Bittersweet (36 page)

“The people,” Matthew said urgently, “the people that buried them wrong.”

“Oh.” Jerome sucked at his pipe. It was dead. He knocked it on the railing and scraped the bowl with his pocket knife. “That’s the thing, see.” He leaned forward until his face was on a level with the child’s. “They get kind of barmy, being dead and buried like that, and they don’t know who it is has done the actual burying, so when they come looking, it don’t matter who they find. And by this time they don’t see any too good. They’re pretty much moldy and falling part. They go sniffing around outside houses looking for just anybody.”

“I hear they like little boys best,” Charley put in.

“That’s so, I heard that,” Jerome agreed.

By this time, Matthew was crowded so near Jerome he was almost falling off his own chair. “How about people that aren’t Indians?” He glanced fearfully across the black hole of the spring toward the double grave hidden in the high grass.

Jerome saw where he was looking. He sat back, propping his chair against the wall again, and nudged Charley. “White men are even meaner than Indians. Take them two fellas I hear is buried out by the spring. I’m surprised they ain’t dug their way out already, seeing’s they had no proper rites said.”

“Look now.” Charley leaned forward and peered into the dark, pretending to see something. “Look—”

“That will do, Charley.” Karl spoke from the doorway. “You go inside, Matthew. Your mother’s in the kitchen. I’ll be in in a minute.”

Relieved from his awful enthrallment, Matthew sped through the darkened room to his mother.

Karl pulled a chair around and sat down straddling it, his arms crossed on the back. “Have you been telling Matthew ghost stories for a while now?”

“Ooooeee!” Charley laughed. “His eyes get big as a calf’s when Jerome spins one.”

“I’m going to have to ask you not to tell him any more.”

“Come on, Karl,” Jerome said, “all kids like ghost stories. It don’t hurt nothing.”

“Don’t tell him any more.” Karl said firmly. “Don’t tell that boy anything that isn’t true. He likes being with you. He looks up to you. You tell him those stories and he believes them. He’s just a boy, there’s no call to lie to him. He’s been having nightmares. Talk of something else.”

“Hell, Karl, you’re going to let that gal raise up a sissy. Teasing’ll make a man out of him,” Jerome protested.

“I’ve never known fear to make a man out of anyone. I’ve seen it make grown men cry like babies. Don’t lie to the boy.” Karl wished them good night and went inside.

Jerome hawked and spat expertly over the rail. “Jesus! We were just having a little fun with the kid.”

“I, for one, am going to do as he asked,” Charley said. “Karl’s a funny bugger if he gets a hair up his ass over some damn thing or other. Fellow used to drive the stage through here told me he stuffed a greenhorn down the one-holder for kicking his dog.”

Jerome grunted. “Must’ve had more meat on him then; he’s tall, but there ain’t nothing to him.”

“Wiry,” Charley said sagely.

Karl found Sarah and Matthew waiting for him in the kitchen. Matthew was whitefaced and silent, safe on his mother’s lap.

“What is it, Karl?”

“Jerome has been telling him ghost stories.” He sat down across from them. “Come here, Matthew.” Reluctantly the little boy left his mother and came around the end of the table. Karl lifted him onto his bony lap, straddling his knees.

“You mad at me, Karl?” Matthew asked.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

“Because I been scared. Scared of the dark and to be by myself and go in the shed and stuff.”

“No, I’m not mad at you. Everybody gets scared. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I get scared sometimes, and that was one of the scariest stories I’ve heard in a long time. Is that why you wouldn’t tell your mother and me what was wrong? You thought we’d be mad?”

“I was afraid you’d be ashamed of me because I was afraid to go into dark places…like a baby.”

“We’ll never be ashamed of you for being afraid, Matthew. Those stories Jerome and Charley told you aren’t true. Not any of them. Once people are dead, they never come back—maybe because they don’t want to, maybe it’s nicer where they are. I don’t know. But they don’t ever come back. Those two boys buried out by the spring had a proper burial. Your mother read the service from the Bible over their graves. Both of them were good boys—like Coby. Would Coby ever hurt you?”

“No.”

“Neither would these boys. I don’t know what else those two told you, but I’m willing to bet there’s not a grain of truth in it.”

“There’s the ghost of a man drowned in the outhouse that’d pull you down into the hole by your…” He looked at his mother; at six he was well aware of the social restrictions. “…you know.”

“I know,” Karl said. “Beau Van Fleet dug that outhouse two months before your mother leased this place. Nobody has ever died there.”

“People tortured to death by Chief Winnemucca cry at night and look for people to torture.”

“Not true. I doubt Chief Winnemucca ever tortured anybody to death anyway.”

