These Is My Words (23 page)

Melissa is healing up but will likely always carry a scar about as big as my hand on her shoulder and back from the fire. I’m sure she will carry scars on her heart for her dead family too. She will live with Mama and has already made a place for herself as Harland’s little sister. He is very kind to her and protects her at every turn, as if he is glad to have someone look up to him again, since Clover died he has been the youngest. He has returned to his studies. I told him I still wish for him to go to a college somewhere, and maybe there will be one nearby someday.

Rudolfo has married a neighbor girl who speaks no English. Her name is Celia and she is only fifteen, and just came and moved in with Mr. Maldonado and the children, and Rudolfo’s sister Estrellita is only a year younger.

We have gotten a newspaper from Tucson by way of the station manager. People in town are mad at the Army for letting the Apaches still carry out their misdeeds, it says, so General Crook and some soldiers went out after Geronimo on the 18th.

I wonder if Jack Elliot is riding with them. We keep our eyes on the horizon and our guns loaded.

June 18, 1885

We have come to Tucson with Rudolfo and his new tiny wife, Celia, and Melissa, Mama and Harland, and Savannah with the babies. Albert stayed home to work and look out for the horses. I have a heap of respect for my brother and I am proud to know his company.

We are here for trading and I brought two baskets of soaps. One basketful is piney and wrapped in plain paper which Harland and I wrote on: Mrs. Reed’s Gentlemen’s and Fine Laundry soap, and the others are the Ladies’ soaps all pink and perfumed. Mama was surely surprised at how much money I got for it all, and I bought a hat from Mr. Fish, my first ever purely store boughten hat. Mama sold vegetables and eggs and some small sacks of pecans, the first from the trees, and peaches, and she got almost fifty dollars herself, but turned that money into plenty of dry goods, coffee and flour and tools and such.

The word is all over town that General Crook and his men have rounded up the last Apaches. For that news we are all thankful. