It was a warm day in May 1836. James, nearly three, ran up and down in front of the house chasing chickens, and Cale, just six months younger than his uncle, tried to keep up.
Sarah stopped and watched them with a worried heart. How much longer before fresh supplies came? And how much longer would the money Caleb gave her hold out? It seemed suddenly everyone was broke and food was scarce. The whole new Republic of Texas was in chaos, momentarily leaderless. Some said Sam Houston had been taken to New Orleans for special treatment for a badly infected leg.
“He’ll be back,” everyone said. “Sam Houston will be back and he’ll be our next president. He’ll get things going right. We’ll be strong and prosperous in no time.”
Sarah could not help doubting that. They would be a brand new country in their own right, with a brand new government. They would have to print their own money and to do that there had to be something behind that money to support it. The people of Texas had not been rich to begin with. They had donated arms and horses and supplies and what little they had in cash to build the Texas army. And who was going to trust a new, cash-poor republic enough to loan them anything? Not even the United States would be willing to do that. And some predicted Mexico would never truly recognize them as independent.
“There will still be trouble,” some folks said. “Everybody thinks this war is over, but it isn’t,”
“They should have hung Santa Anna,” others shouted. “Kill the bastard! If he goes free, he’ll make more trouble once he gets back home.”
Sarah leaned against the porch post. She was tired. So tired. Living in the open, constantly on the move to avoid Mexican troops, had been taxing on her, for her health was not the best to begin with. When they finally returned to San Felipe she had looked for poor Emily, but the cabin had been vacated when they returned. Only several days later, when she saw the woman on the street dressed in red satin and laughing with a Texas volunteer, did she realize what had happened.
Emily Cox was Emily Stoner again, the old Emily Stoner of New Orleans. She had given up on the life she had so dearly wanted with Howard Cox and had returned to prostitution. She was hiding her grief now, putting on her shield of not caring, of liking the kind of life she was leading now, in a room above the Texas Belle Saloon.
A tent city had sprung up around San Felipe, the result of the thousands of people who had flowed into Texas for free land in return for fighting Mexicans. Now those thousands of newcomers languished near the towns, waiting for the new government to get organized, waiting for their promised land. Some of the original Texans were complaining that newcomers were squatting on their land. Everything seemed an utter mess.
What worried Sarah most was the kind of people coming now. Many were very poor, and most were Southerners. She knew instinctively that many of them were Indian haters, and now that the war with Mexico was over, the people of Texas would have more time to turn their attention to the new Republic and how it was to be run, which would mean new rules—their own rules. Sarah did not like the implications of a new Republic being claimed by land-hungry Southerners.
She closed her eyes. They had circles under them. She was thin and so was Lynda. It seemed all there was to eat was beans and bread. She was sick of both. But none of it really mattered—not the poverty—not what had happened to poor Emily—not the hunger—not her worry over new laws and how the Indians would be treated.
All that really mattered was that Caleb, Tom, and Jess were still alive. All the tension and worry and sorrow for the loss of so many volunteers overwhelmed her then, heaving up through her insides and coming out in great sobs as she clung to the post.
Caleb! She could bear any of it, anything at all, if only Caleb would come home. She hung on to the post and cried, while James and Cale played in front of her, too young to understand the traumatic happenings around them, thinking it all just a wonderful adventure.
It was well after dark when Sarah awoke to someone knocking at the door. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. Lynda was awake then. She put a finger to her lips, turning the lamp up a little and grabbing up a musket. She cocked it and pointed it at the door and then signaled her mother to go to it. Sarah pulled on her robe and walked to the door. “Who is it?” she asked hesitantly.
“Sarah? That you?”
Her heart nearly stopped beating. “Caleb!” She threw open the door, and in the next moment strong arms were around her, blessed, strong, wonderful, warm arms, his arms, Caleb’s arms. She buried her face in his neck, felt him kissing her hair. Were they both crying? Beside them Jess and Lynda were in a heated embrace, lost in each other, drinking in kisses, on fire with youthful passion. But youth did not hold the deed to passion, for when Caleb Sax’s lips met his woman’s, both were consumed with old, burning desires.
