Colter's Path (9781101604830) (21 page)

Ben Scarlett vanished the next night. He walked out into the dark to, as he put it, “perform his necessaries,” and did not return. After an hour of absence, jokes began among the others about the apparent “bowel-binding” effects of Ben's new status as a horseback rider, jolting along on his rear end rather than striding on his legs. When that hour stretched to nearly two, the jokes stopped. Jedd grew worried and declared he was going out to look for Ben. Treemont proclaimed he would join him, and it wasn't until the pair was actually readying to rise and go that they remembered their current infirmities and the fact that they were essentially helpless to go after him.

Blalock did not hesitate. He'd spent many a dark night on the hunt for other human beings, some of them
being victims, others being criminals who had created victims. He'd almost always brought in those he'd gone after.

“Good luck to you, Sheriff,” Jedd said. “It's an ache in my craw that I can't walk out there on these feet to help you.”

“Be wary. You never know what direction things may turn in,” Blalock replied. “Keep in mind, Jedd, you and Treemont were both shot at, and hit, by somebody. If that somebody has been following, and if he got hold of Ben this night, he could show up here when I'm out looking for him there.” He gestured toward the darkness beyond the reach of their campfire.

“You're right, of course,” Jedd said. “And be wary we shall.”

Blalock stalked away. Jedd and Treemont settled down with guns close by and eyes scanning the darkness. They sat on either side of the fire, backs turned toward the flame and each other so that they could see in all directions and their eyes would remain adjusted to the darkness. And they watched. For anything. Any hint of movement that might indicate Ben's safe return, or other possibilities not so pleasant to ponder.

Another hour passed. No Ben. No Blalock. Jedd grew increasingly worried and Treemont fretted so badly his breath was coming in ragged, wheezing gasps that threatened to hamper Jedd's concentration. Jedd had heard Tree do that before over the years, at times of particular stress.

Then Ben appeared. Slowly. He took form before Jedd's eyes like a ghost, moving slowly in from the darkness, shuffling along on foot. This was no surprise in that he'd left in the same manner, his horse with the other horses in a rope corral. What was a surprise, however, was the look on Ben's face. Jedd saw Ben's face more clearly the farther Ben stepped into the outer perimeter of the firelight. His eyes darted, his lip quivered…and Jedd noticed something at Ben's neck, circling it. It was a rope, and the length of the rope strung out behind him, into the dark.

“Ben? What the…”

“Jedd…” Ben's voice was tremulous and weak, the voice of a very scared man.

“Hello, Jedd Colter!” came a second voice, much stronger, from behind Ben. Jedd looked past Ben and saw the speaker just barely coming into view. The other end of the rope that was tied around Ben's neck was tied around the man's waist, and a shotgun, cut off short, was in his hands, aimed at the center of Ben's back. “You know who I am, Jedd?”

Jedd's hand subtly crept to the butt of his pistol, which lay on the ground beside him. “I know you, Carney. And I'm telling you to put down that shotgun you've got aimed at my friend there.”

It was astonishing to Jedd to actually see this man again, a face he'd hoped nevermore to encounter. Carney, who had suffered ill personal consequences stemming from losing a bare-fisted prizefight with Jedd, had hated Jedd ever since. He'd publicly threatened to kill Jedd, and Jedd knew it, but he'd never worried much over it because it seemed unlikely he'd ever run across Carney again.

The narrowing of the funnel,
Jedd thought. Once again, the funnel.

Treemont, who had been facing the opposite direction from which Ben and his captor had emerged, had by now turned himself painfully about and was looking across the fire and past Jedd, seeing only Ben but hearing Carney beyond him. Using his rifle as a support, Treemont managed to overcome the pain in his knee and push himself to his feet. He was raising his rifle when Carney shoved the muzzle hard against Ben's back, making him tilt forward from the waist. In that brief period that Ben was bent forward, Carney was barely visible to Treemont, who reacted by instinct. Tree raised his rifle and fired, but he'd not had time to aim, he knew right away the shot was wide of its target.

It was the last thing he ever knew. Carney fired his shotgun, the barrel extending out over the bent-over
Ben Scarlett and fanning just above the seated Jedd's head. But the pellets caught Treemont in the upper chest and neck, and he pitched backward with his head nearly blown from his shoulders.

