Chapter 17 #3
"A year ago I'd have walked past half this stuff in a supply room without thinking twice about it. Just inventory. Boxes on a shelf." She shook her head. "Now I'd fight somebody over gauze."
"I'd fight somebody over socks," Curtis said.
"We have socks," David said.
"That's why I'm not fighting anybody."
The conversation drifted toward home without either of them steering it there on purpose.
Karen wondered how Rebecca was managing, whether the patient load at Karen's house had grown or thinned out since they'd left.
David figured Grace probably had Rebecca working by now if she was strong enough to stand.
"Grace doesn't make people work," Karen said.
"No," Curtis said. "She just stands there until you volunteer."
"That's worse," David said.
During the afternoon rest, David studied the map again, the river waiting somewhere ahead on whatever route he chose.
"What about the bridge we crossed coming out?" Karen asked.
"An option," David said. "Not the one I want."
Curtis agreed. The toll itself wasn't the problem. Being remembered was. The hostile roadblock stayed off the table entirely, and the ford remained a question mark until they stood in front of it again.
David traced a road south of their position that might connect to a different crossing, no guarantee it had survived the winter any better than the last one had.
"How much farther does that add?" Curtis asked.
David gave him his best guess. Curtis didn't love it, but he didn't argue either.
"How much time is this wagon costing us?" Karen asked.
David didn't know yet. That question led somewhere he'd been avoiding all morning.
"Grace gave you four weeks," Karen said.
"Don't remind me."
"Thought she said three," Curtis said.
"I said three if everything went right."
Karen looked around at the wagon, the map, the whole shape of the day's detours. "How's that going?"
"Four weeks," David admitted.
"What happens at five?" Curtis asked.
"She wouldn't tell me."
"That's worse," Karen said.
David knew it. He let himself smile at that much before turning back to the map.
They kept moving west through the afternoon, the horses working steady, Curtis disciplined about stopping well before Waylon and Willie showed any real fatigue.
David's instinct was to squeeze another mile or two out of the daylight left. Curtis wouldn't hear it.
"Tomorrow matters too," he said.
David accepted it. They left the road for a stretch of tree line and old logging cut that hid the wagon from anyone passing the main road, and made camp without a fire, not because they knew anyone followed, but because there was no reason to advertise otherwise.
Curtis unharnessed the team and checked their shoulders and backs, then ran his hands down their legs and checked their feet. No soreness beyond ordinary work. No hoof trouble. David handled June. Karen tended Whiskey. Smokey ate and made his patrol.
They'd covered somewhere between fifteen and eighteen useful miles west, despite the distance they'd traveled getting there. David found the number unsatisfying.
Curtis didn't. "Everybody's sound. Wagon's sound. Load's here."
"That's your definition of a good day?"
"Today it is."
David couldn't argue with it.
Near dusk, David walked back toward the main road with Smokey to check where they'd turned off. One look at the ground showed him another problem.
Their trail dwarfed anything three riders would have left.
Two deep wagon-wheel ruts, cut clean into the softer patches along the shoulder.
Hoofprints from Waylon and Willie, heavier and wider-spaced than a saddle horse's.
June and Whiskey's tracks alongside. Smokey's paw prints threaded through all of it.
Anybody who'd spent time reading sign — and plenty of people out here had, by necessity — would look at this and know exactly what kind of outfit had passed through.
He crouched and studied the depth of the ruts. In ground this soft, they'd remain easy to read until rain or enough traffic tore them up.
He could brush out the turn where they'd left the road.
He could avoid the softest ground when he had a choice.
He could keep to quieter roads than the ones they'd used outbound.
But he couldn't hide a loaded wagon crossing two hundred miles of countryside, not completely, not with mud and soft spring ground waiting to record every mile of it.
Curtis came up behind him. "Problem?"
David looked at the road. "Tracks."
"Wagons make them."
David gave him a look, and Curtis understood well enough what he meant without further explanation. Anyone curious enough could follow, not mile for mile on hard pavement, but through mud and shoulders and creek crossings that would keep giving their direction away.
"You think those two back there followed us?" Curtis asked.
"No."
"Think somebody will?"
David looked back toward the wagon, hidden now among the trees. The masks could hide what filled it. They couldn't hide the fact that they were hauling something worth the trouble.
"We're not poor anymore," David said.
They walked back toward camp together. Tomorrow's route would have to account for more than distance.