Colter's Path (9781101604830) (20 page)

He'd learned another thing through experience as well: the most dangerous men were those who had taught themselves to send no signals of their thoughts and intentions. As a result, Blalock had grown to be wary of all, particularly strangers. Learned to be ready for what he could see coming, and even more importantly, what he could not.

His caution was pricked when he realized he was being followed. He knew it before he even saw the man…simply felt his presence back there. Blalock did not wheel about to face his tracker, however, not wanting to introduce an element of confrontation unnecessarily. Whoever was behind him might merely be traveling the same direction and route as he was, for no reason involving Blalock. So he stopped and dismounted without turning, kept his back toward his follower, and took advantage of the moment to empty his bladder, which he'd been needing to do, anyway. Then he turned to get back into the saddle and at the same time take a seemingly random look at whoever was behind him.

The man was afoot, no horse, a ragamuffin of a fellow. Sparely built, hair poking in a dark, shaggy fringe from
beneath the sides of his hat, clothing tattered and hanging loosely on him, trousers cinched tightly around his middle with a belt made of rope. His whiskers were dark and had been roughly hacked at to keep them short, but the man hadn't really shaved in a good while. This was one of those fellows whose age was nearly impossible to judge. Blalock guessed him to be a relatively young man who had aged before his time through hard living.

The man saw Blalock looking back at him, paused, and waved hesitantly, smiling. Blalock merely nodded and kept his hand close to the pistol at his belt, just in case. But the stranger kept coming, a little hesitantly the closer he drew, but without stopping short until he was near.

“Howdy, sir!” the man called to Blalock. “How are you today?”

Blalock's intuition did not flare any warnings. He had a sense that this was not a dangerous man. Even so, he held himself wound as tightly as a watchspring, ready to react if the man made any threatening move.

“My name's Ben Scarlett,” the newcomer said. “You look familiar to me, sir. Were you in the Sadler group?”

“I was, briefly. But I left it.”

“Did you, sir? I did, too.”

Blalock saw nothing worth replying to in that. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was at an end. He swung into his saddle and moved on.

Ben Scarlett moved on, too, and because Blalock rode slowly, the pair ended up moving along together. For Ben, at least, silence felt uncomfortable in this situation, so he began to quietly sing. Because Ben had a pleasant voice, Blalock didn't mind it much, but after fifteen minutes or so of music he was ready for some quiet again.

“You mind not singing for a spell?” he asked.

Ben instantly shut up and didn't even speak for a minute or so. Finally he said, “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“For singing. I didn't mean to bother you with it.”

Blalock shrugged. “Not a bother, not really. You sing well, Mr. Scarlett.”

“Thank you, sir. Kind of you to say. But I must have been bothering you some, or you wouldn't have asked me to stop.”

Blalock sighed and thought this a silly conversation. “It wasn't your fault. I'd been annoyed earlier by another man, back in the Sadler camp. Fellow name of Dorey. He replaced Jedd Colter as pilot.”

“I know, I didn't like him much, either. Jedd, though, different story. I think the world of Jedd. I've knowed him for years, back from the days he lived in Knoxville, where I'm from.”

“I've known Jedd even longer than that,” Blalock said. “I was the sheriff in his home county back in North Carolina, when he was a boy. I've gone hunting many a time with Jedd and his kinfolk when he was little. I taught him a good deal about shooting.”

“No fooling! Well, sir, you and me got a friend in common, then. Jedd's been mighty good to me. And a lot of times, other folks ain't been so kind. I drink a little too much, you see. A lot of people look down on a man who drinks too much.”

“Jedd's a good man. That's why I'm heading the direction I am…going back to rejoin Jedd and his friend Treemont. I'd rather travel in his company than with Dorey.”

“I'm doing the same thing, Mr. Blalock.”

“Just call me Rand.”

“All right, Rand. And I'm Ben. Like I was saying, I'm doing the same thing you are: going back to get with Jedd again. Because it just didn't seem right to me to be moving on and leaving him behind after he's been such a friend to me, especially now that he's hurt. He bought me supper one time, and sat right down with me, same table in a public restaurant, and had a meal alongside me. Right in front of God and everybody, and he wasn't ashamed to be seen with me, either. Not a bit!”

