These Is My Words (34 page)

I was feeding his feet into his pants legs. Anybody would pass out being shot like that. Here, can you do these buttons?

Yes, he said. When the day comes I can’t button my own pants I want you to shoot me. But do a better job than you did on that fellow. Shooting his ear, Sarah, I’d say that was a real poor shot.

I know, I said. I suppose I was nervous.

He winked at me, and said, Now quit fluttering over me and give me a shirt. Where’s my Little Bitty?

Safe, I said. You must be all right, you’re giving orders again. I’ll bring her to see you when we get all the mess cleaned up. She has already seen enough blood in two short years of living. I helped him into his shirt, and felt him suck in a hard breath when he moved. Then he leaned back and shut his eyes, and his breath started to come evenly again.

Jack, I said, Don’t you leave me.

He smiled faintly, with his eyes still shut. Not ever, he said.

January 19, 1886

We pulled in almost three hours late, and when we got there, the depot was just buzzing with people curious as to why it was so late. All my family was glad to see us, and most amazed when we got off the train, seeing me in my cloak and April in her fancy duds, and Jack hunched over and walking slow, holding his side.

Some of the folks on the train thought Jack was a hero. Some of them were angry, saying he let the robbers get away with murder and gold in their pockets. Although it never occurred to them that they had cowed to the outlaws, each and every one. And of course, none of them even mentioned that I had stood beside him through the whole thing, but some things don’t count if you’re a woman, and that’s a fact.

Jack got madder than I have ever seen him, when I told Albert to drive us to Saint Mary’s Hospital. Well, I said, there’s this fine hospital just sitting there, and no reason they can’t get a doctor to look at you for a day or two.

So he said, They won’t let you in there if you aren’t a Catholic.

Yes, they will, I said, because you aren’t coming there as a Catholic or a Methodist or a Confederate or a ornery Cavalry soldier! You are coming there as a man with a hole in him where one don’t belong, and they have got a doctor that knows more than that fellow on the train and can at least sew you up. Now keep still, you’re aggravating me!

Jack just pulled in his lip and I saw fire glint in his eye, then he lifted his hand and flinched in pain but saluted me weakly. Yes, Ma’am, General Elliot.

Now, I said, that’s better. Besides, I thought I was a Colonel.

He closed his eyes and leaned back, looking tired and hurt, but he murmured softly, Battlefield promotion. And he didn’t say any more until he got inside and talked to the doctor. They sewed him up fine, and treated him extra well, except he did complain that all they served him was stewed oatmeal to eat.

Mama took April home with her and I stayed to be near Jack. The hospital has let me sleep in the other bed in his room and offered me to eat there too. It isn’t good but it’s filling and bland, for sick folks. I lie here at night and watch Jack sleeping, and help him if he needs to get up. He has a fever, but not too bad.

I began thinking about the train robbery, and how odd I felt, knowing how I could have killed those men in cold blood. Defending myself or someone I know is different than defending my child. I got to thinking that even if I didn’t have a gun, I would tear them apart with my bare hands to save my baby April. I wonder if all mothers feel this way. Suddenly I knew why it is so dangerous to mess with a bear with cubs or any wild animal with babies. I am part and parcel with them when it comes to that. Lord, there is a mountain lion side of me I never knew before.

January 21, 1886

He was glad to get out of there in only two days, and did his best not to complain about the ruts in the road on the way home. He groaned one time, but I didn’t apologize to him, I think he’d rather take his pain without too much sympathy. And I was right, all the insides of my hands are open blisters now.

Home at last, and my little ranch house looks mighty plain, but it is home to me and I am glad to see it. Jack is resting on the front porch. The man he hired did a fair job of the place, and Jack asked him to stay on, and promised him to build him a room with a stove. I told him he could have the adobe shed I built, if he wanted it, as it was nice and cool and just needed a stove in the winter and a cot could be built easy enough, so he is agreeable to that. His name is Mason Sherrill, but he says I can call him Mason.

