The Wilderness Road

by James Reasoner

  He could still visit the other camp, where everyone seemed to be having a good time. The sounds of energetic fiddle music and the clapping of hands floated through the night air. He wouldn't dance, Davis decided, but it wouldn't do any harm for him to watch the others enjoying themselves. He brushed his hands off and started walking toward the wagon train.

  He had gone only a few steps when the darkness was split by a gunshot, and a woman's scream, harsh and shrill.

  Chapter 11

  Davis stopped in his tracks, shocked at what he had heard. Angry shouts broke out in the immigrant camp. Davis saw several figures struggling against the light of the campfires. Without thinking about what he was doing, he broke into a run toward the site of the trouble.

  There hadn't been any more gunshots since the first one, but the night was still filled with the uproar coming from the wagon train. As Davis pounded up to the edge of the camp, a stranger— obviously one of the immigrants—turned to face him, yelled a curse, and swung a fist at Davis's head.

  Even knowing that some sort of ruckus was going on in the camp, the attack took Davis by surprise. The man's fist caught him flush on the jaw and knocked him backward. His feet tangled with each other, and his balance deserted him. He sat down hard on the ground.

  The man who had attacked him came after him, trying to kick him in the head. Instinct took over, and Davis was able to throw up his hands in time to block the kick and grab the man's boot. He yanked on it as hard as he could and upended the settler, who fell with an angry howl.

  Davis started scrambling to his feet, saying, "Hold on a minute!"

  The man paid no attention to him. Instead, the settler rolled over, came up on his knees, and launched himself into a dive at Davis. His arms wrapped around Davis's waist, and the power of his lunge sent both of them sprawling to the ground again.

  There were similar battles going on all around them, but Davis had no time to pay any attention to them. He was too concerned with his own opponent, who managed to wind up on top of him, his fingers locked around Davis's throat.

  Davis arched his back up from the ground, trying to throw the man off, but that didn't work. He hooked a punch to the immigrant's midsection, but the man just grunted in pain and squeezed that much harder on Davis's neck.

  There was a red haze swimming in front of Davis's eyes, and blood was thundering inside his skull. He knew that if he didn't dislodge his attacker's hands from his throat soon, he would pass out—and then the man would probably go ahead and choke him to death.

  Davis reached up with his left hand and got his fingers on the man's face, clawing for his eyes. At the same time he swung his right hand toward the man's head, cupping the palm as it slapped sharply against the immigrant's left ear.

  The man cried out in pain and flinched back, and his grip on Davis's throat loosened. Davis heaved his body up from the ground again, and this time the man went flying off of him. Davis went after him. At the moment, he wasn't worried about who had started the fighting or the wrong and right of it. He just wanted to make sure the man who had jumped him wouldn't continue the battle.

  Landing on top of the man, Davis pounded a couple of blows into his midsection, then grabbed his shoulders, jerked him up, and shoved him down so that his head bounced on the hard-packed dirt of the Wilderness Road. The man's eyes were glassy in the firelight now, and his struggles were feeble. All the fight had been knocked out of him. Slowly, Davis lowered the fist he had cocked for another blow.

  Another shot boomed. Davis's head jerked around. He saw quickly that this time, the shot had been meant to stop the fight, rather than starting one. Captain Harding had a pistol in his hand, smoke curling from the barrel, which was pointed straight up into the night sky. With him stood the guide, Mather, as well as Colonel Welles and Conn Powell. All four men were grim-faced.

  "Stop it!" Harding bellowed. "Here now! Stop fighting, you men!"

  The explosion of the shot, followed by the shouted commands, penetrated the brains of the brawlers. Men stopped what they were doing, fists still upraised, enemies still clutched in angry hands.

  "All of my men, step back!" Welles called. "Now!"

  "Do as the colonel says, damn it!" Powell added.

  Gradually, the workers stepped away from the men with whom they had been struggling only moments earlier. Davis pushed himself to his feet and moved to join them, but as he did so, a young woman suddenly appeared in front of him. "You're bleeding," she said, pressing a piece of cloth into his hand.

