The Ladies of Sutter's Fort

by Jane Toombs

  The riders, centered in his sights, were too far away for him to risk a shot. He must wait till they reached the defile below him.

  Ramon watched the horsemen follow the trail into the stand of pines. At first he could see the riders through the trees, for there was little undergrowth, but then the grove thickened until the men were hidden from his sight. Ramon judged their pace, fixing his eyes on the spot where he knew they must emerge. They’ll come out when I count to three, he told himself.

  Una . . . dos ... he held his count for an instant . . . tres. The horsemen did not appear. Ramon hunched his shoulders and shifted his legs, which were splayed on the rock. Still he saw no one. He glanced at Rosita on the other side of the creek before looking back to the pines. Squinting, he tried to penetrate the late afternoon darkness. He held his gaze. There. A man, only his face visible, standing beside one of the nearer pines.

  Ramon lay still, his breathing quick and loud. From behind him the creek splashed downhill toward the trail. A hawk wheeled overhead. Ramon looked from the bird back to the shadows under the pines. The man was gone.

  Ramon waited. He drew in a long breath as two men rode from under the trees, their horses at a walk. The Army officer was in the lead. He scanned Ramon’s side of the slope, a rifle under his arm, the other horseman following twenty feet behind with his eyes on the opposite slope. The two of them came on past clumps of brush and into a jumble of boulders. They’re in range, Ramon thought. Barely, but in range.

  The lead rider stopped and raised his hand, his gaze fixed on Ramon’s hiding place. Without warning Ramon’s side cramped, and though he felt a knot of pain he did not move. Slowly the cramp eased. The two men below him, their eyes still on the slope, appeared to talk. Ramon sighted on the officer, then raised his rifle to adjust for the distance. He felt the wind blowing steadily from behind him.

  The officer pulled his horse around and headed for the shelter of the pines. Had they seen him? The man’s companion swung about and followed. Both were going back.

  Ramon fired. For Jorge, he told himself.

  Sherman’s horse lurched forward, throwing him against the saddle horn. He grasped for the horn as the horse stumbled and fell sideways. Sherman leaped clear. He hit the ground rolling, coming to rest flat on his stomach. He reached for his rifle a few feet away. Dirt puffed next to him—he hadn’t heard the shot. Crouched over, rifle in hand, he ran for a cluster of boulders just as another shot cracked from the hillside.

  He sprawled behind the protecting rock. He glanced over his shoulder but couldn’t see Sutton. His wounded horse whinnied, struggled to stand, but could not because its right rear leg had been shattered. A bullet ricocheted from the rock above Sherman’s head.

  A minute passed, two minutes, three. Sherman looked around the outcropping and saw a blur of movement on the hill. He sighted, pressed off a shot. The shot was answered at once from high on the ravine’s near side. At least two of them then.

  “Come back,” Sutton called to him from the pines. “I’ll cover you.”

  “Wait.” Sherman aimed and fired. His horse stiffened, head dropping to the ground. One leg pawed the air, then fell back. For a moment Sherman stared at the dead horse. He sighed and looked away.

  “Now,” he called to Sutton.

  At the first shot from the pines, Sherman thrust himself off the ground, running low and flat out. He stumbled in a gopher hole, almost fell, kept his feet, saw branches above him. He flung himself onto the pine needles beside Sutton, his chest heaving, the sharp odors of pine and gun-smoke mingling in his nostrils.

  “There’s two or three of them,” Sutton said. “One high on the right, the other halfway up on the left. Might be a third. I can’t be sure ‘cause the one on the right’s been moving around so much.”

  Sherman looked along the line of men positioned behind the screen of pines. “Anybody know this country?” he asked.

  “I’ve done some prospecting hereabouts,” Jack Smith of Howard said.

  “How long a ride to get around these cliffs? So we can take them from the rear.”

  “Couple of hours anyway. You’d have to go back five miles or more and then swing to the east. It’s even farther the other way.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Sherman said. “Two men can loop around behind to come at them from the rear, two more can get above them on the north by climbing the slope, two on the south. The rest of us will stay here and keep them pinned down. We’ll have to hurry. We’ve only a few hours till dark.”

