Chapter 2

When the sun rose there was no question that he'd be able to travel. He was thrashing back and forth, and now I could make out a few more words like 'brother' and 'thief'. That made me perk up and listen, but then he would go back into incoherence. A couple of times he nearly sat straight up and shouted "Run!" Whether he was talking to this Zeke person or himself or someone else I didn't know. But I did know that there was no way he could move now. Chances were he'd jerk himself right off the horse. So I left him to his ramblings and went to shoot a rabbit for breakfast.

The fact that he was able to move around and talk meant that he was getting stronger, which if he continued to do so meant that he might snap out of his fever. Which in turn meant that I'd be here for a while. With that in mind I set a few snares, cursing all the while. I should have been well on my way to San Francisco by now, not stranded in the middle of the God forsaken wilderness nursing some half drowned kid. What I was carrying nagged at me like an itch I couldn't scratch, and each day of delay made it worse. I thought about just leaving. It wasn't like there was a whole lot I could do here anyway. Not while he was still unconscious.

He picked just then to shout his warning again, and I wondered who it was he was telling to run. Was there someone chasing him? The last thing I needed was more trouble. I picked up my saddle and swung it onto Tip's back. She glanced at me, her large brown eyes seeing deeper than I ever let any human do. Was I imagining the reproach there?

"I've done all I can do." I told her. Or myself. It didn't matter which, because neither of us believed me. I swung the saddle down. He would either die or be up in the next day or so, and then I could be on my way. One day wasn't going to kill me.

Well, it might. But my hand strayed to my hip, and I felt the reassuring smoothness of my gun beneath my fingers. There might be trouble following behind, but I could wreak my own fair share of trouble as well. Besides, disappearing into the wilderness for a while might not be such a bad idea.

We couldn't stay here though. It was too much in the open and too close to the road I'd left a few miles back. I glanced at the kid. He was lying still, still mumbling, but not thrashing around. This time I swung the saddle up onto Tip with a purpose, and I barely noticed when she glanced back except to cock my elbow slightly. She'd never bitten me before, but it was a habit learned from other horses that had.

I scouted around for nearly three hours before I found a place to my liking. It was a little far from the snares I had set, but I could always move them, and most importantly, it was settled on top of a hill amidst a pile of large boulders. I could look down to the east toward the road and see the land spread out before me, but I had the rocks at my back, easy to get lost among if I had to slip away. There was plenty of dry brush around, wood that wouldn't make a lot of smoke. With the new campsite settled upon, I went back for the kid. He muttered something when I lifted him up onto Tip, but then when I set him down again, his eyelids flickered a little. I pushed my face closer to his, and the eyes opened a crack.

"Pa?" The word was barely audible.

"Not quite." I said drily. He didn't answer, and I straightened and took another look at him. Just how old was this kid? Sleeping now with his eyes closed, he looked around eighteen, but his soft pleading voice had made him seem so much younger. I frowned and roughly brushed the dirt off the knees of my pants.

"Your pa had better be grateful for all the trouble I'm going through for you, kid." I muttered.

He woke up again that night, but not long enough for me to get any information out of him, just long enough for him to drink the rest of the water I'd brought along and go back to sleep. His fever was gone, and without its burning strength coursing through his body, the boy seemed limp and weak. He'd need something besides water to help him get back on his feet.

I went back to get more water and checked the snares on the way. The first three were empty, but the last one had a small bird struggling inside it. Not much, but better than nothing. I snapped its neck and brought it along. As I crossed the empty land below the campsite, I glanced sideways and back several times to make sure no one was following me. I doubted there would be anyone; whoever Clancy had sent to tail me would probably just ride to the next town without bothering to think that I might change course. But I couldn't know if anyone had been following the kid.

"Sure would be nice to know." I muttered to myself as I boiled some of the water. I let the bird simmer in the water to make a kind of broth since I doubted the kid would be able to eat anything whole. As the broth simmered, my nose twitched, and my stomach began to make its presence known. I stirred slowly. That kid had better wake up soon or I'd eat his dinner myself.

As if on cue, he started to shift, but it was a different kind of movement than his fevered thrashing. He wriggled slightly on the uncomfortable ground the way someone does when they're slowly waking up to their surroundings but not quite alert yet. After a moment his eyes opened and focused on me, and I waited for him to say something. He seemed to want to, but there were too many questions in his eyes, and he didn't know which one to start with. I didn't feel obligated to help him.

"Who are you?" he finally asked. His voice was raspy and hoarse, and I placed the canteen closer to him.

"No one special." I said. "Just a traveler." Just because I'd saved his life didn't mean he needed to know anything about me. "And who are you?"

The mouth opened then closed, and there was a flicker of panic in his eyes as they swept back and forth frantically, looking for some sort of foothold in his mind.

"I don't know." He finally said. His voice rasped again, but not from thirst this time.

I sat back on my heels. Well this was a twist. I guess I'd been too hasty when I'd thought he'd escaped from the river unscathed. I could still see him mentally fumbling, as if for a match in the darkness. I decided to help him out.

"I pulled you out of the river." I said.

"What river?" he asked.

"Spruce River." I eyed him. "Do you know where you are?"

He shook his head, and I inwardly sighed. Of course it couldn't be a simple matter of keeping an eye on him until he woke up and then going on my way. Why should it be?

"You're about thirty miles southwest of Sacramento. Like I said, I fished you out of the Spruce River the day before last. You had a pretty high fever from lying on the riverbank, and you probably hit your head, which explains why you don't have the foggiest notion as to how you got in the river in the first place." I didn't bother trying to keep my frustration at the whole situation out of my tone. He was silent for several moments.

"Well, thanks for that." He finally said.

I snorted, feeling as if I'd kicked a puppy. "Never mind." I said. "So you can't remember anything?"

He shook his head again. "Sorry."

"Me too. Can you sit up?"

He pushed himself up and settled against one of the boulders, and I ladled some broth into my tin plate and passed it to him.

"Thanks." He said.

I didn't answer. My mind was racing, trying to think of a plan that would let me get rid of this kid and be on my way. I frowned.

"You don't even know your name."

He paused in blowing on the broth to cool it down, and I saw another flicker in his eyes. Sadness.

"No." he said.

So I'd just have to keep calling him 'the kid'. Well, I for one had been called a lot worse things, and if he hadn't then he was lucky. I lifted a bit of the bird into my mouth, mindless of how it burnt my fingers.

"This certainly is a mess." I said more to myself than him.

"You don't have to stick around if you've got somewhere to be." He said stiffly. He must have sensed my thoughts.

"That's not what I meant." I said, although it had been. "If I had anywhere to be, I would already be gone."

He didn't seem convinced, but he didn't argue. Instead he finished the rest of his food in silence and fell back asleep. I pulled some jerky out of my saddle bags since the bird hadn't done much to fill my stomach. As my teeth worked to chew through the leather-like meat, my mind worked to chew through this mess and formulate a solution. Sadly my teeth had more success, and I finally gave up and went to sleep.