Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  We drew up at my house and I jumped down, taking grim pleasure in crushing insects under my boots.

  “Thomas, can you help us carry things, you’ll have to wake your sister and get her to move.” I turned to Laura, who was watching me with a guarded face. “You were right, you’ll need whatever you can get. Everything in there, you can take it. I want you to have it. If it wasn’t for you I never would have lasted long enough to own any of it.”

  She watched me for a long moment, then nodded. “Thank you.” She paused, looking at me, then sighed. “Would you…do you think your brother would mind taking us as close to Morrow County as he can? Will’s brother’s there and…well he’s the only family we have left here.”

  I could see how much pride it had cost her to ask, and I would not refuse her. Whatever it took I would make Franklyn bring her back with us, to her brother-in-law’s porch step if necessary. Anything that I could do to ensure her life was somewhat better, I would do it, without a second thought.

  It seemed like weeks since I’d laid on my tick, waiting for death, but the soddie was exactly as I had left it. Between us, with Thomas and Rachel carrying the smaller bundles and Franklyn helping with the plough, we packed everything into the wagon, including the stove. I suppose it helped that we weren’t burdened with food or seed, otherwise we never would have been able to load it all, and the horses wouldn’t have been able to pull it.

  While Laura settled the children and tied up the back of the wagon cover, I took Franklyn to one side and told him of our changed plan. Laura would not only be accompanying us to town, but all the way back to Ohio, where she would, I hoped, be safe with family. I could tell he didn’t like it, but he said nothing, only nodded and took his seat on the wagon. I sensed that he was biding his time until Laura was further out of earshot, but I would deal with that when it came to it.

  At last we were seated on the wagon, and for the last time, Franklyn set us in motion. All around us the grasshoppers chirped and hopped, the unending motion of their brown-green bodies nauseating to witness. I remembered my arrival, the first time I’d seen Laura amongst the waving, sighing grasses. I could no longer remember where on the Deene land we’d been, any hint of a landmark; a particular clump of grass or scattering of flowers, had been eaten away.

  The drive was long and arduous. The heat alone made me feel ill, and my mouth was dry, lips cracked where they weren’t sticky with dried spit. We took sips of water as infrequently as we could. None of us had eaten a thing; there was nothing to eat besides cornmeal, and for that we’d have needed to build a fire, only there was nothing to burn. I remembered the watermelons of the ravine, and could have killed for a taste of their cold, crunching flesh.

  As the sun passed its peak and started to sag, slowly sinking in the sky, I began to feel the pull of Ohio, and a sense of great desolation filled me. It had seemed to me that Franklyn and his wagon were lifeboats, saving us and taking us somewhere safe. Thinking of my parents, of Charles and the life I’d left behind, of Laura and her collection of dirty, damaged goods headed off to God knew where, I began to feel as though I was on a prison ship.

  I looked behind me and saw that Thomas and Rachel were both asleep in the narrow space between the wooden crates and packed up tools. Turning back around I saw that Laura had looked over her shoulder as well. Our eyes caught and it was then that I knew she’d been waiting for them to sleep; even before the first tears rolled down her face, I knew she’d been holding onto her grief for hours, ever since we’d buried her daughters, and her husband.

  She leant against me and let out the first of many sobs, stifling it with one hand as her whole body shook with the force of it. I held on to her helplessly, keeping her on the seat, with me, as she sobbed out her bitter loss.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Laura

  After I’d cried myself hoarse, Cecelia had me climb into the back of the wagon with my children. I don’t know how, but I slept.

  I woke when the wagon suddenly shifted down, following the trail into the ravine. With Rachel and Tom I climbed out of the wagon and eased my aching legs. We stopped for a while to relieve ourselves behind a large, dead, tree. Everything was dead down there. Even the creek was barely a trickle, hardly enough to wet the stones in its bed. Franklyn scooped up what little he could and offered it to the horses that pulled the wagon and the oxen that trailed behind it, equally used up. We all drank from the cask of water, which was nearly dry by then.

