Savage Horizons

by Rosanne Bittner

  “They probably could. But Rand said Mexico recently won its independence from Spain. They need money and welcome American settlers to help increase trade with the United States. I think it is worth the chance. Is it any different than the risk we took settling here? We do not want to go farther west, and we all know we cannot go back East.”

  James nodded. “All right. We will try this place called Texas. But it is like going to a foreign land.”

  Caleb leaned forward and studied the map again. “For people like us, any place is a foreign land now. You cannot go back to Georgia, and I have been away from the Cheyenne too long to rejoin them. We will see if any other families want to join us in going south.”

  His eyes scanned the large territory called Texas, a province of Mexico. They would join the Americans there. Again his life had been uprooted, but this time he had Marie and his sons. Perhaps he was destined for Texas. Perhaps there he would find total peace, for its name came from the Indian word tejas, meaning friends, allies.

  He leaned back again, smiling at Marie. “Texas it is then. We will leave as soon as we have enough supplies for the trip.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Six

  SARAH carefully basted the material, then pulled the thread to create the fullest ruffle possible. Left with little money from Terrence Sax’s estate, she had opened a dress shop in the Sax house. From the time Cora Sax had first given her a needle and thread to help make their clothes in Fort Dearborn, Sarah had always had a talent for sewing and enjoyed it. To earn money to help care for her ailing aunt, and out of a need to have some purpose to her life, Sarah had taken up the thing she knew how to do best.

  Her aunt called out for her. Mary was no longer able to get out of bed. For the first three years after Sarah’s return from Washington, it was Mary who had cared for her constantly. Now Sarah was finally well, except for spells of weakness and shaking, and she felt duty bound to nurse Mary, though her own bitterness was growing over her situation. She had few friends and her time was spent almost entirely in taking care of her aunt and sewing. There was no room in her life and no desire for frivolities, including men.

  It was 1822. She was twenty-five years old and divorced, with no desire to be touched by a man again. There was only one man she wanted, and she could not have him. He was gone, and with him had gone all her love, all her joy. It had been seven years since those precious moments of incredible joy in Caleb’s arms, ecstasy she would never forget, and six years since her precious daughter was born. Her only memory of that event was hearing the baby cry for one brief moment. Sarah had never even seen her. After that had been the hell of struggling to come back from the darkness and gaining her mobility again.

  Mary called for her again, and she set aside the sewing, sighing deeply. She was tired.

  “Just a minute, Aunt Mary,” she called out.

  Now there was only this—existing. There was just enough softness left in her to have some pity for Mary, some small feeling of indebtedness. If her aunt had had any spine she never would have allowed her uncle to force her to marry Byron Clawson. But Mary never went against her husband’s wishes. Now she was an old crippled woman. Sometimes when Sarah looked at her she wondered if she too would age before her time, alone and lonely. And if and when she did, who would take care of her? There was no one now.

  She got up from the chair. She dared not dream about other times, about her happy childhood at Fort Dearborn, about her precious mother, about Caleb. There were no dreams left for her, only the reality of her situation. She walked down the hall. She had put her aunt in the guest room downstairs so she did not have to go up and down the stairs every time the woman needed something, which was often. She went to the door.

  “What is it?”

  “Could you get me some tea, Sarah? Everything aches so. I’m sure tea would make me feel better.” Mary’s voice was weak, and she looked extremely frail.

  “I’ll get it.” She turned and went to the kitchen, putting some tea leaves into a strainer and setting it inside a cup. She poured water into the cup from a kettle she kept warm over the kitchen hearth.

  She stared at the teacup as the leaves steeped, thinking again about the visit she had had earlier in the day from Byron’s father. Byron had remarried. Why had he come to tell her? What did she care? He also said Byron was returning to Saint Louis with his new wife, and since he was retiring he would make Byron president of his bank. Sarah knew Byron might one day run for senator or congressman in Missouri. Let him, she thought. As long as Byron never stepped foot on her doorstep, she didn’t care what he did. She was sure his father was hinting that she make no trouble for him, afraid she might tell the world what life had been like with Byron Clawson. He wanted to keep the divorce as quiet as possible, wanted Byron to make a good appearance with his new wife.

