Colter's Path (9781101604830) (27 page)

Jedd was amused but didn't let it show. “No, no…I'm
duly appointed
. That's what I was saying. Name's Colter. Jedd Colter. Not Dooley.”

“Sorry about this scattergun, Dooley. I thought you were someone else.”

Jedd started to correct the name error again, but in a moment of insight realized he was dealing with a man
who was hard of hearing. “Who are you, sir?” Jedd asked slowly, and noticed that the other's eyes fixed upon his lips as he spoke. No question about it: hard of hearing.

“My name is Tom Buckle. Tom like the cat, and Buckle as in what holds your belt together. I'm a lawman like you are,” Buckle said. “In my case, I'm deputy marshal of the town of Bowater Gulch. Though I prefer merely to shorten it to Bowater. It sounds a little more appealing to these Yankee Maine-born ears.”

Maine. Jedd had never encountered anyone from Maine in his life, not that he knew of. It explained why Buckle's speech sounded odd to his ears.

Jedd eyed the badge on Buckle's chest. It was no homemade item like the one Blalock had given him. Buckle's badge had a silver sheen and glimmer, not to mention a neatness of form far surpassing that of Jedd's crude tin credential. Buckle saw Jedd looking at it and grinned. “My marshal had badges crafted by a silversmith in San Francisco. It is as fine a badge as any man of the law could want to wear. I'm quite proud of it.”

Jedd said, “Mine's hammered out of common tin by an old-time North Carolina mountain sheriff. No words nor images on it. Nothing to be proud of in the badge itself, but knowing the man who gave it to me and trusted me to help him, I'm proud of mine, too.”

“Ayuh, sir. You think right-headedly.” Seemingly having decided that Jedd had passed whatever test he had just put him through, Buckle slid his scattergun into a saddle scabbard. “I am pleased to encounter another man in my position. It's providential, certainly, because I am in need of the help of a capable fellow lawman at this moment. Are you aware that there is an informal agreement among the various towns and camps that official representatives of the law in those places will provide one another mutual assistance when called upon?”

“It's not been discussed with me, but I would presume such is the case even without being told of it,” Jedd answered.

“Ayuh, good. Because I feel the need of help just now, Dooley, and you appear to be just the man to provide it.”

*    *    *

What Tom Buckle had to say to Jedd came as a surprise. He presented to Jedd almost exactly the same scenario that had led Jedd out onto this trail to begin with, the scenario Ben Scarlett had incompletely described to him.

Buckle's version was incomplete as well, but fuller than what Ben had described. And more chilling.

“Up ahead there is a trail that goes up the ridge, and the trail divides at one point. The straighter portion continues on over the ridge to the older road that now leads on over to Scarlett's Luck. The other, I'm told, leads to a small valley where there are secret cabins built in such a way that they serve as pens of a sort. Disguised pens, made to blend into the landscape.”

“Pens for what?” Jedd asked. It was at this point that Ben's description had fallen short.

Buckle looked squarely at Jedd. “I don't know if you are a man of a sensitive nature or toughened to this hard world we live in.”

“I'd say I'm right toughened. It takes a lot to stir me up.”

“I'm of the same nature. Toughened to the bad, welcoming to the good. But what I think is going on in that valley with its secret cabins would stir up any man with a sense of decency and civilization about him, even the most toughened. Ayuh, it might.”

Jedd frowned. “Did you say ‘ayuh'? Does that mean yeah, or yes?”

“Ayuh…uh, yes. Yes, it does. I'm sorry for my Yankee drawl. It is hard for many to understand me. On the same score, I find it nearly impossible to comprehend the speech of South Carolinians and Georgians. I have met several of both since I reached this place.”

“That's the thing about California: because everyone comes here from everywhere, it's like a kettle where we're all stirred into the same stew. But tell me about these cabins, or pens.”

Buckle looked and sounded very solemn as he spoke. “You are aware, I suspect, that there are places in the world where human beings, particularly females, are
bought and sold like cattle and treated worse than such. Enslaved. Used and misused. There are bad men in Mexico, and farther south, who are involved in this. But not just them. All around the world are those willing to trade in humanity as a commodity. I'm not speaking here of slavery as we ordinarily understand it and which is so prevalent through the South and elsewhere. The kind of slavery I'm speaking of involves women. Women, young and old, of any race, who get washed away in a terrible river of human trade, stolen away, sold, resold, hurt. And worse.”

