Destiny's Dawn

by Rosanne Bittner

  She sighed deeply, wishing she could somehow relieve his worry. “I have to make supper, Caleb.” She touched his arm. “All we can do is keep the faith and wait to hear from him. We will. I know we will. Poor Lynda felt terrible when the letter came back. She feels as if it’s her fault we can’t go to California. We can’t let her feel too badly about it. Tom means very much to her. They were close. That’s why I didn’t want to bring this up in front of her. I wanted you to get your emotions under control before we go have supper.”

  Caleb grasped her arms, leaning down and kissing her hair. “We can only wait—and pray,” he told her, “and be glad that at least Cale is all right and all of us are well.” He embraced her. “I missed you, Sarah. I hate being away from you.”

  “And I hate it when you go away.”

  He pressed her close, and she felt his power, his need. Caleb would want her tonight. And she, him.

  “Go ahead with supper. I’ll be there in a while.”

  She managed a reassuring smile. “I wish I hadn’t had to tell you about the letter. I thought it best to get it over with.”

  “It’s all right.”

  She turned and left reluctantly.

  “Los Malos,” he muttered. “The Bad Ones.” Surely these “bad ones” were californios bent on revenge for some great wrong. It reminded him of his own days of warring against the Crow, and his anxious heart and discerning mind could not help linking Tom to the guerrilla raiders. It could explain why they had not heard from him. A man bent on revenge thinks only of that and nothing more, not even his loved ones. He could only pray his suspicions were only that—suspicions. Raiding against the Americans could be very dangerous business, and Tom surely had more sense than to get mixed up in such a venture.

  • Chapter Sixteen •

  The wagon train of supplies moved slowly through the valley, just as the sun nestled behind the next mountain. The men driving the wagons intended to make camp soon. Tomorrow they would be in Sonoma, bringing the latest in clothing and machinery from the East for the Americans in California. There were twelve huge, lumbering wagons, each pulled by several pairs of mules and loaded down with all they could possibly carry. Two men rode in each wagon seat, one driving, the other riding shotgun against Indians and possible outlaws. They had heard of Los Malos, but there had been little raiding lately, according to a scout, and most of that had been farther south. They slowed and began circling to make camp.

  That was when the shooting began. The outlaws appeared seemingly out of nowhere, emerging from the surrounding hills like ghosts and descending upon the party of traders so quickly that they had no time to get organized.

  Seven drivers went down immediately. Their attackers wore black hoods so that none of them could be recognized. There were eight outlaws all together, and only one was bareheaded. His face was painted, every inch of it, half black and half white, with yellow stripes across each cheek. It was as good or better a disguise than a hood, and to his victims he was every bit the wildest of Indians. His hair was long and black, and his shirtless chest was also heavily painted. His white, even teeth showed a grin nothing less than evil as he aimed his repeating rifle or revolver with sure accuracy and let out a war whoop every time his weapons met their mark.

  Three more drivers went down, and the elusive attackers suddenly retreated into the hills, leaving the remaining fourteen teamsters frightened and bewildered. They waited through the night, keeping watch, sure there would be another attack. They pulled in their dead and buried them by lantern light, all of them nervous and shaken. But everything remained quiet.

  “What do you think, Lenny?” one of them spoke up after shoveling in more dirt over his dead friends. “They’re as cunning as damned Indians, but most of them were dressed like Mexican bandits.”

  Lenny lit up a thin cigar. “Mexicans—californios—no doubt about it. But their leader, the Indian, that part I don’t understand.”

  “How do you know he was the leader?”

  “Pretty damned obvious, the way he was painted. Besides, he had a certain arrogance the others didn’t have—more daring. You see how close he got? And yet none of us could hit him.”

  “Maybe he’s just a Mexican painted up like an Indian for the hell of it.”

  “Could be. But he has that air about him and that wild look that smells of true Indian, the way he was painted up—shirtless and all. And the way he rode.”

  “You think it’s that bunch they call Los Malos?”

  “They fit the description. But the last we heard, they were farther south.”

