Excerpt
Chapter OneApril 24, 1906I used the rifle to part branches as I ran. All I heard for a time was the rhythm of my boots scuffing gravel. My horse was standing where Id left him, his reins held by my niece Mary Pearl, whod been out checking stock with me since dawn. I knew not to ride a horse into that commotion. I thought I heard her hollering “Aunt Sarah?” but I didnt quit running toward the sound that had stopped us. As I tore through brush, an ironwood tree clutched at my clothes; thorns ripped my skirt. The troubled bellow of a cow was accompanied by a pitiful, higher-pitched bawling. Along with that, a pack of coyotes yipped.I cleared the rise. The mother cow whirled around at that second, hooked a coyote on one horn, and threw it high over her back. They were half-hidden by a thicket of greasewood and cholla—in a clear place just wide enough for the pack of killers to trap the mother and baby. The calf had blood running down its legs and it whimpered. The mother cow dashed and whirled, fending off another and another coyote, as others circled behind her and nipped at her baby.I tried to yell, but I had no wind left. My throat was parched as old rope. I slung the rifle to my shoulder and picked off two coyotes. The crippled one had made it back into the path of the cow. As she tried to fight the coyote, it bit into her ankle, and she dragged it, its body clinging to her foot like a rag, before she got it loose. Fierce as she was, the coyotes knew their game was to outlast her, and while the mother cow thrashed, three more closed in on the calf. I ran again, this time finding my voice, shouting the whole way. Mary Pearl told me later that what I was hollering would not be fit talk for her mothers parlor, but I dont remember it.I pulled up the rifle again, chambering a shell as I did. With a shot, I dropped another coyote in his tracks, and he squirmed when he fell, but he didnt get up. The little calf dropped to its knees and then lay on its side. I could see then that the mother cow was torn in the milk bag. Streaky red liquid oozed from her wound. She stomped and shook that animal off her ankle as I shot another. When one coyote remained, he turned tail and lit out into the brush, gone like a drop of water in this hot desert. Well, I started to move toward the calf; then the panicked cow decided to come after me. She put her head low and scuffed at the dust. I took up part of my skirt and flapped it at her, waving my hat in the other hand, and she backed up, mooing, looking for danger from all around. The poor old girl was bleeding from the nose, too. I whistled and Mary Pearl came riding in my direction, leading my horse. Two baldhead buzzards looped in the sky overhead.The calf made a human-sounding wail. I knelt at its side. Poor baby was not two months into this hard world. I picked his little head up and laid it in my lap, coddling him as if he were a child. Hed been bitten all around the gut and his sack was torn clear off. By the time the cow started back my way, I saw the calfs eyes sink and knew he was dead. The cow bandied her head and groaned. Mary Pearl tossed a rope around her neck and tied it off to the horses saddle, then backed the horse, pulling that mother cow around. The coyotes had been at her worse than Id been able to see before. Id figured I could doctor up the milk bag—Id done as much before. Not this one, though—flesh hung from her leg and long blue veins dangled from her neck on the left side. Mary Pearl went to my horse, and from the saddle, she slung another rope over the cows horns. She picketed the two horses so the cow was held between them.The cow thrashed, limping on her mangled hoof and ankle, and shook the second lariat from its loose hold on her horns. Mary Pearl backed her horse more to keep the line taut while the animal jerked against it. In midstride, the cow collapsed, breathing hard through a spew of blood and sand and slobber. Mary Pearl rode closer, easing the tension on the rope. She said, “Aunt Sarah? Has she given in?”I wiped my face with my sleeve and hung my head. Shock and fear had done what the coyotes couldnt. Ive known cattle to outlast amazing things. Some dont. Maybe their hearts burst. Lord knows Ive felt that way, watching my own child die. The old girl pitched in the dirt and bellowed, but she didnt get up. I said, “Ride on back to the house. Take my horse. I want to walk. Ill bring your rope by and by.”I reckon Mary Pearl knew better than to fuss with me right then, for she did as I said without her usual commotion. I walked around the cow, talking to her, my voice soft and low. “You fought em off, didnt you, old girl? Dont you go giving up now. Youll have another baby round the bend.” Suddenly struggling to her feet, the cow made another threatening stance, lunged toward me, but then fell into the dirt, banging her great head against a rock outcrop. She moaned: a pitiful, suffering noise. It is a hard step for me—always somewhat of a surprise—to stop hoping and accept that there is no hope for an animal but a slow, agonizing death. My foreman shrugs and says its part of ranching, but I hurt for my animals. I lifted the rifle and in my mind drew an X on her skull, midpoint between both eyes and the base of both horns. It isnt kind to do it poorly.The shot was loud in my ears, echoing as the cow slumped and went quiet. Then I sat between my dead cow and her dead calf, right there in the scrabble and brush, pulled up my knees, and cried. These last three years have seemed like an eternity of drought and poor harvest and dying animals. My boys are off at school, and to tell the truth, its cheaper to send them to town, where they can pick up work, than to feed them here. I need money and I need rain. Both of them in good order and flowing over.After a while, I coiled Mary Pearls rope and hung it over my shoulder. The rifle was heavy. My feet hurt. I beat the dust off my old hat, put it on my head, and started walking. I shook my head and didnt look back. The buzzards and the coyotes would have their day after all.April 25, 1906I knew soon as I spotted the riders and put names to them they were up to no good. I laid into the rug draped across my front porch rail with an iron beater, watching two men amble toward the house. Both were carrying good-size packs tied behind their saddles. It was early afternoon, and I had plenty of chores tallied to this day already. No sense waiting on a couple of slowpokes. I kept on whipping that rug, and let them get as close as the gate before I looked up and showed Id seen them coming. “Charlie? Gilbert?” I called. “You two know what day it is?”