“All right. Bring Molly. And my red cape. Poppy reads me ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ when I wear it.”
I folded the tattered cape. She’d had it on when I found her and Harland’s family in San Francisco, living in the filth left after the fire. It had taken me two washes to discover it had once been red. “If you leave, of course, he’ll never read it again.”
She glared at me, the look on her face one of suspicion and accusation. “Yes he will.”
“No he won’t. If his Little Red Riding Hood is gone.”
“I’ll be with Mommy. He can read it and come find me.”
“Do you want to take a buttonhook? How about a toothbrush? Are you all set, then? Shall I drive you to the train depot?”
“Yes.” She nodded firmly, a horse trader having made the best bargain of the day. I carried the valise through the house past workmen and movers, the maid and the cook. Harland was calling from a back room for men to put a piano in the front parlor. Truth, Story, and Honor were in the backyard prowling through crates and cartons, hiding and jumping out to shoot each other with their fingers. Out of habit, Blessing took my hand as we swept past them all and got into the buggy I’d only half unloaded. No one noticed that we pulled onto the road, nor waved or called as we drove toward the depot.
Two miles down the road we turned at a corner, and another mile went by before we pulled up at the station. It was quiet at the moment. I tied off the horse and helped Blessing down. “Sit there,” I said, and went to talk to the stationmaster. Then I returned to her. “It’s all set,” I said. “You have permission from the man who runs the trains to get on. All you have to do is wait for the next one. Good luck. It’s getting dark. Try and find something to eat along the way. There might be something left on the floor after someone real sloppy is finished. Don’t forget to brush your teeth once in a while so they don’t fall out. If they do, be sure to get some false ones that don’t clack too much. Goodbye and farewell.” I smiled and waved as if she were only skipping next door to see a friend, then I climbed into the buggy.
Worry took her face, but she sat still. I shook the reins. The wheels turned. The horse took two more steps. I heard a squeal of alarm. “Wait!” Blessing shouted. “Wait, Aunt Sarah!”
I stopped the horse and turned to see her. “Was there something we forgot?”
“Are you going to leave me here?”
“Well, yes. You said you wanted to go.”
There was panic in her voice. It came out a shriek. “You can’t leave me here to wait all alone. I’m a little girl!”
“Well, if you’re leaving, I’ve got to go tell your poppy and brothers. They’ll be awfully sad, of course.” I gave a great sigh. “Maybe he’ll find another girl someday who wears a red cape and wants to hear the story.”
“He can’t do that.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “He is already so sad, with Mommy up in heaven and all, having to lose you too will just make him cry day and night. Maybe I’ll read ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ to him, so he’ll remember you before you left him.”
“I wouldn’t leave him! Poppy needs me.”
I turned the buggy around. Blessing stood at the edge of the platform. A train whistle howled from the west; the evening Santa Fe was pulling into town. “He needs you more than ever,” I said, “but you want to leave. He’s too sad right now to tell you to behave yourself. He doesn’t scold you or paddle you when you’re naughty because he misses your mommy so much. He might forget that underneath the tantrums you can be a good girl. Who is going to remind him of how good you can be, if you aren’t there? Why, he might keep crying until he’s old.”
She put her fists into her eyes and rubbed, crying loudly. “I want my mommy,” she crooned between sobs.
I got out of the rig and went to her, kneeling. “Blessing, Mommy can’t be here. She’s looking down from heaven, hoping you’ll help her take care of Poppy. She’d want you to come home.”
Suddenly, she threw her arms around my neck, nearly sending me sprawling on the platform. “I want my poppy. Mommy needs me to be with Poppy.”
“Yes, she does,” I said. Tears brimmed over in my own eyes. “Shall we go now?” The air began to hum with the low rumble of the train approaching. “Train’s almost here. You could get on it.”
“No!” She crushed my neck. “Don’t let me go away. I want my poppy.”
I picked her up and sat her in the buggy, her valise at her feet. We drove back to the house, and the whole way there, Blessing nestled against me, sniffling and whimpering. Soon as we got to the yard, she called her papa, and hopped down so fast when she saw him I had to brake hard and haul back on the line for fear of running over her.
