Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  “Women’s gossip.”

  He scraped a little straw up with his fork and shook it to get the clean bedding off of the shit, which he dropped into a bucket.

  “Pa said you were sweet on him.”

  I would gladly have taken a thorough beating if it would have kept the secret of me and Jacob safe from my son. The shame of it made my face burn, and my hands shook as I tried to appear unmoved.

  “Your father was drunk, and when men drink they sometimes say horrible things that they don’t mean,” I said, smoothing my skirt and clenching my fists to keep my hands still. “He was very sorry later, for what he’d said.”

  Thomas wasn’t looking at me anymore, and I was glad, because the confusion and worry on his face made me feel like I’d been dropped into the well.

  “I don’t ever want to drink then,” he said.

  “That’s very wise of you,” I said, feeling my chest getting all bound up. He was so sweet, and kind, my little boy. I wanted to keep him with me always, to remind me that there was good in the world, even in Indian Territory, where it seemed only the bad ever stuck around, braving the wind.

  Outside, I rested against the wall of the barn and closed my eyes to the sun, letting the chill morning wind scour my face. I would not let my son turn into his father. I had to save Rachel from my fate, and make sure that Thomas became a good husband, a good father. Though I’d lost all my tenderness, all my rosy youth, I would tend theirs closely. They would not grow up twisted and dried out in our sod shack. They would have timber homes and warm clothes and money enough that they could buy whatever they needed. Beth and Nora too.

  I opened my eyes and looked out to the horizon, many, many miles away. The air was thick with the scent of ox and shit, the grass singing in the wind, a song edged with the hysteria of a coming storm.

  It was fine to dream, though I barely remembered how, but what could I do for my children? Rachel would marry who William approved of, Thomas would help him on the farm until he found a local girl and began to farm himself.

  All I could do was love them, and, if I was honest with myself, there were times when I couldn’t even do that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Laura

  The men arrived that evening, just after Martha and I collected the freshly washed and dried clothes from outside. The wagon appeared on the horizon like a ship and Rachel went outside to watch it rock and ramble closer. It stopped at Clappe’s soddie and I saw him jump down and make his way to the door.

  Martha piled her work into her sewing sack and tucked the clean pie plate on top.

  “It was good to have company,” she said, as we watched the wagon draw nearer.

  “You should come again. Both of you,” I said, knowing that Jamison, if he was anything like Will, looked down on visiting as a waste of valuable time.

  “Maybe we will.”

  When the wagon stopped at the house, William leapt down and a pale brown dog followed him. Rachel made a beeline for it and chased the poor thing around until it lay down flat in the grass and growled.

  “Rachel,” William said, a growl of his own. She came and hugged him around the middle.

  “What’s his name Pa?”

  “You’ll have to think of one,” he said.

  “Martha,” Jamison said, “time to get home, horses need a rest.”

  Martha climbed up onto the wagon and soon Jamison had the horses turned and they were on their way back to their camp.

  “I said I’d be over to help him get that soddie up before it starts to get cold,” William said, heading into the house, “Lord, what a mess.”

  I felt my shoulders tense up. William’s idea of mess was a few tangled blankets on the beds and used cups on the table. Perhaps it was because it was me who did all the tidying and cleaning, but it was a mess I could live with. Now he was back what he said went.

  “So you’re going to help him build?” I asked, taking the cups to one side and stooping to bundle up the bedding.

  He caught my tone. “Don’t go making it like that. I owe Jamison, he paid for some drinks in town and gave me the ride, of course I’m going to help him.”

  I knew it wouldn’t have been a few drinks, but chose not to mention Clappe and the bargain Will had made and broken with him. You don’t taunt a sore headed bear.

  “Get some coffee on,” he said, sitting down at the table and using the bootjack to tackle his dusty boots.

  I put the pot on and glanced out the door to where Beth, Rachel and Thomas were all sitting around the dog.

