This news made David more determined than ever to get home, but he stayed with his uncle several weeks, partly because Persius fell ill and couldn’t travel for a few days, but mostly because he happened to reach his uncle at a time when he needed farm help, and David felt obliged to give it. At length, the time to leave came around. Joe stocked both travelers with food enough to see them home, and they set off.
“Your folks may not recollect you right off,” Persius said. “You’ve changed a right smart, I’ll lay odds, from when they seen you last.”
The comment set David to thinking. An idea came to mind, rather idle and playful, but interesting enough to be worth trying.
They reached the Crockett tavern late in the day. It was a busy night, seemingly; more than the usual number of wagons were parked outside. David’s heart hammered fiercely. He was home! The knowledge of it was enough to make him shake like a man mortally scared.
Persius eyed him wryly as they neared the door. “They’ll take you for a drunk or figure you have the ague, with you trembling so.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Why don’t you just out and tell them who you are?”
“No, no. I want to see if they’ll know me.”
John Crockett himself took David’s request for lodging, and for David it was the oddest of conversations, because his father talked to him as he would talk to a stranger. Once he did give a probing, frowning glance at the grimy young face, and looked closely at Persius too, who was even dirtier, so much so his face was coated with an earthen rind. When John turned away, it was evident the sight of them had tugged at his mind, but not yet jogged loose recognition.
David and Persius kept to themselves in a corner of the tavern, speaking little to anyone, with David doing his best not to stare at his kin. His brothers and sisters all looked very changed; he wasn’t sure he would have known each of them had he met them anywhere but inside the walls of home. Because the tavern was crowded tonight, neither David nor Persius drew any particular attention from any of the Crocketts, so by mealtime David still sat unrecognized among his own.
His first sight of his mother came when she entered the rear of the tavern, having been in the kitchen house behind the main building, preparing the evening’s supper. David struggled against tears of emotion when he saw her, and it was all he could do to keep from revealing his identity. He was on the verge of rising to do that when Persius put out a hand and stopped him.
“Wait until we’re at the table,” he said. “You’ve carried it out this far—you might as well keep the wheel a-rolling all the way to the end.”
Rebecca’s voice called for all to come to eat. Amid kin and strangers, taken for one of the latter himself, David sat at the long table, passing the bowls as they came to him and glancing around at the faces of his family members.
It was in his sister Betsy’s eyes that he first saw the flicker of recognition. He locked his gaze on hers and smiled slightly. Betsy’s eyes widened, her mouth fell open, and she rose, rounding the table to throw her arms around him.
“It’s my lost brother! It’s David, Mama! It’s our own dear David!”
The explosion of emotion sparked by Betsy’s revelation almost smothered David. The Crockett family surrounded him, pressing in, patting him, hugging him, touching him. When he looked at his father’s face, he saw tears of joy and relief, and then David could not hold back tears of his own.
And over it all, Rebecca Crockett’s voice exclaimed, again and again, “My David, my David, my wandering boy, my boy has come home again!”
Meanwhile, Persius Tarr, grinning around big mouthfuls, helped himself to an extra slab of pork while no one was looking.
Part 3
PANTHER CREEK
Chapter 18
Near the Headwaters of Panther Creek, Spring 1803
Through the forest came the muffled voices of agitated men and the yellow lights of torches, hanging and bobbing like oversized fireflies beyond a wide belt of newly leafed trees. David stopped, panting, wiping a sweat-sodden shock of hair back from his forehead, and shifted about in search of a clean view of the mob. No use. The foliage was too heavy. He must draw nearer. He took in a deep breath and pushed on.
His mind raced at a pace far faster than the dark woodland obstacles would allow his feet. Don’t let it be too late, he mentally pleaded. Persius, don’t let them get their hands on you, whatever happens. They’ll kill you if they do.
He could tell that the band of torch-carrying men were assembled on a little wagon road that angled north to south through the forest. As he came closer, he could hear their voices clearly. The name of Persius Tarr was spoken several times, spat out like the monicker of a particularly deplorable devil.
He halted and crouched in the brush when he heard a new sound, from farther up the road: the baying of dogs. They were bringing in hounds! David felt a strange thrill of horror. The torches, the hounds, the very atmosphere surrounding the little mob, confirmed the terrible thing old John Canaday had told David about an hour before, when David had returned from a long afternoon’s hunt: Crider Cummings was readying to search for Persius, and to hang him as soon as he was found.
The gentle old Quaker Canaday had told David how Persius Tarr had on this very day beaten Henry Cummings, Crider’s younger brother, into unconsciousness during a fight apparently spurred by mutual drunkenness. The injured man had been brought to Canaday’s house, which stood within a mile of the still house where the fight occurred. Now Henry Cummings lay senseless on Canaday’s own bed, his fate uncertain, and his brother Crider, who had left the bedside about two hours earlier, had sworn to gather help and get his revenge on Persius Tarr. Crider already considered Persius a murderer, even though his brother hadn’t yet died.