  He was so startled that he took the cloth, but he didn't do anything with it. He just stood there dumbly, holding it.

  The woman smiled a little at him and lifted her hand to her own jaw. Davis realized that he could feel something warm and wet oozing from a scratch on his face in the same place. He held the cloth there, then took it away and saw the red smear on it. The woman was still smiling at him.

  Now that he had gotten a better look at her, he could see that she wasn't quite as young as he had first thought. Twenty-two or twenty-three, perhaps, instead of seventeen or eighteen. There were a few lines on her face, faint but definitely there. They didn't detract from her attractiveness. Her features were strong, not beautiful perhaps, but certainly pretty. Light brown hair framed her face. In the firelight, it was difficult to tell what color her eyes were, but Davis thought they were blue.

  "Emily!" a man's angry voice exclaimed from behind Davis. "What in blazes are you doing, girl?"

  Davis looked over his shoulder and saw Captain Harding standing there glaring at him.

  "This man is bleeding, Father," the young woman said.

  "So are a dozen other men in this camp, maybe more," Harding said. "And it was him and his kind who started the trouble in the first place!"

  "I started no trouble," Davis said, making an effort to stay calm. "I was in our camp when the fight broke out."

  Harding gestured at the cut on Davis's face. "How'd you get that, then?"

  "I made the mistake of coming over here to see what was going on after that gunshot," Davis replied, allowing a little bitterness to creep into his voice. "One of your immigrants jumped me with no warning and no provocation and tried to kill me, Captain."

  "No provocation?" Harding echoed. "I'd say we had all the provocation in the world! What do you call it when some damn woodsman makes improper advances to a respectable married woman?"

  Welles, Powell, and Mather came up behind Harding. The colonel said, "My man has already explained that he didn't know the woman was married, Captain. It was an honest mistake, and he meant no harm. The woman's husband had no call to shoot at him."

  "Mighty lucky that fella's a poor shot," Powell added dryly. "If he'd killed our boy, there really would've been hell to pay."

  "I ain't so sure the whole thing was accidental," Harding said stubbornly. He glanced once more at the young woman . . . Emily, he had called her, Davis remembered. "You get on back to the wagon, girl."

  She looked like she was about to protest being ordered around like that, but before she could speak, Davis handed the blood-stained cloth back to her and said, "Much obliged, ma'am. I hope I didn't ruin that."

  "It's just a rag," she told him. "It wouldn't matter if you did." Her father was still glowering at her, so she added, "I'm glad I could help," then turned away quickly.

  Powell caught Davis's eye and jerked a thumb toward the rest of the crew. "Get over there with the others." Grimsby, Mcintosh, Asa, and the rest of the men were still standing on the edge of the wagon train camp, looking sullen.

  Davis joined them, but not before noticing which of the wagons Emily was walking toward. A stern-faced woman and several children of younger years stood there waiting for her. She glanced back over her shoulder, and if he had been closer to her, Davis thought, their eyes might have met. As it was, though, the distance between them was too great.

  As Davis came up to the other men, Grimsby said fervently, "I swear, I thought the lady was unmarried. I didn't me
an to cause a ruckus."

  Mcintosh spat on the ground. "She had a weddin' ring on her finger. What more d' ye need?"

  "She could've been a widow!"

  Davis didn't join in the argument. His jaw throbbed where the immigrant's punch had landed, his throat hurt from the choking, and he had a pounding ache in his skull. Despite that, his eyes were drawn to the wagon where he had last seen Emily. She must have climbed into the vehicle, because there was no sign of her around the wagon.

  Welles, Powell, Harding, and Mather were deep in discussion again. While that was going on, the immigrants and the workers stood on opposite sides of the camp, glaring at each other. The immigrants outnumbered them ten to one, Davis judged, perhaps even more, so he hoped that no more fighting broke out.

