The Land of Burned Out Fires

by Vella Munn

What am I doing here? Fool. Fool!

  Sudden terror froze her in place. She'd go back into the living room and lie down. Fall asleep. Pretend—

  No, she couldn't!

  Kayla wasn't sure she was thinking at all as she leaned over the crib and slid her hands under the baby boy. Elizabeth had wrapped him in a blanket she'd originally knitted for her own child, and Kayla gathered that up as well. The baby–she refused to think of him as James–made a faint squeaking sound and moved his head from side to side. Desperate to quiet him, she clutched him to her chest. He squirmed and squeaked again, prompting her to relax her grip a little. Will was snoring, and she thought she heard Elizabeth's regular breathing.

  A few more minutes. Just a few more, baby. Then you'll be with your mother.

  The baby hadn't stopped moving. If he started to cry—

  Hurrying out of the room, she pulled the door closed behind her. Again it scraped. Still, she relaxed just a little. She’d done it! At least this much. By carefully staying on the rugs, she managed to reach the front door without making any noise. She'd taken note of the short piece of wood caught between two leather brackets that served as a latch. Fortunately, the wood slid back easily. The door itself took a little more effort than the bedroom one but finally, wonderfully, she was outside!

  Nearly giddy with relief, Kayla kissed the top of the baby's head. “We made it,” she whispered.

  Then she eased the door back into place and stepped away from the house. Just when she least wanted it, she imagined Elizabeth's reaction when she realized one of “her” children was gone. She’d be heartbroken and cry just as Morning Song had.

  It didn't matter! Couldn't matter! Elizabeth, Will, and Raymond would have raised Morning Song's child as a rancher, not a Modoc.

  Sleep no longer pulled at her as Kayla shifted the now heavy feeling baby to her shoulder and took off at the next thing to a run. Thank goodness for moonlight! She was still too close to the house to risk calling out to Morning Song, but her friend was watching for her; she might be only a few feet away. Determined not to stumble, she kept her attention on the ground, but she still occasionally glanced up. She couldn't see a—no, wait. What was—

  “Stop!”

  Kayla rocked back on her heels and came close to losing her balance. Despite her terror and the awful hammering of her heart, she knew the command came from someone who spoke English, not Modoc.

  Movement off on her left caught her attention. She stared, spotted a pair of hands reaching for her, whirled away.

  Too late!

  Thin but powerful arms grabbed her. She felt hot breath on the side of her face.

  “I knew not to trust you!” Raymond bellowed. “Lying little thief.”

  “No!” Trying to protect the now squalling baby, Kayla kicked out. The heavy shoes banged into Raymond's shin, causing him to try to draw away while still holding her. She’d been wrong to think him frail.

  Everything happened at the same time. She twisted and turned, trying to break free. The baby cried and squirmed. Fortunately, Raymond obviously didn't want to hurt the child. As a consequence, his grip on her could have been tighter.

  She tried dropping to her knees so she could wriggle out from under his arms, but stopped when she nearly fell. Maybe her next move came from some movie she'd seen; maybe nothing more than instinct was at work. Whichever it was, she tucked in her chin and aimed her head so that when she pushed upright again, her head slammed into Raymond's chin. He grunted and stumbled back.

  “You little devil! You will pay for this! I will see you—“

  Holding the baby with one hand like a football player, Kayla dug her nails into Raymond's cheek. He responded by yelling and hammering the side of his hand against her wrist. Her hand went numb, forcing her to let go of him. All that mattered was getting free and running into the night.

  Their struggle became a weird dance that might have gone on forever if Raymond hadn't stepped on her foot and flattened the too-big shoe under his boot. Caught, she used her shoulder to try to push him off balance. Unfortunately, his greater height worked to his advantage. He actually laughed.

  “Where did you get those shoes?” He sounded out of breath. “I–I knew they weren't yours. You stole them, didn't you? Just like you're trying to take James!”

