Caleb was good with horses, the best, as far as Sarah was concerned. But starting up a new ranch and building a new herd at fifty years old was not easy, even for a man like Caleb. More and more settlement in the area had chased away the wild herds of horses from which Caleb had planned to rebuild his stock, breeding only the strongest and most beautiful horses from those he could round up on the free range.
Things had not gone as well as he had hoped, but to Sarah it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they had lived through the awful years of besiegement by those who threatened their very lives in Texas, and they were still alive and together. Except for Tom the whole family was still a unit. And even in his absence, Tom was still with them in spirit. He would always be with them. Few men were as close as Caleb and Tom Sax.
Sarah could see the weary, concerned look on her husband’s face as he rode closer and dismounted from the big Appaloosa gelding.
“Take care of him for me, would you, Jess,” he said then, handing the man his reins.
“Sure, Caleb. Sorry about the mare.”
Caleb sighed deeply, removing a leather hat and wiping perspiration from his forehead. “So am I.”
Jess rode off toward the cabin he shared with Lynda. Sarah could see her daughter hanging out some wash in the distance.
Sarah turned to Caleb. He towered over her, his huge frame silhouetted against a setting sun behind him. It was difficult to see his face and she shaded her eyes, noticing his own bloodshot eyes.
“You lost the foal?”
His jaw flexed. Handsome it was, square, strong, set under full lips that normally framed straight white teeth when moving into his usual warm, provocative smile. But he was not smiling today.
“We lost both of them.”
“Oh, no! Dancer, too?”
Caleb just sighed again and walked past her to a pan of water that sat outside the cabin. He hung his hat on a hook and reached for a bar of lye soap, wetting his hands in the water and scrubbing them vigorously. He said nothing for several long seconds, working the soap up his arms to the rolled-up sleeves of his buckskin shirt, scrubbing some more.
Sarah watched, saying nothing. She knew he would tell her more when he was ready. She noticed the dried blood on his arms and a little on his shirt. He rinsed off, then picked up a towel that sat beside the pan and walked to a watering trough nearby. He dipped his hands into the cleaner water and splashed some over his face, then picked up the towel and wiped off the water, running the damp cloth around the back of his neck.
“I don’t know what happened,” he finally spoke up, his voice troubled. “Who knows in these things? In all the years I’ve raised and bred horses, there are still things I can’t explain. The foal was breech. I had to turn the damned thing myself. Hell, I’ve done it before.” He threw down the towel. “And it always worked. But this time it didn’t. I could tell when I turned it that it was already dead. I pulled on it and helped Mother Nature get the thing born. It was a nice-looking male, but it was dead. We tried to get the mother up then, but she just lay there and—” He shrugged and shook his head. “I felt so damned helpless. A man thinks he knows everything there is to know, and then he’s confronted with something that makes him feel completely ignorant again.”
Sarah moved closer, meeting the blue eyes she loved so much, feeling his pain. “I’m sorry. These things happen, Caleb. We know that. There will be other foals.”
She saw the irritation in his eyes, the impatience. “That’s what I told myself last year, and the year before that. But I can’t find enough really healthy horses out there to begin with, and when I do, half of them don’t breed well. It’s like everything has been against us here.”
“Caleb, you know what we agreed to about all of that. We agreed to be thankful we’re all still together and no one was hurt. We’ll be all right.”
He turned away, staring out over the horizon. A small black, humpy line could be seen there, the distant ridge of the Rockies to the west.
“It’s been three years, Sarah. We picked out this piece of land because it was close to Bent’s Fort. We’ve all worked like slaves to get something going here. Tom even stayed on longer than he should have had to stay. But it seems as if I can’t quite get back to where I was in Texas.”
