Owen Family Saga Box Set: Books 1-3 Read online

  Chapter 9

  The next day dragged on like the three before it: hot, humid, and full of quarrels. Carl again went out to scout, but this time, Angus insisted on going along with him.

  They didn’t say anything much to each other; there wasn’t a lot to say about riding large circles through the dusty grass, squinting into the sun looking for trampled grass or hoof prints, and feeling the sweat dripping down their chests, backs, and arms. They stopped from time to time to share a gourd of water or to rest their animals, but they still didn’t talk.

  Carl and Angus rode all the way back to the knoll where the brothers had discovered the signs of pursuit several days before. The younger man got down from his horse and walked around, looking at the bare patch of ground where men had met and plotted.

  He squatted on his heels for a time, backtracking his and Rulon’s movements to determine if there was something here that they had missed. He climbed the hill, stood on the top of the rise, took off his hat and wiped the sweatband, replaced it on his head, and looked out toward the north. A half-mile away, a band of chewed-up earth stood out from the blue stem, catching his eye. Rulon and I came up from behind the hill, he thought, but we didn’t make them tracks out yonder. He stared toward the track in the grass, then turned and ran down the knoll to where Angus waited with the horses.

  “We’ve got trouble.” He bowed his head, his chest heaving, then looked up. “No, Pa’s got trouble. Those fellows didn’t go back to town.”

  “What?”

  He gestured to the north, then around the area. “There’s a big track out there Rulon and I didn’t see before the grass died. They stopped here and had a discussion, and if I’m reading sign rightly, left toward the east, then circled around out that-a-way, rode hard, and set up an ambush for us along the road a piece.” He swore and scrambled into his saddle. “My family and a lot of other good folks moved right into it, and I don’t think they’re going to come out alive, because we’re sitting here on our thumbs waiting for the moon to rise blue!” He clucked to Sherando, and started for the wagons.

  “Now, calm down, son. Maybe they did go back after they saw how strong we was,” Angus called.

  “No chance,” Carl threw back over his shoulder. “I saw the hate in that man’s eyes when he flung them strange words at me, and he ain’t one to quit on us.”

  Angus got his horse started as well, and caught up to Carl. “Maybe he thought better of it after a time,” he shouted.

  “You weren’t there, Angus. He’s after my blood, and the blood of my kin, and the girls, too. He won’t give up on the girls,” Carl yelled, his words bouncing out of his mouth.

  When Carl and Angus rode into the camp, Tom and Rand were standing nose to nose, shaking fingers in each other’s faces. Carl slid off his horse and ran up to the overheated men.

  “Stop it! Stop it right now,” he commanded. “Rand, if you want to prove how much courage you’ve got, then you’ll have to go down the road a piece.”

  Randolph turned on the young man. “You’re crazy, boy. We’ll fight off them ruffians right here.”

  “Well, they ain’t coming here. They holed up ahead, laying for my ma and pa, and my brothers and sister, and your daughter and little grandchild, and all them good people.”

  Tom turned to him. “Speak plain, boy.”

  Carl threw out his hands. “Berto Acosta and his bunch circled around and got ahead. My folks could be dead right now.”

  “Well, what’re we sitting here for?” Rand sputtered. “We’d better get on the road.” He turned on his heel and strode toward his wagon, then wheeled and returned. “How do you know, boy?”

  “The sign all adds up now. Besides,” he continued in a low voice, “I got a feeling in my bones.”

