Chapter 26
The canvas flap was still, and Theda's voice carried through it, low and steady, asking Joe questions to keep him oriented. Jem remembered what it was like to be the patient in her wagon. She needed time to focus on her patient. He could talk to her later.
He stepped to the canvas.
“Theda.” He kept his voice low enough not to disturb Joe. “I'll come back in the morning. Get some rest when you can.”
A pause from inside. Then, “Goodnight, Jem.”
He held onto her voice for a moment, then put his hat on and walked away from the wagon.
He'd made it perhaps fifteen feet into the shadows between wagons when something hard pressed into his back, just below the shoulder blade. He’d felt gun barrels before.
He went still.
“Keep walking.” Leland's voice, low and sharp as steel. “Away from the wagons. Don't make it a scene near Theda.”
Jem kept walking.
Leland steered him with small adjustments of the pistol, left at the gap between the Hendersons' wagon and the one behind it, then out past the edge of the firelight, past the horse lines and into the scrub where the darkness thickened.
Jem's eyes adjusted slowly.
Leland stopped him once they were far enough away.
“Turn around.”
Jem turned.
Leland stood a careful distance back. Far enough to be out of reach, close enough that missing wasn't a concern. He held the pistol level, his eyes steady on Jem.
“You want to tell me how well you know Tolliver.” Leland tilted his head, surveying him. Jem said nothing.
“I was closer to the Crenshaw wagon the other night than you knew.” Leland's voice stayed even.
“I saw the end of it. The two of you.” He paused.
“I didn't hear what was said. But I saw enough to know it didn't look like two men who'd never laid eyes on each other.” Another pause.
“And I saw Tolliver turn and leave when he could have put you down first. Man like that doesn't make that choice about a stranger.”
Jem let him speak.
“I also,” Leland continued, “heard what you said to Theda this evening. About your memories. About things you're ashamed of. About needing to tell her something before someone else did.” He let that sit. “So you can see how a man starts to put things together.”
Jem looked at him. The pistol hadn't moved.
“You going to shoot me, Leland?”
“That depends considerably on what you say next.”
Jem exhaled slowly through his nose. He'd known something like this was coming.
“What is it you want?” Jem asked.
“The truth.” Leland said it simply. Jem believed him, surprisingly. Despite the history between them, Leland did look to be a fair man. “All of it. Tonight.”
“And then?”
“And then we go find Phineas.” Leland's jaw shifted slightly. “He leads this train. Whatever you've been carrying, he gets to hear it. That's not a negotiation.”
“Put the gun down,” Jem said. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Leland studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he lowered the pistol. He didn't holster it, but he lowered it, which was something. Jem pulled in a breath of cold mountain air and looked at Leland steadily. Then he said it plainly.
“Before you take me to Phineas you should know why you can’t. I rode with them. The same outfit Tolliver runs with.” He watched Leland's face turn into a scowl.
Jem forced himself to continue. “I was following the train. I knew there were diamonds somewhere in this wagon line, and my brother sent me to find a clean way to get to them without it turning bloody.”
Leland said nothing.
“I wasn't supposed to make contact with anyone. Just watch the train, learn the layout, find where the stones were being kept, and report back.” Jem kept his voice level.
“Then the storm hit. My horse went down, and I went with it.” He paused.
“When Theda found me, I wasn't pretending.
I didn't know my own name. I didn't know what I was doing out there or why.
I didn't recognize Tolliver when he first rode in because there was nothing to recognize him with.”
“Convenient,” Leland said.
“I know how it sounds but It's the truth.” Jem didn't look away. “I'm just telling you what happened.”
Leland turned the pistol slowly in his hand, not pointing it, just holding it, thinking.
“This is more reason to bring you to Phineas tonight,” Leland said. “Not less.”
“I know that too.”
“Then why are you still talking?”
Jem looked down at the ground briefly, then back up.
“Because of Ransom. My brother.” Jem hated the connection.
“Tolliver answers to him, same as I did.