“That’s all,” Matthew said.

“That’s enough.” Karl stood him on the floor between his knees. “Are you still scared?”

“Only a little left-over scared.”

“Can you go wash up and go to bed?”

“I think so.”

“Ask your mother for a candle. If anybody ever tells you anything that scares you again, come and tell your mother or me, and we will tell you if it’s true or not. If not, there’s nothing to be afraid
of. All right?” The child nodded. “Now kiss your mother good night and get ready for bed. We’ll look in on you in a few minutes.”

Sarah hugged Matthew tight and kissed him. “Good night, honey. Take this candle, it’s already lit. We’ll be in in a minute.” When he’d gone, she turned, smiling, to Karl. He looked back, strong and square-shouldered, his eyes warm with love for Sarah and her son. “Karl, I think you’ve slept in the tackroom long enough. Come in tonight. Every night.”

He reached for her hand. “Are you sure? People will talk. And not about me, but about you. The gossip could do us harm.”

“I don’t care. I want to be with you in the sight of everybody. Let people talk. I’m tired of hiding and sneaking in our own home.”

Karl spent the night in the main house with Sarah. In the morning the two of them stoically faced down the curious looks and half-heard jokes of the freighters. That afternoon, Karl’s things were moved into the master bedroom with Sarah’s.

Matthew asked why. “To keep a closer eye on you,” his mother told him.

All Colby had to say was, “It’s about time. I’ve been wanting to move into the tackroom for a while now.”

Dizable & Denning couldn’t have cared less; for the first time in years the Round Hole Stop was showing a profit.

IT WAS MID-JULY, AND AT SIX O’CLOCK THE SUN WAS STILL HIGH. ALL
the windows were propped wide and the door blocked open to catch the breeze. Despite the heat, Karl had on one of the heavy flannel shirts he always wore, the edges of his long underwear peeking out at the neck and wrists. He wiped the bar and tossed the rag over a deer antler fastened to the wall. Round Hole Stop was full; the Reno coach had pulled in at four-thirty with seven passengers, miners bound for a rumor of gold northeast of Bishop.

Liam and Beaner sat slurping coffee with several of the young prospectors; sweat poured down their temples as they swilled the hot liquid. Keeping a low profile, Matthew built a wigwam out of kindling behind one of the tables near the fireplace. Flies buzzed in lazy circles and the company was dull with heat and day’s end.

Beaner swirled the last of his coffee around, polished it off in a gulp, and set the cup carefully back in the wet ring on the tabletop. “Liam,” he said, “I got a new lim’rick.”

The driver looked up from contemplating the toe of his boot, and Beaner winked a round black eye.

Liam nudged the young man across the table, a hard-faced miner of twenty-five, from the silver mines in Virginia City. “Watch this,” he grunted, and jerked his chin toward Karl. Liam’s face creased slightly but the smile didn’t quite break through.

“Hey, Karl,” Beaner called across the room, his dark eyes twinkling. “I got one for you.”

“Never mind, Beaner,” Karl said amiably.

“There was a young whore from Peru…” Beaner began, undaunted.

Karl turned several shades of red and, muttering some half-heard excuse, left the bar for the kitchen. The swamper pounded his thigh and laughed uproariously. “Isn’t that the damnedest thing? You can always get a rise out of Karl. I’ve seen him up to his ears in cowshit, castrating calves, but when somebody’d say something raw he’d color up like an old maid.”

“It ain’t like he don’t know what it is. He’s got it pretty friendly. I hear he’s been bedding Mrs. Ebbit damn near since the schoolteacher died,” one of the freighters put in. “You got promoted to the tackroom, hey Coby?”

“That’s right,” the young man said shortly, and stood to stretch.

The swamper winked at him. “Maybe when Karl moves on, you’ll get promoted—inside.” The others laughed.

“Watch yourself, Beaner,” Coby warned as he left the room.

“He won’t hear her made light of,” Liam explained. “And rightly so. You were getting out of hand there. Mrs. Ebbitt’s a lady, give or take a little, and oughtn’t to be jawed over by the likes of you.” The driver kicked Beaner’s chair and snapped his mouth shut again.

“She’s a widow woman, ain’t she?” a middle-aged, potbellied miner asked. “Why don’t he just marry her? She’s a good little gal—better’n most—cooks a meal that’s purely fit to eat.”

“Maybe he’s too damn tight to take a day off,” a freighter suggested, and even Liam laughed.

“Maybe,” Liam returned. “I’ve never known him to take a day off. Place looks a hell of a lot better than when Van Fleet had it. Food’s sure a damn sight better; Van’s missus couldn’t boil guts for a hungry bear, from what old McMurphy told me.”