“Yes, maam, Mama,” they said together. Charlie is twenty-one. Gilbert is but nineteen. My sons werent due back from school for three weeks.“Dont you let me hear youve failed out. Ill turn you out, to boot.” I feared I knew the truth before they said it.Charlie spoke first. “No, Mama. We havent failed, either one of us. We just—well, we changed our minds.”I hit that rug two more licks. I said, “Oh, you did?” Charlie had been taking studies in engineering and mining. Gilbert was going to be a doctor.He said, “Yes, maam.”“Both of you—together—changed your minds like they were one? What did you change them to?” Felt like my eyeteeth had just come loose. There is a perfectly fine university right there in Tucson for them to use. A library full of books, some of which I put there myself, is just waiting for them to discover and love and enjoy it. And here they come like roosting pigeons. I shook all over, so mad I couldnt speak.Charlie stepped off his horse, holding his reins as if he was fixing to get back on.Gilbert was still on his horse. He, too, was debating whether just to keep riding. He finally said, “Well, Mama, you dont know what its like.”“I know what hard work is like. You have a privilege not many get—to use your minds instead of your backs—and you turn away from it, like … like it was tedious.”Charlie scratched the animals head between the ears and said, “We want to be ranchers. Like you and Grampa. We arent cut out for that place.”I found myself fussing at his back. “How will you know what you are cut out for if you dont try? Charlie, you were only a year and this term from finishing. This ranch will be here when you are done. Mount up and get back there. Tell your teachers youre sorry for being knotheads, and make up your work.”“It isnt that easy,” Charlie said, finally turning around to face me. He held the saddle in both hands. “I missed the final examination in geology today. Id have to do the whole term again anyway. They just make it so hard on you, you cant get above water. Besides, all the science professor talks about is diamond mines in Africa. Ive turned enough rocks here to make a mountain, and there sure arent diamonds under em. Schools a waste of time when theres plenty of work to do here.”I said, “You two seemed to have time enough for plenty of other shenanigans. I heard about the armless saguaro some hooligans planted right in front of the main stairs. Looks like a blessed giant finger stuck in the ground—in front of a university. It doesnt take a scholar to figure who might have been part of that.”Gilbert finally dismounted, turned his face toward his saddle. He was barely hiding a grin, but still scared to look me in the eye. I said, “I reckon theres some reason youre tagging along.”“I—well, I reckoned Id think it over awhile. Doctors hardly make enough money to keep a pot of beans on the stove. Id rather do something that puts some jingle in my pockets. Why, a vanilla drummer makes as much as a doctor, and he doesnt have to study chemistry or cut open cadavers.” He eyed that rug beater in my hands as he smiled.All my life, Ive ached for the chance to sit in a real schoolroom, but I never got the privilege. I set myself to lay into them, but Id as soon argue with the daylight. Theyd already done what they meant to do. Maybe I never went to school, but I reckon Im smart enough to know when Im licked. Licked for now maybe, but not finished with this fight. So I said, “How are your cousins?” Savannah and Alberts twin girls and second son—Rachel, Rebeccah, and Joshua—the ones these two were supposed to be sharing my house in town with. The ones whod stayed in school. “You say hello to your aunt and uncle as you rode in?” My brother and his wife and family lived just a scant mile up the road from me.I could see the boys let their shoulders down. They knew theyd won this go-round. Gilbert took the pack off his horse and began loosening the saddles cinch strap. At the same time, both of them said, “Fine. Theyre all just fine,” mumbling something or other about Rachels cooking.“And whats cadavers?” I said.Gilbert said, “Dead folks. Pickled dead folks. After the second one, well—”I headed toward the house, saying over my shoulder, “Well, if you hadnt got the stomach for that, you hadnt. Come on in, and Ill feed you. Put those animals in the west corral. Pillbox just foaled, and I dont want you in the barn, upsetting her.”Even from the porch, I could see in their eyes that they were smiling, although they knew better than to look smart in front of me. One thing I know is that you cant let up on boys. Just because theyre big as a man, you give them any slack, and theyll run sidelong into trouble. Im about fed up with these two, I thought. Reckon Ill make them some lunches, and then figure what to do with them. Might as well invite Albert and Savannah and the rest for supper tonight, let them know the two renegades are back. Sorry rascals.Theres a single cloud in the sky. It looks pretty sickly, and I doubt it will prove its mettle. We as much as missed the spring rains. Maybe the summers wet weather will come early, and get some grass growing before we go broke buying feed for cattle that already look like walking beef jerky.My sons were still tending their horses when Ezra and Zachary, Alberts youngest boys, came along. They had a cord of some sort stretched tight between them and they trotted in circles around each other. They were each toting a slate and a book under one arm. Their bare feet stirred up dust as they came.“Aunt Sarah,” Ezra called, “watch us. Watch! Planetary motion.” They whirled up the road, and Ezra howled as if he were the wind; then he jerked the string hard and tugged his little brother forward.I laughed. Ezra and Zachary are my last two students, and I dont aim to short them on their readiness for the university.As they got to the house, Zack was running with all his might. They both stopped at my front steps. Zack put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He gasped, “You sorry old buzzard, Ezra. I told you to slow down. Im played clear out.”I called through the kitchen window, “Both of you come on in. Ezra, youll have to do your recitation first, so Zack can have enough wind to say his piece.” Ezra moaned and followed Zack to the parlor, where they dropped to the floor and fanned themselves with their slates. I said, “Your cousins are home from town. Were all going to eat first, and then you can do your lessons.”Ezra said, “Can we go see em? May we? I mean.”I said, “Nope. Just cool off in here. Theyll be in directly.”Almost the