by Amelia Rose
He stepped closer. We were alone in the light and shadows of the barn. I didn't know where Sarah had gone, if she'd meant to lay down or if she was sick. She'd said she'd return, but she hadn't yet.
And Robert was beside me, one hand touching the side of my face. I leaned into it, looked up at him, felt impertinent and irresponsible and wild. His thumb rubbed across my lower lip. I met his glance, feeling fierce and fearless and wanting something more, something to fill my days and my heart.
His mouth on mine was hot, like warmed cider on a fall day or honey.
We broke apart when I heard Sarah returning. "Four o'clock on Saturday?" he asked.
I nodded, not certain I could speak, and he passed the person entering the barn. When I looked, it was Luke, not Sarah, and he was already turning, preparing to go.
"Wait!" But then, of course, I couldn't think of another thing to say to him.
"Is there something you need, Miss Collins?" He was looking in my direction, but intentionally past me, as if something interesting was just past my right ear.
"Your friendship," I said, hotly. That same fiery feeling was there again, that I wasn't giving up the things and people I needed without a fight.
"You have my friendship, Miss Collins," he said with impossible civility. "Do excuse me; I am needed in the pastures."
If I'd had something at hand, I'd have thrown it at his head. "The far pastures?" I demanded. "The farthest?"
I couldn't see his face where he stood in the doorway of the barn with the sun behind him. He hesitated briefly but we both heard footsteps. He slid to the north and was out of sight before Sarah returned to the barn.
"What are you shouting about?" she asked. She held more greens and my small companion calf deserted me promptly.
I looked past her to where Luke had stood and shook my head. "Nothing, apparently."
Saturday night, Redding jumped to the sound of fiddles and guitars, to voices singing and people square dancing. Women's skirts flared bright in the lowering sunlight. The smell of meat roasting over wood fires filled the air, as did the shouts and hails from cowboys riding into town. The saloon doors stood open, each spilling out their own brand of music. The smell of beer permeated the air where the wood smoke and roasted meat didn't.
There were faces I recognized now, the grocer's wife, the baker himself. There were children I'd seen running loose on other trips with Sarah or the one trip I made in with Luke half a week earlier, when he'd been running errands and invited me for the ride. That was before he stopped speaking with me.
Resolutely, I stopped thinking about that. Robert took my arm and recaptured my attention.
"Would you like to eat?"
"Not yet. I want to see everything!"
My father had taken us to county fairs when Sarah and I were young. There were games of chance and judging of cattle and sheep, there were pie baking contests and pie eating contests and women cutting silhouettes in black paper to make cameos. The county agricultural society showed off their talents, there were shows of horsemanship and games of chance and games of darts.
In between games of chance and groups of square dancers, Robert and I shared childhood memories, of places we went with siblings and parents. Eventually, we joined in the dance, spinning until breathless and leaving, laughing, to find our dinners.
We were almost at the hotel we'd chosen when two men came barreling out of the open door of one of the saloons. Robert, already holding my arm, stepped instantly in front of me, edging me behind him as he began stepping back and away slowly.
A group followed the combatants out of the saloon, women screaming stop and men laughing or shouting for them to take it somewhere else. Fists flew, boots stomped. The men swore, slammed fists into faces, fell, and stood back up. One of them ran a knee into the other's midsection and that man dropped, panting heavily. They hadn't come anywhere near us, but Robert turned to me, concerned.
"You're unharmed?"
I wasn't sure how to answer. It was the most interesting thing that had happened in days other than the giddy feeling when Robert called for me. Just as fast as the men had flown into the street, they'd wakened the restlessness within me.
I was unharmed, I supposed. I said as much.
"Let's go find our supper," Robert said and led me cautiously.
Night settled faster every day. August was more than half over. Robert let the horses move at their own pace, the reins loose in his hands. We followed the creek again and the night was soft and warm. Halfway home, he stopped the horses at a bend in the creek where the willows thinned and we could see the distant mountains. We sat together, watching the sky, and my heart felt light.
