Chapter 54
BEFORE LEAVING THE ranch house to pick peaches in the east field for supper, Rose asked Elizabeth to make butter from the cream held back from the broker in Haskell. She put her oldest down for a nap in the front room, fed the two boys, and strapped the youngest girl to her back. She craved time, however brief, to be away from the close-in walls of the house. She could force her hands to busyness, dawn to dusk, but managing the perturbations of her mind was another matter entirely.
“Keep an eye out,” Rose reminded Elizabeth. Her sister had been a blessing to Rose the last three months, with Jake away. “I’m back to feed them again by the time they wake.”
Her sister returned a tolerant smile. “They’re safe with me,” she said.
Eager as she was to get gone, she lingered, watching Elizabeth lug a cream bucket from the larder, set up the wooden butter churn on the front porch, and pour the thick mass from one container to the other. Once done, her sister brought out Jacob and Kindred, placing their two baskets side by side on the stoop in easy view, and began to turn the crank until she got a rhythm going.
Rose checked one last time on both babies, fast asleep, the two sons Jake didn’t yet know he had. Kindred was the bigger of the two, Jacob the most active. Not even three months old, and already Jacob gurgled and chuckled often, smiling when she came into his line of vision. Kindred, older than his brother by two weeks, was more cautious, studying all around him with a seriousness that reminded Rose of herself, although he carried not one drop of her blood in him. Kindred rationed his smiles, as if he wanted to figure everything out first before taking such a risk.
Rose set out at last across the meadow, more careful of step since twisting her ankle in a prairie-dog hole last month. She felt moodiness in the air, a beginning or an ending, she couldn’t tell which, but the day was alive with possibility. They were going to do well, she and Jake. She’d decided. The last few months had been difficult, full of reminders that she would need to think in new ways, but she considered her lot. Since Kindred arrived, she’d endured occasional, unexplained spells sometimes lasting an hour or more, when she could barely catch her breath and was forced to sit motionless until her heart and lungs unseized.
But their blessings were so many. Their acreage prospered. The herd increased each year, land improvements were more extensive, cultivated fields more productive, the mortgage always paid on time out of cattle or milk sales. And now Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was heaven-sent, arrived on Rose’s ranch just days after Jacob was born. Rose offered no explanation of Kindred, and her little sister didn’t push her to admit the words of his origin aloud as Rose struggled to prepare herself for Jake’s return. Elizabeth was lively company, and talked to people Rose didn’t care to spend time on. With four babies, Rose couldn’t imagine how she would have managed without her younger sister’s help, especially once the widow moved to Okmulgee. Elizabeth surprised Rose with her willingness to be of service and her eagerness to make herself a part of their ranch. Although Elizabeth too was born to dust and cattle and prairie, she’d always been sheltered from the worst, either being so young, or so timid, or so spoiled. She’d come of age after the horrors of Fort Gibson, and after the hardest work and uncertainty of building Grampa Cow Tom’s ranches were far behind.
Rose steadied the papoose, gathered her collection baskets, and continued on until she reached the orchard of peach trees, just started to come into their color for the picking.
Rose wasn’t sure what day Jake would return, but she sensed the time near. Today, this week, maybe next, surely sometime this month. When he did come back to the ranch from the cattle drive, Rose was determined he find everything better than when he left. The field harvested, fences in good repair, the livestock groomed, corn, peas, beets planted, watermelon rind and okra canned, a season’s worth of wheat taken to the mill and ground for flour, the pig fat and ready for slaughter, tubs of excess milk sold to the buyer in Haskell, and the gold coins safely deposited in the cedar box below the floorboards. And upon Jake’s return, he would find a new balance to the household. Not one but two sons. She’d had to think long about how to introduce him to both. She’d been practicing.
Rose picked as the sun rose higher in the sky, until her hands were so wet with peach juice that the baby too became tacky with the sweetness when she handled her. Rose filled as many baskets of the heavy fruit as she could carry. With the sun of such late-summer potency, she would be glad to find shade while she did the rest of her late-morning chores.
