What Once We Loved

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “That won't cost him much as long as Adoras there to pluck worms for that rooster and keep his feathers fluffed.”

  “It'll cost him big, just the same. He may not realize it, but he's an empty man. He's keeping himself from sitting at the family table because he has to pass things around, learn to give and take. He'd rather be by himself, eating alone all the time with only his own company.”

  “Where do you come up with those ideas, Mother?”

  “Eatings my passion, Child, don't you know that?” She patted her daughters hand. “Pretty easy to spot someone undernourished when you've been feasting like I have all my life at the table of…risking and giving.”

  Mazy laid down the letter she carried, took Pigs big head in her hands and massaged his jowls, ran her thumbs on the bone between his eyes. He closed them as though asleep. “I didn't know how much I missed you,” she said. “Isn't memory a gift? He had to remember how to get here, to swim rivers, avoid coyotes—”

  “Oh, they wouldn't bother him none,” Elizabeth said.

  “He could have become someone's lunch,” Mazy defended. “You just wanted to get home, didn't you, Pig? Eat at our table.” He opened his eyes at his name, yawned wide, then slurped up at her face. She laughed. How she loved that dog! Someone to talk with, to walk with, to lie across her feet while she wrote at night. Someone to listen. “And Pigs big enough I don't trip over him like I do Davids dog, Chance.”

  “You got people aplenty out there, I'll ponder.”

  Mazy nodded. The numbers of people she gathered around her tired her. She told herself that she wanted to respect David and Oltipa's privacy, suggesting a separate home not unlike the ones she'd built for the Indian workers. Oltipa had given her that squinted-eye look that Mazy had come to recognize as unspoken disagreement. Oltipa appeared to like the bustle of bodies around. Together, she and her Wintu friends wove grass for traditional mats and summer skirts and ground acorns into meal. They chattered in words Mazy didn't understand, laughing. Even when David took his day of rest, there were always others underfoot, not that David complained. So why should Mazy?

  It was, after all, what she'd said she'd wanted. Being helpful to people. Using what she'd been given to make a safe place for others, speaking out because she could.

  But she wanted distance, too. She was a boomerang tossed out to be with people, then swinging back to be alone. Maybe that was just the metaphor of her life.

  “What did Suzanne have to say?” Elizabeth asked.

  “About what?” Mazy asked, looking away from Pig.

  “Where'd your mind go?” Elizabeth asked. She nodded toward the table. “That letter from her you said you got.”

  “Esther must have written it. Looks like she was tired when she did. Kind of a scraggly hand, almost like Seths. Suzanne said she'd miss Pig terribly, but that a dog that made his way that far to find me deserved to be where he felt at home.

  Her mother mumbled agreement, then brought chamomile tea for the two of them. “What else?”

  “I didn't get it all read yet. Just drove on over here, hoping to avoid Charles.” Mazy read to herself. “Well, Naomi is with her. She and her baby. A sickly thing, it sounds like. When she's better, they'll come north.”

  “Well, ponder that.” Elizabeth leaned back in her chair.

  “And if Ruth is willing, Suzanne thinks Naomi should go on north to her.”

  “Could be a chance for you to patch things up with Ruth,” her mother said quietly.

  “They weren't asking me to go. Besides, I wouldn't want to impose myself on Ruth. She's never written.”

  “Might take a little more effort with Ruth. She hasn't had much practice in chewing a thing until it swallows good. I expect she's choked more often than not when things go sour. Made her cautious.”

  Mazy nodded. “I should be bigger, I guess. A loving person would keep trying until the wound healed, wouldn't they?”

  She patted her daughter's hand. Mazy turned back to her letter. Elizabeth stood, checked her oven.

  “Oh, Mother. Listen. They've seen Tipton.”

  “They have? Where?”

  “At a Chinese doctor's. Naomi even knows where she lives in Sacramento.”

  “So Nehemiah was right. She headed toward kin.”

  “I'm not sure…they haven't actually talked with her. But she's there.”

  “Ponder that. Our little Tipton in Sacramento.”

  Pig barked then, and Mazy looked around.

