What Once We Loved (48 page)

“Will Ruth be expecting us?” Mazy asked. “We shouldn't intrude.” She busied herself with the butter, patting the thick beige clump into the wooden mold, latching the top, then setting it into the cooler that Matthew Schmidtke left her so many months before. The work settled her thinking.

“She'll be expecting me and Naomi and her little tyke,” Seth said. “Esther wrote to her. I'm sure she'd be pleased to see you, too. I'll fill her in on things in Sacramento.” Seth rolled a cigarette, and Mazy watched him put a stick to the fire and light it, liking the scent of it, remembering. How pleasant were the scents of a good man's companionship, like fine tobacco, leather, and even wet wool.

Mazy said, “Speaking of Sacramento, did you ever see Tipton?”

“She disappeared like a jackrabbit in the shadow of a hawk. Even the Chinese doctor where Naomi saw her first said she hadn't been back. I found her room, following Naomi's directions. Somebody else had already moved in. They said all they found there was a hatpin with a dragonfly on the shank underneath the cot. No one's seen hide nor hair of her since.”

“How odd. Maybe she'll seek out Sister Esther later, after the baby comes.”

Seth nodded. “She'd be welcomed at Suzanne's.”

“Are you going to become the boys' tutor?” Mazy teased.

Seths face reddened. “In a way,” he said. “But Powder's staying on.”

The smallish girl child Naomi held in her arms fussed, and Mazy could hear her begin to cry. It would go to a high-pitched wail if they didn't somehow get her comforted. The baby rattled her more than it should. Seth and Naomi and the child had been at Poverty Flat a few days now, and the screaming of the infant, the wizened look of her, proved worrisome to Mazy.

So did the way Naomi looked. She'd been a round-faced woman with eyes like perfect ovals. Now one eye remained closed almost all the time, a wide, poorly mended jagged scar, diagonal across it as though a broken ale bottle had been jammed into her face. How people could do such vile things to each other was beyond Mazy's understanding.

Naomi stepped closer to her baby. “You're safe here,” Mazy said. “You can disappear inside this crowd of people. There are almost as many folks here as on our wagon train when we started west.”

“Too close,” Naomi said.

“You're right about that. But there are places you can get by yourself. Across the meadow. Down by the creek.”

“This place too close to Sacramento,” Naomi clarified.

“Well, I suppose you know best,” Mazy said. “It's just that your baby doesn't look well enough to make the journey. Just yet,” she added quickly as she saw Naomi's face register fear.

“That's why we thought you coming along would be wise, Mazy,” Seth said.

Mazy looked at him. Was the trip a way for him to get time with her again? she wondered. No. There was something different about him, something calming, as though he had found a fire inside to warm him that had nothing to do with her.

“There'll be others arriving,” Mazy said. “Maybe I should stay here.”

“Esther hoped you'd take Naomi north yourself. You and Ruth could help get her established.”

The child's face twisted in distress, and Mazy wiggled her fingers
toward Naomi who lifted the child up to Mazy's arms. “Hello, little Passion,” Mazy sang out. “Pretty baby. Pretty Passion.”

“I change name, maybe. New name for new place. To Chou-Jou.”

“That'd be nice,” Mazy said, lifting her voice above the squeal. “Always good to name kin after someone we cared for.” Chou-Jou had made the journey west, been lost to hydrophobia before they ever reached the Black Rock Desert.

“Husband think girl child bad joss,” Naomi said. “She keep him from sleep with her cries.”

“She does wail,” Mazy agreed. “Not badly,” she said when she noticed Naomi's
eyes
begin to pool. She rocked from side to side, then turned and put the child on her shoulder. That made it worse, though Mazy patted and crooned. Pig barked as she talked to the child. “Jealous,” she said as she walked to the door, opened it for him to go out. Chance, David Taylor's dog, yipped and followed. Mazy turned the infant away from her then, while she held one arm over the baby's chest, the other supported the baby's bottom. The little girl's legs draped over Mazy's arm as though sitting on a narrow branch, gazing outward as Mazy paced. The child felt floppy and soft as kneaded dough. Chou-Jou faced her mother but still screamed, and Mazy, without thinking of it, lifted her up and down in front of her while standing in one place. Chou-Jou quieted, appeared to look out then and see what was before her.

“She likes something you're doing,” Seth said.

“Maybe so,” Mazy said. As soon as the baby started to fuss again, Mazy lifted her up and down, feeling the child's little back move against Mazy's breast. The back of Chou-Jou's head was covered with thick, black hair against a slender neck. When she stopped the swinging motion, the child began fussing, but wasn't as frantic. Mazy lifted her again, three or four times more until her head nodded forward and Mazy felt drool on her arm. Mazy scooped the little feet, turned her around, then held her to her breast while she slept.

The ache of the infant s weight brought back a memory Mazy had never had, of the infant she'd never held. Tears sprang to her eyes.

It still startled her when someone asked her if she had children or not. She never knew quite how to answer, whether to say, “I lost an infant before it was born” or to say that she had none. It felt dishonoring to the infant who'd died to say nothing; a lie to say she'd had none. Would she, when and if she ever married again and had a baby, say that was her first child or only her “firstborn”? She handed the sleeping infant back to her mother.

“Safe in Oregon,” Naomi said. “Safe there.”

“You set a date for heading out?” David asked coming in through the door. With his foot he held Chance back, set Ben down. Oltipa followed behind. She had a basket full of white roots with stringy stems she plopped on her lap as she sat on a grass mat. She plucked at the roots, separating stems from tubers.

