Trail Angel (14 page)

What would become of a bee that outlived the summer flowers?

Once the war ended, Josey discovered the qualities that made him an effective soldier didn't translate to civilized society. On receiving their discharge papers, the Colonel spoke of securing homesteads for themselves, so they headed west. With nowhere else to go, Byron tagged along. Mostly, they just wandered. Josey had some trouble in Kansas and again in Montana, but they left it behind by staying on the move.

The constant movement suited Josey. He preferred not having to explain himself, and riding with the Colonel and Byron allowed him to avoid most people. With no one to bother him, he studied how the grass changed from dark to light as the sunlit blades bowed to the wind. He watched clouds hover over distant hills as if tethered by invisible wires. He viewed jagged mountain peaks protruding dark against a snowy backdrop, trees covering their lower hillsides like a piney shawl. He found solace in these things. The world of people had brought him nothing but fear and pain.

He and Byron approached the riders' camp from the north. Set on the far side of a ridge, it provided the riders with a view of the road and the river to the south but left them blind in the opposite direction. Josey and Byron ascended the ridge before anyone noticed.

From the size of the camp, Josey judged there to be about a dozen men, but he didn't expect trouble. Road agents weren't common on the emigrant trail, where most travelers were too poor to make the effort worthwhile. If these riders had any salt, they would be working the roads closer to the gold fields. They were vultures, preying on the weak or the stupid. Once they knew the wagons would be prepared for them, Josey figured the riders would go off in search of easier pickings.

A group of four men, none of them heeled, came forward. They didn't look happy to see visitors. “Where do you boys think you're going?”

“Just paying a visit,” Josey said. As they drew near, he recognized the man who had spoken.

After nearly three weeks on the trail, he didn't look as fresh as he had in Omaha. Josey felt the hollow pang that came on anytime he realized he'd made a mistake. Something had brought these men out this far, and Josey couldn't figure what it might be. He only knew it couldn't be good.

“Harrison, isn't it?”

The man who had confronted Josey on the streets of Omaha had traded his white shirt and gambler's vest for a loose, cotton work shirt. His mustache was trim and the rest of his face clean-shaven.
Still the dandy.

“Josey Angel. Didn't expect to see you again so soon.”

Josey also recognized the tall man in the Confederate coat who had been with Harrison in Omaha. The other two he didn't know, one an older man with a gray beard, the other a mulatto boy no older than Annabelle's cousin. Josey didn't bother to pretend his visit was an accident. “You in charge?”

“So far as you need to know.”

That means no.
Josey dismounted. “I came to see who's in charge.”

“Not with those,” Harrison said, nodding toward Josey's guns. He held his hands wide to show he didn't wear a gun belt. “Nobody comes to camp heeled. We wouldn't want any accidents.”

Slipping off his gun belts, Josey handed them to Byron, who remained mounted. “You better stay here with the horses.” He wouldn't have to tell Byron having a well-armed man at his back would be a comfort if anything went wrong.

Harrison led the way along a path down the ridge to a clearing where a cook fire of buffalo chips threw off an acrid smoke. The mulatto boy ran ahead to a man lying prone by the fire, using his saddle as a headrest, his eyes covered with a wide-brimmed hat. The boy fell in beside the man and whispered something in his ear. The news proved important enough for the man to fix his hat but not so important he felt a need to rise.

“Captain, I give you Josey Angel,” Harrison announced.

The man sat up and smiled broadly. He was slick-looking, too, handsome in the way of cardsharps or actors, with a pencil-thin mustache like a gabled roof over his mouth. Even seated, his clothes fit a little too well, his dark hair just so beneath a hat too new to be broken in.

“Were you really a captain?” Josey asked.

“Confederate States of America,” he said. Then, less proudly, “You'll forgive me if I don't salute.”

“You got a name, captain?”

He waved his hand as if swatting away a mosquito. Then he paused to study the nails on his hand, picking at a hangnail. “Names, ranks. They don't mean much out here.”

“Where did you fight?”

The captain rolled his head. “Here, there.” To Harrison he said, “If he's going to ask my life story, shouldn't he buy me a drink?”

