Davy’s experience on the Baltimore docks was exhilarating, each cart’s wares more fascinating, each individual more provocative, and each present from Captain Stasney more extravagant. As they walked up the gangplank in the late afternoon Stasney pointed to each cluster of deckhands, busy working on the Jezebel, and explained what each was doing.
“See that fellow on the rope ladder above us? He’s an able seaman. He’s in charge of riggin’.” Waving higher to another fellow on the mast he added, “And he’s foretop man.” He pointed up. “See that? They’re bare foot. Know why?”
“No.”
“If they wore shoes they’d slip and fall and break their necks.”
“That’s a long ways up there.”
“Scared of heights?”
“No,” Davy replied, lying a bit. “I clumb trees taller than that back home.”
“That’s good.” Stasney slapped him on the back. “Can’t have nobody yellow on board.” He pointed again. “That man at the helm. He’s second in command.” He looked at Davy and smiled. “Do well and someday you’ll be first mate.”
A smile broke out on his face; no one had ever talked about his future like that. His father made him believe he had no future. Stasney promised a better life including trips to foreign lands with new vistas and intriguing people.
“Those clothes won’t work,” he said, appraising Davy’s shirt and trousers. “Too nice. Below we got the slop chest. You can get work clothes there.”
Davy watched as supplies arrived, and the steward took them below. He at once volunteered to carry the produce, and the steward thanked him. Within a few minutes Davy informed him he hailed from the Appalachian Mountains and was a skilled hunter and teamster. After the sun set, the crew left he schooner for one last night on the town. Stasney took Davy to the same tavern. Davy enjoyed the food, deep-battered fried flanks of fish, more oysters, slivered cabbage in a spicy sauce and large pones of cornbread.
“Tell ‘em some stories, boy,” Stasney said with a hearty laugh. “You like to tell stories.”
“Anything you want, sir.” He paused to clear his throat. “Last spring I was a part of a wagon team goin’ from Tennessee to Front Royal…” And Davy was off, with just only a hesitation, the words flowing like clear mountain water cascading over rocks in a stream. With each roar of laughter the bear became larger and the fear of the men around the campfire more palpable.
Through the evening Stasney slipped tankards of ale in from of Davy and nudged him to drink. At first he ignored it. When the captain kept scooting them closer to him he finally took a sip and made a face. A few swallows later, he found it not so bad and seemed to make his stories better.
Hours later the tavern closed, and all the customers went their separate ways, including Davy, the captain and the crew who headed back to the Jezebel. After they mounted the gangplank Davy moved toward the rowboat under which he had slept last night. The captain grabbed his shoulder.
“No need in that,” he said. “You’re my cabin boy now.”
Below deck Stasney led Davy to his quarters. Coming out the door was a dark-haired man with dull eyes.
“Lamps are lit, sir,” he said.
“Thank you, Parsons,” the captain replied. He looked at Davy. “That’s his job, to take care of all the lamps on board.” He guided the boy into the room and carefully shut the door. “Everyone has their jobs and they do ‘em without complaint. You understand that, don’t you, Davy?”
“Yes, sir.” He smiled with innocence while looking around the small room and wondering where he would sleep.
“Very good.” The captain unbuttoned the top of his shirt and sat on his bed. “You won’t regret it. I’ll teach you ciphers and letters. Before long you’ll be able to read whole books.” He reached over to pull something from behind his pillow. “Like this. Sit next to me and look at this.”
Davy plopped on the bed, his head still a little light from the ale. He noticed Stasney scooted closer as he opened the book.
“This is a brand new book, but the book itself is centuries old. Going back to Aristotle. Know who Aristotle was?”
Davy shook his head as Stasney flipped through the pages in reverence as though it were the Bible. “I’ll teach you to read from this book.” He paused. “Look at the pictures.”
Looking over Davy saw woodcuts of exposed men and women, and his mouth opened. Stasney turned a page. Davy’s eyes widened in nervousness as he slowly comprehended what he saw, a naked man lying on top of a naked woman, her legs wrapped around his waist.
“What do you think ‘bout that?”
“I don’t know.” He had never thought about such things before. He, his brothers and sisters knew to stay still and silent when their parents rustled the feather mattress late at night. From his gut he knew this was a subject best not discussed. “I want to sleep on deck.”
“No.” Stasney put the book down and put his arm around Davy’s shoulders. “You’re sleeping here.”
“I don’t want to.” His stomach tightened. His mind raced to figure out how to escape, but fear overcame his senses.
“What did you think? I was givin’ you things just to be nice? What did you think a cabin boy did?”
“I want to go.” Davy could not keep his tears from rolling down his checks.
“Sure, cry like a baby,” the captain whispered into his ear.
“Please let me go.”
