A tear slipped out of one of her eyes and trickled down the side of her face. “Caleb,” she whispered. “Where is he?”
Sax sighed deeply, realizing he must do this right so that she believed him. “Caleb is dead, Sarah.”
She let out a little cry, her head moving from side to side in denial. Sax rose, grasping her face between his hands.
“Listen to me, Sarah. I didn’t mean for him to be killed. You must believe me. If he had just waited and talked to me. After running off with you, I would have listened, tried to understand for your sake. But the kid ran, Sarah. He ran, thinking he’d be in trouble. He had already been told you were dead, and for all appearances you were when he got you here. Even the doctor thought at first you were dead. He couldn’t even find a heartbeat. Caleb panicked and ran. I and some of my friends went after him. I just wanted to get it all straight, Sarah. But Caleb must have thought I meant to hurt him. Then his horse fell, and it landed right on top of him, crushed him.”
She kept shaking her head. It couldn’t be true.
He held her face more firmly between his hands. “Sarah, he’s dead, and quite by accident, I swear to God. I can take you and show you his grave if you want. We dug one for him right there. Even the horse’s carcass is still there. Damn it, Sarah, I’d put up with the smell of that stinking carcass to take you there and show you the animal’s broken leg. It’s God’s truth, Sarah. He shouldn’t have run. I’m damned sorry. I never would have hurt him. My God, he brought you back here, took that risk because he loved you. I couldn’t have hurt him after that. You must believe me.”
Her body shuddered with sobs of horror and sorrow. Caleb. Her beautiful Caleb. Those precious moments of joy and ecstasy in the cave were gone forever. She closed her eyes against a pain so deep it seemed to tear her soul in two.
“You can come home pretty soon, Sarah, and this will all be over. We’ll talk about the other—about what happened years ago. I want you to understand, Sarah, how much I loved your mother… and how much I love you. We’ll talk. Everything will be all right now. You’re safe.”
But Sarah didn’t hear him. The shock of Caleb’s death overwhelmed her until her body shook violently. Terrence yelled for the doctor, who made her drink something that soon put her back into a blessed sleep.
Caleb opened his eyes to darkness. A strong, rancid smell entered his nostrils and he curled his nose at the odor. But almost instantly he realized that curling his nose was apparently all he could do. When he tried to move anything else, nothing happened.
A door opened above him and he squinted when sunlight came through the opening. He scrambled to think as a man came down some wooden steps. With the sun at the man’s back and being momentarily blinded from looking up too quickly at the bright light he could not see who it was that approached, but Caleb could make out that he wore high boots.
“Well, mate, you able yet to pull your own weight?” He kicked Caleb and Caleb grunted with pain. The man sighed. “We dug out the musket ball and fixed up the shoulder as best we could, Indian. But you don’t seem to be able to move a muscle. Paralyzed and useless, that’s what you are.” The man kicked him again. “Too bad, mate. A man your size would have brought a fine price. A fine price. That’s me damned luck, ain’t it?” The man paced a moment, then lit an oil lamp. Caleb gazed around at damp wood, stacked barrels, and several men chained together, none of them looking too healthy. “Well, laddy, I’ve got me orders. I was paid well to bring you this far, and could have sold you for even more if you’d got well. But you’re a burden to me now and I’m gettin’ rid of you. This is as far as you go. The river will finish you off, and you’ll die a far distance from Saint Louis, just as intended.”
The man looked up at the hole above. “Blade! Henderson! Get your scummy butts down here!”
“Yo, sir!” Two men came down the wooden steps.
“Take this one and throw him in the river. He can’t swim. He can’t even move. He’ll drown and no one will know where he came from.”
“Aye, sir.”
Caleb groaned with excruciating pain when they picked him up carelessly and dragged his large frame up the steps. He tried to struggle as they carried him to the side of the boat, but movement was impossible. In the next moment cold water hit him, enveloped him. He readied himself for a peaceful death by drowning, and visions of Walking Grass and Sarah moved through his mind. They were both dead now. Memories of bringing Sarah to Saint Louis returned, and a terrible sadness for all he had lost filled him.
