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  Cunning like the fox, mighty like the grizzly, Davy Crockett lived for adventure. With a faithful friend at his side and a trusty long rifle in his hand, the fearless frontiersman set out for the Great Lakes territories. But the region surrounding the majestic inland seas was full of Indians both peaceful and bloodthirsty. And when the brave pioneer saved a Chippewa maiden from warriors of a rival tribe, his travels became a deadly struggle to save his scalp. If Crockett couldn’t defeat his fierce foes, the only remains he would leave behind would be his legend and his coonskin cap.

  HOMECOMING

  DAVY CROCKETT 1

  By David Robbins Writing as David Thompson

  First Published by Leisure Books in 1996

  Copyright © 1996, 2015 by David Robbins

  First Smashwords Edition: August 2015

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover © 2014 by Ed Martin

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  To Judy, Joshua, and Shane.

  Chapter One

  Davy Crockett reined up the instant he heard a twig snap, his right hand tightening on the long rifle he had named Liz in honor of his second wife. Blue eyes narrowing, he studied the dense growth on both sides of the game trail. His every instinct told him that something, or someone, was out there.

  Just at that moment loud whistling broke out behind the muscular frontiersman. It was the tune to a bawdy ballad popular in taverns from Tennessee to Maine. Crockett glared at his traveling companion and whispered, “Consarn it! Hush, you blamed varmint!”

  Flavius Harris glanced up, startled. One year younger than Crockett, he was as plump as an overripe pear. He had been idly daydreaming about how nice it would be to have heaping helpings of rabbit or squirrel stew for their supper, and did not understand why his friend was so upset with him. “What has you in such a huff?” he called out loudly.

  Davy Crockett sighed. There were times when he was pretty near convinced that his friend had been off playing in a turnip patch when the Almighty passed out brains. Putting a finger to his lips, he pointed at the dense woods.

  Flavius quieted. If there was one thing he had learned about David Crockett, it was that the brawny Irishman had few peers when it came to wilderness savvy. Firmly clutching his Kentucky rifle, he licked his thick lips and prayed that they weren’t about to get into another scrape.

  To the east Davy detected movement, the furtive flitting of a two-legged figure closing in on them. Applying his heels to his sorrel, he broke into a gallop and hollered, “Indians!”

  That was all Flavius had to hear. His dun exploded when he slammed his heels into its flanks. Lashing his reins like a madman, Flavius stayed close enough to Davy’s sorrel to count the hairs in its tail. Come what may, he wasn’t about to get separated from Davy. It would take him forever to find his way back to Tennessee by his lonesome.

  Wild whoops rent the air. Painted forms sprouted on the right and left. Davy automatically ducked low just as an arrow cleaved the space his torso had occupied. The narrow trail turned sharply to the west. As the sorrel pounded past the bend, a swarthy warrior loomed out of the high brush, a war club raised to strike.

  Davy had only a fleeting glimpse of his attacker. Before the club could descend, he lashed downward with his rifle. The stock crunched against the man’s face. Another second and Davy was in the clear. He saw the warrior totter backward, the war club all but forgotten.

  Flavius kicked at the bloody Indian as he went by, but the man was too far off. A glittering shaft whizzed past his cheek, reminding him of the broad target his backside made. He reapplied his reins to the dun.

  In another forty feet Davy swept around a second bend. The war whoops were already tapering off. He held to a gallop, though, until they had traveled half a mile. In a verdant meadow rife with high grass he finally drew rein, then turned the sorrel so he could survey the country they had just covered. “I reckon we gave them the slip,” he declared.

  Mightily pleased to hear it, Flavius wiped a buckskin-clad sleeve across his perspiring brow. He noticed that his friend’s cheeks were as red as beets.