  “They could be to hell and gone in two hours,” Sutton said. “What’s to stop them from riding right out of the upper end of that ravine?”

  “Probably nothing,” Sherman said. “That’s the risk we’ll be taking.”

  “Could we overtake them if they rode out?” Surprised, they turned to look at Danny O’Lee. “Could we?” Danny asked again.

  “I’d put our chances at less than one in three,” Sherman told him. “Considering the poor horses we’ve got. Of course, having to take the girl along should slow them.”

  “I say we don’t wait,” Sutton said. “I say we go in after them right now.” “I’m with the colonel,” Danny said. Several of the other men nodded.

  Sherman shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. We’d be attacking what amounts to a fortified position.”

  “I’m going to get Selena out of there now,” Sutton told him. “How many of your men are with me?”

  “I am.” Danny stepped to Sutton’s side. One by one the others joined him.

  “I can see I’m a minority of one,” Sherman said. “We’ll attack.”

  “Jed and I will go up the left slope,” Sutton said.

  “I’ll take the right,” Danny told him.

  “I’ll go with him.” It was Jack Smith of Howard.

  “I’ll still send two riders around to invest their rear in case we get pinned down here.” Sherman pointed to the two men who had accompanied him from Coloma. “Maguire? Biggs?” They nodded.

  Sutton went to his horse and returned with a rifle. He handed it to Jed who stood weighing it in his hand before grinning at Sutton.

  The two men set off through the trees. When Sutton reached the last of the pines he paused, looked at Jed. “I’ll go first,” he told him.

  When he heard the first covering shot from the pines, Sutton dashed ahead, throwing himself behind the first of the boulders at the base of the hill. He looked back to see Jed sprint from cover. A single shot rang out from the crest of the opposite slope. Jed stumbled and fell full-length in the dirt. A third rifleman. Sutton glimpsed him, a figure in black. He squeezed off a wild shot. Behind Sutton, Jed lay groaning. The black man raised himself to his hands and knees and began crawling toward him. Sutton put down his rifle and ran to him, grasped him under the shoulders and pulled him behind the shield of boulders. Ripping away Jed’s shirt, he exposed a bullet wound in his upper right chest. Jed’s breathing was ragged and shallow.

  Sutton heard a scrambling and looked behind him to see Braithewaite running toward him. The doctor knelt at his side. “I’ll see to him,” he said.

  Sutton turned, picked up his rifle, and sprinted up the slope to the next group of boulders. An occasional shot came from the pines behind him but there were none from above. He ran from boulder to boulder, heedless of the danger. Yet he drew no fire. Just below the spot where the gunman had waited when he and Sherman first approached the ravine, he sprawled on the ground, breathing hard. There were no sounds from either above or below.

  Sutton eased himself out from behind the boulder. Deep in the ravine ahead of him he heard a horse whinny and then the thud of receding hoof-beats. He pushed himself to his feet and ran to the ledge from which the gunman had fired on them. No one was there. Sutton stood, half expecting to draw a shot. The ravine remained silent.

  Sutton looked back to the pines and, after waving Sherman forward, ran ahead to the top of an outcropping of rock. He saw three horsemen galloping away wit
h a fourth riderless horse behind them. Selena. Where was Selena? Sutton raised his rifle. Too late. They were around a bend in the ravine and out of sight before he could fire.

  Sutton swore. He climbed down the hill, reaching the trail beside the creek just as Sherman and two others rode up. Danny O’Lee and Smith were already on their way down the other side of the ravine.

  “There’s three of them,” Sutton said, “riding up out of the ravine.”

  “What about the girl?” Sherman asked.

  “Selena wasn’t with them.”

  “Could we be on the trail of the wrong men?”

  “I don’t know. They looked like the three Rhynne described. Californios. I can’t be sure.”

  “They sure act guilty as hell,” Jack Smith said.

  “They might have killed Selena,” one of the men said.

  “Or left her somewhere.” Sherman looked up the ravine. “The only way we’ll find out is by going after them.”

