Over long months Davy gained Griffith’s confidence. First time a hunter set up a temporary stand in the Christiansburg town square Davy accompanied his boss to buy pelts. Davy, eager to show off his knowledge, pointed out flaws in the hides.
“This one here must have gotten into a fight with a ‘coon hound. He jest barely got away, by the look of those scabs.”
“Those scabs ain’t nothin’,” the hunter said. “They come off once you put ‘em in solution.”
Griffith smiled and moved on. Davy picked up an otter skin and sniffed. His nose crinkled. “I don’t think this one was very healthy. His piss don’t smell right.”
“Boy,” the hunter said with a contemptuous grunt, “you got a bundle to learn about pelts.”
Holding the skin up to the sunlight, Griffith blew on its nape and shook his head, saying, “Sheen isn’t quite right.”
“What difference does it make?” the hunter groused. “You’re gonna shave that off anyways.”
“Hmm.” Griffith put the otter down and paid for a couple of raccoon pelts. Walking away, he patted the boy’s back. “Very good, Master Davy.”
After that Griffith introduced him to the intricacies of shaving pelts and shaping crowns with steam. Harriet hugged Davy each time he mastered a new skill.
“I’m so proud of you, Davy,” she said.
He craved her compliments, as a sponge soaking up all the water it could, especially when she discreetly included a little squeeze of his hand.
“Father, I have to go to the store to see if your new shipment of mercurous nitrate has arrived,” Harriet said and opened the door to leave, winking at Davy.
A few minutes later the boy cleared his throat. “My mouth’s dreadful dry.” Walking to their oaken bucket he scraped the gourd ladle against the side of the half-full vessel. “Dry as a bone. I better go fill it up at the well.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Griffith said with a small smile. “Well, don’t dally too long.”
Running out the door, Davy dropped the bucket by the side of the well and headed to the woods behind the hat maker’s cabin. Harriet peeked from behind a large mulberry bush, giggling, as he arrived with a toothy grin on his face.
“What took you so long?” she asked coquettishly.
“I got out as fast as I could.” He leaned against a cottonwood and looked off and smiled. His heart raced, and his mind was light with happiness.
“So.” She sighed as she walked over to him. “Master Davy, what are your plans today?”
“Same as every day,” he replied with a smile. “Kiss you three times without gittin’ caught.” Looking around to see if anyone was coming, Davy planted a light kiss on Harriet’s lips. “That’s one.”
Harriet ran away to hide behind a nearby oak and looked around at him. “And not another one until this afternoon.”
He stood straight and scampered toward the tree. “I’ll kiss you again now if I take a mind to.”
Both of them chuckled as they scuttled from pine to poplar until Davy ensnared her against an old, substantial elm. With tender affection, he bore his chest down against her as he planted his hands on the tree trunk on each side of her blushing face. Harriet touched his cheeks with her fingertips.
“My, you have the reddest cheeks I think I’ve ever seen on a man.” She smiled with mischief in her eyes. “I do say, my cheeks aren’t as red as yours.”
“That’s a fact,” he said with half-seriousness. “Girls all up and down the Shenandoah Valley have commented on how impressive my red cheeks are.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, slapping his shoulder, “you scamp! How dare you say such a thing in front of me?”
Davy ran from her further into the woods. “You’re a brutish girl, for sure, and I’m gittin’ away from you right now!”
“Brutish!” She chased after him. “I’ll show you how brutish I can be!”
They ran through around the undergrowth until Davy tripped over an exposed gnarled tree root on purpose, falling on his back. Harriet stumbled over his feet, landing squarely on his chest. She tickled his ribs, and he squirmed as though he did not appreciate it. After they giggled a moment, she kissed his lips and bounced to her feet.
“And that’s your second kiss.”
“I swear it ain’t.” He jumped up and went to her. “You kissed me. That don’t count.”
“If you say so, Master Davy.” Her eyelids fluttered.
“I think I want my second kiss now,” he said, leaning in.
“No.” She pulled away, this time with serious determination. “We’ve taken too long as it is. Father will notice.” Harriet scurried out of the woods and down the path to the general store.
Smiling, Davy watched her disappear down the road. He then went to the well, picked up the bucket, filled it and returned to the hatter’s cabin.
“Master Davy!” Griffith barked as the boy placed the bucket by their fireplace. “Why are you so sloppy in your shaving?”
He walked to the workbench. “What, sir?”
Pushing the fox hide under the boy’s nose, the hatter chided him, “You sliced the hide when you shaved it. See that? Now it’s useless!”
“Sir,” he replied softly, “it’s an old scar. This fox probably got into a bad scrape when it was a kid. I didn’t see it until I shaved the pelt.”
“Ruined!” Griffith threw it against the wall. “All that money wasted!”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry, sir.”
Davy watched the hatter’s eyes twitch as he withdrew into himself and singled out another pelt to agonize over. He returned to the hearth to stoke the fire. Silence descended over the room until Harriet entered and stopped abruptly when she sensed the dense mood.
“Is anything wrong?”
Her father ignored her as his shoulders hunched, but Davy looked up and smiled. “Why, no, everythin’s fine.”

