Davy Crockett 8 Read online

  Davy Crockett was driven by a powerful need to explore, to see what lay beyond the next hill. On a trip through the swamp country along the Gulf of Mexico, Davy and his old friend Flavius met up for the first time with Jim Bowie, a man who would soon become a legend of the West—and who was destined to play an important part in Davy's dramatic life. Neither Davy nor Jim knew the meaning of the word “surrender,” and when they ran afoul of a deadly tribe of cannibals, they knew it would be a fight to the death.

  To Judy, Joshua, Shane

  Table of Contents

  About Cannibal Country

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  About the Author

  Copyright

  One

  “Land sakes!” Flavius Harris declared. “Did you hear that?”

  Davy Crockett could not help but hear the piercing scream that sliced the humid air like a razor. Reining up, the brawny Irishman scanned the thick vegetation that hemmed them in. His calloused hands closed firmly on Liz, the rifle he had named after his beloved second wife.

  The cry was repeated. After rising to a shrill shriek, it faded to a gurgling whine. All other sounds—the chirping of birds, the chattering of squirrels, the throaty croaks of bullfrogs— abruptly died.

  Goose bumps broke out all over Flavius. Like his companion, he was dressed in buckskins and moccasins and sported a rifle and a brace of pistols. He licked his thick lips, regarding the rank swampland with outright dread. “Maybe it’s one of those three-toed skunk apes the Texicans warned us about,” he whispered, afraid the creature would come crashing out of the undergrowth to rip them to shreds.

  Davy did not comment. Most folks would scoff at the notion, would brand it as silly. Once, he might have done the same. But since starting his gallivant, he had seen things few living souls had, beasts of legend and lore that by rights should not exist. So he was not about to reject the Texicans’ tales offhand. Still, the cry had sounded human, a wail of terror and torment mixed in equal degree. “We should take a look-see.”

  “Are you addlepated?” Flavius responded. His friend was forever poking their noses into matters better left alone. The result had been calamity after calamity. Flavius would rather ride on as if nothing had happened. “Let’s just keep going.”

  Davy was already dismounting. He let the reins dangle, pulled his coonskin cap lower, and moved toward a break in the thick growth.

  “You’re leaving your dun here?” Flavius said. It was the height of folly, he thought. How else were they to make a quick escape if one were called for?

  “Safer,” Davy said. “Too many snakes and gators and such.”

  Flavius swallowed hard. He did not like to be reminded of the many dangers that lurked on all sides. The vast swamp was home to a host of fierce beasts and poisonous serpents. To say nothing of quicksand, sinkholes, and assorted other menaces. Plenty of reason, in his opinion, to fight shy of it as they would the plague. But when Davy had heard they could shave a full week or better off their trek by cutting through instead of going around, he had led them straight on in.

  A Texican acquaintance had told them about the trail they were following—a ribbon of dry, solid ground that wound through the rank marshy wilderness. It was the only safe route to take. The man had made it plain that under no circumstances must they stray afield. Yet that was exactly what the Irishman was about to do.

  “You can stay here if you want,” Davy said. He knew Flavius as well as he did himself, and he knew that his friend had to be greatly upset.

  Crooked trees choked with leaves and vines reared above them, shrouding the trail in gloom. Shadows flickered and writhed at the boundaries of Flavius’s vision, and in his mind’s eye he imagined enormous shaggy bears and bristling panthers waiting to pounce. “Not on your life,” he declared, sliding from the saddle.

  “Someone should watch our mounts,” Davy said, offering his friend an excuse.

  Flavius shook his head, his moon face and balding pate glistening with perspiration. “Where you go, I go.” He was not about to let Crockett out of his sight. If they were separated, he would be in dire straits. He made no bones of the fact he wasn’t the woodsman his friend was. Without Davy, his chances of making it through the swamp were slim.

  “Suit yourself.”