minute Id said it, Charlie and Gilbert came at a near run to the house and flung wide the door.Charlie said, “Mama, are you sick?”My sons faces bore childlike expressions of fear. Ezra and Zack cheered and howled at the sight of them, mindless of their cousins worried looks. I had to raise my voice to be heard over the commotion. “Nothing of the kind,” I said.Charlie said, “When we put the saddles away, we saw old Mr. Sparky had been moved. Went to see what he was sitting on.”Mr. Sparky was what I reckon youd call a toy. A scarecrow, topped off with a skull the boys had been given when the army shut down Fort Lowell and folks turned it into a marketplace. The telegrapher used to keep an old human skull in the office with glass eyeballs plugged into the eye holes and the snaggletoothed chinbone spring-wired to the ticker line. When a message came in, that jaw would ratchet up and down and the eyes would roll in their sockets. Indians would come for miles around just to set and wait for a message, then hoot and roll with laughter at the thing. After Jack died, some of the men at the fort sort of kept an eye on my boys when we were in town, and one of them rode clear out here to see if Charlie wanted Sparky when they left. Id laughed and told him it wasnt like a puppy, but Charlie was happy, and later he and Gilbert took some clothes theyd both outgrown and stuffed Mr. Sparky a body.Halloweens, Sparky keeps guard duty at the outhouse for us, which saves it being turned over like most of the other privies around. Other times, he appears now and then, just for the fun of it. Once, I got up on a Christmas morning to find what looked like a saddle tramp snoozing under a sombrero in a rocking chair on the front porch, his boots sticking from under an old blanket. About the time I guessed the old cuss was dead and started to use a stick to lift the sombrero, one of Sparkys glass eyeballs fell out and rolled across the porch. Gilbert and Charlie were laughing so hard at the corner of the house, they fell clear into the dirt. That was three years ago. Now he just collects spiders in the barn.I said, “Grampa Chess put that hat on his head. I got tired of seeing those eyeballs glaring at me in the dark.”Charlie said, “Mama, Sparkys a-sitting on a headstone with your name on it. What does it mean?”I stood in the doorway and folded my arms. “Not a blessed thing,” I said. “I just had a hankering one day and bought it. Had my name carved, says just what I want.”Gil slapped his gloves against his leg. “What in blazes do you want it to say?”I said, “Dont swear; the little boys are here. Come take a look, and Ill show you.” I headed for the barn.Gilbert took my arm, hurrying beside me. “Mama, if theres something we ought to know, if theres something wrong, youve got to tell us.” Ezra and Zack followed us, and Charlie held the door aside, frowning. I do see his fathers face when he does that.In the barn, I moved Sparky, then went to pulling down some bales of fence wire where hed been resting his feet. I passed them to each of the boys until I got down to the tarpaulin on the stone. “Theres nothing wrong except my hardheadedness,” I said. Although Ill be forty-three on my next birthday, I feel eighteen and spry, and I work sun to sun without a stop. “Dont know how you managed to find it. I hid it back here so you two wont have to mind it when the time comes.”“Mama,” Charlie said, shaking his head, “thats the blamed awfulest thing I ever have heard of.” That boy loses all track of his grammar when hes excited.Gil said, “Its bad luck or something. If youre not old or sick, could bring on some kind of early passing.”I smiled at the earnestness of his expression. “Not likely, boys. The only thing Ive come down with was a scalded hand last Christmas. I pondered a long time about what I wanted it to say.” I was holding the tarp so they couldnt see the whole thing. The stone matched the color and shape of their papas on the hill. It will look fine next to his. My stone says “Here lies Sarah Agnes Prine Elliot, mother, rancher, and a pretty good shot.” Suits me.Charlie made a face at Gilbert. “You sure youre not sick?”Gilbert was starting to grin. He said, “Dang, Mama. Youll probably be dead three days before you quit working long enough to notice. Lets see er.”Charlie smiled. He said, “I know just what it needs: ‘Shake the dust off your boots and look busy, Lord, there she comes.”“Rascals,” I said, and pulled back the tarp. “See there? All you have to do is put on the date and prop it next to your pas.”Gilbert poked Charlie in the arm. Charlie said, “This is vexation, Mama. Why, that had to cost a pretty penny, all those letters, and should have gone against the grain of a woman whos got a five-dollar gold piece with marks from her milk teeth bit into it.”I could tell him a thing or two, since every gold eagle hes ever seen has been one Ive earned with my two hands. I said, “Ive got lessons to teach. You boys stack those spools of wire back up before you wash and come in the house.”“Well set your sentry back on duty, too,” Charlie said.I left my sons and started for the house, with Ezra and Zachary following behind me like ducklings, heading for the only schooling theyre going to get, living this far from town. My father-in-law, their grandpa Chess, came to the house for lunch, and when Gil and Charlie got in from brushing down their horses, we had a fine reunion around the kitchen table. It always has done my heart good to watch folks eat, especially my kin.I set our noon meal in front of the boys and their cousins, enjoying the familiar sounds that filled my kitchen. They made a ring of men, plus me. Chess, Charlie, being nearly a head taller than Gilbert, who sat next to him, and Ezra, whos just starting to get stringy, followed by little old Zack, just eight years old. Chess was as happy to see the boys as if theyd only been on some long errand. He kept pushing food at them, telling them to stock up and get the town dust out of their veins so they could breathe better and work harder.Gilbert said to Chess, although I figured it was for me to hear, “Well, Grampa, thats the whole idea. Charlie and me need to be—”I said, “Charlie and I.” And while Im hearing them argue the reasons for letting out of school, I keep remembering their father went through military college when he was their age, all on his own. That was gumption.Gilbert kept talking without missing a word: “—and I need to be here to help out with the ranch when Mama gets too old. It isnt going to run itself.”Charlie grins and says, “We only have until Mamas next birthday. Shell be middle-aged and put out to pasture. She knows it herself, spending cash on that stone there, like it was just around the corner of being needed. Must be getting older by the minute.”