  Anyone who did not know Crockett as well as Flavius would assume that Davy was flushed from excitement. But the truth was that Crockett’s cheeks were always extremely ruddy, so much so that many people could not help commenting on the fact when they met him for the first time. Davy had once mentioned being that way since birth and having no idea what it meant. Flavius suspected it had something to do with why his friend had three times the stamina of most men and had never been sick a day in his life, except for a few recent bouts of weakness and fever that never lasted very long.

  Suddenly Flavius became aware that Davy was speaking.

  “—light out for that hill yonder and scout the area for more hostiles. What do you say?”

  “Where you go, I go,” Flavius answered.

  Davy rode on. The presence of the war party did not particularly disturb him. None of the Indians in that part of the country possessed horses, and there wasn’t a man born, red or white, who could catch his sorrel once he gave the animal its head.

  Flavius reached into a leather bag slanted across his chest, between his powder horn and bullet pouch, and helped himself to a strip of jerky. “What tribe were they?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Davy admitted. Since leaving his cabin weeks ago, they had run into a heap of Indians. Most had proven friendly. The few tribes not partial to whites had been so obvious about it that he had lit a shuck for somewhere else before they could take a tomahawk to his noggin.

  A more important question occurred to Flavius. “I’ve been meaning to ask. How much longer are we going to be on this gallivant of yours anyhow? I told Matilda that we’d be back before the next full moon, but it appears to me that I’ll miss the mark by a month or better.”

  “Afraid she’ll wallop the tar out of you when we do show up?”

  Flavius snorted. “Me? Afeared of a contrary female? Heck, no. I wear the britches in our home, not her. And I’ll thrash any coon who claims different!”

  Davy made no comment, but a grin curled his mouth. It was common knowledge throughout middle and west Tennessee that Flavius Harris had married a regular ring-tailed snorter. Which was putting it delicately. Many a time, Flavius’s neighbors had seen him hightailing it across his fields with Matilda in furious pursuit, her rolling pin hoisted to brain him if he so much as slowed to catch his breath.

  “Besides,” Flavius went on slyly, “if she gets her dander up, all I have to do is fetch her a few store-boughten gewgaws, and she’ll calm down faster than a wildcat dunked in water.”

  The hill lay a quarter of a mile to the northwest. At its base grew tall pines. Boulders dotted the summit. Davy ground-hitched his sorrel among the trees and padded up the slope, straining his ears to catch the slightest sound. Other than the huffing and puffing of his friend, the wilderness lay quiet under the midday sun.

  It was too quiet, Davy reflected. There should be squirrels chattering, birds chirping, insects buzzing. Yet the forest beyond the hill was as still as a graveyard at midnight.

  Hunkering in the shadow of a boulder, Davy scanned the terrain below. Lush woodland was bisected by numerous creeks, creating a hunter’s paradise. Glancing ove
r his shoulder, he could see, far to the south, the gleaming surface of Lake Superior.

  Davy’s first sight of the Great Lakes, days ago, had been a grand experience. It had reminded him of the very first time he’d set eyes on the ocean, back when he was fourteen or so. He’d been in Baltimore, adrift from his family and making ends meet as best he could. One day he’d ambled down to the wharf, where the huge ships with their fluttering sails had stirred him so deeply that he’d been all fired up to take to a life at sea. He’d even gone so far as to agree to hire on as the cabin boy on a vessel bound for London. But things hadn’t worked out. If they had, he’d probably be taking his ease on a South Seas island instead of traipsing all over creation.

  Flavius Harris could not understand why his friend was dawdling. His mouth crammed with jerked venison, he remarked, “It looks peaceable enough down there. Let’s go find us a good spot and make an early camp.” He paused to pry a tiny piece of jerky from between his front teeth. “I sure would admire to treat ourselves to a big pot of rabbit stew tonight. Or maybe you could rustle up a buck! I’d fix a feast fit for royalty. What do you say?”

  It never ceased to amaze Davy. All his companion ever thought of was food, food, and more food. Flavius wasn’t a glutton, exactly, but there was no denying that the jovial woodsman was more fond of eating than he was of anything else.

