“St. Louis.”
Flavius Harris rolled the words on the tip of his tongue. He savored them, as he would savor a mouthful of sweet honey. For long days now he had treasured them in his heart, as he would treasure a cache of sparkling gold.
A coon’s age had gone by since Flavius had last set foot in a city. Normally, he shied from civilization, just like a cougar shied from human scent. But he had been adrift in the vast wilderness for so long that the notion of being among people again was downright appealing. Not to mention the thought of plopping himself down in a tavern and quaffing enough ale to drown an elk.
The gallivant into parts unknown had not been Flavius’s brainchild. No, his best friend was to blame. Countless times Flavius had mentally kicked himself in the seat of his britches for being addle pated enough to tag along. He should have known better.
Flavius recollected all they had been through. The endless weeks of hard, blister-raising travel; their clashes with savage beasts, their deadly skirmishes with hostile Indians. And all for what? Just so his friend could see new sights, could roam new land.
That was the trouble with the Crockett clan. They were an energetic, restless lot. When they got a hankering to pack up their possibles and go for a trek, off they went. Woe to any idiot who tagged along. Flavius sighed once more.
“Are you homesick again!”
Flavius Harris glanced at the rugged Irishman seated in the bow of their canoe. He hesitated.
Davy Crockett was powerfully built, with a high forehead and piercing blue eyes. A coonskin cap crowned his thick brown hair. Buckskins clad his brawny body. Moccasins covered his feet. Slanted across his chest were a powder horn and an ammo pouch. On his left hip, in a sheath made by his second wife, Elizabeth, was a big butcher knife. On his right hip, wedged under his belt, was a tomahawk he had picked up during the Creek War.
Davy stopped paddling and squinted in the bright afternoon sun at his friend. He knew that poor Flavius was homesick, and that he was partly to blame. His incurable wanderlust had taken them a lot further than they had ever intended to go. Flavius had been pining for home for weeks.
“Well, are you?” Davy asked when his friend did not answer right away.
“What if I am? Can you blame me?” Flavius responded testily. “Any sane person would be.”
“Don’t get your dander up, pard. Another week or so and we’ll reach New Orleans,” Davy said. “From there, we’ll cut straight overland to Tennessee. You’ll be back in your cabin before you know it.”
“I’ll believe that when we get there, and not before,” Flavius declared.
Now it was Davy’s turn to sigh as he resumed paddling. He knew that his friend was sore at him. But was it fair to hold him to account for events over which he had no control? After all, how was he to foresee the difficulties that had beset them?
Davy cast the matter from his mind. He was doing the best he could do. No one could rightfully ask more.
Their canoe wended southward along the mighty Mississippi River. On both sides the river rippled and gurgled. Virgin woodland hemmed the banks, rich green growth sprawling to the water’s edge. Sparrows, robins, and other birds flitted gaily about. High overhead a hawk soared.
As Davy looked on, a large silvery fish leaped out of the river, then splashed down again in a shimmery spray.
Davy inhaled deeply. The wilderness always had the same effect on him. Invigorating. Intoxicating. More potent than the com whiskey his kin brewed back in the hills.
This was the life! Davy mused. Roaming where he pleased. Seeing new sights every day. Having new experiences. Why couldn’t his partner appreciate the beauty around them? Why wasn’t Flavius more grateful for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to explore where few white men had ever gone?
A loud snort on the west bank caused Davy to look in that direction. A large black bear eyed them warily. It had come for a drink and been startled when their canoe swept into view.
At the sight of the bear, Flavius’s mouth watered.
“What I wouldn’t give for a thick, juicy slab of bear meat,” he commented. Ever since they started down the river, they had made do with whatever was handy when they stopped for the night. Usually, that meant a meal of rabbit stew, or maybe fish, or even frogs. The last venison he had tasted was ten days ago.
“When we get to St. Louis, you can gorge yourself silly,” Davy said.
“See if I don’t,” Flavius vowed. He made no bones of the fact that he liked to eat, more so than most folks. Food was his joy and his bane. He just never seemed to be able to stop. Where others were content with a helping or two, he’d treat himself to four or five. Or more. It explained why he was the chubbiest frontiersman alive. As well as the butt of more jokes than he could shake a stick at.
Davy glanced over a shoulder and smiled. “To make it up to you, I’m buying.”
“You’ll have to. My poke is about empty.”
