Wild Rose

Patrick squinted against the bright sun that streamed though a crack in the curtains and consequently fell right across his face. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings and groaned softly when he tried to straighten up. His neck was stiff from the awkward position in the chair.

Sighing he sat up, rolling his head to try and loosen the tight muscles, and smiled when his eyes fell on Jamie and Rose. She was laying down with her head pillowed in his lap, and her fiery red hair spilling across her face and Jamie's legs. Jamie had his head titled straight back, Patrick noticed with another wince, just as he had, and his hand rested easily on her shoulder.

Not wanting to wake them, Patrick got up and crept across the room, hoping they'd escape the reality of the day for a bit longer at least. He went outside to feed the horses.

Jamie jumped when he heard the quiet "click" of the door closing and looked around wildly, orienting himself, somewhat surprised to find Rose sprawled in his lap. He couldn't help but smile slightly as she growled in irritation in her sleep when he moved. Ever so slowly he edged out from under her head, biting his lip to keep from laughing at her constant intelligible muttering.

Stretching, and rubbing the back of his neck, he slowly staggered outside to help Patrick with feeding the horses, doing everything he could to keep his mind from the night before.

He found his friend leaning on the door of Katy's stall, looking intently inside. Knowing that Katy was due to foal in a few weeks, and that Kid planned on this being her last foal, Jamie broke into a run, sure something was wrong.

"What is it, Pat? What's wrong?"

"Quiet, lad," Patrick muttered as he flew to the door.

Jamie took in the situation. Katy was calmly standing in the corner of her stall, and blinked back innocently at him. Jamie sighed, relieved to see she was alright.

"She'll foal today," Patrick said with convinction.

Jamie eyed the mare for signs of restlessness, but she looked peaceful, "Why do you say that?"

"She's not interested in her feed. The lass is usually kicking the doors down if I wait till this late to feed her. Besides, it's the way of God. 'There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die'," he quoted, then added for Jamie's benefit, "Ecclesiastes."

Jamie glanced and saw tears running down Patrick's face again. He nodded, and said quietly in echo, "A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to love and a time to hate." Another passage entered his mind, and he allowed the words Teaspoon had read to him over and over when he was young to comfort his soul now.

" 'And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive,'" he quoted softly, thinking that perhaps Carlos had known this too. He glanced at Katy's bulging stomach and continued, "'But better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.'"

Patrick looked at him, surprised, and Jamie smiled softly, "Ecclesiastes 4:2."

"I'm going to go get Rose, she'll want to see this," Jamie murmured a bit later as Katy lay down in her stall. True to Patrick's prediction, Katy would definitely have her foal today. And soon, from the looks of it.

He found her still sprawled on the couch, sleeping soundly, with dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes. He hated to wake her, but when she cried out softly with a bad dream, he made up his mind.

Putting gentle hands on her shoulder he shook her, "Rose, wake up."

When her cloudy gray eyes opened, light in the mornings as they always were, and free of the millions of emotions that would live in them during the day, he smiled.

"I've something to show you, come on."

She looked at him in irritation, never much for mornings, but followed wordlessly, putting her hand into his.

"It won't be long," Jamie promised her when he stopped her outside of Katy's stall, "And after all, this is Katy's last foal. A very historic event in its own right, at least at the Bar M. She's a few weeks early, and Dad will hate it that he's missed it, but we'll tell him about it, won't we?"

Jamie was inside the stall now, his voice low and soothing for Katy's sake, though he talked to Rose. Rose watched his hands move over her neck gently and deftly. He was an animal doctor, she realized suddenly, he was trained to do this. Gone were the boyish hands that had always loved the horses under them. Replacing them were large hands that moved with skill, with knowledge, but still, that same love.

Although she was an older horse, Katy was still in prime condition, and a veteran at the task of giving birth by now. Rose cringed slightly, having never actually seen one of the foals born before, given that the mares were fond of picking odd hours to do so, but her eyes stayed riveted on the scene before her. Patrick was just as transfixed, although he'd surely seen such a sight a thousand times.

Jamie, who'd helped his father with the mares since he was five years old was at ease, but felt tears fill his eyes at the first site of a tiny hoof, and gave Katy firm encouragement, "That's my girl! Oh, what a beauty!"

