Angel Train (9 page)

“Well, I expect everybody’s got a bottom. What’s wrong with mentioning it?”

Tremayne laughed aloud. “Going to be an interesting trip for you, Miss Meredith. You do know how to amuse a man.” He touched his spurs to his horse and rode off.

“Don’t talk about bottoms in front of a man,” Charity said.

But all that did was start an argument, for Meredith could see nothing wrong with mentioning anything.

Two hours later they stopped beside a small creek. Tremayne led the first wagon around so that all the wagons formed a circle and evidently had measured well because there was precisely enough room for the last wagon to fit.

“Is this the way we’ll camp every night?” Elsworth asked.

“Yeah, we’ll sleep inside the circle. There are no Indians around here, but it’s good practice.”

The women got out, and the men started fires. A wood box was on the back of each wagon, and Tremayne had instructed the people to throw dead wood in it so that they wouldn’t
have to hunt for firewood. Soon the darkness was falling, but the campfires penetrated it with bright and cheerful dots.

Charity was cooking steaks, and when she called her family together, Evan took his plate with beans and steak and said, “You know, this isn’t bad.”

“It’s a long way to Oregon,” Gwilym said. He was not tired for he was used to hard work, but he knew others were tired. At that moment Tremayne walked by, and Gwilym said, “Stop and have a bite, Casey.”

“All right, I think I will.” He sat down and took a plate from Bronwen who smiled at him. “I cooked this steak myself.”

“It’ll be good then.” He began to eat.

“Did we make good time today, Tremayne?” Evan asked.

“Very good for the day. Almost ten miles. But this was easy going. We’ll have to do better on these easy stretches so when trouble comes and we have to hold up, they’ll make up for it.”

“You’re expecting trouble, aren’t you?” Charity asked. She still felt defensive about the big man.

“Well, man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

“Ah, you know your Bible,” Gwilym said, pleased to hear it.

“Know it. Don’t do it. I guess that’s my story.”

Meredith had wolfed her supper, and then began, as usual, to pepper Tremayne with questions. He answered them easily, and finally she said, “Are you going to heaven when you die, Tremayne?”

Tremayne seemed unable to answer for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said and studied the young girl’s face. She was a beautiful child, and he had never seen one with such an inquisitive mind. She was, he thought, probably the smartest person on the train.

“Well, if you don’t go to heaven, you’ll go to the pit.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“You shouldn’t do that. Jesus died so that we could all go to heaven. Did you know that?”

“I believe I heard it a time or two.” The rest of the family listened. They were accustomed to Meredith’s straightforward questions. “Jesus died for our sins. That’s what the Bible says, and it says that anybody who wants to can be saved.”

“She’s a good Calvinist,” Gwilym said, “and she preaches a pretty good sermon too.”

“Why don’t you ask Jesus to come into your heart, Tremayne? Then you wouldn’t have to go to the pit.”

Tremayne could not remember a time when he felt as awkward. Everyone was looking at him, and finally he said, “I guess it just never come to me, Miss Meredith.”

Charity had been listening. “Meredith, don’t be so forward.”

“Well, if I can get Tremayne to believe in Jesus, he’ll go to heaven. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

Immediately Meredith turned and started quoting Scripture, and then, in the middle of a sentence, she saw one of her friends, jumped up, and ran off. Charity was still irritated with Tremayne over the chair, but she knew the conversation with her sister must have been painful for him.

“I’m sorry about that. You’ll have to tell her to hush.”

“She’s a bright girl. Smart as a whip.”

“Are you afraid to die?” Evan asked curiously.

“Well, when everything is still, I am.”

“Still? What do you mean still?” Charity asked, tremendously interested.

“I mean when things are going fine, I don’t think about things like that, but when I’m alone, maybe at night, then the
thoughts come trooping in. And I know what Meredith says is true.” A silence fell over the small group. The Morgans could hear the music of someone playing a guitar and singing in an off-key fashion. They were all interested in Casey Tremayne who seemed as foreign as someone from another planet to them. Finally he lifted his head and said, “I saw a bird die once.”

“You mean you killed him?” Evan asked, not understanding the man.

“No, I was crossing a prairie, and this bird flew across, and suddenly, right in the middle of his flight, he just dropped out of the sky. I don’t mean anybody shot him. He just fell as if he were shot.” Tremayne rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and the memory seemed to come flooding back to him. “I went over and picked him up. There wasn’t a mark on him. You know what I thought? I thought that bird didn’t have any idea when he woke up that morning he’d be dead before dark. For some reason that scared me because I knew I wasn’t in any better shape than that bird.” He smiled ruefully and stood up. “I didn’t mean to tell you that.”

