Authors: Nancy E. Turner
Suddenly, I reached over and felt his head, and he was burning up with a fever. Jack, you come get in bed, I told him, and I pulled on his arm.
No, he said, just let me rest a minute.
Well, I scolded him good then, and told him to get his ornery hide into bed and stop arguing with me because if he only came home to argue he could just mount up and ride away. He just looked at me and kind of grinned, and I could see it was my same old Jack, but his eyes looked red and glazed, and I could tell he was bad sick.
August 28, 1886
For two days Jack stayed in bed fighting a fever, and I can tell it is from not eating and sleeping out in the weather. He said in Mexico it has rained for three weeks almost without stopping, and about as bad as the flood we had here. Every night he went to bed wet and cold. At last he is ready to get up and his fever is gone.
Now he is back, and I feel like my arm or something has been missing and now is returned to me. It is a hard feeling to describe, it is like the smell after a rain, and a paper journal will not hold the feeling of it. And we are to have sixty days together, a long leave of absence, he calls it.
When we were alone, I told Jack that his Pop told me all about him going to the West Point Academy, and it wasn’t just any bend in a river either but a big, fancy school, and that I never thought he had gone to a college like that, and asked him why didn’t he say so to me?
He didn’t really have a good answer, except that he said it wasn’t such a big thing and he was just a fair student, not good at anything.
But, I said, You went to college! You have all that learning and all those fancy things and letters and such, it is so a big thing.
He started to ask me how was the windmill working and did I mind the bunkhouse the cattlemen had built for themselves and such.
I wonder if he really knows who I am, sometimes, and that I never in all my life have set foot in a schoolhouse, because I told him that but he wasn’t listening. Then I got to thinking maybe he is ashamed of me being ignorant, and the thought got bigger in my head all day long until it was all I could think about. The thought of him being ashamed of me stabbed me with every breath I took like it was a big thorn deep in my chest. It hurt so bad it hurt clear up into my jaw. Finally, just before supper I asked him those very words, Jack are you ashamed that I’m so ignorant?
He said to me, That was the only thing you ever have said that wasn’t smart, Sarah. In the first place, you aren’t ignorant, and in the second place…and then he just let the words wander off like whatever it was, was too much for him to say.
So I didn’t let it be, and I said, In the second place what?
In the second place, he said again, Education doesn’t keep a person from being a fool, and the lack of it doesn’t keep a person from being intelligent. Then he said no more about it, but I am thinking of those words and trying to figure out just what he meant.
April got a bad splinter in her foot, and we fussed for over an hour trying to get it out with her screaming at the top of her lungs. Finally, Jack held her tight and Pop had to cut her foot with a knife, but Pop managed to get out a ragged piece of ironwood as long as my fingernail. We bandaged her up, and then Jack held her and rocked her to sleep, even though I wanted her. Jack said No, you get to hold her all the time, this is my turn.
So I watched my baby girl cuddle in his lap and go to sleep. After he put her in bed, he said, How’s our second one? and patted on my belly.
Just then the little baby kicked hard at his hand, and we both were startled, and I said, Well, looks like he’s pretty ornery. I wonder where he gets it?
Jack just shrugged and kissed my cheek, and then whispered in my ear, He gets it from his mother.
September 25, 1886
Fall is in the air today. I sent Mason with April to Mama’s this morning. I have felt small pulling feelings all night until now, although no pain at all yet. Jack has gone overnight with the men putting up fence, so he is not home nor anyone else, but Mason will leave April with Melissa and send Mama and Savannah here. I told him not to hurry, and stay for supper if she’ll have you, for if this is anything like the last one, I won’t be needing her until late tonight or maybe tomorrow.
So he has been gone for awhile, and I have stayed busy collecting things we will need for the birthing. All is ready, and there is no pain, so I picked some weeds in the garden, and fed the hens and brought in eggs. Still nothing happened, so I read some and put on a roast of beef to have for supper, and put some little pies on the griddle and fried them with fruit inside.
