McSwain flicked his eyes at Ben Scarlett for half a second. The man didn’t want to speak with an extra set of ears listening in. Ben picked up that message, rose, thanked McSwain again for the unexpected meal, and departed. Jedd watched him go, then stared at McSwain, waiting.
“I doubted a plea from me would be enough to draw you back here all the way from Missouri,” he said. “I had those letters written by a local woman who could be trusted to keep quiet, and who possesses the ability to copy very closely the handwriting of others. She imitated Emma’s hand quite well, using an old letter Emma had sent me as a guide. I told her what words to write. I am sorry for the deception, but it was crucial that I speak to you.”
Jedd thought of the things the letters had said, things that had given him hope that, somehow, there might yet be a future for him and Emma. Anger rippled through him at the realization it was all false. Had he been a man of lesser self-control, he might have risen and allowed his fists to convey his feelings to McSwain.
“I can’t see what was ‘crucial’ in involving me,” Jedd replied. “You can join the Sadlers’ California venture without any help from me. All that is required is to inform the Sadlers’ secretarial clerk, Mr. Varney, pay the fee, and be prepared to leave at the designated time and date. I’m just the pilot, the guide. I neither recruit nor sign up individual travelers. You didn’t need me back here at all.”
“There is more to it all than you yet know,” replied McSwain. “Now is not the time to explain it, while your feelings are stirred up against me. I do most sincerely apologize for having drawn you here with a false letter.”
“Tell me why you did it. Now. Not later. Now!”
“Well, I will tell you part of it. Wilberforce Sadler chairs the trustee board of Bledsoe College. The same board that declared itself desirous of losing my service as president. I could hardly expect him to welcome me into his band of California travelers unless I have the support and influence of someone he has cause to listen to.”
“And the rest of the reason?”
“Later, Jedd…later. Not just yet.”
Jedd rose and without another word left the room, then the house. He strode down Addington Street with Zebulon McSwain watching him through a window. Jedd felt a fool. Deceived by forged letters! How could he have been so gullible? And what could have motivated Emma’s father to such a depth of deception?
There was more here than Jedd was able to figure out. It was surprising, confusing, and most of all, infuriating.
A black-and-white cat walked into Jedd’s path and darted quickly across. He stopped and watched the cat vanish into a hedgerow beside the road. “Cicero?” Jedd called softly. He’d just realized that something had been missing at McSwain’s house, something that had always been there before. It was McSwain’s beloved old black-and-white tomcat, Cicero, which Jedd had seldom seen anywhere except on Zeb McSwain’s lap. Emma had never liked the cat because it made her eyes water and nose run to be near it for long, and Jedd had been amused many times when she’d made half-serious accusations to her father, claiming he cared more about the cat than about her. McSwain, naturally, had always refused to respond to such comments.
Cicero had not been there tonight. That must have been Cicero who just ran across in front of him. But no. This cat had possessed a completely black head, whereas Cicero had a white face with one black ear and one white one. Quite distinctive. Maybe this newer cat was one of Cicero’s feral offspring.
His mind left the subject of cats and drifted back to McSwain himself, and the unrevealed trouble that had beset him and taken his career. It was overwhelmingly puzzling.
Jedd walked for twenty minutes, expending pent-up energy, and then a realization came that he knew someone who might be able to add some clarity to the mystery of McSwain’s situation and peculiar behavior.
He was well away from Addington Street when he stopped suddenly, listening hard to the sounds of the town. One in particular caught his ear, distant and strange. He puzzled over it, then walked on until it had faded into nothing.
In his big house, Zebulon McSwain had heard the same sound, and was now seated in the darkest corner of his bedroom, into which he had locked himself so securely even his servants could not enter. He kept an ear turned toward the window, listening for what he had heard to be heard again. But he heard it no more, and was grateful for the silence.
