“And what’s that, makes it sparkle?” I asked.
Ezra’s eyes lit up. “Mica?” He grinned. “Here’s a griddle cake and a pudding rock with a bubble just like a custard, and here’s a little man.” He pulled out a piece of caliche that had arms and a head on a body shape. After awhile, he had rows and rows of them. Ezra sighed. “Can you keep ’em here for me? It took me a lifetime to collect all this.”
“You can leave them here,” I said. “But what about those others? What secret rocks did you have?”
He squirmed around in his loose overalls, which were easily large enough to put another boy or two in there with him, and finally stood up and reached deep into a pocket. He pulled forth more stones. Tiny wedge-shaped arrowheads. “Mama said it was a sin to touch ’em. Said I waren’t to bring a Indian arrow in the house. I knew I wasn’t supposed to keep ’em, but I found ’em whilst I was looking for marbles and such.”
I looked at the little weapons in his palms. “That one there goes to that piece there,” I said. “They’re all broken.”
“That jackass Willie busted ever’ one. We was all teasing some, and Josh said how Willie looked like a string bean. I showed him my arrows to make him feel better, and he took ever’ one and, crk-crk-crk, snapped ’em like string beans.”
Each of the little points had a match, the perfectly shaped stones destroyed. Without touching them, I said, “Why were these a secret?”
“I told you. Mama said I couldn’t keep ’em. I had ’em hid under my mattress and I showed him. He broke them all with a pliers and threw ’em out the window, and when I hollered, Mama found out. I got scolded within a inch of my life. Aunt Sarah, I want to live here with you. Nobody wants me there anymore.”
“I know you know what these are,” I said. “Let me tell you why your mama doesn’t want them in the house.” So I told Ezra things that Savannah and I have never told our children about how we watched Savannah’s mother die at the hands of Indians. How we saw those arrows pierce people and animals and take lives. The old days are not so long ago that we’ve forgotten the sounds of Indian attack, and what death hangs on those little pointed stones. It would be no different if he were keeping spent bullets from a battlefield to admire.
When my tale was done, Ezra leaned forward, elbows on knees. He scratched his head, and then, putting the arrowheads on the floorboards next to him, he scooped all his other rocks back into the sack. Then he picked up the arrowheads again, made a fist, and flung them out into the yard. One fell short, landing near the house, and he ran to it and tossed it as hard as he could. He turned to me. “Are we having school today?”
“No. It’s roundup time.”
“Do you mind if I run away to here some other day? If I’m the only otherest one that knows about that stuff, Mama’ll feel better having me around to take care of her.”
“I think she will,” I said. “But you won’t have to tell her that you know. If you just give her a look with your eyes, she’ll see it. Want me to keep the other rocks?”
“No. It was just them others Mama said to throw away. I’m allowed these. But I’m going to put them somewhere so old Boots can’t see ’em ever again.” He scampered down the road. Shiner followed him, making a racket, and awhile later he came home carrying a beef bone.
Well, it was time for lunch, so I took Granny a plate and we talked awhile, watching the chickens in the yard. She said she planned to go back to her little house and get some sweeping done, as long as I was going to be out riding all day for a while. I told her to do what she cared to and then have someone take her to Rudolfo’s house for supper, as there’d be big doings each night. Granny said, “The girls yonder have baked pies till it looks like a county fair over there.”
“Mama?” said Gilbert from behind me. He held his hat in his hands. “Mama, it’s Mr. Sherrill. I found him just now. Thought he was asleep in his bunk, but he wasn’t breathing. He’s … he’s gone.”
I held the arms of the rocking chair. Oh, dear old Mason. I had expected this and yet not expected it. Not now. I was stunned out of speech. We’d all miss him. There was no one to write to; we were his only family. How many days must death swirl around us? Granny started humming, some old hymn loudly. “Is it bad?” I asked at last.
“No,” Gilbert said. “Not so far. But I asked Shorty to ride down and see if the Hannas or anyone at Maldonado’s can help us get him buried today.”
