Novel 1963 - How The West Was Won (v5.0) Page 5

  “I ain’t so sure. He was hard-muscled and fallin’ away from me.”

  “Practice, that’s what it takes. Your ma had the knack, Lord rest her soul.”

  *

  HOW FAR DOWN he went, Linus never knew, but suddenly his senses came back with a rush, and he struck out, swimming up, trying to find the surface. The shocking immersion in cold water had sobered him…at least partly, and when he broke water his mind was working cold and clear.

  Obviously, he was at the bottom of the pit, but there was no light above, and no sound but the roaring of the water. That roaring came from some underground stream joining the one into which he had fallen. Clutching the edge of the pit where it met the water, he gasped wildly for breath.

  He had walked into a trap, suckered like any tenderfoot, but all that was important now was to get out of here…if he could.

  Carefully, clinging with his hands to the rocky edge, he worked his way around the pit. The walls were wet and slippery and, although uneven, there was no hand-hold anywhere, no chance of climbing up there in the darkness.

  The current into which he had fallen swept away toward the south…and to the south lay the Ohio.

  How far away was the river? He had walked from his canoe…was it fifty yards? Perhaps less. He had walked uphill for part of that distance, so where he now clung to the edge of the pit couldn’t be more than a few feet below the surface of the river.

  Would the water’s opening be large enough to let his body pass? Was there brush and debris that might choke up the passage? In the few seconds in which he clung, waiting, he thought of everything, but he was aware that none of his thinking could make any difference, for he had to chance it.…He could die where he was, or he could chance that dark, roaring, water-filled tunnel.

  Immediately, he let go his hold and went into the opening head-first, letting the water take him. He was hurled brutally against a rock wall, the current pushed him off it, and he slid into a dark channel where he was rushed along at what seemed terrific speed. At one point, for a moment, both shoulders were touching…and then he shot through into warmer water, and he struck out, swimming up.

  He bobbed out of the water, gasping for breath, with the fresh air around him and the bright stars overhead.

  He was a fool. That was his first thought. He was several kinds of a damned fool to be chancing his life like this, when he could have stayed back there with that girl, that…what was her name?…

  Eve…

  He swam to shore and struggled up the muddy bank and lay still, still gasping, his lungs aching with effort. He could feel the bite of pain where the knife had reached him, but he had been wounded before, and this could not amount to much.

  He rolled over and sat up; then he stood up, to stagger a few steps before falling. When he sat up again he could see the river.

  He was still seated there, slowly recovering his strength, when he saw the small flotilla go by—the two long dugouts and his own canoe.

  If he only had his rifle…but all he had was his knife, still secure in its scabbard under its rawhide thong.

  He got to his feet and tried to squeeze some of the water from his buckskin shirt and leggings. The fringe would help to drain the water off. Then he started up the hill to the cave. Something might have been left behind, something he could use.

  He no longer considered Pittsburgh. Without his furs there was nothing for him there, but he did not mean to relinquish them so easily. He had risked too much, worked too hard. And when it came to that, they had cost him too much to let them go for a season of drinking.

  How much did a man get out of life, anyway? What was it Bridger used to say? That every man in his life deserved one good dog and one good woman.

  The thought made him grin. Now what would Eve say to that? She’d probably go out and get him a dog.

  There he was thinking of Eve again. What was he, some fool kid? And that nonsense about carving two hearts on a tree, and then throwing a knife into them from six paces.…

  Six paces! That made him laugh. He’d carved the hearts, all right, and enjoyed it. But six paces? He’d backed off and thrown the knife to the mark at twenty paces, and in the dark. Well, there had been a little light from the fires.

  But now, first things first. The thieves were headed downstream, and they must stop somewhere. Obviously, what they had done to him they had done to others, for it was too well planned to be the first time, it had worked too smoothly.

  He would need a boat or a raft. Worst of it was, when he fell down that hole he lost the jug, and right now he could use a drink. Thief the man might be, and a murderer as well, but he sold good whiskey.

