The Star Garden

  “Well, I can’t quit.”

  “Stubborn as the day is long. Chess is right.”

  “Better you know what you’re getting, if you still want to marry after this is over.” If it were his choice to quit on me, I wouldn’t have to say the words to him.

  “Harder-headed woman you’ll never find,” Chess tossed in.

  Udell smiled. “Leave off this talking to Rudolfo, then.”

  I said, “Fact remains, you’ve all tried before. I think I’m the one Rudolfo will listen to. You fellows load up their dead in the buckboard. Haul ‘em down to the big ocotillo and turn ‘em out. Let them bury their own.”

  October 31, 1907

  While Udell and the rest of the family had prayers in Granny’s bedroom, I got myself fixed up in some of Charlie’s old clothes. Wearing a man’s pants and shirt, I felt uncovered. I didn’t need a coat, but it was cool enough to wear my Stetson instead of a bonnet. Then I put two dishtowels together with pins and mounted them to a fishing pole. It made a white flag to get me in the door to talk to Rudolfo.

  Just as I got set to go out the door, Udell and I had a fuss about me going down there. He declared I was the most ornery woman full of grits and gravel he’d ever met. I hollered right back at him that I was plum fed up with folks making assumptions about my character then having no more manners than to tell them to my face, while those same people waited for hell and high water to come right to their front porch. I was in no mood to simmer down. All the ruckus brought the rest of the family out, and pretty soon they were talking battle tactics I had no intention of running.

  This time I needed a horse I could trust so I saddled Baldy, put a rifle in my scabbard and a pistol in my belt. All those danged men on my place wanted to ride with me like we were a posse, and sure as I’m standing I know that will bring destruction to all of us because we’ll look like an opposing army, so I allowed for them to follow but not ride beside me. If Rudolfo’s men were going to let me in, it was going to be alone, under a flag of truce. Baldy wasn’t appreciative about my flag, thinking less of it than he had of the basket I took the other day. I did my best to hide it as I went down the hills toward Rudolfo’s place, and soon as I came to the big ocotillo, I pulled the flag and held it high, and the horse kept going. The men we’d left there yesterday were gone.

  Well, three of Rudolfo’s men came on foot from out of nowhere, stopping right in front of me. One of them said, “Alto, amigo. ¿A dónde va?” As if he thought I was a man.

  I said, “To the big house.”

  He peered at my face and met it with a wide, evil grin. “Are you lost, mujer?” His eyes swept down my legs and made me shiver. “¿Sola? Alone?” He chuckled and brought his horse closer.

  I took the rifle from the scabbard. “I come to see Rudolfo Maldonado. I’ve had enough of being held prisoner on my own land.” Two men came from behind him and took my reins. One of them was that fellow Tick, the other was Caldo, the coach driver.

  One of the men said something that included my name. The three looked at each other, and the lead man nodded toward the hacienda. He led the way while the other two followed me. I sheathed the rifle and held the flag over my head. When we got within twenty paces of the front door, the leader turned so fast I couldn’t react to stop him, and he slipped my rifle from its place, saying, “I’ll hold this. There is no hunting here.”

  I felt as certain of my own doom as any chicken that lays its head on a chopping block as I followed the man to Rudolfo’s doorway. Rudolfo stepped out from a room farther back as I walked in, and the look he greeted me with could stop a rattler in its tracks.

  “I’ve come to talk to you. Get this settled once and for all. I’m tired of being a prisoner in my own house, and I want to know why you had your men take shots at my mother,” I demanded.

  He waved his hand as if I were a squawking chicken and then grunted. “No one here has done this. Perhaps they were hunters.” Rudolfo’s white linen shirt hung open to the waist. He untied his fancy cuffs and loosened the ruffles. “Sarah, you weary me.” With that, a heavy gold pin fell from his collar and he reached to retrieve it as if we were just having a merry chat.

  “Your men have us trapped. They shot Granny. Udell carted all those dead fellows to the road by your place. They’ve disappeared so I know you know about this. What has happened to you, Rudolfo, to make you stoop to this?”

