The Star Garden

by Nancy E. Turner

  General Reyes sat by an American named Doheny, and next to him, wearing more gold than the rest put together, was a genuine dude going by Von Wangenheim. One short fellow was named Madera, and he bowed and smiled at me, just charming as you please, while next to him sat that man Richards from the railroad. Rudolfo, waving his arms around, called them all “los demo-cráticos y científicos.”

  Then Madera starts talking to me in something I think was French, but I didn’t understand. I talk American and I talk pretty good Mexican Spanish, so he might have been talking Bolivian Spanish or French or pure Russian, for all I knew. I’d been to this kind of test of my understanding only days before with those fancy-dress professors. I waited for a moment, thinking how rude he was despite being dressed rich as a king, and I answered that fellow, saying, “Pietas requiro sulum agnosco. No one here speaks your lingo, so please, por favor, either talk in Spanish or American, sir.”

  Laughing gently, looking almost fatherly, Madera said, “You are as profound as you are beautiful, Señora Elliot.”

  Rudolfo ushered us to seats. His smile looked hard and set like stone as servants scurried every which way. Before us the table held delicacies I could only guess at. There was a large fish in the center of the planks, swimming in a pool of clear sauce and sort of decorated with leaves and strips of orange peels until it looked monstrous. Where they got a fish that size in this desert I couldn’t even guess, and I silently noted that dish and determined to keep a safe distance. There were jellied aspics on little plates covered with some seeds. At the head end of the great table, an entire deer’s head, antlers and all, looked out upon the crowd from an arm’s-length-wide silver platter. The head was surrounded with fruits, with a pomegranate held in its teeth. Right next to it, as if laid with some kind of purpose, was my crock of humble pinto beans. Opposite that were the little quail pies. On either end, eleven bowls of different hot vegetables plus three kinds of potatoes, lay in front of at least twice that many sauces in gold and silver chargers. Candles flashed and their flames danced as the servants paraded the whole lot around the room like a river of temptingly rich food, then loaded our plates using silver spoons and lifters.

  There were steaming bowls of hot cider, and boiled milk with vanilla, bottles of wines and other spirits I couldn’t guess at, and what looked like dozens of little goblets and silver cups at each place. A whole table of sweets waited behind Rudolfo, where candlelight danced across lacy tablecloths loaded with glistening brown Christmas puddings and sugared fruit, chocolates stacked on delicate plates, and sugar-rimmed compotes and bowls of punch. In the center, a place of honor, but looking so plain it was clearly out of place, sat Savannah’s little cake on a heavy crockery plate.

  Everyone helped themselves to the foods laid out, and the gentlemen took great helpings of my pies and the beans with marrow bones. Each one proclaimed how they admired them, too. I smiled, but somehow that filled me less with pride than suspicion. In the next room, just loud enough to be a fine side dish, someone was playing a guitar and a fiddle, and everything seemed merry. It wasn’t long until the music stopped and the children, even Mary Pearl and Aubrey, were sent to another room, and then the cigars were lit again and the talk got quiet. It was pure business, but told in shaded words with smiles and gestures that I knew meant things to those present. I could see there was an old fuss-fight going between that fellow Madera and the one named Reyes.

  The one thing they all agreed on was that they needed the railroad to cut down from the Southern Pacific lines south of Benson straight to Sonora. I asked that Mr. Doheny why they couldn’t use the switch rails near Charleston, but he only smiled and squinted his eyes at me as if I were a child too silly to care about such things. I asked the question again, facing Doheny but saying all the words in Spanish, then Doheny quit grinning. Everyone quit talking.

  Rudolfo said, “Ah, my dear Señora Elliot. We are here to offer you a business proposition, with these most respected men. Changes are coming that will pour money through our hands”—he opened his hands toward me as if he were catching something flowing from the ceiling—“and some of it will land in yours! All we have to do,” he said, clenching his fists around his mystical riches, “is take it. Sarah, I have been buying land. From Cananea by Bacoachi to Arizpe in Sonora, now almost ten thousand acres is mine below the border. I’m going to connect my land there with my land here.”

