The Star Garden (9 page)

I held him and he pressed me close, and for a while we didn’t move or speak.

Then, he said, “What about your man, Jack?”

“What about Jack?”

“Did he go to suffrage marches?”

I laughed against his chest. Then I inhaled. He smelled of shaving soap, the kind with the faintest touch of oil of bergamot. I said into his shoulder, “He was a soldier first and always. He was tall. His hair was brown and wavy. He was bent on protecting folks who couldn’t protect themselves.” I held Udell closer. Jack had had a jagged scar on his right arm from the blade of a Comanche knife. He had two healed-over bullet holes, too. One was on his side and the other made it hard for him to ride sitting down for a while. Jack Elliot carried my heart with him in his saddlebag, every time he left me, which he did more than not. I reckon he’d always thought I could take care of myself, too, though I’d have differed with him on that if he’d asked. I looked up at Udell’s face, almost surprised to see he’d been waiting for me to turn and look at him.

“Your eyes are brown,” he said.

“Just like yours. I don’t sew much that’s pretty. A quilt now and then.”

“That’s all right. I never looked good in crinolines.”

I laughed again. When our lips met, it was with the air of a well-practiced act, tentative only for a moment. I sank against him and he surrounded me. The man was shorter than Jack, just taller than I was, and while he kissed me I began to think how convenient it was to kiss a man not so different in height. Had I lost my love for Jack? Panic swept through me. I pushed Udell back, saying, “We’d better get back to the carriage.”

But as I tried to pull away, he held my arm and slid his hand down to my fingers. “Sarah,” he said. “There’s something I want to say to you.”

“Tell me in the carriage.”

He tugged on my hand. “Were you happy, being married? Did you love him?”

I rolled my eyes and tried to pull my hand from his. He pulled again, insistent. “Of course,” I said.

Udell squinted as if he were trying to read something written on my face.

I said, “I was happy and miserable. I loved him so much because he loved me. He was my very life and, well, what did I know? I was young and he was handsome and brave. Just like a prince in a story.”

“Did you feel like
you
died?”

I stared at the ground before me and gulped, waiting for my heart to start beating again. Gravel, burned bronze by the desert sun, had been kicked aside where we stood as we kissed, and the gray-white underside showed. A tear dribbled to my chin but I didn’t brush it away. I said, “Lord, yes. For weeks. Months. Then, I had a family to raise. My boys. My ranch to run. I couldn’t lose another minute wishing for that man to come back.”

“I thought I had, too. Crawled into a bottle of whiskey, hoping I’d never come out. All that did was make me sick. Aubrey dragged me home from an alley one night, left me in the cellar and called me a coward and a liar because I’d promised him I’d take care of him when I got home from the war. He was already a man then. When I got my feet under me, I realized he’d been right. So I quit then and there. Laid it all down, went to bed for a month, but when I got up, I got up sober. I don’t drink. Nor gamble or carry on with fancy women.”

“Well, I never questioned your character, Udell.”

“Nor I yours. Were you happy?”

It took me a long time to finally say the words. “Painfully happy.”

“I doubt I could ever live up to that. I don’t believe I kept Frances painfully happy, unless she found it in her heart in spite of me. I’m sure fond of you, Sarah.”

I felt the selfsame words ready to roll off my tongue, as if all he’d said was “how d’e do,” and it was customary to return in kind. I dared not say those sacred words aloud until I was sure I meant them, for they would bind me in ways I’d already learned. That jackrabbit was watching us from atop a rock. I could hear Udell breathing. I drew in a long breath, too, my heart aching. The trouble was, I did love him. At least, I felt something. What exactly it was, I had yet to name. Long as I didn’t say it aloud, it could wait until the thoughts cleared on their own, I suspect.

Then we started back down the hill toward the carriage. Udell whistled a tune as we stepped arm in arm through the brush. We found Aubrey and Mary Pearl sitting sedately next to each other. If it weren’t for the flush of their faces, I’d have believed they’d been discussing the weather.

“Ready to head home?” Udell asked.

“But please, drive slow, Pa,” his son answered.

