Prarie Fire Part 20

"Was your pa tall?" It wasn't much, but it was all Matt could think of to ask. He saw Devlin's long legs stretched out on the rock underneath her.

"Well, I recollect that he was pretty tall, but I guess everyone looks tall to a little kid," Devlin said. "How about your father? Was he tall?"

"Nah, not really. I mean, I don't think he was as tall as you."

"Well, you've grown some since your pa pa.s.sed. I reckon everything looks smaller when you're the one gettin' bigger. I guess you must miss him."

"Yeah," Matt bowed his head and mumbled. "We used to talk a lot."

"Reckon that ain't my strong suit, huh?" Devlin asked in embarra.s.sment. Somehow, she thought she was letting Matt down.

"Well, you're good at other stuff, Dev."

An uncomfortable silence replaced their talk and Devlin reached into her vest pocket and pulled out her pocket watch. She looked at the time, and out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Matthew leaning over. He stared at the picture pressed under the lid's gla.s.s case. Devlin snapped the watch shut with an impatient click as Matt realized she'd caught him.

"I-I'm sorry, Dev, I didn't mean to pry." Matthew hung his head, afraid that he'd ruined the growing trust between them.

Devlin couldn't help but feel sorry for him. What was she hiding, anyway? She had wanted to tell Sarah before they parted, but there wasn't time.

Devlin fingered the ornate design embossed on the watch's hinged lid. She unclipped the watch from the chain anch.o.r.ed in her vest pocket and handed it to Matt. "If you press that k.n.o.b in front, the lid pops open." Matt held the heavy object in both hands, treating it as though it were a priceless work of art. "Go on," Devlin rea.s.sured him.

Matt flipped open the pocket watch and took in the beauty of the design. "I never saw anything like this before." He examined the photograph that was like some he'd seen that belonged to his mother. She had one of her father in a uniform that she kept in an old chest.

Matt looked at the portrait of a young couple. The man looked big. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and a sheriff's badge on his vest. Matt figured these must have been Devlin's parents because Devlin appeared to favor both of them. The man had eyes that were so light in the picture that they must have been the same blue as Devlin's. The woman was very slender but didn't seem frail. She was beautiful with her dark hair pulled back and cheeks that looked like Devlin's. Her skin was dark, much darker than Devlin's.

"Are these your folks, Dev?" Matt asked as he handed Devlin back her watch.

"Yep. My pa was a sheriff in Sedalia, Missouri. That's where he got killed."

"Your mom's pretty."

Devlin smiled to herself at some half-forgotten memory. "Yeah, she was beautiful all right, in her heart, as well as her face." She waited to see if Matt would ask, but she should have known better. Sarah hadn't raised him to be anything but a gentleman. "My mother was a Choctaw Indian."

Matt looked relieved that Devlin had brought up the issue. "I thought you were just adopted by the Chahta, Dev."

"I was adopted by the Thunderbird clan, but my mother was already a part of that village. She left them to live with my father after they were married. After my parents died, when I was close to the age you are now, I ended up in a sc.r.a.pe near my mother's home. The people of the village took me in, and when they discovered who I was, they welcomed me. When I decided to stay, Tima and Tekola adopted me as their own."

"Is it a secret, Dev? I mean, who your mom and dad really are?"

"No, it's not a secret. In fact, I meant to tell your mom, but things got busy before we left. I guess...well, I became quiet about the fact as I grew older. People can be pretty mean about some things, ya know?" Devlin wondered if Matt understood what she was saying. She didn't know how to explain the way she'd felt the first time someone had called her a half-breed. She never forgot that Dale Karsten, the man she'd killed not too long before, had called her Breed whenever he wanted to get a rise out of her.

Matt felt bad now that he'd brought up the subject. Devlin had the saddest look he'd seen on her face, and he had never meant to bring up any bad memories. He was old enough, however, to imagine the kinds of things that people could say and do to those who were different from them.

"It's a swell watch, Dev," Matt said.

Devlin turned to look at him and cupped his cheek in one hand. She smiled, but it was a smile tinged with pain. "My grandfather gave it to my dad. I guess I was supposed to give it to my son." She chuckled lightly. "I reckon I didn't quite turn out like my father thought his little girl would, huh? I suppose I'll leave it to you, if you've a mind to have it, that is. It's not much, not even real gold, but I-"

"I'd be proud to own it someday, Dev. Real proud."

