Fire on the Plains (Western Fire) (7 page)

Hauling himself to his feet,
Ben pulled his undershirt over his head, hurriedly shoving his hands into the armholes. As he did, he noticed that his shoulder pain had completely dissipated.

“Thanks. My shoulder feels a whole lot better,” he said gruffly
, wishing that Lydia would dole out her affections as well as she doled out the medicine. “Good night, Mrs. Strong. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Stepping away from
the campfire, Ben headed toward the bed pallet that he’d earlier laid out near the Conestoga.

“Aren’t you
going to sleep in the wagon?”

Slowly turning on his heel, Ben gave his wife the full measure of his gaze before saying, “I prefer sleeping under the stars.”

Lydia’s baffled expression was near comical. Particularly given that their ‘wedding night’ had been nothing less than a humiliating travesty. One best not repeated.

“But
I . . . I already made the bed,” she sputtered, clearing surprised by the sleeping arrangements. “Why, I even gave you an extra pillow.”

“Thanks, but I made my own bed,” Ben said before turning his back on her.

And he damn well intended to lie in it, unrelieved passions and all.

“Do you think there’s a chance
that the house is still standing?”

Only a few miles from their destination, Lydia
was anxiously aware that her new life as Ben Strong’s wife would soon begin in earnest.

“I don’t rightly know. Mercy said the house was still in flames when they left,” Ben replied, his gray eyes completely focused on the rutted pike
over which they traveled.

Having left the rolling hills of Missouri behind them, the well-traveled road cut an unrelentingly straight swath across a verdant plain. Mile after mile, the Kansas scenery had remained unchanged. Or at least it seemed that way to Lydia, habituated as she was to the tree-covered Ozarks.

“If we don’t have a house, can we live in our wagon?” Dixie inquired, twisting around on Ben’s lap as she spoke.

“You keep an eye on those horses
, Corporal Dixie. If you don’t help me hold these reins, I’m liable to run us off the road.”

“Yes, sir, Captain Ben.”

Ever since Ben let Dixie ‘drive’ the wagon, her daughter’s sole delight revolved around the unexplored facets of trail life. Rather sweetly, she’d even taken to following Ben when he unharnessed the horses and hobbled them for the night. Though such pursuits could hardly be called ladylike, it did keep Dixie from falling prey to boredom.

Distressingly, Lydia noticed that Ben
had failed to answer Dixie’s question in regards to living out of the wagon. Having never been homeless before, she didn’t know how she felt about that possibility. Granted, the wagon was spacious enough for traveling.
But to live in it, like a band of itinerant vagabonds?
Why, it was unthinkable. These were civilized times. And civilized people lived in houses. Just because Ben preferred sleeping out-of-doors, it didn’t mean that she was anxious to do so, as well. Why her husband chose to bed down on the hard, cold ground each night remained a mystery. Lydia could only assume that he’d grown overly accustomed to sleeping under the stars when he was a soldier.

“Do you see that clump of trees over there on the right, about half a mile yonder?” Ben released his hold on the reins to point out a blurry patch of green
ery in the distance.

Dixie excitedly nodded, her red curls bouncing atop her shoulders.

“Your new home is on the other side of those trees,” Ben told her, a note of manly pride in his voice. “Now, what do we tell the horses when we want them to go to the right?”

“Gee!” Dixie shouted, repeating the command a seco
nd time.

Though not
enthralled to hear her daughter scream like a banshee, there was no denying that Dixie made an endearingly charming teamster. Evidently, Ben thought so, too, a hint of a smile lurking beneath his swooping mustache.

“That’s my girl,” he complimented, helping Dixie to steer the horse team to the right, the wagon bumping and swaying as it lumbered
across the grassy plain.

Anxious to see the damaged farmhouse,
Ben peered at the grove of cottonwoods that blocked his line of sight. If the farm was in as dire a condition as his sister Mercy had claimed, he’d finally be able to put his new wife to good use. So far, she was only good for cooking, nagging, and dressing stylishly.

Well, maybe not nagging, per se. But Lydia did have a way of getting her point across that usually rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was that queenly air of hers, the way
that she held herself ramrod straight, her hands primly folded together in front of her. Truth be told, Ben had known drill sergeants with less vinegar to them than his new wife. Although, circumstances being what they were, he was having a hard time thinking of Lydia as anything other than James McCabe’s long-suffering widow. Which is why he’d convinced himself that sleeping under the stars on a gum rubber blanket preferable to sleeping beside Lydia on a comfortable feather tick—

What the hell!

Reaching under the seat, Ben grabbed his Henry rifle.

“Corporal Dixie, you better scoot over there next to your mother.”

Obediently, the child scampered off his lap.

“Mister Strong, is something the matter?”

Ben glanced at Lydia, wondering if he should tell her that he’d just seen a plume of smoke hovering above the tree line. Since his was the only farm in the vicinity, the smoke had to have emanated from
his
chimney.

“It looks like we might have a spot of trouble on our hands,” he answered
truthfully, figuring Lydia had a right to know. Especially since it was now her chimney, as well. “Do you see that trail of smoke? It can only be coming from one place.”

“From our farm,” Lydia astutely guessed.

“Yep, ‘fraid so.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence. As they came around the grove of cottonwoods, Ben could make out
the farmhouse in the distance.

Or a
t least what was left of it, the ruined house bearing little resemblance to the home of his memories.

Originally two stories, it
had been reduced to a single story building with two tall chimneys eerily flanking it on either side. In fact, the farmhouse looked like it’d been hit by artillery fire, the ravaged facade putting Ben in mind of the bombed-out buildings that had littered the streets of Richmond toward the war’s end.

