These Is My Words (44 page)

April 7, 1889

Today I drove April right to the front door of the school and picked her up there, too. When she came out to go home, she said those two boys were not in school at all. Maybe they are being kept away by their parents, maybe they are truly sorry for what they did. I will be glad if it is their repentance that troubles them, and there will be an end to this hatefulness.

Jack came home just as I was pulling the buggy into the shed. He asked me if I had seen Blue Horse, but I told him about what had happened, and said I had not seen him since we went to bed last night.

April 9, 1889

The paper today reports that the doctor has seen two young men in his office, one of which will be spending a few days in the doctor’s home, recovering. They are the two boys missing from school, who killed our dog and laughed. They had been asked by the Marshal if they fought each other, but both said no, and when asked who beat them, they would not answer but gave each other frightened and threatening looks.

Blue Horse has not come to our porch since the day Toobuddy died. He did not report to his duty at the post, either, and has been listed as Away With Out Leave. All are speculating about the turn of events. However, I will not join in to even raise an eyebrow over it. I know Jack’s hands had no bruises because I looked for them. Blue Horse has not been seen or heard of since that day. The last picture in my mind of him is sitting on the porch in that old chair, wearing the checkered shirt I made him, and April tiptoeing to kiss his cheek.

May 26, 1889

It is commencement day at the Tucson School. April is going to wear a new dress I made her with a ruffled pinafore. Must hurry, baby is crying and I have to get the hem in April’s dress.

December 25, 1889

A new decade will be upon us soon, and our family will greet it with another baby. This one was planned, but I told Jack I think this will be enough. I feel like I have been taking care of children my whole life, and unless there is an unforeseen slip up, I’d like to stop after this one. I think four children is a nice size for a family. He said that was fine with him, although he didn’t mind having as many as I could manage. Gilbert will be over two years old when this one comes, and with any luck there will only be two of them in diapers for a couple of months then. Savannah and Albert have a houseful, now. Besides Clover, Joshua, Rachel and Rebeccah, there are Esther and Mary Pearl. That doesn’t count one that was lost early in the fall, and Savannah thinks she may be expecting again already.

May 18, 1890

Another child has blessed us, little Suzanne, born May 14, 1890. I missed Blue Horse. I gave Suzanne Gilbert’s blue luck bead to wear for a few days. My days begin before reveille and end with the coyote’s hunting songs. It is a bustling, crowded house now, and somebody is wet at one end or the other all the time.

Christmas Day, December 25, 1891

I turn around and I cannot believe that six years have past since Jack and I married. What busy times these have been, too. Weeks turn into months without sitting to write my journal, and I am so thankful for all four of my children but equally thankful there are not eight. They have all put down for the night at last, and Suzy is cuddling her prized gift, a little china doll, the way April used to hold Mrs. Lady.

Jack tucked all the children in bed tonight and stoked up the fire in the Franklin until it was nearly glowing. Then he held me close and said he thanked God for our family. He pulled up two chairs side by side, and we sat and held hands and watched the fire go out.

I have bought Harland some leather gloves for his birthday, which I will send up to Tempe where he is attending Tempe Normal School. He will graduate next year, and says he wishes to become an architect of houses and bank buildings and bridges and such. Ernest has made a long career of the Army now, and has been made a Sergeant through several close scrapes and his good and willing service to his country. He has not married so far, but he is young, and maybe his time will come to settle down a bit, soon.

Mr. Sherrill calls on my Mama every Tuesday without fail. They sit and talk, or sometimes he brings his guitar along and sings some tunes, and she brings him a cool drink in the summer and coffee in the winter, and he keeps her in firewood and other things now that Harland is gone. Melissa is a pretty much grown girl now, and is wishing she had a fellow, and I know she writes to Harland every week.

It’s lonely here in the fort. Mrs. Page comes by for coffee now and then. Mostly I just raise my children and cook and clean, flirt with Jack and enjoy his company, and read aloud the books he gives me for silly holidays he makes up. Like, Oh, here’s a gift for The Third Tuesday in October, didn’t you know that’s a holiday? Well, I bought you a book. He is amazing.

I sent Mason money to buy a few new brood heifers last spring, to get new blood into our stock. Almost every cow on the place is carrying a calf, and I can’t wait to see the new strain come through. I have enlarged my ranch land by another three hundred acres to the east plus a straight out purchase of the six hundred-forty acres that was the old Raalle homestead. I deeded the best quarter of that homestead to Melissa Raalle, so she will have a legacy of some sort, seeing she is an orphan and utterly alone in this world.

I have tried to write some letters for her, to retrace her family and see if there is any kin anywhere on this continent, but the name Raalle seems to start and stop with her, and no one in the state of Louisiana has the name or knows of them. She was so little she doesn’t remember where she lived before that, only that it was a white house near a green field, and that they had a brown cow that her mother milked twice a day. I have written a letter addressed to a Bureau of Missing Persons in the Kingdom of Norway. It is where I remember Mr. Raalle saying he was from the very first time we spoke. I have no idea if there is such a bureau there, but I am hoping that with time it may fall into the hands of someone in an official position who may be able to help us locate some of Melissa’s kin.

January 7, 1892

This morning we took a look at a piece of land on which to build a house. It is close in to town, on the southern tip, down by Sixth Street near where the Apaches used to have a regular horse race from a big mesquite tree to the fort. It apparently doesn’t take much prodding to hold a horse race, as they are always eager to wager a bet on their favorite horse and rider. Anyway, this piece of land is not too big, barely half an acre, but Jack says people don’t go for huge spreads in town, otherwise it wouldn’t be a town, just a gathering place. As far as I’m concerned, that’s town enough for me, and I don’t care for the closeness of people or the new fashioned sewer system they have put in, or the taxes you have to pay each year either, for that matter.