As soon as he heard these things, David had set out to find the Crider Cummings mob. Now that he had succeeded in doing so, it came to him with rather stunning ironic impact: there was really nothing he could do here to help Persius. His urge to locate the mob had been unfocused and desperate, an impulse that had outraced common sense. Now he saw that if he was to do any good, it could best be done by finding Persius himself, warning him of what was happening, and helping him flee.
But this presented a glaring problem: Where was Persius to be found? Since coming to Jefferson County with David, over a year ago now, Persius had lived here and there, in the woods, in woodsheds, in empty, decrepit cabins, even in a cave for one month, and for another in the cellar of a building now used as a church. David had tried to persuade Persius to settle down somewhere, but his friend had staunchly refused. He liked life as he lived it. And a fellow who wasn’t above thievery was best off not being tied to one spot anyway.
David tried to think of the most likely places Persius would go on the run. Maybe he could investigate them, one by one, until he found him … but no. That would be too difficult, too time-consuming. And it was just as likely that Persius would not be hiding at all, but running, trying to get out of the area before being chased down. If so, David knew he couldn’t hope to find him before Crider Cummings’s mob and their hounds.
There was only one other hope, and it hung in the hands of fate. He could go back to Canaday’s house and help the Quaker try to bring Henry Cummings around to the living again. If that could be done, and if Crider could be notified, then he could no longer regard Persius as a murderer. Maybe his fury would be tempered, and Persius spared vengeance, at least the full, lethal form of vengeance Crider had in mind.
David rose and backed away into the forest, regretting that he hadn’t sooner considered matters more logically. In his unthinking zeal, he had come into a place of danger himself. Settled uncomfortably in the back of his brain was the fact that his friendship with Persius was well-known. Should Crider find him here, he might force him to lead the mob to Persius. David couldn’t do that, of course, but he might find himself very ill-used before Crider finally accepted that fact.
The baying grew louder and c
loser; the men in the mob were looking back up the road, waiting for the hounds to come into view. Snatches of conversation revealed the dogs were being brought by Solomon Overby. David knew of these hounds. They were trained to find men and had hunted down many a fugitive on behalf of the local constables. Overby was justly proud of them.
Turning, David headed back the way he came—and fell. A root, unseen in the darkness, had caught his foot. The forest floor was soft and the impact of the fall didn’t hurt him, but the noise he had made …
“Hear that?” someone on the road yelled. “Right in yonder—come on, let’s go!”
Men plunged into the woods. Pure fright gripped David; he knew at this moment what it was to be a fawn when a wolf pack catches its scent. He leaped up and ran blindly into the dark woodland, men coming after him. David’s fear was of the mortal strain. Running without the tether of reason, it told him he would die if he was caught.
But David had one advantage derived from his upbringing as a frontier boy. From early childhood one central fact of survival had been pummeled into him by his father, his uncles, his older brothers, his neighbors: fear is a man’s worst enemy. It’s fear that makes a man in the forest watch the ground for snakes, only to advance headlong into a low-hanging hornets’ nest. It’s fear that makes a man waste his shot by firing too soon at a wounded and advancing bear, leaving himself to be mauled, when a moment’s wait would have given him a clean kill. It’s fear that makes a man fight the water and drown, rather than let it support him so he can swim out and live.
David stopped and turned. He couldn’t outrun them, could only make his situation more dangerous by trying. Lifting his hands, he waited for the men to come close.
“I’m unarmed,” he said. “I’ve done nothing—I won’t fight.”
Three men seized him; one shoved a torch into his face. “Oh, yes, I know you. You’re the boy who’s bound out to Quaker Canaday, ain’t you?”
“Yes, sir. My name’s David Crockett.”
“Crockett, aye, yes. Why did you come sneaking, boy? Why did you run?”
“I was looking for you. I’ve come from Canaday’s to tell you that Henry Cummings has come around. He didn’t die. He’s calling for his brother Crider.” It was a desperate lie, but what else could he say? At least it would buy time. Crider would be obliged to investigate the story, and meanwhile Persius could put more distance between himself and his pursuers … if he was running. Persius might have been too drunk to realize what he had done to Henry Cummings, or too drunk to flee.
“Henry’s woke up, you say?” The man tugged his beard and frowned. “I don’t believe it. You’re lying. I know for a fact you’re a friend of Tarr. It was you who brung Tarr into this county, early part of last year.”
“That’s right,” said a second man. “Besides, boy, if you were looking for us, why did you run?”
David had no answer. He had been outfoxed, and his face showed it.
They dragged him back to the wagon road and the mob, which had just been joined by Overby and his hounds. The big dogs strained at the ends of long rope leashes. David could all but taste the blood hunger of these men. He wondered if Persius, wherever he was, realized what danger he was in.
“We didn’t find no Tarr, but we sure enough found his friend,” one of David’s captors said.
Crider Cummings, whom David knew from having seen him a time or two at Canaday’s house, came closer, bearing a torch. He held it close to David’s face, so close it scorched the skin, and frowned. “Canaday’s bound boy!” he said. “Tell me, boy, where’s Persius Tarr right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re his friend. Whole blasted county knows it.”
“He says Henry’s woke up and is asking for you, Crider,” one of David’s captors said. “He says he come looking for you, to tell you—but he was running from us when we caught him.”