“I reckon we'll be traveling together, then, if we're both traveling with Jedd.”

“I reckon so.”

They moved on together, no singing or clumsy silences
now. Quiet conversation flowed, much of it about Jedd Colter and the times they had shared with him in years past. And about California, and gold, and their individual hopes for the better life each wished to build. Ben assumed Blalock was heading for California for the same mercenary reasons most others were, and Blalock had no reason to correct the assumption.

Talk also drifted to the subject of others on the way to California, and Ben asked Blalock if he knew, or knew of, Zebulon McSwain and a college in Knoxville called Bledsoe College. Blalock replied that he had heard of the college, he thought, but of this McSwain he knew nothing.

“Well, he's part of the Sadler group,” Ben said. “And he's an unusual kind of man. There's something wrong in him, something bad that's happened to him, I think. He was one of the high kings of Knoxville for years, president of Bledsoe College, living in a big, nice house, good deal of money. Had a pretty daughter name of Emma. Jedd Colter was mighty sweet on her for a goodly while. She ended up marrying another man, and I think she and her husband are already in California. Anyway, I'm mentioning McSwain to you because of something that happened just yesterday. I had been given a nice silver liquor flask by somebody, and it was the finest possession I had. Real silver on it, not just pewter or tin or nothing. That flask went missing, and I looked all over for it, and McSwain—he'd become kind of a friend of mine, letting me share his wagon space—he knew I was trying to find my flask. Said he knew nothing of it. Well, just yesterday I seen it in his pocket while he was teaching his reading school in the evening camp. He's doing that now, teaching folks to read who don't know how. Nice thing for him to do…Jedd Colter's idea. Anyway, he noticed I'd seen the flask and instead of giving it back to me, he sneaked it into a different pocket of his coat, where it wouldn't show. I asked him for it later and he told me he didn't have my flask. Called me a drunk and a liar. His very words. ‘A drunk and a liar.' Hurt my feelings bad, to tell the truth. I'd come to think of him as a right decent fellow,
even if he was a little odd. He used to have a dead cat he'd had stuffed and preserved, and he'd carry it around like it was a live pet. Cat's gone now, though. Young fellow got hold of it and ran off with it to another emigrant camp. Anyway, I don't know why he would steal my flask, knowing it was important to me.”

“Maybe he figured it was worth something, being silver and all. Maybe he needed money and aimed to sell it on the sly.”

“Pshaw! He don't need money. He's had plenty of it all his days. He didn't need my flask, but treated it like it belonged to him even when he knew I wanted it. Makes me mad, thinking of it.”

“Ben, you can't always account for what folks do. As a man of the law I've seen people do things you can't find no good reason for, nor make a lick of sense of. Some of it is as sad as it can be. I saw a young woman who'd had a baby without having a husband, back in my Carolina days, and she laid that baby on a doorstep for a family to take in as a foundling. There was two problems, though: that family had a female cat in her season, and she was howling and meowing top of her lungs all through the night, masking out the little sound of that infant child crying outside the door. And it was wintertime and even though the girl had swaddled the baby aplenty, when they found it next morning…you can figure the rest out. When we buried that little baby, I could see the girl who'd birthed her standing at the edge of the woods, watching. God have mercy, how she must have felt!”

“That's a sad tale, Rand. Awful sad.”

“It is. And the point of it is, you don't know what makes people do what they do. A lot of times it ain't bad intent. They just follow something inside that goads them on, and that's when they do things that end up being wrong, or foolish, or sinful or whatever label you want to slap on it. Ain't no sorrier animal on this planet than the human animal, Ben. Nor any stupider one. It's a sad fact.”

Ben nodded and was thoughtful for a while as he trudged along. “Maybe McSwain had some cause for
wanting my flask that was like what you're talking about. Something inside goading him.” He paused, then went on. “God knows I know what it is to be goaded on the inside. It's that way with me and liquor. Something in me just goads me to drink all I can get of it, and I can't help myself.”

