Jesse Cheek smiled at Davy who was shivering. “You’re a good man, Master Crockett. Not too many thirteen-year-old boys volunteer to apprentice themselves out to help their families.” He paused. “Maybe we should go back to the tavern, work out the details for the trip and let your ma know where you’re going to be for the next six weeks.”
“We can’t go back.” Davy stepped forward and shook his head, his mind racing. “Pa’s dreadful sick. Got the pox. You ever had the pox?”
“I don’t remember.”
“A grown man gits fearful sick with the pox while a child takes it jest fine with no problems. You’re a grown man. The pox could lay you low.”
“So you don’t think I should talk to your folks?”
“I don’t want you to come down with the pox.”
“I appreciate your concern. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take you along. Your pa knows me well. He knows I’ll treat you right.” Chuckling, Cheek turned, cracked his whip above the pair of oxen pulling his large Conestoga wagon and said “get up.”
Davy ducked his head and fell in line with the herd, poking slow heifers in their sides to keep them on track. After another hour on the trail, they stopped, set up camp and started a fire. Cheek pulled a sack from his wagon and passed out hard tack and strips of dried venison to Davy and the two other men on his crew. They all slurped water from the same ladle in the bucket.
“Gotta name, boy?” one of the men asked.
“Davy Crockett, sir. And what’s yours, if you don’t mind me askin’?”
“Thomas Harkness.” He smiled, revealing a mouth with only four or five brown teeth. Thomas appeared to be in his thirties, with a thick brow and hammy shoulders.
“I’m Grey Jones.” The other man said in a high voice unsuitable for such a tough-looking brutish fellow.
“What’s a boy like you doin’ out here on the trail like this?” Thomas asked, gnawing on a hard biscuit.
“Jest doin’ my duty to feed my brothers and sisters,” Davy replied, his eyes looking sad as they wandered off into the darkness. “Pa’s mighty sick, so weak he can hardly stand.”
“My pa had that,” Grey chimed in. “Died within a few days. Ma never did good after that.”
“I know,” Davy said with a sigh. “It’s an awful burden for a young man to bear. Probably won’t have no life of my own, jest always work hard to feed the family.”
“That’s me,” Grey offered, biting off and sucking on a strip of venison. “I stayed and tended ma ‘til she died; by then, I was too old to learn a real trade.” He swallowed with a wince and a groan. “’Tis a shame.”
“Well, morning will be here soon,” Cheek announced as he stood and kicked dirt onto the fire.
He climbed into his wagon, and the other three crawled under the wagon. Grey and Thomas offered to share their bedding with Davy but he shook his head bravely and said he was used to sleeping on the ground. They said good-night, rolled over and immediately began to snore. Davy ran his finger along the iron bands of the big wooden wheels and thanked God he did not have to fall asleep crying with blisters on his back from his father’s cudgel. He was safe for now, but he still missed his mother and his sisters. He fell asleep crying after all.
In the next few days Davy worked hard, keeping his eye trained on everything going on around him. He anticipated chores and did them before he was asked. As fall arrived, the leaves turned gold and red. The nights became colder. He shivered uncontrollably but did not complain. Cheek patted him on the back and made sure he got his fair share of butterfat which warmed the body. Only time he asked for something was when they passed through Rogersville. Davy wanted to go to the graveyard behind the Hawkins County courthouse to see the tombstones of his grandparents.
“You mean you never knew ‘em?” Thomas asked in a whisper.
“No.”
“How’d they die?” Grey asked in his high squeaky voice.
“Injuns killed ‘em.”
“Durn shame,” Thomas commented, putting his hand on Davy’s shoulder.
Davy felt a knot in his throat and tears welling in his eyes, so he clenched his jaw and tightened his lips. He did not want the men to see him cry. Davy hated it when he cried. Men did not do things like that.
For a while they followed the Holstein River, and Davy recognized most of the land from his last trip in the spring. He liked the lush valley wherein the town of Abingdon was nestled.
