The Wilderness Road

by James Reasoner

  "No, I suppose not," Welles admitted. "And Conn was right to expel those three troublemakers from our midst. Still, that leaves us woefully lacking in numbers, and we weren't making satisfactory progress even with a full crew."

  "We'll all work harder, Colonel," Mcintosh said. "Those lads Conn Powell ran off were loafers anyway. One of us can do as much work as the whole three of them."

  "I hope you're right, Mr. Mcintosh. I sincerely hope you're right."

  Davis didn't like the sound of that, but he didn't say anything. He didn't want to make a bad situation any worse.

  Welles looked at him again and went on, "I'll have no more trouble on this job, is that understood?"

  "Yes, sir," Davis said. "But if anybody else tries to slit my throat, I'm damned sure going to try to stop him."

  Welles's eyes narrowed at the blunt reply, but then his glare eased a bit and he nodded. "That's certainly fair enough, I suppose." He put his foot in the stirrup and stepped up into the chestnut's military saddle. "I hope you men are ready to work today."

  With that, he wheeled the horse and rode toward the spot where the head of the work crew would be. Powell was already there waiting for him on horseback.

  The pace they set that day was harder than ever before. Davis worked gladly, however, relieved that Hedge and the others were gone. He worried briefly that one of them might stalk the group and try to shoot him from a distance, but that seemed unlikely. If anything happened to him, everyone would know who was responsible. Besides, the three men had headed east when they set out from camp the night before, after Hedge's broken arm had been crudely splinted. They were probably well on their way to the Block House by now, since they could travel much faster along the already widened trail.

  Two days later, with Welles and Powell still pushing hard, the men crossed a stream that, according to Bill Grimsby, was called the Powell River. Davis wondered if it was named for the foreman or perhaps one of his relatives, but he didn't ask. Powell hadn't spoken a word to him since the night of the murder attempt, and he seemed as dour and suspicious as ever.

  The water in the stream was running fast, but there was a good ford and the men and wagons had no trouble crossing. As Davis felt the tug of the current around his boots, he wondered what it would be like to follow this river and see where it led. The thought made him smile faintly.

  He had never known that he possessed such a wanderlust. But now, when he lifted his eyes to the mountains in the distance and found the notch of the Cumberland Gap, he felt a deep sense of anticipation that in a few days he would see what was on the other side.

  Later in the afternoon, as he finished felling a tree, Davis rested his ax on the ground and leaned on it for a moment, staring off at the blue-green heights. Bill Grimsby came up beside him and grinned. "Ever been over there, Davis?" he asked.

  Davis shook his head. "No, this is the farthest west I've ever traveled."

  "Where do you hail from?"

  "The Shenandoah Valley, lately. Before that—" Davis stopped abruptly, realizing that he had let his guard down. He didn't need to be talking about the past with anyone, even someone like Grimsby who seemed to be totally harmless.

  Grimsby noticed the reaction but misunderstood it. "Never you mind about that," he said quickly. "Out here on the frontier, it doesn't really matter where a man's from or what he did there. It's what you do in the here and now that counts." He paused, then added, "Got any plans for when this job's over?"

  "I was thinking about staying on in Kentucky," Davis admitted.

  "It's a fine land," Grimsby said, enthusiasm creeping into his voice. "I was there once. Signed on with some freighters who were taking goods over the Gap in hand carts. It was a long hard walk pullin' that load, let me tell you. But when I got there and saw the mountains, and the forests, and those fields full of the prettiest grass you ever saw . . . well, I told myself then and there that I'd come back someday and settle there myself. I figure to look for some land near Logan's Station or Harrodsburg. Might even push on as far as Boonesborough."

  "Sounds like a fair plan."

  Grimsby's grin widened. "Might even look to find me a wife. A man needs himself a woman, if he's goin' to make anything worth keepin'. You got a wife waitin' for you back in Virginia, Davis?"

  The question made Davis feel as hollow as some of the logs they had seen, as if insects had gotten inside him and gnawed him clean.

