What Once We Loved (24 page)

Ruth frowned. She wanted to do this alone, but the trip in had taken an hour, and who knew where the owner of her place just might be found?

She started across the street aware that her arm touched Matthew's, his wide hand for just a moment at her elbow. She let it rest there, warmed by his presence, then she pulled away. A woman would be safer in a mining town if she was married. Well, she already was. Best she leave things at that. She stepped away from Matthew's hand. They dodged horse droppings on the dusty street.

After asking a few customers, a man named Smith, whom they
discovered was the owner of her parcel, left the saloon to come outside to talk with Ruth. He eyed her miner's pants and for just a moment, Ruth wondered if her wearing them might prove an obstacle for Smith.

He wasn't really interested in selling, he told her, and kept glancing at Matthew as though wondering why he would “allow” this woman to do the talking and Smith was being asked to indulge her. He frowned at Ruth, kept looking at her. He probably thought her a little daft, wearing the pants; and Matthew her keeper, standing silent beside her. Well, so be it.

Ruth negotiated well, she thought, countering Smith's reluctance to sell at all, and then appealing to his good nature by mentioning that she was raising her brothers children. She didn't fill in all the blanks, of course. He finally relented, having upped the price Ruth had offered by an uncomfortable amount.

Ruth chastised herself when he did, remembering Lura telling her to “never tell your price until you get the seller to name his. You might get it for less than half of what you were willing to pay.”

Finally, they came to an agreement and, after he handed the paper to Matthew, Smith said, “Sign right here, sir.”

“It's my land to acquire,” she said.

“What?” Smith turned on Matthew. “You wasn't just letting her negotiate for practice? Well now. Well now,” he said as though for the first time aware of Ruth in her own right. He rubbed at his stubble beard. “How can I be sure you'll make the payment then? I've got to have some guarantee. I'm letting you have use of my place, my land I've cleared, my investment, and what're you offering me? A little cash? I don't even know you, anything about you. A woman alone, right?” He eyed Matthew who nodded.

“With kids? What can I expect from such as you?”

“My word,” Ruth said. “I've made it this far, all the way from Ohio. I keep my commitments. I'll sign a contract.” She still had some of her brother's estate money, but little after buying Carmine, tending to the
children. The divorce filing had taken some. And if she used all the rest to increase the down payment, they'd have nothing to tide them over until she sold the yearlings come spring. “I could make semiannual payments instead of once a year.”

“I don't know.” Smith pawed the side of his cheek.

“I can make a higher down payment. Maybe a bred mare— Copperbottom strain.” She felt her hands grow wet, wondering if it all would just slip away.

“We can find another spot for you, Ruth,” Matthew said. “There's no need to—”

“How many?” Smith said, light gleaming in his whiskey-bathed eyes.

“I don't know. Maybe…how many would you want?”

He scratched his chin. “Three mares with foals. But I want standing foals and the mares bred back. And you feed ‘em through the winter. No sense my keeping ‘em alive.”

“Two,” she said. “And no cash down then.” Ruth swallowed.

“And your fellow cosigns for you.”

“No! He's not my fellow. You have my word, my signature, too, if you'll hand me the agreement to sign. And three mares, then, with babies at their side. What more could you possibly want?”

Smith sucked his lip. “I'm thinking this ain't such a good plan.” He scratched his reddish nose that led Ruth to think that he'd probably spend any cash he got at Littles Saloon until he only had a little left. “Naw, I think we should just count this up as an afternoon of jawing and let it go at that.”

Ruth risked it all: “And a payoff in the spring. In full. Or I forfeit—”

“Ruth! There ain't no need—”

“In full?” Smith was suddenly acting as clever as a hungry coyote.

