Colter's Path (9781101604830) (19 page)

For days he was stuck in the same tent with Treemont, and as much as the men liked each other, it was not long before each wore out his welcome with the other. Ironically, things outside the tent seemed at last to be moving at a better pace, which only made confinement more irksome, and also made Jedd start to wonder if he might be wrong in doubting the Sadlers would move along faster without the heavy anchor of General Lloyd.

The problems that had led to the long encampment to begin with were finally corrected. Wagons were in good shape, mules had replaced dray horses, and provisions were plentiful. Some of the emigrants wisely began disposing of items they had brought with them that would obviously be problematic once the plains were behind and there were mountains to be crossed. Among the discarded things were a few medical items, including crutches.
Jedd and Treemont were made a gift of these, and sheer desperation led them to begin attempting to use them well before they should have done so. No calamities resulted, fortunately, and both men were surprised at how soon they were able to hobble around, swinging their damaged limbs and struggling through the pain the movement caused, enduring it for the reward of mobililty, however slow and awkward.

Treemont did better than Jedd on this score, his injuries being farther up his leg. Jedd was required to be eternally vigilant in not letting his left foot so much as brush the ground, because even a minor wrenching of his ankle was excruciating. Even so, Jedd found some comfort in the fact that Treemont was soon spending as much time as he could bear outside the tent, moving around outside and leaving Jedd a bit of privacy.

Before the Sadler emigrants moved on, Jedd and Treemont were visited by almost every member of the group, so much so that Jedd began to believe he was saying the word “good-bye” more frequently than any other. He made scores of pledges to be sure to look up certain families and individuals once in California, knowing that most of them would be forgotten. That didn't matter. He knew they would forget him, too.

Rachel McCall swore she would not forget Jedd Colter. In fact, she would wait for him, and somehow in California she would find him. She would wait until he had ample time to heal and reach California. Then she would begin her search. If she had to, she would pass through every mining town, every camp, every “digging” until she had reunited with him.

Jedd struggled for a way to speak honestly to her without needlessly hurting her. “Rachel, I don't know that you're looking at our situation the way it really is. I've been separated from the Sadler venture, and truthfully I don't know for certain that I'll even go on to California now.” This was a falsehood; Jedd fully intended to go on if for no reason other than finding Emma and seeing for himself how she was faring in her apparently unhappy home. With the thought of Emma, he realized he
owed Rachel a fuller bit of truth. “Rachel, the fact is, there's already a woman I care for, and she's in California right now. If I do go on to California, it will be in order to find her. You have a right to know that, given that you seem to have an interest in me.”

She managed a weak, sad smile, and it gave way to tears. There was no sobbing, no outright crying, only tears, quietly streaming down her face. Jedd felt wicked for the pain he was causing her, especially since the woman he was talking of seeking out was probably still married and unavailable to him anyway.

“Jedd, I wish you the best in whatever and whomever you choose,” she said, voice quivering a little. “But I will not hesitate to tell you that I believe the best for you may well be sitting here beside you right now. I would prove to you a faithful and completely loving wife, true and hardworking and kind. You can find no one else who would give you more of her full devotion.”

“Rachel, I can believe that. If only things were just a bit different, I can't say what might transpire between us.”

She leaned forward, then hesitated. “May I?”

“You may.”

Not since the days he and Emma had held each other close on the drawing room sofa in the big McSwain house on Addington Street had Jedd received such a memorable kiss. He lay back in the lingering glow of it and wondered if maybe he should try a little harder to put Emma behind him.

Not that that could be done. Some things, like shot-up ankles and love, were beyond a man's control.

Jedd managed to get outside and seat himself on a flat boulder the day the Sadler group decamped and left. He was surprised at the sorrow he felt at being left behind, and the resentment that flared toward Wilberforce Sadler for forcing him into this situation. He supposed his real anger should have been directed toward whatever person had shot him in the ankle, but it was not easy to fully hate someone without knowing who the someone was.