January 26, 1886

True to his word, as soon as Jack was up and around, he was gone back to the fort. I am pregnant and living here on this ranch with a baby girl and a man I don’t know, and my husband has got his worthless and holey hide back to where it can be saluted all he wants. He loved me last night so sweet, I thought surely he had changed his mind, and he swore how he will miss me but he left anyway. Taking up marriage is a good excuse for taking up cursing, I think.

February 4, 1886

Jack will be home tomorrow. I have so much to do, there is a cobbler in the oven for him, and I hope he likes apple as well as peach. Mama gave me a sack of pecans and I have made a pie too, and beat and aired our mattress so it smells fresh. Savannah and Albert and their children are coming tomorrow evening to share supper. I am ironing all my dresses and then I will wash my hair.

February 5, 1886

Jack must have left by midnight last night, for he was here with the morning sun, and he swept in here while April was still asleep and carried me to the bedroom. Jack Elliot, I said to him, I have chores to do.

Aw, he growled, this is a chore to you?

While we had breakfast later, he sat with April on his knee, and she ate potatoes and eggs off his plate, now and then offering him bites.

Sarah, he said, I need to ask you something.

Ask, I said without looking up, as I was trying to get some egg off the bottom of the skillet.

Sarah, haven’t you had your time yet?

I set the skillet down on the table. I’m not expecting that for several months.

He looked at me real hard, like he does sometimes, only this time I met his eyes and didn’t look away. Then I saw the most amazing thing I have ever seen. His eyes welled up with tears, and he stood up quick and set April in the chair, and went to the window and looked out. Jack? I said, you’re not angry are you?

He turned around and held me tight, and kissed the top of my head, but he didn’t say a word. His heart was racing, and his breath was fast, too. And he went outside and picked up the axe, and although Mason has cut me a cord of wood, Jack split and stacked two more cords, swinging that axe like a crazy man.

A cold wind was coming, and Jack came inside sweating and chilled, so I made him drink some coffee and change clothes and warm up. When I brought him the cup he wrapped his arm around my hips and hugged me to him, and put his face against my belly, like a sweet caress, and I could feel his breath through the cloth of my skirt, and then he smiled at me.

I brushed back his hair, and he said, Have you known for a long time?

I knew the night it happened, I told him.

He just looked at me, and I thought I’d hear an argument, but he said, Well, I reckon a lady wouldn’t tell until she knew for certain.

It’s better that way, I said.

We had supper with Albert and Savannah, and little Clover was naughty and wouldn’t be still, so Albert took him in the other room and fussed at him.

Savannah admired my gravy and said how smooth it was, and then all of us enjoyed the pie and cobblers and coffee. Savannah is very full of child now, and looks like she is ready to birth to me, but she said, no it’s still a month and a half away. Her back hurts terribly, she said, though, and she will look forward to having this one, as it has been harder to carry than the first two.

Jack was just sitting there beaming like a lightning bug. Oh, Jack, I said, and laughed at him, You’re going to explode if you don’t say it. So he told them we were expecting a child too, and there was a lot of talk about when, and I told them September twenty-sixth, and they laughed, thinking I was joking.

February 6, 1886

We rode this morning, slowly and gently, over the hills following Cienega Creek far past the Raalle’s old place, which has just gone to ruin now. There are weeds everywhere and the only way you can tell there used to be a home there is that some cinders remain where the buildings were, and a couple of bushes have grown back that don’t match the natural plants. We talked about the family we will have. Jack thinks children are a blessing but he practically scolded me and made me promise not to work too hard nor lift anything really heavy. He said to keep in mind that I am by nature hard headed and too independent for my own good, and I had our children to think about and their future and he didn’t want them to grow up without a mother. Once again I saw a frightened look in his eyes. It is a rare sight in a man like Jack, and it appears the things that would frighten most men don’t mean much to him, and the things most men wouldn’t think about scare him plenty.

So I said, Well, how am I supposed to carry on without a husband to do those heavy things?

All he said was, That’s why you have Mason.

That’s why I have you, I said back.

He just looked away at the horizon and urged his horse further up the ridge. We got a long way from the house, and at the highest point on a ridge, we could see in all directions for miles and miles.

