Colter's Path (9781101604830) (2 page)

Plumb grinned and chuckled. “You are a man with the instincts of commerce, sir. It always pays to look around the next corner of every bargain, to make sure no hidden wolves are there, waiting to bite.”

“Well? What is the answer?”

Plumb fidgeted and frowned. “I am in a situation in which it is difficult to speak for…I'm not sure I should…” He pursed his lips and crunched his eyebrows downward. “No. No. I'll
not
hesitate to speak on their account. Your involvement is crucial to our success. The answer is no, without equivocation. You would not be obliged to share any percentage of what gold you might discover on any
independent
claim of your own.”

Jedd did not miss the extra emphasis Plumb placed on the key word. “Independent of you and the Sadlers, you mean?”

“Precisely. Should you labor on a claim held by the California Enterprise partnership, naturally the profits would be divided among all relevant parties. It seems only fair, wouldn't you say?”

“It does. Are you certain the Sadlers will go along with the provision regarding my rights to full possession of gold I independently obtain on claims other than theirs?” It was largely a hypothetical conversation; Jedd possessed little ambition for prospecting. If he struck color it would likely be by mere happy accident.

Plumb was growing more firm in his declarations the more he talked. “Do not worry about the Sadlers.
I
am the founder of this venture, and they will do what I say. Particularly if they know the agreements you and I make are crucial to our ability to secure you as our pilot.”

Jedd had his doubts. The reputation of the Sadlers in
this town, particularly the elder Sadler, was that of men who did not well abide being told what to do and perceived themselves as self-sufficient, not prone to require the advice or aid of others.

“I'm astonished, sir. What is there about me that would be of such value to you? There are a lot of California pilots available who would serve you well. I'm not trying to undermine my own opportunity by speaking to you this way, but since I insist that those I work for be fully open and honest with me, I consider that I owe equal frankness in return. And I'm frankly surprised by your focus on me.”

Plumb squeezed his eyes and lips closed so that his face looked oddly pinched, and nodded profoundly. “An excellent notion and habit, sir, this speaking freely and honestly. Excellent indeed.”

“Good. Now please answer the question.”

Plumb squirmed as if struck with a hidden itch. “Yes, sir, yes.” He paused and cleared his throat. “You are correct that there are other pilots to be had. But I have already touched upon the primary reason I have come to you: I invest my trust in good reputation. And in associating myself with those who possess it. Those who have earned a good name deserve to benefit from it. And you have earned such. Even before you, the Colter family was associated with the expanding American frontier for generations. Merely to hear it calls forth images of wild and unsettled mountains in the early days of the frontier, and of courage and leadership. Therefore I find it desirable to associate such a noted name with my new venture. Are you following me?”

“I follow. That's not to say I've made a decision about what you offer.” In fact, Colter had decided, the moment he learned of the proposed recompense. He was in no position to turn away from high-paying work. After all, his ever-present financial strictures had already cost him the chance to marry the only woman he had loved—a woman of this very town, in fact. She had been ready to accept him, he believed. What she could not abide was his lack of resources.

He was a poor man, no question of it. Always in need of money and work. Still, it went against his grain to appear overeager, so he did not jump too swiftly to voice agreement to Plumb's offer.

“I think you would find yourself in a happy position as we make our journey,” said Plumb. “The commander of the venture, as we have titled him, is General Gordon Lloyd, no longer officially in a military role but still stalwart. The true, day-to-day leaders will be the Sadlers, however, General Lloyd being largely a symbolic figure. You would serve as a practical adviser to the Sadlers, keeping things on the path, as it were.”

“What would be your own role as we proceed?”

“Oh, I will not make the journey myself, not immediately. I am a dreamer, a planner, a visionary…not an overland adventurer. And I possess little interest in working directly as a prospector. It is my belief that, over time, more will profit indirectly from the rush for gold than those who profit directly. The patient man shall prevail over all others. Travel, shelter, food, medical, legal, and spiritual counsel…all these things will be in demand by those who reach the far West. Those who provide those services will stand to benefit wonderfully.”

“I'm prone to agree with you, sir,” Colter said. “I myself find the possession of gold to be a pleasing prospect, yet I have little inclination to search the earth for it or spend my days squatted by a stream with a pan in my hand.”

“Are you agreeing to my proposal?”

Jedd paused a few moments. “I admit to some hesitation born of the fact that you yourself are not making the journey. It causes me to question your own faith in the venture.”

Plumb performed that strange screwing up of his countenance again, eyes narrowed to slits and puffed outward above and below his very black lashes. “I believe
deeply
in this venture. I intend for there to be many journeys of this sort across this growing land we have been given to live upon. But I know my personal limits and my place, Jedd. You are a man of trail and mountain
and plains. I am a man of town and city. The forest and range in which I hunt is that of business and commerce. I shall travel with you in spirit and thought and even prayer…but I would be nothing but a burden should I try to make the journey myself.”

Jedd nodded.

“Will you accept my offer, then? Shake my hand in seal of the bargain?”

Jedd thought a few moments more, battling an innate hesitation to obligate himself to a venture he could not fully control, then thrust out his hand and said, “Looks like I'm going back to California.”

Plumb's face beamed so brightly Jedd thought the man was about to burst into tears of joy.

That evening, as Ottwell Plumb made his way alone back to his hotel, he was pulled into an alleyway by three strangers, beaten unconscious, and robbed of his pistol, an antique watch, and his golden teeth. Most of the teeth were false and so were simply yanked out of his mouth by hand, but some were his natural teeth, gold-plated, and those were removed forcibly by fast use of some sort of large pincers or pliers.

