He looked at the boy lost in the contemplation of his cup of coffee and waited until Heath looked up at him, eyebrow quirked in question. He couldn't understand how his father could have left a woman with this child alone in a mining camp. He'd not believed it possible. And that such an act being impossible, then this boy couldn't be his father's son or his brother. But being around the boy, watching him move, listening to his voice, that small half smile, the natural gentle way he had with men and horses, he'd begun to wonder. And wondering about Heath, he'd thought again on his mother's words and Jarrod's story. Believing the boy's simple assertion of Tom Barkley's paternity had been if not easy at least not so very hard after the wondering, the thinking, and the being with Heath.
He studied the dimly lit, hunched form. How did such a fine young man come to call himself the sin of his father made flesh. He felt a sudden almost uncontrollable anger at his father for the awful wrong done this boy, his brother. How could so much harm ever be made right?
"My family owes you a debt. Will you not allow us to repay it?"
He waited out Heath's silence and wondered again at his lack of rage. The boy was a mystery, growing up in Strawberry, no family except his mother, no father, no money. What haunted him in the night, for truly the boy was haunted. Heath looked up and caught his eye; even in the dim firelight he could see how tired and drawn the boy's face was. Heath gave him small nod and looked away again.
He remembered his own growing up with a family and a father. Going to school, learning the ranch business from his father. What had he been like at this boy's age, at twenty-one? He'd turned twenty-one in 1862.
He'd been a burden on his family that year, so anxious to be with Jarrod in Washington to join the army and fight in the great war. The farthest he'd ever been from home was two years of schooling in San Francisco and driving cattle to San Diego with his father. His growing up had been idyllic, his father watching out for him, teaching him the business of ranching, of cattle, of horses, of being a man.
Father not letting him join the army, asking him to stay in California another year, had been the biggest disagreement he'd ever had with his family. Father had made him wait out that year. Told him he needed his help on the ranch, that he could best serve the Union cause by raising beef. He asked Nick to stay, that if Nick would give him one more year on the ranch, he would give his blessing for his joining the Army. He'd been in a panic to go that year, sure the war would be over before he could even get to Maryland, let alone join the fight.
His father had finally relented the following year and given his reluctant blessing to his sailing for Baltimore and joining the army. He was thankful now his father had made him wait as long as he had. Two years of war was enough for him, more than enough for any man.
How had his father left this boy to grow up alone in Strawberry? The boy in Mexico, driving a stage from Redding, what else had Heath done while he at the same age had still been going to school? For a certainty the boy had been working, no way he'd been living without working for his daily bread. Bread he figured his family owed the boy, this silent, frustrating, strange young man with the amazing skill with rifle and handgun. He'd kidded the boy about his slow draw but he'd never seen anyone with a better aim with a handgun and he already knew he was a dead shot with a rifle. What kind of boy his age was a dead shot with a rifle and cut reins and unbuckled throatlatches like he'd been doing it all his life?
Heath was the most frustrating man he'd ever met. Wouldn't talk to him. Wouldn't get angry and wouldn't let him make things right for what his father had done. It was all he could do to prevent Heath from just mounting up on that little mare and riding away, never to be seen again. He wished Jarrod was here with his clever talking to keep Heath from riding away until he could understand that they wanted him to stay. He was surprised to find how afraid he was of the boy leaving. When had that happened?
Heath holding that cold cup of coffee, staring into the fire, what demons were stalking him in his dreams, what had a boy his age, shooting like that done to be so haunted? Heath was right. They knew nothing about him, and at this rate, weren't likely to get any wiser.
Finally, tired from a day of nonstop talking, he threw the dregs of his coffee off to the side and curled back up in his bedroll. He sure hoped that boy would still be there in the morning, but short of tying him up, knew no way to keep him from going. He wanted him to stay. He wanted to know about him. He glanced up one more time at the blond head bowed over the cold coffee cup, the eyes studying the fire intently and again felt that anger at his father, the anger for his father's neglect of this boy. That his father had left his brother to grow up so haunted he couldn't string five words together in a day or sleep through the night.
When he first opened his eyes in the morning, he thought the boy had gone in the night. Then he realized his saddle was still sitting on the ground, the coals of the fire had been stirred and restarted, and saw the coffee pot pushed into the flames. He pulled back his blanket and sat up in the cool early morning light. The sky was brightening but the sun still hadn't risen. He looked around to see what had wakened him and decided it must have been Heath walking away. He could see him just disappearing into the morning gloom in the direction of the grazing horses.
