Authors: Lalita Tademy
Rose picked as the sun rose higher in the sky, until her hands were so wet with peach juice that the baby too became tacky with the sweetness when she handled her. Rose filled as many baskets of the heavy fruit as she could carry. With the sun of such late-summer potency, she would be glad to find shade while she did the rest of her late-morning chores.
She started back at a languid pace, the girl baby awake but content at her back, and when she came within sight of the house, she made out Elizabeth’s outline on the front stoop, still cranking, the steady rise and fall of her full bosom, her homemade cotton dress splayed out around her legs, the butter churn between her knees for leverage, her face flushed with the exertion of the almost-butter in late stage.
She was beautiful.
Elizabeth was young and vibrant, with smooth, clear skin the color of a beaver’s winter pelt fresh from the stream, her hair pulled up in a frizzled topknot that somehow made her eyes seem even larger. The boys were at her feet, out of their baskets, Kindred lying on his back, clutching at his own hands, Jacob naked on his stom
ach, practicing his newfound art of raising his head and shoulders off the blanket, in response to the rhythm of the crank’s monotonous melody.
Rose stood transfixed, struck with the image of her sister, fully grown. Only after a moment did she widen her scan and notice Jake, come from the other direction, alone, astride his tall black horse, sweaty and weighed down with dusty saddle, saddlebags, and rifle. Jake was motionless amid the scrub and brush of the prairie, staring toward the ranch house too, eyes affixed on Elizabeth, as though she were evening prayer.
Rose may have moved, she wasn’t sure, or the baby may have made some sound, but suddenly Jake looked in her direction. He broke out into a grin, and spurred his tired horse hard, closing the distance between them in moments. He jumped off the horse and scooped Rose into the broad expanse of his arms, twirling her, papoose and all, laughing.
“Nothing beats home,” he said, and skimmed her lips with his own.
At any other time, she would have waved off his foolishness, pleased by the words but refusing any public reply to his charm. That was the way between them. But today, she glanced toward the porch, at all the changes signified there, the babies, her life in potential upheaval. Elizabeth was straightening her skirts and running a hand over her hair, tucking loose strands in place. She had seen them too, Rose and Jake, and watched the reunion of husband and wife.
Rose kissed Jake back, in broad daylight, a light peck, nothing more, but something never before done. When he looked to her in surprise she felt foolish for the impulse, but over his shoulder, she glanced furtively in satisfaction toward the porch. Elizabeth had seen it.
Jake peeked into the papoose at Rose’s back. “Lady’s growed,” he said. The girl clapped her hands, delighted, and Jake did a little jig in the dirt while she giggled at his antics. “Where’s my littlest one? Boy or girl? I’m itching to see.”
Rose motioned toward the porch.
“What’s your sister doing here?” he asked.
Rose slipped into Mvskoke, the relief of the language reassuring to her tongue, restoring her power. “Elizabeth helps me with your two sons,” she whispered.
She waited for this news to sink in.
“Two? You carried twins then?”
“They are brothers, but not twins,” said Rose.
Jake paused, his body still. “Speak plain, woman.” His tone sharp, she saw the tiredness of the road in his eyes, the red rising at his cheeks and neck, the slight telltale hitch of his shoulders toward his ears when he became tense or impatient.
Rose refused to be rushed. “One came of me. His name is Jacob. One came to the front doorstep, delivered from Cow Hollow. His name is Kindred. Both yours. Now we have four children.”
Rose watched the features of Jake’s face change as he puzzled her message. The progression was swift, from confusion to comprehension to guilt to something she couldn’t name. She’d had ample time to prepare herself. Jake had not. As she’d anticipated in her months playing variations to this scene, Jake now ran through his options and the consequences in his mind.
“What are you saying?” he asked.
“My words are clear. He will be raised on this ranch as one of us, older brother to Jacob, younger brother to Laura and Lady. Son to Jake and Rose. Let no one tell him different.”
Jake stayed quiet for so long Rose almost spoke again. She’d watched her grandfather sit across from opponents at Fort Gibson and let his silences work for him. She intended the same.
“Rose, how do you know—” Jake finally began.
