These Is My Words (12 page)

Then Savannah came to me and said, I wish your new dress was finished, don’t you?

I said there isn’t any hurry in it.

So quick as a flash of lightning, Savannah takes a hairpin from her hair and pins up the loose piece in mine. Come on and join us, honey, she said, Captain Elliot will be leaving before dark.

Well, it can’t be soon enough for me, so if my talking to him will get that man out of here, then I better go set on the porch with them.

It is late at night now, and every time I close my eyes, I hear Captain Elliot’s voice, kind of low and steady, like a song being sung far away. He is always polite to my mama. Must be he didn’t take offense at her acting peculiar before. I noticed although he looked polished and pressed, on the heel of one of his boots was a scrape mark like he had taken a spill or gouged it against a rail or something. All the time he was talking, I watched that scratch on his boot. When he laughed, everyone laughed, as if they couldn’t help it.

I wonder if he will pay another visit. Not that I want him to, but I wonder if he will.

April 30, 1882

We have been busier than ever before. The new chicks have hatched and all the trees are planted. Albert’s arms and back are all muscled out as a blacksmith’s and he has worked like three men day and night to do it, and I am proud of our family when I think of them all. It looks as if we have lost about ten of the trees on the trip, but all told that is a good rate of loss. My dress is almost finished as we are going real slow and it seems real fine. I don’t know when we are going to town again, but I will wear it then.

Mr. Raalle came to visit today and stayed for supper. He said he has built a small one-room house for himself and Melissa, and finally got a well in, although he said using the stream was just fine. Mama told him how streams in the Territory are mostly only good in the winter, and he would be glad this summer he had a well, when the stream was dry as dust. Likely we will have to dig deeper come August anyway.

Little Melissa looked healthy enough but raggedy, and it is clear that Mr. Raalle is doing his level best but she has no mother to comb her hair nor keep her clothes mended and clean. Mama fussed over her a bit and said what a fine girl she was, and would she like to help make some biscuits for supper, so she did and was very happy to have all the motherly attention.

Savannah let me feel the baby kick yesterday and while we were smiling at the feel of it then she hugged me and that little fellow kicked me in the stomach! What a wonderful thing to have a baby. I hope she is not so scared any more.

We have gotten a letter from the Lawrences. They are getting started on their cattle ranch, and have built a house of the limestone there. They have had a tornado, but no damage done. There is no word from Ernest. We hope he is well. I am writing him another letter to Fort Huachuca and one also to Captain Elliot about the purchase of my Duchess of Warwick book.

Mr. Raalle told us he heard in Tucson that Mike Meyers got shot in the head in Tombstone. He challenged some gambler, and although it was against the law to wear a gun in town, the man had a Colt in his belt and plugged Mike without a second thought. Well, I wonder who is shooting that fancy rifle now?

May 9, 1882

We have had a short spell of heat and then cool again and the days are beautiful but the wind blows without stopping. Flowers are blooming everywhere across the land and every day the trees seem to have more and more leaves and flowers too. Mama has continued to stay with us and does not seem to slip away or stare off any more. I asked her did she know she had been a little peculiar since we buried Papa, and she said, Well, yes. But, she said, Sarah you had a hand on everything and all was going well, so I just slipped away. Then when I thought I would lose you, I saw I would have to come back and take hold of things again.

This makes me feel real strange. If I hadn’t gotten so sick would she have stayed touched? And why did she think I had things in hand, didn’t she know I was just driving horses and sleeping with a cocked rifle and haunted day and night with fear and work?

I have been reading and reading many books. I know if I ever get word who they might belong to I should give them back so I am trying to read as much as possible in case that happens soon, but I would be sad to have to do that. I must never forget to be grateful for the gift of these books.

The dogs are going crazy, someone is coming up the road.

May 10, 1882

Well, I was never so surprised to see anyone as Jimmy Reed coming up the road last evening. He trotted up to the house on a big beautiful quarterhorse and hopped off quick, shaking hands all around, and then grinned and looked down real red faced and shook hands formal with Savannah. I guess she is still pretty to fellows even though she is in a delicate condition.