Quietly, Matthew slipped from the bar unnoticed.

The spring was now completely enclosed by a fence built of heavy timbers. It had been Coby’s first job. Matthew skirted it and ran through the coarse grass, leaping over the creek that ran through the meadow from the spring. He found Coby mending fence down past the paddock near the southwestern corner of the pasture, and climbed up to sit on top of the post nearest him. He patted his
knees and Moss Face leaped up into his lap. For a moment the boy and the dog teetered, but Matthew recovered his balance, the coyote in his arms.

“Every time you climb the wires like that, it makes more work for Karl and me.” Coby picked up a strand of barbed wire that had been stomped down by one of the horses, and nailed it back in place.

Before Matthew could respond, Karl came up. “Your Momma and I thought we’d take a ride up above the place. It’s a nice evening and there’s time before dark. Do you want to come with us, Matthew?”

Matthew deserted Coby without a backward glance.

The sun was on the horizon, flattened to a red oval. The sky was deepening to evening in the east and glowed a clear, translucent yellow in the west. Sarah and Karl rode up the hill single file, Karl in front. He sat stiff in the saddle, his spine rigid and his elbows out at the sides, more like a graduate of a riding academy for young ladies than one of the slouching Nevada cowboys. Sarah rode astride, her petticoats tucked under her, her hand resting on the pommel. Occasionally she’d lean forward to pat the neck of the little bay and murmur words of encouragement. She rode easily now, unafraid. Matthew rode behind, holding to her waist.

Up the hill behind Round Hole, a bluff of sandstone and rock pushed out through the sage, forming a shelf several feet wide that ran halfway around under the brown of the hill. It was just high enough to make a natural bench. Karl tethered his horse to a bush and helped Sarah to dismount. Matthew had already squirmed and slid his way over the round rump of the little mare.

Below, the desert spread out. The sunset touched the dead soil of the alkali flat to a living hue, and the mountains beyond were a dark, regal purple. Karl and Sarah sat several feet apart on the sandstone ledge and looked down over their home. Cattle dotted the landscape in small, isolated groups, with an occasional stray. A thin ribbon of smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Those cottonwood posts that had sprouted around the spring continued to thrive, waving lacy green-black leaves over the water. Down by the icehouse, the windmill was utterly still. Several horses grazed in the meadow, and the hollow cracking of Coby’s hammer echoed up the hill. He was working on a bench near the barn door, his tow-colored head a small orange dot, dyed by the setting sun.

“The air is so clear you can see a hundred miles,” Sarah said. “In Pennsylvania, the world was smaller.”

“I’m used to the space,” Karl replied. “I like it.”

Matthew scrambled down the slope behind, a miniature avalanche announcing his arrival. He settled himself comfortably between them and began pitching pebbles at Moss Face. The coyote leaped and snapped at them a few times before he tired of the game and wandered off. Long shadows were creeping across the desert floor from the west; soon Round Hole would be in shade.

“What’s ‘bedding’ somebody mean?” Matthew asked suddenly, and Sarah started, her hands grating noisily on the sandstone. She looked over his head at Karl.

“Little pitchers have big ears,” Karl said.

“You always say that,” Matthew complained. “I’m not a little pitcher. What does it mean? ‘Bedding’ somebody?”

“Where did you hear it?” Karl asked gently.

“I was making mineshafts in the kindling—I put it all back in the woodbox,” he added quickly. “That man drives for Standard Feed said you were bedding Momma. He said he wondered why you wouldn’t marry her, because she cooked good.”

Karl rubbed the palms of his hands on his thighs. “People like to hear themselves talk.”

Sarah looked across the wide valley, her eyes on the first stars of evening. The shadows had coalesced over the desert, and the valley floor was a dark pool between mountain peaks. She had kept herself out of the conversation.

“What does it mean?” the boy persisted.

“It’s two people living together without the blessing of God,” Karl said softly.

“Without the permission of the law, Karl. God doesn’t enter into it,” Sarah retorted.

Matthew, startled into silence by the fierce declaration, sat meekly staring at his shoe tips. When he found his tongue he said, “Why won’t you marry Momma?”

Karl spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “I never thought to ask your mother if she’d marry me, Matthew. It never seemed to be a dream possible for the two of us. I would be proud if she would be my wife. That would make you my son, too. What do you think of that?”

“It’d be okay, I guess. Would I have to call you Pa?”

“No, Sam Ebbitt was your pa.” Karl looked over the boy’s head at Sarah. “Now I’m afraid if I asked she would say no.”

She smiled, tucking back a wisp of hair. “Ask.”

A week later, in the early hours before sunup, Karl and Coby harnessed the team.