  “Ah. Coyotes are bad this year. ¿Y tu madre? She is well?” He approached me, pulling a sash from his waist and dropping it on the floor. “Why are you dressed in man’s clothes?”

  I backed up a step but gritted my teeth and said, “Coyotes, railroaders, what you call them makes no difference. I aim to get to town, Rudolfo. I aim to tell Nabor Pacheco that your outlaws tried to kill my mother.”

  “El Nabor? He’s a good friend of mine. Give him my regards.”

  I didn’t believe it. Sheriff Pacheco was our best hope. “Rudolfo? You will turn this into a feud. A range war. I don’t want us taking shots at each other.”

  Faster than a rattlesnake, he had me by the shoulders. I shook to get him off, but his fingers dug into my skin so hard it felt he would pull the bones loose. “You should have married me, Sarah.”

  I jerked under his grip. “Why? So you could steal my place legally?”

  “I don’t like being insulted.” His hands pressed harder, and he drew me toward him. Someone opened the door. “Get out!” he threw over his shoulder, then turned back to me.

  I fought to free a hand and swung it toward his face. He gritted his teeth and let me slap him, then snatched my hand and twisted my arm, crushing himself against me. I gasped. “Take your hands off me.”

  “You are a fool.”

  I wanted to holler just like a child, “Am not!” but I held my peace. His breath was hot and smelled of tequila. His clothes were expensive and his chest broad and menacing, this close. I felt his hand run across my side and down one leg where he pulled the derringer from my pocket. I squirmed and said, “Let go, you.”

  He held the derringer to his lips, kissed the barrel, and raised one eyebrow. Pressed as I was, so close against him, when he drew a breath I had to stop breathing. I struggled for air. He leaned against my temple as if he were a lover, and whispered, “I could kill you right now.”

  “No you couldn’t. You’re not a murderer. That’s why you send others.”

  He flung the gun at a chair. Fire smoldered in his eyes. He pressed his lips against mine, though I fought and strained. I felt no passion or desire, just repulsed and dirty. “I could do more than this, Sarah. More than you know. I have given you every chance to make the right choice, but you do not. You think you are clever and strong but you are a fool.” Suddenly he loosed his hold and forced me back over a chair as he did.

  I caught myself before I fell and spat on the floor. “Two-bit snake,” I called him. “Vile contemptible snake.”

  “Oh, you have learned some new words, making a joke of yourself, sitting in school next to children.”

  “Don’t you ridicule me, Rudolfo Maldonado. I remember I used to pay you in tortillas for cleaning stalls, mi peón.”

  He raised his hand as if to strike me but halted before my flinched expression at the last second. “You wear clothes like a man. Maybe you think you are a man, but you are still a woman, in a man’s land. Opportunity is placed before you and in reply you insult me before important men like a bad child. You can’t do business like a man, you have no sense, but maybe you have been drinking, ah? La Llorona comes to you at night? Makes you think you have power? There is more to all of this than your pitiful scrap of desert. Those were powerful men you insulted in my house, soon to be even more so. And I will rise with them. Your land? I can have it all, any time I choose.”

  “This is really because you are angry about Charlie and Elsa, isn’t it?”

  “Charlie and who? Your son’s whore doesn’t interest me.”

  “You’re never going to get my land, Maldonado.??
?

  He thrust his finger at my nose. “I already have. You will not stop me.” Then he paused and laughed, adding, “A locomotive is a very hard thing to stop.”

  “I’ll die trying.”

  “A fool’s choice.” With a sneer he added, “Your business is finished,” and turned away. Sitting on a chair, he tugged off his boots.

  “No it isn’t.” I shook with rage. He planned to take the land from us no matter who he killed. His greed spread across the desert like a plague. He was capable of destroying everything we owned or ever thought we wanted. My schooling was the one private dream I ever held and he’d torn it from me by his threats to my family and our land. He was playing some kind of terrible game, something south of the border that would ignite what—a war? He’d tried to get me into it, but I’d been too stubborn to bite. I wanted to fly at him and choke him. My voice trembled. “This is really about Mexico! You would align yourself with Don Porfirio, when for twenty years you have cursed his name? Those Mexican generals and Germans, the guns you carry, are they to crush more people under his whip? So, you are the peón of el don now? Or for the railroad? You’ve become what you used to hate the most. Whipping boy for the rich and powerful.”

