by Diane Noble
I caught my breath, wondering if he might be angry at my honesty. Instead, he threw back his head and let out a booming, rumbling laugh. “Aye, lassie mine. You are speakin’ the truth more like your grandmomma every day I know you.”
I was dumbfounded. “I am?” I managed.
“Has it occurred to you that our heavenly Father, knowing you and knowing me, knowing our need for friendship and honesty, planned this time for our coming together? From the beginning of time, perhaps he planned it.”
Quick tears stung my eyes.
“He knows our heartaches and sorrows and search for truth. Our search for answers to heartbreaking questions.” He paused, nodding slowly, as if speaking only as the thoughts came to him. “Perhaps—and truly, we cannot know the thinking of God—but perhaps, just perhaps, he’s brought us together to help us both on our journeys.”
“Father Micheil,” I said. “I do believe you’re right about your calling.”
His eyes filled. “If only I could believe it.”
“You must. With his strength, you must.” I gazed into his eyes solemnly.
He led me back to the wagon and helped me in, and we drove toward the adobe ranch house. With great pride, he told me about the workings of the ranch as we crossed the range, the numbers of ranch hands and the size of the herd, as we drove over the rounded hills and scrubby flatland. His eyes shone with delight as he told me how he’d worked with Welsie to turn the ranch into a working enterprise, profitable from hides, tallow, and beef. He explained that though he was overseer, his trusted foreman was in charge of the everyday workings.
We parked the wagon from time to time and strolled across the property as Micheil told me about leftover herds of Texas longhorn, the newer species from Brazil, the vaqueros that rode with them. We stopped at the top of a bluff and looked down on the sweep of brown, short grass. Not a steer or calf could be seen.
“The mystery you mentioned earlier. There’s not a cow in sight.”
Laughing, he pointed toward a double-humped rise in the distance. “Saddleback Mountain, the namesake of your ranch,” he said, “The vaqueros take the herds up there to higher ground where feed is more plentiful. Helps the depleted range restore its growth. Helps the cattle fatten for market. It’s our pattern every summer.”
He turned back to me. “That’s why I can spend time at the mission this time of year,” he said. He raised a brow. “And gardening with you at Welsie True’s.”
“And when the herds are back?”
He followed my gaze to the adobe ranch house and beyond. “Ah, lass. ’Tis always a dilemma. This is my home, where I live, where I spend most of my days during branding or when we’re slaughtering, readying for shipment.
“We move the cattle by train to the Midwest, though I don’t travel with the ranch hands. My foreman goes to market with the herd, settles on the price—with my approval, of course.
“But as for me, my time in town is over for a season. I’m needed here.”
Before we climbed back into the wagon, he disappeared into the barn at the rear of the ranch house. Minutes later he returned and held out a block of oak, seasoned and ready for the working.
His eyes were warm as he laid the piece in my arms. “ ’Tis time to rebuild what was destroyed,” he said.
Micheil halted the wagon in front of the cottage, then walked around the vehicle to help me to the ground. The wind blew off the ocean, rattling the shutters and sending rose petals skittering across the garden. The wind tangled his graying hair, and I gazed into his worn and lined face, knowing that someday our journeys would turn and I would be left with only his image in my memory. Something pressed against my heart at such a loss.
He inclined his head almost as if understanding my thoughts, then turned back to the wagon. He had just hoisted himself to the seat when Nando called to me from across the road. I waved hello as he hurried toward me.
“Señora, señora,” he cried breathlessly. “Someone was here to see you. Asking for you, saying your name many times as he banged on your door.”
My heart began pumping too hard, which made it difficult to breathe. “Did he leave his name?” I exchanged a worried glance with Micheil, who was hurrying toward me.
“No, señora,” Nando said. “We were afraid for you, so told him nothing.”
Micheil stood very near me now, and I breathed a bit easier. “Did he say he would return?” I asked the boy.
