Trail Angel (19 page)

“What is it?”

He was making Annabelle nervous. “I don't know. Maybe nothing.”

Focus.
His mind wandered when he and Annabelle were alone, like time didn't exist. He returned from an hour-long ride feeling like only a minute had passed. When he was with her, something turned off in his brain, a welcome respite from worry, regret or memories he would rather forget.

With Annabelle, he thought only of the moment—no, thought wasn't it. He
lived
the moment. The only thing like it in Josey's experience was battle. If you didn't live the moment in battle, you were dead. Josey imagined the Colonel's advice: It was good to
loose
his mind with a woman, making a joke, loose or lose all being the same in love. Yet standing on a ridge overlooking the emigrants whose safety was his responsibility, a mounting dread pricked at him, like a man who remembers too late a forgotten task.

Josey jumped back on his gray pony and fetched his binoculars. He almost missed it. The ridge sloped into a gully carved by the stream near the campsite. Josey couldn't see into the gully as he trained the binoculars there. Waves of shimmering heat rising from the ridge played tricks with his eyes. He blinked twice to clear them. The dark smudges on the rocky outcropping near the gap were probably just the shadows of odd-shaped boulders. Three birds took flight from the gap, and he held his gaze on the spot, wondering what stirred them.

“We need to go,” he told Annabelle. “Now.”

At the end of every day the drivers formed the wagons into a large ring, chaining the tongue of one wagon to the rear wheel of the one in front to create a corral that held in the stock at night. After unhitching the teams and unyoking the oxen that afternoon, Caleb freed the Daggett boys to run off for a swim in the adjacent stream.

“It'll be cold,” he warned. They didn't care. In a moment their bare asses gleamed like a pair of moons as they whooped and hollered their way to the water.

The sight reminded Caleb of something, like an itch in the back of his brain. The harnesses were still in his hands and he found himself twisting them so tight, the blood ran out of his fingers. He watched the boys, hearing their screams as they splashed in water that had started as snow melt.

Looking to the road behind them, he thought of a man he hadn't seen in almost two years. Jacob Cooper was tall with unnaturally long arms and so thin his chest appeared concave. A man could count his ribs through his translucent skin, like furrows in a plowed field. Yet that wasn't the most remarkable thing about Cooper.

On a day even hotter than this one, Caleb's unit camped near a secluded lake on a plantation in Mississippi after having been on the move for days. In a rare act of generosity, the officer they called “Captain Bastard” out of earshot ordered a halt so everyone could cool off in the lake.

Cooper was a funny-looking man to begin with, built more like a bird than a man, but when he emerged from the water, his dripping pecker dangling nearly to his knobby knees, one of the men called out, “Look, the sparrow's got himself a worm.” Cooper didn't mind. There were worse things to be baited about than an enormous pecker.

Caleb moved to the back of the wagon, his eyes still on the road.
Cooper's out there somewhere.
He, Harrison, Johnson— they're all out there. Caleb felt it. He'd felt them since Omaha when he heard men were looking for him. He hadn't wanted to believe it. A coincidence, he told himself, but then he overheard the Colonel talking with Josey Angel about riders following them.
So much for coincidences.
Caleb didn't know how they tracked him.

With practiced movements, he set aside the boxes of supplies in the back of the wagon until he located the two small trunks buried at the bottom. He used a key he carried on a leather loop around his neck to open one of the trunks. He groped blindly, squeezing the pouches inside.

A tie had come loose and the light that filtered through the wagon reflected a glimmer like a match light. He started counting the coins once, but there were too many. He knew it totaled a fortune, more than any one man could spend in a lifetime, at least a man like Caleb.

The money was supposed to be driven through Texas into Mexico to buy guns and ammunition. Once the captain got word of it, pulling off the ambush wasn't difficult. Those men had been worried about Union spies, not a Confederate captain. Caleb hadn't even known the wagon drivers were Confederates until they were dead.

