I said, “Heard there was a ruckus on your place, yesterday.”
“¿Que?”
“You didn’t know about some cowboys, Mexicans, chasing a couple of drifters?”
“Oh,” he said, nodding. “There may have been some riders coming across. How many did you see?”
I shrugged and said, “All I know is, I heard horses running. Moving too fast for me to count.”
“Ah. Sí? Only riding through.”
Now I knew that look in his eyes. Too shiny. Too clever. I said, “Too jingly to be American rigs.”
“I’m sure it meant nothing, my friend. You will ask your familia about the fiesta? I’ll send escorts and carriages. You will have to do nothing but be ready.” He reached toward me but drew back his hand, as if he’d thought better of the gesture.
Was his land now unsafe to cross without escorts? “I’ll ask them, Rudolfo. We’ll bring the beans.”
“No, no,” he said with a smile. “I’ll provide. There is much to celebrate this year. Things I would like to make up to you, too.”
“You aren’t forever in my debt, Rudolfo. You put up that house. That’s enough.” I hated the notion that he was going to spend his life repaying me as much as if the debt had been my own. I pulled the coop shut, working the rickety dried-wood-and-chicken-wire door into its frame.
“Let me do this, mi amiga” He turned to go, adjusting his hat. Without another word, the “old friend” I would have to guard against for the rest of my life went to his horse and lifted himself into the saddle. There was something about his walk that telegraphed to all the world how much he’d changed. Before I ever married Jack, Rudolfo and his brother Ruben had worked as peons keeping my place going, and took their pay in tortillas and eggs. The man whose back I watched riding away was handsome but wily, still virile and strong but too clean to have worked recently, too sure of himself to have come this way simply to ask this. His clothes were expensive and impractical. His bearing was quiet and brooding, like a mountain lion waiting on a ledge.
I finished my chores for the morning, looking over my shoulder every few minutes for Udell. But the sun climbed and the day dragged with the waiting. When I got back to the house, the stove in the kitchen was going strong. Granny and Chess warmed their tired bones beside it while I made us something for the middle of the day. I’d gotten some jarred flat beans and bacon warmed up and put a pan of biscuits in the oven when the door opened and a cold gust of wind shot through the room. Gilbert was in for dinner. Right on his tail feathers came Ezra and Zachary.
“Hey, Aunt Sarah,” they said together. Ezra made a loose fist, put one knuckle against Zachary’s ear, and hollered, “That’s two you owe me, runt.”
“Two what?” I said. Zack made a face.
Ezra said, “Mama is trying to train him to quit saying other folks’ words like he was some kind of trick mind reader at a circus. Ever’ time I open my mouth and his voice comes out of it, he’s got to give me his dessert tonight and tomorrow.”
“Aw, I’m not hungry anyway,” Zack said.
“Tell yer stomach that when the pie comes around. Dripping with sugar and crispy on the edge where the cream soaks in. All sticky—”
“Ain’t my fault your brain is strung so loose you no more’n open your trap and I hear the words knocking around behind your eyeballs before you say ‘em.”
Gilbert and I caught eyes. Zachary was at least as clever as his brother, though Ezra was two years older. I smiled, then I said, “Well, this time doesn’t count. All you said was hello to be polite and it would have been rude if you hadn’t both said it. It was an accident that it came out together. You two had dinner?”
“No, ma’am,” Ezra said.
“No, ma’am, and we’d be pleased,” Zack added.
I dished up plates and everything got quiet for a while. I told them all about Rudolfo’s invitation as I passed around the plate of pound cake. Chess frowned. It wasn’t like him to withhold an opinion about anything, so I figured he’d say something when he’s ready. The only voice was Gil’s. Gilbert said he was fixing to ride into town again. When I asked him what we’d forgotten, he couldn’t say, but Granny piped right up and said, “He’s got himself a girl,” with no more question than she’d have proclaimed fine weather was upon us. Granny had been on a tear about romantic entanglements lately. I hoped she was wrong.
