Chapter Ten

The next morning, as soon as it was light enough to cut sign, Will and Cole followed a double set of tracks leading from the alleyway in back of the hotel to the south road.

“You see that?” Will declared, through bleary eyes. “He’s turned around and is now heading south.”

“I see.”

“But why south? Why ain’t he still heading north?”

“Maybe he’s changed his mind as to which border he wants to cross.”

“Damn’ son-of-a-bitch,” Will moaned. “Gonna make me chase him all the way to the Mexican border if he can.”

“Warmer that direction,” Cole offered.

“Farther, too.”

As they followed the tracks through the back alley, Cole saw Lily standing in the doorway of her little cabin, a tin cup of coffee in her hand. Their eyes met, but they didn’t speak. Will noticed her as well.

“Fine-looking woman,” he said. “You know that gal?”

“We’ve met,” Cole said.

He twisted his neck in order to keep looking at her as they rode past.

“Pretty hair,” he said.

Cole allowed himself a few moments of the previous night’s memory, then let Lily slip away from his thoughts. Lily’s memory wasn’t something he wanted to carry with him the rest of the trip. “We push hard,” he said to Will, “we might catch Book in three, four days.”

Will was still nursing a sore head from all the hard liquor from the night before. His eyes were rimmed red and he kept swiping at his mustaches. “That is, if he ain’t behind us somewheres.” He groaned.

It was something Cole had considered as well—that Leviticus Book was tracking them instead of the other way around.

“You think he maybe killed the girl?” Will asked.

“No. It wouldn’t make sense to kidnap her if he was just going to kill her.”

“A man would have to be damn’ sweet on a gal to take such risks as he took last night,” Will said.

“Maybe there was more to it than that.”

“How so?”

“Maybe he wanted to prove to us he could do it, steal the girl out from under us.”

“Crazy son-of-a-bitch then,” Will said, swiping his mustaches again.

“Maybe not so crazy as we might think.”

Will rode on for the next few hours without further comment. His head must have felt like an anvil from all that bust-head whiskey he’d soaked up. Cole had learned one thing in his own drinking days. It was not to put cheap liquor in you. Good Tennessee mash, that was another thing.

The day was cloudy and looked as though it would either rain or snow. They crossed several tributaries, and in every one the water appeared black under the dull gray sky. A stiff wind blew out of the northwest and pushed tumbleweeds across their path. Once, a jack rabbit broke from the cover of a greasewood bush, and Will tried to shoot it with his Colt but missed. It was as big as a dog, and, when Will’s big pistol went off, the jack bolted behind a clump of sagebrush and was out of sight before Will could pull the trigger a second time.

“I could almost taste that rabbit roasted on a stick,” Will said in a forlorn voice.

“Did you really think you’d hit it with that big iron?” Cole wondered.

They stopped at noon for a lunch of hardtack and beef jerky and canteen water and gave the horses a blow. Off to the west, they could still see the Blue Mountains, only now their peaks were obscured by a bank of clouds so gray and heavy you could almost smell the snow in them.

“It’s damn’ well gonna come a storm,” Will declared. “I can feel it in my feet.”

“How does a man know from his feet whether it’s going to snow or not?” Cole asked, enjoying a cigarette.

“You remember Gettysburg, don’t you?”

“It would be hard to forget.”

“Got both my feet broke when a caisson rolled over ’em trying to get to the top of Little Round Top. Hurt like hell. Hadn’t been for my feet getting broken, though, I might have been killed … ’most everybody I knew got killed that day. My feet got broke by that caisson and I lay in the grass a long time. Never did make it up Little Round Top. So I guess, in a way, it was lucky my feet got broken … except now, whenever it’s going to come a storm, they ache like blue blazes.”

“We all got hurt in that war, one way or another.”

“Don’t I know it.” Will moaned as he pulled off his boots and began rubbing his feet. “I sure wish I’d’ve been far-sighted enough to have bought an extra bottle of mash in Laramie. I could use a little taste of medicine on account of these feet of mine.”

“I would think maybe you had put enough medicine in you last night that your feet wouldn’t be troubling you for at least a week or two. I doubt if Wes Hardin had shot you last night, that you would have even felt the bullet.”

Will stopped rubbing his feet long enough to give Cole the eye. “Well, getting shot by Wes Hardin couldn’t have hurt much more than these feet of mine are hurting me now.” He grinned at John Henry as he rubbed his feet. “Unless you’ve had your feet run over by something as heavy as a caisson, you can’t begin to know what it feels like.”

“I wish I had a drink to give you, Will. Hell, I almost wish I had one for myself.”

“Everything was going along smooth for me until I ran into you back at Cheyenne,” he grumbled. “Ever since that unlucky day, it’s been one setback after another. And now my feet are aching.”

“Well, I’m sorry about your sore feet, Will. But running into me doesn’t have anything to do with your suffering.”

Will pulled his boots back on with much agony, then hobbled to his horse and rode off at a quick pace like he was trying to outrun the pain in his feet. Or, maybe it was just Cole’s company.

