“Gotta hang on, Missus,” encouraged Jerry, the man of the couple staying with her. “We put in five acres of wheat, and there’s corn for this winter and plenty of melons and squash.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” the widow said. She looked at Jerry and his wife and smiled reluctantly. “All right. Maybe all of us together can pull through. For my baby’s sake, I’ll stick it out as long as I can.” She frowned at Deborah’s, Judith’s, and Sara’s boyish garb. “I sure hope you don’t run into jayhawkers or Missouri guerrillas. One named Quantrill was fighting in Price’s army, but they say it didn’t suit his style and he’s cut loose to rob and murder.”
Quantrill again, formerly known sometimes as Charlie Hart. As the women rode southeast, stopping at farms and an occasional settlement, they heard his name often, though he couldn’t have been at all the places he was rumored to be, and he was undoubtedly getting blamed for the deeds of unknown brigands, just as Lane, in Missouri, was cursed for every strayed mule or chicken.
“Don’ think there be an able-bodied white man over sixteen left in this part of Kansas,” observed Judith as they rode past another abandoned farm. “Wonder if it was drought or war that got this one.”
They asked, as they’d been doing about unused places, at the nearest occupied farm and learned from the woman there that it had been her eldest son’s before he volunteered. Widowed before she came to Kansas, she, with ten and twelve-year-old sons, was managing her own land, but she welcomed the idea of neighbors who’d help with plowing and farm her soldier son’s acres on shares.
By nightfall of the next day the friends had a list of six available farms, providing refugees were willing to live near the border. And they had matched up two households that, between them, could manage what neither could alone. There were also three women who wanted to join their parents in Ohio and Iowa if trustworthy farmers could take charge till the men came home.
“We’ll go as far south as we can tomorrow,” said Deborah, “and then start back. It’s already been worth the trip.”
Sara nodded. “It’s like trying to keep things rooted in a high wind. The more you can keep the soil held down, the faster it’ll heal when the storm ends.”
Gazing across one forlorn deserted field with a few straggling stalks of corn, Judith shifted in her saddle. “Cain’t help wonderin’ how many of these men are with Lane, ruinin’ folks’s little farms in Missouri while the men from those farms are burnin’ and robbin’ here. Be a sight better if they all stayed home and tended to their plowin’.”
Deborah had had the same thought. The “real” war was, for a lot of Missouri and Kansas men, a continuation of their old vendettas. “Maybe this’ll thin out the hotheads and get things settled so people can get on with their lives,” she said. “Shall we spend the night outside or try to find a house?”
“It’s not cold,” Sara said. “We can go on a ways, and if we don’t find a roof, we’ve got the stars.”
“Better’n jammin’ in with a houseful like we did last night,” muttered Judith. Because their hostess had been pitifully eager for them to stay, they’d shared a one-room cabin with her and her five children.
Sara giggled. “Maybe before we call out, we’d better try to look through the windows and see what we’d be spending the night with!”
An acrid odor struck Deborah’s nostrils. Sniffing, she peered in the breeze’s direction and saw a plume of gray-black smoke waver and swell against the scarlet sunset.
“Horses!” cried Sara.
She rode for a wooded ravine. Deborah and Judith followed, ducking low as their horses found a way through the brush and scrub oak. Reining in, they peered through the leaves as the dull thunder of hooves rolled down the slope.
Four—five—six riders, whooping and shouting. They led two horses and several of them had limp-necked chickens strung across their saddlebows. Besides pistols and knives, each had a shotgun or rifle. One flourished what looked like a woman’s nightgown.
Quieting their restless horses, the women stared after the gang till they vanished over a rise, then looked at each other. Without a word, they followed the ravine as far as they could in the direction of the smoke, then glanced to see if the men had doubled back.
No sign of them. The friends rode out of the trees and down the slope, putting the horses to a lope when they reached the level ground. At the end of a long, wide valley, smoke and flames rose from a cabin.
