“I done this to you.”
“Savannah says it’s a time to tear down. Ecclesiastes. A season for everything. Building up and tearing down.”
He squirmed around and sat up. “I told cousin Charlie I come to own up. Take my licks. Go to the sheriff. Turn myself in. It’s what I got to do. I seen the error of my ways. It’s in this book here.”
“Since you aren’t hung yet, they’ll maybe send you to prison.”
“How long, you reckon?”
“Cattle rustling? Years. Maybe ten or twenty. Depends on what all the judge sees fit. I saw Charlie’s papers. He could have hung you from the first tree he found.”
“Twenty years is a long time. Charlie said likely up in Florence. Said I’d be an old man before I got out.”
“You’d still not be an old man, even in twenty years. You might live another forty after that. A man can do some good in forty years, if he’s a mind to.”
Willie sniffed. In a broken voice he said, “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll come back and work here for nothing when my time is up. I’ll work the rest of my life for no pay. You don’t even have to feed me. Just let me make it up to you.”
It wasn’t in me to hate for very long. “That’d be fine, Willie. If you do that when you get out, you can stay here.” I couldn’t guarantee there’d be a “here” to stay at, though.
He laid his head back on his Bible and slept for a little while—nearly an hour. When the clock struck one, he awoke. “Is it morning?” Willie asked. “I’m so tired.”
“It’s a long ways until morning,” I said.
We talked then about other things. About Esther running off. I asked him, “Do you remember whereabouts you were when you saw the fellow on the white mule?”
“Down from Bisbee, towards some little town. Just a place by a riverbed.”
“Where were you when Charlie and Gilbert caught up with you?”
Willie said, “That storm there was where we lost the other steers. A feller—they called him Shank—he gets to saying he’s going north, and I wanted us heading down to Mexico. I wanted to catch a few of them cattle. Not leave them all behind. We’d gone two—no, three days. Broke my tooth fighting him. That’s it, three days up from Naco, after we got to Bisbee, but mostly reading all the time. Why?”
It didn’t add up. Three days from Naco should have put them in Tucson, not just Bisbee. I said, “Do you want a drink of water?”
“That coffee smells all right. Cold water makes my tooth hurt.”
“It’s gone cold, too.”
“Don’t care.”
I poured cold coffee in a tin cup and held it to his mouth. Willie drank. He closed his eyes and dozed. I decided to make more coffee. Walking around would help me stay awake. I stoked up the stove again. Drew more water.
When I dumped out the grounds, Willie awoke. He watched me while I measured in more coffee and set the pot down in the hole, close to the flames. He said, “I wisht I had a ma like you, Aint Sair.”
I sighed. “Go ahead and sleep,” I said.
“Cain’t. Trussed up pretty tight.”
“That, I’m not changing. Charlie may be my son, but he’s a Ranger, too. I gave him my word you’d stay tied, and my word is good.” I thought I’d try again to get him to tell me where he’d seen the “conjure.” I said, “Do you remember the first town you came to after you met up with Charlie?”
“Sounded like a girl’s name.”
I fetched around in my memory. “St. Mary’s? Elida? Galena?”
“That’s it!”
“Well,” I said, “so that was in a creek between Naco and Galena.”
He said, “You know, I learnt to ride pretty good after awhile.”
“Pillbox was a tough horse for anyone.” I was right back to being angry, thinking of him taking my mare.
“Maldoraedo help you get the rest of your herd to town?”
“I had between eight and nine hundred head last year. Gilbert got paid for only a hundred and ten. There aren’t a dozen left to start over with. Hunter nearly died not having a mother to nurse him.”
“Here’s something you should know, Aint Sair. That Maldoraedo feller paid Shank to pison your windmill and bung it all up.”
I held my breath for what seemed like a minute, though I’m sure it was only a few seconds. I leaned forward to get a clear look at Willie’s face in the dim lamplight. “How do you know that?”
“Shank told me himself.”
Rudolfo would never—could not possibly—have poisoned my cattle. Nothing was worth that. I said, “Shank’s a lying skunk.” The coffeepot was boiling, and the smell started to perfume the room. I stretched and went to get a cup. My hands shook, and the cup clattered against the pot.
While I poured, Willie said, “Shank would do anything to anybody for half a dollar. I seen him. He told me where they hid the boxes. Said that stuff made him sick and all the skin peeled off ’n his hands. Leastways that was one thing I didn’t never do.”