Evan, who was a fine Christian himself, said, “Well, Jesus is the friend of sinners, Casey. He’ll be your friend if you let Him.”

The words surprised Tremayne, and he fastened his eyes on Evan Morgan. “I expect you’re right,” he said. Then he turned and left. Later that night he related the conversation to Elsworth. “I wonder why I told that story. I’ve never told it to anybody else.”

“So you told them you were going to the pit, did you?”

“Yep, true enough.”

“What did Charity Morgan say about it?”

“She was against it, I think.”

The two were silent for a while, and finally Tremayne said, “Don’t you have a Latin saying for something like that?”

“I can’t think of one offhand, but I remember my father told me once that
dead
is a long time.”

“I expect he was right.”

The two lay down in their blankets, and for a long time Casey Tremayne watched the stars as they made their silver spangle against the dark sky.

THE SOUND OF A rifle exploding close by brought Charity out of a sound sleep. She started and for an instant was tempted to throw the quilt over her head, but that was impossible. She reached over and shook Bronwen. “Time to get up.”

Bronwen stirred and peered at Charity in the dim light of the canopy. “All right,” she said, and then the two got up. They had formed a routine and set about cooking breakfast at once. From all over the camp came the sound of voices. A man was whistling, and Charity wished he would stop.

She first splashed tepid water into a pan from the water keg and washed her face. She felt gritty and dirty for the days on the trail from Pittsburgh had offered no opportunities for more bathing.

As she cooked breakfast, she heard Evan talking to her father as they yoked the oxen to the wagons. Evan’s voice was cheerful, and Charity knew that he was far happier than she was herself. The fifteen miles a day that they had had to cover for what seemed like many weeks had drained her strength. She had tried not to let the strain show.

Now the daily routine began; young and old poured out of their tents and out of wagons. Slow spirals of smoke began to drift up in the sky from many campfires. Glancing across the way, Charity saw that in the wagon right behind her the oldest couple on the train, Konrad and Minna Dekker, was cooking, and their voices sounded cheerful. Charity shook her head, wondering if she would be that lively when she was in her seventies.

When the breakfast was ready, the men ate, and they threw down the bacon and eggs quickly. “I’ll cook biscuits if we camp early enough tonight,” Charity said. She was learning the cooking routine in a whole new way with no stove, and the change was unnerving.

She began cleaning up, noticing that the hunters were leaving. They always moved ahead early, and then the caravan began. She saw Casey Tremayne on his big roan watching carefully. He seemed to be everywhere, his eyes never pausing. She noticed when they began moving now that some of the stock was already weak. It had been a long trek from Pennsylvania, and they had not yet begun the longest part of the journey across the plains and through the mountains.
Tremayne was right,
she thought almost resentfully.
Some of the horses we started with have already played out, and people have had to trade them for oxen or mules.

An hour later she was trudging along. The sky overhead was a pure azure. Large, fluffy clouds as white as cotton drifted lazily. As far as she could see in any direction were the bright gold black-eyed Susans, cheerful yellow dandelions, deep green wild henbane, and muted brown sagebrush and prairie grass. Far off to the south was a line of storm clouds.
It may rain. I hope not,
she thought.
It makes such a mess.
They
had already had two storms, and Charity had enjoyed them, but now she was tired. Today was bright, however, warm and benevolent, and Charity, despite her aches, enjoyed the sounds of creaking leather and jingling harness and the scent of wild sage.

The morning passed, measured by the slow, sure tread of the oxen and the mules, and the sun began creeping up from behind low-lying hills. By the time the train halted for lunch, everyone was hungry and ready to eat. The travelers did not cook at nooning but ate what was left over from breakfast. Charity had learned to cook more than was necessary for the morning meal.

After the nooning the train continued, and about mid afternoon Charity noticed something in the distance. She was walking beside the train, staying out of the dust, and she saw Tremayne riding back. He stopped beside her. “Well, we’ve made a start anyway. We can do some shopping tonight.”

“Is that a town?”

“Yes. It’s Nauvoo. It was settled by the Mormons. When they got run out of Missouri, they came here and built this town. They didn’t stay long. They moved on. I hear they’ve gotten all the way to the big salt lakes now.”

He stepped off his horse and walked along beside her, the big mount following him docilely. He told her a little bit about the Mormons, which she didn’t know, and then he called to Elsworth, who was passing by.

