Trail Angel

by Derek Catron

  “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. Coming 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.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  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 th
e 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.

  Josey stood with his back to the old man. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand enough. I understand if you don’t talk to that woman, she will haunt you every day you draw breath. You’ve had enough of that already, enough for two lifetimes, likely.”

  The Colonel stood from his perch on the bank, waited for Josey to face him. “If you talk to her, maybe she will turn away from you. Can’t blame her if she did. But maybe she won’t. I think you’ve got a feeling maybe she won’t. And if she don’t, well, maybe she can help you forget some of the bad and learn to forgive yourself for things that weren’t your fault.”

  The Colonel didn’t look like he’d expected an answer, so he wasn’t likely to be disappointed. “That’s enough lollygagging for one day.” He hiked up his gun belt and ambled from the river. “I feel like I could piss like a horse, but I would bet four bits I can’t dribble enough to wet a stone.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  After weeks of worry mixed with curiosity, the first time Annabelle saw what her cousin would call “real Indians” proved a disappointment.

  They came into camp on foot, more than a dozen bedraggled men whose only resemblance to the noble savages of Annabelle’s imagination was a ruddy complexion. There were no feathered headdresses. No buffalo skin robes. They wore clothes not unlike the men in the wagon train, but they were so dirty and smelled so foul Annabelle recalled tales of emigrants hiding gravesites of loved ones so Indians wouldn’t dig them up and steal the clothes.

  The Indians were unarmed, but they created as much of a stir as if they had ridden in wearing war paint and launching arrows. The Colonel and some of the men greeted the strangers, who moved about the wagons like customers in a store, fingering merchandise and casting an appraising eye everywhere. A handful of dogs followed them, their barks and furtive movements alarming the oxen and camp dogs. She noticed Josey, rifle in hand, maneuvering in a way that kept the campfires and the emigrants at his back.

  Her father strode past Annabelle, pulling on a coat as he left the warmth of the fire. “I had finally convinced your mother to put away her ax,” he grumbled.

  He intended to put her at ease with the joke, but Annabelle felt more pity than fear. The Colonel had told them how poor the tribes along the Platte were. The cholera epidemic that ravaged the trail more than a decade earlier wiped out so many Indians that in some villages those who remained had to move on or die. Government treaties that guaranteed safe passage for the emigrants were supposed to provide for the Indians. The promised goods were delivered for a few years but stopped or were stolen by government agents once the Indians grew too weak to pose a threat.

  Through hand gestures and a smattering of broken English the Indians made clear they wanted something to eat. George Franklin, a Yankee Annabelle’s father compared to Scrooge for his miserly ways, objected. “If we feed them, we may never be rid of them,” he said.

  Her father took the opposing view. “It might be wise to engender some goodwill among the natives.”

  Her father had to be as disappointed as she. Despite her mother’s misgivings, he looked forward to trading with Indians. But it didn’t look like these people had anything worth bartering. There wasn’t a young brave among them. One or two looked to be boys, no older than her cousin Mark. The rest looked to be her father’s age or older. The oldest among them had a head of white hair and a face like desert baked and cracked by drought. Around his neck, he wore a necklace of animal teeth—at least Annabelle assumed the teeth were from an animal.

  “Look at them. They’re no better than stray dogs,” said Ben Miller, the grubby miner whose hygiene wasn’t much better in Annabelle’s view. “We’ve got nothing to fear from them.”

  Josey remained silent, his eyes never leaving the Indians, who seemed just as aware of him. He didn’t look so young or small holding that rifle. The Indians had been watching the men debate, but they kept looking to Josey. He makes them as nervous as they make us. Annabelle failed to suppress a smile.

  “If you don’t agree to feed these men, I’ll do it myself.” Her mother, so terrified of Indians when the journey started, pushed past the men, scattering them like ninepins.

  “We’ll handle this, Mary,” her father said. “Why don’t you go and see what food all the camps can spare.”

  Mollified, her mother turned back while the Colonel addressed the Indians. Every group of wagons brought forward some food. It seemed more than enough to feed a dozen Indians, though after watching them wolf down what was offered Annabelle figured they could have eaten twice as much. They walked out of the camp as soon as they were fed, with neither a word of thanks, nor threat, nor request for more.

  Despite the Indians’ haggard appearance, a new tension ran through the camp, and if her mother brought the ax to bed, her father didn’t complain. Some of the men laughed off the fear. The Indians had looked so pathetic, Clifton Daggett said, surely they posed no threat. Annabelle heard such sentiments repeated so often she recalled Shakespeare and a lady’s protests.

  Caleb Williams warned that the Indians’ appearance had been a ruse, intended to lull the camp into complacency so the braves could sneak in and kill them in their sleep. The burly handyman was shushed by the others.

  Whether from fear or prudence, the camp doubled the guard around the stock while others took turns patrolling the wagons. Some of the emigrants who had been sleeping in tents remained in their wagon. Not many of the men slept at all.

  The camp rose early the next morning. The guards reported that none of the stock had been disturbed. Everyone relaxed as water boiled for coffee and bacon sizzled. The Indians soon returned. They came just as they had the night before, unarmed, leaving their horses outside the camp. They were hungry again.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” George Franklin said.

  More than a few of the emigrants looked to Annabelle’s mother. She had made her point the night before that the
y weren’t afraid of the Indians. To capitulate to new demands might suggest otherwise. She smoothed out the folds of her dress and tucked a few stray hairs beneath her bonnet as she stood.

  “Tell them we’re not running an Indian hash house here,” she said.

  Again, the Colonel handled the communications. The Indians didn’t seem pleased with his message but rather than argue they gestured, making it clear they hoped to leave with one of the cows that had been trailing behind the wagons. The Colonel refused, and the Indians gave up rather meekly. Annabelle couldn’t see Josey, but she knew he would be nearby, rifle at hand.

  They finished breakfast even faster than usual. The women packed and the men yoked and hitched the animals with no idle chatter or dawdling. As the wagons pulled out, Annabelle looked back with a mixture of emotions.

  These Indians, who had stirred so much concern among the travelers when they set out, seemed more pitiful than fearsome. Yet the image of the white-haired Indian who appeared so ancient to Annabelle the previous night stuck with her. Watching him go to where they had left their horses, she marveled as he sprung to his pony like a young buck. Galloping off, he looked more centaur than man and horse, and it sent a shudder down Annabelle’s back. If the old men ride so well, how dangerous must the braves be?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  After a brief layover for repairs and mail at Fort Kearny, they found the road changed. The wagons passed over some steep, sandy bluffs that made for hard pulling, even for the oxen. On more than one occasion, the women and children left the wagons and walked for miles in the sand while the men cursed and sweated, doubling up the teams at times to get the wagons across.

  Tired as he was, Caleb took his pistol out that night to clean it while the women cooked dinner. He shut their gay chatter from his mind. Josey Angel this. Josey Angel that. They treated the man like some kind of hero after he showed up with a big buck draped across the saddle of his pony. A few of the farmers butchered it, and everyone anticipated fresh venison stew. Josey gave the antlers and skin to the Georgia banker, Stephen Chestnut, the one man in camp who belonged on the frontier even less than Rutledge.