Trail Angel

by Derek Catron

  “What about my things? Do you have my trunks?” Caleb relaxed his grip, his strength already waning, and the doctor wrenched free. Hines leaned back, out of Caleb’s reach, rubbing the wounded limb.

  “I don’t know anything about that. You had no need of anything when you were crazy with fever.”

  Caleb’s mind whirled. What if they found the strong boxes and opened them? He stared at the canvas top. It was growing lighter. That explained the darkness earlier. They must have left before daybreak. He took a breath, calming himself. No one had reason to go through his things. He wasn’t dead. The trunks were probably still buried under supplies in the back of the wagon, just where he left them. Even if he had been dead, they probably wouldn’t find the gold until reaching Virginia City and unloading everything else.

  “They shouldn’t have left me.”

  “That’s not what they did,” the doctor said, careful to stay out of Caleb’s reach. “They knew we would be following as soon as we arrived. They tell me our mules are faster than oxen. We might catch them before they reach Fort Kearny.”

  “When did they leave?”

  “A day ago, I think. Captain Burroughs has a full company with him, bringing supplies to the fort. With the Indians stirred up now, they must have thought it best to move your wagons with a sizeable military escort.” The doctor sounded cheerful. “You should rest. We’ll rendezvous with your friends at the fort. I’m sure they will be pleased to see you so much better.”

  Caleb wasn’t sure about that. Despite the doctor’s confidence, it was hard to avoid a conclusion that the others had left him to his fate. Rutledge was probably already counting the wages he would save with Caleb’s death. Well, the bastard could keep his money, so long as those trunks were safe. Caleb had plans. His life depended on it.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Riding alongside the wagons toward Fort Phil Kearny, Annabelle noticed how much the landscape had changed. One day they had been traveling over flat, brown prairie under a heat great enough to crack leather boots. The next day chilly mountain breezes compelled Annabelle to put on a shawl. The prickly pear and greasewood gave way to grasses so thick a horse couldn’t be trotted through them. Groves of leafy willow and cedar grew along cold mountain streams so clear she counted the fish that hovered in place as if tethered to the banks. No wonder the Indians value this land so greatly.

  The day should have seemed no different than any other. Josey rarely rode within view of the wagons, yet she felt his absence like a hunger pang. She was thankful Lord Byron was with them, driving a wagon in Caleb Williams’s absence. It reassured her that as long as Byron was here, Josey would return.

  Her last night with Josey should have been enough reassurance, she knew. Reflecting on it occupied her mind during the tedious hours of travel.

  After they’d fallen asleep under the stars, Annabelle woke with a start, unsure of her whereabouts. Understanding rushed back as Josey kicked, murmuring, his arm twitching beneath her. It was still dark. His thrashing had pulled the blankets and exposed her back to bone-aching cold. His arm swung out, and only the blankets prevented him from striking her. She shook him.

  “Josey, it’s all right.” His eyes snapped open, and she saw the confusion on his face in the dim light. “It’s all right, Josey. You must have had a nightmare.”

  Josey nodded, still more in the dream than the moment. Annabelle leaned forward, her hand on his chest, feeling his heart hammering a rhythm like raindrops in a summer shower, his breathing nearly as fast. She shivered as he looked at her.

  “You’re cold.” He tugged at the blankets and covered her. She laid her head against his chest, still hearing his heart. “I’m sorry I woke you. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “No, of course not.” She placed an arm over him. “Are you all right?”

  “Like you said, it was a nightmare.”

  “It must have been terrible. Do you remember what it was about?”

  “I think so. It was . . .” He hesitated. “The war.” He shrugged, her head rising with the movement. “Go back to sleep. It’s nothing.”

  She knew better. “When I was a little girl and had nightmares, my father would ask me about them. He said if you talked about your nightmares when you were awake, that would take away the fear when you went back to sleep.”

  He was silent a moment. “That may work for children, when the dreams are monsters. I don’t know if it works when the dreams are memories.”