  Von Wangenheim looked from Rudolfo to the other men. “Frau Elliot,” he said, then drew a breath through his cigar, and spoke through the smoke as he exhaled it toward Doheny. “Herr Maldonado is making his point well, but you, I see, are a woman who speaks plainly. What we want, Frau Elliot, is to let you in. Share the profit with you in exchange for the unlimited use of your land.”

  I didn’t answer, so he continued.

  “We have already sent horsemen to this area to protect our interests. Soldiers in our cause, so to speak. You see, we are going to move a large quantity of supplies by road and rail south to Mexico, and we are ready to do so very soon.”

  “Whether I join with you or not,” I added.

  He smiled a bitter, thin slit of a smile. “Of course, we would covet your cooperation. You would be compensated for the use of your land.”

  “Why do you need my land? Why don’t you cut through Maldonado’s?”

  Rudolfo grinned at me under stony eyes.

  “Tracks run best over flat terrain,” Von Wangenheim said. “The parcel of land owned by your family north of your house is a prime example. The west side of your southern parcel lies in a direct route to the lovely village of Arizpe.”

  I stiffened my back. Arizpe had been in the newspapers as the scene of a terrible battle between copper miners and Federates. A hundred and fifty miners had died on the orders of the Cananea Copper Company. “That’s a fair piece,” I said. Three of the men laughed softly. Madera did not. I sipped my tea, and checked the eyes of each of them while I did. Albert got real stiff and quiet.

  Doheny said to him, “You’re the one, mister. You give the word and the little lady will do as you say.”

  Albert shook his head and nodded toward me. “It’s Sarah’s land you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

  Rudolfo held his glass of wine toward the light on the table next to him, and seemed to study the flame through the red liquid. “Amiga mia, I have told them you are la mujer de negocios excelente. You must not overlook that these generals and directors know more about situations in the government than you. It’s very far south of here, Dona Sarah. But there is a route from there to Tucson that could become el camino de oro. We are talking about much gold.”

  Doheny said, “Call it El Dorado del Norte if you wish. Hell, call it anything you want. Trick is, lady, it runs through your south lease.”

  I heard shuffling around the room. Rudolfo said, “I need the lease, Sarah. You need cash. You have the best connection from Baca Loco to Pantano. I have gold.”

  Rudolfo had wanted himself a governor’s chair last fall and I always thought he’d meant Phoenix, though territorial elections were not due for a couple of years. At last it dawned on me. It wasn’t Arizona but governorship of Sonora he’d been interested in. Never have been handy with shadows and slick smiles. It touched off sparks inside me I had to fight not to show. I said, “El Dorado? Isn’t that a fancy name for some burned-out cow pasture? And what about my mother’s land?”

  “Ah, si. It is only a little track. Worth nothing. If you don’t wish to share in our venture then allow my friends to purchase a small section of land. We offer you a thousand dollars of American gold. In return for receiving this money, you will receive a hundred times over, into the future. You see what this will mean, my friend? Tu familia?”

  Friend? Like a rattler had just woke up under the floor and started shaking his tail, my insides fluttered and a keen wariness overtook me. Albert raised one eyebrow when I looked at him. Around the room, where doorways had seemed empty before, there were men all about, watchin
g. Men in white uniforms like they were cooks and houseboys stared in at the group. They wore servants’ clothing, but they stood too ready to spring, and to a man they had hard, steely eyes, like coyotes, like they’d maybe been the very caballeros who’d killed the two men on Rudolfo’s land. The padre sipped his wine in the silence. A spot of light, reflected off the cup, showed a spider web of red lines and an old scar high on his left cheek.

  Then Reyes said they had twenty-eight train cars loaded with goods, ready to pass this way, and for every one that passed I’d get another hundred dollars. While he talked, I wondered just how Rudolfo had gotten enough money to buy ten thousand acres in Sonora. My land didn’t extend halfway to Naco. But it did lie between here and Pantano’s place as a crow flies. He was going to good lengths for it, so what would he do for the rest of the passage of his Paso Dorado?

