Colter's Path (9781101604830)

by Judd, Cameron

  And so, against the wishes of some of his sizable family, he had declared that he would make a major gift to benefit the people of the United States, particularly those forging into new frontiers. Finnegan had put a handful of his family diamonds, jewels of long, complex history and immense value, into the custody of his son, John, the only one of his children whom he fully trusted, and sent him with them to the United States and the state of Tennessee, there to present the diamonds to a college called Bledsoe. Samuel Finnegan chose Bledsoe College because he had read some of the early writings of the college’s founder, the late Reverend Eben Bledsoe, and liked the man’s ideas. Eben Bledsoe had written of the necessity of education for the prosperous growth of a nation and asserted that the frontier of any growing land must not be neglected in provision of such education. The fact that Finnegan had personal connections to the settlement of the Carolina-Tennessee frontier through the Scots-Irish only heightened his interest in playing benefactor to the college, and this despite its Presbyterian roots in contrast to his own Catholicism.

  Wilberforce Sadler stared Wickham in the face, unflinching and fierce. “I’m going to ask you something, Stanley, and I expect a straight and honest answer.” Something in the way he said “Stanley” sounded mocking, making Wickham feel small and unimportant.

  “Ask, then.”

  “Very well. Is it the Finnegan diamonds you are waiting on?”

  Wickham did not want to answer, feeling unsure where the answer would lead. But he was trapped.

  “It is,” he admitted.

  Wilberforce Sadler froze a moment, then nodded. “I feared as much.”

  “I will have them.”

  “Why do you believe so? Why would McSwain steal them, flee his own town, and travel all the way across the country, hiding them, then just hand them to you?”

  “I will have them.”

  Wilberforce shook his head firmly. “I see no grounds to share your confidence. McSwain took a great risk, criminalized himself, to get those diamonds into his own hands. It is hard to think he would simply give them up. And hard now for me to believe we are going to be able to carry through with the plans we have made.”

  “I…I promise you, Wilberforce, I will, I will, obtain those diamonds. I will succeed because I am willing to do more than simply ask for them. I will exert pressure on my revered father-in-law to make him turn them over. Then we can proceed without delay.”

  “‘Exert pressure,’ you say. You are unaware, my friend, that pressure has already been exerted. Even before McSwain fled Knoxville, I had hired a capable and ruthless man to provide, shall we say, encouragement to him not to try to cling to what he had no right to have.”

  “But it hasn’t worked?”

  “It hasn’t worked.”

  “I am assuming that this ‘ruthless man’ threatened McSwain in some manner.”

  “He did. Yes.”

  Wickham looked Sadler in the eye. “Then perhaps the wrong person was threatened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hardly dare say.” And Wilberforce Sadler knew right away what Wickham was thinking.

  “You would do that? Your own—”

  “If it will put the diamonds into our hands and enable us to move forward with our plan, then yes. Yes indeed, I will do it. In the end it will benefit her, too, you know.”

  Wilberforce felt the dominant status in the conversation shift from himself to Wickham. What Wickham apparently was ready to do was startling, even troubling…but Wilberforce could not deny the practicality of it. It might make the crucial difference. McSwain might prove to be one of those men who are more responsive to threats against loved ones than against themselves. And because the actions would be Wickham’s, not his, Wilberforce’s own conscience need not be sullied.

  Sadler money alone was insufficient to properly launch the sprawling series of big camp stores that were planned. And Wickham’s in-hand financial resources were not enough of a supplement to make the crucial difference without themselves being supplemented. So Wilberforce, despite being stunned and even appalled by what Wickham obviously had in mind to motivate McSwain, could only hope the plan worked.

  “Fifteen days, Wickham,” he said. “You have fifteen days to cause this to happen. After that, all previous bargains are nullified. Are we of a common understanding? You may as well agree because you have no choice to do otherwise.”

  Wickham reluctantly nodded. “We are.” The handshake that followed was devoid of enthusiasm.