“We all got our own inner goads, Ben. All of us. I believe that.”

“I think you're a smart man, Rand Blalock.”

The old sheriff shook his head. “Not smart, Ben. Just experienced.”

F
or Jedd Colter and company, the remainder of the journey to California would be completed without ever reconnecting with the Sadler group. This was not for lack of opportunity, because as they advanced, they soon came within overtaking distance of their original band. Jedd considered whether it might be advisable, for the sake of safe travel, to rejoin the Sadlers, but two things killed the notion. The first was his memory of Wilberforce Sadler nullifying their agreement, including the percentage Jedd was to have received from any gold the Sadlers might mine in California. That part of the bargain had been the key selling point for Jedd when he'd sat down for the first time with Ottwell Plumb, but it was gone now.

The second factor that inclined Jedd against rejoining the Sadler band was catching a glimpse of Boo Dorey riding around the perimeter of the camp. His replacement. He resented being replaced more than he would have expected he would. He knew something of the Dorey family; Jedd's forebears and the Doreys had interacted, unhappily, all the way back to the days before the Revolutionary War. Too much history there. Jedd quietly told his three traveling companions that they would
simply pass by the Sadler band and continue on their way. They would reach California first and give the Sadlers ironic greeting when they showed up. Hello, boys! Here to get you some gold, you say? Sorry…. We done got it all!

Ben Scarlett, for one, found that comment hilarious, because down inside himself he was quite certain he would find no gold at all…. He just didn't have the luck for such as that. Even so, he had decided to align himself with Jedd Colter rather than go back to the camp where a man he'd thought was becoming his friend had stolen his most valuable possession, his silver flask.

“There she is, Jedd, the nation's prettiest widow woman,” said Treemont, moving his horse up beside Jedd's. Treemont was keeping more silent than usual, finding it difficult to ride without quite a bit of pain in his knee. It was a sighting of Rachel McCall that prompted his comment.

“I see her,” Jedd said. “Why would you mention her particularly to me?”

Treemont gave a scornful little laugh. “Jedd, you may as well quit pretending you don't know that woman has her cap set for you. If you ever decided to take a wife, she'd be a handy choice, because she'd never turn you down.”

“I can't see it. I'm inclined to let Witherspoon Sadler have her. Lord knows he'd like to stake a claim on her.”

“I wouldn't think you'd look with favor on any good thing happening for the Sadlers, the way they cut you loose just because you had a stroke of bad fortune. It wasn't your fault you got shot in the ankle.”

“They didn't cut me out because I suffered bad fortune, to be fair about it. I was cut out because I couldn't complete the job they hired me for. Or they didn't believe I could. Can't say I don't have some resentment over it. But my problem is with Wilberforce, not Witherspoon. Witherspoon wanted to keep me on, but like always, Wilberforce just ran over him.”

“He got ‘Wilberforced' into it,” Treemont said, and Ben Scarlett laughed again.

Blalock sighed and shook his head. This Scarlett fellow seemed a nice enough gent, but something about him wore on Blalock's nerves. Sometimes Rand Blalock wished he could live in a world all by himself.

They rode on, leaving the Sadler camp behind. Ben hesitated, looking back, trying to see if he could spot Zeb McSwain. He could not. Probably McSwain was hidden away in his wagon, as was so common for him. Drinking from Ben's stolen silver flask, most likely.

Enough to make a self-respecting drunkard mad as blazes, Ben Scarlett mused bitterly.

Two days of travel, and it was obvious that Jedd's small and lean group was going to maintain a strong and probably growing lead over the unwieldy Sadler band, which seemed to be moving no faster despite the fact that General Lloyd was no longer around to cultivate inertia.

This suited Jedd mightily; it was important to him on a personal level to leave Wilberforce Sadler in his dust. Despite the continuing bodily pain both he and Treemont endured, and the fact that Ben Scarlett was beginning to suffer mentally and physically from lack of liquor, the quartet of riders (Jedd and Treemont had pitched in to buy, from a small emigrant band they passed, a horse and a cheap saddle for Ben Scarlett) moved on apace.