  As if he heard me thinking, Rudolfo added, “I’ll fence the whole distance. For safety of your stock, you see.”

  The varmint knew I had no stock roaming that range. My windmill stands guard over nothing but hungry coyotes and mangy javelinas. This was a test far beyond shaking foreign words at each other to see who’d flinch. These men were up to something I couldn’t put a name to, but it frightened me down to my core.

  “What’s it all for, Rudolfo? The Southern Pacific doesn’t need this, really. Why do you men need a rail line to Mexico?”

  Von Wangenheim talked about how the political future of Mexico was at stake. That Germany was behind everything they did, too. That we could count on his government for any support—and then he paused before adding—necessary. How we’d all band together for the good of the people who’d brought prosperity to Mexico. And then he said no one who’d come to this meeting could ever be apart from it again. A cold, hard iron formed itself in my back, and I breathed very lightly, just as if I were hunting and testing the wind lest I give some sign of my aim.

  I thought about those men who’d chased down and killed the other two fellows. Now I knew who the murderers were, at least: part of this deal with these villains before me. It’s been in the paper now and then that revolutionaries planned on raising an army and taking back the Gadsden, then reannexing everything from the Pima County line back into Mexico. He was talking about starting a war. That meant politics and bullets, and governments taking land; the greedy and powerful always winning the lion’s share. This land was mine and I’d have no part of Porfirio Díaz taking it, nor ride with the men who plan to take it from him as soon as he did. Rudolfo had brought my family into his confederacy by trickery. We could be linked to these dark and dangerous men by attending this supper. Never mind we came out of sheer ignorance.

  I happened to glance at Madera as he looked at me. He had a strangely sad look around the eyes for a moment. Then he turned a vicious stare toward Von Wangenheim that disappeared as quickly as it came, returning to his politician’s suave expression, aimed at Rudolfo. Rudolfo’s face proved there was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted. Somehow he needed me for it. The more desperate he was, the more I didn’t want any part of it.

  Why was Albert saying nothing? I dared not look at him. He’d already made them think I was La Mujer of this family, the matriarch, though I never thought of myself that way. I took a deep breath, worked out the best excuse for a smile I could manage, and stood, causing every man in the room to leap to his feet. Very softly and very firmly, I said, “Señor Maldonado, y los caballeros, I say to you, Feliz Navidad, adiós, y buenas noches.”

  “But Sarah,” Rudolfo said, “your answer? Perhaps if I explain again?”

  The room bristled. Firelight danced from a thousand candles. The men’s fine clothing glowed. All was aflame except for the eyes of the padre, cold and hard above the scar on his cheek. I decided not to do them the favor of speaking anything but my own language. Last I heard, the Gadsden had a border yet. I looked Rudolfo square in the eyes. “The question is complete, and so is the answer. Good evening, señores.”

  We were carried home with the same courtesy we’d arrived with, as if nothing more than a fine evening had passed. Mary Pearl and Aubrey were curious about what had happened in the “meeting,” but I told them it was nothing much, and they went back to making soft eyes at each other in the back seat. Beside me, Albert whispered and told me he’d been thinking the whole time about how to guard his house and his family from soldiers should a war break out with Mexico. I didn’t want him to know I believed the same thing, so I said, “Isn’t this just a feud between the Maldonados and us? What makes you think there’s going to be a war between the countries?”

  “This is bigger than that. It ain’t going to go away, either.”

  “I know it.”

  “Might be better if we did have some soldiers around.”

  “No, brother, I don’t think it would. You sure kept awful quiet in there.”

  “Nothing much to say to a bunch of strangers. And it was your land they wanted. I couldn’t tell ‘em yes or no for you. You seemed to have a handle on it.”

  “Still, I wished you’d-a spoke up. Might have added some oil to the fire.”

  “Naw. You got it said. Them fellows heard every word, too. Better’n if I said ‘em.”

