by Judith Pella
All at once, as if her unspoken wish were being answered, several riders approached the herd. There were perhaps twenty of them, and there could be no doubt they were stalking the herd, which suddenly lurched into motion at the first hint of pursuit. And of another fact there could also be no doubt: the riders were Indians!
Too captivated to heed her own danger, Deborah stood in the grass shielded by nothing more than some spindly prairie gorse. She was, nevertheless, a great distance from the scene, and even a far-seeing Indian was unlikely to notice her unless he chanced to gaze directly at her. She did not move for several moments. The buffalo were trotting at a fair clip now, but the hunters, on their sleek mounts, were keeping pace. She could discern little more detail than that, but could tell when one of the Indians made a successful kill, for a mighty buffalo would stumble forward as its forelegs crumpled under it; then its body would crash to the ground. Two or three fell in this way, some impaled by arrows, some dropped by rifle fire, before the herd had stampeded across the plain, almost out of sight.
When the Indians returned to butcher and pack their kill, Deborah suddenly realized her danger. No longer occupied with the intensity of the hunt, the warriors might take a closer note of their surroundings. It never occurred to her that they might be a source of help, and thus, she dropped quickly into the grass, hoping her foolish curiosity would not be her undoing. She carefully crept back to the river and down beside the cover of the ridge. There she waited, hardly moving, hardly breathing, for what seemed like hours.
Finally she crawled back up the ridge and toward where she had witnessed the hunt. Standing and gazing all about, she saw nothing. The prairie was as empty of man and beast as it had been during her previous days of travel. The buffalo and Indians might have been nothing more than an illusion, a mirage born of her weariness.
With every passing hour, as she continued her journey along the course of the Cimarron, she became more and more amazed at the wonders around her. The lovely green forested Virginia countryside had given her a taste of the marvels of nature. Her happy days riding the Texas prairie with Jacob had begun to instill an appreciation of the peculiar beauty of this new land. But now the land became a part of her as never before. Her very life depended upon it. Either she could fight it as if it were her enemy, reaching out to crush her at first opportunity, or she could flow with it, not as an adversary but as a friend, a companion. If she starved here on these wide, grassy plains it was not because they willed it, but rather due to her own ineptitude, her inability to truly become one with the land. It offered plenty to succor all her needs: fresh, clear water, abundant food, and beauty to soothe her soul. Only her lack of ingenuity prevented her from partaking fully of it.
She remembered how the maps in her childhood school books had always labeled this huge central swath of the United States “The Great American Desert.” In reality, it was no desert. True, when you wandered too far from rivers, it was dry, dusty, and burning hot in the summer. Much of it was flat and treeless—so, of course, those travelers accustomed to a forest-based society might find little to recommend it. But Deborah found only openness and freedom. If she had one of her father’s lively thoroughbreds, she would give it full rein and fly like the very wind over its length and breadth.
On the morning of her third day of travel, at sunrise, Deborah climbed a small rise a hundred or so yards from the river. She sat quietly and watched the sun ascend over the flat plain stretching out below her. The clouds and gray of previous days had cleared and, though a chilly wind blew, the day promised to be a fine one. The pale blue sky, streaked with wispy strands of pink, seemed to offer her a pleasant greeting. She was tired and weak—sometimes she wondered if she could take another step—but the sight refreshed her as surely as if it had been a hearty breakfast. It made her think of her father and Graham, and that alone was food for a weary soul.
Josiah Martin had passed on to her and her brother his awe for the wonders of nature. How many times had she heard him say, “There is beauty in all of creation, children, even if sometimes you have to search a bit to find it.”
And he was always quoting scripture to them. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” And, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.”
Deborah suddenly began to believe he might be right. It was impossible that this land could have sprung up in a random fashion with no direction, no design. Nothing supported more eloquently the existence of a Master Creator than nature itself. It gave proof of a God who cared enough to spare nothing of His creative energy in order to provide such a varied and vibrant world. Sitting there completely alone, with no sign of life within miles save a jackrabbit or two bounding across her path, Deborah could almost feel as if she were the sole recipient of this heavenly gift. Odd to think God would give her gifts! She knew well that she deserved none. How often had she repudiated Him, railed at Him, even cursed Him? She had never truly denied His existence, though, for to do so would have invalidated everything her father stood for, everything he was as a person.
Still, if God were responsible for the beauty of nature, was He not then responsible for all aspects of His creation? For death and pain, and the cruelty of men like Caleb and Leonard Stoner? But how could the same God who brought her such suffering also bestow upon her the inestimable gift of what now surrounded her? Even Deborah’s father had found no adequate answer for this question. When Graham had died, Josiah had only been able to say that God had some purpose, that He would somehow bring good out of the tragedy of death.
What good had come out of it, anyway? The death of her father? The disastrous marriage to Leonard? Her near execution? An unwanted pregnancy?
