The Seekers (15 page)

Leland Pell’s Conestoga wagon measured twenty feet along the top, fourteen feet along the bottom, and could, he boasted, bear up to ten tons of crates and barrels through the Pennsylvania wilderness.

The wagon had huge, iron-tired wheels. The axles sat high off the ground, so they’d clear the stumps left standing in the cleared track that passed for a road west of the Susquehanna ferry. Inside, the wagon was comfortable enough. The heaviest goods were packed toward the middle, and the whole was covered over by tow-canvas stretched on twelve large hoops.

The German craftsmen of eastern Pennsylvania who built the four-wheeled land arks decorated them in cheerful colors. The wagon proper was painted bright blue, with flame red used on the gear, including the lazy board and the grain box. This box hung under the tailgate during the day. At night it was opened and placed on the tongue.

Pell owned not only his wagon but the six great black horses that pulled it. A couple of the horses weighed over three-quarters of a ton. Pell’s pride in the animals was evident in the way he decorated them. Their chain-link traces were wound with bright red yarn. Five small bells hung from a wrought iron arch that rose above the hames of each horse. On the road, the thirty bells all chiming at random made a strange, wild music.

The horses were hitched in tandem. Altogether, wagon and animals stretched more than sixty feet. When the wagon was moving, the bulldog dashed back and forth beneath the bed, barking at the horses to urge them along.

Elizabeth spent most of her time in a nook Abraham had arranged inside. He rode the lazy board, a piece of stout white oak that pulled out from the wagon’s left side to make a projecting seat. The seat was handy to the long lever which controlled the brakes for the rear tires—brakes that set the iron squealing and sparking when Pell screamed for more pressure on a steep downward grade.

No wagons overtook them. Pell knew his business. He clipped off fifteen miles almost every day, regardless of delays from fording streams or climbing and descending mountainsides.

Once or twice a day they did encounter freighters returning east. Pell greeted some of the drivers with an obscenely cheerful hail. Others he ignored: the despised, unprofessional sharpshooters. He never relinquished his position on the right side of the rough dirt road. Professional or sharpshooter, it was the other wagon that always pulled aside to let Pell pass. That said a lot about the man and his reputation.

After no more than a few days of travel, it became evident to Abraham that his wife was terrified of Leland Pell. Terrified even though the wagoner’s behavior was fairly restrained when they made their night camps.

The camp routine seldom varied. First the horses were unhitched and tied to the tongue, three on each side, and the grain box was set out to feed them. While Chief barked at noises in the forest, Abraham and Pell gathered wood for a fire. Conversation during the meal was fitful.

Pell actually boasted about his illiteracy. He needed no education to turn a profit hauling freight back and forth across the mountains!

The wagoner knew the United States had won the war with Britain—he hadn’t bothered to volunteer for the army, he announced—and he knew the president’s name was General Washington, and that he’d fought along Braddock’s old Pennsylvania road at some dim time in the past. Over and above those meager facts, Pell’s knowledge of national affairs was scanty, and his interest nonexistent.

In one way, though, he was completely typical of people in all social classes, Abraham noticed. Pell still wasn’t accustomed to thinking of the country as a single entity. Once or twice when he mentioned the United States, he did so in the plural—“The United States are mighty big now, I reckon”—which was the common way.

Pell’s chief recreation seemed to be smoking the long, thin, villainously black four-a-penny cigars favored by the Conestoga drivers. When the travelers sat beside the fragrant evening fire, Pell would light up one of the foul-smelling stogies, then flourish it or tilt it up between his clenched teeth as though it lent him a dashing air. Through the blue haze, his eyes frequently darted to Elizabeth’s breasts.

Those sly glances angered Abraham. But since the wagoner did nothing more overt than that, he restrained his impulses to speak out. He and Elizabeth were dependent on Pell, after all.

Abraham had to admit Pell’s physical strength was admirable. The tall man handled the sets of gears for each horse as if they were a fraction of their actual weight. Abraham panted and grew slightly dizzy the first time he tried to help Pell with the fifteen-inch back bands and ten-inch hip straps.

He’d gained weight and lost muscle tone during his months in the east—and this despite the hard work in Philip’s press room. Good food and home comforts had taken their toll. But as they put more and more miles behind the wagon, Abraham’s skin darkened, his belly flattened, and his general fitness improved. The winy October air, the rich blue skies, the bursts of autumn color on the hillsides lifted his spirits. Elizabeth too seemed invigorated, less pale.