  I was too thirsty to be hungry. I think everyone felt the same, because no one mentioned food. To get the wagon up the other side of the ravine we walked along side, then climbed back in once we’d reached the flat prairie again.

  Usually the journey to town took from before sun up to just past noon. That was with two yoke of well rested and heartily fed oxen pulling. We’d set off so late that by the time we were past the ravine the sun was already on its way down.

  I heard Franklyn and Cecelia talking as I lay in the rear of the wagon.

  “We should make camp,” she was saying, “we could lose a horse, or worse, driving in the dark.”

  “We’re following a track now, we’ll be fine.”

  “But-”

  “Cecelia, it can’t wait any longer. We barely have water left. I am driving us to town, and then I am making arrangements for us to get back to Ohio.”

  “Us and Laura.”

  There was a short silence.

  “Franklyn?”

  “I was perfectly happy to go along with your plan, but now…her husband is dead, Cecelia. I mean, is there any benefit in her going to his family; three more mouths for them to feed and no prospect of her husband being able to support her? Depending on their circumstances they might not even take her. Perhaps she’d be better off finding herself a new husband here. There can’t be any shortage of men.”

  “Quiet, or you’ll wake her,” Cecelia muttered. “Anyway, she doesn’t want that.”

  “How do you know? Have you asked her?” he sighed, and I heard the seat creak as he shifted on it. “Cecelia, I know you…care for her, but you understand that she has to do what’s best for herself and her children. Without a man she cannot prosper, there’s precious little work a woman can do, decent work anyway, and it does not pay enough for a family. How will she cope with the legalities of claiming land? Buying supplies? She’ll be cheated and preyed upon without a husband to defend her.”

  She was silent, and I thought of my own muddled plans. What was I going to do?

  I didn’t want a new husband, but Lord, how impossible it felt, lying there on the jolting planks of the wagon box, surrounded by the few things I’d managed to hold on to. Franklyn was right. Having a man meant being respectable, being accepted. There would be people that thought my children bastards without a husband by my side. Who would trade fairly with a desperate widow? I would be dependent on charity.

  I rested my hand on Rachel’s shoulder, careful not to wake her. Rachel and Thomas, I would try my damndest to keep them safe and well, but how would I make money to keep us? Mending or washing until my hands bled, all for cents, I supposed. A long hard road stretched ahead of us and one on which I would be alone, scraping together coin a day at a time.

  It was still night when the wheels under me lurched and eased themselves from rough dirt to the well-trodden and cindered main street of town. Even the saloon was dark and quiet. I climbed through to the front seat.

  “I’ve never seen it so still,” I said. My breath came in a white cloud, it had grown so cold overnight, with not a cloud in the sky. The only sounds were the grasshoppers and the nickering of the horses.

  “There’s a pump just down the street,” Franklyn said, already climbing down from the seat as we slowed. “I’ll be back with some fresh water for us, and the animals.”

  I took his seat. Cecelia was only inches from me. I wanted to hold her again and tell her that I needed her to stay with me. I couldn’t bear leaving her with her husband, and I didn�
��t want to be without her in the tough times coming my way. God knows what she’d say to that, knowing already the life I led. No, at least back in Ohio she’d be safe from hunger and heat, from cold and disease. Franklyn would keep her safe. He had to.

  “He can’t wait to get me back to Ohio,” Cecelia said.

  “You not excited to be going home? Hot bath, good meal, back in your own bed in your own room?”

  She shook her head.

  “Liar,” I said, nudging her. “If it was me I’d have gone back as soon as the grasshoppers came. Think of it, grass and trees and windows with glass in, someone else to do the washing and the cooking.” I heard my voice go flat. “Sounds like heaven.”