The dogs told us of someone coming up the road, from the south. The first person I saw was Udell Hanna, sitting atop his coffin-carrying wagon. Strange enough, the sight of him made me feel more at ease. He and Chess and the boys went to get Mason Sherrill and build him a box while I took my mama in the wagon to fetch our relatives. She wouldn’t go before she’d changed into her faded gray shirtwaist and skirt.
As we drove, Granny said to me, “Seems I’ll wear black all my days, now on.”
I said, “I thought you didn’t care for Mr. Sherrill anymore.”
“I never said that I didn’t care for him. I said I weren’t about to marry him. That’s a different thing. We had an opposition.”
“‘An opposition’?” I tugged the reins. “About what?”
“Do you remember that calico cat we had? The one that sat on the portmanteau all the time?”
“Mama, we didn’t ever have a calico cat.”
“Her name was Biscuits. I wish I had her back.” Granny stayed in the wagon while I talked to Esther, who ran inside to fetch her mother.
Savannah called her family, and they said they’d be along directly. It took nearly three hours for the men to dig the grave. The clay layer under the caliche was so hard and dried out, they had to cleave it loose with picks and then scoop it. Thunder pealed across the land as we laid that box down. Heavy clouds loomed over us, taunting but dry.
Unlike Ernest’s burial, which seemed planned out and nicely done in comparison, Mason Sherrill’s was hasty and simple. I realized, as Albert said words over the mound of dirt, that for this funeral, I had had no trouble paying attention. Mason had meant so much to me when we were younger—those days when Jack and the U.S. Army wandered the hills and deserts. Before Chess came, there had been only Mason Sherrill. He taught Gilbert to play the guitar. Taught Charlie to throw a lasso. Conciliada and Flores crossed themselves as Shorty and Aubrey began shoveling gravel and clods of hard clay onto the coffin. It beat like a drum as the soil rained down upon it.
Dry thunder. Will it ever quit and just rain?
Udell Hanna came to me. He said, “Mrs. Elliot? Will you walk a spell with me?”
My mind was numb. The air smelled of earth and men’s sweat. The rest of the family was already sifting toward home. Walk a spell? But since he was aimed toward the house and I wanted to get in, I said, “Yes.”
After we got near the porch, Mr. Hanna said, “I’m surely sorry for your trouble.”
“Thank you. Will you have some lemonade?” Then, the very minute I said those words, a thousand tears rose to my eyes. Mr. Sherrill had been here with me through everything. He was the only top hand I’ve had on this place. Oh, this blessed heat. This hideous drought. It was taking everyone and everything away. Granny might be next. Just like Mason, found slept out some morning. Tomorrow morning. Or maybe Chess. Even Albert or I. None of us could own tomorrow.
I poured out my tears, sitting in the shade of my front porch. Udell Hanna sat beside me. He said nothing. He did nothing. He just stayed there. After awhile, I wiped my face with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry,” I said, “to go on like that.”
“Not at all,” he replied. “I can see he meant a lot to you folks.”
“It’s not that he was more important than my brother. I know you didn’t see me cry for him. Mason’s been part of my family, living right here more than twenty years.”
“I figure folks got to mourn as it comes. I’ve done enough of my own to learn not to judge another’s. If you all don’t make it down to Maldonado’s tomorrow, I’m sure he’l
l understand.” Rudolfo had not come. That was the first time I’d thought of him.
Udell said, “I’m no cowhand, but I’ll stand in your stead.”
I smiled, at least as much as I could. After awhile, something caught my eye in the distance, up by the graveyard. There was Mary Pearl, holding a canteen and pouring from it. Aubrey held a tin cup gratefully, while the other men holding shovels were already drinking from cups. I said, “The world keeps on turning.”
His eyes followed my gaze and he saw his son take another cup of water from Mary Pearl. “Faster every year,” Udell said. “Aubrey and I—can we lend you a hand with work? I mean, are you going to need help to take up what Mr. Sherrill did?”
“No,” I said. “Mostly what he did was long ago.” I drew a deep breath. A hard pain shot down through my lungs. I knew that old ache so well, as if it were a companion I’d lost sight of and then recognized the moment it returned. Mason had always been more than a hired hand. “Last few years, he’s been more or less retired.”
