Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  “You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t want to,” she said.

  “And what does that mean?”

  “That you don’t want me to go. That you want a house with me in it, a bed for the both of us,” she said, her face flushing a lively red. “And even though it’s like nothing I’ve ever even thought of, it’s what I want too.”

  I hadn’t let myself hope in years, that was the price of carrying on. You couldn’t let yourself think it would change, that it would get better, because you’d do nothing but wait for it. Wait for the sun to shine and your heart to lift.

  With two of my children in the ground, no home, an empty purse, half a wagon of broken things, and a heart swollen with a terrifying love, hope was all I had.

  “North,” I said, freeing a hand from her grip and raising shaky fingers to brush away her tears. “Let’s go north.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Cecelia

  I swear that hearing her say those words, those three words that spoke of a future for us, was more of a relief to me than Franklyn’s gift of water days before.

  I took her hand from my face and held it as I rounded the table and dropped to my knees on the wood floor. I laid my head in her lap, against the stained and dusty cloth of her shift. Her hand fell to my hair, brushing through it and making my neck prickle with heat.

  “Somewhere with trees,” she said, “where we can build a proper wood cabin with a floor.” Her fingers traced the lobe of my ear, sending a shivery thrill over my skin. “I heard a man once talking about tapping maples and boiling the sap for sugar and syrup. Sounds like it can’t be too hard to learn how.”

  I looked up at her, and her face was smoothed out, save for a crease of concentration between her eyebrows. She was considering the path before us, and I saw that it had her interest. Her mouth lifted into a small smile, tempered by uncertainty.

  “You’re sure you’d like to go? It means travelling hard, and we’ve no money, we’ll have to work for someone to get a piece of land, and it’ll be a struggle to get an even deal.”

  “I want to go, with you,” I said, “I can work, and help you take care of Thomas and Rachel.”

  “Will you be dressed like a man still?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t see being able to keep it up, not now that Thomas knows, Rachel too. It’d be better to be honest, wouldn’t it? Or as honest as we can be.”

  “What’ll we tell them, that we’re sisters?” She laughed her brittle stick laugh, “there’s no one that’ll believe you and I are cut from the same cloth.”

  “But we are,” I said, because we were the same; she wanted me as I wanted her.

  She smiled a little. “Perhaps we’d make good widows.”

  “The world’s no kinder to widows.”

  “True, but at least they’re decent and can hold their heads up in town.”

  “What about the children?” I asked.

  She looked towards the closed door, behind which Thomas and Rachel were resting. “Thomas said you were sweet on me, I think he knows part of it, though I doubt he can understand it. Rachel might have guessed a little of it.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping under the rough shirt, “if they could tolerate being brow beaten and struck for not picking a turnip right, they can grow to tolerate life with two women for a family.”

  My throat felt tight, hearing that. In her bed. I thought about her in bed, without her shift and with her hair down. It wasn’t the first time I’d pictured it, but having my hands on her, looking up into her face, made my heart beat wildly. I didn’t know what I’d do, in a bed with her, our skin free to touch all over. It scared me, but it drew me too.

  “North then,” I said.

  “North.”

  I stood and refilled our cups with water.

  Unbidden, the image of William’s bruised neck and slack face came to me. I would carry that with me for the rest of my days, I knew. How could I tell Laura that her daughter had blood on her hands? She’d lost so much, and the millstone of William Deene was finally gone from around her neck, I couldn’t place the weight of Rachel’s guilt in its place. I hadn’t realised until I’d seen Beth’s still body how much I’d grown to care for the children.

  Rachel had seemed so hard to me, but I’d seen her desperation and the rope burns on her hands. I understood her. I swore to myself that I would take what I knew of William’s death to my grave; that I would do it for love, of Laura, and of her children.

  Outside the sun was reluctantly rising, the gradual lightening of the sky painted shadows on the wall opposite the window. When the lamp ran out of oil there was enough daylight to see by. I had my hand in Laura’s on the table, we both held on as if afraid the other would fade like dew if we didn’t. I doubt either of us could have slept for fear and excitement.

  Too soon there came a rap on the door and I rose to open it. There was a small boy, perhaps ten years old, clutching a piece of brown paper, which he thrust at me.

  “Mr Ellis says the wagon’s almost ready,” he said, when I took the note.

  “Could you let him know we’ll be down soon?”

  “I will,” he darted off, already rattling down the wooden stairs as I closed the door.

  The note was grease pencil on a torn paper packet.

  Cecelia,

  I hope you’ve rested. I’ll be speaking with Charles before we leave today. I’ve paid off the man I rented the wagon from, you can let Mrs Deene know that it’s hers once we’ve reached Ohio. If she isn’t coming all the way with us, you and I can take the stage rather than take her out of her way. I’ve also withdrawn some funds and am prepared to give her fifty dollars for being such a good neighbour to you while you were away.

  Come down as soon as you can, I’m having supplies for the journey packaged as I write.

  Franklyn.

  “What does he say?” Laura asked.

  “He says the wagon with your things on is yours when we part ways. He’s got fifty dollars for you as well.”

