These Is My Words (21 page)

Ruben’s face was sad and I knew I had broken his heart, and I cried when he left. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like I would always be his big sister.

Jimmy has left me this place to run which is too much for me alone, but it is a good ranch and it will only be two more years until I own the whole thing, and then I could sell it and move back to Mama’s, or maybe even go to a big city away from all the killing and trials here.

I am not so mad at Jimmy any more. I suspect Jimmy would never have loved again like he loved Ruthanne. Maybe she refused him and broke his heart like I broke Ruben’s. We were surely happy enough at first, and maybe we could have made a pretty good life and a fine ranch, and children to fill up this big old house. And maybe we would have just worked ourselves into an early grave and left five or six children with too much to handle here.

April 18, 1885

Ruben and Rudolfo came and worked just like they always have. There is no sign on Ruben’s face that his heart is broken, except that when they ask me something or talk, his eyes look a little to the side, not right at mine.

Mama and Savannah came over yesterday afternoon. Ruben had ridden to their ranch and told them about April’s sickness. Mama brought some cough elixir and horehound syrup, and we gave April a spoon of each, although it was a struggle as she made it clear she was not happy to have the medicine.

Now, it seems April will sleep. It is cool tonight, and I have placed steaming pans of water around her bed so much that it smells like rain inside the house. It is nice to have just the women to talk with, and no men to hear. We made some soup and cornbread and talked until late, and they will stay the night and leave after sun up tomorrow.

I told Mama and Savannah about Ruben’s proposal. That got us to talking about marriage and we laughed and cried some, and missed Papa, and it felt good to belong to each other again. I don’t feel as lonely today as I have in months. At least I know there are other women around me. I think my Mama and Savannah must be special people in the Lord’s eyes, as they have gone about doing generous and loving things without even a second thought. For me, it seems like the only thing that comes natural is aggravation and hard work.

But Savannah hugged me and said, Don’t you change one little bit, we’d never be here if it wasn’t…and then she started to cry, and so did Mama and I just had to join them. I know Mama and her were crying for love, and for all their dear feelings for our families. They don’t know I was crying because they are wrong, because I am not good like them, nor sweet tempered and loving. I was crying because I felt like they didn’t see the real me inside, and if they had they wouldn’t shed a single tear at all over me.

Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at the place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like they have a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone. Maybe I am getting addled living out here on this ranch.

As Mama was ready to leave, she told me she almost forgot she had a letter from Ernest and he said to her to let me know he had thought hard about my wanting him to come run my ranch, but just couldn’t do it, but sent his love and since I was now a widow, he enclosed money he had saved up just for me. Then she gave me a ten-dollar gold piece he had folded into the letter.

Mama, I said, you take that money and get some flour and coffee or some extra nice things and maybe a piece of yard goods and make a dress for yourself. I don’t need it.

Mama said, Well, Ernest would be real disappointed if you don’t take it.

But I said, Not as disappointed as I was that I can’t count on him. I don’t need his money as much as I need his head and hands and muscles.

Savannah said, Don’t judge him too harsh, he is young and is just trying to help, so I nodded and said I would only think of him kindly, and let Mama put the money into my hand. It does no good to try to explain to someone as good as Savannah just how mean and selfish I am sometimes. I will put the money under the candle holder on the shelf for a rainy day.

Then Mama pulled the letter out of her pocket and handed it to Savannah, and said, Make sure I don’t forget anything. She said, Ernest also asked if any of us had seen Captain Elliot who was headed back to the Territory.

I know she saw something funny in my face, and I blushed. Well, I said, I’ve seen a little more of him than I expected.

At that Savannah squeaked out a laugh like a tickled mouse, and covered her face in embarrassment. I was only thinking of running into him at the depot but when I saw the look in her eyes, well, we all laughed hard.

Mama said, I declare, you girls are naughty! I will have to turn you over my checkered apron and paddle you both! To go on, Mama said sternly but smiling, Ernest says he holds Captain Elliot in high regard and has wondrous tales of his bravery to tell when next he sees us. So if we happen to make his acquaintance again, we should all welcome him grandly, if only for the love of Ernest and the respect of his men.

We laughed more and more, and it is the first time I pictured myself hauling Ernest’s hero, naked with a wet diaper on his head, in the wagon, and nursing him without a second thought. Savannah just couldn’t quit giggling. She is not nearly as shy and blushing as she was before. I thought how funny of her to be so righteous and so Quaker and so good natured, and just a bit naughty, too. No wonder Albert thinks she sets the sun.

April 30, 1885

Made a batch of soap and tried some different ingredients in each fourth. I boiled some flower petals into a extract and added that to one, some pine sap in another, some other flowers, and then some apple leaves. All of these didn’t work at all and one made the soap runny and it wouldn’t set up.

It seems it is a day of unusual chores, and I felt restless and in need of more changes. So I dragged the shelves Jimmy had made for the pantry over by the parlor window, since they were never full anyway with just little April and me, and began to fill them with books. Then I put my rocker from the bedroom on the other side of the window and a rug in front of the chair. I put up Harland’s picture of a grand house that he drew long ago, and a little colored picture card that Jimmy had brought home from the church meeting he went to in Tucson. That was the same time he brought me our family Bible, which I have on the top shelf. The card is a painting of the Lord Jesus with a lamb in his arms cuddled up close.

Now it is a fine room, and it is mine. I will spend some happy times there. From where the rocker sits I can see out the window to the road if anyone is coming by, and I can see little blue fingers on the wall and floor. Some folks would scrub and bleach them out, but I think I will only have one baby, and she is bigger now already, so those tiny hands will always remind me of how precious and tiny she looked.