Crider put his nose almost against David’s. “You say my brother’s awake?”
“Yes sir.”
“Why did you run?”
“I … I got scared. I heard the dogs and I thought they was mad dogs in the woods.”
Crider laughed. “Why, you little squat, if you’re going to lie, at least tell a good one! Mad dogs, I reckon!” His face instantly became a cold, frightening mask. “I’m sending George Watkins back to Canaday’s, just in case you’re telling the truth. But in the meantime, you’re going with us, Crockett. You’re going to help us find that murderer you tomcat around with, and you’re going to help us hang him.”
“I don’t know where he is. I can’t help you.”
“We’ll find him! Them dogs will sniff him out. I got a bit of his shirt, you see. Henry ripped it off while they was fighting; it was still in his hand.”
“I’ll not go with you!”
“Boy, you ain’t got a choice.”
Crider walked away and talked to George Watkins, who immediately headed back through the forest toward Canaday’s. David’s heart sank. Even if by some miracle Watkins did find that Henry Cummings had recovered, it probably would do no good. By then the mob would have moved on, and might be unreachable with the news.
Two men tied David’s hands behind him and shackled his feet with a rope, leaving it long enough for him to walk but not run. The treatment let David know just how serious Crider was about this business. He wasn’t even the culprit sought, yet he was being treated like a criminal! He could only imagine how harsh they would be with Persius, if they caught him.
Someone poked him in the small of the back, pushing him forward. The hounds, having sniffed the fragment of Persius’s shirt, surged ahead, and the mob followed, torches flaring and flickering in the night.
As the mob progressed, David felt increasingly distressed, because he was beginning to form a suspicion about where Persius might have gone. Crider kept harping at him, nagging him with questions—“He got a place hereabouts? You ever knowed him to camp about this ridge? You ever hunted with him along the Holston?”—and David kept evading and lying, even though every step the dogs led them along the path further confirmed the accuracy of his developing suspicion.
Persius sometimes lived in a small, previously abandoned log hut that stood at the base of a cliff where a spring bubbled out from a cave. Though no one but David knew that Persius sometimes lived in the hut, the existence of the hut itself was known to most who lived in the area. Any time now someone in the mob would realize it was to this hut that the dogs were leading them.
David grew angry at Persius. How could he have been so foolish as to go to such an accessible place after beating a man nearly—maybe completely—to death? It indicated to him that Persius was either very drunk or very foolish.
“I know where that scoundrel is!” someone in the mob declared. “The old hut, down by the cave spring, just over yonder rise!”
Others voiced their concurrence. David winced. Now there was nothing he could do to help Persius. They were within shouting distance of the hut already.
Shouting distance … maybe there was something he could do after all, even if it was no more than a warning.
“Persius! It’s me, David Crockett—run, Persius, they’re coming to—”
A blow across the mouth cut off his shout. And it had been a loud one, as loud as he could make it. Crider cursed and lunged back toward David, rifle butt uplifted. He brought it down hard on the side of David’s head. David crumpled and fell. Crider kicked him. Someone hit him with a torch. Bits of flaring pine knot stuck to his skin and burned him.
“Tie him to that tree there, and make sure it’s tight enough to hold him,” Crider ordered one of his fellows. David was dragged off and bound very firmly to the trunk of a big sassafras.
Then they moved on. David watched the mob head on across the ridge. On the far side was the cliff, the spring, the hut. He hoped his yell had reached Persius in time to help. Even so, the help would be minimal. The mob was so close now that Persius could
n’t hope to outrun them.
David struggled with his bonds but could not loosen them. He heard voices from across the ridge, shouting, angry. The dogs were barking violently. They must have found Persius. Tears welled in David’s eyes and overflowed. He thought: If they kill him, I hope they’ll do it quick, and not make him suffer.
The shouting grew louder. David pulled at his ropes again, so hard that the skin on his wrists chafed and burned. Then he stopped, frozen, and turned his head.
Someone was coming, following the path of the mob. He had no idea who it could be. Was it merely some straggling member of Crider’s mob, or someone else of similar ill will? Or was it someone who might help Persius, or at least keep the mob from murdering him?
“Here! Up here!” David called.
There was a scrambling of feet, a tumult of motion. More than one person—David could tell it.
“Right up here! Come help me—I’m tied!”
With the torches gone, borne off by the mob, David could not clearly see the faces of the three men who came over the little hump and to his side. One of them knelt and leaned close.
“David, what have they done to thee?”
It was John Canaday. David laughed aloud. The Quaker’s arrival was as welcome as an advent of avenging angels come to rescue him and Persius. He had already developed a strong affection for his kind employer; now he felt a fierce love, and a less-than-rational conviction that Canaday’s arrival would somehow stop the mob.
“They’re over the ridge, Mr. Canaday,” David said. “And I think they’ve found Persius.”
Chapter 19
John Canaday straightened his spine rather creakingly and looked across the ridge while hefting his trousers, which always had a tendency to sag too low beneath the ample belly that age and hearty eating had given him. “God grant we are not come too late,” he said, wheezing slightly with exertion.
Crockett of Tennessee Page 14