  There was a short silence, then I heard her chair creak as she stood.

  “Could be a thousand dollars, it wouldn’t change anything.”

  “Fifty dollars buys a lot of land. A lot of maple trees. You won’t get the wagon or the money if I don’t go with him.”

  “Then I don’t want either,” she said, and I turned and found her looking at me with her hands on her hips. “I took you at your word. From this point on, nothing comes between us.”

  “Nothing,” I agreed.

  “Could be getting out of this town’s going to be harder than getting off the prairie,” she said, “if he’s got your husband backing him up, plus any men around who’re itching to get involved in a struggle…I don’t know what’s going to happen.” She glanced at the bedroom door, “I only hope they’ll be safe.”

  “Franklyn would never let them get hurt. Charles either. They’re not brutes.”

  She didn’t look convinced, and I couldn’t blame her. In truth I didn’t know what Charles would do when he saw me.

  “We’ll have to speak to Franklyn,” I said, “I think I can convince him to let us go, keep Charles from us for long enough that we can get together some food and water from the wagon, then be on our way. If he can take Charles to look for me further south for a time, we’ll be able to outrun him. Once we get north of the territory there’ll be nothing to lead him to us.”

  “If you can convince him.”

  “I believe he doesn’t want me to go back with Charles, he just doesn’t know what else to do with me. This gives him an option other than taking me back to our parents, where Charles could still force me to go home. He might not like me going off again, but he can’t deny that I stand a better chance with you than with Charles. I’ll make him see that.”

  Laura eased open the door to the bedroom, stirring Thomas and Rachel from their exhausted sleep. The four of us left the room and took the stairs down to the yard behind the saloon.

  There weren’t many
people about on the street, only a pair of men taking barrels off of a cart and hefting them into the saloon, grasshoppers smashing under their boots. Our wagon was where we’d left it and Franklyn was standing by the back, lifting large brown sacks up to a boy balanced in the box. He turned his head, looking first at me and then at Laura’s children. Laura reached for my hand and held it. I saw his face go still and hard at that.

  “Franklyn,” I said, as we came up to the wagon, “I need to speak to you, privately.”

  Franklyn took a few coins from his pocket and handed them to the boy, who leapt down into the dust, his boots crushing grasshoppers.

  “Right, sir,” the boy, the same one who’d come up to the room, stuffed the coins into his pocket. “Need anything else?”

  “No, that’s all, boy,” Franklyn took my elbow as the boy rushed off, “Cecelia, I have to go and speak to Charles-”

  “Don’t.”

  He glanced at Laura as I spoke, tugged on my arm a little more forcefully. “Cecelia, you agreed.”

  “I can’t leave her,” I said, “I won’t. I don’t expect you to tell me it’s the right choice, or even to wish me well, but I’m going with her today, and we’ll be walking all the way if you see fit to keep the wagon for yourself, but I hope you don’t. I think that’s the one gesture of brotherly love I can expect from you, but I can understand if you can’t bring yourself to make it.”

  I said it all fast, not looking in his eye. He was my brother, I didn’t want to see what the thought of me and Laura together made him feel inside. I didn’t want my last memory of his face to be tinged by his disgust.

  “What do you expect me to say?” he asked, “that I’m happy to see you go? That you have my blessing? Cecelia, this is foolish.”

  “Pretending I’m the same woman I was a year ago would be foolish,” I said, “Franklyn, if I couldn’t stand being in Ohio then, how could I stand it any better now? You’re asking me to live with a murderer and give up the woman I love.”

  He glanced around us as if expecting a torch wielding mob to surround us. Twenty yards away the men were still struggling with their barrels.

  “I still can’t believe that of Charles,” Franklyn said. “And he’s still looking for you, what would you have me do about that?”

  I’d believed Franklyn wouldn’t take my word for what Charles had done, it was part of what had driven me from Ohio in the first place, but having it confirmed to me was like a heavy stone in my belly. Only Laura would ever believe me, I could see that now. I wished there was some way to show him the side of Charles I’d seen, to prove it to him once and for all. But there was no time. I could stay and make my case, or I could escape.

  “Tell him I’m dead,” I said. I’d imagined my death often enough since the grasshoppers came, it hardly gave me a chill to say it.

  “You’d let Mother and Father think that?” I looked at him and his expression was a mixture of surprise and horror. “It’ll break their hearts.”

  “You don’t think seeing me like this would be worse for them?” I said. “The shame of them knowing about me and Laura? Because I will not forget her, Franklyn, and I will talk about her. They’ll see the truth of it on my face.”

  “Are we leaving now?” Thomas was asking his mother.

  “Soon,” Laura said quietly, her hand still in mine.

  “But she’s coming with us?” Thomas said.

  “Yes.”

  I looked at him and found him nodding at me. Franklyn was watching the boy when I turned back to him.

  “I’ve chosen. I’m sorry, Franklyn.”

  His jaw was set, and in that moment I could see just how much he’d aged in the past year. His eyes weren’t hectic with youth anymore, his mouth had grown thinner, more anxious. I was sorry, very sorry for all I’d put him through, but I was not about to give up the rest of my life to making amends. I wasn’t selfless enough.