Not only was he coming he said, but he was staying as well. He was driving horses and a heifer and a white-faced bull, too. Jimmy has told us that living in the MacIntosh’s bunkhouse was a trial and he sorely missed Mama’s good cooking, and that Miss Ruthanne has her cap set on the ranch foreman, and did not even once look his way the whole time he lived there.

We understood when he left that they were already promised, but it seems if there was a promise it is forgotten, and his working there was a waste of time. Jimmy took his pay in stock and said he earned extra by working hard and breaking mustangs and such. So now he has a herd almost fifty and needs a good place to run them.

This is a pecan farm, we told him, not a ranch, as without Papa we decided not to run horses, but Jimmy said he wants his own spread anyway, and he has seen some good country on the way.

Jimmy Reed is taller and filled out some from when we last saw him. If the food was that bad, it doesn’t seem to disagree with him, as he is tall as Albert and strong looking and his hair has gotten darker. He sits a horse like he is part of it, and that’s a good sign, Papa used to say. He got his stock put in our little pen for the night and we all stayed up late and talked a long time and then he asked if he could throw down on our floor.

It would be a sight better than the rocks he’s been sleeping on, and no scorpions or rain likely to get on him, he said.

I feel funny sleeping with him in the room like this, and in the dark he says to me, What’s that you’re doing, Sarah? I told him I write a journal of our travel and life and I will put the candle out soon, so he said Good night, and began to snore right away just like he always did when he was a kid.

I remember that sound and now it seems it has been missing all this time but since we were in strange country I didn’t know it.

May 14, 1882

Jimmy has staked himself a section of land near to the Mexican’s spread, their name is Maldonado, and it has some wild and rocky country, but plenty of stream to water his stock. He filed his claim right away. He is borrowing our canvases and made a tent for now. He is building fences and a corral, first things first. Sometimes he eats supper with us, just coming in as if he was family. Sometimes he stays at his place.

Mr. Raalle came over to pass the time and brought us butter and cream and buttermilk from his cows. He said he is learning from the Maldonados about how to make those adobe bricks and dry them in the sun. He is going to make bricks all summer in the heat and build himself a house. He said it was good to use the land and to learn from those who knew what the land had to offer. I think a cactus fence like the Maldonados have might be a good thing to keep coyotes and bobcats and such from the henhouse, but Albert says it is a bother and he has a fine henhouse already.

May 22, 1882

Harland seems to spend lots of time at the Maldonados’ house as they have seven children. They just play and play hard all the time. I went over there to get him one day for supper and took a bowl of sourdough starter to them. They seemed ever so nice but we did not speak their language at all. Except that rascal Harland has surprised us all and when we asked questions or they talked to us he would say She wants to know if you have a garden, or He says there are lots of baby chicks here this year. It seems he has picked up some Mexican talk from playing with the boys and it makes it nicer to have some talk with them rather than just nodding and smiling.

Mrs. Maldonado led me out to the chicken coop and scooped up some pullets, five of them, and gave them to me and so I asked Harland how do I say thank you and he said it. Pretty soon we had stayed too long and the smell coming from the stove is awful good. We will have to make friends with them and get Mrs. Maldonado to show me how to make it, and get Harland to teach me some words so I can be polite.

I have started to read a book named The Happy Bride. It is all about how a girl should act and what men expect from the girl they want to marry and such. It is a wonderful book and I plan to study it hard and put it to practice. The first thing I must do is become more religious. I will have to learn to be “a righteous example of piety and purity, virtuous to a fault, kind and sharing,” if I am to be the Happy Bride in the book. “Bible study is the first importance in being a wife.” No wonder Savannah is so happy, I am sure she is one of God’s angels here on earth. More than anything else, I think I want to be like her. I will have a lot of work to do to be pious and pure of heart.