“You were a guerrilla.”

“He says that like it's a dirty word.” The captain still talking to Harrison.

“Did you keep raiding after you deserted?”

That got his attention. His eyes narrowed and the smile left his face. “Do you blame me?”

“For raiding.” Josey nodded. “Not for deserting.”

The captain laughed, his arched mustache flattening when he smiled. To Harrison, “You didn't tell me he was funny.” To Josey, “Harrison told me you were taciturn.”

“That what he told you?”

“Would you like me to explain what it means?” the captain said. The boy giggled.

Josey stepped toward the fire and crouched across from the captain. A kettle was heating, but the fire had only recently been set, a circle of small river stones piled around it. Josey picked up a stone, feeling its heat, then passed it between his hands like a potato.

“I think I've hurt our guest's feelings. Now he's brooding,” the captain said to his audience. He looked to Josey. “Mr. Anglewicz,” he said, pronouncing it correctly, “please accept my apology. I get carried away sometimes. We should be friends, you and I.”

“Friends?”

“We have more in common than you might imagine. Let me ask you, what would you have done if you'd been born in South Carolina instead of—was it Illinois?”

Josey nodded absently. “Done about what?”

“Well, the war, of course. It is clear you object to slavery, so as a man of enlightenment it was convenient you were born in a northern state.” He reached out beside him, gently cupping the boy's chin in his hand. “What about me? It was merely by an accident of geography that I was born in the South, bred to be a slave owner, consigned to an army intent on defending an institution to which I found I objected.” The boy smiled at him, and the captain petted his head like a dog.

“So you are a ‘man of enlightenment,' too?” Josey asked. The captain held his hands wide as if the answer were evident. The conversation had taken paths Josey never anticipated. The stone in his hands grew cold. “So why are you following us?”

He gave a look of surprise. “Following you? We're just going in the same direction.” To Harrison, “This is the road west, is it not?”

Josey was losing patience. “Why are you going west?”

“Looking for gold. Same as you. Found any yet?” The slick spoke like he was delivering lines to an audience. His last question sounded different. Josey felt himself studied for a reaction. C
oming here wasn't a good idea.
The moment passed, and the captain shrugged. “No? I guess we will have to wait until we reach the mountains.”

As they talked, the other two men who had greeted Josey and Byron came to the fire. Josey noticed they now wore gun belts. The old soldier stood over his captain, while the graybeard took a position beside Josey.

“I had wanted us to be friends, Mr. Anglewicz. But now I fear you will only be in my way,” the captain said, a mournful note in his voice as he nodded to the old soldier. “Call it an unfortunate accident of geography.”

The gray-coated man reached to his holster—but he never got any farther.

Quick as a snake, Josey stood and hurled the stone, catching the gunman full in the face. In the same motion, he grabbed the kettle with his free hand and whirled toward the graybeard, bashing him on the side of the head with a blow that sent him sprawling. Josey had the old man's gun almost before he hit the ground. In two strides, he stood over the fallen soldier. Blood poured from the man's nose, and he never saw Josey take his gun.

Holding both guns, Josey looked across at Harrison, unarmed and slack-jawed on the opposite side of the fire. The captain had turned to watch Josey, his arm around the mulatto boy. “Did you see that? I was right about him.”

Josey kept all three in view as he backed away.
I could stay a year and not understand any of this.

“Thank you for your hospitality, but I would appreciate no more accidents of geography,” he said, waving one of the guns toward Harrison, “or I'm afraid I might have an accident with one of these.”

The Colonel and Josey stood at the edge of the Platte early the next morning, Josey watering the horses while the older man stuffed his pipe for an after-breakfast smoke. Whips cracked and oxen bellowed behind them as the emigrants yoked the teams. The smell of coffee and bacon lingered on the breezeless air. Josey squinted against the light as the sun's first rays pierced the horizon. The Colonel closed his eyes and managed to breathe deeply without coughing.

“I tell you, this is beautiful country, too,” he said. “A man could settle here and live a right good life, I expect.”

“Awful flat.”

