The Star Garden (35 page)

“Ain’t it been about half a week since we signed them papers?” Granny asked. Before I could answer, she said, “Well, likely Maldonado’s found out now. Three, four days. Don’t take long to get a letter from Tucson to here. He’s mad as a hornet. That’s all. Pure-D mad.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “We out-foxed him and he’s boiling over. Given some time, he’d simmer down.”

Chess said, “Well, not if he’s coming to gun us all down first.”

“Starting with Granny,” I said.

Charlie was the first one to say aloud what I was thinking. “What do you suppose is going on at Hanna’s place?”

“We’ll need to ride down there. But I think we’d better get Granny and Elsa to town until things settle.”

I wanted Granny with me, but the only way for her to be safe was someplace else. Moving Granny up the road less than a mile to Albert and Savannah’s place only brought the danger to their doorstep. I didn’t want to leave Chess and the boys here with Elsa. Didn’t want to leave Udell without checking on him regularly. The only thing I knew to do that didn’t involve running to marry in too much hurry, was to take Granny to town.

Everyone but my mama favored it. Granny got plum tired, she said, of all this wrangling over her like she was some old stray cat. She knew what she wanted, she said. She wanted to go live with Udell Hanna.

“Oh, now this puts a new wrinkle in everything,” Charlie said. “Granny, I believe you’re sweet on the old boy.”

“Come over here so’s I can paddle you, boy,” she said.

Charlie’d make two of his granny. He laughed, looking down at her, and swelled his shoulders out so he looked even bigger. Then he obliged her, crossing his arms over his chest, which was higher than her head, and turning his back pockets toward her, to which she gave a good slap.

She pursed her lips at him, a move made all the more silly by her lack of teeth. Then she said, “That young feller needs tending if he catches another fever. You said yourself, Sarah, he’s gone ‘n builded me a room. What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, Mama,” I said, “you’d have to go cooking and cleaning for a man, instead of taking your leisure like you do here. You’d be plum worn out from work.”

“Hard work never kil’t anybody,” she said.

I smiled and said, “I just don’t believe it’s a good idea to move in on his hospitality until we get some things ironed out. I don’t want anyone taking shots at Udell’s place, either, and here, we’ve got more folks around to keep watch.”

“Who’s to say,” said Chess, “that Maldonado won’t send his men to murder the lot of us? That’d make it easier for him to take the whole place, wouldn’t it? Just ‘cause he’s sore. I say we stick. Dig in. Not retreat.”

Charlie shot a look toward Elsa. “I think we could make use of that watch-tower that Udell’s built. Ask him to keep watch from there and signal if there’s trouble.”

“Easier to fight from here than on the road again,” Chess said. “These walls’ll stop a shell. Nothing you can hide behind out there.”

That man has always had a knack of laying bare a thing I couldn’t see.

We got a wonderful surprise this morning. Sheriff Pacheco rode up with two deputies and told us he’d just been down to Rudolfo’s and that everyone was “straightened out.” They stayed with us long enough for some biscuits and beans and coffee. When I asked what he meant by that, Nabor Pacheco just said we’d have no more problems with our neighbors. As they got ready to leave, though, the sheriff turned to Chess, I reckon because he figured him to be
el patrón,
and said, “If there are any more troubles, Mr. Elliot, you do what you have to do.” So then, after figuring that everything would be all right, Rye Miles decided he’d mosey on down the road toward Naco, though we told him he was surely welcome to return for Thanksgiving supper if he was of a mind to.

All is peaceful and silent, save for the noises of cooking and cleaning. Rudolfo’s men have drawn back and we think we are free to come and go at last. Gilbert went to town to bring his girl here for Thanksgiving. I told him to buy sugar, too, as we have pies to bake. He was there and back in a single day. Miss James—Charity—acts nice and friendly but he came home nervous and touchy. Chess tells me to leave the boy alone, that he’s got his grandmother’s eyes, whatever that means.

Granny seems healed up, and is back to her regular sewing and snoozing habits as if little has changed except the bandage on her finger now and then getting in her way. She tried for two days to sit in the center plaza and enjoy the geraniums and purple wandering Jew plant I’ve got potted there, but says she just can’t abide not having a horizon and a road to watch. So, against my stern warnings she has resumed her perch on the rocking chair out front. Though all has remained quiet, I worry for her safety after that fool plot of Rudolfo’s. If we get through the next couple of days without any lead flying, a genuine Thanksgiving will surely be in order this year.