  A few yards from the trail the ground became soft, spongy. Davy made no more noise than a ghost would as he glided down an incline to the edge of a broad murky pool. There was no telling how deep the water was, or what might be hidden just under the surface, waiting for hapless prey to stray within range of powerful teeth-rimmed jaws. He decided to skirt it, and bore to the right.

  Flavius felt his mouth go as dry as a desert. The eerie silence, the tangle of twisted growth, the foreboding pool combined to set his nerves to jangling like Matilda’s dinner bell when he was out in the fields plowing. He tried to make as little noise as Davy was doing, but he was not nearly as adept. No one was. Among the frontiersmen of west Tennessee, Crockett was widely regarded as the best marksman and tracker. The last three years in a row, he had won the annual turkey shoot by not missing the mark once.

  A faint sound fell on Davy’s ears. A sound he could not quite identify. “Do you hear that?” he asked.

  The only thing Flavius could hear was the hammering of his own heart. Which did not surprise him. Crockett had the eyes of a hawk, the ears of a bobcat.

  Davy went faster, placing each foot with care, alert for bogs or quicksand. The region reminded him of the swampland he had explored in Florida during the Creek War. A slithery movement in the water alerted him to a snake. He brought Liz to bear, but the reptile vanished in high reeds.

  Flavius was sure they were wasting their time, sure an animal had made the cry. More than likely it was a wrathy painter. Once, in Tennessee, not far from his farm, he’d heard a screech just like it, and later discovered a big cat had been observed prowling the vicinity.

  A dank scent tingled Flavius’s nostrils. Sort of like the musty odor of rotten logs, although none were to be seen. A mosquito buzzed in circles in front of his eye, and he swatted it away. Soon another took its place, the biggest danged mosquito he had ever seen. Part bird, he reckoned, as it alighted on his leg. He took delight in smacking it, in crushing the nuisance to a pulp. Then he looked up, and winced. He had earned a glare. “Sorry,” he apologized.

  Davy sighed. His friend was forever making mistakes that might well cost them their lives. He had to remember that Flavius was a farmer first, a woodsman second, whereas he was a hunter pure and simple, a backwoodsman born and bred. When anyone asked what he did for a living, that was what he told them.

  Since earliest childhood, Davy had loved the woods. Loved them with a passion few appreciated. As a boy he had spent whole days off by his lonesome, seeking game. Fact was, he had skipped school more times than he had shown up, to do just that, and it had gotten him into no end of trouble. He could still feel the sting of his father’s switch whenever he recalled the tannings in the woodshed.

  A strip of muddy earth drew Davy’s interest. A fresh print stood out like the proverbial sore thumb. Going over, he sank onto a knee.

  Flavius joined him, his eyes widening. “Well, I’ll be,” he marveled. “That beats everything all hollow.”

  Davy had to agree. The print had been made by someone traveling through the swamp in their bare feet. No one, not even the few Indians who dwelled there, would be so foolhardy. Probing in the grass that bordered the mud, he found another track. The distance between
the two and their depth told him the man had been running. Recklessly so, since the tracks led into a small bog and out the other side. Davy went around.

  Flavius wiped his palms on his buckskins, one after the other. Vividly, he recollected tales the Texicans had related of an especially savage tribe that inhabited the marshy wilderness. His scalp prickled.

  Davy vaulted a log, climbed a low knoll. The footprints led up and over. Beyond lay a morass of dark pools, impenetrable thickets, and stooped trees. He was about to start down when the faint sound was repeated. This time he recognized it, and he broke into a run.

  Flavius stayed glued to his friend’s heels. Under no circumstances whatsoever was he letting Crockett out of his sight. They were at the bottom of the knoll when Davy heard a soft whimper from directly ahead.

  A grassy tract framed a shallow gully. Davy never broke stride. Leaping across, he was in midair before he saw the prone figure sprawled at the bottom. Like a cat, he spun even as he landed, bringing Liz to bear. But there was no need.

  Flavius had drawn up short at the gully’s edge. He had been expecting to stumble on Indians, or maybe to find a white man who had gotten lost. So he was all the more startled to see that the maker of the tracks was neither. “Dog my cats! It’s a Negro!”

