These Is My Words (20 page)

April 8, 1885

Came to town with another batch of soap, my last if the stage doesn’t get the goods I ordered soon. When I went to Mr. Fish’s, he about jumped off his stool, and said, come with me, Mrs. Reed. I never did see a more greedy look in a man’s eyes. He offered me five cents a bar if I would promise not to go to any other store with my soaps.

I just smiled, and said, Five cents would be fine for this load. We’ll see what happens in the future, I said. Maybe I am a better soap trader than horse trader, at that.

I took ten dollars from Mr. Fish for those soaps, and I went to the livery and bought more fat and asked the man to make me up a leather stamper with my soap’s name and some little flowers. I paid him half in advance and said I will pick it up that afternoon. He will do the work for two dollars and six bits, and make it extra nice, which is good, I said. Then I bought fine white paper for the wrappers and a skein of bright blue crochet thread for ties instead of twine.

I had just left the little dry goods shop with my packages and April’s hand in mine, feeling fine, when I thought I would check at the depot for any mail that may not have gotten put on the stage yet. Some kind of wild ruckus broke out down the street and I heard yelling and a gunshot, then more guns, and I pulled April behind me and shoved my way into the closest doorway.

I never did hear what happened down there, but Tucson is a rough old cob of a town, and people that live there just have to be ready to duck or draw. In my deep pocket, my kitchen pistol was banging against my leg, and I thought, I am a hard woman, for sure, and not genteel like Savannah, not as I wanted to become at all. Maybe when times simmer down I will be able to walk around without a sidearm in my pocket and a rifle under my wagon seat like an outlaw.

I am glad I went to the depot, for my package was there! The address had smudged and so it waited for me at the depot all this time. As I was picking it up and signing the receipt, April toddled off to the doorway and proceeded to upend my package of thread and papers and they started to blow about the room, so I rushed after them, trying hard not to smudge them on the dirty floor.

I grabbed April upon my hip and stood up at last, and accidentally bumped right into a man who was bent over picking up a piece of white paper for me. He turned around and immediately his hat was in his hand and he smiled.

Well! Captain Elliot said out loud, You sometimes find the nicest surprises at the depot!

We were in a little scurrying crowd of people, and I felt embarrassed, but they weren’t noticing us, they were doing their own business there. He took my elbow like a lady and led me over to the door and out to the front porch.

Mrs. Reed, he said, what a fortunate meeting. Is your family close by? We could all have lunch together.

I told him, No, I came to town with April and Bear.

The sparkle in his eyes turned to a snapping fire for a second, and he asked me, You drove to town alone?

It’s business, I said. I couldn’t ask Albert to take a day off just to carry me around. He got a look on his face like when Mama is going to scold one of us, but he just shook his head and didn’t talk for a second.

Well, he said, then would you do me the honor of a dinner at Levin’s?

I didn’t want folks to look at us or see a widow having dinner with a soldier. I said to him, I promised April to see the ducks, and I brought a picnic.

At that, April hollered, Duckies! Duckies! and clapped her hands.

Captain Elliot reached for her and said, Can I hold you for Mama, Missy? and she held out her hands and practically jumped off me into his arms. Then he held out his elbow for me to take, and said, If you are finished with your business, may I see you to your picnic, Ma’am?

I know my face was red, and I couldn’t talk, my throat was choked. He had just invited himself! So only to be polite and not cause a stir I put my hand on his arm and he carried my package, and I walked with him down the street to our wagon.

Never in my days would I have expected to have a picnic with Captain Elliot on the grass at Carillo Gardens and watch April chase ducklings whose mamas quacked at her all afternoon. He leaned on one elbow and ate my fried chicken and then bought us lemonades and buñuelos and fed half of his to a goose just to watch April squeal and giggle at it. Then she fell asleep, lying on his lap while I was re-packing our basket and we were quiet as the afternoon warmed. Suddenly I looked at him and he was shaking all over, laughing inside.

What is so funny? I whispered.

He looked at me with that mean look and pointed at April asleep on his lap and said, Does this run in the family?