  “Be careful you don’t get nipped,” I called.

  “Don’t worry Ma,” Rachel answered, “he’s not going to bite us, are you, Stick?”

  Rachel and her knack for naming things sometimes put me in mind of my unfortunate grandchildren. What horrors of baptism would she visit on the heads of her children? At least ‘Pudding’ and ‘Stick’ were taken.

  I sat down at the table opposite William.

  “Any news from town?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing much. Indians still giving trouble, some Catholics’ve started work on a farm about twenty miles from town and there’s a worry more’ll join them.” He leant on the table, making it tip his way, observing me. “It was quite a busy night, at the saloon. Lots of people passing through town.”

  “I’m glad you had plenty of men to talk to.”

  “Oh, weren’t short on company,” he said, rubbing a hand over his unshaven face, “Clappe in particular. I’ll say I was wrong about him. I thought he might be a little, you know, light footed, but he’s got a way with the girls. Didn’t seem shy about bringing one back to camp either.”

  I kept my face blank. I’d had a lot of practice. He wanted me to be offended, to feel, what? Betrayed? Disappointed? I was annoyed that I did feel something, a twisted, horrible knot in my gut. I felt everything he’d wanted me to feel and something else; envy.

  “How was entertaining the Indian?” he asked, still watching me closely.

  “Fine.” I went to the stove to pour the coffee. “We had a good talk, got on with some of her sewing. She’s not half bad at it, considering.”

  “Considering?”

  “Her fingers. Two were broken and set wrong, or not at all. She said it was before she came to Jamison.”

  He grunted. “Doesn’t surprise me. He told me she was on her own when he found her, she probably got caught stealing.”

  I said nothing to that.

  *

  That night, once the children were sleeping and Stick was curled up in front of the door, William rolled over and pushed up my nightgown. As he climbed on top of me, I surprised myself by putting my hands on his shoulders.

  There was a moment of silence. I looked into his black, gleaming eyes and he looked into mine. I don’t know what he saw there, I didn’t know myself what I was feeling.

  “Did you go with a woman?” I said.

  He looked down on me without saying a word.

  After a moment I let my arms drop and he pushed my legs apart. While he worked I thought about Jacob, about the moment of pure, bodily bliss he’d given me against the wall. For months before that I’d felt like more of a farmhand than a woman. I’d been packing and carrying baggage on our journey, taking orders from Will from before dawn to nightfall. All I had in front of me were more years of being a worker, a wife, a mother – not a woman. Being with Jacob was crude; the stickiness, the sweat, his breath, the slow drip of escaping liquid between my legs. I could hardly remember the feeling itself, what people called pleasure.

  Clappe entered my mind, I couldn’t find the will to make him leave. Would he be different? Kinder, loving? I thought of him on top of me, how he’d touch me, as though I was something expensive and sweet, to be savoured. His skin looked so soft. I knew that’s how his hands would feel on my arms, my chest, brushing against my thighs. I knew he’d whisper things that would kindle a fire in my tired heart. He would hold me, afterwards. His red hair on my bosom,
damp and curling. Under the sheets though, wouldn’t he feel the same as Will, as Jacob? Wouldn’t it always feel like this?

  I told myself I didn’t believe Will and what he’d said about the girl in town, but what if it was true? What if he was the same as Will, only younger? Less bitter?

  William reached his peak, clutched at me, one hand gripping my breast, movements growing ever shallower, until he let out a breath and rolled away.

  A silence stretched between us, then the thing that had brought my hands to his shoulders, crawled into my throat and said; “Do they like it, the town girls?”

  Whether he was really asleep or not, I don’t know. He didn’t hit me when he was sober, though there was a first time for everything, God knows what I said was almost a blasphemy against him, against our marriage.

  But he did nothing and after a few minutes, I forgot to be afraid.

