Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  “It will, one of these days. Good day to you, Thias.”

  “Good day, Mr. Tiel.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Within twenty-four hours of his conversation with Thias Tyler, Edward Tiel found himself in the center of a series of events that soon became the talk of Knoxville and the region round about it.

  The first event was the theft of several of Tiel’s best horses. He immediately suspected the Harpes. The theft was so blatant and daring that he figured it was done to spite him for his open investigation of the brothers.

  Tiel responded promptly. Mounting his fastest horse, he quickly gathered a sizable body of armed men from among his neighbors and set out to find his stolen horses and the men who had taken them. Thias Tyler was not among the group; Tiel had thought about asking him, but remembering that Hiram Tyler was sick and needed help, let it go.

  Tiel and his men rode to the Harpe cabin and found it had been vacated. An examination of the land around it showed evidence that a large number of horses had been penned here very recently. Tiel was sure they were his.

  The tracks of the horses through the winter-browned pea vine and grass that filled the countryside around Beaver Creek created a fine trail for the men to follow. It led them away from the Harpe cabin and onto a path through the forested wilderness, leading toward the Clinch River. There they found further evidence that the horses had been swum across. Ahead, beyond several miles of rolling hills and valleys, loomed the high wall of the Cumberlands. The Harpes appeared to be leading their stolen horses toward Kentucky.

  It was soon evident they were overtaking the thieves, and before long Tiel himself caught the first actual sight of them. Off in the distance, where the land began to rise at the base of the mountains, he saw a small cave that was a frequent resting place for travelers on this road. In a small clearing at the cave’s mouth, several horses were grazing, and just in front of the cave itself two men sat eating. They had built no fire. They were too far away for their features to be seen, but their sizes in comparison with one another were enough to tell Tiel he had found the Harpes.

  “I’d nigh let them go and say a fond farewell if not for the fact them’s my horses they’ve got,” he said to his companions. “Be ready, men. They may resist hard, for they’ll know there’s only the lash and jail for them back in Knoxville. And I don’t see their women about, so keep watch on your backs. If they’re about somewhere, unseen, they might shoot from hiding.”

  In fact the Harpes didn’t resist. Though armed, they didn’t raise their weapons when the posse showed itself, and turned their firearms over almost cordially, as if this were no more than a good-natured game they had the misfortune to lose. Neither spoke a word at first, but Wiley finally asked, “What do you aim to do with us? Will you kill us here?”

  “We’re not savages,” Tiel replied. “We are civilized men, and we’ll see you punished by the law, not outside it. We’ll take you back to Knoxville. There you will be tried, and no doubt convicted. You’ll receive thirty-nine lashes each on your backs with a leather whip, and probably spend time jailed besides.”

  “What about our wives?” Wiley asked.

  “Where are they?”

  “They have gone on ahead. We were to meet them at a certain place on the way.”

  “Tell us where they are and we’ll send some men to fetch them and bring them back to Knoxville in safety. We hold this crime against you, not your women.”

  That obviously wasn’t the response Wiley had been hoping for. “Ain’t no need for them to go back to Knoxville. The devil with that. Just leave the women where they are.”

  “You’d abandon these women in this wilderness alone?”

  “They’ll be well enough. We don’t join them, they’ll come back looking for us on their own.”

  Tiel went along, feeling a rising loathing for men who would not only steal and cheat their own neighbors, but leave pregnant women alone in wild country, unknowing of the fate of their men. Tiel could only suppose, though, that the women had suffered much worse than that at the hands of these devils. Maybe abandonment was the best thing that could happen to them.

  With the Harpes parading on foot before their captors, hands tied behind them, they began the homeward journey. The Harpes showed no evident desire to escape. They seemed placid, almost happy, resigned to their fate.

  They made their break near a huge field of briars and scrub brush. The pair of them simply bolted into the field and sprinted into the growth, seemingly ignoring the thorns and branches that ripped at their clothing and skin. A couple of the posse members managed to lift rifles, and one fired into the tangle, but Tiel waved down any further shots.

