ON INSTINCT, SARAH REACHED FOR THE RIFLE. AS her fingers wrapped around the cold metal, her brain registered what sat across from her. Not wild animals, but children. Wild children.
Slowly she turned back toward them without letting go of the barrel of the gun. Of course she would never shoot a child, Sarah reasoned, but she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to be unarmed in front of them.
They sat perfectly still on the ground, their clothes and bodies the same shade of brown as the dirt. The firelight danced across their dirty faces and reflected in three pairs of deep blue eyes.
“Hello.” Sarah tried to keep her voice calm. If she frightened them, they might disappear as silently as they’d arrived. “Have you come to dinner?”
The oldest, a girl of no more than six or seven, nodded without blinking.
A hundred questions came to Sarah’s mind. Where had they come from? Where were their parents? How had they moved so quietly across the rooted, leaf-packed spaces between the trees? The amount of dirt on them ended any possibility that they might have come from the water. Their presence gave her hope that something did lie beyond the trees.
Sarah returned the rifle to the wagon and opened another can of beans. While it heated in the plate close to the fire, she rummaged through the supplies until she found another plate and two tin cups. Carefully she divided the beans and handed each of the two smaller children a cup filled with beans and a spoon. Sarah gave a plate and fork to the oldest child. Then, watching out of the comer of her eye, she carefully took the hot plate filled with her share of the beans and began eating.
The children watched her for several bites. Finally the oldest one lifted her fork. The two younger children tossed their spoons aside and scooped the beans out with their fingers. They all ate as though they hadn’t tasted food in days, maybe even weeks.
Sarah studied the two little ones. She couldn’t tell if they were boys or girls or one of each. One was slightly larger, maybe four. The other smaller, younger. Both were so thin, they reminded her of string puppets. At one time their clothes had been well-made. She noticed the outline of where a pocket had once been, and only every other button remained on one child’s garment.
“My name is Sarah.” She focused on the older child. “What’s your name?”
Not one of them answered. They watched her as if they didn’t trust her.
When Sarah reached behind her for a can of fruit they could have as dessert, the children vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. Standing at the edge of the campfire’s light, Sarah listened for them. She didn’t hear a sound. Somehow they’d crossed through the trees once more without crushing leaves or breaking branches.
The thought occurred to her that she might have dreamed them, for she had long ago grown too tired to think straight. While ill on the wagon train, she used to think her husband and child were still alive. She’d talked to Mitchell, asking him simple questions like what he wanted for dinner and would he be in before dark. For days she rocked a baby that turned out to be nothing more than a pillow. Sometimes, when the world of reality and dreams mixed, her arms still ached to hold her newborn.
The reality of losing her family, of watching her wagon burn, or being told she’d have to leave the train; all seemed the nightmare. If Bailee and Lacy hadn’t been there to help her, Sarah wasn’t sure what would have happened. She drifted so much between dreams and wakefulness, she had trouble telling the difference.
They had cared about her just because she needed someone to care. Sarah would never forget their kindness. They would forever be her friends.
A moan from Sam drew her back to the moment. She climbed in beside him and tried to see his face in the shadows. But he turned from the light, mumbling words about walking over too many graves.
She felt a kinship with him, for she’d spent many hours in the place he now resided.
She touched his forehead, planning to let him know she was near. His skin felt afire.
“Fever,” she whispered, remembering Denver telling her Sam would be all right if fever didn’t set in.
Forgetting the wild children and her fears, Sarah hurried off the wagon. She grabbed a pot and ran to the water’s edge. She had to do something and fast or the fever would take Sam.
Before climbing back into the wagon, she tore another strip from her skirt to use as a rag.
Over and over she returned to the river for cold water, then bathed Sam’s hot skin with the damp rag. By the time he’d cooled a little, she had touched him enough to know every curve of his torso.
He was so much bigger than Mitchell, she found it a little frightening, for Mitchell could be cruel and rough. How much rougher could this huge man be when he regained his strength?