  He could make out some parts of the conversation—argument was more like it—going on between the leaders of the two groups. "—mutiny on my hands!" Welles was saying.

  "—troublemakers!" Harding responded. "I'll not have—"

  The discussion went on in that vein for several minutes before the men finally began to nod grudgingly. Finally, Harding climbed onto a stump so that he could address both groups at the same time.

  "We have several weeks of travel in front of us before we reach the settlements in Kaintuck," the wagon train captain began. "We can't get through unless the trail is widened, so I reckon we're going to have to learn to get along with these government men, folks."

  "We can widen the road ourselves!" one man shouted from the group of immigrants.

  "Aye, we could, but Colonel Welles and his men know what they're doin'. It ain't just for us the road's bein' improved, you know. It's for all those folks who come after us, as well." Harding's words were a little forced, but there was no denying the truth of them.

  "So we have to let these . . . these scoundrels do as they please?" another man asked indignantly.

  "Not at all," Harding replied. "Colonel Welles and I have reached an agreement. His men will be allowed to visit our camp, but no more than five of them at a time." He shrugged. "Seems to me there's mighty little harm five men can do."

  There was grumbling from both sides at the announcement of the agreement, but what Harding had said made sense to Davis. No one could expect the men from the work crew to ignore the presence of the wagon train right behind them, but neither could the immigrants be expected to put up with anyone bothering their women and starting fights. The situation had to be controlled somehow, and the proposed solution seemed like the best one. The fact that it really satisfied no one was beside the point.

  Harding stepped down from the stump, and Welles took his place. "You men go on back to camp," he told his workers. "There'll be no more dancing—or fighting—tonight."

  Again there were mutters of complaint, but after a moment the men turned and walked back toward their own camp. Davis went with them, glad things hadn't gotten any worse. With such hot tempers involved, someone could have easily been killed. Welles and Powell followed the men to make sure no one turned back.

  Davis headed for the jug of rum, but he didn't drink any of it. He poured a little into the palm of his hand instead and rubbed it on the scratch on his face. The liquor stung like blazes, sending even more needles of pain through his head, but he didn't want the injury to fester. Liquor, he knew, was good for such things.

  When he had done that, he spread his blanket for the night and rolled up in it, his head pillowed on his pack. Sleep was a long time in coming, but it wasn't from his aches and pains.

  He was thinking, instead, about a young woman with light brown hair and eyes he thought were blue.

  * * *

  In the morning, Davis's head still hurt, and he was angry with himself. He should have stayed where he was the night before, he told himself, and not gotten mixed up in the brawl in the immigrant camp. If he had done that, he wouldn't have gotten hit.

  And he wouldn't have seen that young woman called Emily and had all those thoughts about her.

  Faith was less than six months dead. It was nothing short of an utter betrayal of her for him to have even noticed Emily's hair, or her eyes, or the way she looked when she smiled. Davis was ashamed of himself. The fact that Faith had betrayed him with Andrew was of no consequence in this matter. He still had a responsibility, no matter what she had done when she was alive.

  But she was no longer alive, a part of his brain reminded him, and the marriage vows he had sworn bound him to Faith only so long as they both lived.

  He gave a short, savage shake of his head that made the ache in his temples pound even worse. No. No, that was too easy. He wouldn't be trapped into that kind of thinking.

  He wasn't the only one in a bad mood this morning. Most of the men were still upset from the night before. The colonel and Powell didn't give them much of a chance to brood, however, nor to spend a lot of time looking back down the trail toward the immigrant camp. They hurried the crew through breakfast and then got them to work, setting a hard pace all through the morning.

  Davis welcomed the distraction, even if most of the other men didn't. He knew from experience how exhaustion could drive most things out of a man's mind, so he threw himself wholeheartedly into the work, chopping and clearing and helping dig up some of the more stubborn stumps.

  Still, with each swing of the ax, Emily Harding's face lurked in the back of his mind.

