Frontier Fires

by Rosanne Bittner

  “That’s what happens when you got Indian in you, boy,” one of the men laughed. “Life just ain’t worth a shit.”

  Indian. Indian. It seemed to James that his father had had troubles ever since the boy could remember, and usually it had something to do with his father being Indian. It seemed strange to think of himself as part Indian. He didn’t look Indian at all. But Cale did. And just because of that he got an extra kick while he was being tied.

  Lynda quickly laid John back in his cradle in the bedroom, praying no harm would come to her baby. She wanted desperately to go to Cale, but dared not, and more than that she wanted to fight the one called Henry, who approached her when she came back into the main room. She had considered for a fleeting moment getting out through the bedroom window, but she would not desert the children or her mother. She eyed Henry with fear and hatred. If she fought, if either woman fought, the men would kill the boys. She knew instinctively it was not just a threat, and knew someone might also be killed if she had tried to escape.

  Henry walked up to her and grasped her dress, ripping it open. He ran the backs of his hands over her nipples while the other men watched and laughed, anxiously awaiting their turn.

  “We hear tell you’re married to an Indian,” Ben was telling Sarah. “You know what that makes you, honey?” He kissed her neck and she felt nauseated. “That makes you a filthy whore, good for nothin’ but spreadin’ your legs for any man that comes along.”

  Henry began pulling Lynda’s dress farther off, and the men delighted in the sight of her, tall and slim, slender thighs, dark skin.

  “Now we come here to take this place over,” Ben told Sarah, pulling the other shoulder of her own dress down. “They tell us it belongs to an Indian, so we figure it’s up for grabs. We decided we want it. Shouldn’t be any problem. We kill your husband, and that’s that. ’Course you and the young woman there, you’re welcome to stay on.”

  “My husband will kill you,” Sarah told him, her voice calm but firm. She had decided she was not going to cry and beg for this animal.

  “Well, he ain’t around. You said so yourself. And you were lyin’ about him comin’ back any time, weren’t you? Sure you were. By the time he comes, he’ll have shared his white squaw with five other men, and we’ll be waitin’ for him.”

  James and Cale lay struggling on the floor, wishing they were bigger and stronger and could help. The words Indian, and white squaw, rang in James’s ears. His precious dog Pepper had died because of Indian haters. How he’d loved Pepper, something that had been all his own. Now he lay dead, and these bad men were hurting and shaming his mother. He could not stop his tears, nor could Cale, whose own mother now stood completely naked before the men, who all gathered closer around her.

  “One at a time now, boys,” Ben warned them, shoving Sarah toward the bedroom.

  “White men,” Sarah thought. Here they’d been so afraid of a Comanche attack, and it was white men who had come. For years Cherokee had lived on their land, worked for them, yet never once had Sarah felt a fear of any of them.

  So, this was the kind of scum that was coming into Texas. Squatters! Trash! Outlaws running from civilization and coming here to take what they could get for free!

  “Get down on the floor, squaw,” the one called Henry told Lynda.

  She met his eyes steadily. “Not here. Not in front of my son. We’ll go up in the loft.”

  The man’s eyes moved over her appreciatively. “Fine with me.” He grinned more, looking from the ladder back to Lynda. “You first.”

  They all laughed and stood at the foot of the ladder as she climbed it. She forced back her fear. Her father’s keen ears had surely heard the gunfire. He and Jess would come, and these men would die. But would they come in time? She had no feelings of horror for herself at the moment. Her fear for her mother and her sons overshadowed that. There would be time later for letting this hideous event sink into her bones. In the bedroom Sarah was thinking the same thing as she obeyed the orders of the one called Ben and removed the rest of her clothing.

  Ben laughed and set his gun aside, then, taking off everything but his underwear, as Sarah moved onto the bed, pale and shaking, wondering if she could get through this without vomiting. If only the children weren’t here. How she would fight this slime then, to the death if necessary! Every muscle stiffened as he unbuttoned his underwear. She refused to look at anything but his scummy eyes as he approached the bed. One of the other men came to stand in the curtained doorway, leering at them. Ben straddled Sarah, then looked over at the man.

  “Get out of here! I can’t do it when somebody’s watch-in’. You’ll get your own turn.”