As for that rainstorm and a certain soldier, I will just turn from my wicked ways and be sure never to place myself in a situation like that again. If I was, I would turn him away with a strong command rather than bawl like an orphan calf and fall asleep like I was safe with him. This book says “a young lady is never safe when in close physical proximity to a gentleman, and although he would pursue her, he thinks all the more of her if she rebuffs him heartily.” So I have thought of a hearty rebuff that I will tell that Captain Elliot if ever I see him again, or any man who presumes to be in close physical proximity.

The book doesn’t say what to do if you have slept in your underwear on top of a soldier in a wagon during a rainstorm. I will study this book so the first chance I get not to be an old maid I will be ready.

May 29, 1882

Jimmy has gotten somewhat of a house built although it is just one little room with a stove. He is going to drive to Tucson tomorrow and sell a couple of horses if he can to raise money for tools and fence wire and such.

Mama said why don’t I go with him and sell some of our first vegetables, so I am taking a bath tonight after supper and will wear my new blue dress, and Mama’s good straw hat. I told Mama I thought we should have someone with us, since Jimmy isn’t really my brother and all, but she said she didn’t want to go and wants to stay near Savannah since she is getting close to her time, so we will have to take Harland, and he is real excited.

June 2, 1882

We were about to leave that morning real early before sunup but couldn’t get Harland out of bed, and when we did, he is running a fever and covered with red spots. Mama was real upset and said she will try to clean the house real good because it looks like measles, and it is good for us to go and get away, and Albert and Savannah will move to Jimmy’s house for some days. Mama said for us to stay an extra day or two in Tucson and not to worry.

I remember having measles and it was a whole month to get over it. That was before Harland was born, and I was little but I remember being awful sick. Likely he got it from the Maldonado children or will have given it to them, and she said she will put him down comfortable and walk over and warn them they are in for a spell of sickness with seven children all in a row.

It was mid morning before we pulled away, and borrowed Albert’s wagon. At first I thought I shouldn’t be sitting on this seat next to him, but then I got to thinking he is just good old Jimmy who I have known for years. As we drove we talked about all that had happened since we left, and I told him the story of our journey to San Angelo and back, only leaving out a couple of parts.

He said he was real interested in Rose and she looked to be a fine horse, and I said she was for sure. He has a beautiful chestnut stallion he said, and he would like to know if he could breed her and then I would have two, since Rose is old enough now. He is breeding all his mares, and most of them are in foal right now.

This is a good plan, I said, but I remembered how the book said I must be pure and innocent, so I said I would leave it all up to him. Well, he asked why, and I said it is not like when we were children, I am a young lady and don’t have to do with such things as that, it is man’s work.

Pretty soon we stopped for dinner, and I showed him all the arrow holes in Albert’s wagon. He asked me was I still a pretty good shot, and I said yes, pretty good.

We camped near a store at the south edge of town. I slept in the wagon bed and Jimmy slept underneath. All night long I could hear him snoring soft like.

All the horses gleamed in the morning light like they were scrubbed new, and I knew Jimmy liked to take care of those horses just like Papa. Pretty soon here he comes with a pail of water and says, Sarah do you drink coffee?

We had a little breakfast and coffee and he said to me I looked different. I asked him how, but he couldn’t say, he just said Kind of sparkly.

So I said, It is my new dress Mama made, and he said maybe so. Then he was off to trade his horses, but he said it was not a lady’s place at a horse corral, there might be rough characters there. I said I would take all the vegetables to the stores instead, and we parted company. I am glad he thinks I am a lady, and I have to be careful how I seem to other folks and hope there is a single fellow in town who will notice my new dress, but I must not notice that he notices, if he does.

Jimmy had a really good day, and has put two hundred dollars in his pockets. Some of that he will leave behind for a fancy metal cistern for holding rain water at his house that he has ordered. He said he doesn’t like credit, and paid his bill at the store in advance, he likes cash on the barrelhead.