“Soon,” Seth said. “If I can talk Mazy into joining us. Streams aren't so swollen as last year. I think we'll make the crossings without trouble.”

“All will be well here,” Oltipa said.

David nodded. “Oltipa and me, we got us some good news,” David said. He grinned. “Ben here's going to have a little brother.”

“That's wonderful,” Mazy said. She dabbed at her eyes.

“Yup. And I'm thinking that if the offer is still open, Mazy, I'd consider farming more full-time. A fellow needs to be near his children, not be gone so much, if he wants to raise ‘em right.”

“I'm sure we can work that out,” Mazy said. “I might be on the trail more myself.” She cast a glance at Seth. “It'd be easier knowing this place is well tended.”

“I hope to spend a bit more time closer to Suzanne's boys, too,” Seth said. “Guess I can tell you all. Suzanne and I are getting married.”

“You are!” Mazy said. “So that's why you look so…comfortable.”

“Do I?” Seth grinned. “Figured it was time I said out loud what we've both been knowing but were too scared to say.”

“Imagine, a man owning up to being scared,” Mazy said.

“Matrimony is scary,” Seth said. “That's why you got to be sure you have someone to hold you when it gets dark.”

David laughed. “Never heard it expressed that way before, but it fits.” He turned to Oltipa and grinned. “Like reins to a hand.”

“And Suzanne will hold you in your darkness,” Mazy said.

“And I'll hold her in hers,” Seth said.

Mazy felt a flutter at her stomach. Had she somehow told herself that Seth would always be there? Someone for her to fall back on when she finally got desperate enough to admit she wanted companionship other than a dog? No, it wasn't loss nor envy neither. She was pleased for her friends. She just couldn't name what this hole inside her heart was.

“We'll be a good team,” Seth said, his words coming faster with the rush of pleasure his disclosure carried. “Suzanne and I are talking about how both of us seem to need to keep water in the bucket swirling. We don't like to see dirt settle to the bottom. Just gets there, clear as a glass eye, and we stir it up again. Anyway, we thought we'd find a way to do that together. You tell your mother, Mazy, that I ‘caught a cold' there in Sacramento. She'll know what I mean.”

David clapped Seth's shoulder in congratulations. The man beamed.

Yearning, than what this is
, Mazy thought. She was yearning for something more. Walking through life alone was invigorating for a time. But she wasn't sure she wanted to do it for the rest of her days.

“Well, Naomi, are you ready for my company?” Mazy said. The Celestial nodded. “All right then, let's do it. We'll bundle Chou-Jou up against the April winds.”

“We taking Pig to trot with us?” Seth said.

Mazy nodded. “A girl always needs a friend who accepts her as she is.”

“You two will patch things up, that's what I'll ponder.”

“I don't know. What happened was a terrible thing I could have prevented.”

“That's not exactly so,” her mother said. “We don't control much, except how we react to what we're given on this trail. Ruth's had a chance
to find that out too. At least let yourself look forward to the journey,” Elizabeth said. “Regardless of what happens when you arrive. Life's short. You got to celebrate often.”

Mazy teased, “I wont miss a wedding, will I?”

“Ach,” Elizabeth said and pushed her hand to the air. “Not to worry over that. You might just marry before me if you let yourself meet up with some nice man.”

“I had a nice man.” Her mothers eyebrows rose. “At least now I can remember nice things about him. And everything wasn't Jeremy's fault. I think I kept him…contained inside some boundary, Mother. I didn't tell him much, where the gates were. He didn't open doors for me to know him either. It was sad, really, that we missed knowing who each other was.”

“That's good, Child. It is. To come to such a place of forgiveness. Letting go of being mad at him don't excuse what he did. You're a kind and loving woman. You can remember that young bride who married for love. And let her remind you that love can come again.” Mazy blushed at the compliment. “I can pray for that, can't I? That your heart will be open to the man God chooses for you, as open as you are to helping others make their way?”

Mazy smiled. “What would you do if I said no?”

“Ponder it,” she said. “It's the same as praying.”

Zane Randolph smashed his fist against the wall of the livery in Yreka. Horses snorted and whinnied with the splintering of wood from his fist. “Hey now,” said the hostler. “No need for that.”

“I'll determine what there is need for,” Zane said. He could not accept that the purple shay would have to stay. His well-laid plan was slipping from his grasp like an iron weight held by a sweaty hand.

“No buggy'll make it over the Siskiyous. That's just common sense,
man,” the hostler told him. “I'll buy this'n from you. You hire yourself a good freighter wagon to carry you and your leg there. Might be still early for them. They don't like the spring runoff, but I suspect you can convince ‘em. Or you could ride yourself on a big horse. One peg leg like you're toting shouldn't throw you off too much.”

“I need no advice from such as you,” Zane seethed. He pulled himself into the shay, poked his cane at the hostler. “Bigger men than you have fallen by my hand,” he said, then drove his shay out.

That had been several hours ago. Here he was now, at the mouth of Cottonwood Creek. At the foothills of the last mountains he would have to cross before he found his Ruth. He was closer to his destination than he'd been in months. But the horse resisted, wouldn't cross. It started forward as he whipped at its haunches, but pushed backward at the first step into water. She'd nearly killed him when she bolted back, turned the shay and set it up on one wheel.

Zane's heart had lurched into his throat while he waited what seemed hours for the wheel to set down on firm ground.

“You stupid beast!” he'd shouted, fury beading out on his forehead.
How dare this beast confound myphnslHow dare it!
He whipped it again, and the horse's ears lay back flat as it pushed and pulled on the road.