Sarah's Quilt

by Nancy E. Turner

  “Magdalena is getting big. Blooming.”

  “She needs a mother, Sarah. I cannot be a mother to her.”

  “She’s lucky to have sisters, then. I never had sisters. Not until Albert married, and Savannah came along with us from Texas.”

  “You know what I ask. Not for me alone.”

  “I know.” There was so much more in it, though. Could I love Rudolfo? I believed I could live with him as a wife and be contented. Children are easy to love. I remembered Chess telling me to let go of my boys, and I winced. This man before me would trust me to raise his children, and I’d trust the lives of my own to him. But I’d always wonder, somewhere in the dark, smallest corners of my heart, if the proposal was about the land. Nothing in him tells me that. It was just my own hard heart, I suppose. Still, the combination of our two ranches would make this one of the largest spreads in the county, outside of the Hashknife Outfit.

  I said, “I’ve not had much luck keeping husbands around, Rudolfo. Why would I want to marry you and then in a year or two become la viuda Maldonado ? I’d rather keep you around as long as possible, mi amigo.”

  “I could give you anything.”

  I smiled at him. “Give me your friendship, then.”

  He sighed, beaten, and turned to sit again at the escritorio grande. “Now. Let us talk about cattle and l’agua.”

  Rudolfo said he thought the Bakers, Wainbridges, and Cujillos would all be willing to round up in June as usual, but push the herd north to Tempe and sell early because of the drought. He said Kansas had been getting plenty of rain and that beef there was going for near-record low prices. He thought it would be a good idea to combine the stock and send some of each of our hands to drive a large herd to the stockyards outside of Phoenix. Rudolfo was going to Tempe in a few days to see what the market was like there, before we go to all that work. Since he speaks plenty of English now, he is going alone.

  I asked him what kind of numbers he was talking about, and he said five hundred of his. “I don’t think half the herd could make it all the way to Kansas this year,” he said. “Getting them past Picacho will be a feat in itself.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Circle east up the river bottom. If there’s water in the Rillito and the San Pedro, they’ll make it to Tempe. I’ll put in payroll money up front.”

  “We’ll share that, too.” Rudolfo moved his head very slowly, nodding. “We could wait for rain.”

  “I’m going broke waiting.”

  “I know you don’t believe in such things, but I know a woman, a cantadora, who has said it will be a bad year for this area. We should move them as soon as possible. Tomorrow I’ll talk to Baker, decide when to start, since his place is farthest south.”

  I didn’t remind him what he’d just said about believing in superstitions. I said, “If it rains, we’ll be all right.”

  “We can always change our minds. I’m not sure we’ll see rain by July.”

  So it was agreed. Maybe my boys will want to go. Maybe a month of eating dust would make studying books taste better.

  Rudolfo saw me to the door. As I went to put on my gloves, he took one from me. For a couple of years, he’s been saying things to me about needing a wife, wanting me for the job. Never before has he so much as taken my hand or given me a moment of hesitation in his presence until that day with the feathers in my hair. Holding my leather glove, he pulled the hand of it inside out and kissed the leather, then turned it right side out again. He said, “You will hold a kiss in the palm of your hand. I meant what I said.”

  I rolled my eyes and put on the glove. The silliness of men confounds me sometimes. “Let me know what you find out as soon as you get back,” I said.

  I rode home thinking that if we take our cattle to market early, it could make some real trouble for other ranchers in the area, and none of them would be too kindly disposed toward us for the rest of time. I’m thinking maybe it would be worth the investment to set them at a feedlot for two weeks before we sell, especially after that long drive. They’ll get there all lean and stringy from the trip. By the time the other herds come in, ours will be fat and sassy, and bring the best price. When I got to the border of my land, I saw another little cloud over the sandy ridge. By the time I got to the yard, it had fiddled out and disappeared. Dry well. Thirsty herd. There was plenty of work to do.