“I've heard of such but know little about it,” Jedd said. “Are you telling me that it's going on here?”

“I know nothing for a certainty,” Buckle replied. “What I am told, though, is that a small valley overlooked by the western end of this ridge has little prison cabins and is used sometimes as a holding location for women either being moved down to Mexico—where they are transferred like so much merchandise to men who serve as brokers and continue the process until these sad souls are turned over to masters, abusers—or taken to the coast, where, at secret bays and inlets, they are put on ships and carried to Asia, to Europe, to some of the large islands that are like small nations to themselves. There are bad men of all peoples and races and nations, Dooley. Men who relish the destruction and domination of others in all kinds of ways. And others, less wicked, perhaps—or perhaps equally so—who are willing to serve as the vendors, agents, and suppliers for those evil ones, willing to give them what they want. It is that, specifically, that I am told goes on, at least sometimes, in this valley we will visit. Ah! Here we are at the base of the trail. It is a closely grown trail, just a narrow path, and nearly impossible for a rider to traverse. We shall best be served to dismount and walk on foot.”

“I know,” Jedd said. “I came down this very path earlier, all the way from the main road across the ridge. Looking for this very valley you've been talking about, with cabins that I was told would be missing something I would spot right away. It was a drunk who told me
about it, and I had no idea whether to believe him. But he said nothing about the use of those cabins as human pens. Maybe he didn't know about that, or didn't believe it, or just didn't want to spread a story he hadn't verified. He's an oddly moral fellow for a drunk. He's Ben Scarlett, the very man whose find of gold led to the mining town of Scarlett's Luck.”

“So you've already traveled this path….”

“But saw no valley, no cabins. I did, though, see the fork of the trail, and could only travel one of them. The one I chose, this same one that we're at the base of right now, took me only to the ridgetop and down to the road we met on. The other, I reckon, must have been the one leading to the valley.”

“Ayuh. We'll know soon enough. I suggest you lead the way, Dooley, since you have more familiarity with this bit of terrain.”

They advanced onto the trail and began climbing toward the top of the ridge.

“I need to let you know that my name's not Dooley,” Jedd said as they moved along. “My name is Jedd Colter.”

“Well…why did you say before that your name is Dooley?”

“I didn't. I said I was duly appointed as a deputy in Scarlett's Luck. You misunderstood me. Bad ears?”

“Ayuh. Especially this right one. A gun went off too close to my ear almost a year ago, and I've been waiting for the full hearing to return ever since. I despair now of it ever doing so.”

“I'm sorry.”

Buckle pursed his lips and shook his head, thinking. “Duly appointed,” he said. Then he grinned. “Know what it sounded like to me? Dooley Poindexter. That's what I thought you said, Jedd. I do hope you'll beg this Yankee's pardon.”

“We Poindexters are generally forgiving types, especially to the deaf,” Jedd said with a chuckle. Buckle laughed heartily, but stopped abruptly.

“I'll be!” Buckle said. “I didn't notice that!” He was
looking back down the short distance of inclining trail up which they had progressed. They were still close enough to the Bowater Road below to see it, and Jedd followed Buckle's gaze to look at the far side of the road.

“I didn't notice it, either,” Jedd said. “And for a man who prides himself on his keen eyes and woodcraft, I've got no excuse I can name.”

“Shall we go back down and have a look while it's still bright daylight? Perhaps it has a bearing on what we're looking for.”

They headed back down the trail and across the road to the thing that had drawn their attention.

T
he name on the grave meant nothing to Jedd Colter, but the fact that it was located not in a proper graveyard but in a small clearing beside the road, and the fact that there was a smaller grave beside it, was intriguing.

“Just a child,” Jedd said to Tom Buckle. “Always a sad thing, the grave of a child.”

Buckle squinted at the words on the wooden marker, read them aloud. “‘Winnie Belle Napier, Born 1841, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died California, March 1850. Loved by her Maker and her family. Nine years of blessing to her parents.' Lord, Jedd. That's enough to make a man weep. And why do you reckon that little grave is there beside hers?” Buckle asked. Jedd knelt beside the tiny grave to take a closer look.