“No one expects you to build anything that big again, Caleb. We’re surviving and our bellies are full. We’re warm in winter and—”
He turned, his look of near anger cutting off her words. “That’s not enough and you know it. You can’t be working as hard as you do. I wanted more for you, Sarah. I had so much planned for you.” He began unlacing his buckskin shirt, then reached down and grasped the bottom, pulling it up over his head, revealing a flat stomach and a muscular build that belied his fifty years. He was a tall, broad, strong man, who had lived hard and sometimes wild. He had not only fought in the infamous revenge against the Crow, but also the Comanche and the Mexicans in Texas. And his chest bore the scars of suffering the Sun Dance ritual in his teens while living with the Cheyenne. His handsome face was etched with the hard lines of living, and the thin white scar on his cheek seemed to get whiter as the rest of his skin got darker and more rugged with sun and age.
Sarah crossed her arms authoritatively. “There’s no sense going over that again, Caleb. You know how I feel about it. Texas is behind us, and I’ve never asked for a grand life-style. Just finding you again and being with you is all that matters.”
He tossed aside the shirt, putting his hands on his hips and looking down at her. To see them together—he so tall, dark, and broad and sometimes fierce looking; she such a small woman, soft and white—it was an almost humorous picture.
“I know how you feel,” he answered. “And I love you for it. But even if you’re satisfied, it still isn’t enough for me. It’s what I want for you. If they had let me alone in Texas, I could have given you the life you deserve. But when a man’s life is more than half over, it’s not easy to rebuild all over again.”
She stepped closer, putting her hands to his waist. “You still have some fine horses to take to the fort next week, and Lynda made some beautiful quilts. I have two boxes of handmade clothes that will bring some good money in Santa Fe.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. Sarah Sax was a talented seamstress, had even made a living at it in St. Louis during the years they were apart. The clothing she made was immaculately stitched, strong and lasting.
“You’re busy enough with the general chores of a woman and making most of our own clothes. I don’t like your putting in all those added hours just for extra money. You need your rest.”
She reached up and grasped his wrists. “What’s really wrong, Caleb? It’s more than the dead mare and foal. Is it Tom?”
He studied her a long moment. She was still so beautiful to him. All he could ever see was the seventeen-year-old Sarah with whom he had fallen in love. She had always been so small, and now she seemed tinier than ever, losing weight as she aged rather than gaining, so that her waist was still slender and her skin still smooth, and her green eyes were still bright and provocative.
There had been times when she had cried over the fact she had never gotten pregnant again after having James. She had dearly wanted at least one more child. But whatever the physical reason for no more pregnancies, Caleb didn’t care. He was glad their frequent lovemaking had not led to another conception.
“You’re too perceptive, Sarah Sax. And you’re right about Tom. I can’t help but worry about him.” He decided to let her think Tom was the problem. Why worry her with the story of White Horse’s visit and the man’s ominous predictions? If he told her about the dream, she would only suffer the guilt of thinking she was keeping him from the life he truly wanted to live—among the Cheyenne. That was how she would interpret it at least. It was true he missed that life, but to have Sarah was all that mattered.
“Tom Sax is a grown man who is more than capable of taking care of himself,” Sarah was telling him reassu
ringly. “You’ll be getting a letter from him soon telling you everything is just fine. And maybe he’ll find himself a woman to love—someone who will make him as happy as Bess did. That’s what we really want for him, isn’t it?”
He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Got any supper left?”
“You know I always keep something warmed. Maybe one of these evenings you can be here on time.”
He grinned, sensing she needed the smile. They had drawn on each other’s strength, as they always did. He would put White Horse’s visit out of his mind. He could do no more than take a day at a time. But he would not give up his desire to make a better life for his Sarah. “Where’s James?” he asked.
“He’s out in the shed reading. You know James. He’d rather stick his nose in a book than go out on a roundup. He’s got in the habit of going out there with a lamp and reading where he can be alone as often as he can. I swear if I didn’t remind him of his chores, he’d let them go forever and even forget to eat. All he thinks about is those books. He surely has the equivalent of a good education by now, with all the reading he does.”
