Trail Angel by Derek Catron Read Free Book Online Page A

a husband takes a wife, Laurie. I don’t have much. We may have even less together. But I will marry you as proper before God as any plantation owner’s daughter.”
    They married by Christmas. By the new year, as they figured it later, Laurie was with child. Caleb had never been happier.
    While they readied for the wedding, the country elected Abraham Lincoln. Caleb wondered why people thought it should matter to him who was president in Washington. Some told him to wait and wed after the war. What war? He told himself it was just talk. Caleb didn’t like to think of what happened after that.
    A yellow-breasted meadowlark flittered in the brush nearby, drawing Caleb’s mind back to the moment. An afternoon spent away from the wagons left him with just a couple of catfish and a sadness so deep it felt like a millstone on his shoulders. The others would be back from town soon, but Caleb lingered a few minutes more. Laying his pole beside him, he leaned back against the narrow stump of a cottonwood someone had cut down for firewood. Closing his eyes, Caleb recalled the day he proposed to Laurie. He unfastened the buttons on his pants, imagining the feel of another hand against him.
    He pictured her in one of the fine dresses the ladies of Charleston wore before the war, colors bright as wildflowers, silk soft as butterfly wings. Laurie’s hair hanging long and loose over bare shoulders, tiny waist cinched up so tight her bosom nearly spilled out of the low-cut bodice.
    â€œI’m a rich man now, Laurie. I could buy you all the things you deserved.”
    Caleb fell slack at the thought.
    Laurie would ask how he came by so much money.
    They had been poor, but they had everything they needed. He had never felt shamed before her. Now he covered his face, wishing to forget the blood that had stained his hands, wipe the memories from his head of the men who died to satisfy his greed.
    The sound of approaching horses startled Caleb, and he hurried to refasten his pants. He reached for the line of fish beside him and turned to rise when he saw the Colonel, Josey Angel and the black man they called Lord Byron.
    â€œGet your hands on anything worth keeping?”
    Caleb flushed as he considered the Colonel’s meaning. The old man’s weathered face revealed nothing behind the drooping mustache. “Not much.” Caleb held up the line of catfish. “They’re not biting.”
    The men laughed. “Best be glad of that,” the Colonel said.
    As they rode off Caleb heard him say to the others, “You can’t expect to catch much if all you’re doing is playing with worms.”

C HAPTER E LEVEN
    Annabelle’s father imagined himself a cowboy already, so he left with the Daggett boys to check the oxen as soon as he and Annabelle arrived at the camp outside Omaha.
    She went to the wagons to find a place for the candles and other supplies purchased in town. The task should have been simple, but every time she returned to the wagons her father had repacked things. It always took a few moments to discern his newest strategy.
    As she studied the wagon’s contents, Josey Angel rode up on his gray Indian pony. She had sent him off soon after the confrontation in the street outside Hellman’s store. “Perhaps you will remember my face the next time we meet,” she said, intending it as a rebuke, though he showed no recognition of it.
    She hadn’t expected to see him again so soon. Doffing his hat, he dismounted with a grace that left her regretting the need to sell her horses. The larger, eastern-bred mounts were accustomed to eating grain and would only be a burden on the trail.
    â€œCan I help you get something, ma’am?” The scout’s helpful attitude evaporated with one look in the back of the wagon, his dark eyes growing wide. “Maybe I better wait here, in case you get lost.”
    Annabelle understood his hesitation. The wagon was big as a