“Or I forfeit it all.” Her heart pounded, her mind raced. She could sell the stud colts as geldings next spring, get them green-broke this winter. She could rent Carmine out to other farmers in the area for a fee.
One or two might want to raise their own farm mule. Maybe she'd have to sell Carmine and wait to see if she had a good colt to raise up as a sire. Or she could take a job doing…laundry as Tipton once had. The yearling fillies could be sold to make the payment, all of them. She'd still have the mares to breed and her jack. It would set her back a full year, but she'd have the land. She'd have to count on last winter being “unusual” in truth and hope they had hay enough without needing tree moss. She couldn't afford to lose any mares or yearlings. It would take all her energy and the children's, too.

She ought to talk with the boys and Sarah and Jessie. See if they were ready to take this on as a family venture. They'd understand, surely they would. Hadn't they found nurture in their land? Their land! It was already hers. She just had to take the risk. She just had to believe she could do this.

“Every penny of the down and the three mares and any improvements made will be yours. I'll move on if I fail to pay you in full.”

Smith dropped his hand from his face and grinned. “Oh, I'm a reasonable man. Tell you what. The cash down. Two mares with foals standing in May and you pay me in full then.”

One didn't get what one wanted without a little struggle. Betha told her to imagine the color she wanted and then just believe. And Elizabeth said that
believing
in German meant “to belove.” Enough belief birthed love which birthed miracles. She'd count on that.

Mazy loaded her milk tins and a ten-pound lard bucket now filled with milk onto the back of her cart. A Yurok Indian woman, a Shasta, and a Wintu worked beside her, helping her lift. It was a strange alliance, begun that night she'd seen the cabin light. They had been outside, leaning like weathered sheaves of wheat against the logs.

The child answered, “They sell hair and head,” she lifted her own
braid to emphasize, “in Shasta City. They give money to men who carry hair. Make marks and get coins.” She held up her fingers, counting to fifteen.

Their faces looked thin as brown paper, eyes distant and lost. “I can't stop the…hunting. I'm only one person,” Mazy had said.

“You give bread in Shasta. You. The baker woman. We follow you. Maybe you have milk and place to sleep. Safe.”

“Mothers have no milk,” the Yurok woman said. She was big-boned, but her cheeks sank in like an old empty squash.

“Milk. Yes. I can get you some that's cooled. And you can stay the night here,” she said. “I…I'll have to think of something. Tomorrow.”

That had been weeks ago. She'd gotten them some milk. They chewed on wind-dried meat, and then she'd ridden back to town, letting the mule Ink make his way to her mother's. Her mother would have some advice.

Her dream drifted back, the part with the carpetbags and people buying tickets for a journey. She'd been on a trip too and realized then that she still was, would always be. And the pastor at the schoolhouse looking formal yet wearing earth-laden boots meant this, she was sure: that she had lessons to learn on her journey. Sometimes they were shared in sermons on a Sunday when expected. Sometimes they surprised, arriving on familiar soil seen in some new way. She got the lessons if she remained in service. “Are you in service?” her friend had said. These Indian women had offered her a way.

Carrying the lantern beneath a harvest moon, she stabled the mule. “You're late, Daughter,” her mother said.

“I had company. At Ruth's.” She told Elizabeth of the evening's happening.

“You take out some bread in the morning,” Elizabeth said. “I can bake extra.”

She'd been afraid they might just stay and told her mother as much.

Elizabeth smiled. “Being a servant feels a little different when it's
closer to home, don't it? Cant put the need out of your mind so easy.” Mazy nodded, dropped her eyes from her mothers. “No need to feel guilty. Even the Lord wanted time to himself. But he always returned to meeting needs where they arrived. That's what you've been given, Daughter. And isn't it time you stopped calling it ‘Ruth's place' and made it your own?”

Mazy'd ridden back out in the morning. She brought in Jennifer and Mavis, her Ayrshires, and then herded in three of the Durhams. She separated the calves into one pen and their mothers into another, trying to ignore their bawling. She knew the babies would eventually accept that they could no longer suck. Her Ayrshire calves had already been weaned. After she skimmed the cream from the flat tins that cooled the previous night's milk, she fed some to the calves. She made sure they had rye hay, then poured the cream into the churn and brought the rest of the pale milk to the women.

