Bittersweet (32 page)

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Don’t come near the house. Kiss me.” They held each other for a moment, then Sarah said, “I’m going to hate sleeping alone again. Lord, but I’m going to hate it!” She turned and ran, without a backward look.

It was impossible to read the expression in the dark eyes that watched the young woman, hidden as they were by the night and the battered hat brim. The lanky figure slumped and muttered, “Lazarus Saunders, risen from the grave to help two ladies in distress.”

A blunt-fingered hand touched the hair under the hat brim delicately, like fingers probing a raw wound. The hair was cropped short, a ragged cut done in a hurry with Sarah’s sewing scissors. “The schoolteacher died of unnatural causes.”

The wide shoulders almost filled the faded plaid shirt, and the dirt-encrusted workboots were only slightly too large.

Moss Face whined, calling attention to himself.

“Can’t have you howling at the moon on a moonless night. It
will be warmer in the barn.” A long arm scooped the coyote off the grave, and Moss Face nuzzled into the familiar smells of his master’s coat.

Ralph Jensen arrived on Wednesday’s stage, as promised. He was out of the coach as soon as the wheels stopped turning, and he marched into the house, leaving the other passenger to fend for himself.

“Mrs. Ebbitt!” He shouted, and Sarah appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“What is it?” The suddenness of the summons had frightened her. When Sarah recognized Jensen, all the color drained from her face. She looked as though she would faint and reached out and touched the bar to steady herself. “Mr. Jensen,” she managed. The words croaked out of a dry throat.

Ralph Jensen, his jowls permanently purpled by years of high living and his nose rubbed to a like hue by the weather, glowered down at her. Sarah waited, her hands clasped at her waist.

“You don’t bother meeting the coach?” he said after a baleful survey of her small person.

“Imogene always…” she began, and then said, “I will.”

Her gentle demeanor and the black of her mourning band unsettled Jensen. He exhaled with a bellow’s wheeze. “Lease is no good,” he said flatly. He pulled a much-folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “It’s not legal.”

Sarah glanced past him. “Where’s Mac?”

“I gave him the sack.”

Sarah looked at him with blank-faced reproach.

“He was getting too old. Drinking.”

“It was because of Imogene, then. Mac never drank too much before.”

“He knew there wasn’t any Mr. Ebbitt. He ought to’ve told me.”

Sarah said nothing.

“He turned in his resignation for spring anyway. I just accepted it early, is all.” He closed the subject with a jerk of his chin. “He said something about your hired man taking over the lease. I’m not adverse to that, long as he’s sober and’ll keep the place up. I haven’t got men lining up for this place. Not in the middle of winter.”

Sarah eyed the new lease as Jensen pulled it from his coat pocket. She reached out for it, but Jensen held it back and she let her hand
fall to her side. “Could you leave it?” she ventured. “I’ll have Karl sign it and we’ll send it to you.”

“I came on purpose to see him sign it himself. I don’t mind saying, Mrs. Ebbitt, you don’t have much credit with me on this score.”

Sarah took a deep breath to calm herself. “Karl’s outside,” she said. “I’ll get my coat.” And without offering him a seat or any refreshment, Sarah ducked back into the kitchen, checked the bread she was baking, and put on the jacket Imogene used to wear when hunting.

When she came out, Jensen was bent down behind the bar.

“You’ll find everything clean and in order, Mr. Jensen. Cleaner than we found it.”

Caught off guard, he banged his head on the counter as he straightened. He groped a moment for something to say, gave up, and was rude: “Let’s get on with it.”

Sarah hurried by him and led the way across the yard toward the small meadow. She paused a moment by the coach. “Liam,” she said in a shy voice, “will you tell the men they can go inside? There’s a fire lit and the food’s almost ready.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded.

In the crystal air the mountains shimmered close and unreal, the detail vivid and the colors rich, running the gamut from deep purple to white. Moss Face bounded out from under the porch to run ahead of Sarah and Ralph Jensen, leaping over the stiffened grass and darting at the heels of unimpressed horses.

Past the icehouse, halfway to the alkali flats, stood the windmill. On top of the platform, the bulky figure of Karl Saunders could be seen, his coat buttoned close and a battered felt hat pulled so low his ears were bent out under the brim. He labored in heavy gloves, his fingers thick and clumsy, hammering at the rusted bolts that held a damaged blade in place. A new one, silver-bright in the cold sunlight, glinted against one of the wooden uprights.

Sarah called up to him. “Karl? Mr. Jensen’s here with the lease. Says there’s no trouble.” She laid a hand on her throat, trying to still the quaver in her voice.

