“Didn’t even get rain down there.”
I felt stupid and insincere. “I’m glad. All I’ve got left is a barn.”
“Your house can be rebuilt.”
I felt as if I couldn’t draw a whole breath. I held my ribs with my arms. Panting, I said, “I’m done. I’ve been wondering just how much I could take, and I just found my fence line. I don’t ever want to look at this place again. When what’s left of it dries out, I’m going to burn it to the ground. Move to town. Go to tea parties.”
“I brought my wagon. We’ll load your stuff up and carry it to the barn, where it will dry out and be safe until you get rebuilt.”
I didn’t have the strength to argue with him. I did what he said, moved where he pointed. Together, we carried things that felt as if they belonged to someone else, things I had no part of or ever wanted to. Heavy books made heavier by water left stains on my arms from the colored leather bindings. We hauled them to his wagon, and he piled up torn lumber so that the wagon could move the hundred feet or so to the barn.
Willie hid his head and stayed silent when he saw Udell open the door. We unloaded the highboy, a chest of drawers, things from the heavy armoire, and then the armoire itself. We moved beds out there, then hung the wet blankets and sheets over them to dry out. We stacked everything savable, and it all fit into two empty stalls. Udell cleared off the feed table where I’d mixed up Hunter’s baby food, then placed books there one at a time. Then we strung forty lines of fine wire across from the table to the wall in rows of twos. He opened each of my books and then hung them one by one over two wires, dividing the pages by thirds, so air could get to them. I’d never have thought of that: a clothesline for books. Still, I doubted whether any could be saved. I couldn’t stand to look at them, so I turned my head, even as I thanked him for the effort.
When that was done, we went toward the house, out of Willie’s sight, and sat side by side to rest on the overturned trough. Udell held my hand. I shook all over. My body felt bruised from top to toe. After a bit, he put his arm around my waist. It didn’t pain me as it had before. I leaned against his shoulder. I didn’t cry. There weren’t any tears bigger than the rain that had already fallen. I’d been so worried about hanging on to this place. All I could do was hold to his arm and sigh again and again.
“Sarah,” he said. “You’ve been mucking through some awful filth.”
“I smell pretty rough,” I said.
“No, I’m talking about sepsis. You need a hot scrub on all those scratches and cuts. In the war, it was more often the mud than the bullet that killed a man.”
“How am I going to light a fire?”
“Down at my place. Where it barely dropped a teaspoonful of rain.”
Udell drove me to his one-room house. He started a big fire outside, where he’d cooked before, and laid over it his coffeepot, a washtub, and a copper kettle. Even the frying pan was used to boil as much water as it would hold. Udell ferried all the pans of steaming water to the doorway, showed me to a clean shirt and a pair of Aubrey’s trousers, then left me alone in the house. All the while, I wondered what I’d do. Where I’d sleep. How I’d put a roof over my boys, my father-in-law, and my own mama. Up at Granny’s, likely.
Across from the washtub, Udell had built a bed. I sat on the edge of it while I pulled dry stockings up over my scratched feet and ankles. They were fine stockings. Store-boughten, too. Looked expensive. Maybe he’d been accustomed to money, long ago. Left it behind with his dead wife and children. After all, somebody’d paid for Aubrey to go to lawyer college. I made a face, pulling Gilbert’s muddy old boots over the stockings. When I opened the door, Udell looked at my face and smiled, then turned his head. Embarrassed seeing a woman in pants, I reckon. About as embarrassed as I felt wearing them. I remembered Mary Pearl saying as much. Although I surely could see now how a fellow could run and kick and hop on a horse so easy. Udell drove me back to the barn, where I looked in the armoire for a skirt of my own to wear. I put it over the pants so I’d feel more presentable. I couldn’t find my hairbrush. Just let the hair hang down my back.
Chess, Charlie, and Gilbert rode up to find a mess they’d never expected. The sun was nearly down. They’d have thought supper would be waiting for them. It took me a few seconds to realize that neither Esther nor her paramour was with them. I watched them get off their horses and look around without speaking.
