Chapter 9
“You gotta … come!” Tim cried, pulling Lizzy by the arm. “You … gotta come … now! I left … Wyatt there. He’ll try’n get them … out, but … they’re gonna need help!”
The boy was panting, doubled over with the effort of trying to speak and breathe at the same time.
Lizzy put her hand on his back and tried to understand.
She looked at Troy. He looked as confused as she was.
One second it had felt like the longed-for kiss between them was finally going to happen. The next … this bizarre interruption.
“Who, Tim? Who are you talking about?” Troy asked.
“The farmer, the one with the apples and pecans,” Timothy gasped. “The bandits were at his farm. They set things on fire. Wyatt’s hiding in the bushes, waiting for them to go, and then he’ll let the people and the animals out. But we gotta hurry.”
Cold dread landed in Lizzy’s gut like a lead weight. It sank to the pit of her belly, and all she could see again was the smoke rising above their town as the bandits set fire to buildings, not caring how many people they killed in the blaze.
“Come on!” Troy said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You fetch Julie, and I’ll get Kyle and Andrew and anyone else who will come on the cart and the horses. We’ll have to ride fast if we’re going to save anything.”
Lizzy nodded. She grabbed buckets as she passed them and ran to Julie, who was working in her clinic. She had her apron on and was squeezing handfuls of some leaves into a jar brimming with alcohol. She smiled as she saw Lizzy. “Just making more comfrey tincture. What’s wrong?”
Lizzy explained hurriedly. As she finished, Emily came walking into the tent with a box full of dried leaves in her arms. She looked from Julie to Lizzy. “What happened?”
“No time to explain,” Julie said. “We’re needed at a farm. Let’s grab the travel kit and get on that cart.”
They ran to the cart, where Kyle already had the horses hitched up and ready to go. Troy, Michael, and Andrew were on horseback, already heading out of camp. Troy waved to Lizzy, and she waved back, whispering a prayer for his safety. Then he was gone.
They packed the cart with blankets and Julie’s medical supplies and then they climbed in. Timothy insisted on coming, and Lizzy couldn’t see the point in telling him not to. So, they drove off to the farm to see if there was any hope at all.
“Emily has been helping me to make more tinctures and dry the herbs for the winter,” Julie said, her tone that of a person trying to keep spirits up in a situation that might see morale plummet.
“That’s good,” Lizzy said, trying not to think of what they would find at the farm. “Are you enjoying it?”
Emily nodded. “Yes, I find it fascinating to read up about the herbs and their various uses. I was thinking of including a class on basic herbs at school. It might be good to get the older children to start thinking of possible jobs they could do, and being an apothecary is a good choice. Having more than one healer in a community looking to grow is a good thing.”
“Having a team of them would be nice,” Julie said with a smile.
“Sounds like you have it all worked out,” Lizzy said.
Emily shrugged. “It’s worth a try. And you, Timothy? What would you like to do?”
“I want to be sheriff,” Tim said instantly.
“Not a farrier like your sister?” Emily asked.
“Nah. Wyatt wants to do that. I want to be the law.”
Lizzy couldn’t argue with that. “Well, I think we may need a sheriff before long.”
They drove along, with conversation blooming and dying quickly. No one could keep anything going for long, not when they were all trying not to think about what they would find at the farm. The black smoke that was now clearly visible on the horizon didn’t do much to raise their hopes.
All too soon, they arrived. The gate stood open, and Kyle drove right into the yard. The house was on fire, and there were folks trying to put out the blaze with buckets of water.
The barn was burning too, and Lizzy watched as people herded the animals away from the blaze and out into the pasture. Cows, goats, a couple of pigs, and some chickens were being driven from the house. They didn’t need much encouragement to go.
Tim sprang from the back of the cart and Lizzy followed. They found Wyatt, a short boy with reddish hair and freckles on his nose, helping with the bucket line.
“Oh, good,” Wyatt said, looking tired. “You’re here. I got them out, Tim. Just like you said. I waited, and then, when the bandits were gone, I went and opened the door. But they must have poured lamp oil or something on the house because it started burning terribly fast.”
Timothy patted his friend on the back and smiled. “You’re a hero, Wyatt. You did a good job.”
