Trail Angel (5 page)

“Did you get their names?”

Examining the contents of the wagon, Rutledge almost missed the question. Every day he repacked the damn thing, moving boxes and sacks and reorganizing with a logic that altered with each dawn. At first he packed all of his family's belongings into a single wagon, leaving three wagons for the goods they planned to sell in Montana. Then he struck on the idea of spreading the goods among all the wagons and packing the things the family would need most in the rear of all four wagons. “No. I don't think so,” he said, his distraction obvious. “I figured they served with you. Said they knew you.”

Caleb tried to keep his voice even. “What were they like? None of them were familiar to you?”

“Hmm?” Rutledge climbed into the wagon, a new logic no doubt upon him when he turned to face Caleb. “Oh, yes. Big fellows. You know, soldiers.” He clambered farther into the wagon, then stopped as if a new thought occurred to him. “One of them was different.”

“Different in what way?”

Rutledge thought a moment, stroking his white beard. “He looked a bit of a dandy, really. One of those fellows who spends a lot of time in saloons. Not like the others at all.”

Harrison.
Caleb had avoided town. Too many people there. Too many chances to be recognized. Damned talkative Rut-ledge. Caleb wanted to take a whip to him, an idea that never would have occurred to him before the war. Things had changed between them. Or maybe the world was changing. A rich man was out of his element here. Caleb still worked for Rutledge, but the differences between them weren't as great as they'd been. The differences would be even less once they reached Montana. Caleb would be the rich man, and the likes of Rut-ledge would fall over themselves to win
his
favor. Caleb needed to get there quickly. He saw that now.

“I wish we were gone already.” He drew a drink from the water bucket tied to the side of the wagon. “We've been talking about this for days, and nothing seems to get done.”

The placating tone in the rich man's voice proved just how much things had changed. Instead of issuing commands, Rut-ledge pleaded. “You were the one who told me we had to wait until spring to make sure the grass would be high enough to sustain the stock.”

“But May's almost gone and we're still waiting. Other companies are headed out. If we don't hurry, all the sweet grass will be gone when we get out there.”

“We had to organize. You know a larger party will be safer.”

“I just don't like waiting.”

“I don't either, Caleb.” Rutledge jumped down from the wagon, landing awkwardly but keeping his footing. He sprang up with a smile. “They say ‘discretion is the better part of valor,' my boy.”

Caleb looked at him, his forehead crinkled in thought.
This man has no business heading to Montana.
“I don't know what that means, Mr. Rutledge.”

Rutledge chuckled. “It means don't let the gold fever get to you,” he said, patting Caleb on the shoulder.

Caleb bit back a response.
If I can just get to Montana, men like Rutledge will no longer talk down to me.
He imagined again what that would be like. Rutledge speaking to him as a gentleman. Even his pretty daughter would have to look at him differently. Annabelle never let Caleb forget his place when he worked for her husband. It pleased him to picture her reaction when he was the richest man in Virginia City. He had to live long enough to see it, and Rutledge was right. There was safety in numbers.

“I guess that's what I've got,” Caleb said, forcing a smile. “Gold fever.”

Of the three men lined up before him, Josey focused on the one called Harrison. The other two would follow his lead. Harrison spoke like they were familiar, but Josey had no memory of him. This wasn't the first time he had come across men eager to prove themselves against a myth and war stories. He had gone west hoping to put it behind him.

As soon as Harrison took the swipe at his hat, Josey knew this wouldn't be a shooting fight. If Harrison meant to kill him, he would have pulled already. Must have figured he could goad Josey into something stupid, but Josey's concern was for Lord Byron.
If these three take to beating on me, how long before Old Hoss starts on them?
Harrison would hang for shooting Josey in cold blood, but he might not feel inhibited about shooting a black man.

A fluttering of black fabric, like the flapping of raven's wings, swooped from the crowd and obscured his view of the gunman. Next thing Josey knew, a dark-haired woman stood before him. She turned to face him.