  Rand shuddered and moved away, bawling out orders for breaking camp.

  ~~~

  They got underway, pushing the animals hard to eke out extra miles of travel. Carl looked around at the waving grass, and wished the wind would push them along with as much speed. He glanced at Ida. She sat scowling, holding on to the seat of the jolting wagon as he coaxed the mules to pull a little harder, move a little faster. Eliza played with her doll, looking like she was content to be moving again.

  When the road made a curve around a stand of trees, he looked back the way they had come and caught sight of a mass of dark clouds on the horizon. Rain, he thought. Good and bad, both. Cool us off, but it’ll muddy up the road.

  Later, Carl saw the clouds again, but instead of growing upward to pile high into the heavens, these clouds grew sideways, spreading out to cover a good part of the eastern skyline.

  Carl stared a moment longer at the cloud, then a mounting dread filled the pit of his stomach as he realized the blackness bearing down on them was not cloud, but smoke. He stopped the mules, threw himself off the wagon to the sounds of Ida’s protests, and ran up the line to Rand’s wagon.

  “Rand, hold up a minute. Look at that,” he shouted, pointing to the smoke enveloping the east. “That’s a prairie fire, or I’m not my father’s son.”

  “Prairie fire!” Rand exploded, then went white in the face. “What’ll we do, boy?”

  “We’ve got to make for the next stream and drive the wagons down into the water. Hurry, man, we ain’t got much time to outrun it.” He left Rand’s wagon and ran back down the line, shouting, “Angus, Tom!” The men started to halt their teams and climb down from their wagons.

  “No, keep moving,” Carl yelled, waving his arm. “Fire! Get down to the next creek. Move on.”

  He ran back toward the freight wagon, calling out to Andy Campbell. “Throw them stock animals ahead of us. If they stampede, maybe the teams will follow.”

  Carl climbed to the seat and cracked his whip. The mules were reluctant to start pulling, and Carl assaulted the air again with the whip until he had provoked the animals into a shambling sort of hurry. He wished the girls weren’t on the seat with him. Maybe then he’d feel like telling the team what he thought of their efforts.

  Looking back at the smoke, Carl gauged the fire’s advance. He could see flame now, growing dark orange as the fire paused to engulf a grove of trees. The smoke became black, towering upward into the blue heaven.

  Hush, he thought, we ain’t going to outrun this fire.

  He turned to urge the beasts onward at a faster pace and caught sight of Ida’s white, set face. She stared straight ahead, fingers tightly gripping the edges of the seat.

  “We’ll make it,” he grunted, forcing himself to sound confident. “I ain’t come this far west to burn up in no fire!”

  Ida gave no sign of having heard him, but continued to stare ahead. Carl took his gaze from her face and whipped the mules a little faster. The trotting animals smelled the smoke on the wind from the east and lurched into the hames, frightened by the volume of the odor.

  He turned to check the fire’s progress again, and a groan escaped his tightly compressed lips, startling Ida out of her trance. She turned and hurled herself against Carl, grabbing him around the neck and cutting off his control of the team.

  “Carl, Carl!” she screamed. “Don’t let me get burned. I don’t want no scars!”

  He struggled with the panicked girl, trying to loosen her hold on his neck, trying to catch his breath. His right arm came free of her grasp and brushed against his holstered gun. Slipping off the rawhide loop, he drew the Colt and held it overhead, then fired one shot.

  Ida jumped at the report of the gun, shrank back from Carl, and huddled on the lurching wagon seat.

  At the sound of the gun, the mules took on a new spirit of cooperation and stretched out in a lope, faster than before. Carl replaced his pistol, and seeing that Ida was safe, tried to sooth her with quiet talk.

  “Ida, settle down. You’re goin’ to be just fine,” he said softly, his words jolted and cut up from the movement of the wagon. Smoke billowed on all sides of them now as the wind blew fiercely from the rear. Carl’s belly twisted as he
realized that time was short, too short, before the fire overtook them.

  Like a sentinel of salvation, a lone oak tree stood out against the western sky just ahead. Carl’s heart swelled with hope, and he stood up and popped his whip.

  Andy Campbell already had the stock running in the direction of the tree, and the wagons followed, with Carl’s bringing up the rear. He whooped for joy when he saw Rand’s team drop from view into a valley. Then Angus and Tom and their wagons and teams also disappeared, and Carl cracked his whip once more to drive his team over the lip of the declivity.