  “Don't call him James! He isn't yours. You can't have him!”

  This was no time for arguing. Belatedly remembering how effective a kick in the shin had been before, she struggled to shift her weight. But before she could manage that, she heard a new sound.

  Terrified that Elizabeth and Will had come to Raymond's aid, she curled herself as best she could around the baby. Unfortunately, the little one fought her with surprising strength.

  “No!”

  Morning Song! Not taking time to try to see where Morning Song was, Kayla took advantage of Raymond's confusion by yanking her foot free. Thank goodness he wasn’t a heavy man! She spotted a blur of movement, then Raymond cried out. Moonlight revealed the knife in Morning Song's hand.

  “What have you—“ Kayla started. A loud boom stopped whatever else she might have said. Even as her ears rang from the sound, she realized someone had just discharged a rifle.

  A gasp followed by a frightened cry distracted her. Although Raymond had obviously been cut, he'd thrown himself at Morning Song, knocking her to the ground and pinning her under him. Kayla stumbled toward the two tangled bodies.

  “No!” Morning Song cried from where she lay. “Run!”

  A masculine cry behind her startled Kayla. Will stood in the doorway, a rifle in his hands, his menacing form looking eerie in the lamplight.

  “Now! Run!”

  Kayla did as Morning Song ordered. The impossible shoes slowed her and made her clumsy, and she was terrified she'd drop the baby. She didn't dare look behind her to see what the others were doing. Raymond, or maybe it was Will, yelled something. Morning Song cried out. Elizabeth screamed, “Stop her, stop her!” over and over again.

  Kayla ran.

  For the life of her, Kayla didn't know how long she'd been stumbling around in the dark. The baby felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds, and her left leg kept cramping, but those things were nothing compared to her burning lungs.

  Finally, because she didn't have an ounce of energy left in her, she stopped. She should stand up straight in case she had to start running again. Instead, she hung there like an old horse at the end of a long race. Every breath was torture. She was unbelievably thirsty. Her head throbbed.

  The moon slipped behind a cloud but came out again before she'd fully recovered her breath. At least it no longer took every brain cell she possessed just to breathe. And she could start thinking again. Listen.

  An owl hooted. Then it either hooted again or an owl convention was being held. She caught the rustle and murmur of insects, the wind rattling leaves and branches, other birds. And too many sounds she didn't recognize. Maybe the normal night sounds should have comforted her, but they didn’t.

  Morning Song's baby was hiccupping and making other sounds that were easier on her nerves than his earlier screams, but the way he kept turning his head and rooting around left no doubt of what was on his mind, milk. Soon he'd start crying again. She knew that much about hungry babies.

  “Please don't,” she whispered. Her throat felt as if she was coming down with something. “I don't have anything for you, and I'm not sure where I am.”

  Not sure didn't touch it. Her mad dash in the dark had taken her to a bunch of bushes. They were so tall that she couldn't see over them and grew so close together she wasn't sure how she was going to plow through them now that she was in the middle. However, weak as her legs felt, right now that didn't matter.

  There was no such thing as Bigfoot, was there? She couldn’t say the same thing about cougars, wolves, and bears, but darn it! She wasn’t going to let her thinking go there. If the ranchers didn't have a tracking dog or spotlight–spotlight?–there was no way they could have f
ollowed her wherever the heck she was.

  Was there?

  Lost.

  Kayla took a deep breath.

  She was lost. Alone in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night a good million years before she'd been born with a hungry and probably wet baby to take care of, and the baby's mother—the baby's mother...

  “She's all right, little one,” Kayla crooned in an attempt to silence her fears for Morning Song. “They won't hurt her. I know they...”

  No, you don’t.