And wherever Ransom goes, people get hurt.
That's just what he is.” He pulled in a breath.
“He's going to come for those diamonds. He was always going to come for them, with me or without me.
The difference is I know how he thinks. I know what he'll do and when he'll do it and what he'll do to anyone who gets between him and what he wants.”
Leland watched him.
“I don't expect you to forgive me,” Jem said. “I'm not asking for that. But I know you care about Theda. And Phineas.” He let that sit between them. “So do I. Whatever you think of me, that part is real.”
He meant it.
“The best chance this train has is if I'm working with it,” Jem said.
“I know Ransom's methods. I know what he'll send ahead and what he'll hold back and how he'll come at you.
If I'm standing next to Phineas when that happens, we have a fighting chance.” He paused.
“If I'm in irons, or run off, or dead, you're facing him blind.”
Leland was quiet for a long moment.
“And if I tell Phineas all of it tonight,” Jem continued, “he won't trust me enough to listen. Neither will Theda.” The words hurt deep in his chest. “They'd be right not to.”
He wanted to tell Theda. He'd been about to, before Joe called out from inside the wagon.
He was tired of carrying his truth alone, wondering if she could ever look at him again while knowing.
But wanting to be honest and being able to afford to be honest were not the same thing. Keeping her safe was more important.
Leland’s frown deepened.
“You're asking me to make a decision that isn't mine to make,” he said finally.
“I’m asking you to help me protect the people you care about, that we care about.”
He turned and took a few steps into the dark, then back. Jem let him think, standing still with his hands at his sides and the cold working through his coat.
Leland stopped. He looked out toward the ridge for a moment, then down at the pistol in his hand. He slid it into the holster.
Jem watched him do it.
“Three days,” Leland said. “Maybe four, depending on the terrain. That's how long until we reach the army base.” He turned to face Jem fully. “You get until then. You use that time however you think you need to.” His voice was flat, carrying no warmth but no cruelty either. “When we ride in, I'm taking you to the commanding officer myself and telling him everything I know. What you do with that information is your business. If I see any funny business…any sign you’re turning on us, I won’t let you hurt them.”
Jem nodded slowly.
“I want your word,” Leland said.
“You have it.”
Leland looked at him for a moment. Then he gave a short nod and turned back toward the camp without another word, his outline fading into the darkness between the scrub and the firelight until Jem couldn't see him anymore.
Jem stood there alone.
Three days. Maybe four. He looked up at the ridge, black and jagged against the stars, and thought about everything that needed to happen inside that window and everything that couldn't. He thought about Ransom, who didn't wait on anyone's timeline. He thought about Theda asleep in Della’s wagon most likely.
Ransom would know they were headed for the army base, too. He’d attack before then. He put his hat on and walked back toward camp.
What Leland had given him, it wasn't exactly trust, but it was the chance to save the woman he loved, even if that meant giving her up.
---*---
The pass closed around them within the first hour of moving the wagon train the next morning.
The peaks rose on both sides, steep and indifferent, cutting the sky to a narrow strip of pale blue overhead. The trail ran straight through the middle of it, barely wide enough for a wagon in places, the rock walls close enough that Jem could have touched them from the saddle if he'd reached out.
The wagon line stretched behind them in a single file, each one visible from the one ahead, nowhere to spread out and nowhere to go if something came down from the ridges.
Jem glanced over at Phineas and Leland. The three of them were scouting ahead. Something they’d done a few times the past few weeks. But it felt different, knowing that Leland was looking at him with suspicion every time he glanced his way.
The three of them moved at an easy pace, far enough ahead of the first wagon that they could talk without being heard. Leland rode to Phineas' left. Jem kept to the right, slightly back, watching the ridgelines.
Jem had passed Theda's wagon on the way to the horse lines that morning. She'd been outside it, early, wrapping her hands around a tin cup, and she'd looked up at him, expectantly. He'd managed a smile and kept moving because if he'd stopped, he wasn't sure he could have kept his mouth shut.