  “You've saved me some travel,” Charles Wilson said, his shoulder pressed against the open doorjamb in his lazy-lounge way.

  “Charles! Eavesdropping. I might have guessed,” Mazy said, folding the letter.

  “Just helping my mother out. Being a good son. She's packed a few more things up for my lovely sister and the…child she'll have. The dear, dear grandchild, as Mother refers to it. Now I don't have to head to Crescent City to deliver them. I can go south.”

  “It doesn't say where she is,” Mazy said.

  “I'm sure my sister will make some dramatic entrance somewhere. Tipton cant thrive long without an audience. I'll find her in Sacramento, all right. Just take a little effort.”

  “Something that will tax you, I'm sure,” Mazy said. For a fleeting moment she was almost glad he knew, that he had somewhere to go far away from her. But when she saw the menacing glint in his eyes, she took back that selfish thought. “You just leave her be, Charles Wilson. Tipton has a right to make her way. Haven't you done enough harm to her? She doesn't need any more of your meddling.”

  “Mrs. Bacon, Mrs. Bacon.” He clucked his tongue. “That's more passion directed my way than I've ever seen from you.” He ran his tongue along his upper lip, smiled. “You can give me a tongue-lashing anytime you choose.”

  She could hardly see straight for the fury his words brought; they burned her to the bone.

  Zane Randolph lifted the iron rod above his head, his breathing deep and labored. Up, down, up, down, sweat beading on his upper lip. He counted in cadence, and each time he reached ten he started over. He glanced at the clock. Stupid Irishman. He was late again. Zane had things to do. He hated waiting. And O'Malley's constant cheeriness was as annoying as the laughter of children playing outside his window. Where was the man? How he hated needing him. Not long. Not for long now.

  Zanes upper body had filled out, rippled with muscle. He noticed the tighter fit of his boiled shirts. After he bathed, he would pause to look at himself in the mirror, the triceps firm, his shoulders wide. Even the pulling and lifting he'd been doing getting in and out of the purple shay had strengthened him.

  But he still needed the Irishman to harness the horse, bring the buggy about. He could get in alone now. Each time he dragged himself onto the seat, he cursed Ruth. Each time he lifted his leg to set it into the peg, he cursed the doctor. It was part of his litany, part of his…worship, as he'd come to think of it. Lifting the iron weight, then lifting their names. It was the ritual way he could live.

  The Stub had healed enough to wear the contraption that went around his waist. “Fits tight as an oak peg, it does,” his keeper had said. “Perfect fit.”

  There was nothing perfect about it.

  He wore it a few hours a day, building up The Stub s endurance. He hadn't walked far on it yet. The crutch troubled him too. It was as plain as his wooden peg. He wanted a cane with a brass handle with a section of brass that could be opened out to act as a seat he could lean on. At the point end, he wanted a brass fitting as well, with room for a thin stiletto to slip under. He'd have a way to sit to rest wherever he was and a ready weapon for self-defense with just a bend toward the floor. It would distract people from The Stub, such an exquisite and unique cane. He'd have it before long. The undertaker who doubled as a wood-carver was making it up special. If the Irishman had done his duty by him, taken it there with his instructions and drawings.

  He set the iron weight bar down. His eye caught the peg contraption laid across his bed. He hat
ed the look of it, this reminder of what once was. He thought of himself as half now, just the upper half of a body. The lower half mutilated and riddled with pain, belonged to someone else, someone who stored the anguish and fury in The Stub. He would unleash it in time, when he “pulled himself together,” as he thought of it, to take care of two people at once.

  He lifted himself with his arms from the bench, stood and hopped toward the window to see if the Irishman approached. The throbbing of The Stub pierced him. Oh, how he hated the pain, almost as much as being told by his keeper that the pain shouldn't be so great now, should have passed on.

  “Just give it a bit of push then, and you can go a little farther each day.”

  “I'm going far enough daily,” Zane growled. “For all I know, there's more infection, into the thigh, and that's why it hurts. Foul doctor takes my foot, my leg, then leaves behind infection.”