“Middle-aged, my hind foot,” I said. “Wasnt I flanking every fourth calf last year? By the time Im too old to run this place, you two will be doddering around on canes, and riding nothing but a rocking chair. Why, I havent even got a gray hair! Im not old. Not by a long shot. Ill see you two graduated from that university yet.”Charlie smiled. Ornery cuss. I can hire hands to do their work, but Im not paying hands to take their grades for them. Even before they went, theyd look down at me and wed square off until one or the other of them cuts a grin, and pretty soon wed all be laughing at the three of us. It never let up the mad I felt at them, but it put it on a back shelf, as if it was out of my reach for a while.Gilbert had the gall to say if I was so set on more learning in this family, I should go myself and see what they were up against. I told him to go cut a switch and Id wear out his britches, and then hed see what they were up against, but he just grinned. Charlie and Gil and their grandpa took off to get a better look at Pillboxs new foal, which Id saddled with the name Elliots Hunter.While my boys were in the barn, I corralled Ezra and Zack, and summertime school commenced. Savannah and I dont let up on the children the way town schools do. We have school every day of the year except Sunday, unless its roundup or harvest or Christmas. Of course, like today, sometimes our school lasts only two hours.We went around the side where shade hits in the afternoon, and I sat on the rope swing while they used firewood blocks for a perch. I heard their recitations and Ezra did some long division. Zack said his times tables. I listened, but I wished a breath of wind would stir. We were sweating, just sitting in the shade. Both of them had some Latin verbs, which I think no boy is too young to do, and then I read to them another page from Modern Celestial Theories: A Study of the Planetary System. It took a while to decipher it, but we got it boiled down to a few ideas they could understand. I do fancy a well-rounded education.Then I sent them to play, after explaining that the planets dont swirl around each other, that one of them had to be the sun, and the other one had to do all the circling. Zachary always makes me think of a child born old, for I saw him cogitating just a moment before he said, straight-faced as a judge, “Ill be the sun, Ezra. Thats the boringest part.” So hed fixed Ezra after all, and his older brother would have to run rings around him for the game of rotating planets to continue.I shooed them like critters and headed for the house. “Scoot,” I said. “Schools out, and Ive got work to do.” I pulled my flour crock from its corner on the kitchen worktable and then tried to figure how many pies I should make for supper. I could see the four boys in the yard. Gilbert had a lariat and tossed it, lassoing Zachary, cutting short Zacks game of being the sun. Ezra leaned over, hands on his knees, catching his breath.Watching them through the window glass, Chess said to me, “Sarah, you know I dont like to interfere with your raising the boys.”I nodded slowly. Dont know how a man can be part of a family and not interfere somehow. At least he was usually spare with his advice unless asked. I said, “Whats on your mind?”“Its time you cut em loose. Thats all.”“You saying my apron strings are too tight?”“That. Im saying you could talk to them until you was choked. Theyre men. They got to make up their own minds, or itll go bad on you. I recommend you to let em have their own reins. Make less work for yourself in the bargain.”“They arent done growing yet.”Chess picked at a thread on his shirt. He does that when hes thinking. His head has a slight tremor, though his eyes are clear and keen. “Blieve I disagree.”“I want them to get educated.” I scooped a lump of dough onto the table and went to rolling it out.“They will. In time. No sense wearing yourself out on it.”“How did you get Jack to go to school?”“Didnt. He just up and went.”“So youre telling me to let them be?”He smiled. “Im telling you that you work like two men. I suggest you get two men to lighten your load a mite. Its soon enough theyll be ‘up and went, on their own. Some girlll come along and wink her eye, and thatll be the end of it.”“April and Morris are living in Tucson. Maybe Ill move to town, too, and go to tea parties and concerts and let you men run this ranch.”Chess said, “Wed take the job for you.”I said, “What in the world will make them appreciate what Im trying to do for them?”“Time.”“I dont have time,” I said. “Im too old.”After they were satisfied with seeing the colt, Zack and Ezra were sent home with the invitation for supper in their minds, cookies in one hand, McGuffeys Readers in the other. My boys unpacked their duds and the books they brought home while I made up beds for them on the sleeping porch. Then they went with their grandpa to ride south and see how the land had fared with the drought.Weve been three years of the sparsest rainfall in anyones recollection. Last year was better, but still dry. We used to run over five hundred head on sixty sections of open range, and now the lands so beat-up, it wont keep four hundred on the same acreage. When Chess decided to live here permanently, he bought up some leases on another forty sections and I opened my stock to the grasslands, but then youve got rustlers and loss from natural devices, and it still doesnt pay. Only one around still making good is Rudolfo Maldonado. His land is lower and has more natural water tanks. He can keep fifteen to twenty head on a section down there. Sometimes I envy him his land. Its some of the best around, and while my place is drying out, his is just beginning to show the droughts effect.When I went to the bedrooms to open windows to get a breeze blowing through the house, I saw the stack of newly unpacked books on Charlies shelf, next to others with dust on the tops. I picked up the closest one to me and held it for a minute, feeling the narrow pressed lines on the front edge, the ponderous weight of it, staring at the ominous title, Geophysical Nomenclature of the Earths Surface. I opened the book. A little stub of paper made the pages fall open at the place where Charlie had been reading.Faint pencil lines underscored some words in the first paragraph—Mount Etna, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kilauea. In the side margin was a note in Charlies hand, “Xm