  She lifted the tea leaves from the hot water and set the strainer aside, carrying the tea in to her aunt.

  “Oh, thank you, dear. How sweet of you.” Mary took the cup and saucer. “Who was here earlier, Sarah?” She sipped some of the tea.

  “John Clawson,” Sarah answered, walking to the window to gaze at still another new building going up near the house. Saint Louis was becoming the center for travel to the west, which was beginning to pick up. “Gateway to the West” some were calling it, predicting that soon thousands would emigrate westward, and the businessmen of Saint Louis would reap a fortune. She thought about Caleb’s Cheyenne people. What would happen to them?

  “What did John want?”

  Sarah turned away from the window, bending down and straightening the blankets at the foot of the bed. “Just to tell me Byron has remarried and is coming back to Saint Louis to take over the bank. He might run for congress or some such thing. I don’t know why he bothered to tell me. I couldn’t care less.”

  The woman sighed. “Don’t you have any feelings for him, dear? After all, he was your husband.”

  Sarah’s face darkened with anger. “Don’t be a fool, Aunt Mary. He was an animal I was forced to marry just to give my baby a name. Now there is no baby and the hell he put me through was for nothing.”

  The woman shook her head. “Oh, if not for that Caleb none of this would have happened. If only he had never come here. I hope he died a slow death, all the trouble he gave you. Even your uncle changed after that boy showed up. He never would have been so cruel. He just didn’t want you to end up like Cora. He wanted the best for you, Sarah. I wish you could understand that.”

  “He never understood what I really wanted. He—” She straightened, realizing what Mary had said. “What do you mean you hope he died a slow death? You know how he died. He was crushed under his horse. Uncle Terrence buried him along the river.”

  Mary colored, her hand shaking slightly. “I only meant … I hope when that horse fell on him he suffered before drawing his last breath.” She took another sip of tea, refusing to look at Sarah.

  Sarah felt her entire body shiver with apprehension.

  “That’s a lie, Aunt Mary, isn’t it? You’re lying, and I want the truth! What really happened to Caleb?”

  “We told you what happened. If it was any different he would have come for you, wouldn’t he?”

  Sarah began to shake, as she always did when she was upset since coming out of her coma. She leaned closer to her aunt, jerking the tea out of her hands so that some of it spilled onto the blankets. She threw the cup to the floor, grasping Mary by her arms then and shaking her slightly.

  “Tell me the truth,” she exclaimed.

  The woman looked at her wide-eyed, frightened at the almost demented look in Sarah’s green eyes. “I promised Terrence—”

  “Terrence is dead,” Sarah screamed. “My God, Aunt Mary, tell me the truth! What happened to Caleb?”

  The woman trembled and started to cry. “You’re hurting me, Sarah.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened and she suddenly let go, surprised herself at how cold she had become. She turned away. “Please.
Tell me, Aunt Mary.” She rubbed her hands together, trying to stop her shaking.

  “I… I don’t want to anger you. I need you, Sarah. Please don’t leave me all alone.”

  Sarah closed her eyes, feeling ill. “I won’t leave you, Aunt Mary. I promise. Just tell me the truth.”

  The woman sniffed. “Caleb really was injured that day when his horse fell. When he tried to run… someone shot him in the back. But he didn’t die. They kept it a secret. The law never knew about it. And Terrence… Terrence sold him down the river.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and put her face in her hands.

  “He told them… if Caleb lived they could sell him to a slave ship. If he died, he was to be… dumped farther downriver so no one would connect him with Saint Louis. Even if he went to a slave ship, Sarah, he would be dead now. Men don’t live long on those ships, I’m told. No matter how you look at it he’s still dead. He… he never came for you, so he couldn’t possibly still be alive.”

  Alive. Could he be? “Did Byron have a part in it?”

  The woman hesitated. “He was there. That’s all I know.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt he was the one who shot Caleb in the back,” Sarah said disgustedly. She started to pick up the teacup, then hesitated. She looked at her aunt. “You told me that I was very sick when Caleb brought me back, so sick that even the doctor thought I was dead. Wouldn’t he have told Caleb I was dead?”