  Standing suddenly before me, he whispered, “I am no one’s slave, woman. Porfirio will soon be gone. I will own all the land between here and Cananea. The railroad works for me, not I for them.”

  “The railroad works for no one but the gold eagle. Do you plan to overthrow Porfirio? And to do this you would destroy my family for the sake of your wealth, then? I came here to reason with you, but instead, you’d better listen to me. You have declared war, Rudolfo. Anyone sets a toe on my land, or Hanna land, or Prine land, is going to be fixed up for slow traveling. I know where my borders are.”

  “Caldo!”

  The three men rushed in and then escorted me to the border of my land where my men waited, under the aim of Maldonado’s vaqueros. The leader handed me back the rifle. I was surprised to see it was still loaded. Then he said, “Senor Maldonado extends his best wishes for the health and long life of your mother. He hopes that she will be well enough to travel, too. Perhaps to see a doctor. Adiós.”

  November, 1, 1907

  In the small hours of the morning under a moonlit sky, I watched through the windows of our dark front parlor as two figures snaked from shadow to shadow toward the house. Both wore heavy blankets and moved as if one had to wait for the other, so I figured they must be different in size. Might be those two fellows from the road. When they got to the porch steps, I tapped Charlie on the shoulder and he woke with a start. He got next to the window and I aimed at the doorway. A birdcall—a whistle I remembered from my childhood—made the skin on my neck tighten. Albert and Ernest and I used to signal each other that way when we were just spuds. I cupped my hands over my lips and fluttered a rusty trill in reply that was anything but birdlike.

  A woman’s voice called out softly, “Sarah?” I lifted my finger off the trigger. Charlie pulled the door open while I stood back in the darkness. Savannah stood in the doorway, holding forth a wide plate covered with a cloth. She took three more steps and then stopped, saying, “Sarah? Where are you? We heard the shots.”

  “Get inside, quickly,” I said. Albert had a pack on his back. They slipped in and we bolted the door. The plate in Savannah’s hands was wrapped in red gingham and smelled of hot bread. She placed it on the table.

  Albert said, “We sent the boys to town to Harland’s place. They’re scared.”

  I said, “Granny’s hurt. Just her finger but she’s got a fever.”

  Albert said, “We were worried … We brought quinine and headache powders.”

  Charlie said, “Is there any to spare? I’ve got a bell-ringer.”

  Albert and Charlie sorted out the bag while Savannah and I looked in on Granny. “Oh, oh, my,” Savannah whispered. “She’s burning up.” Her frightened expression cast a weary shadow on her face. Savannah seemed to have aged since I saw her last. We got the quinine and woke Granny so she could take some. Then we sat in the darkness in silence. The boys had nailed boards across the window so it kept out the moonlight. We turned a lamp low in one corner; thick shadows loomed around the bed and danced upon the walls. Men’s voices came from beyond the door.

  Udell put his head in and said, “I’m going to go home to feed my stock. I’ve got more shells, too.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Be careful,” I said. I heard the door close. Hairs on my neck and arms stood straight up.

  “Sarah?” Savannah began. “What started this?”

  “Gunrunners and railroaders. They figure to take Granny’s land one way or another. Since we drove ‘em away from buying it proper, they found a way to steal it. If Granny’s dead, there’d be an inheritance.”

  “To the gunrunners?”

  “To Rudolfo Maldonado. He’s made a deal with Felicity. It isn’t legal, but he’s done it and he’s got some skunk of a judge to back him up. When Granny dies he gets a fourth of her place. By the time we get it straightened out in court, the tracks and all of us will be in the ground.”

  “Oh.” There wasn’t a sound for several long minutes. During that time, I thought about how I’d said “when” instead of “if “ about my own mother.

  Granny moaned. Savannah turned up the light a bit. We tucked the covers again. Savannah bent over Granny and kissed her, then let out a sob. I turned to go, thinking she’d maybe want to be alone, but Savannah stood in my way. She reached for my hands and held them with hers.