May 2, 1885

Wrote Ernest a letter and one to the Lawrence family in San Angelo, and mailed them at the stage station today. The man there said there might be a delay in the mail because of some serious Indian trouble with Apaches, as the Army has lost some men who were guarding the mail shipments and there will be no replacements for awhile.

I went home and got April ready with some extra clothes and went to visit Mama and Harland and Albert and Savannah. I want to sell some horses off, I told Albert. There are too many for me to take care of. Or, I will trade him horses for a share in the pecan farm.

Well, he said I already have a share in the pecans, and he wanted to own Jimmy’s big stallion himself, but I told him no unless only for breeding, for that he could have him. I’d never sleep at night knowing Albert was riding that chestnut. We discussed this and Albert never did quite see my side clearly, and insisted Jimmy must have just made a bad judgement, not that the horse was to blame.

You know, he said, Jimmy had made some other bad judgements before. So I asked him what did he mean, and is that why he was always so peevish toward Jimmy? Albert was about to answer when here came Savannah with milk-lassies for everyone, and he said no more about it.

We talked about making a trip to Tucson tomorrow or the next day, and I told them the Apache trouble the stage manager warned of. I hope Ernest is not fighting Indians but shoeing horses still. Albert is going to take five horses off my hands and sell them in Tucson if he can get a good price. He knows what Jimmy would want, he said.

May 4, 1885

It has been two terrible and dreadful days since I could write because as I gathered up my baby and some plates of gingerbread and sacks of fruit and quilt scraps Mama gave me, I looked toward the east where my house stands and saw a big commotion of dust in the air.

Albert got real serious looking and said, It’s too much dust, it looks like a stampede. And then he said, Or someone stealing your horses. Right away he went in the house and got his rifles and Savannah began loading them while he saddled a horse.

I said to him, Saddle up another one, I am going too, and he looked at me kind of curious while I ran to the wagon and pulled out my rifle. We will lay low and be careful and if we are too outnumbered to fight we will just be thankful I was not there to be killed for the horses and stay quiet.

Here came Harland toting a saddle with a determined look on his face, but Mama said, No, Harland, you can’t go, and he was mad.

I took him by the shoulder and put my kitchen pistol in his hands and said, We need a man here to watch over Mama and Savannah and the babies. Then I said, Always watch what is behind your aim when you shoot. If you miss your shot, don’t take down one of us, and he grinned at me and said, I know that already!

Then I took a last look at my sweet April and hugged her tight and kissed her little face and hands and handed her to Savannah who was grim faced. As we rode off my bonnet blew off and I realized it was the first time I had sat a horse in a while. My rifle was in my hand and the reins in the other, and April’s little face kept appearing in front of my eyes and I knew I was more afraid than ever before, and glad that no matter what, April would be in Savannah’s care.

We cleared the hill near my spread and saw the dust was still aways off. It might be coming from the Maldonados’ place further off, or beyond that is the Raalles’. There was something going on for sure, and I felt sweat running down between my shoulders. On we rode, pulling up short at the entrance to the Maldonados to creep between the stand of live oak trees before we could be seen.

There were Indians at their barn, shooting rifles, and other Indians on horseback riding near the house with bows and arrows, but it seemed they were done firing for the time being. From the house now and then came one or two lone gunshots. Beyond the hills black smoke began rising, first in little puffs, then bigger and bigger until we see flames rising over the hilltop. The Indians began screaming louder and louder when they saw it, and Albert and I began to whisper just what is our best defense, and wondering hard what is burning yonder.

There seemed to be at least a dozen Indians there, and two dead in the yard, and another man dead by the corral that might be a Mexican by the clothes. Albert and I have four rifles between us, and we are not sure we can do more than draw their fire and get ourselves killed for the trouble.

Another shot comes from the front window, and one of the Indians was hit in the back and fell to the ground. That started the others to hollering just awful and raining shots in at the window, then up from the south came a new Indian with a burning torch and threw it on the front porch.

All the Indians gathered there to watch the Maldonados either come out fighting or burn to death, for the flames went to the vigas on the roof like lightning. As they were bunched up together, it was our only chance, and we began to fire at them very carefully. We had sent five of them to the devil before they understood there was fire coming from behind.

Inside, people were crying out and someone threw a chair through a side window and smoke shot out like a cannon. The Indians began to turn and fire at us, and Albert got hit in the head but not killed, just skinned right near his left ear. He was bleeding bad, but kept loading and shooting.

I worked as fast as I could take sight. Sweat was burning my eyes and I couldn’t see. In a minute, two more hit the dust, and the Indians began to draw away, fired at from both sides and still not seeing us hidden in here. As they got out toward the far fence, they split up, heading different ways, on foot out to the desert. We would have let them go but they were headed toward our places, and we mounted up, loading up, and headed after them.

They had disappeared like a rabbit down a hole. For miles around, there was not a movement, not a sound, not even so much as a lizard crawling or a bird overhead.

When the Maldonados came out of their house they ran and ran around the yard just crazy. We got off the horses and Rudolfo walked slowly to the body on the ground. It was his brother Ruben, and his big old shoulders shook hard as he cried and picked up Ruben like he was a little child and held him close. Mr. Maldonado had an arrow sticking out of his leg above the knee, and he needed a doctor, but he was yelling for his wife, and couldn’t find her anywhere. Finally we found her in the back near the chicken coop. She had been out there tending her chickens when they first came. Then we saw that she was shot in the head, and in her own hand was a pistol with only one bullet gone.

Mr. Maldonado was beside himself and roamed around the yard, crying to God, walking with that arrow in his leg dancing in front of him as he moved, like he welcomed the pain. Their other children were all crying, just sitting on the ground hugging each other. The roof fell in on the house then, although the adobe walls stood fast, and all of us were covered with dirt and ash, breathing the black smoke from the house until we were black too.