Sarah's Quilt

  He pointed with his hat. “There, you’ve got a young man name of Reed. Wasn’t that your name long ago? Rabbitbrush growing next to the stone. Yes, I see very well. You cared for him, and he let you down. So you relegate him to the far corner, and you aren’t come to seek his opinions, because they don’t matter, and maybe they never did. But here? This is his grave. Here, it’s so trampled, nothing grows. The dirt by it has been ground to powder beneath your feet. The rocks line up like the soldier he was. Captain John Edward Harrison Elliot. Lot of money to carve a name that pretentious in marble.”

  I wanted to crush that snake’s head of his. Put out those beady eyes staring at me from his horrible hair. I said, “Get off my land. Get out of here, and don’t you ever come back. Don’t you even breathe the air over—”

  “Over him? It’s always been him, hasn’t it? More than anyone else.”

  I whipped the stick and swung it at him so fast and hard it sang in the air, aiming straight for his head. If it had caught him, I’m sure I’d like to have killed him with it. He snatched the stick from the air faster than I could react, and jerked it toward himself, pulling me with it. I gasped as he wrenched it from me and tossed it down. He was no more than a forearm away, and he smelled stale and peppery and rank. He was breathing quickly, and he peered into my eyes. He said, “Yes. It was him. You still haven’t grown tired of him, even if all you do is stare at the stone.”

  I took a step backward, and then another. Then I turned, and ran to the house. As I ran, I couldn’t stop a groan coming from my insides, and I reckon if I’d had a pistol in my pocket, I’d have turned and used it.

  Chess said, “Coffee on yet? I’ll get some kindling and start the stove for you. Goldurn, you look peaked.”

  I was trembling so hard, my teeth clattered, and I had to hold the back of a chair to steady myself. “Chess,” I whispered, “I want to run that water witch off. I don’t care if we never get the well. I don’t care if I have to sell everything I own. We’ll get someone else to find a spot. The driller, he could do it, maybe, or Charlie. Anyone can find water if they’ve learned how.” It wasn’t often I felt inclined toward murder.

  Chess blinked a couple of times. Then he said, “Where’ve you been, Sarah?”

  “Out to the graveyard. He jumped out of the bushes at me. Like he takes fun in scaring the daylights out of me.”

  By then, Mary Pearl had heard us talking, and she came into the room, rubbing her eyes and trying to waken.

  Chess said, “Damn fool. What’d he say?”

  I caught a sound in my throat, folded my arms across my middle. “Nothing. Started naming off the headstones and acting like he knew every one of them. He—he knew about April—leastways, that I had an older daughter and that she was gone from home.”

  He stared off a minute, then said, “Well, the boys likely told him. It’s nothing.”

  I let out a deep sigh, which felt so good, I needed to sit down. “The boys told him. Of course. It’s not like he can read things beyond, or see people’s thoughts.”

  “They’re gone to the outhouse, both of ’em,” Mary Pearl added to our conversation. “They’ll be coming right in,” she said with a shrug.

  Chess shook his head. “Sarah, you’re letting Miss Savannah’s worries about that rascal being a spook get you plum turned around. That old boy just enjoys making folks think he’s something special. Probably had a good knock in the head once, and now he’s a mite off-kilter.”

  “More than a little. I want him gone anyway.” That crazed lunatic had rattled something deep in my core, things that I don’t like to stir up.

  Chess put his hand on my shoulder and patted it. He said, “All right. I’ll find him and send him packing. Can we have a bite to eat first?”

  “Lord, that’s right. He’ll be coming in for breakfast.”

  “Boys will, too. You get them alone when he’s outside, ask them if they mentioned April. You’ll see. It’s nothing. Now, let’s get the stove going so it can cool down before the air gets too hot to breathe. I’m going to ride out and see if I find any tracks of that mountain cat.”

  I made pan steaks and gravy and biscuits. I even opened a jar of peaches, put a little sugar on them, and warmed them in the oven, in honor of my gladness that Mr. Lazrus was having his last meal with us. He showed his face, too, five minutes after the boys got here, and he acted like nothing in the world had passed between us.