  She hunched over and peered out from under the wagon cover. “Charles is in one of these buildings, asleep probably. I told Franklyn what I remembered…he didn’t believe me. Even hating Charles like he does he can’t see him like I do. If I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t believe it either. So, when Father says I have to go back to my husband, there’ll be no fighting it. Franklyn told me that in Ohio I’d have to forget about you. About this. He was right.”

  I felt like a bullet had gone through me, my lungs seemed suddenly useless, my heart like the rotted shell of a pumpkin.

  “I don’t think I could stand it out there, thinking about you all the time,” she said, her eyes were lowered, and under the moon her skin looked pale and fine, rather than rough and sun scorched, as I knew it to be. “So, I’ve decided, I don’t want to go back.”

  Something was squeezing my pulpy heart. “Cecelia…”

  “I want to go with you,” she said, “I want to live with you.”

  As soon as she said it, I could see it in my mind. Us in another sod house, Cecelia tired and bent over a pile of sewing work, me parcelling other people’s laundry. Her voice in the dark, next to me on a scratchy tick, in a rented shack that was bleeding us dry, saying ‘I wish I’d never gone with you, Laura. I wish I’d gone back to my family.’

  “You can’t,” I said.

  She looked up at that, her eyes big and wide. She was still so young and full of romantic notions, even a year on the prairie hadn’t completely knocked that out of her, not if she was proposing that we live together as Will and I had. The talk would be one thing, the hardship of being without a man quite another.

  “Laura, I know it’ll be difficult, but I want to go with you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  “I know that. I’m a good bit older than you and I know it’ll be difficult to find a place for me and the children - just like I know you don’t really want this to be your lot in life. And I won’t let it be.”

  “It’s been my life for a year.”

  “One year out of how many? This has been my world since I was born. In the end, you’d hate me. Just like I hated him.”

  I heard the clash of buckets, loud in the cold silence of the street. I could just see Franklyn walking back with his arms weighed down.

  “I wouldn’t hate you,” she said, stubbornly.

  “You would. You’d see this life for what it is and you’d be cursing me. Your brother can keep you safe back east.” I looked her firmly in the eye, refusing to be swayed.

  “There’s a sign saying one bucket per day,” Franklyn said, setting down his two pails of water. “No one’s watching it though, and I thought the animals could use it after the drive.” He looked up at us on the wagon seat. I hadn’t moved and neither had she, we were both facing each other, her hand on the seat between us, like she wanted to reach for me but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

  “You two alright?” he asked.

  “I’ve very tired,” Cecelia said. “Do you have a room here? One we can go to?”

  “Just over there, above the stables behind the saloon,” Franklyn searched his pockets and came up with a key on a piece of string. “There’s some stairs by the gate into the yard, climb those and you’ll find the door at the end of the walkway. You two need a chance to wash and get some rest. Take the children and I’ll send someone for you once everyone opens for business.”

  At the back of the wagon I looked in on Rachel and Thomas, shook them gently awake and helped them down from the box. Perhaps in days gone I would’ve left them to sleep, but I’d lost two of my children. Now more than ever I wanted them by me.

  There were grasshoppers clinging to the board siding of buildings and hopping in the street, but the night-time coolness had them a little slower than under the full heat of the sun. On the prairie the grasshoppers had destroyed everything, but here people at least had pump water and the store for food. When harvest time came they would probably feel the loss of custom and goods, but for now they only had to shut themselves up inside with canned food and wait it out. It wasn’t like the insects could eat up dimes and dollars.

  I carried Rachel in my arms and Thomas walked beside me with the water bucket. Cecelia was angry, I could see it in the set of her shoulders as she strode along in front.

  The back stairs were creaky, the wood popped and sighed as we climbed. Along the walkway were a few doors, and the one that Cecelia unlocked led to a small room with a table chairs in it. There was a lamp on the table, with some matches beside it on a chipped plate. Cecelia lit it as I crossed the room and opened a door into the next room. There was a bed in it, a brass framed thing with a proper mattress sagging through the old slats. I laid Rachel down on it, she was practically sleeping already. What were a few bedbugs now?