We turned the rig around and had just started down the hill, Udell pushing his foot on the brake to keep it from banging the horses’ legs, when I grabbed his arm. “Stop,” I hissed. “I heard something.”

It took two more steps for the horses to come to a halt. Aubrey and Mary Pearl had little to say when we returned, but they both leaned forward now, asking what I had heard. There it was again. The sound of horses approaching. A dozen or more.

With no thought to being ladylike and waiting for him to help me, I got down while Udell set the brake and gave the reins to Aubrey. I hurried toward the sound, stopping by a leafy ocotillo to peer around it before I stepped out from the shadows. Udell crouched next to me. Before us there played out a tableau that took away all the previous warm feelings and chilled me deep in my core.

A band of riders, Mexicans by the cut of their getup, was moving across the desert below us, at least a mile away. Ahead of them, two men on horseback charged as if their lives were in the balance. One had lost a hat, the other whipped his horse with his as they leaned toward the setting sun. Then one of the horses of the men out front stumbled, and the rumbling of many hooves was overlaid with the squeal of the animal and that distinctive crack of bone. The other rider didn’t stop but kept on. The men closed ranks upon the fallen man, and two dismounted, strode up to him, and drew pistols while the others continued after the lone rider. The man on the ground clasped his hands together and his mouth moved, but we couldn’t hear him. Their guns barely a foot away, they shot him through the head. When he fell, they shot him again, then shot the horse, too. The chase had crossed another rise and was out of our line of sight, but before another minute passed, we heard a volley of gunfire.

Udell took my arm, saying, “Let’s get away from here.” Aubrey and Mary Pearl had followed us, and hurried, too.

We ran to the carriage. Udell drove as fast as he dared, stayed on the road for a bit, then suddenly turned off by a copse of ironwood. He pulled the horses to a stop along a natural pond, and told us all to get out. Hooves approached. Birds scattered noisily. Udell said, “Spread that blanket on the ground.” We laid it over the muddy bank and took the second coach blanket, too. Aubrey spread it over Mary Pearl’s lap while Udell and I put the feed bags back on the horses’ heads. I pulled the rifle from under the front seat and tucked it under, too. We joined them on the blanket in a circle, taking poses and laughing and chatting as if we’d been having a picnic.

No sooner had we caught our breaths than the air filled with the din of horses. Udell pulled the rifle from my hands, putting it down the length of one leg. The men had circled the hill and were coming toward us. One of them shouted, “
_i
Alto!” and
they pulled to a stop with a clatter and the drawing of pistols. The men pulled kerchiefs over their noses, but stayed mounted while two eased out from the rest toward us. One man rode his horse up against our carriage, looking inside it as if there might be someone hiding.

He reached out a hand, slowly, and patted one of our horses on the rump with an almost kindly gesture. The animal muttered into his feed bag, but nothing more. Then the man holstered his pistol, strapped low on his leg. He eyed us. A pair of vicious spurs dressed his heels, flashing in the sunlight. On his horse’s left shoulder, the Bar-M brand of Rudolfo Maldonado.

I held my breath. A patch of foam hung on the flank of one of our horses. From where I sat, I could see it clearly, but from his point of view, he couldn’t know we’d run those horses unless there was foam on the other side.

The rider turned, thrust his chin toward the south, and at once, the band of men sped away in a clattering flurry. We were left quaking together on the blanket, wondering what we’d just witnessed. When I tried to stand, I found my legs cold from the dampness that seeped through the blanket; my knees shook as I hurried to the far horse, looking him over carefully. There was no foam. No reason for them to suspect us of lying, other than that heavier smell of a just-run horse.

Aubrey said, “Mary Pearl, quickly, get in,” and he jostled the wet blanket into a bundle at their feet. Udell’s face was grim and hard. He took the reins. I took the rifle. We turned the horses toward home and made dust.

Last night I said good night to Udell in the dark, outside the house. The night had been crisply cold; the stars all seemed only a few feet over our heads. The moon hung like a lantern, low in the sky. He had put his hands against my cheeks but he did not kiss me. He had only held my face and said, “Be careful.”

