The Reverend Jefferson decided to change the subject. ‘You’ll eat with us again this evening, I hope?’ he said. ‘This is the biggest and most dangerous-looking serpent I’ve ever had to show. I feel the least I can do is offer you our hospitality.’
‘I wouldn’t say no. Thank you.’
When they were back at Jefferson’s house Morton was surprised to find that Robert was still sleepy and quiescent.
‘It’s little short of a miracle, ma’am,’ he said to Mrs Jefferson. ‘All the time he was with me that child was fussing and crying. A short time with you and he turns into the most amenable of creatures. I truly don’t know how you do it.’
‘Oh, folk often say I’ve a way with children. I look after babies sometimes, you see and they can be with me all day – and all night too, for the matter of that, and they’re just fine.’
They ate a light meal together. Morton tried to chat amiably to the minister, but he had the distinct impression that Jefferson was still offended at the idea that he and Morton were in some way similar. It didn’t much matter to Jack Morton; it was nothing to him if a man wished to maintain some pretence, even to his own self, about his nature.
When he was getting ready to leave Morton had a great shock. It happened when he picked up Robert and was about to ask Habakkuk Jefferson to give him a hand back to the livery stable with the tea chest containing his rattler.
When Morton picked up the baby his nostrils were assailed for the merest fraction of a second with a familiar, sickly smell that conjured up vivid memories of the aftermath of battle. So awful were the associations triggered by the sweet odour that, for a moment, Morton felt faint. Then he collected himself and considered from where the smell could be emanating. He sniffed delicately, then more forcefully. Strange to say, and against all reason, it was the baby himself who appeared to be the source. Morton bent down and found that he was not mistaken; the child’s breath reeked of the stuff. He turned to Mrs Jefferson.
‘What have you been feeding this infant in my absence?’ he asked sternly.
‘Feeding him? He ain’t ate a mouthful.’
‘You’ve given him something. I know that smell well enough.’
‘Oh that?’ she said easily. ‘I give all the little ones I have here the same thing. I get it from the drugstore. Lordy, there’s no need to make such a fuss.’ She went off to the kitchen and returned with a small glass bottle, which she handed to Morton. ‘See now, like it says on the label, it’s infant preserver.’
The label on the bottle announced:
Atkinson & Barker’s Royal
INFANTS’ PRESERVATIVE
THE BEST MEDICINE IN THE WORLD
FOR THE PREVENTION AND CURE OF THOSE DISORDERS
INCIDENT TO INFANTS, NAMELY;
Convulsions, Flatulency, Affections of the Bowels,
Difficulties in Teething Etc Etc.
May be given safely, from birth onwards!
Morton removed the cork from the bottle and sniffed; almost gagging on the stench.
‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked fiercely. ‘What you’ve given this baby – and others, from what you tell me? It’s laudanum, ma’am. Laudanum! We used it in the army when men were badly hurt. It’s tincture of opium. This child’s quiet because you’ve drugged him.’
The Reverend Jefferson decided to step in and support his wife.
‘This outrage comes oddly from you, Mr Morton,’ he said. ‘You make your living from selling such things, do you not?’
This was unanswerable so Morton said no more, simply gathering up Robert’s clothes and diapers before bidding Mrs Jefferson a somewhat frosty goodnight. It was no simple matter to carry the baby in one arm and also help to carry the tea chest along with Jefferson. Somehow, they managed it, though, and reached the livery stable where Morton proposed to spend the night in his van. He shook hands with the Reverend Jefferson.
‘It’s been interesting seeing another use for my rattler, I will allow,’ he said. ‘Thank your wife for the food.’ The two men parted on reasonably amicable terms.
Chapter 5
It was still light and Morton wasn’t altogether ready yet to sleep. He couldn’t have stayed any longer with the Jeffersons, though, and he thought that cutting short his visit in that way was probably the smartest move. He might have said something he’d have regretted had he remained much longer in the company of that foolish woman. Fancy dosing up an innocent baby with laudanum, just to keep it quiet.