  “Let them go,” he said. “I’ve got my stolen horses back, and that’s what matters most. And now that we know the Harpes are guilty men, we’ll see no more of them in our parts. They’ll dare not return.”

  Leading the horses, they continued on to Knoxville. Though Tiel did not say it to anyone, he was secretly almost glad the Harpes had escaped. It was no bad thing to have put a hard and nasty business behind, and certainly no bad thing to be free of the devilish Harpe brothers.

  Cale Johnson was much relieved. He had learned that morning of the events regarding Tiel, the posse, and the Harpes, and no soul for miles around Knoxville was as pleased as he to know the Harpe brothers had fled. Ever since Clardy Tyler’s startling revelation to him of the Harpes’ desire to see him killed, he had hidden out, afraid to show himself. But he hadn’t run away. Even if he lacked morals, he did have pride, too much to let him run from any man. Or so he told himself. On a deeper level he knew the real reason was that he had no better place to go—and there was always the possibility that if he laid low and waited long enough, the Harpes’ evil ways would catch up with them, they would be removed from the picture, and the much-adored Sally Rice Harpe could be claimed for his own.

  It had worked out almost that very way, except for the part about Sally. Apparently the Harpes had their women with them, and Johnson was having to accustom himself to the fact that he would probably never see his beloved again. The Harpes, and therefore Sally, certainly would not return here, where they were wanted as horse thieves. Ah well, he thought, wrapping his hand around his cup, so goes life. There will be other women, though none so fine as dear Sally.

  He was seated in Hughes’s tavern, sharing whiskey and a table with the Metcalfe brothers, siblings of Hughes’s wife. The whiskey had mellowed Johnson considerably. He felt good about life, glad to be free of hiding and fear, and was even beginning to think that life without Sally might not be so hard to endure after all. And as for the profitable dealing in stolen beasts he had enjoyed with the Harpes, that was over anyway, erased as an option for him the moment he learned that the Harpes wanted him dead.

  He was listening to one of the Metcalfes tell a coarse story about an Indian woman he had once known, when the tavern door opened. It was dusk and the tavern was growing dark, the only light inside being the dim glow of sunset piercing the west-facing window and the gleam of firelight on the hearth. For a moment Cale Johnson was unable to believe that the two men who came firmly striding into the tavern, belt axes in hand, were Wiley and Micajah Harpe.

  It was impossible. They wouldn’t come back here. Not them. Yet there they were.

  Johnson stood, tipping over the stool upon which he had been seated. He stared almost stupidly at the intruders. Wiley Harpe’s eye caught his, and Wiley smiled.

  “Look there, Micajah,” he said. “We’ve found him.”

  The Harpes approached him. “You’re coming with us, Cale,” Micajah said.

  “No … I don’t want to do that.” Johnson licked his lips as fear rose. He forced a feeble chuckle. “What are you fellers doing back here? I didn’t figure you’d return.”

  “Why, Cale, that’s the very reason we come back!” Wiley said. “We’d been looking for you, but you’d taken to laying low on us. After old Tiel took our horses from us, we commenced to th
inking that maybe good old Cale would come out from under his rock, now that he’ll be sure we’re gone for good, scared to come back. ’Pears we were right. And you were wrong, Cale. We ain’t scared to come back. Me and Micajah, we ain’t scared of nothing. Now, Cale, you and me are going to settle a little business over my Sally.”

  Johnson looked imploringly at the Metcalfe brothers, who were still seated, gaping at the Harpes. “Men, I need some help here,” he said.

  “Ain’t no affair of ours,” one of them replied, waving his hands in a gesture of noninvolvement. They rose and quickly moved elsewhere in the tavern.

  “Come on with us, Cale. Let’s get this done without a fight,” Wiley said.

  Johnson eyed his rifle, which stood leaning against the wall near the door, far away from him. He could not hope to reach it. “Wiley, I don’t want to go with you.”

  “Don’t matter. You’re going anyhow.”

  Johnson lunged suddenly, trying to break past the pair. In his wicker cage, Hughes watched, but made no move to intervene. He knew the Harpes and would not oppose them.

