These Is My Words (14 page)

Well, I know real well how to be scared, I have had a lot of practice. But Rose knows the way to his house fine, and I could see the light from his window after I turned a corner, and that wasn’t such a long way at all.

Then, the rain started to fall. And a strong wind began howling around the house like it would pull it down. Then I really got afraid. Not of the storm, nor of the darkness outside, but the storm was too bad to go out in and I had not been smart to come with it on the way, and I was stranded there. If I went home and Rose spooked at some lightning and broke a leg I’d lose her and her foal. And if I stay, Jimmy will think I am a wanton woman, or low.

Suddenly it comes to mind what Captain Elliot had said, that it was worse to be ruined by a rumor than by the truth. Sometimes the truth is real simple but what folks make of it in the telling is a mess like a rat’s nest. The truth is here I am again in a rainstorm with a man.

I couldn’t go and I couldn’t stay. My family might not understand. Or they might say it’s only good old Jimmy, never mind. When he first came south with his herd and slept on our floor, it didn’t matter at all. Now it seemed to matter, big as a mountain. Jimmy, I said, will you make me some coffee? I feel chilled a bit.

So he did and while he fiddled with the coffee grinder and all, I thought hard what should I do short of changing my name to Rahab.

Did you put Rose in the shed? he asked me.

Yes, I did, I told him, and the dogs are under the house. Jimmy has a good horse shed, he takes care of his animals. Pretty soon the coffee started to smell good, and Jimmy began cooking some bacon. I sat there thinking and coming up empty, like fishing without bait, I was in a real quandary.

What is the matter, said Jimmy to me, are you sick?

But I couldn’t think of what to say so I shrugged.

Jimmy was stirring some flour into a bowl. Do you like pancakes? he says. It’s one thing I can make but it ain’t much supper for company, but if you don’t mind, there’s a keg of sorghum on that shelf over your head, Sarah. And he began to pour pancakes on the griddle.

I felt like I moved through mud, and I watched him flip the little cakes and smelled the coffee and bacon, and I tried to think but my head just quit on me.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter what I thought because I heard Bear growling under the house and as he did a loud knock came on the door. A man’s voice hollered Hello, The House, and bang! the door pushed open, with a fellow in a dripping slicker standing there. He was no taller than me, but big in the shoulders and stocky in the middle, carrying something heavy and slopping mud and water all over the floor. He took off his hat and nodded to us and says his name is Moses Smith, and asked could he wait out the storm in Jimmy’s barn, and held out his hand to Jimmy. Jimmy answered back his name, and Mr. Smith nodded to me and said Evening Mrs. Reed, real simple. I didn’t feel like telling this man he had me wrong, because he gave me a skitterish feeling like there was a snake under a board you were standing on.

I knew Jimmy pretty well and I guessed he wouldn’t put up no stranger in his barn full of foaling mares and a prize stallion, and just like that he said, Sit here a spell, Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith takes off his slicker and leans it on a peg against the door, and slings down off of his shoulders two sets of saddle bags that hit the floor real loud and hard like they are loaded with lead. He pulls up a chair and says, That smells good, Mrs. Reed, and smacks his lips. He is wearing a suit coat and a slick red vest. It looks to be fancy, expensive duds but dirty and torn, like he has worn them through their best days awhile back. Under his vest I see two crossed leather belts of loaded shot with pistols hanging from them tied down to his legs. The only people who wear guns strapped down like that, need to use them in a hurry and often.

Jimmy, I said, You’ll have to get another plate down.

He mostly ate like a hog, and I was really afraid. I kept thinking I had left my rifle in the shed with Rose where it would do me no good. We kept up with him thinking that we were married, and he asked could he bed down in a store room, but Jimmy said he only had one room. I figure he sized the man up pretty quick, too.

Mr. Smith said, Would you put up my horse, Mr. Reed? and smiled real ugly at me when he said it. In that second I pictured him following Jimmy out to the shed and killing him and my fate would be worse than that.

No, I can’t do that, was all Jimmy said, without any explaining. What is that heavy stuff you’re carrying? Jimmy asked him right out.

Mr. Smith laughed with his mouth full of pancakes and slurped at his coffee, and said, No, that’s real light, son, real light. Then he laughed some more.