Still, her presence clearly gave Pell something to think about.

“Kent,” he said, scratching his crotch. unconsciously, “you s’pose you’d let your wife have a dance with me tomorrow night?”

It was a brilliant morning. Abraham was walking beside the left-hand wheel horse. Pell drove from a saddle on the horse’s back, jerkline in one hand, long black-snake whip in the other.

Abraham stared upward, studying the odd smile on the wagoner’s face. Thanks to Abraham’s hard work, Pell had lost some of his contempt for the younger man. Some, but not all.

“We going to be someplace where there’s dancing?” Abraham asked.

“Yep. Figger we’ll be in the next settlement by dark tomorrow. Hell, we’re gettin’ near Pittsburgh—ain’t you noticed the eastbound traffic heavyin’ up?”

Abraham nodded to indicate he had.

“We only got one more crick to ford. There’s some cabins and a dandy tavern just this side. I usually find lots o’ my friends there. And when a bunch o’ wagon men stop at the same place, we have dancin’ with our whiskey. Provided we can rustle up a fiddle player, ’course.”

“What about women? They aren’t necessary?”

“Sure. But we’ll dance with each other if they ain’t any whores around—wait a minute, now! Don’t take on! I ain’t puttin’ your wife in the same stall as whores—”

“Thanks very much.” But the sarcasm was lost.

“Yes, sir, I’d surely like to have a whirl with your missus. A real, clean-smellin’ lady—”

Pell grinned, jerking the whip back over his shoulder, then laying it into the air above the heads of the lead horses. Pell was expert with the whip. He could give it an explosive crack—accompanied by an obscene bellow—inches from the horses’ ears, never touching them.

“Well, Kent, what d’you say?”

“It’s not up to me. It’s up to the missus, as you call her.”

“Yeah, but I want you to ask her. She won’t pay me any mind.”

“I’ll ask her,” Abraham agreed.
And you’ll get set on your butt by her answer, my friend.

The wagoner rubbed his crotch again. “Good. I figgered I ought to have your permission first. Sure wouldn’t want to tangle with an educated eastern feller—I might get hurt, y’know? Talked to death by all them ten-penny words—”

Laughing, he popped the whip again. Abraham stopped to wait for the lazy board, furious at Pell’s heavy-handed contempt.

That night Abraham mentioned Pell’s request to Elizabeth as they bedded down inside the wagon. Pell slept outside, wrapped in blankets, with Chief keeping watch.

Elizabeth’s reaction was just what Abraham expected. “I wouldn’t let that filthy, illiterate ruffian touch me.”

He chuckled, moving close to her for warmth. “That’s why I didn’t write his name in your program.”

“As for this—celebration he’s planning, I refuse to have any part of it. I’ll spend the evening right here in the wagon. Have you noticed Pell’s behavior the last couple of days? Somehow he acts almost—oh, I don’t know. The best word I know is feverish.”

“I expect he’s just ready to tear loose and kick up his heels.”

“In that case I suggest we have some protection handy. One of those pistols from the trunk—”

“I doubt if that’ll be necessary,” Abraham said. But the next day, he wondered.

Smiling, he broke the news that Mrs. Kent didn’t plan on dancing in the settlement tavern. Pell scowled. “I don’t smell good enough for her, mebbe?”

Abraham met the ugly brown eyes under the wool hat brim. “I didn’t ask. I suggest that you don’t either.”

“Fuckin’ high and mighty easterners,” the wagoner muttered, lashing out with the whip. This time, accidentally or otherwise, he nicked the neck of one of the lead horses, drawing blood.

They rolled into the little settlement just before sunset. Pell cursing and stormed about, flinging off the gears and manhandling the six horses up to the tongue. While Abraham and Elizabeth ate a meager supper at one of the tavern’s greasy tables, they could still hear Pell’s profanity.

They left the table and started for the wagon just as Pell came in. The wagoner was greeted by shouts from half a dozen of his road cronies gathered at the plank bar.

All during the meal, Abraham and his wife had been conscious of the men staring. Pell’s glance as he approached the couple just inside the doorway was more angry than lascivious. Abraham whiffed liquor. He took Elizabeth’s elbow—and struggled to keep his temper when Pell jostled him.

