William Johnstone - Eyes of Eagles

The going was much slower now, for there were no roads and Jamie had to scout ahead for the best route through the western Arkansas wilderness. Kate drove the wagon and it did not take her long to master the reins.

Jamie chose their campsites with care, always picking a spot that the two of them could easily defend. But they encountered no trouble during the days that Preacher was gone. And they were glad to see the young mountain man, days later, when he finally caught up with them, riding up from the south and joining them just as they were making camp for the evening.

He swung down from the saddle and saw to his horse while Jamie took the spare mounts over to the picket line. “Got news,” Preacher said. “But first I’ll have me a taste of that coffee. I run out day ’fore yesterday.” He squatted down and took the cup that Kate handed him. He blew to cool and then swallowed. “Good. I’m a coffee-drinkin’ man. Talked with some Injuns. Seems like Kate’s pa and them ridin’ with him have done give it up and headed back to Kaintuck. Now all y’all got to worry with is the Newby Brothers and the Saxon gang. But they’ll play hell findin’ your trail. I rode south for a time, then cut east and went over to the hot springs. Damndest sight I ever did see... almost.” He took a gulp of coffee. “Y’all ever heard of the Big Thicket country?”

Kate and Jamie shook their heads.

Preacher brushed a space clean on the ground and drew a rough map. “It’s right here. And I’m told it’s wild. I like wild things, so I’ll drift on down that way with you two. When you first see it, so I was told by them Caddos, you’ll think it ain’t nothin’ but a dark swamp. Tain’t so. They’s areas within it that’s good farm land. Rich and never seen a plow. I think that’s y’all’s best bet.” He looked at them. “What say you both?”

Jamie glanced at Kate and she smiled and nodded her head. “Let’s go look at it,” Jamie said.

* * *

With Preacher back to help, Jamie could now relieve Kate at the reins, spelling her when she got tired, or when Jamie thought she was tiring. But Kate was a lot tougher than Jamie realized, and although she was tired at day’s end, she enjoyed driving the team. Not that handling four big mules was any pleasure, mind you, she just liked the feeling of contributing to this journey. But she let Jamie think he was doing her a big favor.

And with the young mountain man along, Jamie was slowly being eased and teased out of his usual somber and serious mood. For with Preacher, life was a grand joke — unless it came to a shooting or a cutting and then he could get real serious.

They saw no one. They did spot distant smoke from time to time, but they did not wish to call attention to themselves so the smoke went uninvestigated.

They moved slowly through a series of rolling hills and came to a long valley. Preacher rode back to the wagon, where Jamie had been riding along, talking with Kate as she handled the reins.

“We’ll make another two/three miles and then bed down for the night. This time tomorrow, we’ll have cut straight south. Arkansas River’s to the north of us ’bout forty or fifty miles, I reckon.”

“How far down to this Big Thicket country?” Kate asked.

“Pretty good ways, missy. Hundreds of miles. I’d say. Weeks of travel. Tell the truth, I ain’t real sure where it is.”

“Let’s go,” Jamie said.

The days stretched endlessly behind them and loomed the same way ahead of them. During their stops for the night, Kate went through the contents of the big wagon and discovered a treasure trove of goods. Kegs of powder and sheets of lead. Flour and sugar and bolts of material. A case of rifles and pistols. Cooking pots and pans and other utensils. Needles and thread. Medical supplies and potions and bandages. Hatchets and axes.

“Had to have belonged to a traveling salesman,” Jamie said. “I wonder if those movers killed him for this?”

“Probably,” the mountain man said. “But this’ll help y’all get set up and settled in. Oncest we get down south and I have me a look around, I’m gone back to the mountains. Y’all might not never see me again. I warn you now that when I go, I ain’t much on goodbyes. You’ll just get up one mornin’ and I’ll be gone. But I want the both of you to know this has been a right pleasurable time for me. Just wanted y’all to know that.”

They rolled on and saw no one. Jamie began to suspect that Preacher, always ranging out from the wagon, was deliberately taking them around any settlers’ cabins so they’d remain unseen. Several times both he and Kate had smelled the odor of food cooking. Preacher had dismissed it as their imagination. But Jamie knew it had not been only in his mind. He knew what salt meat and biscuits smelled like.

Jamie had once more allowed his blond hair to grow long, and sometimes Kate would braid it for him to keep it from tangling. He was well into his fifteenth year and had reached his height. He was three inches over six feet and muscular. Anyone who tried guessing his weight would usually be twenty-five pounds short. He had taken to riding with his short-barreled rifle over the saddle horn, like the mountain man did. None of them had any idea what month it was, and they weren’t real sure of the year. They believed it was 1823.

After months on the trail, Preacher rode back to the wagon one afternoon and pointed. “There she be, people. That’s the start of it. It’ll run, off and on, for several hundred miles, so I was told. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. How far down you want to go, Jamie?”

“Two or three more days, at least.”

“All right. Then I’ll be back in about a week or so. I heard tell there was a tradin’ post down here around a place the Frenchies call Beau Mont and other folks is callin’ the Bluff. I don’t know whether it’s there or not. I’ll check it out. Don’t get lost. See you.”

Kate and Jamie traveled southward for several more days, until Jamie found a place where he could pull the wagon off into an area where it was very nearly invisible from ten feet away. He spent a day building a brush corral for the livestock and getting Kate used to the idea that he would be gone all day, for the next several days. She didn’t like it, but knew it had to be.

“Jamie,” she asked over supper. “Who owns this land?”

“I ... ah, don’t know. Mexico or France or somebody. But in two or three days, we’re going to own a chunk of it.”

“How?”

That brought him up short again. “Well, we’ll settle on it. That’s how. We’ll build us a cabin and that’ll show that we’re here to stay.”

“That’s how it’s done?”

He smiled. “That’s how we’re going to do it.”

* * *

Jamie fell in love with the country. Five hundred yards from where he’d left Kate by the wagon, the land turned soggy and soon he was surrounded by a tangle of brush and woods so thick he had to hack his way through. In the dark still waters — bayous, Preacher had called them — he saw huge alligators, twelve-to fourteen-feet long, and rattlesnakes and water moccasins as thick as his wrists. He found signs of bear and wolves.

He loved it, but it wasn’t what he was seeking. He wasn’t sure in his mind what he was looking for, only that he’d know it when he came to it.

Then, on his fourth day of exploring, he found what he was looking for. The area was set back in the thickets, but there was firm ground leading to it and clearings dotted the location. He knelt down and tore up a handful of earth. Rich soil that would grow good crops and produce fine gardens. When he got back to the wagon, Preacher had returned.

“She’s there, all right,” the mountain man said, drawing a crude map in the dirt. “You got tradin’ posts set south, west, to the north, right up here, and one right acrost the Sabine River over in Frenchy land. The settled Injuns here won’t bother you if you leave them alone. They’s Alabama and Coushatta. Been here about twenty or so years. They’s Kiowa and Comanche all over the damn place, but mostly to the west of here. Ain’t many white folks around here, but I heard talk that some feller name of Austin has done settled three or four hundred families in various spots in Texas and he riled up the Mexicans by doin’ so. But they’ll get over it, I reckon. They’s a bunch of Frenchies down here just north of pirate city — some call it Galveston. Them Frenchies has settled in the valley of the Trinity River. So now y’all know as much as I do about this area of the country. I seen what I want to see of this country. It’s all right. But I got a hankerin’ to get back to the High Lonesome.”