  “You can try.”

  “They’re horrible things, Belle. Things I wish I hadn’t seen, wish I hadn’t done.”

  Annabelle thought back to the day the road agents attacked and how she felt watching Josey kill those men. They had threatened her family and friends. If Josey hadn’t killed them, the bandits would have killed him or hurt more people in the wagon train. Josey didn’t seem to enjoy fighting, but he didn’t shy from it, either. She supposed it was no different when he had been at war. One side attacked and you either killed the man across from you—or allowed him to kill you. That didn’t make him a bad man.

  She pulled closer, wishing to cover him entirely, wrap him like a cocoon and make him feel safe the way he did for all of them. His body stiffened against hers, but in a moment he relaxed as she clung to him.

  “You can tell me anything. I won’t judge you.”

  His breathing became regular, his heartbeat back to a methodical rhythm. She kissed his neck without thought, the way she might comfort a child. When he spoke, the sound of his voice startled her.

  “Belle, there are a lot of things I’ve done that I wish I hadn’t.” He shifted to face her, but his eyes cast down as he spoke, as if in search of the words he wanted. “Things that make me unworthy of you, I know.”

  “That’s not true—”

  With a gentle hand, he stayed her, his eyes finding hers. “I need to say this, so you understand. I don’t mean to hide from you who I was. I think you know already.”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen. There’s no need for secrets between us, Josey.”

  “No secrets, maybe, but memories, Belle. If I don’t share more with you, it’s because I want to forget and telling you will only make those memories a part of the new life I want to have.” He looked at her, took her hand in his. “You have memories, too, Belle. Memories I wouldn’t wish to share.” She thought of Richard. In all the nights she lay with him, they had never talked like this.

  Josey seemed to read her thoughts. “I would rather not know about your life with him. I can tell you weren’t happy. I think knowing why would only give me an anger I can’t vent.”

  “We both have secrets, I guess,” she said, correcting herself. “Memories. We have memories that are best forgotten.”

  They lay back together. The moon was so bright, Annabelle couldn’t see nearly as many stars as she had before it rose. Not seeing them didn’t mean they weren’t there. She wondered how long she would need to be with Josey before they created enough memories that the war faded from his mind like stars on a moonlit night. I would like to find out.

  When she thought he had fallen asleep again, he proved he had other things in mind. She did not object. She was contented when he was inside her in a way she wasn’t any other time. Even when the urgency of his need took over and his mind seemed removed from her, she was happy. He thinks too much of death. This is life. Their bodies were sweat-slicked despite the cool night air, and he slid against her smoothly. Abruptly, he stopped.

  “Did you—?” She hadn’t felt anything.

  He shook his head, the movement rigid.

  “Why—?”

  He shook his head again. “I don’t want it to end,” he said, his voice tight, as if he were holding his breath.

  “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” she said. Her laughter shook her body.

  “Don’t move.” He gripped her tighter.

  She squeezed her legs against him, then allowed her hips to slide the tiniest of increments, down, then
up. “Is it all right if I do this?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” His eyes were closed and he breathed through his teeth.

  “What about this?” She clenched something inside, a movement she hadn’t known was possible before he was in her.

  His voice sounded pinched. “You’re killing me.”

  “I’m loving you. There’s a difference.”

  “When it’s done, I will slip from you. I’m not ready for that. I want to feel you like this as long as I can.”

  “And I want to feel this.” She allowed her hips to slide again. He didn’t protest. “You can’t hold out forever.” Her hips moved again, down and up. “And you will have to leave in the morning.” Down and up. “So if we can’t remain like this.” Down and up. Down and up. “I will have to give you a reason—” downandup downandup “—to come to me again.”

  As much pleasure as the memory gave Annabelle, in the light of a new day, with her here and him someplace else, well . . . like a bug bite that wouldn’t stop itching, the more she tried to put her doubts from her mind, the worse they plagued her.