The three of them asked me so many times if I was hurt, I wanted to scold them. “The roof was torn off by a storm,” I said. “Udell said it might have been a tornado. The house is lost. Did you find Esther?” Chess hung his head. Gilbert turned away, faced the barn. “Tell me,” I said to Charlie.
Charlie’s eyes watered up. He took my hand, then sat on his heels in front of me, squeezing my fingers. “Mama,” he started softly. “Mama, we found her beneath an ironwood tree on the bank of the river. Two graves. Seemed to be her husband there, too. Their names were on two crosses.”
“Oh Lord,” I said. “Oh, poor Savannah.” For a little while, we all fell silent. An ache that could have split me in two welled up inside me. That flowery-talking hired hand had wooed her to her grave. But two graves? I caught my breath. “Who’d have buried both of them?” I asked. “I thought you meant Esther had come to some calamity. But if they’re buried side by side, somebody had to have … been there.”
Chess spat on the ground. “There was a campground, well set up. Like it had been there for years.” Gilbert wiped his eyes on his sleeve and sniffed.
“Indians?” I asked.
“White.”
We rode up just before dark to check on Albert and Savannah’s place. Birds twittered, splashing in puddles left from the rain. A couple of baskets had blown into the yard. Then the lot of us camped out in the barn overnight, next to Willie. No one told him about Esther. We kept our grief to ourselves. Chess told him we were sleeping in the barn because there was a leak in my roof. Willie said, “I meant to nail them shingles better than that,” but nobody answered him.
Udell stayed. Off and on, I slept and woke, uncertain of my surroundings. Each time I awoke, I reached over and touched Udell’s hand. Even sound asleep, he was quick to clasp my fingers in his.
Charlie said he meant to leave with Willie in tow before daylight. He’d be crossing paths with Savannah and Albert on their way home from town. I couldn’t leave them to learn their daughter’s fate that way. I decided to ride with Charlie until we came across the rest of the family headed home. I told Udell I’d follow Savannah, and then, whether she returned home or wanted to go back to town. I’d have to be with her.
Chess said he’d stay home. He asked Gilbert to stay put, too. Said they’d wait on me to come back. I packed some things I could wash in town. Took Granny’s unfinished quilt and tied it to a pack horse. I looked at the remains of that house. No one could live there. Nothing would ever be the same. I said, “We may be in town awhile.”
“That’s all right, Sarah,” Chess said. “We’ll see you when you come down.”
“Udell,” I began, “thank you. For all your help last night. Thanks for staying.”
“Sarah, be careful. We’ll watch everything until you return.” Well, he wrapped his arms around me in front of my sons and Chess and Willie, and he hugged me tight, then kissed my cheek.
I looked sheepishly at my men, worried they’d be upset at the boldness of the man and the foolishness of their mother, not slapping him silly for making advances. None of them looked the least bit worried. They just put their hats on their heads and pulled the horses out of the barn and into the daylight.
Chapter Twenty-Five
October 1, 1906
An hour outside of Tucson, Charlie, Willie, and I met up with Albert and Savannah, who were just starting their journey home. Mary Pearl rode alongside them. Ezra and Zack bounced along on Big Boy and Flojo. I hailed them and got off my horse, climbing into the seat beside Savannah. She started to weep the moment she saw my face, as if she
already knew what I had rehearsed telling. Savannah sobbed deeply when I told her what had happened. Their whole family wept as one. Zack fell from Big Boy’s back and threw himself into the dirt, skinning his nose. He wailed and gasped. Ezra cried, too, although more quietly. Mary Pearl buried her face in her father’s shoulder. I held Savannah and rocked her as if she were a child.
Even Willie cried then, so complete was our sorrow.
I gave Albert my horse to ride and I drove the surrey back to town, not stopping until we were in the backyard of my house there. We unloaded everyone and pulled the shades. I left Savannah to her mourning then, for I needed to tell April before I stopped to rest. We would also need to find Rebeccah and get word to Rachel, call the family together.
Mary Pearl’s eyes were swollen and her nose red. She called softly to me from the parlor doorway, “Aunt Sarah? Will you let me ride along with you?”
