“How is she, Father?” Tom asked him now when Caleb joined him near the great stone fireplace in the main room. He understood his father’s love for Sarah Sax, knew the story of how they had been torn apart. How many times had his father talked about the woman before they had been reunited, longed and mourned for her? It was Tom who had found her in St. Louis. He had gone with a delegation of men sent by Stephen Austin to give talks and try to get more people to come to Texas. Sarah had seen a newspaper article with Tom and Caleb’s names, and through that had learned Caleb was alive and well in Texas. Tom had brought her home to his lonely father, along with his own half-sister, Lynda, who he had never even known existed before finding her in St. Louis.
The young man read the worry then in his father’s eyes. What if Sarah died now, after only a year of being together again?
“It’s hard to say,” Caleb answered. “She’s not that strong physically.” Caleb turned. “I’m going out for a smoke.” He took a cigar from a box that sat on the fireplace mantel. “Where are John and Lee?”
“Out cleaning stalls. They figured it didn’t make much sense to stand around waiting any longer, and with a lot of the men getting ready for the roundup, somebody has to clean the barns. I’d be helping, too, but I was worried about you.”
A soft smile was shared by father and son. No father liked to have favorites, but there was something very special about Tom. For years he was all Caleb Sax had to keep him going. Caleb had been a man forced to wander, a man of two bloods and two worlds and no roots. Tom had been the only stable element in his life.
“Don’t worry about me,” Caleb told him. “If you have chores to do, go ahead.” He walked outside, standing on the veranda, his eyes scanning the several rosebushes that bloomed around the wooden porch. Sarah had planted the roses, and they seemed to mirror the gentleness and beauty Sarah Sax had brought to their lives in the wilderness. Caleb knew she would endure the worst deprivations to stay with him and that was part of what he loved about her.
He cringed when she cried out again. Closing his eyes, he whispered a prayer to Maheo, his Cheyenne god, the only god he’d ever recognized even though he had had to pretend to become a Catholic to stay in Texas. He saw no difference in the Catholic god and his own. They were simply called by different names.
He lit his cigar and stared out toward the barn that had taken them months to build. He could see young John carrying in some hay. Three children by three wives—Tom, by his Cheyenne wife; John by his Cherokee wife, Lynda born to Sarah, the white woman he had loved most of all. Now there would be another child by Sarah.
Lee came out of the barn then. He was the brother of Caleb’s dead Cherokee wife, Marie. He and John were all that remained of the Cherokee family with whom Caleb had first settled in Texas. When Caleb had finally faced the loss of Sarah, he had married Marie. She had loved him fiercely and faithfully. Now she lay buried on the little knoll behind the house, along with the rest of her family and her second son by Caleb, David.
Lee had stayed on, helping with the ranch. He was a husky, strong young man with the round, friendly face of a Cherokee and a heart of gold that did not seem to match his powerful, bullish build. If any man was all good, it was Lee Whitestone. Once Lynda came to live with them, it had not taken long for the young man to fall crazy in love with Caleb’s beautiful daughter. They were married now, as happy a couple as any two could be. Caleb was glad for both of them, for Lynda had had her own share of tragedy growing up in an orphanage. Lee loved and protected her with the fierceness of a lion.
Caleb’s blue eyes moved to the distant hills, past thorny mesquite and the greens and yellows of chino and tobosa grasses. He could sit for hours and stare at this land and never tire of its barren beauty. But today he saw something that spoiled that beauty, something that made him throw down his cigar before taking another puff.
“Tom,” he called out. “Get out here!”
The young man was out the door quickly, coming to his father. Caleb nodded toward the distant hills.
“What do you think?”
Tom squinted his eyes, seeing nothing at first, then focusing on several riders who were coming fast. In this vast land something could look far off and be close, or seem close and be very far away. After years of living in Texas, it was still hard to judge. “Comanche?” the young man asked.
“I’m not going to wait until they’re close enough to find out. Run out and tell Lee and John to close up the barn. Keep whatever horses are in there inside and don’t worry about the rest of them. Get your muskets and alert the hired help! I’ll get the women into the hiding place.”