All eyes turned to Gilbert, who took a sudden interest in the bacon rind on his plate. He said, “I need some plate glass to fix that window for the bunkhouse. It’s almost done. Just need the window glass and some paint. Is there any coffee left?”
“Well, we don’t have any hired hands,” I said. “It can wait, can’t it?”
Ezra and Zachary muttered to each other, and I heard, “Girl? Oh, no, more girls!”
“I only want to get the job done, Mama,” Gil said.
I wondered if he was intent on moving back into the bunkhouse like he and Charlie had done before the new house was built. Getting some independence without being too far from the nest. I said, “I don’t want you riding to town alone. Not after what went on yesterday.”
“Grampa will go with me, won’t you, Grampa?”
“Your ma’s right,” Chess said. “No sense traipsing across the territory this time of year.”
I could see more disappointment in my son’s face than the lack of a sheet of glass ought to bring. I wondered if he was determined to go against my wishes. Part of me didn’t want to be sidestepped, part of me hoped he had the backbone to try it. I said, “Why don’t you ride up to Marsh Station for the mail? See if there’s word from Charlie.”
“Why’s every decision I want to make somehow nailed to Charlie’s shoes? I’ll only be gone a couple of days. There’s no chores to be done these two can’t handle. Uncle Albert will appreciate us putting them to work.”
“Gil’s got a girly!” Zack sang.
“Weevils are evil and gir-rels are squirrels,” chanted Ezra.
“Chess?” I said. “Can you spare Gilbert a few days?” Chess was seventy years old. The thought of him and Gilbert going off to town made my stomach hurt, and I regretted the cake I’d had that left a burning right below my ribs.
Chess rubbed his hands together, the dry, woody sound of his skin loud as a statement. He looked from me to Gilbert, and then to Granny and the boys as if he were about to give a speech. He shook his finger at Ezra and Zachary and said, “I want pistols in these fellas’ hands the whole time we’re gone. And no foolishness. You two ride with us as far as Marsh Station and then come back with the mail. Gil and I will go on to town from there. I’m trusting you two to act like men and do a man’s job. No shenanigans or I’ll strap you both myself.” Then to Gilbert he said, “I’ll give you two nights, boy. One day getting there and a day staying and a day coming home.”
Ezra and Zack both opened their eyes wide. They’d never heard Grampa Chess talk to them like that before. After all, he wasn’t their grandfather, but my sons’. With sober faces, the two of them nodded. Gilbert flushed red and left the table.
Later, I went to Gil’s room. He folded a shirt and laid it carefully on some clean drawers. He didn’t look up when I came in, so I whispered, “Is this about some girl?”
“Lord, Mama. Can’t you just let me go to town? It’s only a call. It’s not like I’m eloping. I’m older than Papa was when he was a full officer in the army. He called on you. Aren’t I allowed to call on a girl?”
What he didn’t know was that Jack had already married a girl before he was Gilbert’s age and had been a widower when I met him. All of twenty and busting loose. I could as much as hear the string in my pocket wrapped around that folding money coming undone. I said, “Reckon so. Don’t forget the window glass. How much do you figure it’ll cost for the size you need?”
“Figured I’d just buy a piece as big as the money in my pocket allowed and cut a hole to fit it.”
“Well, what size is that?”
“About t
welve bits. A hole that size won’t let in the skeeters.”
“Did I pay you this week yet?”
“I’m still working off the tuition money I lost, remember?”
“Well, a man can’t call on a lady with empty pockets—she is a lady, isn’t she?—what would she think, after all? You’ll want to take her skating or to a supper.”
“I was hoping she’d just cook something.”
I laughed and hugged him. “I’ll spare you three dollars. Bring back what you don’t use.”
He took the money from my rolled-up parcel, and as I retied the string, he said, “Thank you kindly, Mama. I won’t waste it.”
I reckon that was as close as a mother could get to love and affection from a near grown boy. I patted his arm and said, “While you’re there, run by the dry goods and bring home ten cents’ worth of shirt buttons.”