The Colonel fell into a coughing fit. He raised a hand when Josey took a step toward him. “That's downright poetic, Josey.” He leaned over to spit a wad of phlegm onto the rocks beside him. “The mountains spoiled you. You want a landscape pretty enough to put a frame around and call it a picture.”

They had talked through Josey's meeting with the road agents the previous night. The Colonel concluded the riders wouldn't harass them now that they knew the wagon train was prepared. Josey wasn't so sure. He'd turned it over in his head more than once, wondering if he'd been right not to kill the strangers when he had the chance. A few weeks earlier, he would have killed them, their deaths bothering him no more than shooting a wolf on sight. Even if the beast wasn't attacking your stock that moment, it was only a matter of time.

Something had stayed his hand. He didn't know what danger Byron might be in or where the other men from the camp were. Even if Josey had finished off those around the campfire, he couldn't be certain he and Byron would be safe. He told himself that was all there was to it.

Feeling stronger after some hearty meals and a good night's sleep, the Colonel wouldn't have his mood spoiled by an unlikely threat. Still, he had asked Byron to scout ahead today, leaving Josey free to sweep their flanks and rear just in case the riders repaid the visit.

“You get older like me, you learn to see the beauty in what you've got. You appreciate the moment more. Even the flat lands.”

“Is that why we spent the last year crossing the country back and forth?”

“Don't sass me.” He struck a match and lit the pipe, taking a few quick breaths to fire up the tobacco. “If I was your age and had me a good woman, it wouldn't matter where I lived. I'd live in peace, work hard and declare every sunrise the prettiest I ever saw.”

Josey filled his canteen in the clear stream. “Maybe you'll find someone to watch sunsets with in Montana.”

The Colonel coughed. “Fat chance of that. The only women we saw in Montana were wives or whores or indistinguishable from grizzlies. Which would you pick for me?” He drew deeply on the pipe. “Don't answer that.”

The sun shimmered, a full red ball low in the sky. Thinking the subject dropped, Josey took in the view.

“That Annabelle, she's a fine looking woman.”

“Too young for you,” Josey said, a little quicker than he intended. He moved off to retrieve the saddles from the riverbank.

The Colonel laughed so hard he nearly choked. “You suppose, eh? Do you suppose that's a sunrise we're watching in the east?”

Josey dropped his saddle on his spotted gray pony and tightened the cinch, trying to ignore the amused glint in the Colonel's eyes.

“Even the rainy mornings would be beautiful if you had a woman like that waking up next to you. She's almost
too
beautiful. A too-beautiful woman will rob a man of all ambition, once he has her at least. Next thing you know—”

“What do
you
know about it?” The horses lifted their heads from the stream, ears perked at the sharpness in Josey's voice.

The old man only laughed more. “I know a hell of a lot more than you'll ever know if you don't talk to the woman.” Josey stooped to pick up the Colonel's saddle. “That's it. Pretend you don't hear me. But know this: It's a long way to Montana, but we will get there one day. What will you do then? If you're still watching sunrises with this old coot, you'll be a sorry excuse for a man, and a bigger coward than I would've figured.”

The old man meant well, so Josey bit back the anger rising inside him. Overhearing the settlers talk about their plans, Josey daydreamed, too. He knew a place, a little valley along the Madison River between Bozeman and Virginia City. It hadn't been settled much yet. If Josey could get enough land there, a few good men might drive cattle up from the south. It would be good business feeding the miners and all the folks who had moved into Virginia City now that it was the territorial capital.

Sometimes he wondered if Annabelle would like his valley. She was as beautiful as the old man said, and Josey sensed a strength in her that drew him like no woman he'd known.

Yet he put her from his mind. She stirred memories too painful to recall, and he recognized his daydreams as nothing but a pleasant fantasy. Annabelle and her family needed him. They were frightened in a strange and wild place, and they would hold a dangerous man close so long as he made them feel safe. A big dog kept near the chicken coop to run off foxes and coyotes but never allowed in the house; that's all Josey was to them. Once they reached Virginia City, once the women felt safe and civilized again, the dog in the yard would be the biggest threat in their lives. Josey would have to go. The stain of death on him was too deep to be washed away.