Saffron

by Cindy Caldwell

  “We told Rose that you were all dirty and she wanted to see.” Lily covered her mouth and pointed at Saffron’s apron.

  Rose held her hand to her chest and laughed. “My goodness, they weren’t exaggerating, either. You should see your face.”

  Saffron’s stomach pinched as her hand flew to her cheek. She could feel the dried mud and groaned, wondering what she would see when she finally got hold of a mirror. “There was nothing I could do, really. Adam ran over a puddle and I happened to be in the road and...”

  “I can imagine,” Rose interrupted. “Adam?” Her eyebrows rose as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Who’s Adam?” Rose’s husband and the teacher at the school, Michael, placed his bowler hat on his head and pulled the tall, wooden door to the schoolhouse closed, jiggling the latch to make sure it was secure.

  “I meant Mr. Benson. The father of those two young boys who just left.”

  Michael looked up and smiled at Saffron, his eyes wide.

  “Don’t ask,” Saffron said as she pulled the strings of her bonnet.

  He laughed and put his arm around his wife. “All right, then. But he’s not their father. He’s their brother.”

  It was Saffron’s turn to be surprised. “Brother?” She frowned and turned back toward town as if she might see him again to confirm his age.

  “Yes. He’s younger than he looks, I guess, and is new to town. I don’t imagine he’s that much older than you are, Saffron.”

  “Let’s go, Saffron.” Lucy grabbed Saffron’s hand and began to pull her toward the mercantile where her mother was waiting. “Mama always has a sweet for us after school. I want it.”

  Lily took Saffron’s other hand and spun her around, pulling her toward town. Over her shoulder, she smiled at her sister and brother-in-law and said, “I guess I’m leaving. I’ll see you Sunday for dinner at the ranch.”

  “We’ll be there,” Rose said as she laughed, waving as the girls drug Saffron away.

  “Thank you for coming to fetch us, Saffron, but it isn’t very far to the mercantile. Why can’t we just walk there after school?” Lily pulled Saffron a little further into the street. “Don’t step in the puddle.”

  “She already did,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “Why can’t we walk by ourselves? We’re big girls now.”

  Saffron smiled at the twins’ idea that they were big now. Barely six years old, she wouldn’t let them walk to the mercantile alone either if they were her children. She remembered her younger sisters when they were six and they were a handful, too. No telling what they’d get into alone. “I know she loves you very much and I think she enjoys walking to the schoolhouse every day. But I bet that someday she will think that’s a fine idea.”

  “What will I think is a fine idea?” Suzanne said as the bell on the mercantile door sounded.

  “Lucy and Lily were just telling me that they’re old enough to walk home alone from school.” Saffron walked the girls over to the counter where Suzanne had laid out cookies and milk for the girls. They each hopped on a stool and grabbed a cookie.

  Suzanne turned around from the shelf she’d been stocking, her chin dropping as she stared at Saffron. “What...”

  “It’s funny, isn’t it, Mama? Saffron fell in a mud puddle and then she got splashed from a buggy.” Lily popped the last of her cookie in her moth.

  “Lily!” Suzanne frowned at her daughter, and then looked back at Saffron, her eyes concerned. They softened when she heard Saffron laugh.

  “Don’t worry, Suzanne. I think it’s funny, too. If I had been paying attention, I might have avoided it.”

  “Honestly, Saffron, if you had a penny for every time someone wanted to give you one for your thoughts, you’d be a wealthy woman.”

  Saffron sighed. It wasn’t the first time someone had mentioned that. But she had lots of things to think about, and what harm did it cause? Well, besides a muddy apron and a skinned knee here or there.

  Through a mouth full of cookie, Lucy said, “We are old enough, Mama. Lots of the children at school walk home afterward. Almost everybody but the Benson boys.”

  Suzanne crossed behind the counter and leaned against the table behind it. “You are the youngest children in the school. Still in your first primer. There’ve been so many people new to town that I don’t know.”