Truth to tell, so was Davy’s. But the two bales of prime beaver plews resting in the middle of the canoe would replenish their purses. How they had come by the plews was a story in itself. One he did not care to reflect on at the moment.
“Know what else I think I’ll do?” Flavius said. “I’m going to one of those places where you can rent a tub and get a shave for two bits, and soak for half a day.”
Davy was genuinely surprised. “You’re going to take a bath?”
“I know. I know. Twice a year is my usual rule.” Flavius’s sainted grandmother had warned him that too much bathing was bad for the health. It made a person sickly and turned them puny.
“More often wouldn’t hurt,” Davy remarked.
Flavius bent his nose to his left sleeve and sniffed. “I wouldn’t be taking one at all if it wasn’t for this damn fish smell.”
Davy had to admit that the river did have a certain fishy odor about it. But after the first day, he had barely noticed.
“I can’t stand this stink,” Flavius said, scrunching his face in disgust. “Hell, my buckskins don’t smell like buckskins anymore. If a painter got wind of me, he’d think I was a catfish.”
Davy chuckled. “Too bad you can’t shed your skin like a snake.”
The plews caught Flavius’s eye, and a germ of an idea was born. “Maybe I can. Maybe instead of washing, and risk coming down with a cold, I’ll treat myself to a set of store-boughten buckskins.”
“Why, you’d be the talk of the hills when we got back home,” Davy said. Generally, the woodsmen of west Tennessee made do with clothes they fashioned themselves. Practically every woman was a skilled seamstress and could sew rings around a tree.
Flavius conjured an image of himself adorned in a sterling set of fancy buckskins with a rakish new beaver hat perched atop his round head. “The females would really be impressed, wouldn’t they?”
“Especially your wife.”
At the mention of Matilda, Flavius’s glorious image shattered into a million pieces. So much for that bright idea. His wife would berate him without mercy for such a flagrant waste of money. Why, she might even resort to her rolling pin! It made him shudder. “On second thought, I suppose a bath won’t kill me.”
A bend appeared. Davy stuck to the middle of the river, where they were least likely to be taken by surprise by hostiles on either shore. The last thing he wanted was to tangle with another war party.
Thick foliage kept Davy from seeing much of what lay ahead until they were around the curve. The strip of forest to the west ended. High grass grew in its place, extending as far as the eye could see toward the distant horizon. It was a finger of prairieland, the grasses swaying in the breeze like so many slender dancers.
“Isn’t it grand?” Davy said.
Flavius turned and blanched. He recognized that tone of voice. “Forget it. We’re staying with the river.”
“I wasn’t thinking of going exploring.”
“Sure you weren’t. And the sun doesn’t rise every morning, either.”
Davy’s mouth curled downward. It would be nice to venture westward, just for a few days. But without horses, exploring would be foolhardy. On foot they would be fair game for every grizzly or anything else that wandered by. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to stop and rest. They had been on the go since before first light and now the sun was almost directly above them. A flat stretch of shoreline spurred Davy into steering the canoe toward it.
“What are you doing?” Flavius asked anxiously.
“Relax. It’s noon, isn’t it?”
Flavius squinted skyward, and grinned in relief. Usually they halted for half an hour or so about midday, then pushed on hard during the afternoon. Skillfully wielding his paddle, he helped bring their canoe broadside to the shore.
Davy hopped out, held the craft steady while Flavius joined him, and together they pulled it high enough out of the river to ensure it would not drift off.
Taking Liz, the rifle that he had named after Elizabeth, Davy walked to an earthen mound a dozen yards away. From the top he enjoyed a clear vista of the prairie and the surrounding countryside.
All was tranquil. As Davy descended, he spied a set of peculiar ruts to his left. They led up out of the Mississippi and off across the grassland.
“What in tarnation are those?”
Flavius was rummaging through his possibles bag for the last of his pemmican. Straightening, he went over. “They look like wagon tracks to me.”
Davy had dropped to one knee. “They are.” He examined the closest rut, pinching some of the dirt between his fingers. “A big one, judging by the width. It went by a couple of hours ago.” He rose and shielded his eyes from the glare. Scanning the prairie, he sought a telltale speck. There was none.
“What the devil would a wagon be doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Flavius wondered.
“Mighty strange,” Davy agreed. The depth of the ruts told him the wagon had been heavily laden. Hoof prints showed that the team was made up of oxen. Different hoof prints revealed that a horse had been trailing a few yards behind, probably tied to the gate.
“Must be a trader heading out to do business with the Indians,” Flavius speculated.