Their eyes met. “Father, Sarah’s in the middle of labor!”
“That can’t be helped. Better to give birth in a dirt hole under the house than to have the baby carved out of her stomach by some Comanche warrior! Get moving!”
Caleb’s Indian instincts went into action. In moments like this he became Blue Hawk again, the fierce warrior who had once waged a personal war against the Crow Indians after they had killed his young Cheyenne wife. To this day the name Blue Hawk struck terror in the hearts of those Crow who remembered the Cheyenne warrior’s sudden raids and brutal attacks. The story of Blue Hawk had become a legend among them.
Caleb had a full family and a real home, land of his own to protect. No Comanche raid was going to spoil that for him. As Tom rushed to carry out his instructions, Caleb returned to the bedroom.
“I think Comanche are coming,” he told Lynda. The girl’s eyes widened. “You two have got to get down into the hiding place.”
Sarah groaned, terrified at the thought of being moved. “Baby … my baby.”
“Father, the baby is coming!”
“Then it will have to come down there, and it will have to come without Ada. There’s no time, Lynda. I’ve seen pregnant women’s bellies slashed open before. We’ve got to get both of you out of sight in case there are too many of them for us to handle.” He bent down to scoop Sarah up into his arms.
Lynda knew better than to argue. Caleb Sax knew this land and he knew the Comanche. A part of him understood their own desperate struggle. If they had been willing to cooperate, Caleb would gladly let them camp on his land. But of all Indian tribes, the Comanche was perhaps the most difficult to reason with. The Mexican army was unable—or more likely unwilling—to help protect the American settlers in the north, so many had suffered the horrors of Comanche raids.
Sarah screamed as Caleb lifted her. “Move the rug away and open the door,” Caleb ordered Lynda.
The girl grabbed towels and a couple of pillows before rushing to the main room. She pulled away a braided rug and lifted a heavy oak trapdoor that was so closely melded into the rest of the floor that it was difficult to see when it was closed. She moved around and descended a short ladder into the hole where they stored potatoes and other vegetables and which also served as a hiding place in time of raids. Caleb had learned his lesson the hard way when Marie died. Now his women had a place to go where they would not be found and where they would be safe even if the house were to burn.
Caleb waited a moment while Lynda lit an oil lamp. Then he moved around to the ladder, laying Sarah carefully on the floor near the door until he got his footing. His heart cried out at her groaning and weeping, and he prayed he was not harming the baby. He reached up, getting hold of her carefully and carrying her down the ladder. Her weight was nothing to him, but to hold her and keep his balance was hard. He gently laid her on the dirt floor.
“Caleb,” she gasped, grabbing the front of his buckskin shirt. “Stay … here.”
“You know I can’t,” he told her, bending down and kissing her forehead. “I’m so damned sorry, Sarah. I didn’t want it to be like this for you.” His eyes teared. “Try not to cry out.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “It will be all right. I’ll be back in no time, as soon as we chase off the Comanche.”
She looked at him with terror-filled eyes. They all knew the hor
rors Comanche were capable of administering. Caleb looked at Lynda. “Do the best you can. You’ll have to put out that lamp when I close the door or it will smoke you out of here. There’s a candle over where the canned peaches are stored. You can light that.”
Their eyes held. “Be careful, Father. And watch out for Lee. I couldn’t bear to lose either one of you.”
He touched Lynda’s cheek lightly. “After all we’ve been through to be together again, God’s not going to let us lose that now.”
He let go of Sarah’s hand reluctantly, pain moving through his chest when she wept his name. He climbed up the ladder, hesitating at the top. “Don’t come out of here unless Lee, Tom, or I come to personally open this door, understand? No matter what you hear above you, stay put and keep quiet.”
Lynda nodded. Caleb quickly closed the door, pulling the rug back over it. Already he heard war whoops and a gunshot. He grabbed his pistol and musket, both of which he always kept at hand since he had learned the hard way that a man seldom had time to reload a musket. He would be lucky to get one shot out of each, so he would have to make them count, then rely on his knife for the rest.
