Night Fires in the Distance

by Sarah Goodwin

  I never thought I’d be jealous of a whore.

  *

  I was up the next morning, doing a wash with Rachel after breakfast. Will was gone to look out more winter wood, Thomas was inside with Beth and Nora. Though he said nothing on it, I knew Thomas loved taking care of the baby, he was always finding new things to dangle over the cradle to amuse her.

  “Why do we put dresses on Beth?” Rachel sulked as we worked the mess of brown clothes in the washtub, “she should wear a sack until she’s old enough not to spill or mark up her clothes.”

  For once we were in agreement. “Now Rachel, both you a Thomas were young once, and you made twice the mess that Beth makes.”

  Rachel didn’t look as if she believed me. “But you had Grandmother Deene to help you wash.”

  Oh, and what a help she was, taking over every task and calling me useless to my face, while talking of my laziness when she thought I couldn’t hear.

  “Well, you’re here to help me now, aren’t you? And you’re doing a fine job.” I lifted the crock of soft soap and added a little more to a tough cherry jam stain. Rachel scrunched the sopping clothes in her little fists.

  “Why’s everything brown?” she said. “’Member Lettie had that blue dress?”

  Her cousin Lettie had many dresses. Jacob could afford the best for his two little girls and his wife Anne. He had also been able to afford the fifty dollars Will demanded to keep our coupling a secret from them.

  “Lettie and her mother and sister don’t live or work on a farm, so they don’t have to have working clothes.”

  “Where do they work? I want to do work where I can have a pretty dress.”

  Whores came to my mind, in their gauzy, unwashed, frocks. In the light of day I couldn’t believe I’d envied them their leisure. “They don’t work, because your uncle makes a lot of money sending American things back to England, where your grandparents live.” I wrung out a shirt and spread it on the hot, dry grass. “Your new dress’ll look lovely though, and they’re saying in town that soon there’ll be a proper store out our way. There’s already work being done on a church, so you’ll be able to wear that lovely new dress to meet our neighbours on a Sunday.”

  Rachel wrung out one of her own petticoats. “I still think Beth shouldn’t have a new dress. You could use her cloth to make a winter cape for me.”

  I looked up at my vain little daughter, her dark hair shining where it spilled from under her bonnet, lips as small and smug as berries. Beyond her, like a ship sailing through the grasses, came a little prairie schooner. I stood up and shielded my eyes. About a half mile away the rig stopped, the solitary figure on its seat climbed down and began to take things from the battened pile on the back.

  Rachel turned to look too. “Are they new neighbours?”

  “I think it’s Mr Clappe,” I said, for I could see the familiar shirt and trousers, and the copper of his hair even at a distance. What was he doing back? I felt my heart leap in sick dread. Will was away at the creek bottoms, a good four miles in the direction of town, but he would be back soon enough.

  “Will Pa shoot him, for killing the pig?”

  “Rachel! Your father would never shoot a man over a pig. It was probably not even Mr Clappe who killed it.” I wished I believed in Will as much as I did in Clappe.

  “Pa said he did.”

  “Pa was angry when he said that.” I put my hand up to my bruise, God, what would Will do to him?

  I looked towards the schooner again, the small covered wagon so unlike our heavy rig. The sunlight struck the blade of a new sod cutting plough, forcing me to turn my face away. A plough meant he intended to stay.

  “Let’s get this wash done, then we can see about getting some chips for the stove,” I said. I had to see Clappe before William came back. If nothing else I had to apologise, and warn him.

  Rachel put her hands in the water and started wringing out clothes with a will. Soon we had the whole wash spread on the dry grass, baking under the sun. The wind toyed with the cuffs and bonnet strings.

  I took my basket and we got up to the schooner in time to see Clappe, for it was him, unhitching the two mustangs and tying them to a wooden post he’d driven into the ground. They were dun coloured, sturdy things, far speedier than our oxen. Clappe had come into money, the schooner was groaning with goods.