“I didn’t know what I would find when I came here,” Caleb groaned, after several minutes of just holding her. He kissed Sarah’s neck. “I just thought I would try San Felipe first. I expected Emily to open the door.”
They kissed again, and Sarah finally pulled away but he still held her. “Oh, Caleb, it’s so sad. Howard Cox found out about her, just before he left with some volunteers. He was so hurt, and Emily couldn’t forgive herself.” She rested her head against his chest then. “She has gone back to prostitution, and has a room over the Texas Belle. Howard was killed at the Alamo.”
She felt him stiffen. The Alamo! She pulled away again, and at her words Jess and Lynda also broke their embrace. Lynda looked past Jess at the doorway. The joy of the moment was dampened when she looked over at her father.
“Where is Tom? Isn’t he with you?” Lynda asked.
Caleb’s grip on Sarah’s arms tightened. “I’m going to stay with Sarah a couple of days, then leave Jess with you and go look for him, before we go back home.”
Jess’s eyebrows arched. He thought Caleb had accepted the fact that Tom Sax was dead. He’d seemed to at San Jacinto. “Caleb—”
“He’s alive,” Caleb told the man quickly and firmly. “My son is alive and I’m going to find him.”
Jess sighed, pushing Lynda away slightly. “Caleb, he was at the Alamo. There is no way he can be alive! Why are you doing this? The women need us now.”
“He’s my son,” Caleb hissed.
“And he’s dead,” Jess answered firmly.
Lynda moved away and sank onto her bed. It was true then! Her beautiful, wonderful brother, Tom, so handsome and young and strong; so full of sorrow those last days, grieving over his beautiful Bess—he was dead. Now he and Bess were together.
Sarah watched Caleb with alarm. His face colored with anger as he glared at Jess. “You can believe what you want. You don’t know yet how it feels to lose a son. I risked my life against the Comanche to save John, but I lost him anyway—and David. I’ve lost two sons. Two is enough for any man! They won’t take Tom, too!”
“Caleb, stop it,” Sarah spoke up, grasping his arm. “Here. Come here.” She pulled him toward the bed, where James was stirring from all the voices. “Here is your son,” she said gently. “We still have James.”
The boy rubbed his eyes and blinked, then smiled a charming smile. “Poppy,” he said in a sleepy voice. He reached up and Caleb Sax crumbled. He sat down on the bed, pulling the boy into his arms and rocking him, hugging him tightly and weeping, mumbling Tom’s name over and over. Lynda lay down on the bed and sobbed. It seemed so unreal, yet she knew it had to be true if Tom had been at the Alamo. He had just walked away from home months ago to fight Mexicans, and he had never come back.
Jess came over to kneel in front of Caleb. “We’ll go to every place where records are kept, Caleb. We’ll make sure. But you’ve got to face it now. You knew at San Jacinto, didn’t you? You knew when you kept stabbing at that Mexican soldier.”
Caleb only wept, clinging to little James, who hugged his father in return, not sure what was the matter. Jess rose and faced Sarah, noticing how thin she was, the circles under her eyes. “I know you’ve bee
n through hell yourself. But he’s going to need you to be strong the next few months. Of all his losses, I think Tom will be the hardest.”
“I know,” she said weakly. Jess embraced her for a moment, then went back to Lynda, tortured at what this was doing to her also. Sarah stared at Caleb. Tom had been with him from the beginning. When he thought Sarah was dead, he still had his son Tom. Tom was there to sustain him when Marie was killed, and David. He’d been the only constant thing in Caleb Sax’s life. Now it seemed he’d just blown away with the wind and had never existed.
Caleb moved back onto the bed, still holding James. He lay down with the boy and Sarah pulled off his moccasins and covered father and son. She crawled into bed, little James between them. She grasped Caleb’s hand. There was absolutely nothing she could do but be there for him.