He ran outside to see Indians circling the barn. Lee and Tom were shooting at them from doors that opened out from the loft. Young John was nowhere to be seen.
Caleb mounted a black mare he had tied at the house, leaping onto its bare back and riding off, calling out his own war whoops as he felt his blood running hot. These Comanche were shooting at his sons and his daughter’s husband, and they were most likely after Caleb’s prized horses. Caleb was determined they would not get those horses, nor harm any member of his family. At the same time, he wanted to keep the fight centered around the barn and away from the house and the women.
Most of his hired hands were still close by. There were fifteen men who worked for him full time. Most of them were Cherokee who had fled to Texas from persecution in Georgia. His best hand was Jake Highwater, Ada’s husband. In addition to those who worked for Caleb, other Cherokee lived on his land, farming on their own and grateful for his generosity. He could even get more help from those Cherokee when necessary, but today he had no time to go and get them. He only hoped none of them had already been attacked. He looked over at the distant cabin where Jake and Ada lived with their three sons and was relieved to see no Comanche. He knew Ada was hiding inside. Jake was probably in the barn with Lee, Tom and the other men who were shooting it out with the Comanche.
Caleb spotted a Comanche trying to climb into the window of a closer cabin. He fired, and a red hole opened up in the warrior’s back. The Indian screamed and fell out of the window.
Caleb charged up beside the cabin, dust swirling around him from the hard earth. He jumped off his horse and knelt at the corner of the building, taking aim with his pistol. Again he fired at one of the Indians who circled the barn and again he hit his mark. Several Comanche were already down, but so were several of Caleb’s men. One lay nearby, his skull smashed by a tomahawk.
There was no time to think about Sarah and the hell she must be going through, giving a difficult birth in the dark hole under the house. The war whoops, thundering horses and gunshots had decimated the peace of the Sax ranch. An arrow whizzed past Caleb’s ear. He turned to see a Comanche warrior nearly on top of him. He rolled away as a tomahawk came down and missed him. He leaped up again and grabbed the warrior off his horse. The man landed with a grunt, stunned by Caleb’s strength and looking at him in wide-eyed surprise, for this settler was not white but Indian, as were most of the men the attacker had seen at this settlement. This surprised and confused the Comanche. These settlers didn’t fight like frightened white men. They fought like proud Indians.
The Comanche warrior did not have long to ponder this curiosity. The big Indian who had thrown him from his horse was on him quickly, while the breath was still knocked from his lungs, and a huge knife was plunged into his chest. That was the last thing the warrior remembered before the life left his limbs.
Caleb jerked out the knife and quickly reloaded his rifle and pistol. He smelled smoke, and looked around the side of the cabin that sheltered him to see flames licking at the door to the barn.
“Sons of bitches,” he growled. He looked up at the doors where Tom and Lee were perched. “Get out,” he yelled. “Fire! They set the barn on fire!”
His shouting was to no avail amid all the yipping and whooping of the Comanche. Those left continued to circle, but they had lost several of their own, and Caleb could only hope they would give up. Just then the barn door was pushed open and young John came out and began beating at the flames with his shirt. Caleb’s eyes widened in terror as he saw the boy exposing himself to the Comanche.
“John! Get back! Get back!”
A warrior reached for him, but John pulled away. Caleb started running. If the Comanche couldn’t get the horses they wanted, they would settle for a child. They were notorious for stealing children and adopting them into their tribe. But if they were not pleased with their captives, a slow, torturous death awaited them.
Caleb stopped and fired his rifle at one of the circling Comanche, and the man sprawled from his horse. Caleb threw down his rifle and ran, but something hit him hard between the shoulders from behind. He stumbled forward and a horse thundered past him. He ignored the pain and managed to get to his feet, his eyes on John, who was wrestling with another warrior.