  The carriage arrived at my front porch where Albert’s rig awaited our return, and Albert helped me down. He was just a minute going in to fetch Savannah. They left quickly with no more than a wave. We would certainly talk tomorrow.

  From my porch I saw in the darkness the gleam of Mexican silver conchos on the rigs of three riders who had followed the coach. The riders waited on a hill with the moon to their side and signaled to the driver as he passed them. I wondered if the jinglings of their tack were the first drums of war. As I stared toward the sound in the deep night air, one by one they turned and followed the coach back to Maldonado’s hacienda.

  Chapter Seven

  December 25, 1906

  Christmas morning Albert and Savannah’s family joined us at my home to have breakfast, sit around our spindly cholla-skeleton Christmas tree and sing carols and tell stories, and share our gifts with each other. We passed around food and a special treat, a crate of oranges, with a whole one for each person. I kept Charlie’s shirt in my lap, hoping the dogs would bark, the door would open, and in he’d walk, but as the sun rose and the smell of the roasting venison filled the place, he still hadn’t come.

  Chess went out to tend the roasting venison while Savannah and the girls joined Granny and me in the kitchen to fix the big supper for the afternoon. First thing, Savannah pulled out a knife and cut us each a slice of a pumpkin bread she’d been up three hours making. Well, I poured us coffee and put on water to boil for more, and had a taste of that bread. It was bitter as an old root, and I looked from one face to the other, trying to swallow it.

  Savannah’s eyes grew wide as she chewed. “It isn’t right!” she called. “Don’t eat this, it’ll poison you.”

  “Land-o’-living!” hollered Granny.

  “Savannah, what did you put in this?” I said.

  “Just the regular. Flour. And mashed pumpkin, of course. Salt. Alum and soda. A teaspoon of … glorious heaven. I put in a teaspoon of sugar and a whole cup of salt.” She jumped from her chair and swished about the room, taking the bread from each woman’s hands. “Don’t eat another bite. Goodness sakes alive. I moved the sugar jar to be closer to the counter and washed out the salt cellar and left it … and then put the salt in a bowl with a blue ring on it just like the sugar jar. Whatever has possessed me?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my!”

  “What?” we all said at once.

  “That cake I sent to Rudolfo’s. Did you taste it?”

  “No. We left before they served sweets.”

  “It was made the same way. They’ll all be sick.”

  I grinned. “Are you sure?”

  She looked pained. “Likely.”

  “Oh well,” I said, “if they hadn’t got the sense not to eat a salt cake, they’d deserve i
t. Don’t worry. I’m sure there was plenty of other things.”

  “I’ve just spent three hours boiling and mashing pumpkins to come up with this mess.”

  Well, we all had a good laugh and started in making apple and pecan pies, light bread, boiling potatoes, carrots and greens, and corn bread for sage dressing. Every time any one of us went to measure the sugar or salt, we stuck a finger in the bowl and tasted it first, to be sure!

  Two big surreys arrived before noon, and spilled out Harland and his children and April and Morris and theirs. True to his word, Harland had brought a crate containing a roast goose, baked yams, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate candy. April had salads and confits and fruit for two feasts. It was a great commotion of love and noise, this ever-growing brood of people who make up my family. As they were putting things in the kitchen, moving furniture around to make room for our bounty, I slipped out front and stared down the road for the hundredth time, hoping for a glimpse of Charlie, risking a fussing-at by Granny for wasting time watching a pot that wouldn’t boil. I put his shirt back in the chest to await his receiving it. The house felt lonesome. I know Charlie will leave home eventually for good, but for now, it still seemed to me that he belonged here on this day if no other.

  We had cheese pies and oranges for lunch, holding off on the big feast for the end of the day. After that, all went out to play baseball; everyone except Savannah and Granny got into the game. As we lined up to hit the ball, I counted noses, then went through the house and caught Mary Pearl on the back porch by herself, frowning at the very air. I said, “First time I’ve seen you alone since Aubrey got home. What’s wrong, honey?” I said. “Are you ailing?”

  “Aunt Sarah, Aubrey says he wants to buy a house for us in town.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, trying to read her face.