Jess bolted the door and turned down the lamp. He came back to the bed where Lynda lay, Cale on the other side of her. The deep-sleeping infant had never even awakened. Jess moved in beside Lynda to hold her. They weren’t married yet, but he would sleep beside her and hold her anyway. Who gave a damn in times like these? He would marry her tomorrow if they could find a priest, and when her grief had mellowed they would make love again—and again and again. They had the rest of their lives to be together now. Tonight they would just cling together, taking what happiness they could from the fact that nothing had happened to himself or Caleb.
Outside lay a restless new Texas Republic, a big territory full of mass confusion and lawlessness, momentarily leaderless. But inside the little cabin Caleb and Sarah Sax had each other, and their son, and Lynda. The only children left were those who had been conceived by Caleb and Sarah themselves.
Lynda clung to Jess, so glad he had come back, that he still loved her. Thank God she still had her parents, and her baby brother, and her own little son—and Jess. She had to think of the positive side to this. She could not think about death. She must think only about life. Life … and love.
Tom struggled to stay on his feet. To fall meant a whipping. He had seen it happen to the other prisoners marching with him, and he was not about to add to the scars he already carried from the time he was dragged by Hafer men. Only at the moment, he would have rather been facing Hafer than to be at the gunpoint of Mexican soldiers.
If only he’d not been hit by that shrapnel; he wouldn’t have gotten so dizzy and confused. He felt like a fool: an Indian scout sent out with a message, getting hit and running in exactly the wrong direction, right into the waiting arms of Mexican soldiers. What worried Tom most was that he had not been shot on sight. That meant only one thing. He would make a good slave, probably at some Mexican gold mine.
Tom had asked over and over what happened at the Alamo mission, but no one would tell him. All he remembered was the rumble of cannon and the screams of men before a message was slapped into his hand to be delivered, then something striking him in the head. When he came to he was carried on a stretcher by Mexican soldiers, and as soon as they realized he was awake they dumped him off and forced him to start walking on his own.
Everything was behind him—his father, Howard Cox, Jess, Lynda—home. Being forced south to an unknown destination could mean never seeing any of his loved ones or home again. He could rot away in some Mexican prison or be worked to death in a mine, with no one ever knowing what happened to him. The worst part of all this was Caleb. What would this do to him?
He stumbled, and for the first time he felt the sting of a whip. “Stay on your feet, Indian,” a soldier commanded in Spanish. Tom knew the language well, after having lived so many years in Texas. “You will be nice and strong by the time you get where you are going. Then you will be worth much to us, no?”
The soldier laughed and Tom concentrated on staying on his feet. He breathed deeply, remembering his father’s way of drawing on his inner spirit when extra courage and strength were required.
Father. He would think about his father. He would not die here to be buried in a common grave. He would live, and he would find a way to escape and get back home. He must concentrate on the ranch, on Blue Valley, on his beloved father. That would keep him alive. For the first time since Bess’s death Tom realized he did indeed want to live. And even though she was dead, he would not think of her that way. He would visualize her face, pretend she was walking with him now, holding him up so he didn’t catch the whip. His beautiful, sweet Bess. He could almost see her smiling face. He would stand straight and walk proudly … for Bess … and because he was a Sax.
The main adobe house still stood, as did most of the cabins, including Lynda’s. Many of the Cherokee who had been faithful to Caleb began to trickle back to Sax land. Even the faithful Jake and Ada Highwater returned to help. But there was no money to pay them. Everyone had to work on a communal basis, planting gardens for food that would be shared, and helping round up mustangs to rebuild the ranch. Caleb, fortunately, had money saved, hidden behind a stone in the root cellar in a place he knew no squatters or Mexican soldier would find it. This money he had refused to give up even for the new Republic. His family came first. It was not a great amount though, and it would run out soon if he was not frugal.
