Crockett of Tennessee Page 4

  The wagon rolled up the dirt road into town. David sat up straight, looking around. He seldom visited Greene Courthouse, as the county seat was known, and so looked for whatever changes had come to the little town since his last venture here. To David Crockett, Greene Courthouse didn’t seem as small as it really was, because he had little to compare it to. He had never seen another town except for Jonesborough, the seat of neighboring Washington County, and a few other local communities such as Leesburg and Rheatown.

  Greene Courthouse had been laid out in typical grid fashion some years before, around what folks called the Big Spring, an ancient watering spot at the crossing place of old Indian war trails. In the center of the hamlet was a log courthouse building erected the year before David’s birth, and destined soon, talk had it, to give way to a more permanent, larger structure. The courthouse stood directly in the center of the junction of Main and First Cross streets, and until the creation of the Southwest Territory in 1790, had been a governing center not only for the county, but also for the so-called State of Franklin. David knew little about the Franklin state, which had failed politically, though he did think it noteworthy that he had been born during its brief tenure. Though a territorialist, he was by birth a Franklinite.

  The wagon passed the courthouse, around which a few men stood, talking and chewing and smoking. Every one of them waved at John Crockett, or called his name. This made David proud. His father was generally liked and respected in his community. John Crockett was much more a denizen of Greene Courthouse than was any other member of his family. Generally he came on official business. He was a frequent juryman, and the county posts of magistrate and constable that he had held—both offices indicative of the esteem with which his peers regarded him—had brought him here fairly frequently. He knew virtually the entire populace of the little town. And he was able to read and write, unlike many of his neighbors, which earned him further standing.

  “Well, we’re here, boys,” John said, pulling the wagon to a halt in front of a wide, low log building with an overhanging porch. The front door stood open; a man exited with an armful of bundles, and grinned and nodded when he saw John.

  “Howdy, Caleb,” John said. “Pretty day, ain’t it?”

  “Surely is, John. How are you faring?”

  “Not good at all. The storm took my mill.”

  “No! Will you get ’er fixed?”

  “Nope. Closing down and moving over to Jefferson County. I aim to open a tavern, if I can.”

  “Will you? Good luck to you, John. A tavern! That might be just the thing.”

  Persius looked around, then tugged on John’s sleeve, interrupting the conversation. “This here’s a store?”

  “Yes. Come on. I’ll take you in to meet Mr. Greer.” He turned back to the other man. “Caleb, good day to you. If you ever pass through Jefferson County, look me up.”

  David touched his father’s arm as the man walked away. “Pap, does Persius really have to go? Can’t he go help us build the tavern?”

  “’Fraid not, David. We don’t have the means to keep him. My first duty is to my children and wife. Lord have mercy, boy! We have another baby on the way right now. I can’t hardly feed the family I done have.”

  “I don’t want him to go. He’s my friend.”

  “I know that, son. That’s why I let you come along today, so you could be with him longer. Now don’t get weepish on me and make me wish I’d left you home. This is something that must be done.”

  They descended from the wagon and entered the building. David blinked as his eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior, dim even in the day because of the light-absorbing effect of log walls. The store interior was stacked, in no apparent pattern, with a marvelous hodgepodge of items, some of them frontier standards and others reflective of the slowly rising standard of living brought on by a higher populace, better roads, and better government. There were hand tools, firearm implements, crates, barrels, smithing tools, jump and coulter plows and plow tongues, earthenware and tinware dishes and pots, mason’s chisels, pack saddles, foot warmers, flax brakes, scutching blocks, long-handled waffle irons, fireplace fenders, trivets, hand mills, bake kettles, teakettles, candle molds, and finished furniture of the kind some richer folk had, but which the Crocketts had never seemed able to afford. David walked in, eyes wide as he examined what looked to him to be a kingdom’s worth of treasures.

  A man in baggy, greasy trousers and a faded blue shirt approached. “John Crockett! So you’ve arrived!” He put out his hand for a shake, then tousled David’s hair. He looked back at Persius, who was glumly slipping in. “So this is the lad you spoke of the other day?”

