These Is My Words (19 page)

I tried not to look at him, and went to get the other bucket, and said with my head turned that if he could get himself onto the blanket and clean up a little, I’d rinse him off and wrap him up in a clean one and take him to the house for a bath and some doctoring.

He said he had been there two days until this morning when Toobuddy found him. I remembered that dog always did cotton to Captain Elliot, no wonder he acted so crazy. I turned when he rolled on the blanket, and saw April trying to climb off the wagon, dangling above the ground, and ran to catch her. He did what cleaning he could like I said, but still couldn’t get his legs under him to walk.

I knew I couldn’t lift him so I backed the wagon to him, and braked it, and had him hold to the team’s reins while I went around to the front of them and we pulled him up onto the mattress. There he lay still as death the whole time I hitched the team, and I think he must have fainted away, but he was breathing, so I dumped the water and picked up April and headed for the house.

I took him around back where my wash tub was still full and soapy, and since it was a far sight cleaner than he was, I figured it was a good first dip at least. He had to fold up like a cricket to get in, but said his legs wanted to work a bit, and I checked his back for other cuts. He was mighty bruised, but it appears all the dried blood on him came from his head. After a bath with kerosene and still another of soap and water, he finally smelled like something other than death, but still he couldn’t move around very well.

Wrapped in a quilt, he leaned hard on me all the way into the house, and I put him in my bed. With rags under his head instead of my feather pillows, I tried to tend his head. He was real patient and I think he went to sleep, and twitched a bit now and then. I got out my sewing scissors and cut his hair and finally got at the wound and it was pretty bad, a big cut from over his left ear across the top and down his forehead almost two inches, and there was a big lump underneath. I remembered hearing about a fellow who cracked his head bad and broke his skull and died, and I wondered if Captain Elliot would die in my bed like Jimmy did. I dabbed it with some mercurochrome and he still didn’t move, and that was when I was sure he was about dead already. I fixed him up with a big bandage, pulling the skin tight together and wrapping it around and around, then I lifted his head and took away the rags and gave him a pillow. I can make another pillow, I thought, and if he is going to die in my bed he may as well be comfortable.

While I have been doctoring, April has become an artist. She got into the blueing bottle and fingerpainted the white pine floor in the parlor and made little smears and lines and hand prints everywhere. I was too tired to be mad at her and too drained to fuss. I just picked her up and took off her dress and underwear and washed her up and dressed her again. I still had stock to feed and dinner to make, so I stoked the fire and cut up some vegetables for soup, and took April with me to the barn.

Later, I got Captain Elliot to wake enough to eat some soup and about three biscuits, then he fell fast asleep again. It looks like my parlor will have little blue handprints forever to remember this day, and April thinks her blue fingers are fancy. I will sleep with her tonight. I am so tired.

March 3, 1885

For two days I nursed Captain Elliot and slept with April. It wasn’t much trouble, mostly he just slept hard like he was nearly dead, and ate, and slept more. One time he cried out Git buzzards! and waved his hands, but it was a dream and he was embarrassed. None of my family nor neighbors have been by and I am thankful for that, as it is just easier sometimes not to explain things.

There are no man’s clothes here at all except for a couple of shirts that I had made Jimmy which I wear over my blouse when it is cold, so yesterday I went to Savannah and got a pair of Albert’s pants for him to borrow and told them and Mama all about what had happened. They said they will come by tomorrow which is this afternoon.

This morning I found Captain Elliot out on the porch in my rocker. He was wearing Albert’s faded work pants, and had put on Jimmy’s shirt which didn’t fit at all. As he was having breakfast with us he said he’d seen Jimmy’s headstone under the palo verde tree, and he was sorry for me.

I didn’t want him or anyone else to be sorry for me, so I only said, You’d better rest a while.

After noon, he sat for a bit and watched me put April down for a nap, and I started to knead some bread dough, then he said, Mrs. Reed, would it burden you to ask for the use of your husband’s razor? I’ll understand if you don’t want to.

But I didn’t care at all, when I thought about it. There wasn’t any sentiment in a man’s razor. And there wasn’t much sentiment in me, either.

