“Well, I’ll be shot if you ain’t gone white as an eggshell!” exclaimed Crockett. “You ain’t worried about that no-account varmint?” Sitting straight in his saddle, he reached out a hand and gave me a resounding slap on the shoulder. “Why, I hope he does come a-lookin’ for us. I will settle his hash quicker’n an alligator can chew a puppy!”

Contemplating the distance that still lay before us—an extensive stretch of wild, uninhabited country whose every hillock, tree-grove, and ravine might serve as the ideal location for an ambuscade—I observed: “I must confess to feeling somewhat perplexed that—knowing of Neuendorf’s vicious threats, to say nothing of his savage, implacable nature—you did not consider it prudent to carry a weapon, Colonel Crockett.”

“Weapon!” he replied with a booming laugh. “Why, if my two bare hands ain’t enough to dispatch that infarnal critter, I wish I may be choked with a saw-log.” Then, with a cluck of his tongue and a tug of his reins, he directed his steed back onto the trail, while—urging my bay forward—I quickly drew up alongside him.

Directly overhead, a deep-pitched rumble emanated from the grim, lowering clouds. Smiling broadly at the sound, Crockett raised his right hand nearly to the level of his shoulder, delivered an exuberant slap to his thigh, and loudly proclaimed: “Just listen to it sing, Poe! Folks may crow all they want about the roar of Niagara or the growlin’ of the sea—but give me a splendacious peal o’ stormbrewed thunder and your other nat’ral music is no more than a penny whistle is to a church organ! By the Great Bein’ Above, a reg’lar roarin’ thunder-clap is the greatest treat in all o’ creation! Just give me one touch o’ this sort o’ nat’ral music afore I go to sleep, and I wake feelin’ so full o’ glory that I could hug the Mississippi, bust a big rock with my hands, and feel powerful enough to do the duty of an entire sawmill!”

Then, casting a sideways glance in my direction, he said: “Why Poe, did I ever tell you about the time I tried to cure myself o’ a monstraciously bad gut-ache by swallerin’ a thunderbolt? No? Well, it happened way back in the spring o’ 1816, not too long after me an’ Ol’ Hick’ry got done subduin’ the Creek injuns durin’ the Redstick War. Anyways, I awoke feelin’ a mite poorlyish that mornin’. So I says to myself, ‘Davy …’”

As we continued our journey northward, trotting abreast of each other, Crockett proceeded to regale me with his colorful narrative—of whose details, however, I remained largely oblivious; for my attention was firmly riveted, not on his outrageous “tall tale,” but on the gloomy, surrounding landscape, whose seemingly innocuous features—hills and dales, outcroppings and thickets—were suddenly imbued with the grim—the fearful—the daunting—prospect of hidden, lurking peril!

CHAPTER 10