Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  “What will you do, when we leave?” Franklyn asked.

  “Cecelia said you might be kind enough to take us to town, they’ve got pumps there so there’s at least water. From there…” I considered, there were no options, not real ones, for us. We had no money, no possessions worth a damn. “I expect my husband will decide where we’re to move on to. It’s likely we’ll end up working somewhere while we save to start over.”

  Franklyn nodded like he wasn’t really listening, I didn’t try talking to him anymore. He had jerky and bread, which I gave to Thomas so he could share it out with his sister. I sat in the heat and thought of Beth’s pale blond hair and how it looked in the sun, of how she’d made big rosy prints on her dress with a pudgy hand covered in jam, grinned up at me with her small teeth. Even that dress was gone, burnt with the soiled sheets and clothes.

  Franklyn ladled out quinine and took it to the soddie.

  That night we cleared as many grasshoppers from the house as we could and tried to sleep. I’d grown almost deaf to their noise by that point and no one else mentioned it, or the stink of the soddie. William lay on our tick, Cecelia and I slept on Rachel and Beth’s bed, turned over to give some protection from the stains of sickness. Thomas shared his tick with Rachel. Franklyn offered to take the floor and no one argued with him, so he put down a bed roll from his wagon.

  I didn’t sleep to start with, just looked up at the dark roof and listened to the breathing of my children. They’d eaten and drank lots of water and though Rachel’s bowels were still loose, she was not as weak as she’d been that morning. Thomas, already mostly over his sickness from the bad water, was shaky on his feet, but had been alert through the day. Neither of them were speaking much. I thought they must have seen too much in the past few days to be set right with a little food and water. The soddie felt so empty without Nora’s cries and Beth’s snuffling breaths. Rachel was holding Beth’s doll against her chest tightly in her sleep, as though scared it would be snatched away.

  Cecelia shifted onto her side and I felt her forehead on my shoulder. She didn’t say anything about Beth, or Nora. I think she knew there was nothing she could say. She was there. Her hand stroked my arm and finally, I felt tears gather in my eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Cecelia

  I woke throughout the night and, leaving Laura to sleep, administered quinine and castor oil to her husband. It was hard to tell in the darkness of the soddie, but he seemed to be resting. When I put the metal spoon to his lips he drank the contents with a shudder and took sips of water from the cup I offered. I don’t think he even knew who was tending him.

  I tried to shut out thoughts of Charles, though at times the fear would come so strongly that it made me want to run into the dark, never to be found again. Laura and her children needed me, that was all that kept me tethered to that place.

  Thomas and Rachel slept peacefully, exhaustedly, but water and food had stoked their fires well and I was filled with intense relief. Laura couldn’t lose any more of her children, she’d suffered more than enough to satisfy whatever God was bringing these plagues down on us.

  Lying awake at Laura’s side, I listened to her breathing. The silent tears that had shaken her had run out in the small hours, leaving her exhausted. My hand curled around her wrist, tethering us together. All the months of frozen loneliness I’d dreamed of this, whether I admitted it to myself or not. To have it, now, like this, was the worst of tricks the prairie had yet played on me.

  When the dawn light crept under the door and through the tightly closed shutters, I got up and went out to clear grasshoppers from the fire site and boil up water for cornmeal.

  Franklyn rose ahead of the others and came to join me, yawning and scratching the sanding of blond hair on his jaw. He found me sitting by the fire, watching the grasshoppers jump stupidly into the flames.

  “We don’t have enough water to stay another day,” he said.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Cecelia, we have to leave, today. And if you insist on bringing that woman with us we don’t have time to delay.”

  “If we ration the water, there’s another day in it, and that’s all that’s needed to see if he’ll be fit to travel.” I poked at the old ashes. “I’m not leaving them.”

  He sighed and looked at me, long and hard for a moment, I knew then that we were almost strangers, or at least, I was strange to him.