  “The Benson boys are older? Certainly they could walk home,” Saffron said. “Or maybe you don’t know them, either.”

  “Oh, I do,” Suzanne said. “They come in sometimes with their older brother. That’s quite a story, that one.”

  Saffron’s ears perked up, although she wasn’t sure why. “He’s the cause of my mud bath earlier. At least he stopped and pulled me out of the puddle.”

  “Oh, my.” Suzanne tried to hide her smile.

  “All right. I know it’s funny. How did he come to Tombstone?”

  “He’s a skilled farrier, some say the best in southern Arizona Territory. From what I understand, his father trained him, up in South Dakota.”

  “Why the change? If they had an established business...”

  Suzanne looked down at the twins and smiled. “Girls, why don’t you run over to the office and say hello to Papa? He’s missed you, too.”

  The girls climbed down from the stools and raced to the back of the mercantile. Suzanne’s husband’s laugh boomed and Saffron imagined them climbing onto James’s lap.

  “It’s such a sad story. He shared it with us himself, and said he didn’t mind how many people knew. Said it stopped awkward questions for him, anyway. An interesting way to head gossip off at the pass.”

  “Awkward questions?” Saffron couldn’t imagine what might be awkward. If he was such a talented farrier and had learned at his father’s knee...

  “What he told me was that his parents were killed in an accident, much like my and Sadie’s parents. Very sudden, a shock to everyone.” Suzanne’s eyes misted and she turned to look out the window. “Thank goodness Sadie and I were grown when our parents died, but he...he’s taken to raising his younger brothers. Moved here to get a fresh start, not have to be in the place where they’d all been happy.”

  Saffron’s chest tightened. She’d lost her own mother not long ago, but couldn’t imagine what it must be like not to have her Papa and Maria and her brother and sisters. It must be awful. “Oh, I’m so sorry for him. He’s moved here to raise his two younger brothers. Very admirable of him.”

  “And a sister, too.” Lily poked her head around one of the tables holding potatoes and rice.

  Suzanne turned toward her daughter and shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, that’s right. He doesn’t talk much about her.”

  Lily wrapped her arms around her mother’s skirts. “They don’t like to talk about her. She stays home, but they do wish she could come to school to visit.”

  Saffron knelt down and asked Lily, “Why can’t she?”

  “I don’t know,” Lily said. “Maybe it’s because she can’t walk.”

  Chapter 4

  Adam Benson sighed as he led the horses up the road toward what was their new home. The single month that he, Carol and the boys had lived here at once seemed painfully long and short at the same time. Everything had happened so quickly and once he’d made up his mind, he’d bought the house sight unseen as Tombstone seemed to be a growing place, one he could ply his trade. Lots of horses needed farriers and Tombstone didn’t have many people to meet that need, so he packed them all up and left in a hurry. He winced at the thought of his parents’ funeral, the red eyes of his brothers and sister and the sudden awareness that he was the only family they had now. He had to make it work.

  Tombstone didn’t seem to be a bad place. He pushed his hat back and looked up at the clear blue sky, the sun warming his face. He’d guided the horses around several mud puddles from the recent rain and cringed at the thought of ruining that young woman’s dress. What was her name? Saffron? Saffron Archer. He wondered if she was any relation to the folks at Archer R
anch where he had an appointment to check their horses’ hooves and see if they wanted to hire him.

  As the buggy bumped over the ruts in the road, he looked up at the clapboard, two-story house that he’d been able to buy with what his parents had left after the accident. It was smaller than what they’d had in South Dakota but he’d really liked the porch and had already built a swing, where Carol might be able to sit out of an evening. The thought made him smile.

  To the left of the tall front door with brushed glass, past the wrap-around porch that he’d fixed up with the boys over the past weekends, the lace curtain twitch. His heart tugged at Carol’s broad smile and bright, blue eyes as she watched them approach.

  The early spring sun glinted off the windowpane as the lace curtain fell back into place and the excited face disappeared. She would be missing the spring flowers that their mother always had in front of their old house, filling the inside with bouquets. Maybe he could get around to that next year.

