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’l” Another man stepped from the woods and shaded his eyes upstream. “Two,” he said, speaking back over his shoulder. “Two 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 easy-going 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.