Sam Houston did come back, to a new Republic that was penniless. The promissory notes given Caleb for his horses were no good. He would get no help from the government. But Texas was determined not to fail. Houston was elected their new president by a landslide, and a new constitution was ratified. Towns could elect their own mayors and councils. Counties were created, each with the power to elect its own administrators and a three-judge court. Duties were levied on imported items, but they did not come close to providing the cash the new Republic needed. The expensive Texas army was dissolved, and a militia system was instituted.
In order to settle their vast domain, Texans offered new settlers 1,280 acres absolutely free. Texas began to grow at an astounding rate. The city of Houston sprang up. Newspapers were printed. Nine out of ten newcomers were Americans, most from the South, including scheming speculators, Indian haters, slave owners and merchants looking to get rich. It was no surprise that a good share of outlaws also filtered in, seeking sanctuary and a new start in Texas. Many of the new settlers were cheated by speculators who sold them additional land cheap—but land that was not theirs to sell at all. And no one knew better than Caleb Sax the trouble that would come with such dealings.
Caleb poured his time into rebuilding, and Sarah worried about him. He worked from sunup to past sundown, hardly stopping to eat or rest. He was changed; harder, more quiet and remote. It was a long time before he had made love to her, even though Sarah knew the deep affection and passion was always there. But he did so almost mechanically, as if simply to satisfy her womanly needs.
Lynda began helping with the ranch work, against Jess’s wishes. But there was no arguing with Lynda Sax Purnell. They had married before leaving San Felipe, and Jess discovered his new wife could be as stubborn as her father. She was intent on helping Caleb all she could, trying desperately to replace the son he had lost. Tom Sax had been her father’s right-hand man. Lynda would ease Caleb’s pain by doing what she could to take her brother’s place. She could ride a horse, and she could shoot, and she knew how to chase down a mustang. And every time Lynda saw the gratefulness in Caleb’s eyes for her help, she felt a certain joy and satisfaction. More and more she began leaving Cale with Sarah and spending long days riding with the men, devoting herself to rebuilding with almost as much enthusiasm as Caleb.
But for Caleb’s part it was not total enthusiasm. Sarah knew it but said nothing. Caleb Sax was not eagerly rebuilding a ranch. He was trying to forget that Tom was dead. Sometimes he would bring up Tom’s name as though he would be home any minute, then catch himself and stop short. It frightened Sarah that the man still had not seemed to face the reality that Tom really was not coming back.
Life went on that way for over a year. Sarah wept silently, for she was living with a stranger. She didn’t even have the companionsh
ip of Lynda, who was always gone now, and Jess constantly argued that she should stay home and take care of Cale. He wanted a child of his own, too. But he worried that if Lynda didn’t settle down, she’d never get pregnant. Every time they argued, Lynda soothed him with kisses and tears, begging to be allowed to help work the ranch. Her husband could never bring himself to truly put his foot down, for he had never loved or craved any woman the way he did Lynda. She always got her way in the end.
Slowly Texas began to flourish. Cotton quickly became the chief product of the new Republic, followed closely by the cattle industry. Many of the new settlers brought slaves to Texas with them, and tension began to mount over the slavery issue. Sam Houston was pro-Indian and antislavery, unpopular issues among a state made up mostly of Southerners. His popularity began to lessen because of it.
The Sax ranch began to grow again, along with the new Republic of Texas. But lawlessness prevailed everywhere, and hardly a week went by that Caleb and Jess did not have to chase squatters off Sax land. These were not refugee Cherokee. They were people with no concern for the property of others, ready to take whatever they could steal. They had come to get rich the easiest way possible, and they had no morals and no conscience holding them back.
Caleb struggled inwardly, living in a lonely world of his own. Nothing was the way it used to be. Often he would ride alone, remembering the early days when he had come to Texas with Marie Whitestone’s family, a man lost and lonely, thinking Sarah dead. He’d had Tom with him then, little Tom. There had always been Tom. When they came to Texas there was no one—only a few hundred original settlers scattered widely. The land was quiet. Even raiding Comanche were more welcome than these lawless, often filthy and disrespectful newcomers. How he wished it could be more like the old days, except that he hadn’t had Sarah then.
Frontier Fires Page 36