She cut him off. “Truth is plain to see,” she said. “There is no question.”
Jake took out his dusty handkerchief and wiped his flushed face. By the time the sweat dried, he’d regained his composure. “I’ll not deny,” he said. “But the trail has nothing to do with us. With this
ranch.”
“How can you think that?”
“There’s no attachment, no promises,” Jake said. “They know I come home to you. I will always come back here, to you. Always. We are man and wife.”
They. He’d said this as reassurance, and his assumption delivered her an icy chill. She might have preferred the lie, or at least an admission that he considered his offense a weakness he would fight. But in the end, she held fast to the fact that he told her truth as he knew it, his truth, and she knew where she stood. She tried to convince herself she was safe on her own ranch, and the outside world didn’t matter overmuch.
“There is no need to speak further about this,” Rose said. There was a sanctity and joy to marriage, regardless of circumstance, though she knew now she’d chosen a flawed man. A man she loved still, regardless. “But on future trips, you’ll not tarry overlong in Cow Hollow.”
“No,” said Jake. And then, “I must see them.”
“We have other matters to attend before you meet your sons.”
Rose saw the flash of anger, the discomfort, the moment’s hesitation on Jake’s part, but he let them pass and ceded to her.
“My sister. She’s a godsend. But I’ll send her back to Gramma Amy and manage alone if need be.”
“No,” he said. “I’m glad you have family here while I’m gone. Your sister can stay.”
She nodded. “Start me off with a few cows of my own,” Rose said. “A small herd, separate from the ranch’s brand. You can run them with yours come sell time.”
Jake frowned. His body went rigid, arms folded across his chest, his lips thinned and pressed tight. “What I have is yours,” he said.
“No call for separate.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Rose, and then let the stillness build.
Her absolute dependence was no longer an option. What was hers was his by law, but not the opposite. She remained wordless behind a mask of reason and negotiation.
Finally, Jake broke. “I’ll cut out a couple steer need special attention. See what you make of them.”
“Ten,” said Rose.
Jake looked toward the porch, the tableau waiting there, as did Rose. The boys were awake. Jacob was noticeably darker in this light, even from a distance, and he clutched to a cob of corn Elizabeth had given him. Kindred pulled at his blanket. Elizabeth made great show of engaging the babies, of purposefully not staring at the pair of them standing out in the prairie, a couple bereft of joy after such long separation.
Jake said nothing, yea or nay, and neither did Rose. He stared at her, searching her face, as if he didn’t know quite who she was. Suddenly, she was terrified she’d gone too far.
Chapter 55
SPOILED, ROSE THOUGHT
in the stillness, standing in the prairie facing her husband, with one child strapped to her back and three more waiting on the porch. The marriage. The family. The ranch. Jake brought this upon them. It was Jake, she reminded herself, not her. All the compromises she’d made in her mind over the last few months, all her generous forgivenesses she’d brought to bear for the sake of a shared life, and now Jake caught out but not contrite? In all her considerations, all her practicing for this moment, he’d always been more sorry.
What would she do if he wouldn’t capitulate to the few things she asked? Was she ready to take the babies and Elizabeth and move back to Gramma Amy and Ma’am? Give up on her own family? Carve Jake out of their lives like so much bruised fruit as if he didn’t mean even more to her than this land they sought to tame? Ma’am had softened toward Rose over the years, especially after she married Jake, but to go back under that roof a failure instead of running her own ranch? The thoughts gnawed, the panic rose, but she kept her tongue.
“Ten cows,” Jake finally agreed.
She blocked the relief from finding expression on her face, giving her away. “And a padlock with a key,” Rose said. Her grandfather always taught her to make the most of an advantage, however brief. Should the padlock come with two keys, she intended to hold them both.
“What for?” Even the tone of Jake’s speech was distorted, his words pushed through gritted teeth.
“For valuables.”
“What valuables?”
“We have gold coin and silver, and too many coming and going here when you’re away. Just makes good sense to put things under lock and key. We work too hard for our things to go missing.”
Again Jake nodded, tightly. “I’ll bring a padlock back from Okmulgee next time I pass through.”
Rose relaxed a little. She’d pushed as far as she dared. Further. Time to move forward, away from the quagmire of the past.
