A Lady Like Sarah (16 page)

"I don't care! I ain't
lettin
' you travel alone with no baby."

He sighed as if he knew he was in for a fight even as he beseeched her. "Sarah, don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"You're the one
makin
' it hard."

"I can't take Elizabeth to Fort Smith, and you can't travel to Texas."

Sarah
lay
the sleeping baby on a blanket, then stood and faced Justin, hands on her hips. "And how do you plan to take care of her? A woodchuck could milk a goat
better'n
you can."

"I'll learn."

"What 'bout outlaws?
And Indians?
You saw what they can do."

Justin stared into the fire, his face dark. "I'm not going to Fort Smith." There was a finality to his voice that told her arguing would do no good. He believed God had sent Hobbs for a purpose, and deep in her heart, she wanted to believe it was true.

She stood. "I'm sorry 'bout your sisters," she said. WithÂout another word, she gently picked up Elizabeth and headed for her bedroll.

For the next couple of days, Sarah avoided the subject, but it was evident from Justin's determination to learn to milk the goat that he hadn't changed his mind.

But then, neither had Sarah.

One afternoon they reached the edge of a dense forest. Noah halted in his tracks. Shaking his head from side to side, the gelding swished his tail and pawed the ground. Justin pressed his legs into the horse's side, but the animal refused to budge.

"Maybe he's thrown a shoe," Sarah said. She slid out of her saddle to take a look. Too late, she realized her mistake.

A small band of Indians riding paint horses emerged on the trail a few feet in front of them.
Comanches
!

Sarah
froze, her hand on her weapon. Fear gripped her, and her throat went dry.

There were four of them altogether, all dressed in buckÂskin breechcloths and loose buckskin fringed shirts. Their black-striped foreheads all but hid the absence of eyebrows. All four wore their greased hair parted in the middle, thick shiny braids hanging in front. But it was their feet that sent chills down her spine. The leader of the pack wore the shaft of a cutoff boot around his ankle.
A white man's boot.

The leader pointed to Noah and yelled, "
Puuku
!" Sarah's heart sank.

"What do they want?" Justin asked.

"Our horses," she said, her voice shaking.

One brave dismounted and walked over to Blizzard, grabÂbing the horse's reins. Six feet tall with a strong, muscular body, he looked no less forbidding on foot. As if sensing danger,
Mira
bleated and kicked her legs and a second brave hurried to help.

"No!" Sarah yelled. She dived forward, but the brave pushed her to the ground with a single thrust of his powerful arm.

"Leave her alone," Justin thundered. He nudged his horse closer to Sarah, but already she was on her feet.

"No!" she cried again. She pulled out the wad of money that Robert had given her and waved it. When that failed to make an impression, she pointed to the goat and then to Elizabeth.

The leader grunted and made the sign for
no.
Then he brusquely motioned for Justin to dismount.

One of the other braves spoke and a lively conversation followed. All four Indians stared at Justin.

"Why are they looking at me like that?" Justin
asked,
his face white. He turned his body sideways to shield Elizabeth.

"I don't know," she said. She tightened her hold on her gun. Her teeth bit down on the metallic taste of fear that filled her mouth. She'd never shot a man, but if one of them made a move toward harming Justin or Elizabeth, she wouldn't hesiÂtate a moment.

The leader grunted and motioned with his hand in the sign language that plains Indians used to communicate between tribes. She only knew a couple of signs, but it was enough to know they were in a whole peck o' trouble.

"You better do your thing," she whispered, her stomach clenched into a knot.

A muscle tightened at Justin's jaw. "You're asking me to pray? Now I know we're in trouble."

"He's talking about a burial," she said, her voice strained. She recognized the sign for grave.

His eyes wide with horror, Justin's gaze swung back to the leader. "Talk to them. Say something."

Sarah made a series of motions with her hands. Then dropped her arms to her side and waited. All four braves stared at her.

"What did you say?" Justin asked.

"Hello, good-bye, grave, and spring of year," she said, adding defensively, "That's 'bout the only sign language I know."