Caleb said nothing. He and James were as different as night and day. He loved his youngest son dearly, but there was a growing barrier between them, and Caleb didn’t have the slightest idea where it had all begun. Perhaps it was simply the fact that their spirits were not in tune. Caleb Sax was all Indian. James’s looks and actions gave no hint that his father’s Indian blood flowed in his own veins. Nor did he show the tiniest sign of Caleb’s own Indian spirit.
“Cale around?”
“I think he’s off with those Cheyenne boys again.” Sarah shook her head as they headed toward the cabin. “That boy is going to break Lynda’s heart, Caleb. He’s so wild, and he’s gone half the time.”
Caleb only grinned. Now there was a spirit he understood all too well. His grandson Cale was all Indian, a son born to Lynda, and fathered by her first husband, a Cherokee man named Lee Whitestone. “There’s no sense in trying to hold that one back, I can tell you,” Caleb told Sarah as they went inside.
Caleb Lee Whitestone was named after his grandfather and father, and to save confusion, the family just called him Cale. Cale was just six months younger than his uncle, James. He would be twelve in December, and his looks and spirit showed no sign of the small strain of white blood that ran in his veins.
Cale’s father was killed by Comanche Indians before Cale was even born, and several years later Lynda had married Jess Purnell. Since coming to Colorado, Cale seemed to be moving ever closer to his Indian blood and spirit. He had begun spending more and more time with Indian boys his age, mostly Cheyenne who camped around Bent’s Fort and traded with the Santa Fe merchants.
Cale had a five-year-old half brother, John, born to his mother and Jess Purnell. John was a grand mixture of his Indian mother and white father, looking mostly white at first glance, but bearing the dark beauty of his mother. His skin was a soft brown, and his hair dark; but his eyes were a lighter blue, like his father’s, and he carried Jess’s broad, big-boned build.
“Well maybe when little John gets older he’ll be more dependable than his half brother,” Sarah was telling Caleb.
They went inside the small cabin, which consisted of one main room, a bedroom off that main room where Caleb and Sarah slept, and a loft above their bedroom, where James slept.
Sarah moved to the stove and Caleb came up behind, putting his arms around her.
“It’s been a strange day, Sarah.” He bent over, squeezing her close and kissing her neck. White Horse’s words haunted him.
She smiled at his embrace, turning slightly and looking up at him. Caleb’s mouth met hers in a kiss that told her her man needed her. She would never deny that need, not out of duty, but out of the sheer joy and pleasure she derived from his lovemaking.
His lips left hers and he smiled the smile that always melted her, but she saw a sadness behind it that she attributed to the lost mare and the fact that he missed Tom very much.
Caleb left her and walked into the bedroom to get a clean shirt. Far out on the plains wolves sniffed and scratched around freshly dug dirt where a mare and her foal lay buried. Even farther away more wild things moved—Indians—on their way north, constantly on the move now in a desperate struggle to preserve their way of life and what little freedom was left to them.
• Chapter Two •
A warm wind moved across the valley, carrying with it the scent of the Pacific as it gently moved over Tom Sax. The breeze and the sun felt good after his lonely and harrowing journey over the Sierras. No one would know up there it was supposed to be summer. Up there it was still very cold at night, and in the highest elevations pockets of snow dotted shadowed crevices, old, hard snow that never got the chance to fully melt before the next early mountain winter would just make it deeper again. The snows that did melt drained into the watersheds that fed the green valleys below, turning them into a farmer’s or a rancher’s paradise.
Tom gazed at one of those valleys now, a vast expanse of sun-warmed green that lay in quiet beauty. He breathed deeply of the sweet air. So, this was California. It was even more beautiful than others had described it.
Perhaps here he could start a new life. The stabbing pain of the memory of his sweet Bess was not so sharp now. Was it possible she had been dead ten years already? Texas, all his memories, everything had been left behind.