“The cattle sold?” she asked.
“Most,” Jake said. Rose saw his shoulders inch downward, just a hair, both of them in need of safer territory, but she knew he was still trying to regain his footing. “We ran into trouble on the Texas Trail, some rustlers trying to get at the herd, but we drove them off and made it almost straight through to market. Price is up this year. There’ll be profit.”
“We can settle the books later after everyone turns in,” Rose said.
“The girls?” Jake asked.
“Both strong. Both healthy. Laura got bad fever early summer, but I herbed her, and she came round after a week of worry. Both boys get normal colds and such, give it back and forth.”
She pretended not to see him look at her, searching for any signs that might indicate that she hadn’t put the quandary of Kindred behind them.
“The property?”
“Most hands are out now fixing fences in the east pasture. Big windstorm came through two nights ago. Can’t say I took a liking to the new hand you brought on before you left. He used up a horse without watering him after, and was shoddy with the currycomb. I sent him packing.”
“You might have waited,” said Jake.
As good as Jake was with cattle and cowpunchers and buyers, he would give away the ranch to the first visitor with a sad story if Rose wasn’t there to prevent it. She barely caught herself from saying as
much to him, uncertain what other accusations might tumble from her lips should she take to that road.
“Better to nip a vexation at the onset and move on,” said Rose instead.
“I guess what’s done is done.”
“You must be hungry,” Rose said.
“I could eat.”
“I’ll come with you to put up the horse,” Rose said. “Then to meet your sons. Reacquaint with the girls and my sister.”
She expected they would, at last, go to the ranch house together, his understanding and acceptance of where they stood clear.
“I’ll see to the hands first,” he said, “and be in directly.”
Rose hadn’t counted on this, his reluctance to face either son. He needed time alone, she could understand that, as she had needed days and weeks and then months to adjust after Kindred came to her. She considered telling Jake that her anger was as good as spent, manageable, and Kindred such a gift, and how much she’d missed him, how glad she was to have him back, but that felt like begging. After so many months without him, she wanted to walk to their ranch house together, her husband by her side, sweeping past Elizabeth on the front porch and reclaiming their sons, and into her kitchen to feed her husband, the area she felt safest.
She wavered, succumbing to a false vision of her as the one in the chair on the porch, not sticky from peach juice and dried breast milk and sweat and dirt and veiled ultimatums, but a cleaner, fresher version of domesticity, like her sister. Alongside Elizabeth, Rose suddenly felt old. Old and ugly.
But Jake remounted his horse and rode out in the direction of the east pasture, leaving her there, alone amid the buzzing insects and wild blooms of the prairie, one child strapped to her and three more waiting. He hadn’t seen his sons up close yet, either one. Was he too angry? Or suddenly afraid to confront them? Humiliated? Unwilling? She thought she knew Jake so well, but what did she know, really? How well could anyone occupy someone else’s mind?
Rose was certain Jake appreciated her. Desired her as his wife. She kept a fine house, ran the ranch, kept the books, had proven fertile and a good mother. And now a forgiving wife. Jake’s job was to engage with the world outside their ranch, and she would leave him to it, so long as he didn’t bring that world home to her.
Rose hitched up the papoose and headed for the house without her husband. She barely paused at the front porch, ignoring Elizabeth’s bewilderments so obvious on her face, and escaped to the kitchen and her stove. Rose could barely handle her own emotions, let alone her sister’s, whether pity or protectiveness. Her hands shook as she undid the papoose and transferred the baby to a blanket on the kitchen floor. But her nerves were much settled by the time Jake came in later, so filthy from time on the road and making his rounds on the ranch that he generated clouds of dust whenever he moved. She served him a large portion of hot limas with pork and a generous wedge of
sofki
. They didn’t talk.
Elizabeth joined them in the kitchen after getting both boys down to sleep and the oldest girl settled at play. Jake had already devoured one plateful of beans and was working on his second.
“Jake, you remember Elizabeth,” Rose said. Something so simple, yet she stumbled over the words.
Jake barely looked up from his plate, but his tone was civil, if not warm. “I hear you’re a great help to my Rose,” he said.