  Lying there, I wondered what Clappe was doing in his soddie. That small home where there was no one to hurt him and, God forgive me, no children. No smell of shit that clung to the walls no matter how fresh the napkin on Nora was. No sound of snoring or coughing. Nothing but his bed and his leisure.

  I wondered if he’d wanted a girl. Will’d said he had one but Clappe seemed too bashful to me to even talk to a saloon woman. He had a sweetness to him, like he wouldn’t think to pay for it. I wondered if he’d ever known a woman. Surely he must have? How long had it been since he’d known the touch of a girl or shared her bed? I couldn’t picture Will going without for long, for him it was like his tobacco or throwing back his whiskey, a reward for working the land and putting up with me and children.

  Just on the edge of sleep, in the space where it was possible to forget how plain I was, I wondered what he would do if he opened his door and saw me in my nightgown, under the moonlight? With him, would I like it? And after, would it be like sleeping beside Martha, so calm and restful that I’d wake up and not curse the sun for rising?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cecelia

  The day of our return from town I had such a headache that I hardly spoke. The liquor, the lack of sleep and the early start had sheared away my layers of previously gained strength. I was a young woman again, clinging to the rocking wagon, trying to hold myself together.

  I vowed to myself that I would never again touch alcohol.

  The dog, when I lifted her from the wagon and took her inside, proved to be disobedient and excitable. She sniffed every corner of the soddie, then jumped onto my tick and sat down.

  “You needn’t think you’re sleeping there, Missy.”

  From then on, she had her name.

  The trip into town had a lasting effect on me. I’d seen the private world of men and it had surprised and worried me. The image of Deene with his whore kept creeping into my thoughts when I least expected it. At night it slipped into my thoughts more often than the images of Charlie; though it brought me no less pain. It was rarely the face of the saloon girl that I saw under Deene’s heaving body. It was almost always Laura.

  I don’t know why it brought me so much horror, to see her held under his large body, to see hands with dark hair growing on them paw at her bosom. Even in my mind the image appalled me. Sometimes she was calling for help. Sometimes she made the noises of delight that had carried from the whore’s mouth to my drunken ears.

  Sitting outside one morning, a week after returning from town, I saw Deene setting off for Jamison’s camp. I watched him going into the distance, disappearing into the waving, crisp grasses. Their hiss and whistle washed over me as I looked to the shape of the Deene house and sipped my morning coffee, watching Laura’s laundry wave like a string of handkerchiefs.

  Whether it was a longing for female company following the visit to town, or a little worry over how she was getting on, I couldn’t help myself wishing for an excuse to call on her, but I didn’t know how I would look her in the eye after those dreams. There was also the threat of Deene returning to consider. Better to leave her alone.

  At around noon though, I gave up on trying to distract myself. I’d been watching the soddie all morning, and I knew I would keep watching until he returned, then curse myself for not visiting when I could have.

  “Missy,” I called and after a few long moments she left the grass by the side of the woodpile and came to me.

  I took my rifle and we headed across the grass. I’d already realised, after our few brief days together, that Missy would never be a guard dog. She was to be a pet; a source of company for the lonely winter. Perhaps I’d known that even as I’d handed over the money for her. Did that make me nothing more than the silly city dweller Deene knew me to be? I suppose so, but she gladdened me on the two mile walk all the same.

  The little girl, Rachel, was outside when I reached the soddie. She was peeling potatoes, dropping neat curls of skin, like snakes, into the bucket at her feet.

  “Morning,” I said, as Missy snuffled forwards and tried eating a stray potato peeling from the ground, “is your mother about?”

  She nodded. “In the barn.”

  “Everyone else inside?”

  “Pa’s with Mr Jamison, helping him to build his house.” She gave me a look with her dark eyes, so like those of her father that I felt his dislike coming through them.

  “And your brother?”

  “He’s cleaning the stove.”

  “Ahh,” I tried to remember the kinds of things I’d said to the sweet little girls that belonged to the wives of Charles’ business associates. “You know, your new dog is the brother of mine. This is Missy.”

