A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [131]
Mack enjoyed the beer, a rare treat nowadays. While they were drinking Pepper said: “Hey, Whitey, have you ever run into anyone who crossed the mountains?”
“Sure have,” Whitey said. “There was a trapper in here one time, said it was the best hunting he ever saw, over there. Seems a whole gang of them goes over there every year, and comes back loaded down with pelts.”
Mack said: “Did he tell you what route he took?”
“Seems to me he said there was a pass called the Cumberland Gap.”
“Cumberland Gap,” Mack repeated.
Whitey said: “Say, Mack, weren’t you asking after a white girl called Cora?”
Mack’s heart leaped. “Yes—have you heard tell of her?”
“Seen her—so I know why you’re crazy for her.” He rolled his eyes.
“Is she a pretty girl, Mack?” Pepper teased.
“Prettier than you, Pepper. Come on, Whitey, where did you see her?”
“Down by the river. She was wearing a green coat and carrying a basket, and she was getting the ferry over to Falmouth.”
Mack smiled. The coat, and the fact that she was taking the ferry instead of wading across the ford, indicated that she had landed on her feet again. She must have been sold to someone kind. “How did you know who she was?”
“The ferryman called her by name.”
“She must be living on the Falmouth side of the river—that’s why I didn’t hear of her when first I asked around Fredericksburg.”
“Well, you’ve heard of her now.”
Mack swallowed the rest of his beer. “And I’m going to find her. Whitey, you’re a friend. Pepper, thanks for the beer.”
“Good luck!”
Mack went out of town. Fredericksburg had been built just below the fall line of the Rappahannock River, at the limit of navigation. Oceangoing ships could come this far, but less than a mile away the river became rocky, and nothing but a flatboat could negotiate it. Mack walked to the point where the water was shallow enough to wade across.
He was full of excitement. Who had bought Cora? How was she living? And did she know what had become of Peg? If only he could locate the two of them, and fulfill his promise, he could make serious plans to escape. He had been suppressing his yearning for freedom while he asked after Cora and Peg, but Pepper’s talk of the wilderness beyond the mountains had brought it all back, and he longed to run away. He daydreamed about walking away from the plantation at nightfall, heading west, never again to work for an overseer with a whip.
He looked forward eagerly to seeing Cora. She probably would not be working today: perhaps she could walk out with him. They might go somewhere secluded. As he thought about kissing her, he suffered a pang of guilt. He had woken up this morning thinking about kissing Lizzie Jamisson, and now he was having the same thoughts about Cora. But he was foolish to feel guilty about Lizzie: she was another man’s wife, and there was no future for him with her. All the same his excitement was tinged with discomfort.
Falmouth was a smaller version of Fredericksburg: it had the same wharves, warehouses, taverns and painted wood-frame homes. Mack could probably have called at every residence in a couple of hours. But of course Cora might live out of town.
He went into the first tavern he came across and spoke to the proprietor. “I’m looking for a young woman called Cora Higgins.”
“Cora? She lives in the white house on the next corner, you’ll probably see three cats sleeping on the porch.”
Mack’s luck was in today. “Thank you!”
The man took a watch from his waistcoat pocket and glanced at it. “But she won’t be there now, she’ll be in church.”
“I’ve seen the church. I’ll go there.”
Cora had never been