  The reins grew cold in his hands as he pulled up to the house, his brothers jumping out as soon as he pulled to a stop.

  “Hey, boys, not so fast. You’ve got chores to do, remember?” he called after them.

  Luke poked his head back out the door before closing it. “We will, Adam. You know we will. We just want to say hello to Carol first.”

  He stomped his boots before he went inside, laughter floated through the open window. Luke, in rapid-fire speech, was telling Carol all about what had happened at school and she ate it up. Andy tried to break in and tell his sister some stories of his own, and it soon became a clamor for Carol’s attention. She’d always had that effect on their entire household. Everybody wanted to please her. Including him—especially now.

  “And then Adam splashed mud all over some pretty girl. She was covered head to toe, even on her face,” Luke said, waving his hands as he spoke.

  Andy laughed. “You should have seen Adam apologize. It was...”

  “It was what?” Adam said as he entered the parlor and hung his hat up on the rack. “It’s not as if I did it on purpose.”

  Carol’s eyes sparkled. “No, and that’s what makes it so funny. I bet you were horrified. Especially if she was pretty,” she teased.

  Their eyes met, and Adam turned away. “Was she pretty? I didn’t even notice. I don’t think I even remember her name.”

  “Saffron Archer,” Luke said. “And you know she was pretty. Even with mud all over her face.”

  As the laughter died down and the heat in Adam’s ears calmed, Carol’s voice grew soft. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  Adam couldn’t chance looking at her again, her voice sounded so sad. “Luke and Andy, time to do your chores so you can come back inside with Carol. Maybe then you can play a game or something. I won’t be gone long.” He knew he sounded gruff, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice. He lifted his hat from the rack and shoved it on his head, closing the door behind him harder than he’d meant to.

  Adam hung his head after he’d climbed back into the buggy. He took his hat off and rubbed his hand through his hair. He closed his eyes, silently asking for strength. And probably forgiveness. He was doing the best he knew how.

  Chapter 5

  Saffron unhitched the buggy and put the horses away, all as if in a dream. How was it that someone wouldn’t be able to walk?

  She plodded slowly from the stables toward the house. In the arena, Hank stood in the center, holding the lead of a horse she’d never seen before. He held onto his hat as the brown pony circled around him in a run. She smiled, glad that his business was going so well and that he and Clara were happy.

  She leaned against the stable for a moment and looked up into the mesquite trees, surprised again that they had new sprouts. The smell of wet earth wasn’t unwelcome to her as she’d spent many, many hours in her mother’s herb and vegetable garden, before she died and after, with her twin sister Sage, and her fingers twitched at the thought of plowing them into the earth and pulling out winter’s weeds. It would soon be time to plant spring and summer plants—if it wasn’t already past time and she’d missed it.

  A lizard skittered ahead of her and up onto the side of the barn. She’d never quite understood how they could stay on a wall like that, but she stopped to watch as he settled in a patch of sunlight on top of a post and basked in the warm sun. He was probably glad it was spring, too.

  A hawk screeched above her and she held her hand over her eyes and looked up. She turned to the rustle of new, green leaves of one of the trees lining the driveway, fascinated at the thread a dull, gray dove had in its mouth. Ready to build nests for babies already. Yes, everyone was waking up from the cold of winter. It was time to be outside again.

  “Careful, Saffron. You’re so far away you might fall down again and get your apron even dirtier.”

  Saffron blinked and looked up. She stood in front of her mother’s garden, the low adobe wall serving as best it could to keep out scavengers. Her twin sister’s eyes twinkled in the afternoon sun and Saffron smiled. She’d almost passed the garden without even noticing. Leave it to Sage to make sure she didn’t.

  “I didn’t see you there,” Saffron said, her eyes drawn to the pile of weeds growing in the corner.

  “I suppose you didn’t see me, either.” Clara, her sister-in-law, peeked from around the corner where she was tending her corner of the garden.

