Rivers West Page 6

  Jambe-de-Bois listened, scowling a little. When we were away from the hostler, he said, “I told you, lad, the man is evil incarnate. We must avoid him. He will be the death of us, I tell you, and you…you’re too confident.”

  I was nettled. I did not like being disposed of so lightly. At the same time, the hostler’s words were shocking. It is one thing to fight, even to kill. It is another when one does it deliberately, and without hesitation or remorse.

  When the next day came, we passed over country which had only lately been settled. Although now the farmhouses were clustered more thickly together, there were still areas of dense evergreen forest as well as great boulders and rocks. The river was crossed by a remarkable bridge of which I had heard, as had many who work with heavy timber.

  The Piscataqua Bridge was a really splendid structure, at least 2600 feet long, with 26 piers set in the water and on the banks. The bridge was laid out in three sections, two of them horizontal and one arched. The arch itself was said to contain seventy tons of timber. I could easily believe it, and took the time to stop, go under the bridge, and examine the work. It was beautifully fitted and assembled.

  We stayed the night in Exeter, and not a word passed between myself and Miss Majoribanks, although Macaire was pleasant, and I finally had a word or two with the younger man.

  He was really quite a handsome fellow, although he had a way about him I did not trust. His name was Edwin Hale.

  “I understood you were going to Boston?” he suggested.

  “It was a thought we had, but I am a builder, and the western waters are the place for me.”

  “The western waters? Or is it Miss Majoribanks who is the attraction?”

  “I have scarcely spoken to her.”

  He shrugged, looking at me with a sly, rather taunting smile. “You mean, she has scarcely spoken to you.”

  “If you prefer.”

  He seemed ready to provoke a quarrel so I walked away from him.

  The inns we found were remarkably clean and well kept, the owners of them usually men of some importance in their communities. The food was, for the most part, excellent.

  At daybreak each morning we were off and riding. As before, Miss Majoribanks took the lead, and Jambe-de-Bois and I dropped farther behind. None of the roads were good. Most were only a few years old and heavily rutted from rains. But we kept to the grass along the shoulder and made good time.

  The horses I’d won in my bet with Kimball were good, stalwart animals, not showy, but they were stayers. At the end of the day, they seemed to have as much stamina as at the beginning.

  We stopped to eat at high noon in the village of Kingston, eighteen miles upon our way. It was a small place of some scattered houses, a church, and several stores.

  Macaire dropped back with us. We rode for several minutes, and then he said suddenly, “John Daniel, are you carrying money?”

  At my obvious surprise, he said, “It is not my business, but in Kingston I came to the street afore you and a man I saw. He was no one to like the looks of, and he turned away so quickly, I think he was not wishing to be seen. It’s a notion of mine he’s following us.”

  “No, I have little money,” I said. I thought back to the snake-eyed man from the upper Maine woods, the one who’d been at the inn after I’d found the body of Foulsham. And I thought of Macklem. “But it is a good thing to know.”

  Somebody had stood over me that night in the cabin. Somebody had wanted to kill me…and perhaps they still did.

  We rode quietly along, but now I kept a closer eye on the trail behind and the brush along the way. We talked of many things, for Macaire was a man who kept himself informed, and was keen in his judgments. And there was much to talk about. A man had just introduced the tin can into the United States, and was canning food. Some men named Daggett and Kensett were talking of canning fish in New York. And somebody wanted to introduce a bill that would permit Catholics to vote in Massachusetts. James Monroe was running for a second term.

  The next inn was a pleasant place, surrounded by great old trees. We drew up in the shade, and several men were sitting on a bench in front of the place.

  I had ridden on ahead. Miss Majoribanks drew up shortly. “Will you take my horse, please?” she asked.

  I did so.

  “Please rub him down most carefully. And walk him a little before you put him in the stable.” It was an order.

  “I do not work for you, Miss Majoribanks.”

  “What? Who do you work for? I thought you were someone Macaire hired.”