  Wickham had more to say, though. “There is one thing I must insist upon: Emma cannot know of my part in what will happen involving her. She cannot know that I would condone such a thing. If she did, it would be the end for us. She would never abide my presence again. And I could not abide that.”

  “You are a man with a gun-steel conscience, Stanley.”

  “I am a man who is willing to do what must be done. And it won’t really matter in the end. She’s not going to be hurt. Scared, certainly, but not hurt.”

  “We may hope.”

  Near the Scarlett’s Luck mining camp,

  California gold country

  One week after Ollie Slott fitted a notch-eared Irishman in San Francisco for a new pair of boots, Jedd Colter had the oddest of feelings as he set out on his horse in the direction of the mining camp known as Bowater Gulch, or sometimes merely Bowater. Though he was alone, he could not shake the feeling that Treemont Dalton was riding beside him. Jedd found himself glancing over time and again, ready to make some comment to his old friend, only to find no one there.

  Yet he was there. Jedd could feel his presence, and welcomed it.

  Jedd was out today in his capacity as deputy, acting in response to an odd and highly questionable bit of intelligence he had received from Ben Scarlett. Jedd had strong doubts about this effort. Was it a waste of time? His mind kept drifting to the possibility that he might make better use of his time and travel by riding all the way to Bowater, where Emma lived. He might be able to see her this very day if he would only do that.

  Common sense restrained him. Seeing Emma might also involve seeing her husband, and that wouldn’t do. Jedd had no carnal intent in paying a call on Emma, but he doubted that Stanley Wickham would believe that. A confrontation with Wickham was nothing Jedd wanted today.

  He did want to know, though, the truth about Wickham’s treatment of Emma. If he was misusing her, hurting her, treating her unfaithfully, Jedd would not stand by unresponsive. He would protect the woman he had not been able to cease loving.

  Not today, though. He had other duties to perform, however unlikely they might be to possess any validity. One had to take information received from Ben Scarlett with a grain of salt, considering that Ben had an active imagination that was fueled in large measure by alcohol.

  As he rode toward the remote area Ben had told him of, Jedd’s mind did continually drift back to Emma, though. He wondered what an initial approach to her would be like. Would she receive him with welcome and happiness? And what would he say to her? Emma, I crossed the country just to make sure that old Stanley isn’t being unfaithful to you and maybe laying the old cane switch or hickory rod across your shoulders every now and then. It was going to be a clumsy matter to address, whenever and however it happened. Jedd knew he needed to give himself plenty of time to prepare his thoughts before he actually went to her.

  Jedd reached a peculiar boulder that jutted out into the dirt road. Jedd slowed the pace of his horse and moved forward slowly and about thirty feet beyond the boulder, found the landmark Ben Scarlett had said he would find: a footpath that met the main trail at a ninety-degree angle and ran up the flank of the hillside to Jedd’s right.

  Jedd eyed the little path and wondered if he could ride his horse up it. More prudent to dismount, he decided. He’d lead his horse by its reins and climb the hill on foot because of the narrowness of the passage. He was grateful for how quickly and thoroughly his ankle had healed. Hardly any pain now, a
nd what pain there was was lessened by the support given the ankle by the fine pair of boots Ollie Slott had made for him back in Tennessee. The boots had been damaged by the gunshot that had hit Jedd’s ankle, but recently he had put that boot in for repair with a shoemaker-turned–gold miner who was living and mining at Scarlett’s Luck. The man had done a good job and the repaired boot was nearly as well fitted as it had been when Ollie Slott presented it to Jedd.

  Halfway up the hill, lost in concealing brush, Jedd heard a guttural sound in the undergrowth to his left. His well-trained senses told him it might have a human origin. With that thought, Jedd reached to his side and touched his newest possession: a Colt Dragoon, one of the newer pistols available and a growing favorite among those fortunate enough to have one. Jedd owed his own good fortune on that score to none other than Ben Scarlett, who had enjoyed a particularly good day with his gold pan a few days back and had used the proceeds of it to buy a gift for a man who had been good to him when others had not. Jedd had protested the gift as too grand to be given him by a man who had seldom possessed two coins to rub together. Ben was insistent, though, and Jedd, once he’d seen and held the Colt, felt his resistance give way. “A good marshal’s deputy needs a good pistol,” Ben had said. Jedd had nodded and accepted it.