  Franklyn’s eyes shifted from my face to the street behind me, and in one motion he pushed my head down and hauled me around to the side of the wagon.

  “Take your hands off her,” Laura demanded, her hand closing like a manacle around his wrist.

  “Charles is over there, coming out of the store,” Franklyn said. “There’s a table in the back where he eats in the mornings. I didn’t think he’d be awake so early.”

  “Franklyn?” I said.

  He lowered his voice to a hiss. “If it were only a matter of taking you home to Mother and Father I would, in a heartbeat, but Charles will not willingly let you live apart from him. Much as I think you’re confused about what happened to Charlie, I know he hasn’t treated you well.” He glanced at Laura, “If you’d been alone-”

  “I’m not alone.”

  “She has a family,” Laura said, “she has me and…” she looked to Thomas and Rachel, standing together to the side of her.

  “She said she’d come and take care of us,” Rachel said.

  I saw Franklyn’s face soften and I felt for him. How long had he and his wife tried for children and failed?

  “Franklyn,” I said, seeing my chance, “please, let me go.”

  His hand left my arm, reached up and plucked my hat from Laura’s head, clapping it onto mine and pulling it down low.

  “Get in the wagon.”

  My heart froze. Was he telling me it was over, that he was taking me home?

  “Both of you,” he said.

  Laura released him, grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Come on Thomas, Rachel, up into the wagon now.”

  Thomas climbed up into the box and helped Rachel up beside him. Rachel clambered up the tail board and stood under the canvas, looking down at me and my brother.

  “Franklyn-”

  He pulled a canvas bag from his pocket. “There’s about two hundred dollars here, it was supposed to be for travel and for Laura but, take it.” He held it out to me. “It should get you far away from here and pay for paper and mailing.” His eyes held mine, “when you get wherever it is you’re heading, I want a letter, you hear me? Telling me that my sister is alive and well, and much improved in her house building skills.”

  I snorted a laugh, but my eyes were wet. The money was heavy in my hand and his palm was warm through my shirt as he touched my arm.

  “I love you Cecelia.”

  “Franklyn…I love you too.”

  I threw my arms around him and hugged him close, his shirt soft under my hands. I kissed his cheek and he brushed his lips against my forehead.

  “Go,” he said, releasing me. “Go and…I hope you don’t regret it.”

  “I hope so too.”

  I circled the wagon, climbed up onto the seat with my heart between my teeth. What if Charles saw me, came running across the street and dragged me down? I took up the reins and looked at the gleaming backs of the horses. Ahead of us the street was mostly empty, a few people were on the boardwalks but the rutted road was clear.

  Laura climbed from the wagon box onto the seat beside me and I glanced behind us, down the length of the wagon, to where Franklyn was standing in the street. I tipped my hat at him and flicked the reins. The wheels under the wagon gripped the dust and rolled, crushing grasshopper bodies under their metal treads.

  No one would ever lock me up again. Though I might face danger, even death, I would never have to look on Charles again, or feel that fear. The weightlessness of relief made me giddy and I could not make myself sombre and serious in the face of our long journey north.

  Laura’s hand covered mine on the reins and I turned and smiled at her. We were leaving town, heading north with money, goods and provisions enough to start again, or rather, to start for the very first time, with each other.

  Thanks to the Reader,

  Thank you for buying a copy of Night Fires in the Distance. I hope you enjoyed it, and would really love to hear from you if you did, especially if you have any suggestions or comments on my work.

  I regularly check Goodreads and Amazon for reviews so please feel
free to feedback to me there. I’m also on twitter @JollySnidge or on Instagram as JollySnidge if you want to keep up with me, events I’m at and what new things I’m working on.

  As a self-publishing author, your feedback is invaluable to me.

  I have various other novels on Amazon, and if you’d like to check them out, they are all published under Sarah Goodwin. Whilst they do not have the professional input of a literary agent, which this novel benefitted hugely from, they are all works that I put a lot of love and hard work into – and they are a bargain at only 99p each.

  Special Thanks,

  My heartfelt gratitude goes out to everyone on my MA course for their input into this novel, to my Mum for reading me all the ‘Little House’ books as a child, and to my agent Laura Williams for all her hard work and input into getting this book as damn near perfect as it is.

  Table of Contents

  © 2016 Sarah Goodwin. All rights reserved. Cover Illustration: Bo Moore (bomoore.net)PrologueLau…

  PrologueLaura

  Chapter OneLaura

  Chapter TwoLaura

  Chapter ThreeLaura

  Chapter FourJames

  Chapter FiveJames

  Chapter SixJames

  Chapter SevenLaura

  Chapter EightLaura

  Chapter NineLaura

  Chapter TenCecelia

  Chapter ElevenCecelia

  Chapter TwelveCecelia

  Chapter ThirteenLaura

  Chapter FourteenCecelia

  Chapter FifteenLaura

  Chapter SixteenCecelia

  Chapter SeventeenLaura

  Chapter EighteenLaura

  Chapter NineteenCecelia

  Chapter TwentyLaura

  Chapter Twenty-OneCecelia