Flavius was fast losing his patience. After all they had gone through to help these people, he felt it was damned rude of the settler to be treating them as if they were pond scum. “Listen, you yack. No one hired us. No one could pay me to trek across this godforsaken prairie.”
“So you claim.” The young man wagged the rifle. “Back up. And no tricks. I won’t hesitate to use this.”
Davy saw no point in resisting, just yet. It was obvious a mistake had been made. He counted on explaining fully and setting their suspicious acquaintance at ease. “Don’t do anything rash,” he cautioned as he took a couple of strides backward.
The man eased over the gate and slid to the ground. Despite his exceptional leanness, he was handsome in a rough-hewn sort of way. Sandy hair was cropped short. His eyes were a striking green, his jaw firm and prominent. He leveled the rifle at them, and for the first time Davy realized that it had been cocked.
“You can lower that hammer, son. We don’t want an accident.”
The young man was not pacified. Glowering, he said harshly, “My name is Jonathan Hamlin, as if you didn’t know. And I’m not your son. Heck. You’re not much older than I am.”
Flavius was on the verge of exploding. Shouldering past Davy, he jabbed a finger at Hamlin. “I’ve about had my fill of you, you talking broom handle—”
Hamlin cut Flavius short by pressing the muzzle against his ample abdomen. “Another word out of you, blubber guts, and you’ll have a new navel.”
Davy was about to intervene when another figure rose up out of the bed. Stunned, he beheld one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Golden hair framed a face that would do justice to the finest marble statue ever sculpted. Gray eyes devoid of fear appraised him, then Flavius, and fixed on Hamlin.
“Be civil, Jonathan. I don’t think these men are who we suspected.”
Another head blossomed beside the woman’s blue dress, a dainty head framed by coal-black hair. A girl of ten or twelve bit her lower lip, then asked fearfully, “Aren’t they going to hurt us, mommy? Aren’t they the bad ones?”
Jonathan Hamlin gestured. “Get down, both of you. I’ll do what has to be done.”
“No,” the woman said.
“Heather, please,” Hamlin said. “Let me handle this. I’m not about to risk your lives on the off chance you’re right.”
“But you can’t kill them in cold blood.”
Flavius had been momentarily mesmerized by the vision of loveliness in the wagon. Now he recoiled, saying, “What’s all this nonsense about making wolf meat of us? We’re as harmless as a pair of little lambs, ma’am.”
Hamlin elevated his rifle as if to bash Flavius in the mouth. “Like blazes you are!” he snapped. “Admit it. Dugan sent you, didn’t he? Either to murder me or take us back to St. Louis.”
Davy had leaned Liz against his side. Holding his arms out, palms showing to demonstrate he was peaceful, he said, “We don’t know any Dugan. All we wanted ... ” He paused, debating how to best phrase it. Should he come right out and say that only a jackass would take a family on out into the wasteland? That he had gone to all the trouble of finding them just to convince them to head back to civilization before they were turned into human pincushions?
“What’s the matter, Tennessean?” Hamlin said. “Can’t come up with a ready excuse?”
Flavius looked at Davy. “Can’t you see that you’d be wasting your breath? Let this fool get himself and his wife and kid slaughtered. It’s none of our affair.”
Heather sat on the edge of the gate. The girl boosted herself into her mother’s lap and clung to Heather as if in mortal dread. “I don’t want to die, mommy. If these are the bad men, make them go away.”
Hamlin brought the rifle stock to his shoulder. “I’ll do better than that, Becky.”
“No!” Heather practically screamed. “For the love of God, Jon. Not in front of my daughter.”
“Not ever,” Flavius was swift to interject. He yearned to get out of there while they still could. To tramp back to the Mississippi, climb into the canoe, and head downriver. He yearned to be shed of the wilderness, shed of the endless brushes with death, shed of the atmosphere of violence that afflicted everyone, including a typical family like the Hamlins.
Backing off, Flavius said, “Look, we’re leaving now. You folks go on about your business. Sorry to have bothered you.”
Davy started to follow. He had to admit that Flavius had been right all along. They should have left well enough alone.
