Dorian finished his beer and stood up. Archie had finished his beer too, but he was still holding the mug. Dorian glanced over at the host. “Do we sleep here? On the floor?”
“It will be warmer, with the fire going.” The tavern-keeper wanted no trouble. “You can bed down right here.”
Tim Oats exchanged a quick look with the big man, and I guessed this hadn’t been a part of whatever they had in mind. Maybe they expected Chantry and Archie to go past them out the door.
Archie moved their table over closer to Oats and his group, putting it between them. He carefully moved the benches, too, kind of walling themselves away from Oats. It was done naturally, like he was just clearing a place to lie down, but I must say it was going to make it hard for that outfit to start anything in the night without making some noise.
Dorian drew his pistol and checked the loading, then stretched out on the floor near the fire. Oats glared at the pistol. “What’s that for?” he demanded.
Dorian smiled that lovely smile of his. “Indians!” he said. “Wild Indians! Lots of them in these woods! Or haven’t you heard?”
“They been cleared out,” Oats protested uneasily.
“Don’t you believe it. They come around during the night, looking for scalps. A man can’t be too careful.” He hesitated and his face was innocent as a girl’s. “Now, don’t you boys move around too much. If that door opens in the night or somebody creeps around, I’m liable to go to shooting.”
“Ain’t been any Indians around here in years!” the swarthy man argued.
“Well,” Dorian said cheerfully, “if they come, you are closer to the door than we are, so please stop them.”
Looked to me like everything was going to be all right, so I went to bed, and tired as I was from the long night and day of walking, I slept until day was breaking.
When I came out for breakfast in the morning, they were all at a table. Two tables.
“Ah? Miss Sackett! You do look as if you slept well! Won’t you sit down?” Dorian was smiling and cheerful, but Oats looked sour. He shot me a quick glance but I ignored him, making as if I’d never seen him before. Elmer looked mean, but I would expect that. He was a young man who needed his sleep.
“Buckwheat cakes and honey!” Dorian said. “This is living!”
He glanced over at Oats. “Are you gentlemen going far? I mean, if there is any way we can help … ?”
“We don’t need no help,” Oats said. “Tend to your own affairs!”
“Oh, but we intend to!” Dorian was almighty cheerful, and a body would almost think he welcomed trouble. “It will be no problem.”
The buckwheat cakes were good. The coffee was fresh ground like it should be. Once the food was on the table, nobody was inclined to talk, and I was giving thought to what lay ahead. Somewhere to the south was Pikeville, and it would surely be easier if we could find a boat. A canoe would be best, or even a skiff.
When the rest of them had gone outside, I went to the tavernkeeper. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I thought there would be trouble.”
“They are thieves,” I said, “and we’re wishful of getting away from them. Is there anybody with a skiff or a canoe?”
“There’s an old birchbark canoe…” He pointed. “Yonder, back of the barn there’s an inlet. The canoe lies there.”
When I started to reach for money, he put up a hand. “No, don’t worry about money. I heard them call you Sackett, was that right?”
“It is. I am Echo Sackett, from Tuckalucky Cove, or thereabouts.”
“Before we started the inn,” he said, “there was a time down on the Big Sandy when I was laid up. I was almighty sick, with a wife and two young-uns. There was a man came through, found us hard up for meat, and he stayed around for a week, huntin’ for us, cookin’ until we got well, and carin’ for us generally. Then he taken off and I haven’t seen hide nor hair since. He was a Sackett. So you just take that canoe and do what you’ve a mind to.”
“Bread on the waters,” I said, “and thank you.”
Outside, Dorian was squatting on his heels, looking off down the street. Timothy Oats was down there with Elmer, talking to another man.
“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got a canoe.”
We moved fast, slipping away and into that canoe. A stroke or two of a paddle and we were out of that inlet and turning upstream against the current. I was a fair hand with a paddle myself but I had to admit it, Dorian was better. Of course, he was bigger and stronger. Archie took to a paddle like he was born to it.
How long it took them to discover what happened to us, I wouldn’t try guessin’, but I’ve an idea we were long gone before they figured it out. We taken off up the Levisa Fork and we made good time, but I was worried.
We weren’t getting away that easy. They would be after us, and they could ride the river too. They would be coming and we’d be getting into wilder and wilder country. There were scattered towns along the Levisa Fork, but there were long, lonely stretches in between and had an idea they’d gone about as far as they wished.
What worried me even more was Felix Horst. Where was he? So far he’d kept from sight, but I was sure he was around, but bidin’ his time.
Timothy Oats or Elmer might just take our money and run, but not Horst. He would leave us dead. He was that kind of man, and I didn’t want to die, nor see Dorian Chantry laid out for burial. The thought gave me a twinge, and he saw it.
“Somebody step on your grave?” he asked.
“Not mine,” I said.
Well, he just looked at me, and when I looked over my shoulder at him again, he was dipping his paddle deep, his face serious.
When this was over, all over, I hoped there’d be time to talk, to just set by the river and talk, boy-girl talk. I blushed. Who was I to think such thoughts?
16
The river was up but the current was slow and easy-like. We had us a start on those who followed, and we’d best take advantage of it. There was one thing workin’ for us they wouldn’t know. The further we went, the closer we got to Sackett country.
Dorian had laid aside his coat and was workin’ in shirtsleeves. I will say for a city boy he had muscles a body wouldn’t expect. Before the morning was over I spelled him on the paddle and got a glimpse of his hands. He hadn’t said a word, but blisters were beginning to show. I suspect it had been a while since he’d been that long on a paddle.
The Levisa Fork curved around some, so we couldn’t see very far, but I had an idea they were comin’ up behind us.
The banks were forested right down to the water in most places, although here and there was a farm and sometimes cattle were down along the river. It was late afternoon before we turned into a little cove and went ashore to make coffee. I found some Jamestown weed and took some leaves from it.
“Put this on your hands,” I said. “It will help.”
“Thanks,” he said, and glanced at the leaves curiously, then at me. But he used them, holding them in his hands.
We ate some bread and slices of meat brought from the tavern. “This will be a killin’ fight if they catch up,” I warned. “Horst an’ them won’t be for travelin’ any further. They figure they’re in wild country now and whatever happens won’t be brought home to them.”
Dorian said never a word, but I had an idea he was beginning to realize the seriousness of it. Archie, who had been up the creek and over the mountain a few times, he had no illusions.
“How far to the next town?” Dorian asked.
“Few miles. A place called Paintsville. We’ve been makin’ pretty good time,” I added, “maybe three miles to the hour or a mite less.”
We’d be goin’ slower from now on, I suspected, with Dorian’s hands blistered the way they were. My hands were used to hard work and I’d spent a sight of time in a canoe on the Holston, the French Broad, and the Tennessee at one time or another. My brother Ethan was a great one for the water, and he’d taken me along many a time when huntin’ or fishin’. He had a taste for catfish. I said as much.