Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  A shush against the grass outside startled me, I could hear steps, the flicker-flack of grass on skirts. I pulled my other blanket up to my chin.

  “James? It was Laura. My hand tightened on the blanket.

  “Mrs…Laura?”

  She opened the slit in the tent and looked in on me. I could hardly see her in the dark, but for the lantern she’d set on the ground outside.

  “I came to feed the oxen, but, I’ve a bit for you as well.”

  I sat forward to take it, her rough hand brushed mine and I took the chunk of cornbread from it. Her hand vanished and then returned, a baked, ashy potato in its palm.

  “It’s probably cold now,” she said.

  “That’s very kind of you Ma’am,” I said, remembering my manners. I wanted to hug her and offer my deepest thanks, but propriety held me back.

  “It’s only what I promised,” she moved a little, looking around my little tent. “This is quite a set-up - cosy.”

  I snorted. “It won’t be if I’m still here come snowfall.”

  I felt her hand on my blanket covered shin. “Well, Will promised and I’ll do my best to keep him to it.”

  “Is he the kind given to breaking them?”

  She was quiet a moment. “He don’t promise much.”

  Then she was gone and I heard her skirts sweeping against the grass, the creak of the stable door and the hard sounds of the expectant oxen.

  The potato was still warm in the centre and the cornbread was a good weight in my empty stomach, but still I felt cold and uneasy. Perhaps I had been wrong in making a deal with William Deene.

  Chapter Five

  James

  I took my scythe out onto the plain with Deene and his son, Laura followed after us with blankets and a basket of food, it was almost like one of our picnics at home, save that she had the baby with her in a box she called her ‘cradle’.

  Whenever I paused to wipe my forehead, I’d glance at the girls and often found Rachel and Beth clapping rhymes, or squabbling over the rag dolls they’d brought out with them. Laura looked their way often and called out for them to put their bonnets back on whenever the girls pushed them back.

  The effort of watching the blade and fretting over whether it was too close to my feet soon exhausted me. I envied the ease with which Laura did the work. Her hands were as large and calloused as her husband’s, square fingered and sure on the scythe handle. She swung the blade easily, keeping it free of her skirts; her braid was draped over one shoulder, her brown skin like a smooth, dry stone. I was sweating hard before the grass was stacked to knee height, the muscles in my arms and back still complaining from helping with the harvest of grain.

  “You keeping up Clappe?” Will called. “Don’t need to sit a while? Little sup of water and a rest in the shade?”

  “I’m doing fine,” I called back, and heard him laugh, a thin, nasty sound.

  The sun gradually reached its height and we lay down our scythes and sat with the girls in the shade of the growing haystack. Laura unwrapped an ugly loaf of bread, and cut it into pieces to have with cold prairie hen.

  I’d breakfasted on the small amount of cornbread I’d kept by from the previous evening, but my stomach ached for more. I saw her glance at me, looking sorry. I was permitted to drink from the water jug and that helped to fill my stomach a little, though I was scared I’d need to relive myself if I drank too much. Deene and his son didn’t go back to use the outhouse when we were in the field, they only stood off away from the women. The idea of having to relieve myself that way filled me with dread.

  As if my worry prompted him, William stood and went behind the stack to pass water. Thomas followed after. Laura was watching me, as if waiting for me to go. I stood and stretched, then wandered back to my scythe, hoping we’d be done in the field before it became necessary for me to creep off to the outhouse.

  When we began to work again, Laura started to sing. Perhaps she had done so before, but I had been unable to hear her. It was not a familiar song, which I thought strange as I had been to many performances when I was younger.

  But leaves are scattered not more wild,

  By autumn’s winds unhurled,

  Than all that group of faces bright

  Upon the wide, wide world.

  But still on memory’s page in light,

  ‘Gainst which there’s no resistance,

  Stand out those scenes, that home and tree,

  Like night fires, in the distance.