“The Indians say would never settle here,” Cheek said, “because the ancient ones said living here was so easy it would make them lazy. You know what happened to Adam and Eve? Had it too easy in the Garden of Eden. Started out lying to God and got kicked out,” Cheek said as they bought fresh supplies at the Abingdon general store. “What do you think about that, Davy?”
“I think it makes a good story.”
“You like telling stories, don’t you, Davy?”
“Sure.” He looked down. “Don’t everybody?”
“Not as much as you.” Cheek laughed and headed out the door.
Davy decided Cheek was not as nice a man as he first thought. He tried to make himself not tell any stories for the next few days but he felt like he was about to explode. When they reached the Shenandoah Valley and were sitting around a crackling campfire Davy could not hold it in any longer.
“I was up this way last spring. Right over there, on that hill.” He pointed into the darkness. “We was bone tired after a hard day on the trail tryin’ to keep in line some particularly stubborn calves.” Thomas and Grey grunted and nodded in recognition. They were bone tired too. “We pitched camp and started up a pot of squirrel stew. I shot ‘em myself jest ‘fore the sun set. It smelt fine. It smelt so fine that an ol’ black b’ar ambled up to the fire. The other men jest sat, sort of in shock, I suppose. And a couple of them, I tell you, screamed like girls. I grabbed one of their flintlocks since it was plain they warn’t goin’ to use it and loaded powder and bullet and swung it up to take aim. Now, gentlemen, I can’t right tell you how I found the sense to shoot ‘cause that ol’ b’ar rared up on his hind feet and was aroarin’. The next thing I heard was the rifle go pow, caught ‘im—caught ‘im right here.” Davy lifted his left arm and pointed six inches below his arm pit. “I dropped ‘im in his tracks and he never flinched.”
“So you kilt yo’rself a b’ar,” Grey said in awe.
Cheek laughed from his seat back in the shadows. “Time to get to sleep men. Morning will be here before you know it.” Thomas and Grey rolled under the wagon and Davy was about to join them when Cheek called out, “Help me put this here fire out, won’t you, Davy?”
“Sure.”
As they kicked dirt into the flames, Cheek said softly, “So you know how to shoot good?”
“Purty good, I think,” Davy replied.
Cheek laughed and put his arm on Davy’s shoulder. “How’d you like for me to show you some of my tricks with a rifle?”
“I’d like that. Davy beamed and then added with modesty, “I guess I got a little lucky with that b’ar.”
For the next several days as they traveled up the valley toward Charlottesville Cheek let Davy shoot squirrels and rabbits with his .30 caliber rifle.
“You have a good eye, even as the day’s light fades. Your hand is steady. Just remember, make sure of your target then squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it. If you’re sure of your target then even if it runs into the shadows you can follow it and shoot.”
“Be sure I’m right,” David said in reflection, “and then go ahead.”
When Davy’s finger tightened on the trigger, Cheek yelled in his ear, causing him to jump and jerk his rifle skywards.
“Why’d you do that for?” You made me miss it.”
“It’s a lesson on concentration. You got to concentrate on the target no matter what happens. One day Indians might attack and you got to be ready to defend yourself no matter how scared you are.”
Davy continued to hone his shooting skills as the herd moved north along the Shenandoah Valley. One day Cheek nudged him and pointed. “Do you know who lives on that hill?”
“He should,” Thomas said, ambling up. “You was here last spring, right?”
“Sure was.” Davy looked up the hill. “But Mr. Siler didn’t say nothin’ about where we was at, only talked cattle.”
“The vice-president lives up there,” Cheek said. “Who know who that is?” He paused only a moment. “Thomas Jefferson. He calls his home Monticello.”
“Oh.” Davy felt his neck burn from embarrassed. He really did not know much.
“He’s probably up there right now,’ Cheek continued, as he poked one of the cows to make it stay on track. “That’d make a good story, wouldn’t it, Davy, to say you met the vice-president of the United States?”