He sat up, drew on his boots, pulled the blanket around his shoulders and followed the boy into the gloaming. He found Heath about fifty yards from the camp, sitting on a dead cottonwood log, watching the horses graze. He sat down beside him and realized the boy wasn't watching the horses but was watching the sunrise. He looked at him quizzically but naturally the kid didn't say a word, just sat there as quiet as the morning, thinking whatever it was he thought in his perpetual silence. He decided to wait the boy out. Let him have the first word this morning. Show him he could be just as quiet, just as stubborn as Heath Thomson. Let the boy beg him for a word.
So he sat next to the boy. The sun rose over the distant Sierras streaking the sky with reds and yellows revealing a layer of ground fog obscuring the horses in the brightening light, so the horses' bodies appeared to float legless over a sea of grey. "Don't usually see that in California," Nick said, surprised out of his self-imposed silence. "Used to get that deep valley fog all the time in Tennessee, but never see it out here. Not enough humidity I suppose."
"Yeah," the boy said, never taking his eyes off the field and the rising sun.
Darn, he thought. He'd not meant to say anything but that fog had really been a surprise, had tricked him, lying so low like that. "I remember once riding in fog so dense, I couldn't see the horse in front of me. A whole column of cavalry, all the noise of the column and all I could see was the orderly riding beside me. Rebs attacked us out of that fog. Must have shot at the noise, they sure couldn't have seen us. Course, could have been our own infantry, no way of knowing." Nick was silent a moment, remembering. He didn't speak often of the war. Tried not to think about it either, but it was often there just out of thought and something would happen and bring it all back, like this morning's strange fog. "Whoever it was did a lot of damage that day, just opened fire all along the column. Dead men and dead horses all down the lane for half a mile."
"Fog saved us, second morning at Chickamauga," Heath spoke so softly, the words so surprising him that Nick turned toward him and spoke before he thought.
"You were at Chickamauga?" Then he cursed himself. Why hadn't he shut up? Maybe the boy would have kept talking? Then he shook himself for a fool. Boy hadn't strung more than five words together the two days they'd been on the trail except for his soiled doves story. He wasn't going to suddenly give his life history sitting here on an old cottonwood log in the early morning light.
"I'll get the horses." Heath got up and walked away. No surprise there. Nick did the math in his head. At Chickamauga Heath'd have been fourteen, maybe fifteen years old. He sighed, plenty of boys in that war playing drums, orderlies and even soldiers. He wondered, if he was at Chickamauga, how he had ever gotten there from California. He suspected that was a story all by itself. He sat and watched the boy standing, waiting as his mare came up to him in the fog. He was a mystery, that boy. The longer he was around him, the less he seemed to know about him. Chickamauga. Heaven preserve him, Chickamauga.
He stood next to Gal, stroking her face gently as she leaned her forehead against his chest. He couldn't understand where that comment about the fog at Chickamauga had come from. What had caused him to offer Nick that awful memory that he didn't even let himself see if he could prevent it. He supposed it was Nick's sharing the story of the cavalry in the fog. He'd never shared a word of that war with anyone. Three and a half, almost four years of his life, and he had never before spoken a word about any of it with a living soul, until today. Until a brother had asked, had shared his war with him. He shook his head at this brothers talking thing, not sure where such gabbing might lead.
He gave Gal a last stroke and walked back to the camp with her following after him. He poured some oats on the ground for her and went to retrieve his rifle. There was no hurry on the day. The mares were all foot sore and would need several weeks to fully recover from their trip north with the horse thieves. This would be another slow travel day, lucky if they made twenty miles.
Nick had bacon cooking over the fire when he got back to camp with his rifle. It smelled good. He squatted down by the fire and poured himself another cup of coffee. Nick handed him two cold biscuits, a couple pieces of bacon between them.
"Those mares are walking pretty soft," he told Nick.
"Yeah. I think we can leave the road another ten miles and head into the hills with them. Ground will be softer. There's a spring-fed pond up there maybe five or six miles. Their band uses it all summer once the mountain runoff dries up. These mares are foot sore enough to hang around there until the band shows up in the next few days."