I went to Harland, who looked exhausted. He patted Blessing’s head as she clung to his knees. He said, “Oh, Sarah, there you are. Can you please help me and watch her for a bit? Just do something with her to keep her from underfoot.”
“She was running away from home,” I said.
He stopped short. “Running away? To where?” He picked her up.
Blessing said, “To find Mommy. But Aunt Sarah said you’d have to read ‘Red Riding Hood’ to someone else because I was gone away. So I corned home.”
“You corned home?” he said. Harland looked over her head at me.
I said, “She was at the train depot. Fixing to get on the seven-thirty to Lordsburg.”
“You need me, don’t you, Poppy?” Blessing asked.
He looked puzzled and sad. “Yes, of course.”
“Where’s Mommy?”
Harland shuddered. “Go in the house, precious. Be a good girl. Find Rachel, and play with her. Go upstairs and … play. Wait until I can tell you the story again.”
She went. I handed him the valise. “Here’s what she was taking,” I said. “She may try this again. I think she wants to believe she can find her mother, so much that it might happen. Like a child sitting on a rug waiting for it to fly like a magic carpet.”
My brother scratched his head. “I’m making a mistake, aren’t I? I can’t do this without you.”
I forced myself to say, “Yes you can. This moving commotion will be over. You’ll have your work in the front room there that you’ve made into your office, and Rachel will see to the children. You won’t be far away. I won’t be, either. Melissa will be just over your shoulder, too. I was sorry to see you leave the ranch, but life in this town will be more what your little ones are accustomed to than at the ranch. They’ll have regular schooling. Friends to play with. Epworth League at the church. It’ll be good.”
“But not the same.”
“Harland, nothing ever is. Will you come down for Christmas?”
He sat on the edge of a wooden crate and picked at a loose thread pulled from the weave of his trousers. At last he looked at me and said, “We’ll bring the goose.”
“Fine,” I said.
Well, instead of playing with Rachel, I found Blessing sitting on a chair next to Chess, who was warming his hands at the kitchen stove. She was recounting her trip to the train station and he nodded now and then, repeatedly asking, “What happened next?”
That evening I repacked my purchases to be ready for the drive home, and waited for my supper as if I were some royal personage in a castle. Likely to get plum spoilt, having all that work go on without me. While we ate, commotion went on overhead as some fellows hoisted the last two beds into place upstairs.
It wasn’t a bad meal that Mrs. Ramsey cooked, it just wasn’t enough for two people, much less the twelve of us. Everyone had a taste of the potatoes and carrots and peas, and a morsel of meat. If I hadn’t made the soup, we’d have all gone hungry. The dessert was a single pie. Only eight inches across and cut into twelve pieces, it was little more than two bites each. Well, everybody is new at something once. Mrs. Ramsey would have to learn her job, I suppose.
After supper, Harland’s children were sent to the parlor where Rachel read them stories. The last workmen left and then H
arland went to his study and started sorting things. I climbed the stairs slowly, feeling foreign as a daisy in a rose garden in this old familiar place, now all done up fancier than I’d ever seen it.
In the washroom I closed the door, ran the water, and had a good soak. From the tub, I stared at the mirror high over the washstand. How many times had I stood there, talking to Jack’s reflection as he worked that straight razor across his neck and face? After I dried off, I went to the mirror and touched the place on the washstand where Jack’s shaving cup had sat. When he was eleven, Charlie once knocked off and broke the shaving cup his father had carried through the Indian Wars. He’d had to buy a new one out of his allowance. I remembered the smell of Jack’s shaving soap tinctured with oil of bergamot and eucalyptus.
The room was cold. I dressed quickly and went to my new old room; it had been transformed, too. The cot was gone and in its place was a fine bed. Against one wall was an armoire, and a cushioned chair waited beneath the window with a companion table. The chair was padded and fat, and made a nice warm nest for someone to curl up their feet and have a good think. The bed had been laid with linen sheets and new blankets.