Everything seemed to whirl around Caleb as he ran toward them. He grabbed at John, at the same time stabbing with his knife at the leg of the boy’s would-be abductor. The Comanche cried out, letting go of the boy. Caleb tried to carry John across the flames back into the barn, hoping to run through and somehow get out the other side, but the flames were leaping high. Horses whinnied frantically inside, and Caleb’s head swam with the memory of the night outlaws had burned his cabin, killing Marie and their son David. He couldn’t let anything happen to John.
Another warrior grabbed at John’s hair. The boy screamed with pain and Caleb let go of him to reach up and jerk the Comanche off his horse. He pulled his pistol from his belt and shot the warrior in the head. But more Comanche descended on Caleb, intrigued by the man’s great fighting skill and enjoying the challenge of getting the young boy away from him. They seemed to forget all about the horses. Getting the boy from his father’s arms had become a game, and they all grinned as they took turns taunting and fighting with Caleb.
Caleb struggled violently while several of his men moved out from behind walls and doors and began yipping and running, shooting at those of the Comanche who had decided to give up the fight. Many of the warriors were riding off with the horses they had chased out of a corral while others had kept the ranch owners busy around the barn.
Tom and Lee scrambled down from the loft, opening the door at the other end of the barn and hurrying to yank at the Saxes’ most prized mounts to get them out of the barn before it burned down around them. They could not even see through the flames at the other end to know Caleb was struggling with five warriors who were laughing and stabbing at him, trying to get John away. Caleb fought like a wild man, oblivious to several stab wounds, clinging to John desperately. Some of his hired hands came around the end of the barn to try to stop the fire, and they began shooting at the remaining Comanche. But they were too late to keep one of the warriors from finally wresting John from Caleb’s arms as the big man went down under blows from several war clubs.
“Pa!” John screamed as one of the warriors held him tightly and rode off with him. Caleb tried to get up and run, but all he could do was crawl before collapsing completely.
Lee led a prized stallion out of the barn to see the remaining Comanche riding off. “Jesus, they’ve got John,” he yelled to Tom.
Tom ran out, taking aim with his musket. But he lowered it without firing, his heart screaming with sorrow. He couldn’t shoot at the man, not while he held John in front of him. His heart raced.
“Father! What happened to Father!” He ran aro
und the other side of the burning barn. Some of the hired help ran back inside the barn with Lee to lead out more frightened, whinnying horses as timbers began falling.
Tom saw three Cherokee carrying Caleb away from the barn. He ran up to his father, who seemed to be bleeding everywhere, his face battered. “Father!”
The men laid Caleb on the ground. “John,” Caleb groaned. “Got to … get him.”
“We’ll get him, Father! We’ll get him back,” Tom said in a determined voice. He looked at Jake Highwater, who seemed ready to cry. “Get him into the house.”
Jake nodded, ordering the men who were carrying Caleb to the house. They laid him on a rug in front of the fireplace at Tom’s instructions. Sarah would need the bed, and they couldn’t carry Caleb’s big frame up to the loft.
Tom quickly whipped the rug away from the trapdoor and opened it.
“Tom,” he heard Lynda cry from below. “Where’s Lee!”
“He’s all right. But Father is hurt bad. The Comanche got John.”
He heard a gasp. A baby started crying. Lynda climbed up the ladder to face her brother. She looked frantically over at her groaning father, then back at her brother. The baby below cried harder.
“It’s a boy,” Lynda told Tom quietly, her eyes tearing.
Tom nodded. It might be very important that this new child was a boy, for Caleb Sax might have just lost another son. “How is Sarah?”
“I can’t tell. We’ve got to get her back into the bed.” She looked at Caleb again. “Father will be all right, won’t he? He won’t die?”
She met her brother’s determined gaze. “He won’t die. He’ll live out of pure stubbornness. He’ll go after John.” His jaw flexed in anger. “And Lee and I will go with him. We’ll get him back from those bastards!”
Caleb tried to move, but a blow in his back from a war club had brought on a terrible weakness in his legs, awakening the awful paralysis that was always so close at hand—an after effect of the bullet wound in the back he had suffered from Byron Clawson all those years ago. How he hated this horrible, helpless feeling!
Frontier Fires Page 2