  “That’s right, Saul. This is Persius Tarr. Persius, meet Mr. Greer.”

  Persius crept up and limply shook Greer’s hand.

  “Mr. Greer is going to keep you here in town with him until the Orphan Court on Tuesday,” John said, putting as bright a sound on the words as he could. “He’s a good man, and a friend of mine. You can trust him.”

  Persius grunted a minimal acknowledgment, darting his eyes around the room to avoid looking into John Crockett’s face.

  Greer said, “That’s right, Persius. I’ll see that you have a good stay—and if you want to work about the store, why, your help will be welcome.”

  Persius grunted again, even more softly.

  Saul Greer put his hand on John’s shoulder. “Come aside, John. There’s news I’ve heard only last night that you’ll want to know. I’ve been looking forward to you getting here so I could tell it to you. An Indian trader from along the Tennessee has told me something I believe pertains to your own kin.”

  A look of intrigue on his face, John Crockett stepped aside and began talking in covert tones to Greer. David went to Persius. “Where do you reckon you’ll wind up?”

  “What?”

  “After the Orphan Court. Where do you reckon you’ll wind up?”

  “I don’t know. Don’t much care.”

  “Why not? They might put you with somebody mean as a snake. They say orphans get treated bad a lot.”

  “It don’t matter. I won’t be there more than a little spell.”

  David’s eyes widened when he realized what Persius was implying. He drew closer. “You’ll run off?”

  “I surely will.”

  David grinned. “I’ve always thought it’d be a jolly thing to run off. Get out in the world and have adventures.”

  “It’ll be a sight lot better’n being an orphan bound to some old blacksmith or pot maker.”

  “Ain’t you scared?”

  “Scared? Hah! Why, I was running off from my own pap the day you seen me.” He paused, and in a less haughty tone added, “I reckon getting off that wagon saved my life.”

  “Did your pap look for you?”

  “He did. I hid and watched him. He walked all through the woods, swinging a big old stick he’d fetched to beat me with, calling and cussing and saying he was going off without me if I didn’t show myself. After a bit of that, he got back on the wagon and rode away. After that must have been when he turned ’er over and killed hisself. If I’d gone back to him, I’d be dead too.”

  “You’re mighty brave, Persius. I’d be ’fraid of running off.”

  “I ain’t ’fraid of nothing. Not me. I’m a Tarr. We’re go-ahead folk. That’s what my pappy used to say: Tarrs are go-ahead folk.”

  “Go-ahead folk,” David repeated, liking the bravado of the words.

  John Crockett came to David, his private talk with Greer completed. He touched his son’s shoulder. “Come on, David. We must go up the street a bit.”

  David looked up at his father and was surprised at the odd expression on his face. A look of … awe? Wonder? And happiness, undeniably; John Crockett looked like he might laugh aloud at any moment. David wondered if it was getting rid of Persius that made his father happy, and felt offended.

  “Good-bye, David,” Persius said.

  “Good-bye, Persius.”
David’s lower lip begin to dance and quiver. A strong impulse to throw his arms around Persius struck him, but he resisted it. Such a display would seem unmanly, and he didn’t think Persius would much like it.

  He was surprised, then, when Persius advanced and did that very thing, giving David a tight squeeze and hurried release, then turned away and headed over to a couple of plows leaned against the far wall, where he pretended to inspect them, keeping his back toward the Crocketts, whistling in forced idleness as if he couldn’t care less about anything that was happening.

  David lacked the emotional will of Persius. Tears streamed down his face and he sobbed aloud. Losing Persius was even harder than losing Painter.

  Back aboard the wagon, David dried his tears, figuring that his father surely would scold him for crying, as was usually the case. But this time John Crockett had nothing to say. He didn’t even seem to notice that David had been upset.

  David glared silently, bitterly, at his father, who hadn’t lost that strange expression—and who hadn’t even shown the good grace to say farewell to Persius.

  “Davy-boy, there’s a man we must see up at the inn yonder—he has news for me. It’s about your uncle Jimmy.”

  That caught David’s attention. “Uncle Jimmy? But Uncle Jimmy’s dead!”

