The night was grim with smoke from the last round of explosions still fresh in the midnight air. The wind didn’t help to rid of it and the small campfires burned with eye breaking light as the survivors of the last battle scrimmaged around the small encircled camp for some kind of relief.
Chris walked amongst those people, counting heads and came up with a head count of twenty-six. Twenty-six was the last number he counted and five was the number he counted as dead. He gripped his hands into tight fists, swearing under his breath but kept it smooth whenever the laughing, ignorant Dickey O’Shea entered his thoughts. How a man of wisdom and certainty would turn to murder and mayhem all for a piece of land. He had all of what, ten men with him, against the lot of farmers just looking to settle in and make a new life. When something as simple and wonderful as this journey for these people could turn into a battle.
With quiet whispering all around him, Chris passed JD and Buck stooped down low by a fresh campfire, looking like they were trying to read something in JD’s hands. Ezra wasn’t far from them; crouched down on his knees, hovering over the fire to boil some water it looked like from Chris’s view point.
He turned his head in the other direction and watched Josiah sit on a wooden stool in front of an old man, holding his hands tightly together around a silver crucifix. One of the casualties Chris counted. Josiah was deep in pray, with the widow, Allis and her son, Eugene, not far from him as they bowed their heads and listened.
“Mama, I’m scared.”
Chris knew that familiar voice and as he walked on by Josiah he saw ahead of him Billy with Mary and the young girl Katie with her father, Gerard. They were sulking beneath Gerard’s canopy wagon. Chris watched as Billy sunk low in his mother’s arms and Mary wrapped a protective hold around him to keep him calm, his feather kissed tears controlled. And Gerard did the same with his daughter, rubbing her back, whispering comforting words to her.
That was another thing that made Chris so angry about this unfortunate journey…there were kids involved. Young children, the same age as his Adam, on this wagon train during all this destruction and life taking events. When the explosions boomed off, Chris was only thinking one thing…the children. That they must be scared, out of their wits, and night after night in raging tears. And from the looks of young Billy and Katie, he was right. He told Mary he didn’t think this was a good idea for both her and her son to tag along. That only he and the other guys weren’t good protectors against explosives.
“It’s okay, Billy. We’re going home soon.” Mary murmured in her son’s ears and she bent down low and kissed the top of his head as he buried his face deeper in her arms.
Mary looked at Gerard, then right up to meet Chris’s dark glare in the moonlight rays. For a brief moment they shared a connective stare with more passion and sorrow combined to ease any man’s suffering.
“Mary?” Gerard’s voice broke that hard glare and Chris looked away just before Mary did to look at the man sitting beside her. The man that may be her husband soon.
Chris continued on his routine stride around the outer part of the enclosed wagon trains until he reached the only opening and found Vin standing there with the bare open land spread out before him. His back was to him, his rifle aimed high and erect, and he leaned on a hip as he gazed over all the land in the midst of the evening blackness.
Vin wasn’t talking to anyone right now, and not for a while Chris only assumed when he moved his feet and began to walk again. He knew his friend was in a difficult state of mind that involved a married woman and her husband not on good speaking terms with any of the seven, especially Vin and even Chris when they only suggested some good reasoning for the rest of their trip.
Chris knew he shouldn’t have gotten involved with Vin’s personal business but if it was going to cost the life of another man, he had to interfere one way or another. Let Vin be angry with him, let Vin hurt him, and let Vin take his anger out on him. Chris didn’t care, as long as it was going to keep peace for the remainders of these farmers until they reached their land safely.
That’s what this whole trip was about, wasn’t it?
“Take it easy, miss.” He next heard Nathan’s voice as he made his way back to where he started with the counting. Still twenty-six when the original number of the farmers was thirty-two.
This time Chris did stop to take in the blossoming newly widow of Jack Mackenzie, the young man whose life was taken away over an explosive scare. He walked up closer to the widow as she leaned against her wagon, a few down pillows propped behind her back and Nathan kneeled in front of her, taking her pulse.
“Everything all right?” Chris asked as he neared the child bearing widow as she took smooth, relaxed breaths.
Nathan closed his eyes and took in all that was around him, everyone calling out his name to come over and aide them to ease their suffering away. Nathan was all but a doctor and he did his best in whatever field he could. But this…this was too much for him. He never was the only man to help everyone at once. Everyone calling out for him at once, this he was not use to. But he handled himself well, and Chris was deeply thankful to him and for putting up with everyone’s suffering.
Nathan opened his eyes and looked at Chris, “She’s doin’ okay.” He released her hand and placed it on her belly and patted it. “You’re gonna be okay. If the mama will be all right, then your child will be just fine.”
“Nathan?” another deep groan called out from dark distance.
The healer looked at Chris again, who had his eyes fixated on the poor widow and he asked, “Chris, you mind if you stay here with her for a bit? I gotta—“
“No, go on,” Chris said quickly and Nathan didn’t hesitate to release a warm smile and stand to his feet and walk off to help a few others.
Then an awkward silence, fires blazing in the foreground, Chris leaning on his knees and the pregnant widow just far enough from him to reach out and touch.
“Ma’am?” Chris said and the widow looked at him with drowsy eyes. “How you feelin’?” She shook her head, tears threatened in her eyes, as she fingered a moist rag in her hands.