  The noise Jedd had heard beside the trail proved to be feline rather than human in origin. The cat scurried off furtively, and Jedd continued on, leading his horse up the claustrophobic pathway.

  According to Ben Scarlett, he should soon reach a small, basinlike valley, in which a handful of small cabins would be visible. Ben, who had explored the area after being told there was a hidden store of stolen whiskey up the trail, had promised Jedd that he would see something strange about those cabins but had declined to tell him what it was. This had annoyed Jedd to some measure, but as Ben obviously had intended, it had intrigued him, too.

  He abruptly reached something that Ben had not forewarned of. The trail forked, one branch veering left, the other continuing straight ahead. Jedd paused, trying to decide which branch to follow. Beneath his breath, he swore at Ben Scarlett in absentia and kept to the branch that appeared to continue the main path.

  He found no basin of a valley, no mysterious cabins. He cursed Ben’s name again and continued on down the back slope of the hill he’d climbed, and came out on a wagon road that he recognized. This was a road that connected the area now occupied by Scarlett’s Luck with the longer-settled site of Bowater, the latter being to Jedd’s left, the former to his right. He sighed, paused to rub his somewhat sore ankle through his boot, mounted up, and turned right to go back to Scarlett’s Luck, having forgotten for the moment about that second branch of the trail he had not explored.

  Even if he’d recalled it, he might not have climbed back up to explore it. He’d always liked Ben Scarlett at some level, but the man was a drunk and therefore unreliable. The old sot might literally have dreamed up that supposed hidden valley and strange cabins. Jedd had better things to do with his time than pursue the illusions of a drunkard.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A combination of nature, experience, and heredity had given Jedd Colter the ability to detect—usually—when he was alone and when he was not. Often he simply knew when another was near and could not have said exactly which of his senses had provided the information. He’d pondered the matter before and had surmised only that it was almost a supersense created through some undesigned special combination of the usual five. That special sense had failed him a little earlier when he’d mistaken an animal sound for a human one, but such failures were not the norm.

  Whatever it was that told him of it, Jedd detected the presence of the other man before any noise, visual evidence, or scent presented itself. Having gone down that hillside trail to the Bowater Road, remounted, and traveled about an eighth of a mile back in the direction of Scarlett’s Luck, Jedd had been stricken with a muscle cramp in his left leg, the same sort of cramp he and Ollie Slott had discussed at some length on a Knoxville street in a time not particularly long past, but which now felt like five years gone. Halting his horse, he dismounted and tethered it off to a branch and paced about, massaging the cramping calf muscle of his right leg.

  The other man emerged from brush to his left and leveled a scattergun at Jedd’s midsection. Jedd’s hand whipped to the butt of his Colt Dragoon. He did not draw, however, stopped by the threat of that scattergun aimed at his gut. As fast as he might draw and shoot, he could not hope to do so faster than the other man’s trigger finger could squeeze.

  “You’ve got the drop on me, friend,” Jedd said, lifting his hands slowly. “What do you want from me? I have no gold.”

  The man who had him in his sights was as young as Jedd himself, perhaps a year or two younger. He was slender nearly to the point of wiriness, but muscular. His hair was dark and he wore a mustache a month overdue for some grooming. He stared at Jedd with eyes that did not flinch or falter, though Jedd did see them flicker down for a moment to scan the roughly made tin badge Jedd wore. Blalock had made badges for himself and his deputy when they’d taken on their humble law enforcement roles in Scarlett’s Luck.

  It was only then that Jedd noticed the other fellow was wearing a badge as well.

  “Since we’re both lawmen, I wonder if maybe we’ve got a misunderstanding here,” Jedd said, keeping his hands up.

  The scattergun lowered just an inch or two. “Maybe. Just maybe. What’s that badge you’re wearing?”