  She barely noticed the tears that dripped off the end of her nose and onto the baby's face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If anyone ever asked Kayla if she was afraid of the dark, she'd tell them to mind their own darn business. And if someone asked how she felt about crying babies, she just might kick them into the next county, not there were any counties in 1872, were there? Although she tried to recall what she’d read about governmental and political makeup in California during that time period, she couldn’t concentrate. Other things, like images of wild animals, kept snagging her attention. She tried to tell herself that the ranchers couldn’t possibly find her, but what if there were army scouts around?

  So this was what alone felt like. Alone and scared.

  She hadn't noticed how cold it got out here at night, not that she had much experience, but one thing about numb toes and an equally chilled nose, sleep was no longer an even remote possibility. Despite more aches and pains, to say nothing of blisters and leg cramps, than she cared to think about, she only occasionally stopped walking. No matter how many times she warned herself not to look back over her shoulder for boogie men, she occasionally did so. Shivers kept sliding up and down her spine.

  Fortunately, the moon was nearly full. She could see Schonchin Butte and used it to orient herself. Unfortunately, due to the bushes and who knows what else, she spent too much time trying to find her way around various and assorted obstacles.

  Although she put her knuckle in the baby's mouth so he'd have something to suck on, that didn't satisfy him. She couldn't blame him, the infant she decided to call Night Sounds, for crying and trying to hit her with his little fists, because she often came close to tears herself.

  Who was she kidding? She was crying. Maybe not all the time and certainly not as loudly as Night Sounds, but more than she had in years.

  Fear, not of cougars and bears, but for Morning Song’s safety fed those tears. After everything she’d already been through, getting caught wasn’t fair!

  ****

  Finally, morning came. As it grew light enough to fully orient herself, she was pleasantly surprised to see how far she'd traveled. For much of the time it had felt as if she was walking in place, but she must have accomplished more than she'd given herself credit for. Also, listening to a baby cry had a way of making a person stop thinking about themselves, at least that's what had happened to her.

  When she reached the well-worn path to the cave, she started to run, then forced herself to walk. No way was she going to let anyone, particularly True Hand, know how frightened she'd been. There was nothing wrong with expressing fear for his sister–as if she could do anything about it. But a girl had to have her pride. No way would she’d ever admit that she’d made herself half-crazy with thoughts of boogie men.

  An elderly man leaving the cave was the first to spot her. The man called out something Kayla couldn't hear. Instead of coming to meet her, he disappeared back into the cave. Kayla expected to see True Hand; instead, a short, heavy-set young woman emerged and hurried toward her.

  “Give him to me,” the woman said. “He needs what I have.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Kayla managed as Night Sounds started nursing. His cries quickly changed to happy gulps. People from the adjacent caves, mostly men, began gathering nearby. “Thank you more than you will ever know,” she told Night Sounds’ surrogate mother. Her legs felt like sacks of sand, but she couldn't take her gritty feeling eyes off the finally content little one.

  “My sister's son?”

  Kayla didn't have to look at True Hand to know it was him. Over and over again, she'd tried to plan how to tell him what had happened to Morning Song so he wouldn’t run off half-cocked, determined to rescue her, but now that the moment had come, she simply blurted out everything.

  “You do not know if they killed her?” True Hand demanded.

  “She was alive the last I knew,” she reassured him. Or maybe she was trying to reassure herself. “The people who grabbed her–they seemed like good people. I can’t imagine they’d–I didn't want to run away. I hope you believe me.” She glanced at the knot of men, including them in her heartfelt words. “I felt so horrible deserting her. But she begged me to save her child, and I—“

  “She would do that.”

  True Hand looked so concerned and tense that she half expected him to race off with his fellow warriors to try to rescue his sister. If they did, she'd stop them, somehow, because their attacking the ranchers would only make things worse. Unless she fell flat on her face, that is.

  “I don't think those people will harm her,” she again tried to reassure him. “They didn't seem like the sort to—I can't say much about the husband. He wasn't much for talking. But his wife had been taking care of Morning Song's baby. She didn't care that he was Modoc. Her father—he's the one who tried to stop me.”

