Aubrey Hanna was fairly camped on our sleeping porch with the rest of the boys, so there he stayed. His papa went back to their place to get started on it again. Gilbert warned Aubrey not to expose the open burns to the dirt of cattle work, but he said he’d be ready to do some work after another day. In the morning, I made him wrap a clean pillow slip over his head and neck, with two holes cut for eyes, which about scared poor Shiner to conniptions. Then he helped me shake the sheets and pillows out, plunge them in hot water, and hang them up. He went to fixing up the brush shade on my ramada, using some planks I showed him in the barn. I went with him, for I didn’t want him to come across Mr. Sparks sitting in the back there and really be scared out of his life. The scarecrow was gone. I figured I’d have to ask the boys later what they’d done with him, as I was purely not in the mood for any heart-pounding surprises. Once the ramada was built, I got another fire going and started in on the mountain of washing I had to do.
Aubrey said he’d build us a chicken coop, too, but I told him he’d better rest awhile. Said I wasn’t used to having young men go contrary to my orders. He believed that and perched himself on the front porch. Truth is, none of my menfolk seem to care a hoot what I say. Well, no sooner had I gotten him to sit down than along came Mary Pearl walking with Zack and Ezra. The little boys were lugging an enormous crate, which was balanced between them on their little toy wagon. Ezra carried a live colored rooster by the feet. Mary Pearl had a woven basket covered with gingham and bulging with something. Aubrey sat right up and said hello, and tried to smile. Mary Pearl sort of tossed her greeting over her shoulder as she came to the porch. Aubrey all but had to wrestle the basket from her to carry it in the house.
The children had been sent with the basket of jarred-apple pies for the men, and a dozen laying hens were in the crate for me. They left the crate of chickens outside, but Zack and Ezra followed Mary Pearl and Aubrey into the house. Ezra held up the fluttering rooster and said, “And here’s the old fellow Mama says you’ll need to wake the hens up to start their laying of a morning.” I laughed then. Aubrey made a funny face, trying not to hurt his sores, and Mary Pearl blushed a deep crimson. Neither one of those two would look up. Seems there was something mighty interesting happening on the porch floor that they both had to stare hard at.
Ezra said, “Mama said it’d be all right if we eat some of these here pies.”
“She did not!” said Zack. “Did no such a thing.”
Mary Pearl looked tired. “Mama told me that you can give ’em all to the men or let the renegades take one, as you please, Aunt Sarah.”
“I think,” I said, “with all those chickens needing a home, I’ll have to rig up some kind of pen until we can really get the coop rebuilt. So I’ll pay you fellows in pie—after the work is done.” The two boys moaned and stuck out their lips.
Mary Pearl sat on a kitchen chair and bent down. She fiddled with her boot, tightening the spur. “Mr. Hanna?” she said over her shoulder. “I see you are feeling better. May I ask you to do me a favor?” As I watched, that young man’s face lit up near to glowing, then fell just as quick when the favor was spoken. “I need you to keep an eye on my little brothers so I can ride out with Aunt Sarah and the men. They’re a mighty nuisance, but if you’re stern with them, they’ll help you out. Maybe you-all can put up a chicken house together. Make sure you get to the pies before they do, though.”
Aubrey looked helplessly toward me. “Make up your own mind,” I said.
Aubrey smiled. “Long as the boys don’t mind,” he said, pulling the pillow slip back over his head, “taking orders from the Ghost of Cienega Creek!” The little boys squealed and hooted. They were plum tickled, what with him wearing a ready-made ghost getup, and planned some fun times. Zack and Ezra were always glad to have something to do that involved hammering and making noise. Aubrey stood and said, “Men? We have our orders. About-face and march, two, three, four.”
I caught Mary Pearl’s face as she watched them march away. She was grinning from ear to ear. When she saw me looking her way, though, she turned her head. I said, “You’re not fooling me, Miss Mary Pearl.”
“He’s acting silly, that’s all. Don’t you see?”
“Reckon I do see right well,” I said.