Treemont looked at Jedd's ankle, resting before him on the ground. “That can't feel very good, Jedd, having the weight of your foot down on that ankle. Let's get you back on your cot again so you can keep your leg stretched out flat.”

“I'm tired of that cot, Tree. And the ankle don't hurt as bad as it did. I'm beginning to think that a lot of the hurting was just from the rifle ball going through, and maybe the bone wasn't injured as much as I'd first thought. If that's the case, I may be able to be up and going faster than I'd expected.”

“That may be just some wishful thinking, Jedd.”

“Oh, it's wishful, all right. I'm ready to be my old self again. But sometimes wishes come true, you know.”

Treemont watched the final wagon roll out of sight. McSwain's wagon, now shared almost always with Ben Scarlett.

“Know what, Tree? McSwain told me sometime ago he'd go along with an idea of mine for him to teach folks to read while the journey to California went along. I believe he really meant it. When I got hurt, though, I figured that would be the end of it, him probably not likely to stick with it without me there to goad him along. But when he came in and said his good-byes, he told me he still aimed to do it, if there were any willing to let him teach them. I hope he does. That would be a right fine thing.”

“He's an odd fellow, Jedd, that McSwain. Remember how he used to carry that stuffed dead cat around? That was plain old strange.”

“It was. And I think there might have been more to the story of that cat than any of us knew. And I got a feeling McSwain will never tell that story, just like he'll never tell just what got him thrown out of his job at the college.” Jedd shifted his leg slightly and winced. “I've wondered whether or not maybe them two stories might actually twine together somewhere to become the same one.”

Treemont gave a spasmodic chuckle. “What? You think he got the axe at his college over a dead cat?”

“No. But I've wondered if it was really the cat he was guarding when he used to carry it around, or maybe something else. Something the cat was hiding.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind, Tree. Never mind.”

Treemont looked across the horizon and shook his head. “McSwain ain't the only one who's strange, I think.”

For two days, Jedd and Treemont were the lone occupants of what had been a crowded campsite. The Pennsylvanian forty-niners had moved out the day before the Sadler group left, so for a time Jedd and Treemont could look across the flatlands and find little to see.

The third day, another emigrant band moved in and set up camp, pausing in their journey primarily for wagon and saddle repair. Tents sprang up and suddenly Jedd and Treemont felt as if the calendar had turned back and their old fellow travelers were back. But these were new faces, new figures, and there were even more of them than had been with the Sadlers.

Among the newcomers were no less than three physicians, doctors who had practiced together in Philadelphia and found themselves “seeing the elephant” and catching a case of gold fever their own medicine could not cure. One of the physicians was a specialist in injuries of the bones, and when he caught a glimpse of a stranger making his way on crutches toward a tent, he went to him and asked the nature of his injury.

“Took a rifle ball in the ankle,” Jedd told him. “I don't know who fired it. My friend I'm tenting with yonder got hit in the meaty part of his calf and also wrenched his knee bad on a tree root.”

“Have you had a doctor look you over?”

“Not a real one, no. Just kind of letting things heal on their own.”

“I want to look at that ankle. I believe I can bind that up for you in a way that should make it a lot more stable and probably ease some of the pain.”

“Sir, I'd be your devoted servant if you could do that.”

“I'm a physician, by the way. I work mostly with bones.”

“I'm your man, Doctor. Name's Colter. Jedd Colter.”

“If we can step into your tent, I'll take a look at that ankle right now. I'll fetch my bag from my wagon over there.”

“All righty, Doctor.”

“Call me Alistair. I'm Dr. Alistair Blane.”

“I'm Jedd. Two
d
s.”

“That doctor knows his business,” Jedd said later, looking at his own neatly wrapped and lightly splinted foot. “You wouldn't know that just having a hurt ankle wrapped up the right way would make such a difference.”

“He didn't help
me
much,” Treemont mumbled. “My knee's all stiffened up from his wrapping, but it don't feel any better for it.”

“I heard him tell you it'll help it not be so stiff once it heals up all the way,” Jedd said.