But when Sam moved, even in his pain, he never swung at her, or grabbed her. It was almost as if he knew she was trying to help him.
When his fever eased more, he mumbled, “Don’t leave, Angel. Don’t leave.”
Sarah smiled and touched her hand to his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere, Sam. I’m your wife.”
He drifted into sleep.
When she checked on him, the fever had cooled.
“Would you like some supper?” Pulling the buffalo hide up to cover him, Sarah noticed his wound had not yet bled through the bandages. Thank goodness he was starting to heal.
Dark eyes, as black as the night, stared up at her.
“You’re awake.” Sarah smiled because he looked at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Whiskey,” Sam said. “Is there more whiskey.”
While Sarah found the bottle, he mumbled on about how someone had to tell Ruthie if he died. “I promised I’d have someone get word to her,” he said, as though talking to some invisible person in the shadows of the night.
“Ruthie?” Sarah asked as she handed him the bottle. Could Sam have a love somewhere? “Who is Ruthie?” she whispered.
His eyes met hers and she almost thought he understood that he had been talking out of his head. But then he took the bottle from her as if he hadn’t heard her question.
“Ruthie?” she asked again.
“There is no Ruthie anymore,” he said as he managed to prop himself up enough to down almost half a bottle. “Ruthie cut her hair.”
He didn’t bother to thank her for the whiskey, only collapsed mumbling about rattlers gnawing on his back and how he wished the summer would end.
Sarah scooted farther into the wagon, resting her back against the bench. She was so close to Sam she could feel his nonsense words brush along her hand. She pushed her cold feet just beneath the edge of the blankets he used and pulled her knees against her chest. With the rifle within easy reach, she tried to sleep. But thoughts of the children, cold and somewhere in the darkness, kept her awake. Why hadn’t she offered them a blanket? Why had they disappeared?
She leaned her head against the wood of the wagon’s bench and tried to stop shivering.
Without warning, Sam’s big hand circled her waist and pulled her down beneath the buffalo robe.
Fighting down a scream, Sarah searched for enough energy to struggle free, but Sam’s arm moved across her middle and rested there, pinning her beside him.
She tried to breathe. Fear claimed her thoughts as her body warmed beneath the blankets. Sam’s slow steady breathing brushed against the side of her face. The smell of whiskey whispered through the air. Sarah wiggled her nose, then decided it was better than the smell of blood.
After several minutes she relaxed, deciding he had no plans to ravish her. She allowed sleep to settle over exhaustion.
When she woke, just after dawn, she hadn’t moved. Neither had Sam. His hand still rested atop her. It took all her energy to force herself to slip into the cold morning and climb from the wagon.
She almost laughed at herself for even thinking a man so wounded could have been thinking of mating. He probably was only tired of having her shake the wagon with her shivering.
But he dreamed of Ruthie, she remembered. It surprised her that a man so hard, so cold, would mumble about a woman. Maybe he had loved once. Sarah felt suddenly jealous, for she’d never loved. However, he wasn’t with Ruthie, and she wondered if that didn’t somehow add to the pain he felt. Maybe she was better off having no one to worry about.
The air thickened into gray light, as though a cloud had nestled into the clearing overnight. For an hour she pulled dead branches from between the cottonwoods, letting the fire rage against the cold, but she couldn’t seem to warm the clearing. Once, she tried to climb between the roots and see what lay beyond the trees. Only more trees, choking out daylight. She called several times for the children, but wasn’t surprised when they didn’t answer.
Sam woke once, asking for more whiskey and managing to swallow a little jerky broth she’d kept warm. Sarah ripped another section from her skirt. He sat up without saying a word as she changed his bandage. The wound was red and ugly across his flesh, but at least it no longer bled.
Just before dark, as she set out the cans for supper, the three children appeared as they had the night before.
Sarah tried to act as if she wasn’t in the least surprised. “I was hoping you’d join me for dinner.” She set the can of peaches where they all could see it. “Maybe you’ll stay for dessert?”