  Davy Crockett absently nodded. He’d seldom had any personal dealings with blacks. They were fairly common on many of the larger estates, used mostly as field hands. Slaves, imported from distant Africa, and elsewhere. No one in his family had ever owned any, and he did not think much of the practice.

  During the Creek War Davy had met a pair of blacks while on a scouting mission. They had been brothers, captured by the Creeks and badly abused. Stealing a pair of Indian ponies, they had escaped. Both had been large and likeable, friendly fellows whose company Davy had immensely enjoyed. They had proven to be of important value since both were as fluent in the Creek tongue as they were in English.

  This man was nothing like those two. Except for a strange loincloth, he did not have on a stitch of clothing. Mud caked his legs from the knees down. The rest of his body bore countless scratches and scrapes. His eyes were closed, the eyelids quivering. His lips trembled. Every few seconds his whole body quaked, as if in the grip of a chill. His hands were clasped to his left thigh.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Flavius whispered. He could not say exactly why he kept his voice low.

  “Let’s find out.” Davy hopped into the gully. The black man did not stir, and Davy hunkered down. The man was strongly built, solid muscle and sinew. It was apparent from the mud and the sweat that he had covered a considerable distance, but Davy doubted exhaustion had brought him low. Reaching out, Davy touched the man’s shoulder.

  The man’s eyes snapped open, rife with blatant fear. He began to sit up, but lacked the vigor. Blinking wildly, he looked at the Irishman, then at Flavius. His brow knit. He spoke a few words.

  “What language was that?” Flavius asked.

  “My ears for a heel tap if I know,” Davy responded. It wasn’t any he had ever heard. Bending, he noticed the man’s earlobe had been pierced by a thin piece of bone, evidently as an ornament.

  Flavius was more interested in the loincloth. It had been fashioned from the hide of an animal. That much was obvious. “What sort of critter has spots like these?” he wondered, pointing at one.

  Davy had no idea. Smiling, he said, “Don’t be afeared. We’re not going to harm you.” He paused. “What’s your name? And what the devil are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  The man frowned.

  “Do you reckon he doesn’t know our lingo?” Flavius offered.

  Davy tried the sign language taught him by the Sioux, but the black man gazed blankly at his flowing fingers. Suddenly a violent tremor struck the man. Alarmed, Davy pressed a palm to his forehead to check for fever. The tremor did not last long, and when it ended, the black’s breathing was labored, his chest expanding and contracting with each breath. “What’s wrong with you?”

  As if the fellow comprehended, he moved his hands aside.

  “Oh, Lord!” Flavius breathed.

  Two puncture marks low on the thigh explained the man’s condition. Davy leaned closer. The fangs had penetrated deep, lancing into a vein. He whipped out his knife, prepared to do what he could, but the black feebly lifted an arm to keep him from trying, and uttered a few more words in the unknown tongue.

  Flavius fidgeted. “What’s he saying?”

  “I think he’s telling us it’s too late, he’s too far gone,” was Davy’s hunch. And he would have to agree. The flesh around the punctures was discolored, the leg starting to swell. The man had been bitten quite some time ago. How he had kept going with venom pulsing through his body was a mystery.

  “What kind of snake did it?”

  Davy sighed. Sometimes his friend could be downright silly. How was he to know? The swamp crawled with cottonmouths, copperheads, rattlesnakes, massasaugas, and coral snakes. A single bite from any could prove fatal, although copperhead bites were not as generally deadly as the others.

  Rustling in nearby weeds made Flavius jump. Pivoting, he trained his rifle, but nothing appeared. “What was that?”

  It could have been anything. Davy started to rise, but just then the black man’s eyelids fluttered again and the man groaned loudly. Davy gripped his hand. “This jasper isn’t long for this world.”

  The man sucked in a deep breath, then commenced to sing. Or rather, to chant in a singsong manner, forcing his vocal chords to do his bidding with visible effort.

  “What’s he doing?” Flavius said, astounded.

