“Most all this territory is fit for ranching, but it’s been dry lately.”
Mr. Hanna smiled. “Does it snow here?”
“Some,” I said. “Not enough to stay through the day, but it dusts the plants with white now and then. Five years ago, we had three or four inches on the ground, but it was gone in two days. When I was a girl, up in Cottonwood Springs, it snowed plenty up there.” His son looked around, that sort of halfdisguised boredom on his face that I know in my own boys. Aubrey’s gaze lingered on the door to the back porch, where the girls’ voices sounded like little birds playing. One of the girls was on the summer bed with her legs drawn up, and a sheaf of white petticoats was showing under her black skirt, as if the owner didn’t know what a daring pose it made from our viewpoint. “Aubrey,” I said, “do you play baseball? The boys’ll give you a pretty good game.”
Aubrey looked to his father, who dipped his head toward the front door. The boy looked longingly toward the back porch, where the girls were still talking, then at the front door. Reluctantly he stood and went to join the baseball game.
Mr. Hanna said, “A relation of ours wrote they were selling out. Said he’d give me better than the price he paid for it. He’s not a close relative, so I’m not buying without seeing it. Thought we’d take a look before we head farther west.”
“Who is that?” I said.
“Jim Baker. He sent a map, and when I saw it had your name on it, what with the army business, I felt it was too much a coincidence, more like a kind of message. Reckon I at least ought to go by and see it.”
Seemed like I should be saying something nice and neighborly. All that came out was, “It’s a fair place, and with some luck, if your water holds, you can make it work.”
He seemed to be studying about something. I was thinking about the little strongbox I keep buried in the smokehouse, and how much cash was in there. I wished I’d offered Baker something as a down payment. Or taken a mortgage at the bank. I could have had all that piece. I could have paid it off next year. Then common sense got hold of me, and I felt myself settle down. I’d forgotten about what I owed Mama, the railroad, and everything. “Seems to be providential, you taking it,” I said.
“How’s that?”
“As you said, you were coming here anyway. Do you have more family that will be joining you?”
“No. Just Aubrey and myself. My wife, she … she was killed in an accident. While I was in Cuba. She hated the snow, you see.”
“I’m truly sorry, Mr. Hanna.”
“My other children are gone, too. But Aubrey’s a real good hand, and he’s willing to help get the ranch started.”
Lord a mercy. What a loss he’s had. I had to think of other things before I got wrapped up in our shared grief. I said, “What do you expect to run? About half Baker’s land is pretty rocky, more than this. But he’s got some nice flatland where he raises feed grain and hay, and a riverbed that runs most of the time.”
“I’ve seen a lot of dry riverbeds coming this way. Folks have told me some of them never have actually run water.”
I smiled and said, “That’s Arizona Territory for you. You’ll need a tough-footed, light breed to take those rocks, or you’ll be forever dragging them out of the thick. I’d advise you don’t try pure longhorn in there. Too muley. We’ve got an Angus mix, brindled, that’s pretty sturdy. A bunch of longhorn crossed with the new Hereford and some natives. Best all-around breed for this area is still criollo. Come up from Mexico, and they can eat near anything. We were planning to thin the herd, and I wouldn’t mind selling you a few for a good price. Save me driving some of them north.”
He looked a little puzzled, then smiled, shaking his head. “Well, I planned on merinos.”
“Merinos. Is that French?”
“I think they’re Italian or Greek, or from one of those places. Not sure where they started. But I know they take the heat. I hear they’re thriving in Australia. They’ll do all right on the rocks. They’re pretty light-footed for a sheep.”
I stopped rocking the chair and looked from the floor in front of me to the stove and back again, letting that sink in. I said real slowly, “You fixing to run sheep?”
“Going to try,” he said. “Grew up on a sheep outfit. It’s what I know. And there’s hardly none here. Should be a wide-open market. There’s just nothing like a sheepskin coat when the winter wind blows.”
“You could have trouble,” I said, “doing that.”
He stiffened in his chair. “Raising sheep?” he said.
