I opened my eyes. My head pounded as if I’d hit a fence post. I felt cold and chilled. Overhead, the branches of a tree rustled. I tried to sit up, and felt arms behind my back. Udell said, “There you are. Lost you for a moment. Here, drink this.” He handed me a cup of cool water.
I felt plumb foolish, fainting like that. “Reckon I got overheated,” I said.
He ran into the house yet again, then came back in a moment with a handful of cotton rags, which he soaked in water and held to my forehead. “I’d offer to help you to the house, but it’s probably cooler here in the shade,” he said.
I nodded. My eyes ached. “Was I out long?”
“Barely a blink. Sit still until you get a little color in your face.”
My eyes met his for a long second. He had blue eyes. Not gray and hawklike, as Jack’s were, just blue. The eyebrows, like his hair, were salted with a little gray. I pulled the wet cotton from my head. A drip of water trailed down my face from my hair, running exactly to the tip of my nose. It tickled and felt silly. I smiled and wiped at it.
Udell’s kiss was soft as fresh bread—unexpected, though not entirely—just as natural as the path of the water that had caused me to smile. His lips lingered just a moment longer on mine, as if he was waiting for me to protest. I simply couldn’t. His arm still circled my back, and my good hand rested easily on that arm. He was muscled out from a lifetime of hard work. My hand felt small there, safe.
When he pulled away, he turned his head from me, but he didn’t let go. I couldn’t look him in the eye again, either. The moments passed as we held our breath. Then he turned back toward me, his lips caught in a shy grin, his brows raised. I smiled.
“Well, you’re a fair doctor,” I said. “I’ve purely forgotten about the pain in my hand.”
He laughed. “Sarah, you’d make a man be anything he ever thought about being.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He lifted me to my feet. “I’ve taken advantage of your condition.”
My heart beat right up in my throat. I steadied myself on his arm, looking about for something else to hold to, so I could cling to that and not appear as brazen as I felt at that moment. My mouth opened and words came out that I’d had no intention of saying—truth, as bare as day. I said, “Reckon I don’t mind.”
Udell stepped one foot closer to me, and this time we kissed the way Jack and I used to do. All the while, my mind raced here and there, wondering what on earth I was doing. What this meant to him. What it meant to me. At the same time, my heart kicked like Hunter scampering around the corral. I wrapped my good hand around the back of his neck and just leaned into him. I pondered Jack for a moment, but rather than feeling guilty or longing for him, I felt only good, sweet memories. Sweet, tender kisses. Just like this one. All thought left me, and then a thousand feelings tore through my mind and heart. And they all came suddenly to rest on—Rudolfo Maldonado.
“I have to go home,” I said, stepping away, turning toward my horse.
Udell rubbed his face and nodded. “I’ll ride with you. That bite could get worse by the time you get home. What do you have to dress it with?”
I said firmly, “I’ll be all right.” I swung my leg over the saddle, teetering at the high point, as if I were going to go clean over the other side. At the last second, I caught my balance and planted myself hard in the seat.
He looked puzzled for a minute; then he set his jaw and shook his head. He said, “I haven’t ever argued with you before now, either. I was real taken with the way we agreed on things. But no, this time, you’re wrong, and you need someone to go along with you. Wait here while I get my horse.”
“I’m perfectly able—”
“It has nothing to do with you being able. Wait here.”
When we got to my front porch, I was feeling miserable, and my hand throbbed with shooting pain. I didn’t know how I’d manage supper or washing up, much less changing for bed. Those things were on my mind. That’s why I didn’t notice the horse meandering around the yard. That’s why I was startled by the presence of a man on the rocker. Rudolfo stood as we rode toward him. The look on his face was dark as the day he’d gone after Willie. Troubled as the day he’d returned without him. “Rudolfo? What brings you here?” I asked.
“A little business with the woman I’m going to marry,” Rudolfo said. His eyes bored into Udell as he spoke.
