Author's Note: Though every prospect pleases, and only man is vile. –from the hymn From Greenland's Icy Mountains, by Reginald Heber
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.
Now:
Seldom had three such distressed, ill-suited companions so reluctantly traversed together such beautiful country. Though breathing 'the air that angels breathe,' (as no less a personage than Mark Twain so aptly put it) their thoughts were of a place that had more closely resembled the lair of Satan: Carterson Prison.
They had little to say to each other. Each of them had been forced more or less against his (or her) will by considerations he or she held to be more important than personal comfort: Heath obeying his family's wishes, Cinda those of her beloved husband, and Matt doing what he knew he must to maintain the good opinion of those of his employers who didn't want him dead. Each traveler was alone, wrapped up in his or her own private thoughts, set to the music of the wind in the pines, and the jingling of the horses' harness.
Cinda Bentell was afraid. She stared at the golden young man's back worriedly. Heath Barkley. He was so young, and so strong (it had taken both of his brothers to hold him), how could he be one of those ragged animals from Carterson? She remembered the day a group of prisoners had rushed the Commandant's 'house' (really just a single room on one wall of the prison), only to be stopped at the deadline by the bullets of the guards. She and her daughters had been so afraid… The younger girl was dead now, but the older one was home in the South, married and happy and safe… which was more than she and Matt could say for themselves, here with this young man who wanted Matt dead. And why? For doing his duty.
Did this Heath Barkley think he was the only one who had suffered? They had all gone hungry and thirsty at Carterson, not only the prisoners, but the guards, she and Matt and the girls, too. They had all been ill, had all been trapped, by the war, by the circumstances. Didn't this young man understand that if her husband hadn't been placed in command of Carterson, then someone else would have, and it would have been just the same? She thought of her brother, dead at Rock Island, not because the North hadn't had food and medicine to save him, but for revenge, that most worthless of causes.
Anger surged through her. It was himself this Heath Barkley should blame, not her husband! What kind of fool would leave so rich and loving a family, intentionally depart so beautiful a home to interfere in the lives of strangers a thousand miles away? Why hadn't he stayed on his family's ranch where he belonged? Yet the true basis of her anger was fear: fear that he would succeed in killing her husband after all. Matt had been mad to agree to this! She didn't want a home if this was to be the price. Anywhere Matt was was home.
"Don't exaggerate," Matt had objected when she'd urged him to refuse the Barkleys' request that he stay on, since the offer came with strings that bound them to this dangerously resentful young man. "He didn't try to kill me. He punched me in the face, that's all."
"He said he'd sworn to kill you if he ever found you again."
"Well, then he's already foresworn, because he found me, and I'm still alive."
"Found you!" Cinda had scoffed. "He walked onto you in his living room. He wasn't seeking you."
"Exactly my point, m'dear. He wasn't seeking me. He was living his life, and that's what we all need to do. My face reminded him of a very bad time in his life, and it startled him for a moment, but it's over, and he'll just have to get over it."
Heath would have liked to be gracious, to be 'the better man,' but he just couldn't be. It was all he could manage to be with them at all, to speak even half-way decently, not to scream his frustration, his distaste, his anger… his pain. He wondered how long he'd have to stay at the timber camp with them.
At least it wouldn't be seven months this time.
Matt Bentell, meanwhile, had been trying to place his young employer. He was so young even now, he must have been a mere boy during the war. He may have looked very different back in those days. The former Confederate commandant searched his memory diligently. All the prisoners had looked about the same after a while: filthy and skeletal, but there was something about this golden young man that was familiar. Proud and strong and resentful. Memory teased.
Matt intentionally drew his mind away from the problem. He breathed in the fragrant scent of the pines. The trees would make all their fortunes… He had it!
"Barkley!" He called.
The young man drew rein and trotted back to the carriage. "What is it, Bentell?"
"You're the water boy, aren't you?"
If Barkley was surprised to be remembered, it didn't show. "Yep," he agreed.
"I'm glad you made it through the war so well."
"No thanks to you." Irritation colored the deep voice.
"Well," Matt pointed out mildly, "You didn't die of the cholera, did you?"
Heath didn't answer, just kicked his horse back into a trot to ride on ahead.
