What Once We Loved (57 page)

“Please. Call me Mazy. I like a good herb garden. And vegetables.”

“I'm pretty good at preaching. Not all that good at gardening.”

“That's not what I hear,” Mazy said.

Burke had his hands folded over his stomach. A kerosene lamp flickered at their faces. “You got to watch who you talk to in these parts,” he said. “Some of these Oregonians are horse-race-winning exag-gerators.”

“We used to tease Seth about that, about dividing by two and subtracting by four, whatever he told us.” She leaned toward Burke so as not to let Seth, lying on his bedroll inside, hear them. Rainwater dribbled off the roof into a coopered barrel, soothing as a song. “He writes terrible poems, too. Did you know that? We all tell him that.” She sat back.

“Uh-oh. I'm a bit of a bad poet myself.”

“Are you?” Yes ma am.

“Let me hear one.” He looked bashful, his big round face with that
comma dimple hidden in a childlike moment of being shy. “Come on,” she urged. “I won't laugh. I won't.”

“All right,” he said. He cleared his throat. “It's called ‘What Once We Loved.'

“What once we loved is memory now, rooted deep,

Tangled up with time.

Cradled through experience,

It threatens to erode our wounded hearts.

Time tends it.

Warms the earth around it.

Then brave, we journey forward,

Refuse to let the sharpened sides of memory be the fill.

Instead, we grieve and let loss change us,

Till and turn the soil,

And choose to love again.”

“How do you know those things?” Mazy whispered. “How can you put it down like that, such feelings inside words?”

He shrugged. With his fingers, he combed the dip above his lip. “Been something I could do my whole life,” he said.

“It's a gift,” she said.

He nodded. “Just hope I use it well. I just want to encourage and teach and help people with the messes we sometimes make of our lives. To be God's hands and feet on the journey.”

“I had this dream once,” Mazy said. “I dream in color. Sometimes in a story, too. I was on a trip. I knew exactly where I was going, felt led almost. It was wonderful. An old friend said I was ‘in service.' I ended up at a young couple's home helping slop their pigs, and I was as happy as if I'd found a cure for hydrophobia.” She was quiet. “And isn't that what our lives are? Sometimes with formal lessons and sometimes what we're to learn is given through the everyday, where we'd least expect to find it. We just have to be willing to be on the trail, I guess. And accept the joy of knowing we're not alone.”

They sat silent, the creak of the hickory rocker Burke sat in making crunching sounds on the mud-tracked porch.

“My mother says she'll remarry sometime this year,” Mazy said. “That would be a lovely poem to read, if you wouldn't mind. To remind us all not to let the past be speaking too loudly into the present.”

“Wouldn't want to intrude on a family affair,” Burke said. “But it would be my pleasure to make the declamation at your mothers wedding. Might even offer to officiate, if she didn't mind a Baptist.”

“Oh, Mother always said it wasn't the denomination that mattered but the relationship.” He nodded. “You'd leave your farm?” she said then.

He turned to her, picked up her hand. She felt a tingling like a lightning storm crackling close. “I'm passionate about some things,” he said, rubbing the back of her palm. “My farm is one. I wouldn't go on such a journey without a little planning. But you never know what a change of scenery will do for a soul.”

“Oh, me, too,” Mazy said, swallowing as she sank into his eyes. “I'd never choose to leave my home without a very, very good reason.”

23

Upper Table Rock, 1859, five years hter

“Come on, Grandmama! Its my birthday. Don't make us last!” Betha Manes, nearly four years old, could be as forceful as her mother. “Shall I carry your basket?” She offered then. Elizabeth nodded as little Betha rearranged the loaves of bread, adjusted the red-checkered cloth, and took her grandmother's hand. The child was as generous as her mother too, Elizabeth thought. Strong and kind. A good combination.

Together they wound their way up the deer trail to the top of Upper Table Rock, passing talus slopes, huge boulders and rocks that mimicked fence posts standing up together. They traveled to what Ruth said was almost the top of the world. “There's that cave Papa told us to stay away from,” Betha said.

