Granny was snoozing by the kitchen window, so we didn’t wake her.
I declare, that fellow could charm the daylight out of the sky. We passed an hour and then some as Mr. Richards explained how wonderful it was going to be having a screeching, smoke-belching, thundering locomotive hauling cows and freight from Kansas to California through our front rooms for all posterity. He said that he was going to offer a good sum for the rest of Granny’s place, soon as he could find her. Albert said there was no use making an offer, but Mr. Richards said, “Ten thousand dollars is no foolish whim, sir. It’s a fortune. And to a kindly old widow with no use for that land herself, and all her worldly needs met by good, loving folks such as yourselves, it’s a fortune you would eventually inherit. Think about it.” With that, he said good day and left, riding off on a black horse.
“They’ve got part of the land and they want the rest of it,” Savannah said.
Albert looked from Savannah to me. He said, “I can see how he got Mama to believe in him, last fall. That fellow could talk fleas off a dog.”
I said, “He waved ten thousand dollars under our noses and as much as told us we should talk Granny into taking that money so we could get it!”
I squeezed my arms against my ribs and went to the kitchen. Granny’s head bobbed with her snores. Her fingers looked like white wooden spindles with brown leather stretched tightly over them. That tiny person there was not just some old person. Never mind that she’d been driven beyond all understanding by watching her children and husband die, she was the one who’d tied my hair up and kissed my tears. I have always believed that if she could just once get enough rest, my mama would come back to herself, think clearer, be stronger. She never seemed sickly, just brain-tired.
Albert called Ezra from the back of the house. Pretty soon, Zack and Ez showed up, sweating and panting. Albert said, “Zack, you stay here with your mama and Aunt Sarah. Ezra, follow that Mr. Richards up the road a ways. See which way he turns when he comes to the west fork. Come back and tell your mama if you can’t find me.” Then Albert and Clover went back to work in the barn.
When we were alone in the house, Savannah said to me, “I feel like that man just brought something evil to my house.”
Granny woke and jumped at us, giving us a start. “Is it Indians?” she said.
“No, Mama,” I said. “It’s railroaders.”
“You need me to load for you?” she said, tossing off her shawl.
I said, “No, I hadn’t decided to shoot him, yet.”
Shortly, Ezra returned and nodded to each of us in turn; the boy suddenly seemed five years older than his thirteen years. “Well,” he announced, “he didn’t take the west fork at all. Went north and circled Granny’s place, left a note nailed to her door saying he’d come back, and made a wide loop headed south. He didn’t stop at your place, Aunt Sarah, but went straight to the hacienda.” Then Ezra left to tell Albert. The hacienda. Rudolfo Maldonado.
I thought that news explained everything, but it didn’t explain what Savannah did next. She said, “My head is pounding like someone is driving a nail through it. How will we fight the railroad? What are we going to do? If only Esther were home! If she hadn’t run off and died—” Then she sat in a wooden chair and burst into tears. After a few minutes, she gasped out, “Lands, it’s hot in here. Open a window, Sarah.”
“You need a rest,” I said. I hugged her but I felt uneasy doing it. I didn’t know what to say or do. It seemed the addled notions that have taken my mama for all these years had suddenly jumped into Savannah, who has always been my sure foundation.
I put my arm over Savannah’s shoulders as she heaved in great, pathetic sobs. Rebeccah and Mary Pearl came in to see what the commotion was. Savannah said, “Oh, I’m so very tired.”
Granny looked suspiciously from one of us to the other and said, “Your mama’s going through the change. Leave her alone!”
At that, Savannah cried all the harder. It was only after a good spell that she settled down and we all surrounded her and made her go to bed to take a nap. She told me then that she hadn’t been sleeping for weeks, and she’d thought it was in sorrow for her daughter who was murdered, but now she was afraid she would die of not sleeping. While she pulled off her black skirt and waist, I drew the curtains in her room. The curtains were only starched plain muslin, though, and didn’t keep out much light so we laid cold wet cloths over her face.