  “The wound heals well,” the Irishman said. “'Tis the pain coming from your mind then. Something you can heal if you set your heart to it.”

  Zane growled at him. What did people like the Irishman know of pain anyway? He had two legs. He walked around without the aid of some tree limb rubbing his armpits raw, a chunk of oak as the headstone to his being half a man. What did any of them know?

  He wanted to be agile enough to face Ruth in the spring, to look strong and sturdy, to have a well-cut suit fitted and to drive up in his purple shay, pull up to the hitching post in such a way that she might have forgotten—if that jehu even told her—that he missed a leg. He wouldn't give her the pleasure of knowing what she'd forced him to endure, how he had become half. He returned to his chair, picked up a heavier iron bar, lifted it above his head, then down, combining the weight with his worship.

  He imagined the scene.

  He would drive in with a spirited horse pulling the shay. He'd ask to speak with her from the wide-eyed nephew who would come out to greet him. She would step out. He would sweep his hat off to her, watching the startled look as she saw white hair and beard where there had been dark. He'd see the fear in her eyes with the recognition that his form was before her, powerful, stronger than he'd ever been, running his eyes over her body. Delicious.

  She'd stare, be in shock from seeing him, right there in front of her, oblivious to the wisps of her hair dancing before her eyes.

  He'd look around then at her ranch, her farm, whatever it was she would have. He knew she would have much. He'd seen the mares and yearlings in the corrals when he watched her from a distance, before she ever left Shasta. He'd been inside her house and touched what she surrounded herself with. Yes, she'd gotten their child back, but he knew what her real treasure was: independence. And the horses and land she would have acquired by now gave her that. Or so she thought.

  He would have her, or no one else would.

  He lowered the weight, his whitish chest hair wet with sweat. He reached for a huck towel, wiped himself. White chest hair. Something else to blame Ruth for.

  Once while he rehearsed this scenario, lifting the iron bar, it occurred to Zane that she might just choose to forgo the divorce and act as though it did not matter if she had a paper confirming their separation. He had nearly dropped a weight onto his chest. He'd devised a plan for that as well. No matter what she chose to do, he had a plan to counter it. He was a very clever man.

  He never prepared a delicious dessert without whipped cream to top it off.

  Seth let Mei-Ling's words settle on his shoulders. He had now, for days. He guessed everyone could see it. He was the one with blinders on, not Suzanne. He sat in his room. His bedroll had been rolled up for a week, but he just couldn't seem to leave. He didn't have anywhere to go; but he didn't deserve to stay.

  He could return and check on his investments with Mazy's farm. Maybe go on north into Oregon. Gold strikes there meant monte and roulette, too. Maybe head back East again. But somehow the excitement of riding to the edge of a ridge just for the joy of going over had lost its appeal. It was the thought of Suzanne that gave his heart a race now.

  Fortunately she'd gotten Powder to remain. He wouldn't have wanted to live with the guilt of the tutor's leaving Suzanne in a lurch. She was a hardy soul. She'd make it. She didn't need Seth, and she wouldn't push him just to get her way. She'd been kind and gracious. The most intimate thing she'd spoken of had been wondering if he'd be willing to consider helping with the theater proposition she'd put to him. “I believe I can manage it,” she said. “It might even work into a way to help with Esther's…service. At the very least, whenever you're in town, you'd have front row seats without a worry over the candle wax dripping on your hat.” She'd smiled. She had the most fabulous smile, and she didn't even know it. She couldn't even see herself.

  He swallowed. Was he afraid of being with someone who was… maimed? His stomach churned with the thought of it. Who wasn't maimed in some way? Hers was just out there for the world to see; his was deeper. And she'd seen through him, offered her love to him just as he was. And when he'd left her standing in the dark, she hadn't punished him nor made him feel like the worm he was. No, she'd talked to him of commerce, of making a life, of having some contact with him over time, whatever he'd allow. He didn't deserve such a woman. The candle flickered. He'd told himself he'd cut back that wick. The light would sure be better if he did.