  Micajah reached out a hand like a bear paw and grabbed Johnson by the neck. He threw him back across the table, scattering cups and making the table rock on its legs. Johnson yelled in fright. Wiley leaned over him, smiling, belt axe upraised. “You want me to do it right here, Cale?” He chortled. “You want these gents here to see you begging and crying? Do you?”

  “Please, Wiley, please … don’t hurt me.”

  “You’ve cast your eye on my woman too many a time, Cale. That’s one thing I won’t abide.”

  “I never touched her! I swear it, Wiley! You let me go, you’ll never have to see me again … I’ll ride away from here, far as I can go.” Tears came to his eyes. “I promise you, Wiley. Swear it on the grave of my own pap!”

  Without another word Wiley grabbed Johnson’s arm and pulled him roughly to his feet. Johnson began to weep and beg mercy. Micajah gripped his other arm and the Harpes pulled the struggling, pleading man toward the door. The Metcalfes stood aside, letting them pass. Hughes remained behind his wicker screen, silent, expressionless. Johnson looked at him, begged for help, but Hughes’s stare was without compassion. He would not involve himself.

  The Harpes pulled their victim out of the tavern. For a long time silence held inside the darkening log building, while Johnson’s pleas and cries faded away in the distance. Hughes stepped out from his protective cage. “I reckon I’ll close up now,” he said.

  “That’s probably the best thing,” one of the Metcalfes said.

  “Oh … one more thing,” Hughes said. He went back to the wicker cage, stooped, and dug around in a box of papers. He produced one with Cale Johnson’s name at the top and a string of figures below: Johnson’s list of drinks bought on credit. Hughes sighed, shook his head, and tore up the paper. This was one debt that would never be paid.

  He joined the Metcalfes and left, closing the door, shutting out the world, closing in the darkness.

  Thias knelt beside his grandfather’s bed, tears in his eyes. Hiram Tyler was dying. There was no question of it now. He had worsened terribly about sunset. Now it was pitch-black outside, the heart of night. Thias doubted the old man would linger until morning.

  He had fallen into unconsciousness an hour before, after giving his grandson the last demand he would ever make upon him. The words were weakly spoken but clear. “Thias … go find Clardy. Find him … see that he is well. Sell the farm … Branford in Knoxville will buy it … divide the money with Clardy. You boys … make yourselves good lives someplace new, someplace better.”

  “Yes, Grandpap,” Thias had replied, astounded that the same old man who had made him feel tied to this farm for so many years now was telling him to free himself of it. Maybe there had been more perception and wisdom in Hiram Tyler than he and Clardy had ever given him credit for. “I’ll do all that. And I’ll find Clardy. I promise.”

  The old man’s face was drawn and twisted. Always a thin man, he had grown gaunt over his days of sickness. Thias wondered if he had done the right thing, just staying with the old man all that time. Maybe he should have gone to Knoxville and found help. But what help was there for such an illness? Clearly Hiram had fallen victim to the apoplexy that had killed several of the Tylers for generations back. No one could have done anything to stop this.

  Gripping his grandfather’s hand, Thias looked around the cabin. As strained and unhappy as his life had been here, it had been the only home he knew. Now it didn’t seem like home at all. Clardy was gone, and soon Hiram would be gone as well. It would not be hard to sell this place and leave it. Without Clardy and Grandpap, this would be a hollow, sorrowful refuge of memories. He would not want to remain.

  The first hint of sunrise was lighting the horizon when Hiram Tyler exhaled his final rattling breath. Thias, still gripping the old man’s sallow, limp hand, imagined he could feel the life leaving him, rising and dispersing around him like a vapor. And then he was alone.

  Rising, he laid Hiram’s hand over on the unmoving chest and crossed the other hand atop it. Eyes flooding, he pulled the blanket up over the body, looked sadly at the still face for a moment, then covered it.

  Like Clardy, he had often dreamed of being free of the sour, difficult old man, though unlike Clardy, he had never expressed the dreams openly. But he had never imagined gaining his freedom in this way. He had always imagined himself leaving Hiram, not Hiram leaving him. Odd as it seemed, he had never even considered the fact that one day Hiram Tyler would die. He had believed that somehow the old man would always be there.

