Mr. Hanna frowned. “Mrs. Elliot,” he said, “I’ll not be indebted more.”
“Are you declining my offer?” I said. I looked toward the setting sun. It was behind a cloud rimmed in gold like a fancy plate.
He stuck out his jaw for a bit, then pulled his lips in, thinking hard. “I don’t know about cattle,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
“You could learn.”
“No experience. No fence. No. I’d better just write Baker and tell him I failed. Take the offer at hand. Twenty cents on the dollar is better than nothing.”
I was getting my back up—toward Rudolfo and Udell Hanna both. “Twenty cents? That’s robbery. Where would you go?” I said. “Hire out? There’s not a sheep outfit in this part of the state that I know of. You’d have to go clear up to the Mogollon, or even back to Wyoming, and you said you didn’t want that.” My horse fidgeted and turned around, jerking its reins from my hand. “The offer stands.”
“You’d do that for a stranger?”
“You planning to rebuild?”
“I figured to, before Maldonado came by.”
“Then you’re not a stranger. You’re a neighbor. Now, show me where we’re starting and where you want stuff piled.”
I spent the last couple of hours of twilight helping him search for anything worth saving. We burrowed and sorted, now and then lifted burnt timbers, hoping for some miracle to be found whole underneath. There were a handful of those. We found a few dishes and cooking pans. The stove was still good. Most of their clothes were gone, and Mr. Hanna said he’d had some family pictures where we found metal frames. The paper under the glass had blackened, but the silver gleamed in the sunlight and showed the images if they were held just right. I told him I thought that if he was to write to the photographer who took them, the man could make a new one from the print he’d made initially. So he said he’d try first chance he got.
My hands turned black. I thought they looked bad before, but now they were the color of ink, and I knew from handling enough ashes that it will take two weeks to get the stain off. I’d like to have a long talk with Rudolfo Maldonado. I’d tell him a thing or two. Now that Udell had said he’d take my offer, I felt as if I’d thwarted Rudolfo again. Thwarted. How could I possibly consider living with a man I felt I had to battle?
By the time the supper triangle rang from up the road at Maldonado’s we were working by lantern light. One of the hands worked the handle on an iron pump that looked like a black old crow sitting amidst the ashes in the yard. He got some water running, so at least the first layer of tarry black ran off our hands. My fingers looked foreign, all stained and wrinkled from the alkali in the ash. The other men found their horses and left.
“Mr. Hanna?” I said, “will you come and have some supper with the rest of us?”
He acted as if he hadn’t heard. He reached for something. From a heap of burned cinders that had been a trunk, he pulled a piece of metal out of the pitch. It was a cross. He held it up and brushed at it with his gloves. “The silver has partly melted,” he said.
“That looks like it belongs in a church,” I said, raising the lantern higher.
“It was meant to. My wife, she did sewing and raised money. Sent off for it through the mail. I believe it came to the house before she was killed. After the funeral, Aubrey packed up the house, and this was still in its box. By the time I got home from the war and all, I tried to find the church, but the people had voted to transplant themselves to Oregon. Sold the building to be a warehouse, and all moved off. I kept it because I knew it meant a lot to her. A lot of handsome stitching bought this.”
I nodded. After too long a silence, I said, “What was your wife’s name?”
“Frances.”
“My husband’s name was Jack. Actually, it was John Edward, but he was called Jack.”
Mr. Hanna fingered the cross in his hands. “I was going to bury this with her, since it meant so much. In the end, I couldn’t let go of it.”
I felt fingers squeezing my heart. I said, “It’s something to hold in your hands.”
Then he gave a sigh and smiled. He said, “Besides, it’s a reminder of the bigger scheme, seeing it every day. I’ve come to believe that it is a good thing to stay on first-name terms with your Maker, in case you bump into Him unexpectedly some afternoon.” He stared at the bent cross. “She told me once it took seventy-five yards of crinoline to make a single skirt. Her fingers would be nearly raw from making one.”
Something familiar-looking caught my eye. I leaned down and tugged. A small box, covered with heavy black cloth, came loose in my hands. “This looks to be another keepsake,” I said. It was a presentation box, from the army. The lid fell as I lifted it, and a medal on a sooty ribbon was inside.