Oh, hell.

“I've changed my mind.” The woman—Mrs. Rutledge or Holcombe or something—spoke in a tone accustomed to giving orders. “I'll need your help getting these back to the hotel.”

She extended her slender arms holding the parcels with her purchases.
Annabelle.
He had just enough time to recall her name before catching the parcels, saving them from the mud. A moment of stunned silence fell over the crowded street as everyone took in the young widow, her stern face making it clear she would tolerate no objections. Annabelle wheeled and faced the three men. Even Harrison's grin fell. The spectators, who'd fallen back moments earlier when gunplay seemed imminent, eased in again.

“What's this now?” she said. Her accent dragged out the question and left no doubt of her provenance. “Is this what passes for Southern courage?” The men looked at each other for an answer. “My brothers made the ultimate sacrifice at Sharps-burg. If they had waited until the odds favored them three to one, they might be alive today, haunted by the memory of their cowardice.”

The men looked down, finding something in the muddy street to arrest their attention. If they had hoped this would shield them from the lady's wrath, they were mistaken.

“I don't suppose you were at Sharpsburg?” One of the men shook his head, but Annabelle didn't pause long enough for a response. “Of course not. If you had been there, you would not be here. You wear the uniform,” she said to the big fellow in the tattered, gray coat, “but I can't believe you saw many battles. At least not from the front.”

A few in the crowd snickered. Josey didn't know what to think. This woman had treated him with hostility in the store. Now she fronted him like a shield, so close he smelled flowered soap in her hair. She startled him when she turned, addressing him like a truant child. “Come along. No more dallying.”

Harrison and the others stood mute as Josey stooped to retrieve his hat, balancing the parcels in a single arm. The boxes obstructed his view and left him groping in the mud. The sight of the shamefaced bullies and the cowed gunslinger proved too much for the crowd. The tension hanging over the street exploded into a release of laughter.

Finding his hat, Josey followed Annabelle, ignoring the jeers and one wiseacre who accused him of hiding behind a woman's skirts. The three men stared at Annabelle. She sighed, playing to the crowd. “I weep for what's become of Southern gallantry nearly as much as I do for my poor, dear brothers.”

The men stepped back, one staggering into another so that they almost tumbled into the mud as Annabelle strolled past, expertly sweeping up her skirts high enough to step onto the wooden sidewalk without stumbling.

“Thank you,
gentlemen,
” she said. She paused long enough for the men to take her hint. The one with the gray coat removed his hat, nudging the man next to him to do the same. The grin returned to Harrison's face as he removed his hat and gave Annabelle a deep bow.

Josey followed the woman onto the wooden walkway. Harrison called after him, “Some other time, Josey Angel.”

While the others were in town, Caleb stole away to a fishing hole near camp. A bend in the river looked deep enough for catfish to lurk through the heat of the day. He would be happy there even if he didn't catch anything.

Fishing always brought him closer to Laurie. He thought of his late wife as he baited his line.

Her family had lived in a dirty little shack not far from Caleb's favorite fishing spot outside Charleston. They were about the poorest white people Caleb knew, even poorer than his family. Walking on the cart path that passed alongside their property, he often saw her seated on a crate in the afternoon shade.

Most of the paint had peeled away from the old house, and the front porch leaned to one side despite stones piled up to bolster it. Laurie was the oldest of five children and spent most of her time looking after the rest. She shelled beans or mended clothes while the little ones wrestled or raced in the yard, screaming like savages. Caleb always waved a howdy-doo, and she rewarded him with a shy smile that seemed bright even in the shadow of the porch.

Caleb felt sorry for the girl. Her father worked too hard and too long in the fields to be anything but mean. Her mother, whom Caleb never saw, had been made frail by birthing so many children.

One day Caleb caught more redfish than he could eat on his own. He had tired of carrying them by the time he passed Laurie's house, surprised to see her on the porch, deep in the evening shadow, when the children weren't about.