There was a clatter, loud in the still afternoon, as Karl fumbled and dropped the hammer onto the wooden platform where he knelt. With an odd, nervous gesture he put his hands to his head, as though pushing in invisible hairpins. Just as his fingers came into
contact with the rough-cropped hair, Sarah cleared her throat loudly. “Karl!” she said distinctly. “Karl, we need your signature, he says he’s got to witness.”

The gloved hands fell suddenly, self-consciously, to the hammer and chisel.

“I ain’t coming down,” came the muffled reply as Karl went on working.

Sarah looked at Ralph Jensen and smiled apologetically. “Karl’s from New England,” she explained. “Karl, can you drop a rope or something? I’ll send it up.” She turned to Jensen. “Is that all right? Can I send it up and have Karl sign it?”

“Oh hell, yes. By all means, send the damn thing up.” He frisked himself for a cigar, found one, bit the end off, and spat it disgustedly at his feet. “Don’t forget to send the son of a bitch a pen,” he muttered under his breath.

“Need a pen,” Karl called.

“For Christ’s sake.” Ralph Jensen stalked off a couple of paces and back again. Sarah ran to the house for pen and ink while Karl battled with the weathered bolts. Jensen, completely ignored, booted Moss Face in the rump.

Sarah sent the ink and pen up in a little pail tied on to the rope, and a moment later it returned with the signed lease. Ralph Jensen checked it perfunctorily. “Pleasure doing business with you, Saunders.” He spat a bit of tobacco off his tongue and strode back toward the house.

Sarah served the men lunch as the clanking of Karl’s tools on the metal windmill sounded in the distance. She served a second meal an hour and fifteen minutes later, when the coach down from Fort Bidwell arrived. Liam and Ross traded passengers, except for Jensen, who was returning to Reno.

Sarah stood on the porch as the coaches loaded passengers and switched luggage from one rack to another, enduring the crush of strangers for Mr. Jensen’s benefit. Karl was nowhere to be seen; he’d finished with the windmill shortly before Ross rolled in, but hadn’t come into the house.

“You’re staying on?” Jensen asked her.

“Yes.”

“With Saunders?” His lip curled in a knowing leer.

Sarah looked up the hill toward the broken earth of the new-made grave and didn’t reply.

THE REST OF THE WINTER PASSED UNEVENTFULLY. SARAH MET THE
incoming coaches as Imogene had done in the past. She’d watch them coming over the desert, and just before the wheels stopped turning she’d take a deep breath, pat her lips with the tips of her fingers, and say to herself, “They’re people just like me.”

Karl worked hard, and when there were no guests, he spent his evenings in by the fire and his nights with Sarah; when there were guests, he kept to himself in the tackroom.

The only physical difference in the stop was an old clothesline running up the pole where the meat was stored. A bit of red calico, faded nearer to pink, was tied on for a flag. After a coach had discharged its passengers, sometimes Sarah would raise the flag. On those days Karl did not show, and she tended the customers alone. Liam once questioned Karl about it. “It lets me know if I have any creditors aboard,” Karl had answered with a slow smile. Liam had asked, too, about the woman, Imogene, whom he had never met, but neither Sarah nor Karl could be brought to speak of her.

Karl scratched his shoulders against the beam, unconsciously aping the movement of the horse in a stall next to him. Liam and his swamper, a quiet young Mexican whom Liam called Beaner, curried the tired horses and rubbed them down. Karl sat on a
bale of hay against the wall, watching them work. His arms were folded and his long legs stretched out in front of him. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled halfway to the elbow, and his long underwear was pushed up to expose hard, stringy forearms baked leather-brown.

The masculine, horse-smelling tranquility of the shed was chased away by the sudden intrusion of sunlight and fresh air. Sarah threw open the wide door and ran in, flushed and breathless. “Karl, there’s been a letter from Mam!” She waved several sheets of paper until they cracked. “Sam’s dead and Matthew’s coming home. Listen.” She sat down beside him on the hay and spread the sheets on her knees, oblivious to the uncomfortable glances of Liam and the swamper. The two men mumbled quick excuses and left Karl alone with her as she began to read.

“ ‘Dear Sarah, there isn’t a way to come up on this slowly, so I’ll just put it as best I can. Sam passed away the day before yesterday. He’d had a lump on his neck big as a goose egg and it seemed to suck the life right out. Sam was a little man when he died, I could’ve lifted him in my two arms.’ ” Sarah stopped and pressed her palms against the page. “I never loved Sam. I wish I had now.” There were tears glimmering in her eyes and she took a deep uneven breath to steady herself. Karl held out his hand and Sarah laid hers in it for a moment. “I’m okay. I’ll go on. ‘He was buried in the churchyard. It was a nice funeral, too, and took the last of the money Sam had—he owed from trying to get the farm back on its feet. The land will be auctioned off Saturday next.