  “So we’ve thought, all these years. But it seems we may have been wrong. There’s nothing sure about it yet, but he may yet be alive.”

  John Crockett snapped the lines and sent the team into motion, pulling the heavy wagon along the rutted dirt street. David looked back over his shoulder. Persius was standing in the doorway of the store. He stiffly lifted his hand in parting, turned and walked back inside.

  Chapter 5

  Events over the next hour helped take David’s mind off the sad matter of Persius Tarr. John Crockett drove the wagon to a tavern near the Big Spring and parked it beneath a pale green weeping willow. “You stay here,” he told David. “The man I’m supposed to talk to ought to be inside, according to Greer.”

  David scooted to one side as far as he could, so as to immerse himself in the new willow strands just for the fun of doing it. He tugged and twined them for diversion, but fumed at being left alone to burn with curiosity. He considered walking back to the Greer store to talk to Persius some more. He was afraid doing that would anger his father, though—and besides, he wanted to know as soon as possible what this tantalizing hint about Uncle Jimmy was all about.

  “Dumb Jimmy,” David muttered in a whisper. Time and again he had heard his father and uncles refer to their long-missing brother by that name. Jimmy Crockett had been given up for dead long ago. If by some miracle he was still alive, it was surely the first time in the fellow’s life that fortune had been kind to him.

  Even Jimmy Crockett’s birth had been “troubled,” as John Crockett had explained, and had left him deaf. As a result, he had never learned to speak beyond mouthing a few simple words that he crudely vocalized with squeaks and grunts. Of course, there had been no hope for any kind of normal life for the boy. From the beginning, the Crocketts had assumed that Jimmy would remain with his parents until they died, and then fall under the care of his brothers and sisters. But no one at that time had anticipated what the family now called, in serious tones, “the Tragedy.”

  The Tragedy had occurred long before David was born, and so of course he had never had the opportunity to meet his uncle Jimmy. David regretted that. He had never known a deaf-and-dumb person. Jimmy would have been interesting to know, simply because he was different.

  It was during the revolt against Britain, in the “Year of the Three Sevens,” 1777, that the Tragedy occurred. The place was Carter’s Valley, north of the Nolichucky region where the John Crockett family now made their home. The actual site of the event was now part of the town of Rogersville, which David had never visited, even though his grandparents were buried there and it was John Crockett’s former homeplace.

  David settled himself beneath the willow and thought back on the Tragedy as his father had recounted it. According to John Crockett, 1777 had been a particularly violent, bloody year. There was strife between the settlers, who were steadily pushing into the wilderness, and the Indians, who resented the encroachment and had thrown their support to Britain in return for promises of aid. During April of that year, John Crockett’s parents, residents of Carter’s Valley, were among the first victims of Indian raiders when a band of Creeks and militant Cherokees, called Chickamaugas, attacked their cabin.

  John Crockett himself might have been a victim had he not been away at the time, riding with a defensive band of frontier rangers of which he was part. Jimmy and Robert, John’s brothers, were home, however, as were both their parents.

  The elder Crocketts were killed swiftly by the Indian raiders. Robert fled desperately, saving his life, but a bullet struck him in the forearm, damaging it so severely that it had to be sawed off later. As for Jimmy, his handicap hampered his escape, and he was taken prisoner. He hadn’t been seen since, nor heard from, and it seemed natural to assume, given the passing of seventeen years and the receipt of no news about him, that Jimmy Crockett had gone on to the life hereafter never having escaped the captivity of savages. Now it appeared that assumption might have been wrong.

  David chewed a willow leaf, spitting out the pieces as he squinted through the greenery at the tavern’s open door, trying to see what his father was doing inside. He could make nothing out. He slipped down from the wagon seat and edged around closer. Still he could see nothing. So he crept over to a window and sneaked a look over the sill.

  John Crockett was seated at a table, leaning forward and resting on his elbows, fingers interlocked and chin thrust out. David knew that posture; his father sat that way whenever he was intensely interested in something he was hearing. In this case, the interesting something apparently was whatever was being said by a very lanky, rugged-looking fellow on the other side of the table.