We left with Charlie and Gilbert. Mary Pearl said Willie had not come back. He had stayed down by Maldonado’s with the other ranch hands. I wish I could get him to talk to me. Something’s surely stuck in his craw. He’d come a long journey since he’d gotten here. He had been turning into a right fine boy, I believe, until Felicity’s letter came.
Rudolfo’s men had done a good job gathering what they could. The brands were mixed, but the hands had rebuilt the large pen, which was good as the old one. We’d have to run them through a chute, with fellows counting on each side, and see what was left. I spotted only a few dozen head carrying my Lazy Bar E. That added to the sick hollowness that came to me as we worked. There should have been a lot more with my brand on them. Scattered to the winds, I suspected.
Mary Pearl and I rode with Charlie in a wide sweep, starting at the west edge of my land and working northeast. She told me Esther had gotten more letters from her secret friend, and was getting Savannah all worked up about it. Mary Pearl said Esther was enjoying the attention. Every day now, there was a flower laid on their windowsill, with a note attached. It always began “To My Lovely,” or “For My Heart’s Prayer,” or some such. Mary Pearl said she tried to stay awake all night long to catch him, but never could do it. At night, the two girls whispered about whether he could be a prince from a foreign land, or the handsome son of a wealthy hacendado from Mexico.
I said, “Likely he’s some sawed-off runt of a cowboy with no more spine than a tumbleweed and wanted under a different name in Texas. Probably not got two cents to rub together,” I said, “and only one good eye and a book of poems he can copy from.” I was trying to make light of it, but I wondered if it was the only new young man around here: Aubrey.
Mary Pearl laughed. “Lands sakes,” she said. “He could be any one of those sorry old rusty things. I’ll pick out the poorest cur of the lot and tell her I’ve found him.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You do that, she’s likely to set her cap for him anyway, because of the romantic notions he’s plying her with, and make some excuse like ‘Him being so homely, he’s lovable.’ Before long, you’d have some sawed-off nephews and nieces to mind. It’s better if we ignore it.”
“Mama does not appreciate the ardor of the letters one bit,” Mary Pearl said. “Every letter has to be read aloud to the entire family, and usually it falls to me. You should see Esther nearly swoon while I read them. Papa asked her to promise she would write and tell the man to stop. Today there were no letters or flowers. What do you reckon that means?”
“His ink went dry.” I said. “Not many new folks around.”
Her face went serious, and then after a bit, she said, “These letters are full of fancy talk. All the sentences are real complicated and flowery. Aubrey’s talk is pretty simple. Not that he’s stupid. I’m just saying he don’t—doesn’t use that language.”
“Well, if a fellow wrote fancy words to me and then never told his name, I’d say he was a yellow coward. Besides his being short and splay-eyed.”
We spotted a calf then, bawling, and alone. “Aubrey’s not short and splay-eyed.” She laughed and shook her head as she let out a loop. As Mary Pearl’s rope landed over the little calf’s neck, I dropped from my saddle and went to him to see if he was hurt.
I said, “I reckon he’s not.”
We found what looked to be the beginnings of the fire. Beyond that, as the desert will do with just a spoonful of rain, it was already greening and blooming. We stopped for a bit just to breathe the fresh smell, and then turned to circle back. Just when I thought Mary Pearl and I were going to come up empty, we found nearly twenty head pushed up a ravine and afraid to get loose because of some fallen mesquite at the mouth of it.
She roped the biggest tree and had Duende haul it out, and then I worked my horse in behind. We pushed them real slow to the big pen.
The sky to the south filled with clouds stacked like white cliffs in the sky. A couple of hands spotted us and rode up to drag the line, so Mary Pearl and I took the flanks. We turned them to Rudolfo’s place. After the first bunch, Charlie pointed a few of us to the south and I rode that way. I passed Flores and some of Rudolfo’s hired men. They had a pile of carcasses they were setting fire to. One of those Spanish fellows said he and his brother would stay on without pay until they weren’t needed anymore. I told him that was a fine thing to do, and he just smiled and rode on.