“You think it’s that easy?” Stasney pulled out his knife and stuck it to Davy’s throat, causing him to stiffen and gasp. “You’re mine. Think ma and pa are goin’ to bust through that door?”
“No, please.”
“Do you understand I could slit your throat from ear to ear and throw you out on the dock? Tomorrow the Jezebel disappears over the horizon. Nobody knows this boy awallowin’ in his own blood. Nobody’ll care. They’ll throw your sorry carcass in the harbor along with the rest of the garbage.”
“No, no.” That was all Davy could think to say.
Stasney removed the knife from Davy’s throat and licked both sides of the blade, emitting guttural sounds. Seeing his opportunity for escape, Davy snatched the knife and jerked down, slicing Stasney’ tongue. As the captain howled in pain, Davy hurdled from the bed, bolted through the door, scampered up to the deck, passed mates sleeping in their bed rolls and stumbled down the gangplank. Running as fast as he could through the dark Baltimore streets he heard behind him the captain’s stomping and shouts of unintelligible obscenities.

***

James Patton had been a good man. David was acquainted with him when they served in the United States army during the Indian war. Patton was large and not on the whole striking in appearance. Most of the time he hardly spoke above a whisper. He tended to lag behind in the march from Fort Williams on the Coosa River, but was in the forefront in chopping tall thick trees in the Mississippi territory. He was the last to settle in at night, always making sure all duties were completed.
Tennessee volunteers sat around the campfire talking about how the Upper Creek Indians, whom they called Red Sticks, massacred everyone at Fort Mims in eighteen-thirteen. They vowed to avenge the deaths. James Patton remained silent. Once in a while he would mutter how much he missed his wife Elizabeth and their children George and Margaret.
On the morning of March twenty-seven, eighteen fourteen, as the volunteers gathered their powder, rifles and knives, Patton looked up and nodded at David.
“You don’t believe all that talk, do you, Crockett? All that about all Injuns bein’ bad?”
“Why, no, I guess not.”
“I know what happened at Fort Mims was terrible, but not all Injuns did that. The Lower Creek and Cherokee are peaceable. I grew up around Cherokee. They’re good people.”
“Yep, they’re very good.”
“What I know is family,” Patton continued. “When it all comes down to it, it ain’t whether you’re white or Injun, it’s family that matters, don’t you think?”
David did not respond at once, reflecting on his own children and how easy it was for him to leave his wife and children to go hunting. He loved them, in his own detached way, but he did not know if he agreed family always came first.
“Of course,” he replied, giving into an easy lie. “Family’s important.”
A bugle blew, ending their conversation. They were on the path to the horseshoe bend of the Tallapoosa River in Alabama. American militiamen and Lower Creek warriors attacked the Upper Creek encampment. David tried to stay close to Patton, feeling this was a man who had to survive to return to his family. Musket fire, smoke and oncoming hordes separated them. David worried that after two hours of hand-to-hand combat Patton’s energy would wane.
Cherokee waded across the Tallapoosa to attack Upper Creek from behind, turning the tide of the battle. Soon the last of the enemy dispersed, which allowed David to ask Tennesseans around him if they had seen James Patton. He stopped short when he saw the large man lying near the river bank, his shirt soaked in blood. David knelt, putting his head down to Patton’s quivering lips.
“Take my watch,” he whispered, fumbling with his pocket. After a moment he gave up searching and let his head fall back. “You git it later. And my knapsack back at the camp.” He grabbed David’s arm with the last of his strength. “And tell Elizabeth, tell her I did my best to git home.”
The Pattons did not live far from the Crocketts near Winchester, Tennessee, so on his way back after the Creek War David stopped at their farmstead. He did not find Elizabeth particularly attractive. She was much larger and less pleasing to the eye than his wife Polly. He did admire her fortitude when she heard her husband died in battle. She took the watch and knapsack, nodded and thanked him, holding her children close to her side.
Within weeks, however, David lost his wife Polly to influenza. His brother Joseph and his wife did the best they could with the children, but David was not impressed. Joseph had not changed all that much since childhood and lacked a serious interest in being helpful. David’s thoughts turned to the widow Patton as a new wife. She had a proven farm, eight hundred dollars in cash and the support of the extensive Patton family. Elizabeth was not only James Patton’s wife but also his cousin.
Riding his chestnut along the worn road into Gibson County, David grunted to himself. What he thought had been a smart marriage turned into a mixed blessing. Elizabeth was of good comfort, providing him with three more children, was generous with her private funds and was industrious and perceptive in running the farm. On the other hand, David lived under the shadow of benefiting from a wife’s fortune and in the shadow of a man even David judged to be too good, too kind, too gentle to live in this terrible world.
As he climbed a knoll he saw his family’s farm in the valley, divided by a meandering stream. The house itself was simple, split log packed with sod to keep out the wind. Smoke rose from an outside fire, perhaps from a pot of applesauce being stewed by Elizabeth. Unexpectedly a cream, orange, brown and white butterfly flitted by, grabbing David’s attention away from his family reunion.