I sat on the porch for a while, just listening. Chickens and guineas in the yard were making their little quiet chucking sounds. My biggest Buff Orpington rooster is on the small corral fence letting the world know he is in charge, all puffed up and sassy. There is nothing more silly than a rooster taking over the world, but every day he thinks he can. I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things.
Well, it happened so fast, I hardly knew what was happening. Just after noon, I felt at last a tugging feeling that I knew meant I was about to have the baby. It started out regular and even, but I felt very little except the tightness, so I sat up in the rocking chair on the porch snapping long beans, intending to go inside later after Mama got here and all. All at once, I had a sharp, terrible gripping in my insides, and I doubled over and couldn’t breathe for a minute. Then there was a few more tight feelings, then another terrible pain. Suddenly I remembered everything about having a baby just as clear as yesterday. I couldn’t remember not remembering.
Just at that time, here came Jack riding up and calling out that Chess had stayed on the range with the men, and I tried to stand, but instead I half stood and half doubled up, and made a moaning and dropped the bowl of beans all over the porch.
His face got all worried, and he said, Are you here alone?
Yes, I said, Mason went to get Mama, but they won’t be back real soon.
Jack said he was filthy dirty, and he started stripping off clothes fast, and bathed real quick right on the front porch while I sat in the chair, kind of pained, but not too bad. He got dressed and then he said, Come on, honey, I didn’t want to touch you as dirty as I was.
So he took my hand and I made two steps and then started to fall. He scooped me in his arms, and another pain came real hard. Jack, I said, Mama isn’t going to come soon, and this baby is! You have to help me.
So he took a couple of deep breaths, and said Tell me what to do, so I did.
It was real strange how this peaceful feeling came over me then. I fully expected to be terrified like the first time, and to scream myself out for days and days. But Jack was here, and he let me pull against his hands and didn’t even flinch through the whole thing. I counted only five more pains. Five more, and into his waiting towel came a big baby boy.
Jack was grinning, but I said, He isn’t crying, he’s supposed to be crying. Shake him. And then I had another pain, and Jack shook the baby, and patted his back. The baby turned dark red and then blue. Jack! Shake him, spank him, something! I was yelling, when all of a sudden, the little fellow opened his mouth and coughed, and started breathing. He cried just a little mew, and then just went to sleep.
Jack said, Do you think he’s dead?
No, I said, he’s fine, now. I think he’s just tired like his Mama.
Jack told me what time it was his son was born, and it was only 2:45 in the afternoon. I was feeling pretty sore later, but happy, and Jack did as good a job as any woman I’ve seen with everything. It’s funny, because Jimmy would have delivered any animal on earth, except his own child. Jack just rolled up his sleeves and smiled and took hold of his son without a second thought, and was so tender with me, I’d rather have him tend me than anyone else.
Welcome home, little son. Little John Charles Elliot. Papa already called you Charlie after your Grandpa Chess, and laid you on my breast, and declared you ate like a horse for someone only a half hour old, then he said Charlie Horse, Charlie Horse, and rocked you to sleep.
September 29, 1886
Mama and Savannah were just as surprised as they could be that there was no birthing to be done by the time they got to my house. There was Jack, sitting on the porch steps by Toobuddy, and he led them to the room and showed off the little one just as pleased as punch.
Charlie is a good little rascal, and calm, much more than April had been as a baby. She is happy with her brother, except for yesterday when he had a crying time and she was plum fed up with hearing all that and told me to send him back to wherever he came from, he was too much nuisance.
Jack has a few more weeks here, and then will be going back to the fort, and he has asked me to think of moving the family there where there are houses for the officers, and rent is below cheap, and he will come home most every evening unless he is gone out of town. It is too soon after having a baby to do any driving to town, but I told him we will discuss it later on.
December 1, 1886
Chess left two weeks ago on a train for his home in Texas. I was sad to see him go, but I knew he couldn’t stay forever, and he didn’t want to leave his place over the winter. I hope I have learned enough about ranching from him in that short time to know what tools the hands need to do their jobs, and how to manage them, too. The cattle are not the orneriest part of ranching. For now, these fellows are working for their bed and board, as there will be no cash from it until next year. They have put up a bunkhouse and I have my hands full keeping two pantries stocked.