  “Apparently they get around.”

  “What I don’t understand is why they keep it up. It won’t change anything. California belongs to the Americans, and that’s that. What’s the sense in all this damned killing?”

  They both stared at the fresh mound of dirt that covered the common grave they had dug for their friends. “Things like this—it smells of plain old revenge, Lenny. Plain old revenge. I mean, it makes sense, you know? The scout said the only ones who get attacked are Americans.”

  Lenny shivered. “Gives me the chills.” He looked around into the darkness beyond the lantern light. “Come to think of it, we haven’t seen our scout all day or tonight. Why didn’t he warn us of this?”

  They looked at each other. Neither had to ponder the answer.

  “I’ll be glad as hell to reach Sonoma tomorrow,” Lenny said.

  Lenny’s “tomorrow” brought an early-morning attack that caught several of them sleeping. Five more teamsters went down, and the other nine who slept scrambled for their rifles, finding it difficult to believe that twenty-four men had been overwhelmed by only eight of the enemy.

  Those eight rode in closer now. Lenny took careful aim at the painted Indian, but just as he was about to fire the man fell to the side of his horse, and Lenny’s bullet whizzed through thin air. He cocked and aimed again, but the Indian was also aiming, his pistol in one hand while with the other he held on to his horse’s bridle, perched precariously on the side of the mount. The pistol fired, and Lenny went down, staying alive long enough to see the Indian ride up even closer, now fully mounted again. He looked down at Lenny.

  “American swine,” he sneered, his white teeth gleaming through the hideously painted face. “You took my woman from me, and you will suffer for it!” He rode his horse over Lenny, pulling a torch from where it was tied to the side of his mount and lighting it. He threw the torch on the top of the wagon beside which Lenny had been shooting. He rode his horse past the man, then quickly jumped the animal over the tongue of the wagon to chase down one driver who was running away. He aimed his revolver, taking an easy bead on the man’s back. “Hey, Vehoe,” he shouted, using the Cheyenne name for “white man.”

  The man turned, his eyes wide with terror. He raised his pistol, but the Indian’s fired first, opening a hole in the man’s forehead.

  The Indian whirled his horse then, pulling another torch from his gear and setting a second wagon on fire, then reaching down and unhitching the team of mules. He didn’t mind killing Americans, but he couldn’t bring himself to let the animals die from the heat of the fire.

  His friends were doing a good job of finishing off the rest of the Americans, and four more wagons were already burning, their teams also unhitched.

  Minutes later, all twelve wagons were in flames, and some mule teams were running off, still attached by harnesses. Only one driver was left alive. He crawled in panicky circles as the outlaws surrounded him, calling him names in Spanish, laughing at his fear. The man finally got to his feet, breathing deeply for courage, waiting for his fate. He stared at the Indian, who approached, looking down at him arrogantly. The Indian aimed his pistol close to the man’s face, and the man stood shaking and looking ready to cry.

  “Please . . . let me go,” he squeaked.

  The Indian grinned, suddenly gently releasing the cocked hammer and holstering the gun. “I will let you go. You are perhaps a day or t
wo’s walk from Sonoma.” The wagons raged in flames by then, billowy, black smoke rising high into the sky, the flames eating up thousands of dollars of valuable supplies. “You go there,” the Indian continued. “You tell them what happened here. Tell them it will happen again and again, until the Americans have paid for what they did to the californios. You tell them it might be better if they left California.”

  The man stared at the Indian, amazed at his good English. His accent was slightly Spanish, but everything about his looks was Indian.

  “Who the hell are you?” he choked out.

  “That is for the Americans to wonder about.”

  The man’s shirt was soaked with sweat as he backed away slightly. “The Bad Ones. You’re The Bad Ones—Los Malos—aren’t you?”

  The Indian grinned more. “Los Malos! Is that what they call us?”

  The American nodded.