He sank lower, feeling his body being pulled by the current to a blissful death. But then he realized that for some reason he could move slightly. Whether it was the way he landed, perhaps awakening some injured nerve; or the cold water, or perhaps only its buoyancy; he could move his arms and legs to some extent. His own stubborn determination took hold then. Fate had tried again and again to destroy him, but he would win, he would not be beaten this way. He would live to see his son again and nothing and no one would ever take the boy away from him.
His body caught on a fallen tree and he grasped desperately for a hold, finding a branch with first one hand and then the other. He was shocked to realize how weak he was, and the pain was almost unbearable, but he managed to pull himself along enough to get his head out of water. He gasped for bream, shivering with the cold and his injuries, not even sure how badly he was hurt. He managed to pull himself slightly farther up the tree to a point where a good share of his body was out of the water, but as soon as the buoyancy of the water left him, so did his strength and his ability to move.
How long he lay there he couldn’t be sure. He heard the sounds of a town or city not far away, and a few boats passed by, clanging their bells, voices talking on board. But none of them noticed him. Finally a raft floated by, the two old men on it fishing.
“Look there, Ben. Somebody’s snagged on that there tree.”
“I’ll be damned.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Caleb felt someone grabbing him. He groaned with the awful pain.
“He’s bad injured. Look at the bloodstains on his back.”
He was dragged aboard the raft, groaning desperately with every touch until at last he lay facedown on the raft. Someone lifted his buckskin shirt.
“Look here, Ben. They’s bandages wrapped around him, all dirty and bloody. And up here he’s all purple. You can see it, even with that dark skin. What kind of Indian do you suppose he is?”
“Who knows? Probably some theivin’ renegade that somebody shot,” the man called Ben replied. “Looks about dead to me. Maybe we should just throw him back in.”
“We can’t do that. The man is alive. He looks mighty young to boot.” The man leaned close then. “Who are you, boy? Is there someplace we can take you?”
Caleb forced himself to talk, but it was a great effort. “Where… am I?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No.”
“New Orleans, boy. You’re in New Orleans.”
New Orleans. Was the war over? Had he volunteered again? New Orleans. Emily was in New Orleans. He needed help. Maybe these men would take him to Emily. Surely Emily would help him. She owed him. He had to get help or he would die and never see Tom again.
“Stoner.”
“What’s that?”
“Emily… Stoner. Marie’s place.”
“Marie’s?”
“Brothel… Marie’s… Emily Stoner.”
The man frowned and looked at Ben. “You know anybody named Marie who runs a brothel, Ben?”
The one called Ben grinned. “Do I know Marie’s? Do I know how to breathe? Hell, I took you there once, Jake. Don’t tell me you’ve forgot Jeannette.”
Jake snickered. “Oh, yeah, now I recall. I reckon he wants to go there, but I didn’t think the whores would take Indians.”
“Some of them will take anything for the right money. Let’s float back home and load him up. Maybe that there Marie or whoever will pay us for bringin�
��, him in. Hell, this here might be a wanted man.”
Jake’s eyes brightened. “I never thought of that.”
Caleb lay quiet and helpless as the raft was guided to the docks. It seemed hours before he was again being moved. He cried out with the horrible pain, blacking out from it as soon as he was thrown into the back of a wagon filled with hay.
The wagon lumbered away, and Caleb slowly came around again, hearing voices and laughter and city noises.
“What you got there?” someone called out.
“Don’t know yet,” came the reply. “Found him in the river.”
“Pretty big fish you got there, Jake.”
There was more laughter. The wagon jolted and bounced, and Caleb groaned. Finally the vehicle came to a halt. He lay waiting, and for a few minutes there was only the sound of wagons passing and people talking. Then he heard Jake again.
“Here. He’s here in the wagon, Miss Stoner. He said your name and mentioned Marie’s. You know him?”
Someone climbed into the wagon, and he smelled cheap perfume, but this time it was a welcome smell.
“Caleb,” Emily gasped. “My God, what happened to you?”
He could not reply.