  She knew better than that, but I simply said, “I work for no one. When I work it is as an independent contractor. If you ask me to care for your horse as a favor, I should be pleased to do so.”

  “As a favor? Of course not!” She turned sharply away. “Do not do it then. Macaire will handle her for me.”

  Her shoulders were very straight, and I watched her go with pleasure at her beauty and irritation at her manner. She seemed determined to consider me a menial, and I refused the category. There was no work a menial might do that I would not willingly do myself…or had not done. It was her attitude that irritated me.

  When we’d put our own horses away, I joined Macaire, who was caring for the others. “Have you seen him again?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No…but I like it not still. The country is alive with thieves and highwaymen.”

  “We are a strong party,” I said. “It is not likely we’ll be attacked.”

  Macaire considered my statement and agreed. “You carry yourself well, with your rifle always handy. As for the big man with you,” he gave me a quick, thoughtful look, “he looks like a pirate.”

  “Jambe-de-Bois? I think he is a man to leave alone, Macaire.”

  “You do not know him?”

  “We met on the road, and we travel the same way.” I hesitated, but I trusted Macaire and liked him. “Sometimes I do believe he knows more about me than he should. I mean…well, perhaps when we met it was not altogether an accident.”

  Macaire gave me a thoughtful glance. “You are a shipwright, you say? Why, then? Why would any man be following a shipwright?”

  I shrugged and said nothing. Macaire worked carefully, grooming Miss Majoribanks’ horse. I liked the way he worked, swiftly, easily, with no wasted motions. It was a thing I valued, for it was so I had been taught.

  “John Daniel,” Macaire said. “It is a good name, but there is much going on here I do not understand.”

  I shrugged again. “It is simple enough, Macaire. By chance we have met. Your Miss Majoribanks goes to seek her brother, who believes he has discovered a plot against his country, in which a man named Torville is involved.

  “On my way south, I find a man who has been stabbed and left for dead, attacked by that same Torville, or someone kin to him. He was or had been a British officer, perhaps a British agent. Now what was he doing on that lonely road from Canada?”

  I had a new thought.

  “Was he following someone? Or was he, perhaps, on his way to see Miss Majoribanks?”

  Macaire straightened up, staring at me. His motion ceased. “Now why would the man be doing that?”

  “Charles Majoribanks wrote to his sister. He may have sent information elsewhere as well. Foulsham may have been going to meet your sister…perhaps even with a message.”

  I was putting it all together as I spoke, and, of course, it was speculation, no more than that. Yet the coincidence would be great otherwise, and as much as coincidence interferes in all our lives, I did not like it.

  Nor did Macaire. He went back to currying the horse, and I stood by, thinking as I watched him.

  “One thing we know, Macaire,” I suggested, “we are not alone on the road. One man has been killed, another attacked—”

  He glanced up, and then I told him about the man who stood over me that night at the inn.

  “We must be careful,” he said, “very careful. I’d want no harm to come to the lady.�
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  “Nor I,” I said, and he looked at me, not too surprised, I think.

  Chapter 8

  *

  MORNING CAME WITH an uneasy sense of something impending, of something about to happen for which I was unprepared.

  The common room of the inn was empty when I came down the steps from the room where I had slept.

  It was a warm, friendly room with a large table, several chairs and a fireplace in which a small fire smoldered uneasily, as if unsure whether it intended to burn or not.

  The floor looked washed and clean, and there were curtains at the windows. I went to a window and peered out. The inn yard was empty; it was hard-packed earth fringed by the green of new grass. There was nothing to allow for the feeling I carried, and when I straightened a voice said, “Looking for Indians?”

  Startled, I turned, having heard no sound.

  The man was lean, taller than me, and somewhat stooped. What his age was I could not say, although I guessed him along in his thirties. He might have been older. He wore buckskins, fringed, with a wide-brimmed hat, and moccasins on his feet. He, too, carried a rifle.

  His gray eyes carried an amused look, but a friendly one. I grinned back at him. “You never can tell,” I said. “An Indian might be any place.”