For my birthday this year, Jack gave me a book of twenty-three chapters—one, he said, for all my years—A History of the Americas, beginning with the settlers in the 1600’s. I can hardly wait to read it all. But it seems I don’t have three minutes to rub together. Some time soon I will take it on, maybe when Charlie is a few months older.
My biggest news is that Jack has made arrangements to move us into a spacious officer’s house at the fort if I would say the word, as there is one empty and waiting for us. Just as I have gotten the hang of this ranching life, I have to think about leaving it. There are just too many changes all at once, and all this week I have felt tired just thinking about it all. I wrote a letter to a patent lawyer in Prescott, and got his word that since this spring my claim patent will finally be done with, it will be okay to run these cattle and have all the men living here and only visit it now and then, too. Then, I took to thinking about how much I missed Jack, and how so much of the time when he is around, he has to spend in Tucson near the fort, and how I could be nearby instead. It would save a horseshoe or two to put a few less miles between us, I suppose.
I was ready to tell him I decided I’d rather be together as a family than always living separate like this, but when he said, You know, if we live in town, April can go to school. That was all it took for me. I want her to go to school more than anything, so we will pack up just after Christmas. I have to tell my family. We have asked the whole bunch to come for a picnic tomorrow, since the weather has been gentle so far this winter. During our supper we will tell them our news.
January 3, 1887
Although I have not seen the quarters we will move to, Jack has told me much about them, and so I am trying to decide who will sleep where and all. I do not know how I will like living with all those people around all the time. I suppose it is noisy. Every day I look at this ranch, and think of all the memories soaked into the wooden walls and the dirt and the trees around. It will not disappear, but it won’t feel like mine, anymore, I don’t think.
Mason is staying on, and the ten hands that Chess kept around are willing to stay too. I have made an arrangement that one of the men will ride to Fort Lowell each Friday, and we will talk over business and such. And of course, it’s not so far that I can’t drive back here once a month or so, and stay, too, if Jack is going to be out of town. Then, whoever Mason sends to town can take back provisions and dry goods and tools if they’re needed. During roundup in the spring I want to come back and help, or at least watch, and maybe living in town I can get wind of cattle buyers sooner, and take care of business there. Jack just shakes his head at it all, and says I have a natural leaning for business, so he will let me take the reins if I choose.
I feel like I don’t much belong in a town. And I wonder what kind of life I will have, different than I have known before, of that I can be sure. Jack laughed and said I’d probably take a liking to it. Still, I swept over the little blue fingerprints in the floor, and got a hard place in my throat.
January 9, 1887
Savannah came over early this morning, and we talked a long spell over the heads of the children. She has made a quilt for Ulyssa, and embroidered flowers in each square, pansies, daisies, brown-eyed susans, and in the very center was a red rose on some dark blue, which I will take to her as soon as we get moved in.
She and I kept quiet for a while, and I made some coffee and gave all the little ones a cookie and set them in the parlor. I’ll miss having you close by, I said.
Savannah’s face got red and her smile turned down at the corners. Sarah, she said, you have to go where your husband is. The children need their father close.
I said, I just wish Jack would come live here instead. He doesn’t need to be in the Army, he wants to. Even with us living in town he’ll be riding off after first one thing and another.
Savannah just sipped her coffee. She said, You’ll just have to treasure the times you are together, to make up for the loss of time.
I told her I don’t know how I’ll manage being married to Jack, it angers me the way he takes off all the time. She held my hands, and said, The Lord gives us all gifts in the people we know, and that I was not the kind to need or want a man around all the time telling me every step to take, so having Jack was the best mix of independence and love I could want. I suppose she’s right. It would take more patience than I could muster to have someone underfoot all the time and trying to tell me what to do like some men do their women. Jack is about as ornery a man as I know. Yet, all I ever wanted was to be loved like Savannah, and I wonder if Jack does care for me that way, because I’m not much like her.