  The Indian began laughing, saying something in Spanish to his hooded men. They all began laughing, exchanging the phrase between them. The American started to grin himself, until the Indian suddenly sobered, riding closer to him, his eyes looking wild. He reached down and grasped the American by the front of the shirt, yanking him close against the side of his horse and bending close to him.

  “I will tell you who the bad ones are,” he sneered. “You Americans! You came here and murdered at will, raped our women and stole our land! Do not call us the bad ones, señor! You stole Indian land back east, and you stole Texas, and now you want more! You will not stop until you have it all!” He shoved the man so hard that he landed on his rear. The Indian backed away then, signaling his men and riding off.

  The American watched until they disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. He breathed a deep sigh of relief, overjoyed that he was still alive. He turned to see the wagons burning so hard that they roared, and he shook his head at the considerable loss. He got up then, hurriedly removing a mule from its harness and scrambling to find a canteen. He saw one hanging from the side of a burning wagon. He ducked toward it and grabbed it off, the heat of the fire singeing his hat. He grabbed the mule by the harness and pulled.

  “Come on, you jackass, let’s go. You’re coming along in case my feet give out.”

  He headed for Sonoma.

  Several hours later, deep in the foothills of the Sierras, seven men removed their hoods, and the eighth washed the paint from his face.

  “Did you see how that man was shaking, Tom?” one of the others asked the Indian.

  Tom Sax grinned, wiping his face with a towel. “I saw, Jesus.” He put down the towel. “We hurt them bad today. That was a big shipment.”

  The others, including Rico, agreed. Tom, Rico, and Jesus had added men gradually over their several months of retaliatory raids, men as bitter and angry as them; men who had lost wives and sons, daughters and land; men wiped out and ruined by American occupation of California. They were all loyal californios, some actually believing they could eventually make the Americans leave. Tom knew better, but he would not take away their hopes. His own goal was simple revenge for Juanita.

  “How was la señorita Galvez the last time you visited, Tom?” one of them asked.

  Tom sobered. “A little better. She moves around and takes care of herself now—feeds and dresses herself, all that. But she still won’t talk, and when she looks at me—” He turned around, pulling on a shirt. “She always starts crying.” He stared at the Sierras rising, only three or four miles away. He slowly buttoned his shirt. “She looks at me with such love sometimes, but when I try to touch her she screams and runs away. I can’t tell for sure if she even recognizes me.”

  “She will, Tom,” Rico spoke up. “You will see. Someday she will be the Juanita you once knew.”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t know if that can ever happen.” He walked to his gear. Seventeen. Juanita was only seventeen. Would she be like this for all the years she had left to live? Would he ever hold her again or even have the glorious privilege of making love to her, as he so ached to do? He took some paper from his supplies, as well as a quill pen and a bottle of ink. He had to finish his letter to his father and find someone to carry it to Colorado. He knew full well how worried Caleb Sax would be by now, for he hadn’t written in a long time, and if Caleb had sent a letter to Lecho de Rosas, its carrier would have found the disaster there and relayed it back to him.

  The last thing Tom wanted was for his father to come looking for him. For one thing, Caleb belonged with the rest of the family in Colorado. They needed him. And for another, he didn’t want his father to know what he was doing here in California. Caleb would worry even more, and he would most certainly try to discourage him.

  Tom Sax didn’t want or need any advice or discouragement. He was determined to taste the sweet honey of revenge over and over. He would not stop until Juanita was well. That was his vow to himself, and he would keep it. Los Malos would raid and burn and kill until Juanita Galvez was a whole woman again, or until Tom Sax himself met his death during one of his own raids. With Juanita the way she was, it mattered little to him now if he lived or died.

  Sarah ignored the pain that had returned to her joints. The baby was coming and her daughter needed her. Jess and Caleb paced outside Jess and Lynda’s cabin, feeling the helplessness all men feel when a woman is having a baby. It was October, 1847. Cale had been gone over two months. He had returned to the Cheyenne he now called family, and Caleb guessed they had gone even farther north, following the buffalo, which were already becoming more scarce.

