Listen to the Mockingbird

by Penny Rudolph

  “Do I have to be one or the other?” My father had been a staunch Abolitionist, but I knew that here Anglo sentiments tilted toward Atlanta.

  “Matty, you got to pay attention,” he said, leaning forward in mock solicitation. “The Convention of the People of Arizona was held right here. The folks of the Mesilla Valley and the mining companies up around Piños Altos decided to send Dan Wilbur to Alabama to ask the Confederate States of America to admit us as a Territory. The line will run right below Socorro all the way to California.” When he said “Confederate States of America” it sounded like the bass notes on a church organ.

  “But what about Fillmore?” That Union fortress was only a few miles away.

  He chuckled. “We’ll give them enough mountain oysters to fry.” Mountain oysters were the private parts removed from bull calves. Jamie reddened a little but didn’t beg my pardon.

  I ignored it, my mind beginning to paw at something. “And the Indians?”

  “Dixie, luv. Dixie will protect us. Dixie will administer law and justice.”

  Slowly it came to me that this could mean many things—that I would be living in another country, for one. But more importantly, if there was war men would die, and no one would question that a lieutenant in the dragoons might well perish in a battle. My eyes flicked distractedly over the boxes of paper along the walls, the cans and trays that held the metal letters.

  Jamie’s forehead furrowed into shiny, quizzical wrinkles. “You look right flummoxed, Matty.”

  “It’s just that you sound like a political broadside.”

  Laughter started deep in his throat and his eyes twinkled. “Look here.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a flat piece of metal. I had watched him set type once, so I knew what it was. He pushed it across the desk toward me.

  There was the image of a banner waving and the words Our Flag backward, like in a mirror. More reversed words below were in short lines, like a poem. I raised my eyes to Jamie’s.

  He peered at me over the spectacles that always rested on the end of his nose. “That, there, is the Stars and Bars of the Confederate States of America. Texas pulled out of the Union. Now the Yankees have gone and fired on us. Our boys were just minding their own business, and the Yanks started shooting off cannons!” His smile was as bright as the light bouncing off his bald head. He drummed his fingers on the desk and broke into a lively whistling of “Dixie.”

  Mind racing, I fidgeted with the handle on my brocade bag. Did this mean that when the fighting was over I could go home? It would only require one more falsehood; and after so many, what was one more? I drew in my breath and let it out slowly. “This may be very good news, indeed.”

  “It is, Matty, it is.”

  I paused to consider it more then remembered what had brought me to his office. “You know anything about a stranger in the area?” Jamie’s eyebrows rose. “A man came by to ask my leave to live in the caves. Not a ruffian. Looks Mexican but doesn’t talk like it. Someone must have told him the cuevas were on my land.”

  Jamie shrugged. “I heard there was some priest or holy man or some such fella.” My eyes must have widened because he patted my arm soothingly. “Sounds harmless enough. Hard on shoe leather, though. Walks everywhere. No horse, not even a burro. Hear tell he’s a healer of some sort.”

  “That must be him,” I said and got to my feet.

  “Before you go, you hear about Joel Tolhurst?”

  “What about him?” Joel was a Baptist preacher, a missionary. A good man, I suppose, but sort of stiff and disapproving; and I can’t say I liked him much. His wife Isabel ran the mission school. The white women in town, their virtue as rigid as the stays in their corsets, were mighty curious about me. No doubt they thought I’d earned my money as a strumpet and planned to turn the ranch into a bordello. Isabel had tried every conceivable gambit to maneuver me into talking about my past.

  “Joel’s in a bad way,” Jamie said. “Real bad. Ate his dinner, went into the parlor, sat down to read the Bible and never got up. Not by himself, anyway.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Not yet, but I reckon he’s good as.”

  I thanked him for all the news and moved toward the door, half ashamed for not telling him about the dead Mexican boy. Jamie’s intentions would have been the best, but I didn’t want anyone poking about in my life.

  “Mark my words,” he called after me. “This will be the Confederate Territory of Arizona.”