  “Thomas, come and lie down. Try to get some sleep.”

  “Are we going to Ohio tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Perhaps.”

  “I don’t want to live with Uncle Jacob.”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet, go to sleep now.”

  He frowned, looking back at Cecelia. “She’s going to Ohio, why can’t we stay with her?”

  “She has her own family to live with,” I said, not looking at her. “It’d be rude to press ourselves where we’re not wanted. Don’t embarrass me now, Thomas.”

  He ducked his head and went into the bedroom. I stroked his hair as he passed and closed the door softly behind him. Alone in the room with her, I looked at the prints on the wall, the small stove, the cracked dresser, anywhere but her face.

  “Is there anything to eat in that?” I gestured at the dresser.

  “There’s a bit of jerky, and half a tin of coffee.”

  “No firewood,” I said, pulling out a chair and easing myself onto it. There was a little cushion on the seat, which made it the most comfortable chair I’d sat on in over three years.

  She brought over the jerky, wrapped in brown paper. Two cups were strung on her fingers, and she dipped water out of the bucket with them. For a while the only sounds were the paper rustling and us chewing the dry meat.

  “You can’t stop me, you know, from not going back,” she said.

  “Franklyn would have something to say about it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, twisting a piece of jerky in her fingers, “and I think he’d let me go. I don’t think he has it in him to force me.”

  “And Charles?”

  “If we’re gone before he sees me he doesn’t have to know Franklyn found me. He’ll keep looking, then give up, there’s only so long he can stand it out here. Even if he did suspect Franklyn of helping me escape, there’s nothing he can do to him. It’d be his word against my brother’s and my parents would side with him.”

  I could feel something in me wavering. I wanted to be steel against her thistledown dreams, but they were so tempting.

  “And go where? Back to the prairie?”

  “Anywhere you want.”

  “That isn’t an answer.”

  “Anywhere, further west? Or we could go south, north. There’s all that country out there to settle. No one need see us or hear from us again, if that’s what bothers you. The talk.”

  “And when we get there, we build a house and plough some land
and plant up?”

  “Yes. You know we can do it.”

  “And when the next drought comes? Or maybe a flood, or grasshoppers, or the whole damn list of plagues straight out of Egypt, what then? Your brother won’t come on his white horse with food and water to save us.”

  “You think I don’t know what it means, the hardship?” Cecelia said.

  Furious tears blinded me. “What if you come, if we go together and then you get the fever and die? There’ll be you with a rusted plough and two children that aren’t yours. Would you take care of them?”

  “You know I would.”

  “But you don’t know what it’s like.” I squeezed my hands into fists on the table top. “Nora and Beth, my…they’re dead, and I don’t know what to do, how to keep the others safe. I don’t know a damn thing, and I have to think of them, only them. I can’t think about what it would be like going off with you, because it’s them I have to care about.”

  Her hands, warm and dry, curled around my fists. I bent my head and closed my eyes to the sight of the table’s scarred surface.

  “Laura, I was there with you. I saw what it did to you. I know what it’s like to lose a child, but I can’t imagine what the last few days have felt like. I can’t imagine the years you’ve spent, not thinking of yourself, and I’m not asking you to be selfish now.”

  I looked up at her.

  “I’m asking you to let me take care of things. I’m asking you to let me take care of you.”

  I shook my head. How could she take care of me? She was so young, so soft at heart. I had to take care of myself, of my children.

  “Laura, if you say you’ll let me, I swear to spend the rest of my life watching over your children, like they were my own. I already know them a little, and I will love them.” She was crying now, the tears running down her dusty cheeks, leaving tracks. “Laura, please don’t make me leave you behind. Please tell me you don’t want me to go, tell me you meant it when you kissed me.”

  I couldn’t look away from her tears, made brown by the dust, dripping from her chin.