  The woman blinked, wiping her tears. “I suppose.”

  “Then Caleb must have thought me dead. Even if he lived, he wouldn’t have come back to Saint Louis because he knew he might be wanted. After all, he’d have been lucky to get out alive the first time. And with me dead, there would be no purpose. He could still be alive, Aunt Mary, alive and thinking me dead.”

  “Oh, Sarah, give it up. He can’t possibly be alive.”

  Sarah’s heart lifted. For the first time in years she had a small bit of hope to hold on to. “But what if he is, Aunt Mary? What if he is?”

  It was the first time Mary had seen any resemblance of happiness in Sarah’s eyes since she had come out of the coma, the first time there was any sign of the old Sarah there. “Sarah, even if he was alive, he’s gone on to his own life now. Perhaps he’s even married. And how would you ever go about finding him?”

  Sarah began to wring her hands. “I’m not sure. I just need to know. Don’t you understand, Aunt Mary? I need to know whether Caleb lived. I can’t go through life not knowing.”

  “And how would you prove otherwise, go to the wharves and ask for pirates? It would be far too dangerous.”

  “There has to be a way to at least try to find out. If he lived, he’s out there somewhere. Maybe… maybe he went back to Fort Dearborn for some reason. It’s a city now, Chicago they call it. Maybe he went for his son and returned to Fort Dearborn, or maybe he went west. There has to be a way to get word—” She walked to the window again, watching a boy hawking newspapers on the street outside. “The newspaper,” she muttered. “I could place ads in every newspaper in every city along the Mississippi and the Missouri, and any they might have out west. I could hire a man to do nothing but travel out there to place an ad saying I’m looking for a man named Caleb Sax—that I’m in Saint Louis. I could just sign it Sarah and leave a post office address so no strange men would come here. If Caleb saw the ad he’d know who it was and he’d come.” Her face lit up like a child’s. “Yes, he’d come. I know he would.”

  “Sarah, that’s crazy. It would never work.”

  She bent down to pick up the broken teacup. “Of course it would. It’s all I have, Aunt Mary. I’ll find Caleb if it takes every penny of my savings.” She looked at Mary, so frail and pitiful. “You should have told me sooner, Aunt Mary.”

  The woman sniffed, dabbing at her eyes again. “He… would have divorced me. He always threatened me with that. I never dreamed I could be married to someone as important as Terrence. I worshipped him, Sarah. I didn’t want to lose him.”

  Sarah felt her anger return. “It was that important to you?” She felt sick again. She carried the cup out of the room, returning to change the blankets, angry but burning inside with hope. She couldn’t control her wild thoughts. Caleb might be alive and she might even find him. Caleb! There was no proof of his death. “I’ll find him, Aunt Mary. I’ll find him,” she kept repeating. “I’ll place ads in a hundred newspapers—a thousand.”

  Mary did not answer, and when Sarah tucked a blanket closer, the woman’s gnarled hand flopped down oddly. Sarah’s heart froze and her skin tingled.

  “Aunt Mary?” She drew in her breath and looked closer. There were still tears on her cheeks, but Sarah knew instinctively the woman was dead.

  “Oh, Aunt Mary,” she groaned. She sat down beside the woman, drawing her into her arms and rocking her, weeping as she had not wept in years. She cried for Mary, for Tom Sax, her mother, Caleb, her dead baby. Her agony knew no bounds.

  But at least now she had a tiny bit of hope. Caleb had left Saint Louis alive.

  In that same year, Antonio López de Santa Anna conspired with the revolutionary generals who had achieved Mexican independence to oust Emperor Agustin I, exiling him from Mexico. They formed a new National Congress and set up a federal republic, with plans for a Mexican Constitution. Santa Anna, ruthless and ambitious, and only twenty-nine at the time, already had it in mind to one day govern Mexico.

  The journey south was not an easy one for Caleb, Marie and the rest of the Whitestones. Only one other family had come along, and the trip was long, hot and dusty. They had two wagons, several head of cattle, mules, and Caleb’s mustangs, which he herded behind the small parade. Marie drove one of the wagons, and James herded the cattle.