  At least she had no worries for herself and her family. A hundred soldiers surrounded their wagons. They even had a wagon hauling a small howitzer the soldiers said terrified the Indians, who called it “the gun that shoots twice.”

  In the Colonel’s absence, a scout named Jim Bridger led their train. “Old Gabe” was a legend. Give him enough time, and he will tell you himself. Just as with the Colonel, Annabelle had struck up an odd rapport with the mountain man.

  Bridger must have been over sixty, a little bowed by age yet enlivened with the charm only an old man can possess, capable of looking at a woman with a lascivious gleam while still passing himself off as harmless. He had come west as barely more than a boy, so long ago, he liked to say, “Chimney Rock was a hole in the ground when I first saw it.” Despite a penchant for tall tales, Annabelle trusted Bridger. She sought him out while they were halted for a midday break.

  “Hello, little darlin’,” Bridger said with a wink and a crooked smile as he brushed the old gray mule he called Hercules.

  Bridger swore by mules. Not only were they sure-footed, he told Annabelle, but their smaller legs made for a more comfortable gait than a horse. “Even at my age, I can ride all day and never get sore.”

  Done with the brushing, Bridger stood to his full six feet. “I suppose you’ve got more on your mind than the proper method of brushing a mule.”

  Annabelle nodded. “It’s the other train. Everybody says I have nothing to worry about, that the Indians won’t attack a military train, but I don’t believe it’s as large as ours. Do you believe they’re safe?”

  Bridger hesitated before answering. “The commander’s right,” he said. “All the Sioux attacks so far have been ambushes. A show of force will make them think twice.” His eyes clouded over with a concern he seemed reluctant to voice. It was said the man had lived with Crow Indians, who hated the Sioux even more than white men did. The land they were passing through had been sacred to the Crow, but the Sioux had driven them out in a bloody war lasting decades.

  Annabelle urged him on. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

  “It ain’t my place to second-guess Colonel Carrington. He’s the military man.”

  “You know the Indians.”

  Bridger smiled as if caught in another tall tale. He sighed as he pointed to the blue-clad soldiers lazing about on the grassy field after their meal. Safe in their large numbers, they gave no sign of being at war. “Lookit how young they are. Most of ’em have never fought, and those that have ain’t fought Indians. They think with their rifles and cannon and military training no bunch of savages will ever beat ’em.”

  “The Indians have rifles, too, don’t they?”

  Bridger removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his face with a swipe of his sleeve. He nodded toward the dust-colored buttes that overlooked the valley. “The Sioux will skulk in them cliffs or wherever they can lie low under wolf skins, watching all the time. The moment you don’t see any is just about the time they’re thickest and you should look for their devilment.”

  Annabelle followed his gaze to the hills. It didn’t seem like he wanted to frighten her, but she shivered, feeling more than the breeze off the distant Bighorn Mountains.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  Caleb felt strong enough to insist on getting up when the soldiers stopped for water. Doc Hines warned him against it, and Caleb’s legs quivered as he pulled himself up. Yet it wasn’t his lingering weakness that would make him regret leaving the wagon.

  They must have departed Fort Reno at an ungodly hour, for the sun hung low on the horizon. The doctor explained as they rode that the river near the fort was too alkaline to be much good, and they were limited in how much they drew from the fort’s spring. They left in the middle of the night with plans to fill their water barrels at the next creek and push on to a campsite before the worst of the day’s heat.

  Caleb leaned against the wagon, hoping he looked stronger than he felt. The doctor told Caleb he might ride in front with the driver if he felt well enough after they stopped for water. Caleb wondered if the doctor hadn’t been merely eager to be rid of his troublesome patient, but he wasn’t about to complain. Unaccustomed to riding inside a wagon, he found the close quarters and constant rocking nearly as debilitating as the fever.