  Her voice was plain, but she could carry the simple tune. I noticed that William had his mouth set in a firm line as he cut the grass. I wondered if she sang often where he could hear her; whether she kept it to herself and her children, the sound of her almost-pretty voice.

  It was late afternoon by the time we had the grass cut and stacked. I desperately needed to relieve myself.

  “It’ll be getting on for dark soon, better get the oxen watered,” Deene said, and clapped me on the shoulder as he passed me by, on his way to the barn. The impact of his hand made me stagger. Thomas collected Laura’s scythe and followed after his father. I watched them go, Thomas’s back stooped in exhaustion.

  I turned and saw Laura plodding to the place where her daughters were sat in the shade of the new haystack, playing with dolls and a small ‘house’ of loose straw. She stooped and lifted her baby into her arms.

  “Rachel, would you bring the cradle?”

  The girls followed their mother past me. I picked up my scythe and trudged back to the barn to return it. Thomas was standing at the door, in the process of taking a bucket to the well.

  “Long day today,” I said.

  He ducked his head.

  “I’m not so young as you,” I said, smiling, “it will take more than an hour’s play to unknot my spine.” I reckoned I was only about seven years older than him. I’d taken pains to appear a little older though, and I thought I could comfortably pass for twenty.

  I realised immediately that I’d misspoken. I’d meant it to be kind, but I knew that Thomas already had no time given for play. He nodded, ducked past me and went on around the house to the well.

  Through the half open door I could see Deene forking the old hay from the manger onto the floor for bedding. I started to creep away.

  “All set for winter now,” Deene said spotting me. “At least until it’s time to dig the potatoes,” he grunted, turning and taking my scythe from by the door, setting it up on its wooden peg. “Then there’s turnips, still got to get the wood corded, and I’m looking to have a stove put in before it snows.” He rubbed the back of his neck, “Can’t go another winter without. Made do with a bake box of embers last year.”

  “I guess you’ll all be warmer with it,” I said, desperate to get away.

  “When we first got here in the summer, year before last, she wanted one then. She’s too rarefied to deal with a fire out of doors.”

  If there was a word less apt for that keen eyed woman, I could not think of it.

  “With the snow, it must be hard,” I said, though I’d barely cooked on a fire, inside or out.

  “I’m worried about the first fall myself. I suppose you’ll be expecting that hand with your house tomorrow?”

  “Yep, tomorrow it is. Night,” I said, ducking out of the barn and fleeing to the outhouse. Once I was done I crawled into my tent and lay down. It was too dark to shoot any game and too much to hope that Laura would bring me supper again. I could only pray that she offered me something in the morning, before Deene and I began work on my home.

  I couldn’t help but think about my home, the real home I’d shared with my parents and my older brother, Franklyn; with the fine porch and the sitting room and my bedroom on the second floor, with my four poster bed. Lying on the dirt, cushioned only by a blanket, I remembered that feather mattress with a pang.

  I wondered at Laura. How had she been raised? To be so worn out and marked like her dresses that she no longer cared that she was soaked in sweat un
der the sun, doing the work of a man. That she cooked outside over a hole filled with burning dung. How could she not care? Watching her it seemed as if she’d been born to live that way, like a rabbit living in its little hole. I’d thought England was a place for neat homes and dainty manners.

  I prayed that she would never know how low she was.

  Chapter Six

  James

  I woke when the first rays of sun reached the canvas over me, wishing as usual that a basin of hot water and a laden breakfast table awaited me. I put on my dirty clothes and crawled out of the tent. The air was curiously clear; where Laura’s morning fire usually burned, only a cold, dark circle stood out. It was early, yes, but usually she came out to cook almost as soon as first light. My stomach complained over its lack of food and I went around to the front of the Deene soddie to gauge their wakefulness. Perhaps, like me, Deene had succumbed to exhaustion. The thought cheered me greatly.