They followed the double set of tracks the rest of the afternoon, Will complaining every so often about how bad the pain in his feet was and saying how it was going to snow sometime soon. The gray sky seemed to lower itself just over their heads and the wind tried to push its way up under their coats and to steal their hats.

Every passing hour, the sky grew darker and settled in all around them so that by late afternoon they not only could reach up and touch it, they were riding in it. It was cold traveling and uneventful until they saw a man sitting on the carcass of a dead mule that was still harnessed to a bright blue-and-yellow wagon.

The man looked up as they approached. “How do,” he said. His clothes were dusty, especially the knees of his pants. He wore a claw-hammer coat with satin trim and a battered plug hat that was tied on by a long wool scarf.

“What are you doing sitting on a dead mule out here in the middle of nowhere?” Will asked.

“Waiting for someone to come along, sir,” the man replied.

“Well, that’s plain enough a blind man could see,” Will said. “But that wasn’t quite my point.”

The man brushed the dirt off the knees of his pants, then stood. “I’m Bart Bledsoe,” he said, then touched the brim of his hat in a formal and gentlemanly way. “I sell patent medicines, as you can plainly see by my wagon.”

Written on the side of the wagon in large black letters were the words:

BLEDSOE’S PATENT MEDICINES & BITTERS, BART BLEDSOE, PROP.

CERTIFIED PHRENOLOGIST——DENVER

“What’s that last part mean?” Will asked. “That freenologist?”

“In quite simple terms it means, sir, that I am practiced in the science of reading the bumps on a person’s head in order to determine his character.”

“Reading the bumps on a person’s head?” Will repeated.

“That is correct, sir.”

Will turned and looked at Cole. “Well, I guess I ain’t seen everything like I thought I had.”

“I guess not,” Cole said.

“That still don’t explain you sitting out here in the middle of nowhere on a dead mule,” Will said. “Even if you can read a person’s head bumps.”

“I had the misfortune of buying a colicky mule in Laramie yesterday,” Bledsoe explained. “My previous beast came up lame and I traded him, along with ten gold dollars, for this colicky mule. I also had to throw in two bottles of my patent medicine which will cure everything known to man … but, alas, not to mules, at least not to mules that are colicky.”

“Well maybe you should invent a patent medicine that would help a colicky mule,” Will suggested. “Then you wouldn’t be in such a poor situation as you are now.”

“Believe me,” Bledsoe said, “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“Say, you didn’t see a big black cuss riding by with a little bitty colored girl with him, did you?” Will asked.

“No, sir, I did not see such a man.”

“Oh,” Will said, the disappointment plain in his voice.

“But,” Bledsoe added, “there were one or two riders that went by here late last night. Unfortunately they did not bother to stop. They seemed in quite a hurry, judging by the sounds of how fast their horses were running. It might have been the party you are looking for.”

“Well, maybe so,” Will said. “But if it was them, it is lucky for you that they didn’t stop, or you might be just as dead as your mule.”

Bledsoe swallowed hard and his eyes got a little buggy. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

“I’m as serious as a tax collector,” Will said, then added: “Say, does that patent medicine of yours cure feet pain?”

It took Bledsoe a few seconds to find his voice. “I … believe I should have something in my wagon that will relieve the discomfort of painful limbs.”

Will pulled out his watch and looked at it. “It is just about suppertime,” he said to Cole. “Maybe we ought to just make camp here and get an early start.”

Cole didn’t quarrel with the decision. If Will was right about a storm coming and they pushed on past dark and got caught out in it, they would probably end up lost. Cole took care of the horses this time while Will and Bart Bledsoe scouted around in Bledsoe’s wagon for the right pain remedy.

“This ought to do,” Bledsoe said, handing Will an amber bottle with a cork stopper. Will held it out at arm’s length and read the label before taking a taste.

Will licked his lips and said: “It’s a bit bitey, but it warms you.”

Bart Bledsoe said: “Give it a chance to work. I think you’ll see that taste isn’t everything.”

Will plopped himself down on his saddle and pulled off his boots and wrapped his feet in one of his blankets while Cole built a fire.

“How did you come by your affliction, sir?” Bledsoe asked him.

Will explained how his feet had been run over during the battle of Gettysburg and how they’d troubled him on and off ever since. “Whenever there’s going to come a big storm, or any change in the weather, that’s when they start barking. Like now. If my feet ain’t failed me, it’s one hell of a storm on the way. Ought to hit us anytime.”

Bart Bledsoe looked all around him, in every direction. It was cold and dark and getting more so by the minute. “I would admit,” he said, “that the conditions do seem ripe for some sort of change in the weather. A little snow perhaps, but I see nothing to indicate a storm.”

“You will,” Will said. “A big one, too.”

Will continued to work on the bottle of bitters that Bledsoe had given him while Cole unpacked the mule and brought to the fire enough supplies for supper.

“May I contribute something to the repast?” Bledsoe asked when he saw Cole slicing bacon into the black frying pan.

Will looked at him from across the fire. “Repast?”

“I’ve a fruit cake in the wagon … a gift from a woman I know back in Duluth.”