  Seven-year-old John helped James turn a herd of mares from a corral out to pasture. John was strong for his age and had learned early to ride. Jess was proud of his son, who had his father’s stocky build, and blue eyes. Jess had himself been orphaned at a young age, and for years he had drifted, never dreaming he would someday have a wife and a son. Now a second child was being born. Lynda had been in labor for twenty-four hours now, struggling to give birth to the child she had prayed for months would go full term and be born healthy.

  “Why do we do these things?” Jess asked Caleb, nervously lighting a pipe.

  “What things?”

  “Get married, have babies. Jesus, a man has a choice to be free as a bird and move from woman to woman, and what does he do? He marries one particular woman and gets himself all tied down, then goes through the hell of listening to his woman lying there screaming with pain—and why? Because he made love to her and got her pregnant. If she survives that, you’ve got sons and daughters and all that new responsibility, and the thing just keeps going and going.”

  Caleb only smiled, sitting down on a hitching post and taking a thin cigar from the pocket of his buckskin shirt. “You know damned well why we do it,” he told Jess, lighting the cigar. He puffed on it quietly for a moment. “You go along with no one to think about but yourself, and then all of a sudden one woman comes along who strikes you in a certain way—and she can’t be had easy like the others. There’s only one way to have her and that’s to marry her.”

  For several minutes both men sat thinking their own thoughts, until Sarah finally came to the door. She noticed a look of near worship in Caleb’s eyes when he turned to look at her, and their eyes held for a moment. A lovely warmth moved through her at his discerning gaze, and she wondered what the two of them had been talking about. But there was no time for questions. Jess was looking at her anxiously. He stood up. “What’s wrong?”

  Sarah smiled. “Nothing. You and Lynda have a daughter. Lynda and the baby are both fine.”

  Jess’s eyes teared. “There’s no heavy bleeding this time?”

  “Nothing unusual that I can tell. I still have to clean them both up. I just thought I’d let you know right away. I’ll let you know when you can come and see them.”

  Jess turned and looked at Caleb, letting out a war whoop and running off the porch to go and tell John. Sarah met Caleb’s blue eyes and he walked up the steps, putting a hand to her waist. “You all right?”

&
nbsp; Her eyes teared. “Oh, Caleb, we have another grandchild! Isn’t it a miracle? I just wish—” She hugged him around the middle. “I wish Tom could be here, or that we would hear from him. Everything would be so perfect then.”

  He ran his hands over her back, kissing her hair. He knew she was in pain and not telling him. And Tom. Where in God’s name was Tom?

  “A granddaughter. Our first granddaughter. I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  Sarah looked up at him and he met her lips, suddenly hungry for this woman who had come into his life and brought so much happiness in his later years. He kissed her hand, then moved his lips to her cheek, her neck.

  “Caleb! What has got into you—that look on your face when I came to the door—”

  He laughed lightly, kissing her cheek again. “I just love you, that’s all.” The baby started crying and Caleb grinned. “That’s a nice sound.” He kissed her once more lightly. “Go clean them up. I want to see my new grandchild.”

  He let go of her and she hurried inside, and Caleb looked out over the plains again, wondering suddenly if he would ever hear from Tom or see his eldest son again.

  “Caleb, where are we going?” Sarah rode in front of him on his horse. “What if Lynda needs me?”

  “We won’t be far, and Jess knows where we are. They’re having a good time enjoying that new baby girl, and James can fend for himself.”

  It was dark outside, but Caleb knew his land well as he headed to a grassy ravine nestled among cottonwood trees near the river about a mile from the house.

  “You mean you told Jess you were riding off with me?”

  “Sure. He’s an understanding man.”

  “Caleb!”

  He knew her face was reddening and he laughed lightly. “Sarah, for the last two weeks you’ve been under a strain, waiting for that baby to come. And the delivery wasn’t easy for you. Lately I feel like we haven’t really been together, there have been so many other things to think about. Tonight we put aside Lynda and Tom and James and all the rest. Tonight it’s just you and me. And it just seems easier to forget about problems if you can leave the house and get off alone.”