  "Naw, of course not, since you were talkin' about settlin' in Kentucky yourself," Grimsby went on before Davis even had a chance to answer. "'Less'n you're plannin' on bringin' her out after you've got yourself situated."

  Davis shook his head. "No," he said, and he was surprised at how normal his voice sounded. "I don't have a wife."

  "Maybe you'll get yourself one. Not a lot of unmarried ladies out there in the wilderness, of course. But some of the families have daughters, and there are some widow women who didn't want to go back wherever they came from." Grimsby laughed. "Maybe we'll both be fortunate and find somebody."

  "Maybe," Davis said, although the discussion meant little or nothing to him at that moment. He was just agreeing with Grimsby so that perhaps the man would shut up, rather than peeling away any more layers of the wall that Davis had thrown up between himself and his pain.

  Conn Powell chose that moment to ride by and notice both men standing there, leaning on their axes. "Get back to work, you two," the foreman snapped. "You're not bein' paid to dream."

  "Aye, sir," Grimsby said. He cast a quick, conspiratorial glance at Davis, then shouldered his ax and headed for the nearest tree.

  Davis picked out another tree as well and began swinging his ax. After a moment, he noticed that his strokes had even more force behind them than usual, and it was difficult to wrench the head of his ax out of the wood after each one. Grimsby's talk of wives had upset him, had stirred up too many still-raw memories.

  And yet, there was something to what the man had said, some truth in his garrulousness. A man needed a woman to be complete. Davis had always believed that. But he had also believed that Faith was the only woman for him. He had been convinced that Faith felt the same way . . . until Andrew had shown up and the world had slowly begun to fall apart around Davis.

  Perhaps someday he would love again. Right now, that seemed impossible—but he had seen with his own eyes how people could change, how things that had seemed utterly inconceivable might become all too real. If they could change for the worse, maybe they could also change for the better.

  Davis hoped that was true. But for now, he swung his ax and tried to tell himself that this was his world: hard work, tree after tree to be felled, a road to widen so that other people, other families, could find a new home for themselves.

  * * *

  The men pushed on, reaching the Cumberland Gap four days later. Davis paused while standing in the Gap itself, looking at the steep, thickly wooded slopes that rose on each side of the passage. The route of the Wilderness Road was an old Indian trail discovered by Daniel Boone, Bill Grimsby had told him, and Davis could easily imagine red-hued woodsmen trotting along this path. Some evenings, Faith had read aloud to the children from the pamphlets put out by the promoter John Filson, so Davis knew all about Boone and his adventures with the Indians and wild game of Kentucky. Some of the stories were probably exaggerated, of course, but there was bound to be a grain of truth in them. After all, Davis thought, he was standing in the Wilderness Road, wasn't he?

  Colonel Welles rode up alongside him, and Davis tensed, expecting the engineer to scold him for woolgathering. But Welles just smiled and said, "It doesn't look like much, does it? Just a pass between some mountains."

  "It's not the pass," Davis said. "It's what's on the other side."

  "Ah, indeed. Very perceptive, Mr. Davis." Welles heeled his horse into a trot that carried him on toward the front of the work crew, but he gave Davis a friendly wave as he rode off.

  Davis had never considered himself a perceptive or e
ven an overly thoughtful man. The words had just come to him, striking home with their Tightness.

  On the other side of the Cumberland Gap was safety, he told himself. He was already more than a hundred miles away from his former home, and with each mile that the crew put behind them, he knew he was that much more isolated from the law. More than likely, it would never be safe for him to return to the Shenandoah Valley, or anywhere else in Virginia. But here in Kentucky he could live out the rest of his life in peace. He was confident that no one would ever come this far to look for him.

  With a rare smile on his face, he picked out a tree on the edge of the trail and began chopping it down. Tonight, if the men sang around the campfire, he might just join in.

  Chapter 9

  Peter Abernathy stood up from his desk with a grunt and walked over to the small stove in the corner of the office. Despite the fact that it was spring, the weather could still turn raw and damp and nasty, as it was today. Abernathy picked up several pieces of wood from the wood box and placed them carefully on the embers in the stove. He grimaced as he felt a twinge in his left arm. Sometimes he forgot and used the arm as if it had never been injured, and he always paid for that forgetfulness in coin of pain.