  In a second, it seemed, Carl took in the entire scene. Flowing water gleamed in the bottom of the cut, reflecting the billowing tops of three wagons parked on the stream’s bank. A fourth wagon stood jacked up in the water with goods scattered on both banks, and both rear wheels lay on the ground alongside a shattered axle. The wagons of the second party still careered down the slope.

  Recognition flamed in him. Carl heard a voice yell, “Pa!” and from the rawness of his throat, knew it was his own voice. Relief washed over him as his father’s bearded face appeared next to the freight wagon.

  “Prairie fire, Pa!” Carl picked up Ida and handed her down to his father, then dangled Eliza to him also. Julia hurried over and took the frightened girls to the stream.

  Rod quickly glanced at Carl's smoke-blackened face, then turned to shout, “Ed, Chester, boys, get those wagons into the crick. Grab your shovels and buckets. Fire’s comin’.”

  Mary Owen cried out, “Fire! My bed! My food!” and Marie and Julia ran to help her gather up as many of the goods on the near bank as they could handle, and piled them at the edge of the creek.

  Tom and Parley Morgan and the Campbell boys helped Chester Bates push the parked wagons into the water as Ed Morgan showed the latecomers where to drive into the stream.

  Elizabeth Morgan and Muriel Bates set the girls to wetting quilts and blankets in the water, and Molly Campbell passed them to the men to carry to the top of the slope where they would use them to beat out the rapidly approaching fire.

  “Julianna,” called out her mother. “You take the babies and little ones to the other side of the creek out of harm’s way. Keep them happy, daughter, so they won’t take a fright."

  The girl ran to scoop up Delia Campbell and her two brothers, their cousin Joshua O’Connor, and her own nephew Roddy, and herded them into the stream. “Let’s play a game,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Come over here, children. I know a story.”

  Rida O’Connor followed her, calling out, “I can tend the young’uns, too.”

  Rulon hurried over to consult with his father. “Pa, let’s set a back fire and burn off the grass up there on the rim. It might help us turn the fire away.”

  Rod nodded. “Take James and Clay. The women’ll keep the grass and the wagons wet down here. Carl, show them how to wet down the wagons.” Rod grabbed a shovel and ran up the slope, shouting for more assistance.

  Once he had driven the freight wagon into the water, Carl started to climb down, but his tensed muscles gave out, and he collapsed into the stream. Wiping the water out of his eyes, he arose, dripping, and grabbed the bucket tied to the side of the wagon. He dipped it into the river and pitched the water over the canvas covering of the freight.

  Rand Hilbrands saw what Carl was doing, and cried out, “Stop! You can’t wet my cargo.”

  Carl looked wearily up at him from the stream.

  “I can let it burn, if you’d druther.”

  Rand waved his hand in concession, and his shoulders slumped from exhaustion. Amanda pressed a bucket into his grasp.

  “Forget about the store goods,” she shrilled. “Look out for our own things.”

  The wind carried thick, black smoke and sparks down into the valley, as Rulon’s fire caught hold ten yards past the rim. He and his brothers nursed the flames in the direction of the rim, scuffing the earth behind the burned section with their shovels to make their firebreak. Ed Morgan sent his sons with filled buckets to help control the burn. “Wet the sides of the bank up there at the top,” he called. “Keep the slope soaking wet.”

  Ida shivered in the stream, wrapped in a drenched blanket. Her sister Eliza, busy splashing water from a bucket onto the family wagon, looked over at her and sniffed.

  “Ida ain’t working, Mama.”

  “Pay her no mind, ‘Liza,” her mother called. “She’s no use to us now. Keep the wagon wet!”

  “Here it comes,” James yelled, tumbling over the rim as he retreated from the extreme heat, with Clay and Rulon hard on his heels. The Owen brothers, faces streaked with sweat and grime, came down to the water, wiping the gritty smoke out of their eyes.

  “All that smoke puts me in mind of a battleground,” grunted Rulon as he sluiced water up the hill. He paused to rub the back of his neck. “It sure brings back bad memories.” Then he bent to the water again.

  Nobody but Ida had time to sit and listen to the crackle of the burning vegetation and the roar of the flames. Nobody but Ida noticed the change in volume of sound of the fire as it veered away to the south. Nobody spoke to Ida, so Ida told no one.