  The second man moved his eyes over Sarah hungrily before he left. Ben looked down at Sarah.

  It was then Sarah sensed another presence. Her eyes moved to the bedroom window. A week ago James had accidentally torn the screen, and Caleb had removed it. It still wasn’t fixed. She saw someone look in, then dart back. It was raining so hard she couldn’t see the face clearly, but she did not doubt it was Caleb. The rain had helped to hide the sound of his approach.

  She had to help him get inside somehow. The window was locked. If the men knew he was out there, they’d kill everyone inside, or perhaps use the boys as hostages to get out. Ben leaned down to put his mouth over her breast and she pushed him.

  “Wait!”

  His eyes hardened. “Don’t make me do this the hard way, woman,” he sneered, grasping her hair and making ready to hit her.

  “It’s so warm in here,” Sarah objected. “I just want you to open the window.”

  Her heart pounded. She prayed it would work. Ben looked over at the window, then back at her slyly. “It’s raining out there.”

  “I know. But it’s so stuffy. Please. I … feel like I can’t breathe.”

  “All right. But you make one move to get off this bed, and I’ll beat you so bad you won’t be able to walk straight, let alone what I’ll do to your kid.”

  He moved off the bed and Sarah lay still. Ben raised the window and a light breeze moved through the room. “That is better,” he declared. “Gonna get your floor a little wet, but we don’t care about that, do we?” He turned around to come back to Sarah, and with the quiet stealthiness only an Indian could possess, Caleb leaned through the window and flung his big knife. It sank into Ben’s spine, making a sickening scraping sound. Sarah shuddered and looked away as Ben, wide-eyed in impending death, stumbled to the bed and fell over her. Caleb was quickly through the window, and he quietly pulled the body off his wife and lowered it to the floor, yanking out the knife and wiping it off on a piece of Ben’s clothing.

  Sarah immediately pulled a blanket over herself, fighting a heed to scream. She saw the horror and fierce revenge in Caleb’s eyes as he leaned close, grasping her hair and pressing his cheek against hers quickly and reassuringly. “How many?” he whispered.

  “Three more in the outer room,” she whispered in reply. “One up in the loft with Lynda.”

  Caleb left her. Oh, how he wanted to hold her! What had they done to her? What were they doing to Lynda? Water dripped from his clothing as he moved to the curtained doorway and pulled out his pistol. He looked through a tiny opening where the curtains came together and saw Cale and James lying facedown on the floor, their hands tied behind them, both boys crying and mumbling “Mother” and “Mama.” John lay in a cradle in the bedroom, and three men stood at the foot of the ladder telling someone in the loft to hurry up.

  Caleb darted into the room then, firing his pistol at one man point-blank. The man stumbled backward.

  “Father!” James shouted.

  “Son of a bitch,” one of the men yelled, pointing a gun at Caleb. But Caleb’s knife was out and thrown before the man could fire. Jess burst in then from the front, shooting down the third man.

  Lynda screamed in the loft then. Jess started up the ladder, but the fourth man appeared at the top, holding a naked Lynda in front of him. “You m
en make another move and she’s dead,” the man growled. “Back off!”

  Jess’s eyes widened with heated hatred as he backed away, as did Caleb.

  “Drop your weapons,” the man ordered.

  Caleb’s knife was still imbedded in the chest of one of the others. His pistol had been fired and there had not been time to reload. He threw it down but inched his way toward the dead man whose body held his knife. Jess stood there with his pistol still in his hand.

  “I said to drop it,” the man in the loft growled.

  “Get your stinking hands off my wife,” Jess hissed.

  Henry only grinned, grasping a breast. “She’s a right good squaw, mister,” he leered.

  Lynda took advantage of the moment. She lurched sideways away from the man and shoved, sending him over the edge. Caleb dived for his knife, yanking it out of the dead man, then turning and landing it with a whir and a thud into Henry as soon as the man hit the floor. The man gasped, staring wide-eyed at Caleb in terror.