  Not that Davy would ever carp about it. He had too many faults of his own to pick on anyone else. Prime among them was his incurable wanderlust. Here he was, a married man with young children to look after, and he was forever going off to hunt or explore or make war or some such nonsense.

  Time and again his conscience would prick him. He knew his rightful place was home with Elizabeth and their brood, yet he could no more control his cravings to roam than he could stop breathing.

  One day, Davy mused, his hankering to always see what lay over the next hill was liable to be the death of him.

  Just then a sound wafted on the breeze. It was not one Crockett expected to hear. Stiffening, convinced his ears were playing tricks on him, he cocked his head. There it was again!

  Flavius stopped chewing. “Am I addle pated, or do I hear what I think I hear?”

  “You do, hoss,” Davy confirmed.

  Again the wind from the northwest bore the merry tinkle of laughter. Pleasant, silken, female laughter.

  “We must be near a village!” Flavius declared, conjuring a mental picture of a horde of bloodthirsty savages swooping down on them. “We’d best light a rag while we still have our scalps!”

  “Calm down,” Davy said. He doubted very much that they had stumbled on an Indian encampment. For one thing, no smoke tendrils spiraled skyward. For another, no dogs were yapping, no children frolicking about.

  “It must be the village those warriors are from,” Flavius said, his anxiety mounting. “We linger, and they’re liable to stake us out and whittle on us to test our courage.”

  Davy motioned for silence. A pair of women had appeared near the hill. One had gray hair and carried a basket. The other was as lovely an Indian maiden as ever was born, with long raven tresses and a buckskin dress that clung to her full form as if she was ripe to burst.

  “Land sakes!” Flavius said. “Ain’t that filly a beauty!”

  The women appeared to be gathering herbs. The oldest did most of the searching and digging, while the youngest chatted happily. A few snatches of conversation carried up to Davy, but their tongue was unfamiliar.

  Unexpectedly, the older woman pointed at the hill and headed toward it.

  Davy flattened, then crawled backward until he could rise with no risk of being spotted. “You get your wish,” he whispered to Flavius. “We’ll make ourselves scarce.”

  Making no more noise than the wind itself, they crept to their horses and mounted. Davy threaded through the trees, bearing westward, his intention being to skirt the hill and enter the forest at a point where they would be screened from the women.

  Flavius, leaning back to reach into his saddlebags for a twist of chewing tobacco, happened to gaze to the south. His pulse quickened when he discovered a knot of warriors jogging in their direction. It had to be the same war party they had tangled with earlier. “Crockett!” he whispered.

  Davy took one look, and was about to goad his sorrel into a trot when a piercing scream from the other side of the hill stopped him cold. It was followed by outraged voices and gruff laughter. Without hesitation, he reined to the right.

  “What the—!” Flavius exclaimed, then followed suit. Long ago he had learned that when folks were in trouble, his partner was always ready to lend a hand. Several times Davy’s charitable streak had nearly gotten them killed, but that didn’t stop Davy from wading right in again when the need arose. It was enough to give a sensible man fits.

  The sorrel pounded past a spruce. Davy saw six or seven warriors grappling with the two females halfway up the slope. The older woman had dropped her basket and was trying to claw the eyes from a hefty specimen armed with a long knife. At the same time, three other men were attempting to pin the young maiden, who resisted fiercely. The trio was laughing heartily, making so much noise that Davy covered thirty more feet before one of the warriors heard the drum of the sorrel’s hooves and turned.

  The old woman had angered the man with the knife, who hefted it high for a fatal stab. Instantly Davy’s long rifle leaped to his shoulder. He took a hasty bead and curled back the hammer, stroking the trigger as the knife arced downward. The ball took the man high in the shoulder, spinning him completely around. In a twinkling, the old woman scrambled upright and dashed to the aid of the maiden.