“Yes, it would.” A smile flickered across Davy’s lips.

***

A smile flickered across David Crockett’s lips those many years later in the Rutherford Station tavern as he basked in the laughter and applause of the young men. Then one young man, Joe Studdard, with long straggly reddish yellow hair put his arm around David’s shoulder, leaned in and belched at full volume, smelling of stale, ill-brewed ale.
“Come on, Davy—“
“David,” he interrupted. “Nobody’s called me Davy since I was a youngin’. When was the last time anyone ever called you Joey? You’re Joe now. You’re a man.”
“Like I was sayin’, Davy,” Joe continued, his eyes glazed over, “tell us what you really think. You’re pissed as hell, ain’t ya?”
“You’re right.” David looked ahead and slurped from his mug. “I’m pissed as hell.”
“And you hate Andy Jackson,” the young man punched David in the shoulder to make his point.
“I right liked Ol’ Hickory when he was a general,” David said, pausing to take another drink. “He was kinda like the pa I always wanted. Tough, honest, fair.”
“But now he’s president, he ain’t your idea of a pa, is he?”
“No.”
“And you hate ‘im?”
“Sure I hate ‘im now. He’s goin’ to hell for all the bad things he’s done.”
“Well, it’s time to go, David,” Abner said, pulling him away.
David did not remember much after that. The ride home was pretty much a haze. The next thing of which he was aware was a tap on his feet.
“Come on, David, time to git up,” Abner said.
David focused his eyes on the foot of the bed. There stood his friend Abner and William Patton, Elizabeth’s nephew. David smiled. He liked the boy. He was roughhewed but friendly. William’s father died recently and the boy took up with David real fast.
“I got more bad news,” Abner said. “Gibson County Democrat Committee wants to talk to you at the tavern. We’ll be there, David. “We won’t let nothin’ happen to you.”
“Well, what on earth do they want?” David moaned and slid down among the quilts.
“Sam’ll be there too, Uncle David,” William said.
David smiled at the mention of Sam Houston. He was the only man who could match him tall story for tall story. Besides, he reminded himself, he was not a little boy anymore who had to be afraid of grown men. His father was dead. David was the old man now. Sitting up, he grinned. “Reckon I can stand up to my lick log.”
When they arrived at Rutherford Station tavern, David looked around the room to see a crowd of unsmiling faces. They were supporters of Andrew Jackson and did not like the fact that David had gone his own way while in Congress.
“Thank you for coming,” Robert Edmundson said. He was the justice and a firm Huntsman loyalist. His steel gray eyes were lost on his pallid face. “Good of you to meet with us.”
“I didn’t have nothin’ better to do than git beat up by a bunch of politicians.”
Several men laughed. David always knew how to make men laugh.
“Let’s git down to it,” Edmundson said. “What are your intentions?”
“What do you mean?”
“You goin’ to fight the canvass?” Constable Anslem Fussell interrupted, leaning forward. Fussell was fat, short and grumpy.
“Nope.”
“Good,” Fussell said.
“Not that it’d do much good.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Fussell shot back.
“Now, Anslem,” Edmundson said. “No need to be unfriendly.”
Fussell huffed as he crossed his arms across his chest.
“I’m real friendly,” David replied.
“You could cause a heap of trouble if you had a mind to,” Fussell said.
“It was your own fault you lost, you know,” John Needham said, piping up from the back. He was an old war buddy of Huntsman and was always jealous of David because he told the best stories back at camp when the battle was done. “You forgot where you came from.”
Several others mumbled in agreement.
“You spent all your time in New York rather than in West Tennessee,” a voice called out.
“And we didn’t git none of that cheap land like you said we was,” Fussell said.
Of all the comments that one hurt the most. In each of his three terms in Congress, David introduced legislation to allow public sale of government lands in West Tennessee at affordable prices. Each time he was voted down.