Ben moved more rapidly than he would have thought possible, grabbing the rope behind his head and jerking forward, hard, so that Carney was disbalanced. In a continuation of motion, Ben also came upright again, turning at the same time and knocking Carney's shotgun upward, lessening Jedd's danger momentarily and giving him time to whip up the revolver that had been lying beside him, and with it hammer three slugs into Carney's chest. Carney staggered back and collapsed as Jedd let out the roar of a madman, only just then having realized the fate Treemont had suffered.

Out in the darkness, Blalock heard the shooting and knew he was on a fool's errand out here in the night. He should never have left the camp, should have considered the fullest possible consequences of going after the missing Ben Scarlett, leaving the camp occupied only by two crippled men.

He turned at once back to the camp, and quickly put the bloody story together. To one side lay the corpse of Treemont Dalton, head blown into a hideous pulp. Kneeling over Treemont was a distraught Ben Scarlett, keening like a mourning Indian woman, declaring loudly to the night that it was his fault, his fault, his fault. He should never have left the camp because then he wouldn't have been caught and Treemont would still be alive. Oh, God forgive me, forgive me, please…. I'm so sorry. Ben's voice was an incessant, mumbling chatter.

Jedd remained where he had been before, seated with his back toward the now-diminishing fire, staring out at the dark and the barely visible body of Jake Carney. Blalock quietly entered the camp and walked to Jedd's side of the campfire. Jedd did not even look up at him as he spoke in a drained, listless voice. “He's dead, Sheriff. Treemont's dead.”

“I know. I know. I'm more sorry than I can say. I wish I hadn't left you gents here alone in the camp.”

“Wasn't your fault, Sheriff. Wasn't Ben's. It was
his
.” Jedd pointed at Carney's body, visible to him mostly by the firelight-illuminated soles of Carney's upturned boots.

“I'm glad to hear you say that, because you're absolutely right. I've seen this kind of situation before, Jedd, and a lot of folks—a whole lot of folks—do just what poor old Scarlett is doing over there, blaming themselves for a string of events that really was a whole lot bigger than them and their own little part in it. You're right. This is the fault of that dead man lying before us. He is the one who shot you and Treemont out by that creek, and he's the one who shot Treemont dead tonight. Him and nobody else.”

Jedd finally looked at Blalock. “I know, Sheriff. I know. But there's a part of you that just keeps asking, what if? What if I'd done this or done that, or anticipated this or considered that…? You can't help it. I'm sitting here quiet, but inside me there's something screaming just as loud as poor Ben is back yonder. It's telling me that Tree is dead, Tree is dead, and there's bound to have been something I could have done that would have stopped it.” Then Jedd tilted down his head and wept unabashedly.

“A man can ‘what if' himself to his own grave, if he don't stop it,” Blalock said. “The best is just to stop with the questions and doubts and go with the tears. Tears can be a strong healing medicine. So go ahead and cry them, Jedd. Go ahead.”

Behind them, Ben Scarlett tilted up his head and wailed like a tormented phantom at the brooding sky.

They buried Treemont the next morning, and Jedd found it easier to think calmly about his lost friend once his body, with its ruin of a shotgun-blasted head, was hidden beneath prairie soil. Blalock found some wood an earlier emigrant had tossed aside to lighten his wagon and with
it made a cross, carving Treemont's name into the horizontal piece with his knife. They hammered it into place at the head of the grave; then the three men looked at one another, wondering who should say a prayer.

“I ain't one who is good with words,” Blalock said, begging off, then casting his eyes toward Jedd.

Jedd shook his head. “My praying is done silently, in my mind. It never feels natural to speak it out loud.”

Ben Scarlett shrugged and said, “I had a great-uncle who was a Methodist preacher, and he taught me how to pray. I reckon I can get through one, if you don't think it hurts the memory of Treemont for a drunk to be praying over him.”

“Treemont would think it an honor,” Jedd said, smiling encouragement at Ben.

Ben prayed just as he sang: beautifully. When he was done the two other men, and Ben himself, had tears on their faces and a sense of sorrow just beginning to be purged, just a little. But a beginning purge was all it was.

Jedd Colter especially knew he would not stop grieving for Treemont, at some level, for the rest of his life.