***

Screaming, Dave scrambled from the bed, threw open the door to run down the hall. Vince, in baggy boxers and loose T-shirt, chased him into the living room, wrapping his arms around him.
“Puppy! Wake up!”
Dave stopped struggling, his eyes slowly focusing on his surroundings. “Oh. Yeah.” He slipped over to the sofa. “It was awful.”
“I didn’t know you still had those nightmares,” Vince said, turning on a lamp.
“I don’t. Sometimes.”
“It was Allan, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what you get for going to look at his corpse. That’d give anybody nightmares.”
“I can’t believe he’s dead.”
“I can’t believe he lived as long as he did.” Vince sat in his father’s broken lounger. After fidgeting a moment, he looked over at Dave. “You used to be real butterbutt.”
“Shut up.”
“I mean, you’re in real good shape now.” Vince stood. “You’re still sensitive as hell, though. He looked to the hall and then went to the kitchen. “You need something to calm you down.”
“I’m calm.”
Vince opened a cabinet, reached to a top shelf to retrieve a bottle of whiskey, took two glasses from the sink and washed them off. “A little of this’ll make you feel better.” He poured a jigger or so into each and took them to the sofa, offering one to Dave.
“No.”
“Take it.”
Despite his better judgment, Dave took the glass, not wanting his brother to know he had developed a taste for liquor over the years, a taste not a craving, he noted to himself. He sipped it and grimaced. He liked a better grade of whiskey than Vince could afford.
“You know it really makes dad angry when you bring liquor in the house.”
“So why didn’t you bring your wife?” Vince sat in the chair again and gulped his drink.
“None of your business,” Dave replied.
“You’re ashamed of me and the old man.”
“No,” he spat back. Whiskey opened a dark cellar of anger in his gut.
“You’re ashamed of Allan.”
Is that right, Puppy?
Dave heard the familiar voice behind him which caused him to sip from the glass again.
“She don’t even know you had a crazy queer brother,” Vince said as an accusation.
“No.” That was all Dave could think to say.
You’re lying, Puppy. I could always tell when you’re lying. Oh, Puppy, I never thought you’d be ashamed of me.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Puppy, how could you hurt me like this?
“Where’s Wanda?” Dave looked with narrowed eyes at Vince.
“She took the kids to California.”
“Why?”
“Why isn’t Tiffany here?” Vince stared at him. “Come on, tell me.”
“I didn’t want her to know about Allan.” Dave decided to tell the unvarnished truth. Vince could not hurt him if he told the truth.
After all I did for you.
“So why did Wanda leave?”
“One of the boys fell one night and cut his head bad. I was too drunk to take him to the hospital.”
The jerk hit him.
“You hit him.”
“No. What kind of a father do you think I am?”
Just like our father. A jerk.
“If I did hit him, I don’t remember,” Vince mumbled, drinking from the glass.
“But Wanda knew,” Dave said.
“That broad. She’d say anything.” Vince stopped, pinching his lips together. “I don’t remember. To me, that’s the truth.” He stood to go back to the kitchen.
“Don’t drink anymore.” Dave put his empty glass on the floor and stood. “I got to tell you something.”
If he tries anything, I’ll bop him over the head with that bottle.
“Oh crap, what is it?”
“Dad wants to move into a nursing home.”
“Shoot, what’s wrong with that?”
“He wants me to be his legal guardian.”
Dave watched Vince’s face as he realized his father had passed him over to take care of him. First his eyes widened, and his mouth opened. Next his eyes glared, and his jaw jutted out in anger.
“It’s the money! You little jerk! You’re after pop’s money!”
“He has no money.”
“Pop’s a fool. You may have book learning but you ain’t got no common sense!”
Feeling his anger growing out of control, Dave walked to the hallway. Vince had told him he had no common sense many times during his drunken rants when Dave was a teen-ager. He did not want to hear it anymore.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow when you’re not drunk.”
Vince grabbed his arm and swung him around. “We’ll talk about it now!”
Looking down at Vince’s hand, Dave said in a soft, firm voice, “Let go of me.”
Beat him up, Puppy. He’s shit.
“You’re a worthless piece of shit,” Vince said in a hiss.
He’s right, Puppy. You are a worthless piece of shit.
With a primal scream Dave knocked Vince down and pinned his shoulders to the floor with his knees, pummeling Vince’s face.
I’m shit. Mother was shit. That old son of a bitch in there is definitely shit.
“I am not shit!” Dave stopped his fist at Vince’s nose. This was how human shit acts, he told himself. He decided he was not going to act that way. He stood and stepped away, watching as Vince wiped blood from his mouth and sat up.
“You always wanted to do that.”
“Yes, I did.”