David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [83]
Tangles of dead tree trunks and logs lay submerged just below the lake’s surface. The knees of ancient cypresses flanking the edges of the water stood as timeless sentinels. In the upper branches eagles preened in their great nests. Animals of all sorts roamed the canebrakes and thickets, and the shimmering waters of the lake seemed alive with fish and fowl. On quick inspection, this place seemed tailor-made for Crockett. He knew that as soon as he and his two young companions arrived on winded horses, trailing their packhorse loaded with enough provisions for a month. As far as Crockett was concerned, the land lacked for nothing. “It was a complete wilderness, and full of Indians who were hunting. Game was plenty of almost every kind, which suited me exactly, as I was always fond of hunting.”
The men accordingly staked off some land and selected a site for the family home close to Rutherford’s Fork, the southernmost branch of the Obion River. Crockett liked the lay of the land and the proximity to water and wood—two frontier basics. There were not many settlers living in the vicinity, but as soon as the Crockett party had hobbled their horses in a grazing meadow, they took off on foot to visit a family named Owens at their cabin more than seven miles away. It was early winter, and the Obion was running full and icy cold. All three of them waded into the river “like so many beavers” and sloshed through water that sometimes came up to their necks, forcing John Wesley to swim.15 Crockett led the way, using a long pole to feel his way along and cutting back fallen brush and overhanging branches with his tomahawk. Finally they reached land and found the cabin, where a team of boatmen had gathered. Owens and his wife were congenial and dished out hot food and comforted the shivering John Wesley. “The old gentleman set out his bottle to us, and I concluded that if a horn wasn’t good then, there was no use for its invention,” Crockett observed. “So I swig’d off about a half pint, and the young man [Abram Henry] was by no means bashful in such a case; he took a strong pull at it too, I then gave my boy some, and in a little time we felt pretty well.”16
After warming by the fire, Crockett left the other two at the cabin and tagged along with the men to see about a boat loaded with whiskey, flour, sugar, coffee, and salt. The men had been hired for $500 to take the goods to a place called McLemore’s Bluff, named for the same person who had lent Crockett money back in Lawrence County. The river level was too low for the boat to travel, so while they all waited for rains, Crockett used his charm to persuade the boat owner and crew to go with him to his new claim of land, where they “slap’d up a cabin in no time.”17 Crockett also managed to get four barrels of meal, a barrel of salt, and ten gallons of whiskey. In return he agreed to pay them back by supplying fresh meat for the 100-mile journey up the Obion to unload their cargo. Once the river rose, Crockett went with the crew, leaving John Wesley and Abram Henry behind at the new cabin.
Crockett ranged out on the riverbanks and into the trees. He hunted all day and by nightfall had a buck deer and five elk dressed out and hanging in trees along the Obion. In the course of his wandering, he eventually became separated from the boat. He hollered as loud as he could and fired his gun, and finally the crew responded with gunfire, but by then they were at least two miles