"When you were young, did you think the moon followed you?" Robert asked.
"Didn't it?" Tonight, the moon was a thin, spare crescent, the sky especially dark.
The three shooting stars took me by surprise. I pointed at the same time Robert did, our hands touching and reaching as though we could catch the brilliant burning points of light out of the sky. The light reflected for an instant in the river, a dual image. I shivered and made a wish I couldn't quite name.
"Do you think it will come true?" Robert asked.
"How do you know I wished?"
He gave a low laugh. "Because I did."
When we started up again, we startled a rabbit that dashed for shelter and an owl that flew across our path with a cry of displeasure. It looked like a huge-winged ghost flashing across the night, followed by the howls of coyotes.
The kitchen was empty. The stove had cooled. Dinner was long since over. One of Sarah's peach pies stood on the counter, a plate and fork beside it, where William probably had a last piece for the night.
The ranch house was silent. I stood in the dark, not bothering with a lantern. Enough moonlight came through the windows to see by.
Standing there alone, I could still feel Robert's arms around me. The shooting stars that had flashed overhead, a promise of the future, flared in memory, the way the creek water had lit with their flight. I heard again the coyote howl filling the night. Robert held me close in the moonlight and it had felt improper and somehow daring. My heart raced at the thought of his touch. I'd felt alive in the night, full of possibilities.
Not one of those possibilities was Robert himself.
Two teams assembled to head out on the Monday following the Saturday dance. One led by William would take a small number of cattle to auction in Chico, a two week trip. William would take a wrangler, a cook and 10 hands to drive and watch the cattle. He needed more but cattle across the region were being moved. The drought was becoming worse. Ranchers were selling off the herds before they sickened or lost too much weight. Those who could were feeding their cattle grain, doing anything they could to keep going.
I overheard William and Sarah arguing before the teams saddled up. They were in the kitchen as I came down the hall from the parlor and I stopped short, ready to retreat and give them their time together when I heard Sarah.
"I don't want you to go," she said, more than once. "What if he tries something else?"
"Sarah, I have to. If we don't take care of the herd and the ranch, if we just deal with Getties, we'll lose Big Sky and he will have won."
"But what if he does something, William?"
"That's why I'm moving the herd," William said.
A second team would lead 100 head of cattle to David Lord's neighboring farm to shelter them and find grazing and water. The end of August was burning up the land; temperatures scorched. The day was full of lowering clouds, sunshine darkly shining around the edges, and the oppressive threat of rain even as the temperature climbed.
"I want to go," I told Sarah as we stood watching while the men mounted up.
She laughed. She laughed more often now when I was around but in those odd moments I saw her solitary, she still harbored sadness.
Eventually, I'd ask her about the letters she'd started to me and never finished. Eventually, I'd ask her wh
at was wrong. She was my sister; I was allowed to pry.
For now, I just found ways to help. With two-thirds of the hands on the road, there was more to do around the ranch.
Sarah hated having so many of the men gone at the same time. She missed William whenever he was away and she clearly felt ill at ease alone on the ranch. She kept some of the dogs off the trail and they stayed close with her during the days but, more than once, I found her standing in the garden where she'd gone completely still, her hands locked around some task and her eyes distant, gazing in the direction William had gone.
I saw Luke coming and going a great deal, working with the remaining herd, moving them about, walking fence lines, consulting with the other hands. He was polite if we spoke, though he never instigated conversation, and his politeness held me at arm's length anyway.
Robert hadn't gone with a team either. He remained on the ranch, running it, while Mike was on the trail. I thought actually Sarah was more than capable of running it herself, and kind of was.
Meals and evenings, I watched for Robert, that giddy, dizzy feeling throwing me off balance. When he didn't come, I'd walk the fences myself, feeling hemmed in rather than protected, telling myself the adventure I was waiting for was nothing more than the future and there was no reasons the future couldn't be with Robert.