When I turned toward Willie then, he hid his face. “Why would he make up something like that?” I said.
“I don’t reckon he made it up. He told it to me just before he died.” Willie chattered on. I nodded but didn’t listen. I started counting back the days—before the fire, before the roundup. Around about the time someone ruined my windmill we were in Tucson last, was when Rudolfo said he was going all the way to Tempe to see how the price of beef was holding up. I remembered that day. He’d said it was down, dismal low prices. He’d said not to expect more than breaking even. It seemed only right to me that a drought would raise cattle prices due to scarcity, not lower them because of poor beef. Rudolfo was the one who’d suggested the herd be driven only as far as the McDowell feedlots east of Phoenix, instead of all the way to Kansas. Sure thing was, Rudolfo was throwing a lot of greenbacks around, nearly paving the way from my house to his with them.
Out of the clear blue—for I had no idea what he’d just been rambling on about—I said, “So was it Shank started the wildfire, too?”
Willie looked shocked. His mouth opened and closed several times. “Him. And some—some other fellows. Different ones. Dustin and Cole was there. They did most of it. They was only supposed to clear some brush, though. It got away from ’em just that quick.” He sounded shaky.
“You had a hand in it, too,” I said, certain of it, no matter what he said.
“Yes’m, I did. Only I didn’t tie up them sheep. I hate sheep.”
“It wasn’t about clearing brush, then.” Rudolfo Maldonado had it in his mind to own most of the county. If he couldn’t buy Baker’s land, he’d force off the new owner, especially if the new owner was strapped for cash. And if he couldn’t buy mine or burn me off of it, he could marry me for it. It was a small price for him to pay, having a woman around the house. Someone to brush his children’s hair. Make them say their prayers. “Go to sleep, Willie. I’m all done talking for now.” I was too angry for talking. Too angry for thinking, too.
He started crying again. I told him to hush, and not wake Charlie and Gilbert.
I took down my cleaning kit from a shelf, and opened the action on my shotgun, then slowly and carefully eased the rag through each barrel a few times. As I worked some oil into the stock and polished the action with a little brush, I thought about this terrible summer. When I got the shotgun clean as glass inside and out, I loaded both barrels and left the works open. Willie watched my every move with frightened interest. Maybe he thought I’d use it on him. But I could barely think about Willie anymore; he was going to get his due.
Everything seemed a lot clearer by the time the sun started to green the sky in the east. I had in my mind exactly what I would say to Rudolfo, and what would happen next. When Charlie awoke, I left him watching his prisoner while I went to the smoke house and sliced steaks to feed my family. As I carried the plate back to the kitchen, I thought how we’d eaten some watery beans but never gone hungry. We’d had more and we’d had less. Th
e combination of the bad weather, bad family, and bad neighbors was more trouble than I knew existed. I beat raw eggs into a bowl and stoked the fire tell it was hot. I forked lard into flour and stirred in buttermilk for biscuits. While I worked, I made a plan.
The bad weather, I had no control of. The bad family was being worked on by the law. The bad neighbor, I would set to rights myself.
Chapter Twenty-Four
September 30, 1906
Gilbert got up, groggy. I made a third pot of coffee. I kept one eye on their prisoner while my boys ate ham steaks and a dozen scrambled eggs, along with hot biscuits dripping with sorghum. I finished off the pot of coffee with them. Then we allowed Willie to eat. He got all the same food, but he just picked at a single biscuit and pushed his eggs around the plate. Seemed he was looking down the barrel of his fate.
I told the boys about what Willie had said about the well. Willie nodded through it all, sunk into his chair, his head down, as if he was asleep on his plate, hiding for shame or fear—I didn’t know which. He shook all over. I hadn’t slept, but I wasn’t tired. Not one bit. I picked up the shotgun, ran my hands down the barrel, pushing every stray fleck of dust off it.
My sons eyed each other, then turned toward me. Charlie said, “Mama, what are you fixing to do?”
Chess came up then, looking disgusted that Willie was still there. I told him quickly what Willie had told me. Said I had something to say to El Maldonado that wouldn’t wait. I said, “Fixing to pay a call on a neighbor.”
“Not without me,” Chess said. “Boys?”
“Somebody’s got to watch Willie,” said Charlie. “Or we could lock him in the smokehouse. I’d like to get a piece of that son of a gun.”