Well, I was furious, and just had to leave and walk around to keep from waking up April. I suppose he just laid there and watched me go, but I walked clear around the pond before I could settle down. Ornery, no account. Mama was right it is never any good to mess with soldiers, they are a sorry bunch and I was real peeved I had bothered to waste my time with the likes of that man all afternoon when I could have been shopping with my soap money. And I still had blueing to buy and a hotel room to take and I wanted to leave this park and now.

I went back to get my things, and sat on the grass and began to pick up the rest of the picnic.

He was lying stretched out long with his hat over his eyes and one hand on April’s little head, and he said, without looking up, Where’d you go?

Well, I was mad, and still am.

He grinned real big and said, You weren’t mad, you’re embarrassed. If you were mad you’d have taken your stuff and your baby and left. I tried to tell him he was wrong, and he just kept grinning. He said, You think I don’t feel like a plucked chicken in front of you, after you pulling me out from under that horse and all?

That’s different. I know it is. It’s not like he could lose his reputation for being rescued from an accident.

Then he lifts his hat a little and peers at me from under it. Seems to me, he says, we’re both the rescuing kind. He put his hat back down and said, Anyway, that’s not such a bad trait in a person, and you’ll never lose your reputation from anything I say about you, I guarantee.

I didn’t say anything, I just sat there, pondering it all.

He starts grinning again and says, Besides, it was the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had!

And I threw the tablecloth on his head and he commenced to shaking all over, laughing silently.

After a bit, I had things packed in the wagon, and he gently set April down, still sleeping, on the bunched up tablecloth and got up to his knees and leaned on his heels and faced me. Let’s see, he said, How does it go? Wash your face and hands, and be a good sport and tip your hat? What else is required of a gentleman friend? Oh, yes, bring flowers and be kind to her Mama? He was smiling so sweetly and not grinning like he was laughing, and I couldn’t help it, I felt my face turn red and hot.

So I said, Captain Elliot, I am recently a widow and am not receiving suitors and do not expect to in the future. Something caught in my throat and felt like I was choking. I said, I have a child to raise and a ranch to run, and I’ve got to make some money to pay my hands and make it ’til the fall when I can sell some horses. In my head I was thinking I don’t know how I’ll do it because they won’t let a woman in the trading corral, and Albert will have to, but it will be the first harvest time he’ll have, and besides, it was the first time I thought that I owed the Maldonado boys for their help and I had been selfish.

His face got serious. Mrs. Reed, you take a lot of chances, and you stand up to them all. Why not take a chance on me? You can see I’m widely admired by both dogs and children, he says, real grand, And I ask you, is that not a fair recommendation?

I shook my head. A soldier is not what I want to hook up with anyway, least of all a smart alecky one like this, and I need to get to a hotel, and get home, and make some more soap to sell. I meant it, I told him, I’m not interested in suitors, not anyone. Not ever.

And I felt burning tears flood into my eyes and turned my head from his hard gaze.

Captain Elliot would not leave well enough alone, and although any real gentleman could have seen I had had quite enough of his company, as further proof of his poor character that man saw nothing of the sort.

Kneeling there in the grass at the park, I started to tear up, feeling stiffened and shamed, and wanting to sniff back tears like a baby. And he took liberties and touched my arm and made me look him square in the face. For a while we kneeled and faced each other as still as two posts in a fence line, until April woke up and came over to me. Just as she did a tear drop that had been blurring my sight rolled onto my face.

She said, Mama got owey? in her baby voice, then stood on her little toes and kissed my cheek, and said, Give you sugar, all better! Then the tear filling my other eye spilled out. She poked out one little pink finger and picked the tear off my cheek, examining it on the tip of her finger as it sparkled. She held it toward Captain Elliot and said, Mama got owey?

He was drilling a hole in my head with his eyes, but he said to April, Yes, honey. Mama’s got owey. Straight through the heart, I’d reckon.