  “It’s his death song, would be my guess,” Davy speculated. During his stay with the Sioux he had learned they sometimes did the same. The man faltered, growing weaker by the moment, but gamely persevered.

  “Pretty, ain’t it?” Flavius wished they could understand. He had an inkling the song was about the man’s life, about brave deeds done, about loved ones and whatever else mattered most.

  Giving Liz to Flavius, Davy slid an arm under the man’s shoulders and lifted to prop him against the bank. His hand happened to brush the man’s back, rubbing against what felt like hard welts. Tilting his neck, he saw they were not welts at all, but scars. Scores and scores of them. Scars that could only have been made by a whip. Old ones, and some not so old. “Take a gander.”

  Flavius felt his stomach flip-flop. Unbidden, he recollected the time as a child when his father took him to visit an uncle in Georgia. Along the way they had passed a plantation. Flavius had never seen so much cotton. Nor so many Negroes.

  Most had been stooped over, toiling hard under a blazing summer sun. Now that he thought about it, he remembered they had been singing. Although what they’d had to sing about had eluded him.

  As the wagon rattled past, a white man on a white stallion had galloped in among the workers to where one stood idle. The man on the stallion had angrily addressed the worker. When the slave did not reply, the man on the horse had struck him again and again, with a whip.

  It had been awful. His father had told him not to look, but Flavius couldn’t help himself. He’d been amazed the black made no attempt to defend himself. Equally amazed that no one came to the poor man’s aid. Outraged, he had exclaimed, “Why doesn’t someone do something, Pa?”

  “What can they do? They’re slaves,” his father had said.

  “So?”

  “The overseer has the power of life and death over them, Son. Granted to him by law. He could shoot every last one, if he were so inclined, and never be held to account.”

  “That’s not right.”

  “It’s life.”

  Not quite sure what that had to do with anything, Flavius had said, “If someone tried to beat me, wouldn’t you stop them?”

  “You’re mixing apples and oranges. We’re freeborn American citizens. Those Negroes are slaves. There’s a big difference.” His father had clucked to the team. “Besides, the owner
of that plantation is one of the richest men in Georgia.”

  Even more mystified, Flavius had said, “Having a lot of money doesn’t give anyone the right to hurt people.”

  “The rich have always been able to do as they pleased, son. Read the Bible. Or books about the old Greeks and Romans. Since the dawn of time, the wealthy have lorded it over the rest of us. It’s just the way things are.”

  A moan brought an end to the recollection. Flavius saw the black man’s spine arch, heard him gasp. Froth bubbled over his lower lip. The end was near. Flavius turned away, unwilling to witness it, and was startled to glimpse a pair of dark eyes peering at him from undergrowth to the west. At least, so it seemed, for when he blinked and shifted, the eyes were gone.

  Davy held on as the man convulsed and fingernails dug into his skin. “I’m sorry for you,” he said, even though the man would not understand. Once he had been stricken by a mysterious malady while on a hunt, and friends had left him to die. So he knew what it was like to be all alone, far from home and family, at the brink of death’s door. “Terribly sorry.”

  For a few seconds the man stopped quaking. His eyes cleared. They locked on Davy’s, and the corners of his mouth quirked upward. Then, like a candle being snuffed, the flame of life in them died. The muscular frame deflated like an empty pouch. The black’s hand went limp, plopping to the ground at Davy’s feet.

  “I thought I saw someone,” Flavius said.

  Davy carefully laid the body down, and rose. A survey of the swamp revealed no threats, and he was about to bend down to fold the dead man’s arms when a familiar sensation made him go rigid. It was an odd tingling at the nape of his neck, just such a tingling as he sometimes felt when unseen eyes were on him.

  Others might scoff, might claim it was his imagination getting the better of him. But they had not lived the kind of life he had. They had not needed to depend on their instincts day in and day out merely to survive. They had not honed their senses to a sword’s fine edge. They had not learned the hard way that those who ignored their intuition often paid for their neglect with their lives.