Frontier Fires

by Rosanne Bittner

He grinned, the taste of victory giving his eyes a wild look. “It will be worth it, believe me. And by God, I won’t be giving a damn that night about what I see nor blame you for anything you do to keep his attention. That’s the important thing. Keep him occupied. Emily, you can do that, can’t you?”

  She had to grin. “There were many times when I wished I could keep you occupied that way, damn you.”

  He smiled in return, suddenly as excited as a little boy. “You won’t get in trouble. If people come around the next day asking about him, all you have to do is tell them he was there to see you and then left. You wouldn’t have any idea what happened to him after that. You can suggest maybe he got attacked in some alley. There are all kinds of no-goods coming to San Felipe now. No one would suspect. I’ll come in through the window, and I’ll use my own technique of getting him out without a sound. I won’t leave you suspect, Emily, I promise.”

  Her eyes teared. “I’m not worried about that.” Her lip quivered. “But I’ll miss all of you so much. You don’t dare come back, you know.”

  “I plan to have alibis. I was well on my way out of Texas when Mister Byron Clawson was killed. I’ll make sure it takes them a while to even find the body, or what’s left of it.”

  A chill moved through her. “I sure am glad I’m not the one you’re after.”

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Thank you, Emily. I might never see you again after that; never be able to thank you or make it up to you. I’m sorry. We’ll all think about you often, and pray for you.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t bother with the praying part. But I know you’ll think of me, just like I’ll be thinking about you.”

  Their eyes held, and all the years swept before them. Wasn’t it only yesterday she was a young, confused girl, virtually imprisoned in her own house by a fanatic preacher father? Wasn’t it only yesterday Caleb began meeting her in her barn, learning all about women for the first time? She reached up and grasped his face, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips. “I’ll do it,” she told him. “Saturday night.” She let go of him, her hands lingering on his chest. “What about you? How are you going to do it in this condition?”

  “I’ll be strong enough by then. That gives me four more days. I’ll draw strength from my hatred of Byron Clawson. That should be all I need.”

  She hung her head. “Caleb, if anything goes wrong—”

  “It won’t. Believe me, it won’t. It’s my turn now, Emily. Maheo brought me Lynda and Sarah, gave me James, brought my son Tom back from the dead. The spirits will be with me on Saturday night.”

  She studied the determined blue eyes. “I hope so, Caleb Sax. I surely hope so. God forgive me for helping you if something goes wrong.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Seven

  * * *

  The supper table was quiet. Sarah knew Caleb was planning something, and she had no doubt it involved killing Byron Clawson. She could only nibble at her food. Would these be their last remaining days together? Perhaps it was not even a matter of days. Perhaps it was a matter of this one night.

  Caleb had insisted they all eat together this evening. Emily had left after saying good-bye to each one of them and wishing them good luck. The woman made no mention of what she and Caled had talked about.

  When they finished Caled leaned back, looking around the table at all of them—Sarah, Lynda, James, Tom, Jess, Cale. Little John lay in a cradle nearby. Lynda picked up a plate and started to rise.

  “Sit down, Lynda,” Caleb told her.

  She looked at him with a frown and slowly sat back down, waiting for him to speak then. Caleb stopped to light a pipe, while Sarah stared at her plate and Tom watched his father anxiously, ready for action.

  “I know this is home to most of you,” Caleb spoke up then. “It’s been the only real home I ever had.” He puffed the pipe for a moment. “In a sense this ranch will always belong to us. Our loved ones are buried here. It’s like the old Spanish saying I told you once. Mis raices estan aqui. My roots are buried here. At least it seems that way, even though my own real roots are with the Cheyenne. It’s harder for Tom, and James and Cale. This is all they’ve ever known. But now we all know it’s time to move on. Emily tells me Byron Clawson plans to send men out here who are not Texas Rangers. I don’t think that needs any explaining.”