“Surely,” I said.
Heading to April’s house, Mary Pearl said after a few quiet moments, “Aubrey Hanna asked me to be his girl.”
“That so?”
“I told him I expected to go to college. I’d planned at least a year, maybe two.”
“And?”
“He said he’d wait a hundred. Said he’d bought some land for me. The Wainbridge place has been in foreclosure for nearly a year. That’s what he bought.”
“So you’re really saying he asked you to marry him?”
“Yes.”
“Thought you didn’t want any truck with that?”
“Aubrey’s not just any fellow.”
I reached across the space between our horses and patted her arm. “I know, honey.” I wanted to smile. Mary Pearl tried to smile, but she wept, instead, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist. I clucked to my horse and she followed me. Her tears, for now, drowned her happiness. It would come back to her. She was young.
We delivered our sad news to April in the silence of her parlor. She cried on my shoulder. Then she raised herself stiffly. “I’ll get a message to Morris. He’ll come home and take me to Rebeccah and Rachel. Please let me do this, Mama. You go home and stay with Aunt Savannah. I’ll handle it for you. It must come from family. Soon as we have the twins, we’ll go to your house.”
“You don’t have to do this, April.”
She pulled open the drawer of a mahogany secretary and dipped a pen quickly, tapping it against the blotter. Then she pulled the embroidered tassel that hung against the doorjamb. She whispered something to Lizzie, who disappeared. “It’s done, Mama. Morris will be home in a few minutes. I’ll be along with the girls as soon as I can.”
I saw the determination in her eyes. “Thank you, honey,” I said.
When Mary Pearl and I got our horses in the yard, Charlie stood and motioned to Willie. “Come on, Will,” he said. “Time to go.” Charlie still had his job to do.
“Aint Sair,” Willie called. The boy was pale. His lean frame looked gaunt. “Kin I ask you something to do for me?”
“What is it, son?” Heavens to Betsy, I’d called him “son” again. Forgot what a curse he was to me, looking at him face-to-face. At that moment, I didn’t care what he’d done. I was plum out of hardness.
“Go with us, there, would you?” Willie pleaded. “It’s just a short walk. Would you carry my half a Bible? So’s I can have it with me?”
Charlie had a hold on Willie’s arm, and I walked behind him, stepping in the tracks of his bare feet, to the sheriff’s office. Just outside the door, he hesitated. Willie turned to me and said, “Aint Sair, there’s just one thing. I want to do this here by myself, but when I get to the judge, will you see me through it? Stay with me through it all, I mean? Clear to the end?”
“Well, it probably won’t be a long trial. Don’t worry. Sure I will. Of course.”
“Promise? Just like you promised all them other things? No going back?”
I smiled at the childish insistence in words coming from an outlaw a good foot taller than I. “I promise.”
“All right, then. I reckon I’m ready, Charlie. Mr. Ranger, sir.” Charlie opened the door and took Willie inside.
Even though it was late in the day, Savannah begged Albert to take her home. We talked about it for a little while. No one wanted Savannah to suffer any more than she already was. I couldn’t let go of her. Kept her hand in mine. In two hours, April, Morris, Rachel, and Rebeccah were there. All our shoulders were wet with tears.
“Savannah, I’m so sorry,” I kept repeating, saying it enough times that it didn’t mean much anymore. There was no cure for a mother grieving for a child. I knew that. When I used to long for my dead children—both Suzy and the two boys lost before they were ever born—I believed that if I could have had them for just a few more years, I would have managed better. If I could have seen them grown, I told myself, it would have been easier. But there is no easy way to mourn a child.
They finally decided to go on home. Albert declared he would ask Chess or Gilbert to show them where Esther was buried. They would build a marker for her in our family plot. I stiffened my backbone, planning to go along with them, hold Savannah up. See to the burying. Make supper for this family, even if I had to cook it out in the yard under my soap ramada.
As they were settling again into the surrey, another thought came to me. I’d promised Willie I would stay in town. A big part of me said I owed the boy no quarter whatever. But another part inside argued that he’d begged me to keep my word. That one thing, I couldn’t turn away from.