“Fruit cake!” Will tipped the bottle up, then brought it down again. “Well, hell, I ain’t et a fruit cake in twenty years … bring her out. And I’ll make us a pan of biscuits if someone will fetch my Dutch oven outta my pack.”

“What do you think?” Will asked when Bledsoe went into the wagon to get his fruit cake.

“About what?”

“Him!”

“What about him?”

“You really think he can read a person’s head bumps?”

“I’ve heard tell there are people who can.” Cole didn’t know what was in the medicine bottle Will was sampling, but it seemed to be doing the job on him, judging by the unsteady look in his eyes and the happy look on his face. “That helping your feet?”

Will looked down at the outlines of his feet beneath the blanket. “Don’t hardly feel them. Come to think of it, I don’t hardly feel my legs, either.” Then he snorted a laugh and held up the bottle. “Damn’ stuff makes you feel good, John Henry. You ought to try a little.”

“Not tonight, Will. One of us should probably stay on the alert.”

“You think Book will double back and try to kill us in our sleep?” Will asked without the least bit of concern.

“Anything’s possible,” Cole replied, not feeling quite as confident as Will about the matter. But then Cole wasn’t tossing down whatever balm was in that bottle. “To tell the truth, Will, it’s a possibility that Book could double back on us.”

“Who might kill us in our sleep?” Bart Bledsoe interjected, walking into the light of the fire carrying a gaily decorated cake tin and a can of peaches.

“You don’t have to worry there, Mister Bledsoe,” Will said. “I ain’t gonna allow nothing to happen to you and these wonderful patent medicines of yours. You got another bottle of this? It’s working miracles on my sore feet.”

Bledsoe looked at Cole with owl-like eyes. He had an unusually large head for such a small man. “Not to worry,” Cole said. “There’s not much chance anyone’s going to come and kill us in our sleep, especially if there’s a big storm brewing out there.”

Bledsoe looked uncertain.

“And after you get me another bottle of medicine, Mister Bledsoe,” Will said, “maybe you could read my head bumps.”

By the time they had finished eating, they could almost feel the storm without actually seeing it, as if it were waiting just at the edge of their camp, just beyond the firelight. The night sky had a blood red quality to it.

Will forewent eating very much supper, choosing instead to concentrate on the small amber bottle Bledsoe had given him. “It makes me feel sorta like I’m floating,” he said.

“What’d you put in that medicine bottle?” Cole asked Bledsoe.

Bledsoe offered him a weak smile. “I always mash in one or two opium pills. The rest of the formula is a secret.” The opium pills explained Will’s happy mood.

“You reckon you are ready to read the bumps on my head?” Will asked. “My feet are feeling much better and I feel like having my head bumps read.”

“Certainly, sir,” Bart Bledsoe said.

“What’ll I have to do?” Will asked.

“Simply remove your hat, close your eyes, and be very relaxed.”

“Oh, I’m real relaxed,” Will said. “Thanks to this wonderful curative of yours.”

Will closed his eyes while Bart Bledsoe felt around his head. Bledsoe’s bony fingers searched and felt their way through the dark tangles of Will’s long, uncombed hair. Cole rolled himself a cigarette and watched the show while he kept an ear toward the night.

“Ah … here at the occipital area, I can feel a ridge that indicates you are a man of truthful character,” Bledsoe said after a few minutes of probing around in Will’s hair. “And this bump here at the parietal region speaks of a man who is highly determined.” Will looked pleased with the interpretation while Bledsoe continued his search for more bumps. “And these, here in the frontal portions,” Bledsoe continued, his eyes closed, his chin lifted, “these show a man who … who ….” Bledsoe lost his voice again.

“Who what?” Will asked, opening his eyes, wanting to know exactly what it was Bledsoe had discovered in the nest of his hair.

“These bumps … show a man much given to a violent nature … I’m afraid ….”

“Oh,” Will said, settling down once more. “I thought you were going to tell me my bumps said I was clever, or something like that.”

“Clever?” Bart Bledsoe said.

“It’s not what you think it means, Mister Bledsoe,” Cole said, enjoying his cigarette and the bump-reading display.

“It’s something a dang’ jolly whore called me,” Will said, sipping from the patent medicine bottle. “Of course, what does a jolly whore know about anything?”

“Indeed,” Bledsoe said.

Then, it started to snow, just as Will had predicted.

“Look at the size of those flakes!” Bledsoe cried. “They are nearly as big as fancy belt buckles.”

“I told you it was going to snow big,” Will said, closing his eyes and letting the snowflakes collect on his face.

“Well, what if we are snowed in come the morning?” Bart Bledsoe asked. “What will we do then?”

“Seeing as how your mule is dead,” Will said, “I don’t know why you’re so worried about being snowed in. That dead mule of yours sure ain’t going to take you anywhere whether it snows or not.”

Bledsoe swallowed like he had an apple stuck in his throat.

“Don’t worry about it, Mister Bledsoe,” Cole offered. “Tomorrow, we’ll hitch up one of the horses to your wagon and escort you into the next town so that you can buy yourself another mule.”

“Only this time,” Will said, his face nearly covered under the big snowflakes, “don’t buy a mule that’s colicky.”