  Saffron sighed. “No, I didn’t see you either. I was...”

  “Deep in thought. I know.” Sage laughed, her hands on her back as she stretched. “What is it about this time?”

  Saffron opened the gate and walked inside the garden, closing it behind her and sitting on the wall. She tugged at her bonnet strings and pulled it off, shaking her soft, brown hair.

  Clara set down her trowel and crossed the garden, sitting down beside Saffron. She put her hand on her arm and said, “Are you all right?”

  Saffron smiled and patted Clara’s hand. “Yes, I’m fine, just a little perplexed. I met someone new today and...”

  Sage clapped her hands and said, “I knew it. I knew you’d meet someone next.”

  Her brow furrowed, Saffron looked up at her sister. “What? Oh, no, nothing of the sort. I mean, well, I did meet someone who was a man, but that’s not what I’m perplexed about.”

  Clara whistled. “Whew. I’m glad we don’t have to have that conversation. So what are you perplexed about.”

  “Sage, you might actually be able to help. I had thought to look something up in Papa’s library, but I’m not sure he’d have medical books that would speak of it.”

  Sage frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. “Medical books? What do you need with those? Are you ill?”

  “Oh, no. I’d better just say it before you both get too worried. I met a man today—actually he’s the one who splashed mud on me—but apparently he’s new in town. He has two younger brothers and a younger sister, and Lily and Lucy told me that she couldn’t walk. And maybe that’s why she doesn’t come to school.” Sage twirled the ties of her bonnet in her fingers.

  “Goodness. That must be difficult for her parents.” Clara took her bonnet off and fanned herself with the brim.

  “That’s the saddest part. Their parents were killed not long ago, and he’s moved to Tombstone to start over, and to raise them.” Yes, it was a sad situation, but Saffron was surprised at the strength of the pull on her heart.

  “Oh, my,” Sage said. “That doesn’t sound good at all. How old is she?”

  Saffron shook her head. “I’ve not met her. All I know is that she is unable to come to school, and that is sad for anyone. There’s so much to learn, to see.”

  “And you’re wondering what happened to her? Not something you could ask?” Clara brushed back a lock of her red hair off her forehead with her sleeve. “That would be the simplest way to find out.

  “Oh, no. That wouldn’t do. I don’t even know these people. I’m just...curious. What must it be like not to be able to walk
? Not to go where you want to go, to see new things and to be reliant on someone else. It sounds awful.”

  Sage wiped her hands on her apron. “If you’d like, I can ask Dr. Hubbard when next I go to volunteer. I’m hoping Papa will let me go more often, and I’m due to go again soon. How wonderful would it be to be a doctor?”

  Saffron and Clara exchanged glances, and Clara said, “Personally, I can’t tolerate the sight of blood and you can have it all to yourself. However, I don’t think it’s possible for you. Not in this town, although I hear there are some women doctors in the bigger cities.”

  “I suppose someone would know, but if you have the opportunity, could you ask? What kinds of things could make that happen? I know an accident could, but maybe there are some other things that I don’t know about.” Saffron stood and walked back through the gate.

  “I’ve also heard that there are some childhood diseases that can cause that to happen,” Clara said as she stood also and placed her bonnet snugly back on, fastening the ties underneath her chin. “I read about it when I lived in Chicago. There are more people there so maybe it happens more often?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that, but I’ll see what I can find out. Wait, aren’t you going to help us? Maria said we had to get this cleaned out as quickly as possible, before it’s too late to plant.”

  “I’d really like to. I know you don’t want to get on the bad side of Maria, but I have to get these apples up to her. She’s been waiting and I was gone longer than I should be.”

  Sage laughed and her hands fell to her hips. “What apples?”

  Saffron looked down at her empty hands and gasped, turning and running toward the house.

  Chapter 6

  How could she possibly have forgotten the apples? She’d left Suzanne to pick up the twins just to give Suzanne time to get them ready. And then she’d walked out without a thing.