Heaven in a Wildflower (21 page)

But in the past months, he’d backed away from involvement in clandestine activities due to his suspicions of a turncoat among their group. Someone he’d always loved and admired. Elton could only hope he was wrong about the man. Time would tell. Meanwhile, he intended to keep his possession of the valuable plates a secret.

He walked on into the gray and gloomy day, anxious to be done with his business in the city so he could get home before dark and visit Twyla’s tomb. ‘Twas precious little comfort, to be sure, but it was all he had. How he wished he could bring Anjele home, for he missed her terribly and longed to share his grief with her. But it wasn’t safe. Not now. She was better off where she was.

He hurried from the cemetery and headed toward Jackson Square.

He did not notice the bedraggled man slumped next to the brick gatepost. There were many beggars around town, most of them hopeless drunks. He avoided their outstretched hands. But this one, Elton failed to observe, did not reach out to him. And had he seen the flash of furious recognition on the man’s face, he’d have been chilled to the bone.

Leo Cody stared at the stoop-shouldered man’s back and gave a low, ominous snarl. Reaching into the pocket of his worn denim coat, he quickly uncapped the bottle of whiskey and turned it up to take a big swallow. “Son of a bitch,” he savagely whispered. If he’d had the strength to stand, Leo would’ve leaped to his feet and run after him to grab him and choke him to death, but Leo had been wallowing too long in the gutter of despair. Drunk, he could barely stand, so he contented himself with hurling epithets and threats which Elton Sinclair did not hear.

It was all Sinclair’s fault, Leo brooded, that he’d wound up in the gutters of New Orleans. Nobody would hire him except to do a slave’s work in the fields. He’d gone to other planters seeking an overseer’s position, but once they contacted Sinclair, who refused to recommend him, he was never hired. So he worked odd jobs, or begged for money to buy whiskey, and thanks to Sinclair, he was a drunken bum.

“Gonna get you one day, you uppity bastard!” He threw the empty bottle to smash in the cobblestone street. “You’ll pay for what you did to Leo Cody. You’ll see.”

Elton heard the distant sound of breaking glass but didn’t turn around. He was far too absorbed in his grief and misery to notice anything going on around him.

But Millard DuBose saw and heard everything. He shook his head and kept on going, anxious to report to the others that they could no longer count on Sinclair to help in the cause.

Chapter Thirteen

As the stagecoach rounded the curve, Brett saw the man standing in the middle of the road waving his arms. With a quick glance to assure himself that his rifle was at his feet, he began to slow the team of horses. He didn’t like picking up passengers along the way. It wasn’t safe. He’d heard of too many wagons being ambushed. He was especially wary since he was making the run alone. When he had left San Francisco, Seth Barlow, who was supposed to be riding shotgun, hadn’t showed. Somebody said he was laid up drunk somewhere, with a woman. There wasn’t time to look for him. Brett had to stick to his schedule. Unable to find a replacement at the last minute, he’d loaded the passengers and popped leather.

As he drew closer, he quickly surveyed the barren landscape for any sign of danger. Other than low-growing scrubs, there wasn’t anything to conceal waiting bandits.

One of the passengers stuck his head out the window to demand to know why he was slowing down, at the same time seeing the waiting man. “Hey,” he was quick to protest, “there’s no more room in here. We can’t hardly move now.”

Brett ignored him. The new passenger would ride up above with him, but he didn’t feel he owed anyone an explanation. The people on board this trip were irritating, anyway. Usually he’d have one whiner, but all six, four men and two women, had complained since leaving San Francisco. The way stops were primitive, they griped. Food was terrible. He didn’t stop for rest and water as often as they wanted. And did he deliberately hit the potholes and rough spots? From sounds drifting up to him, he knew they’d started arguing among themselves, and he was relieved, for they had finally stopped nagging at him.

The instant he reined the horses in, they all began to scramble out to stretch their legs and, of course, to scrutinize the new addition to their group. Before Brett could even climb down, Alton Jacobs, the man who hadn’t wanted to stop, began firing questions at the stranger.