Pretty soon he came from behind the house looking all clean shaven and that was the first time I really recognized his face. He had changed the bandage too, and said it was healed up real clean without much of a scar, and he said I was a pretty good doctor and a barber too. I laughed a little at that, but it is too soon to have healed much.

He had to get back to Tucson, he said. He has been hired by the Army as a private Soldier, a Lieutenant with the Sixth Cavalry at Fort Lowell as a Special Advisor in Indian Affairs.

That sounds pretty impressive, I said.

It’s not, he returned. It’s just a job I know lots about.

Then he told me how he had been following track of some renegade Apaches with some stolen cattle and horses, and they had discovered him and turned on him and ran him until his horse lost footing in the soft sandy cliff and broke its neck on top of him. He told me how he never did want to fight Indians any more, but because of the massacre done by the fool soldiers under his command while we were coming from Texas, there was a man named Geronimo and a band of other Indians sworn to kill every white in the Territory for revenge. And so many good people were murdered somehow he felt he carried a burden for the beginning of the whole act and had to protect the white folks.

I just looked at him quiet, then, and put my dough in the pans and washed my hands, taking my time and thinking. Odd, how sitting there in an old plaid shirt and Albert’s brown pants, all clean and calm, he didn’t look like a soldier, just a man. It was only when he moved around or when he sat on a horse and thought, that you could see it in him, like a chestnut blood line. It’s the stance, the head, the gait, Jimmy used to say.

Why did you leave the Army at all, then? I asked him.

He didn’t talk for a minute. It was a difference of opinion in the arrest of those five soldiers, he said. He knew he couldn’t sleep at night with them released and excused, just like they had spilled punch at a Sunday picnic, so when his enlistment was up, he packed his bag and left. Suddenly he jumped up with a start, and almost scared me. Where’s my saddlebag? he said.

It was hanging on a peg under the eaves of the smokehouse, where some of the smell will be soaked away, and he was powerfully worried about it until he had it in his hands. He didn’t tell me any reason for it, but just smiled at me kind of soft and gentle like. Then, he needed to borrow a horse and saddle, he said, and would return it in a couple of days, so I said fine, and then he said with a soft voice, I’m in your debt, Mrs. Reed.

The sound of that made me blush like a little girl, and I turned and went quick to the corral.

I let him use the big mare I named Honey because she is gentle, and Jimmy’s best saddle. She doesn’t like to be cinched and puffs up her belly so the strap will hang loose and the rider will slide off sideways, but Captain Elliot tricked her and blew on her nose and made her let out her air, so he made a quick job of it. Then I remembered the trade I had gotten into with that man and thought maybe I should have given him Terry or Dan to ride, and that would be the end of it.

I said to him, That there’s a fine brood mare, please be careful. His eyes got that mean sparkle in them and then I recognized him sure, for that smart grin he has like he’s got the best of me. He acted like he was going to say something, and opened his mouth, then changed his mind.

He leaned down for a second, and said, I’ll be back with her fast, but you shouldn’t be staying here alone with those Apaches around.

I told him, I’m not alone, I have my dogs to warn me, and the Maldonado boys come over two times a week.

He was gone before my family got here. They all came together, with food, like it was an old friend they were visiting. Albert wanted to hear about Geronimo, but I didn’t know much, except that Captain Elliot the Lieutenant said he was nearby.

April woke up and showed them her blue fingers. We fixed supper early and ate my fresh bread, and I told them all about what had passed the last three days, and about how Toobuddy tried to follow him away but I made him stay.

March 16, 1885

Captain Elliot rode up with a small group of soldiers, in a sharp pressed uniform and on a tall black horse, leading my mare. He stayed long enough for the men to draw water from my well, said Hello sweetie, to April, and handed me a bundle with Albert’s clothes tied up, they looked like they had come from a fancy pay laundry. It sounded odd to hear them call him Lieutenant, and I wondered why he took the cut in rank for this job. It must mean something to him, I suppose. He told me that Geronimo had been tracked down to the town of Willcox and into the Chiricahua mountains, maybe as far as Mexico, so not to worry about him especially. Then he wheeled his horse around and was gone.