  Chapter 5

  *

  THE WOODED ISLAND was narrow, its flanks worn and shaped by the flowing waters of the river. On the upriver point of the island, where it was instantly visible to all downstream traffic, a crude landing had been thrown together, a mere platform of peeled poles raised a couple of feet above the water of a tiny cove. Above the landing was a sign:

  BEDLOE’S STORE—WHAT DO YOU LACK? PITTSBURGH PRICES

  Some distance back of the landing and at the end of a short trail up through the woods, was a tent house of logs and canvas. Marty, the harmonica player, paused and lowered the bale of furs to the ground to mop the sweat from his face.

  Pa should be able to figure out an easier way of doing things, he told himself, but pa was almighty skittish. Maybe a narrow escape from a hanging did that to a man, but pa had it in mind to change places often…and fast.

  Hawkins came down the trail as Marty shouldered the furs. “There’ll be settlers an’ folks comin’,” he said, “so you act spry and talk kindly. We want to make a good impression on folks. And bust up that canoe.”

  “Pa,” Marty protested, “that there’s a good canoe. It seems a shame to bust—”

  “You do what your pa tells you,” Hawkins interrupted sharply. “No tellin’ who all may have seen that canoe. We don’t want folks askin’ questions.”

  Marty lowered the bale to the ground again. “Pa, where be they goin’? All of them folks, I mean?”

  “West…there’s a mighty movement afoot, son. Greatest movement since the Children of Israel fled from bondage in the land of Egypt. The world has never seen the like, folks from all the lands of creation, streamin’ west, flowin’ like a great tide, some of them walkin’, some drivin’ wagons, and some a-horseback. You look upon this and remember it, son, for these folk are goin’ west to populate a new land.”

  “Be we’uns goin’ west, pa?”

  “I reckon not, son. We are of the afflictions that beset these poor travelers, these wayfarers upon the earth. And, I might add, bein’ an affliction is a sight more profitable than planting or plowing and tilling. It surely is…or digging gold, for that matter.”

  Colonel Jeb Hawkins canted his hat at a rakish angle. “Son, you listen to your old father. The world is made up of two kinds of folks, the spoiled and the spoilers…and to my way of thinking it’s a whole sight better to be a spoiler. Now you look sharp. Folks will be comin’.”

  Hawkins turned back toward the log and canvas hut, but paused to add, “And mind you…destroy that canoe.”

  When he had deposited the last bale of furs at the shack, Marty returned to the landing to sink the canoe. He did so reluctantly, for he admired its fine, clean lines. When he turned it bottom up and dropped a rock upon it, he had to try several times before he cracked the bark. Then he shoved it off into the water and sank it, weighting it down with other rocks, just in case.

  His thoughts returned to the mountain man’s rifle. Pa should give him that rifle instead of selling it. Pa was always for selling everything, and meanwhile he’d let his own son be without a rifle-gun.

  Movement on the water some distance off caught his eye. “Pa!” he called. “Rafts a-comin’!”

  Another man stepped from the woods and shaded his eyes upstream. “Two,” he said, speaking back over his shoulder. “Tw
o big rafts.”

  Marty watched them coming, almost with regret. Pa knew what he was doing, he guessed. Anyway, things mostly turned out the way he said, only sometimes the folks on those rafts seemed like right nice people. Dora, she was like pa. She took right to it…like with that mountain man last night.…He scowled at the rafts, almost hoping they would not stop, There was a wistfulness in him, too. Why couldn’t he and pa and Dora go west of their ownselves? Pa always made light of a man owning land, but a place of their own…he would fancy that.

  The idea of cutting loose and leaving to be on his own had never occurred to him. They were a family, and they had always been together. He had never liked to think of what they were doing…actually, he had taken part in only one killing, and that had been a fight. It was mostly Dora and pa who did that, while he handled the outside work.

  Marty scowled as he turned away from the river. Pa knew what he was doing. They almost always had money, and time to time they went to town to do some spending; but there was a time or two when he’d been on the land, when he’d smelled the earth freshly plowed, or hay freshly cut…it made a man want a place of his own.

