Colter's Path (9781101604830) (16 page)

The call of a familiar voice came across the camp, and Jedd looked up to see Treemont heading toward him and Blalock. Tree wore a big smile and bounced along cheerily. When he saw Blalock he froze and stared, then laughed aloud. “Sheriff? Is that you?”

Blalock stood and grinned back falteringly. “It's me, Treemont! How are you, boy?” Then, quietly side-speaking to Jedd, he whispered, “You'd best tell him, Jedd. He'll take it better from you than from a plain-spoke old son of a gun like me.”

Jedd wasn't so sure, but there was no time to do anything but quickly nod. Treemont came up and wrapped his arms around Blalock and gave him a firm hug. Blalock looked at Jedd over Treemont's shoulder, the expression on his face that of a man ready to flee.

A
t the age of fifteen, Squire Hale Napier of Philadelphia already felt like a seasoned adult. His father had died three years earlier, and after that the boy had been frequently forced to serve as the functioning head of the family. His mother, though devoted to her brood and capable domestically, was intensely shy and easily overwhelmed by difficult situations. Squire, though, had his birth father's natural strength, self-possession, and mental dexterity.

It hadn't been easy for Squire to adjust to his mother's second marriage two years ago. Under the circumstances, he didn't mind the idea of his mother being the wife of someone other than his father, but he did wish she had married someone less like herself. Squire's stepfather, Joe Napier, was a good man, but he was even more timid than his wife. More timid than Ferkus Varney or Witherspoon Sadler, neither of whom Squire or any of the Napiers had ever had occasion to meet or hear of.

The California-bound Napier family, though at the moment encamped immediately adjacent to the site occupied by the California Enterprise Company of East Tennessee, were part of an entirely different and smaller band of travelers, one that had come out of Pennsylvania.
None of the Napiers had ever set foot on any terrain farther south than northern Kentucky, so the Sadler group was composed purely of strangers to them.

Squire was moving among the Tennesseans just now, however, having drifted over from the Pennsylvanian encampment with a distinct and secret purpose in mind. He drifted silently between the campfires and wagons, scanning the Sadler camp closely, searching.

Exactly what he was looking for he could not have said, but he would know when he saw it. Then, Lord willing, he'd be able to get his hands on it and take it to the one who needed it.

It wouldn't be so bad, would it, to steal something that would maybe bring comfort to an ailing little girl, a child so sick it appeared unlikely she would live to reach California? Did not Squire's little sister at least have the right to die with some sort of cheering personal possession in her hands? Winnie loved dolls, tops, carved gadgets—any kind of plaything—had since she was very small, but all of hers had been lost or left behind when the move westward began. Squire was determined to find her a toy or two. Something to distract Winnie from her deteriorating physical condition. The little girl was in such a dejected mental state of late that she spent more time talking about her wish to be buried by a roadside, where there was life and movement and activity, than of any hope of recovering and enjoying life and movement and activity for herself.

Her family had higher hopes. The Napiers believed that, if they could reach California, the climate could bring health to their declining little one. That prospect was, to them, far more attractive than any gold could be.

If they could reach California…that was the key. But to do that, Squire believed, the girl would have to regain her determination to hang on and live. Anything she could have that would make life more pleasant for her would go far toward giving her that determination.

Squire moved through the camp, so quiet and careful that hardly anyone noticed him. And he searched.

*    *    *

When rain came, those who usually slept beneath the sky found themselves scrambling for cover, inside the wagons or beneath them, beneath improvised tents, within any available natural shelter or random shed or abandoned structure that might chance to be handy.

This rain had come with little warning, and Ben Scarlett had been sufficiently in his cups to not notice it at all until he was half drenched. He then made a zigzagging, stumbling line for the wagon nearest him, which happened to be the one in which Zebulon McSwain spent most of his time hidden away. McSwain was not in his wagon at the moment, though, having taken a stroll into the nearby camp of the Pennsylvanians, and where he had fallen into conversation with a trio of strangers.