  “It’s homemade, is what it is. Not by me. By Mr. Rand Blalock, marshal of Scarlett’s Luck mining camp. I’m his duly appointed deputy.”

  The scattergun muzzle dropped six inches this time. “Pleased to meet you, Dooley,” said the man holding the weapon.

  Jedd was amused but didn’t let it show. “No, no…I’m duly appointed. That’s what I was saying. Name’s Colter. Jedd Colter. Not Dooley.”

  “Sorry about this scattergun, Dooley. I thought you were someone else.”

  Jedd started to correct the name error again, but in a moment of insight realized he was dealing with a man who was hard of hearing. “Who are you, sir?” Jedd asked slowly, and noticed that the other’s eyes fixed upon his lips as he spoke. No question about it: hard of hearing.

  “My name is Tom Buckle. Tom like the cat, and Buckle as in what holds your belt together. I’m a lawman like you are,” Buckle said. “In my case, I’m deputy marshal of the town of Bowater Gulch. Though I prefer merely to shorten it to Bowater. It sounds a little more appealing to these Yankee Maine-born ears.”

  Maine. Jedd had never encountered anyone from Maine in his life, not that he knew of. It explained why Buckle’s speech sounded odd to his ears.

  Jedd eyed the badge on Buckle’s chest. It was no homemade item like the one Blalock had given him. Buckle’s badge had a silver sheen and glimmer, not to mention a neatness of form far surpassing that of Jedd’s crude tin credential. Buckle saw Jedd looking at it and grinned. “My marshal had badges crafted by a silversmith in San Francisco. It is as fine a badge as any man of the law could want to wear. I’m quite proud of it.”

  Jedd said, “Mine’s hammered out of common tin by an old-time North Carolina mountain sheriff. No words nor images on it. Nothing to be proud of in the badge itself, but knowing the man who gave it to me and trusted me to help him, I’m proud of mine, too.”

  “Ayuh, sir. You think right-headedly.” Seemingly having decided that Jedd had passed whatever test he had just put him through, Buckle slid his scattergun into a saddle scabbard. “I am pleased to encounter another man in my position. It’s providential, certainly, because I am in need of the help of a capable fellow lawman at this moment. Are you aware that there is an informal agreement among the various towns and camps that official representatives of the law in those places will provide one another mutual assistance when called upon?”

  “It’s not been discussed with me, but I would presume such is the case even without being told of it,” Jedd answered
.

  “Ayuh, good. Because I feel the need of help just now, Dooley, and you appear to be just the man to provide it.”

  * * *

  What Tom Buckle had to say to Jedd came as a surprise. He presented to Jedd almost exactly the same scenario that had led Jedd out onto this trail to begin with, the scenario Ben Scarlett had incompletely described to him.

  Buckle’s version was incomplete as well, but fuller than what Ben had described. And more chilling.

  “Up ahead there is a trail that goes up the ridge, and the trail divides at one point. The straighter portion continues on over the ridge to the older road that now leads on over to Scarlett’s Luck. The other, I’m told, leads to a small valley where there are secret cabins built in such a way that they serve as pens of a sort. Disguised pens, made to blend into the landscape.”

  “Pens for what?” Jedd asked. It was at this point that Ben’s description had fallen short.

  Buckle looked squarely at Jedd. “I don’t know if you are a man of a sensitive nature or toughened to this hard world we live in.”

  “I’d say I’m right toughened. It takes a lot to stir me up.”

  “I’m of the same nature. Toughened to the bad, welcoming to the good. But what I think is going on in that valley with its secret cabins would stir up any man with a sense of decency and civilization about him, even the most toughened. Ayuh, it might.”

  Jedd frowned. “Did you say ‘ayuh’? Does that mean yeah, or yes?”

  “Ayuh…uh, yes. Yes, it does. I’m sorry for my Yankee drawl. It is hard for many to understand me. On the same score, I find it nearly impossible to comprehend the speech of South Carolinians and Georgians. I have met several of both since I reached this place.”