Shiner moseyed up to the porch just then, and Udell held his hand toward the dog, who came to him for some ear scratching and got a good dose of it. He looked up at me and said, “Well, are you …” at the very moment I began to say he and his son should stay to supper. We tried again, both talking over each other’s words.
The supper table was full that evening. Mary Pearl stayed, too. Granny went to bed early. Willie ate his supper, then went out on the porch, where he smoked some cigarettes, sitting there in the dark by himself. It was a nice evening, though we didn’t have music or readings. We talked about the drought and the cattle turning to jerky where they stood, dried to the bone. Before nightfall, the Hannas left for home. My boys slept at the house again, instead of in the bunkhouse.
July 25, 1906
At first light, my mama was rocking in her chair on the porch. When I came to her, she asked me who I wanted to see, and did I bring any gloves for her to wear, for under no circumstances would she go riding without her gloves. Looking in through the window, I could see her kerosene lamp was lit; it was set on a table right under the curtains. She followed me when I went to move it, complaining about gloves the whole way.
The cotton curtain felt hot to the touch when I lifted it away and blew out the lamp. She had turned the wick up tall, and the chimney was black with tar. A few minutes more and the house could have gone up. “Lands, Mama,” I said, “you’ve got to be more careful with the lamp.”
“Well,” she said, “Ernest’s coming home, and he needs some light.”
“Ernest is gone. We buried him days ago. He’s already come home.”
“He’ll need some light to see by.”
I said, “I’m going to the gathering at the Maldonados’ place today. Why don’t you work in the parlor and”—I looked around the room—“finish your quilt?”
She looked toward the ceiling, though we were in the kitchen. “It’s all done,” she said. “Is it going to rain?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually? Where’d you learn a word like that? You’re putting on airs again, Sarah Agnes. Fix those trees out by the wagon; let the dogs sleep under.”
“Mama—” I couldn’t go on. She was back on the wagon train that had brought us out here. Traveling through the winter rain from Texas to the Territories. The trip where I met Captain Jack Elliot. “I’m going to start breakfast,” I said. “Let’s have some coffee.”
I made sure Chess would be handy to keep an eye on Granny, and I sent Mary Pearl home to see if Rachel or Rebeccah would come to the house and quilt with Granny until she felt right again.
On the way to Maldonado’s, Mary Pearl rode beside me, while the boys went on up ahead. I asked her if she’d mind staying at my place regularly now. I was troubled about keeping an eye on my mama. She said, “I’ll tell Mama you need me. I’m so tired of putting up pickles. Honestly, I smell like a cucumber.” A little farther on, she said, “There’s a chance those two little outlaws may be sent with me.”
“More the better. Long as they stay out of trouble, we’ll manage.”
Mary Pearl and I joined the men in the gathering. To say we worked ourselves to the bone would have been too blessed nice a picture. Rudolfo and his family, with his old, old papa as hacendado, own twice the land and cattle I do. For four days, we sweated under the sun and prayed with every breath for rain, having to stop nearly every hour to rest horses and men alike. It did rain some, but it was just a spurt here and there. Black clouds would gather and off in the distance thunder sounded like dynamite blasting, but nothing came our way.
Early this morning, from behind us, came a loud whoop and a score of men’s voices cheered and hollered. We turned quickly and saw Willie Prine bunched up on a saddle, nearly ten feet in the air, as his horse spooked. He came down still in place, and the horse let loose another couple of bucks before settling. I joined in the cheers.
Out on the range that reached south near to Benson, the hands kept count of the dogies they gathered. A second count was kept of the drought-stricken dead cattle, lying sprawled, haired leather and dried meat stuck to their bones, baked hard by the sun. That tally was over twenty. There’d been years past that a loss like that would have put me in the ground. What remained to be discovered was whether that would be my lot this year. Though these cattle belonged to the Maldonados, I still felt like I was dragging on the inside, thinking about how many of mine must be out there, too.