I saw only a glimpse of Udell’s face as he turned his horse. “Wait!” I called, knowing perfectly well that he would not wait. I could have throttled Rudolfo for saying that. I hadn’t told him I’d marry him. I hadn’t told Udell anything, either. Lands. I was betwixt and between, and this was a stew of my own making. “I need to put a plaster on this bite. A little soda ash and water will do,” I said. To the sounds of a galloping horse fading over the hill, I got down and told Rudolfo about the scorpion, and how I had fainted. My words felt foolish, as if I was telling a whopper, though every word was true.
Rudolfo followed me into the house and talked while I fiddled clumsily with the soda and the bandage, using my off hand, spilling things. I couldn’t help but think that Udell would have been busy wrapping my arm with it by now, the way he’d done Aubrey’s face. Rudolfo said he had a grand idea. Told me that what this county needed was a rail spur to get cattle to town. Too many were lost when driving a herd.
“Not across my land,” I said.
His face softened. He spoke as if he were explaining something to one of his little girls. “It will be our land, Sarah. And our prosperity depends on wise thinking. You will be wise to let me make the decisions that will keep our business going. Remember? I told you that never again will you worry about money. You will be living down at the hacienda in grand suites. A few iron rails and some beams—what does that hurt? After they set las espigas, the workers will disappear. You will never hear the train from your rooms there.”
“You know someone from the rail company has already swindled my mama out of part of her land?” I still owed her eighteen hundred dollars for that well, too. Glory.
“They paid in gold. You have a well for it. It’s all improving the land.”
My plaster slipped and I set it back again. “They were scouting my land. I know for a fact that someone looked up the plat and legal section maps awhile back.”
I couldn’t read his face. He stepped back, startled, and said, “How do you know this?”
“I just do.”
“You can’t know this.” Something changed in him. There was a smoothness to his expression. Some kind of glaze in his eyes. My head ached with ferocious pain. My hand throbbed. My gut twisted.
I faced him square on and said, “Who looked up the plats for my spread?”
Rudolfo smiled, his eyes crinkling. He said, “As you said, the rail company is far-thinking. They must have been looking for a good location for tracks. That’s why they came to you with the offer.”
Chess came up on the porch and into the kitchen, sitting down right next to Rudolfo without saying a word.
Rudolfo nodded at him and said, “Señor? I have come to ask Sarah’s hand in marriage. And to present her with this.” He pulled another gift from his pocket, a folded leather wallet about two inches square. He opened it and took out a ring of gold with rubies across it. Rudolfo took hold of my left hand, which was still gritty from the soda I’d been trying to hold to my other wrist. He slid the ring on my finger. It was small and only went past the first knuckle. He pulled it off and slid it easily upon my littlest finger. “Now,” he said. “No more of useless trains and men’s business. Say you’ll be mine, Sarah. I ask el suegro for your hand. Señor Elliot, will you give her to me?” he said, glancing toward Chess.
Chess grinned and made a face. He slapped his knee and said, “You must not know what you’re getting into, Maldonado, if you think anyone could give her away. You’ll likely wake up next to a mountain lion one morning, wondering where you went wrong. I ain’t saying a word. Nosirree. Not a
word.”
Rudolfo looked to me. I looked down at the ring. And I heard Morris’s voice saying, “ … books were easy to find … . right on top … paper markers …” The county records of my land had been interesting to someone. The ring on my finger felt as strangling as the band of the sleeve had on my swollen wrist before Udell had cut it off. The parlor clock ticked. It chimed the quarter hour. I felt Udell Hanna’s lips against mine, still flushed with the warmth of rediscovering that joy.
Rudolfo suddenly stood. “I have to go to Tucson in two weeks, Sarah. The election campaign starts in full then. We could marry before that day, or you will need to bring El Chess with you as carabino. I must know soon whether the wedding will be before the election or after. It changes the campaign. I’ll send for a seamstress to begin work on your wardrobe.” He took my left hand in his, kissed the fingers just above the ring he’d placed there, and, tipping his head toward Chess, whistled for his horse.