  But James Whitestone was never to make it to his new home. He collapsed and died on the way, and they had to leave his grave somewhere in northeast Texas, sure they would never see it again. Marie’s grief was great, as was her mother’s and Lee’s. Young Tom felt as though he had lost a grandfather, and Caleb mourned because John would never know his grandfather at all.

  The procession continued sadly, leaving the lonely, rock-covered grave behind. Caleb longed to stay by Marie’s side in the wagon, but he had to take care of the horses, and now the only other man along had to herd the cattle. Tom and Lee were both excellent riders and did their best to help. Caleb prayed every step of the way that he had made the right decision.

  But once they reached Texas they found life was not easy. They settled near the Austin colony amid a varied group of people, some good, some running from the law, a few wealthy men but mostly poor farmers and frontiersmen. In 1823 another son was born to Marie and Caleb. He was named David, and the boy survived a bitterly cold winter that left his mother and everyone else thinner. They had little to eat, and Caleb went out often to hunt buffalo, deer, and anything else that meant meat on the table. There was no bread, for the corn seeds had to be saved for the spring plant.

  Still, they all shared one thing in common: freedom. There was plenty of free land, and friendships spawned from mutual needs and problems. Others nearby were in the same predicament, and many graves were dug that year. But that only brought the community closer. Marie and Caleb began to feel that perhaps they really had found a home. At the same time their love had mellowed and grown richer as both matured. Marie knew deep inside that there was only one true, passionate love in Caleb’s life. Walking Grass had been the love of his youth, that sweet first love that no one forgets. But Sarah Sax was his true love, the one he had loved since his boyhood, and most surely the most beautiful. He had never spoken of her after that day he took Marie at the river. But Marie knew Sarah Sax still lived deep in his soul, in his dreams.

  But no woman could ask to be loved and cared for more than she was by Caleb. It was all she wanted or needed, and the joy in his eyes when she gave birth to their second son, David, made her proud. Caleb’s three sons were all fine, healthy boys, the children of his seed who gave him something to live
for. And because he wanted successful futures for his sons, and for Marie and her brother Lee, he laid claim to twenty thousand acres that very first year.

  Here a man had only to say what was his, with a limit of forty-nine thousand acres to an individual settler. The next spring, taking Lee and Tom along, he rode the perimeter of another twenty-nine thousand acres, marking rocks and trees and using any means he could to stake his claim. It was a dangerous undertaking, riding that far from the settlement, for the wilder Indians moved freely through the land, stealing horses and weapons and food. Caleb had built their cabin at the leading edge of the property he claimed, which was closest to Austin’s settlement. He knew that he and the others who had come early would benefit the most and retain the most rights if there were any squabbles with the Mexican government.

  “We won’t light a fire tonight,” he told Tom and Lee one night when they were far out in the hills. “I saw signs of Indians a ways back. We don’t want to announce our presence.” They had found a beautiful valley surrounded by low mountains, which by day was a startling array of colors, the deep green of the valley grass playing against the purple and red of the surrounding hills. “A perfect spot for horses,” Caleb had exclaimed. “This has to be part of our land. I will name it Blue Valley because of how blue the hills look at dusk.”

  “Father.” Tom spoke in a near whisper, moving his bedroll closer to Caleb’s.

  “What is it?”

  “I do not understand sometimes. We are Indians, and you have spoken of how you worry that some day the white man will settle all this land and all the Indians will be gone. But we settle the land, too.”

  Caleb stared up at the stars. “Well, Tom, you have to learn how to survive without betraying your own people. If I make a promise, I keep it. Most white men do not. If Indians wish to move across my land to camp on it I will not stop them, as long as they don’t steal my horses or harm my family. I could never be a part of forcing them to live as white men, or forcing them onto little pieces of land where they would die in shame. I understand how those Indians must live. But I know the white man will not allow them that life forever, just as James could see that. He did not want his family to suffer what was to come, nor did I. We both understood the white man’s ways better than most Indians, and I am half white. So we decided to use that knowledge to protect our sons and grandchildren. To survive, the Indian will have to learn to live the white man’s way, but you must be careful to never be like the white man on the inside.”