  It had only been a little over a month, he told himself as he went back to the desk and lowered himself into the chair. The local physician had set and splinted Abernathy's arm, but he had warned the constable that it would take a long time for the arm to regain its full strength, if indeed it ever did. There was nothing unusual about the ache that he felt in it. With time, the injury to his arm would heal.

  The injury to his pride never would.

  Abernathy scowled and tried to force his mind onto other topics. He knew from bitter experience not to dwell too long on Davis Hallam. When he did, the anger and hatred rose up inside him until sometimes he found himself trembling from the depth of the emotions gripping him. He was a good Christian, he told himself when that happened. He shouldn't allow himself to become consumed with such feelings.

  And yet, he could not deny that he would have cheerfully killed Hallam himself, or at least watched him kick his life away at the end of a hangman's rope.

  The front door of the office was closed, but Abernathy heard the steady thud of hoofbeats and the creaking of wheels anyway. He looked up and frowned when the noises came to an abrupt halt in front of the building that housed Elkton's jail and the constable's office. A moment later, footsteps thumped on the porch outside, and the door opened.

  The man who came into the office was medium-sized, but he carried himself with the bearing of someone larger. Confidence, even arrogance, was etched in every line of his face and figure. He wore a dark gray suit over a stiff white shirt that was buttoned to the neck. A black tricorn hat sat on his head, and underneath it was thick, crisp white hair.

  The man's face was ruddy and clean-shaven, his cheeks trenched by lines of hard-won experience. His high-topped black boots were spotted with mud from the road outside, but that was the only thing about him that was less than immaculate. In his left hand he carried a piece of paper, but Abernathy couldn't tell what it was. He had never seen the man before.

  "You're Constable Peter Abernathy?" the stranger asked in a deep, resonant voice.

  Abernathy came to his feet and nodded. "That's right. What can I do for you, sir?"

  The man slapped the paper down on the desk. "Then you're the man responsible for sending out these."

  Abernathy looked down and saw the face of Davis Hallam staring back up at him. Actually, a crude drawing of Hallam's features, and underneath the picture was the word FUGITIVE. The lettering went on to explain that Hallam was wanted on a charge of murder and had taken flight from the settlement of Elkton, Virginia. Anyone with information concerning Hallam was requested to correspond with Constable Peter Abernathy, also of Elkton.

  "Aye, those papers are my work," Abernathy said as he looked back up at his visitor. "Have you seen this man?"

  "Not for more than ten years." The stranger's jaw clenched, one of the muscles jerking as he tried to control what was evidently a deep, disturbing emotion. He went on, "I wish to God I had never seen him at all. I wish my daughter had never seen him."

  Abernathy felt himself tense. "And you are . . . ?"

  "Hammond Larrimore is my name. My daughter was Faith Larrimore. Faith Hallam." Larrimore's mouth twisted bitterly as he spoke his daughter's married name.

  Abernathy took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Mr. Larrimore. I had no way of knowing—"

  Larrimore shook his head and waved off Abernathy's apology. "Your words can't hurt me, Constable. I've gone far beyond that." He pointed at the paper. "I saw that in a settlement back up the trail."

  Abernathy nodded and said, "Yes, I sent out quite a few of them."

  "Have you had any success at catching the murderer? Has he been executed?"

  Reluctantly, Abernathy shook his head. He didn't want to add to Larrimore's pain, nor was he pleased at the prospect of admitting his own failure. Yet there was no denying it. "So far, Davis Hallam has escaped justice," he said heavily.

  Both of Hammond Larrimore's large, knobby-knuckled hands closed into tight fists for a moment, then he nodded. "I feared as much."

  "I know that . . . in tragic circumstances such as these . . . my protestations mean little to you, sir. But I swear to you that I regret allowing Hallam to escape his punishment." Abernathy's right hand went to his left arm, and he rubbed the place where the bone had been broken, almost taking pleasure now in the pain. It was a release of sorts. "I promise you, no one wants to see Hallam brought back and hanged more than myself."

