“You stay where you is, wench,” Percy said.
“Do what I say, Tess,” Jamie told her. “You do not take orders from this wretched hulk.”
Holding her purchases, Kate started for the door. Percy stepped around the table and started for her. Jamie shot him.
The double-shotted, heavy caliber balls struck the outlaw in chest and face, making a dreadful mess of the man’s head. Dick Newby grabbed for his pistol and Jamie jerked out his second pistol, cocked, and fired. One ball went wide and the other ball struck the brigand in the throat. He went down, making horrible gurgling sounds. Jamie leaped at the third Newby brother, clubbing him to the floor before he could free his pistol. Again and again, Jamie smashed the man’s face and head with the butt of his pistol, working with the rage of an ancient Viking berserker.
“Enough!” Kate screamed from the door. “He’s done, love.”
Jamie let the thug fall to the floor, his face and head streaming blood. The old couple threw open the door and ran from the rear and looked with a curious mixture of horror and satisfaction at the scene.
“Finish him, lad!” the old man shouted. “Kill him for sure or he and his kind will forever be on your trail.”
The old man grabbed up an axe and ran to the Newby brother. Before Jamie could stop him, he had brought the axe down on the unconscious man’s head.
“Now it’s done and good riddance,” the old man said, leaning the bloody axe against a table leg. “Run, lad. Take your sister and run. I’ll tell their brothers you was headin’ south for New Orleans. Go, boy. Now! Them other brothers could show up anytime.”
Several miles from the store, Jamie halted and dismounted. He knelt by the trail and retched up the contents of his stomach. He wiped his mouth and said, “I swear before the Almighty God, Kate, I just want some peace for us.”
Kate came to him and put her arms around him and held him close. “You did what you had to do, Jamie. They would have killed you and then passed me around like a common whore and then murdered me... or worse. You did the only thing you could do.”
He nodded his head. “There is terrible, furious wildness in me, Kate. I’ve had it all my life. When I’m angered, it’s like... like a freezing rain that blots out all else. I’m afraid of it, Kate. When it takes control it’s all-consuming in me. I have no fear of those who challenge me. And that’s not a normal thing. Now I know why my father rarely spoke of his father. I’m like him, Kate. I’m like that man who rode west and lived in the mountains... maybe he still lives there. Maybe he’s more savage than white. I don’t know. But I have my grandfather’s hot blood within me.”
“Perhaps that isn’t a bad thing, Jamie. We’re heading into a savage land where it will take that wildness to survive. You have to look at it that way.”
“Did you see me back there, Kate? The pistols actually seemed to be a part of my arm and hand. I don’t even remember jerking and firing. It was... it was... a natural thing to do. Three men are dead, Kate. Two at my hand. And if you had not screamed, I would have surely killed that third man.”
She did not know how to respond to that, so she said nothing.
After a moment, Jamie said, “If the remaining brothers are as bad as those we saw back there, they’ll torture the truth out of that old man and woman.”
“They wouldn’t!”
“Oh, yes, they would. And they will. And I’ve seen brave warriors break under pain. We’ve got to ride, Kate. And ride far.” He shook his head. “I’ve got you in an awful mess, Kate.”
She smiled and kissed him. “We got ourselves in the mess, Jamie. Us. Together. Just like we planned for months. Together. Forever.”
I just hope forever isn’t as short as the future looks right now, Jamie thought, helping Kate to her feet and giving her a hand up into the sidesaddle. ’Cause right now, it looks bleak.
Nine
Jamie and Kate had no choice but to head for the river crossing at New Madrid, for this was all new country to Jamie, and he didn’t know where else to cross. The river curved just north of the store, effectively trapping them in its upside-down U. He kept them as close to the river as possible, and they saw a few boats on the mighty river. Once they came upon a band of Chickasaw Indians, but they were friendly, and friendlier still when one of them recognized Jamie as Man Who Is Not Afraid.
“Tall Bull and Little Wolf hunt you, Man Who Is Not Afraid,” the Indian said. “They have sworn that you will die.”
“They don’t worry me as much as those white men behind us,” Jamie said, in tongue and in sign. “If you see them, stay away, for they are bad.”
“As are most white men,” the leader of the band said. “Even though you were taken by the hated Shawnee, you are a good white man. You learned the true ways and follow them.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You are good even though you are a white man,” he added. “Go in peace.”
A few more days and they found a boatman who would cross them, for a fee that Jamie felt was a bit high, and then they were in New Madrid. The town had been destroyed during the earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, when the upheavals had been so tremendous the Mississippi River had actually run backward and the town they were seeing now had been forced to relocate several times.
Jamie found a boarding house and got a room for Kate, so she could bathe and change clothes, while the lady who ran the place kept an eagle eye on him. Then they found a minister who agreed to marry them and Jamie slipped the ring that Sarah had given him onto Kate’s finger and kissed her. They decided to ride on that day, rather than risk a night in the town, for Jamie was sure that the Newby Brothers were hard on their trail. They cut straight across Missouri, heading for the hills. That night they were truly joined and it was magic for both of them, as they made the sweetest of love under God’s canopy of diamonds set in velvet. They promised their undying love for each other.
They were both fourteen years old.
When the young couple reached a series of foothills, Jamie cut south, into Arkansas, still a few years away from being admitted into the Union. Behind them and still on the east side of the Mississippi River, Hart Olmstead and John Jackson and their sons were trying to pick up their trail. The country store where Jamie had encountered the Newby Brothers was nothing but charred ash. The surviving Newby Brothers had tortured the old man and woman until they told them that the young couple had planned to cross the river at New Madrid. The Newby Brothers then killed the man and woman and burned down the store.
On the banks of the east side of the river, the brothers cleaned up as best they could and then paid to cross the Mississippi. In New Madrid, they made a few polite inquiries and found that a young couple had been there a few days earlier and had been married. The last anyone saw of them they were heading west, toward Crowley’s Ridge.
The Newby brothers were riding westward five minutes later.
* * *
Jamie and Kate were near adults for their time, but really they were still kids, and this trip was a grand adventure for both of them. They were in a wilderness, where few white people lived and Indians still roamed. Here they would find a few Osage, but mostly Quapaw and Caddo. Jamie did not know if the Indians here were warlike or peaceful, and he wasn’t about to take any chances.
Jamie led them on game trails, staying away from what few roads there were, and being very careful to stop every so often and check for smoke. Jamie used his bow to hunt game, choosing the silent kill over the more accurate and long-range rifle, which might have attracted unwanted attention.
For days they rode south and slightly west, through heavily forested hills and valleys. They saw the smoke from cabins and a few settlements, but stayed clear of them. Their supplies ran out when they were a few miles north and west of the territorial capital, a place called Little Rock, which was once a Quapaw Indian settlement, then a trading post, founded by a French trapper named Bernard de la Harpe back in 1722.