That afternoon, Willie ate with everyone else. He slouched, more than sat, at the table. I came up behind him, my plate stacked high with steak and roasted chili and tortillas. From the back, I again saw my brother Ernest in him. I pushed in beside him and said, “How do?” when I sat. He was chewing and just nodded. I wanted to put my arm around his shoulder like I’d do with my sons, but I suspected he would not take to that.
Finding that clean land this morning had made me realize that life was going to continue. It shook off that hollow feeling and filled me with a warmth, set me to thinking that maybe we’d survived to give Willie another chance, too. If a person was willing to take it—just like Udell Hanna—he could be handed a good deal, but he’d have to be willing to take hold of it. When everyone else was fixing to get back their chores, I asked Willie to stay for just a minute. Finally, it seemed folks were separated enough that we could talk without being overheard. I said to him, “Walk over here with me.” I waited. Finally, with an exasperated jerking of his head, he followed. I said, “That cottonwood ridge, right there? That’s the line where my ranch meets El Maldonado’s.”
“Yeah. They done already told me a couple hunnert times.”
“Did you like your steak? Rudolfo sets a fine board.”
“It ’as fine.”
“Well, do you want a bath and some clean clothes, son? I’ll go up to the house with you and draw up—”
“I ain’t your son.”
“I know that you aren’t really. But you came here, wanting to stay. We took you right in. I meant it just being friendly.”
“Well, these clothes’re fine.”
He was wearing someone else’s duds, not the cheap, thready stuff he’d come here with. Still, he smelled fairly ripe. I said, “The boys told me you have worked hard.”
“Reckon.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “I want to tell you something, Willie. You came to this place hoping to have a stake in it. Thinking your papa would meet you here and you’d have a home. And I know you’ve had a hard time, having to take up things you never learned before. You’ve done well, too. We haven’t made it easy on you, but living here has never been easy. You’ve done a pretty good job, though, and stayed with it. Starting to earn your own place here. The way I see it, you’re welcome to stay. I haven’t treated you any different from the way I would my own boys, except maybe gentler.”
He twisted out from under my touch with a jerk of his shoulder. “My pa owns this place. All that—that there farm with the trees and this’n with the cows and all.”
I shook my head. “No, son. He didn’t own any of this. My first husband homesteaded this land. When he died, I worked this place like a dog until I remarried, and then I kept working it, year in and out. My second husband gave me money enough to buy four times the land of the original place. Then with raising beef, I bought more land to double that. I own that place. All of it.”
He put his arms out from his sides and stepped back. “Ma told me, all my life she told me, my pa was a soldier and a rancher with a spread out in the territories.”
“Willie, did you ever see your father?”
A long time passed before he said, “No.”
“All you’ve ever had are stories about him. Hard way for a boy to grow up.”
“I’m growed all right.”
“Mostly. The word is grown. I want you to start thinking about getting down to your studies after we get this herd on the road north.”
“I figured to go with ’em.”
“Well, you’ve got school to tend to. There’ll be other cattle drives, if we have any luck at all. We have to think about your future.”
“Why don’t you think about leaving me alone?” He turned, his arms crooked outward.
It occurred to me that was a shape a man would take if he reckoned to be punched right in the middle. The boy had probably fought his whole life. I said, “If you’re going to live here—”
“Who says I’m going to live here? I can live any durn where that pleases me.”
I pointed to a turned-over tree. It made a natural fence. “Sit here and I’ll tell you. Willie, your papa joined up with the army before we got that claim filed. He never worked that place. Never put another red cent into it from his pay. He did, however, send me ten dollars once. Just because your pa didn’t own this ranch doesn’t mean he had no place in this family. He had a fourth share in the first batch of pecan trees Uncle Albert planted twenty-some years ago. Planting those trees was to take care of Granny all her days. Albert and Savannah and their children have worked that land for twenty-five years. It’s theirs.”
“When do I get my share? That’s a inheritance coming rightly to me.”