Caleb had forgotten how much the captain told him his share would be, more money than he had ever expected to see. It never occurred to him to steal from the others so that he might have a bigger share. Only now he realized it never would have occurred to the captain
not
to steal it. But not even Captain Bastard could do it alone.

They planned to sneak away under cover of a faked ambush, a night Caleb was on guard duty. His responsibilities were limited to tying the pouches together and slinging them over a pack mule. He led the animals away while the captain set off explosives around the camp. Caleb fled before anyone knew what happened.

The brilliant part of the captain's plan was the escape. They had crossed a river using an abandoned ferry the day before. Caleb led the animals with the gold to the ferry and waited for the captain. It had all seemed too easy. Then he heard gunshots and calls in the distance. Caleb had known the captain too long to betray him, so he waited as long as he dared before crossing the river.

Even once on the opposite side, he lingered, wondering if the captain might yet find his way to the river, maybe swim his horse across. Caleb knew the captain had to be dead when he never showed.

Having all the gold frightened Caleb more than it excited him. He had no idea how to explain coming by so much money. Throwing around a lot of gold coins would only make him a target, either of thieves, authorities or his former comrades. They would never stop searching for him. He started back to Charleston but realized they would look there first.

He buried most of the gold until he could figure what to do, then drifted, spending a coin here or there when he had to. The gold weighed as heavily on his mind as on his pack mule until he came across an old neighbor in St. Louis and heard Langdon Rutledge planned to lead a wagon train to Montana. Caleb couldn't recall what thoughts he strung together to arrive at a conclusion that seemed obvious only in the end.
What better place to hide a cache of gold than in a town where men were pulling big chunks of it from the rivers?

Reassured at seeing the gold again, Caleb closed the trunks and shifted the boxes of goods and supplies to cover them. The air cooled quickly as the sun dropped. The breeze had shifted and his nose twitched at the earthy smell of the grazing oxen. He looked up at the sound of pounding hoof beats and saw Josey Angel riding hard into camp, already stirring a commotion. Annabelle trailed behind on her ugly paint horse.

Watching them, Caleb realized how his old comrades had found him. The answer should have been clear enough all along, if Caleb had been willing to believe it.
Captain Bastard must still be alive.
Caleb shivered just thinking it.
At least I won't be the only one surprised to see him.

The riders emerged from the gully near dusk, six horsemen silhouetted against the dying day. They showed themselves barely an hour after Josey raced into camp, but to Annabelle it felt like days had passed.

She had been bewildered and a little hurt at how quickly she had become an afterthought to Josey. His hasty return had stirred the wagon corral like a hornet's nest by the time she followed him into camp. Men loaded weapons and piled boxes of supplies to create a protected circle within the corral, providing cover for the women and children. They were preparing for battle.

By the nearest wagon, Josey talked with the Colonel, her father and a few of the other men. Josey came toward her, his face slack, eyes vacant. She wasn't sure he saw her until he stopped. “I have to go.” He paused just long enough to look at her. Before she thought of anything to say, he leaped on Gray, breaking into a gallop toward the ridge from where they had come.

“Coward.” Caleb Williams had been watching, his thick arms crossed in disapproval. “First time there's any real danger and he runs off. Suppose he's going back to Omaha for help.”

Annabelle didn't know what to think. The next hour was a whirl of activity. She helped her mother and the other women prepare meals, which they took to the men in their positions around the corral, waiting for—what? No one would tell her.

After serving the meal, the women had nothing to do. Annabelle sat near her mother and aunt, nibbling on a cold biscuit, her leg shaking with nervous energy. The women chattered with speculation, but nobody knew anything. Annabelle's frustration with Josey grew. If only he had spoken his mind instead of riding off in such haste—all so they could sit here and allow their fears to compound. She didn't know how men waiting for battle managed it.