  He chuckled. “I reckon you’ll do.” He walked to the fireplace and took up the blackened pot beside the coals. At a sideboard he got down two cups. “Been here before,” he said. “Know my way around.”

  He filled the cups. “You the ones goin’ west?”

  Briefly, I hesitated. But I liked the man, liked his style and manner. “Yes,” I said, “I’m going to Pittsburgh.”

  He showed his disappointment with a small frown. “No further? Pittsburgh ain’t anywhere. She’s a good enough place, but the frontier’s moved west now. Pittsburgh and Lexington…they was the places. Now you got to go to St. Louis, on the Missouri.”

  “You know the Missouri?”

  “I should smile. I been up it. Up the Platte, too.”

  His eyes took in the depth of my chest, the breadth of my shoulders. “You look fit for a mountain man.”

  “I’m a builder,” I said, and then added, “I build boats. I want to build me a steamboat.”

  “Easier’n walkin’,” he agreed. “Keelboat man, m’self. But mostly, I favor horses.” He sipped the black brew and looked up at me. “You the one travels with that peg-legged man?”

  “We’re going the same way, it seems. We’re also traveling with Miss Majoribanks and Macaire.”

  His cup had started toward his lips, but now it stopped, hesitated, then continued the move. Something in what I said had stopped that cup, made him hesitate. I waited, but he made no comment for several minutes. When I finished my coffee and threw the dregs into the coals, he said, “Mind if I trail along?”

  “You’re going on west?”

  “I should smile. Back to the beaver mountains. I want to trap the cricks that flow down from the high-up hills. I want to ride the Crow country, the Blackfeet country.”

  He had been squatting on his heels, and now he got up. “He’p you with your stock.” He put down his cup. “You say you had a woman with you? A Miss…?”

  “Majoribanks.”

  “Ah?”

  I turned to look at him. “Do you know the name?”

  He shrugged. “Now that’s…an unusual kinda name, ain’t it? English, maybe?”

  “Maybe. She’s American though. Old Yankee stock—and acts it.”

  He chuckled. “Heard she was right pert. Stiff-backed and proud. Well, that’s the way a filly should be.”

  There might be two minds about that, I reflected, but we walked outside and to the stable.

  He moved easily, carrying his rifle like an extension of himself, and when he went to work on the stock, he knew what he was about. We put down more feed for them, saddled up, and loaded our gear on the pack horse. He brought his own gear, and as our horse was carrying light, he added it to the pack. He had no horse himself.

  “You’ll not be able to keep up,” I said.

  He gave me a quick, hard glance. “You set your pace. I’ll be along.”

  We led the horses out to the creek for water. It was a still, beautiful morning, and the creek ran cheerfully along, shadowed by overhanging trees. Morning sunlight sparkled on the water wherever it found its way through the leaves. The horses lifted their heads, water dripping from their muzzles. They seemed as pleased with the morning as we were.

  We heard the hoofbeats as we turned from the water. There was a rider coming down the road at a comfortable pace. We led the horses back to the inn yard as the rider approached. It was a woman, and she rode a fine bay gelding—and rode it well.

  She drew up as she entered the yard, her eyes going from me to my companion, then back to me. She was round-faced, pretty, probably on the sunny side of forty. “You must be that impudent young man,” she said, staring at me, smiling a little.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m not sure I could claim—”

  “I am sure! No man could be so broad-shouldered without attracting attention. Yes, you’ll be the one.” She got down from the saddle without waiting for help, then turned to us.

  “I’m Mrs. Abigail Higgs. I’ll be traveling west with you.”

  “That’s a fine horse,” I commented, and she laughed.

  She addressed my companion. “See? It has to be him. He meets a woman for the first time and comments on her horse. No wonder she thinks he’s impudent.” She turned on me. “Are you impudent, young man?”

  “Don’t plan to be,” I said.

  She laughed. “I’m for breaking my fast. Let’s go in.”