“We’ll be back late tomorrow,” Karl said as he checked the horses’ hooves one by one. “There are no stages due, and Sarah has made a big stew and bread. You should be able to feed yourself and any freighters that happen in. I expect Jerome and Charley might be through—and maybe the fellow that hauls for Stamphli’s out of Elko.”

“I was cook on a ranch one winter,” Coby said.

“You are full of surprises. You shouldn’t have any trouble, then.”

“I don’t expect any.” Coby slapped the rump of one of the horses affectionately.

“How long until you can buy your own team and wagon?”

“A while. I’m in no hurry.” He combed his hair back with his fingers and stood quiet, his eyes fixed on the dark bulk of the Fox Mountains. There was just a fingernail of a moon, already growing wan with the coming day. “I like it here. The place kind of grows on you. I’ve never been much for noise, even of my own making.”

“Ready?” Sarah called from the porch.

“We are set here,” Karl returned.

“Matthew, get your things,” Sarah said as she went back inside.

The sun was just visible above the mountains when the wagon rolled out to the southwest, and the shadows of the horses’ heads preceded them on the road. Moss Face ran alongside until Coby caught him and carried him back.

The trip was uneventful. They stopped at a spring on the west shore of Pyramid Lake to water the horses. Toward the southern end of the lake, about seven miles from where the Truckee River flowed in, they left Pyramid for the road into Reno. Stopping only twice more, in midday to eat and once more to rest the horses and stretch their legs, they reached Reno before dark.

Karl booked two rooms at the Riverside Hotel, Reno’s grandest, one room for Sarah and Matthew, the other for himself. He seemed nervous and distracted. He wore his hat even indoors, the brim pulled low over his eyes. They took dinner in their rooms and visited
no one. Sarah wanted to walk down the river past Bishop Whitaker’s School, but Karl wouldn’t accompany her and she didn’t go without him.

At nine o’clock the next morning, Sarah and Karl, with Matthew between them, holding his mother’s hand, walked from the hotel to the courthouse. Sarah wore her finest dress, a sage-green gabardine suit with a fitted jacket that flared gracefully over her hips, and a cream blouse that tied at the throat in a soft bow. Karl’s clothes were worn and common, but as clean as soap and water could make them, and freshly pressed.

From beneath a glossy cap of hair, parted exactly in the center and combed wet so it was plastered to his skull, Matthew glowered at the world. He had been squeezed into the somber black traveling suit his grandmother sent him west in. It was far too small and pinched under the arms.

They stopped at the foot of the courthouse steps and gazed up at the intimidating structure. The heavy doors swung open and the dark, polished wood flashed as two men, stiff and proper in black broadcloth suits and rigid collars, came down the steps. Karl and Sarah drew back respectfully to let them pass.

“Reno’s become such a city,” Sarah whispered. Matthew, knowing only Calliope, Pennsylvania, and Round Hole, goggled at everything.

“Sarah?” Karl smiled, his gray eyes warm. “Shall we?” He gestured toward the open doors.

She hesitated, the color deserting her cheeks. Several dark-suited men passed, going up the steps and closing the doors behind them. “Maybe we’d better not.” She was suddenly afraid and rested both hands on her son’s shoulders to stop them from shaking.

“I love you, Sarah. I want to be with you always, in the sight of God and man.”

Sarah nodded shortly, her lips pressed in a determined line, and took his arm.

The foyer was dark and cold, with high vaulted ceilings of burnished oak collecting gloom over floors of the same dark hue. The heels of Sarah’s shoes clicked and echoed. They hurried to the less imposing offices beyond. In a drafty little room smelling of stale cigars, Sarah Ebbitt and Karl Saunders were married.

The justice of the peace was dry and papery, with the look of a man who has spent his life indoors. He fumbled a pair of spectacles
from his vest pocket and read the ceremony without inflection, tired already, though it was not yet ten o’clock. An old clerk, hard of hearing and nearly blind, was the witness and he mumbled and chuckled to himself all during the vows.

Sarah had taken off the jade ring Imogene had given her, and handed it to Matthew to hold. Karl slipped it back on her hand as the justice said, “With this ring…”

The justice pronounced them man and wife and closed the book with a sigh. For a moment he blinked at them from behind his spectacles. “You may kiss the bride,” he remembered.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t!” Sarah protested and looked at the justice, the clerk, and back to Karl. He looked as uncertain as she.

“Kiss her,” cackled the old clerk imperiously.

Karl tilted her chin and studied the lines of her face as though reading a long sweet story. Then he kissed her gently and the old clerk smacked his lips with satisfaction. Karl pulled Sarah’s arm through his, and held his hand out for Matthew. “Son?”