His forehead lined with worry, Justin handed her the baby. "Hold Elizabeth and let me try."

He turned to the leader. "Thou . . .
shalt
.
. . not. . .
kill." He punctuated each word with dramatic gestures. He then pointed toward the sky and the eyes of all four
Comanches
followed his finger upward.

"That's a big help," Sarah muttered.

The leader again leveled his gaze at Justin, then lifted his hand and said something to the others. Without a word, the brave released Blizzard and the two
Comanches
mounted their paints.

The leader pulled out an arrow and Sarah gasped. Ignoring her, he held it in both hands toward the sky. He nodÂded at Justin, made a sign with his hand, and the four of them rode away.

For several moments, Justin and Sarah didn't move. They stared after the four Indians as if they had seen an apparition. Suddenly, it dawned on Sarah what had happened, and she threw her head back and laughed.

The puzzled expression on Justin's face made her laugh harder.

"What happened?" he asked, dismounting. "What made them take off? Was it God's commandment?"

"Hardly," Sarah said between guffaws. "That Indian you
buried. . .
They must have seen you." She remembered telling Jed about a movement in the trees, and obviously she had been right.

She jiggled Elizabeth up and down as she danced around. "They spared our lives because you done showed honor to their dead."

Disbelief flitted across his face then melted into a broad smile. He raised his face to the heavens and shouted, "Thank You, God!"

She stopped dancing and stared at him. "That's it? No long-winded prayer?"

He laughed. "There'll be time for that later."

Sarah grew serious. "Oh, Justin, I thought we were goners."

He placed his hand on Elizabeth's back. "Me too," he said.
"Me too."

She looked away from him, feeling uncommonly shy. "I-I promised God I wouldn't bother Him again . . ."

"God wouldn't want you to keep a promise like that," he said.

She met his eyes. "Are you saying it would be okay if I thank Him?"

"You can say whatever you need to say to God."

Sighing in relief, she bowed her head. "God . . ." She opened one eye to make sure she was doing it right. She had never prayed in front of anyone before. Justin gave her a nod of encouragement.

Gathering her courage, she closed her eyes again and finÂished her prayer in a rush of words. "You sure did get us out of a whole peck o' trouble, and I'm mighty obliged. Amen." She opened her eyes and felt her heart sink. If the frown on his face was any indication, she sure had a lot to learn about
prayin
'.

It was later that she learned what was really on his mind, and it had nothing to do with her praying. "I have no business traveling alone," he said. "I'll go to Fort Smith and take the train to Texarkana. Somehow, I'll find a way to keep her safe."

When she made no reply, his face darkened with suspiÂcion. "Sarah?"

"Now don't you go
gettin
' yourself in
a lather
, you hear?"

"Sarah!"

She backed away. "We passed the Fort Smith cutoff two days ago."

He stared at her in disbelief. "What? When were you going to tell me that?"

"Sooner or later you'd have figured it out for yourself."

He threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Surprised, she stared at him. Then recognizing his laughÂter as a release from the tension of all that had happened these last several days, she found herself laughing too.

The light mood didn't last long. That night, she woke in a sweat, her heart pounding so hard it was a wonder it didn't wake Justin and Elizabeth. In her dream, she stood on a wooden platform, a rope around her neck. The dream had seemed so real, she quickly ran her hands along her throat thinking she'd find the rope still there.

Shaken, she stared at the nighttime sky. "God," she whisÂpered. "
What's
gonna
happen to me?"

The following afternoon Sarah reined her horse on the crest of a hill and stared at the valley below. In the distance, a sparkling stream curved through the trees like a carelessly tossed diaÂmond necklace. "That's the Grand River ahead," she called.

The dock was empty when they arrived, and the ferry was nowhere in sight. Sarah knew from past experience that ferry operators in the Indian Nation could be temperamenÂtal. Ferries didn't run in the wind or rain, and Sarah and her brothers once waited for two full days to cross a river because the superstitious ferry operator refused to work during a full moon.