"You would, huh?" Devlin stared into his eyes and discovered the truth. The reason that Matthew's expressions reminded her so much of Sarah was that deep down, they were the same. Not because they were of the same blood, but deeper still, in their beliefs, in their heart. Sarah had a pride and strength about her, but she was also the most compa.s.sionate soul Devlin had ever met. Devlin saw what every parent hopes to see in their own children-a piece of themselves staring back at them. Only the luckiest parents saw the best of themselves; Devlin would have to remember to tell Sarah that she was one of those lucky ones.

"Okay, it's a deal. I'll depend on you to keep the tradition going. That means you keep the watch until you have kids, then you hand it down to one of them. Not till I'm gone, though." Devlin winked at the boy and hooked the watch back onto the chain. "And I hope you won't be too disappointed if I don't go givin' it up right away. I figure I still got a few years left anyway."

Matt laughed and dropped his head in reply. The silence enveloped them before Matt chimed in again. "Does this mean I'm like your son, too?"

Devlin coughed and cleared her suddenly dry throat as an eternity floated by. In truth, only seconds had pa.s.sed. She wasn't sure how to answer or even what Sarah had planned to tell the children. The youngsters had accepted that Devlin was now a part of their lives.

"Well, I guess kinda like that..." She trailed off, at a loss for words. Matt looked up at her and smiled. "You okay with that?"

"Uh-huh." Matt's smile grew as he nodded.

"Of course, that doesn't mean you have to call me anything special, ya know. Or-"

"Ishki toba," Matt interrupted.

"Where did you hear that?"

"It's right, isn't it?" Matt asked with concern. "It means second mom, right?"

"Yeah, stepmother, or second mom. Who taught you that Chahta word?" Devlin asked again.

"Oh, I think I might have heard Mom say it." Matt lowered his head until the brim of his hat hid his eyes, but Devlin could see his cheeks were pink.

"Your mom, huh?"

"Maybe."

"Or maybe it was Talako and his oversized mouth."

Matt shrugged. "Maybe," he said softly.

Talako, Devlin's childhood friend, had jumped at the offer to leave the village and help with the cattle drive. Lately, he had been teaching Matt the Chahta language to describe the game of toli. Devlin wasn't angry at Talako for teaching Matt such a special word, but she wanted to be certain that Matt knew its intended meaning.

"I'm honored that you would call me that, Matt, but there's more to it than just a name." Devlin watched as Matt looked up in relief and waited for her to continue. "When a woman becomes ishki toba to a child, it's a voluntary thing. I mean, it's sort of...well, exceptional. The bond that a mother and a child share is special. You and your mom will always have that distinctive tie. Even after you've grown to be a man and you're no longer under your mother's protection, her heart will still look at you the way she did when you were born. It's hard to describe, but it's different from any other kind of relations.h.i.+p there is. So when a woman comes along who can make a child feel those same feelings, she's called ishki toba. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Matt said tentatively after a few moments of silence. "Yeah." His smile returned and he nodded. "I get it, Dev, and I think it fits. I think you're ishki toba."

Devlin decided to do something completely uncharacteristic. She hugged Matt. Matt had grown up expressing affection, so the display seemed natural to him. Devlin prayed that Matt didn't laugh at her. When they broke apart, however, Matthew's smile appeared so genuine that Devlin wondered why she had been worried in the first place.

Chapter 18.

"Did ya find a decent place to cross?" Hank asked Devlin as she rode up.

"You're not gonna like it."

"d.a.m.n! I just knew that river would be trouble."

"Well, just think what it would have been like if we'd had a rainy summer. They sure must have been gettin' plenty of rain in the Rockies."

"So what's the word, boss?" Hank asked, although neither felt like joking now.

"Not much we can do. It's gonna take us another month to get to Abilene. We can't afford to wait for swollen rivers to go down. We'll have to do the only thing we can do. Spread the word that we'll have to spend most of the day crossing. Take it real slow and a little at a time."

Devlin cut her horse and rode away from the herd. Hank understood. Progress had been slow over the last month with a herd this size, but they hadn't run into nearly as many problems as they could have.

"It was supposed to be the Cimarron, not this one," Devlin muttered to herself. She remembered the days when most folks called it the Red Fork of the Arkansas. Even though the river wasn't flooded, there was always the danger of quicksand. They'd been lucky, though.