It was the only explanation that made sense. But Davy had doubts. To his knowledge, no one had ever taken a wagon across the prairie before. Based on the stories told about ‘the Great American Desert’—as the plains were called—to venture out there on horseback was dangerous enough. In a slow-moving wagon, it was certain suicide.
Davy roved the vicinity. He found where the wagon had lumbered up out of the river, found where it had stopped, possibly so the driver could inspect the wheels and axles.
Then, as Davy was about to go to the canoe, he spotted footprints, two sets, off to one side. Astonishment coursed through him when he recognized one of sets as being that of a grown woman and the other as that of a child. “My ears for a heel tap if it isn’t a family.”
“Can’t be,” Flavius said. No one in their right mind would take loved ones out into that nigh-limitless sea of grass. Yet when he inspected the footprints himself, he had to concur. “Some damned fool must have a death wish.”
Davy discovered where the woman and the child had climbed down. After a spell, they had roamed northward, close to the water. Small depressions in the soil hinted that the child had picked up stones, most likely to cast into the river. Skipping them, he reckoned, just as Davy had often done as a boy.
Something about the child’s footprints bothered him. He had to study them long and hard before the reason dawned. The right foot always left a more shallow impression than the left. “The sprout is limping,” he announced.
Flavius had already lost interest. Sitting on a log, he took a hungry bite of pemmican. “The kid will be hurting a lot worse if they run into any of those Blackfeet or Pawnees we heard tell about.”
“We’re too far south for the Blackfeet,” Davy said. Still, his friend had a point. What could the father be thinking to commit so stupid an act?
Flavius chewed lustily. Pemmican had always been a favorite of his, even more than jerky. “Whatever happens is out of our hands. Their fate’s up to the Good Lord.”
Davy ambled into the grass, eyes to the ground. The wagon had been moving at a snail’s pace, the woman and child walking beside it. Hand in hand, apparently. As any mother and child would do.
“They must not know what’s in store for them,” Flavius concluded. Although how that could be, was beyond him. The uncharted land beyond the muddy Mississippi was on the tip of everyone’s tongue of late.
As well it should be. Tales had filtered to the East about the Oregon Country, a verdant paradise with fertile land free for the taking. And of California, a golden realm where, rumor had it, the weather never turned cold, and where fruits and grains grew in abundance the year around.
“We should warn them,” Davy proposed.
Flavius sat up. He had been afraid something like this would happen. Afraid the Irishman would concoct some harebrained excuse to go exploring. “No,” he said flatly.
“They have a child with them.”
“So? It’s not our kid,” Flavius forced himself to say. Like Davy, he had a soft spot for children. But he was not about to go traipsing off into the heart of darkness to save someone lacking the brains of a turnip. “It’s not our responsibility.”
“Isn’t it?” Davy countered. “Aren’t we supposed to do unto others as we would have them do unto us?” Flavius was so annoyed, he nearly threw his pemmican to the ground. “That’s a low blow, quoting Scripture,” he retorted. Davy was well aware that Matilda breathed fire and brimstone, and some had rubbed off on Flavius. Just as Flavius was aware that Davy had little truck with formalized religion.
Davy faced westward. The wagon was out of sight, sure, but oxen did not move very fast. “By nightfall we could overtake them.”
“What about the canoe? And the plews?” Flavius argued.
“We can hide both, easy enough.”
“No, no, no,” Flavius huffed, rising. “I absolutely refuse.”
“Then you stay here and watch our stuff. I’ll go after them and be back by morning.”
The prospect of being left alone chilled Flavius more than anything else could. “Damn your bones,” he complained. “You’re always doing this to me.”
“I’m only thinking of the child. We should turn these folks around before they get too far out.”
Having made up his mind, Davy was not about to change it. The Crockett family motto had a lot to do with his attitude. At an early age, the family saying had been ingrained into him. “Always be sure you’re right, then go ahead,” his grandpa and pa had instructed him, over and over. It was a precept he had lived by his whole life through, an injunction that daily guided his steps.
Flavius wanted to scream. Just when things were looking rosy, this had to happen. “If we ever make it back to Tennessee alive, remind me to choke you to death.”
“You can stay,” Davy insisted. He did not see why Flavius was making such a fuss. Another twenty-four hours would not make much of a difference.
“Oh, sure. And be snake-bit with no one around to suck out the poison. Or maybe I’ll be chomped on by a gator. Or be caught by hostiles. Or run into another crazy old coot like that lunatic who wanted to take our heads—”
“I’m truly sorry,” Davy said, interrupting the litany.
