Crockett of Tennessee Read online

  David tried to swallow the growing lump in his own throat. “What would have made him bleed?”

  Wilson stood, shrugging. “I don’t know. Sickliness, maybe. Or maybe he et something that cut him some way or another. It looks like he come back home in the storm, after we had already lit out. I reckon maybe the rising water killed him.” He glanced at David’s face, which was growing blotchy and puffed around the eyes as he fought back tears.

  Wilson patted his young brother’s shoulder, obviously enjoying playing the role of older-and-wiser. “Don’t cry, David,” he said piously. “Heaven has done Painter a great mercy.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “That’s just what you say when someone has died in pain. That’s what Mama says. The dead one was a-suffering before, and now they ain’t, so heaven has done them a great mercy. You understand?”

  “You think Painter suffered before he … before he was done a mercy?”

  “Well, he must have. He was a-bleeding, wasn’t he? So see? You ought to be thankful. He’s been done a mercy.”

  David held silence. Wilson, looking satisfied at having vented his wisdom so liberally, left the cabin. David went to the corner and picked up his dog’s cold body. He held it and stroked the wet fur, tears streaming down his face.

  “I’ll bury you, Painter. Out in the secret place.” He hugged the furry corpse close. “Don’t feel bad at being dead, Painter. Heaven has done you a mercy. That’s what Wilson says, and I reckon he knows a lot more than me about that kind of thing.”

  There was a special, secret hollow in the woods a mile from the cabin, a place to which David and Painter had escaped many times to play. He headed there now, carrying Painter’s body under his left arm and a shovel in his right hand. The hollow seemed the right place to bury Painter.

  David had taken varying routes to his hollow to avoid making a trail his siblings could follow to discover and invade his private domain. Today he chose a route that initially followed the new wagon road, from which he would cut east at the base of the second downgrade to reach the hollow from its lowest side. He was in control of his emotions now, though barely, and his eyes were red from fresh crying.

  He reached the top of the second downgrade and stopped. A stunning sight lay below. At the base of the slope was a tangle of wreckage. A wagon had gone off the road and rolled, shattering against a tree. David gaped. He remembered this wagon; it was the very one that had rattled by so fast the previous day, when he was out looking for Painter, the one bearing the man and the boy.

  David began to tremble. He dropped the shovel, laid Painter’s body gently to the ground, and walked down the slope, slipping a couple of times in the mud. The former contents of the wagon were scattered all along the road, and despite the masking effects of the night’s storm, David could still detect the point the wagon had slid out of control. The horses remained hitched to the wagon and were alive, though badly hurt. They made sounds of pain terrible to hear, and their eyes were wide-open and wild. David knew they would have to be shot.

  He was looking mostly for the boy he had seen, but instead he found only the man, beneath the wagon, crushed by its weight and as dead as a man could be. David stared at the corpse a few moments, then turned and ran in panic back up the hill, shouting in his high-pitched voice as loud as he could for his father.

  After topping the rise and starting down the far side, David came to a stop so abrupt that his feet slid from beneath him and he fell on his rump in the mud. He stared up into the face of the boy from the wagon. The swarthy boy, looking as if he had weathered the storm without shelter, had just walked out of the edge of the woods, and seemed as surprised as David was to encounter another human being. The boy appeared to be slightly older than David, perhaps by a year. His frame was thin and juvenile. His eyes … that was the aspect of him that was unsettling. His eyes might have been those of an old man. They were eyes that had seen too much, too soon, and had been rendered veiled and hard.

  The two boys eyed each other like tomcats for a few moments. David stood. The other set his lip in a snarl—an automatic, defensive facial gesture, like the arching of a cat’s back.

  “What are you a-gaping at?” Persius Tarr asked.

  “I was just … I was … who are you?”

  “Somebody who could whup you in a knock fight.”

  David wondered if that was a threat. Why was this dark boy so testy? “I don’t want no fight.”

  “Then don’t stand a-gaping.”