“That's right,” Elizabeth told her. “You've a good memory.”

Behind them on the footpath followed Mazy and Ruth and Tipton, the latter with a baby bouncing on her back. Tipton's Huldah, almost six already, stopped to pick a wildflower. She showed it to Suzanne whose fingers left Pig's harness to touch the leaves. She smiled at the child who stood before her.

This was a “Girl's Day Gathering,” Mazy called it. The boys had elected to remain back at Spring Ridge, talking commerce and politics and mules and probably a little horse racing, if Elizabeth knew her Gus.

“Oh, look, Grandmama,” Betha said and pointed. “Isn't it muni-cifent?”

“It is indeed,” Elizabeth said, inhaling.

Looking east out across the valley stood Mount McLoughlin, white as whipped cream atop a nine-thousand-foot cone. Elizabeth turned slowly to sight another butte, then Lower Table Rock, and then the Rogue River flowing through the agate desert below. Trees and fields bounded by split-rail fences dotted the land across the flat that spread for miles and miles toward the Siskiyou Mountains, then California. Western country never ceased to amaze her. No one would believe it looked this beautiful unless they journeyed here, dug their toes in God s footstool, this vast earth.

“Can you see your Aunt Ruth's mules grazing? Or your papa's farm he had before he moved to California to marry your mother?”

“People can't see that far,” Betha told her, her grin unveiling a single dimple.

“Oh, just imagine it,” Elizabeth said. “You'd be surprised how far you can see when you imagine a thing.”

Betha pinched her eyes tight, then opened them wide. “Nope,” she said, then set the basket down and headed for the rock's edge, stopping short and looking down. Grace, Jeremy's daughter, and Mariah approached, both of their white straw hats bobbing. They were home from school, both of them. Jessie strode close behind, hovering on every word.

“Truth be known, these baby baskets are a blessing to a hiker,” Tip ton said, fanning herself with her handkerchief. She lifted the frame, took the baby boy out. “Huldah, you be careful,” she called out to the child standing next to Betha.

It was quite the gathering. The first when most of the wagon train women would try to meet in one place. Lura had said she wanted to be there, but cooking at Colesteins Stage Station kept her busy. And Naomi and Mei-Ling lived far away now, near the Columbia River; and
Adora had thought it best she stay in Shasta City and tend to her ailing son and their store.

Still a good showing. Elizabeth was pleased to be blessed by the companionship of so many women she treasured. Esty had been invited, too, their circle ever expanding. But with Esthers death last year, there'd been too much for her to do to take time away for playing. Elizabeth would miss Esther.

“Tell me what I see,” Suzanne said as she caught her breath beside Elizabeth.

Elizabeth laughed. “Well, lets see. Kin,” Elizabeth told her, “spread about like flowers dancing across a mat of grasses. A few trees and mountains in the distance. And the sky looks like smoke puffs out of Luras old clay pipe. Feel like sitting?” Suzanne nodded. She was already showing, she and Seth expected a child to be born in the new decade.

The new decade. Six more months, and Elizabeth would be living in the sixties. Ponder that! Not an easy time for living with the expulsion of all Chinese from California talked about and strong words about cotton and slavery from the south. It didn't speak well of what the new decade would bring. But Oregon had become a state. It was no longer a “foreign land” as it had been, and she was glad to be alive to see all the Western Coast joined under the stars and stripes.

“Are there wildflowers?” Suzanne asked.

“Not many. Matthew says April and May are the months for that here. When the pools have water standing in them. I guess there are some strange little white flowers that bloom then. Only place in the world.”

A bright red pileated woodpecker flitted by and landed on a branch of a granary tree before soaring off. “That's a treat,” Ruth said as she approached. “I've heard those birds lots of times, just never noticed one up here.”

“So much to see,” Suzanne said.

“Mama, I need to…do a private thing,” Betha said, pulling on Mazy s skirt.