Then I took his face in
my
hands and said, “
Y tu.
You also,” and I made Udell carry my rifle when he and Aubrey went home. As he mounted his horse I called, “Aim left a touch.”

After that, it seemed I carried the warmth of him in my hands, and as I curled up in bed that night, shivering, trying to warm up one spot before I stretched out, I folded my hands and told myself I could still feel the skin of Udell’s face. It was a guilty pleasure, craving the touch of his skin against mine. When I thought about it a little, I thought about it a lot. I wanted to press my cheek to his, and leave it there, and sleep, curled against him. If Jack walked in the door this very minute, I’d never think about Udell Hanna again, but Jack’s not going to do that. So I put my hands on my own face, remembering Udell’s hands and his face in the fabric of my own skin, and slept that way through the night, comforted.

This morning as I was headed out to feed the chickens, Rudolfo Maldonado rode up to my front porch. The sight of him gave me a start and I realized that I’d been looking for Udell. I pulled an old hat on, took my basket, and stepped off the porch toward the chicken coop. I wondered if he would tell me about what went on at his place without me asking. I wished my suspicions about him would quiet. Reckon once someone has crossed that line with me and I quit trusting them, they’re going to travel down a long, long road to get back to where I believe what they say.

Gussied up and grinning, Rudolfo swept off his hat, saying he’d come to beg my family, Albert’s family, and even Udell and his son, to come to his home Christmas Eve for a fiesta. I told him he’d have to ask each one, and that I’d not speak for others. I unwound the wire that held the pen shut and went inside.

Rudolfo watched me closely while I dumped out the hens’ trough and banged it against a post to knock the gravel and trash out of it. From the corner of my eye I saw him put his boot up on the chopping block I keep by the door of the coop and lean toward me. He said, “You should have some
peon
to do this, Sarah.” He let out a long breath and the steam came toward me.

“Well, I don’t,” I said as I measured mash in an old coffee can and spread it in three big streaks on the ground. The chickens all came a-running, making that waterfalling sound they do when they’re happily eating. When several minutes passed and Rudolfo said nothing else, I turned and looked him in the eye. The expression on his face was not the slick baldness of lying I’ve seen on him before. Instead, it was a shade of some unspoken sorrow. Regret, maybe, or pain.

It still rankles me to remember last summer. He’ll never know how close I came to accepting his marriage proposal only a few months ago. He had come to me saying he was planning to go into politics and needed a wife. He had all the land and cows in the area. I’d never worry another day of my life. I’d have had
peons
to feed my chickens,
cocineros
to fetch my supper,
caballeros
to tend my stock. Just in time, I’d found out he’d paid a man to tear up my south windmill and poison the water tanks. Why, I’d as soon be hung as marry the likes of Rudolfo after that.

Within days of my threatening Rudolfo with a shotgun, he had married a neighbor girl. Leta was the oldest daughter of the Cujillo family; probably had figured her life was to be a spinster, until her much older
vecino
suddenly chose her from the brood to be his
esposa.
I held fast to my feed bucket, keeping some distance between us, watching him study the chickens as they clustered around the hem of my skirt. After their honeymoon he had set off with some of his hired men for Vera Cruz and Mexico City, and was gone over a fortnight. His wife, all of twenty and two years old, was home by that time and holding a bucket of her own, sicker than any girl I ever knew with a baby coming. What I knew of her, I reckoned Leta Cujillo Maldonado made his life just about what Rudolfo deserved.

I said, “Heard there was a ruckus on your place, yesterday.”

“
¿Que?”

“
You didn’t know about some cowboys, Mexicans, chasing a couple of drifters?”

“Oh,” he said, nodding. “There may have been some riders coming across. How many did you see?”

I shrugged and said, “All I know is, I heard horses running. Moving too fast for me to count.”

“Ah. Sí? Only riding through.”

Now I knew that look in his eyes. Too shiny. Too clever. I said, “Too jingly to be American rigs.”

“I’m sure it meant nothing, my friend. You will ask
your familia
about the fiesta? I’ll send escorts and carriages. You will have to do nothing but be ready.” He reached toward me but drew back his hand, as if he’d thought better of the gesture.