Caught by the storm away from his own camp, McSwain had accepted an invitation to wait out the weather in a roomy tent with his new friends. Because friends had been hard for him to claim in recent times, he was glad to be where he was. These people knew nothing of him, of Knoxville, or Bledsoe College and his ignoble ouster therefrom. In the company of these northern folk, he found a foretaste of what he hoped California would be for him…freshness, newness, a place and chance to start new without being surrounded by prejudgments and preconceptions regarding him. As he told the Pennsylvanians about himself, he lied freely, knowing they could not know the difference. He became a successful Knoxville merchant rather than a disgraced former collegiate leader. They nodded acceptingly, having no reason to disbelieve anything he told them.

One camp over, as Ben Scarlett was clambering with some difficulty into the back of McSwain's wagon, he was suddenly bumped backward as another person exited the same vehicle. Ben tilted back and fell to the ground, landing on his rump as the one who had collided with him took a jump across him and darted away, heels slinging mud. Pratfallen, Ben quirked his head and looked after the fleeing figure of Squire Hale Napier.

A boy. Just a youth, one Ben did not believe he'd seen before. The boy had something clutched in his arms that
Ben did not clearly see and couldn't identify. He ran in the direction of the adjacent camp where Ben knew those northerners were.

“You could have took a moment of your time to help a poor old drunk get out of the rain, son,” Ben muttered. Then he pulled himself to his feet and managed to climb back up and roll in beneath the sheltering wagon cover. He quietly called the name of McSwain but got no reply. Evidently McSwain was elsewhere.

Ben found a comfortable place and sat looking out the loosely cinched, horse-collar-shaped rear opening of the wagon cover, listening to the drops pelting above him, and, after a few minutes, swigging from his new flask, which was at the moment still half-filled. A little while later, he was leaned back against the side of the wagon, sleeping to the lulling music of the rain.

Treemont took it hard.

Jedd struggled for ten minutes, trying to find a way to work his way into the bad news Blalock had brought. There was no way to do it. All Jedd could do in the end was grasp Treemont by his shoulders, look in his eyes, and say, “Tree, listen to me: your cousin Carver has been murdered, and all his family, by a man name of John Collier.” Tree had gaped at Jedd, then the tears came. They heightened as Jedd gave him more details, which he somewhat sanitized, because Jedd found the description of the mutilation so hard to inflict upon his friend.

“I have to find Collier and make him pay,” Treemont said.

“You can't change the fact they're dead,” Jedd said. “I want to see this Collier brought to justice, too. But nothing you can do with him or to him will do a thing for Carver and his family.”

“It'll avenge them. And it'll sure as hell blazes make me feel better,” replied Treemont. Jedd knew better than to argue with him.

Treemont then insisted that Blalock give him a more detailed description of the whole sordid matter than Jedd had presented, including the condition of the bodies
and Blalock's assessment of how much suffering was or was not involved. Jedd suffered through the repeated account and wished Treemont would try to turn his thoughts to other matters for now. It wouldn't happen. Jedd knew Treemont too well to expect it would.

Z
eb McSwain threw back his head and laughed heartily at a joke just told by one of his new Pennsylvanian friends. He'd not laughed so freely in the longest time, and it was like a cleansing in his soul. Hope for his future grew inside like a swelling light. It could be like this, the way it was now. He could start over and find a good life again.

Feeling invigorated, he stood and walked to the opening of the rain-pounded tent. There was little to see outside but campfires steaming in the rain that had extinguished them and other people peeping out of tents and wagons of their own. McSwain wondered if the rain would let up soon. If not, he was perfectly prepared to spend the night here in this neighboring emigrant camp, and return to his own camp and wagon in the morning. As long as no one bothered his most important possession hidden in his wagon, it wouldn't make any real difference where he slept tonight.