Then, because he was a man who tried his best to be honest with his own self, no matter what tricks he might be pulling on others, Jack Morton considered the question fairly. After a few minutes’ thought he was forced to concede that whoever produced that damned ‘infant preservative’ was, as the Reverend Jefferson had said, in the same line of work as he was. This was a sobering and disagreeable notion.
While his mind was running along in this way Morton walked up and down outside the livery stable; the baby in his arms was waking up and beginning to make irritable sounds again. Probably it was time to offer him some food and drink again. Morton walked into the barn where his van was stored. His rib was still very sore, but it felt as though it was healing correctly, which was a mercy. Morton had been a little anxious that because he hadn’t been able to rest then the bone might not knit together properly. It was still painful as he hoisted himself up into the back of the van with one hand while clutching the baby with the other.
After drinking some milk and smearing a little of the pap around his mouth, Robert became more cheerful, burbling and smiling at Morton.
‘You’re not a bad little fellow,’ Morton told the child. ‘Perhaps when you can speak you’ll make better company for a man.’ He looked into the infant’s eyes and smiled, being delighted to receive an answering smile from the gurgling child. Then, from outside the van, he heard somebody say: ‘I know you’re in there, you son of a bitch. I can hear you talking. Howsoever many o’ you there are, you best all come out with your hands held high!’
This was unexpected and Jack Morton was by no means sure how to deal with the situation. He laid the baby on the wooden boards, then picked up his pistol, which he’d left near at hand. He didn’t cock it because a sharp-eared person might hear that slight metallic click and start firing on his own account first.
‘Who are you and what would you have of me?’ Morton said loudly.
‘Never mind my name, just you come and show yourself. It’s my business to set a watch upon this barn and all the other places hereabouts.’
‘You a peace officer?’
‘Never you mind. Just come on out.’
The voice was pitched high and had a reedy quality about it, which suggested great age to Morton. Taking a chance, he put down the pistol and went to the back of the van. A very old man with a bristling white beard was standing there, a scattergun cradled in his arms.
‘Didn’t I tell you to raise them hands?’ he said sharply.
‘Are you the night watchman?’
‘What if I am?’
‘Because this is my van, you damned fool. What do’you mean by pointing a gun at me?’
The old man lowered his weapon. ‘I ain’t a mind reader,’ he said, not in the least abashed. ‘Why’nt you just tell me?’ Then, something struck him and he raised the gun again. ‘Say, just hang on a minute there. I mind that I heard you speaking to somebody in there. Why ain’t your partner come out as well?’
‘Because he can’t walk.’
‘Can’t walk? What is he, a cripple or something? There’s something mighty strange about this whole set-up.’
‘You want that I should fetch him out here?’ asked Morton. ‘I’m sure he’d be pleased to meet you.’
‘Yeah, go on. But mind you move real slow. I got you covered.’
Morton turned back to the interior of his van and went over to where young Robert was sitting, chuckling to himself. He picked up the child and then went to present him to the night watchman.
>
‘You might want to put that gun of yours entirely down,’ said Morton. ‘I don’t want you killing me and this child both, by accident.’
When he had done as Morton suggested the old man came closer to the van and looked up at Robert.
‘He’s a cheerful looking little fellow,’ he said. ‘How come you got the charge of him? Your wife dead or something?’
‘It’s a long story and not one I want to go into. You going to leave us be now?’
The old man reached up his hand.
‘My name’s Jim Collard,’ he said. ‘Most everybody in these parts calls me Jim, or old Jim, so you might as well do the same.’ The two men shook and Collard continued: ‘I got a little cubby-hole across the way, where I brew up coffee. You want a cup?’