Was his land now unsafe to cross without escorts? “I’ll ask them, Rudolfo. We’ll bring the beans.”

“No, no,” he said with a smile. “I’ll provide. There is much to celebrate this year. Things I would like to make up to you, too.”

“You aren’t forever in my debt, Rudolfo. You put up that house. That’s enough.” I hated the notion that he was going to spend his life repaying me as much as if the debt had been my own. I pulled the coop shut, working the rickety dried-wood-and-chicken-wire door into its frame.

“Let me do this,
mi amiga”
He turned to go, adjusting his hat. Without another word, the “old friend” I would have to guard against for the rest of my life went to his horse and lifted himself into the saddle. There was something about his walk that telegraphed to all the world how much he’d changed. Before I ever married Jack, Rudolfo and his brother Ruben had worked as
peons
keeping my place going, and took their pay in tortillas and eggs. The man whose back I watched riding away was handsome but wily, still virile and strong but too clean to have worked recently, too sure of himself to have come this way simply to ask this. His clothes were expensive and impractical. His bearing was quiet and brooding, like a mountain lion waiting on a ledge.

I finished my chores for the morning, looking over my shoulder every few minutes for Udell. But the sun climbed and the day dragged with the waiting. When I got back to the house, the stove in the kitchen was going strong. Granny and Chess warmed their tired bones beside it while I made us something for the middle of the day. I’d gotten some jarred flat beans and bacon warmed up and put a pan of biscuits in the oven when the door opened and a cold gust of wind shot through the room. Gilbert was in for dinner. Right on his tail feathers came Ezra and Zachary.

“Hey, Aunt Sarah,” they said together. Ezra made a loose fist, put one knuckle against Zachary’s ear, and hollered, “That’s two you owe me, runt.”

“Two what?” I said. Zack made a face.

Ezra said, “Mama is trying to train him to quit saying other folks’ words like he was some kind of trick mind reader at a circus. Ever’ time I open my mouth and his voice comes out of it, he’s got to give me his dessert tonight
and
tomorrow.”

“Aw, I’m not hungry anyway,” Zack said.

“Tell yer stomach that when the pie comes around. Dripping with sugar and crispy on the edge where the cream soaks in. All sticky—”

“Ain’t my fault your brain is strung so loose you no more’n open your trap and I hear the words knocking around behind your eyeballs before you say ‘em.”

Gilbert and I caught
eyes.
Zachary was at least as clever as his brother, though Ezra was two years older. I smiled, then I said, “Well, this time doesn’t count. All you said was hello to be polite and it would have been rude if you hadn’t both said it. It was an accident that it came out together. You two had dinner?”

“No, ma’am,” Ezra said.

“No, ma’am, and we’d be pleased,” Zack added.

I dished up plates and everything got quiet for a while. I told them all about Rudolfo’s invitation as I passed around the plate of pound cake. Chess frowned. It wasn’t like him to withhold an opinion about anything, so I figured he’d say something when he’s ready. The only voice was Gil’s. Gilbert said he was fixing to ride into town again. When I asked him what we’d forgotten, he couldn’t say, but Granny piped right up and said, “He’s got himself a girl,” with no more question than she’d have proclaimed fine weather was upon us. Granny had been on a tear about romantic entanglements lately. I hoped she was wrong.

All
eyes
turned to Gilbert, who took a sudden interest in the bacon rind on his plate. He said, “I need some plate glass to fix that window for the bunkhouse. It’s almost done. Just need the window glass and some paint. Is there any coffee left?”

“Well, we don’t have any hired hands,” I said. “It can wait, can’t it?”

Ezra and Zachary muttered to each other, and I heard, “Girl? Oh, no, more girls!”

“I only want to get the job done, Mama,” Gil said.

I wondered if he was intent on moving back into the bunkhouse like he and Charlie had done before the new house was built. Getting some independence without being too far from the nest. I said, “I don’t want you riding to town alone. Not after what went on yesterday.”

“Grampa will go with me, won’t you, Grampa?”

“Your ma’s right,” Chess said. “No sense traipsing across the territory this time of year.”

