They ate a substantial meal, joined by Manuel and Frau Meyer’s two children. Young Hans touched Tilly’s heart immediately, for she had seen so many pale faces like his back in England and heard the same sharp cough. Then there was Berta. There was nothing wrong with Berta; she was a bright replica of her mother, her eyes laughing, her tongue chattering.
After the meal they made an inspection of the outbuildings and both Matthew and Tilly expressed their amazement at the size of the barn. It had looked big from outside but inside it appeared enormous. It was filled mostly with dried hay but there were also sacks of grain and animal feed, yet there was still room enough left to drive a cart and horse into it. There were four milking cows and three calves, and some chickens. Following this, they mounted their horses and rode round the extent of the land. In one corral there was a herd of crossed mustangs, and Matthew noticed straightaway that, as horseflesh went, they were of little account; but that didn’t matter, the land was good and included in it there was a large stretch of woodland to the east. Its presence explained the extensive outbuildings and the well-built house.
Altogether he was delighted with the place and showed it. The only thing that remained now to be settled was the question of the price.
Back in the house, drinking strong black coffee, he looked at Anna Meyer and said, ‘Well now, Mrs Meyer, what are you asking for your place?’
The little woman joined her hands together and rubbed one over the other as if washing them and she moved her head in small jerks before she said, ‘Eight hundred dollars. No less, no less.’
He opened his mouth as he stared at her. Then he looked towards Tilly and shook his head, and Mrs Meyer, taking the action that her price was too high, began to talk rapidly, her words interspersed with German, as she went on to explain about all the work they had put in; there was the stock and the land they had cultivated, and then this house.
Matthew was smiling widely when he held up his hand and said, ‘Please, I am not disagreeing with your price, I am only surprised at its moderation.’
‘Oh!’ Mrs Meyer now dropped on to a chair and her round face slid into a smile and it broadened as she listened to Matthew saying, ‘I will add half to that and gladly.’
‘Oh, tank you, tank you.’ Mrs Meyer now rose to her feet and held out her hand towards Matthew; then looking at Tilly, she said, ‘You satisfied?’
‘Oh yes, yes.’ Tilly nodded at her quickly. ‘And I love the house.’ She spread her arms wide. ‘I haven’t seen one I like better. Oh I noticed some more pretentious ones in Galveston but I am sure they weren’t half as comfortable.’
Showing her pleasure in the brightness of her face, Anna Meyer now said, ‘I have only seen Galveston once; but I have seen Mr Houston, that vas an honour ven he kom to Caldvell. All vent mad to see him.’ She waved her hand in a circle, and at this Matthew asked, ‘Who is your nearest neighbour? We passed a number of homesteads further along the trail.’
‘That would be the Owens, and further on there are the McKnights. They are about five miles back. Oh, there are plenty of neighbours that vay back, scattered but plenty. Not so many that vay. Austin is over there.’ She waved her hand to the side. ‘And far beyond in that direction,’ she swooped her arm round, ‘to the Comanche country.’
‘Do you . . . I mean have you had any Indian raids this far?’
Anna Meyer now put her head to one side and lifted her shoulders as she said, ‘Not for some years. Too many forts and Rangers; they good as Indians in fighting. They first kom in the third year, yes; but Big Hans and the three Vaqueros fought them off. The only thing they did was to burn our prairie-schooner.’
‘Prairie-schooner?’ Tilly twisted up her face in enquiry and Anna Meyer laughed as she said, ‘The vagon that ve kom in; Ve call it prairie-schooner.’
‘Oh! prairie-schooner.’ Tilly looked at Matthew, and he repeated, ‘prairie-schooner;’ and they both laughed as he said, ‘Good name for it, because they had to sail some rough seas, those wagons.’
‘Yes, yes, rough seas.’
It was after Matthew and Tilly had spent some time doing another round of the outbuildings when they heard the boy and the mother talking. They were passing the open back door of the house and the boy was saying, ‘We are really going, Mama?’ and the answer came with what sounded like a deep, deep note of relief, ‘Really going, my son. Really going.’