Time went past more slow than I could imagine, and I did up the dishes while Jimmy talked about politics and the new Territorial Governor. That fellow Smith didn’t need much of a lead to tell a piece and went on and on with tales that seemed to be much too tall for one man to have lived. Jimmy stayed calm and acted like he enjoyed listening, but I see in his eyes from across the room that he is biding his time, letting him have his yarn, as it wouldn’t do to disagree with that man.

Pretty soon, he declares he is ready to sleep, and then he snickers real dirty sounding, and says he’ll face the wall over yonder and leave us privacy. He scoots his heavy bags for a pillow and stretches out wet and dirty on the bare floor. Right in front of the door.

Jimmy came to me and said real soft, Sarah, you have to stay. If you leave he could follow you if I can’t stop him.

I told him back, What’s to keep him from killing you in your sleep anyway? And Jimmy pressed his hand against his shirt and I see he has something heavy in it. He whispered that he kept extra tools near the kitchen stove sometimes. So, he got out two blankets and spread them as far away from Moses Smith as he could, and I laid next to the wall in my dress and shoes and all, and Jimmy laid next to me.

He whispered to me was I scared, and I said some, then he took my hand in the darkness and into it slipped something cold and sharp. He had put a knife in my hand big as a Bowie knife. He whispered again real slowly like he was making the picture in my head for me, Just think of skinning a deer. It is just like that. A deer. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and set his hand on a gun hidden on his chest.

We laid there together, not talking, hardly moving, stiff and scared, until the sun began to come up. Laying there on the floor next to Jimmy I felt less afraid of Moses Smith, and a little afraid of Jimmy. He was so close I could smell his clothes. His hand was on mine and I wondered if he was meaning that to be a comfort, but I couldn’t ask. I was too scared to sleep, but not too scared to think about laying close up on the floor with Jimmy. I watched him breathing. I saw his face in the dim light of the low lamp. His whiskers sparkled like a little halo around his chin. Moses Smith snorted and rooted around like a hog. Jimmy grunted when he did. He looked at me and I caught eyes with him and nodded. I could see two little stars out the window from the angle I was at. After a while they went away. And a while after that the window got pale and sort of gold colored.

First Light! Jimmy calls out. Time to tend the horses, Mrs. Reed! And we hopped up, springing off the blanket like two lizards off a hot rock. The air was thick and heavy from the rain, and instead of feeling fresh, the world felt weighed down.

We scuffled around quickly making a real big fuss over starting up the coffee, and I put that big knife into my apron pocket with the handle sticking out, then Jimmy hollered to Mr. Smith, who had not moved an inch, Mr. Smith, we have to tend the stock, excuse us, we have to get out the door. Well, Mr. Moses Smith reached under himself and pulled out a big forty-four Colt and waved it around the room. Jimmy pushed me behind himself quick.

Smith opened his eyes and looked around, probably trying to get his bearings, and said, Oh, sorry folks. Pretty soon he moved out of our way as we were not backing away. The smell in the heavy warm air was making me scared, because it was the smell of him.

Quick as a fox we stepped aside as he moved and pulled open the door, and I took off toward the barn, but Jimmy grabbed my arm, and said between his teeth, Don’t run. When we were sheltered from Mr. Smith’s eyes by the shed door, I turned around to stare at the house and see if he was moving around in there.

Our coffee is probably turned to tar by now, I said to him, after about an hour.

Jimmy said Maybe that’ll get rid of a varmint we got. As we were shaking oat dust off our hands and sleeves, there was Mr. Smith leaning over the fence and looking in with a grin at all those horses and at us.

Nice herd, Mr. Reed, he says. Are you interested in selling any?

Jimmy said back, No, we’re expecting to increase the herd by next year, then I’ll be selling. None of the mares are ready yet, and the stallions don’t go anywhere, he said.

Smith nodded and grinned and said, They don’t, aye? like he meant to change Jimmy’s mind one way or another. Then he mounted his horse, and started off slow. At the corner of the corral he turned around and said, Oh, by the way, folks, that was a bad storm. Appears to have blown away all trace of your clothes, Mizz Reed, and any sign that you actually live here. Then he laughed in a way that I imagine is heard in saloons, but I never heard anyone laugh so that it made me feel as ashamed as that before.