When he was gone, I said, “Chess, take this thing off my hand.” I held the ring toward him.
Chess said, “Sí, Doña Maldonado.” He set the ring on the table, placing it in the larger ring of spilled soda ash and drips of water.
I said, “Stop that.”
“You’d better make up your mind,” he said. “I won’t say a word either way. But what I see crossing your mind is some kind of foolishness I can’t even put a blanket on. I saw you riding back here with Hanna, like you’d been on a picnic. Maldonado here waiting for you. Well, I figured to come to the house and watch the fireworks.”
“I was helping Udell build a brush arbor to shade his animals.”
“Why in blazes are you ten miles from home, building a shed in the middle of the day?”
“Same as anyone would do. Lending a hand where I saw one was needed.”
“Ah.”
“Ah what?”
“Just sitting here, come in late, watching you fuss with that plaster. Let me wrap it on for you. What got you?”
“Scorpion.”
“Two little sores here. Sure it wasn’t a rattler?”
“I saw it.”
“Too late, though, to do you much good.” He tied the ends of the rag with a snap, hurting the worst part of my wrist. His eyes were stern. They held a glimmer of Jack’s expression. “Think of it as a supernatural message.”
I knew he figured I should be understanding something, but my mind was so full of dust right then, I could barely breathe. I said, “I’m going for a ride. Dip my feet in the creek and cool down.”
Chess said, “That sounds like a right fine plan. You do that. Take all afternoon and do that.”
“I will, then,” I said, and closed the door behind me with a slam. Nip crawled out from under the porch and wagged his tail at me. “Stay home, boy,” I said. This time, I got straight into the saddle without wobbling.
I headed north toward Savannah and Albert’s place, stopping where Cienega Creek crossed the road. I looped the reins loosely over a low branch so the horse could crop. It was quiet and cooler there. First thing I did was test the water with my left hand. It was barely flowing, and not as cool as I wished; still, it was pleasant. I plunged the right hand, bandage and all, into the water and sighed deeply as the pain lessened. Then I sat myself in the shade and pulled up my knees, resting my elbows on them and my head on my good hand.
Other times, I’d have run to the graveyard to talk to Jack. Now he was gone as the rest of the people there. A vapor. Disappeared in the heat and sunlight. At least when I’d been able to tell him things, they’d begun to make sense to me.
Quail scurried by, first on foot, then fluttering into the air when they noticed me. As they did, another movement caught my eye. A horned toad flattened himself against the ground, invisible except for his eyes, which darted back and forth, sizing up his territory for enemies. I watched the horned toad dash away into some grass. Then I smelled an odor, halfway between a skunk spray and rotted meat. There was no time to lose. I was in the saddle just as the first javelina came ramming through the brush. Five more followed it, along with two babies, exact versions of their parents, but small.
The horse reared, and I held tight with my left hand, circling him around. We bolted away before the javelina herd came closer, but the horse was spooked and wanted to run. The wild pigs could cripple a horse, kill anything smaller. I pulled him back and made him trot to Savannah’s house. She, of all people, would sort out my feelings for me. She would know exactly what I should do.
I found Savannah on her porch, fanning herself, a wet towel at her neck. Her expression was tired and gaunt. “We’ve heard from Esther this morning,” she said soon as I dismounted.
What had I been thinking? That in the whole world, my problems were the only ones? I went to her side. “A letter, a note? What did she say?”
Savannah’s voice was strained but flat, as if no emotion could express the anguish she felt. “That she was sorry to have eloped the way she did. Said she was happy, living in a tent in the bushes, for now. She could have babies out there.”
All I could say was, “I’m so sorry, honey.”
“I failed in everything I ever taught her. I was a no-account mother.”
“Oh, Savannah, you didn’t fail. You have eight. Seven have listened and learned. Surely Esther’s not stupid, just—” I was about to say “young,” but Savannah interrupted.