Home for Crozier Bellingham was a little block of rented rooms in an upstairs corner of a cheap boarding house. Humble as it was, it was cozy and secure, and he enjoyed being there at the end of a long day. With the strained meeting with the Sadler brothers and the human oddity named Ottwell Plumb now some hours behind him, Bellingham was glad to stretch out on his narrow bed, hands behind his head, and stare at the ceiling while awaiting the coming of sleep.
He was blinking on the edge of slumber when a pounding at his door jolted back his awareness. He sat up fast, then jumped out of bed. “Who’s there?”
“Crozier? Is that you? Jedd Colter here!”
Bellingham went to the door and opened it. “Come on in, Jedd.”
“Need to ask you about something,” Jedd said. “It has to do with Zebulon McSwain.”
Bellingham ran his fingers through his hair and nodded Jedd toward a chair. When Jedd was seated, Bellingham asked, “So, what do you want to know?”
* * *
When Jedd had asked his question, Crozier Bellingham paced about the room as he answered. “Jedd, the truth is, I don’t know the precise problems that McSwain had with his college board. I don’t think anyone knows except for the people directly involved.”
Jedd shook his head. “There have to be rumors, at least. McSwain is a notable man in this city, and when something happens to a notable man, people talk.”
“Why do you care, Jedd, if I may ask?”
“Because he’s told me he wants to go with us to California. And he’s in trouble of some sort…. Someone’s after him. There was a man with a gun sneaking around outside his house tonight. He ran when he was seen.”
Crozier was intrigued. “Interesting. And surprising. The kind of men who serve on college trustee boards don’t tend to skulk around houses with guns.”
Jedd replied, “But some of those men might hire another person to do such a thing. So you don’t have any notion at all of what put him and his higher-ups at odds?”
Bellingham sat down and leaned toward Jedd, an earnest and secretive look on his face. He answered almost as if there were hidden, listening ears all around, “Jedd, the rumor I have heard, and it is purely a rumor from my standpoint, is that there was a theft.”
“McSwain stole something?”
“So say the whispers on the street, for what they are worth. Which perhaps is nothing.”
Jedd thought hard for a few moments. “It would have to be something of value to the college. Maybe…”
“College funds?” said Bellingham. “That’s what I suspect. He stole college funds. Probably after he found out that the trustees were about to let Bledsoe College be absorbed by another institution, and the president’s job was inevitably about to disappear. McSwain saw the end of his career rushing at him and grabbed what he could while he still had access to it. That’s my guess.”
“And now the trustees, or somebody on the board of trustees, want to get back what he took? And are willing even to threaten his life for it?”
“Maybe so,” said Bellingham. “Maybe so.”
Jedd mulled it over. “So that would give McSwain a reason to put as much distance as he can between himself and his old life. And then fate throws in its hand. Along comes gold being found in California, giving him a pretext for leaving that few are likely to question, since so many others are uprooting and making the same move.” Jedd paused, thinking again, and continued more quietly. “And for him there’s a whole other reason to go. His daughter, already in California, with a man not worthy of her. He can go to her, maybe have a chance to make her situation bette
r than it is.”
“You’re losing me now,” Bellingham said. “I don’t know about any of that.”
“Never mind it,” Jedd said. “It’s just me speculating about things.”
Bellingham went to a nearby table and picked up a leather-bound book that looked like a small ledger. He opened it and Jedd saw pages of neatly written words. Bellingham flipped through to the first blank page, sat down, and with a pen and small bottle of ink, began writing.
“That’s not the same book you wrote your notes in today,” Jedd observed.
“No. That was my notepad, where I record things in their rawest and barest form, just notes and facts and general broad observations. What I’m writing in now is my personal journal, where I put it all together in a way that makes sense, at least to me. This is what will eventually become the book I write about the California enterprise. An outline of the key elements and themes and story of my book, if you will. My book, my work…not those self-serving newspaper reports the Sadler brothers are looking for.”
“Are you going to write something about Zebulon McSwain in your book?”