  Caleb walked up to the man, who began jerking violently. “He’s still alive,” he muttered. He looked up at his beautiful daughter, who stood holding a blanket clumsily in front of herself. The side of her face was bruised. Sarah appeared at the doorway of the bedroom, wearing a robe she had quickly pulled on, her green eyes wide and horrified. Rage consumed Caleb. He yanked his knife from Henry’s still living body and dragged the man toward the door.

  “Caleb,” Jess called to him, shaking with his own rage. “That one is mine.”

  Their eyes held, and Caleb understood. He kicked the body out the door, then held his knife out to Jess. “He’s all yours. Here’s your chance to be an Indian.”

  Jess walked toward him, a determined look on his face. He took the knife from Caleb and went outside, dragging Henry’s still-live body farther away from the house.

  Jess held a trembling Lynda in his arms. They were in their own cabin, and the trauma of the day had not left her. The one called Henry had humiliated her with prying hands and explorations, but Caleb and Jess had arrived before she was actually raped.

  Jess held her tightly, his own rage still burning in his soul. He knew the humiliation of the day would be with both Lynda and Sarah for a long time. Jess had finally managed to calm Cale, and little John slept soundly, too small to understand any of the day’s events.

  Lynda huddled close to Jess and he kissed her tears. “It’s all over,” he told her. “And until we can get more help, Caleb and I aren’t leaving you again, not even for a little while.”

  “They saw me,” she whispered. “The boys. My father.”

  “Hush. Do you really think they care about anything but the fact that you’re all right? My God, Lynda, loved ones don’t remember things that shouldn’t be remembered. To Cale you’re as sacred as Holy Mary. And to Caleb you’re just his little girl, whom he loves very much.” He kissed her hair. “And to me you’re still my woman, and I damned well love you more than any of them.”

  “Thank God you weren’t hurt. I was so afraid for you. I don’t know what I’d do, Jess, if anything happened to you—”

  He put his fingers to her lips. “It’s all over. And it won’t happen again.”

  “Make love to me, Jess,” she whimpered.

  He frowned, smoothing back her hair. “Surely that’s the last thing you want, honey.”

  “It is … and yet … I don’t know.” Her chest heaved in a sob. “They made it all so ugly. Make love to me. I want to know it’s all right—that it’s still beautiful for us.”

  Desire cut through him. He’d wanted to make love to her, out of his own sheer need to prove she was still his. By God, she was his! How dare those bastards even think of touching his wife! Henry’s cries of pain still hung in his ears like music when he remembered having the pleasure of finishing the man’s life with Caleb’s big knife.

  He met Lynda’s trembling mouth, kissing it gently. He would make this good—nice—gentle. Of course it could be beautiful. He would work at helping her forget. She returned his kisses almost frantically, crying, pushing against him.

  “Calm down, Lynda,” he told her, pulling away slightly. “Nothing can change what we have between us, or change my love for you. I’m just so damned sorry you had to go through that. It will never happen again.” He moved a hand over her naked body. “I’d die for you.”

  He met her mouth then, demanding by his touch and kiss that she relax and let him make the moves. Gently and slowly he kissed every part of her, reminding her that every inch of her belonged to Jess Purnell. How she loved him—so strong and sure and brave.

  He moved on top of her and gently entered her, being careful not to do anything to make her remember the bad things, trying desperately to soothe her memory of the day’s horror. It seemed unusual she would want to do this, yet he understood her need to act quickly so that today’s experience did not come between them and make her afraid to share her body again.

  He took her rhythmically, always enjoying being inside tins brave, exquisite woman he had fallen in love with in one glance. Could that really have been over seven years ago? Cale had not even been born yet! It seemed only yesterday, and then again it seemed he’d loved her all his thirty years. She was eighteen and he was twenty-three that first day he saw her. So many things had happened since then: the fight with Hafer, the war, that beautiful night she’d come to him before he left for San Felipe. Never once since then had he made love to her without experiencing the same glorious ecstasy of being wrapped within the body of Lynda Sax. It never got old, and her wild joy in taking a man never ceased to bring out the animal in him. But he was careful this night not to be careless or too aggressive.

  Lynda took him gladly. She never wanted any other man but Jess to touch her now. She never dreamed she could love this much again, but it had happened. Her whole world was Jess Purnell, and Jess was determined that the scum who had attacked her would not spoil this beautiful part of their love.