Could she possibly believe that good was yet to come her way? She glanced up at the sky where the display of color had gradually given way to the pale blue of morning. She was not so naive as to believe that she ought to have a perfect life with no troubles; no one on earth had such a life. But if she were expected ever to embrace God, believe in Him in the way her father had, she must understand Him first. She must be able to trust that she was not merely the victim of the whims of some almighty tyrant—some heavenly Caleb Stoner. She would never—never!—subject herself to such an existence again. And even if God did somehow prove himself to have her best interests in mind, she wasn’t sure she could even then submit her will to another again.
She was finally free, and this untamed wilderness only verified that sensation. Ironically, if this land were God’s gift to her, it also stood as an obstacle to the most profound gift He would give her—true freedom that went far beyond the mere shedding of physical shackles, a freedom from the bondage she herself had laid upon her own spirit. The keen external release this land gave her blinded her, at least for the time being, to her deeper need. She simply could not see how submission to God was not the same as subjection and bondage and abject slavery.
“I might believe,” Deborah murmured into the wind, “but I will never submit. If you are truly not a tyrant, you will accept that.”
She sat there for some time before she found the inner will to rise and leave that peaceful spot, to face again her arduous and seemingly hopeless journey. But at last she struggled to her feet, plodded down the hill and, fixing the position of the river to her left, began once more. Often she traversed no more than six or seven miles a day. She stopped frequently, sometimes lying down right where she was and falling asleep. Once in a while she heard the cries of wolves, but she was too tired to be afraid. She had made peace with the land, if not with the Creator of the land, and she was ready to accept the fate it held for her. She might well die here in this lovely wilderness. She had always known that sheer grit and determination were not enough to sustain the frail physical shell that contained them.
And each day that shell became weaker and weaker. The wound in her shoulder began to flame and fester. It needed soap and water and a clean bandage. But she dared not bathe in the river
, for the cold water and cold air might well give her pneumonia. She had been lucky to have suffered no ill-effects from her first dousing, but now she was much weaker, and it would not take much to bring her down. Twice more she had speared raw fish for food, but when she tried a fourth time she became sick, vomiting what little food was in her stomach and heaving bile for hours afterward. The mere thought of fish, raw or otherwise, made her want to retch. She could not go on much longer.
She began wondering if following the river was such a good idea after all. Perhaps it was taking her away from civilization rather than toward it. She knew so little of the geography of this area; not many whites did. They weren’t interested in this so-called wasteland—that’s why thirty years ago they had designated it Indian Territory. She knew of no white settlements here, but she thought parts of the Cimarron River were close to the Kansas border, where there were certainly settlements and army posts. But even if she was only fifty miles from Kansas, it could mean many days’ journey at her present speed. Without food or medical attention she could be dead long before that.
If she did dare to leave the river course, she risked dying of thirst, for water would be scarce. She gazed off toward the north. Griff had intended on going that way. He never said if he had another hideout somewhere out there, or if he was heading toward a town. There would be water if Griff planned to go that way, yet distances between water holes on horseback were far different than for a weak, sick woman on foot. At least by the river she could be certain of water, if nothing else.
She cast one final, wistful glance northward, then continued to follow her previous path along the river. She thought of those Indians she had seen the other day. They would have food and shelter from the cold wind, and maybe even some medicine to ease the ache in her shoulder. Perhaps it would not be so bad to be found by Indians. Oh, she had heard the horror stories of white women taken captive by them. Caleb had told her a few to frighten her out of running away. They amounted to tales of women mutilated and ravaged, forced to live in filth as slaves and chattel to brutal, savage warriors.
Something like what I escaped in Stoner’s Crossing, Deborah thought with bitter irony.
She would give anything to see but one human face—any face, be it red or white. Or, was she really that desperate? Would she give up her freedom? Fortunately, Deborah never had to make such a choice.
Around midmorning of her fourth day, the winds, always constant on the plains, doubled in velocity as they decreased in temperature. Deborah had heard of these icy blasts—they called them “Northers” in Texas, probably because they seemed to be blowing directly from the North Pole. Deborah’s progress had slowed, sometimes even stopped altogether as she plowed her way against the wind like a ship sailing into a gale. Many times she was buffeted to the ground, and it took all her reserve of strength to rise again to her feet, only to be knocked down once more after a few steps. Often she just crawled along the ground, which turned into mud when the rain began. Rain and wind lashed violently at her, while splattered mud blinded her. After an hour of this unrelenting struggle, she wanted only to stop, lie down where she was, and rest. But instinct told her that if she stopped now, she would find only a rest from which she’d never awaken. As long as she kept in motion, she was alive; soon that became her only way to discern between life and death.
22
Deborah no longer knew if she was going in the right direction. She could not see the river through the downpour. But she no longer cared.
Before, she had had some hope she might survive this impossible situation. The land had been hospitable, friendly. She might have found the strength to continue for a few more days at least. Now Deborah did not know what to think. The prairie had suddenly turned on her, become hostile. It no longer held welcoming arms out to her, but struck her instead with heavy fists. Like everything else in this life, it wanted to crush her, break her spirit, control her, kill her, destroy her.
“Don’t hit me! Please, Leonard! I will try to be a better wife.”