I headed for the door. I didn’t care what they did with Willie. I saddled Baldy, put the rifle in the scabbard. One pocket in my split skirt hung heavy with shotgun shells. The other held the ruby ring and the emerald necklace. I pulled Rudolfo’s little filly and the pack horse out of the corral and bridled them in the rigs he’d left for me. I slung the silver saddle on the filly’s back loosely and tied one bolt of cloth to each side. Then I stuck a pistol in my waistband and laid the loaded shotgun across my lap.
Gilbert’s rig carried a rifle, too, besides the crossed pistol belts around his middle. Chess had lost his aim, but he carried a good length of rope. Charlie filled his responsibility to the territorial government by way of a padlock on the smokehouse door. Willie seemed contrite enough when he was put there.
The four of us rode south by the pale green light of a morning sky, which was heavy as molasses with the night’s dew. On our way, I asked about the white mule. Gil said that Willie had told them that story more than once, and it never changed. That the boy had been crazy sick with fear, and clung to that strung-up book when he gave himself up to Charlie. I didn’t know what the rest were thinking, but myself, I would think of Esther and her lover and how that connected to Lazrus later. For the present, I rode toward Rudolfo Maldonado’s house, planning to murder him before he got his morning shave. The hooves of our horses thundered like war drums.
Men worked in the yard in front of the house. Chickens scattered. A woman under a ramada stoked a fire beneath a calderón. I dropped the reins of the gift pony as I passed their yard gate and then approached the front door with my family close behind. With all the wind I owned, I shouted, “Rudolfo Maldonado! We have something to discuss.”
Not waiting for an answer, I slung the shotgun from its resting place and fired one barrel at the roof tiles. The shot hit with a hissing crash, and shards of red tile flew like exploding feathers from a bird. Baldy circled and writhed beneath me. People in the yard scattered. Rudolfo appeared at the doorway. I lowered the barrel, keeping it level with his head. Rudolfo was dressed, even to his tie, for breakfast. He ducked behind the heavy door and then peered out with one eye.
“Come out here!” I called. “Come out, Maldonado. Tell these people. I want to know what you would do with a man who poisoned your well? What would you order, what kind of punishment?” I raised the shotgun just enough to miss him in the doorway, then took more tiles and a little drooping flag off the top of his house. Red tiles and dust rained down on him, and a man carrying a rifle came from around the corner of the house while I shucked out the shells and reloaded the shotgun. Gilbert trained his rifle on the man, and although the shooter didn’t put down the rifle, he held very still. Charlie wheeled his horse in the opposite direction and held his rifle ready.
I shouted, “What does a man deserve who would drive a widow off her land? Starve her cattle? Poison her water? What would you do to a man who did those things, if you were governor, El Maldonado?”
Rudolfo pulled the napkin from his collar. He smiled as he waved that white napkin like a surrendering flag before he spoke. “Sarah? It is you? And you’ve brought your family. Come inside and let us talk.” He smiled, all charm and smoothness; he had that flat look to his face, and the edgy, nervous eyes. He laughed and said to no one particularly, “¿Cervesa anoche?” Clucking, nervous laughs came from peons in the yard who gathered next to the well and fence posts. Rudolfo stepped off his porch and came about two feet closer. He repeated, “Come inside, Sarah. Don’t make yourself look foolish. Please.” He edged toward me, the handkerchief fluttering. I leveled the shotgun at him, and the expression in his eyes turned serious.
Chess rode his horse nose-to-nose with mine, but he kept silent. The boys were on the ground now, guarding our backs. I said, “I would be completely justified if I cut you in half with this. No jury in the Territory would convict me of other than killing vermin.”
Rudolfo held up his hands and smiled. He said, “What insult have I made to deserve this from my future wife?”
I pulled the box with the necklace in it from my right pocket. I threw that box toward him. It opened in midair, the baubles crashing against the adobe wall behind him. A few sparkling stones came loose and scattered across the porch, mixing with the crumbs of red tile. I threw the ring in the dirt at his feet. “You’ll not take my land that easily, even if I have to drop you where you stand. Come out here, where I can see you clear. Get out here, or the next one goes through the window.”
Rudolfo seemed truly alarmed. “My daughters are in there.”
“Then get your sorry hide out in the yard.”
As he took one more step, a loop of rope dropped around him faster than a snake striking. Chess held fast to the other end, which was tied to his saddle horn. He backed his horse, pulling Rudolfo off balance. He tripped and scuffed up dust, trying to stand. Rudolfo gasped and said, “You cannot mean to harm me, Sarah. After we’ve been friends for years. Let’s be reasonable. Señor Chess, speak to her. Reason with her.”