She started back at a languid pace, the girl baby awake but content at her back, and when she came within sight of the house, she made out Elizabeth’s outline on the front stoop, still cranking, the steady rise and fall of her full bosom, her homemade cotton dress splayed out around her legs, the butter churn between her knees for leverage, her face flushed with the exertion of the almost-butter in late stage.
She was beautiful.
Elizabeth was young and vibrant, with smooth, clear skin the color of a beaver’s winter pelt fresh from the stream, her hair pulled up in a frizzled topknot that somehow made her eyes seem even larger. The boys were at her feet, out of their baskets, Kindred lying on his back, clutching at his own hands, Jacob naked on his stomach, practicing his newfound art of raising his head and shoulders off the blanket, in response to the rhythm of the crank’s monotonous melody.
Rose stood transfixed, struck with the image of her sister, fully grown. Only after a moment did she widen her scan and notice Jake, come from the other direction, alone, astride his tall black horse, sweaty and weighed down with dusty saddle, saddlebags, and rifle. Jake was motionless amid the scrub and brush of the prairie, staring toward the ranch house too, eyes affixed on Elizabeth, as though she were evening prayer.
Rose may have moved, she wasn’t sure, or the baby may have made some sound, but suddenly Jake looked in her direction. He broke out into a grin, and spurred his tired horse hard, closing the distance between them in moments. He jumped off the horse and scooped Rose into the broad expanse of his arms, twirling her, papoose and all, laughing.
“Nothing beats home,” he said, and skimmed her lips with his own.
At any other time, she would have waved off his foolishness, pleased by the words but refusing any public reply to his charm. That was the way between them. But today, she glanced toward the porch, at all the changes signified there, the babies, her life in potential upheaval. Elizabeth was straightening her skirts and running a hand over her hair, tucking loose strands in place. She had seen them too, Rose and Jake, and watched the reunion of husband and wife.
Rose kissed Jake back, in broad daylight, a light peck, nothing more, but something never before done. When he looked to her in surprise she felt foolish for the impulse, but over his shoulder, she glanced furtively in satisfaction toward the porch. Elizabeth had seen it.
Jake peeked into the papoose at Rose’s back. “Lady’s growed,” he said. The girl clapped her hands, delighted, and Jake did a little jig in the dirt while she giggled at his antics. “Where’s my littlest one? Boy or girl? I’m itching to see.”
Rose motioned toward the porch.
“What’s your sister doing here?” he asked.
Rose slipped into Mvskoke, the relief of the language reassuring to her tongue, restoring her power. “Elizabeth helps me with your two sons,” she whispered.
She waited for this news to sink in.
“Two? You carried twins then?”
“They are brothers, but not twins,” said Rose.
Jake paused, his body still. “Speak plain, woman.” His tone sharp, she saw the tiredness of the road in his eyes, the red rising at his cheeks and neck, the slight telltale hitch of his shoulders toward his ears when he became tense or impatient.
Rose refused to be rushed. “One came of me. His name is Jacob. One came to the front doorstep, delivered from Cow Hollow. Hi
s name is Kindred. Both yours. Now we have four children.”
Rose watched the features of Jake’s face change as he puzzled her message. The progression was swift, from confusion to comprehension to guilt to something she couldn’t name. She’d had ample time to prepare herself. Jake had not. As she’d anticipated in her months playing variations to this scene, Jake now ran through his options and the consequences in his mind.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“My words are clear. He will be raised on this ranch as one of us, older brother to Jacob, younger brother to Laura and Lady. Son to Jake and Rose. Let no one tell him different.”
Jake stayed quiet for so long Rose almost spoke again. She’d watched her grandfather sit across from opponents at Fort Gibson and let his silences work for him. She intended the same.
“Rose, how do you know—” Jake finally began.
She cut him off. “Truth is plain to see,” she said. “There is no question.”