  Only, he did come in carrying my long stick, saying, “Look here what I’ve found. Mrs. Elliot, you ought to carry something like this when you go walking. It’s good for chasing off reptiles.”

  Charlie prayed over the food, taking the honors because Mr. Sherrill was feeling poorly this morning and had stayed in his bed back in the bunkhouse.

  Just as soon as he’d said the amen, Chess started eating. He pointed with his first biscuit at Mr. Lazrus. “You know, Lazrus,” he said, “I get the surefire picture that you have gone to school quite a bit.”

  “That so?” Mr. Lazrus said. He held a steak tight in one fist and was chewing at the bone end, cutting marrow out with his teeth.

  “Nobody around here says the word reptiles. Must be you learned that from some eastern college.”

  Lazrus sat stiffly upright. Then he pointed at Chess with the steak. “Well, sir, you’ve found me out. A product of civilized society, born and bred for the finer things of life.” He laughed menacingly. “Which I enjoy even now. Why, is there anything finer than Mrs. Elliot’s biscuits and a good steak? Not a hotel in Paris serves such food.” He licked each of his fingers, smacking his lips, showing his whole tongue, and making a big show of the process.

  “You’ve been to Paris?” Gilbert said.

  I gave him a look. I didn’t want to get this varmint engaged in a long conversation full of his lies and deceits. And my sons didn’t know about what had gone on in the graveyard before breakfast. I wanted the boys to hurry up and eat, and get out the door. I want to watch Chess and me giving Lazrus a boot in the britches. I plotted in my head exactly the words I’d use to send him flying.

  Lazrus looked accusingly toward me, nodded, and said, “I see your point, Mrs. Elliot. Enough dillydallying. It is high time we got about our business. And you have endured my company long enough. Hurry up, boys. When you lads have done eating, you’ll find me up on the sandy rise, waiting your escort. That drilling rig should be in this afternoon, and I’ll be here to tell them where to start.” He rose, putting on his hat.

  “You’ve found water?” I asked. I jumped to my feet. I couldn’t help the look on my face. If there really was water to be had, my ranch might be saved.

  “Of course. I came here to find water, and find it I did. It is the eleventh day.”

  Chess stood up, too. “Then where’re you off to?”

  “A secondary site. It is always a good idea. As I’ve discussed with Mrs. Elliot, it is possible to drill mistakenly into a pocket that won’t last, or is brackish. Most everything hereabouts runs to alkali to one degree or another. Your boy Charles there said he’d show me the mineral spring. Too bad about that being so close. I’d never put a secondary site there, but it is good to see it, so I can judge how far it runs. That way, we don’t waste either time or money.”

  With that, he went out the door. The five of us ringed the table, looking at one another. I said really softly, “Did you boys tell him you have a sister?”

  Charlie seemed startled. “No, Mama, I didn’t,” he said.

  “Me, either,” said Gil. “I wanted him to tell about Paris. But what was all that other he was talking about?”

  I started pulling plates toward me, and covered the biscuits with a clean dish towel. “He makes like he can read minds. Pretends things. Ever so often, he hits on something. You know, if you guess heads or tails and flip a coin enough times, once in awhile you’ll come up right. When we’ve got water, he is going to be gone, and none too soon.”

  Chess watched the man through the window, glowering. He
said, “Make sure you boys don’t give him any more information about our family than you may have already. Let your mama rest easy.”

  Gilbert said, “Well, Mama, if it makes you feel any better, we don’t like him, either. We’ve been trying to accommodate him, on account of needing the water. Charlie and I both think he’s a coot.”

  Charlie nodded and pulled another biscuit from under the cloth. “We’ll just ride to Majo Vistoso and back. Should be back by noon.”

  I said, “When you get back, go around to Granny’s place, and your cousins’, and tell them he’s found water. Reckon everyone will want to come watch the drill.”

  When there was no one in the house but Mary Pearl and me, she said, “Aunt Sarah, that man scares me, real deep inside.”