  “Alright, we’ll wait another day, but tonight we’ll pack up and tomorrow morning I want to set off without delay.” His voice turned soft, the tone he’d used a long time ago, when he’d tried to teach me the kings and queens of England; slow, encouraging.

  “That’s fine by me. Though, we have other neighbours, they might be in bad shape too.”

  “Cecelia, I’m not rescuing every settler out here!”

  I smiled, teasing him. “After you rode in, a one man grocery store with water enough for a whole damn family?”

  His brows drew down. “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You sound like one of those women, from town, like-”

  “Like my friend, Laura?” I put the kettle down on the ground.

  “It’s just not something they’ll appreciate at home.”

  I hadn’t noticed my Clappe voice bleeding into the way I thought and spoke as myself. Then again, who was to say it was him? Perhaps it was Laura. I’d grown to like the way she spoke, simple and dry, her smile showing in her words, even when she was too tired to paste it on her mouth.

  “I’m not the same as I was a year ago, and I’ll not pretend that I am.” I said, moving past him to the soddie. “If you’d ever seen anything beyond home, you’d understand.”

  I didn’t mean to be cruel to him, but he was treating me like his little sister and I felt as though I’d aged beyond him, as though time had moved faster for me in the past year. My husband had murdered my son in front of me. I’d survived a winter bad enough to bring wolves to my door, because I was too afraid of Charles to ask for help from my family. I’d seen grasshoppers falling from the sky, had nearly died out of fear – fear of William Deene and his rifle. I was more scared than ever knowing that Charles was waiting in town, knowing that Franklyn didn’t believe my story. The most frightening thing of all was that I was in love with a woman and would be condemned for it if anyone ever found out.

  I couldn’t make myself forget all that. Whatever the future held, it scared me, but I couldn’t run from it or hide in ignorance as I’d once done.

  As I stepped around Laura to get to the cornmeal, she sat up and rubbed a hand over her face. She turned to look for her children and, finding them sleeping peacefully, she looked back at me.

  “You should’ve woken me,” she whispered.

  “I’ve not been up long,” I whispered back, so as not to wake the children.

  “How’s…” she glanced at Will, “I felt you get up in the night to see to him.”

  “He’s keeping the quinine down, it’s all gone now though so, if he’s going to get better, now would be the time.”

  “I’ve been trying to think of what’s to come, once he’s well and you’ve taken us back to town. What we’ll be doing. What I’ll need to take. Not that there’s much to take.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “There’s logging camps, mines, places he could get work. I’d most likely be taking in washing and mending, try and earn a little to bring back and start the farm over again.”

  Something of my dismay must have shown on my face, for she cupped my cheek and tried to soothe me.

  “Hey now, I’ll be fine. I’ll have Thomas and Rachel to help, and we’ll be settled somewhere soon. You’ll be safe and I’ll think of you. Always.”

  My eyes welled. “I don’t want you to be alone. I don’t want to be without you.”

  “I know…but you know as well as I do, we don’t get to do what we want.”

  I was going
to be without her for the rest of my life, however long that was. It seemed like a long, long time just then. I raised my hand to hers where it rested on my cheek, held it there. I moved forwards and touched my lips to hers, felt them give. She traced her thumb over my cheek and I moved back, released her and looked into her eyes. Laura let her guard down, and she wrapped her arms around me tightly. Closing my eyes I fought to memorise the feeling and kissed her again, knowing it might be the last time.

  Sudden light and the scrape of wood on dirt made me turn around. In the doorway, framed in the searing light, stood Franklyn.

  I sucked in a mouthful of air, but couldn’t move or make a sound.

  Laura was already pulling away, stepping in front of me. Franklyn drew back from the door and vanished into the brightness outside.

  “I have to…” I started after him, “oh God.”

  Laura was at my side, following me as I crossed the dusty, ash strewn yard and found my brother studiously untying and re-knotting the ropes that held down the cover on his wagon, angrily lashing out at the insects on the canvas cover.

  “Franklyn?”

  He turned and I saw that his face was reddened, brows drawn close together. I’d embarrassed him, made him angry and ashamed of me.