  David studied the stranger. Unlike many waistcoated, buckle-shoed men one saw in the towns these days, this man had virtually nothing store-bought anywhere on or about his person. His trousers were of homespun wool, made in the old French fly style, and his hunting shirt, equally old-styled, looked like linsey-woolsey to David. He wore moccasins that reached nearly to his knees—and on him this required tall moccasins indeed, because David had never seen a longer-limbed fellow. The man’s hat was a felt slouch that remained on his head even though he was indoors. A short, dyed feather stuck into its band was the only visible ornamentation on him. But his buckskin outer coat, which he had draped over the back of his chair, was fringed and beaded profusely. It was a beautiful thing to see. Someday, David thought, it would be very fine to have a coat like that for himself. The man’s face was very nearly the color of the coat, raggedly bearded and leathery in texture. His hair was the hue of gunpowder, long, and clubbed behind his head. David wasn’t good at guessing ages, but he could see that the fellow was older than John Crockett. Certainly he lived his life in the wilderness. His very appearance suggested forests and mountains and icy streams. A thought crossed David’s mind that would have seemed odd to anyone privy to it, though it made perfect sense to him: that man looks just like wood smoke smells on a cold morning.

  David couldn’t hear what was being said, which frustrated him, but he dared not draw any closer for fear his father would see him and grow angry at him for leaving the wagon. John Crockett was the devil when he got mad and took cane in hand for discipline. And all the worse he became when he had some liquor in him—and at the moment there was an earthenware mug on the table before him, from which he was taking occasional big gulps with enthusiasm bred of transparent excitement. David watched carefully a few seconds more, then made a discreet return to the wagon.

  Half an hour passed before the senior Crockett came out. He had a big smile on his face as he came toward the wagon a bit unsteadily, and climbed aboard with much grunting and wheezing through his nose. It never took liquor long to
go to John’s head. “Let’s go home, Davy-boy. I need to talk to your mother.”

  “Who was that man, Pap?” David asked. He inwardly cringed as soon as the words were out, fearing that by such a specific reference, he had given away the secret of his spying. But his father didn’t take note.

  “There was an Injun trader in there,” John said. “His name is Fletcher, and he’s recently seen a deaf-and-dumb captive amongst the redskins—and from the sound of all he says, I believe it really could be Jimmy. The age is right, and the look of him as Fletcher described it. Fletcher, he had spoke of this captive to Greer, who used to trade amongst the Injuns hisself, and right off Greer figured it might be Jimmy, having heard me talk about him in the past.” John took up the lines, cleared his throat, leaned over and spat onto the ground, wobbling so much that David almost grabbed at him so he wouldn’t fall. “Greer, he’s a good man. He’s helped this family a sight, son, taking Persius off our hands until the Orphan Court, and now putting me in with Fletcher.”

  David felt a pulse of irritation, which he kept secret, over the comment concerning Persius. It was ever more obvious that Persius had been nothing more than a burden to John Crockett, a problem to be shrugged off and forgotten.

  “What will happen now?” David asked.

  “Fletcher’s going back among the Injuns soon, and he’s going to see what more he can learn. He believes there might be a way to get Jimmy free. Buy him free—if we can fetch up the money or goods. I’ve told him to come get a-holt of me in Jefferson County once he works things out. We ought to know more later in the year. Lordy! Wouldn’t it be a fine thing if it really is Jimmy and we can truly get him free again!”

  David sat trying to imagine what it would be like to be an Indian captive for seventeen years. Jimmy Crockett had been scarcely an adult at the time of his capture. David counted it out on his fingers. Jimmy had spent almost as many years in captivity as he had spent in prior freedom. He wondered if Jimmy might have turned Indian himself by now. Many times he had heard tales of Indian captives who refused freedom when it was offered, preferring their life among the savages. Rebecca Crockett clicked her tongue and shook her head at such stories, declaring they illustrated the human capacity to degenerate into savagery. David didn’t quite see it that way. He could understand how it might be fun to live free and wild in the forests … though Indians these days certainly weren’t as free and wild as they once had been.