He nodded to Nick. That was good. Save them riding all over those hills looking for the rest of the band of mares. The biscuits and bacon were delicious and gone quickly. He leaned back against his saddle to enjoy the coffee. He'd been eating out of Nick's food, figured he'd get a rabbit for their supper. Nick probably hadn't had as much rabbit as he'd had this last week. Nick might enjoy it. Be a change for him from beef and bacon, he thought sardonically. Good for Nick's soul, eat a little rabbit once in a while.
"Be home tonight, supper time."
He nodded again, then thought better of it and answered, "Yeah." Thought Nick would like that, him conversing.
They broke camp and were on the road in an hour, letting the horses pick the pace most of the time out of concern for the mares with their sore feet. The heaviest bred mare was looking a bit dropped to him and he wondered if they would get to her home range in time for her to foal.
"So how did you come to be in the east?" Nick asked.
He looked at Nick for a moment, thinking about the question and the answer. Trying to see where answering that question was likely to take them both. He appreciated that of all the questions that might have come from the morning conversation on the cottonwood log, this was probably the least painful and applauded Nick for that.
"I worked for Mr. Russell. At first as a horse tender. Later I rode the mail." He waited to see if Nick understood what he had told him. If he wanted more information or if that was enough so he understood how he came to be in the east. Nick seemed to need to have things really spelled out. But he figured Nick liked to talk so he maybe thought other people liked to talk too. He thought this was enough information for Nick to talk back to him, tell him which parts he hadn't understood, needed explained.
"Russell? Russell, Majors and Waddell? You rode for the Pony Express?" There was a new tone in Nick's voice. He didn't know what it meant, hoped he wasn't going to get upset and start yelling about this.
"Yeah. Started as a horse tender, didn't start riding until the beginning of '61." He scanned the trail again. He'd been getting a little anxious about the trail ever since they started that morning. The horses didn't seem bothered but twice he thought he'd seen dust on their back trail. They were traveling so slow if anyone was back there they should have passed them by this time. Made him a little anxious, wondering what might be back of them and not catching up.
"Damn. Rode for the Pony Express. How'd you come to be so far east?" Nick asked.
"We all moved around quite a bit. Just boys wanted to see something different. We were always switching routes. I just got going east and kept going that way." He remembered his first sight of the plains of Wyoming and Nebraska, the big sky and the great sea of grass stretching as far as a man could see.
"Must have been fun."
"Yeah, it was. Scary some, but mostly boys and fast horses." He guessed it was the most fun he'd ever had in his life. Riding those horses across the prairie, racing the world and getting paid for it. He smiled at Nick thanking him for reminding him of the pleasure of that year, a pleasure that he had lost in the four years that followed.
"By the time they closed us down, I was in Missouri. Mr. Russell sent six of us east with a herd of horses for the army buyers in St. Jo." He shrugged; the rest was just boys and fast horses too. He figured Nick would understand that part.
"And you joined up?"
"There were six of us. Oldest of us was seventeen. We thought… thought it was another adventure. You know, just boys." He closed his mind to that remembering. He would not remember that day, those six boys. He would not think about that day, those weeks, that decision, that stupid, stupid decision made by boys on a clear winter day nine years ago.
"Good place to noon here," he said a bit desperately, although they should probably have ridden another hour before they stopped.
"There's a better place right where we leave the trail to head up to the lake. We can stop there, maybe four more miles."
He nodded, not looking at Nick. Looking around the surrounding hills, desperate for his eye to see something to think about instead of that clear winter day in Missouri and those six stupid boys. "Ya' ride ahead. I gotta check Gal's foot here." He doubted Nick would believe such a stupid excuse but was lost what else to do.
For a wonder of understanding, Nick nodded and rode on down the road leading his two mares. He climbed out of the saddle and stood leaning his head against Gal's shoulder, just breathing slowly. That had been stupid. Start talking and next thing you know - stupid. He checked all four of her feet, nothing else to do, and saw nothing, probably wouldn't have seen anything if she'd had a boulder in her foot. Then he looked back down the trail, remembering that dust and thought he saw it again, a smudge on the horizon that shouldn't have been there. Too far to be sure what it was, but not looking like it should and no one catching up to them and now the dust looking like it was moving east of the road into the hills.
After checking all Gal's feet, running his hand down her legs and checking the girth on his saddle, he ran out of things to do and had to ride back and catch up Nick. They rode another hour, Nick talking about the horse herd they were hunting. He discussed where they liked to range and when they were all due to foal. He figured he ever saw that horse herd again, he would recognize every mare in it, Nick of a kindness talking of horses and pasture and not wars and stupid boys.