  “Wait.” They saw Doc Braithewaite climbing down the slope.

  “How’s Jed?” Sutton asked him.

  “I bandaged his wound. If we get him back to town he might pull through. The bullet seems to have missed his lung.”

  “Thank God.” Sherman started to turn away.

  “Wait,” Doc Braithewaite said again. “I left Jed because I just remembered something.”

  They all looked at him.

  “Something about Harry Varner,” Braithewaite said. “I remembered that Harry Varner hates dogs. Never could stand one anywhere near him.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harry Varner took the Bowie knife from his boot and cut the gag from Selena’s mouth and the ropes from her hands. He watched as she first massaged her wrists and then the corners of her mouth. Even with her feet swollen, her dressing robe and nightgown torn and soiled and her hair in disarray, she was beautiful. A handmaiden of Satan, he told himself, who uses her beauty to lead men into the fires of damnation. He went to the stove, ladled stew onto a tin plate, then poured a cup of coffee. When he carried the meal to the bed, Selena looked up at him with misted blue eyes. Quickly handing her the plate and cup, he turned away. Weeping was one of their tricks. His wife, before she left him, had used all manner of stratagems in her attempts to lure him from the path of righteousness. Varner took the pan from the floor beside the bed and threw the water on the ground outside. After wringing out the cloth he had used to cleanse Selena’s feet, he laid it on the sloping wooden rack to dry. When he reentered the cabin he saw that Selena had put her plate and cup on the floor next to the bed and had drawn a blue blanket to her chin. She lay staring straight up at the ceiling.

  “Be you wanting more to eat?” he asked.

  “No.” She spoke the word so low he could hardly hear her.

  He stood looking down at her pale face haloed by her golden hair.

  “I want you to take me home,” she said, glancing at him for the first time.

  “You’re in no fit condition to travel.”

  “I can ride.”

  “I ain’t got a horse. I had a mule that died on me a month ago. You’d have to walk and you can’t.”

  “Send for someone in town to come for me. Send for . . .” She started to say Rhynne but thought better of it. “Send for my mother.”

  “I ain’t had a horse since the fire,” Varner said. “When I had to sell it to pay my debts.” He closed his eyes and saw the flames licking along the sides of his store and erupting upwards into the night sky. His breathing quickened. “You and Rhynne,” he said, “you fired my store.”

  “I had nothing to do with the fire.”

  “I saw you kissing him while you both watched my store burn. I saw you on the hill. The devil himself, Rhynne is, and you’re his handmaiden. The devil’s mistress is what you are. You’ll both burn in the everlasting fires of Hell.”

  “Mr. Varner,” she said, “don’t talk that way. You don’t know what you’re saying. Remember, you were the one who threatened to burn the Empire. Have you forgotten that? I’m telling the truth when I say I knew nothing of the fire at your store. Nothing,”

  Varner went on talking as though he hadn’t heard her. “They tie witches to the stake,” he said. “They tie them hand and foot and throw torches on the kindling. You can hear the flames spit and crackle; you can see the fire licking its way towards the evil women. When their gowns catch fire they scream for their protector but he never comes.” His voice rose. “You can hear their screams and smell the burning of their flesh as their souls are doomed to everlasting damnation.”

  Selena turned her face to the wall.

  Varner trembled. He swung about and walked to the door where he leaned his head on his forearm. He drew a deep shuddering breath as images circled in his mind. He felt his body being swept around and around as by a great whirlpool while he struggled to keep from being sucked into the depths.

  As his head slowly cleared he opened his eyes to see the pine boards of the door. Exhausted, he slumped into a chair at the table and laid his head on his arms. How long he slept he didn’t know but when at last his head jerked upright the cabin was much darker than he remembered.

  Selena was asleep.

  He walked across the room to stare down at her fair skin and her blond hair tumbling loose over the blanket. He watched the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the blanket and, when she turned in her sleep, he saw her body outlined on the bed.

  Gently he lifted the top of the blanket and drew it down until only her feet were covered. The side of her robe was torn from just beneath the shoulder to the knee. Through the rent he saw the bruised skin of her back, the curve of her hip, and the white of her upper leg. He shivered as he felt excitement grow in him, the desire so long denied. Selena twisted on the bed, moaning in her sleep. A moan of pain? he wondered. Or of remembered passion?