Willie stayed to himself mostly. Ate his weight every meal. My boys worked themselves stiff, and kept with the men. Mary Pearl rode with me some in the mornings and helped me fetching and cooking with the Maldonado girls all the long, hot afternoon. When the sun got low in the evenings, we girls rode home and slept on the porch with Granny and Esther, leaving the men to their bedrolls on the hard ground. They’d all sleep out with the cattle, guarding, talking, being part of it. Sweet Esther set baths for us every day. There was no need to heat the water, for our skins fairly steamed as we got in.
This evening in Rudolfo’s plaza, we all lingered over second helpings of green-corn tamales and beans, tomatoes with chili and onions, with crumbled queso over everything. A couple of the men played some melodies, one with a guitar and one with a harmonic mouth organ. Aubrey came to me, standing in the small yellow light from a kerosene lantern, and tipped his hat. “Mrs. Elliot? Pa sent me for the mail this morning, ma’am, and this came for you.” He had a letter in his hand. His eyes went for a second toward Mary Pearl, who was seated on a board next to Gilbert and a couple of the other hands. Gilbert was talking and they were all laughing. Aubrey smiled and offered the letter.
“Thank you,” I said. It was from Harland. “Obliged.”
“Not at all, ma’am.” He stirred around a bit, then said, “I don’t mind at all.”
I knew he was hoping I’d say, “Go on and sit with her, then,” or something like it. But nice boy or no, Mary Pearl is only seventeen, and she’s got college to do before any boy except her cousins is sitting with her.
Aubrey said, “There was a letter for Willie. I gave it to him. Hope that’s all right.”
“Do you remember who it was from?”
“Another Mrs. Prine. From Saint Louis, Missouri. You-all have folks all over, I suspect. Ma’am.” He tipped his hat again, then disappeared over by the bunch of men. So Willie had gotten a letter from his mother. Nothing to do but wait until he tells us what she says.
It was a near torment trying to read Harland’s letter by the light of the fire and a few lanterns hanging on poles. I got through it, and my heart sank. I read it slowly again. Then I put the letter in my shirt, as I had no pockets in the clothes I was wearing. It felt uncomfortable and heavy in there.
The sleepy cattle made soothing calls, nudging one another, asleep on their feet. Usually, I loved that sound, but tonight, there was no peace in their lowing. The day’s dust settled. The lanterns drew candle bugs and wigglers, a few flying ants. I found my boys and Mary Pearl
and told them it was time to head homeward.
Riding together was a comfort, for there was no moon yet. Distant lightning skittered in the south. Charlie and Gilbert took the lead, and Mary Pearl, Willie, and I followed behind. Our horses took a pace near as slow as walking. Charlie asked would I mind if the boys all cleaned up on the front porch and the girls in back, so they could strip down and be quick about it.
I was just about to answer him, when a great bird fluttered up from the side of the roadway. An owl. It had been sitting in a greasewood bush, and it sailed overhead like a haunt, silent and whitish. All our mounts were nervous, but Willie’s horse spooked and bucked. Rearing and churning, it kicked out behind while he held on. After about five good lunges, the horse stopped and Willie jerked the reins tight, turning the animal in a small circle.
“Good job,” Charlie said. “You stuck to him.”
“Dang-blasted, pin-eared, cattywhompus old nag,” Willie said.
I said, “Willie, that’s the last of any cussing I want to hear from you. Listen, fellows—and Mary Pearl, you, too—Aubrey Hanna brought me a letter from your uncle Harland. Melissa is asking for Granny and won’t be comforted. Harland’s asking that we take Granny to Chicago. It’s Aunt Melissa’s last wish.” I already knew I would go. Gathering or no, I expected to spend the night packing. I said, “I figure to have Granny ready tomorrow. Willie, I’m not counting you out, but you did just send a letter to your mama, and you need to stay and see if she answers it. I’d like someone else to come along, but I don’t know who we could spare.”
The boys said they could see to our gathering without me there. Mary Pearl was silent. I don’t know if she was hoping I’d overlook her, or hoping to go. I believed that girl would love to see a big city like Chicago. She might be the one who could go with Granny and me. “What do you think, Mary Pearl?” I asked.