He hadn't asked to see me again, though. He skipped meals, went to meetings instead, he didn't avoid me as neatly as Luke, who actually seemed to be trying to avoid me, but the effect was the same.
The day after the teams left, clouds rolled in and covered the sky by late morning. In the sullen stillness, bird song sounded too loud. The cattle lowed restlessly and the dogs seemed skittish.
"Thunderstorm on the way," Sarah said. "They’ll be moving the herd to the upper pastures."
"Because of rain?" The ranch looked like it could use it.
"For fear of flooding," Sarah said. "Wildfire, if lightning sparks it." She caught sight of my face and patted my arm. "It's only happened a couple of times, just little blazes." Her smile wasn't convincing.
The thunder and lightning started around noon, jagged lightning covering the sky across the horizon, painting the sky in sheets of violet. Wind crashed through the trees but the rain didn't follow.
In Virginia City, fires start easily in the dry grasses and oily sage and thunderstorms that come without rain happen a couple times in summer. A wildfire on the Big Sky Ranch in the wake of the summer's drought could burn out of control in no time.
Not long after the storm began, Sarah suddenly stopped pacing and ducked out the door. "Checking something," she called and the door slammed behind her, caught by the wind. From the window, I saw her cross the yard and I almost followed, but the wind was strong now and Sarah's dress was battering her legs as she headed toward the east pasture where the dammed up stream had ceased to run.
"That's why I'm moving them, Sarah," William had said. "Then, we can wait for the trial. I don’t want to do anything to make him act."
"He'll act anyway, William, that's the problem," Sarah had said.
She'd meant Getties, the neighbor who'd sabotaged their water and probably stolen and sold some of their herd.
Abruptly, I left the window and ran up the stairs, my dress weighing me down. What was it Luke had said during one of our rides? We'd been heading north along the creek that Mr. Getties was wanting to dam up, following a line of cottonwood. Cottonwood are naturally water greedy, growing alongside streams and needing more water than is their fair share considering they choose to grow in deserts like Nevada. I had pointed the trees out because they weren't summer green but January brown, even though they lined a waterway.
"They're tinder," Luke had said. "Just waiting. All it would take is one spark. There's cottonwood that went up along one of Mr. Getties' fence lines not that long ago; took the neighboring rancher and all his hands to put it out."
Rummaging through the trunk my mother had sent, I unearthed my hard trousers, the ones my father had brought me for riding, the secret I'd kept all those years. I needed to be able to move.
It had been less than a week since I'd run into Cynthia Getties along that same creek, moving through the trees. I thought I'd startled her, the way she'd jumped when I said hello, but what if she'd known I was there but meant not to be seen? She'd looked around quickly as if to make certain I was alone, then handed me a blue crocheted shawl, told me it was Sarah's and she needed to return it, and took her leave before I could do more than ascertain her name. I'd asked if she wanted to come to the house for lemonade or if I could take a message as well as the wrap, but she had said she had to be going and all but run back up the line of trees.
I'd taken the wrap to Sarah, who'd taken it wide eyed.
"What did she say? Did she—"
Mention me, I finished that to myself. Did she mention me? Her expression had turned wistful and I couldn't give the answer her half question wanted so, instead, I told her everything that had transpired, as short as it was.
When I finished, Sarah looked skeptical and sad. She took the shawl from me and held it out in front of her. "That's not mine," she said flatly, and then, "I never left a wrap at her house," and not long after, she had gone out without saying anything and, minutes later, I'd seen her making her way north, the direction the stream in question ran, the direction of the stand of cottonwood I'd told her about.
I surfaced from my thoughts. Sarah was heading for the cottonwood stand; I was willing to bet on it.
The hard trousers still fit and they'd be much easier to move in.
I ran.