tomorrow, remember Boltzmann Con., PV = Nk(B)T,” some note beyond my knowing. In the bottom margin he had written in pencil a note I understood at a glance—a single word with a whole story in it. “Esperanza.” After the girls name was a little question mark.I slapped the book shut. It felt like Id been prying in his private letters or something. I never meant to do that. It was just a schoolbook. With a really good notion there, in writing, of why he was having a hard time studying. Well, I suppose all that remains now is to wait until he decides to tell us about this girl. Thinking about who she might be gave way to wondering who Boltzmann is, and what those other little letters were about. Real schooling. How anybody could walk away from finding out what all that means is just beyond me. I could eat it like sweet pudding.I put the book amongst the others stacked there on the shelf, and went to the kitchen to get started with supper. While I cooked, I drifted to town in my mind, picturing myself sitting in class with other girls. Picturing someone named Esperanza across the room, now and then glancing up to see if Charlie was looking her way. Then I pictured the teacher talking about rocks and soils and streams and such, and how to know what was under the earth, whether it was coal or quicksilver you were standing over. I forgot all about my boy and just smiled, thinking I was listening to some mighty fine talk about things Ill likely never get to learn.My sons and their grandpa came back in a couple of hours. They talked about how scorched the land seemed. If it doesnt come rain soon, there wont be any need of hired hands at all, including the ones Ive already got.I said, “You boys get any work done?” and set a plate of fried pies on the seat of an empty chair and motioned to them. They were made from scraps left from the baked ones Id made for supper. I put out cups for drinking water.Charlie took one and said, “Sent Flores with five bales of hay up to the fence lines near each tank.”“Spotted a herd of antelope up at Majo Vistoso. They were drinking the springwater,” Gilbert said.Chess said, “Didnt think anything could live on that water.”We all stayed quiet for a bit, thinking about how desperate a wild animal would be to drink hot water so loaded with minerals it wouldnt boil. The pie plate was empty. A fly buzzed over the crumbs, and I waved my hand over it.Chess said to me, “Sarah, youve said nary a word. Whats on your mind?”“Wheres Kilimanjaro?” is all I said. Charlie turned about six shades of red, but he didnt say a word. “I come across that word recently,” I said. “Is that Japón?”“Africa,” Charlie said. “And its not Mexican. You say the J in Japan.”I said, “I see you learned at least a thing or two.”“Mama, dont start in on me.”Gilbert was looking first at one of us, then the other. He said, “Want us to ride up and get mail today? We can be back by suppertime.”“Albert and Savannah will be here for supper,” I said.Chess said, “Pass me that water jug there, Charlie, and one of those cups. Sarah has a right to lay into you if she wants to. You two have disappointed her mightily.” Well, at that, we all three stared at Chess like hed grown a horseshoe out his forehead. Never once in all the years since Jack died has he stood up for my wanting the boys to go to college. Usually, he wont speak a word on the subject. Charlie and Gilbert both winced. It appears their grandpas disapproval hit a lot closer to the bone than their mothers.I took up the empty plate and said, “Bring the mail, and dont dawdle. Your aunt and uncle are wanting to see you boys again. They reckoned youd need cheering up, being so sad about missing out on college and all. Buck up. Im not fussing at you anymore. Id been thinking of hiring. I figure Ive paid your tuition, and you owe me each a good six months, working that money off.”Gilbert made a face and popped the last half of the fried pie in his mouth. Those boys know I dont really ever stay mad at them. He gulped and said, “Charlie, old man, we are now indentured servants. Maybe when the six months are up, la doña de estancia will hire us on regular.” He went for his hat, hanging by the door, and thumped his brother on the shoulder as he passed.Well, before too long, I had a houseful of folks: my mother, who goes by Granny, my oldest brother, Albert, Savannah, his wife, and their children living at home. Theres Clover, done with his school and come to mind the farm, Esther, Mary Pearl, Ezra, and Zachary.Almost all my folks that I know of are here. The only ones not close by being my younger brother, Harland, and Melissa and their children and, of course, my brother Ernest, who hasnt been heard from since the war in Cuba. We all talk about him like hes just been misplaced like a hat or something, but inside I know hes gone to his reward. After that slatternly gal Felicity left him, he wrote me regular, at least once a month, even during the campaign in Cuba. He sent me a picture of himself putting shoes on the horse ridden by General Theodore Roosevelt. Dont know if well ever know what happened to him. I know if Ernest was still living, hed write. For Mamas sake, I say hes going to write any day now. She has me read his old letters to her now and then.Mama has her own little house, the first one we homesteaded in, just two rooms, but it suits her, she says. Shes never quite been the same since my papa died years ago, and sometimes her mind slips a little and she seems to be someplace else in her head. It comes and goes, though, and just when I think she is clear crazy, she up and surprises me with something fine she sews or some clever thing she says.My brother Albert and his sweet wife, Savannah, have nearly finished raising their eight children in their rambling rock-and-siding place a mile up from mine. They have a pecan farm, in which I have a small interest. They expect a meager crop this year, as there has been too little rain, barely a few drops since Thanksgiving last.Chess lives with me and my two boys, and has since my husband, Jack, died. Chess was Jacks papa, and hes tried to take the place of a papa in the lives of my boys and me. Seems hes tried to take the place of both a ranch hand and my personal tormentor, too, since his son died. My Jack was about the orneriest man to fork himself over a horse, and I miss him every second of my life.Jack is in the graveyard there on the hill, under the jacaranda tree, next to our little Suzy, who took scarlet fever before she was three. My other two boys are buried in town, too little to have even a marker over their heads. Here in