“Get him inside and up to my room,” he heard her saying. “I’ll have someone get a doctor.” Her hand gently stroked his hair. “You’ll be all right, Caleb. I suppose I owe you this one, don’t I?” Her fingers moved through his hair. “They’ve even cut off your hair. Where in God’s name have you been?”
“Found him in the river, miss. Somebody tossed him in expectin’ him to drown, most likely.”
“Most likely,” she mumbled as she straightened. “Be careful with him.”
Again he was moved, and again he cried out with the pain. It seemed to take hours for the men to get him inside and up the stairs to Emily’s room. They laid him facedown on a soft bed.
“Here,” Emily said. “It’s a ten-dollar gold piece for your kindness in bringing him here.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Most obliged,” Jake replied.
Caleb heard footsteps and a door closing. In the next moment Emily was stroking his hair again. “You’ll be all right now, Caleb. I’ve sent for a doctor. You just rest. Don’t even try to talk. You can tell me what happened when you’re stronger.”
She traced a finger along the thin scar on his cheek. Her life as a near prisoner in her father’s house at Fort Dearborn seemed a lifetime ago, as did the nights of sexual pleasures with Caleb Sax. Such a boy he was then, full of curiosity and innocence. She ran a hand over his muscular shoulder and arm, remembering how he had fascinated her then, a time when she was certain she had been partially insane.
That was over now. She was not the crazed child she had been, but she still plied her trade by selling her body to men. Yet she had certainly never planned on seeing this one again. How strange that he seemed to keep reappearing in her life, in spite of the separate paths they followed.
“Well, Caleb Sax, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?” she asked softly, smiling as she stroked his hair. “Trouble seems to follow you like a plague, doesn’t it?” Her smile faded. “I hope it isn’t all because you had to run away from Fort Dearborn that night.”
She stood up and walked to a table, taking out a pair of scissors and returning to carefully cut through the center of his buckskin shirt, not wanting to move him. She pulled it open, then cut along the sleeves, grimacing at the ugly wounds on his back and shoulder. She managed to pull the shirt from under him. It was then she realized he wasn’t wearing his blue quill necklace.
“Now what happened to that precious necklace of yours, Caleb Sax? As a boy you wouldn’t take that thing off it it meant your life.”
The necklace. Caleb remembered giving it to Sarah, putting it in the lining of her carpetbag. Even the necklace was gone now. The carpetbag had fallen off the travois when he fled Saint Louis. Sarah. The necklace. He could not stop his tears.
Emily touched his tears, surprised by them. “My God,” she whispered.
Chapter
Twenty-One
THE agony that followed for Caleb Sax was worse than the agony of the Sun Dance. At the Sun Dance, he had been young and happy and in love. Now he was beaten and paralyzed, those he loved dead. The doctor did all he could for Caleb, cleaning out and cauterizing bad infections in his back and shoulder, but unable to do anything about the damage to his spine. The musket ball had been removed carelessly from his body, doing even more harm. That kind of healing took time and patience, and a lot of hope, for there was no guarantee that Caleb Sax would ever have use of his limbs again.
Emily Stoner found a new purpose to her life. Helping Caleb became her goal. She hoped that helping him would somehow vindicate the cruel trick she had played on him years earlier, and it felt good to do something decent after groveling in bed with strangers and having nothing else to do with her life. Marie insisted Caleb be moved out of Emily’s room because he was interfering with business. Emily arranged a room for Caleb at a nearby hotel whose proprietor insisted she enter and exit by a back door so others did not see her frequenting his establishment. Because of Caleb’s condition, however, Emily was given permission to go to his room whenever she chose, and stay the nights when he needed extra care.
Emily began dividing her time between Caleb’s room and the brothel, continuing her prostitution in order to pay for Caleb’s room and medications. She nursed him herself, cleaned up after him, fed him, and sometimes held him, especially in the deep of the night when he could not sleep because of his pain and sorrow. Even Emily Stoner, cold and calculating as she had become, was touched by his grief. The normally proud, strong and determined Caleb Sax seemed to be a broken man. She could help him physically, but she could not heal the inner wounds or change the things that had happened to him. And she knew that if not for the knowledge that he still had a son, Caleb Sax would not will himself to live at all.