“I’m going to write about whoever and whatever proves to be the most interesting, all of which will make itself evident as we go along. But writing about McSwain in the direct sense, or any other actual living individual, for that matter…no. Because what I will write will be a novel. I shall be the Charles Dickens of the gold fields. I am determined to do so. You’re the first person to whom I’ve revealed that. I hope you don’t think I’m just a foolish dreamer.”
“You’ll write a made-up story, you’re saying?”
“Only in a sense. It will be a made-up story that follows actual reality. Our journey to California, and the people and situations and events that will constitute it, those will be the ore from which I mine my novel. Names and so on will be changed. And some details will certainly be changed as required to carry the story through.”
“Why not just write it straight, using the actual folks involved?”
Bellingham, though previously weary, was becoming enlivened and animated by Jedd’s questions. This was his subject, the kind of thing he’d thought through and could readily articulate, so he was glad to talk about it. “There are advantages to a writer in telling certain stories in the form of fiction,” he said in a professorial tone. “Fictionalization frees the writer to hone and refine his story, making small adjustments and deviations that allow the tale to be told in the most entertaining manner rather than as a slavishly fact-bound narrative. It lessens his concern over an accidental libel or slander of an actual person. And most of all…” Here Bellingham paused, drew in a deep breath, and delivered an obviously practiced line. “…it frees the author from the narration of mere facts and allows him to instead present truth. For though truth does not contradict facts, it does transcend them.”
Jedd wasn’t accustomed to such heady concepts—his conversations were more likely to run to how best to set a fish trap or read deer sign—but he nodded politely. Bellingham looked pleased with himself for his profundity and gave a tight little smile.
Jedd grinned back, but thought of Ottwell Plumb and of the bickering Sadlers and their delicate little personal secretary, Ferkus Varney, who, Jedd had ascertained in the earlier meeting, would accompany his bosses across the country. I’m going to be surrounded by strange little noddy fools all the way to California, Jedd thought.
After a series of further meetings, arguments, and displays of personal eccentricities, the process of advertising the upcoming venture of the California Enterprise Company of East Tennessee, signing up eligible participants, collecting participation fees, and finalizing the many background arrangements necessary for the effort at last were addressed. By the time the enterprise was ready to commence, letters of recommendation from men of prominence had been obtained, lines of credit secured, and a small band of scouts and armed, quasi-military defenders hired and put under Jedd Colter’s authority. Knoxville’s finest restaurant had been relieved of its best chef, an Irish-born culinary craftsman named Hewitt O’Keefe, and O’Keefe was engaged at an overly high price, to serve as company cook. His profusely described plans for fancy dishes that would make ordinary trail fare “look like porcine swill by comparison,” as he put it, gave Jedd yet one more aspect of the enterprise about which to feel doubtful. He’d spent enough time on road and trail to know that preparation of the kind of foods O’Keefe planned was impractical to the point of being impossible. But Jedd kept his mouth shut, unwilling to create a new potential point of conflict with the Sadlers.
Jedd had qualms as well about a plan for the journey that Wilberforce Sadler insisted be emphasized in all advertising: an anticipated short three-month cross-country overland passage. He intended to pledge that those who threw in with the California Enterprise Company of East Tennessee could look forward to a fast start on gathering California wealth and an early, triumphant return home, with pockets bulging with nuggets and leaking glittering dust.
What gave Jedd the most pause about the pledge of a fast journey was General Gordon Lloyd, who proved to be the slowest-moving, slowest-talking man Jedd had ever encountered. The old military man slurred and dragged his way through the first planning meeting he attended, a meeting he allowed to begin only after leading the longest, most deliberately spoken prayer in human history. Every syllable was dragged out to the fullest possible extent. And the first item of business brought up after the extended “amen” was a provision, demanded by the general, that no travel would occur on Sundays, that day being set aside for rest, prayer, worship, and reading of the Bible.