  “Don’t tell me I’m mistaken, I saw you kissing her.” He said, looking from me to Laura and back again.

  “Franklyn, keep your voice down, the children,” I begged.

  “Children? You’re concerned for their innocence, now? How long have the two of you been-” he broke off, shook his head, “All this time I thought you might be in trouble, that you were alone and naive amongst all these men. That you might get hurt. I thought you were a good woman.”

  “I am.” I said, my insides quivering with hurt at his anger.

  “You ran away from your husband, from your family, to let some foolish drudge lead you into sin. Can you imagine the disgrace you’d cause if anyone at home were to find out? Cecelia, this pretence has gone far enough. You’re not a man, and you cannot act like one.”

  “I’m not acting, and I’m telling you that if you call her another name, I’ll get a rifle and shoot you.” I let the threat sit in the hot air between us. “And as for what Laura and I have done…I’ve made my peace with it.”

  Franklyn’s mouth was a thin line as he looked between me and Laura. Even the grasshoppers seemed to go silent, waiting for him to speak.

  “Tomorrow morning-”

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll be off back to Ohio,” I said, cutting him off. “It’s likely that I’ll never see Laura again. I certainly won’t be able to talk about her. So if you could refrain from taking what time we have left, and turning it into a sermon, I’d be grateful.” My voice cracked and I felt my eyes start to well up. “And if you could still love me, even a little, I’d be-”

  Franklyn stepped towards me and put his hands on my shoulders. “You’re my sister. Of course I love you. I just…I want you to be well.”

  “I’m only well because of her,” I said, “Franklyn, I would have died if she hadn’t been here.”

  Laura was still at my side, as solid and unmovable as a pillar of earth. I pulled back from Franklyn and took her hand in mine, endlessly grateful that she was with me and not running to hide in shame.

  “Thank you, for helping my sister,” Franklyn said, grudgingly.

  “It’s not as though you didn’t help save me and my family,” she said. “If thanks are owing, I think they’re due to you.”

  The three of us stood there a moment, as the heat of the day grew stronger, and the grasshoppers leapt at our legs and landed on the thick cover on Franklyn’s wagon. It was strange, to stand there with Laura and Franklyn, unbidden came the thought of my wedding day, when I’d stood before my family with Charles at my side. I knew that Franklyn didn’t, and likely wouldn’t ever, understand what Laura meant to me. I knew that to him it was as foreign as the idea of a house made of dirt, or a woman in trousers, but I couldn’t help that. I only knew it felt right. It made sense to me.

  “I should get some things together, start packing up,” Laura said, turning away, “if you want to talk to your brother…”

  “We can talk plenty on the way to town,” I said, “you should…there’s time now for you to pay your respects.”

  Laura glanced towards the barn, nodded.

  Franklyn said nothing, but he gave me an uncertain look and followed us back to the soddie. I felt the weight of my old life starting to settle on me. How long would it be before I was bathed and laced into a dress, sitting before my parents in the drawing room of their house? How long until my life on the prairie faded like an old print, until I forgot the sound of Laura breathing beside me as she slept?

  Thomas was asleep, propped against the wall to keep the insects off. Rachel sat nearby, watching the fire as it burned. They looked so tired and dirty, I wondered what would become of them once we’d left them behind. Would they forget the cruel sun and vast nothing of the barren prairie, or would they soon long for it, as life brought them nothing but hardship and poverty? If I could have taken each one of them onto my lap and held them, I would have, as it was, I only looked at their dusty faces and felt all my grief for Charlie over again, in their name.

  “Are you feeling better?” Laura asked, crouching between her children in her dirty shift and putting her hands out to them. Rachel was crying but she hugged her mother, Laura’s arm holding her tightly. Thomas took Laura’s hand in his and nodded sombrely.

  “We’ll be leaving here soon,” Laura soothed. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll be leaving for good.”