"Looks like we're
gonna
have to wait till tomorrow," she said.

"We'll make camp here," he said.

Sarah sat on a fallen log feeding Elizabeth, while Justin collected pieces of firewood. A cloud of dust on the trail ahead caught Sarah's attention. Worried, she stood and watched until two horsemen came into view.

"They don't look like Indians," Justin said. "Maybe they're just travelers."

She shook her head. Even from that distance, she could see that the men rode fine stallions. Nothing screamed
lawÂman
louder than a well-bred horse. "They're U.S. Marshals," she said, heart pounding.

She glanced around for a place to hide.

"Act natural," Justin said. "I'll handle them."

Elizabeth, seeming to sense Sarah's distress, stopped suckÂing. Sarah took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax, and gently coaxed the milk-soaked cloth into the baby's mouth again.

Justin walked to the middle of the trail to greet the approaching strangers. "Hello there," he called, waving his arms.

The horsemen halted in front of him and the leader touched the brim of his hat in greeting. "I'm U.S. Marshal Shaw and this is Deputy Marshal Cabot." Shaw's copper beard ended in a point just below his chin. His partner's face was pitÂted with smallpox scars.

"Pleasure to meet you both," Justin said.

Shaw nodded toward the mule. "It's against the U.S. govÂernment to carry alcohol in these parts. You wouldn't happen to be carrying any, would you?"

"I'm not carrying any alcohol," Justin said. "I'm a preacher."

Shaw leaned on his saddle horn.
"A preacher, huh?
If you're here to convert the Indians, good luck to you." He glanced at Sarah and she quickly lowered her head and busied herself wiping the milk off Elizabeth's chin.

"We're just passing through," Justin explained.
"Heading for Rocky Creek, Texas."

"Rocky Creek?"
Shaw chuckled. "On second thought, you'd probably have better luck converting the Indians."

Without another word, he touched his hand to his hat, and the two men galloped away.

Sarah felt almost faint with relief. She kept a wary eye on the trail, but no other travelers passed by.

It was almost noon the following day before the ferry arrived carrying three passengers. The men walked their horses off the flatboat, nodded curtly to Justin and Sarah in greeting, and quickly rode away.

The ferry operator was a craggy-faced Creek Indian with black-and-gray braids and bone ornaments hanging from his ears. He wore moccasins but was otherwise dressed like a white man in denim pants and
bibbed
shirt.

"No firewater," he grunted. He opened Noah's saddleÂbags and pawed through them.

"We don't have any," Justin said. "I'm a preacher." This made no impression on the Indian, who continued to rifle through their belongings.

The U.S. government paid ferry operators to report anyÂone carrying alcohol, but Sarah suspected this Indian kept any
botde
he confiscated for himself.

"What's the Indian word for preacher?" Justin asked Sarah.

Sarah shrugged. "How would I know?"

Justin thought for a moment,
then
turned back to the Creek, who was now rummaging through the mule's pack. "A preacher is kind of like a missionary. Do you understand?
Missionary?"
He pointed up to the sky and then pressed his hands together and bowed his head, as if praying, trying to get the man to understand him.

The man nodded and looked even more suspicious than before. Keeping a wary eye on Justin, he rummaged through their belongings a second and even third time.

Obviously disappointed at not finding any contraband, the Indian checked for hot ashes in the fire pit and charged them an outrageous eight dollars for burning firewood.

Sarah opened her mouth to protest, but Justin stopped her. "I'd rather pay the fee than have to swim across the river."

After they boarded the ferry, the Indian guided the boat a half mile down the Grand River to the clay-colored waters of the Arkansas River. He let them off a short distance from the Creek Nation, the boundaries marked with steel poles set a mile apart.

For the next three days, Justin and Sarah traveled across blistering dry plains, rugged hills, and boggy streams. At times, the challenging terrain partnered with the weather to create impassable trails and dangerous detours.

At one point, Elizabeth's newly washed baby clothes blew off the rocks where Sarah had laid them to dry, and Justin chased after them on his horse.