  I bit my lip. “You ought to start carrying that knife again. You’ve quit for a while.” I knew Savannah had probably asked Mary Pearl to leave it off. Although I’ve tried very hard not to go against their child raising, I believe Savannah might agree with this, and I’ll tell her I pushed Mary Pearl to carry it for her own safety. If she were my daughter, she’d tote a loaded gun, too.

  Chapter Seven

  June 21, 1906

  In the late afternoon of the twenty first day of June, a ten-pair team of mules came down our road, pulling a tremendous rig loaded with rows and rows of steel pipes. The wagon was so large, at first I could barely make out the wagoner driving it. As this monstrous thing came closer, the dogs went to barking like they were going to turn inside out. All the hands and everyone else came a-running. On the back was a steam-motorized drilling rig, clanking and thundering. When they got closer, I also saw a brand-new windmill, near ten feet across, with two sets of wooden vanes screwed to metal shanks, one inside the other.

  Sitting right up front with the driver, like she had the reins to the whole kit, was Granny. My tiny little mama riding up there, proud as a hen on a set of hatched-out chicks. They stopped moving right in front of me, and the man helped her to climb down. I said aloud to anyone who could hear me, “Well, I didn’t order all this. My order was supposed to be a drill and hand pump.”

  My mama nudged me with her elbow. “Ain’t that a beauty?” she said. “Like to cost the whole amount, but that is the finest windmill money can buy. Steel plates behind the wood, and if one breaks, why, you just send up a man with a piece of wood and an iron peg.”

  My mouth hung open. I said, “Mama, you ordered this? Without asking me?”

  “Well, it’s a present. I don’t need your permission to give a present.”

  It is a blessed thing, a joy I can’t describe, to look on a powerful gift such as this. Something that represents a sacrifice from someone else, or an effort far exceeding what I’d feel was normal, is so beyond my expectations, it touches my deepest soul. My throat tightened up and I felt something swell in my chest. “No,” I said. “Reckon you don’t.” My eyes burned, and I had to hold on to my head for a few seconds. Then I put my hands down and said, “To me, a present is a nice feather pillow or a new apron. Mama, this is way overgenerous. It has cost you sixty acres of land. It’s too big and too fine, and—”

  “Well, then you just mind your manners and say thank you.”

  “Thank you, Mama.” I went to put my arms around her, but she was grinning as she headed out to inspect the great machine. I pulled my apron over my eyes and went inside for a while so no one could see me crying. Then I had a little drink of water and soothed my silliness.

  Here came my sons, saying Mr. Lazrus was behind them about a quarter mile. I didn’t ask why they’d come so far ahead. To me, keeping distance between yourself and that lunatic was always a good plan.

  There was plenty to do, drawing water from the last of the barrels for the team of mules and the men accompanying it. Lazrus’s mule came ambling down the trail off the sandy cliff like he had nothing but time. The man running the drilling team had already asked to know where they were to set up, but I’d told him we were waiting on that fellow coming. One of the men said, “Oh, it’s old Lazrus. Yep, he’ll find water for you, ma’am. Strange character, but he’s got the touch.”

  Well, that strange character waved and called hello to the drilling men, then kept on a-riding right through the yard and toward the hill behind the house. He rode that mule up the slope to the only flat spot on it, a rock slab at least ten feet wide, part of it sinking into the dirt at one side. He got off the mule, pulled the mesquite limb from his back—the limb, I saw, was not even the same one he’d come here with, but much different in size—and held it out in front of himself, then pointed it straight down at the rock.

  Lazrus knelt slowly, bending lower and lower, until the point of the stick touched the rock. Then he pulled something white from his baggy shirt and drew a big cross at the point where it touched. Holding both arms out and up, he called, “Come to me, all ye who thirst! Behold! I smote the rock, and the waters gush forth.” I searched the little crowd for Savannah. Thankfully, she was not here to witness the blasphemy. If there truly was water under that slab of rock, I didn’t want Savannah to declare it was not fit to drink because a madman had discovered it. All my relatives and the drilling men busted out with cheering and clapping, like he’d made a speech. I didn’t clap. I just put my fists against my hips and waited for him to pull some kind of shenanigan. Yet he just put his arms down and very calmly walked straight toward me.