Deborah clawed her fingers into the muddy earth in a pathetic attempt to propel her feeble body along. But the hard ground, the driving rain, the icy wind, were no longer substantial entities. They were monsters with huge, yawning mouths and sharp, icy teeth, ready to devour her.
“The earth is the Lord’s….”
Was that, then, His answer to her? Plucking His gift from her hand because He could not have complete control of her being?
“Oh, Papa, how could you have been so wrong?”
Soon other monsters loomed in Deborah’s path. She could not shut them out, for she was no longer able to tell the real from the imagined. Was it the cold sting of the rain, or the vile touch of her husband? And that sound—the howling wind, or … or Caleb Stoner’s accusing rasp?
“You killed my son, and you will pay!”
“Haven’t I already paid? How much more must I suffer before you are happy?”
But Leonard was dead. Why did the suffering continue? Would she never be free? For so long she had thought only of his death and the release it would bring. She had bought that gun, praying—praying!—for him to give her cause to use it. But it hadn’t turned out as she planned, as she had hoped. She still wasn’t free, not really.
“Don’t you know, Deborah, I will always control you! Remember, it is my baby you are carrying.”
The whine of the wind turned into evil laughter as the specter of Deborah’s dead husband hovered before her, nightmarish, frightening.
He had deserved to die. No honest court would have convicted her. He had deserved that bullet in his back. But Caleb had twisted everything, turned lies into truth and truth into lies until even she had ceased to know what was true. And the whole town believed him; and in her confusion and guilt, she could not convincingly refute them.
“Yes, sir, Your Honor. She come into my store and bought herself a derringer. She said it was to be a present for her man, so for me to be mum about it.” The storekeeper’s damning testimony.
“Looks like she’d been planning to kill him for months.”
“It don’t matter if she ended up using a different weapon. Derringer or six-shooter, the husband’s just as dead.”
“She said he struck her.” Even the banker’s nice wife! “But I never saw any mark on her.”
“She and my brother Jacob were seeing each other secretly.” Oh, Laban! Not you, too!
During the whole of the trial there had been no one to speak on her behalf. Even strangers accused her. That woman from the cantina—Deborah had never laid eyes on her before the trial, yet what a gleam of triumph radiated from her eyes as she testified.
“I was acquainted with Señor Stoner, as I am with all the regular customers.” She was an attractive Mexican woman, three or four years older than Deborah. What could she possibly have against Deborah? “He was very distressed over his wife’s behavior. He did not say she had been unfaithful, but a woman can tell these things. I could see he had been shamed by his wife.”
“He spoke freely with you?” the judge had asked.
“No more than anyone speaks in a saloon. Once when he had more to drink than was good for him, he did say she had locked him from her bedroom and threatened to kill him if he touched her.”
Lies! All lies!
Why did no one testify about the splintered door or her strangled cries of agony? But Leonard had always been careful. It was possible even Maria did not know everything. She did not live in the main house, after all, and most of Leonard’s abuse took place long after she had retired to her cottage.
“Sí, the door was broken one day.” Yes, Maria had testified. “But, Señor Judge, what is a man to do when a wife will not perform her duties?”
“Were there fights?”
“Never was a pleasant word exchanged between them, Señor, but I did not ever see Señor Leonard Stoner harm his wife.”
No, of course you did not see. No one saw.
“What of the guards?”
“After the trouble with Señor Jacob, Señor Leonard could not trust his wife any longer. He wanted a child of his own, Your Honor. What man doesn’t?”
Yes, it all made perfect sense. She had every reason to kill him, but none of the reasons stated in court added up to self-defense. She was an unfaithful wife who wanted out of a constricting marriage. She had committed premeditated murder in order to indulge freely in her immoral ways.
Caleb’s lies had not helped either.
“I sensed from the beginning that she would bring my son nothing but grief. She was headstrong and spoiled. Even on their wedding night she had refused him his due. He confessed this to me in total desperation.”
“It’s true,” verified one of the wedding guests. “I was just partaking of a last brandy with Caleb when Leonard joined us—not an hour after … well, you know.”
“What was his state of mind at that time?”
“He didn’t look none too happy. Not like you’d expect a fella to look on his wedding night.”
Everyone saw what they wanted to see. She was a wanton hussy, a murderer. There was only one thing to do with such a person. No one protested when she was sentenced to hang. And neither did she.
She had killed Leonard, as surely as she had probably killed Jacob, even Griff. One she had willed dead, the others she had sent to a sure death by her poor judgment. Did it matter if her finger pulled a trigger or not? That’s what Laban had meant with his accusations the day Jacob left. She gave him no argument then, so why should she now? Everyone she loved was dead. To protest now might only place Leonard’s true murderer on the gallows, and Deborah could not face causing yet another death. At the time it seemed only right to let it all end with her. Life had become too much of a burden, anyway.
A heavy, heavy burden.
As heavy as a soaking wet sheepskin coat dragging down upon her shoulders. Dragging her down … into the mire, the filth. The burning pain in her right arm slicing through her entire body. A woman can be expected to fight for only so long.