Jonathan Hamlin did not lower his gun. “Not another step, either of you. Put your rifles down and shed the rest of your hardware.”
It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Flavius had taken all he was going to take. Flushed with resentment, he brought his own rifle up. Or tried to.
Hamlin’s Kentucky blasted. Becky screeched, her mother clasping the child to her bosom as Flavius staggered, then gaped down at himself.
“He shot me! The jackass up and shot me!”
Appalled, Davy sprang to his friend’s side and slipped an arm around Flavius’s waist as his knees buckled. A spreading stain high on the front of Flavius’s buckskin shirt marked the entry hole. Fury filled him, fury directed partly at Hamlin for the callous deed and partly at himself for dragging Flavius there against his will. He was as much to blame as Hamlin.
Dizziness assailed Flavius. He tried to straighten, but his legs were too weak. First the buffalo attack, now this, he thought. “It just ain’t my day,” he muttered.
Hamlin had reached behind him and produced a flintlock. “How about you, mister?” he asked Davy. “Care to test my mettle too? You didn’t expect it to be this hard, did you? I’ll make you earn every cent of Dugan’s blood money.” So saying, he cocked the pistol and pointed it at Davy’s head.
Chapter Three
Davy Crockett stared eternity in the face. Hamlin was on the verge of firing. He saw Hamlin’s jaw muscles tighten, saw his trigger finger begin to squeeze. Another split second, and a lead ball would core his skull. The gallivant had ended as Flavius always dreaded. Elizabeth was left a widow, with six mouths to feed. Guilt flashed through him, guilt and regret.
It was then that a shapely slender hand swooped down from above. It gripped the pistol, and a finger slid between the hammer and the pan.
“There will be no killing, Jon.”
Hamlin glanced up at Heather in baffled irritation. “What’s gotten into you? Dugan won’t rest until I’m worm food. And the fate he has in store for you is worse.”
Eloquent mute appeal was mirrored in the woman’s lovely eyes. “Please,” she said, simply and softly.
Davy doubted there was a man on the planet who would have been able to refuse her. Hamlin certainly couldn’t. Bristling with suppressed anger, he nodded curtly and lowered the pistol to his waist.
“All right. If that’s what you want. But you’re making a mistake. We have to fight fire with fire, or our life together will end before it’s barely begun.”
“We can’t stoop to their level,” Heather said. “We’re human beings, not animals.”
Davy listened while examining Flavius. His friend was pale and weak, but more from shock than the severity of the wound. The ball had caught him in the fleshy part of the chest just under the shoulder, glanced off the rib cage, and exited without penetrating a vital organ or severing a major artery. “You’ll live,” he pronounced.
Flavius swallowed. His head would not stop spinning and he hurt like the devil. He attempted to stand, saying, “Help me up. I’m weak as a kitten.”
“Be sensible,” Davy said, and lowered Flavius onto his back. To Hamlin and the woman, he said, “You’ve made a terrible mistake. But at least you won’t have my partner’s life on your conscience. Give me some water and a cloth so I can tend his wound.”
Jonathan Hamlin warily circled, then squatted to snatch one of Davy’s own pistols off the ground. “You’ve got it backwards, mister. We tell you w
hat to do, not the other way around.” He wagged both guns. “Now get up.”
Davy stayed right where he was. “Be reasonable. My friend is badly hurt.”
“It’s his own fault. He shouldn’t have made the fool play he did.”
The wagon creaked. Heather was climbing down. The little girl followed suit, gluing herself to her mother’s side.
“I’ll lend a hand,” Heather offered. Going to a barrel attached to the side of the wagon, she opened it, plucked a dipper out, and brought it over brimming with water.
Hamlin fidgeted. “You beat all, you know that? Why should you care about them? They’re liars and killers, aren’t they?”
Heather stared at Davy, her features inscrutable. “I’m not so sure. Deep down I have an awful feeling that they’re telling the truth.”
Jonathan snorted. “And cows can fly.”
Bending, Heather gave the dipper to Davy, who in turn tilted it to Flavius’s lips. “Here.”