I put out the light. The almost dozen other people in the house managed to get themselves to bed without me, and I didn’t mind it a bit. In that fancy, soft bed, I stared into the darkness. If Jack were here right now, I’d make him love me and then wrap himself around me so we’d stay warm all night. The house got quiet. It was my house no longer. Felt different, sounded different, smelled of the new furnishings. It took a while for all the memories I knew of Jack in this house to fade into the night.
Chapter Four
December 15, 1906
The ruckus of our return home was equivalent to watching the Sixth Army abandon its post years ago, and it appeared we were taking half the town with us. This being so close to Christmas, it seemed as if a migration had begun to points south. Since we were traveling with all those folks, for once there was little worry about highway robbers and bandidos.
At last we came to the fork that leads to Granny’s old house where we homesteaded years ago, and from there we could see the sprawling rock home that Albert and Savannah have built over the years. Albert and his boys dropped off our train then, and I was left to drive on with Chess.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said, as we pulled into the yard.
I thought I’d been purely friendly, waving to folks on the road. “How so?”
“Nothing to come home to but old folk. This house is plum empty.”
“This house is this house,” I said.
“Less washing now.”
He wouldn’t look in my direction. So I said, “Go on in and I’ll unload this.”
Granny came out the door just then. She must have been watching by the window. She raised her hand and called out, “That feisty girl is about to make supper. I’ll tell her to lay a couple more plates.”
I knew who she meant. Mary Pearl did tend to flit through the house like a bird, too full of energy to sit still. “Afternoon, Mama,” I said. “Go tell her we’re here, then.”
I heard her voice from the open door, calling, “Put some water in the beans, Mary Pearl. The folks are home!”
Chess loaded up his arms and we piled things near the pantry. It was all I could do to keep up Chess’s pace. Soon as we were done, without saying a word, he drove the rig to the barn and disappeared while I stocked our shelves. Maybe Chess was the one who hated the empty house. While I was trying to keep all those little ones clean and fed and teaching them schoolwork every day they were here, he was the one holding Blessing on his knee as he spun a yarn about a magical bear that outsmarted a hunter. He was the one teaching Story, Honor, and Truth how to make a slingshot and aim it true. I’d been thinking they must surely have tried his patience, but maybe it had been the opposite. I had been too busy to see it.
December 16, 1906
Sunday, Savannah held her usual Sunday School. I sat in my best dress in her parlor, listening to her read aloud from the Bible. Albert was next to her and Mary Pearl next to him on the settee. Granny sat near Albert and Savannah’s son Clover. Her eyes were closed as if she were in prayer, but I believe she was snoozing. Chess was between Ezra and Zachary, both of them full of Mexican jumping beans. Three hours of not squirming was easier for them to withstand if they were kept apart from one another, and far easier than the chores that would be heaped upon them if they showed signs of disrespect, too. I laid my hands in my lap and stared at them, trying hard to study upon the words she read.
In the corner of the room, Udell Hanna’s hands were also folded in his lap. He was clean shaven and had a piece of cotton tied around the smallest finger of his left hand, as if he’d needed a bandage fresh this morning. I wondered if he was thinking of the Scriptures, or daydreaming about his son Aubrey, who should be driving up from Tucson in time for dinner to pay a call on Mary Pearl. I wondered, too, if his people kept Christmas. Had I been too forward, buying him a gift? I could give it to him now, simply because I bought it, and it wouldn’t be a Christmas present, so he wouldn’t feel obliged to return me one if he hadn’t already thought to. How could I keep it another two weeks, anyway? I couldn’t wait to see the pleased look on his face. Lands, I had plenty of sewing to do. I planned to start on it first thing tomorrow, cutting out shirts for the fellows. I hoped I’d bought enough buttons. Udell’s face looked deep in thought. I wondered what he was thinking.
Savannah had stopped reading. I turned toward her. She was staring straight at me as if I’d interrupted the Scriptures or sneezed or something equally awful. “Now?” she asked.
“You go on ahead,” I said. I had no earthly idea what she’d asked me to do. Albert began to pray and we all bowed our heads. Prayers. Of course. I listened hard. Then all was quiet and that’s when I began to let go of the people in the room about me and thought about our trials, feeling thankful we’d kept our heads above water. I also prayed I’d gotten the right number of buttons.