Deborah choked down a scream, her mind flashing back to another burning cabin. A body lay by this one, too, but as they sped up and sprang from their horses, the sprawled figure stirred, shrieked, then tried to crawl away.
“We won’t hurt you!” Deborah cried. “We’re friends!”
“My baby,” moaned the young blonde woman, dragging at her torn clothes. “Where’s my baby?”
Could it be in the cabin? Sara gasped and ran for the blazing house, with Judith and Deborah beside her. It was too late to put out the fire, but if a child were inside, they’d have to get it out.
Deborah almost tripped over a small body. Sara screamed and fell to her knees.
“Good God!” gasped Judith. “Dear, good God!”
The little boy was about Tom’s age. His blue eyes stared at the twilight and his neck was fixed at an angle like a broken doll’s. There were livid marks on his face, as if a large hand had been clambed over it. He looked as if he’d been literally broken and then thrown away.
“She’ll have to see him.” Sara was trembling. “I’ll carry him.”
“I’ll get some water,” Judith said, “We can get the poor girl washed up, anyway.”
Deborah ran to where the dazed woman was trying to get to her feet. Her ripped garments and marks that would later be bruises told plainer than words what had happened.
“All of them!” she mumbled through bleeding lips. “All of them …! My baby! Where is he?”
She saw him in Sara’s arms, then sprang to take him in her arms. “Billy!” His head jounced as she shook him. “Billy, don’t be naughty!” She gazed down at his open eyes. “Billy?” she whimpered, sinking down, cradling him. “Billy!”
They let her cry and then they washed her and wrapped her in one of their blankets. Holding her dead child, now and then wracked with weeping, she told how the raiders had come while she was fixing dinner.
The leader, now a Missouri guerrilla, had quarreled with her husband over this farm five years ago, insisting he’d filed on it first. Apparently he’d nursed the grudge and had come to pay it off.
When he’d learned his old enemy was in the army, the Missourian had said he was going to make sure he had nothing to come home to.
“Billy kept screaming. They were holding him. Then I couldn’t hear him anymore … couldn’t hear anything.…” She rocked her child and wept.
In the flickering light of the burning cabin, the three friends looked at each other. “Let’s move away from this”—Deborah motioned at the ruin—“and get her to eat and sleep.” They did, helping Esther, as she said her name was, up on Chica and moving back to the sheltered ravine where they’d hidden.
Esther begged not to bury her child that night. “Let me hold him,” she pleaded. “Just this last time.” After she’d had some soup made from jerky and a handful of dried apples, she huddled in the bedroll they’d put together, Billy pressed close against her, their fair hair intermixed.
Deborah got to her feet. “I’m going to follow that bunch,” she said. “If I’m not back by morning, take Esther on home.”
“There’s six of them!” cried Judith.
“I’ll be careful.”
“What you goin’ to do?”
“Kill them if I can.”
“I’m coming, too.” Sara stood up and sheathed the Bowie she’d used for shredding jerky.
“No, you got the twins!” said Judith. “I’ll go. Someone got to take care of Esther.”
“I suppose so.” Sara gave in. “But, Deborah, must yo
u?”
“Yes. But I don’t want either of you coming along. You’ve both got family.”
“Well, you’re our family!” said Judith positively.
“We may have to follow them into Missouri.”
“They can’t see me in the dark.” Judith shrugged. “And if they get hold of us, won’t matter what color we are!”
Deborah had resolved on vengeance the moment she saw the dead child. It meant desperate risk. She was ready to die, but she hadn’t wanted to imperil her friends.
Still, setting out with Judith, she knew there was a better chance of coming back, and it was good not to be alone. “They got an hour-and-a-half start,” speculated Judith. “Reckon we can spot their campfire?”
“That’s what I hope. They’ll probably cook those chickens they stole, and the smoke ought to hang in the air even after they turn in.”
Judith sighed. “We sure want to wait till they’re asleep.”
“Yes.” This Wasn’t going to be like the time she hadn’t been able to make sure of Rolf. “Judith, can you do this?”