“Close your eyes, Savannah,” I said. “Just close your eyes.” I sat by her bed, watching tears mixed with drips of water eke across her cheeks sideways and dampen her hair. Were women all doomed to follow Granny into that gray world of half-truths and mysterious memories where real life is muddled with bits of songs and shadows and old pains that seem new? If I lose Savannah to that dark place, what will I do for a friend? When she started breathing regularly and seemed to be asleep I tiptoed from the room. I told the girls to fix her some soup for dinner, and keep quiet, then I fetched Granny and drove home. We didn’t talk but I thought plenty, first about Savannah’s weakness and then about how I didn’t know how old my own mother was. She seemed as eternal as sunshine to me, but her hands looked so very old. Mr. Richards was sitting at this minute with Rudolfo exchanging winks about how soon my mama might die.
When I got home, one of Udell’s work horses was tied up at our trough. I felt as if the burden upon my shoulders lifted, just seeing the animal.
“Rascal’s back,” Granny said.
I left her at the porch and drove to the barn to put the team away. I found Udell there, fixing a blanket on Hunter, my orphaned yearling colt. The place looked bright in the drawing afternoon light, and I saw he’d filled lamps and cleaned the chimneys, waiting for us to come back. He didn’t look up when I came in, but he smiled at Hunter and said, “Didn’t know if you went for the night, so I fed your stock. This fellow’s sure a pretty piece.”
“He’s feeling his oats,” I said. I felt my face grow hot, and I started pulling the harness off my draft horse. The two of us together made quick work of it. While we did I told him about the railroad man. “Will you stay for supper?” I asked. “I’ll make a pie.”
“I’d be obliged, Mrs. Elliot.”
“I’d offer you to spend the night but the men are gone to town. Reckon it wouldn’t be proper.” Suddenly, that felt like the worst thing I could have said. “I’d better go make some ruckus in the kitchen.”
I hurried toward the house with him fast on my heels, all the while thinking it was pure folly to have Chess and Gilbert both gone at the same time, and more folly still to want Udell here as much as I did. No telling which part of my heart wanted him here. Surely I’d only suggested it as any friend would do? And, of course, it was a suggestion with no hidden intent, a mere feather of a word. Nothing more. Why did the words between us carry so much weight they seemed to rattle on the floor to be tripped over?
“Sarah?” he said, breathing heavily. “Slow down. I came … I wanted to tell you something.” He caught my arm as I reached the front door. I pushed it open. Granny was not in the front room. He followed me toward the kitchen and said, “Ask something, that is.”
I turned to face him. I was panting. “Ask,” I said. At first I thought he was going to ply for another kiss. I waited for it. I felt the heat of him standing there, not a foot away.
The look on his face changed. “Sarah, I admire you so.” Udell was quiet for a minute, then he shook his head and said, “Just wondering what kind of pie that was you were going to make?”
“That was your important question?” I pulled the flour crock from its corner and hefted it to the table, grunting when I set it down. He sat and watched. He hadn’t offered to carry it like he usually did. As if things were different between us. “Suppose I’ll make a supper pie and a dessert pie,” I said, eyeing him carefully. I got the can of lard and turned a spoon in it, to make a good smooth lump. Then I put in half a spoon of salt. My hand shook and spilled the salt. He went to brush at
it; his hand touched mine, and it felt as if he’d stung me. I couldn’t speak. He stood and put grains of salt over each our shoulders, but he was jumpy and jittery, clearing his throat, and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
For the next hour we did a strange and gentle dance, Udell and I, circling behind each other and around the kitchen table and Granny in her chair, with him kindling up the stove and fetching me water, me reaching for carrots one minute and butter the next. He shelled pecans and cracked a sugar cone into grains while I beat eggs. The room warmed and stirred as the pecans and sorghum whirled in a yellow bowl. When I got both pies in the oven, the carrots and flat beans and gravy bubbled in one pie soon as the sugar and pecans bubbled in the other. Outside, the sun lumbered toward the horizon and the room was bathed in a honey-colored light, dusted with flour. Rather than look like snow, it appeared as if we were covered with the pollen of a great, fragrant flower.