  I took my leave, beginning to hope he was right. But that was Jamie. He could make you want the rope at your own hanging.

  Fanny lowered her nose and watched me approach. Turning her toward the ranch, I let her have her head as soon as we were out of town. A gust of wind whipped at my face and tore the leather thong from my hair, which was now the color of rabbit grass after a rain—a red that’s almost brown. I still troubled to care for it, had brushed it properly and braided it that morning; but it would be full of knots by the time I got home.

  Racing into the wind, I didn’t have to hide my thoughts. Surely there would be no fighting west of the Mississippi. But suppose there was. My heart leapt in my chest. I might be able to go home. Really home. To St. Louis.

  I was still muttering to myself when the ranch hove in sight. The sunset was painting the organ peaks crimson. It was easy to see how the mountains had got their name; they resembled nothing so much as the massive pipes of a cathedral organ. The sight quite made my breath catch.

  Fanny was anxious to get to her feed. I swung down from the saddle and followed her. She was barely inside the dim barn before she made a sharp sound and tried to turn back.

  I was putting a puzzled hand on her flank to calm her when something hard slammed across my shoulders. Another blow rammed the back of my head and I sank like a stone.

  Chapter Four

  I opened my eyes slowly. Fanny stood above me, her breath hot on my neck. A faint ugly smell crept up my nostrils. Confounded that I must have been sleeping in the barn, I lifted my head, picked a strand of straw from my cheek. A white pain erupted behind my eyes.

  The lump on my head was the size of a jay’s egg. Someone had coshed me from behind. Who? How long had I been lying there?

  Steeling myself against the pounding in my skull, I dragged my aching body upright and hobbled to the door. The sun was still high. A saw rasped at wood somewhere nearby but nothing untoward seemed to be stirring. Who had hit me? Was he still lurking in the barn?

  I twisted my neck to look back across the barn, and a wave of dizziness lapped at my senses. Something dark swam into focus, something lying on the hay like a strewn heap of dirty laundry. It was a moment before my dazed mind recollected the dead Mexican boy. Had his killer come back for me?

  The odor was ripening, and I almost retched. Then a chill pricked across my scalp. The body’s chin was in the hay. I could see the blood-matted hair on the back of the head where the bullet had rammed through. But I had turned him over, hoping he somehow still lived. Nacho would not have touched him. Nor the hands. And most assuredly the boy had not turned himself back prone again. My breath seemed like a dead thing in my throat.

  Why had he been carrying a map of my land? And why in a pouch tied round his neck, as if it were especially dear? A rancid fog of panic wrapped itself about my soul. I could not live like this. No lady could. I squeezed my eyes hard shut, and a salty tear drizzled down my cheek to my lips.

  I steadied myself against the barn door, drew my wits about me as best I could, raised my chin and stepped outside.

  Nacho and the hands had finished the coffin. They had seen no stranger hanging about. Nor had Herlinda. All were dumbfounded that someone had struck me down in the barn.

  My head still pounding, I tried to puzzle it out; but my mind rebelled. I couldn’t bring myself to think about it. Like as not, I had surprised a drifter in the act of stealing some tack. I sent the men back to work. The boy had to be buried as soon as possible.

  In t
he kitchen, I ladled some water into a pan, dipped a towel in it and held it to my head. After a time the pain gave way to numbness. I gave my face a good wash and went back outside.

  Fanny was munching hay, still saddled, near the barn doors. I took the reins, thrust myself onto her back and set out for the cuevas, keeping her at a slow gait to appease the ache that drummed in my head each time her hooves hit the ground.

  I had ducked to peer into the cave’s darkness when Tonio Bernini’s face suddenly appeared around a rock, just inches from mine.

  “Pardon me,” I faltered, backing away.

  “Good afternoon.” He stepped into the sun.

  I backed two more steps then drew myself up. “Have you been up to the ranch today?”

  He frowned and shook his head.

  “Have you seen anyone? Anyone who doesn’t belong here?”