‘That’s a right welcome offer, Jim. My name’s Jack and you may as well call me so. I can’t be doing with any “sir” or “Mr Morton” or stuff like that.’ As the three of them went across to the hay barn standing near to the barn where the van was being kept, it occurred to Morton that this old-timer would be the perfect individual to pump about getting to Claremont. Once they had settled down with their coffee and Jim Collard had taken young Robert on his lap and was playing with him in the pleasantest way you could imagine, Morton said: ‘How far is Claremont from here? You know the town?’
‘Lord, what would you be wanting to travel there for?’
‘’Cause this little boy’s folks live there and I promised I’d see him safe with them. How far is it?’
‘In distance? Maybe forty miles. I wouldn’t recommend that you attempt the journey right now though, and that’s a fact.’
‘How so?’ asked Morton, ‘What’s to do?’
‘You been living in cave or something?’ asked Jim Collard. ‘Everybody in Texas knows about the trouble hereabouts. Everybody ’cept you, I s’pose I should say. You really don’t know?’
‘Old man, I’ve had a trying few days and my store of patience ain’t what you might call extensive. Would you mind telling me what the Sam Hill you’re talking about? I only recently fetched up in this state.’
‘That’d about account for it, I guess. It’s easy enough. You know we’ve had all kinds of mischief from Indians – Comanche and Kiowa in the main?’
‘It’s not uncommon. What of it?’
‘Round here it ain’t just the Indians we’ve to consider. There’s all the comancheros as well. You know who they are?’
‘Yes, I’ve had dealings with them in the past. Bandits, traders, what have you. They buy and sell stuff with the Indians. You going to tell me where this is all leading?’
‘You are the most impatient young fellow I met for quite a while, you know that? The long and the short of it is that what with all the raiding by the Indians and them being helped by the comancheros, the army had to come down to put a stop to all the nonsense. They’re currently quartered near Claremont; the word is that any day now they’re goin’ to descend on those comancheros and their friends like a duck on a June bug. Road you want, running to Claremont, that goes plumb through where the hottest part o’ the action’s like to be. Place called Palo Duro Canyon.’
‘Is there any other way to this Claremont?’
‘Not really. You’d need to make a detour of perhaps a hundred miles to get there, if you didn’t use the road. Even then, you’d be going over open country, not on any road.’
‘You really think things are going to get hot between here and Claremont?’ asked Morton.
‘No doubt at all about it. General Sheridan’s arrived now and they see he’s going to take personal charge of the campaign.’
Morton snorted derisively. ‘Campaign! A handful of Indians and a few bandits? Much glory that will bring the army!’
Jim Collard shrugged. ‘You asked how things stood and I told you,’ he said. ‘What you do’s up to you, I guess. But I wouldn’t be taking a helpless infant down that road and that’s a fact.’
Later, as he was trying to settle down to sleep for the night in his van, Morton found that Robert was restless and grizzly again, as the effects of the laudanum wore off.
‘Laudanum, indeed!’ he muttered, as the memory came back to him. ‘I never heard the like.’ Then an idea struck him. Although, of course, feeding a baby opium to sedate it was a foolish and wrongheaded thing to do, would there be any harm in using his own preparation? Hadn’t Reverend Jefferson’s wife told him that the child was crying because he was teething? What was that, other than a pain in the gums?
From his own experience Jack Morton knew that his snake oil could genuinely alleviate the pain of aching muscles, at least to some slight degree. The camphor and red pepper combined to produce a soothing warmth that eased pains. Would they have the same effect upon the tender gums of a teething baby?
At first he hesitated because he had been a little sharp with Mrs Jefferson for the use of that ‘Infant’s Preservative’. Would it be any better using snake oil to soothe the child? Then he reasoned the matter through and decided that he wasn’t intending actually to get the little fellow to drink the concoction, merely to smear a little on his aching gums. In the end it was the constant crying that settled the question.
There was certainly no shortage of supplies of Professor Cornelius Murgatroyd’s liniment to be found and Morton reached a bottle out from one of the crates. He removed the cork and then moistened a fingertip with the liquid. Very cautiously he rubbed the fingertip gently over the baby’s gums and was rewarded with a look of surprise. The crying stopped almost at once and Morton thought to himself that he had scored a bull there.