“What are your names?” Heather inquired.
“Davy Crockett, ma’am, at your service. And this gent your husband shot is Flavius Harris. We’re backwoodsmen, on our way home after taking a tour of the country just to see what we could see.” Over the years quite a few people had told Davy that he could be a regular charmer when he was of a mind to be, and he poured on the charm now to win the woman over. Showing more teeth than a cornered coon, he added, “Our wives will likely brain us when we get back for being gone so long. And the kids will all expect presents.”
Heather straightened. “You have a wife and children?”
“She’s my second wife, actually. My first—bless her memory—went to her reward much too young.” Davy had to stop. A lump had formed in his throat. He had loved Polly with an affection as deep as the ocean, and her passing had affected him worse than any other.
Davy forced himself to go on. “Cruel fate entered our humble cabin and ripped from our children a devoted mother and from me a tender and caring wife.”
Heather blinked, then put a hand to her bosom. “I’m truly sorry.”
Davy coughed. “Young love is always the sweetest love, and she was my first.” He looked up. “Don’t get me wrong, though. I adore my new wife just as much. No man could ask for a finer life-mate.” He gave her the empty dipper. “More, please. And that cloth I mentioned.”
“Right away.”
As Heather hastened to the water barrel, Jonathan Hamlin leaned toward Davy and said so only Davy could hear, “I know what you’re up to, you polecat. You’re trying to win her over so she’ll make me let you go. But it won’t work. I love her and Becky too much. I’ll do what has to be done with or without her consent.”
Davy frowned. “You’re as hardheaded as an old sour boar, you know that? If we had intended to harm you, why did we march right up to your wagon with our guard down?” He tapped his head. “Think, mister. Use that noggin of yours for something other than an ear rack.”
Jonathan pondered for all of three seconds. “It won’t wash. You came waltzing in like you did to trick us, so we’d be easy pickings. But it didn’t work. Dugan will have to send out more cutthroats.” He gave a start, as if struck by a thought, and stood.
“Who the devil is this Dugan you keep talking about?”
Hamlin bobbed his head toward Heather, who was refilling the dipper. “You know damn well who Dugan is. He’s her father.”
Heather had overheard. “My stepfather, to be exact,” she said as she came toward them. “My natural father died when I was eight.” Sorrow twisted her smooth complexion. “He was a wonderful man. Loving. Compassionate. I can remember the Sunday walks he would take me on, just the two of us, hand in hand in the woods. Oh, it was glorious.”
Flavius groaned. The water had helped him some. His dizziness was fading, but the pain had grown a lot worse, so much so that he could have sworn someone was hammering on his head with a metal stave. Fingers pried at his buckskin shirt, hiking it higher. “Don’t,” he protested, suddenly remembering two females were present.
“Would you rather the wound get infected?” Davy responded. Accepting the dipper, he trickled water onto the bleeding furrow the slug had dug.
At the contact, Flavius gasped. It felt as if an icy spear had been thrust into him. “What was that?”
“Water, you big baby,” Davy chided.
Heather rose and whispered to Becky, who scooted into the wagon and was back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail holding a washcloth, which her mother passed to Davy.
Jonathan Hamlin glared the whole time. He commenced pacing as Davy dressed the bullet hole, his fists clenched around the stocks of the pistols so tightly that his knuckles were white. Repeatedly, he scanned the rim of the basin, growing more agitated. At last he turned to Heather and stated, “We can’t linger. These two might not be alone.”
“Jon, I—” Heather started to reply.
A sharp motion by Hamlin silenced her. “I don’t want to hear that you believe their cock-and-bull story,” he said sternly.
Heather bowed her head and pivoted toward her daughter, who was a fascinated witness to the entire goings-on. Jonathan stepped closer, downcast, and draped an arm across her shoulders.
“I’m sorry to be so gruff. But I have your welfare to think of, and Becky’s. As much as I’d like to take these men at their word, I dare not. Until they can prove otherwise, I must take it for granted that they’re in your stepfather’s employ.”
“This whole mess is my fault,” Heather said.
