Chapter Fifteen
The rain stopped before dawn, but the ground still gave under every step.
Clay came down from Noah Granger’s wagon with a basin of gray water in his hand.
His boots sank at the edge of the camp. The wagons stood crooked among wet grass and black mud, their canvas dark with rain.
Smoke lay low from the few fires that had caught.
Horses stamped and shook themselves. The ox Clay and Tucker had taken in weeks ago stood with its head down, its ribs showing beneath its hide.
Noah had not slept much. Each breath came with a rattle now. Charlotte sat beside him with her thin shoulders bent over the blankets, holding a cloth to his forehead.
Sarah met Clay at the wagon step. She had her hair tied back in a loose braid, though the wet had pulled curls free around her face. She took the basin from him before he could set it down.
“Did he drink any?”
“Two swallows.”
Clay looked over her shoulder into the wagon. Noah’s eyes were closed. His cheeks had gone hollow in three days.
“He needs rest,” Clay said.
“He needs a lot more than that.”
Sarah did not say it sharply, which somehow made it worse.
Clay rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Charlotte knows.”
“She knows.”
Across the camp, Everett was shouting at one of his men. The man had tried to lift a crate from the remains of Everett’s burned wagon and dropped it in the mud. Everett kicked the crate, then turned away when he saw Clay watching.
Clay took the basin back from Sarah and carried it toward the creek. She walked beside him.
They had not said much since the storms began. There was too much to do. Canvas had torn. Harness leather had soaked through. Food had spoiled in wagons where the rain came in. Every morning brought another problem waiting in plain sight.
At the creek, Clay crouched and rinsed the basin. The water ran brown over the stones.
Sarah stood with her arms crossed tight against the cold.
“You ought to eat,” he said.
“So should you.”
“I had some bread.”
“You gave it to Tucker.”
Clay glanced up at her. “You been spyin’ on me?”
“I have eyes.”
A small smile flickered on his face. It did not hold. He filled the basin and stood.
Sarah put her fingers around his wrist. Her hand was cold from the morning air.
“Clay.”
He stopped.
“We will do what we can.”
He looked at her hand, then at her face. She had started speaking to him differently since he had pulled Everett away from her by the alder trees. Not more gently, but more directly—as if she had decided he could bear the truth when she had it.
“I know,” he said.
Her thumb moved once over the wet cuff of his shirt. Then she let go.
By the time they returned to camp, Samuel had called the men together.
Clay knew the look of it before he heard the first word. Men stood near their wagons, not working, hands tucked under their arms or resting on rifle stocks. The women stayed close enough to listen. Tucker sat on the tongue of Clay’s wagon with Brady beside him. The boys had gone quiet.
Everett stood beside a stack of salvaged boxes. His coat was still stained with soot from the fire. He had found a dry hat somewhere and wore it low over his eyes.
“We can’t sit here another day,” Everett said.
Clay set the basin down near Noah’s wagon. “Noah can’t drive.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Charlotte heard him. She looked toward the men, then lowered her eyes again.
Clay stepped forward. “He’s got fever in his chest. Moving him in this weather may kill him.”
Everett gave a short laugh. “And staying may kill the rest of us. We have enough flour for what? Four days, if everybody minds their portions? Less, if they don’t.”
“We can hunt,” Clay said.
“In rain like this?”
“The rain has eased.”
“It’ll come back.” Everett swept his gaze over the camp. “We’ve lost time after time because something goes wrong. A broken wheel. A storm. An old man coughing himself to death. We’ll be snowed in somewhere before we ever see California if we keep waiting for every soul who can’t keep up.”
Samuel stood near the fire, his face set. He had been quiet through most of Everett’s speech. Clay waited for him to answer.
When Samuel did, he did not look at Everett. He looked at Clay.
“We’re low,” he said. “He’s right about that much.”
Clay stared at him.
Samuel went on. “Noah needs care. Charlotte can’t manage the wagon and him both. You can stay with them a day or two. Let Rufus take your team ahead. We make slow distance. You catch up when Noah is able.”
The suggestion fell into the camp without a sound.
Clay looked back at Noah’s wagon. The old man had taught him how to mend a cracked wheel hub with a strip of green hide and a nail when there was nothing else.
He had shown Clay how to judge a horse by its teeth and feet.
Two nights ago, before the cough got bad, he had told Clay that a man did not need to own much to be rich, so long as he knew whose fire would take him in.
Clay had nodded then. He had not known what to say.
Now he felt every face turning toward him.
“You want me to leave the group?” he asked Harlan.
“I want Noah looked after.”