  He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I expect I wouldn’t know whether someone belonged or not. Why?”

  “No matter.” I leveled my gaze at him. “I’ve heard you are a priest.”

  His eyes bored into mine, then strayed above my head. “Sorry. I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

  I studied his face. It was full of something I could not read. “Beg pardon.” I turned to go.

  “Have you need of a priest?”

  “The boy—I thought it fitting to have a service. Sorry to have bothered you.” I moved toward where I’d left Fanny.

  “As it happens, I do know the service.” I turned back. His face was almost empty now. “I was in seminary once.”

  999

  A clod of clay thunked the top of the narrow coffin.

  The flute felt cold and heavy in my hand. My lips and fingers were wooden with the weight of the time that had passed since I last held it. The casket gleaned from scraps of wood seemed unutterably apart from the group gathered around it, and the wind-scoured range a cheerless place for a spirit to begin its journey toward the next world.

  Thirteen of us clustered under an old scrub oak. When I counted, the number made my skin prickle as though someone had tread on my own grave. But I shook off the feeling, not much one for superstition. Thirteen, and not one of us had known the boy alive.

  My eyes rested for a moment on Nacho’s bowed head. Next to him, on her knees but back straight, head thrust up, face wearing a profound sadness, was Herlinda. Mexican women have a gift for mourning. Their sons, Ruben and Julio, albeit a bit unsteady on their feet and smelling of whiskey, stood obediently, with eyes closed. The Lujan boys might have been a trifle rowdy from time to time, but they were good hands.

  Homer Durkin, a rawboned man with slicked-down hair, had planted his feet apart, as if someone might try to knock him down. His head was hunched down between his shoulders, like one trying hard to show proper respect for the dead. At Homer’s elbow, Eliot Turk stood as tall as his scant frame would allow, dark face held high, eyes closed, looking peaceful as a monk in chapel. Buck Mason towered over Eliot, eyes staring blankly at the coffin, a battered felt hat grasped tightly as a lifeline and held to his heart. I always thought Buck wasn’t quite right in the head, but Nacho said he was strong and willing and that was good enough for me.

  A small knot of Indian women clustered near, but not with, Herlinda. Two looked to have no more than twenty years between them; the third, mouth open showing absent teeth, was getting on. They swayed a little in unison, no doubt having a word with their own Great Spirit as we prayed to ours.

  I glanced again at the casket, ineffably lonely perched next to its rocky grave; and once more wondered who had done this. Killings were common in these parts. Not a year went by without a dozen men meeting their Maker forthwith in a tavern brawl or a quarrel over water or grass. But most times the culprit was known. This one was like a riddle. It could be anyone, someone I knew, even someone on the ranch.

  My eyes flicked back over the small group. There had been blood on that wretched face at my window, but the man had been fit enough to quickly get himself to safety.

  Obviously, it could not be Nacho. Julio and Ruben shared the broad features of most Mexicans in the area, and I knew their faces too well not to recognize them. The man was dark but not Mexican. I was sure of that. Homer’s hair was red, and Buck’s complexion was fair. Eliot’s was dark, but his nose and mouth were delicate, almost like those of a woman, more like those of the boy killed. And that awful face was bloodied from a wound somewhere about the forehead.

  Just the same, I scanned the men around the grave yet again. All looked to have scoured themselves with lye soap for the funeral. All had hair combed straight back, still looking damp. No sign of a fresh scar anywhere. No, that face belonged to no one here.

  But was one of them part of some scheme that had led to this?

  I chewed on that for a time, but it didn’t seem likely. The hands seldom left the ranch except on Saturday nights. And I’d often heard tell they wasted no time getting too drunk to do anything but lose their pay at poker. No, shootings hereabouts were done by one man in his cups or enraged to madness or a gang of outlaws bent on thieving.

  Except this time.