“No, señora. Mi mamá told him the woman who lived there was dead. Died many days ago. I don’t think the man will return.” He hesitated. “Mi mamá said she didn’t care for the look in the man’s eyes. He did not seem to be su amigo.”
I grabbed hold of the picket gate to steady myself. Could it have been Zeb … or his agent? Someone who’d come to take me home?
“Are you all right, señora?”
The wind whipped frantically around us, bending limbs on the pepper tree and tearing leaves from the rosebushes. My skirts snapped and billowed. I swayed, feeling I might be sick. “I am all right, Nando. Truly.”
Micheil caught my hand. The solid warmth of his fingers wrapped tightly around mine renewed my strength as we walked to the cottage door. Nando trailed along behind.
“Gracias, amigo,” I said. “And tell your mama gracias for me.”
The boy trotted off, and I met Micheil’s worried gaze again. “I think I could use some tea,” I said shakily.
He smiled and helped me through the door, letting me lean against him. With his arm tenderly supporting me, I settled into a big upholstered chair near the window.
His lilting Irish brogue filled the kitchen, spilling into the room where I rested, mixing with the banging of the kettle, the squeak of the pump, the thud of wood dropping into the stove, the slam of the damper.
My eyes closed, and soon I drew in the scent of steeping tea. But it wasn’t just the tea that lifted my spirits. It was this man who sang and clattered and prepared this soothing drink for me.
It was this man who walked toward me with a tray set with cup and saucer, a pitcher of cream, a dish of lumped sugar, and a vase with a scrawny-stemmed rosebud tucked inside.
It was this man, my friend, who set the tray before me and smiled into my eyes with tender compassion.
Twenty-Six
The kitchen clock struck midnight, and I woke with a start, my heart pounding hard beneath my ribs. In my nightmare, I had been locked in a cell, pounding at the door to be let out. Dr. Crawford peered in at me, frowning but not hearing. Cries of the other patients rose to a deafening roar. I covered my ears with my hands.
Zeb peered through the window to my cell, shaking his head as he saw me, knitting his brow in worry. Dr. Crawford appeared beside him. They spoke, though I couldn’t hear their words, even after I dropped my hands from my ears. Only the din of the patients’ anguished cries filled the air.
“Please,” I cried to Zeb, “please, listen to me. I am well. I am whole! Please let me out! Please, don’t do this to me.”
It had been a dream. Only a dream. But my heart thudded harder as I relived it. Zeb’s agent—or Zeb himself—had followed me to California. I had to leave. I couldn’t stay here another day, wondering when he might return.
I rose in the darkness and lit a lamp, carrying it with me to the kitchen, where I fanned the still orange coals in the stove and put on the kettle for tea. I must be rational, I told myself, about where to go and when to leave. It had to be someplace safe for me and my child, but it also had to be a place where I could disappear without a trace. Someplace where Zeb would never think to look.
I didn’t want to think about leaving California. Already, the place had become home. Just as it had captured my grandmother’s heart, so it had mine, and more so every day. I thought of the children who played up and down the road, their mothers who were already looking out for me. And Micheil. He had brought me a sense of reasoned thinking, the realization that I wasn’t alone in my sorrow and quest for healing. How could I l
eave him?
How could I leave this place? Leave my new friends?
I set out the teapot, filled it with leaves, and then sat at the table, resting my chin in my hands, to await the whistling kettle.
The lamp flickered in the center of the table, casting a warm glow across the adobe walls and the bright colored gingham curtains, the oak pendulum clock on its shelf next to the window, and the cheery iron stove with its ornate steel designs.
The place brought such comfort. I could picture my grandmother sitting at this table, her mind awhirl with decisions about the ranch, or helping Micheil oversee the latest building project at the mission, the children’s needs at his school, or thinking about food for his work with the poor. Maybe she sat here and thought about her granddaughter on the other side of the continent. I wondered if she had pictured me sitting in this very spot.
The thought made me smile. The kettle whistled and sputtered, and I set the tea leaves to steep.