  Lazrus said, “Mrs. Elliot, it will take them the rest of the day to set up. If they commence drilling at daybreak tomorrow, you will have water by nightfall, as long as the bore doesn’t break, and they’ve brought pipe for three hundred and twenty or thirty feet. Twelve days, just as I promised. Order your men to build you a foundation for the tank, and get the concrete hardened by then, or you’ll not be able to hold the water coming from this well.”

  I said, “You have gone and spent eleven days searching every inch of my land. If the water was this close, why didn’t you say so? You had to have picked this spot the very first day.”

  “Just because it is close doesn’t mean it’s best, but now I’ve confirmed it. In fact, this is probably your only chance at fresh water. You’re far too close to the mineral spring. That, too, explains the formations holding water that you had used for these past years. Your previous well was an underground cistern holding ought but rainwater.”

  It seemed to make sense, even coming from him. “Well,” I said, “I’ll pay you, and you can be on your way.”

  “Not until we see the well bringing forth life. If you drink of my well, you will never thirst again.” Two flies buzzed over Lazrus’s face and settled on his beard. He paid no attention, just kept staring into my eyes like there was something new there. “Your salvation awaits, a hundred seventy feet from the surface.”

  I decided to ignore the last comment and concentrate on the money I owed him, which meant getting him out of here. “That is fair of you,” I said. “Especially after we haven’t exactly gotten along.”

  “Not this trip,” he said. “Some of our journeys have been more pleasant than others.”

  There was no telling what he meant by that. I said, “Reckon I better see to the tank, like you say.” I started walking away, then turned. “A hundred and seventy feet, you reckon?”

  “Or a hundred and eighty. Between the two. Of course, they’ll sink an extra fifteen feet of pipe so as to reach below the slump. There’s a natural curve in water, you see. Pipe’s got to go deeper; otherwise, it’ll dry the slump and you won’t reach the pool.”

  “That is twice the depth of my other well. If there is nothing there, my mother has paid for a mighty deep privy.”

  He said, “And you will owe me nothing. Nevertheless, when you see it, you will have your faith restored, and you may thank me profusely with supplication and fanfare.”

  I put my fists against my hips. “If I see it, I will pay you the rest of your fifty-dollar fee, without fanfare or supplication. And, if, as you say, it comes in fresh, between a hundre
d seventy and a hundred eighty feet, I think you should be obliged to use it.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he actually stepped back away from me. “What do you mean, Mrs. Elliot?”

  “I mean a thorough coating of clean water inside and out. I saw you mark that stone. It was a piece of soap you used. I don’t care if you eat it for supper later, but I will have the boys set up a tub in the barn and fetch together some extra duds. You’ll get in it and take a brush and scrape at least an inch of topsoil and rust off you. Then I’ll feed you a last time, pay you, and you’ll get on out of here—and don’t come back.”

  “You always did like to get the best of a man, didn’t you?”

  “You wouldn’t know.”

  “I know your heart. I hear your thoughts.”

  “Hogwash. You’re just good at guessing. A woman living alone with grown sons, naturally she’d have been married. Chances are, she’d have loved a man. Chances are that she’d have buried at least one child. You didn’t hear anything. You just speculated and got close to the target, that’s all. You’re not a prophet. You’re nothing but a low-down gambler. That’s how I know you’ll take the wager.”

  “I will not bathe in your water.”

  “Then I’ll pay you the remaining forty dollars and you can ride out anytime.”

  “You’re a cruel, hard woman.”

  “Well, I had all the kind generosity scared plum out of me this morning at dawn.”

  He roared with laughter. “Lord,” he called to the sky, his hands over his head, “verily, ’tis better to live in a corner of a cattle stall than in a wide tent with a contentious woman!”

  I spun on one heel and walked away from him. Let him roar and bellow. Let him screech through the night, pretending to be a puma. If I see hide or hair of that horrible man after tomorrow night, I’ll let some air through him with buckshot from my short-barreled varmint gun.