  The soddie was quiet, not a sound from the baby, or the scrape of a chair leg disturbed the silence. I went around to the window, peered through the gap in the wooden shutters and saw that the tick nearest to me was empty, the blankets folded neatly at the end. With a hitch in my chest I went to the barn and listened. Utter stillness. The oxen were gone. So was the wagon box that usually sat behind the barn, under a canvas.

  “You no good…”

  Even alone, I could not bring myself to swear at that moment. I just stared at the empty stable and knew that I’d been duped.

  Deene had promised me a fair day’s labour on that day to start building my soddie and now he was nowhere to be seen, had taken his family off to town. I knew he was making a point. I thought of confronting him when he returned, but what could I do? We had no contract, so I could not seek justice and though I could walk, talk and act like a hard-nosed, westering man, I couldn’t fight like one; I knew when I was beaten.

  I didn’t have the tools to cut my own sod, or to make my roof. I had been hoping to use Deene’s, but now I would have to find some other way. A man who would cheat you of honest work was not a man who would lend tools to be neighbourly.

  There was nothing for it but to move on, to go back to town and then settle elsewhere. I’d have to sell the jewels to afford the tools and supplies that I’d been relying on Deene to provide in exchange for all the work I’d done for him.

  With an aching stomach I packed my things and took down my tent. I left the tent poles on the ground. Perhaps Laura would find them and use them to feed her fire.

  Laura. She had warned me about her husband, had told me he was a man to watch. She’d been right, and I knew should have listened to her. I hadn’t believed he would cheat me. My face grew hot with humiliation. God, she probably thought me a complete fool.

  With my bare hands, sore and aching from my work with the scythe, I dug up the jewels in their kerchief. I would have to sell them further afield than the closest town. There was no way on earth that I would willingly lead Charles to my door. The thought of him finding me turned my skin to ice, despite the sun.

  I filled my bottle from their well bucket, hoping it would be enough to get me to the creek, then I hung the rifle over my shoulder and began to walk.

  The day was already getting hot as I started out and the sun only grew stronger. The prairie unrolled ahead of me right up to the horizon; grass, waving and rippling like an ocean. No rise or fall in the land for miles. In all directions it spread, so that I felt I was in the very middle of it and would never reach the edge. It was hours before I was out of sight of the soddie.

  Eventually I let my tears fall. I cried all the harder for the spectacle I was making of myself, crying like a little girl. I wanted my mother and father, my brother. I wanted my old home with a longing that made me sob harder.

  As the sun beat down on me, sinking its teeth into the exposed skin at the base of my neck, I swore that if ever I returned to that particular circle of stamped grass, to that soddie, I would go only to seek my revenge on the man who had duped me; I would buy his land from under him with my own money. I would see Deene and his whole family walk over the prairie, as hopeless as I was then.

  That night, as I wrapped myself in my canvas and laid down to sleep on the ground, I almost cried from hunger. My water bottle was almost empty and my mouth dry as dust. I listened to the scurrying of animals in the grass, bending my ear constantly for the cries of wolves. Fear licked up my spine and all around the grasses hissed like snakes.

  The second day I shot and luckily, managed to kill, a prairie hen and I built a fire to cook the thing. I was no expert at plucking and gutting, but I tried my best and the result was grizzled, but not inedible. I ate with my fingers, until grease ran over my chin. Nothing had ever tasted so good. I was out of water and thought about lemonade constantly.

  I walked, missing the nearest town, to which I guessed Deene had taken his family, heading onwards to the larger town beyond.

  On the third day the land showed some variety, finally, and instead of endless, flat grasses, I found a ravine with a creek running through it. I guessed that it was the same creek that ran closer to the Deene house, but I’d been walking towards a more distant part of it, as it disappeared across the prairie. Since my water had run out I’d thought of nothing else, fearing that at any moment I might lose the strength to go on, and that some traveller would come across my parched body in the months to come. I was so thirsty by then that I bent over the water like a dog and drank with my face in it, flies and water skaters prickling against my hair.