the graveyard are some soldiers who fought the Chiricahua chief Ulzana and his men right here where the round corral is now. Yonder is Mr. Raalle, our neighbor homesteader when we first came here years ago, put there by those same Indians. Harlands wife, Melissa, was Mr. Raalles daughter. Next to Mr. Raalle is my first husband, Jimmy, who died—after being thrown from a horse—with another womans name on his lips. And lastly, many pet dogs and cats, baby birds, and lizards that my sons felt needed a funeral.My mama teases me about the crowded conditions under that jacaranda tree, and where she will lie when her time comes, saying shed rather be next to the lizards than a strange man, particularly a soldier, as you know what kind of stuff they are. “Well,” I tell her, “Jack was a soldier, and you always set a store by him, so Ill save a place for myself next to Jack, and you can have a spot next to me.” She seems satisfied with this, and asks me every few days if Im still saving a place for her. Lordy, youd think it was the supper table. If I take after my mama, itll be forty or fifty years before I need a spot for my eternal rest, and the place could get downright crowded by then. Reckon thats why Im planning ahead, too.Everyone stayed late as “society neer-do-wells,” as Savannah put it—near nine oclock. Then Albert and Savannahs family walked home, toting kerosene lanterns. Between us, we have enough lanterns to start a business, what with the rut weve worn over the years between their house and mine. When we finally put out our last lamp, it was good to hear Gil and Charlie talking past the rhythm of Grampa Chesss snoring. I drifted to sleep listening to them chatter about people they knew from town.Out on the porch, every three feet or so along the wall, a nail is tied with a piece of cord long enough to reach to the far side of the porch. The cords are for hanging wash when it rains—if it ever does again—and putting up a sheet for privacy if you have company overnight. That night, I awoke just pure-D hot. I got up and found one of the cords, searching blind in the dark for the eyebolt at the other side turned into the wood. I draped the sheet from my bed across the cord so I could sleep without cover. Sackcloth hung by the screens between the posts, and a pitcher of water stood on a little bench. I drizzled water on the burlap, then took a handful and cooled my face and neck, pushing it into my hair, too. I lay back on the bed behind my wall of sheeting and fanned myself with my nightgown. The porch would get cool as the sackcloth started to dry.Nights like this, I used to make Jack get up and douse the curtains with water. If we were lucky, the boys would be sound asleep, just like tonight. I think about that now and again. I reckon its sinful, but I do. Once a person has been married, it isnt likely theyll forget the touch of a mans hands.With the boys home, I feel happier and busier than I have in many a day. Chess said Id been missing someone to peck at. I told him to stop his pecking at me, and Id mind my own. Ive got two hired hands, Flores and Shorty, so we have four men working, including Charlie and Gil. Funny how when I think of them working, Charlie and Gilbert are men who will tote a mans load any day of the week. When I think of them off on their own in school, or making eyes at some sweetheart, they barely seem like overlarge boys. Not a lick of sense about it all.Chess spends a lot of time doing fancy leatherwork. He makes the finest carved work saddles Ive ever seen, and he has taken to shaping silver tabs and buttons on, too. He sold one last year for $450 to some traveling dude. He uses our best hides and has gone to lengths to get them tanned at Ronstadts Livery so theyll be just right for a nice saddle. Its a good thing for Chess to do, now that hes not able to see far enough away to help with the ranch very much.My foreman, Mason Sherrill, is an old man, too. He was past fifty when he came here to help me before the boys were born. Trouble is, hes over eighty now, all but blind, and he forgets so much, things are showing their rust. Still, an old person isnt the same as a worn-out shoe. They dont just get tossed on the heap. What with the retired hands, horses, and old dogs, then new puppies, chicks, kittens, and colts, well, its a long days work for the middle-aged ones of us—Savannah, Albert, and myself—who do the most of it. I have to admit with all the work needs doing, its a pure relief to have Charlie and Gil here. It takes up some of the work without much more than adding two plates to the supper table.About a week after my boys came home, I saw a skunk nearly the size of a dog headed for the barn. Nip and Shiner started barking, but they were whining, too, smart enough not to go toward it. I hurried back to the house and fetched my rifle. I took a good aim and let fire, and the polecat dropped in its tracks. Everyone came running to see what the ruckus was, but no one had to get too close to figure it out. Chess hollered to Charlie to get an old board to scoop the thing on and carry it off away from the place. Reckon it wasnt as bad as taking a test in school.Naturally, after all that, Pillbox wouldnt let me near her baby. I named her Pillbox because she seems all fair and gentle outside, but she has got some kind of bitter stuff inside. Wont be ridden unless she takes the notion, and every time someone drops a saddle on her, she goes off on a dead run for glory. I leaned on the gate to the stall, hoping shed settle enough so I could see the colt again. Pillbox isnt as fair a ride as her mama was. Her dam was my favorite horse, name of Rose. Rose is taking her ease in the east pasture. She gave me seven beautiful foals, and six of them we still have. I have expectations for this new generation. There he was, at last. It made me smile, watching his bright eyes take in his world. He sure is a pretty thing, like the best of every horse Ive ever seen rolled into one, and all trimmed and neat, with little hooves lighting on the dust like he could almost dance. To get Hunter, I had put Pillbox with Maldonados El Rey. I just hope Hunter has his good looks, and Pillboxs sturdy qualities, too.Rudolfo Maldonado bought himself two Arabian stallions two years ago. One of them died suddenly, and we dont know why. That one was about the prettiest thing Ive seen on hooves. The surviving one, he named El Rey, which means “the King,” or “God,” depending on how its used. El Rey is tougher than a mule, but hes not got much cow sense, so Im hoping Pillboxs good quarter horse blood will make a fine colt with