  “You was in that wagon, with that man.”

  “Was. I got out and left. I’m on my own now.”

  David, naturally enough, misinterpreted that comment to indicate that the boy knew about the fatal accident. “Was he your father?”

  “Who?”

  “The man under the wagon.”

  Persius Tarr snorted. “Under the wagon? What are you, a fool? My father don’t drive his wagon from the bottomside! I reckon he might if he got drunk enough, or if he turned stupid as you.” He made a forced effort at haughty laughter, but cut it off suddenly, grasping his belly like it had been kicked.

  “You sick?”

  “Go off and leave me be.” A radical change of spirit had occurred. A gripping pain had driven the fight out of Persius Tarr.

  It came clear to David. This boy didn’t know about the wagon crash, didn’t know that his father was dead. The import of it all was overwhelming. David went pale. He had never before been faced with the prospect of giving such tragic news to another person.

  “I told you to quit a-gaping at me. I’ll whup you if you don’t.”

  David searched for his voice. “Your father … that wagon, it’s yonder over the hill … your father, he’s …”

  The boy’s expression grew stony. “What are you babbling about?”

  David swallowed. “Your father, he is … he has …”

  “What, hang it?”

  “The wagon, it went off the road and turned over, yonder beyond the hill.”

  The look of defiance left Persius Tarr’s face. He looked scared now. “Where’s my father?”

  “He’s with the wagon … under the wagon. He’s …”

  David stopped, uncertain how to say it. “Your father fell under the wagon—it rolled over on top of him … and heaven done him a great mercy.”

  In his capacity of Greene County constable, John Crockett wrote down a description of the accident based on what Persius was able to tell him and the physical evidence left behind at the scene. This he would file with the county coroner. But in the meantime there was nothing to do but get the dead man into the ground.

  Grave-digging was difficult and messy in the mud, and the bottom of the hole filled with water. No coffin was available, so the late Mick Tarr was wrapped in a blanket, tied with cords, and lowered into the grave as he was. They heaped mud back over him, John Crockett clumsily led a prayer, and it was done.

  “You can stay with us a time, Persius,” John said without enthusiasm. “You don’t have any other place to go, I don’t reckon.”

  “No sir. But I can make it fine alone.”

  “No. You stay with us, for now.”

  David was glad to hear that. Persius was a very interesting fellow, and David had a feeling he would like him after he got to know him better. There was something about Persius that spoke of freedom and rugged experience far beyond anything David had known. David sensed he could learn from Persius—learn things, maybe, that his parents wouldn’t teach him even if they could. Who could say? If everything went well, maybe Persius would become part of the family, and stay forever. That would be fine, like having a new brother.

  David walked beside Persius as they headed back to the cabin. Persius kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and his expression solemn.

  “Ain’t you going to cry?” David asked.

  “I never cry,” Persius said.

  “Why?” David was taken all at once with an interesting possibility. “Are you an Injun? You�
�re dark enough to be one, and you won’t see Injuns crying much.”

  Persius’s dark eyes narrowed. “I ain’t no Injun! I’ll whup your hind end, you say that again!”

  “Settle down there!” John Crockett barked. “There’ll be no fighting. You boys hear me?”

  “I ain’t no Injun!” Persius repeated, this time in a low mumble. “It makes me mad when folks call me an Injun. I don’t know why folks always got to say that. Some of these days I’ll whup me a few hind ends and see how they like that!”

  “I said, settle down!” John repeated. This time Persius obeyed, though he still looked as if he could explode, trying to contain his anger.

  David slowed up, letting Persius move ahead. A fascinating, mysterious fellow, this Persius Tarr was … but he was sure going to take some getting used to, if he was going to be around for long. One thing was certain to David: he would be very slow to mention Indians around Persius Tarr again.

  Chapter 3

  Two Days Later, Along Cove Creek

  “Reach a mite more, David! Just a mite more, that’s all!”