  “Sarah? Now, let me say my piece, or I’ll never get it all said the way it ought to be. I’ve come to ask your forgiveness. I’ve been mule-headed and blind. Mad as a wet hen at myself, and blaming things on you that weren’t your fault. I asked you to help school my children. We never spent money on books, having so many shoes to buy. It just seemed natural. You were right. Albert said I was trying to resurrect Esther. That I had to let her rest in peace. I fed that anger with memories of every hard thing I’ve suffered, though heaven knows my life has been so easy compared to yours. You—you were always so strong. Always bearing the rest of us—me, especially, I mean—on your shoulders. And then Mary Pearl going so far, and then you were going off, too! I was so lonesome. All my children went so soon. All I’ve ever done was mother. I just went crazy wanting another child. So I hung all the blame on you, too, for things that aren’t your doing, and maybe aren’t even wrong. To everything, there is a season. I just never expected the fall to come so soon.” Tears painted gleaming streaks on her cheeks and left dark stains on her blouse.

  “I never said I was blameless,” I said.

  “This wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who’s been fortunate, to have my husband and children this long. It was no wonder you found other things—I mean, Mr. Hanna. He is a good man. Yet he was taking you away from me. I didn’t want you to leave. Not for school or for him.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Savannah. If you think I shouldn’t—”

  “No, I’m sorry. Is there any way you can forgive me for this? I’ve been so unfair. I’m so very sorry.” Outside, the sky was fading to pale green. We turned the lamps off and sat in shadow. “Can you forgive me?” she asked.

  I crushed Savannah to me, and she threw her arms around my shoulders. We held each other for a long time, soft, hot tears running from our eyes. I said, “Let’s go and let her sleep in peace.” Hand in hand, we pulled up chairs around the kitchen table.

  I said, “Reckon it made me pretty mad, trying to forget you were there. Should have come over and tried again. Now that I think of it, I should have never quit trying. Because, the truth is, there’s nothing you could do that I couldn’t forgive.”

  “I’ve been stubborn.”

  “It’s a family trait. It’s not really fall, yet, is it? For us, maybe, just sum-men

  “Oh, I don’t know. End of July at least. Maybe mine’s August, ‘cause I’m older.” We both smiled. After a pat of my hand she said, “
Those chickens laying?

  “Maldonado’s men killed ‘em. Salt mixed in their feed. Salted Udell’s garden, too, but I think we saved it. Yours?”

  “That heathen! No wonder they didn’t make a sound as we crossed the yard. Well, that kept us safe, at least. Tomorrow I’ll bring more.”

  “Not until we settle this feud.”

  Savannah fiddled with a dishrag that had been laid crosswise upon another one, atop her basket from home. She straightened and folded it then, and set it on the stack, making all the corners meet perfectly straight. Then she sighed and said, “Mary Pearl does have to go her own way. Despite all my trying to keep her in rag curlers and pinafores, she’s become a woman.”

  “What changed your mind about her, Savannah? What Albert said?”

  “No. I finally read the papers she’s sent from the college. I felt cut to the bone. I’d been so wrong about Wheaton School. It is not a cesspool of bohemians. Everything they stand for is the highest virtue. It’s a place my own mother would have wished for me. The sorry thing is, I went harsh on you for giving her the head it takes to grow up.”

  “Well, I did tell them to go to school. Your children are the ones who listened. My own don’t care a hoot.”

  She smiled. Fresh tears squeezed from her eyes. She pulled that dishrag from the basket and refolded it, in thirds this time. “It’s all gone so fast. There are only the two boys left at home. Know what Zachary told me? He’s determined to become an aviator. He said that a real flying machine was going to stop in Tucson someday and he’s going to get on it and sail up into the sky and look out on top of the clouds. Lands, I hope I’m in my grave first. I couldn’t bear knowing he was up there.”

  I waited a few minutes, then I said, “Well, I am sorry I didn’t tell you about her writing to that Wheaton place, after all.”

  “No, no. You were sick. You forgot. I just didn’t want to hear it. It had seemed just like Esther, writing secret letters to that man.”