  I tied her horse, glanced at the hunter, and shrugged. He chuckled. “There’s quite a woman. Be careful, young’un.”

  Macaire was in the room when we went in, and Jambe-de-Bois was coming down the stairs. Macaire glanced at the hunter, and I turned to introduce them, realizing for the first time that I didn’t know his name.

  “Mr. Macaire, meet—?”

  “Butlin,” he said, “Calgary Butlin.”

  Macaire shook hands, measuring the man with shrewd, careful eyes. “Are you going west, man?”

  “I am.”

  “He’ll be traveling with us.” I hesitated, realizing I had asked no one for approval, and so added, “With Jambe and me.”

  “He’s welcome.”

  And then I said, “He’s been up the Missouri and is going back.”

  Macaire turned square around and looked at him again. “I would be speakin’ to you of that,” he said shortly. “I have an interest westward.”

  “Aye…when you wish.”

  Butlin was an easy-moving man, light on his feet and graceful as a cat, which came from living in the woods and mountains. I’d done more than a bit of that myself. Jobs for a man with tools were often far apart, and I’d traveled by boat, canoe, and foot through much of eastern Canada, building boats, bridges, and barns.

  I liked him. He was a wary, careful man who gave nothing in the way of advantage. When he sat down it was with his back to the wall, where he could watch doors and windows. From the way he did it, it was easily seen as a matter of habit, not a sometime thing.

  Abigail Higgs who had been expected to join us in Haverhill, had gone upstairs to Miss Majoribanks’ room. When they came down to join us at the table, Miss Majoribanks knew about Butlin. Nor did she waste time.

  “Mr. Butlin,” she held out a hand, “I am Miss Majoribanks. You come from the western lands?”

  “It has been two months,” he said. “My brother was sick, and I came to speak with him, but his body was buried before I could come to his side.”

  “I am sorry. Will you join our party?”

  “I reckon I have, Miss. John Daniel here, he asked me.”

  She turned her eyes on me. “You presume too much! This is my party! I shall suggest who will join us!”

  “Sorry,” I said briefly, “I was not aw
are that I was of your party. We are traveling in the same way, toward an identical destination. I feel free to invite whom I wish.”

  She turned her shoulder to me. “You will join us?” she said to Butlin.

  “I reckon I will, Miss,” he replied gently. “But if there’s to be a split, I joined him first.”

  Abruptly, she turned away and went to the table. Whatever she had planned to ask him remained unasked, and I had an idea what the questions would be. Surely, in a country of so few white men, a man named Majoribanks would not have gone unnoticed.

  We took to the road with the sun barely over the tops of the trees, but on this morning it was I who led the way—and with my own reasons. There had been a brief shower in the night, and I wanted to look at the road. My uneasiness was still upon me, and, though there seemed no reason for it, I am not a man easily disturbed, and felt a warning in the air.

  Twice I drew up and studied the dust in the road. Calgary Butlin came up beside me. “Early travelers,” he commented, and I thought there was a somewhat ironic note in his voice.

  “Before daylight, wouldn’t you say?” I asked.

  He walked his horse on a bit, studying the tracks. “Rained about an hour after midnight,” he said. “This was after the rain. Maybe two, three o’clock. You were first down. You hear anything?”

  Had I? I thought about that. Maybe a sound was the reason for that uncomfortable feeling I had.

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “It was a mite after four when I rolled out, and day was breaking. There was light but no sun when I came down.”

  He nodded. “Something woke me. Might have been horses.” He looked at the dust. “Two riders. Unlikely they would camp out so close to the inn, and unlikely they’d ride all night.”

  “You think somebody was scouting us?”

  “Could be. There’s thieves aplenty in the woods.”

  We rode on for a few miles and then he suggested, “Can you get Macaire up here?”

  I called him. “Macaire?”

  When he reached us, Butlin explained about the tracks, and then he said, “I spent a summer hereabouts as a boy. There’s a trail leads across country…old Indian trail to Albany.”