“Elsworth, I’m going to ride on a little bit. Bring the train to the outskirts.”

“Right.”

Charity watched him swing into the saddle and thought,
What a physically able man he is.
He was tall and not
heavily built, but his muscles seemed to be like steel springs. He mounted the horse easily and then galloped away toward the town.

“Well, you’re going to get some town living, I understand, Miss Morgan.”

“Yeah, I’m ready. You know what I miss, Elsworth? I miss a chair to sit down in. It’s hard sitting on the ground or the wagon seat.”

Elsworth smiled at her. He was very lean and short and was a mystery to the rest of the train. He was obviously highly educated. She asked, “What did you do before you went to prison?”

“I was a professor at a school called Harvard.”

“What did you teach?”

“Oh, philosophy and whatever nobody else wanted.” He shrugged. “It’s a way to make a living.”

“Why did you go to prison?” Charity hated to ask, but she was curious. Charterhouse was from a different stamp than the rest of the inmates, who were rough-hewn and ill-mannered.

“Embezzlement. My best friend took money from a business I was in and ran off with my fiancée. Left me nothing but a prison term.”

“Do you hate them?”

“Not anymore. Life’s too short for that sort of thing.”

“I think that’s a good way to think of it.” She hesitated. “I suppose prison was worse for you since you were used to better things.”

“It was pretty bad. If it weren’t for Casey, I wouldn’t have made it. Some of the men in the prison are pretty abusive. I was black and blue and bleeding before long, and then Casey stepped in and broke a few heads.”

“Well, you two are great friends.”

“Yes, we are.” He stared at her, and she met his gaze. “Tell me, Miss Morgan, is there someone you love or someone you hate?”

“What a strange question!”

“Well, as Horace said,
Aut amat aut odit mulier; nihil est tertium
.”

“What in the world does that mean?”

“It means a woman either loves or hates—nothing in between.”

Charity smiled. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

“I’m not sure either, but I quote Latin to make people think I’m wise.” He looked ahead at the town and rubbed his face. “I think I’ll get a shave and a bath if there’s a barbershop there.”

“I wish there were a barbershop for women.”

“Maybe there will be someday in a more enlightened world.”

* * *

NAUVOO WAS NOT MUCH of a town after Pittsburgh, but at least it had a general store and a blacksmith shop so the travelers could buy supplies and get some of the animals shod. Charity took Bronwen and Meredith to the store and let them buy small things, mostly candy. Meredith saw a gun up on the wall and said, “I want that gun, Charity.”

“You can’t have a gun, silly,” Bronwen snipped. “You’re just a girl.”

“When I grow up, I’m going to have a gun just like Casey does.”

“You’re not supposed to call him by his first name.”

“He told me to, and besides, I like it. I may marry him when I grow up.”

Charity had been listening. She smiled and said, “He’ll be too old for you.”

“Lots of older men marry younger women.”

“Don’t talk foolishly. Now pick out what you want.”

They returned to the train and had time to wash clothes and resettle the loads in the wagons. But later that night a situation came up that Charity had been expecting for some time. A sheriff came to the camp and talked for a short while to Tremayne. As soon as he left, Tremayne turned and would have passed Charity by, but she stopped him.

“What did the sheriff want?”

“Just wanted to tell me most of the crew got drunk and created a ruckus. I’ll have to pay their fines to get them out of jail.”

“What will you do to them?”

Tremayne pushed his hat back and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Nothing except give them a tongue-lashing.”

“They need to be punished.”

Tremayne considered her remark. He seemed both alert and relaxed at the same time. “Men are men, Charity,” he said quietly. “They’re going to do things like this.”

“Well, you need to punish them.”

“You think this is a schoolroom where I can take a paddle and bend them over my knee? These men are going to get us through some rough country. I know they’re a wild bunch, but it takes something tough to get us to where we’re going. If we get hit by a Sioux war party, you’ll be glad enough.”

“We think very differently about things like this.”

“Yes, we do.” He left her abruptly, and she turned to where her father was standing with Evan. They were examining one of the wagon wheels, and she burst out, “That crew from the prison—they’re all in jail.”

Evan looked up, surprised, and grinned. “Drunk, I suppose.”

“Yes, they’re drunk, and they got into a fight. I told Tremayne he ought to punish them.”

Gwilym Morgan stood up and gazed at his daughter. “You’re like your mother, Charity. She always wanted everything done exactly right. The trouble is, girl, in this world it doesn’t go like that. We’ll be needing these men to get us across the plains.”