  “Bastard,” Tom muttered under his breath. James blinked back tears and Jess picked up Cale’s hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

  “We don’t have help any more, and even if we three men use those new repeating rifles we might hold them off for a while. But they’d win in the end, and what they would do to us, and to you women, wouldn’t be worth the fight. I told all of you before that I will not risk the lives of any more of my family for this land. And according to Emily, we’ve got to get out fast. Clawson isn’t giving us the full five days. He couldn’t face me like a man in San Felipe. He has done everything behind my back …” He puffed the pipe again. “… including shooting me,” he added bitterly. He shifted in his chair, his pain obvious.

  “You can all be proud of what we did here. But we’ve got to move on. In a sense this whole country belongs to us, you know. I guess I always knew I couldn’t own a piece of it for myself. The white man in me wanted to, but the Indian side of me told me this land was only borrowed. The land belongs to itself. It isn’t right to divide it up and try to own pieces of it. The only reason I did what I did was to settle with my family—to stay in one place and build something for their future. And when Sarah came, that became even more important. She’s not a woman to go wandering like an Indian. But now I’m going to have to ask her to do just that.”

  His eyes moved to Sarah, his heart aching at her obvious struggle not to break down. “But Sarah Sax is a strong woman. God knows she had to be to survive living with Clawson.” He looked at the rest of them. “And Sarah understands, as I think all of you do, that staying together and surviving is all that’s important. And that’s what we are going to do.”

  His eyes moved to Tom. “Tom, we leave tomorrow morning. You’ll be in charge. You’re to take the family first to Wil Handel’s place. Have one of Wil’s men go into San Felipe and buy whatever supplies we might still need. At least then if we get raided, no one will be here. You have Wil hide our wagons and all of you until the supplies come.”

  He puffed the pipe again, and they all waited quietly for him to continue. “Then you will all leave for Unorganized Territory. Head for Bent’s Fort. You’ll have the remaining horses to herd with you. Stay as far east as possible, away from Comanche country. I had Wil get me a map when he took the horses into San Felipe. This Bent’s Fort is on the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado Territory. Head up into Indian Territory to the Arkansas. We’ll follow it up to the Sante Fe Trail and follow that to Bent’s Fort. It’s the long way around but safer. To go directly northwest into Colorado would be suicide. The land there is crawling with renegade Comanche and Apache.

  “Once we reach Bent’s Fort we can get organized and decide what to do. The country there is still wild and free and belongs to no one in particular, except the Cheyenne. In a sense I’ll be going back to my own true roots—your ancestors. Maybe that’s good. Maybe we’ll even settle right there and do a good horse trading business with travelers to Santa Fe. We’ll be starting over, but we’ve done it before. Either way, you’ll head out of here by Friday morning and make as many miles as you and the horses can stand the first day.”

  Jess frowned. “You talk like you won’t be with us.”

  “I won’t.”

  They all looked at him as he puffed the pipe again. “Don’t do it, Caleb,” Sarah pleaded. “We’ll never see you again.”

  Caleb’s eyes glittered with determination. “Oh, yes you will. It’s all planned. It wll work.”

  “You can hardly walk, Father,” Lynda protested.

  “I’ll be strong enough by Saturday. Years ago when I took part in the Cheyenne Sun Dance ritual, I learne
d how to ignore pain, Lynda. You move into another world in your mind and you draw on a strength that in normal situations you don’t even realize you have. That’s what I’ll do when I kill Byron Clawson. And I will not leave Texas until that’s done.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and looked away.

  “If raiders happen to come to the Handels, Wil will tell them we’ve already been there to say our good-byes and have gone on our way—all of us, including me,” Caleb continued. “By the time Byron Clawson dies, as far as the rest of them know we’ll have been gone two or three days. They can’t connect us to his death. Besides, I don’t expect he’ll be found for quite some time.”

  “They’ll suspect. They’ll come after us,” Sarah said quietly.

  “They won’t. All they want is the land, Sarah. It’s that simple. Byron wants my hide, but he won’t be around to collect or to instigate others to come after me. Once we’re gone, this place will be swarming with bidders. Out of sight, out of mind. No one will come after us if Byron is out of the way.”