  Wiping away tears, Thias put on his coat and hat and left the cabin. He strode off down the road, walking like a man rushing to someplace of importance, though in fact he had nowhere to go at all. He was walking for walking’s sake, trying to outpace the sorrow that loomed all around him. But it remained with him, heavy as a stone, and at last he turned, his reddened eyes stinging in the cold wind, and went back to the cabin to prepare his grandfather for burial.

  He laid away Hiram Tyler with his own hands. There was no funeral; the old man had always despised ceremony and emotional display, and since he had avoided such in life, it seemed fitting to not inflict it upon him in death. Thias laid his grandfather away beside his late wife and near the small grave where his severed leg lay, then went back to the cabin, packed up his own rifle and his grandfather’s, ammunition, and a few personal possessions, and rode into Knoxville. There he called on Joseph Branford, a frontier lawyer who kept office in that town, and announced that the Tyler farm and livestock were available for sale. The lawyer bought the land, cabin, and livestock himself, just as Hiram had said he would. Thias had no spirit for much haggling, and left knowing he probably had not obtained what the property was worth. It didn’t matter to him at the moment. He was eager to break all ties and get away, more eager still to begin looking for his brother, a circumstance he mentioned to Branford.

  “Would you want that money held in trust for you until you’ve found Clardy?” Branford asked. “There is danger in carrying money on the road.”

  “No. I’ll keep the money with me, so I can divide it with Clardy as soon as I find him. Clardy may not be able … may not want to come back here, for reasons of his own.” Thias said this in ignorance of all that had happened involving Tiel and the Harpes’ escape.

  “I see,” Branford replied. “But you should be careful, carrying that much coin on you. There is always the danger of robbery, and if you lose that money, you’ve lost your inheritance.”

  Thias felt annoyed. He had just lost his brother to the wide world, his grandfather to death, and the only life and home he had ever known. What place was it of Branford’s to worry about his money? Branford had the farm he had wanted, and the rest was none of his business.

  Thias left the lawyer, then went to a nearby tavern and bought himself a meal. While there, he finally learned what had happened concerning the Harpes and Tiel’s stolen horses.
The irony made him shake his head. Clardy had fled the Knoxville area because of the Harpes, and now they themselves were gone. Clardy was running from a threat that had already been nullified, and if only he knew it, could now return to Knoxville without fear. Briefly, Thias thought about going to Branford and telling him that, yes, he would allow him to hold the bulk of the money in safekeeping for him and Clardy after all, and that they would return together later to reobtain it. But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure he could trust Branford, and was even less sure he would want to come back to Knoxville once he found Clardy.

  Grandpap had told him to find a new life elsewhere. That was one Hiram Tyler demand that Thias would fulfill gladly.

  The challenge would be to find Clardy. He had told Grandpap he was bound for Kentucky, but beyond that had said nothing specific about where he would go. Probably, Clardy hadn’t known himself. Thias wished he had something more to go on. The prospect of a long search over a vast territory was daunting.

  Thias was on the verge of leaving town when a hoot and yell at the end of the street heralded the arrival of a flatbedded wagon bearing what looked like an irregularly shaped heap of blankets. One man drove the wagon; another rode slightly ahead of it, waving his hand above his head. Puzzled, Thias looked more closely at the approaching wagon and its odd burden, and realized with a chill that the apparent heap of blankets was in fact a single blanket, spread across what looked like …

  Oh, no, Thias thought. Oh, no …

  The horseman rode up ahead of the wagon and shouted, “Dead man! We’ve found a dead man—murdered, by grabs!”

  Thias was seized with a brief but thorough paralysis. That might be Clardy under that blanket. The Harpes are running free, and Clardy’s out there.… They might have found him, and …

  He shoved off his paralysis and pushed his way through the gathering crowd toward the wagon. The driver halted, the horse’s breath steaming. The horseman leaped down, circled around to the back of the wagon and grasped the blanket.