Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  Clappe stood at my elbow while William went out of sight behind the barn.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you but…do you have any scraps I could take for myself? I can pay you.”

  I was surprised, not many settlers were fool enough to travel without keeping their supplies up. He was greener than I’d thought. There was a small piece of cornbread left from lunch, which I’d planned to thicken a soup with. I spread it with some syrup and took it back to him. His gloved hand offered me a tarnished coin, but I refused it.

  “You can pay me back when you’ve got your own harvest in.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Deene. But, I want to pay my way, and you could use it, with winter coming.”

  I was taken aback. “We’ll get by, we have to.”

  His smile was uneven, a small scar cleaving his lip in a thin white line. “Seconded.” He stuffed a hand into his pocket and produced another coin. “May I count on you for something tonight?”

  I took the pennies to spare his pride. “There’ll be the hen and cornmeal mush.”

  The coins were warm when I tucked them securely into the waist of my skirt.

  “Thank you again, Mrs Deene.”

  “Laura.”

  He looked surprised, but it was strange to hear ‘Mrs Deene’ after all this time. Only the preacher that married us had ever called me it. “Laura. I’m James.”

  We shook hands, and then he was on his way to cut his poles, eating the cornbread as he went. I watched him go. It was good to watch a man so easy in his stride. I found myself admiring the shape of his lean body and made myself turn away.

  Stupid, to think of him like that when his was young, what with me years older and plain as a boot. Besides, I’d learnt in Ohio that no matter the man, it was always the same.

  *

  As if he’d read my mind, or seen me looking at Clappe’s fine stride, Will started at me that night.

  We’d had our supper with the children. I’d given Clappe a plate of chicken and some mush while Will was in the outhouse. The girls and the baby were sleeping. Thomas was turned away from us with the blankets up over his head. Even Clappe must have turned in, there was no sound from outside. Will lifted himself up over me in the dark, pawed at my nightgown.

  He’d chosen a bad night for it, for me anyway. I’d yet to heal up and it’d hurt all day, making water was like passing lye. I moved away from him, pretending I was asleep, but he only tried harder to wake me up. In the end I turned to him.

  “I’m not healed yet.”

  He pulled me over, as if he didn’t understand plain English and pushed up the nightgown. I closed my eyes and turned my face away from his. If he gave me another baby, I knew it would be the end of me. I was lucky to have survive one birthing without a woman to help me, I couldn’t take the fear and pain on my own again.

  It hurt like a hot iron but I bit my lip and let him do it. He was careless, held me down, pushed hard and deep. When it was over he lay on top of me for a while, breathing tobacco over my face, then he rolled over and lay on his back. I had to get up and find a rag to clean away his mess, the blood. I hid it under a corner of the tick so I could wash it in the morning.

  Lying down on the tick again, I could still smell him on my skin, in the quilt and all over the tick itself.

  Will and I, we were never a love match. Will was handsome and he came from a good family, his father and my father knew each other in England. I’d never had a man chase me for my looks, or my heart, so I’d never thought about marrying for love, though he was sweet, back then.

  The first time we’d lain together I’d been scared, not knowing really what he was doing, what I was supposed to do. I was afraid to touch him while he got on me, and when he got going I’d lain there and let him. It’d hurt, but he told me it was supposed to. At the time, I never questioned how he knew. It wasn’t until after we’d been married a few months that I found out about the string of young girls he’d flattered into his bed. There was more than one’d been forced out of her family home and off to some relative or another. Plenty of Deenes growing up in other men’s homes I didn’t doubt.

  I slept poorly, waking twice in the night to go to Nora, Will grumped on the tick but only turned over and ignored the crying. The children were so used to it they slept on through. I woke in the morning, just before dawn, stepped outside onto the dew covered grass to start the fire for breakfast.

  Clappe was standing by the cold bones of the fire, the prairie behind him grey in the pre-dawn. He tipped his hat at me when I came closer. It was good to see him but I was thinking of my tangled hair and stained dress. He smiled, took off his gloves and offered me another penny.