At supper, Udell said over and again how he loved that vegetable pie, and thought there was nothing better until he tasted the pecan. Then he had another piece of the savory followed by a second piece of the sweet. He groaned with delight. At last his eyes settled on mine and I thought he was going to say something but he didn’t. I got up to clear the dishes. For the longest time, he seemed to be frozen, and then I saw something that made me tremble, for his eyelids held a rim of tears, as if he’d looked at some dear old memory and seen in front of him only something harder and colder—me.
I collected the spoons and knives. Granny poured hot water into the wash pan. Something was as wrong as a mule wearing bloomers, and my insides felt like my dinner had turned to rocks. I said, “Granny, are you washing? Here’s the last.”
Keeping his voice low, Udell took hold of my hand as I reached in front of him for the final spoon, saying, “Let the dishes wait, and I’ll help you with them later.”
“No time like the present,” I said, and wiggled my hand loose.
He struck a match and lit two lamps, putting one on the shelf near me and carried the other to Granny and set it down over the washtub. Udell stared at the flame and said, “Sarah, I’m going to Colorado for a while. Aubrey’s gone to town to get me some papers and as soon as he gets back I’m going. He’ll help you out with anything you need. I should be back in three weeks.”
I started pumping rinse water. I held the pan wrong and water shot into a plate, dousing my apron. “What’s in Colorado that can’t wait until after Christmas?”
“A judge. And a vault. Frances’s mother died last Christmastime. Her mother’s will left everything to Frances and it hasn’t been changed even though she was gone. The woman didn’t like me much, so I swore to myself not to take her money, but it’s just sitting there, being eaten up by taxes and lawyers’ fees. I’ve been thinking long and hard about my life, and what I’d do over. It’s no good to go away from things. It’s better to go toward things. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“Doesn’t seem right to have to go for Christmas. Bank won’t even be open.” I tried to find a dry corner of my apron to wipe my hands with. “You’ve been acting like there was something on your mind. Why don’t you just say it clear?” I put a pat of lye soap in and filled the pan with hot water from the kettle always on the stove. I’ve been known to be stubborn and blind to things I didn’t want to see. I’ve been called hard and I’ve lived that way. Always having to do for my own like I was a man. I’d rather he’d say what he meant to say and get on down the road.
After a long, awful stretch of silence, Udell said, “Sarah, I’ve been living in that tent, pretty much a failure, sitting on the mistakes of the past. Maybe trying to leave it all behind is the mistake of the present. I have ten days to claim that money, or it reverts to the bank. Frances’s mother had it set up in case I didn’t come back from Cuba. I’ve got to get to Denver before the end of the year.” He went across the room then, pumped water into my coffeepot, set it on the stove, then opened the stove door and prodded the coals back to life under it. “I have to build a new house.”
“You’re saying you plan to get this money for a house?”
“I came to ask you to go with me. We could hitch up in town on the way. Make a sort of honeymoon out of the trip. ‘Course, it will be cold, but if you’re coming I’d take a train. Otherwise I’ll pack a mule.”
The color of sunflowers that had dazzled the room an hour earlier was gone and winter gray filled the place. “It must be a lot of money.”
“Well, it pays off the mortgage and likely could put up a shack on it. Nothing fancy. Come along with me, we could see some country.”
“It’s Christmas. Charlie might come home.”
“If it weren’t urgent, I wouldn’t go. I aimed to ask for your hand. I can’t ask you to live in a tent, Sarah.”
“Udell, you don’t have to go on account of me. It’s the dead of winter.”
“It’s a lot of money.” He waited a long time, then said, “It’s a future.”
“Wait a minute. If you hadn’t come back from Cuba, why wouldn’t Aubrey inherit it?”
“He would if he’d go up there to get it. If I’m alive, it has to come to me first, and either way, the deadline is the thirty-first, but—” He stopped, then said, “It is Christmas. I didn’t mean to get you riled.”
“I’m not riled.”
“Suppose I’m mistaken, then.”