  The girls had made good progress, having cleaned near fifteen gallons of water when I got there. Esther said it was coming cleaner straight from the well, too, as if the sediment was settling. But it was so much trouble, she said that I might think about just hauling it from their place. “No,” I said. “It might take every last drop of your well, and I’d be to blame. I’m sure the well will come back in.” I thanked them for their hard work, and they both laughed, saying it wasn’t near as much what they’d do at home, since it was canning season.

  Then Mary Pearl said her mother insisted that my family all come to supper tonight, soon as we got cleaned up. Rachel, Rebeccah, and Joshua were home at last from school, and Savannah and the twins were cooking up a storm.

  I told her, “We’ll bring something, too.”

  Mary Pearl said, “Mama’ll say you shouldn’t.”

  “I know it. Would you girls want to ride to Majo Vistoso? We’ll have a bath up there in the spring, and take a jug of clear water to rinse the caliche off.” I could see them eyeing each other, working up some kind of excuse. So I added, “You probably have chores to do, though.” Why would they want to bathe in that when they had fresh water at home? “Better get along, then.” They didn’t look too sad about missing the rock-salt bath I’d offered in payment for their hard labor.

  I was too tired, myself, to ride all the way to Majo Vistoso. I poured a bit of the dearly won liquid in a pitcher, took the tub, and went to my bedroom, and shut the door, vowing that not even a flock of doves was going to interrupt this bath. My hair still smelled of turpentine. I washed my face with just a trickle of water in the basin, then poured the drippings onto a drooping plant on the windowsill.

  My face felt cool. I felt altogether different, and, no, thank you very much, I am quite satisfied not being married. I’ve got my two boys and Jack’s papa, Chess, to take care of, and Shorty, Mason, and Flores to worry about, besides Granny and the rest. Why on earth would I want to wash yet another pair of socks? I kept thinking about Rudolfo going to set up the sale of the herd and about my boys fixing that windmill, and I felt pure lightened of spirit. All we had to do was get this well producing again for the house and things would be all set. I can stand anything but standing still.

  Later, as I strolled to Albert’s place, I thought about town. Cinco de Mayo celebrations were this week, and they were having a weeklong shindig in Tucson for it. I had planned on spending a few days in town, then riding home with the boys because they’d be done with school. But since they’re already here, there was no use in that. April and Morris will have expected us, so I figured I’d better write a letter and explain. With a bit of good fortune, we’ll sell my cattle for more than the cost of their feed, and the boys and I will spend some time with my daughter and her family in peace. It’ll give me plenty of time to get to know those grandchildren.

  May 11, 1906

  This morning, a stranger stopped on the horizon above the east end of my ranch and watched this way for a long while before coming in. Time was that would have been enough for me to come to the porch carrying a carbine. Nowadays, I just set it by the door, handy. The rider picked his way down the hill, fording Cienega Creek after letting his horse drink from it. He was in no hurry, and that aspect made me feel in more of a hurry than I’d been in many a day. Finally, he came to the yard, got off his horse, and commenced untying some kind of square bundle off his pack.

  I stepped to the sunlight and called out a hallo to him. He looked up like I’d shot off a pistol. He said, “Good day, ma’am,” and took off his hat. “Looking for Mrs. Jack H. Elliot. You know the place?” He wiped his forehead with a
large handkerchief, then stuffed it back into his breast pocket.

  “This is the place,” I said.

  Then he studied the writing on the package, as if he’d forgotten it as soon as he saw it. At last he said, “Orson Healy, missus. I come here to deliver this from the stagecoach. It’s from San Francisco. Marked urgent.”

  “San Francisco—that’ll be from my brother.” Harland is an architect in San Francisco, in addition to teaching at a school there. “Well, it’s a hot day, Mr. Healy. Will you have some water?” I drew a dipper from the olla. “It’s brown, but it’s clean. Have you been with the line very long?”

  After he drank a spell, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Thank you, ma’am. No, I hain’t. Been working my way west since the Spaniards’ war let out. Figure to be to Alaska ’fore long.” He handed the dipper to me. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  I told him to wait; then I got four bits from inside the house, where I keep some money under the lamp on the mantel, and gave it to him. I offered him a meal, but he wouldn’t stay. He said again that he had to hurry back, but he mounted his horse and rode off at the same tired pace he’d come in at.