“I’ve stuck many a pig that never harmed a soul.” Judith’s voice was grim. “If we don’ kill these devils, they’re goin’ to rape more women, kill more little children.”
They rode in silence after that, going west, following the easiest route, as the horsemen had presumably done. Stars glittered and the night was almost balmy. Deborah ached from hours in the saddle; she shifted wearily.
The guerrillas might have made for some haven in Missouri, riding through the night. If they were stopping for supper, surely they couldn’t be far off, though they might have turned in some other direction. Turning into another valley, letting the horses pick the way, Deborah stiffened.
Smoke. Of course, it might not be the raiders.
Judith touched her arm and pointed. A gleam came faintly from up ahead on their left. Riding toward it, Deborah’s heart pounded and her mouth felt dry.
Six men.
Esther and Billy.
She hoped that if she and Judith were caught, they’d be killed before the raiders learned they were women. “We’d better leave the horses here,” she said softly. “They might whinny. But let’s tie them loose enough so that they can get away if we don’t come back.”
“You think of everythin’!” grunted Judith unappreciatively.
They tethered the horses and continued toward the light. Soon they could hear voices and could presently see that the raiders had camped among some trees, with their hobbled horses straying about.
Taking off their moccasins, Judith and Deborah worked up behind a thicket. One of the men, a black-bearded skinny fellow, held the white nightgown up to him and did a little shuffle.
“Guess I’ll be tuckin’ in, gentlemen.”
Another laughed coarsely. “You ain’t got the right form for it, Jim. Maybe we shoulda kept that little gal for a while. She had putty yella hair.”
“She’d only been trouble, weepin’ and wailin’,” a huge blond man said and yawned, stretching. “We got our use outa her.”
“You shouldn’t of killed that kid,” said Jim tossing the gown in the fire, where it smoldered, then burst into flames.
“Hell, I didn’t mean to,” growled the big blond man. “But he bit my hand and I jerked him harder’n I intended.”
Jim retired to his bedding. So did the others, first stepping off into the bushes to relieve themselves. One came within a few feet of the two women, who scarcely breathed till he went, back to the fire.
Deborah watched where each man lay down. She was glad that none were close together, and several went off among the trees. The large yellow-haired man kicked dirt over the fire and spread his blankets where the sullenly glowing coals outlined his bulky figure.
Almost at once, snoring came from several directions. They’d been drinking and should sleep heavily. Deborah was glad there were no boys in the gang. She was just afraid there’d be noise and that she and Judith would be stopped before they finished.
Getting the two men in the trees might crack twigs. They could be last. Minutes crawled. Several men shifted positions. The snoring was heavier.
Were they all asleep? An hour must have passed. Embers cast a dim glow, both a blessing and a curse. It would make it easier not to trip into someone, but if a sleeper awakened and saw them …
Judith touched her questioningly. Deborah pressed her hand and gave it a slight tug, unsheathing her Bowie, pointing her toward the nearest man while she moved stealthily toward the next.
He was snoring, arms flung back, mouth open. Deborah raised the Bowie as she bent low. It had a razor-sharp edge. On the whole, the light of the coals was fortunate; she could never do it fast enough in the dark to prevent an alarm.
He’s asleep, she thought, asleep, and he’ll never wake up. Then she thought of Esther and thrust the blade down and across.
Gurglings, thrashing feet. But as the women moved around the circle, no one stirred. It didn’t seem real. After the second man, Deborah had to wipe her knife’s bloody handle so it wouldn’t slip in her fingers.
Judith had finished one. That left two in the trees and the big man near the fire. Judith started for the ones beyond the circle. Deborah moved toward the dull sheen of yellow hair.
He was lying face down, arms cradling his head. His throat was somewhat protected. He was a bull of a man. If he weren’t killed at once, he could be a problem.
Blankets made it hard to aim for his side and carve forward. She drew a slow, silent breath and sent the blade into the side of his neck, thrusting forward. He grappled upward, choking, one arm knocking her sideways, though she lunged up with all her strength.