Rose wasn't sure if "beauty" was the correct term in light of the slithering, slimy little creature that emerged with startling quickness onto the straw, but nevertheless, she felt tears spring to her eyes and slide down her cheeks as she looked on. A smile lit her face and she looked at Patrick, who was also grinning stupidly.

"It's a filly!" Jamie cried with delight, wiping the mucous from the tiny nostrils. He quickly ran the cloth over the squirming object, discovering a bright sorrel color interrupted by large patches of snowy white. "My God! She's going to be the spitting image of Katy!"

Jamie couldn't hide the emotion in his voice as he stroked Katy. She'd carried her master-his father-faithfully for thousands of miles, saving his life more than once, and then she'd founded the bloodline that supported his family, and now, she still served him when she was too old to do either any more, buy producing a foal that would carry on the legacy. Tears spilled out of his eyes.

"Best twenty-five dollars he ever spent, Katy," Jamie whispered to the mare, remembering with goose bumps the story of how Kid had fought a man twice his size to win the money, "You've served him well!"

Katy snorted, as if resenting the idea she was finished serving him, and nudged Jamie back so that she might climb to her feet.

Jamie, grinning from ear to ear, stepped outside the stall and stood beside Rose and Patrick.

"Here she goes," Patrick said softly as the filly suddenly untangled her long legs.

Rose smiled, those legs seemed impossibly long for the small body with the tiny head, and she wondered if the filly would ever actually gain control of them.

She needn't have worried, for suddenly the filly lurched upwards, then immediately crashed onto her nose in the soft straw. Jamie and Patrick laughed at Rose's gasp.

"Give her two more tries, Lass," Patrick assured Rose, and they turned back to the stall.

Sure enough, after two more tumbles in the straw, the filly stood, and Katy bent her nose to nuzzle her gently, almost knocking her off balance again. The filly lifted her legs, one at a time, and attempted to take a step, falling instantly, but jumping up and trying again stubbornly.

Soon her legs worked, and Katy urged her toward what she sought.

Rose sighed happily as the filly began nursing, and felt tears running down her cheeks at the beauty of the scene. Jamie, seeing this, smiled with great pleasure, and set his arm around her shoulder, drawing her close to his side.

"Pretty sight, ain't it?" he asked her with a squeeze.

Rose simply nodded.

"Well, she'll need a name, ye know," Patrick said softly when the filly was done nursing and lowered herself awkwardly to the straw, to recoup after the hard work of being born.

Jamie nodded and looked hard at the filly. It was a tradition at the ranch to name any filly that Katy foaled in the same manner…with a woman's name. And they all bore Katy's first name, but were called by their second name. Katy Belle was Kid's horse, Lady Katy was Jamie's, although Kid had cringed and done everything in his power to stop Jamie from naming any horse that. But, Jamie had insisted, although thinking of the name now, it seemed a bad choice. Within the stables there was Katy Jo, Katy Sarah, and Brenna, Keara, and Glenna, and any other number of good Irish names.

"But," Jamie said, thinking out loud, "This is the last one…it has to be special."

"After Carlos?" Rose suggested quietly, "Carla, maybe?"

Jamie shook his head, "No…Carlos wouldn't have that."

"But…" Rose began in protest.

"He's right, lass. Carlos wouldn't like that…"

Jamie suddenly remembered his and Patrick's earlier conversation and recalled the comforting scripture, and felt a moment's peace, despite the pain in his heart.

"Grace," he said softly.

"That's pretty. Katy Grace," Rose tried out the name softly.

Jamie shook his head, "No. Not Katy Grace. Just Grace. She'll have her own name. She's not the end of this legacy, she's the start of a new one." He winked at Patrick, and said, "'Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both. All have the same breath…All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?'"

"Ecclesiastes," Rose murmured softly, "One of my favorite passages."

"Grace then," Patrick said, nodding, "Aye. It is a good name."

And a name that would serve more to remind them of Carlos than any other.

They watched the filly in question for a few minutes before Rose's voice interrupted, low, but firm. "We have to go get him."