“ ‘Gracie’s young man sent for her finally and she’s gone out West. All I got is Lizbeth home now, and Walter and little Mattie. Maybe you’ll see Gracie. Is Oregon anywhere near Reno?’ ” Sarah smiled. “Mam’s got no notion how big the West is.” She went back to the letter. “There’s some about Pa; his cough’s no better and I guess some worse, from what she doesn’t say. Here’s the part: ‘I think Mattie should come out to be with you. You’re his Ma. He’s a good boy and I’d want to keep him by me but things aren’t like when your Pa was well. Mattie will be better off to come West. Lizbeth looks to be marrying soon and I’m feeling my age more. I’ve saved some money and the church managed a little and I’ve bought the ticket. I’ll put him on the train as soon as I can get things settled here—maybe three weeks.’ ” When Sarah looked up from the page, her eyes were shining even in the dim light of the
shed. “Matthew’s going to be here. My son.” Cool tears of joy ran down her face.

No girl ever prepared for the coming of her lover with more care than that with which Sarah readied the house—the entire stop—for the coming of her son. Every day she tied her hair back in a clean rag and, with her sleeves rolled up and a wooden scrub bucket in hand, cleaned and polished. She rearranged Imogene’s old room half a dozen times and moved the schoolteacher’s clothes out of the closet and drawers. It was the first time they’d been disturbed since Imogene stopped needing them. Sarah consigned some to the mending heap to alter for herself, and some to the ragbag. One of Imogene’s summer skirts became curtains to replace the sun-bleached drapes. Sarah mixed whitewash and repaired and painted the chicken coop; she trimmed back the withered limbs of another group of doomed saplings, and watered the cottonwood posts around the spring. The fenceposts, with the perversity of nature, had begun to sprout, and a living fence circled the water.

Karl, Liam, and Beaner, and freighters on their regular runs through Round Hole, watched the whirlwind activity with bemused tolerance. To ease her load, Karl took over the cooking, withstanding the gibes of the men with quiet good humor.

One afternoon a week before the boy was expected, Karl found Sarah crying. She was alone in the barn, sitting on the floor in the loose hay, the gold of the afternoon sun striping her skirts. As he came in she looked up with red, swollen eyes, her cheeks streaked with tears.

He sat down beside her and waited.

“I’m afraid he won’t know me. Of course he can’t know me. I’m afraid he won’t like me.”

“There are the letters you’ve written him,” Karl said. “I don’t know how many hundred.”

“I’m afraid I won’t know him.”

“You will.”

“Do you want him to come?”

“Very much. Like Mac used to say, ‘You can’t run this country without kids.’ ”

“I want to be a good mother. I’m so afraid I won’t be, that he’d be better off with Mam or Gracie or anybody.”

“You’re a wonderful mother, Sarah.”

“Wolf died.”

Each Wednesday and Sunday in the last two weeks of the month, Sarah went to the gate to meet the stage. On an afternoon in July her wait was ended. Her son arrived on the first coach she hadn’t met. The mudwagon rolled in on a cloud of dust, and before it had settled, Liam yelled, “We got him, Mrs. Ebbitt.”

Sarah ran out from the shade of the porch, then stopped before she reached the coach door, her hands flying to her hair and smoothing her dress. “Karl…” she called, looking suddenly young and frightened.

“I’m here.” Karl walked across the packed earth from the stable. Calm and reassuring, he took his place beside her.

Sarah touched her hair and dress once again and, with a last look at Karl, opened the door of the coach. A very small boy, not yet six years old, with dark hair and light blue eyes, sat alone inside, looking smaller and more alone for the empty seats around him.

“Not much of a haul for sixty-odd miles overland, is it?” Liam asked. “Business is falling off, railroad’ll have it all by 1890. Have it all. Beaner!” The wiry, mustachioed Mexican beside him looked up without rancor, recognizing the title as his own. “You swamper or ain’t you?”

Beaner jumped gracefully to the ground, though he’d been riding for hours, and started talking to the horses in a soothing Spanish murmur.

Unconscious of the men around her, Sarah held tight to the door for support and gazed on her only child. He was slender and pale and perfectly formed. There was little childish softness to his solemn face, and his young body was firm and well defined. Margaret had dressed him in short pants and a jacket of black broadcloth. Both were rumpled and dirty from the long journey. Beside him on the seat, a large bundle of letters tied up with twine served as an armrest.

“Matthew,” Sarah whispered, her hand out in a gentle unfinished gesture.