  Quickly Varner covered her with the blanket. She was a temptress. He must put away all temptation, put Satan behind him. Going to the table he struck it with his fist, three, four, and five times until his hand throbbed with pain. Slowly the excitement waned, lessened without dying, receding to the edge of his consciousness.

  Walking about the kitchen area of the cabin, Varner collected all the old tin cans he could find, then took a thick ball of twine from a shelf. His arms full, he went outside. Only when he was halfway to the bottom of the hill did he remember his rifle. Putting the cans and twine on the ground, he hurried back to the cabin. Selena still tossed in her sleep. Varner took the rifle from beside the door and retraced his steps.

  On the low ground around the knoll, he tied the end of the twine to the bottom of a shrub, unwound the twine, cut it and tied the other end to a can which he had filled with pebbles, all the while keeping the cord as taut as he could. When he had encircled the knoll with trip-cords, he stepped outside the circle and walked some distance away. Then he turned and approached the cabin as a stranger might, noting the most visible parts of his warning system.

  By the time he was finally satisfied, the sun was behind the hills and the cabin lay in shadow. Carrying his rifle, he climbed the hill and went inside. Selena’s eyes were closed, her breathing regular.

  Varner struck a lucifer to light a lantern. With rifle and lantern in one hand and the bucket in the other, he walked the half mile to the stream. He returned, taking care to avoid the trip-cord, and heated the water on the stove. When it steamed, he poured the water into a pan and carried it to the bed.

  He shook Selena by the shoulder, watching as her eyes slowly opened. She was awake all along, he told himself. He nodded to the pan of water and, going across the cabin, put more wood on the fire. The lantern on the table threw his shadow onto the cabin walls. When he looked over his shoulder he saw Selena sitting on the edge of the bed with both feet in the water.

  Varner went outside, returning with the cloth he had used to bathe her feet, and knelt beside the bed.

  “Give it to me,” Selena said, reaching for the cloth. He sho
ok his head. “It’s my penance,” he told her, dipping the cloth in the water and anointing her feet. He cleansed her ankles, stroked higher, pushing aside the thin cloth of her nightgown. Selena drew her feet up onto the bed. When she leaned forward to cover them, the blanket fell away from the top of her body and Varner saw the white skin of her throat and the shadow between her breasts. She pulled the blanket up around her neck.

  Varner reached down and took the blanket and yanked it from her hands. He threw it into a corner of the room. Selena screamed, her hands rushing to cover her breasts.

  “The Lord has decreed,” Varner said, “that harlots shall be stoned until they are dead!”

  “I’m not a harlot!”

  “Men pay a hundred dollars for the chance to satisfy their lusts on your wanton body. You’re being sold by Rhynne to every man in the diggings willing to pay his price. Who will enjoy the charms of the beautiful Selena? Who will sate himself on the pleasure offered by her flesh? Who will look upon her dove-white breasts? Who will have carnal knowledge of her? And you’re not a harlot? Not a whore?”

  He gripped the top of her gown in both hands and tore both gown and robe, sundering them, leaving her half-naked. When she twisted away, he pinned her wrists above her head with his hands. She screamed from the pain of his fingers on her bruised skin. He stared at her writhing body, then threw himself on her, releasing her hands to roughly caress first her breasts and then her legs while she beat at his face with her fists, screaming at him to stop.

  All at once his body went limp. Selena moaned, shifting away, extricating herself from beneath him. Pulling her robe together, she tried to cover her nakedness as she cringed away from him. Varner lay face down on the bed beside her with his shoulders heaving. She realized he was crying.

  “Even now,” he said, “my faith is no proof against the weakness of my flesh.”

  She looked down the length of his body and saw the hilt of a knife projecting from a sheath on the side of his boot. Sitting up, she leaned forward and took the hilt in her hand, then, watching Varner, eased the knife out of its sheath. Once freed, she held it in her hand, staring at the curved and deadly blade.