I’ve been missing Udell something awful. With Rachel and Aubrey gone on a honeymoon trip, he’s down there in that house alone. I wanted him to come for supper Thursday so I took Hatch and went for a ride to his place. I got off the horse by the garden fence, where I found him hard at work.

He waved and pulled off his hat. “Mrs. Elliot?” he called. “Morning. Just stringing some vine stakes. How goes
your
garden?”

“Pretty well, thank you. Are you putting in peas already?”

“Going to be cold next week. I feel it in my bones. Time to get them in is now, I believe.”

I agreed. “If you have troubles with black worms, mix some snuff tobacco and cayenne in water, shake that on the leaves. Not too heavy though, the plants don’t care for it, either. What is this, here?”

“Believe it’s called chard. Greens of some sort. I ordered some things in a catalog. Just liked the looks of it. Might give it a try.”

“Would you have Thanksgiving supper with us, then?”

“I’d be obliged.”

I waited. He looked down at his gloves and worked some mud off one of the fingers. Hatch leaned her head in and tried to get a sniff of a cucumber vine. “Get out of there, Hatch,” I said. “Well. Reckon I’ll be going, then.”

“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll be along, Thursday. Good day, Mrs. Elliot.”

“Good day, Mr. Hanna.”

I gave Hatch too hard a nudge and she bolted a few steps before I settled her. What had I expected? I had freed him from his promise, just like Mary Pearl had done with Aubrey. A man had to have some pride, after all. One of us was a danged fool, and I didn’t believe it was the fellow in the garden.

I tried to stay too busy to think about Udell coming for supper. Or Thanksgiving, or anything. Harland and the children would come, and Gilbert could sit with Miss Charity alongside his brother and Elsa. Everyone would be there but Rachel and Aubrey.

Thanksgiving Day. This house has never seen so much flurry. Ezra and Zack have forgotten that they were ever banned from this place, and Ezra is lying under the kitchen table with a twig of broom, tickling anyone that catches his fancy. Zachary made himself a slingshot and was in the yard trying to aim rocks at the chopping stump, so I asked Savannah to tell him to shoot at something else. He could get bits of rock buried in my stump so the axe might go dull or split off a piece of steel. Savannah has brought me another start of chickens. Five hens and a rooster. Clover was out raking and cleaning the old coop for us, so that none of the salt might accidentally get into new chicken feed. Finally, after Ezra wouldn’t leave Rebeccah’s ankles alone, I sent him to help Clove. Last thing we needed, I told him, was someone to get tickled and drop a pie.

The day of our great thankfulness has come and gone. We had a fine time. Savannah gave me a gift of a cloth for the table cover, all fancy embroidered, heavy linen, two layers thick, with roses on every corner. I told everyone the first galoot to spill something on my fine new tablecloth was going to rue the day. Everyone laughed, but everyone was careful, too. The only cloud on our horizon was that empty seats called out amongst us. We waited dinner until nearly two, and then ate it, hoping Harland and his children would arrive before we got to the coffee and pie. Udell came, brought a bowl of that chard he’d cooked up with some dried bacon and it was real tasty. He smiled and was polite, and then left for home. Watching him ride slowly toward the horizon, I felt a huge emptiness fill the air around me. By suppertime when everyone else went back to the table for more, we all kept looking out, hoping to see Harland drive up in his fine buggy.

Friday came and went and still he didn’t appear. I spent the day at Savannah’s place, helping to get Mary Pearl’s things washed and ironed for her ride back to Illinois until Christmas. She’ll bring her horse with her, then, but for now, we had plenty to do. We’d leave at dawn the next day to get her to town to catch the six-thirty north.

Albert drove Savannah and Mary Pearl in their surrey. I drove behind, fighting a brisk side wind. After we saw her off and the train puffed and rumbled away, Gil and I carried Miss Charity to her little boardinghouse. Albert and Savannah drove on to April’s place. In a devilishly cold wind that stung my face with rain and ice, Gil and I finally pulled our buggy in at Harland’s yard. It was nigh on eight in the evening. The house was dark, except for a dim light coming from an upstairs window.