She tugged on his uniform and said, Give Mama sugar! like it was a command. I couldn’t believe it, I was betrayed by my own baby daughter. Then he got that strange look on his face I recognized by this time, and his mustache tipped up on one side.

It might be safer for me, he said, and easier, to give old Mr. Geronimo a sugar, right now, Little Bitty. But you give her sugar, plenty. So he picked April up and held her to me and she about choked me hugging my neck and kissing me again and again.

He climbed up in my wagon without an invitation, and drove us to this hotel on Congress. I was too upset to tell him no. While we drove he told me some long story about a General Crook and trying to get back from some campaign before July Fourth and did I want to go to dinner at Levin’s Gardens and hear the Sixth Army Band and see some fireworks?

I was too confused to think, and I believe I nodded to him that I would meet him, but now that I am more in my mind, I am sure that I will not be here then, and have no need to spend money for a fancy dinner. Besides, I didn’t say anything, I just nodded, and that doesn’t mean anything as I was addled for a few minutes like Mama and she used to nod all the time and it didn’t mean anything.

I remember reading about such an unwanted situation in the Happy Bride book, so I will send him a letter and say that if he thinks I have an intention of meeting him in town, he has mistaken my courtesy for friendship, and that a lady does not make such an arrangement, and to please disregard it, or something like that.

That man makes me feel like I have my bonnet on backwards.

April 16, 1885

I started a letter to refuse Captain Elliot’s invitation, but have not had the time to finish it. I will have to see if someone is going to the station soon to take it. Mice or rats have got nearly all the oats, and Jimmy would have a fit if he knew his horses had to go without oats for a few weeks until I can buy them. It seems I forgot all about practical things while in Tucson last.

Harland said maybe you can order them from the Sears and Roebuck, so he is over here looking hard through all the pages.

I caught him studying the ladies’ bloomers and corsets, and asked him was he planning on ordering a few, and he turned the page and began to concentrate on farm implements instead.

I had a long talk yesterday with the Maldonado family about all the work they have done for me and they were at first offended that I would pay them. I figured up I would already owe them each for three months at least, and in most ranches, that’s about a hundred dollars apiece. Even with my soap business there is no earthly way I will see that kind of cash, so it was agreed that they could each have a pick of a horse for past labor, and that they will come only two days, not three, at least until I can sell some stock. Then after the summer is over I will still give them that calf, who is turning into a sturdy looking heifer already. This is not nearly enough, but I must do what I can.

They went home leading the two they had chosen, one light-footed mare and a stallion, but I know they purposely did not pick the best horses here. And they did not even glance at Rose, for which I am selfishly thankful. Their Papa felt close to Jimmy because they both loved and knew horses, and I’m sure those boys could have made a better pick, but they are generous to the last. If I could be sure it would only be for breeding, I would have insisted they take the big chestnut stallion that Jimmy rode to his death. He is a beautiful blood line, but I am scared to death one of them would also be killed by him. He has stayed skitterish since Jimmy died.

April 17, 1885

Woke up with a cold. April had been fretting and sniffling yesterday, too. This morning I got a real surprise. Ruben Maldonado, who I now know is only eighteen years old and I am already twenty, rode up and asked me if we could talk a while.

Well, I had a headache and a sick feeling behind the eyes from this cold, but I could see he was very serious, so I said, Of course. That sweet boy asked me to marry him. I still can hardly believe it. He said he works for me for free and gladly, though not because he is generous, but because he is in love. It was the saddest and sweetest thing to see that great big boy say these things to me with such a red face.

He is a hard worker and genuine and kind, and I know he will make a good husband. But I have no feelings like that toward him at all, no more than I would for my own brother. I should have understood when Jimmy asked me too, some of those same feelings. Maybe we could make a good life together. Ruben is a nice person. But I want to love someone, too.

I was sure scared of being alone but I know now that I didn’t love Jimmy, and I don’t love Ruben, and being alone isn’t so bad compared. But then I remember Albert kissing Savannah and her all wrapped up in him, and I never in my life have had nor gave such a kiss, and I truly want to have a feeling like they do, like they are hungry for each other.