He adjusted his hat, studying the lovely scene below. Like his father, Tom looked all Indian, but he had never really lived like one. He carried Caleb’s tall, broad build; and like his father he had a hard handsomeness to him that attracted women. He was dark, from his coffee-colored skin to his long, shining black hair to his wide-set eyes, eyes that still showed the bitterness that lurked in his soul over what had happened to his family and their ranch in Texas.
But he could not live his whole life lamenting the past. He was thirty-three years old, and still, since Bess died, he had been unable to settle down again. The last few years his father had needed him to help get the family back on its feet after being forced out of Texas. Now it was time to be alone, to go on to something new. He knew horses and ranching, thanks to his father, and in the valley below he could see beautiful horses grazing on the rich green grass. They were golden like the California sun.
Palominos. He liked palominos. And already he liked California. A man could live a damned good life here, and right now it was mostly Spaniards and Mexicans who lived that good life. But it probably would not be long before Americans decided to get a taste of it. When Tom had left his family behind in Colorado, there had already been rumors that the war was not over between the United States and Mexico. Offers were being made by the United States to purchase vast new areas from Mexico, including most of California. But Tom knew Mexico would never sell. They still had not even acknowledged Texas’s independence, let alone the fact that it was now a state. But now that it was, Tom Sax knew full well that if the U.S. could not buy more Mexican land legally, they would take it by force, just as they had taken his father’s land in Texas by force.
He headed his Appaloosa gelding down the ridge toward the fields where the golden horses grazed. Perhaps there was work here for him. It looked like a huge ranch.
“Rancho muy grande,” he muttered, studying the vast grazing land and several outbuildings in the distance. Even farther off he could see the main house, just a small dot far off in the valley. This was a big land, California. It reminded him of Texas in its vastness, but it was so much greener.
Tom stopped to dismount and remove his light buckskin jacket. He didn’t need it now. He tied it to his gear and for a moment was tempted to strip down and ride through the valley half naked, feeling the sun on his skin. He supposed it was the Indian in him that gave him those temptations. But riding half naked into unknown territory run by strangers would not exactly be the best way to make friends and find a job.
He remounted, unbuttoning his blue calico shirt partway and
adjusting his leather hat, then headed into the valley, his long black hair flying behind him as he urged the Appaloosa into a moderate run.
Caleb drove a last nail into the lid on the box of hand-sewn clothing. He had built the boxes himself, lining them with clean doeskin first and making sure the seams were good and tight so that the clothing inside wouldn’t get wet in case of rain. Sarah had put too many hard hours into making those clothes to lose their value from careless packing.
It still irritated him that Sarah had to do seamstress work to help bring in more money. He worried about her. Her spells of weakness seemed to grow more frequent, and the visit from White Horse over two months ago still haunted him.
All his life it seemed people he loved were snatched away from him. And now he had to submit Sarah to the privations of life in an uncivilized land. It was true Texas had also been uncivilized when first she came to him there, but then he had land and power and many men to protect his own. There he had come so close to being able to give his Sarah the good life she deserved.
Now life was again a struggle. He didn’t mind for himself, but it angered him that in these later years of life Sarah had to work so hard in their effort to start over. The frustration of it tortured his soul, and he cursed under his breath as he packed the clothing. Sarah had stayed up all hours of the night just to add to the supplies he would take to Bent’s Fort and sell to traders going to Santa Fe. It was her contribution, something she insisted on doing to bring in more money.
He knew that if he were white, life would not be so hard for them. It was his Indian blood that got them chased out of Texas, his Indian blood Sarah’s father had hated to the point of trying to have Caleb killed all those years ago, leading to their separation and her marriage to a cruel man. Still, he had never for a moment felt ashamed of being Indian. He was proud of that blood and made sure all his children felt the same pride. She would have it no other way. The Indian spirit in Caleb was part of what Sarah loved about him.
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