Jamie sighed, "I know we do. I guess there's no use putting it off."

Patrick turned, "I'll go hitch the buckboard."

Rose felt her heart thump more rapidly against the wall of her chest, although moments ago she would have thought that impossible. Coming back to Sweetwater was like reliving a nightmare, and she wasn't sure she could face the people who'd turned to demons last night so soon. She felt relatively safe sandwiched between Jamie and Patrick on the wagon seat, but still her stomach lurched violently when Jamie stopped the horse outside of the Marshal's office.

"You alright?" He wondered softly, looking with concern at her white face, "Do you want to stay here?"

"No. I'm going," Rose said firmly and let Patrick swing her down from the buckboard.

Still, she hung back, behind Jamie's broad shoulders as he marched into the marshal's office. John was sitting at a desk, staring idly into space. He was unshaven, unwashed, and obviously worse for the wear.

"Where is his body?" Jamie growled quietly, his voice firm.

John turned dull eyes on him, "His body?"

"That's what I said," came the deadly calm reply.

"Rose, are you alright? You look horrible," John said, ignoring the question. He got up as if to have a better look at her.

Rose imagined she did look rough. There were scratches on her face, as well as bruises on her arm where the crowd, and John had tried to hold her back.

"The body, John," she said flatly, gaining courage from the sturdy presence of Patrick at her side.

"God, Rose, you're scratched everywhere, aren't you?" John persisted, stepping closer to her.

Rose stepped back, "You stay away from me. I meant what I said last night. I'll never forgive you for letting a town under your care take a man like that."

"Rose, how could I have stopped it?" John asked, taking a tentative step forward, his voice was pleading.

"Leave me alone, John," Rose ordered him, and we he took another step forward, Jamie's broader form blocked his path.

"Leave her be. I want the body, and we'll be on our way."

John shook his head and went back to his desk, sitting down and running his fingers through his hair until it stood on end.

"The body?" he snorted bitterly, and turned a shade paler, "Do you honestly think there was a body left after they got their hands on him? They ripped him to pieces, and burned what was left."

Rose felt her knees go weak, and Patrick was quick to put a steady hand under her arm.

"And you didn't stop them?" Jamie growled.

John looked up and turned his face so that they might see a large welt at his hairline, "They weren't exactly in need of my services, or orders," John retorted, sighing heavily, "Don't you think I tried? It was bad enough the man was lynched without a trial, but to have him ripped to pieces?" He stopped when he saw Rose blanche even more.

"There is no body," Jamie repeated softly.

"No. I'm sorry," John whispered, "I tried to stop them."

"You didn't try hard enough," Rose growled, and tears filled her eyes, "And maybe I didn't either!"

She turned and walked out of the office, looking down the street to the gallows, and the charred spot in the middle of the street before them.

Jamie watched to be sure Rose was alright before turning his stare back on John, "Why did you do it? Why did you say it was Carlos?"

John shrugged, "It was getting dark when I heard the scream, and the house was pitch black. I was too late, and I met the killer on the stairs, and he took me by surprise. I only got a glimpse of someone…"

"My God! You disgust me! You weren't even sure it was him and you threw him to a mob!" Jamie shook his head, clenching his teeth and his fists. He opened his mouth to say more, but thought nothing good would come of what he wanted to say, except maybe personal satisfaction, so he stormed from the office. John jumped as the door slammed so hard that the bars on the cell rattled.

Rose took a deep breath as Jamie leaned down to hammer the wooden cross into the ground. Carlos Sanchez, it said. It stood beside four older crosses. Three of them had been there for nearly twenty years, the ones that read Jed McCloud, Barney Weathers, and Marty Weathers. Jamie had told her long ago who they were, a stillborn child, and a father and a son who both died in Point Lookout Prison during the war. All of their bones lay in the South. The fourth cross also marked a man who rested somewhere else, James Hickok. She'd stood on the hill with all of them the week after she'd come to live at the Bar M while this one was erected.

She closed her eyes and saw him, and her hand went to her pocket, finding the cool, solid reassurance of his badge there.

