A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [168]
The ferry reached the other side. Alongside the landing was a substantial wood-frame building with two stories and an attic. Several more well-built houses were neatly ranged on the slope that rose steeply from the river. The place seemed a prosperous small trading community. As they disembarked the ferryman said casually: “There’s somebody waiting for you all in the tavern.”
“Waiting for us?” said Jay in astonishment. “How did anyone know we were coming?”
The ferryman answered a different question. “Mean-looking fellow with one closed eye.”
“Dobbs! How did he get here ahead of us?”
Lennox added: “And why?”
“Ask him,” said the ferryman.
The news had lifted Jay’s spirits and he was eager to solve the riddle. “You men deal with the horses,” he ordered. “I’ll go and see Dobbs.”
The tavern was the two-story building alongside the ferry dock. He stepped inside and saw Dobbs sitting at a table eating stew from a bowl.
“Dobbs, what the devil are you doing here?”
Dobbs raised his good eye and spoke with his mouth full. “I come to claim that reward, Captain Jamisson.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look over there.” He nodded toward the corner.
There, tied to a chair, was Peg Knapp.
Jay stared at her. This was a piece of luck! “Where the hell did she come from?”
“I found her on the road south of Staunton.”
Jay frowned. “Which way was she heading?”
“North, toward the town. I was coming out of town, going to Miller’s Mill.”
“I wonder how she got there.”
“I’ve asked her, but she won’t talk.”
Jay looked again at the girl and saw bruises on her face. Dobbs had not been gentle with her.
“I’ll tell you what I think,” Dobbs said. “They came almost this far but they never crossed the river. Instead they turned west. They must have abandoned their wagon somewhere. They went on horseback up the river valley to the Staunton road.”
“But you found Peg on her own.”
“Yes.”
“So you picked her up.”
“It wasn’t that easy,” Dobbs protested. “She ran like the wind, and every time I grabbed her she slipped through my fingers. But I was on a horse and she wasn’t, and in the end she tired.”
A Quaker woman appeared and asked Jay if he wanted something to eat. He waved her away impatiently: he was too eager to question Dobbs. “But how did you get here ahead of us?”
He grinned. “I came down the river on a raft.”
“There must have been a quarrel,” Jay said excitedly. “This murdering little bitch left the others and turned north. So the others must have gone south.” He frowned. “Where do they imagine they’re going?”
“The road leads to Fort Chiswell. Beyond that there’s not much in the way of settled land. Farther south there’s a place called Wolf Hills, and after that it’s Cherokee country. They aren’t going to become Cherokee, so I’d guess they’ll turn west at Wolf Hills and head up into the hills. Hunters talk about a pass called Cumberland Gap that leads across the mountains, but I’ve never been there.”
“What’s on the other side?”
“Wilderness, they say. Good hunting. Kind of a no-man’s-land between the Cherokee and the Sioux. They call it the bluegrass country.”
Jay saw it now. Lizzie was planning to start a new life in undiscovered country. But she would fail, he thought excitedly. He would catch her and bring her back—dead or alive.
“The child is not worth much on her own,” he said to Dobbs. “You have to help us catch the other two, if you want your fifty pounds.”
“You want me to be your guide?”
“Yes.”
“They’re a couple of days ahead of you now, and they can travel fast without the wagon. It’s going to take you a week or more to catch up.”
“You get the whole fifty pounds if we succeed.”
“I hope we can make up the time before they leave the trail and go off into the