He took the box. “Oh,” he said. “It’s mine.”
I rubbed my hands on the only place on my skirt that wasn’t already filthy, making its appearance complete. I said, “Mr. Hanna, we’re going to miss supper.”
He stepped over the trash in front of him, carrying the cross and the medal under his arm. I started pumping water so he could rinse them off. He said, “I can hardly believe I’ve already lost what little Aubrey and I had left.”
“Well,” I said, “you’ve got your land paper and a start on that. That’s all any of us had here at first, a homestead we had to make good on to keep. And that bottomland where the hay grew isn’t bad off. Albert hauls ash to his hayfield to make it grow better. This summer is a bust, but you start over, and by next year, it’ll all look different. If you don’t want the cattle I offered, sell ’em off now with the herd. Get more sheep.”
He put the cross at the stack with the saved dishes, then laid the medal right beside it. He took our horses’ reins with one hand and my arm with the other. I carried the lantern. We started up the road on foot. We were still around the bend from the hacienda when he said to me, “Mrs. Elliot, I’ve never known a strong woman before. Never cared to, I expect. Always thought that wasn’t natural. My Frances was as timid as a mouse. I believe I’m getting where I look at that differently. I believe a woman couldn’t survive here, not being strong. I just want to say—that is, without being forward, I’d like to say I admire you, Mrs. Elliot. To be strong and a lady. And I’m obliged for all your help.”
“Well, you’re welcome. For the help.” We crossed a little ridge. From the top of it, we could see the Maldonado spread bustling with movement.
“Ma’am, I’ve never been eloquent. Never been anything but a sheep farmer. Never meant to be a soldier and don’t plan to lift a gun or a sword ever again. I’ve lost my wife and most of my children. Lost the animals I invested in, and the house and supplies that came with this place, down to the ground. All I want in life is a farm. Some land to plant, animals to raise. My son to live, maybe someday bring me some grandchildren. I felt so like it had all slipped from my grip. You come along holding everything up in a different light for me, making it all look not as bad.”
It sounded pretty eloquent to me. I said, “I guarantee, this fire like to took the life out of me, too, and I haven’t lost half what you have. I know you don’t feel like you’ve got roots yet. Me, I’m dug in deep and wouldn’t know how to live anywhere else.”
We came to the tables. Rudolfo’s girls were running around, serving up dishes and hauling water in gourds. He said, “I’ll be obliged if you’d allow me to fetch you a plate.” I caught sight of Rudolfo watching our way. His eyes followed Mr. Hanna to the food tables, and the look on his face was bitter and dark. Rudolfo went in the house.
My boys had changed their day horses to some fresh ones, and they were set to ride out again in the moonlight. Charlie came to me while I was eating. “Mama? Old ‘Boots’ started up some trouble. Him and one of the boys got into the liquor and had themselves a snort. We sent him on home.”
Willie was going to turn my hair gray. “What else have we got to do?” I asked.
“They’re stringing a few up from the C
ujillos’. Me and these boys are going up to Wainbridges and haul out the odd brands they’ve got. Nobody expects them to make trouble, as we’re going to tell them we’re sure it was account of the fire. Take your pick. And Mr. Hanna? Xavier Cujillo said he’s hauling you up some lumber he had coming from Patagonia for a shed. You can put up a little line house at least, to live in until things get turned around. You want to ride with us, Mama?”
Mr. Hanna shook his head, then said, “Thank you, son. Thank you.”
I said, “I’ll take Baldy and go to Cujillos’. I’m fresh out of steam, and I’d rather follow a couple of dogies through some brush than look at a Wainbridge right now. I’ll see you when you get done. That is, if you want to sleep under the mosquito screen on the porch instead of here. Up to you.”
“G’night, Mama,” he said, and walked away. Everything from the rope slung over his shoulder to the fan of his chaps looked as if he was grown. There is nothing to hold on to when a boy grows up. Gilbert was fast on his heels. I reckoned he’d be gone soon, too. Maybe that’s why I wanted Willie to come along. Maybe I needed Willie to be here much as he needed it himself.