  The brown paper was many times wrinkled, tied with what appeared to be twenty yards of twine. With a little care, I could save enough of it to use again. In a large hand was written “To Mrs. Jack H. Elliot, south of Butterfield’s Trail, due north from Tombstone, Arizona Territory. Urgently, and with all haste.”

  I keep a pair of scissors on a string around my waist, along with the keys to my strongbox, which is hidden in the smokehouse. They aren’t my good scissors for sewing, but they come in handy for little things. I sat right there on the steps with the package in my lap and cut a knot on the string.

  Chess came from the house about then. “What’d you order?” he asked.

  I pulled the paper off. “Nothing. It’s from Harland and Melissa,” I said. It was a picture painting—a really fine one—with a letter from Harland and a firsthand copy of a new Collier’s magazine. I handed the picture to Chess and began reading aloud.

  “‘Dear Folks, there has been an earthquake, and a fire. Most all the city is leveled or smoldering. They are calling it the worst tragedy in all of recorded history.’”

  Worse than that hurricane that hit Galveston? Worse than the Civil War? Chess and I locked eyes. I was afraid to say anything for a moment. I don’t know what he was thinking. He stared toward the man on the road. “Didn’t that feller have any word?”

  “He didn’t say anything. Just that he’s working his way to the Klondike. He wanted to leave here right away,” I said.

  “That wasn’t much of a hurry. Likely someone told him there was quicksand. What’s an earthquake, exactly?”

  I was already back to reading the letter. “Charlie can tell us. I think it’s the ground shaking. Rocks moving and such. Harland says he and Melissa ran through the streets with trunks on their backs, pushing the children in a stolen wheelbarrow. They begged anyone passing to sell them a horse, but even for a thousand dollars, none was to be had. By the time they got to the hills outside town, fire was on their heels. They dropped all their clothes and possessions, carried the children, and ran for their lives. When morning came, he found the picture under his arm, having had neither time nor thought even to drop it. It says this is all that is left of their lives, and he has sent it to me for safekeeping.”

  Chess held the picture up at arm’s length. “Kind of blurry,” he said.

  We sat stock-still, letting all this go through us. I said, “Well, I can’t leave my brother and his family in that kind of fix. We’d better go get them.”

  Finally, Chess said, “I’ll be dogged if it doesn’t rain when it pours. You want to leave in the morning?”

  I said, “I’d be on a train in two shakes if I knew how to find them. When he wrote this, they were living on a hillside with hundreds of other people. Surely they’ll have found a home by now. Likely we’ll be getting some word any day.” Then I sat up bolt upright with the thought, and said, “Maybe they’re coming here.”

  “Finish the letter,” Chess said. “Maybe he says.”

  “He says, ‘Please don’t fret for us. We are well, though Melissa is worn to the bone. I know you will want to be on the next train, but please wait until you hear from us. You can’t imagine the trouble here, and though we are getting by, we cannot offer you shelter or food, either one. Will write again soon. Give our love to Mama. Faithfully yours, Harland.’ Well, I suppose that answers that.”

  I searched the magazine for the articles and pictures Harland had mentioned. When I found them, my heart slowed and ached. There were printed photographs of what used to be a large city, with smoke rising over it.

  There would be no finding Harland’s home in that mess. I haven’t seen my little brother in ten years, and I long to run to them and help somehow. What a trial to witness our lives to each other in letters, especially when he needs family nearby. I have been truly blest, as the loving arms of my kin have surrounded all the trials I have been through, and I’m ever thankful for that.

  I said, “We’ll set up beds in the extra room for when they get here.” I sat right down and wrote, care of General Delivery, San Francisco, and offered that they come here. I told Harland I’d put them up as long as they needed, or they could have my house in Tucson, or that I’d go to California to help out with things while they got their house back on the ground. I sent one of the hands to catch that poky deliveryman—better yet, pass him—and go clear to the stage depot with my letter and two dollars to make sure it got there as soon as possible.