  “Let me go with you, Father,” Tom said. “I’ll gladly help you kill him.”

  “No. Extra people means extra risk. I don’t want you involved. Besides, Jess can’t handle the women and children and horses all by himself. You’re good with those guns, and the six of you will need all the protection you can get. I’ll ride hard to catch up.”

  “How will you find us?” Lynda asked.

  Caleb grinned. “I’m an Indian, aren’t I?”

  Lynda sighed, smiling sadly. “Yes. You certainly are that.”

  “And so are you.” His eyes moved to James. “All of you, except Sarah and Jess. But they’re Indians at heart.” He leaned forward, reaching out and taking Sarah’s hand. “You’ll leave Handel’s by Friday morning. I’ll catch up by the next Friday.” He squeezed her hand tightly, but his eyes moved around the table. “If something should go wrong, which I don’t expect—but if it does, I’m counting on all of you to stay together. Go on to Bent’s Fort and decide from there what you will do. The horses will belong to all of you collectively. Sell them and divide up the money, or keep them and raise more.”

  James and Cale both began to sniffle, and Tom’s own chest hurt so badly he kept taking deep breaths to try to ease the pain. This was home. Texas was all he could remember. Vengeance swelled in his soul like something alive. They were really leaving this place. He had planned on going to California, but he’d always thought he could come back here. Now he could not consider California, at least not for a while, not until Caleb Sax was resettled with his family. And there would be no more Texas. Texas was gone. Bess was gone. His feelings of fury were overwhelming, and he wondered if he would ever feel calm and happy again.

  Everyone moved mechanically after that. The table was cleared and remaining dishes were packed. It was not an easy job. They were not prepared for this, and there were not enough crates and boxes. They didn’t even own a covered wagon. They would have to sleep on the prairie in makeshift tents. Sarah didn’t mind any of it, as long as Caleb showed up to make the journey with them. She felt numb, struggling not to think the worst. But Caleb was so badly injured, and Clawson probably kept himself right in the middle of town where it was almost impossible to get to the man.

  “He keeps people around like flies hang around a dead animal,” Emily had said.

  So how was Caleb to get to the man? What had he planned with Emily? Sarah moved in a near daze. Everyone was quiet and pensive. Tom took his quietly crying little brother and his nephew Cale outside to talk to them and encourage them, reminding them that they would have to be men now, and help their father and grandfather, as well as help protect the women and horses on their journey. By the time he finished with them the excitement of what was to come helped still the boys’ sadness over leaving the only home they had ever known.

  Inside Sarah walked into the bedroom. The mattress was bare. They would sleep on it that way, folding the two light blankets they would use for covers in the morning and packing them, too. The night’s leftovers would be lunch tomorrow, on the way to the Handels.

  Sarah removed her clothes and pulled on her gown. She just stood there then, looking around the room. Here in this house she had found life again, in the arms of Caleb Sax. Here, after eighteen years of being apart, they had come together again in love. Nothing could compare to making love with the man a woman loved beyond all things; a man she had thought dead, a man who had been her friend in childhood, her love in their early years. To find him again had been a moment of joy never to be forgotten. They were nervous strangers at first, but in a few days all the old passion was back and he’d made her his legal wife and had taken her back to his bed. She’d taken his life again and had given him another child.

  Sarah heard his footsteps behind her, the light tap of the canes, then the slow steps. A chill moved through her. Under normal conditions, Caleb Sax could handle ten Byron Clawsons. But how could he expect to handle even one now? She felt Caleb come close behind her but she did not turn around.

  “I’m sorry to put you through this, Sarah; sorry to uproot you. I had big plans for you. A big, sprawling hacienda and—”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Caleb. None of those things matter to me and you know it.” She twisted her fingers nervously. “Just come back to me.”

  He moved one cane over to the other hand and used his free hand to reach up and touch her shoulder.