“We'll see. I'm glad yours ain't hurting so bad.”

A lull in conversation. “Jedd, who done this to us? And why?”

“My main suspect is still Jake Carney,” Jedd replied. “I think he shot you to draw me out to the creek where he could get a shot at me.”

“What will you do if you run across him on down the road?”

“Settle accounts. That's how Carney thinks, so that's what he'll get from me.”

“I hope I'm there to see it, Jedd. I really do. And I'll help. With pleasure.”

W
itherspoon Sadler sighed loudly. “I'm going to talk to her. I'm going to tell her exactly what's on my mind, and I'm going to ask her if she feels the same, or thinks she ever can.”

“Don't be a fool, Withers,” Wilberforce said to his brother, who was clad again in his increasingly frequent buckskin costume. “She's going to tell you what she thinks, all right, and she very well might laugh in your face when she does it.” Wilberforce forced the stern tone out of his voice. “Let it go, Withers. Don't put yourself into a position to be hurt by this woman.”

“I, for one, think she has a high opinion of me,” Witherspoon said. “I've seen her looking my way more than once.”

“And I, for one, know she's looking only because she's laughing at you in that fool's getup you insist on wearing.”

Witherspoon glared silently at his sibling. Then: “One day, Wilber. One day you'll learn just what I'm capable of. And you'll be mocking me no more.”

“If you don't want to be mocked, Withers, don't make it so easy.”

“I'm not listening to you anymore today,” Witherspoon
said. “I've had enough poison poured in through my ears.” He had the tone of a petulant child.

“Ha!” Wilberforce chortled, mockingly. “Going witty on me, are you, little brother?”

“I'm just tired of it all, Wilber. It never ends from you. You seem like you can only feel like a big, powerful man by making me seem little by comparison.”

“You? Little? Fat as you are? Ha!”

“See? Again! You can't help yourself, I think.”

Wilberforce drew in a slow breath, closing his eyes and quietly shaking his head. “Withers, let's call a truce for a moment. I need to talk to you, anyway. I think I've found us a new pilot to replace Colter for the rest of the journey. Man name of Dorey. Boo Dorey.”

“Boo?”

“That's right. Boo Dorey.”

“Can he do the job?”

“I wouldn't be having you meet him if he couldn't.”

Witherspoon nodded. “Wilber, can we maybe try to be kinder to each other? I could stand for a little more kind treatment myself.”

“I can understand that, brother. I realize I am sometimes a harshly toned man.”

Witherspoon smiled and put out his hand. Wilberforce looked at it, then tentatively accepted it and shook it. A big grin exploded across his face and quickly he pumped the hand with vigor.

“We'll try to do better by each other, Withers. But please take some advice from me that you truly should heed. Don't go talking to the Widow McCall just yet. And quit wearing that buckskin suit you've got on.”

“I'll think about it, Wilber. I honestly will.”

It was Boo Dorey who drove former Carolina sheriff Rand Blalock away from the Sadler group and back to the place they had left Jedd Colter and Treemont Dalton. Dorey was crude, gruff, unclean in mind and body. An unpleasant man all around, like most of his forebears, including one who had once crossed paths with Jedd Colter's best-known ancestor, the frontiersman
Joshua Colter. Blalock was not easily offended, far from it, but Dorey was too much for even him. Blalock quietly abandoned the Sadler camp and made his way back the way he'd come, preferring to make his way to California with Jedd Colter. He had to ask himself why he was even bothering to go to California at all. He was no gold miner and had no real desire to be.

Blalock was one of those men who were one thing and one thing only. He was a lawman. Almost his entire adult life he had served as either a sheriff or a deputy sheriff, enforcing the rules that keep men civilized. In that capacity he had become a student of human nature and behavior, and had developed virtually an extra sense that warned him when he ran across danger. He could read the subtle signals in how a stranger glanced his way, the way he held his shoulders, his hands, the way his eye twitched and shifted. That experience-generated sense had saved Blalock's skin more than once.