  “Mr Clappe,” I said, half-watching Rachel scoop up tough, dried buffalo chips from the grass a few feet away. “You’ve had a profitable trip to town.”

  I was surprised by the hardness in his eyes when he turned to me, holding a basket of tools. He was still a boy, maybe twenty, with a smooth face and soft hands, but his eyes were frost split flints.

  “I did. Though it was a lot quicker coming back than in setting off.”

  I felt at once the shame of what William had done, a shame that was mine for being married to him. “It wasn’t my aim to leave you. I warned you about him.”

  “So you did, but I thought you were a decent enough woman not to go along with it, and leave me stranded.” He thumped the heavy basket down on the ground and crossed his arms.

  “I left you some food but it was still here when we came home. I worried for you.”

  “I never saw any food. But, I fared as well as could be expected. I happened upon some melons in the creek bottoms, otherwise I might have starved.”

  “You’ve been gone a fair while.”

  “I went further afield, wanted to see what the bigger stores had to offer,” he turned and rubbed a hand over the solid wood of the schooner, which I saw was flaking paint, revealing another colour underneath. Third hand then. Not so much money as to afford a new wagon. “I intended to leave but when I reached the next town I changed my mind.”

  “The land here’s good,” I said, knowing it was a powerful good reason for one just starting out to remain on the prairie.

  He fixed me with his eyes. “I’ve come far enough to know that I never want to run before a man again.”

  I wondered what it was his father or master had done to send him across the country.

  “It’ll be good to have you as a neighbour,” I said, meaning it. It was lonely on the prairie in winter, with only the snow banks and the sky for company.

  He turned back to me, and I saw he’d taken something from a basket at the front of the schooner. “I decided I wanted to be a good neighbour, even if your husband wronged me. I don’t want to be the kind of man who holds a grudge, not against someone who hasn’t harmed me through fault of their own.” He held out a small clay pot, sealed with cork and wax. “I had this made up at the pharmacy in town.”

  I took it and read the little label that had been pasted to the clay. Chamomile salve. My face burnt and when I looked up, I saw that Clappe looked uncertain, his cheeks painted a lively shade of red.

  “I didn’t mean to insult you, but…my sister, when she was nursing, she went through this as fast as it could be made. I heard it helps with the pain.”

  The thought of the cream easing the cracks and soreness of my nipples with chamomile and beeswax, had me almost feeling faint under the hot sun. I’d borne the pain for weeks and I was almost at the end of my rope with it.

  “Thank you, Mr Clappe,” I held the precious jar carefully between my hands, “you must accept my fullest apology for the way you were treated by my husband, and…” I thought what gift I could give him, “you must also take a jar of my chokecherry preserve, and join us for supper.”

  He shrugged his coat off and slung it over a box on the schooner. “I don’t think your husband would take kindly to me sitting in his home, eating his food, any more than he would me talking to you.” His gaze was fixed on mine. “What reason did he give for that?”

  I touched my cheek, where the bruise was a yellow-green reminder of William’s whisky drinking. “Our pig was gutted while we were in town…William didn’t take kindly to it.”

  “I suppose he blames me.”

  I nodded.

 
“Well you can tell him, there were two cows stolen and a pig killed within a few days ride of here. I heard about it in town. I would no more kill your pig than burn your house.” His face cracked a smile. “Can you imagine me, creeping into that sty and cutting up your hog? I’ve never set foot in a sty, let alone slaughtered anything before.”

  I could believe that and knew it showed on my face. “William isn’t at the house right now, how about a meal with me and the children?”

  He looked past me to the soddie, in clear sight over the flat ground. From here I could make out which dresses were drying on the line. We were to be close neighbours indeed, only about two miles apart if he was to build where we stood now. Without a single tree to hide behind. He squinted as if measuring the distance, seeing if it was worth his time. “I’d be happy to.”

  Clappe took Rachel’s basket of dried dung and I kept her in my sight as she skipped through the long grasses, her light brown dress giving her the look of a young deer. Clappe fell into easy step beside me and I found I could not resist asking the question that had been on my mind since he arrived.