***

Many years later, when David sat with his family around the dinner table, silence overwhelmed the room, and the mood was dense. The only sound was the scraping of knives on trenchers and drinking from wooden tankards. David noticed that Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled in the fireplace glow. She looked as though she were about to burst, he thought, concealing her happy secret.
“Children,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “I have somethin’ to tell you. Mister Crockett—your father—he told me this afternoon he was stayin’ here with us. The lease on his farm is up and so he’s livin’ here from now on.”
“Really?” A smiled flickered across Sissy’s face. “Forever?”
“Nothin’s forever, Sissy.” Matilda frowned.
“Is it true?” Sissy looked at him. “Is what ma said is true? You’re goin’ to stay here forever?”
“Yes, Sissy,” he said, looking down, “forever.”
“See, Matilda.” Her head snapped toward her sister. “You don’t know everythin’.”
“I know men,” Matilda replied. “And I know forever has a different meanin’ for men.”
“I know men, too,” Sissy said.
“Not as well as I do.”
“Vulgar little tramp.”
“I’m a red-blooded woman,” Matilda retorted, “not somethin’ with cold water in her veins.”
“You don’t have blood, Matilda, jest toilet water, cheap, vulgar toilet water.”
“Girls! Stop this!” Elizabeth’s voice lowered in anger. “I won’t let you spoil this moment for me!”
“You don’t think I’m vulgar, do you, Mama?”
“You’ll grow out of it, dear.” Elizabeth paused to smile. “No, Matilda, you ain’t vulgar at all. You’re jest full of life, like your pa. That’s why I love you. And Sissy’s quiet and lovin’, like her grandma Crockett. That’s why I love her.”
“Matilda’s right, you know,” Robert said as he stuffed spoon bread into his mouth and continued talking. “I don’t give ‘im a month before he lights out again.”
“That’s not true,” his mother replied. She looked earnestly at David.
“No, Elizabeth, it’s not true.” He looked around their table and into the faces of his children. “Like I always say. Be always sure you’re right and then go ahead. I’m sure I’m right and I’m goin’ ahead and stayin’ here.”
Robert stared at his father for an eternity with his jaw set solemnly in disbelief.
“I’m goin’ to sit outside for a while,” David mumbled as he left the room.
Instead of sitting down on the porch he went to the barn where he saddled his horse and rode into town. Stepping into the tavern he spotted Abner and William. He got a tankard of ale at the bar and joined them.
“What are you doin’ out this late?” Abner asked.
“Aww,” David said, pausing to take a swig, “the whole durn family is mad at me. I don’t know why. I even said I ain’t goin’ to Texas. They don’t believe me. The youngin’s, they jest won’t give me a chance.”
“Robert don’t know how good he has it,” William said. “At least he got a father.”
“I don’t know why you don’t go ahead and do what Sam Houston said,” Abner said. “You got my mouth all set for a taste of Texas, but I don’t know if I want to go if you don’t.”
“Well,” David said, lifting his chin, “I gave my word to the family.”
“You shouldn’t care what Robert thinks,” William said. “He don’t give a hoot about you.”
When the group broke up, David rode home, deciding his word to the family had never been worth much, and they all knew it. His buddies knew him. They knew what his soul needed. If only his family knew him that well. Arriving at the cabin he saw all the lamps were out. Elizabeth would understand, he decided. The children would never understand.
Struggling off his horse, David tried not to stagger too much on his way back to the house. His lean frame slipped between the covers of the bed, and just as he was about to drift off to sleep, Elizabeth’s hand patted his shoulder.
“After you left I told the children to be kind to you,” she whispered. “I said you’re givin’ up more than they’d ever know.” She gave him a slight hug. “And you be kind to them.”

***

Dave’s heart sank when Miriam explained how she knew as soon as she saw the yellowed Bible with a cracked leather cover that it was a historic document. When she opened to its family page and saw David Crockett’s signature she had no doubt it was authentic.
“He rambled on about how he was all alone in the world,” Miriam said. “He said his mother died when he was twelve.”
“I was twelve when she died,” Dave told her. “Allan was twenty-two.”
“He said he had a younger brother who died of some mysterious disease at age seven. Just as his mother came into the room, he said your eyes lit up, you whispered, ‘Jesus!’ and died.” Miriam smiled. “Tears came into his eyes as he described how he comforted his mother as she sobbed at your funeral.”
“How did he say my other brother die?”
“Let’s see. His name was Vince, right? It’s funny how I remember. Allan could have been a successful actor, the way he said things made an impression so I remember all this. Anyway, he said Vince was crushed when the car he was working on slipped from the jack and fell on him.”
“And my father?”
“He said he died of a massive heart attack while loading his soft drink truck on a hot July afternoon. Tears welled up again as he described how his father gave up his life to provide a future for his child.” She shook her head. “I knew he was lying, but he seemed so sincere in his lies I could not help but like him.”
Dave nodded and smiled.
“I knew he was bound and determined to sell that Bible—he said it was to pay for his college tuition,” Miriam continued. “He was only a semester away from a bachelor’s degree. I knew he wasn’t a semester away from graduation, but he needed money badly for something.”
“Just to live,” Dave said. “He had a hard time keeping a job.”
Frowning, Miriam looked out the front window. “I didn’t pay him what it was worth. He didn’t seem to mind.”
“It doesn’t make any difference.”
“I was hoping a family member would come in and I’ll sell it back for what I paid. Honestly.”
“I know.”
“Then this lady came in,” she continued. “Just a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe how her eyes lit up when she saw the Crockett signature. She was a dear thing. There’s a legend in her mother’s family about a sixteen-year-old Davy Crockett bestowing his first puppy love kiss upon one of their great grandmothers.”
“So she bought the Bible?”
“I set a high price on it hoping to discourage her. She said she didn’t care what the price was. She simply had to have that Bible. I am, after all, in business to buy and sell books. Besides, she looked respectable, and I knew she’d give the Bible a good home.”
“Did you get her address?” When Miriam hesitated, Dave added, “I really need to get in contact with her.”
“I suppose I could call her and ask if she would talk to you.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Dave watched her go to her office, flip through a card file and punch a number into the phone. Her face brightened.
“Hello, Sarah Beth?” Miriam turned away and lowered her voice. In a minute she looked back, smiled and extended the receiver. She wants to say hello.”