“Can’t you see that we may have lost half our stock? Even before that, there’d been three years of drought. Albert puts his money back into supplies, feed, and equipment. Just since the fire, he’s spent over two hundred dollars hauling feed for all these loose cattle. I’m putting up the payroll for the cattle drive, which will about tap me out. The way I see it, for having put absolutely nothing into it, your share is to come here to live, become part of the family. Share in the blessings we have and the hard times, like you’ve been doing. Granny is going to move to my house. You can stay there, too. I’ll add on a couple of rooms. You belong, all your days. The way I see it, you’re family.”
He used his toe to draw a circle in the dirt. Then he looked up. “How much my pa put in? I want it back. All of it. And interest.”
“Well,” I said, “it was sixteen dollars and thirty cents. Each of us was allowed to keep some of what we—”
“I want it back. That’s all. It’s coming to me. With interest over twenty years, I figure that oughta make—make about twenty dollars. That ten he sent. Makes thirty.”
“You go work that farm and earn it, then. I’m sure the boys told you they get paid. You’ll get paid a daily wage, too.”
He sat again, then started picking at the bark of the tree. He mashed an ant with his finger. “Ain’t no farmer.”
“You can be more, don’t you see? You stay here and keep on trying like you’ve been doing. Then we’ll start your schooling in the fall. In a year or two, you can go to the university in town. I’ll see your tuition is paid, and you can become a banker if you want, like April’s husband, or some such. You’re not stupid, Willie. I can tell that. Anything you want to be, you can be.”
He stood and paced in a tight circle. “Banker? Nothing in that for me. Damn it, I want to be a high roller. No long face and dirty elbow cuffs. I want my own table on a riverboat. Have all kinds of racehorses and girls in spangly dresses and be able to tell people like these sodbuster squattin’ relations to get the hell off my land.” His voice had risen to a near squeal by the time he finished.
I felt all the warmth I’d held for him chill down so far that I shivered. “You’d better take back those words, young man.”
“You said anything I want to be. That’s what I want. You going to learn me it?”
“I’d never tolerate that kind of talk from my boys, and I’m not about to take it from you. You’d better straighten yourself up, and I mean before you go another step.”
“You people owe me thirty dollars!” He slapped his hat against the tree trunk and walked away through the brush like before.
Willie looks like my brother, but he doesn’t act like Ernest much. There was nothing mean in Ernest, and there’s something awfully sinister lurking under Willie’s skin. I thought I was offering him the one thing he’d never had: a home. Seemed like the things he wanted the most were the things he was most ready to throw away. How does a person undo all the tangles in a boy’s thinking? I’d give anything to get past that part of him that seemed like leaky dynamite—just waiting for the spark to make it explode.
I got back to Maldonado’s and found two punchers making cow eyes at Mary Pearl, and the very thought of all these young people shaking loose of their reins just set me on fire. I sent them packing, too. Mary Pearl looked peeved, but she didn’t say anything, just rode off to find Charlie and get to work. I reckon I felt like getting my hands dirty. Luz told me that a couple of the men had gone down to the Hanna place to do some salvage, so I headed that way.
Mr. Hanna saw me coming and waved. “Aubrey all right?” he called.
I hollered back, “He’s right as rain. Can’t keep him pinned down.”
He looked over toward where his house had been and said, “I keep thinking it must be some kind of mirage, that I’ll just open my eyes and wake up from this.”
A square rock-built foundation showed where the house had stood. Part of it was completely turned to ash and blown away. Some of it still had pieces of the collapsed roof. An iron bedstead stuck up through two rafters. A chimney pointed skyward. A piece of broken glass caught sunshine and flashed like a mirror. He said, “I’ve started a pit fire to take care of what can’t be cleaned up. Maldonado told me this morning that if I’d get the trash off the foundation, he’d buy me out.”
I drew a breath and let it out with a whistle. Panic leapt in my heart. “Well,” I said, “you don’t have to decide today. You’ll have an easier time putting a house back up with it cleared. Maybe last out the winter and see what comes. I’ll stake you fifty head, providing we find fifty. Most all my heifers were carrying. Some will have lost calves, but the others will produce. Still, by next year they’ll be ready to breed again, and by the following year, you sell off the first of them and pay me back. That’ll start you. If you’re willing to change to cows that is.”