Wind lashed the trees. Lightning struck violet sheets of light across the sky and thunder rumbled close after but I thought the storm might be moving away. I saw Luke disappearing into one of the outbuildings and shouted to him.
"Get inside," he yelled back at me.
"I have to get to Sarah," I shouted.
He swore. "She's out there?"
"She's by the cottonwoods."
I didn't actually know that but I wasn't taking a chance. He followed me, passing me quickly and turning back to ask, "Are you sure?"
"No. Go. You need to get to the animals. I'll get Sarah."
He didn't bother to argue, he just ran ahead of me. The trees danced and swayed. The cottonwood stand wasn't that far away, but the distance to the cottonwoods took forever to run with panic beating at me and the storm winds driving me back. Just as we entered the copse, one of the cottonwood branches broke with a sound like a gunshot.
Up ahead, I could see figures struggling.
Luke was faster than me. I ran after him, trying to see around him. The figures struggling were Sarah and a man I'd never seen before, Joshua Getties, probably, as Cynthia flailed nearby, stomping her feet as if throwing a tantrum.
Then, Luke was between me and them again and I couldn't see. I ran blindly after him, shouting for the group to stop.
No one heeded at all. As we came closer, I saw that Cynthia Getties was stomping out a line of fire as best she could. Her skirt was scorched in places, her hands and face grimy, but she slammed her feet into the Earth, following the line of fire, trying to get ahead of it.
Sarah struggled against a man of medium height who snarled, making threats and shouting at Cynthia to keep going, light the fires!
There were already several fires burning in the grasses at the foot of the cottonwoods.
"They're tinder," Luke had said. "One spark could send them all up."
Cynthia was trying to stop the spread of fire. I ran at the flames and at the same time Joshua Getties shoved Sarah hard, sending her flying backward. She collided hard with one of the trees and lost her breath as her back slammed into the trunk.
I grabbed her instead of Mr. Getties, who slid away from Luke, heading to his wife. Mr. Getties grabbed Cynthia by the hair, dragging her after him. She shouted and reached for his hands, pressing them into her scalp as the pressure of his grip tore at her. I went after both of them, no
idea what I meant to do, just that angry determination rising up, this was my sister's home, this was her life.
"Kitty!" Sarah tried to shout. Her voice came out weak.
Luke turned back for Sarah. I put on a burst of speed and headed for Mr. Getties, when one of the cottonwoods caught, snapping resin heat like fireworks.
In an instant, the entire copse of trees went up, dried leaves snapping and flying from tree to tree. A line of fire sprang up in the dried grasses, spreading every time a shower of sparks or a flaming leaf fell from the infernos.
We'd all run there. None of us had taken tools. No shovels, no buckets; just dirt and stones and us.
Sarah was now standing bent from the waist, her hands on her knees, gasping for air. I began to go to her, meaning to pull her upright and arch her back, the only way I knew to help her breathe again. Luke grabbed my arm first. "Run and get help. Anyone you can find."
"Look out!" I shouted.
He turned in time to deflect the blow from Mr. Getties.
"Kathryn, go!"
I took time for one more look at Sarah, still bent, and then I ran. The trip back to the ranch, an easy couple minutes every other time, took even longer this time. I ran the way I had as a child, hard and fast as I could, no pleasure in the run, just panic for those I loved.
One of the trail teams was assembled in the yard.
"You have to come with me," I shouted. I hadn't even gotten into the dooryard yet. There was only an instant in which I saw their startled faces.
"Kitty? What is it?"
"Mr. Getties … at the creek … with Sarah."
Their faces looked horrified.
"Fire! They lit the trees."
Robert and William ran at once, heading straight at me and past, and I swallowed, spun, and followed.
Chapter 7
By the time we came back, carrying shovels and buckets, the men armed, all of us breathing hard, Joshua and Cynthia Getties had run and disappeared into the woods. Luke and Sarah were stomping runners of flame, trying to keep the fire from spreading further.