  The wagon train stayed where it was, not moving as the work crew moved on along the road and went out of sight by mid-morning. It wouldn't take long for the wagons to catch up once they started rolling. Since the caravan could only travel as far each day as the distance the crew covered, it made sense to rest the oxen and the mules . . . and the people as well. Davis figured they would get started again after the noon meal. That would allow them to close the gap during the afternoon.

  That was the way it turned out, and that day set the pattern for the days to come. For a week, both groups pushed on, the workers starting at dawn, as usual, the wagon train following them later in the day. Each night, five men were allowed to visit the immigrant camp, and although tensions were high the first couple of nights, they soon eased as everyone got used to each other. A stern warning to Bill Grimsby from Welles and Powell to steer clear of married women probably helped matters, too.

  Davis didn't visit the camp. That was the last thing he wanted. He hadn't seen Emily since that first night, and that was best for everyone concerned, he decided. He stayed in the workers' camp and either played cards or turned in early each night.

  That was the way things stood until one evening after supper when Conn Powell came over to where Davis was sitting with his back against a tree.

  Powell used a booted foot to nudge one of Davis's outstretched legs.

  "What do you want?" Davis asked coldly, not taking very kindly to Powell's action.

  "On your feet, Davis," Powell said. "You're goin' over to that immigrant camp."

  Davis frowned. He hadn't been sure what to expect from Powell, but a statement such as that certainly wasn't it. "I'd rather not," he said.

  "I ain't askin'. It's an order, Davis. Everybody in the crew's been over there 'cept you, and the colonel wants you to go tonight. Bill Grimsby's been makin' a pest of himself, so you're takin' his place."

  Davis knew that Grimsby had managed to be among the five men chosen nearly every night. That had been fine with Davis, because he figured that Grimsby was just taking his turn. Obviously, he wasn't the only one who had noticed that, however.

  "I don't want to go," he said stubbornly, thinking about Emily Harding. If he visited the immigrant camp, he was bound to see her. She might even try to talk to him again, if her father wasn't hovering over her too closely.

  "Like I said, it's an order. Now get on your feet."

  Davis sighed in resignation. He knew Powell pretty well by this time. If he defied the foreman, Powell would seize the excuse to demonstrate his authority. He might even try to force Davis over to the wagon train at gunpoint,
which would look completely ridiculous to everyone concerned. Davis wasn't going to allow Powell to make a laughingstock of him.

  "All right," he said as he pushed himself to his feet. "I'll go."

  Powell grinned humorlessly. "That's more like it. Who knows, Davis, you might even enjoy yourself."

  That, Davis realized, was exactly what he was afraid of.

  The other four men had already gone over to the wagon train camp. Davis followed, his pace reluctant. As he trudged along the now-widened path, he thought about how he had no right to get any pleasure out of this visit. His wife was dead, his children were forever out of his reach, and he was a fugitive convicted of murder. That was his life, not talking and laughing and dancing with a pretty girl.

  Now, how in the hell had that image popped into his head? he asked himself.

  With a grimace, he forced the thought out of his mind and continued on toward the camp. When he got there, several men gave him friendly nods, and he was glad to see that not everyone was hostile to his presence. The immigrants were obviously making an effort to get along.

  So were the men from the work crew. Davis saw a couple of them sitting next to a fire with one of the immigrant families, laughing and talking.

  Another man had borrowed a fiddle and was scraping the bow across the strings while his companion danced with an older woman, probably the grandmother of one of the families. That was innocent enough not to cause hard feelings, Davis thought.

  As for himself, he intended to wander around the camp for a few minutes, just long enough to satisfy Powell's order, then head back to his bedroll.

  His ambling pace was interrupted abruptly by the figure who appeared in front of him. Emily Harding smiled up at him and said, "Well, Mr. Davis, it's good to see you again. I was wondering when you'd come over to visit us."

  He stiffened, feeling the sudden urge to turn and run. That would be impolite, however, and he didn't want to offend Emily. He managed to nod and said, "Good evening to you, Miss Harding. How are you?"