  “I’d be much obliged for some breakfast,” he said.

  I had a pail of chips for the fire but he took them from me, squatted down on the scorched earth and started stacking them together. I went for the coffee pot and the breakfast things, my hands shaking as I tried to be as quiet as possible. It was like I was a girl again, blushing around some boy doing a few jobs for my family.

  Outside the fire was smouldering and I put the pot on. Sitting on the ground I shook flour into the bowl I’d brought out and mixed in water. Inside I shook myself and tried to stop acting like a fool.

  “What are you making?”

  “Hot cakes.”

  “Like pancakes?”

  I nodded. “My mother made good hot cakes. Always fried them in bacon fat. That’s my favourite way with them.” I took the spider and stood it on its metal legs in the fire. Into the pan I dropped a small amount of the grease from the roast hen, fried the hot cakes fast. Clappe poured the coffee out into cups.

  “We don’t have sugar, or any more molasses,” I said.

  “I think it’s fine as it is,” he said, though I noticed he grimaced as he sipped it.

  I flipped the cakes and offered him one. He held it with his fingers at the edge, changing hands when it began to burn him. Once he’d finished he wiped his fingers carefully on the cuffs of his trousers.

  The door of the soddie opened, and I heard Will come out and stop short. I turned to him.

  “Morning, I’ve got the coffee ready.”

  He looked at Clappe, nodded, then went to the outhouse. I could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was angry.

  My hands were trembling as I ladled more batter into the spider. Clappe took the bowl from me, setting it on the ground before I could drop it.

  “I expect he thinks it doesn’t pay to be too trusting of strangers,” he said quietly.

  I watched the hot cakes turn brown and furrowed at their edges, where the grease had them crisping. I wanted him to stop looking at me, but the way he talked, like he knew me, that made me feel good and embarrassed at the same time.

  I served the cakes as William returned, saving me from those eyes. He sat down between Clappe and I, took a tin plate from the stack.

  “You should wake Thomas, or he’ll be late out,” he said.

  I got up and went to the soddie, aware that I was being watched. Thomas was still asleep on his pallet, I knelt beside him, touching his shoulder gently.

  “Breakfast, everybody up and outside.”

  Nora was still asleep in her cradle, but the girls woke, and Thomas blinked his eyes open, slowly, then rolled sharply onto his side to get up.

  “Girls, put your shawls on over your night things, I’ll dress you in a while.”

  William was alone at the fireside. “I sent Clappe on ahead, to carry the tools out,” he stretched and I heard his spine crack like a knot in a piece of firewood. “The thresher should be here tomorrow.”

  Chapter Four

  James

  I awoke at the side of the road. I say road; it hardly deserved the name, being but a track in the grass. Before going to sleep I had wrapped myself in a sheet of canvas, and found myself already stifled by the heat of the day. Under the sharp sun I ate some stale bread and drank water from my bottle. All around me was a blustery nothing, only grass
and dust, it lowered my spirits just to look at it. How many days of it had I endured? Too many, with no clock, no newspaper by my plate of a morning and no chiming church bells to ring the hour.

  There was no way back for me now, on foot, alone in the wilderness. The weeks of rude travel by stage and wagon, the latter filled with buckets and wheels, seemed then a great luxury. I half wanted to pull my canvas over myself and never get up again, but the rest of me was crying out for fresh water and civilisation. Civilisation! As if that could be found this far west.

  I walked into ‘town’ around midday; a collection of wooden buildings in a crooked row, surrounded by packed earth worn bald by the feet of men and beasts. The railways weren’t here yet, neither was the town itself, officially. According to every map and every man in Washington, I was standing on Indian land.

  It was only my second time in such a place and it was certainly the meanest settlement I’d visited. My stomach shivered with nerves as I tried to remember to walk the way my brother did; striding out with a straight back, head up and eyes straight ahead.