I could see more disappointment in my son’s face than the lack of a sheet of glass ought to bring. I wondered if he was determined to go against my wishes. Part of me didn’t want to be sidestepped, part of me hoped he had the backbone to try it. I said, “Why don’t you ride up to Marsh Station for the mail? See if there’s word from Charlie.”

“Why’s every decision I want to make somehow nailed to Charlie’s shoes? I’ll only be gone a couple of days. There’s no chores to be done these two can’t handle. Uncle Albert will appreciate us putting them to work.”

“Gil’s got a girly!” Zack sang.

“Weevils are evil and gir-rels are squirrels,” chanted Ezra.

“Chess?” I said. “Can you spare Gilbert a few days?” Chess was seventy years old. The thought of him and Gilbert going off to town made my stomach hurt, and I regretted the cake I’d had that left a burning right below my ribs.

Chess rubbed his hands together, the dry, woody sound of his skin loud as a statement. He looked from me to Gilbert, and then to Granny and the boys as if he were about to give a speech. He shook his finger at Ezra and Zachary and said, “I want pistols in these fellas’ hands the whole time we’re gone. And no foolishness. You two ride with us as far as Marsh Station and then come back with the mail. Gil and I will go on to town from there. I’m trusting you two to act like men and do a man’s job. No shenanigans or I’ll strap you both myself.” Then to Gilbert he said, “I’ll give you two nights, boy. One day getting there and a day staying and a day coming home.”

Ezra and Zack both opened their
eyes
wide. They’d never heard Grampa Chess talk to them like that before. After all, he wasn’t their grandfather, but my sons’. With sober faces, the two of them nodded. Gilbert flushed red and left the table.

Later, I went to Gil’s room. He folded a shirt and laid it carefully on some clean drawers. He didn’t look up when I came in, so I whispered, “Is this about some girl?”

“Lord, Mama. Can’t you just let me go to town? It’s only a call. It’s not like I’m eloping. I’m older than Papa was when he was a full officer in the army. He called on you. Aren’t I allowed to call on a girl?”

What he didn’t know was that Jack had already married a girl before he was Gilbert’s age and had been a widower when I met him. All of twenty and busting loose. I could as much as hear the string in my pocket wrapped around that folding money coming undone. I said, “Reckon so. Don’t forget the window glass. How much do you figure it’ll cost for the size you need?”

“Figured I’d just buy a piece as big as the money in my pocket allowed and cut a hole to fit it.”

“Well, what size is that?”

“About twelve bits. A hole that size won’t let in the skeeters.”

“Did I pay you this week yet?”

“I’m still working off the tuition money I lost, remember?”

“Well, a man can’t call on a lady with empty pockets—she is a lady, isn’t she?—what would she think, after all? You’ll want to take her skating or to a supper.”

“I was hoping she’d just cook something.”

I laughed and hugged him. “I’ll spare you three dollars. Bring back what you don’t use.”

He took the money from my rolled-up parcel, and as I retied the string, he said, “Thank you kindly, Mama. I won’t waste it.”

I reckon that was as close as a mother could get to love and affection from a near grown boy. I patted his arm and said, “While you’re there, run by the dry goods and bring home ten cents’ worth of shirt buttons.”

So off they went next morning, Gil and Chess, with Zack and Ezra tagging to bring home the mail. It seemed a long way to town. One too young to go alone, one too old. At the last minute, I saw Aubrey Hanna pushing his horse to catch up with the bunch. He waved to me and I saw him turn in toward Albert’s place farther up the road. I’d thought he was here to stay until after Christmas. And I was hoping his pa would have thought to ride with him through our place to say hello and have a piece of pie.

After watching them cross over the northeast horizon, I bundled up Granny and drove us to Savannah and Albert’s place to visit a while. Rebeccah was home from her teaching job in Mexico, and she had plenty of tales to tell. While I got Granny inside and settled under a quilt, Rebeccah said her mother was upstairs in “the girls’ room,” a large bedroom all four sisters had shared. I climbed the stairs and reached the landing. The door stood ajar, so I entered while giving a little knock at the jamb. My sister-in-law was staring out the window into the yard, her arms crossed, deep in thought. She didn’t look up.