  On the ground I saw the doll Rachel had slept with, picked it up and shook the dust and grasshoppers from it. I went over to them and held it out to her, her little hand closing around my fingers briefly as she took it. Her palms were red raw and blistered, as though she’d been pulling up the well bucket by herself.

  “Your hands,” Laura said, touching the welts lightly.

  “I’ll fetch some liniment,” I said softly.

  I couldn’t watch them, couldn’t let Franklyn see my face as I watched them. I went to the soddie, intent on finding liniment to soothe Rachel’s hand. Grasshoppers had already started to get into the house; it wasn’t as though there was anything in there that needed protecting, Laura had burnt most of the blankets and clothes.

  William lay on his tick and I cast my eyes over him as I went to the supply crate. I froze, my foot just touching the floor. William was motionless on the tick, his eyes open and bulging up at the ceiling, a red halo around his throat.

  On the floor beside him was a coil of rope.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Laura

  Cecelia came out of the house. I felt Rachel stiffen, her hand holding tightly on to mine.

  Cecelia looked at me, at all three of us on the ground, “William, he’s…he died, Laura.”

  Once, when I was very young, I’d stepped on the rotten cover to the cellar door and fallen straight through. The moment I realised that I was falling was far, far worse than hitting the ground below. For days I’d been afraid of his death, scared that I would be alone under the strain of the work before us. Now William was dead I felt only a sharp pain, which was gone almost as soon as it came.

  Thomas jumped up and ran for the house.

  “Thomas!”

  He froze, turned back to me wild-eyed. “He was getting better. You said.”

  “I was wrong,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

  I’d always known that despite his meanness Will mattered more to Thomas than I did. Pleasing him, or trying to, was the reason he’d gone doggedly into the fields, never complaining. His sisters had died while he was watching over them, now he’d lost his father too. I had no words for him.

  I’d been chained to Will for so long that I could hardly believe he was gone.

  “Laura,” Cecelia crouched in front of me. “There’s no sense waiting now, we should set off while we still have supplies.
”

  “I know,” I said.

  “I don’t want to be heartless-”

  She stiffened in surprise when I put my arms around her and held her.

  “You’d never be that,” I said.

  She patted my back and I squeezed her tightly before releasing her.

  “Hadn’t we better…” Franklyn looked at the soddie, “I mean, shouldn’t we bury him?”

  “The ground’s too hard,” I said, “we’ll have to do something for them, before we go, but now-”

  “I know, we should pack things up,” Cecelia straightened and looked at Rachel. “I know you’ve done a lot to help, but I need you to do just a little more, alright?”

  To my surprise, Rachel nodded. She’d changed so much since the coming of winter. It seemed only a few months ago she’d been set on the fact that Clappe had killed our pig. Now Cecelia had her chest unbound and wasn’t speaking as a man anymore, I’d though that would upset Rachel more, but she didn’t seem vexed, only tired. I wondered what questions she would have after this, about Cecelia, about ‘Clappe’, about all of it. The past year full of deception and pretending, what would she make of it? For now at least she was too grief stricken and ill to ask me questions I had no answers to.

  Cecelia sent Thomas and Rachel to fetch out the old tools we still had in the barn. She looked at me, “I’ll empty a tick. We can wrap him up.”

  I nodded, thinking of the shirts I’d sewn him, the food I’d made, the coffee and pipe tobacco and whisky that had gone into him. The rows he’d planted, the sod he’d hauled, the things he’d built, and now there was nothing to him that couldn’t be wrapped in a tick cover and stowed away with my poor children. Half my life wrapped up in sheets and laid out on the barn floor.

  “Franklyn, can you pack up the supplies and then help Thomas with the stove and the furniture once the tools are packed up-it all has to come with us.”

  “I thought you were set on going to see how your neighbours were faring?”

  Cecelia looked over at me and I felt a stab of shame. I hadn’t thought of Jamison and Hattie at all. ‘Course they hadn’t come to see us either. I’d been shut up in the soddie, they could’ve driven right by and I wouldn’t have seen.