  I bought myself a meal of biscuits and molasses from a woman selling food from her window; food I wouldn’t have given my dog a month or so ago. Reluctantly, I also used my dwindling funds to buy more ammunition for my rifle, having wasted too much on clumsily shooting a hen out of hunger. I had to keep myself from walking primly past the saloon and row of sheds – the so-called ‘cribs’ that fallen women kept. I was a lone man after all, it was expected that I would drink and associate with low females. I went in and bought ale from the barman, sweating under his gaze. I kept my eyes on the table after that, too scared to look around me. The ale was disgusting and the cup was dusty.

  When I had bought the last of my supplies I walked on into Indian Territory, glad to leave the eyes of strangers behind me. As much as I longed to be surrounded and safe, seeing what passed for urbanity in this part of the country was a wrench to my heart.

  Around midday on my third day since leaving the town behind me, I came over a rolling rise in the grassy plain. If I’d walked on, instead of stopping to look about me, I would never have seen her and she would not have noticed me.

  She was a tall, brown woman, scorched by the sun. Her long brown hair was twisted into an out of style braid and she had on a stained dress of sprigged cotton, made over and over. In her hands was a rifle.

  I was tempted to remove my hat and explain, tell her she didn’t need to fear me.

  Then the moment was gone and I introduced myself - James Clappe, homesteader.

  *

  She had a husband, of course. He seemed a decent sort, unshaven and overprotective, but he accepted an honest trade of my labour for his, and for that I was grateful. I knew nothing of farming or building and would need his help. I had no tools with me and would need the loan of his, as well as the use of his plough and wagon.

  I watched her, though I tried not to. I watched the new baby she carried with her like a heavy parcel she longed to pass off to a maid. It hurt to see those small arms and legs waving, but I looked all the same. How Laura could carry that child like she was anything less than a treasure I did not know. Didn’t she know how lucky she was?

  There was less time to watch Laura after work began in earnest. Deene showed me the process of cutting and ‘shocking’ wheat, then when the thresher arrived. It took the two men who’d brought it to drive the horses around and feed the crops into it. I helped Thomas fill the bags with the grain that spilled from the incredible machine. I tried to act as if I’d seen one before, when in fact it was a marvel to me.

  At a little after midday, when we had threshed the last of the grain, we stopped to eat. The men with their machine hitched up their horses and carried on towards the next farm. In their wake they left silence and a trail of gold.

  “I’ll head to town soon,” Deene announced as we sat on a blanket in front of the house. “Once I’ve cut the hay, you can handle the animals for a couple of days ‘til I’m home again.”

  Laura nodded. Her braid caught the sun like oiled rope.

  Deene turned to me. “Will you be helping with the hay tomorrow? Got to get to it while the weather’s with us.”

  I nodded, inwardly cringing; my whole body ached already and my skin, which had been fair, was red and flaking wherever the sun had reached it. The need for a cool bath was almost maddening. My body screamed for me to lie down on the grass and close my eyes.

  As we ate I watched Laura’s children, dark Rachel, little Beth with her clasping hands, and Thomas, so wide eyed. I’d seen, of course, how his father bullied him in the field; how he shouted at him for the slightest clumsiness. He was a child still, and clearly tired to his bones.

  Deene stood and dusted the crumbs from his trousers. “You need water hauled?”

  Laura answered no, and so Deene set off for the field, with me and Thomas in his wake. My feet were so sore that the effort of walking took up all my concentration; I couldn’t let my pain show on my face.

  Deene didn’t speak to me as we dragged the sacks of wheat and corn to the lean-to by the house. The work was hard, but I paused in order to help Thomas with his sacks, despite my own exhaustion, as he was not equal to the task. He didn’t shake me off and that pleased me. I liked having my help accepted, though I was careful to offer it out of his father’s sight.