Jonathan recoiled as if she had slapped him. “Don’t ever say that again,” he said, and tenderly kissed her cheek. “Since when is being in love wrong? We could no more help what happened than we could stop the sun from rising every day.”
Heather lifted eyes that glistened with moisture. “I know, beloved. Still ... ” She clasped Becky’s hand and walked off.
Davy went to stand. He froze when Jonathan spun and extended the pair of flintlocks.
“Just hold it right there, mister, while I figure out what to do with you.” Jonathan’s brow knit. His gaze roved to the broken wheel and his mouth curved. “By golly, you’ll be of some use, after all. Fix the wheel. You’ll find everything you need in the wagon.”
What else could Davy do? Hamlin had already proven that he would shoot at the least provocation. Davy unlatched the gate and swung it down.
The bed was filled to overflowing, crammed with belongings, everything from clothes to furniture. Tools filled a corner. Flour and other edibles were stacked in another. Blankets had been folded and piled on—of all things—a stove. Mixed among the effects was a butter churn, a rocking chair, and a washtub. Anything a family needed was there.
“Where are you folks bound?” Davy asked as he scrutinized the assortment.
Hamlin had shifted positions to cover him. “To the Oregon Country, as if it’s any of your business.”
Davy did not hide his amazement. “In a wagon?” Settlers bound for the new land always traveled by ship or steamboat. To his knowledge, no one had ever made the trip overland except for Lewis and Clark and a few traders with pack trains. “How will you get it over the Rockies? I hear they’re so high, their peaks brush the clouds.”
“We’ll find a way,” Jonathan said. Impatiently, he pointed at the corner where the tools were stacked. “Hustle, mister. I don’t want your friends to catch up with us when we’re exposed out in the open like this.”
Years ago, back when he was too young to know any better and as cocky as a bantam rooster, Davy had run away from home rather than take a licking from his pa for an infraction at school. For two and a half years he had been on his own. He’d been a cattle drover. He’d plowed fields. He’d done day labor for pennies. And, at one point, he had worked as a wagoner.
So Davy was an old hand at repairing busted wheels. First he set up the heavy jack made of iron-bound wood. It operated on a rack-and-pinion system. To operate it, he had to crank a handle that worked the pinion wheel, which
raised the toothed iron rack. A pawl locked the wheel in place at the desired height.
Once the axle had been hiked high enough, Davy removed the wheel. It was standard, the rim made of curved pieces known as felloes that were pegged together at the ends. The spokes nestled into sockets in the felloes and in the thick hub. An iron band around the rim further helped to hold the whole thing together.
Wheels were designed in sections to make repair easier. In this case, all Davy had to do was replace a broken spoke and smooth the dented rim. The wheel was as good as new and back on the axle within half an hour.
Hamlin never once lowered the pistols. Heather and Becky observed without saying much.
Flavius lay where he had fallen, in too much agony to move. His whole body ached, his side worst of all. Once, when Hamlin came over to check on him, Flavius was half tempted to leap to his feet and bash the beanpole in the mouth. But he did not feel much like sitting up, let alone standing. He was content to merely glare.
After Davy replaced the tools and the jack, he knelt by Flavius to reinspect the wound. The bleeding had stopped. The skin around the furrow was grossly discolored, bruised by the impact of the heavy-caliber slug.
“What now, Jon?” Heather asked. “We let them go, right?”
Hamlin shook his head. “And have them lead their friends right to us? No. I’ve a better idea.” Pausing, he smirked at the two Tennesseans. “We’re taking them along.”
Davy surged erect. “You must be joshing,” he blurted, although he recognized full well that Hamlin was in earnest.
Heather was equally shocked. “Jon, no. Why in the world would you do such a thing?”
“Because you leave me no choice,” Hamlin answered. “You won’t let me do what’s best. And I can’t just release them. So they go with us, whether they want to or not.”
“For how long?” Heather demanded.
Hamlin shrugged. “Two or three days should be long enough. It will take them another four or five to walk back to the river. By the time Dugan starts after us, we’ll have too big a lead. He’ll never catch us.”
Blood Rage (A Davy Crockett Western Book 5) Page 3