Finally Jamie stood up, surveying his work, and bent to straighten the cross once before finally stepping back. It was a pathetic funeral by all means, but Teaspoon wouldn't be back for two days, and maybe longer if Billy Hayes got delayed in going after him, and Kid, Lou, Seth, and Buck wouldn't be back for a week or so still.

They could have another service then. Jamie recognized the need for all three of them to do something to bring closure to the horrible experience.

"Should we say something?" Rose asked softly as she stood beside Patrick. Her eyes met Jamie's over the patch of ground that would have been a grave, if only they'd had a body.

"Aye, Lassie, I've brought my Bible…I think I found something appropriate."

Jamie nodded, and bowed his head. Rose did the same.

Patrick's rich brogue was almost hypnotizing as he began reading the word of God.

"Remember your Creator, in the days of your youth, before the trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them'-before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain…"

Rose found her mind wondering from his words. Why hadn't Carlos run for his life? Was it because, as Patrick said, he could "find no pleasure" in his life anymore? Had the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grown dark for Carlos finally? And how, how on earth-could that happen to one so young? Would they ever make sense of it?

"And the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it."

Patrick reached down to grasp a fistful of dust and then let it glide between his fingers over the cross. Jamie did the same, and Rose took her turn, finding the ritual comforting, as if in holding the dust, she held Carlos's form close to her. She was beyond tears, she discovered, and so were Patrick and Jamie.

"In the name of the father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen," Patrick finished, thumping the Bible closed.

They stood in respectful silence, lost in their own thoughts for a few minutes before straightening, and feeling they'd done the best they could for their friend, they turned to make the long walk back to the station.

Rose smiled slightly as they reached the bottom of the bluff. There, with an equally spectacular view of the mountains and the plains, was the horse's graveyard. Her father's first beloved palomino was buried there she knew, as well as Lou's cherished mount Lightning, and Buck's fiery sorrel. Gentle Ben, the horse Jamie said had carried his mother through the wilderness alone when she'd gone to get help for Kid, taken prisoner after Yankees burned their home to the ground was there too. Clearly, the animals were treasured as family also.

The sky had filled with ominous looking clouds by the time they let themselves out of the pasture and into the stable yard. They went quietly about bringing the horses into their stalls, and getting the livestock in the barn. The storm coming looked to be a bad one.

When all the animals were settled, they went inside, Jamie and Rose both insisting that Patrick stay in the main house with them, and away from the bunkhouse. Rose set to making them something that resembled a meal.

They were quiet, but the desperate grief from the night before had finally started to lift. They were also exhausted, and even when the thunder and lightning began doing their best to rouse them, they gradually all drifted off to sleep around the sitting room, this time Patrick and Jamie stretched out on the floor while Rose took the couch.

A particularly loud clap of thunder awakened Rose with a start. She looked to see if Patrick or Jamie had roused, but they both snored in sync with each other. Shaking her head at them, she got up and went to the window, peering out.

In a flash of lightning she saw that the barn door had come open and was beating viciously against the side of the barn. The horses were surely spooking badly enough without the added noise, and with the wind blowing so, the whole door was likely to come off. It would be hell to try to hold up the huge door while it was fixed.

She glanced at the men, and seriously considered waking one of them to do it. Her eyes caught a portrait of Lou, sitting atop Lightning shortly after the war and she sighed, feeling ashamed. Glaring at Lou's beaming face, she growled, "All right, all right, if you could ride for the express I can go out in the rain."

Taking the blanket with her and wrapping it over her head, she set out across the barnyard, the frequent lightning helping her generously, although sending her heavenward when it was followed by a loud clap of thunder.

She struggled violently with the door, her curses lost in the rain. The wind ripped the blanket from her shoulders and she made a desperate grab at it, but was too slow.

"Wonderful," she mumbled, wiping the soaking hair from her eyes. With a final heave she pulled the door shut, and then fumbled for the tack room door so she might find a lantern and check on the horses.

She bumped into saddle racks and went face first over a hay bale, before she finally a lantern, but thanked the smart person who had left a flint beside it. After a brief struggle, a warm gold glow filled the room.