After a few minutes of looking at the land about, he says without turning my direction, I don’t plan to quit the army.

Why? I said.

He didn’t say another word. He just looked way over the hills. I suspect he is fighting more than Indians and cowboys and such somewhere inside himself. That’s why he can’t quit. He’s got something burning inside and just has to keep on fighting it until one of them wins.

Finally, I got off my horse and let her wander, and stretched my back. Then I looked at my feet and saw something patterned in the dirt, and I scuffed it up. It was just an old broken piece of Indian pot. It looked a thousand years old, broken on that hill and forgotten for years. I tossed it back to the ground. I’m not asking you to quit, Jack, I said. I married you lock, stock and barrel.

Then he was beside me, and he put one hand on my shoulder, and we stood there a long time without talking, and then just like that we both mounted up and drifted over the hills back toward home.

February 8, 1886

Yesterday morning Jack headed back toward the fort, and around noon it started to rain. This morning it is still raining, sometimes slowing just a bit, but it has not stopped. Low places are full, and doing chores in the mud was tedious, and I feel so sick, my head just spins around.

Mason was real kind to me and I think he suspects my trouble, and said if I’d kindly allow, he’d toast some bread on the stove and that used to help his wife’s stomach. I’m real uneasy having a strange man in my kitchen, but I put my little pistol in my pocket and said, Please come in, I would appreciate it very much. It has only been two days of baby sickness for me, but I want this over with right now, I can’t go on and get things done feeling like this.

He was right, the toasted bread settled my insides some. He asked me if I wanted butter on it, and looked at my face, and said, I ’spose not, Ma’am. Then he went back to the little adobe room of his and left me here listening to the rain. It is hard to fix April something to eat, but she is little and doesn’t mind having toasted bread for supper, and I am purely grateful just now that I don’t have to cook more than that.

February 9, 1886

Rain comes and comes. There are no low places with puddles any longer, all have become streams. The well is filled with mud, although we don’t want for water as the cistern is overflowing too. The stream that used to flow down by the road looks like a great, brown, angry river. It makes a roaring that I hear under the pattering of the rain. Trees sweep by in it, brush and branches torn loose from somewhere, and I thought I saw a man floating by, but rushed out to help and it was just a big saguaro cactus. Still, it looked so dead, and I began to feel touchy and nervous with all this rain. We are surely not used to this much rain in the Territories.

All my land, as far as I can see, is running water. Mason and I spent the morning trying to build up the corral to keep the horses’ feet from rotting, they are standing in six inches of water and old manure. We finally had to give up, and instead drove them and the cow out of the barn and up a hill. They will be much colder but their feet will keep. I don’t know what to do with Beaumont, if I let him loose he is liable to kill someone or run off, so we turned over the trough, and laid it around with boards and made an island for him to stand on. Of course, he wouldn’t go up it, but Mason said if the water rises more, likely the bull will take the hill by himself. The chickens are fine roosting on their poles, but unable to eat as they normally do, pecking and scratching in the dust, so we tried to make pie pans into hanging feeders with twine tied into holes he punched with a nail. I was sorry to see my pie pans go, but do not want to lose all those chickens.

Frogs began to climb onto the porch, first one or two, then dozens of them. I sweep and sweep, flinging them far out into the water, but they swim back. I am wishing now that Jimmy had not made such shallow steps, as they are just right for a desperate frog to get on the porch.

Well, just as I thought the frogs were the nastiest thing and swept the last one off again, here came sliding up out of the water a great big bull snake. I tried to sweep him off but he coiled up on my broom, and held on tight when I shook it. I had no choice but to get my pistol and shoot it in the head, and still the dead snake held on. I got a fire iron and pried him off, and a hunk of my broom straw came off where it was shot.

April was on the porch in a chair watching all this, and pretty quiet, holding her Mrs. Lady to keep her safe from the water, she said. But suddenly, she called out, Mama, Snake getting Mrs. Lady! I turned around and saw the biggest rattlesnake I have ever seen moving up the leg of her chair. Its head was big as my fist.