“What’s your name? What are you doing out here, miles from any town? We’re particular about who we take on, mister.”

Brett shoved him aside and saw at once the man was no threat. He couldn’t be much older than forty, but he had the eyes of a man whose spirit had died. He had big, muscular arms, obviously a hard worker. Yet he seemed old somehow, and his voice, when he spoke, was frail.

“Name’s Adam Barnes. Need to get to St. Louis. I got the money to pay for it.”

Taking his worn bag, Brett tossed it up with the others. “Climb aboard. We’ve got to keep moving.”

One of the women, Florence Isadore, came up to Brett and said, “Do we have to go right this minute, Mr. Cody? I swear, if I have to keep sitting with my knees pressed against a man’s much longer, I’m going to scream.”

“Have Mrs. Turnbow change places,” he snapped, not looking at her. He’d learned at their first way stop Florence was trouble. He’d been sleeping in the barn, and she’d boldly sneaked out during the night to lie down beside him and tell him exactly what she wanted. When he’d refused to oblige, she had been furious and gone out of her way to be obnoxious since.

“Well, I’ll still have men’s thighs pressing against me on each side,” she wailed.

He bit back the impulse to say she ought to like that, instead ordering, “Everybody back on. This isn’t a scheduled stop.”

Once on the way, Brett told Barnes what the fare would be but made no attempt at further conversation. He didn’t like talking to passengers. Talk led to questions, and he saw no reason to share any part of himself with anybody. The women who came and went in his life quickly learned he never promised anything beyond satisfaction in bed. Companionship wasn’t in his nature, and forget about love.

At first, Brett wasn’t even aware the man had spoken till he repeated his question.

“Heard any war news?” he asked timorously, as though he really hoped Brett hadn’t.

Brett shook his head. He tried not to think about it, because he wasn’t sure which side he was on. After what had happened four years ago in Louisiana, he couldn’t muster any affinity for the South, yet because he was raised there, he couldn’t see himself taking up arms against it. Better, he figured, to stay right where he was, making runs back and forth between San Francisco and St. Louis. When the pony express had operated between April of 1860 and the end of last year, he’d been one of the hardest riders. Indians and outlaws didn’t cause him to fret, and he reckoned he’d killed his share of both. But when telegraph lines were connected all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, he’d gone right back to work for the Overland Stage. A long time ago, he’d thought about going back to sea but the West had got in his blood.

“I’m goin’ to get my boy and bring him home,” Adam Barnes said, staring at the seemingly endless road ahead. “Ever hear of a place called Pittsburgh Landing, in Tennessee?”

Brett shook his head.

“Battle of Shiloh, they call it. Real bloody. My boy…” His voice cracked. “He was fightin’ with General Grant. When I went into town for supplies yesterday, there was a telegram waitin’ for me, sayin’ my boy was killed. I’m goin’ to go get him and dig him up from wherever they buried him and bring him home and bury him next to his momma.” He pulled a rag from his pocket and blew his nose and apologized. “Sorry. Don’t mean to cry like a woman, but he was all I had after his mother died. The three of us, we come out here to prospect for gold, but Martha, she died right off, couldn’t take the heat, and Leroy, he never liked it much. Said we’d never make a strike. He took off when the war broke out, and I stayed on. Good thing I did.”

He looked at Brett, a sudden lilt to his voice and briefly seeming to come out of his stupor of grief. “Can’t tell you nothin’ else, ‘cause I got to stake my claim, but the very day before I got that telegraph, I hit a vein with a streak o’ gold as big around as my arm.” He held it up for emphasis.

Brett broke his silence to point out, “You should’ve gone to the claims office before leaving Colorado. Somebody might jump it before you get back.”

Adam shook his head with confidence. “Nobody will ever find it. I wouldn’t know how to get back to it myself if I hadn’t drawn me a map.”

Brett said nothing. He didn’t care about the man or his gold. The fact was, he didn’t care much about anything, just took one day at a time.

Adam continued to talk as they rode, ignoring Brett’s quiet indifference. Once, he did provoke brief conversation by inquiring as to Brett’s stand on the war.