So off they went next morning, Gil and Chess, with Zack and Ezra tagging to bring home the mail. It seemed a long way to town. One too young to go alone, one too old. At the last minute, I saw Aubrey Hanna pushing his horse to catch up with the bunch. He waved to me and I saw him turn in toward Albert’s place farther up the road. I’d thought he was here to stay until after Christmas. And I was hoping his pa would have thought to ride with him through our place to say hello and have a piece of pie.
After watching them cross over the northeast horizon, I bundled up Granny and drove us to Savannah and Albert’s place to visit a while. Rebeccah was home from her teaching job in Mexico, and she had plenty of tales to tell. While I got Granny inside and settled under a quilt, Rebeccah said her mother was upstairs in “the girls’ room,” a large bedroom all four sisters had shared. I climbed the stairs and reached the landing. The door stood ajar, so I entered while giving a little knock at the jamb. My sister-in-law was staring out the window into the yard, her arms crossed, deep in thought. She didn’t look up.
“Savannah?” I asked.
“Yes, honey? Oh, Sarah, it’s you. I heard someone on the stairs. I thought it was one of the girls.”
“Is there something wrong?”
“No, no. I just came up here for something. I forgot what it was.”
The four daughters’ beds lined the walls in a neat formation like army cots. Only two of them had been slept in recently, Mary Pearl’s and Rebeccah’s. I patted her shoulder. “Well, you’ll remember directly,” I said. “For the life of me, sometimes I meet myself coming the other way in my house. Was it thread? Scissors? A pencil or a hairpin?”
Savannah rubbed the windowsill with one finger, as she kept on staring through the glass. “Sarah, did you ever just feel like something was going to happen? Something unusual? Did you ever feel a sense of expecting when you hadn’t ordered a package or anything, just a notion that something was coming?”
“When I was a girl and we left Cottonwood Springs. I told my mama I had that feeling. Later on, she said there was an ill wind a-blowing. That what you’re feeling now?”
Savannah turned and faced me. “No, nothing like that. I can’t put my finger on it. It’s nothing. Just daydreaming, I suspect. Did your mama come with you? Let’s go downstairs.”
Rebeccah, Granny, Savannah, and I sat at their great kitchen table, where at one end a pile of men’s clothes awaited mending. I thought she looked plum tuckered, her eyes red and sunken, but I didn’t say anything. After Savannah poured coffee, she said she hadn’t slept but an hour for two nights running, but she had gotten two pairs of pants made for Albert. We each picked a garment and threaded a needle, and passed a good time hearing about Rebeccah’s teaching adventures in Mexico.
In their parlor, Mary Pearl was pushing dust around with a torn rag, openly mooning over Aubrey being gone so soon back to town on some mission he wouldn’t discuss with her. He’d only stopped long enough to tell her he’d be back in three days with Gilbert and Chess, too. I saw the fire in her eyes, and I knew she only held her temper back because her mother watched her. If she’d been alone with that young man, him keeping secrets from her like she was a baby, why he’d a-left with half an ear chewed off, I reckon.
Well, after I told Savannah about the reason Gilbert was taking off to town, she said, “It’s getting to that season of life, where they’re all bound to head out, aren’t they?” She smiled at Rebeccah, who blushed as if there were some secret in her life, too.
I said, “I keep looking for my boys, sort of expecting them to be Ezra’s size, and every time I lay eyes on one, it’s some big stranger who’s come in and put on my children’s boots.”
“Have you heard from Charlie?”
“I’m hoping he’ll look at a calendar and try to head home for Christmas.” Then I told her about Rudolfo’s Christmas fiesta.
“We’ll go, if you’re going,” she said, “but I won’t go empty-handed. You know Rudolfo was nothing but generous and kind while we built your house. Still—” She held her breath, and let the silence finish the words.
My house. I’ve lived there three months and it doesn’t feel like home. It was big and comfortable and as fancy as Rudolfo’s big hacienda, and sat there empty at that very moment except for the cat.
“Mama,” said Mary Pearl, her flashing eyes peering from the doorway, “why couldn’t Uncle Harland have hired me to watch the children? I’d have been as good as Rachel. You know I would have. She wouldn’t have to leave her teaching position.”