  *

  ZEBULON PRESCOTT SIGHTED the narrow island from well upstream, and he stood tall, holding the steering oar with one hand, shading his eyes toward the island. There was a sign of some kind…and what looked like a building.

  Harvey’s raft was not far off to the right, and Harvey called over: “Island! Do we stop?”

  “Might’s well,” Prescott shouted. “Likely the last the folks will see of a store for some time.” He was close enough to make out the sign now. “Might be news of the river.”

  There had been talk of the falls of the Ohio, and while some said it was not much of a falls, to a man with his family on a raft, any falls or rapids could mean trouble. Using his steering oar, he worked the big raft in toward the breakwater.

  This was a natural barrier of rocks and debris that partly sheltered an acre or so of shallow cove where the landing had been built. Unwieldy as the big rafts were, the cove was so situated that it required only a few moves of the big sweeps to get the rafts into the cove.

  Such rafts varied considerably in size, owing to variation in materials available and the requirements of the builders. Prescott’s raft was just over twenty feet in length and fifteen feet wide. In the center of the raft was the hut, which was merely a frame covered with tent canvas, seven feet long by six feet wide. Behind the hut was a mound of their goods, covered with another stretched canvas.

  The Harvey raft was almost a duplicate of theirs, except that the hut was larger, built to shelter the boys and the family goods.

  Colonel Hawkins himself was at the landing to greet them. He lifted his hat and gestured toward the store. “My name is Bedloe, gentlemen! An’ this here is Bedloe’s Landing! We have all manner of fixin’s an’ supplies, whether for man or beast.”

  Zebulon Prescott hesitated, his attention going from Bedloe to the store. He decided instantly that he did not like the man, but on the other hand, he had seen the eagerness in the faces of Rebecca and the girls and knew they were excited at the prospect of shopping in an actual store.

  Bedloe was obviously a windbag, and Zebulon did not take to his kind, but the prospects of a store interested him too. There were a few things he wanted, and several he would get if the prices were right. After all, a man starting a place of his own could use tools, and there were a couple of items he had overlooked buying.

  “Come up to the store, folks! Welcome to Bedloe’s Landing! Do come up—all of you! My boys will see to your things!”

  Excited at being ashore and at the chance to shop, they trooped up the path, laughing and talking.

  The “store” was well stocked from loot taken from dozens of settlers and from an occasional peddler. Bullet molds, powder, flints, knives, hatchets, coils of rope, axes, saws, bolts of canvas, and a few used rifles, pistols, and shotguns were offered for sale.

  On a board at the side were some bottles of toilet water, some cheap jewelry, and a dozen lithographed prints.

  Lilith picked up a bottle of the toilet water. “Pa, can I have this toilet water? Genuine Parisian scent, it says.”

  Zebulon took the bottle in his fingers. “Fifteen cents? That’s too dear.”

  “Right, suh!” Hawkins said. “Save the pennies and the dollars will grow. Likely a man of your judgment, suh, has made many a dollar grow.”

  “Well, Mr. Bedloe,” Zebulon replied dryly, “my life long I been strivin’ to avoid riches, and I think I’ve succeeded right well. And whatever I’ve got in the sock is goin’ to stay there.”

  “My sentiments exactly, suh!” The colonel turned to Harvey. “And you, suh—a man of property if I ever saw one. Why, a man like you might be holdin’ up to a thousand dollars!”

  Harvey merely looked at him, then glanced down the counter at Sam, who had picked up a rifle, which he was slowly turning in his hands. Burned into the wood of the stock were the initials, L. R.

  “Pa?”

  Something in Sam’s tone arrested his father’s attention, and Zebulon turned and walked to where Sam stood, holding the rifle.

  “Pa”—Sam lowered his voice—“did you ever see this rifle before?”

  Hawkins glanced at them sharply, half-overhearing the words. Quickly he turned to Dora, who was talking to Eve.

  “Have you any books?” Eve was asking.

  “We got an almanac, I think. I’ll look around.” From the corner of her eye Dora caught the frantic signal from her father, and hurried from the door.