He collapsed on her, blood pumping as his arms and legs writhed. As she struggled free, gasping, there was a muffled sound in the trees.
“What—” a man yelled.
Deborah ran forward. Judith was battling one prostrate man. The other had jumped up and held a knife. Deborah remembered Johnny’s teaching in her muscles and bones. She waited for the man’s attack, then turned it with the brass guard. He slashed wildly, baring his middle. Deborah thrust in and yanked the blade down and to the side. He shrieked, clutching at his belly, and took a step toward her before he fell.
“Mine’s done, too,” panted Judith, getting to her feet. They leaned upon each other for a moment, shuddering. “My God, Deborah! We done a terrible thing!”
“Yes. But could we let them go?”
There was no way to really bury the men, but the women dragged their bodies to a slight defile and covered them with leaves, limbs, dirt, and the bloodiest blankets.
Need in the country was too great to shrink from using what belonged to the dead raiders. Quickly bundling up clothing and weapons in usable blankets, the women unhobbled the horses, selected the best two for leading, saddled and loaded them, and let the others go. Recovering their own mounts, they rode back the way they’d come, leading the extra horses.
Sara had kept the fire going. It guided them in. They were too spent, too isolated with the horror of what they had done, to talk beyond bare facts. Sara helped them unsaddle and hobble the horses and spread out their bedding.
Esther slept with Billy. Their bright hair reminded Deborah of that of the big man. He wouldn’t see the sun in the morning.
Nor would Billy. And would Esther ever be more than a trembling husk? Sara put out the fire and they all lay down. But as exhausted as she was, Deborah could, for a long time, sink no deeper than thin nightmare skimmings of sleep.
She had killed. She would do it again, under the same circumstances, yet she felt covered with blood, indelibly branded.
Was this the kind of thing Dane had feared for her, why he’d wanted to take her away? She wept but found no ease in it. She couldn’t say she’d kill no more. This was the bitter cup of her time and place. How could she beg to be spared from it?
Dawn was graying when she finally slept, and she awoke at a cry from Sara.
&n
bsp; “Esther! She’s gone!”
Scrambling up, they looked about the camp but found no sign of the woman or child. “Maybe she went back to the cabin to see if anything was left,” Sara suggested,
They dressed hurriedly and almost ran the half-mile down the valley. Esther lay at the door of her charred home with Billy in her arms. They lay in blood that had streamed from her wrists, hacked by a butcher knife that lay beside them.
Sometime in the early morning she had crept here and made sure she wouldn’t be separated from her child.
The friends buried them beneath an oak and made rough markers carved with their Bowies. If the father and husband came home, he might never know what had happened to his family, but that was probably best.
This was not a place where Deborah meant to send anyone.
xxiii
By silent agreement they turned toward home, leading the extra horses, which they left at farms where they were most needed, along with weapons and blankets.
“Let’s keep three of the rifles,” Sara urged. “I can teach you to shoot, and if we’re going to make more trips like this, we’d better have them.”
Trips like this?
Deborah shuddered. But Sara was right. Each kept one of the new Spencers, which had probably been “liberated” from Union regulars. Maccabee whistled when he saw them.
“That’s the kind you load on Sunday and shoot all week!” He grinned, examining the tubular magazine in the butt stock that held seven of the plump, copper-cased cartridges, while another could go in the chamber. “Mi-i-ighty nice!”
That wasn’t how Deborah felt about it. Though she learned to shoot competently, she hated the roar. Still, it was reassuring to have the Spencers thrust in saddle scabbards when they journeyed toward the border.
Before the first freeze the women had found places for dozens of refugees and helped a number of households combine to mutual benefit. Several times, with their rifles, they ran off scavenging guerrillas who had no taste for real fighting.
They also collected women and children who’d been burned out by raiders and found places for them to live, but never again did they come upon a raped woman or murdered child.
Daughter of the Sword Page 41