It was then that Tilly looked at Matthew and said, ‘Such a lovely place, why are they so anxious to leave do you think?’
‘Well, you heard what she said. And I can understand it: men don’t work for a woman like they do for a man, at least not a timid little creature like she is. She’s too kind, she’d be taken advantage of.’
A moment or so later, standing near the white railing, Tilly leaned her back against it and spread her arms along the top and looked up towards the sky as she said, ‘I never thought I’d ever settle here because somehow I felt I wasn’t cut to the mould. I didn’t seem to fit in like any of the women I’ve met. I could be as strong as them in body but not in the spirit it takes to pioneer. I would have stayed . . . oh yes, because of you.’
She turned her head and glanced at Matthew, then went on, ‘But now, here in this place, I’ve got a feeling I’ve come to the end of something, or to the beginning of something. For the first time since I stepped on to this soil I’ve got a feeling of peace in me, as if I’m on the point of beginning a new life.’
Matthew came and stood in front of her. He said nothing, but, taking her arms from the railings, he brought her hands together and to his chest and he pressed them there; then bending his head, he kissed them.
When the little girl came running up to them they both turned and beamed down on her, and she said, ‘Mama says will you stay tonight?’ Then looking from one to the other she pleaded, ‘Please do stay. It will be lovely. And Hans will play on his whistle for you and I will dance. I know how to dance.’ She lifted up her long print skirt and exposed her tiny ankles, then to their merriment she executed a few hopping dance steps.
Tilly looked at Matthew. His face was unsmiling now, it was as if he were considering, gravely considering. Then he turned to her, saying brightly, ‘Well, what about it? There’s no hurry really.’
Tilly paused for a moment as she thought of the children. But the children were with Katie, and so she said, ‘Why not? Why not?’
So it was arranged that they stay the night; and just as all decisions bear fruit, so this one altered the course of their lives.
Ten
The evening was sweet and calm. They sat on the verandah, Frau Meyer and her two children, Matthew, Tilly and Manuel.
Manuel was good company; he amused the children and them all with imitating the cries and calls of birds and animals, pulling his long, lean face into various shapes in the process.
Hans played his whistle while Berta danced to it on the smooth boards of the verandah. The evening seemed perfect.
When the moon came up and a chill spread over the land they went indoors; all except Manuel, who had arranged a warm place to sleep in the barn.
Indoors they did not immediately disperse to bed, there was so much to talk about, so much, Tilly considered, to learn from this little woman whom she wouldn’t see again after tomorrow morning, that it was a full hour before they began to say their goodnights.
Both Matthew and Tilly had refused to take Frau Meyer’s room whilst she slept on a palliasse in the living room. His wife, Matthew lied loudly, was used to sleeping rough; not that sleeping on the floor of this comfortable room could be considered roughing it . . .
It was all of half an hour later when they lay enfolded in each other’s arms, talking in whispers about their plans for the future, that they heard the cry or rather the scream from outside. This was followed by the sound of a gun shot.
Almost as one they rolled out of the blankets and were on their feet. Matthew had been sleeping in his small clothes but Tilly had on a nightdress, and as
she grabbed for a coat he rushed to the corner of the room where his pack and rifle lay, and he was already kneeling by the window when Frau Meyer scrambled down the ladder, the two children tumbling close behind her.
‘Vat is it? Vat is it?’ Then she added on a high cry, ‘Oh no! Oh no!’
‘Have you a gun?’
‘Yes, yes.’ She answered Matthew’s words by running to a cupboard at the side of the mantelpiece and there she took out two guns and after thrusting one into her young son’s hands, they both ran to the further window at the other side of the door.
‘Is your back door barred?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your windows upstairs, are they open?’
‘No, no.’
The questions and answers were thrown back and forward in whispers.
Tilly was kneeling on the floor at the other side of the window opposite to Matthew. She was holding the Colt revolver in her shaking hand, and Matthew didn’t look at her as he said under his breath, ‘It isn’t a bear this time, so remember what I told you.’