  David strained a little farther, grimacing at the effort. He was standing precariously on the side of a storm-felled sycamore that extended like a bridge across the creek. He held to a branch with his left hand and gripped the end of a long stick in his right, probing the stick’s other end into the water.

  “A mite more, David! There, there! Hurrah! You’re almost at it!”

  The encouragement came from little sister Betsy, who stood beside the muddy root clump of the tree, which had fallen during the storm. She leaned forward, mimicking with her own thin body the cautious balancing act of her brother. Her eyes brightened suddenly, and she clapped.

  “Snared it!” David exclaimed triumphantly, lifting the stick. On its end was a soaked beaver hat, washed down the creek during the storm and lodged in partially submerged branches. David swung it around toward his little sister, who snatched it and began to shake the water out of it. David dropped the stick into the water and edged back to the bank.

  Betsy shaped the hat into some semblance of what it must have been before, and put it onto her head. It was far too large, and slipped down over her eyes. David laughed. “Well, you wanted it, and now you have it, and it’s big enough to swaller you!”

  The little girl took off the hat. Her hair was now as wet as the hat was. Her quick frown just as quickly became a smile. “I can sell it!” she declared. “I can take it into Greene Courthouse and sell it for money! And I’ll let you have some of the money, David, ’cause it was you who fished it out for me!”

  David laughed at his sister as she turned and darted toward the cabin to show her prize to her mother. He swept his gaze over the broader scene, and saw his father exiting the damaged mill, Thomas Galbreath beside him. It made David wish ironically that getting rich really was as easy as fishing a hat from a creek.

  The unfortunate mill partners had been together since early morning, talking privately and intensely, with serious expressions on their faces. For the last half hour they had been exploring the ruined mill, from which the creek waters had receded the day before, leaving it standing in a wide expanse of mud. With the water down, the mill didn’t look as devastated as before … not until one looked closely.

  John Crockett and Galbreath were evaluating whether there was any chance at all of repairing and opening the mill. John had already expressed his belief that there was none, and if the looks David saw on their faces gave evidence of their mutual conclusion, it appeared John’s pessimism had been validated.

  David brushed the water and fragments of bark off his hands and headed toward the cabin. William, third-born of the Crockett sons and namesake of John Crockett’s brother in neighboring Jefferson County, was on the roof, patching it as best he could. Rebecca was inside, where she had been busy since before dawn, doing what she could to make the cabin a home again, however short-lived a home it would be. She had been remarkably successful for such brief efforts in a badly storm-smitten structure, having covered the floor with evergreen boughs gathered by her children and put the furniture back into place. Unfortunately, the stick-and-mud upper portion of the chimney, weakened by rain, had fallen away from the house only this morning, leaving a fireplace that opened directly to the sky and wouldn’t draw smoke properly.

  When David entered the cabin, Persius Tarr was at the table, eating corn bread and “long sweetening,” as the locals called sorghum molasses. David was shocked to see Persius receiving such a treat—Rebecca usually doled out long sweetening with the conservatism of an army commissary officer on short supplies. For a moment David felt resentful of Persius, until he remembered how sad and alone the bereaved boy had looked beside the grave of his father. Persius had no parents, no home, and no possessions beyond what cargo had been in the wagon—though that, he confessed, hadn’t really been his father’s. It was mostly useless stuff, with little value, and had all been stolen in Washington County. The late Mick Tarr, it seemed, had been a thief as well as a drunkard.

  “Can I have some sweetening too, Mama?” David asked.

  “Get away, Davy—Persius is a guest, and he ain’t et nearly as good as a boy should for Lord knows how long. If I give you sweetening, I have to give it to all your brothers and sisters too.”

  David glared enviously at Persius, who in turn ignored him, being preoccupied with his food. Persius ate with an enthusiasm exceeding any David had heretofore witnessed. Molasses dripped down his narrow chin—an awful waste of good sweetening, in David’s opinion. He stood watching the display, quietly resenting the favored treatment this stranger was enjoying while the Crockett children, Rebecca’s own flesh and blood, were excluded. But that was just the way Rebecca Crockett was, doling out her tenderness to anything or anyone who caught her sympathy, and expecting her own offspring to do the same. Life was certainly unfair.