Aw hell. Chris wasn’t very good with this. Not with a woman crying, a pregnant woman for details. He’d rather face a thousand bullets than to face a woman in tears. He couldn’t give her comforting words, hope, or a soft smile. Hell, he forgot how to smile the way he use to when Sarah and Adam were alive. Emotions from the heart he could not give when this woman needed it the most.
“Why’s this happening?” she asked, breaking Chris’s thoughts. The sound of her sorrowed voice snapped his thoughts right out of his mind, and he looked right into her eyes but had to quickly turn away before the tears ran down her cheeks.
He couldn’t just ignore her question. He could be a stubborn prick and walk away, avoiding the question, but he knew he had to be a better man than that. He had to speak up and say the first thing that came to him. “These men want the land. They won’t stop till they get it.” Nice one, just hard and direct as always.
“Why?”
“We don’t know yet.”
The widow looked down at her hands again, “Whatever it may be, they cost the life of my husband. The father of my child.” She placed her arms around her belly in a protective manner. “Will they cost the life of my child too?”
That question hit him like a ton of raging meat. “Not while I’m still around.”
“But you’ll leave us soon and Dickey O’Shea will still be around to hurt us. Like you said, he won’t stop until he has our land. What kind of man is he?”
“Not the kind you want to get friendly with. He’s no good, and he knows it, but he’s scared to face us. That’s why he hired a powder man to do it all for him. To throw explosives at us because he’s too afraid we’ll get him.”
The widow took a minute to think all this over, and then she looked up at him again and asked, “What you said earlier…if we give him the land deed and just walk away from this, he still won’t stop. Are you certain?”
“We’ll get him, ma’am. I won’t give you my word, but we will get him in the end and this will all be over. I’ve never backed out of a fight yet and I’m sure as hell won’t start now over this coward.”
A sigh of relief escaped her tight lips and Chris could have sworn he saw a smile snag the corners of her mouth. “It’s all right to smile. We need more of that around here.” He said.
“I haven’t smiled since Jack was still alive.” She brought her hands up to her mouth and leaned her smiled lips into them. “He kissed my belly, whispered a little something to our child, and then he left to pack up the wagon for the next day’s ride. And that was the last time I smiled. It was…” another batch of tears rushed over her memories.
Again, her tears struck a nerve in Chris’s mending heart and how much he begged for his legs to stand and run to throw away all he had said to this grieving woman because he was afraid of what he might do to ease her suffering. Because he just might give in and want to reach out and take her in his arms and comfort her. To put his hand on her belly and just let her cry on him.
And all those actions would make his brain explode with old memories of when Sarah was pregnant with Adam. How happy he was, how he never wanted to leave her side, remove his hand from her expectant belly. How he couldn’t stop looking at her as she grew with life and that internal child bearing glow she carried through the whole nine months.
Those memories stabbed his heart now as he watched the widow grieve right before his eyes. He had to change the subject to something else. Something more alive, something of his past that always made him crack a smile or a laugh.
“You know, when my wife was pregnant with our son, she had this thing where she wouldn’t let anyone wait on her hand and foot. Just because she carried on more weight with the baby, she never stopped to take a breath until she was in labor. She’d never let me do the dinner cooking. She never let me go into town to buy some goods. She wanted to do it all herself until the very last second she was unable to.” Chris swallowed a wave of emotions. “My wife was a stubborn woman.” He looked up and watched the widow listen closely. “But after she gave birth to Adam, she handed him to me and I knew right then that I never wanted to let him go. I didn’t care just how rotten my wife could be when it comes to what she loves, I wasn’t giving up my son.” A smile perched low on his lips, “And then she let me take a hand in helping her. After that first week of having a brand new baby in the house, Sarah always wanted the help. From me, from Buck, from anyone who was just around.”
“You must miss them terribly,” the widow said.
Chris shot his head up and looked right into her eyes. What did she mean by that? She didn’t know anything about his wife and son and the fact that they were dead. Surely Buck hadn’t gone off spilling his mouth again about his past for conversation. Surely Buck learned his lesson after the cut throat threat.
Surely…but as Chris stared into the widow’s eyes, her head cocked slightly to the left just watching him, he knew she had no idea about his wife and son. That she meant he’s here, with them on this wagon train, protecting them, away from his family, and how he must miss them terribly because he’s on this trip.
“You have no idea…” Chris mumbled.
When Chris thought Nathan was gone for hours, it had only been minutes and he soon returned to him and the widow. It was getting much later than expected in the still night and Nathan suggested for the widow to get her rest and he aided her along with Chris to stand to her feet and step into the back of her wagon for sleep.
The others were drifting off to sleep, either just where they sat or they moved back into their wagons for the night. Everyone was pretty much packed up and Chris turned his full attention back on the widow as Nathan tugged on the wagon flaps and pulled the material close together to shade any moonlight blaze inside.
Taking an easy breath and then exhaling, a lighter side of Chris was revealed this night, to a complete stranger, someone just as much alone as he was in the world. Perhaps that’s what he needed on this particular night. Someone to talk to who didn’t know him, his past, and his reckless life before tragedy struck. Someone who was willing to listen without knowing the past details.
A widow who needed to hear about someone else’s tragedy.