Udell Hanna said, “Mrs. Elliot, if a stranger in this country can hand me a roof and four walls, I believe I’d better go to his place and lend a hand. Mind I ride with you?”
“Not at all,” I said. For me, that’d just make it that much easier.
Chapter Seventeen
August 7, 1906
The grating howl of a mountain lion woke me before dawn. The clock in the parlor struck the half hour, but I’d not heard what hour it was. Dark as it was, I decided to lie there and await either the lighting of the eastern sky or more sleep, whichever came first. The boys had both slept on the cool porch. Odd, how when I wanted them here, they cut and ran, but long as they knew they could do what they pleased, well, here they both were. Even if I had to tempt them with cooler breezes and cooking, it was good to have my sons and my father-in-law back around me, to know Shiner was under the porch and all my horses in their pens, and to sleep to the rhythms of their collective breathing.
I closed my eyes and heard the cat again, then Shiner growling. A puma wouldn’t feast on the animal carcasses out on the range. Far off, coyotes gaggled with one another. Then I heard another sound, slow and rhythmic. First I thought it was a wandering steer. They stump along and don’t care what they bang into. This sound was the soft and careful stepping of an unshod horse, then a horse’s unmistakable snorting and tossing.
I reached toward the wall in the corner next to my bed, where my .410 stood. With it in my hands, I got up, went to Charlie’s side, and knelt by him. “Charlie,” I whispered. “Keep still.”
His eyes opened and he was immediately alert, the way Jack always was. Without making a sound, he rolled from his bed, pulled a pistol from under the bunk, and knelt beside me. His eyes lowered when the hooves moved again. He motioned toward the door leading off the porch. Halfway up, the porch had been boarded in and the top half was stretched with screens. We could crawl low to the floor and stay hidden. We skirted the door and came up, one on each side of it. Though the moon was waning, it was bright. It shone on the screen, so that seeing in would be harder than for us to see out. Even so, I nearly jumped through my own skin when I saw the figure of a man out there. I pointed and we studied the fellow for a while. He stood stock-still, hands out, facing our house, his face shrouded in the same shadows that made it easy for us to hide behind the mosquito screen. First, I thought it was Willie, the way he stood sometimes, his arms and hands ready to fend off a blow. Then I wasn’t so sure. This man wasn’t shaped like Willie. His feet seemed to be wrapped up in blankets.
Charlie whispered, “Is that old Lazrus?” at the moment I thought it.
I nodded. “What’s he doing?” I said. “Can you tell?”
“No. What did you hear?”
“The mule walking. Or something unshod—I knew that much.”
Charlie peered at him again. Lazrus hadn’t moved. Charlie said, “He’s got his arms out like he’s chanting a spell. Does he carry a gun? I don’t see one on him.”
I said, “I never saw one. Bowie knife, though.”
Charlie put his head down and spoke into my ear. “I’ll chase him out and shoot over his head. You back me in case he is toting iron.”
“If he doesn’t run fast enough to suit me, I’ll let fly with the shotgun just to motivate him a little.” We both stood at the same moment. Charlie flung wide the screen door. Lazrus was gone. Charlie hollered out, but no one answered. Chess and Gilbert came out of their beds, ready for a fight, but there was nothing to do.
When daylight broke, we searched more carefully than I’d ever tracked anything in my life. There were no footprints where Lazrus had been. Even a moccasin will leave a track in the silt. It was as if he had not been there. Surely, that was only the result of those wrapped leggings, instead of boots or moccasins. He’d probably wrapped the animal’s feet, too. I remembered how in the old days the Apaches used to do that.
Gilbert went to feed the stock, and Charlie headed for the remuda to bring us mounts while I added wood to the stove and put some lard and buttermilk in the flour for biscuits. Chess leaned against the doorjamb for a while, his arms folded across his chest, pondering, I suppose, the morning’s work before us. While I rolled and cut the dough with a little tin cup that was really made for children, he poured me a cup of coffee. Before the biscuits were out of the oven, Gilbert came back, not running, but hurrying just the same.
“Mama?” he said, “did you turn Pillbox into the corral without Hunter?”
I was bent over, looking into the stove at those biscuits. “No,” I said. I stood. I could feel my face turn white. “She’s in the barn.”