  The warrior who had spotted Davy charged, waving a tomahawk. Flavius knew his friend could never reload in time. He fired on the fly. Maybe he wasn’t a match for Crockett, who had won more shooting matches than any backwoodsman in all of Tennessee, but he was no slouch either. His bullet crumpled the onrushing hostile in midstride.

  Then Davy was among the Indians, swinging Liz as if the heavy rifle were a club, knocking painted figures aside right and left. The last man reared to stop him. There was a fleeting image of an angular head shaven bald except for a ridge of hair down the center, of a porcupine hair roach decorated with feathers. A heartbeat later the sorrel’s shoulder caught the warrior in the chest and he went tumbling.

  For a few moments the women were in the clear. Davy leaned over as the young one stood, his left arm hooking her slender waist. He flung her over the front of his saddle none too gently, while bawling, “Flavius! Grab the other one!”

  Reining sharply, Davy sped toward the tree line and welcome cover—just as more warriors poured from the forest.

  Chapter Two

  “He who hesitates is lost” was a saying as old as the hills of Tennessee. It was one Davy Crockett had taken to heart. Many was the time he had pulled his bacon out of the fire by acting on the spur of the moment when his life was in danger. Harsh experience had taught him that in the wilderness a man’s reflexes often meant the difference between life and death.

  So as the ragged line of howling warriors burst from the woods, Davy did not waste precious moments debating what he should do. He barreled right into them, the sorrel a living battering ram that scattered the warriors like chaff before a strong wind.

  Cries of outrage and a few flying shafts followed Davy into the woods. He glanced at the beautiful young maiden to see if she was all right. Mouth agape, she gawked at him in utter amazement. “I’m a friend,” he said to reassure her, but she went on gaping. He shifted her higher to relieve the strain on his shoulder, then thought of his friend. Had Flavius gotten away too?

  ~*~

  At that moment the object of Davy’s concern had his hands full. Literally. As Crockett had directed, Flavius had leaned way down to scoop the older woman into his arm. But where the young maiden had gone rigid with astonishment and not offered a lick of resistance, the older woman proved to be a regular wildcat.

  Hissing and s
creeching, the woman scratched at Flavius. Her nails raked his full cheeks, his forehead. One narrowly missed an eye.

  “Simmer down, you ornery cuss!” Flavius hollered. Temporarily unable to see where he was going, he let the dun have its head, counting on it to stay close to Davy’s mount, while he struggled mightily to keep from losing his grip on the female. Almost at his elbow a warrior whooped and something thudded against Flavius’s thigh. Pain lanced through him.

  Flavius jerked the reins to the left, then to the right. He had no idea where he was going. His intention was to make himself harder to hit.

  Then the dun took a wild bound to clear an obstacle in front of them. The jolt jarred the old woman across the saddle, allowing Flavius to see that they had streaked into the woods. He also discovered, to his horror, that Davy was nowhere in sight.

  “No!” Flavius squawked, anxiously scanning the vegetation. It scared him pea-green to think that the fate he most feared had come to pass. “Davy!” he bawled, his anxiety mounting when he received no reply.

  The shout sparked the old woman to life. Barking like a rabid mongrel, she struck at his chest and shoulders, seeking to break free. Flavius had half a mind to grant her wish and dump her on her backside. But Davy would be all het up if he did, so he clung on while frantically scouring the verdant landscape.

  Flavius almost called his friend’s name again, but thought better of the notion. There might be more of those bloodthirsty warriors about and the last thing he wanted was to tangle with another pack of red demons.

  His thigh throbbed. No blood showed, nor was his legging torn. Apparently a war club had struck him, not a lance or arrow. Thank God.

  Grimacing, Flavius cut to the south, seeking sign. In a dozen yards he swung northward again. His heart hammered in his chest, his temples pounding so loudly that he could barely hear the furious caterwauling of the old woman. He had to find Davy. He just had to.

  ~*~

  Unknown to the portly backwoodsman, Davy Crockett was thinking the same thing about him. Davy had slowed and twisted in the saddle.