April stretched out in my arms and waved bye-bye until he was gone over the hills. I felt a frown on my face, watching him leave, but I wasn’t sure why. Then I laughed. Looking at the south end of a northbound horse would make anyone frown. I felt cheerful the rest of the day.

March 20, 1885

Decided to make soap today with Savannah’s fine recipe. I had it about ready, when I got a hare-brained thought, and I went to the adobe book shed and pulled the feed sacks out of the back. With a stick I pulled up the piece of board, and there was my little wooden box. I took it to the house, and opened the jar of rouge and scooped out a little spoonful of the red stuff and dropped it in the boiling kettle of creamy lye soap. Then I opened the perfume bottle and poured about half of it into the soap. It bubbled up and blistered across the surface like horehound syrup on boiling sugar.

I stirred it all in, and the soap turned pink and the smell of that perfume came out strong. When I ladled it into the molds, it seemed to stay pink. The perfume had pretty much boiled away, but just a faint smell like a tiny flower came through. That was just what I had wanted. I determined to wrap up some and take them as a gift to Savannah and Mama, and April and I got out paper and the blueing bottle and painted pictures, let it dry, and wrapped up the pink soaps with the blue paper pictures and tied them with twine.

March 23, 1885

Rode Rose and took Savannah and Mama some of the soaps and a three egg cake, just for fun. Savannah said the soap was the nicest she had ever seen, and smelled so good she would be ashamed to use it. But I told her I didn’t think there was any shame in a flower smelling pretty, and cleaning up with a pretty soap shouldn’t be a shame either. Mama said she agreed, and that it would be a pleasure to have a bath with it. They were very amazed, and asked again and again how did I make pink soap, and I just grinned and wouldn’t tell them at all.

The Maldonado boys are working today at my ranch so I decided to take the afternoon off from home, and stayed with my family until late. It is so good for a spell not to have to lift my hands to hard work. I have eaten of Mama’s good cooking this afternoon like there is no tomorrow. And now the left over cornbread she has put in a bowl with milk on it and I am finishing that. There have been many days of beautiful spring weather, cool and clear, and with all the hard work from sun up past sun down, I am looking mighty spare, she said, so eat up, this will put some meat on your bones. It was like being a little girl again, having my Mama fuss over me.

March 25, 1885

I boiled up some fat and this time strained it extra fine, and made more soap with pink and perfume. When it was cool, I cut each piece in half so it was small. I wrote on almost every sheet of paper I had, a little picture of a flower and Mrs. Reed’s Fine Ladies’ Soap and tied a twine around each one.

I took April some changes of clothes, and Bear, and hitched my wagon up, and placed a big basket load of little soaps in the center. Then I put on my best dress, which was my blue wedding dress now died black, and my best hat, not just a sunbonnet, and drove us all to town. It was strange to be on the road alone, but I didn’t mind it and I sang songs to April some and told her stories and she slept some.

I went to Fish’s store and I told him he could have the bushel basket of them for two at seven cents, and see how they sell. Then I would bring another batch if he liked them but they would cost a nickel a piece. Mr. Fish was amazed at me, and opened a package and sniffed it then wrapped it up, then said it was no deal. But as I got clear of the door and he saw I was headed for Goldwater and Heath’s across Main street with little April hanging onto my skirt and moving as fast as I could with her and Bear following, he came after me and said maybe he had changed his mind.

I left there with seven dollars and his old Sears and Roebuck catalog.

I went to the telegraph office myself to place an order for more rouge and perfume, which I could never order at the general store where folks would see. This way it would come to me at the stage station near our house, and wrapped up like any ordinary package it would not cause loose talk. Then I went to the Ronstadt’s livery and found the leather man, who sold me some fine tallow. I still had three dollars left, so I took April to the park where we shared our lunch with the ducks, and looked through the Sears and Roebuck and thought about things.

I was tempted to buy some fancy soap molds, but what if Mr. Fish doesn’t want more? So I priced a few other things, and decided I would put my soap money in a jar and save up for myself some ladies’ niceties that were never before considered as useful as white paint and new saddles had been.