Jedd had nothing against rest, prayer, worship, or Bible reading, but clearly the chance for fast progress was being lessened dramatically…and there was no guessing what other ways to slow things down the somnolent General Lloyd might come up with along the way.
It was likely to be a long spring and summer, Jedd thought as he listened to General Lloyd’s droning voice. And a long, long trail.
PART TWO
THE NARROWING OF
THE FUNNEL
CHAPTER TEN
Crozier Bellingham had not intended to become a wagon driver, but a broken ankle suffered by the original driver hired by the Sadlers to man one of the two wagons they were taking for themselves left a vacancy they had difficulty filling on short notice. The job might have gone to Ferkus Varney, but he was a delicate and weak man, possessing little promise for such work, and was thus passed over. When Witherspoon offered the young journalist the chance to learn on the job the skill of being a teamster, Bellingham heard himself agreeing.
Part of the attraction was that the Sadlers had commissioned the construction of two completely new, high-quality wagons, created by the finest wagon maker in the eastern end of the state. The sturdy, blue-painted vehicles were striking to see, smooth in motion, rugged in construction, yet as finely finished, jointed, and crafted as an excellent piece of furniture. The chance to drive such a well-built conveyance would in itself hold appeal to any young man. What sold Bellingham most on the job, however, was the opportunity for extra pay, the guarantee the work provided of being always able to ride rather than walk, and the excellent view his perch provided. From the driver’s seat he could observe and etch into his mind in great detail the movements, sounds, feelings, and perspectives of a cross-country wagon train. And given that Witherspoon Sadler would usually be riding at his side, he would no doubt hear many details of the inner workings of the expedition that would provide wonderful grist for his writings. His novel, of which not a word was yet written, was becoming grander by the day in the vision of its hopeful creator. Who could say? Maybe the story would be written from the point of view of a California-bound teamster Bellingham could base upon himself.
The train moved out of Knoxville, westward, on May 26, 1849, eighteen wagons and fifty human beings strong. The first leg of the long journey would be into and through Kentucky, to the city of Louisville. Aware of his inexperience,
Bellingham dreaded the rough country through which they would have to travel, but was sure the practice would be valuable training for the endless miles facing them once they reached Independence and the start of the transcontinental part of their journey.
Bellingham sat straight-spined on his driver’s perch as the California Enterprise Company of East Tennessee rolled out of Knoxville with a large crowd of admiring citizens waving from the sides of the streets, pleased to see two and a half score of their friends and neighbors actually beginning such an epic adventure. It brought to the city a sense of being part of something vast and national in scope, a movement that at that moment was probably being reflected in a score of other departures from other cities and towns all across the nation.
Wilberforce Sadler took advantage of the parade atmosphere to wave broadly at the crowd from the driver’s perch of the lead wagon, one festooned with flags both decorative and patriotic. The name of the California Enterprise Company of East Tennessee was painted on both sides of the canvas wagon cover. Little shims of whittled pine had been placed strategically, and temporarily, on the wagon wheels to create a drumroll noise, adding drama to the movement of the head wagon in the long, street-filling wagon train.
In the middle of the train the wagons gave way to a large block of riders, livestock, and pedestrians leading packhorses. Jedd Colter was among the horsemen and wore clothing that had been insisted upon by the Sadlers: a Crockett-styled buckskin outfit intended to remind those who saw it that Jedd came from a noted frontier family of the region, known for woodcraft and significant contributions to the frontier heritage of the region. Jedd, who never liked to strut himself before others, wore the getup over his own protest and kept his eyes fixed mostly straight ahead, declining to return the waves and greetings sent his way from onlookers. He did wave at Robert Bertram, who had hollered at him from an alley and raised in greeting a crockery liquor jug from which he was swigging. Jedd figured it was stolen. If the opportunity had existed, he’d have gladly passed on his costumelike garb to the old drunkard, who would probably wear it with pride.
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