Chess said, “If she don’t shoot you, I plan to hang you. You can’t poison a well and think you can get away with it. Not while I’m breathing.”
I rode closer to Rudolfo. White-hot anger boiled under my ribs and I shook when I said, “Friends for years? Why, Señor Maldonado, I mean no more harm to you than you did to my stock. No more than you were willing to do to me.” I leapt down from the horse, pulled the pistol from my waistband, and, walking toward him, aimed it at Rudolfo’s chest. I pointed the shotgun in the general direction of the man still holding the rifle. That fellow hadn’t moved, waiting, I reckon, on Gilbert to flinch.
A child’s voice came from the house “Papa?” Magdalena stood in the doorway.
Rudolfo pleaded. “You would not make her watch her father murdered, would you? Sarah? I can make it up to you. All is not lost. We will be wealthy, you and I. What is one windmill when you can have five hundred sections to call your own?”
Magdalena cried, wailing, “Papa, Papa!”
“Gilbert? Charlie?” I called. “What’s around us?”
Charlie said, “There’re two by the house there, one on the roof. Another in the barn. Thinks we don’t see him.”
Chess hollered, “Boys, take your aim off los guardias and s
ight in on the hacendado there. No matter what happens, no matter what anyone does, he dies first.”
“Yes sir, Grampa,” voices said behind me. I seethed. Chess was an old soldier, all right. Hired hands gathered. Women, too.
Rudolfo’s eyes grew wide, and a tear slid from one of them. He said, “Sarah, please, be reasonable.” Chess’s horse backed, causing Rudolfo to stumble toward me a few steps. He said, “I wanted it for us. Please, not in front of my daughters. At least let me send someone to get them away from the windows.”
As I bit back tears, suddenly my chin hurt. No, I would not kill a father in front of his child. I’d seen my own papa shot, only to watch him die a few days later. I gritted my teeth and said, “Admit it. You paid someone to tear up my windmill and poison it.”
He started to protest. I drew aim with the pistol and pulled back the hammer. He said, “You wouldn’t listen to me. I had to convince you that you needed to marry to be safe. How long can you live there, once your sons leave and your old men die?”
“Say it!” I screamed.
“It was a bad—terrible—decision. I can’t undo it. It didn’t seem so bad then, but I—I—am—truly—sorry. I only want to marry you, Sarah. Quierria—”
“¡Mentiras!” It was true. I’d expected to pull the trigger. I’d had it in my mind that the minute he admitted it, he’d die. Pain clenched my shoulders, and I was filled with an unexpected sorrow that brought along with it a feeling of holding some kind of terrible power over this man—even more if I let him live. Rudolfo was a big fellow by anyone’s measure, though now he seemed ought but pitiful and small. I lowered my voice and said softly, “Nothing you say will undo what you did. You had your men start that fire to burn out Hanna’s place, too. They should be hung for doing it, and hung again for letting it get away from them—but to spoil water in this land, to ruin a well in a drought, it takes a certain kind of snake to do that. Marry you? I have no intention of sleeping with snakes.” I looked down the barrel, once more squaring up the sight. Rudolfo’s face was ruddy and his eyes glared as if he had a fever. I really wanted to pull that trigger. I held my breath. Sweat rolled from his head, more tears from his eyes. All at once, I lowered the pistol. I whistled the little two-note call we trained our stock to. Chess’s horse stepped forward and the rope slackened. “And another thing. Cut around my property when you go to town from now on. Take the north fork from your place, and don’t set foot on my land. If that makes your trip longer, use the time to pray your children don’t take after you, for your old age will be a misery and a torment. Sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind, Rudolfo.” Putting the weapon back in my waistband, I turned to mount Baldy. At that instant, I saw the man at the corner of the house raising the rifle to his shoulder. I didn’t know which of us he was aiming for, but I whirled around and pointed the shotgun straight at Rudolfo again. I jerked my head in the direction of the man. Rudolfo pulled Chess’s rope over his head, put up his hand, and the rifle went down. The man with the rifle whistled a signal to shooters hidden in the yard. I leapt into the saddle, Chess hauled in his line, and Gilbert held the rifle upon his thigh. Charlie kept his pistol drawn, aimed it back and forth. We rode away without looking back.
Sarah's Quilt: A Novel of Sarah Agnes Prine and the Arizona Territories, 1906 Page 44