Oh my God! My God! She did not say the words aloud but they kept revolving in her mind. The children and Katie, what would they do? Oh my God! don’t let it be Indians. Please, please God, don’t let it be Indians.
When the lighted brand flashed up past the window and on to the roof she knew it was Indians; and when another one flashed upwards Matthew said, ‘They can’t do any harm, there’s no straw there.’ Then again he added, ‘Remember what I said.’
The next minute Tilly closed her eyes tightly against the unearthly scream. When she opened them again it was to see Indians, mad, excited, bloodlust Indians for the first time. She did not know how many, but the verandah seemed full of them; then they were battering at the door.
When she heard Matthew firing, she, too, pulled the trigger of the Colt, and she was amazed to see a man fall backwards below the end of the room as the whole window was burst in, and almost at the same time there came through it three terrifying creatures. She did not see Frau Meyer fall, she only heard a long high moan and the children screaming. Then Matthew fired again and one of the Indians grasped at his neck. As Matthew reloaded his gun, she too fired, then she knew a moment of agony as she saw young Hans clutch his chest. There was no time to think, Oh God! Oh God! what have I done? for the two demons were almost on top of them. The very sight of them was so terrifying that it paralysed her finger on the trigger. They were like devils out of hell; their heads were crowned with buffalo skulls, the horns giving them every appearance of devils. Their faces and bare trunks were painted, and round their necks hung strings of bones.
She saw the axe lifted and about to cleave Matthew’s head in two, but as he lifted the gun, which he had been unable to load, to ward off the blow and fell the Indian, the axe cleaved through his shoulders and he fell on to his side. It was then that she fired again, but she didn’t see the man fall for his companion had gripped her by the hair. He, too, had an axe in his hand but he didn’t use it on her. As he pulled her forward she fell over Matthew and her face and nightdress were covered with his blood. As her hands sought for something to grip to check herself being dragged outside she found nothing to stay her progress. Her screams were ringing in her ears. The roots of her hair were being dragged from her head. She was on her knees now, then on her belly, and her hands still flailing for a hold found something. It was the stout leg of a cupboard and as she hung on to it for a moment her other hand passed over a known object. It was the Colt. How she brought her arms upwards she never knew, she only knew that she was firing at random, and after the third shot the hold on her hair was released. And when this happened she didn’t pause to rest but jerked herself to her knees to see the fearful creature bending over double and holding his guts while he stared down at her. She watched his mouth open into one great gap. He now turned his great twisted painted face from her and looked at his two companions lying in contorted heaps on the floor among the rest; then he swung about and stumbled back to the window and fell through it on to the verandah.
Dragging herself to her feet, she walked backwards, the gun still in her hand. At the top of the room she almost fell over Matthew’s bloody body and, like one sleepwalking she ignored it and looked out of the window and there she saw what appeared to her to be a strange sight, for standing clear in the moonlight were two other fearsome Indians and they were helping the wounded one down the steps. She watched them dragging him across to the railings where the horses were tethered.
The scene was as light as day for now the moon was assisted by the flames from the barn. She saw the two Indians now gesticulating towards the house again as if they were coming back, and she stood rigid for a moment until she saw them mount their horses and move off. And then there settled on the whole place a quiet, a peaceful quiet such as had enveloped it not more than half an hour ago.
Oh my God! Oh dear God! Oh my God! She must do something. But what? She was going to faint. In this moment she remembered telling herself many years ago that it was only ladies in church who fainted, but she was going to faint now. No! No! Matthew, Matthew. She found herself kneeling by him and she closed her eyes tightly for a moment and bowed her head over his arm that was almost cleaved from his body. Slowly she laid her ear to his chest, never expecting for a moment to hear a beat, but when she did, she became galvanised into life and, looking around wildly, she grabbed at the rough holland sheet in which they had lain such a short while ago and, tearing it into strips, she set about aiming to join the arm to the shoulder. When she saw this was hopeless she simply bound the strips tightly around his chest and the great bleeding gap. But when his life blood soaked the sheet immediately she quickly rolled a piece of the linen into a flattish ball and pressed it into the gap, then pushed the arm against it and bound it with the remainder of the sheeting. Then she straightened out his legs and put a pillow under his head; after which she bowed her body over his unconscious one and whispered, ‘Don’t go, Matthew. Don’t go. Oh my love, don’t go.’
