Cumberland Mountain: A Narrative Fiction

They were both still wary, keeping an eye on their back trail. For once, they talked as they walked and Alma liked the noise they made. Two or three times, the hound took off on a track, and they had to call him back.
“Would be a lot easier to call that red boned hound, if he had a name,” Gabe said.
Alma nodded. “You’re right, what do you think suits him.”
“Terror,” comes to mind.
Alma laughed for the first time today. She clapped her hands, and the half-grown red, brown dog came leaping out of the brush beside her. She laughed even more as it jumped into her arms, like some little trick doggy. She petted it, let it lick at her chin, before pushing him down. “Naw, he comes from a long line of coon hounds, even if he is red and untrainable now. Pa wanted to kill him last week, when he ripped his pants.”
With that thought, he ran forward, listening and watching for any sign of the three men ahead of him. The trail was rising higher as he climbed Cumberland Mountain, aware of how much the land was like home. He’d meant to talk to Alma about the town below. Harrogate to the white settlers, Shawanee to the Indians, but they had both been too emotional to talk. They were blundering through a land with so much to see, but they had no time to be tourists.
Now he would have to hide to keep her safe. All the things the judge had said came roaring back to him as he ran breathlessly upward, his legs stinging from the effort. Maybe he should have turned right, taken the trail toward Virginia and then turned back to their home in Tennessee. He had no right to drag a woman with him on such a journey.
As he stopped to take a deep breath, his heart ached at the thought of leaving her. He shook his head, smiled to himself. As though she would ever let him. He was grateful that she had obeyed and stayed when he asked. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he needed her out of harm’s way. All he knew was that he had to confront