He wished then that he'd brought that item with him when he came over here. He could keep guard on it then and not have to worry and wonder. On the other hand, he'd probably have risked making these new acquaintances look askance at him as a strange fellow. Seeing a
grown man clinging to a dead, stuffed cat like a treasure would probably have been off-putting to them, as it had to Jedd.

If only Jedd knew. Then he'd understand. But Jedd could not know. No one could.

Continuing to stare out into the rain, McSwain thought back to his fine house in Knoxville, unoccupied now. He wondered if the man Ben Scarlett had caught nosing around the place with a gun in hand had returned there since. He smiled privately to think of the fellow's disappointment, finding his prey completely absent.

Would he pursue? McSwain allowed himself to doubt it. Surely there was not sufficient motivation for
that
!

Or was there? Anytime significant money was involved, one never knew just how far things might go.

Here in this tent on a rainy plains night, however, it was easy to feel safe. He would not be followed, not be found. Not be hurt. Or worse.

McSwain turned his thoughts away from the past and its pursuing demons, and aimed them forward and westward. To California. What would he find there? What kind of life would he make for himself? Would he find himself someday back in the world of academia, or would he actually attain success in the gritty world of mining? Could such a denizen of classroom and library as he hope to find in himself the capability of pursuing such an earthy line of work?

Others were doing it. The conventional wisdom had it that almost no one was, in California, what they had been in their original haunts and old lives. Everything changed. The world was washed so clean that even personal histories were scoured away. McSwain found himself mouthing a biblical passage but with a secularized twist: “Old things are passed away; all things are become new.”

What of Emma? Would he find his daughter easily? How would she receive him? Would he be welcome in her present world? Might she see him as an agent of needed and welcome change for herself? A catalyst to break away from the man she had had the bad judgment to marry and now knew for what he really was?

McSwain hoped she would. He had no regard whatsoever for Emma's husband, his own son-in-law. Stanley Wickham would lead Emma to ruin if she stayed with him long enough; of that McSwain was quite sure. It was something known by intuition rather than reason, and normally McSwain prided himself on being a reason-centered man. Even so he had no doubt he was right in his negative judgment of his daughter's husband.

He hoped she would break away from the wretch. If, upon reaching California and finding her, he could help her achieve that, McSwain was ready to do so. He'd kill the son of a bitch if he had to.

And with that thought, McSwain realized that he was already transforming into a very different man than he had been. He'd never before seriously thought of killing another man as something he could actually do. It was a little frightening, but also cathartic.

Just then he saw someone moving through the rain and heading toward the very tent in which he stood. It appeared to be a youth, a boy, and as he grew nearer McSwain saw that the lad clutched something close to his chest, shielding it from the rain. And it looked as if it might be….

Oh, dear God. Oh, Lord above…it
was
. The young fellow, who was coming from the direction of the Sadler camp, had in his arms McSwain's most important possession: the preserved remains of the feline companion he'd called Cicero.

Without a moment's hesitation, McSwain bolted out of the tent and into the rain, heading for the young man, who himself was moving so swiftly that it took a few moments for him to realize he was being approached. When Squire Napier saw McSwain rushing toward him, he dug his heels into the ground…ground that was slick and sopping mud, and gave way under his momentum. Squire's feet went out from under him and he fell hard, sinking his rear into the sodden ground. As he threw his arms outward reflexively, he lost his hold on the preserved cat, which arced through the air. McSwain saw it, gave a yell, and threw his arms out to catch it. He did, but
lost his own footing and went down face-first in the muck. He held the cat up as he fell, thus going down on his chest and knocking the wind out of his lungs. For several moments his lungs locked and he was unable to draw breath. When the paralysis broke, he gasped loudly, and groaned and rolled onto his side to begin to rise.

McSwain and Squire rose together and faced each other in the rain. They were watched by faces peering out of tents, especially the one from which McSwain had bolted.

“Is it yours?” Squire asked, eyeing the cat now held by McSwain.

McSwain nodded, still sucking hard for breath. “Yes,” he managed to gasp. “It is mine. How…did you…”