I took the coffee mill off the shelf and measured leftover beans roasted this morning into the chute. My hands trembled, so I held fast to the crank and steadied the machine against the table. I tried to laugh a little, but it came out cranky, and I said, “You sure you’re not going up there to hold up some bank? If you come back jingling, tongues are going to wag.”
He watched me fumbling with the grounds, spilling half of it, and took it timidly from my hands, refilling the funnel with beans and turning the crank.
I rubbed my forehead with the back of my wrist and tied the coffee bag while he ground the mill. He said, “Sometimes I don’t know if you make jokes because you aren’t really so angry or to hide that you’re ready to spit nails.”
“Take your pick.”
Udell took the lid off the coffeepot and dropped in the contents of the drawer. He said, “Will you wait for me, then?” with that warm look in his eyes that turns all the hardness in me soft. “You aren’t going to go and marry while I’m gone? There are other suitors?” His words sounded teasing, but his face looked sorely pained.
“Suitors, my hind foot. See if that coffee’s done. Give it a stir.”
Udell did as I ordered, but turned a somber expression to me. “Be straight up with me, Sarah. I thought you had some fond feeling toward me. You wouldn’t wait?”
“Wait? That’s what every man I’ve run across wants. They, you, gallivant around the countryside off on some mission or other, and I stay at this place and wait. Just wait and wait some more. Never knowing if you’re alive or dead, run over by a train or took off with a slack-jawed señorita from Coahuila.” I started to choke on the knot in my throat and tears rimmed up in my eyes. I hollered at him, “I’ve waited for men and I know what that brings me. No, Udell Hanna. I ain’t waiting for you nor any other two-legged jasper that wants to hang his spurs on my back door. I’m not waiting for no one, ever again.”
“Sarah, you are the confoundingest woman,” he said. “I believe you were mad before you knew what I was going to say.”
I stacked the plates noisily and said, “Well, I aim to be confounding. It’s one thing I claim right knowledge of.”
Granny stood abruptly. She said, “Too noisy in here. I’m going to bed.”
“G’night, Mama,” I said. Wiped my eyes quickly on my sleeve. Then I turned to Udell, who’d gotten stiff as a post right where he stood. “Go on to Colorado. Traipse through the mountains in the dead of winter. I’ll see you if you come back.” The coffeepot was boiling.
He stirred the brew with a long wooden spoon, watching the grounds spin around. After a while he said,
“If I’d thought it through, why, I could have made the trip a month ago. But this fall, with the fire and all—I’d forgotten the will until Aubrey got home and talked about it.”
I pulled two cups from the shelf and set them on the table.
Udell took hold of my arm. “Sarah, I’m coming back to you.”
I jerked my arm but he held fast. I said, “I’ve been told that before.” There were any number of ways a man could desert a woman. So far, I’ve known enough of that to last me the rest of my life.
“I’m telling you that, now. Look at me.”
“I’m fetching the coffee. Let loose my arm.”
He circled me with his arms. “I am coming back. I promise. Look at me.”
“I don’t want to.”
He sighed. “Well, you aren’t fighting too hard to get away, either.”
“I’m fed up with people leaving me.”
“I know,” he said, and kissed my forehead. “I know it. You angry enough I can get a kiss and keep both lips, or am I going to lose a hunk of one?” He pressed my back and hugged me close.
I said, “Oh, turn me loose, you.” But he didn’t. He laid a kiss square on my mouth. Still, much as I enjoyed that, I asked myself what could possess me to buckle under so easy. When he pulled away, I said, “You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“After chores.” He took a towel and lifted the coffeepot, pouring it partially on the table, but getting some in both cups. Then he dropped the towel on the puddle and sopped at it.
I passed him the first cup and we sat as if no strong words had passed between us. “You’re staining my dishcloth.” I hung it on its peg. “We’ll mind your cows.”
“Don’t suppose you’ll know if you want to marry by the time I get back?”
“You come back, first.”
“No harm in just going on being friends. Anyway, it’s all said, out in the open.”