Gil said, “Something looks wrong,” as if he could hear my own thoughts. We went about unhitching the team together, making quick work of it, though my sense of worry grew with each little chore. Harland’s horses were out of food and water both, and so we tended them, too. I’d have a word about these poor horses with my brother, grown or not. No woman who’d been raised on a ranch, lived on one still, and intended to be put to rest on that same land would make a move to her own comfort until the creatures entrusted to her care were tended. Those poor animals drank as if they would gladly drown themselves, as if they had been thirsting for days. The smell of them wasn’t clean, either. The floor was rancid and terrible. I grabbed a handful of the oats in their mangers and smelled rust and mold on it. That meant cleaning it all out for them, too. It was a good half hour before we could even get to the house. By then, I was near panicked with worry over what could have possessed Harland to let this happen.

As we finally left the barn, the night’s full blackness eked into every crevice around the house. The light from that single window on the third floor now glowed brighter against the pitch of shadows.

Gil got to the back door a step ahead of me and held it ajar. The two of us fumbled in the kitchen, looking for lamps and sulfur matches. The stove was hot, so we put more kindling and a good log in it, to bring some flame back up. The first two lamps we found were dry, but the third was full and we lit it with a sprig from the fire in the stove. Gil held the lamp high. Dirty dishes were piled about. Rags lay in heaps in the corners, as if a quick escape had happened, some days before we arrived. We made our way toward the broad staircase and went up it, fear prodding our steps to a lively pace. “Harland?” I called out.

A door crept open as if pushed by someone very timid, or old, or—sick. My brother stood before me, his hair dampened, his skin glowing and wet, his clothes a matted wreck. “Is it night already?” he asked. “Sarah, see if you can do something. Please? See.”

I took him by the arm and shook him. His clothes were so damp I wondered if he had gone plum insane, had the windows open and was standing in front of them, catching the rain. He was beside himself, quivering, worse than I’d found him when his wife was dying of cancer. “Harland, get hold of yourself. Do something about what?”

“I need more steam kettles. The stove may have gone out. Some of them aren’t hot enough anymore.”

I gave him a shake and shifted my shoulders down, bracing for some kind of nightmare in the room beyond him—beyond the door to Blessing’s room. I flung it open and entered a damp, clammy world. The very air hung with cloying mist, the curtains sagged, the counterpane was stained with brown, and the place smelled of kerosene and dank old woolen clothes. First thing I wanted to do was throw open a window and let in the fresh air. A young woman in a nurse’s uniform, equally exhausted and shriveled with steam as Harland had been, stood by the bed, and she whispered, “Now, take this. Open your mouth. Your daddy wants you to take this. Don’t be naughty. Be a good girl.”

“Blessing!” The word flung itself from my lips. In one step, I was at her bedside. “What is the matter with her?” I demanded.

The nurse said, “Influenza again. And pneumonia. Came right on top of the mumps. The child has been so ill. Her defenses were down. Would you please see if you can make Mr. Prine fetch some more steam kettles?” The thickened air felt as if it crawled into my lungs carrying pestilence along with it. How could anyone believe this vile air could save a child? Yet the only alternative was the bitter winter storm outside.

“What medicine are you giving her?”

“Right now, just water. Doctor ordered a teaspoon of water every fifteen minutes. We are quite stubborn, and what little we get in her, we spit up. Our congestion of the lungs and bowels is severe.”

“Gilbert, take that lamp and this teakettle here, fill it up and set it to boil. Fetch everything else you can boil water in, and then come get these others and start them, too.”

“Ma’am,” said the young woman, “you shouldn’t expose yourself to this. This house is quarantined. The other children were sent to some relative’s.”

“April’s house? With only the maid there? Where in blazes is the doctor?”

“He’s been with her day and night, ma’am. There is little else he could do. He’s left me in charge, to keep trying, at least, until the end.”

“The end? There isn’t going to be an end!”

The girl cowered, drawing back. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Of course not. We’re going to have our little cherub right again in no time. Doctor said we must have some water every fifteen minutes to keep our kidneys from drying up.”