  “It’s his rifle,” Sam whispered. “Now, how does it come to be down here when he was headed upstream? And he would never, under no circumstances, sell his rifle.”

  Zebulon Prescott was struck with sudden panic. Get out, his instincts warned him. Get out fast.

  “Son, I think—”

  The canvas walls of the tent store suddenly fell to reveal four rifles lying across the top of the log wall, four hard-eyed men standing behind them. Rebecca cried out sharply and gathered Zeke to her. Zebulon turned his head carefully. Three more rifles were aimed at their backs.

  “Now, now!” the colonel cautioned. “Nobody needs to be scared. There’s womenfolks an’ children here, an’ it seems likely you folks wouldn’t want no shootin’ to start.”

  Zebulon Prescott hesitated, fury mounting within him, and Sam glanced uneasily at his father. He well knew his father’s temper, for easygoing and friendly as he was, Zebulon was hot-headed and bull-strong when pushed.

  “We’ll stand,” Sam said quietly.

  Almost as if by agreement the men of their party turned to face the river pirates. Zeke pulled away from his mother and stood with them.

  Briskly, Hawkins, Marty, and Dora began frisking their prisoners for what valuables might be carried on their persons, carefully avoiding the line of fire in the process.

  “Be of good cheer, folks!” Hawkins said genially. “’Tis in the noble tradition to fare forth and conquer the wilderness with bare hands and stout hearts. We will leave you upon this island, and if you stand quiet, perhaps even an axe might be left behind so you can build new rafts and sally forth in the spirit of your forefathers. Americans just can’t be whupped!”

  “I’ll see you hang, Bedloe!” Zebulon declared furiously. “I’ll see you hang if it’s the last thing I do!”

  *

  LINUS RAWLINGS, GUIDING an ancient canoe, sighted the island in midstream. Dipping his paddle deep, he shot the canoe toward the brushy shore. There had been no sign on the island when he had passed it going upstream, yet the painted letters had a familiar look. Accustomed to interpreting the tracks left by all manner of varmints, he found something in the shaping of the letters that he thought he recognized. If he was mistaken, it would take but minutes to find out.

  Back there at the cave, when he had recovered sufficiently to examine the place where he had been tricked and robbed, he had found the cave abandoned. A
t the landing there was nothing of which to make a float—everything was gone.

  It was then he recalled the abandoned trail he had seen on first approaching the cave; and returning, he followed the ancient trail to a hidden, tiny cove. Concealed in the brush he found a battered canoe with a hole stove in the side. He repaired the hole with birch bark peeled from a nearby tree, a patching job that had taken him less than an hour to do. The canoe had been long abandoned, and it was unlikely that the thieves had known of its existence. The paddle he found by the simple expedient of looking in several places where he might himself have hidden one had the canoe been his.

  Now, having moored his canoe close under the overhang of a tree, he worked his way through the brush toward the landing. Wily as any Indian, carrying only the knife for a weapon, he drew closer.

  Men were coming down the trail carrying furs…his furs.

  “We pullin’ out?” he heard one of them ask.

  “Kit an’ caboodle,” Marty said. “Pa wants to be shet of this place before others come along. Powerful lot of folks on the Ohio these days, an’ you know pa…he likes to keep movin’. Maybe six months, maybe a year from now, he’ll be back along here, workin’ the same stands.”

  Marty glanced at the rafts. “Turn them loose when you’re finished. We’ll let ’em go into the rapids an’ bust up.”

  The men who had carried the furs returned along the trail for another load, and Marty went to a dugout and began stowing rifles.

  Wraithlike, Linus eased back into the brush and then into the water. Swimming under water, he made for the landing. Only a minute or two later he came up soundlessly in the shadowed space beneath it. For an instant he remained still, catching his breath. Dust and fragments of bark fell from the log landing as Marty worked above him. The stern of a dugout drifted out from the landing and Marty reached out to draw it near.

  Coming along the trail with a load of furs, one of the men saw Marty reach for the dugout…and vanish.

  The man stopped, staring and trying to make sense of what he had seen. Marty had been there, now he was gone. A widening circle of ripples showed on the water.