Jake took out his dusty handkerchief and wiped his flushed face. By the time the sweat dried, he’d regained his composure. “I’ll not deny,” he said. “But the trail has nothing to do with us. With this ranch.”
“How can you think that?”
“There’s no attachment, no promises,” Jake said. “They know I come home to you. I will always come back here, to you. Always. We are man and wife.”
They. He’d said this as reassurance, and his assumption delivered her an icy chill. She might have preferred the lie, or at least an admission that he considered his offense a weakness he would fight. But in the end, she held fast to the fact that he told her truth as he knew it, his truth, and she knew where she stood. She tried to convince herself she was safe on her own ranch, and the outside world didn’t matter overmuch.
“There is no need to speak further about this,” Rose said. There was a sanctity and joy to marriage, regardless of circumstance, though she knew now she’d chosen a flawed man. A man she loved still, regardless. “But on future trips, you’ll not tarry overlong in Cow Hollow.”
“No,” said Jake. And then, “I must see them.”
“We have other matters to attend before you meet your sons.”
Rose saw the flash of anger, the discomfort, the moment’s hesitation on Jake’s part, but he let them pass and ceded to her.
“My sister. She’s a godsend. But I’ll send her back to Gramma Amy and manage alone if need be.”
“No,” he said. “I’m glad you have family here while I’m gone. Your sister can stay.”
She nodded. “Start me off with a few cows of my own,” Rose said. “A small herd, separate from the ranch’s brand. You can run them with yours come sell time.”
Jake frowned. His body went rigid, arms folded across his chest, his lips thinned and pressed tight. “What I have is yours,” he said. “No call for separate.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Rose, and then let the stillness build.
Her absolute dependence was no longer an option. What was hers was his by law, but not the opposite. She remained wordless behind a mask of reason and negotiation.
Finally, Jake broke. “I’ll cut out a couple steer need special attention. See what you make of them.”
“Ten,” said Rose.
Jake looked toward the porch, the tableau waiting there, as did Rose. The boys were awake. Jacob was noticeably darker in this light, even from a distance, and he clutched to a cob of corn Elizabeth had given him. Kindred pulled at his blanket. Elizabeth made great show of engaging the babies, of purposefully not staring at the pair of them standing out in the prairie, a couple bereft of joy after such long separation.
Jake said nothing, yea or nay, and neither did Rose. He stared at her, searching her face, as if he didn’t know quite who she was. Suddenly, she was terrified she’d gone too far.
Chapter 55
SPOILED, ROSE THOUGHT in the stillness, standing in the prairie facing her husband, with one child strapped to her back and three more waiting on the porch. The marriage. The family. The ranch. Jake brought this upon them. It was Jake, she reminded herself, not her. All the compromises she’d made in her mind over the last few months, all her generous forgivenesses she’d brought to bear for the sake of a shared life, and now Jake caught out but not contrite? In all her considerations, all her practicing for this moment, he’d always been more sorry.
What would she do if he wouldn’t capitulate to the few things she asked? Was she ready to take the babies and Elizabeth and move back to Gramma Amy and Ma’am? Give up on her own family? Carve Jake out of their lives like so much bruised fruit as if he didn’t mean even more to her than this land they sought to tame? Ma’am had softened toward Rose over the years, especially after she married Jake, but to go back under that roof a failure instead of running her own ranch? The thoughts gnawed, the panic rose, but she kept her tongue.
“Ten cows,” Jake finally agreed.
She blocked the relief from finding expression on her face, giving her away. “And a padlock with a key,” Rose said. Her grandfather always taught her to make the most of an advantage, however brief. Should the padlock come with two keys, she intended to hold them both.
“What for?” Even the tone of Jake’s speech was distorted, his words pushed through gritted teeth.
“For valuables.”
“What valuables?”
“We have gold coin and silver, and too many coming and going here when you’re away. Just makes good sense to put things under lock and key. We work too hard for our things to go missing.”