We stood like two trees rooted to the ground, and watched him disappear around the bend, then I walked back to the barn and sat on a bale and stared at the horses in front of me, all sleek and fat and loved, and I cried.

July 19, 1882

We are making a little trip once a week to the stage station to check for mail, and it is real handy to have it so close at hand. I have gotten a letter from Captain Elliot, addressed directly to me and not to the rest of the family, so I took the liberty of reading it myself first on the way home.

Dear Miss Prine, I write to inform you that due to the increased number of recruits, Cavalry horses are going at a
premium now. Therefore the value of the book you inquired about, The Duchess of Warwick, having been traded for a high quality draft horse that would be of good use to the Army, has increased. If you still desire the return of the book, it will be necessary to deliver the selfsame horse, in prime condition, or make a cash offer exceeding the present value of the horse, which is sixty dollars. Cordially yours, Captain J. E. Elliot, 10th Cavalry HQ, Fort Lowell, Jucson

What a lot of nonsense, and the most pompous bunch of stuffed up words I have ever heard and from that man! Most Army horses I have seen are a sad lot, and anyway those were the foreigners’ horses, I didn’t trade a good book for any swaybacked old ten-dollar Army plug.

I am going to write that man back and let him know that he agreed the book was worth a horse even, and that he has got to stick by his word. If that is a sixty-dollar horse then he has already got a sixty-dollar book. I declare but it is going to be a piece of work for me to remain pious and generous and kind to a fault!

July 28, 1882

A couple of men came through here and stopped to water and said thank you folks. They were in a hurry and didn’t rest their horses long enough, I could tell, but living here it is best not to ask too many questions of men in a hurry.

Jimmy asked me to come to his house and make suggestions about how it ought to look. Harland is going with me as he has drawn many pictures of houses now, and he is going to draw one in the dirt for Jimmy. Jimmy offered us drinks of rain water from his cistern and we admired how he had it rigged up to a spigot in the house so you just have to turn a handle and have water right away.

I asked him did he want some adobe like I was making for a cool room, but he said he wanted a wood house. He is digging a cellar close, so there will be a cool place to store things. It was hard to make him say just how did he want the house, mostly he kept on asking how would I want it if it were mine, so I had to tell him, and he marked off things on the ground. I like working with Jimmy. We get along fine and don’t ever seem to disagree, just ask each other’s opinion. It is nice to know someone you don’t have to prove a question to all the time. Even my brothers aren’t as easy to get along with. He likes a hard day’s work and isn’t afraid of it, and that’s a fine quality in a man.

Then Harland went to the corral to look at the horses. Jimmy waited until Harland was behind the shed door, and then said to me, Sarah, you are a good hand with things.

So I said, Well, unless it’s buttonholes, I hate sewing buttonholes.

Then he laughed sort of nervous, and said, You got a head on your shoulders and ain’t afraid to work hard, that’s what I mean.

I nodded. Seems he was trying to hand me a compliment.

Then he said he’d been thinking he needed to start a life here, with a family, and it was nice having the Prines so close, but it wasn’t a family like he wanted.

So I said, I’m sure you miss your folks and all.

Then he said, Sarah, would you be my family? Here?

Right away I thought of the Happy Bride book, but I wasn’t sure if this was a marriage proposal, and should I say something like No, Indeed Sir? Jimmy, I said, exactly what are you asking me?

And then he said, just like this, I’d like us to marry. Would you think about it and not say no right away at least? After all, there’s time while I get the house built up bigger first, before I’d ask you to live here.

Finally, I told him I would indeed think about it and I would give him my answer in a week.

I decided on the way home that I will make up my mind before I tell my folks. Harland kept saying, Sarah what ails you? and You look silly, Sarah, what are you thinking about?

My mind was going a mile a minute, thinking about being married at last. I will have a home all my own and maybe some children. I truly never thought this day would come, that I would be promised to be married. In the Happy Bride, it says the best thing a girl can be is a good wife and mother. It is a girl’s highest calling. I hope I am ready.