“Thanks,” Wyatt said, his thin chest sticking out. “Now help me with the buckets.”
“Is everyone out?” Lizzy asked. “No one in the house?”
“No one, ma’am,” Wyatt said. “I asked the folks who live there, and they told me everyone was out.”
Lizzy nodded. She went and found Troy slinging buckets of water on the barn.
“The house is done for,” he said. “They used an accelerant, I’ll bet. It should burn itself out.”
“Not before it falls on those trees and sets them ablaze,” Lizzy said, pointing to several pine trees close to the house. “It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from there, and the orchards will be on fire.”
“Ah,” Troy said, as though just realizing what she was saying. “Well spotted.”
“I think we can rig it so the house falls the other way,” she said.
He nodded, not even surprised any longer by how fast her agile mind came up with solutions.
“Okay, folks, you keep trying to save the barn, and we’ll go see about the house,” Troy said.
He and Lizzy ran around to the front. They passed Julie and Emily, who were tending to the family. Even the family dog was receiving some medical attention.
“Who are all these people if the owners are over there?” Lizzy asked.
“Neighbors,” Troy said. “Some were here before we arrived.”
“The bandits just targeted them?” she asked.
He nodded. “As far as we can figure. There hasn’t been much time for talking.”
The roof, Lizzy saw immediately, was going to slide off. There were several poles holding it up, and it looked as though there had been some seepage lately and the posts had been driven into the ground at an angle.
If they cut those posts and got them to collapse, the wall would come down, and the roof with it.
Lizzy and Troy got axes from a pile of tools at the back of the cart and set to work. It was hard work, and each time the ax met the wood, it made Lizzy’s arms reverberate with the shock of the impact. But she knew well how to fell a tree and how to cut a log into pieces. She put her back into it.
A loud crack sounded, and Troy’s post gave way. He came over to her and together they worked on her pole. After a little tandem hacking, it also cracked and snapped in two.
There was one left, and the roof started to dribble bits of burning debris around them.
“It’s getting dangerous,” Troy said. “You should go.”
“Not on your life,” she said, setting her jaw and swinging her ax once more.
Troy glared at her but carried on.
They hacked and chopped until, finally, the post cracked and snapped like the others.
“Run!” Lizzy yelled as she and Troy ducked under the burning cascade of debris and ran to safety.
The house groaned, moaned, and with a roar like a triumphant beast, the fire brought the farmhouse to its foundations.
Sparks flew and embers shot into the air.
One branch of a pine tree caught on fire beside Troy, and he hacked it off the tree in seconds.
Then, together, he and Lizzy stamped it out.
She turned to him and smiled. “We did it.”
He smiled and put his arms around her. “You were amazing.” He drew her to him, and her heart pounded in her chest.
“Riders!”
The cry rang up from the folks working to save the farm.
With a sinking heart, Lizzy watched Troy turn and look toward the road. There were three riders there. They stopped and seemed to take in the billowing smoke. Then, after a moment’s pause, they rode off.
Lizzy stared. Troy did too, a thoughtful look on his face. “I guess we’d better get back to fighting this fire.”
Yet another moment for a kiss now gone, Lizzy joined him on the bucket line.
The bucket chain had made a dent in the flames, and it looked as though the barn would be saved. Now that it had collapsed in on itself, the farmhouse seemed to be quenching its own flames, but a few buckets of water thrown over it helped the fire die down faster.
Lizzy and Troy helped the others pour water on the burning buildings until the sky turned pink overhead and the flames finally died down to nothing. Then they joined the others sitting on the grass on the verge of the pasture.
A man with a bandage wrapped around his head and on one arm nodded to them all. “Thank you for coming to our aid,” he said. “My wife and I thought we were going to lose everything.”
“Well, Arnie, you would do the same for us,” said a burly man with dirt smeared on his cheeks. “What started it? Was it a lamp knocked over or something?”
“It was bandits,” Arnie said. “They came riding in here this morning, demanding we give them sacks of apples and pecans. I said we would be happy to sell the sacks to them, but they insisted that we give them a ‘tithe,’ they called it. Like a tax to work our land and grow our produce. Well, I laughed at the man. Ain’t no one going to tell me I have to pay him for my land.