“I don’t have one.”

“But surely you care who wins,” Adam said, incredulous. “Where you from, anyway?”

Brett was puzzled by his own candid response, but there was something about the man he found himself liking. Maybe it was the man’s profound honesty about who he was, what he was. “Cajun country,” he said. “Mississippi and…Louisiana,” he added reluctantly. There was nothing in that state he ever wanted to remember.

“Southern states. I reckon you’d go with them, if pressed to fight.”

Brett shrugged. “It’s a senseless war. The North knew it would have to physically invade from the start, and all the South has to do is hang on.”

Adam was quick to point out, “They’re finding that’s not going to be easy to do. The blockade is working. The South is starting to choke.”

“But the South’s morale is higher. They feel they’re defending hearth and home against an invading oppressor. And don’t forget, as a whole, the farm boys can ride and shoot a hell of a lot better than the Yankee city boys.”

“Last I heard, New Orleans was gonna be attacked any time. A naval fleet was headed there to take over. That’ll cripple the South, for sure.”

Brett told himself he should feel guilty for not caring, but the truth was, he didn’t. In fact, he hoped when Federal forces invaded, they stopped off first at BelleClair and drove Elton Sinclair and his whole family back into the bayou they’d forced him to leave.

Adam saw how Cody tensed and worried he might have made him mad by predicting the South’s doom. “Hey, don’t pay no mind to me. What do I know?” He attempted to smooth things over. “I’m just an old desert rat listening to drunken gossip when I go into civilization for supplies. Probably not a word of truth in any of it.”

But Brett no longer heard, for the memories had been triggered, and he was once more plummeted into sad, bitter reverie.

Adam, grateful Cody hadn’t gone into a rage, for he sensed he was not a man to be trifled with, instinctively slid as far from him as possible on the bench and made no further attempt to converse.

Days passed as they traveled from dawn to dusk, spacing stops along the way for food and nature’s call. They spent nights at way stations, where they enjoyed their one big meal of the day and a break from the constant jarring of the stage.

They were but four days out of St. Louis when a way-station manager drew Brett to one side to warn him of some particularly unsavory horsemen he’d encountered that morning. “There was six of ‘em. I think they were Reb deserters, driftin’ around and lookin’ for trouble. They said they didn’t have much money, and I figured from the looks of ‘em, I’d best not get ‘em riled, so my missus gave ‘em all they wanted to eat, and I bedded ‘em down and told ‘em I’d only charge half my regular rate. But they sneaked out just before dawn without payin’ nothin’, and I’m just thankful they didn’t slit my throat and rob me. So you keep an eye out.”

Brett assured the man he would, although he always tried to be ready for trouble.

It came early the next day.

They had been traveling only a few hours when Adam pointed to what looked like a body straight ahead in the middle of the road and yelled, loud enough for those riding inside to hear, “Jesus! Look at that. Is he dead?”

Brett had already seen and was picking up his rifle with one hand while he pulled back on the reins only slightly with his other. He wasn’t about to stop till he could be sure it wasn’t an ambush, because it was a good place for bandits to be hiding. Large rocks were on each side of the trail, with lots of scrub brush for camouflage.

“Stop!” A passenger was frantically yelling out a window. “He needs help.”

Brett wasn’t so sure. For one thing, he didn’t see any vultures circling overhead, and in this heat, it wouldn’t take long for them to get a whiff of death. The body couldn’t have been there long, which meant whoever was responsible wasn’t far away. He reined the horses to a sharp left, intending to go around and stop farther down the road. He could come back, gun ready, and check it out himself without endangering the passengers, giving Adam orders to ride like hell if he heard shooting.

He heard Florence’s hysterical shriek. “You bastard! Stop! He might be alive!”

Adam nervously watched him out of the corner of his eye, wondering why he wasn’t slowing down. And then he was hanging onto the bench with both hands, trying not to be tossed off the side as the wagon sharply lurched to the left just before it would have run over the man. The man, however, suddenly came to life and rolled to the side at the same time the first shots rang out.