Little Tom was all that kept him going, the only thing that made Caleb try vainly every day to move. Watching him tore at Emily’s heart, but each day she placed his hands on the railing over his head. Then he would try in vain to make his arms work, to pull his body upward and build the strength back into his muscles. But he could not do it. Whenever Caleb seemed to be giving up completely, Emily reminded him again of little Tom.
“The water,” he told her after two months of lying helplessly in the bed.
“What?” Emily turned, a tray of food in her hands.
“The water. I remember now. When they threw me in the river, for some reason I could move.” He met her eyes. “Something about feeling lighter, I think, being able to float. Maybe if you could get me to water I could at least move a little bit. Maybe I could slowly build up my muscles that way.”
She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “All right. I’ll get a wagon and have some men bring you to the river.” She buttered a biscuit. “Just don’t drown on me, Caleb Sax. Not after all I’ve gone through to keep you alive. What a trick that would be to play on me.”
She met his eyes, smiling, but sobered at the serious look on his face.
“Thank you, Emily, for all your help. I probably would have died.”
Her eyebrows arched. “If memory serves me right, you wanted to die at first.” She winked. “You just keep Tom in mind. I don’t doubt your little boy and your own damn stubbornness will get you walking again. We can’t have a fine specimen like you lying around helpless.” She gave him a sly grin. “I can think of better things we could be doing.”
He smiled sadly. “I am afraid a woman is the last thing on my mind,” he said. His smile faded. “After Sarah, I’m not sure I’d ever even desire another woman, let alone fall in love again.”
She looked away, stirring his soup. “Well, God knows I’m not talking about love, not the likes of Emily Stoner. But if you ever get well and want to know if you’re recovered in every possible way, I’ll be glad to help you out. I taught yo
u the first time around. I’ll just teach you again.”
He finally grinned then, thinking what a waste it was for her to end up as she had.
“If I get the need, I’ll let you know.”
She kept staring at the soup. “I hope this… I hope I’ve made up for some of it, Caleb. As a girl I was almost insane. I didn’t know what I was doing. Now it’s too late for any of it.”
Caleb closed his eyes, tired from the short conversation. “You keep telling me it’s not too late for anything. Why don’t you believe it yourself?”
“We’re like night and day, Caleb Sax, and you know it. Now eat up. Tomorrow we’re going to the river. You’ll need your strength.”
She held a spoonful of soup to his mouth. He took the soup, swallowing and meeting her eyes again. “I should go back to Saint Louis if I ever get out of this bed. I should visit Sarah’s grave.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’ll do no such thing, Caleb Sax. Do you want to hang? You’re damn lucky you got away with your life. You have a son waiting for you. As soon as you’re well—and you will get well—you’re going west to get your little boy. If you’re smart you’ll stay there, anyplace west of the Mississippi. Your luck isn’t too good this side of the muddy waters, in case you haven’t noticed.”
He sighed, his eyes suddenly tearing. Why did this weakness seem to make him weak on the inside, too? “My God, Emily, I as much as killed her,” he whispered, putting his head back again. One tear slipped out of the corner of his eye. “She was so good, so sweet and beautiful and trusting. With all the battles I’ve faced in my life you would think I’d be able to protect those I loved. But I failed Walking Grass and then I failed Sarah.”
“You didn’t fail anyone,” she replied, taking one of his hands. “You’re a victim of society, Caleb, a half-breed too white to live forever with the Indians, and too Indian to live in total civilization. Life has handed you a bowl of skunk stew, just like me. But unlike me, you fought it. You’ve kept your dignity and pride. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you loved Sarah Sax as much as any man can love a woman. But for some reason it wasn’t meant to be. At least you’re left with something. You have a little boy. Now stop thinking about Sarah and think about Tom—and eat this soup before I bring some men in here to force it down your throat. I have to get back to Marie’s before she tells me I’m through. Her girls make more than any prostitutes in this city, and I’m not about to go someplace else. I work at the cleanest, most respectable brothel and I don’t care to lower myself by leaving it.”
Savage Horizons Page 29