Slowly now, she pulled herself to her feet and for the first time she looked about her. And again she felt she was going to faint, for now she was looking past the two dead Indians to the crumpled Frau Meyer, whose head looked like a bright red ball. Closing her eyes she muttered, ‘Oh Christ Almighty! Why? Why?’ When she opened them again she was looking at little Hans.
Well, perhaps he had died mercifully. She had heard that they took children as captives and of what happened to them. But to think that she had shot him. Where was Berta? And Manuel?
She heard herself screaming now, ‘Berta! Manuel!’ For the first time the door was opened. Throwing the bar aside, she rushed on to the verandah and down the steps; and there she stopped and now she knew that she was going to faint, she must faint to get away from this sight, and as she sank to the ground she kept crying, ‘No! No! not to little Berta.’ What kind of creature would knock the brains out of a child against a post?
As she came out of the black depths into consciousness she knew she was being carried and the first thing she did was to scream, until a voice said, ‘There now, there now, you’re all right.’
She tried to open her eyes but she couldn’t, and the voice said, ‘Lay her down here.’
Someone was holding her head now and someone was making her swallow a liquid which burnt her throat. She coughed, and gradually she looked upwards and she thought for a moment it was a dream, that she must have fallen asleep after looking at that captain this morning, because here he was again bending over her, calling her ma’am.
She hung on to the thought of it being a dream until she heard the voice say softly, ‘We’ve got him out, sir, but he’s almost burnt to a cinder.‘ And then she knew it was no dream, it was Manuel they were talking about; and once more she was screaming, but sitting up now screaming, ‘Matthew! Matthew!’
‘It’s all right. It’s all right, ma’am; they’re seeing to him.’ She was staring into a rough looking face now and she recognised the
voice. It was the sergeant who had kept bellowing, and now she spoke to him in a voice that was a croak: ‘My husband?’
‘They’ve strapped him up, ma’am. We’ll get him to a doctor as soon as possible. Do you think you’re fit to ride?’
‘Yes, yes.’ She tried to struggle to her feet but had to lean on the sergeant’s arm, and now she asked dully, ‘The others?’ for she had forgotten for a moment what she had seen, and the sergeant turned his eyes away from her as he asked, ‘How many were there?’
‘The mother, and her two children, then Manuel, our guide, and my husband . . . ’
He still kept his head turned away as he shook it and muttered, ‘Well, ma’am, I’m sorry to say ’tis only you and your husband who are left.’
‘Oh my God! My God!’
‘Indeed! Indeed, my God! ma’am. Indeed! Indeed! But we’ll get the maniacs, we’ll get ’em, never fear. They’re on the warpath all along the line, but they’ll suffer for it. Aye ma’am, they’ll suffer for it, ’cos so are we, so are we, we’re on the warpath an’ all. Oh aye.’
‘Other places too?’
‘Yes, other places too, ma’am. It’s been a night of blood all right.’
‘I . . . I must go to my husband.’
The sergeant now supported her up the steps and into the room. She was surprised to see no bodies on the floor, only Matthew, and she saw immediately that he was conscious for he looked at her for a moment but he had no power to speak.
‘He’s all right, ma’am, but he’s lost a great deal of blood. We’ll get him to the fort as soon as possible.’
‘Home.’ The word was a whisper and both the sergeant and the captain, who had now come on the scene, bent over him, and it was the captain who spoke, saying, ‘You must see a doctor, we’ll have to take you to the fort first.’
Tilly Trotter Wed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) Page 33