“That ain’t fair!” David snapped. “It warn’t my fault if my bill got killed each time!”
“But we didn’t git no land!” Needham shot back. “And you promised!”
“But the rich folks, they was the ones who killed it. They wanted to be able to buy the land for themselves and make you people become tenant farmers!”
“Always blame somebody else,” Fussell said with a smirk. “We may be poor, but we ain’t dumb.”
“You cared more about the damn Injuns than about us!” Needham said.
“Andy wanted to run ‘em off their lands! That ain’t fair!” David could feel his neck turn red in anger. The very Cherokee who fought with Jackson and the Tennessee volunteers were the ones being displaced.
“To hell with the Injuns!” Needham yelled.
Just then the door floor flew open and a man in a leather leggings and jacket stomped in and put his hands on his hips, towering over everybody.
“To hell with you, John! I bet you’ve been shootin’ your mouth off too, Anslem! Time for all of you to shut up!”
“We want to know what David plans to do, Sam,” Edmundson said.
“David’s goin’ huntin’ with me, that’s what he’s goin’ to do,” Sam Houston replied, putting his arm around his friend’s shoulder. “And that’s that. If anybody has a quarrel with that they can meet me outside.”
The next day David and Same hunted in the cane breaks of the Obion River valley along with Abner and William. Their eyes trained to spot white-tailed deer, wild boar or bear. The air was cold with oncoming autumn breezes. David stopped and his nostrils flared. Beaver scent filled the air. Looking down he spied the webbed hind paw prints of beaver tracks. Then he saw a mound and noticed an amber liquid which he knew was the source of the smell. His head jerked toward the sound of splashing, and he swung his flintlock up.
“Beaver!”
All rifles pointed to the nearby pond. They shot as clan of beaver swam away. Sloshing through the water they picked off their prey. One beaver was dead, and David and Sam quickly crushed the skulls of the wounded with the butts of their rifles. That night they singed the hair off the carcasses over the open fire and washed the bodies in the river, scraping the skin off on the rocks
“Mighty good eatin’,” William said as he bit into the roasted beaver meat.
“Makes my belly feel good,” Sam added, washing down a mouthful with a swig from the whiskey jug. “Yeah, all that beaver fat’s goin’ to keep us mighty warm tonight.”
David kept quiet as he ate. The long day of hunting in the canes had worn him out more than he wanted to admit to his hunting buddies. As the stars came out he and the others lay back and once again David grew melancholy at the great expanse of nothingness.
“My God, ain’t that purty,” William said with a sigh.
“Makes you feel kinda small, don’t it?” Abner added.
“Damn right it makes me feel small,” David grumbled. “Small and like I was nothin’.”
“Aw, David, git over it,” Abner said softly.
Sam belched and turned to David. “You need to go to Texas with me.”
They had been friends since Sam was governor of Tennessee. Sam divorced his wife after only three months of marriage. Folks did not take kindly to that sort of behavior, and Sam had to resign as governor. He then disappeared among the Arkansas Cherokee and took a common law wife. He recently left her to start a new life in Texas. Neither man understood women very well, David decided, which was why they were such good friends.
“You’re younger than me, Sam. I’m gittin’ to the age where I don’t have it in me to start over.”
“You still got it in you.” Sam wagged his finger at him. “Don’t try to fool me.” He paused to look seriously at David. “One day Texas’ll be part of the United States.”
“Mexico might have somethin’ to say about that,” he replied.
“It don’t matter what Mexico wants. It’s what the people of Texas want.”
“I thought the people of Texas was Mexicans,” David said with a bemused look. “And Indians. A few folk from Spain.”
“Not anymore.” Sam sipped more whiskey. “There’s more Tennesseans in Texas than in Tennessee anymore. Alabamans too. Tar Heels. Texas is for men like us, David.”
“And what would I do in Texas?”
“Why, you’d be David Crockett!” He winked. “You wouldn’t have no trouble gittin’ elected. Then when Texas becomes a state, well, Washington would be in your hands ag’in.”