some of both traits. Most things that survive here are heavy and rugged, growing thorns, or wearing hopsack-and-barbwire longhandles.Rudolfo and I swap studs when one or the other of us has some new horse wed like to try in the line. That man has been my friend since we came to this place, more than twenty years ago. His brother wanted to marry me after Jimmy died. If he hadnt been so much younger than I was—two years—I probably would have taken him up on it. Rudolfo himself makes mentions of the same nature, now that his wife, Celia, has passed away. Mostly, I pretend that hes just teasing and will come to his senses at length.Gilbert says he wants to try hand-raising Hunter and training him. Reckon thatd be a worthwhile thing for a boy to do. I told him Id think on it until Hunter was a few months old, if hed promise to think about school, and Id not nag him if hed do the same, and well see what we come to at the end of that time. He agreed to it.Later that morning, I worked the pump handle in my kitchen, and nothing happened. That pump was old, and more times than not needed priming. I found half a cup of water Id been meaning to drink. With that in the top of the pump, I worked it again. After a bit, water gurgled in the pipe and ran into a tin pan I meant to carry to the dogs. I didnt like the smell of it, though, and looked closely at the pan. It happens now and then. Something will stir the well water in some way I can neither imagine nor discover. It will taste off for a day or two, and then it will come back fine. Ive read that there is a whole system of underground rivers and oceans just like on top, but that is a stretch for my mind. All I can picture is the stream here close by, lined with cottonwoods, and I cannot imagine one underground, without trees and blue sky overhead. It makes me wonder about old folk stories of lands under this one with people and everything. I set the pan on the porch and whistled for Nip and Shiner.Well, I had eggs to gather, and I had just finished that when Mary Pearl, who is seventeen and Savannahs youngest girl, came with some of their mornings milking. I knew Id have to hurry and get it turned to butter and worked into a cake before it ruined in this heat. Im glad not to have a milk cow myself, as they are a lot of trouble, and we are happy with just a bit of buttermilk now and then for a cake. Ill be making some sweets to take to Savannahs for supper tonight. We are having supper with them.That afternoon, soon as I could, I hurried over to Savannahs kitchen. She said she was feeling a little better since being down the day before. I took her some liver for supper, along with steaks. The girls hate the liver, but it is a sure cure for the tiredness that seems to tax us all at times. They made up about four kinds of vegetables and a peach cobbler. I made some bread pudding, too, with nice rich cream sauce to give Savannah some strength in her blood.We girls were all gathered in the kitchen and I was just telling Savannah she ought to put up her feet and let me set the table, when Mary Pearl said in a really loud voice, “Mama, didnt Mr. Maldonado come by here this morning looking for Aunt Sarah?”Savannah said, “Mary Pearl, just let it be and dont meddle.”“Whatd he want?” I asked. “Rudolfo knows where I live.”Mary Pearl cut her eyes at the ceiling, hummed, and then said, “Oh, I dont know.”“Mary Pearl, hush that,” Savannah said. “You are gossiping.”“Dont you ever want to marry again, Aunt Sarah?” Mary Pearl asked.“Mary Pearl!” her mother scolded. “That is far too personal a thing to ask your elders. Sarah, he just brought us a newspaper and asked after you. Simple manners.”Waving her mothers worries away with my hand, I said, to Mary Pearl, “Thats why Ive got all that dust collected under my bed. Planning to ask the Lord to fix me up a new man.”Savannah and Albert have a boy, Clover, who is older than my Charlie. He finished his studies and came back to work the farm with them. Clove has put together a steam motor that will run a belt through part of the pecan house; itll make harvest time much less work. Hes a quiet man, and reminds me a lot of my brother, his papa, Albert.My boys and Chess were there before the coffee was made. Those three would cross many a hill for a peach cobbler. They and Clove built a toy for Ezra and Zack, just a board on a log that they could balance and play on, and while we made supper, they had contests to see who could stay on longer. Then Clove said he was going to teach Ezra to walk a barrel. They went and fetched an empty one from the barn, and Clove held Ezras hands. He walked back and forth on the barrel while Zachary cheered and clapped.They were all having a bushel of fun, and Savannah rested on the porch and watched them. Their daughter Esther, two years older than Mary Pearl, sat near Savannah with some sewing. Mary Pearl was in the house with me, and she had just handed me a large bowl full of potatoes when we heard Savannah calling, “Look there!”The girls and I rushed to the door in time to see a whirlwind bigger than our house lumbering up the road. It moved as if a great hand pushed it toward us, weaving back and forth like a drunk man, slowing, carrying dust and bushes and snips of leaves and bits of paper. Well, the boys reckoned it was great fun, and raced off toward it. All five of them, Clove, Ez, and Zack, then Charlie and Gilbert, ran headlong into the whirlwind.Albert said, “Its coming toward the house.”Esther asked, “Is it a tornado, Papa? Will it sweep us away?”“No,” he said. “Hold your hats, though.”Id seen many a duster lifting sand off the desert here, sometimes counting five or six at a time when the heat was bad like this. Still, Id never seen one this size. A terrible premonition filled me that my boys would be swept away in it, along with Savannahs boys, too. There they went, running straight into the whirlwind. I said, “Come on out of there, you fellows. I just washed all those clothes youre wearing,” but I said it softly, and no one seemed to hear me, not even Mary Pearl, who was standing next to me.Savannah asked, “Is the wash in off the line?” No one answered.The boys disappeared into the dust devil. Here it came, slowly gaining on the house and swallowing whole all our boys. It seemed to stop, and for just a moment, I could see all five of them. Then, like a mammoth creature interrupted on its path by something it found to eat, it started again, coming for the rest of us.Albert and Savannah and the girls and I all took cover in the house. Now and then, we saw one of the boys come through the wall of dust or