  Persius surprised David by suddenly gripping his belly violently and making a terrible face. The motion was so swift and intense that Persius dropped his corn bread onto the floor. Rebecca Crockett noted what had happened and put her hand to her face as she always did when major realizations struck her.

  She said, “Why, Persius Tarr, I’ve been blind as the dead!” David thought his mother’s words poorly chosen, considering that Persius’s father was just now getting settled in his muddy grave. “I know what’s wrong with you, boy! You’re eat up with worms!” David winced. Poorly chosen words again.

  David backed off three steps. Persius rubbed his stomach and looked concerned. Rebecca swept over and put her arm over Persius’s shoulder. “Poor child! Poor, orphaned boy! I can help you. David, head out to the herb shed and fetch me a branch of my dried wormweed. You know which is the wormweed, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Run on, then. And Joseph”—she turned to David’s little brother, who was sitting in the corner, poking a captured bug with a twig—“go fetch me some more firewood. I’ve got some worming to do.”

  David raced to the shed. He was glad to fetch the wormweed. He himself had been recipient of this remedy before, and so knew that Persius Tarr had quite an experience ahead of him.

  The interior of the shed was hung with all sorts of herbs, or “yarbs,” as the folks of the region pronounced the word. David examined the upside-down array of fragrant plants until he spotted the pale green, dusty-looking “wormweed.” He yanked down a big handful of it and raced back to the house.

  Little Joe had already brought in the firewood, and Rebecca was poking up a new blaze in the chimneyless fireplace. Smoke drifted back into the cabin.

  “Here’s the wormweed, Mama.”

  “Thank you, Davy.”

  David watched with interest as Rebecca cut the wormweed into small chunks and mixed these with some of the sorghum. She poured the mix into the bottom of a small kettle, hung it on a pothook that swung out over the fire, and stirred the molasses carefully until it had boiled down to sugary, candylike lumps encasing t
he wormweed. At that point she removed the kettle from the fire and left it to cool.

  “What will that there do?” Persius Tarr asked in a cautious tone.

  “It’ll kill the worms in you, boy, and get rid of that bellyache,” Rebecca replied. “There’s no cause for anyone to suffer from the worms as long as there’s wormweed growing on God’s earth. That’s what it was put here for. It’s my belief that for every ailment of fallen man, there’s herbs to cure it. It’s God recompense for the smiting of the earth.”

  She went outside to tend to other business then. David scooted up a stool that was really no more than a log section and sat down, putting his elbows on the table and peering into the kettle as the candy cooled.

  “You going to eat some of that?” Persius asked.

  “No. I ain’t wormy. This here’s just for folk who’s wormy.”

  “You ever eat it before?”

  “Once.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Yes. Yes indeed.”

  Persius frowned. “I ain’t sure I want that weed in me.”

  “Better than having worms. Worms can kill you if they get bad enough. There was a boy over on Limestone Creek who died of the worms. He was skinny as a post, all white and buggy-eyed. You’d best eat that wormweed. Be sides, my mama’s going to make you, whether you want to or not.”

  Rebecca Crockett reentered a few minutes later. She gouged the candy from the kettle with a butcher knife, cut it into squares, and set them before Persius. “Eat. As much of it as you can. All of it, if you can hold it.”

  Persius began consuming the candy, cautiously at first, then more quickly. “Tastes good,” he said.

  “It’ll purge you out,” Rebecca said. “By tomorrow morning, maybe by tonight.”

  David, chin resting on his folded hands, watched Persius devour the worming candy until the last crumb was gone. When Persius put away the last bite and rubbed his mouth on his sleeve, David grinned at him.

  “Can you feel ’em dying in you?” David asked. “Listen! I can hear their death moans!”