I cast around in my mind and heart for all the reasons I had to go with them. Savannah was as dear as any sister, and her children nearly as close as my own. I ached for the loss of Esther. I needed to be with my family. To make sure they rested, and ate, and all the things a body forgets to do when they are mourning a child’s passing. I was sick at heart, sick to my soul. Beat down and tired, too. I had two dozen reasons to go with them, and there was only one reason I had to stay with Willie. I’d given him my word.
I waved farewell to the sad family, my heart torn by the anguish on their faces and by my inconvenient promise to the hellion I’d let into my home and hearth.
Charlie and I stayed in the house. He talked with me about the times we’d come through. For the first time since he’d gotten so tall, I quit seeing Jack in his face and saw just Charlie Elliot. An Arizona Ranger. Quick with a gun. Handy with a rope and cattle. Smart. A good man to know. I was more proud of him than if he were graduating college.
The next day, we went down town to see the sheriff to find out when Willie’s trial would be. The Sheriff said the new district judge would be there a week from next Tuesday morning, and he’d scheduled a trial the following week. Three weeks. I’d have to sit and wait, just biding my time. I should have gone with Albert and Savannah. I could be with them, but there was no use in it now. A clock only turns one direction.
We set out to fill our time. Charlie said he’d have to leave in two days, but for now, he helped me cut up the packed ground behind the house. All the while, I was thinking that this was where we’d call home from now one. We got a flower bed dug out and planted some flower seeds. Next morning, I went to the doctor, who put some liniment on my bruised back. I was sore through and through from the beating I’d gotten by the hail, and digging caliche all day hadn’t improved it.
When I got home that afternoon, Charlie was painting the porch. That evening, he said he’d decided to ride down to the ranch, see what was happening. Told me he’d come back for the trial. He meant to ride all night. It was only after he’d packed up his gear and was saddling his horse that he asked my opinion of it. It would be midnight by the time he got there. I asked him, “Do you really want my opinion, or are you just telling me your plans?” He smiled. “Well,” I said, “check on the cattle, and see the dogs are fed.” I waved him farewell after supper, feeling a pulling in my soul.
Willie was locked behind bars in a horrible cage. The top and sides of the cell were steel plates; it
was a giant vermin box. Hot, dank, smelling of outhouse and men’s sweat. Each day when I got there, Willie was sitting on his bunk, reading quietly.
About a week passed. Something Willie’d said kept running through my mind. Instead of going back to the house one day, I went on to Aubrey Hanna’s office.
Aubrey apologized, saying he was not a criminal lawyer. He was a money lawyer, he said, money and civil things, deeds and such. Still, I asked Aubrey to talk to Willie about one thing. I wanted Aubrey to get him to say again what he’d said to me in the barn: that his mother had often “married” anyone with twenty dollars. Aubrey’s face lit up. He said that could change everything. I left his office with hope for at least one victory. Aubrey went to visit Willie the next day, then came to the house. Willie had confirmed the statement and even signed a paper with the words written in Aubrey’s hand.
Well, not two more days had passed when Aubrey knocked on my door about four of the afternoon, breathless and red in the face. “Mrs. Elliot? I got the judge to listen to this move for dismissal. You’ve got to come with me right now. He said he’d hear it by four-thirty today, else it would have to wait a month. I’m thinking that since Willie could still be a legal heir and we don’t know what his fate is yet, if he’s sent to prison, the government could requisition the land that’s his property. We shouldn’t wait a month. It needs to be settled before Willie goes to trial, if that’s possible. I brought a buggy.”
The judge was an old, old man, who squinted through thick spectacles at the papers Aubrey Hanna placed before him. I sat on a wooden chair in a little room. When he finally turned to Aubrey, he said, “It is in my power to change people’s lives. Much as I know I’ve made mistakes now and then, this one seems pretty clear. You, Mrs. Elliot, have lived on that land some years. This relative claims rightful ownership but ha’n’t set foot on it in a month o’ Sundays. Am I understanding this? Well, have you anything to say, Mrs. Elliot, on your side?”
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