“Foolish,” Savannah said. “The worst sin of all. Foolish.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
September 29, 1906
I’ve told Shorty and Flores that I couldn’t afford to pay them any longer. There wasn’t much for them to do, anyway. We’ve been home for over three weeks and still no sign of Esther and Bienvenites. Albert says he wants to talk to the Sheriff again, so they are planning to head back to town. Chess and I will stay and mind their place with ours. While they are gone they’ll pick up supplies, so I counted eight dollars into Albert’s hand, over his protests, for a month’s supply of coffee and flour and cornmeal. I’d do without anything else, and make do with what was already in my pantry. Chess asked Albert to take the fancy saddle he’d finished and see if he could sell it in town. Another hundred dollars or so would get us a little further.
Well, they’re leaving this afternoon and Savannah said Mary Pearl had come down this morning with another note she’d found on her windowsill. This one was from Esther, by way of her man. Mary Pearl said Bienvenites promised Esther a castle in Spain.
Savannah stared hard into the distance and said, “You want to hear what she is proudest of? That he gave her a white mule to ride. Said it was a fine animal. She owns the clothes she left with, a Bible, and a mule. Castles in Spain, my hind foot.”
I said, “Savannah, are you sure you’re well enough to go? You could stay with me.”
“I’m going,” she said. Savannah hugged me, then searched my face, and the sadness in her eyes was as deep as a cave. If Esther had died instead of run off, it might have been easier for her mother to understand. I knew that feeling. And I knew there was no cure for it.
I said, “Maybe when your boys get home, they can go with Gil and Charlie to look for her.” Misery made my own voice sound hollow. If I ever got to that girl I’d scold her for what she’s done to this family until she was scared to lift a finger.
“Have you heard from Clove and Josh?” Savannah asked.
I shook my head. “But Granny should have gotten my letters. We’ll hear soon.”
“Will you check the mail for me? As often—not every day, I know—but some?”
Mary Pearl came out to the porch just then. She smiled, then saw her mother’s expression, and made her own more serious. A gleam remained in her eyes, though, made more sparkling by the bright color of a new waistcoat. Mary Pearl seemed a far cry from the girl who had said a few weeks ago that a trip to town was just a long ride on a hard seat. Although Duende was tied to the back, she climbed into the surrey next to her mother.
When they pulled
out, I rode alongside for a ways, and then I turned on the eastern trail and rode up to Marsh Station again. Might as well start today.
Weeks and months can go by without us getting so much as a Sears and Roebuck’s Catalog, and now that we are spread to the winds, there’s mail all the time. Henry, the stationmaster, said there was a little box for Savannah from the Singer Sewing Machine Company, a Seed and Feed catalog, and two letters from Aubrey Hanna. One was on thick paper, addressed in a fine hand to me. I opened it and read it quickly, before I left the station. It seems that a new judge had been appointed in town and Felicity’s lawyer had somehow managed to get him to listen to her. I almost dropped the rest of the mail. Aubrey assured me that he would write another letter explaining everything again, but this new judge didn’t know people in town the way his predecessor had. My heart sank.
I rode slowly, just thinking. Halfway to Albert’s, I started to pull open the second letter from Aubrey, hoping that the two had been sent at different times and that in this one, he would tell me it had all been resolved. I stopped short because it felt so different from the first one. Not official at all. It was thin letter paper. I turned the envelope over. It was addressed to Mary Pearl.
I dropped Savannah’s sewing machine parts and Mary Pearl’s letter on their kitchen table. Fed their chickens and filled the water tubs in the chicken coops. The letter made me think of Aubrey, which led my mind to his papa. I hadn’t seen Udell since that day I got the scorpion bite. I was just starting to get my hand back to use.
I stopped up on the ridge where I could see Granny’s place, Albert’s, and, yonder a ways, my own. At Granny’s empty house, shingles hung loose and bird nests festooned the windowsills. I saw it differently now, not as our family home but just some ground with a tiny house on it, and for the first time, realized that when my mama passed into the next life, her section would rightly be split between us—Albert, Ernest, Harland, and me. Felicity would have an honest right to a fourth of Granny’s place.
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