  “I will. But you remember that we have never really been apart, Sarah, even when we were physically apart. Even before I loved you as a man loves a woman, when I lived among the Cheyenne and knew you were growing up in St. Louis, I thought about you, missed you, wondered if I’d ever see you again. The moment I did, I knew who would be the most important woman in my life. And then when I thought you were dead, I could still picture you, feel you with me so many times. That’s how it will always be for us, Sarah. Not even death can separate us.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

  “It’s the truth.”

  She turned and hugged him around the middle, crying against his chest.

  “Be strong for me, Sarah. You’re such a strong woman and you don’t even realize it. We’re going to make it through this, I promise. And the place we’re going to will be new and beautiful, closer to the mountains. You’ll like it there. It’s cooler—greener. And the Cheyenne are there.” He hugged her close. “It’s so strange. My life seems to be making a great circle. I’m going back to my beginnings in a sense. That’s the way the Cheyenne look at life; as one big circle, never ending. And you and I will never end. We’ll go on and on, through James and Lynda and their children.”

  “Oh, God, Caleb, I can’t live without you now,” she wept, clinging to him. “I can’t go through that a second time.”

  “You won’t. You just head north and keep watching the southern horizon. In a few days you’ll see me coming. But you remember what I said, about how we will always be together. We’ve made our own circle, and it can’t be broken by man, Sarah, and especially not by Byron Clawson. You just put him forever out of your mind. He will never bother you again. You’ll never see his face again or hear his voice again. And he’ll never threaten you again. That I will make sure of, no matter what the consequences. And if something happens you’ll go right on, because you’ve got our son to raise.”

  He let go of her and urged her to the bed. “Come on now. Lie down and get some rest. We leave by sunup for Wil’s place. James and Cale are going to sleep at the bunkhouse with Tom. He’s telling them enough tall tales to keep their minds spinning all night. They’ll be all right. Children adjust.”

  She lay back on the bed. Caleb set his canes aside and held the head rail of the bed for support, letting himself down slowly.

  “Yes, children adjust,” he told himself. He had been raised by a Sioux man, then lost that family and had been adopted by a white man. Caleb had adjusted to a whole new world then, but had been thrown back into the Indian world
as a teen. Again he had survived, only to find himself led back to the white man’s world. Now he would wander again like an Indian, perhaps never to own and settle land again the way he had in Texas.

  Sarah pulled the covers over them. It irritated Caleb that he couldn’t even make love to her tonight. It seemed important. Yet she was so upset it probably didn’t matter. Tonight their feelings went beyond making love. They went even deeper. He winced with pain as he lay on his back, putting out his arm and taking her close. This was enough for tonight, to hold each other this way.

  Byron rode in a carriage. He was not accustomed to riding a horse for hours at a time, and it was a long ride to the Sax ranch. Scouts had reported all of Caleb’s help was gone. Only the Sax family was left. The fifteen armed men he rode with were certainly enough to subdue three men, two women and a couple of children. And the thought of watching the men rape Sarah Sax in front of Caleb was much more inviting to Byron than waiting in town for these men to return. He wanted to be there himself for this one.

  His heart quickened when the house came into sight. Scouts were already returning to give them an idea of the best way to approach Caleb, who would surely put up a fight. He waited impatiently for the good news, squinting when the scouts rode up so hard they stirred up too much dust.

  “There’s nobody there, Mister Clawson,” they reported.

  Byron’s eyes widened in annoyance. “What?”

  “They’re gone.”

  “They can’t be gone! They had five days to get out, and Sax was hurt bad.”

  “Go look for yourself, sir. The place is empty, except for some furniture. The barn’s empty, horses gones, everything.”

  Byron climbed out of the carriage, staring at the house. “Someone warned them,” he sneered. He looked around at them. “One of you is a spy!”

  “Like hell,” one of the men answered. “Excuse me, Mister Clawson, but there isn’t a man here who would have warned that Indian.”

  Byron gritted his teeth and kicked at the carriage wheel. “Damn! We’ve got to find them. They can’t have gone far.”