shoot the bastards,” Will said coldly.

“We’ll give them a chance to back off.”

“Back off? Christ! They’ll back off ’n come at us again. That ain’t all, they’ll spread it up ’n down the river there’s a purse for my lip ’n your scalp! We’d have every cutthroat from here to New Orleans a lookin’ for us.”

“I know you’re right, but I don’t like killing if I don’t have to. I’d like to find out who the agent is that’s paying the purse.”

“One of ’em said he
heard
the man say to bring the scalp. That means he overheard the agent hirin’ someone else to do the job. These two bastards are a tryin’ to jump the gun on ’em and get the reward.” Will took his gun from his belt and moved his knife around into position.

“So we’ve got some others back up the trail,” Jeff said wearily. “God! It’ll never end!”

“That’s the one thing we can be sure of,” Will said with a twitch of a smile. “It’ll end. We got to be sure it ends the way we want it to.”

They returned to the river, separated, and hunkered down out of sight to wait for daylight. Light from the eastern sky soon dispelled the gloom of dawn and the rivermen got up to pull the canoe into the bushes. One was still grumbling.

“I don’t like bein’ in the woods. I don’t like nothin’ ’bout hit. I could be havin’ myself a time in Natchez. I could’a got me a woman—”

“Ah, shut up! Ain’t ya got nothin’ on yore mind ’cept shovin’ it in a woman? The purse’ll buy ya a dozen whores.”

“Whooeee! All a playin’ on me at once!”

“Yo’re a stud. A gawddamn stud. Get your mind off that stick ya carry atween yore legs and help me with this fuckin’ canoe.”

Will lifted his hand and motioned. Jeff nodded and stepped out into the open, gun in hand. He was no more than a dozen paces from the men when they saw him.

The taller man, still grumbling, turned and saw the man dressed in buckskins, his head covered with white, close-cropped hair. A look of recognition came over his face. The look was quickly replaced by one of fear when he saw the man’s eyes; dark and cold and angry. There was no mistaking who he was and what he intended to do. The man made his decision in an instant and jerked at his gun. He never raised it. Will’s knife caught him between the shoulder blades. His mouth opened, closed, and he fell on his face.

The other man, confused and scared, tried to take aim, and Jeff shot him. The charge struck him in the chest. He backed up a few steps and fell, hitting the ground hard.

“Damn!” Jeff said. “We didn’t find out anything.”

“We found out they was goin’ to kill us,” Will said dryly, pulling his knife from the back of the man who lay face down and wiping it on his bloody shirt.

“The fools!”

“Dead fools,” Will added.

Jeff took the feet of the man he had shot and dragged him to the river. He waded out and pushed at the body with an oar from the canoe until the swift current caught it and the dead man began a journey downriver. Will removed the powder horn and shot bag from the other man and Jeff also let the powerful river take him.

Tired, weary of the killing that had become necessary for them to stay alive, the two men stood for a long moment beside the river, then turned into the woods and started home.

*  *  *

It was past sunup when they came out of the woods and into the house yard. Smoke was coming from the kitchen fire and Callie was carrying the milk pail from the dogtrot. Henry waited beside the shed and Will went to detain Callie so Jeff could talk to him.

“Mornin’,” he called out before he reached her.

“Mornin’.” She looked tired, but equally calm and happy.

He ignored the question in her eyes. “I’m hungry as a b’ar.”

“Then go eat some berries,” she teased.

“I ain’t hungry for berries.” He grinned suggestively. “Need anything from the smokehouse?”

“Jute brought it in.”

“I figured he had, but ’twas the only place I could think of to get ya out of sight for a minute.” His eyes twinkled at the red flush that covered her face.

“Now stop that! You’re goin’ to have me blushin’ all the time.”

“And a purty blush it is, Miss Callie.” He swept his hat from his head and bowed from the waist.

“Oh, what’ll I do with you, Will Murdock? I swan to goodness. I don’t think you’ve been to bed a’tall. You look wore out.”

“I am tired,” he said seriously. “Tired and hungry.” He took the milk bucket from her hand. “I’ll milk so ya can cook.”

“Wash your hands first.”

“What’s a little dirt in a pail a milk? A’right, I’ll do it. Now scoot, woman, ’n cook me some vittles that’ll stick to my bones.”

Smiling to herself, Callie turned back to the house.

When Annie Lash saw Jeff and Will come out of the woods a vague uneasiness came over her. Why was Jeff wet? Had he been in the river or the creek? She watched him through the small window as he went to the shed. Henry came out to meet him and they talked. What had happened to take him away from the house in the early morning hours?

It had been well past midnight when Jeff had brought her to her bedroom door and it had been hours, it seemed to her, before she fell asleep. Her heart had felt so quivery and the fluttering in the pit of her stomach had refused to go away. This morning she was filled with boundless happiness, and it reflected in her face, her bright eyes, and in her bouncy step.

“Is Will going to milk?” she asked Callie when she came in.

“He offered. He and Jefferson have been up to something. Jefferson is wet from the waist down and Will came to head me off so he could talk to Henry. My land! They must think we don’t have any brains a’tall. I knew the minute I got up that there was a reason why Jute was sitting by the smokehouse.” She moved the big spider over the grate in the fireplace and began slicing thick strips of smoked meat to go into it.

Uneasiness shot through Annie Lash again. The picture of the robber trying to get his gun into position to shoot Jeff flashed across her mind. She trembled so violently that the plates she was carrying made a clattering sound as she sat them on the table.