They had reached the Cimarron about three days after Willie died. The beeves crossed the river with hardly a misstep. Six miles farther north came Turkey Creek. Wood got scarce. Matt and Frankie had helped the cooks in finding firewood or a suitable alternative. Sometimes they used dried buffalo chips, and once they'd resorted to the dried stalks of sunflower plants.

For miles and miles, they traveled across flat prairie. They ran into a prairie dog town, its tunnels dotting the turf for at least six miles. Occasionally, a steer would get its hoof caught in one of the holes and fall to the ground. With every pa.s.sing day, Devlin grew more worried as the herd's numbers dwindled.

They watered at Hackberry Creek and had to stop for nearly three hours as a buffalo herd pa.s.sed them by. Devlin thanked the spirits that the buffalo weren't coming at them. When buffalo wanted the right of way, they usually got it. In this case, the buffalo galloped past, seemingly unconcerned with the cattle. Hackberry Creek offered clear water and plenty of grazing area but still no firewood.

At Shawnee Creek, nine miles farther on, the riders had to keep the herds away from the water because poisonous gypsum deposits filled the river. The place put Devlin in a bad humor simply by its nickname. The drovers called it Skeleton Creek because the bleached bones of Indians who had died during a cholera epidemic lined the treeless banks.

After protecting the herd from the creek's contaminated water, the riders watered the beeves at Nine Mile Creek. There had been good camping east of the trail at the edge of the timber. Devlin heard Mexican Bob praise the Lord at one point for the firewood. The cook had been tired of Devlin's constant joking that his food tasted of buffalo dung, which it did. Of course, everyone smelled like it, too. Buffalo chips were all they'd had to burn for the last few days.

Once more, Devlin stood in front of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. Along with the South Canadian and the Cimarron, this was one she had marked on her map as having the potential for trouble. Devlin had a.s.sumed that since the drought had made the previous two pa.s.sable, this river would be the same. She was wrong.

"It's movin' fast," Matt said from behind her.

Brought out of her thoughts, Devlin turned and placed an arm around Matt's shoulder. "I've seen a lot worse. We'll get 'em across over there, see?" She pointed to a spot where the bank dropped down steeply, but the river seemed at its shallowest. The water was moving swiftly. Branches and other debris bounced atop the churning surface.

"We'll take one herd at a time. We'll get the chuck wagon and the remuda across first, then move the cattle in. If we keep them moving, we'll be okay." Devlin spoke with a confidence she didn't feel. She saw the potential for myriad disasters. The first thing she wanted to do was to get Matt and his horses safely across; then she knew she'd feel much better about the situation.

"Okay, Bob," Devlin shouted. "Get that wagon up here."

The wagon and its steady mule team crossed the river slowly. Devlin and Matt each took a side and hustled the horses down the steep bank and into the water. The animals could practically smell dry land on the other side and they were in a hurry to get there. The river ran from somewhere high up in the hills, making the water frigid. It was nothing like the warm, slow-moving pools they had crossed thus far.

"Where do you think you're going?" Devlin asked when they reached the opposite bank.

"Well, I thought I could help with the cattle, kind of-"

"No, Matt."

"But-"

"Matt, who's in charge of this drive?"

"You are, boss," he said in defeat.

"Then just do as I say, all right? Keep an eye on the remuda and move them off a ways so the cattle don't get spooked. Okay?"

"Okay." Matt kicked at the dirt with the toe of his boot and mounted his horse.

"When you get a little bit bigger. Right now, I just don't have the time to be pullin' you out of the river if something happens. Understand?"

Matt nodded and Devlin led Alto back into the freezing water. She allowed the mare to move at her own pace, avoiding the debris that rushed downstream. Devlin pressed her tongue against her front teeth and signaled Hank with a shrill whistle to bring the herd down the bank.

Cattle, as any rider would say, were perhaps G.o.d's dumbest creatures. They didn't have the stubbornness of a mule, to dig in their hooves and stay. Instead, although their fear was palpable, the beeves allowed the men to cajole them down the slippery embankment. Even worse, the riders had to continue wheedling the animals into movement or they would mill in the middle of the stream, drowning themselves and anyone who got close to the panicked animals.