  At last darkness drew in over the prairie and it became too late for work. Deene gave me a nod as he picked up the last sack and took it around to the lean-to. Thomas went after him without looking back. I straightened and eased my back once they were out of sight. My shoulders and spine were needled with hot pain.

  I looked up to the sky, where the stars were winking. At times like that, in the darkness, the prairie seemed small and felt downright snug. Darkness all around like a quilt drawn tight against world. The cool night air was a balm against my skin. I was almost asleep on my feet.

  I turned to find Laura staring at me. She’d started her fire, the kettle was buried in flames. The scents of smoke and baking met with those of parched summer grass and sweat.

  “The corn is in then,” I said, “soon as I have my house, the weather can do what it likes.”

  “Don’t tempt it, last winter we had snow to the eaves, blizzards so thick we could hardly find the barn.”

  “I’m sure I shall survive.”

  “I’m sure you will,” she stirred the flaming buffalo dung and I thought of that hot, fresh cornbread. Before coming to Indian Territory I had never thought I’d ever be so hungry for cornbread. But I had no money to give her, only stolen jewels, hidden in a cloth, and buried under my tent.

  “Ma’am -” I started, then stopped, I couldn’t beg, she’d already given me enough. It was my own fault for not bringing more supplies with me. I’d thought to travel straight on, not to settle so soon.

  The light of the fire gave her face back the glow that I imagined it had possessed when she was young.

  “Help yourself to supper. Call it a gift,” she said, “for helping Thomas.”

  “Anyone would’ve done the same.”

  “It was kind.”

  We were still looking at each other when Deene, washed up for dinner, came outside with the coffee pot. He put his arm around her waist and squeezed.

  “Are you ready to cut the hay tomorrow?”

  She nodded, looking away from me.

  Deene’s grin was very white in the approaching darkness. “Then we can get all those things you’ve been on at me about, sugar and meal, coffee and pork, cloth for a new dress.” He looked up and caught my eye. “Maybe then I’ll have a moment’s peace.”

  Deene released her and pressed the coffee pot into her hands.

  “I invited Mr Clappe for dinner,” she said.

  He looked at me, and I could feel the crackle of his disapproval. “We’ve hardly enough for the five of us.”

  Laura opened her mouth, but I cut in first. “That’s fair. I was about to say, thank you for the kind off
er, but I have some beans back in my tent that are waiting for my attention.” I let my face bear a cocky grin, the one our governess had slapped from my brother’s face when he’d done something particularly naughty.

  Laura looked at me, an apology evident on her face, but I just nodded a little, and went back to my tent. I cursed myself for not rationing my food better, though when I’d left the previous town I’d thought only of reaching a settlement further south where I could have resupplied. It had not been my plan to settle, but I’d been so happy to find a friendly woman for a neighbour that I decided to stay. Hardly my rashest decision. I told myself that one night without food was a small price to pay for keeping the peace. I would have to try my hand at shooting game again to keep me fed until Deene took me to town. Perhaps Laura would cook it for me if I could only shoot something.

  My tent was a sheet of canvas with pockets sewn on the inside and loops to hold the entrance closed at night. I’d bought it just before I’d set out from the wagon on foot. Whenever I had to stop to make camp I cut poles from nearby trees or else slept wrapped in the canvas. On the prairie, I’d had to travel to a creek that ran through a ravine some miles from the house in order to find wood.

  Inside I had my spare clothes, a shaving kit, with the scissors I used to keep my hair short and a pamphlet on the sort of farming I intended to do. I’d never known anything about grain and livestock, about ploughing and reaping. My family were in the fur business; though I’d never had to know anything of that either. It was astonishing to think; soon I would plough strips into the soil and sow seeds that would feed me for a year.

  It was too dark to read, so I undressed and lay down on the blanket that lined the ground. My rifle was next to me. I’d heard wolves in the distance and shivered, knowing that I couldn’t go forever without seeing one. Even looking at the gun gave me a chill.