“Still,” Savannah said, her eyes on Mary Pearl, “to let him provide it all gives me a sense of, well, I don’t know just how to put it.”
“As if we’re the serfs gone begging at the duke’s castle?” Rebeccah said.
I said, “Exactly. Reckon all I can afford to take to the fiesta will be a stack of tortillas.”
“We won’t go empty-handed. That’s that,” Savannah said.
I added, “Being flat broke doesn’t bother me as much as him saying he’d send armed escorts to see us there and back.”
All of us were quiet, then after a bit, Mary Pearl said, “We should take our own escorts and guns, too, just to be sure. If I were living in town watching our cousins—”
“You’d be courting every evening with young Mr. Hanna,” said Rebeccah. “That’s all you’re after. Now Mary-pie, you’re too young for such things.” Mary Pearl bristled. Seventeen was not too young for a lot of things, I remember. I wondered why Savannah had done nothing to quell her youngest’s longing for Aubrey Hanna, though he was ten years her senior. “Isn’t that right, Mama?” Rebeccah said.
Savannah’s puzzled expression made us all watch her face for the reaction. She said, “Well, Rebeccah, you’ve already started a quilt for her trousseau. You said so, yourself.”
Mary Pearl grimaced. “Why, Sister Rebeccah, if you keep a-pulling my leg,” she said, and stumped toward her sister with an exaggerated limp, “it’s a-gonna make my weddin’ dress run up on one side.” She giggled, letting loose her anger in silliness.
“Baby sister, I’m doing no such a thing,” Rebeccah said, grinning.
“Now, Rebeccah,” Savannah said, “insincerity—”
A sharp bang shook the door in its frame. The sound brought the small hairs on the back of my neck to attention just as Mary Pearl pulled it open. I saw a man, dressed in a suit of fine wool, pin-striped and elegant as any congressman ever thought of being, standing there. He held a hat in his hands. His gray hair was greased down and a flag hung from a button-pin in his lapel. “Pardon me, miss,” he said. “Oh, my. Aren’t you the beauty of the county? Is your mother at home, dear?”
Savannah and I both rushed to the door and while Savannah tucked Mary Pearl behind her, I planted my feet square on with this new stranger. “Lost, mister?” I said.
Fumbling with the hat, he bent to fetch a fancy gold-topped cane from the porch floor. “Never meant to drop the thing. Must have sounded like thunder from inside, eh?” He looked across the yard toward Granny’s old, shut-down house, “No, ma’am, I’m not lost. That’s the place, I believe. Do yo
u folks know what’s happened with the lady who lived there? The place does look abandoned.” The fellow’s face seemed nice, but he was far yonder too full of questions for this part of the territory.
“Rebeccah,” Savannah called over her shoulder, “ring the bell for your papa.” When they heard the supper bell at an odd time of day, Albert and Clover would surely know something wasn’t straight at the house. I felt Savannah close in behind me. I watched for him to make a move even half an inch toward the open door, and held my right hand behind my back. Savannah’s fingers touched mine, and when she backed away, the heaviness of a revolver remained. I kept still, waiting for him to make a move.
Finally, I said, “Mister? Are you paying a social call? Not having been introduced to you, I’d say it had to be business.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Quite forgotten my manners, I have, dear lady,” the fellow said, and then simpered. “May I present my card?” He reached into his watch pocket and pulled out a fancy calling card. I took it with my left hand while he proceeded to explain it to me as if I couldn’t read. “Elvin Richards, special purchasing agent with the Santa Fe Overland Express Company. I represent the railroad, madam. We acquired a piece of land up the road there, a few months ago, from a Mrs. Prine. I told her I’d be returning later in the year. Almost didn’t make it.” He smiled again, his face gentle and sincere, but his eyes searched the room behind me. “Do you know where she’s gone?”
So this was the skunk that swindled my mama out of a big piece of her homestead plot. About that time Albert came up with Clover. Albert told the fellow he could sit in their parlor and asked Rebeccah to make coffee. I slipped the pistol in my pocket when they weren’t looking.