“You're just going to walk by without so much as a hello?”

They were the most words she had spoken to him. She stood from her crate, her simple shift glowing in the gloom, revealing just enough curve to her hips and bust to put a gulp in Caleb's throat. He mumbled something about his hands being full, going toward her as he spoke, unaware of moving his feet. Like being reeled in.

Laurie took half his catch that day, and Caleb felt richer for it. After that, whenever Caleb got away to fish he stayed until he caught enough to give some to Laurie. Some days he waited, hidden among the trees near her house until he saw her. More than once when he caught little, he gave her what he had with an excuse that he was dining at the house of a friend or family member. These were inventions, for Caleb had no family left and no friends as close as that. In thanking him, Laurie made him feel more man than he was.

One day Laurie said, “It sure is nice, you bringing me all these fish. But when are you going to teach me to catch them myself?”

“Teach you?”

“Why, you think I can't learn just because I'm a girl?” A hand moved to her hip, and her lip curled into as much of a pout as her little face could muster. He stammered an apology as she laughed, the sound so sweet he didn't feel foolish for inspiring it.

He never learned what she told the children when she came away with him. That first day he told her everything he knew about fishing, probably twice, and he worried that the next time they were alone he would have nothing to say. But it was easy talking to Laurie. He told her about his mama and pappy. He even told her about the brother who died from fever when Caleb was a boy. He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked about that.

They first kissed on a fishing outing. Other things happened, too, memories burned into Caleb's mind like a brand that marked him as Laurie's forever.

“You can have me if you want,” she told him that day, a breathy whisper that made her sound like a stranger.

He pulled away. Confusion and hurt clouded her eyes, a question coming to her lips. He shook his head. “I want you, Laurie, more than I've wanted anything. But not like this.”

Her face rose to meet his, another kiss coming to her lips, the last kiss, he knew, before he lost himself inside her. He waited for her eyes to meet his.

“I will have you as a husband takes a wife, Laurie. I don't have much. We may have even less together. But I will marry you as proper before God as any plantation owner's daughter.”

They married by Christmas. By the new year, as they figured it later, Laurie was with child. Caleb had never been happier.

While they readied for the wedding, the country elected Abraham Lincoln. Caleb wondered why people thought it should matter to him who was president in Washington. Some told him to wait and wed after the war.
What war?
He told himself it was just talk. Caleb didn't like to think of what happened after that.

A yellow-breasted meadowlark flittered in the brush nearby, drawing Caleb's mind back to the moment. An afternoon spent away from the wagons left him with just a couple of catfish and a sadness so deep it felt like a millstone on his shoulders. The others would be back from town soon, but Caleb lingered a few minutes more. Laying his pole beside him, he leaned back against the narrow stump of a cottonwood someone had cut down for firewood. Closing his eyes, Caleb recalled the day he proposed to Laurie. He unfastened the buttons on his pants, imagining the feel of another hand against him.

He pictured her in one of the fine dresses the ladies of Charleston wore before the war, colors bright as wildflowers, silk soft as butterfly wings. Laurie's hair hanging long and loose over bare shoulders, tiny waist cinched up so tight her bosom nearly spilled out of the low-cut bodice.

“I'm a rich man now, Laurie. I could buy you all the things you deserved.”

Caleb fell slack at the thought.

Laurie would ask how he came by so much money.

They had been poor, but they had everything they needed. He had never felt shamed before her. Now he covered his face, wishing to forget the blood that had stained his hands, wipe the memories from his head of the men who died to satisfy his greed.

The sound of approaching horses startled Caleb, and he hurried to refasten his pants. He reached for the line of fish beside him and turned to rise when he saw the Colonel, Josey Angel and the black man they called Lord Byron.

“Get your hands on anything worth keeping?”

Caleb flushed as he considered the Colonel's meaning. The old man's weathered face revealed nothing behind the drooping mustache. “Not much.” Caleb held up the line of catfish. “They're not biting.”