Prayers were signaled to a close by a knock at the door. Aubrey had come, leaving a nice horse and buggy tied up at the rail, and carrying a handful of roses, reds and pinks, mostly, with one white one which he presented to Savannah. Red and pink roses! If a man gave flowers of those colors to a girl, his passion was said to be unbridled! Heavens, I hoped Savannah wouldn’t send him scalded from the house. I heard Gilbert, Clover, and Joshua clear their throats. Then Aubrey said, “I stopped to admire them, Mrs. Prine, and the lady of the house said I should take some. Please don’t suspect I have hidden artifice in them, as they are the shades she had growing in her yard. She was quite embarrassed, asking me to take them, because of the colors, but they smelled so nice, and I do declare that no clever meanings are attached.”
Savannah held the roses and smelled them. She smiled at the young man, and said, “God made all flowers equally beautiful.”
Once dinner was over it was time for quiet work, reading or stitchery. Aubrey had come to spend Christmas with his father, but along with that, he’d come intending to take Mary Pearl for a drive. Savannah pulled back the curtain at the parlor window so she could see his new buggy, and said, “Your father should drive, Mary Pearl, and take our surrey.”
Mary Pearl’s face showed no disappointment, though I do suspect she would have considered driving alone with a man in the afternoon if her mother hadn’t spoken. She was seventeen and prettier than a girl has any business being. Mighty headstrong, too.
Udell stepped up and said, “Miss Savannah, if you’d allow, I was planning to ask Miss Sarah to take a drive with me. How about if she and I were to go? We’ll provide the children with plenty of company.”
Mary Pearl stared at the ceiling as if her mother’s answer would come from it. Savannah pursed her lips. Udell had done a good thing making it seem like they needed company instead of watchdogging. I said, “I don’t mind spending the afternoon,” trying not to sound too anxious myself.
“We’ll go, too,�
�� said Zachary.
“Yeah,” Ezra echoed.
I suppose Mary Pearl and I are closer under the skin to being two buttons on a single card—she wasn’t just my niece, I felt more like her older sister. At this moment, we were conspirators in crime, even if the crime was only a few innocent minutes alone with a fellow. Having Ezra and Zack along to ride herd on us would take all the frill off the afternoon. So I said, “Don’t you two have lessons to write?”
“We already did ‘em,” Ezra protested.
“Never mind,” Savannah said. “You fellows are going to read a chapter apiece from a work of inspirational thought. Then you may play outside. There will be no riding this afternoon.”
The boys turned angry glares at me, dead sure they were surrounded by adults who delighted in keeping them from having any fun whatsoever.
Udell and I sat in the front of Albert and Savannah’s old surrey, with the two young people in the back. Udell drove south past my place and farther on, where Cienega Creek runs toward the San Pedro River. This place is so hilly it’s like a wrinkled bed. Cross one hill and another and nothing lies before you but another hill. If you go west a bit and south, there’s ever flatter and grassier land, but here the rocks and crags fight for a place amongst the grassy slopes. Trees were coming back from the range fire of autumn.
Everybody hereabouts had lost plenty in that fire, except for Rudolfo Mal-donado. His family had been on that four sections for three generations when ours came, sometimes trading with, sometimes fighting off, four different tribes of Indians. In the years since my brothers, Savannah, and my mama and I drove up in our rattling single wagon, El Maldonado’s parents have passed on, as has his wife, Celia, and the four-room adobe has grown to a twelve-room hacienda. He has hired servants enough to start his own town, and every form of finery that can be shipped to this territory fills his place. But, though we were both young folks at the same time, and have grown older together, while I have had a home and fine family, I believe Rudolfo’s riches have not made him satisfied. His new wife, Leta, is a year or so older than both our Mary Pearl and Elsa, his oldest daughter, who he’s sent to Tucson to the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for safekeeping. Some days I long for the old times when his first wife, Celia, was alive—when I could call him friend.
The Star Garden Page 7