She trusted him. Phineas trusted him. But he thought about Ransom. He thought about what happened to people who were in the way when Ransom wanted something.
Phineas would try to keep Ansel and his family safe, no matter what they’d done, or how much danger they’d brought to the wagon train. Theda would stand by her brother. The two of them stood to get hurt.
Phineas held up a fist and they stopped.
The tracks crossed the trail at an angle, coming down from the eastern ridge and disappearing into the scrub on the western side. They were fresh. Jem counted the impressions without dismounting. Eight riders at least. Possibly ten.
Phineas swung down from his horse and crouched over them without speaking. He studied the depth, the spacing, the direction of travel. Leland sat on his horse and said nothing. Jem watched the ridge.
“Moving parallel,” Phineas said finally. “Keeping pace.”
“Yes,” Jem said.
Ransom and his men were close and planning an attack. What had Tolliver told Ranson about him? Would Ransom believe him if he told him he was still on his side?
Maybe he could manipulate his brother to still leave everyone alone and just walk away with the diamonds. Even as the idea took form in his head, his stomach turned.
“We should push longer today,” Jem said. “Don't stop when we normally would. Keep the wagons moving until the light gives out completely.” He kept his voice even, despite the emotion racing through him. “And everyone who can carry a weapon should have one where they can reach it. Just in case.”
Phineas stood. He looked down the trail ahead, then back at the narrow strip of sky above the pass. “Agreed.” He turned to Leland. “Pass the word when we get back. I want every man who's been taking a turn on guard doubled up tonight.”
Leland nodded, his eyes resting an extra moment on Jem.
“The diamonds,” Jem said.
Phineas looked at him.
“If whoever is out there knows what they're after, moving them again could reduce the risk. Make it harder to know where to hit.”
Phineas was quiet for a moment. “They've already been moved.” He said it without elaborating, and his eyes said he wouldn't be elaborating. “They're not where anyone would expect them to be.”
Jem nodded and left it there. He wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or worried. He would have liked to know where they were, in case he needed to use them as a bargaining chip. Jem was willing to give up anything, whether that be the diamonds or his own freedom, to keep Theda safe.
The three of them worked through the rest of their plans on the ride back, positioning the stronger wagons at the front and rear, keeping the horses from bunching at the tight sections, establishing a signal if the riders showed themselves.
Phineas asked questions and Jem answered them, and somewhere in the middle of it he became aware that Phineas was listening to him with the full weight of his attention, taking what he said seriously, factoring it into his thinking. It should have felt like progress.
It felt like something he hadn't earned. Even though he was trying to help, it felt like he was a traitor in their midst. He pushed it down. It wouldn’t be for much longer. He would never be able to stay with them, no matter how much he wanted to.
Jem was checking his horse at the picket line after supper when Leland appeared beside him. Leland didn't say anything for a moment. He stood with his hands in his coat pockets looking out past the horses into the dark.
“Today doesn't change anything,” he said.
“I know,” Jem said.
Leland looked at him then he turned and walked back toward the wagons without looking back. Jem watched him go. Then he finished what he was doing, and when he was done, he didn't go to his bedroll.
He walked to the eastern edge of camp and sat down on a flat rock with his back to the fires. The darkness out that way was endless. He sat with his forearms on his knees and watched it.
The memories came the way they'd been coming, not all at once but in pieces, details filling in around them like watercolor bleeding in. A barn outside a town he now remembered the name of.
Ransom's voice giving instructions to men who didn't ask questions. The particular sound a camp made when the men in it didn't intend to leave witnesses. Things he'd been part of. Things he'd told himself at the time were necessary, or inevitable, or someone else's fault.
He sat with all of it and didn't look away from it.
Behind him the camp was quiet, the fires burning low, the wagons dark. He wasn't going to let Ransom have this one.
Whatever he was, whatever he'd done, whatever Leland decided when they rode into that army base, that much he was certain of. He was ready to stand up for what was right. He pulled his coat tighter and kept his eyes east and waited for the light of the morning.