That’s why he didn’t want to live in Texas, I reckon. Now he might be bringing the sheep and cattle war to Arizona. I saw him straighten up, ready for some kind of argument. He knew what I was thinking, and he knew I read him, too. I had no claim to that land, nor to what walked on it. I was done fretting about that. So I laughed and said, “Selling coats in Arizona Territory. Mr. Hanna, it makes no difference to me what you raise. There’s good sheep country up on the Mogollon, but I don’t know of any down here. You’ll spend your livelong day watching out for mountain lion and coyote, not to mention javelina, wolves, wild curs, and bobcat. You’ll have to fence the whole range, and probably plant your pastures. You’ve got eagles and owls that can steal a full-grown house cat, so they can probably lift a lamb. Then there’s the rattlesnakes. Can a sheep take a snakebite?”
“I’ve never seen one live through it.”
I just nodded. I was trying to figure if this fellow was a tinhorn or just stupid. “Leastways you won’t have the truck with rustlers that we’ve got.”
We talked awhile longer, and had another piece of apple pie each, too. I told him about my well running dry, and what it took to get a new one in. Finally, Mr. Hanna picked up his hat. “I believe we’d better be moving on now,” he said. “I’d like to get there before dark.”
I stood, then said, “You’re only an hour’s ride out. Is Mr. Baker expecting you? Stop at the Maldonado place on the way. Look for him there. It’s where they’ve got the herd waiting.”
“All I have is a map, and an address in Denver, Colorado, to send a wire to if I decide to take the place.”
I got up and headed toward the kitchen, remembering the array of pantry goods Mrs. Baker had fed the hands. “You’ll need some things, then. I believe the Bakers cleaned out everything for the picnic they held.” I made him hold a little wooden crate, and I fixed him up with some flour and coffee, a jar of sourdough starter, salt and sugar, a jar of peaches, and one of red chili. I put in the rest of the biscuits from the morning’s meal, too, and a leftover cooked beefsteak wrapped in brown paper. On top, I set an empty grease can, wadded up some more paper in it, then laid in half a dozen fresh eggs. I said, “No sense going hungry.”
Mr. Hanna said, “This is too generous. It’s—it’s real nice of you, Mrs. Elliot. Much obliged. We’ll repay—”
“There’s no need to repay.”
He carried the box to his wagon. The boys had quit their ball game, and Aubrey was sleeping stretched out in the back, where Ernest’s coffin had been. He woke with a start. Mr. Hanna took off his campaign hat, opened a trunk, pulled out a Montana peak, and put it on his head. He laid his army hat in the trunk and turned back to me. He smiled, his face real warm and sincere. “That feels good. My duty’s done, and I’m back to living the life I ought.”
“Farewell, Mr. Hanna,” I said. “Thank you again for bringing my brother’s remains home. You both drop by anytime. Good luck.”
Mr. Hanna and his boy rode off, the boy and man sitting side by side now, with the horse tied on in back. They just looked like a man and his son, instead of a military detachment. Seemed like decent people. I wasn’t going to begrudge a man for raising sheep, although I reckon I’d never actually laid eyes on a sure-enough sheep outside of a farm and ranch supply catalog. Figured if I couldn’t have Baker’s land, I’d like somebody decent to have it. Didn’t know why I felt a sort of wicked gladness that Rudolfo wasn’t going to swallow that land u
p with his. And I wondered if he’d tried, and why it didn’t work. Wondered a whole lot of things about Rudolfo, watching Udell and Aubrey Hanna drive down the road.
Chapter Thirteen
July 23, 1906
The air smelled of lightning, and the breeze from the south carried a scent of wet greasewood. All the signs were good that we’d get rain before the day was through. Rudolfo had set the day after tomorrow as the time to begin the roundup, so we had time to catch up around my house. I was on my way to the kitchen with a load of eggs caught up in my apron when Willie came to me. He’d been gone most of the day to Albert’s place. He was holding a piece of paper, folded square.
“I wrote and told Ma that Pa is dead,” Willie said. “I aim to carry this letter to the mail myself.” He had probably said something about his family life, or lack of, to Albert and Savannah. Savannah, being always kindly and good, probably told him it would be doing the right thing, telling his mother about his papa’s death. Myself, however, not being nearly so kindly and not even trying most times to be good, I was happy enough to let things be as they were. I shuddered deep inside, but I tried not to let on to Willie. That floozy woman might come on the next train. Consternation!