linger behind it as it turned toward the pecan barn. I declare it seemed as if it was thinking which way it wanted to go next. Then it came directly toward us again, leaving the boys standing in the yard. It swept over the house, rattling the windows, and spraying dirt against them. For a few seconds, the sky outside the windows was brown and cottony, then blue again. Quick as that, it was gone, as if it had only come to break itself apart on their house.We stepped onto the front porch, and saw the biggest mess Ive ever seen in my life. The entire porch, chairs, plants, and rug, every square inch, was peppered with rabbit dung. It wedged into every little crevice around the windowsills and the floorboards. Little brown balls of dark hail had come out of the cloud of dirt, descending on us thicker than nuts on a cake. Savannah rushed to her chair, where shed dropped her apron while hurrying to the house. “Look at this,” she said, tipping it up. The pockets overflowed and poured out piles of rabbit drops. They hit the floor, bouncing like marbles dropped from a bag.Zacharys voice came to us, shouting, “I rode the wind! I rode the plumbusted wind!” He spun, arms outstretched, then ran toward the porch in sweeping circles, his face skyward, eyes closed. “Mama, Mama! Clove and Charlie held my hands, and it pulled me up like a sure-nuff paper kite. It held me up like a bird. Like a eagle! I rode the wind like a sure-nuff eagle. Damnation!”Until his last word, wed all been smiling, sharing his fun. Savannah and Albert turned and stared at him as if hed been a wolf come for the chickens. Very softly, Savannah said, “Albert. The strap is in the pantry.”“Zachary Taylor Prine,” Albert said with such sadness in his voice that I knew Zack would never guess how it pained his father, “go to the barn and wait.” He slipped into the house, gone after the old piece of a saddle cinch that served as the binding to the seat of education in their home.Zacks face bore his confusion. He clapped his hands over his mouth, stunned at what hed let fly in the midst of his joy. Tears spurted from his eyes, clear of his hands and face, and hit the rabbit pellet-coated ground. “It was a accident, Papa. I didnt mean it, Mama.”“Still,” Savannah said, “we had that talk just two days ago, and you knew the next foul word from your mouth would bring this. A boy who cannot bridle his own tongue will have nothing but the poorest life imaginable. Take thyself to the barn, Zachary.”“Thyself?” he said.“Go,” she said, and turned away from him.Poor little old Zack started bawling out loud, suffering his mothers so gentle rebuff more than he would ever feel Alberts strapping. For Savannah to have addressed one of her sons in this way, saying “thyself” instead of “yourself,” was the ultimate in rejection. It removed him from the family circle, made him a stranger. Only family members were “you” and “yours.” It dampened all our spirits to see him trod off to his punishment, shoulders heaving, feet scuffing the dust around him so that he left a cloud behind him. Anyone who knew their family knew Zack had already gotten the worst of it, and that if they laid even one switch, it would be drawn back, its purpose more for effect than for a welting.“Savannah,” I said, “Ill sweep this porch for you.”She already had the broom in her hands, but she held it toward me. Tears were in her eyes. She whispered, “Hes got to learn.”I took the broom and began pushing the brown hail from the doorway and off the porch. “He does,” I said. It wasnt like Savannah to buckle up over disciplining one of her children. Still, shed been poorly lately, and he was the baby.We heard a faint snap and a loud wail. Savannah put a hand to her face and went into the house. I heard Esther calling out, “Mama, Mama? Whats the matter?”By the time I got the porch clear of the cottontail manure, Albert came from the barn, Zack at his side. The two were talking. Zacks face, now subdued, was red and streaked with clean lines through the grime left from the whirlwind. I watched them stop by the corral fence and pump clean water at the trough. Zack washed his hands and face, then his whole head. Albert stood over him, working the pump handle at a gentle speed so the water came evenly. I heard Albert say, “Ears, too.”“Yes, sir,” Zachary replied.Then Zack pumped water, and Albert did the same washing up. There was some little thing in that act—something beyond the forgiveness, something greater and nameless—that my sons would never know. My boys have lived so long without a father. I can only hope they have some memories of their own papa. Some cord that cant be cut by the hardness of life or worn away by the soil on his grave. I felt hot. There was a burning behind my eyes, a hard place forming in my throat, and I leaned on the broom with my cheek.Chess came out the door just then and said, “Miss Savannah has supper on the table, and me and the boys are about to lose our foothold in heaven over having to wait for Albert to say the blessing. Land o living, whats ailing you?”“Dirt in my eyes.”“Dirt, eh?” Chess held the door wide for me, and he shook his head as I passed him.I propped the broom against the wall and sniffed back my tears before I went in. I said right out, “You all save a pullie bone for Zachary.”When Zack entered the room, everyone cheered him.Charlie said, “We carved you the best, buddy. Beaks and feet—all you can eat.”“Zachary,” Savannah said, “you may ask the Lords blessings on this meal.”Listening to his tiny voice in prayer, a kind of ache came into my chest, one that didnt leave me all during supper. I forgave my sons for not caring about the education I wanted for them. I forgave them, too, for not thinking of the future, not seeing it the way I did. How could they know? No more sense about life than little gray Hunter bumping his mamas belly. I forgave them for busting with energy and thinking theyd already figured out all about things. While Savannah and Albert surely were thinking about Zachary, I was thinking of my own boys. We were plum overflowing with forgiveness at that table.They piled up plates with chicken, pan-fried steaks, and liver, which were passed around with potatoes bought fresh last week from a wagon out of Phoenix, gravy, vegetables, salad, and Mary Pearls best biscuits. The first one went to Zacharys place.Finally, Clover said, “Tell us what it felt like, Zack. Did it feel like jumping on the bed? Well, swallow that bite, and then talk. Tell us what it was like to fly.”SARAHS QUILT. Copyright © 2005 by Nancy E. Turner. 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