  It was there that I found watermelons growing on a thick tangle of vine. God only knew how they came to be there, some settler must have sown them where they would get the best of the water and rich, cooler soil. I’d never seen them growing before, in fact, I couldn’t remember having seen a whole one, only the slices that sometimes appeared at dinners.

  Having never cut a melon before, it took several tries, holding the thing between my knees, before I broke it open with my knife. The fruit inside was crisp and cold. Even the creek water had been warm on my tongue, but that melon was like snow and far better than I remembered it tasting at dinner parties.

  After hiding for months, fearing that my secret would be discovered at any moment, it was a balm to my nerves to be alone and unobserved, away from other travellers and off of the flat plains on which there could be no hiding. I stripped off my disguise and slid into the water, letting it cover me and take the dirt away.

  For a while I had felt as though I’d left part of myself behind when I escaped, something I’d never get back, which had been taken from me. I thought I’d always be running and hiding, looking over my shoulder, scared of the dark and the sound of every footstep. I was exhausted from jumping at small sounds, from sleeping in fits and starts. Just keeping up with my act and the work I had to do on the farm had almost broken me.

  I lay back in the water and looked up at the endless blue sky, trying to pull the sense of freedom into myself, into my bones, where I could believe it.

  “I’m free,” I told myself, quietly, almost losing my voice in the flow of the creek and the sizzling of the insects.

  “I’m free!” I said slightly louder.

  In the water, far from anyone that knew me or who might be hunting for me. I could stop pretending to be James Clappe and be Cecelia. I told myself, with every wave that broke over me, that I was leaving it all behind. I wasn’t his wife, his property, his prisoner. I was myself, Cecelia, a free woman.

  *

  The fourth day I left the creek behind me and trudged on through dusty grass that sizzled with insects and swam with the heat. It was only the day after that I reached town and allowed myself to smile. I was no longer clean, but this was the place to buy food, clean clothes and the tools to build my home. I would buy a mount to take me further into the country; having money would mean not going hungry again.

  It was a slightly larger settlement than that closest to the Deenes’ land, but still much the sam
e; a store and an inn made of boards, hastily nailed board walks and board fences. With the wood and the dust, the whole place was brown and grey. There were no women around, men walked this way and that on the boardwalks, wearing the pants and suit jackets of clerks, or, more popular, the homespun trousers and old shirts of homesteaders and farmers.

  I took a moment, no more than that, to tighten the bonds between me and my disguise. I’d let it slip a little while walking the prairie with no soul around to watch me. In town, with all the men milling around, was a place for James, not for Cecelia.

  I made my way to the bank, a smaller building tacked onto the store. Inside was a single, small room, fronted with a wooden counter. Polished bars separated me from the little clerk on the other side, behind him I could see the safe, lock boxes and two desks piled with papers.

  “Afternoon,” I said, for I judged it to be after twelve, “I’ve some jewellery to sell, where’d be the best place in town to get a good deal on it?”

  The clerk, a man with grey in his oiled hair, considered me.

  “Are you settling around here?”

  I knew I looked like a homesteader just arrived in the west, but I couldn’t sell my jewels and tell this man I planned to stay nearby. Charles might trace them and find me too easily, the chance of that was worse than all the wolves and privation the prairie could offer. The territory wasn’t officially open to settle, so I wouldn’t have to sign my name on a deed, only chose a place and claim it. It was the perfect place to hide.

  “Not just at the moment, sir,” I said, in my Clappe voice.

  “We can make purchase of them, the only other place would be the broker who deals out of the saloon, and he would not offer you a fair price.” He motioned for me to produce the jewellery.

  “These were my mother’s,” I said, eager to give him the story I’d worked on. “She died last year and my elder brother got the farm. This is my whole inheritance.”

  I took out the kerchief and unknotted it. Without looking I could have described each piece easily; my gold wedding band, the engagement ring with the opal in the centre, flanked by tiny diamonds, the gold chain my parents gave me on my wedding day, which had belonged to my mother and had a tiny pearl on it, and lastly my pocket watch, which was only silver, but had a real emerald in the middle of its face.