Rose hummed as she strolled up one side of the barn and down the other. The horses blinked sleepily in the light, barely able to hold their large, gentle eyes open. She paused by Katy and Grace's stall, and felt a huge smile cross her face. They were both laying in the straw, Katy's nose just touching Grace's.

"You're such a good mother Katy," She whispered softly.

"You will be too," a voice said behind her.

Screaming, she struck out as she whirled, and her fist found a jaw.

"God Rose! It's me!" John bellowed, picking himself slowly off the floor.

"What in the hell are you doing here?" Rose demanded fiercely, keeping her fist clenched.

"I came out to check and see if everything was alright," John said, "It's a bad storm."

Rose felt a cold finger run up her spine as she looked at him, "All the more reason you shouldn't be here. What are you doing in the barn?"

"I saw the lantern," John said smoothly.

The uneasiness crept higher up Rose's back, and the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. "How? The door was closed when I lit it."

John took a step toward her.

Rose took off.

She screamed as loudly as she could, and the lantern went out as she swung it with her running. Sure that the flame had died, she turned and flung it behind her, hoping to slow John down. When she heard a heavy weight hit the ground, she knew that it had worked.

It didn't detain him for long though, and she could hear him coming after her again, slower now, more deliberate.

There was nothing deliberate in her actions. Not even knowing why the panic seized her, she doubled her speed. She screamed again, knowing her cries were lost to the hammering rain, howling rain, and roaring thunder. It didn't matter, the door was just ahead, and if she could make it out of the barn, she could make it to the house.

She hit the door with all her might, and instantly sprang backwards, ending up on the dirt with a blow that jarred her teeth in her skull. She glanced behind her. In a flash of lightning she saw John, walking quite calmly up the hall after her. He looked neither left nor right, but straight at her, as if he could see her in the dark.

Screaming in terror she got up and hit the door again. And again.

It didn't budge, and she knew it wasn't the force of the wind holding her in. He'd bolted it from the outside!

She rammed against the huge door a few more times, in sheer desperation. Still, he came in his unhurried, easy stride.

"What's wrong with you Rose?" He asked her when he was ten feet from the door, where she had her back pressed to it, ready to fight, "Why are you trying to run from me?"

"What's wrong with me?" Rose shot back incredulously, knowing as long as he talked to her, she could keep her nerve. It was the silent, eerie pursuit that had horrified her so. "What has gotten into you?"

"What's gotten into me?" John repeated, and another series of lightning lit his face for several seconds and she saw the emotions cross them, changing with every flicker. Amusement, anger, power, hunger, and mostly desperation.

Rose waited until he almost reached her, and suddenly charged forward, the other way, determined to make it out of the back entrance of the barn and lose him in the pasture. He anticipated her move though, and jumped into her path.

She hit him, and together they rolled, with him ending up on top.

Kicking, screaming, and biting, Rose put up the fight of her life, and her blows glanced off of him strongly. She knew she was hurting him.

Then, he drew back and slapped her hard with the back of his hand, and for a moment she was still, shaking her head and blinking her eyes, stunned from the blow.

"You killed Carlos!" She suddenly informed him quietly, "You killed him!"

John, having pinned her with his greater weight, sighed, and reached into his back pocket. Rose watched in intrigued horror as he brought out a small bottle and a cloth, and poured the contents onto the cloth.

"Don't you see, my Rose? I've done it all for you! I did it for you!"

With that he set the bottle aside and brought the rag toward her face. Rose lunged and shifted, rolling onto her stomach and trying to claw her way out from under him.

He chuckled slightly and got a savage hold on her hair, thus stilling her head.

He easily pressed the cloth to her nose. Rose held her breath as long as she could, but finally gasped unwillingly, recognizing the sickly sweet smell of chloroform from her days at school.

The results were almost instantaneous.

Though her closing eyes and slowed breathing, through the haze that clouded all her thoughts and made her head feel clogged, she remembered what he said.

I did it for you. she looked into his eyes, wild in the lightning.

I did it for you. He wasn't talking about turning Carlos in.

I did it for you. He was talking about murdering those women.

To be continued...Chapter XI

Copyright 1998-This work is not to be reproduced without the permission of the author

The Way Station
Campfire Tales

Email: gliterin@bellsouth.net