  "I believe you, sir. And your words do have some value."

  "I take it you received Magistrate Symms's letter advising you of your daughter's . . . death?"

  Larrimore nodded. "He said that Davis Hallam attempted to kill you, too, and that you were injured when he escaped."

  Abernathy touched his arm again. "A broken bone. But it's mending now."

  "Some injuries never mend," Larrimore said, echoing the same thought that frequently passed through Abernathy's mind.

  After a moment of silence, Abernathy said, "I wish I could tell you that I have high hopes of Hallam being captured. But after so much time has passed . . . the man could be anywhere."

  "Do you know which direction he was going when he fled?"

  "West," Abernathy said. "Toward the Kentucky frontier. It's quite a large country out there, Mr. Larrimore. Plenty of places for a man to hide."

  "I suppose so. I've never visited that area. Spent most of my life in the Tidewater."

  Abernathy recalled that Hammond Larrimore owned a tobacco plantation in Virginia's coastal lowlands. Larrimore was a wealthy, powerful man. Abernathy wondered how the daughter of such a man had wound up married to someone like Davis Hallam, but he kept the question to himself. Larrimore didn't need anything else to add to his pain right now.

  The visitor drew in a deep, ragged breath. "Faith is buried here in Elkton, is she not?"

  Abernathy nodded. "Aye. Down in our churchyard. For what it's worth, Mr. Larrimore, I can assure you that she got a good Christian burial."

  "And my grandchildren?"

  "They're living with a man named Jonas Kirby and his wife. Fine folks, the Kirbys, and they've taken good care of the children. I've made sure of that."

  "You have my thanks for that, sir. But the youngsters won't have to depend on the care of strangers any longer."

  "You'll be taking them back with you, then?"

  "Of course." Larrimore frowned slightly. "Surely the law will have no objection."

  "You'll have to talk to Magistrate Symms, but I imagine there will be no problem. After all, you're blood kin."

  "My wife and I will care for them as if they were our own," Larrimore said solemnly. "Now, if you would be kind enough to show us our daughter's grave?"

  "Us?" Abernathy repeated. "Mrs. Larrimore is with you?"

  "We set
out from the plantation as soon as we received the magistrate's letter. My good wife would not hear of being left behind."

  It surprised Abernathy somewhat that a fine lady such as Mrs. Larrimore would make the rugged journey from her home to a settlement on the edge of civilization such as Elkton. And yet, he knew little of what motivated a parent, since he had no children himself; he had never been married to anything but his work. But he decided that if he had a daughter, and if that daughter had been murdered, he would probably be willing to make a long journey to visit her grave, too.

  "Let me get my coat," he said to Hammond Larrimore. "Then we'll go down to the church."

  "Thank you, Constable." Larrimore hesitated, then added, "I can see it in your face, sir. I believe you hate Davis Hallam almost as much as do I."

  Abernathy nodded slowly. "Almost," he admitted.

  Perhaps even more, he added to himself. He had not lost a child at the hands of Davis Hallam. But he had lost something just as important to him.

  * * *

  Elizabeth Larrimore was a handsome, middle-aged woman with graying brown hair. Abernathy had not known the Hallam family well, but his memory of Faith Hallam was clear enough so that he was convinced she had gotten her good looks from her mother.

  A closed coach was waiting outside the jail when Abernathy and Larrimore emerged into the blustery wind. The coach's driver sat with his shoulders hunched and his hat pulled low against the wind. It was fairly comfortable inside the coach, though, and that was where Mrs. Larrimore was waiting.

  Abernathy gave the driver directions to the church while Larrimore opened the door of the coach. Instructions weren't really necessary, Abernathy thought, since Elkton was small, little more than a village, and the church was sitting there in plain sight only two hundred yards away. But he spoke to the driver anyway, out of a sense of formality. Likewise, even though he could have easily walked to their destination, he climbed inside the coach with the Larrimores. The planter introduced Abernathy to his wife, and Abernathy put his most solemn expression on his face as he nodded to the woman.