  Their train consisted of five supply wagons, including one drawing a steam-powered sawmill, two ambulance wagons and a few horses belonging to officers. They were an odd assortment. Doc Hines had told him there were more than a dozen soldiers, nearly as many teamsters, a chaplain and two soldiers’ wives, each with a baby. With the five officers new to the region, the Colonel and Josey Angel served as guides.

  The wagons had stopped near a creek bed. A crowd of soldiers and teamsters gathered near the front wagon. Caleb hesitated when he heard the sharp voice of the officer in charge, a lieutenant named Wands.

  “Keep the women back.”

  The warning drew Caleb forward, curiosity helping him forget his pain. Instead of the stream of clear water he expected, he saw a dry creek bed and the nearly naked body of a soldier— his identity made possible only by a square of blue uniform secured to his body by one of the arrows that pierced his back. The man had crawled into the sandy creek bed, so desperate for water he had been willing to dig with his hands to find it.

  “Looks like they waited here,” Josey Angel called to the Colonel from the tree line, a good twenty paces from the creek.

  “Water always makes a good spot for an ambush,” the Colonel replied.

  More mindful now of the group’s small numbers, Caleb saw no sign of Indians. He maneuvered among the soldiers for a better look and immediately regretted it.

  During the war, Caleb had seen many dead bodies. Corpses mangled and twisted in every conceivable fashion and some Caleb would have deemed inconceivable before he witnessed them. None of that prepared Caleb for the sight of the dead soldier. The left side of the man’s head had been crushed so that it resembled a melon dropped from a height. A patch of hair from just above his forehead had been ripped clear, and his ears were gone. More had been done to the lower half of his body, but Caleb looked away, glad for an empty stomach.

  The man was just as dead as any he had seen in the war, but those bodies possessed an impersonal quality, men made corpses by the accident of a musket ball, their deaths motivated by larger objectives.

  What had been done to the soldier in the creek bed was different. Methodical. Calculated. Caleb wasn’t sure the soldier was dead when the Indians took his ears, nose and other things. They enjoyed it. Caleb shivered at the thought. The soldier’s final release into death had probably been a disappointment to his tormenters, a premature end to their entertainment.

  The reaction of the soldiers was mixed. Some calling to God, others angrily cursing the Indians, swearing a revenge Caleb hoped he wouldn’t be around to see. One of the team
sters retreated to the trees and vomited his breakfast. His retching set off two others.

  The young teamster who’d lost his breakfast swore under his breath. “Savages,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Some things the Sioux did to the Crow would make this look like play,” the Colonel said. “White men have done things just as wicked in the name of God.”

  The teamster looked uncertain. “God had nothing to do with this.”

  The Colonel shook his head. “When he dies, an Indian brave believes he will pass on to a place filled with wild ponies to tame, game to stalk and pretty young maidens to woo.” The Colonel smiled at the thought as a few of the soldiers gathered close. “If his enemy has no fingers to pull back the bowstring, no tongue to taste the buffalo, no pecker to get a poke, well, that man’s heaven becomes an eternal hell.”

  Lieutenant Wands interrupted and ordered the men to dig a grave near the trail. The soldiers seemed grateful to be occupied. Caleb sensed tension between Wands and the Colonel. The pair had stepped aside from the others and were speaking. Wands kept his voice low, and Caleb made out only part of the Colonel’s much-louder reply: “—not this late in the season, after the snow melt. You just can’t be sure.” Wands reached out to the older man, guiding him farther away from the soldiers. He looked no happier than the Colonel, who stalked off with him.

  Weak and thirsty, Caleb found a spot in the shade, his condition and civilian status sparing him from the work detail. The wagon driver came over. Sam Peters was a squat, round man, with a jowly face that even a crescent of untamed whiskers couldn’t hide. He looked like he had spent the war in the quartermaster’s office, a little too near the food supplies, but the lack of deprivation gave him a generous nature. He offered a smoke. Caleb refused, afraid the tobacco would make him ill.