Bleeding and pale, he regained consciousness on his own and found his feet after several efforts, then staggered on until he collapsed on a curb a quarter mile away. He was found and carried by helpful strangers to the office of a doctor who operated a private infirmary near the Holston River.

“I seen that fellow two days ago,” one of the three helpful strangers said to his fellows after they abandoned him to the physician. “Had gold teeth in his mouth. Ain't no wonder such a thing happened to him, flashing gold teeth all around town.”

“Just a fool,” said another. “Just an unthinking fool.”

“Will he live?” the third asked.

“I think so,” said the first. “I don't think he was beat on all that bad. And like Jack just said, he's a fool. And fools generally survive most anything.”

P
ART
O
NE

1849

J
edd Colter strode up a particular Knoxville avenue and cursed himself inwardly for being there. A deep sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness, even outright unhappiness, pervaded his thoughts and showed in his demeanor. He walked alone, glowering into the gloom of the cooling evening.

Earlier he'd scolded himself for his feelings, knowing that by all logic he should be quite happy. Thanks to the peculiar Ottwell Plumb,
he had before him a promising prospect that would occupy him for months…a good-paying piece of guide work that included at its conclusion a financial arrangement that probably would provide an ongoing income.

But why Plumb had presented such an extravagant offer, Jedd had no good idea. The reasons earlier given did not strike him as persuasive or complete. He was beginning to wonder if Plumb was legitimate. Since the discovery of gold at Sutter's in California, many confidence men and scoundrels were seeking ways to profit, rightly or otherwise, from a growing national lust for California gold.

Jedd's thoughts, however, were not entirely on matters related to gold, piloting work, and Ottwell Plumb. For Jedd, the town of Knoxville would forever be primarily associated with one matter, one person, that being a young woman named Emma McSwain.

“Bah!” Jedd grunted under his breath. The better part of wisdom told him to turn into the first available alleyway and leave this avenue and the associations it held…but thoughts of Emma had brought him to this street and thoughts of Emma drove him on. He passed one alley, one coach driveway, one empty lot, then another and another, and did not divert his course.

And there it was…her house. The house wherein he had courted her, declared his love for her, caressed her, kissed her, succumbed to her charms…and where he had asked and was reluctantly given by her father the right to seek her hand in marriage. In that same house he had proposed to her that she become his bride, and she had agreed without any evident hesitation.

But then, after she had pondered his humbleness of resources, she had revoked her pledge and left him standing alone and hopeless. Standing almost upon the spot he stood now, in fact. He had looked up at her excellent dwelling that sad evening, a house quite fine for its time and place, heard the latching and locking of its doors, and known that what he had dreamed of was not to be. He was spurned, shut out, and locked out. And this despite the fact that Emma's father, a respected college president, supporter of community cultural growth, and investor in assorted businesses, had given his approval to their union. Zebulon McSwain had said that he favored Jedd for his daughter because of his evident good character and the notable heritage of his family, and the fact that McSwain believed Jedd had a good future ahead of him. He was poor now, but better times would come.

Emma, though, had ultimately been swayed away from matrimony because of Jedd's inability to provide for her the kind of life she sought not just in the future but immediately.

She had ended their engagement with tears of sorrow on her face. But not sorrow enough to send her back to
his arms. His had been the fate of abandonment and a door that seemed forever closed to him.

“So why am I here now?” he asked himself on this cool 1849 evening. “Am I trying to inflict torture on myself?”

“That's what I was going to ask you,” said a voice that, though instantly recognizable to Jedd, startled him anyway. He pivoted and faced Treemont Dalton, a man he had known since childhood and who had been his friend and traveling partner on many a journey for many years, including the same cross-country journeys that had caused Ottwell Plumb to seek out Jedd's services. Treemont had come with Jedd to Knoxville. Seeing Treemont now, Jedd was reminded that the pair of them had agreed to meet earlier at a particular tavern and share a tankard or two. Jedd, overwhelmed by the job he'd accepted with Plumb and distracted by his sentimental, sorrowful remembrances of Emma, had simply forgotten.

“Tree, if you'd startled me any worse, I might have knifed the entrails out of you.”

“Jedd, I'd have had you twisted into a sailor's hitch and gutted like a slaughtered calf before you got your blade free of its sheath, and you know it.”

“You got a big imagination, Tree. How'd you come to find me here?”

Tree sighed deeply and shook his head. “Jedd, when you didn't show up at the tavern, I thunk to myself, where else would Jedd Colter be but here? The way I got it figured, you came all the way back to Tennessee in the hope you'd find Emma and discover her husband died in a fearsome whisker-shaving accident or something, and that she's been waiting for you to come rescue her from a life of living with Daddy as an old maid widow forever after.”

Jedd had to chuckle. Tree was a man who could say things to him that would not be tolerated from any other. “Tree, it wasn't because of Emma that I came here. I'd gotten that letter, you'll recall. The one that was waiting
for me in Independence, then a copy of the same in St. Joseph, and a third one in St. Louis?”

“From that fellow Plumb, or whatever his name is?”

“That's right…. Ottwell Plumb. Told me he'd be in Knoxville for a spell, meeting with his business partners, and that I should try to look him up if I was going to be back in these parts.”

“Yeah, I'd forgot about them letters.”