I kept moving, not looking him in the eye, and said, “It’s a fine thing that you can read and write that well.”
“They make you. Police come and bounce you on your head if they catch you truant.”
“It’s two hours to the station—a long piece, and easy to get turned around. Do you want someone to ride with you?” I asked.
“I ain’t no little kid.” He sneered when he said it.
“No, you aren’t a little kid. Do you have money for the postage? Might cost near a dollar to send.”
“That much? Well, I got a couple dollars left. But I’m going. Right now.”
I looked at the ridge of thunderclouds looming to the south. They looked like high mountains, sheer and steep, with overhanging snow across their tops. “This late in the day? Best wait. A storm’s coming. Could be a real buster.” I headed for the house.
He followed hard on my heels, twisting the paper between his hands. Willie’s face went pale and he said, “Lightning and thunder?”
“To wake Elijah. Get that door for me, will you?”
“What about tomorrow, then?” he asked. He held the door open. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
I saw the look in his eyes and wondered if it was just the noise of thunder or truly the danger that frightened him. I started setting the eggs in a bowl, moving the last three from yesterday to the table so I could put them on top. Concentrating hard on the eggs I was arranging, I said, “How old are you, Willie?”
I glanced up when I heard him draw a deep breath. He’d puffed his chest like a toad and said, “Nineteen.”
I stayed busy, arranging things on the pantry shelves, talking like it was just a stray thought. “I know boys. Most nineteen-year-olds need a shave once a week or so. You think you might have stretched that a little? Maybe more like sixteen? Fifteen?”
“Seventeen!”
“Same age as Mary Pearl,” I said. “Only, she was a baby when your folks married. I’d say fifteen is closer.”
“Seventeen come January.”
If he didn’t look so much like Ernest, I’d have believed him, for Felicity might have hidden a baby, along with the other claptrap she’d told my brother before they married. And I suppose there was the possibility that Felicity had lied to the boy about his age for one reason or another. I turned to him and said, “You want me to draw you a map—for tomorrow morning—to Marsh’s Station depot, where the mail is picked up?”
“Reckon so.” He looked for all his life as if he was about to bust out crying again. He turned away, and his hands went to his face and down again. I missed Ernest, too, in a new way, different from just hoping he was off in some war and hadn’t written in awhile. I’d long missed my own father, buried in San Angelo, but I’d lived with him, and been told stories by him. Willie was grieving for a papa he’d never known. The boy was missing a straw man, a landowning rancher stuffed for him by Felicity’s pretense.
I acted like I didn’t notice his quick tears, fetched a piece of paper, and opened a jar of ink, dipping the pen. He watched as I worked hard on the trail markers, noting the saguaro with two arms down and two arms up, like a Bar Double U branding iron. I said, “If it rains in the evening, sometimes it goes on into the morning, but it will quit by noon. If that happens, don’t leave tomorrow while it’s raining, but wait until noon. The littlest rain here can bring a flash flood, drowning everything in its path, and there’s no earthly way to speculate what direction it’ll go. Then you’ll have to wait another day. There’s really no rush, is there?” I held the map toward him.
“Reckon I’ll wait to go in the morning, when it ain’t thundering. If you think that’s right, Aint Sair.”
I let down my guard a little as his face softened. The desperation was gone, and he became a little boy in a big body. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” I started pulling dishes for lunch fixings. I said, “I’ll tell you, Willie, you’ve been living here just like a son to me all this time. I want you to know you’re welcome to stay. If your mama comes, though, she’ll want you to go live with her, wherever she decides to put down. It isn’t likely to be this ranch, because she tried it before and didn’t like living here.”
“Sure enough? She been here?”
“Long time ago. Came to visit just after Ernest and she married. But the wildness—she was nervous. Your papa said she was used to being more civilized.”
A slight sneer crossed his face and a grunt came from his throat.
“I need you to carry that box there to Aunt Savannah’s. You want the rest of that loaf of raisin bread? You can eat it on the way.”