Because this was exactly what Tremayne had said, Charity was upset. “Well, it’s not decent.”

“I’ve been expecting it. You can’t expect men like these to behave like men in a Sunday school.”

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING WHEN they pulled out, some of the men were the worse for wear. Frenchy Doucett had a puffy red ear and a cut over his eye. Jack Canreen’s knuckles were skinned, and some of the other men had minor injuries too.

Tremayne stopped at the Morgans’ wagons and announced, “We’ll go single file until we get out onto the prairie. We’re going to throw ourselves into a wide horizontal line.”

“Why would we do that?”

“It’s going to be pretty dusty from here on. In a line the last wagon has to eat lots of dust. As it is, the men who bring the stock are going to get their share of it. You bring your wagon along first—your father behind you.”

“All right,” Charity said shortly. She was upset with Tremayne but knew it would do no good to say so. Instead, she went to stand by the big ox named Babe. “All right, Babe,” she said. She was actually getting fond of the great creatures. Babe’s mate was named Sampson. She slapped Babe on the shoulder as the signal, and the animals lurched forward, pulling the wagon that always made a creaking noise.

The wagons had reached the outskirts of town when she saw Tremayne suddenly move forward and turned to see what was attracting him. In front of a shack with a tin roof, a group of men was tying another man to a tree. One of them had a whip in his hand, and she could hear their laughter.

Tremayne shouted, “Hold the animals!”

“Whoa, Babe. Whoa, Sampson,” she said. All the wagons lurched to a halt, and Charity moved to where she could see what was going on.

Tremayne stepped off his horse and faced the group of men. “What’s going on, fellas?”

“We caught us a horse thief.” The leader was a short, bulky man with gaps between his teeth. He had obviously been drinking. His face was flushed. He was the one with the whip. He let it out behind him and made it snap through the air. “We’re going to teach him a lesson.”

“Are you the law around here?” Tremayne asked almost idly.

“My name’s Jake Finch. I’m law enough to take care of a horse thief.”

Some of the crew had come closer, and Canreen stood there, grinning. He said to Doucett, “Let’s see how tough Tremayne is to tackle five guys. He always thinks he’s got to save everybody.”

“They’re a rough-looking bunch. Maybe we ought to help.”

“No. Let him take care of it. I hope he gets his head knocked off.”

“I didn’t steal anything.”

Charity could see the speaker who was already tied to the posts, his arms locked and his back to the group. “They wanted my horses so they stole them, and they want my sister.”

“Your sister? Where is she?”

Charity moved to one side so she could see the man’s face. He had an olive complexion and black, glossy hair. His eyes were dark, and he was a handsome young man of some twenty years. “They’ve been after her and she fought them off, and when I threatened to shoot them, that’s when they said we stole some of their horses, but I never did.”

“He’s lying,” Jake Finch said. “You sodbusters get on out of here and mind your own business, or maybe we’ll give you a taste of the whip.”

Tremayne noticed that Charterhouse and Billy Watson were standing beside him. They both had their guns on as he had cautioned them, but nobody else moved. There was silence until a woman appeared from behind the shack. She was dressed in colorful clothing, and her face was a dark olive. She had a brilliant yellow kerchief on, and her black eyes flashed. She was an old woman; the years had put wrinkles in her face.

“Make them turn my granddaughter loose if you are men!”

“Shut up, old woman,” Finch said. “Henry, go shut her up.”

A tall, bulky man started to turn, but Tremayne’s voice hit him as cold as ice. “Stay where you are, Henry.”

The man called Henry turned, his eyes widening. “You’re not telling me what to do.”

“I guess I am. You fellas pull out of here, and things will be all right.”

“Easy won’t do it,” Finch grinned. He looked at his crew and decided he had no problem. He dropped his hand to the butt of his gun. “Looks like to me we’ve got the best of the argument.”

Tremayne suddenly moved forward and he whipped a knife from his pocket. He started toward the post, and Finch yelled out, “Cut that rope and I’ll cut you down!”

Charity felt her breath seem to leave her body. She had never seen violence like this; the ruffians who faced Tremayne were obviously men who thought nothing of killing. She was too frightened to cry out.

Tremayne stopped beside the man tied to the post. “What’s your name?”

“Stefan. Stefan Krisova.”

“You didn’t steal a horse?”

“No. They want my sister, and she wouldn’t have anything to do with them.”