  And what about Tonio Bernini? His voice now telling the scripture was like warm, buttery rum. It half-coaxed me to believe there was a God; and that this poor, dead, unknown boy would soon be looking into His face. I could not imagine this man shooting a young boy in the back. Besides, he could hardly have expected me to search him, and I had found no gun.

  At the “amen,” I raised the flute, closed my eyes and breathed into it the first bars of “Lo, How a Rose.” The notes were clumsy and thick. My vision blurred with tears—whether for the boy or for myself I could not say—but something seemed to ease in me and the hymn floated plaintively over the emptiness of the desert.

  999

  We had just finished after-supper cleanup when a horse clattered to a halt, and I opened my front door to find a round face, cheeks pinker than ever in the lamplight, bushy eyebrows high.

  “Jamie!” A kernel of alarm stirred in my innards as it always did at anything unexpected. Jamie seldom came to the ranch. I always visited him in town.

  He followed me to the kitchen, where I hesitated between the coffee and tea. Tea was terribly dear at three dollars a pound, and our stock was nearly depleted; but Jamie was just about my only real friend and he had a passion for tea, so I brought out the pot. The cook-stove was still warm. I took a dried horse-pie from the gunnysack, opened the iron door and chucked it onto the embers.

  “Have you heard something?” I asked him. “Will the Confederacy take us on?”

  “That they will, my girl. How else can they get to the Pacific? They’re in great need of a port; and our mining is no mean attraction, either. We do not go to them empty-handed. But I don’t look to hear from Wilbur for another week.” Jamie folded his plump hands on the plank table.

  I tossed a careful measure of tea into the pot.

  “Ah, Matty, I was hopin’ for tea. You spoil an old man.” He watched me watch the pot, and I must have looked as melancholy as I felt. “You seem glum, lass. Are things not going well?”

  I told him of the murdered boy, feeling vaguely guilty that I hadn’t told him earlier.

  “Sure enough an unfortunate happening,” Jamie said. “Wouldn’t let it worry me too much, though. Like as not some fool got a snootful of whiskey and decided he had some reason to hunt that Mexican kid down.”

  “Zeke seemed to think it was my fault, somehow. He claims it wouldn’t have happened if I was a man. Says he aims to keep a closer eye on the ranch.”

  “Ah, Zeke sometimes has suet for brains,” Jamie sighed. “I expect he only means to give you some protection.”

  “He’s a mean-minded dolt! The last thing in the world I want is anything he would call protection.” I surprised both of us by slamming a fist onto the table, causing the teacups to jitter about in their saucers.

  Jamie was eyeing me with obvious shock at my outburst. “Easy, girl,” he said
as if I were a half-broke horse he wanted to gentle. “Easy. What has put such a burr under that lovely saddle?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, bringing the heel of my hand to my temple and holding it there. “I’m not myself today. But I don’t need Zeke’s help, Jamie. I’m perfectly safe…except…” I wouldn’t have left it like that if the funeral that morning hadn’t somehow kept me weary all day. I didn’t want to think about disagreeable things any more.

  “Except what?”

  “That day I stopped by to see you, when I got back to the ranch someone was in the barn. He hit me over the head, knocked me clean out.”

  “Dear Jesus!” Jamie said, covering his mouth as if trying to prevent himself from saying more.

  “No, no. It didn’t amount to much. I’m all right. Really. I figure it was just a drifter stealing tack. I surprised him so he conked me and took off.”

  Jamie held my eyes as if trying to decide both whether that was true and whether I believed it. After bouncing the bowl of the teaspoon in front of him up and down on the table a few times, he asked, “How happy are you with this ranch, Matty?”

  I stared at him. “Why?”

  “It’s a business proposition I have for you.”

  “That right?” The kettle was steaming; I got up to retrieve it.

  “Fella come to see me this afternoon wants to buy your land.”

  The tea I was pouring into the china cup in front of Jamie sloshed past the saucer and onto the table as hope exploded inside me. If I could get enough for the ranch now…I strove to quell my eagerness, put the pot down and mopped up the spill. When I felt my voice would be steady, I asked, “At what price?”