David looked over at Abner who was tossing some twigs onto the fire.
“What about it, Abner?”
“Looks like we’re goin’ to Texas, don’t it?”

***
“I have to go to Gainesville,” Dave told Tiffany. Just like his ancestor David Crockett a century before him had to go to Texas, he had to go to his hometown.
Tiffany began toweling off. “Hey, I’ll go with you. I’ve never met your family. This is as good a time as any.” Tiffany pulled up her panties and started to put on her bra. “I’ve driven past Gainesville many times on my way to Oklahoma City but I never got off the highway. It looks like a pretty little town.”
“No,” he said in a blank tone.
She stopped, turned to look at him with an arched brow and asked, “Why not?”
Dave stared at the shower stall where the water still pelted down. His mind raced. He could not think of a thing to say. Tiffany was so beautiful, lithe, with a delicate bone structure. She had been brought up in the closed Southern Baptist culture of Waco’s wealthiest families. At their wedding he had heard whispers from elderly church matrons about their little Tiffany, only twenty-two, marrying a divorced man in his thirties. It made no difference the year was nineteen eighty. As far as Waco, Texas, was concerned, time stopped in nineteen twenty. People did not divorce. And they certainly did not have brothers who were homosexuals. No words came out, only a deep sign.
“Very well.” She finished hooking her bra strap and left the bathroom.
He listened for her to dress and go out the door. He stood, went back into the shower, rinsed the soap out of his hair and then dried off. He stared at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and shaved. No one in Gainesville would have believed chubby little Puppy would have slimmed into a tolerable looking man. He had paid for his own braces, spent many hours in a tanning booth and ate very little to give his face a lean look instead of the round puffy cheeks he had as a child. He bent over to put in his contact lenses, blinked them into place and reached for a tube of skin cream from which he squeezed a bad to rub around his eyes.
Stepping back, he squared his shoulders and tightened his abdomen muscles and considered whether or not he had time to run through his calisthenics routine but decided he should hurry along. Instead he went to his walk-in closet, picked a khaki-colored pair of ironed slacks and a light blue cotton shirt.
After putting on a pair of suede loafers, Dave looked over at the telephone, sighed and reached for it, dialed a number and waited for an answer. When a female voice answered, he frowned. He did not want to talk to his former mother-in-law.
“Mrs. Martin, may I speak to Linda?”
She did not reply. “It’s for you.” Her voice was blank and distant.
“Hello?”
He always liked the warm lilt of his ex-wife’s voice.
“It’s Dave.”
“Well, hi there.” No resentment tinged her reply.
“Allan’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Tell the boys I won’t be able to take them camping this weekend.”
“Of course I will. They’ll understand.” Linda paused. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you like, I’ll call them to the phone.”
Dave looked up and saw Tiffany standing in the door. His eyes widened and he sputtered into the receiver. “Gotta go.” His voice lowered. “Tell the boys I love them.” He hung up.
“That was Linda, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Your father’s dead, and you don’t want to tell me.”
Smiling, he stood to take Tiffany in his arms. “No, of course not. You’ve got the biggest imagination of any girl I’ve ever known.”
“Well, why call Linda if he’s only sick?” She pulled away and narrowed her eyes.
“Oh, Tiffany,” he replied in a sad, weary tone, trying to think of a credible lie, one that would make David Crockett proud. “He’s real sick, and Linda has always been fond of the old man.”
Tiffany shook her head. “No, it’s more than that. I can tell. You can tell Linda, but you can’t tell me.”
“That’s not true.” He continued to stare at her. He knew that she would realize he was lying if he looked away.
“It makes me so mad. You’ve never taken me to meet your family. Anytime you’re upset you’re on the phone to Linda.” She stopped to put her hand over her mouth to compose herself. Lowering her hand, Tiffany turned to leave. “I’ll call daddy and tell him you won’t be into work for the next few days.”