“Can't you find no trees to squat behind?” Elizabeth teased her. Trees were a little scattered and distant up here. “Well, we'll just form up our necessary circle then,” she said. “Mazy. Ruth. Mariah. Tipton. Come on over. We've got a reason to hold our skirts out and gossip.”

They stood with their backs to the center where Betha hopped her skirts up out of the way. “Why, Ruth, your split skirt flares out right well, don't it? She's holding her wide leg pants out, Suzanne, and using almost as much material as your gown.”

“It's serviceable,” Ruth said. “And I don't get quite so many raised eyebrows.”

“How's your vineyard doing, Ruth?” Tipton asked.

“Wistfully,” Ruth said. “That photographer, Peter Britt, planted some vines in ‘52, and his're doing well. Ours just give me things to ponder about. Will the yellow jackets eat all the fruit this year? Will the birds get the sweetest grapes?” She grinned at Elizabeth. “It takes a lot of work. More than the orchards. And with the mules, well, there's hardly time in the day And Nehemiah? Will he run again?”

“He plans to,” Tipton said. “I hope to help more without being…with child like last time.”

“Your brother Charles made some noises awhile back about maybe running for a house seat,” Elizabeth said. “But then he got that terrible wound. It healed except for the spot at his mouth that gets irritated all the time. Just keeps weeping. I tried a salt pork poultice.”

“I've heard bread and milk works good for cuts,” Mazy said.

“Tried it. Got all sour. We tried pine pitch. It dries hard as nails. Just like tar and it don't wash off. Just has to wear off.”

“I don't see how he can still eat so much. He rival's Pig,” Mazy said.

“Guess he can't get filled up,” Elizabeth said. “His gout and all.”

Jessie asked something about the wagon trip across then, and people recalled sights and sounds and the things that gave them pause. No truths or lies rose up to fill the silence. Memories like mist drifted to each.

The circle finished, they made their way back to the baskets. Elizabeth handed out huck towels and spring water so they could wash
their hands before sitting on the quilt which itself brought up new chatter, old stories mixed with new.

And then with the breeze lifting the lace collars of the women's dresses and the calls of blue jays, Elizabeth broke a single loaf of bread and passed it along. She followed it with clumps of butter on around. She felt…worshipful, almost, in this pleasant place. From a single loaf they'd become family. A single loaf bound them.

“What did you think of Wisconsin, Grace?” Suzanne asked the younger woman.

“Rolling hills, green, green grasses. Many fine farms and a button factory. Cassville's a pleasant place,” she said. “To be from.” She smiled at Mazy, took a bite of bread.

“And did you find the trip back an easy one, Mazy?” Tipton asked. “I don't think I'd want to see Papa's old store.”

“I had good companions to share it with,” Mazy said. “But it was… strange, to see the old place. The valley, or cooley, as we used to call it, was so much narrower than I remembered. Like a woman's shoe compared to a mans big boot of these Western slopes. And I remembered the bluffs being so much higher. And…the house needed lots of work. It's had several owners since we left, but they still kept the garden plot where I had it. And the bee tree is there. I took some lilac cuttings.” She motioned for Betha to wipe some jam from her face. “And it was all smaller than I remembered. I cried a bit, and Betha said to me, ‘It was the best choice, Mama.' How she knew what I was grieving, I'll never know.”

“I'm glad Father left there,” Grace said. “It was terribly hot and sticky, and little gnats bothered everywhere in an evening. You had to wave your hand before your face or they'd fly right into your mouth.”

“That's why people from Wisconsin are always using their hands when they talk,” Elizabeth said, and everyone laughed.

“So was it worth all the effort?” Suzanne asked. “Taking the ship and all?”

“It was for me,” Mazy said. “It was nice to show Burke what I knew first. To introduce Grace to a place her father loved. And for Betha to see it. I doubt she'll remember much. But she may recall the cabin, the Mississippi River. And she saw an eagle there. She got all excited and talked about going home then. It made her homesick, I think, to see something that she
sees
here all the time. And she missed old Pig.” The dog lifted his jowls from his paws, looked at her, then lowered his head and closed his eyes. Mazy sat quietly, still thinking.