Santa Fe

O
CTOBER 1849

F
olks from the eastern states are often let down when they first see this place,” said Jedd Colter as he, Ben Scarlett, and Rand Blalock rode into the streets of the historic old town, a piece of old Mexico transplanted into climes farther north. “It's the sameness of it. Everything's the same color, mostly, anyway. Dirt-colored. Adobe everywhere. Looks like a big old brick kiln to a lot of people.”

“I think it's a beautiful sight,” Ben Scarlett said. “I've heard they have big parties here, lots to drink. Fan-danga-doodles or some such.”

“Fandangos, Ben. Fandangos.” Jedd chuckled. “Fandanga-doodles. I'll remember that one, Ben.”

“There'll be liquor at them things, won't there?”

“Of course. If they happen to have a fandango while we're here. Odds are high that they will. They're common enough. But, Ben, you already have liquor. I bought it for you myself, back in San Miguel. Hell, I even bought you a new flask to replace that one you lost.”

“The one I lost was silver. This new one is just tin. And I didn't lose the first one. It was stole from me.”

“Let it go, Ben. Best thing you could do is throw the blasted thing away, and don't fill it again. You got to give up the drinking, Ben, unless you aim on dying an early death.”

“Lord have mercy, Jedd…. You're a Job's comforter, you are!”

“I'm a truth-teller. I like you, Ben. I don't like seeing you killing yourself.”

Ben snorted and refused to speak further, letting his horse fall back a little so he was no longer beside Jedd. Blalock rode up on Jedd's opposite side.

Jedd looked over at him. “Treemont would have liked to be here, Sheriff. I've been here with him before…. He loved the senoritas. Thought they were the prettiest ladies to be found anywhere. And he might be right.”

Blalock was looking at a hump-shouldered, broadly built woman who was sharing the street with them, heading the opposite direction on foot. “I don't know, Jedd.” The woman kicked a dog that had just run out of an alley and yapped at her ankles, and Blalock laughed.

“You're looking the wrong direction, Sheriff,” Jedd said, eyes on a dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty smiling from a nearby balcony.

Jedd turned his head to see if Ben was doing any woman-watching of his own, but he was not there. He pointed out his absence to Blalock, and both riders turned back the way they had come and began a search for their friend.

It was not hard to guess where to look, nor did it take long to find him. Ben's horse was tied outside a cantina and Ben was inside, happily drinking himself into a fine humor. Jedd was unhappy but not in the slightest bit surprised. Nor did he scold Ben, who was, after all, a grown and independent man who made his own decisions, at least to the extent alcoholic addiction allowed it.

“Have a few swallows with me, men?” Ben asked. “Getting to Santa Fe is a milestone for the California-bound, and we ought to celebrate it.”

“Our horses and packhorses and everything we own is outside on the street. I ain't willing to leave it there,” Jedd said. “I'm going to see to our situation here, and then I'll come back once the horses are secured and we've got a place to stay.”

“Jedd, I got no money for a hotel.”

“Ben, you had no money for that drink in your cup until the sheriff and me gave you some. Don't fret. We'll pay for you for a place to sleep.”

Ben took a long swig, belched, then wiped at his eyes. In a vaguely weepy voice, he said, “Jedd, I owe you so much. Ain't nobody in this world ever been kinder to me.”

“Aw, Ben.”

At that moment a bell clanged across the room and a tall Anglo man stepped onto a chair and raised his hands for attention. Many of the cantina patrons began to shift toward the rear of the broad, low-roofed room.

“What's about to happen here?” Blalock asked.

“I got a suspicion,” Jedd said. “See the roped-off place near the corner there?”

His suspicion proved correct. “The fight will commence with the next bell in three minutes,” the man in the chair declared in a booming voice. “Place your bets with Pablo here behind the table. In an orderly manner, please. Gentlemen! Place your bets!”

Jedd moved forward on his crutch, being drawn back to a time not very long ago in his own life, when he'd toed many a line chalk-scrawled across barroom floors while facing off against some muscle-bound bare-fisted challenger. He didn't miss those days, but part of him remained intrigued with it all: the accouterments of fighting matches, the glint of an opponent's eyes, the feeling of fists cutting through air so fast they made an audible swish.