  True Hand's confused look reminded her of how little he knew about what had happened. However, he was mainly concerned with learning his sister's fate; she could explain the other stuff later. He must have realized how worn out she was because he all but pushed her into the cave where he asked his mother to give her something to eat. After staring at it for a good half second, she plopped onto the closest hide.

  While True Hand and Morning Song's mother selected some dried fish and a cereal made from wocus—water lily seeds—Kayla expanded on what she'd already told him about how many whites had been involved in Morning Song’s capture and just how it had happened. She'd run down about the time the bowl of food was placed in front of her. Without so much as a thought to what she was doing, she plunged her hand into the bowl and nearly inhaled what she'd caught in her palm.

  She'd done that three times and was about to again when the woman who'd been nursing the baby walked over and handed a sleeping Night Sounds to its grandmother. Morning Song's father immediately came to stand next to his wife. Tears dampened the older man’s lashes.

  “They have lived for this moment,” True Hand told her. His voice was rough, and he kept staring at his little nephew. “They wanted to go to those who had him and offer to trade their freedom for his.”

  “That wouldn't have worked,” Kayla said. “They wanted a baby—a baby to raise as if he was one of them.”

  True Hand's features darkened “Then they have no use for Morning Song.”

  She wanted to tell him she didn't know, but she couldn't. “No, I don't think they do.”

  ****

  There was no keeping her and True Hand’s concern for Morning Song from the girl’s parents. Although Kayla didn't know what True Hand said to them in private, there was no doubt that they, too, feared for their daughter's life.

  “You can't let him,” Kayla begged True Hand when his father started to arm himself. “It's so far. He'll be worn out by the time he gets there. I’ve seen the way he favors his hip.”

  “His heart will not let him stay here, doing nothing. Besides, he will not go alone.”

  “You—”

  “And the other men.”

  So that's what the men had been getting together about; she should have known. “What do they intend to do?”

  “What we must.”

  “Must?”

  “If my sister is alive, the ranchers will turn her over to the army. We must stop them before that happens.”

  The nightmare wasn't over, was it? Of course not. “No,” she said. She put down her bowl and forced herself to stand. Lightheadedness briefly blurred her visio
n. “You can't.”

  “If she becomes a prisoner of the army, she will be the same as dead.”

  He was right! Much as she hated his words, he was right. “You and the other men are planning an attack, aren't you? That's why so many will be going.”

  “There is no other way.”

  “Do you think a bunch of warriors can attack without it coming back to haunt you?” She didn't care that her voice echoed off the walls. Her worst nightmare during the long hours alone was about to come true. “True Hand, think!”

  “I care only for my sister's life.”

  They weren't getting anywhere this way. The thing was, they were both right. If nothing was done, Morning Song might be taken to Fort Klamath—far from her baby and family. But if the Modoc men attacked that isolated ranch house, the army would retaliate.

  Nothing in her years of public education had prepared her for anything close to this.

  And yet she knew what had to be done.

  “True Hand? Please, listen to me. All that matters is freeing Morning Song. We don't dare make this war any worse than it is. You and me—we'll get your sister back. Just us. Are you afraid?”

  True Hand didn't respond, prompting Kayla to repeat herself. She studied his strong, capable looking back. “Please tell me. Are you afraid?”

  “Of the danger?” he asked without looking at her.

  Danger. “I wasn't thinking about that,” she admitted. They were on horseback because covering the distance in as little time as possible was more important than making sure no soldiers saw them. True Hand had selected what he’d assured her was a calm and steady mare, but although the pinto plodded along with her head dragging, Kayla couldn't relax. To make matters worse, her bottom and legs were getting sore. Mom, Dad, you will never believe what I’m doing. Chuck, what do you think of your baby sister now?

  “A Modoc man does not fear death.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because his spirit walks with him.”

  That might be the shortest answer to the most complicated question she'd ever heard, and yet when you got right down to it, it said everything, didn't it?