  “What brings you to Indian Territory?”

  He shrugged lightly, “I left things in the city that I’d rather forget and for someone like me, this is the only life available. There’d be no way for me to make a living any other way.”

  “You could stake a claim in gold, or work at a lumber camp,” I said evenly.

  Something about that seemed to amuse him. “I doubt I’d last long in that kind of work. Men, other men, have never treated me equal.”

  “Still, farming’s an awful hard row.”

  “There’s many kinds of hard in the world. You seem to manage.”

  “I have William. The children help some too.”

  “I’ll just have to learn, and work hard.”

  “You’ve brought half the store home with you. Things can’t be so hard.”

  “Everything I have is on that schooner. I’ve almost no coins left.”

  We reached the soddie and I called for Thomas to bring out the jug of water and the no-cake I’d made that morning, plus plate for our guest. I saw my son’s face brighten when he saw that it was Clappe with me.

  “Thomas, why you’ve grown and inch since I last saw you.”

  “Sure have,” Thomas set down the jug and the plate of no-cake. Rachel brought Beth out from the soddie and the two of them set to bending the tall, dry grass over to make little wagon covers for their corn husk families.

  The sun was bright on us and made the grasses sing with chirping insects. Our drying clothes rippled under the breeze. Small birds flew high under the blue, cloudless flag of a sky, and Clappe’s hair fairly glowed like a copper pan. All around smelt of sweet, dry grass.

  I watched Clappe drink down the cool water, his throat working more delicately than William’s. He had good manners with the no-cake and smiled open and easy without a drop of liquor in his body. Not that whisky had ever sweetened William’s temper any. He reminded me a little of Jacob, only Clappe’s easiness came from youth and innocence, not wealth and arrogance.

  Lord, he was in for it. The winters on the prairie were as close to hell as I ever hoped to see; snow that fell like smoke until you couldn’t see your own skirts, blown up and frozen into enormous drifts like iron.

  Once we were done eating I went inside and threw into a gunny sack the promised jam and a few other things to repay him for the work he’d done bringing in the grain and hay.

  Clappe looked into the sack and then back at me. “I can’t take all this from you.”

  “You earned it, working the way you did. I’m only sorry we won’t be able to help you get your soddie up before winter.”

  “I can do that just fine,” he assured me, but there was something uncertain in his voice that made me worry for him.

  “Thomas, why don’t you go and take the girls inside, it’s far too hot out here to play all day in the grass.”

  Once Thomas’d taken his sisters inside I laid a hand on Clappe’s arm. “You’ve never built before, have you?”

  “No Ma’am.”

  “Don’t worry. The fact is, Will never built a thing before we came here, and if that’s not saying a soddie’s idiot proof, I don’t know what is.”

  Again that smile, sweet and sudden, like June rain.

  “Hardest part is the roof. All you got to do before that is pile up the sod nice and high, when you’ve got your walls, put up wood for the door and window frames, then put poles across the top, cover them with sticks and hay, and put more sod up on top of that to keep it all in place. The door’s going to need leather hinges, but I can show you how to do those later.”

  His green eyes were focused, taking in my words. I liked that feeling of being listened to. Any fool could build a soddie, but building one to withstand the prairie wind in a howling storm was slightly more of an art.

  He looked again at the bag in his lap. “I’m grateful for your help, if there’s anything I can ever do for you…”

  “You’ve worked plenty, if he’d paid you a fair wage you’d be able to buy everything in there twice over.”

  “But if there’s anything you need,” he stressed.

  I’d almost forgotten that there were good men, man enough to never raise a hand to a woman. I had slipped into another world, where blood and blows were common as ‘good morning’.

  “I can stand for myself,” I found myself saying, “but, I appreciate your offer.”

  His eyes were sad, deep as caves, hollow. “Husbands ought to treat their wives kindly. My sister had a husband that treated her awfully.”

  “You sister…the one with the baby?”

  “She didn’t keep him long. He died in his crib only three weeks after he was born. A tiny little thing, a fae child.”

