Chapter 13 - Without Blessings

Caleb sets out to start new and is suprised by Elizabeth.

          Jim acquired a horse and rifle for Caleb.  He, then, set out to find his father’s cabin, zigzagging across the countryside.  He found no sign of his childhood home, and stopped mid-day to shoot a rabbit.  As the sun sank below the treetops he made his camp under a cluster of trees.  Maybe, he thought, he would just head on for another town, but he was then reminded of Elizabeth.  He could not leave her, especially without her knowing his whereabouts.

          The next morning he began his search again.  He finally came upon a small clearing in the trees and brush.  In the center of it all stood a tiny wooden cabin and to one side a pile of broken rotting boards with a collapsed pitched roof atop it all. 

He tied his horse by the door and stepped onto the narrow porch.  The boards made an eerie creaking sound under his feet, as he stepped to the door and slowly turned the knob.  The wood of the door was swollen and he had to put his shoulder against it to push it open.  A musky odor blanketed him as he stepped inside.  The floor at one end of the one room glistened with tiny shards of glass from a broken window.  Thin curtains fluttered in the breeze, the ripped cloth was yellowed with age and weather.  Next to the fireplace sat a small rocking chair with one rocker broken off and lying on the floor to its side.  In the middle of the room stood a small square table.  At the other end of the room a torn mattress lay on the floor with half of the feathers pulled out and strewn on the floor around it, most certainly the handy work of some beast which had made the small building its refuge from the weather.

          Painful memories from his childhood flooded back at him.  He could almost smell his mother’s cooking and see her standing in front of the fireplace, stirring her cooking pot with a big wooden spoon.  Then the aroma of his mother’s dinner faded and the air quickly filled with odor of whiskey.  The sound of his father’s angry voice surrounded him.  Then suddenly the cabin went silent again and the musky mildew odor rushed back into his nose.  Caleb was alone again.  His last days in the cabin had been spent alone in silence and now he was alone once more. 

         

Now that Caleb had found his way back to the old cabin, he decided to return to the Meyers’ estate.  When he arrived at the edge of the property, he began to search for Frank, keeping himself concealed behind the trees and brush. 

“Who’s there?” he heard and then the click of a setting gun.

He dismounted and stepped cautiously out of the brush with his hands held up.  “Don’t shoot.  It’s just me, Caleb.”

Frank lowered his rifle and looked back.  He leaned forward slightly and spoke so low Caleb had to strain to hear.  “You can’t be here.  Meyers has the whole place guarded.  I heard about you bein’ run off.  Jim told me.  Then all of a sudden Meyers had a whole new band of men guardin’ this place.  Just since mornin’.”

“Well I had to tell you where I’m staying.  Could you tell Elizabeth so she won’t worry?  Assure her I’m just fine?”

“I’ll try.”

“I’m staying at my father’s cabin west of the city.  It’s about a mile or two off the main road hidden back in the trees.  I may head on if I don’t find work soon.  Meyers don’t have so much influence elsewhere.”

“I’ll try an’ get her the message.  I’ve decided to take off soon myself.  Goin’ out west.  I heard about mountains in California full of gold.  Sure like to get my hands on a piece of that.”

“I wouldn’t mind that myself, but I can’t leave Elizabeth.”

“You’re gonna get killed over that girl.”

“I know, but I just can’t let her go.”

 

Caleb spent the next several weeks looking for work but Meyers had already gotten to everyone.  He had even gone into the general mercantile for work.  He told Mr. Johnston,  “I’ll do anything you need,” but Mr. Johnston’s regretful response was, “I’ve got nothin’ here for ya.  Even if I did I couldn’t give it to ya anyway.  Mr. Meyers would have my head on a stick if I did.  I’d lose the store and my family would starve.  I wish I could.  I hope you understand.”

Frank and Jesse Call had both cut from Meyers’ gang and gone west.  Jim was the only man left in Boston, who Caleb knew and could trust, and even he acted as though Meyers had gotten to him.  Everytime Caleb spoke with him he spent most of the time checking behind him as though he were afraid someone was watching.

Elizabeth had not made contact with Caleb.  Whether she had tried but could not get a message to him or whether she had made no attempt at all, he had no way of knowing.

Caleb sat on the porch of the old cabin.  He knew he could not stay, but he did not want to leave.  If he stayed he knew Meyers would eventually destroy him, one way or the other.  On the other hand, if he left he knew he would never see Elizabeth again.  As he sat, lost in thought, the sounds of a trotting horse came down the narrow path that wound between the trees toward the cabin.  He rose to his feet and stepped in the door of the cabin, grabbing his gun.  As he stepped off the porch he saw a woman ride into the clearing.

To his surprise, it was Elizabeth.  He ran out to meet her.  A huge smile spread across her face.

“I found you,” she said proudly.

“Why are you here?”

Her smile faded.  “I come to see you.  Don’t you want to see me.”

“I do, but your father…”

“Don’t worry about him,” she told him, almost boisterously.

“But you can’t be here.  Who knows what he’ll do if he finds out.”

“He knows,” she announced brimming with confidence.

“What?”  Caleb asked bewildered.

“I told him I love you and I’m going to marry you with or without his blessing.  He tried to keep me there, but I told him I was going and he could not stop me.  He finally told me I could go.”

“That was all?”

“He told me from this point forward…” she dropped her eyes, the confidence and excitement fading from her voice.  Caleb saw a tear roll down her cheek.  “He told me from this point forward he has only one daughter, Dianna, and I am no longer entitled to anything of his.”  She looked up at him her eyes wet and reddening.  She forced a smile and continued with a shaky voice.  “But I don’t need his…his money, or blessing, or anything.  We can do just fine without it.”  She started crying harder now.  Caleb held her close until the sobbing stopped.

He held her out and looked into her eyes.  “You have to try to go back,” he told her.

“I can’t,” she objected.

“It’s not that easy out here.  You just don’t understand.  I have very little money left and I can’t get work in town.  This old cabin has a leaky roof and a busted window and the animals come in at night.  I have to sleep with my rifle in hand.”

“But I can’t go back.  He won’t take me.”  She began to cry again.  Through her sobs he could understand her say, “I have nowhere to go.”

He took her back in his arms and held her against his chest.  “I’ll take care of you.”  It had only been a moment ago that he, too, had been alone and scared with not place to go and he did not wish her to feel this way.

 

They stayed at the cabin several nights until one night Caleb was awakened by Elizabeth’s screams when a raccoon came in through the broken window.  The next morning they started riding on.  Caleb was not sure where they were going to go.  They just rode south.  Along the way they stopped in a tiny village where Caleb bought a sheet of canvas and at night he set up a small tent for Elizabeth.

As they sat by the fire, that night, Elizabeth took Caleb’s hand and looked him in the face.  He could see the fire dancing in her eyes. 

“Caleb?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“When we get to a nice town somewhere, are we going to get married?”

He turned his eyes toward the fire and was silent.  She put her head on his shoulder.  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

“Why not?” she asked sadly.

“I just don’t know yet.  We don’t know what is up the road or how it’s goin’ to be.  Things are goin’ to be a lot different now.”

“I’m a little scared now,” she whispered.

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.