  Then Carl saw that the smoke had thinned out, and he straightened his back to look up at the rim. The towering clouds of smoke were gone, and he dropped his bucket and scrambled up the bank of the creek to the top of the slope.

  “Pa,” he shouted. “The fire’s gone off to the south. Looks like Rulon’s back fire did the trick!”

  His older brother climbed the hill to join him, and Carl glanced back to watch him come. Rulon had discarded his sooty shirt, and for the first time, Carl saw the angry purple scars of his brother’s war wounds.

  “It’s a wonder you made it home, Rule,” Carl said gravely. “What did you run into that made so many holes?”

  “You ever hear of a mortar shell?” Rulon stopped on the edge of the valley. “Them things explode into a right smart number of pieces when they hit. Shrapnel, they call ‘em. I reckon I was too close one day, and caught a bunch of shrapnel.”

  “Whatever they are, they didn’t do you no good. Mary’s lucky she ever saw you again.”

  “Most of ‘em are still in there. The surgeon figured I’d die, so he didn’t bother to dig the iron out,” Rulon added, rubbing the largest of the scars.

  Carl turned and surveyed the blackened east, wiping his hands on his shirtfront. “Makes me ache inside to see all that grass gone. What a ruin!” He hung his forearm over his shorter brother’s shoulder. “Did you come across any surprises out this way?”

  Rulon’s head snapped around to look at Carl. “You mean like that Acosta scum attacking us in this valley? Yeah. We had some surprises.” He spat into the ashes at his feet. “We buried Ed Morgan’s little girl, and put her brother Ezra into the wagon with a bullet through his thigh. Real nice surprise for a ten-year-old.”

  Carl dropped his arm from Rulon’s shoulder, clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and swore. He stabbed his shovel into the earth several times. “Anybody else hurt?”

  “Couple of near hits, but the Morgans got the worst of it because they was out wood-gathering when the men rode down on us.” He paused for a moment, wiping the sweat from his dripping forehead with the back of his hand.

  “How’d it happen?”

  “Ed sent Tom out with the kids. The gang rode in from over that rise.” Rulon gestured with his hand. “We heard the shots and came a-running with our rifles. We dropped about half of them outlaws before they pulled out for good. Rode on south.”

  “Gone to Texas?”

  “Likely. Good riddance. We’d been here a day when they attacked, on account of my axle.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  “Went off the bank wrong, hit a boulder in the creek. I had a feeling about that axle being flawed when I got the wagon, but I didn’t have much choice.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  Rulon smiled crookedly. “I stole it off the Yankee who bought the live
ry for taxes. Clay helped, but he wasn’t real happy about it.”

  “I guess nobody’s happy lately. I’m sorry about the Morgans’ loss.”

  They stood for a moment, looking and thinking, then Carl spoke up slowly, still looking off into the distance.

  “Is Mary Hilbrands a good wife to you? Does she make you…feel…like a man?”

  Startled, Rulon raised his eyes to look at Carl’s face. After a time, he said, “That’s a mighty strange question, brother, but since you make bold to ask, I’ll answer best I can.”

  He paused, evidently searching for words. “Mary come to me young, fifteen or thereabouts. I reckon I was in a hurry, leaving soon for the cavalry, and all. We didn’t learn much about…anything, or each other, before I rode away. Then I didn’t see her again ‘til I woke up with a mess of holes in me, home in a strange bed. You sure you want to know all this, Carl?”

  “Yep.”

  “Mary’s a dutiful wife. She keeps the house and cooks the meals and tends Roddy as well as most, I reckon, and she brought me through when I came home all shot up. She tends to my needs, all of ‘em, with no complaint, but sometimes I feel she’s a stranger to me.” Rulon shook his head. “Likely that’s because we ain’t had but one year—no, less than that—to know each other in the four years that we’ve been wed. And most of that time I’ve been laid up with a belly full of iron scrap.”

  “Do you reckon you love her?”

  “I’ll find that out when I know her better. What we done in haste, we need some leisure to work out. Mary has her talents,” he added.

  “No ‘repenting’ at leisure?”

  “No regrets. I have a good wife, and she gave me a fine son. Maybe that’s the best we get in life.”

  “Pa and Ma have more than that.”

  “They been together a long time. Lend me some years, Carl, then ask me again.”

  Carl turned to look down the grade. Ida seemed so tiny and forlorn, standing on the side of the stream, and his throat pinched to see her clutch the damp blanket around her shoulders. “I’ll do that,” he said, and started down the slope.