Long Hunt (9781101559208) (7 page)

Houser smiled. “Even without Holy Bledsoe's help?” He nodded in the direction of the camp meeting.

“Even so,” Fain said.

Houser chuckled. Houser, a man of multiple fields of expertise and a seemingly endless range of skills, was known to be no devotee of camp meetings, emotional displays, or other traits of new light religion. Even so, he sometimes described his choice to leave the settled East and move to the frontier West to be the result of responding to a “calling.” His goals were to be an agent of better life on the frontier, using not only his medical skills (gained through years of apprenticeship with one of Philadelphia's best physicians) but also as an innkeeper, real estate broker, gunsmith, and supporter of education. Rumor had it he had made a sizable monetary gift to Eben Bledsoe's fledgling college, whose loftier and less emotive style of religion was more in keeping with Houser's preferences.

“I'm pleased you like the rifle,” Houser said. “It's yours.”

Fain gaped. “I beg your . . . Did you say . . . ?”

The physician/gunsmith/innkeeper beamed. “I
did
say. I consider it an honor to be able to present a rifle to so fine a hunter and woodsman as Crawford ‘Edohi' Fain.”

“But I . . . I've done nothing to merit . . .”

“You have done more for me than I can ever repay. You opened your station to me as soon as I and my family arrived. You provided us shelter, a cabin of our own within these very walls. You treated us as if we were your own kin. You provided land upon which we could build our permanent home, establish my medical office, and build our inn. This rifle is but a small and inadequate effort to show my appreciation.”

“I'm—I'm grateful. More than grateful.”

“That's a beautiful piece of craft, sir,” said Potts.

Fain said, “Doctor, I don't know that you've met my friend Langdon Potts before. He came here to see Titus, only to find he's away.”

Another song had begun outside, and swelled up loudly, interrupting the conversation. Preaching had not yet begun on the main platform, though a few of the uninvited small-time competitors were still holding forth out among the throng.

When the music lulled, a wild, screaming yell arose from the camp meeting. A man's voice, harsh and high, as if someone had just hit him with a hot iron.

“What the deuce?” Fain said.

Potts was already looking out. “It's Bledsoe,” he said. “I think the preaching is about to commence.”

“That wasn't preaching; that was a howl,” Fain said.

“Little difference between the two in Bledsoe's approach to religion,” said Houser. “Vent the emotions! Stir the passions! Disconnect yourself from the rational mind.” He shook his head. “How can a man suppose he can find truth when he disdains the very organ of reason? It's more than Abner Bledsoe's eyes that are crossed, in my opinion.”

“Bledsoe's brother, Eben, thinks the same, Doctor.”

“I know. I know. And had he not disavowed his brother's nonsense, his new academy would have received no support from me.”

“What the devil?” said Potts, looking out the rifle port.

“What is it, Potts?”

“There—see? Coming through the crowd?”

Dr. Houser, whose eyes were as keen as his mind, was already at Potts's side. “Lord in heaven!” he said. “Come with me, young man. I think I may be needed out there, and I may benefit from your strong, young back.”

R
euben McCart was only fourteen years old, but tall and big for his age, as muscled as his father and uncles. Partly because he looked so much like a man, he particularly resented the fact that his family still treated him as a child, sending him on trivial errands, leaving him to oversee his younger siblings when his parents were away, and speaking to him in a condescending manner.

His latest resentment was that his mother had sent him to fetch his youngest sister's lost dog, which had chased a rabbit away from the camp meeting grounds and back into the brush and trees around the base of the bluff overlooking the meadow. As far as Reuben was concerned, the dog could be left to its own devices and fate. The fact that his sister consistently failed to keep control of the animal was not
his
fault! And how was he expected to find a free-roaming dog at night, especially considering that this particular dog had never taken to him much and would probably hide if he got near? Despite making that point to his mother, she was unrelenting and sent him on his surely vain errand while his tearful sister smugly looked on. He might have appealed to his father, but his father was off somewhere else on the meeting ground, talking to other men. So Reuben simply went on, back toward the cliff looming behind them all.

