Even as he fell, he caught one glimpse of her, and saw the expression of ugly lust on her face. The torch struck the water an instant before he did, hissed sharply, and then he hit the water in utter blackness. It was incredibly cold … and he went down, down, down into roaring, abysmal night. “He’s seen the varmint, pa!”
Hawkins, who had been facing the passage with a double-barreled pistol in his hand, turned swiftly. “All right, lay into it! We’ve got other fish to fry. Down to the island!”
Instantly all of them turned to stripping the cave and carrying whatever was worth keeping down to the dugouts.
“That was nicely done, Dora,” Hawkins said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“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 shut 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.”