  The knock on his door was followed by Esther poking her head inside. “Naomi is well enough to travel,” she told Seth. “It would be of great help if you would be willing to take her and the baby north to Mazy's. And then on to Ruth's.”

  “I sure want to help Naomi,” he said. “But I don't know beyond that.”

  “It need be only for this one time.”

  “Just one step.”

  Esther nodded. “God gives direction for each step and a light unto our paths. We do not know what will happen with our efforts. But we have chosen to walk this road for now. A greater determination than that is not necessary.”

  “I'll leave first thing in the morning.” He cleared his throat. “I need to find Suzanne.”

  He carried the flickering candle to her room, tapped on the door.

  “Esther?” Suzanne said.

  “No. It's me. Seth.” He came into the darkness where she sat and placed the candle on the table. “I'm leaving in the morning. Taking Naomi.”

  “Oh, good. I know they'll be safe with you. Thank you. I'm sure Esther's grateful too.” She smiled at him.

  “I need to say something to you before I go. About what we talked about.”

  “The theater can wait, Seth. It may just be a dream I've swirled up on a day I've lost my focus.” She chuckled low.

  He put his hand over hers. “Suzanne…I…your hair,” he said, pushing a strand back at the temples, “it's like spun gold.” He ran his fingers down her jaw. “Your face, this man admires. And that smile, that smile invites an artist's brush.” He touched her lips and felt her shiver. “And your heart fans this man's fire.”

  Her lips parted, she started to speak.

  “I made a mistake, Suzanne. I wasn't thinking, haven't been thinking clearly for a long time.”

  “It's all right. We can—”

  “My mistake was in not telling you that I love you. I love you, Suzanne.”

  Her mouth opened and closed slowly like a worn clasp of a treasured necklace.

  “I have no right to seek your love, none at all. I can't promise you a predictable life, but I'll promise you a life where you are loved beyond measure. I'll be devoted to you and your boys. I want a wife, a family. I want you.”

  She tried again to speak. “My…vision…it's…won't…?”

  “I'm blowing out the candle, Suzanne,” Seth said. “So we'll begin at the same level of light.”

  Suzanne gasped, then reached, touching his chest. “I'm trying to focus on your face.” He could feel her breath on his cheek. “Am I looking up high enough?

  He took her hand in his and kissed the palm. “Perfectly,” he said.


  “Did you…did you just make that poem up?” she asked. “The one about an artists brush?”

  “I've been writing that poem my whole life long,” he said as his finger removed her dark glasses. He bent to kiss her. “You just helped me say it out loud.”

  Tipton groaned on the bed, holding her belly. She'd been ironing when the ache overcame her like an ocean wave rising, then lapping the shore. She panted and turned onto her side. “Not now, Baby. Not yet.” Was she supposed to rub her belly or not rub it when she felt this pain? She couldn't remember. The only birthing she'd been around had been Suzanne's delivering Sason back on the trail. What had they done then? Nothing, really. She and Mariah had just sat and talked while the women tended Suzanne, brought that baby into the world. Suzanne couldn't have done it alone. Tipton hadn't been all that interested except to remember the discussions she and Tyrell used to have about children, how many of their own they had wanted. Everything at that birth kept reminding her of Tyrell, his memory so fresh and fragile. She'd gone away in her mind when it became too painful. But she'd kept herself from the laudanum when Sason arrived. She wondered if she could deliver this baby alone.

  The pain subsided and she waited to see if there would be another wave of it, but nothing happened. She had been straining with the twelve-pound iron. Men's pants needed that much ironed-weight for the pointed crease. Flaubert, the actor, insisted she use the heaviest irons. They tired her more than the washing. But he often stopped by and sometimes pushed the irons himself. He could make her laugh when he recited lines from the plays he was in. Once or twice, she helped him rehearse scenes. She thought he might be a little taken with her, and while she didn t encourage him, neither did she send him away.

  She heard rustling next door. The walls were as thin as spring ice. She wasn't sure who that neighbor was. She rarely saw him. He slept during the days and was gone at night. A gambler perhaps. She had no idea what he must have thought she did on the other side of their shared wall.