Again Jake nodded, tightly. “I’ll bring a padlock back from Okmulgee next time I pass through.”
Rose relaxed a little. She’d pushed as far as she dared. Further. Time to move forward, away from the quagmire of the past.
“The cattle sold?” she asked.
“Most,” Jake said. Rose saw his shoulders inch downward, just a hair, both of them in need of safer territory, but she knew he was still trying to regain his footing. “We ran into trouble on the Texas Trail, some rustlers trying to get at the herd, but we drove them off and made it almost straight through to market. Price is up this year. There’ll be profit.”
“We can settle the books later after everyone turns in,” Rose said.
“The girls?” Jake asked.
“Both strong. Both healthy. Laura got bad fever early summer, but I herbed her, and she came round after a week of worry. Both boys get normal colds and such, give it back and forth.”
She pretended not to see him look at her, searching for any signs that might indicate that she hadn’t put the quandary of Kindred behind them.
“The property?”
“Most hands are out now fixing fences in the east pasture. Big windstorm came through two nights ago. Can’t say I took a liking to the new hand you brought on before you left. He used up a horse without watering him after, and was shoddy with the currycomb. I sent him packing.”
“You might have waited,” said Jake.
As good as Jake was with cattle and cowpunchers and buyers, he would give away the ranch to the first visitor with a sad story if Rose wasn’t there to prevent it. She barely caught herself from saying as much to him, uncertain what other accusations might tumble from her lips should she take to that road.
“Better to nip a vexation at the onset and move on,” said Rose instead.
“I guess what’s done is done.”
“You must be hungry,” Rose said.
“I could eat.”
“I’ll come with you to put up the horse,” Rose said. “Then to meet your sons. Reacquaint with the girls and my sister.”
She expected they would, at last, go to the ranch house together, his understanding and acceptance of where they stood clear.
“I’ll see to the hands first,” he said, “and be in directly.”
 
; Rose hadn’t counted on this, his reluctance to face either son. He needed time alone, she could understand that, as she had needed days and weeks and then months to adjust after Kindred came to her. She considered telling Jake that her anger was as good as spent, manageable, and Kindred such a gift, and how much she’d missed him, how glad she was to have him back, but that felt like begging. After so many months without him, she wanted to walk to their ranch house together, her husband by her side, sweeping past Elizabeth on the front porch and reclaiming their sons, and into her kitchen to feed her husband, the area she felt safest.
She wavered, succumbing to a false vision of her as the one in the chair on the porch, not sticky from peach juice and dried breast milk and sweat and dirt and veiled ultimatums, but a cleaner, fresher version of domesticity, like her sister. Alongside Elizabeth, Rose suddenly felt old. Old and ugly.
But Jake remounted his horse and rode out in the direction of the east pasture, leaving her there, alone amid the buzzing insects and wild blooms of the prairie, one child strapped to her and three more waiting. He hadn’t seen his sons up close yet, either one. Was he too angry? Or suddenly afraid to confront them? Humiliated? Unwilling? She thought she knew Jake so well, but what did she know, really? How well could anyone occupy someone else’s mind? Rose was certain Jake appreciated her. Desired her as his wife. She kept a fine house, ran the ranch, kept the books, had proven fertile and a good mother. And now a forgiving wife. Jake’s job was to engage with the world outside their ranch, and she would leave him to it, so long as he didn’t bring that world home to her.
Rose hitched up the papoose and headed for the house without her husband. She barely paused at the front porch, ignoring Elizabeth’s bewilderments so obvious on her face, and escaped to the kitchen and her stove. Rose could barely handle her own emotions, let alone her sister’s, whether pity or protectiveness. Her hands shook as she undid the papoose and transferred the baby to a blanket on the kitchen floor. But her nerves were much settled by the time Jake came in later, so filthy from time on the road and making his rounds on the ranch that he generated clouds of dust whenever he moved. She served him a large portion of hot limas with pork and a generous wedge of sofki. They didn’t talk.