We are going to draw up some pictures of a house, and Harland will convert them into real drawings he says will get us a grand place like we want.

January 8, 1892

That Jack Elliot is a low down cussed mule headed skunk. This is not Army business and he has no reason at all to be headed off on some bandit roundup the town Marshal has cooked up. This is just pure disregard for all reason. Why he thinks he has to go, there is no explanation, and he has not given it any thought himself either. Just that the Army is giving him leave to take some men and head off after some banditos or whatever they call them in the north of Arizona Territory, and see if they can round them up. It is one thing to be at the mercy of the U. S. Army. It is entirely another thing to take off on a whim, with me home with these four children, left to worry and now to see to the starting of a house.

I am packing up my children and going to spend a week at the ranch. That new house will have to wait until there is a man to see to it. I suppose I should be thankful for the time he does spend here, and I am, but this time I know he could refuse if he wanted to. January in Cottonwood was always a cold and wet month, and I’m sure all of the north territory is cold and wet, and he will be miserable. It aggravates me that he laughed and said, I’m glad to know you’ll miss me.

You have responsibilities here, I said. Missing you has nothing to do with it. But even as I said those words, I got that old hurting feeling I have always felt when he is too far away.

January 21, 1892

We had been back in town three days when Jack came home this time, thin and ragged looking. He got angry when I brought the doctor in, but was polite to him. He stayed in bed for one full day, and then pronounced that he was well, and indeed his mood at least was improved, although he still carries a terrible cough.

Tonight Jack told us the oddest story. It seems while they were riding through some rugged country full of strange rock shapes they stopped at a trading post called Hubbell’s. It was all that was left of an old Army fort on the northeastern plateau. There he spotted Blue Horse, dressed differently, with his hair grown long and acting like he didn’t speak English. Jack watched the other men around to see if they recognized him, but they didn’t seem to at all. Jack was going to tell Blue Horse that he understood why he left, but he went quickly out a door and disappeared.

Well, I said, did you all ever catch up to those fellows you were after?

He shook his head. Never even got a trail, he said.

I went back to drying dishes while he made some coffee. I’d never say it to him, but it seems to me soldiers can sometimes act like a pack of coyotes, and just go out in a bunch and howl up a storm and traipse around making a lot of noise, getting nothing at all accomplished. Well, at least he is home again. Handsome and ornery.

January 30, 1892

We attended church Sunday as a family, and it was an even balance as to who was harder to keep still, the four Elliot children or Captain Elliot himself. Jack kept up a stream of secretive winks at me in a most suggestive fashion, which made me blush despite the fact that I desperately tried to maintain my composure. Two year old Suzanne squirmed in my lap but was still for him, so he bounced her quietly on his knee. The boys, true to their deeply spiritual natures, snored softly through the entire sermon, and April sat still but looked out the windows, bored and restlessly shifting in her seat.

Jack waited until the preacher came to a particularly poignant story of death and despair, and he poked me in the ribs. It was terribly embarrassing to have to pretend to be moved by the preaching and cover my eyes with my hanky. Jack just sat back and grinned his secret smile, prouder than ever of himself to have yet again taken away my serenity.

I do not know why I love that man so. He tries me to the last, and torments me mercilessly sometimes. He conspires with the children and tells them to mind the General, meaning me, and the five of them all salute in a mocking way when I scold them about washing their hands and such. Thank goodness for his steady head and nurturing way with the children or ours would be a truly low and sordid life.

February 22, 1892

My life is so full of wonderful things right now. My children are happy and healthy, my husband loves us truly, and we are about to build a wondrous new house for them to grow up in. Almost every heifer on the ranch is carrying a calf, and birthing season starts next month and will get into full swing during the two months after that. I expect the herd will increase by a third to half again at least, if all of them come to term. I’m sure we’ll lose a few to coyotes. I asked Mason to be especially on the watch. Savannah lost another baby but she is expecting again. Albert is losing some hair in the front of his head like Papa did. Their farm is all in blossom and heavenly.

Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place. The sky is clear but cold, here in the fort. The dust is settled, though. All seems peaceful and well inside my home, and I am anxious to move into the new one.

Jack is home for a while. He has been gone on Army business a couple of weeks. We are a noisy and blessed little family. I have made him a gift, for no real reason at all. It is a fine new cambric shirt and vest for when he is not on duty. He is real proud of them, too.

March 1, 1892

Today we went to Sergeant Lockwood’s wedding to a lady named Adelita Muñoz Obregon. I don’t know her at all, and when Sergeant Lockwood brought her by to introduce her yesterday, she seemed mighty stiff and unfriendly to me, although it wasn’t anything I could put a name to. I hope he will be happy. He deserves some happiness.

March 22, 1892

Mrs. Sergeant George Lockwood seems to be a fitting addition to life here in this raggedy adobe fort. She fits right in with the scorpions and centipedes and poison spiders and all. Their arguments began within a week after their marriage. Poor Sergeant Lockwood looks so pained all the time now, and I am sure it will be just a few more weeks and he will be begging the General to please send him to be tortured by Apaches.

April 7, 1892

I have gotten a letter from a place called The Royal Office of Emigration and Classification all the way from Norway. It is not good news for Melissa, because it seems that Raalle is not a common name and the Minister of Emigration suggests that Mr. Raalle changed or shortened it when they came to the States. This is a fine looking letter, though, with a grand stamp and a gold seal all official looking. I will save it in my things until I can hand it to Melissa personally.

April 8, 1892

I went to Adelita Lockwood’s house today. Even though she puts people off right away, and I know she torments poor George, I feel like I owe him still, so I thought if I could just break through to her maybe she would soften up towards him a little. She didn’t really want me to visit I could tell, but I just sort of made myself at home, and talked a blue streak until she finally gentled a bit.