Surely, it's better to plunge ahead than to sit back on one's haunches awaiting the inevitable. Or was it inevitable?
She'd seen Josey examine some hoof prints in the dust, stare at some horseshit, look through his glasses at—what?
Why hadn't he talked to her?Why hadn't she
made
him speak?
She had been so confused, and more than a little frightened, that she hadn't thought clearly.

“I have to see Father,” she told her mother when waiting became unbearable. At least it felt good to move. Her father stood with the Colonel behind a wagon at the end of the corral nearest the gully. The rifle looked odd in his hands.

“What are you doing out, child?” She looked past the men to the stream and the slope that led to the ridge. As if reading her thoughts, the Colonel said, “That's where they'll come from.”

Who?
She wanted to ask, but she feared they would run her off if she made herself a nuisance. Men didn't like women around in times of conflict. They said it was for women's safety, but Annabelle wondered. Looking about, she saw miners, farmers, laborers, clerks. A few had been in the war, but none seemed particularly warlike other than the Colonel, who stood more erect and had never looked so strong, his illness seemingly forgotten. As for the others, how many would hold their ground if they came under fire?

Lord Byron hid inside the nearest wagon. He had loosened the canvas cover and peeked out from under it with his rifle. He had been a slave when Sherman's army marched through Georgia. How often had he used a gun? Caleb Williams, the Daggett brothers, Ben Miller and the rest of the miners, family men like Samuel Fletcher, Alexander Brewster, Stephen Chestnut, still mourning the loss of his son—how well would they fight, if a fight came? Perhaps they knew no better than she, and they didn't want a woman to bear witness to their fear and doubt.

Still, she preferred sitting with the men, watching nothing happen, than sitting with the women and children, wondering when they might hear something happen. Leaning against a wagon, her fingers would begin tapping whenever she stopped thinking of keeping them still. Her father looked at her once when she failed to catch herself. She crossed her arms, pinning her hands to steady them. The Colonel stood as calmly as if he had come to enjoy a sunset.
How many battles must a man survive before he faces the next one so coolly?

“What do you think Josey's doing?” she asked him.

The Colonel pointed to the ridge that held a commanding view of the camp and the ground around it. “He's probably grabbing a nap up on the high ground, waiting for the first shot to rouse him.”

He wouldn't have to wait long. When the horsemen emerged from the gully, every man in camp with a gun trained it on them.

With the sun at their back, the six riders could see into camp better than the emigrants saw them. They stopped a fair distance away. One of the men waved.

“Hellooo,” he sang. “Might we share your fire? Looks like you've got the best campsite for miles.”

The Colonel stepped from behind the wagon. “Best you just ride on. Find another spot.”

The rider conferred with his companions. “That's not very hospitable,” he called, his drawl stretching out the last word so it sounded like four. “We've got news. You'll want to hear about what lies ahead.”

“You can ride up. The others stay back.”

The speaker conferred with his fellows again. He rode forward, raising his hands as he drew near, his body rocking easily in the saddle, a wide grin splayed across his face. “You're not bandits, I hope,” he said once stopped, no longer needing to shout.

His face and clothes were grimy with dust from the trail, which seemed ill suited to him. He looked like the kind of man who belonged in a saloon. He made no effort to hide his interest as his eyes took in their number. When his gaze came to Annabelle, his mocking grin fell away, to be replaced with a knowing smile. Annabelle looked away, feeling a shiver.

“What's your news?” the Colonel demanded. He was the only man not directing a gun at the riders, though he wore a pistol on his belt and carried himself as if he had the whole Union army at his back.

The stranger lied smoothly. “My men have had a hard ride and we're hungry. I thought we might discuss it over a meal once you saw our intentions were peaceful.”

“We see nothing of the sort.”

“You're a suspicious bunch.” The stranger looked at Annabelle, who found his familiarity offsetting. He licked his lips, but he didn't look nervous. “A man gets hungry out on the trail. It ain't right to deny him.”

The Colonel lied just as easily. “We've had some sickness, had to quarantine some folks. It's best you ride on.”