It’s mine, and I’ve been working it for years. ”
There were nods of agreement. No one would agree to that. Lizzy suspected it was why the leader of the bandits tended to make such “requests.” He wanted to get his victims thinking they could just refuse to give him what he wanted.
It was the refusal that would bring him back.
Or his men, at least. They would come back again and again, and each time they would take just enough to make it hurt.
They would hurt a person just enough to make him comply.
It would happen in stages, and before people knew it, they were stuck handing over goods to avoid constant attacks.
And if someone stood up to them, they would burn everything to the ground.
Losing a house was bad, but it wasn’t the worst thing.
The barn was still mostly intact. The sheds were standing, and the apple and pecan trees were still whole and fine.
The farm could continue … which meant trouble.
“Are you okay?” Troy asked.
Lizzy shook her head. “This isn’t over. They’ll be back.”
“What did you say?” Arnie asked, staring at her. She must have spoken a little louder than she meant to.
“I said that this isn’t over,” Lizzy said, standing so they could see her.
“I used to live in a little town a few miles away. These blackguards came to our town, and they did the same thing. They set some of our buildings on fire and watched as we scrambled to save them. We thought it was over after that.” She shook her head.
“We were wrong; it was just the beginning.”
She told them how it worked, how they wouldn’t be free so long as the bandits were in the area. She explained how they had decided to band together as a town and try to fight. But they had been hounded incessantly until they met the miners and finally got help.
“We were broken and sick, and we couldn’t fight anymore,” Lizzy said. “That’s what they do to you. They hit you again and again until there’s nothing left, and then they hit you some more. It’s not pretty, but it works.”
The burly man looked disgusted. “The sheriff and the marshal will deal with this gang. There are laws for a reason, and they are upheld by good people. There is no reason to assume that they will walk onto our farms and never leave. We can fight them.”
Lizzy shrugged. “We tried. It didn’t go so well.”
“No offense, dear, but maybe you and yours weren’t quite as determined,” the burly man said.
“Hold on,” Troy said. “It’s only a fool who doesn’t take heed of a warning. Lizzy has come through a lot, and although we shot and killed a few of these monsters, it seems that unless we cut the head off the snake, it’s going to keep coming back. I think we might need to join forces here.”
“Not that we’re not grateful, especially for the medical care,” a woman with both hands wrapped in bandages said.
“But who are you folks? We don’t know you.
And we’re mighty grateful, especially to the two young ’uns who were eating blackberries off the bushes earlier, for getting help, but we can’t take advice from total strangers. ”
“We’re from the mining camp a few miles that way,” Andrew said, standing.
“I’m Andrew. This is Michael, and that’s his brother, Troy.
This is Lizzy, our farrier. This is Julie, my wife and our apothecary.
Emily here is our schoolteacher and apothecary assistant.
When Timothy came to call us, saying the bandits had struck, we dropped everything to come and help. ”
“We appreciate it,” the woman said. “I’m Esther.
We would have a lot less without you. So, thank you.
But I can’t help but notice there isn’t a lawman between you.
I would like to talk to Sheriff Meyer and see what he says.
He’s been looking out for us for a long time.
I’m sure he can run these fellows out of this area. ”
Lizzy couldn’t stop herself from laughing. She snorted, and all eyes turned to her.
“What’s so funny?” Ester asked.
“That you think one sheriff is going to make a difference to these men,” Lizzy said.
“There are at least thirty or forty of them. I don’t think, in the whole six months they spent terrorizing us, we saw even half of their number.
They would change out the faces every week so that no one got familiar.
We didn’t stand a chance, and our sheriff didn’t either. ”
“He got shot and died in the second week,” Tim said flatly.
“Yeah, his deputy went the week after,” Wyatt said. “My ma always says it was a shame. They were good men.”
It was pointless. Lizzy could see it. The farmers had their own ideas, and although they were grateful for the help, they weren’t budging. They would deal with this on their own.
So, Julie, Emily, Lizzy, and the others packed up their things and got back into the cart or mounted their horses. Arnie gave them a sack of apples and a smaller one of pecans to say thank you, and they went on their way.
As they drove home in the gathering darkness, Lizzy said a prayer that maybe things would be different for this community. But she didn’t believe it one bit.