  “And the mother?” I knew the anger a woman’s grief could cause a man. William had raged at me for being homesick for the first few months of our journey.

  “She died.”

  I laid my hand on his arm, the touch of his shirt surprising me, as I’d not meant to reach for him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I only hope she manages to find some peace in escaping him.”

  “And she will be with her child,” I said, almost losing my own words in the crackle of the wind rushed grass.

  “Maybe.” He looked down, and for a moment allowed his hand to cover mine. It had roughened since our last meeting, travel and the loading of the schooner, never mind the driving of the mustangs, had raised blisters on his palm that had burst and scabbed.

  “We’ll be good neighbours,” I said. “Life can be lonely out here for one. To hear people tell of it, winter on the prairie in one’s own company is enough to break a man. Even with Will and children to talk to I feel the strain of being shut up inside, trying to keep the cold out. ”

  He released my hand and gathered up the sack. “I’ve known worse.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cecelia

  Laura had given me a great deal to think about in terms of the house’s construction and of the kind of life I would be living under its roof. In the sack she’d pressed on me I’d found the promised jam, ruby red and thick, three bars of soap, two candles, and a pamphlet of simple recipes, much thumbed and stained. Aside from the pamphlet each item was clearly handmade. I’d never thought of making soap before, it had been bought when I’d lived in Ohio and the candles came boxed from a merchant.

  That night I slept in my tent, or tried to. Sitting with her that day I’d seen the sinew in her brown arms and lithe neck. How could such a woman stand to be struck like a dog by a man so weak he had cheated me by fleeing, rather than by threatening me off? Why in God’s name didn’t she run? With strength like that in her arms, why didn’t she knock him down?

  She’d told me that she’d grown up and married in England, yet she was almost indistinguishable from the hard, American born women I’d seen in the towns I’d fled through. Was that what I would become? Grubbing in
the soil for turnips as dirty as myself?

  That first day of work on the soddie was the coolest I had so far experienced on the prairie, which spurred me to work as hard as I could. Fall would soon catch me up and I had no wish to sleep outside under the first heavy rain, let along the first snow. The grasses hissed under a steady wind and the ripping of the sod had me panting hard enough to hear my own blood pounding.

  Manning my sod cutter and driving the mustangs occupied me for most of the morning. I hadn’t thought it would be so hard to keep the blade of the thing in the earth. It bounced out of the hard soil and off of stones, cutting irregular chunks of sod. The mustangs too were wilful and sometimes wouldn’t walk when I shouted at them. There was nothing in my book that told me how to get a straight line from the plough, it seemed to assume I would manage that much on my own.

  When I quit work to sweat through my midday meal I noticed William himself watching me from the doorway of his soddie. Despite there being at least two miles of land between us, the prairie was so flat and bland that my eye caught on their house often as the only thing in a sea of grass. It was easy to pick out the figure of the man; his dark hair was like an ink blot against the parchment coloured grasses. I raised a hand in greeting and saw him unmistakably turn his back and go inside.

  A charming man indeed.

  I spent that afternoon cutting the crooked strips of sod that I’d ploughed up. I had to do it with a spade, which made my shoulders ache. I managed to tear off the end of a nail while working, exposing the raw skin underneath, and the tough grasses sliced my hands as I hauled the chunks of sod up onto others. The soil was heavy and dark, full of insects, earthworms and long crawling things with many legs. I squirmed to feel them run over my fingers.

  As I piled the sod, I realised that one wall was coming up thicker than the others, and wasn’t entirely straight. What could I do about that? With the spade I tried to cut down some of the stacked sod, but that only caused the wall to buckle. I struck the wall with the spade, which lodged in the earth and refused to budge.

  “Oh you…you blasted thing!” I pulled hard on the handle, when it came free I was sent sprawling to the earth, covered in a shower of dirt and insects. I leapt up, clawing at my collar to get the wretched crawlers off of me, only just holding back a shriek. Part of the wall had collapsed and would need rebuilding.