  Again, that sloe eyed glare. If I’d been raised on the prairie, I might have lost my interest in manners too. “I’ll go see your mother then.”

  The little sod barn looked more like a hill every time I saw it. On top the grass was about a foot tall, and the recent rain had bent it over and rounded out the edges of the roof. I pushed open the door and baulked at the smell of ox and dung.

  “Laura?”

  My eyes adjusted to the shadows and I saw her, sitting on a pile of straw in the corner. She looked up at me as if I’d caught her thieving, when she moved the pale tracks of tears on her face caught the light.

  I let the door swing shut and shuffled over the straw scattered floor, then knelt and took her hand.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  She shook her head, mute with tears. Without thinking I put my arms around her and pulled her against my chest so her head rested in the hollow of my shoulder. I felt the dampness spreading on my shirt and her thin back shuddered under my patting hands. I made the shushing sounds I’d made for Charlie, as my mother had once made for me. After a few moments she became calmer and I rocked slightly, listening to her gulp in breaths and let out dry sobs.

  She lifted herself from my arms and I reluctantly let her go.

  Laura wiped her face on her sleeve.

  “Lord, what a stupid mess,” she said, voice cracking, “you’d best go help yourself to something inside while I clean up.”

  “I will do no such thing, tell me what brought this on.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at all, just a woman being foolish.”

  “Laura,” I laid my hands on her elbows, rubbed the coarse fabric of her dress. “You can tell me.”

  She looked me in the eye, finally. “It’s nothing.”

  I fixed her with a firm look. “I will not be leaving this barn until you tell me what has brought you so low. I’ll not leave you to cry in the dark by yourself. Is it Beth, is she sickly again?”

  She looked away, shook her head slightly.

  “Will?”

  She didn’t move.

  “Has he done something, hurt you?”

  “He only,” she said, and stopped, as if surprised that she’d said anything.

  “Tell me, it’s alright.”

  “He only slapped me. He’s done worse. Just…he was sober as a judge and he’s never done that before without a drink or two in h
im. I thought not having the whisky would be enough to stop him doing worse than yelling.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d offered to protect her once, when I’d seen that first bruise on her face, but now I knew more and wasn’t fool enough to believe I could save her from her marriage. I’d barely escaped mine, and I still had nightmares of Charles shaking me awake and dragging me out to a carriage with bars on the windows.

  “Winter’s coming now,” she said. “All those months of snow and the wind howling and less and less to eat, to talk about. I counted on being cut off to keep him from drinking, but now he doesn’t need the drink to get mean. What if he starts on them next? The children?”

  She seemed to recover herself, enough that a splinter of anger worked its way into her voice. “You were in town with them, you know what he did there. He spent every last cent he took with him and now he blames me for the loss. He’s angry all the time.”

  “You deserve better than him,” I said. Or maybe it was the spectre of James Clappe, the figment I’d invented finally taking voice.

  “I don’t think anyone gets what they deserve,” she shook her head, “unless I did something so bad…God, listen to me. You know I helped build this place? Helped rake it out of the dirt? I am not some little girl with a hope chest and frilly skirts. I just…I’ve gotten so tired. It’s like I see all the days ahead, just one long life, no joy, no hope.”

  I thought of all the times I’d watched her working, cooking, or just walking in the long grasses. How she’d looked like a woman born from the earth itself, rather than chained to it, covered in it. Buried alive under the grass and sod and the wide, dry, sky.

  I put my arms around her. She wasn’t alone, I knew the fear of loneliness, of being trapped in someone else’s life, tied to them. She turned her face against my throat and I squeezed her gently. It was the first time I’d had the comfort of touch in months.

  When she lifted her head and kissed me, I gasped against her mouth. I was overflowing with loneliness, all the pain I thought I’d left scattered across the country was born again in my chest. I clung to her and she to me.