I felt at home here, and perhaps someday I would return. But I felt I must run. And keep running until I felt safe.
A few minutes later I poured my tea, thinking of Micheil as I poured the cream and added the sugar. I took one of my grandmother’s woolen shawls from a hook by the back door, wrapped it snugly around my shoulders, then stepped outside with my mug.
Rather than hiding behind the usual ocean mists, the moon rode bright above the ocean. I walked to the gazebo and settled into the wood-slatted chair, facing the surf. Below me, the waves crashed in rhythmic comfort. I closed my eyes, breathing in the salt-air scent, wondering again how I could say good-bye to this place.
Dusty Los Angeles might be a place where I could flee, though it likely was too close for comfort. I considered San Francisco, a bigger city, where I might have an easier time of disappearing. Perhaps a Western town along the railroad route.
I thought how I might support myself. With my education I could teach if I had to, but the profession had never appealed to me. I was a storyteller and musician. I smiled as a thought took root. Perhaps I might sing and play my dulcimer for hire. I stood and walked to the picket fence and looked down at the ocean with its shining band of silver ripples under the moon. Then as I thought about the places I might sing and play, saloons and dance halls came to mind, and I let out a sigh of disappointment. My thoughts of singing for hire vanished. Above all, I wanted a wholesome and safe place to raise my child.
I turned back to the house. The lamp still glowed in the kitchen, casting a dim light throughout. The whole scene, from Grandmother Welsie’s upholstered furniture to her family portraits and her frilly gingham curtains—all of it beckoned to me.
This was where I wanted to be. No place I’d ever been filled my soul the way my little cottage did. But I had no choice; I had to leave.
I finished a last sip of lukewarm tea and tossed the tea leaves into the soil by the gazebo. I squared my shoulders and walked into the house.
By daybreak my valise was packed, the house was scrubbed, and I was ready to close up. I locked the Dutch door and headed down the brick walk, through the newly manicured garden, before the neighborhood children came out to play. It felt unfinished somehow, leaving without saying good-bye, but perhaps it was better this way.
The day was clear and bright, the morning sun warm on my shoulders as I trekked into town. I’d walked only a half-mile when the milk wagon drew along the road. The milkman raised his hand in a solemn wave and nodded as he passed. His swaybacked horse clopped along, head down, the echoing sound dying away in the morning air.
By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, the town was waking. Shopkeepers, some on hands and knees scrubbing their doorsteps and walkways, raised their heads in pleasant greeting. They called out to each other, some in Spanish, others in English, as they worked. Farm wagons rattled along the dusty cobbles, bringing in loads of brightly colored autumn squashes, a rainbow of gourds and fat pumpkins. I resisted the urge to stop and talk with the farmers about their produce. Forgetting my determination to leave, I grinned in spite of myself, picturing the cattle back from their fattening in the Saddleback Mountains, the ribbon of sea in the distance, my fields of squashes and pumpkins shimmering like gold beneath the California sun.
I would teach my child to ride, and we would gallop together across the range. If my baby was a girl, I would raise her to be strong and independent, have a mind of her own and follow her heart. She would glory in the wide-open spaces; she would never feel suffocated or forced into bad choices. If this infant was a boy, he would grow strong and tall in the fresh sea air and beating sun. He would ride like the wind, take part in the roping and branding, the high-country cattle drives.
Behind me the mission bells tolled, interrupting my thoughts, as I stared at the pumpkins in the back of the farm truck. I turned away, clutching my valise and letting go of my dream.
Resolutely I marched to the mission gate and let myself in. The grounds were quiet and peaceful. My heartache eased as I surveyed the outer courtyard.
When I’d first arrived, I’d seen only the decay and disrepair. Now it seemed endearing somehow, a place that held Micheil’s heart. I was still standing by the well outside the sanctuary when he emerged from the bell tower, just as I knew he would.
He brightened when he saw me. “Lass,” he said, glancing down at the valise then back to my face, “tell me what’s happened.”
