OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 62: Overheard (Garrison)

A pocket mouse moseyed right past Garrison, not four hand-lengths from his boot. Only when he readjusted the rifle he held across his knees did it skitter off, disappearing into a crevice between two large slabs of rock.

Jacob Garrison had found himself an excellent lookout for their overnight stay. The rock what sheltered their camp could be climbed, giving him a view to three sides--a sharp drop off of the rock, some ways behind him, protected him on the fourth. In the silver light of a harvest moon, he could see for miles across the undulating Wyoming landscape, clear as a cloudy day.

He enjoyed sitting guard. It had been one of his favorite duties in the War. It used his quick perceptions and even temperament, as well as his ability to differentiate between a cracked twig and the step of an approaching enemy. Absent the surfeit of approaching enemies, even in the War, Garrison appreciated the quiet, and the chance to observe without being observed. Most critters, man included, were at their most honest when unobserved.

He had not expected to eavesdrop.

Turns out the rock formation funneled every sound from the camp below, like an old woman's ear trumpet. He'd first noticed that upon settling, when he heard the hiss of Cooper pouring his coffee onto the edge of the fire. Then came the various small clanks and thuds that accompanied an outdoor bedtime.

Garrison noted an owl cutting between him and the moon. He spotted some kind of fox darting across an open stretch some yards off. He found it odd that neither of the two most talkative people he knew were bothering to speak.

Well, Cooper had done enough jawing this afternoon. He should know better than to make Garrison out as a coward. What Garrison was, was stubborn. We weren't born an American but a Texian, a citizen of the Republic of Texas. That was fine by him.

Before he learned to read, Texas became part of the United States of America. Then, as he reached full adulthood, it joined the Confederate States of America. Of a sudden, folks was accusing each other of "treason," just for professing loyalty to a country they'd joined either fifteen years or several months earlier.

All Garrison had wanted was to raise his cattle and be a credit to his name and his God. But he, his father, and his brothers--and the Schmidts--had joined the home guard to fight Indians and outlaws in the absence of other menfolk. Then Governor Houston, who opposed secession, stepped down. The new state government disbanded the Hill Country militia, accusing them of "Unionist sympathies," which some had and some had not. Fredericksburg Unionists, thus provoked, formed a Union Loyal League. Times got warm. Men got beaten, even hanged, for proclaiming the wrong loyalty in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Garrison men reckoned that if they must choose sides--and apparently, they must--they chose Texas. Politics changed, but Texas remained, first and always, flawed but theirs.

By default, that meant the Confederacy....

He heard the rasp of heavy fabric, as Elizabeth or Cooper readjusted a bedroll. Those sounds mingled with the rest of the big, moonlit world around him, the cry of a hawk overhead, the howl of distant wolves. He hoped the skills he'd learned, in the militia and then in the army, helped him prevail against Callahan tomorrow night.

Then Cooper asked, "You plannin' to leave with Callahan?" and Garrison stopped ruminating on the past right quick. Leave with...?

Callahan had murdered Elizabeth's friends. The whole outfit had been working themselves past exhaustion guarding her against him. She'd dressed like a boy for over a week, to fool him. Leave with Callahan?

"Once he tells you how?" continued Cooper, as if that made any sense at all. Elizabeth weren't some escaped slave, and Callahan carrying the map to freedom.