“All right,” he said.
Willie didn’t come home that night, but I had no worry. No doubt Savannah had merely added a plate to their table. I rounded up my boys for supper, and it was good to talk with them and Chess about the ranch, peaceful, as Willie had always added some slight, raw element of strain. We talked of the drought and cattle; then we talked of April’s family coming, and of Harland’s family problem. Charlie said he’d been down to the south windmill and had put a padlock on the cover of the gearbox. Gilbert read aloud rates for hoof stock from the newspaper. That evening, I got to admiring my sons’ knowledge of things. From my rocker, I purely set them in a different light, there by the oil lamps, and saw cattlemen, grown in ways I hadn’t appreciated. One so like his papa, it nearly pained my heart to hear his voice. The other, well, I don’t know who he takes after.
As the sun went down, Gilbert got down his guitar, tuned up, and played a little. Chess tapped his foot, and we sang some old songs. Granny smiled the whole time, and her hands came together now and then, as if she might clap to the tune, but rather than keep on, she clutched them, as if she’d reached into the air before her and clasped some memory to herself.
The boys said they’d sleep at the house tonight. Before I drifted off behind the sheet hung on the porch, a good, sweet feeling of peace came to me. Chess, Charlie, Gilbert, and my mama were so near. The men’s voices were my lullaby. Trouble was far away.
Jack rode up to the fence out front and hollered, “Sarah! I’m off to find Geronimo.” The sky around him was a strange green color, like a china plate I saw once.
“Leave him be!” I called back. “Stay here with me. The boys need you. The boys need a father!”
“The army won’t wait,” he said. He wheeled his horse around and spurred it hard, so the animal jumped before it put front hooves to the ground.
“Jack!” I called. The sound of my voice echoed in my head and I woke, sitting up on my cot, one arm stretched out. I held my breath for a moment, waiting to see if I’d awakened anyone else. There was no change in the rhythms of sleep on the porch, except for Nip, who raised his head and peered at me curiously. I held back the sheet and studied
the darkness for a spell, noting the shapes of my boys.
I have been mama and papa both to them, with Chess’s help. Don’t know if I can do it again with Willie. Nothing’s been the same with him since we buried Ernest. More and more, there was lightning shooting from his eyes, defiant and sassy, like a just-caught spring-season mustang.
We figured Willie went up to the station from Albert’s, since he didn’t come by here for breakfast. It wasn’t good manners not to come by first. Gil and Charlie went to doing chores. I had barely got the chickens fed when Ezra came dragging up, scuffing his bare feet in the gravel. I declare, that boy must have feet hard as a hoof. He was hauling a hopsack bag that looked heavy. From the kitchen window, I watched him approach my house. When he got closer, I saw there were tear streaks on his dirty face. He rubbed his nose clear up his entire arm, then stepped onto my porch and sat.
As I watched, he made his hands into fists and wadded them into his eyes. Then he dragged his heavy bag between his bare feet and opened it. His little shoulders raised and lowered as if he’d given a sigh, his face hidden in the bag. My curiosity had stretched as far as it was going to, so I went out to the porch. “What’ve you got there, Ezra?” I asked.
He kept his face in the sack and said, “Hidey, Aunt Sarah. M’rocks. Mama says I can’t keep ’em no more. Account of Willie got in ’em and made a mess.”
“Isn’t he kind of a big boy to be fiddling with your rock collection?”
“It waren’t these. He got in my secret ones. Now Mama says I have to throw ’em all back in the desert, where I found ’em. I been collecting these rocks all my whole life, since I was a kid. We have to be nice to him! I told Mama I was running away from home. Can I live here with you?”
I said, “Well, honey, sure you can. Show me the rocks.”
I thought he’d turn the bag up on the porch and dump them, but instead, he carefully pulled out his treasures one at a time. He named each one, saying, “This here’s a spoon rock and this here’s a egg. This one’s a mouse’s ear, see that? Shaped just like a tiny ear. This is a corn rock, on account of it’s just like a grain of corn. Here’s another egg, but it’s got a blue thing in it. Here’s a one with sparkles in it.”