Flavius had a knack for finding more things to complain about than most ten people.
“That’s what rankles me the most,” Flavius said. “At least if you weren’t, I could bust you on the jaw and have a clear conscience.”
Secreting the canoe and the beaver hides took no time at all. A convenient nook shielded by reeds and low limbs virtually guaranteed that the craft would be there when they returned.
Davy slung his possibles bag over his right shoulder, draped a water skin over his left, and tramped westward, walking between the ruts. It felt good to be getting some exercise. Ten to twelve hours in the canoe every day left him cramped and stiff by sunset.
Flavius followed, but not too closely. He was sulking, and he didn’t care to speak to Crockett until the mood wore off.
For over an hour, Davy held to a brisk pace. The sooner they overtook the settlers, the sooner they could retrace their steps. Early on, he checked his rifle and the two flintlock pistols tucked under his belt on either side of the big metal buckle to verify that they were loaded.
The grass had been partially flattened by the wagon’s passage. It rustled against Davy’s legs as he walked, no matter how hard he tried to move silently. Human ears might not detect it, but the ears of a panther or another beast undoubtedly would.
Davy never relaxed, never let down his guard. Doing so had killed more frontiersmen than old age. It only took one mistake, and a man paid a fatal price. Frequently Davy would rise onto the tips of his toes to scour their immediate area.
They had gone less than a mile when wildlife appeared. A small herd of deer, four does and a large buck, spooked from concealment, bounded toward the river. Flavius automatically brought up his rifle but the grass closed around their bouncing white rumps before he could squeeze the trigger. “Figures,” he grumbled.
Another hour went by. Flavius’s feet became sore and he stopped now and again to rub them. Each time, Davy got a little further ahead of him.
By the middle of the afternoon, twenty-five yards separated them. Flavius dragged his heels, wishing Davy would halt for a bit. He plodded along with his chin bowed, as glum as a rainy day.
Suddenly the high grass to his right rustled noisily. Startled, Flavius spun and glimpsed a dark bulky form moving parallel with him. Wedging his rifle against his shoulder, he waited with bated breath for the creature to show itself. The next moment the grass swallowed the thing whole. The sounds ceased.
What was it? Flavius asked himself. Another black bear? More deer? Or something infinitely worse? Cautiously, he advanced, the rifle held steady.
Davy was thirty yards ahead, or better. Flavius opened his mouth to call out, then thought better of it. A shout might provoke the animal into attacking. He walked faster, so fast that he nearly tripped when his left foot snagged on a clump of grass.
As Flavius regained his balance, he caught another fleeting glimpse of something huge and dark off among the waving stems. His skin prickled with bumps.
Whatever it was, the thing was stalking them.
Flavius tried to lick his lips, but he had no spittle to spare. His mouth had become as dry as a desert. He trained his rifle on a patch of barely visible hide at the very moment it vanished. “Damn!”
Worry gnawed at him like termites at wood. Every nerve aflame, Flavius commenced jogging. If only he could reach Davy! The beast might think twice about attacking two grown men.
Flavius tore his gaze from the grass long enough to see how much distance he had to cover. To his utter amazement, the Irishman was nowhere to be seen. Bewilderment brought him to a lurching stop. “Davy?” he whispered.
There was no answer.
A low, rumbling grunt brought Flavius around in a flash. The creature was closer. Had it already gotten hold of Davy? Terror welled up in Flavius, terror so intense and overpowering that he almost bolted in blind panic.
By a supreme effort of will, Flavius calmed himself. All was not lost. He had a rifle, two pistols, and a knife. And when he had to, he could run like a jackrabbit.
Slowly moving forward, Flavius sought Davy’s tracks. Any clue that shed light on Davy’s disappearance would do. But the grass acted as a cushion, a barrier, preventing the earth from showing many prints. He saw a smudge here, a heel crease there.
Flavius heard a thud and crouched. Had that been Davy’s body? Another thud, a lot nearer, enabled him to pinpoint exactly where the creature was.
He peered down the rifle barrel, afraid his hands would shake when the moment of truth came. Flavius would readily admit that he wasn’t the bravest of men. Neither was he a coward. If need be, he would fight for his life with all the desperation of any cornered critter.
In the grass, a vague shape materialized, the same enormous, dark monster. Rumbling again, the thing barreled toward him.