“And I want us moving,” Everett said. “Those are not the same thing.”
Sarah came to Clay’s side. Her shoulder brushed his arm. It was a small touch, but he felt it clearly through his wet shirt.
Rufus had been standing apart beneath the eaves of Clay’s wagon.
His old coat hung nearly to his knees. He carried the same worn leather bag over one shoulder.
Clay had seen the shape of something hard inside it once, when Rufus opened it to take out a clean strip of cloth.
Silver, perhaps. Or stones. Rufus had closed it before Clay could make sense of it.
“I can try and drive,” Rufus said. “If Mr. McCall is willing.”
Everett looked at him. “You?”
Rufus turned his face toward the sound. “Me.”
“You haven’t driven a team since you joined us.”
Rufus gave no reply.
Everett walked toward him, boots sucking at the mud. “You got some reason you never look a man in the eye?”
Clay felt Sarah stiffen beside him.
“Leave him be,” Clay said.
Everett stopped. “Why? You answering for him now, too?”
Rufus’s hands tightened on the strap of his bag. Clay had noticed before that Rufus listened harder than other men. He turned his head toward footsteps, toward the scrape of a cup against a wagon wheel. Clay had originally thought it was caution. A man alone on the trail had cause for caution.
Everett moved close enough to Rufus that the old leather of his coat creaked.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Rufus did not answer.
Everett’s mouth pulled to one side. He raised his hand higher.
“Come on. Tell us.”
Rufus’s face had gone pale beneath its weathered skin. “I can manage a team.”
“You can’t see my hand.”
Clay stepped between them. “That’s enough.”
Everett backed away a pace, pleased with himself. “Blind.”
No one said anything.
Tucker slid down from the wagon tongue. Brady stayed where he was, watching Rufus with wide eyes.
Everett looked around at the people gathered there. “Well, there it is. We’ve got ourselves a blind driver. “Seems Mr. McCall don’t know everything.”
“I knew he was blind,” Clay said.
“You knew, and you kept it from us?”
“It wasn’t my business to tell.”
“It becomes my business when he’s driving beside us.”
Rufus stood very straight. “I have not asked for anyone’s charity.”
“No,” Everett said. “McCall’s got plenty to give. Got an old man dying in one wagon, a blind man in another, and every fool who comes limping down the road. He’s collecting crippled people like they’re kindling.”
Clay took a step toward him.
Samuel caught his elbow.
Clay looked down at the hand on his sleeve. Samuel did not release him.
Everett saw it and smiled.
“Go on, boy,” he said. “Hit me. It won’t put food in their mouths.”
Sarah moved in front of Clay before he could answer. She was not tall enough to block him from Everett’s view, but she stood there as if she were.
A loose curl stuck to her cheek. She did not bother to push it away.
“You have a great deal to say for a man whose wagon burned because he would rather save his goods than listen to sense,” she said.
Everett’s face changed.
Sarah kept on. “Clay pulled you from that fire. Samuel did too. Clay found shelter when the first storm came. He fed people when they had nothing. He gave away blankets. He took in a child when he could have sent him back. He helped Noah before Noah asked. He helped Rufus without turning him into a spectacle for the camp.”
Everett looked past her at Clay. “Your fiancé taught you that speech?”
Sarah’s hand went back without looking. Clay took it. Her fingers locked around his.
“No,” she said. “My fiancé has too much decency to speak of the things he does.”
They had said it before, for safety. To strangers. To Everett. Yet now she said it with her hand in Clay’s, and something in his chest gave way a little.
Sarah looked toward the others.
“You are afraid,” she said. “So am I. We are all hungry. We have children here. We have sick people. That is the reason we ought to stand together, not ride away from anyone who slows us down.”
Violet came from beside her wagon, Brady’s hand in hers. Her face was drawn with weariness, but she lifted her chin.
“She’s right,” Violet said. “Mr. McCall saved my boy from the river. I won’t forget it because the road has turned ugly.”
Tucker stepped out from behind Clay’s wagon. His small face was dirty. He held his coat closed at the throat with one fist.
“Clay saved me, too,” he said.
Clay turned. “Tucker—”
The boy looked up at him. “You did.”
Charlotte spoke from Noah’s wagon.
“He has fed us from his own stores,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but people heard it. “Noah and I have no sons. If we did, I would pray they had Clay McCall’s heart.”
Anna stood near the edge of the camp, wrapped in a patched shawl. Since Everett had thrown her out in the storm, she had not gone back to his fire. She looked from Everett to Sarah and then down at the mud.
“He let me sleep under cover,” she said.
Everett’s head snapped around. “No one asked you.”