“I’m to ask for Mrs. Ebbitt,” the child said, and pulled the lapel of his jacket forward to show Sarah the note pinned there. “Gramma T. said to give this to Mrs. Ebbitt.” At the mention of his grandmother the little boy started to sniffle.

Liam grunted. “Boy’s right as rain for umpteen hours. Show him a petticoat and he goes watery at the knees.” Karl nodded absently, his attention fixed on the odd little drama.

Sarah leaned into the coach to unpin the note, her hands trembling as she lay her fingers on the curve of the child’s cheek for an instant before grappling with the pin. She brought it out into the light where she could read it:

Sarah read the note again and handed it wordlessly to Karl.

The sober little face stared at her expectantly from behind the stack of letters, years of her heart drawn into lines on paper—her relationship with her son, sealed and tied up with string. She put out her hand and he took it politely.

“I’m Mrs. Ebbitt,” she said.

“After Papa died, Gramma T. said Mrs. Ebbitt was my mother and that’s why she had the same name as me.” Matthew eyed her suspiciously.

“God bless Mam,” Sarah said.

“Papa said my mother was dead.”

“Come on out now, we’ll talk later,” Sarah said. He clutched his packet of letters as she lifted him down from the coach. “You’re quite a big boy.” She held him a moment longer, then released him. “You hungry?” He nodded. “Let’s see about getting you something to eat.”

Karl followed them with his eyes, the woman and the child, walking slightly apart, neither of them talking.

“For an old bachelor you’re quite a family man,” Liam teased.

“It’s beginning to look that way, isn’t it?”

Sarah tucked the covers around Matthew’s chin. Supper was over and the sun was setting. He squirmed from under them; the evening was too hot for covers. Sarah reached for them again, ner
vously, but stopped herself and folded her hands in her lap. A mosquito whined somewhere in the room.

“Can we talk now?” Matthew asked.

“We can talk now.”

“Papa said my mother was dead.” It was a challenge.

“She’s not. I’m not. I had to go away when you were a baby. But I didn’t die.”

“Why did you go away?”

“I was—I was very sick,” Sarah said slowly.

“And Papa thought you died.”

“Maybe he did.”

“Papa died.”

“I know, honey.” Sarah’s voice broke and she smiled tenderly at the small face on the pillow. Her hand strayed to smooth an errant lock from his temple. “Do you miss him a lot?”

“Sometimes. I live with Gramma T. I miss Gramma and Aunt Gracie and Lizbeth.”

“I do too. Gramma T. is my mam, my mother.”

“She’s Aunt Gracie’s mother.” Suspicion clouded his eyes.

“And Aunt Lizbeth’s and Walter’s and mine. We’re all brothers and sisters.”

He thought that over for a while. “You’re my mother.”

“That’s right.”

“You were never at our house.”

Sarah looked through swimming eyes and bit her underlip until her teeth made a white crescent in the ruddy flesh. “I wrote you.” It was difficult to speak around the lump in her throat. “I wrote you a little every day because I missed you so much I was afraid I would go crazy. Imogene was afraid.”

“Who’s Imogene?”

“A friend. She died.” The tears spilled over her lashes and down the side of her nose. “Once a week I sent you the letters. Every week since I—since I got sick and had to go away. Your grandma saved the letters for you so you would know me and know I loved you. Love you.”

She was quiet for a long time, crying.

“Mrs. Ebbitt, you can read me from the letters if you want to,” he said at last.

Sarah smiled and touched his hair. “I’d like that.”

She read him two letters, the first two she had sent. One was in
Imogene’s bold hand and Imogene’s straightforward sentences. The other was in such a shaky, spidery hand that she stumbled in the reading. Matthew listened, quiet and solemn-eyed.

Finished, she smoothed the dark fringe from his forehead. “I’m your mother, Matthew. I love you very much. Good night.” She kissed him lightly, resting her cheek against his.

“Good night, Mrs. Ebbitt.”

Sarah closed the door to his room and stayed leaning against it, the strength drained out of her. Through the wood she could hear the smothered weeping of a homesick child.

Karl was by a window, the sash thrown open to let in the night breeze. He wore reading spectacles and was poring over an old book of sonnets by the light of a lamp. Sarah heaved a sigh and dropped into the chair opposite. He closed the book and took off his glasses.

Sarah smiled. “I read him the first two letters I wrote, and I told him I’d written every day. Then he said, ‘Good night, Mrs. Ebbitt.’ ”

“It will take a while.”

“I know. I want to hug him. I feel like I could just crush him into me. His little face is so dear.”

Karl levered himself out of his chair. “Driving the wagon stiffens me up,” he groaned. They walked to the porch and stood together, watching the moon rise over the mountains. Floating on the horizon, it seemed to take up most of the sky.