“I want to stay,” I said. “But I can’t.”
“The man who asked after you?”
“Yes. I’ve tried not to be troubled about the visit …” I shook my head. “After all, he may never come back.”
“Your neighbors sent him packing.”
“It’s still too dangerous. I thought with the distance between Zeb and me … a whole continent … I thought I’d be safe. But in the night I decided I haven’t a choice. I must leave.”
He took my hand and guided me toward the dappled shade of the grape arbor, where I sat wearily on the wooden bench beneath the cascading leaves. Sitting down beside me, he let out a heavy sigh and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and studied me.
“Where will you go?”
I looked at him steadily, willing myself to be stronger of mind and spirit than I felt at this moment. “I’ll go by train to San Francisco. It’s a busy city, hundreds of people arriving from around the world every day. It would be easy to get lost in such a place.”
“Lost,” he said. “Aye.”
“I have it in mind that you could send me some of the proceeds from the ranch, enough for me to live on.”
He nodded slowly. “ ’Tis yours, to be sure.”
“Yes,” I said decisively. “That’s exactly what I’ll do. I have plenty of money to get started—from the nest egg my grandfather left me, you see.”
“ ’Tis so,” he agreed.
“But I’ll need more once this runs out.”
“Aye.” He stood. “You’ll have to let me know how to reach you once you’re settled.”
I stood with him. “I thought I might take the hardwood, the tools …”
“You’ll be looking for something to occupy your time.”
I swallowed hard, thinking of the loneliness that would be mine once I left this place. “I’ll go collect my things then.”
“Aye, lass. You must.”
I turned to leave, but he didn’t follow me. I felt his gaze, and when I reached the archway to the center courtyard, I turned again to where he was standing by the grape arbor. “I was counting on your wisdom just now,” I called to him. “I thought you might have some words of guidance, or, at the very least, comfort.”
“You want me to agree with you, lass? Is that what you’re expecting?”
“I thought you might disagree,” I said as he drew nearer. “Maybe I wanted you to tell me not to go.”
“Ah, lass. I will not do that. This is your decision to make, and you’ve told me your plan. You look weary and pale as if you’ve been up all night thinking it through, plann
ing your journey.” He was standing before me now.
“I have.”
His clear eyes met mine, and his voice was gentle when he spoke. “ ’Tis not my decision to make. You alone know the great dangers you might face should Zeb find you. You know firsthand the reality of his threats.”
“You’ve said I need to talk with him, no matter the cost.”
“Only when the time is right.”
I leaned against the adobe arch, still searching Micheil’s face. It struck me that when I left Poppy’s to marry Zeb, I sought the same kind of approval. I begged for Poppy to give me a blessing to send me on my way. Was this what I needed from Micheil—a blessing to send me off? A blessing that made me think all would be well, even if this was the wrong decision? A dull ache of recognition lay heavy in my heart. It was an easy way to remove myself from the responsibility of choosing my own way.
My voice dropped. “I only know that it’s too soon. You may be right, and yes, maybe, terrified as I am, maybe I’ll need to confront him—”
“Confront?” he said gently.
“Ask his forgiveness,” I said. “And tell him … about our child.”
“Only God can tell you when the time is right,” he said. “No one else.”
I let my gaze drift to the tall pepper tree beyond his shoulder. “I only know I am afraid to stay.”
“Does your fear mean it’s time to go then?” There was a soft smile at the corner of his mouth. “Is that what your decision is based upon?”
Again I remembered leaving Blackberry Mountain, my fear of remaining a spinster, my fear of letting the opportunity for an education pass me by. “Yes,” I whispered with a sigh. “Fear has caused it in the past. Dread fear.”
Micheil didn’t comment for a long moment, but reached out and took both my hands in his. “It takes courage, lass, to admit such a thing.”
“If I stay—and I’m not saying I will—how can I be safe?” As if with a mind of its own, my hand settled lightly on my stomach.