Then, thinking, she began loading the tins of whole milk from the cooling place at the creek. She couldn't just keep giving the Indians milk. She'd need some for the calves and had planned to use the rest of the skimmings for the pigs she hoped to purchase. And she still wondered if just giving them food for a while would make any real difference in their lives.

She'd leaned over into the water to pull at the handle and lift up the heavy tin, then felt a hand take some of the weight from her.

“Thank you,” she said, surprised to look into the eyes of the auntie who had accepted bread and cookies from her that one day in town. Two older girls fiddled with the butter churn, and Mazy signaled them to wait, that she'd show them in a minute while one of the women picked up the scythe near the barn and walked out into the tall grass and began cutting.

“That'll be wasted effort,” Mazy said more to herself than anyone else. “The Durhams will stomp it down before it can be sheaved.”

“We will take the cows to the trees,” one of the older boys said, having
obviously overheard her. She nodded agreement. With a stick they began moving the large cows with still-sucking calves slowly away from where the Yurok woman worked. The way Ruths boys used to, Mazy thought.

She heard a baby cry and told Sula to give it some of the skimmed milk. She watched the mother soak a cloth in it and dribble it into the baby's mouth. Such a simple thing; so essential, her husband might have said. They had found a way to meet essentials through mutual service.

In town, Mazy carried in the milk from the cart while that lazy Charles Wilson watched. He was hatless, so the gouge out of his ear seemed accentuated. She always wondered how that really happened, but no one ever said.

“You're just the kind of man I'd go fishing with,” Mazy told him, grunting with the effort to lift the milk tin by herself.

“Why is that, my dear woman?” Charles said. He pushed his fingers into his vest, kept his bad foot raised onto a stool.

“Because I'd know anywhere you'd choose for fishing would be a place of easy catching. A man like you wouldn't want to do any hard labor. Even fishing.”

“I've gout,” he whined. “Got to take care of myself. Don't want to be stepping into that cold spring out back, just to set in tins of milk. My mother wouldn't want me pushing myself,” Charles said. His mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed cold as a widow's hands in winter.

“And you sure wouldn't want to distress your mama, now would you?” Mazy said.

Adora stepped out of the doorway. “He does not distress me in the least, truth be known.” She patted his head, and he jerked away. She laughed, an awkward sound. “Charles's health puts pressure on him; still, he stays, so helpful. Such a sacrifice for him. Wouldn't have wanted to be tied down to a mercantile, now would you?” She smiled. “But who knows, maybe Nehemiah will take over this store when I pass. He's a good man.”

Sacrifice? That
word wasn't in Charles's vocabulary. Mazy wondered if Nehemiah knew of Adoras hopes for him and Tip ton returning someday. She hadn't heard that before.

“We get so many requests for your butter, Mazy, especially from new arrivals. I hope this isn't just a one-time thing. We'd like to have you regular, wouldn't we, Charles?” Adora said.

“Regular,” Charles said.

“Lura always said buying from you made the most sense,” Adora told her.

“I usually sell all my extra to Gus at the St. Charles,” Mazy told her. “And Washington's Market has been a steady contract. Just happens I promised Lura I'd bring you some before they left. Just today though. Don't count on it.”

“But now with your added herd, you'll surely have enough,” Charles said. “That's a long journey back and forth to town each day.” His large head of tight little curls always made Mazy think of a drawing of Julius Caesar she'd once seen. Charles had a noble look if not a noble heart. “But that's right. You've taken the lease Miss Martin had and are staying on there. Finally separating from your mama. What I hear, your mama has interests of her own. So you'll be alone out there now with your dairying.”

She usually didn't pay much attention to anything Charles Wilson said. But she wasn't sure what he was getting at about her mother; and she didn't like the prickles rising at her neck as she thought of Charles being the one to comment on her being out at Poverty Flat alone. Well, with the Indians there, she wasn't.