Tonight she cut up a large potato and let it cook with three cans of beans. She wanted to make sure there was enough food, for she knew what it was like to leave a meal still hungry. While she cooked, she talked to them, answering questions they never asked. She told them that she and Sam were married, but left out the fact that they met when he bailed her out of jail.
Finally the oldest child set down her empty plate and studied Sarah before she spoke. “I’m K.C. These are my brothers, Dodge and Abilene.”
Sarah tried not to smile. “K.C. is short for?”
“Kansas City. My ma named us for the town she was in when we was born.”
Sarah finished her plate, then opened the can of peaches and offered each child a peach half. Again the smaller two used their hands while K.C. watched Sarah and tried to use her fork to cut the peach. When Sarah finished, she walked to the water’s edge and washed her hands along with the plate she had used.
None of the children seemed to feel the need to follow her example.
K.C. glanced toward the wagon when Sarah returned. “You gonna feed Sam Gatlin?”
“When he wakes,” Sarah answered, surprised the child remembered his name. “Is he a friend of yours?” The possibility that Sam might have been the one who left the children at this place crossed her mind. Or maybe K.C. had just listened when Sarah talked to Sam. She must have said his name twenty times in the two days they had been in the clearing.
“No.” K.C. giggled. “But I seen him before. I think he might have been Ma’s ‘happen-along.’ ”
“A happen-along?” Sarah asked as she collected the children’s plates.
“Yeah, you know. Ever once in a while this man happens along and comes to see my ma late at night. The next thing I start worrying about is if I’ll get another little brother.”
Sarah looked at Dodge and Abilene, trying to see any sign that either could be a child of Gatlin’s. They were too dirty to tell much, but neither had his dark eyes.
“Is Sam your father?”
All three children nodded in unison as if they’d practiced their response to such a question.
Sarah added another black mark to her husband’s growing list. Drunkard, gunman, probable wife beater, and now no-good father. How had she managed to marry the lowest of the low in several different categories?
“I should have left the knife in his back,” she mumbled as she scrubbed the dishes. “Maybe before I stepped up and helped him, I should have asked why someone stabbed him. Who knows? Maybe they had good reason. He didn’t bother to tell me, and Denver didn’t seem the least surprised that someone would want to kill him. In fact, she hinted men might be forming a line to do just that.”
Sarah glanced over her shoulder. The children watched her as if she were some kind of curious animal. She wasn’t too sure if K.C. was telling her the truth, or simply saying what she thought Sarah might want to hear.
“Do you know where your mother is?” Sarah asked.
“Nope,” K.C. answered without emotion. “Last time we seen her was in Fort Worth. She was dead in a box.”
“But how did you get here?” Sarah found it hard to believe anyone, even a man like Sam Gatlin, would leave three children out here alone.
K.C. wrinkled her face in thought.
Sarah guessed the child debated telling the truth. “It’s all right, you can trust me. Even if I wanted to, I have no one to tell any secrets to.”
“Tennessee Malone told us not to tell nobody. He said if we want to get to our father, we better not talk to anyone.”
Sarah tried again. “Who is Tennessee Malone?”
“He said he was a friend of our pa’s and he’d take us to a place where we’d meet up with our pa, but all he did was leave us here.”
Sarah tried for another hour, but the child had no more answers, only that the day her mother died, a man they’d never seen before named Malone loaded them in a wagon. Then he dropped them off with a thick wrap of jerky and told them Sam Gatlin would be there in three days.
Only Sam never came and K.C. said she’d watched the moon turn full three times. When the jerky ran out, they’d survived on berries and roots.
“We’ve been hungry for a long time,” K.C. said. “Could we have another peach?”
Sarah knew she should ration the quickly dwindling supplies, but she couldn’t say no.
After feeding them another two cans of peaches and all the bread that was left, she wrapped the children in the huge shawl and put them close to the fire so they would stay warm. She spent the second night in the clearing listening to Sam mumble in his sleep and trying to figure out why he hadn’t come for the children. Had he thought that if he waited long enough they’d be dead and he wouldn’t have to worry about them?