  In the main house Caleb lay holding Sarah, treasuring her just as fiercely as Jess treasured Lynda. It had taken him a long time to calm her after the reality of all that had happened sunk in, the humiliation torturing her mind. That was when the shaking began.

  She had been brave when necessary, to protect James and Cale. But once it was over, Caleb could not hold her long enough or hard enough. Jess had ridden to find help from the few Cherokee left on the north section of their land. There were five men to be buried, and Caleb could not leave Sarah.

  Now, finally, she had fallen asleep. He needed to make love to her, haunted by the memory of seeing the filthy squatter bent over her.

  He hugged her tightly, kissing her hair. Poor Sarah. All her suffering was for being married to him, for living with an Indian. He knew she didn’t care. But it broke this heart to think of his Sarah suffering for any cause.

  He kissed her hair. How long could he stay on here? He wanted desperately to stay. What else could he offer her? How could he just leave Texas and wander with a woman like Sarah, so beautiful and delicate? Sarah Sax needed a solid home, a hearth, stability. He couldn’t make her wander like an Indian. It didn’t matter for himself. He had lived that way before and he could do it again. But not her.

  Crying in the loft interrupted his thoughts. It was James. Caleb moved cautiously away from Sarah. He’d convinced her to drink some whiskey, and it was doing its job. He and Jess had scrubbed away the blood as best they could and now all was quiet. But how long would it be before people like the men who’d come today would return? And how could he run a ranch if he couldn’t leave the house?

  He moved out of the bed and went through the outer room and to the ladder that led to the loft. The blankets over the feather mattress, where the one called Henry had beaten Lynda and almost raped her, had been changed. Now James lay there crying. Caleb climbed the ladder.

  “James?”

  The boy sniffed and sat up. Caleb could see him by the dim light of a lantern that had been kept lit in the ma
in room.

  “They killed Pepper,” the boy sniffled. “They killed my dog and hurt my mother just because we’re Indian. Why’d they do that, Pa?”

  Caleb climbed into the loft and lay down beside him, pulling the boy into his arms. “Because they’re bad people, James. Because they don’t understand what’s really important, what makes a real man. They judge people by the color of their skin, lump people together instead of treating each man as an individual.”

  The boy rubbed his nose and eyes. “What’s wrong with being Indian?” he sobbed. “Why do they hate Indians?”

  Caleb hugged him tightly. “I don’t even know that, James. I’m forty-five years old and I still don’t know the answer. But things like this have been happening to me all my life, James. I just remind myself I’m my own person, and I’m a man, good as the next. And so will you be.”

  The boy pressed his face against his father’s strong chest. “But I don’t look like an Indian. Maybe I should never tell anybody I’m Indian when I grow up.”

  Caleb frowned, petting his hair. “Don’t ever deny what you are, James. It’s wrong. And it will leave an empty place in your heart, a guilty feeling that will stay with you and keep you from being happy.”

  The boy’s lips puckered. “I won’t ever be happy if everybody always hates me.”

  “They won’t all hate you, James. There are a lot of good ones, like Tom Sax, the man who raised me. And like the Handels, and Jess. There are some good ones. You’ll find your own way when you’re a man, and you won’t have to deny your Indian blood to do it.”

  The boy shook in another sob. “I want Pepper. He was just trying to protect us. Pepper was my friend.”

  “We’ll find you another dog.”

  “I don’t want another dog. I want Pepper. He’s all alone now. He needs me.”

  “He’s sleeping peacefully now, running around someplace where dogs have nothing but fresh meat and green grass and all the chickens to chase that they want.”

  He held the boy tightly as he kept mumbling about Pepper, finally growing more sleepy. Caleb wondered how much more his heart could take. He had never quite gotten over being short with this son when he was going through that final mourning over Tom. He often wondered if he’d truly made it up to him yet. James rode a horse just fine now, but sometimes Caleb saw a strange look in his son’s eyes, a mixture of fear and rejection. Could they ever be as close as Caleb and Tom had been? How he loved James. But every child was different, and even though James was only seven, he felt this son slipping away from him and had no idea how to stop it. What had happened today had only made matters worse. Already he spoke of denying his Indian blood.