Anabelle led the beeves into the water. The cow wasn't distracted in the least by the freezing current. The first few steers to reach the opposite side must have given incentive to the others. The herd moved faster, and that made Devlin happier.

Without warning, a submerged tree branch, perhaps ten feet in length, shot to the surface of the water. The nearest steer jumped back from the object and fell against Alto. The horse screamed in fright and tried to keep its balance. Failing, she landed in the water on her side, unseating Devlin in the process. Hitting the surface of the icy water flat on her back knocked the wind out of Devlin. Before she could come to her senses, she lost her grip on Alto's reins. The moment she released the leather, her body began moving downstream.

"Dev!" Hank shouted and pointed to Devlin's body in the water. Standing on the other side of the cattle, he raced around the herd. The other riders couldn't stop their task for fear that the entire herd would stop in midstream.

Devlin fought to keep her head above the surface, but the river was full of uprooted trees and brush. Her flailing hands caught in the branches and her waterlogged clothes pulled her beneath the surface. It felt like hours, but in reality, it was seconds before she hit something in her path. She first felt the impact to her left shoulder, then her face slammed into it, and a red stream of blood filled her vision. Suddenly, the object that was floating with her in the churning water rolled over. Devlin realized it was a tree, uprooted by the rus.h.i.+ng torrent. She figured she could hold onto it and at least not drown. As the tree rolled again, she realized that her leg was tangled among the lower branches. There was no way for her to stay on the water's surface.

The log rolled once more and Devlin's upper body came out of the water. In that moment, Devlin felt something hit her. She discovered that a rope had settled over one of the tree's branches and around her chest. An instant later, her forward momentum slowed, then stopped altogether. The water continued to move against her, but now she could see that not only did the rope have her secure, but the tree was wedged behind two boulders.

"Dev! Dev!"

"Matt?" Devlin couldn't believe his voice was so close. She craned her neck to see behind her and watched as Matt crossed the water hand over hand. He looked like a rag doll with the river pulling him downstream, but he held tight and was able to scramble across in record time.

"Are you crazy? Go back," Devlin shouted. If Matt heard her, he gave no indication.

Hank could only watch since he was too late to reach Devlin. Matt had come out of nowhere, racing his horse along the riverbank as tree branches and brush scratched at him and his mount. He saw his opportunity when Devlin popped to the surface, and he roped the tree and Devlin with one try. The weight pulled his horse into the water and Matt dismounted, tying the rope off onto one of the willow trees beside the river.

Matt could hear Devlin shouting at him and he knew he would be in big trouble once she made it to sh.o.r.e. He didn't stop to think about the danger of the situation when he scrambled across the rope and onto the tree. The water was cold and Matt's teeth were chattering. When he reached Devlin, she was holding onto the rope and a branch on top of the tree trunk to keep her head out of the water. By this time, Hank had called for help and given orders for the men to keep the herd moving across the river.

"What in the h.e.l.l are you doing? Get back to sh.o.r.e!" Devlin yelled at Matt.

"Not 'less you can get there, too." Matt stared defiantly at the submerged woman until he saw something change in her expression.

"I can't, Matt. My leg's caught." She tugged with more force this time, but her foot and ankle were trapped in the tree's dense branches.

"Hank could use an ax. Mexican Bob has one in the chuck wagon."

Devlin shook her head. "It would be impossible to get under here with the way this water is moving. Besides, even if he could, he wouldn't be able to see a thing in this muddy water. He might end up chopping off my foot."

Matt listened to Devlin as she spoke calmly about her own rescue. She didn't show it, but Matt knew she must be freezing. He knew he was, and her lips were almost blue. "Then we'll pull you and the tree to sh.o.r.e."

Devlin hesitated, wondering if that plan had a chance. She had her doubts, but she was running out of options. "It might be worth a try, but I want you on dry land first. I don't-"

"No, Dev. I'm not gonna leave you."

Matt spoke the words with such an authoritative finality that Devlin found herself unable to come up with an argument. She nodded and listened as the boy shouted to Hank. She craned her neck to see the herds moving across the river without further mishap.

Hank and two other riders took hold of the rope that held Devlin and the tree. They put their backs into it as they pulled, but even with Hank's enormous strength, they could barely budge the tree trunk against the rus.h.i.+ng water. Devlin sighed, but opening her mouth caused her teeth to chatter.

"We just need a few more guys," Matt said upon seeing Devlin's defeated expression.