  That evening, we passed Harland’s letter and the Collier’s magazine among the family, which was gathered this time at our house, and we read it aloud word for word until the pages were all feathered and smudged. We all admired the picture painting again, too, trying to sort out just how it came to look like something when held at a distance, but the closer you got to take a good look, the less it resembled anything more than smeared color.

  Albert and Savannah scrunched together, reading the same page at the same time. Ezra and Zachary sat at their feet, waiting for bits of the article that Albert would read aloud when it wasn’t too terrible for them to hear. Mary Pearl stared at that picture painting all evening, like it was a wonderful thing to her. She was so quiet, even Esther seemed like a chatterbox next to her, and Mary Pearl’s usually the talkative one of those two. “Come on into the kitchen with me, Mary Pearl,” I said. While we made lemonade, I tried to imagine what my brother and his wife had been through.

  “Uncle Harland really painted that?” Mary Pearl asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He was always drawing things as a boy. Animals and such.”

  “Reckon a girl could learn to do that?”

  “If she’s a mind to, no reason a girl can’t learn anything she wants.”

  Mary Pearl was silent. She and I took lemonade into the parlor and set to pouring cups.

  Granny was studying the magazine picture, and she said, “Well, which one of these is Harland’s house?”

  “I don’t know, Mama,” I said. “He said it burnt down.”

  She nodded, then after a long time said, “Did the curtains catch fire in a lamp?”

  Albert said, “No. The gas lines exploded. The whole town went down.”

  Granny nodded again. “Gas lines. Well, I best make them some pickled watermelon rind.”

  I, know my mama sometimes doesn’t see things in the here and now, but it was strange how the first thought in my mind was that the watermelons weren’t ripe yet. I twisted my apron in my lap, unable to say a word. Savannah had a catch in her voice when she said, “Mother Prine, they don’t have bread to put it on.”

  Granny said, “Well, I’ll bake some bread, too. I can do that much for ’em.”

  Albert said, “Mama …” Then he waited a minute, and finally he said, “Well, they’ll like that. You do turn the lightest loaf of bread in the Territory.”

&nb
sp; Granny just smiled and nodded. I reckon she will probably forget it by morning.

  I, too, had this gnawing need to do something for them, to salve their woes. We talked round and round about what to do for them, and it came down to nearly nothing. I’m afraid I’ve done all I can for now. A simple letter. That makes me fret more than if Harland had written ‘Please come, else we perish.’ I don’t know if I can wire them money without knowing where to send it.

  After everyone left, Chess said he was worried we’d never get up in the morning, after staying up until all hours, fretting. I, too, was worried I’d never get to sleep, with so much to think about. In my letter, I’d told Harland and Melissa to promise the railroad I’d pay their tickets, saying they could come here until things get better. Other than hope they have already planned to come here, all I can do is wait, and that is something I have never got the knack of.

  May 14, 1906

  Savannah came over early in the day. First thing she asked was whether we were alone. “Sarah,” she said, “will you sit with me a spell?”

  “Surely,” I said. I went to the kitchen table and pulled out two chairs. I got out some glass tumblers and the clay pitcher of water.

  “I’ll pour it for you,” she said. Savannah reached for the pitcher and poured water into each glass, spilling about half a glass on the table as she poured. A little thing like that, I notice more now than I ever would have before; half a glass of water is a lot to waste. When she held out the glasses of water, her hands trembled, and her eyes were brimming with tears. As she sat, the tears spilled, and she wiped at them with the cuff of her sleeve. “I want to say this quickly,” Savannah said, “before any of the children come in.” More tears ran down her face, and this time, she didn’t wipe them. “Just needed to tell you this before I let them know. I believe we’re expecting another baby.”

  “Oh, Savannah,” I said. That explained all about her feeling poorly of late. Savannah, though, is older than I by two years. Time past, usually, for having babies. This one could be difficult, or born sickly. “Are you certain?”