“‘Cat,'” he read aloud. He heard Buckle give a loud, wet snort and looked up to see the young lawman wiping tears from his face.

Buckle spoke in a breaking voice. “Jedd, you know what that must mean? She had her a cat that she loved so dear that it died right along with her, and they buried them side by side.” Buckle actually sobbed out loud then.

Jedd marveled at the unexpected display of emotion from a man who didn't give an initial impression of being
likely to be sentimental, and who had already declared himself “toughened” to life's harsher realities. It became a clumsy moment for Jedd, because Buckle proved to be, unfortunately, one of those men who look and sound hilariously comical when in grief. Jedd chuckled against his will at the sight of the tear-gushing man and tried to disguise the chuckle as a cough. It didn't matter, really, because Buckle's bad ears hadn't heard it, anyway.

The moment of out-of-place jocularity brought out a mischievous sense of dark humor that occasionally surfaced in Jedd. He looked at Buckle, who quickly got control of his weeping out of embarrassment, and said, in a dead serious tone, “Buckle, I believe it didn't happen like you said. I think that cat there killed that little girl. She was sitting there, petting on it, cooing at it like a gentle little dove, and that Satan of a cat up and went for her throat and tore it right out. Poor little Winnie Napier died with that cat hissing and spitting at her while she bled to death. And with her last flicker of life, Winnie put her hand on a stone lying near her and brought it down on that cat's head and killed it dead just as she died herself. They buried them side by side. That's what I think happened. Or maybe they hanged the cat for her murder.”

“No! You don't mean it!”

“Oh yes, oh yeah. I mean, ayuh.”

“That all sounds mighty unlikely, Jedd.”

Jedd astonished himself by maintaining his dead-serious composure a little longer. “Unlikely? No, sir. That was exactly how my little sister, Molly, died. Seven years old and her cat tore out her throat. Nearly removed her head from her shoulders. Mama was never the same after that. Molly never got the chance to kill that cat with a rock, though. She was indoors when it went after her. No rocks.”

Buckle, his face blotchy and damp from his earlier tears, sputtered and stammered, then looked deeply at Jedd's face. Jedd could no longer hide his mirth and laughed explosively in Buckle's face. Buckle began to glower.

“Damn you, Jedd Colter—or Dooley Poindexter or
whoever the hell you are!” Buckle growled. “You're making a jest out of me, damn you!”

Jedd shook with laughter. “I'm sorry, Buckle. I couldn't hold back from it. You looked so durn funny sitting there blubbering in the saddle. I just had to rag on you a little. I never had no sister named Molly, nor one named anything else. And if I had, it's danged unlikely she'd have died from having a cat tear her throat out.”

By now Buckle was catching Jedd's mirth, and looked as funny in laughter as he had in tears. Both men happened to glance down at the burial site again, realized it was very inappropriate to be laughing at such a solemn place as this, and turned to start back up the inclined trail again.

“Really, though, what do you suppose is the story about that cat buried beside her?” asked Buckle when a few minutes had passed and the laughter was done.

“A pet, I guess,” Jedd replied. “It is strange they both died at the same time, though, if that's the case.”

“I guess we can't know.”

“I guess not.” They strode silently a few more minutes. “It's an odd thing, people and animals and how attached they can become. I knew a man back in Tennessee who made the journey with my emigrant group to California. He had a cat, an old pet of his, that had died and he had it stuffed and preserved, and kept it with him about all the time. He held and petted and scratched on that dead cat like it was still living. It was an odd thing. But he's a bit of an odd man. I almost married that man's daughter back in Tennessee. He was president of a college there for quite a few years.”

Jedd halted suddenly and stared straight ahead, thinking hard about something Crozier Bellingham had said about McSwain…about jewels stolen from the coffers of Bledsoe College and probably smuggled across the country by McSwain, possibly inside the preserved carcass of Cicero the cat. And how McSwain, after clinging to that cat for hundreds of miles, had suddenly passed it on to someone else. A little girl on her way to California with her family, in fact. An ailing little girl.