Fingering the coiled whip at his belt, Pell stalked on toward the bar. “Somebody drag that fiddler-boy’s ass out of the woodshed. I been bouncin’ on the road for days. I aim to stomp a little.”

Stomp he did, along with the others, while the fiddle squeaked frantically. The laughter and boot thuds grew louder, the oaths more florid as midnight approached. Elizabeth fretted and tossed under the blankets, trying to sleep despite the racket.

Abraham sat up for a while, then crawled in beside his wife. He dozed off, only to be wakened by a shrill cry.

He bolted upright, shot out his hand—

Elizabeth was there.

He wiped his perspiring forehead. Torchlight flared in the tavern yard. As he scrambled out of the Conestoga, Chief barked at him. He shied a stone at the bulldog and trotted toward the confusion of firelight and shadow-figures around the tavern door.

Pell had parked the wagon a good distance from the building. So it took Abraham a moment to see what was happening. The drunken wagoners, their clothing in disarray, formed a ring around someone. One of the men held the torch, and by its light Abraham finally identified the person in the center of the circle. A tow-haired boy. He realized he must have mistaken the boy’s high-pitched voice for a woman’s.

Held by a couple of the wagoners, the boy struggled to break loose. He couldn’t. All at once Abraham saw a demijohn dangling from the boy’s right hand.

Hatless, Leland Pell staggered forward, flipping away the stub of a stogie. He backhanded the boy across the cheeks.

“Nothin’ worse than a whiskey thief.”

“Leave me go!” the boy squealed. “Ain’t but a quarter of a jug left in here—”

A man jerked the demijohn out of the boy’s fingers, shook it. “Goddamn liar. She’s nearly full.”

Another wagoner grabbed the boy’s hair. “Full or empty, don’t make no difference. You was sneakin’ out with it—”

“Call the landlord,” the boy pleaded.

“He’s dead drunk,” a third man said. “And you, you little shithead, you’re stealin’ the liquor we paid for!”

“I played for you all evenin’! I’m entitled—”

Leland Pell’s voice was slurred: “You played for free ’cause we said so. You’re entitled to
nothin’
—” He drove his fist into the boy’s midsection.

The boy doubled, retching. Pell seized the whiskey jug.

“You ever been to Pittsburgh, boy? You know how they take care of whiskey thieves in Pittsburgh? I’ll show you. Sam, bring me a stick from the fireplace.”

“What the hell you fixin’ to do, Leland?” one of the drivers asked, apprehensive suddenly.

Pell weaved on his feet. “You shut up.”

Abraham had jogged through the darkness and stopped near the group. All at once Pell saw him. Pell’s stubbled mouth wrenched.

“An’ you better crawl back to your wagon, Kent. This might be a little too strong for your lah-de-dah eastern belly—” Spittle flew from his lips as he wheeled around. “Sam, go get that stick ’fore I take after you with this whip!”

Terrified, Sam bolted inside.

Pell uncorked the demijohn, poured its contents over the writhing boy. Abraham’s stomach flipflopped as Sam appeared with the stick. The end was afire—

He’d taken just one long step when Pell motioned the boy’s captors away and touched the stick to the boy’s soaked shirt. The alcohol ignited.

The boy shrieked. The shirt was afire across his shoulders. The flames leaped down his back, into his hair, as Pell laughed uproariously. Two of the wagoners stood aside to let the boy dash toward the nearby stream.

Abraham’s mouth hardened. Pell didn’t see. He was collapsing with mirth on a bench beside the tavern door.

The boy’s screams pealed, even as the blur of orange grew smaller in the darkness. One of the wagoners was shocked to sobriety.

“That warn’t called for, Leland.”

Wiping tears from his eyes, Pell told him what he could do with his opinions. Abraham yelled at the men, “Why are you standing there? Let’s go help the boy!”

He started running toward the orange glow. Suddenly it dipped toward the ground; the boy was frantically trying to extinguish the flames by rolling along the creek bank.

Three of the wagoners responded to Abraham’s shout, followed him. Two others drifted back inside, not quite sober enough to be ashamed. Pell’s laughter boomed.

Halfway to the stream, Abraham heard another keening cry. This one he recognized instantly.
“Elizabeth—!”

One of the wagoners running beside him panted, “That’s your wife’s name, ain’t it? Pell’s been talkin’ about her all evenin’. Dirty talk—”

“You see to the boy,” Abraham shouted, pivoting and racing back toward the tavern.