“Here, boy! Here, Tater! Show yourself, dog!”

Nothing. He went on, past the back edge of assembled camp meeting worshipers. The meeting was beginning to really come to life, a few people showing the first signs of the “exercises” that often marked these events: spasmodic, violent jerking back and forth, so hard that men's hats were flung fifteen feet away and women's long hair flailed like cracking whips.

It all seemed odd and unpleasant to Reuben, who decided that maybe looking for a lost dog was at least better than being stuck in the midst of such seeming madness.

Half an hour later, as he trudged back to the meeting ground, he did not have the dog with him, but was unconcerned. He'd fetched back something much more important than a dog.

He'd heard the sound shortly after penetrating the brush at the bottom of the escarpment: a low, mournful moaning that he thought might have been wind moving through the small cavern passages that penetrated the bluff. He'd seen the dog then, standing at the rim of a pit below the cliff, growling and barking down into the hole. As Reuben sneaked nearer, intent on grabbing the dog before it knew he was there, he realized two things: the moaning was coming up from the pit itself, and it was not caused by wind. It was a human voice, the voice of a man who was seemingly in great pain.

At that moment Reuben hadn't felt much like a grown man at all, but a scared boy. Someone was down in that hole, hurt, and he wasn't sure he wanted to see the situation. But duty and curiosity drove him to the pit's edge, and just as he looked over, the moan rose to a full scream.

It was dark in the pit, and Reuben had no light except for the feeble illumination of the moon. He lay on his belly and looked down into the hole, hands resting on the rim of the pit, and listened as the screaming faded down until it was merely moaning again.

“Who's down there?” he finally dared ask. His voice trembled more than he liked.

“I . . . need help. . . .”

“Are you trapped down there?”

“Need . . . help to get out . . .”

As Reuben strained to see, his eyes adjusted somewhat and he thought he saw something white moving below in the murk. A moment of closer study revealed it to be a hand. Drawing in a deep breath, he braced himself as best he could and reached down.

The man's hand was thick and rough-skinned. It closed around Reuben's hand with great force. “Pull now,” the man below said.

Reuben pulled hard. The man's hand held firm and Reuben could tell the fellow was pushing up from below with his legs, but as he did he moaned pitifully, like a victim of torture. The effort for both Reuben and the man in the pit became more difficult, but both persisted, and slowly the man rose until Reuben could just make out the dim image of a bearded face.

Reuben was sure he was going to lose his grip, but it didn't much matter because the man now found purchase with his other hand, gripping an out-thrusting rock on the side of the pit. Still groaning, he pulled up, then let go of Reuben's hand and at the same moment took hold of the edge of the pit. Reuben could hear the scuff of the man's feet on stone as he struggled to climb.

The fellow was burly and strong, but something in his manner and look, as he became more clearly visible in the moonlight, did not seem right. Reuben had the impression that he was pallid, but it was too dark to really know. When the fellow suddenly slipped backward a little, as if stricken with weakness, Reuben grabbed his hands and pulled him forward. The man managed to writhe over the edge of the hole, where he collapsed onto his belly with great heaving breaths. He moaned again.

Reuben stood erect and stepped back to look the fellow over, and saw at once that he'd been wrong when he'd thought that the man was pushing himself up with his feet. He had used only one foot, for one was all he had. Where the other leg should be was only emptiness, with ragged dark meat visible about knee level.

“Your leg, mister . . .”

“Gone,” the man said, his voice raspy. “Left it in the pit, wedged tight in a hole.” Then he groaned again and said no more.

“Mister?”

No answer. Not even a moan now. Reuben thought for a moment the man had died, but then he saw movement between his shoulder blades, his lungs weakly inflating and deflating.