“No, ma’am. Little feller is hungry, and his mama’s nowhere around. With him squealing, she’d come running if she could hear him.”
I hurried toward the barn, the boys and Chess at my heels. My heart was pounding with fury at the thought of that Lazrus stealing my prize little mare. There were Pillbox’s tracks, leading toward Granny’s house. We opened the barn door and let the sunlight in. Next to Pillbox’s prints were the heel prints of boots. In the corner where Chess builds the fancy saddles, one had been dragged down, but when the thief found that it wasn’t complete and couldn’t be used, it had been dropped. One of the work saddles was missing.
“Look here,” Charlie said, hunched down next to the track. “A piece of hard-waxed thread. The kind that comes off fancy boots.”
I breathed easier. Willie was just full of himself and ornery, showing he could ride any horse he wanted. I’d walk up to Albert’s and he’d be there, eating his weight in pork chops and gravy. Or down at Maldonado’s, filling up on eggs and chorizo in tortillas. I planned to scold the daylights out of him for taking Pillbox.
Chess shook his head, as if he was reading my thoughts. “That boy stole that horse.” He walked to where Pillbox’s little colt skittered around the big stall, trying to bump his mama out of the wooden walls. “Stole that prize mare like a damned rustler.”
I said, “Likely he’s just up at Albert’s place. I’ll see if Savannah’s milk cow has some extra. We’ll try giving Hunter that, with some sugar and eggs in it.” Albert would remember what Papa used to give a foal if the mother wouldn’t feed. This was the first time I’d ever come to this with a horse. “Chess, would you fix up some breakfast while I get dressed? And grab those biscuits out before they’re ruined.” He and the boys headed for the house ahead of me. The morning breeze was strong and smelled of rain.
As I got to the porch, here came a rider from the south, moving like a fury. There was just the sound of hooves at first, then the rattles of vaquero-style tack, more silver and buckles than work saddles have. I purely wanted to see who was coming this way on such a tear. The figure was hunched in the saddle, spurring his horse.
Rudolfo drew up close. “Sarah,” he said, panting, “at least four hundred head, El Ca
pitan and our bulls and finest cows, have been let out. Two of my men gone, too, along with your boy, the one they call ‘Boots.’” I’d paid seven hundred dollars for my half of El Capitan, the champion bull I shared with Maldonado. And the younger bulls, bred from him, were worth the full price, too. They were how I was going to survive and keep the ranch going. One man with a good horse could move thirty head. It would take more than one to push four hundred, especially with a half dozen randy young bulls in the bunch.
“We’ll be there soon as we get mounted,” I called. Rudolfo turned his horse and left. I heard the men clanking coffee cups and talking behind the door. They looked up as I entered, and everyone dropped their forks and headed for the barn when I told them what Rudolfo had said. I called, “I’ll see if Willie is up at Albert’s. I’ll just get my hat.”
At my bedroom door, I stopped and turned. Putting my hand on the knob, a cold chill ran through me. That same haunted feeling ran up my neck as when I’d spotted Lazrus peeping at us through the leaves. Without breathing, I scanned the room. I went to the armoire and flung wide the doors. I dropped to my hands and knees and looked under the bed. Dust balls scuttered around in the breeze I’d created, nothing more. I went to the door and felt behind it for the string that hangs on the doorknob every night—the string that holds my scissors and key. It lay coiled on the floor, cut in two by the scissors that hung from it. The key was gone.
I threw back the door and ran to the smokehouse. The men followed me out of curiosity. Our smokehouse was an adobe shed with walls two feet thick and a heavy plank and pinioned door. The floor was always tarry with old charcoal and dripped grease. In the far corner was a metal sheet with a handle on it, and under there was my strongbox. I left the door ajar for light. Under the swinging hams and beef ribs, I stepped aside to let light into the corner. The strongbox lay upside down in the black grease. I turned it over. The key was still stuck in the lock. I let out a yell, my teeth gritted tightly together, my body shaking at the very memory of the gold coins stacked in that little box. I carried it out of the building and dropped it at the feet of my family. I couldn’t speak, just shook my head, my hands clenched into fists that I couldn’t undo.
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