Figuring they’d already been seen by whoever inhabited the house, Ben cocked his rifle, not
in a mood to be trifled with.

“No matter what happens, you keep quiet and let me do all the talking, all right?”

“Yes, of course, Mister Strong.”

As he navigated the wagon toward the porch, Ben
watched as the front door was cautiously opened several inches. Yanking on the brake handle, he wrapped the wagon reins around it before hefting the rifle to his right shoulder.

“Come on out of there!” he bellowed, ready to take down the first
person who opened fire.

The front door slowly creaked open, the porch boards groaning under the weight of one, two,
Good God
, ten bodies all told.

“Just who the hell might you people be?” Lowering the hammer on his rifle, Ben was
astounded to see a man, his wife, and eight children clustered on the ramshackle porch.

The patriarch of the family, a stout-looking man with a broad-brimmed hat deferentially clutched in his hand, stepped forward. “I am Jacob Schumacher. Und dis is my vife, Ilsa.”

“Okay, now that we got the formalities out of the way, do you mind telling me
what
the hell you’re doing here?”

“Ja, ja. Ve live here.”

As if on cue, all ten heads bobbed at the same time.

Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or to bash Jacob Schumacher in the face with his fist.
“You live here? Since when?”

Frau Schumacher,
smiling sweetly, stepped to the fore. “Since dat other family moved out.”

“They didn’t move out, they were run out,” Ben growled, fast losing his patience.

Herr Schumacher shrugged, clearly unconcerned with what he perceived as a minor difference in semantics. “Der fraulein’s neighbors, dey’s glad to see her go.”

“And why might that be?”

“Because of dem rebel bushwackers, that’s why. Der volks around here say dat Hibbert woman went and run off with one of dem.”

Objecting to the way that Herr Schumacher
had dismissively referred to his sister Mercy, Ben’s right hand curled into a fist.

Still smiling kindly,
Ilsa Schumacher stepped toward the wagon. “Und who might you be?”

“I’m Benjamin Strong . . . Mercy Hibbert’s brother.”
Ben paused a moment, carefully gauging their shocked reaction before tersely adding, “And I own this place.”

Ilsa Schumacher turned to her husband, a look of pure dread on her double-chinned face. “Ja, Papa. Ve’s in big trouble now.”

Lydia, who’d remained dutifully silent, turned to Ben, her concern clearly evident. “What do you propose we do, Mister Strong?”

Wearily, Ben shook his head. “Damned if I know.”

Squatters
.

Holy hell, if the place hadn’t been taken over by
a pack of German squatters.

And while angered as all get
-out, Ben didn’t have the heart to throw them off the property. Sweet Jesus, they had eight, count ‘em, eight children to feed. All of them living in what amounted to a burned-out shell of a house. He didn’t envy them, that was for damn certain. Although Jacob Schumacher had been quick to inform Ben that the neighbors had agreed to help with a roof-raising.

Wonder if the good folks of Marion County would extend
Ben the same courtesy if, and when, he resumed residence. Or would he and his new family become the county pariahs simply because his sister Mercy had fallen in love with a Missouri bushwhacker? Hell, for that matter, his own wife was southern born.

So, where
does that leave me?

As best he could tell, it left him
with a wife, a stepdaughter, and no house.

If he hadn’t gone and gotten
married, Ben would simply wish the Schumachers the best of luck, and take his leave. Given that he and his stepfather Daniel Hibbert hadn’t paid a cent for the land, it wouldn’t be any skin off his back.

Hearing a twig snap, Ben turned, surprised to see Lydia making her way up the hillside where he stood sentry. Overlooking the house and surrounding fields, it was a peaceful place to watch the sunset. It also happened to be where his stepfather was buried. Killed by rebel bushwhackers
, he’d been laid to rest in this idyllic spot over a year ago.

“Mercy spoke of your stepfather at great length,” Lydia said quietly, taking a moment to read
the crudely incised tombstone.

To Ben’s surprise, she placed a hand on his forearm.

“If you’ve come to offer your sympathy, I don’t need it.”

“And I wasn’t offering it,”
Lydia replied, removing her hand. “I confess that there is much about you that I don’t understand. But your grief . . . that I understand full well.”

Ben made no comment as
Lydia remained at his side, silent seconds slipping past as they watched the sun slip behind the horizon.

No sooner had the
fiery orb disappeared from sight than Lydia took a deep breath, clasping her hands in front of her waist. From that pose alone, Ben knew that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.

“
Given the current situation with the Schumachers, it’s readily apparent that I have become a burden to you.”

A burden?
Where did she get such a foolish notion?

Ben wondered if he should
tell his new wife that at that moment he welcomed her company. That it felt good to have someone stand beside him, someone who understood the pain of loss, the soul-wrenching finality of death. Moreover, he was actually grateful to have had Lydia at his side while he’d watched the sunset.

“So, it’s true, then?”

“What’s true?” Ben asked distractedly, surmising that he’d just missed something important.

“
It’s true that you married me because you thought that I could help with the farm. And with the farm now under the stewardship of the Schumachers, I’ve suddenly become an unwelcome burden.”

Well, it might lighten the load a little if you’d deign to screw your husband.

“You’re not a burden,” Ben said wearily, keeping his more prurient thoughts to himself.

“Ah!
I can see that chivalry is not unknown in the North.”

Perhaps it was the fading sunlight playing tricks, but Ben thought
that he saw the hint of a smile on Lydia’s face.

“I’m not being chivalrous. I’m being honest.”

“And I shall be honest, as well.” Lydia paused, her fingers twisting and turning over the knuckles of her tightly clenched hands. Several moments passed before she finally looked him in the eyes and said, “I think we should return to Missouri.”