Every hour or so, Robert would rouse himself and whimper a little, then Morton would rub a little more snake oil round his gums and the baby would quieten down again. The night passed relatively peacefully in this way, with the two of them snuggled down on Morton’s bedroll.
It was without a doubt a novel situation for the man, but he’d had worse and more disturbed nights than this in his life and, come the morning, he felt reasonably chipper.
‘Well, young Robert,’ he said to the baby when once the two of them were awake, ‘I’m inclined to take a chance on this run to Claremont. In my experience, folk often make a lot of fuss and pretend matters are more serious than they actually are. I make no doubt that we’ll get along famously down that road, without seeing hide nor hair of soldiers, Indians or comancheros.’
The baby stared at him solemnly, which prompted Morton to remark whimsically, ‘As you raise no objection, I’ll warrant you think my plan a sound one. Let’s buy some provisions and then set off as soon as may be.’
The sight of a tough and capable-looking man buying boiled milk and food suitable for a weaned infant was not a common one in the stores of Oneida; Jack Morton found himself the theme of general conversation wherever he went. The men wondered what his game was and the women thought that there was something full of pathos in the idea of a man trying to care for a baby like that.
Morton wasn’t in the habit of inviting direct questions about his life and doings, so nobody asked outright what was going on and how he had come by the infant but, nevertheless, he was aware that he was the centre of attention. It was a relief to be on the road again, heading north for Claremont.
It wasn’t practical, neither was it agreeable to either of them, for the entire journey to proceed with the little boy perched on Morton’s lap while he was driving. Robert wriggled so much and squawked so harshly that in the end Morton let him crawl around in the back of the van.
He was aware that perhaps letting a barely weaned infant roam about an enclosed space containing a large diamondback rattlesnake would not recommend itself to everybody as the ideal scheme for childcare, but there was little to be done. He ensured that the lid to the tea chest was fastened on tight and the crates of liniment covered with a tarp.
From what he’d seen of the child he was not yet at that stage of development that would enable him to clamber over the wooden slat at the back of t
he van and so go tumbling to destruction from the moving vehicle. After giving the baby’s gums a last wipe of liniment, Morton shook the reins, crying, ‘Giddyup there!’
They travelled for the whole morning without stopping. Every so often Morton would glance back into the van to assure himself that he hadn’t lost his youthful passenger. The swaying motion of the van evidently had a soporific effect upon the child, because he slept for much of the way.
About midday, judging by the height of the sun in the sky, they stopped to eat. They had travelled perhaps twenty miles, which meant that with good fortune they might be in Claremont in another twenty-four hours. Obviously, they could not drive all the night long, but the going was good and there was no reason why they couldn’t make another ten miles before nightfall, leaving only ten miles to be completed the following day. So far, so good, thought Morton. I knew all that talk of bloodshed and war was so much hooey.
The mealtime was a relaxed affair, with Robert crawling round and coming over to Morton for spoonfuls of the porridgy mess that appeared to satisfy all the child’s dietary requirements. That and sips of milk seemed to be all that he needed.
A thing that Jack Morton had noticed time and again over the years was the way that, just when everything was going well and all your cards were falling right where you wished them to, it was right then that providence was in the habit of dealing you a few wild cards. So it proved on that particular day, when they were thirty miles or so from Oneida and Morton had persuaded himself that nothing could possibly go wrong with his plans.
The first intimation of trouble came from the merest smudge of cloud on the distant horizon. It was, like that harbinger of disaster of which Scripture tells, no bigger than a man’s hand. Morton and the child had had the road entirely to themselves so far that day. It looked as though everybody else believed the rumours of war circulating and thought it safer to delay their journeys until a less hazardous season. This suited Morton well enough and he had enjoyed the solitary ride.
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