“Can you hear me, mister? We got to get you out to the camp meeting. There's people there and we can get you help. You're hurt bad, sir. Hurt bad.”

No reply. Reuben knelt beside the man and tried to see the fellow's face, but the moon vanished behind a cloud and he could not.

“I'm going to have to try to get you up,” Reuben said. “But you're a big man, and I don't know how well I can hoist you.”

His hope was that the man would come around again, and have enough strength and balance to lean against him and stay upright. Together they could work their way out through the trees and brush and enter the campground, where surely others would come to their aid. Reuben was unsure whether he should position himself on the man's right side, where he still had a leg and foot, or on the left, where there was nothing.

He chose the right side because the ragged bloodiness of the other side made him queasy. He'd be no use to this man if he passed out in a faint and let him fall.

Kneeling, he slid the man's limp right arm over his shoulder and tried to stand him up. He got only part of the way before the fellow's weight pulled him down again. Another try, another failure. And again, the same.

Reuben changed positions and tried a fourth time, still to no avail. He'd managed to help the man out of the pit, but that might be as much success as he'd see. He decided he'd have to abandon the man and go bring back rescuers from the camp meeting. But just as he stood to do so, the man groaned loudly and rolled a little onto his right side.

“One more . . . try, friend,” he said hoarsely.

“Have you got the strength for it? You're missing a leg, sir. Part of one, anyway. Gone from the knee on down.”

“Yes . . . had to cut it off . . . to get free . . .”

“You cut it off your own self?”

“Yes . . . Help me up. . . . Let me lean on you.”

The man seemed to be gaining a little strength and clarity. But with it came renewed pain. Even so he put forth great effort to rise, and with Reuben joining his strength to the man's, he managed to get upright after several more attempts, his weight resting on his one remaining foot and on Reuben.

“Come on, let's figure out how to walk together,” Reuben said. And they moved forward, an odd kind of shuffle that relied on instinct and mutual coordination—and on the injured man managing to hold on to his consciousness.

The trees, darkness, brush, and the physical clumsiness of their mode of locomotion served as impediments, yet step by step they advanced, until at last they cleared the stand of woods at the base of the bluff and entered the back edge of the meadow. As they entered the back perimeter of the camp meeting, no one noticed them initially, their attention turned toward the speaking platform where Abner Bledsoe was talking in his piping voice and gesticulating freely, pacing from one end to the other. They went forward, and then the injured man drew in his breath sharply and passed out, his weight dragging him off Reuben's supporting shoulder. Littleton hit the ground with a sound like that of a dropped sack of grain.

Reuben looked around. They were still unnoticed. Then one man, who was jerking slightly with the religious spasms that marked Bledsoe's meetings, noticed Reuben struggling to rouse his companion again. The man didn't move to help, but turned his eyes forward toward the preacher again. Reuben felt a burst of resentment.

Littleton groaned and moved a little.

He was never quite sure thereafter how he did it, but Reuben pulled his companion up to his single foot, managed to balance him for a moment while he positioned himself, then heaved the mostly unconscious man up onto his shoulder, completely off the ground. He tottered under the weight, but somehow didn't fall. Astonished at his own strength, he took a step, and again didn't fall. Then another, and another, and another, and slowly he advanced through the crowded camp of worshipers, tents, and arbors, going mostly unnoticed, but in a few cases drawing the attention of people who gasped in horror when they noticed the state of Littleton's severed leg. So distressing was the sight that people withdrew as Reuben advanced, mothers covering the eyes of their children and men taking on tense stances of wariness, as if anticipating a fight.

Reuben had no thought of carrying the injured man back to the place where his own family was emplaced. They were unequipped to deal with such as this. He would take him to the stockade, where, he had heard, an actual trained physician was usually present, some fellow who was settling in the area and building a fine new hostelry.

Reuben was most of the way through the crowd when he saw men coming out of the open stockade door and trotting his way. Help at last! He'd been seen from inside the fort, obviously.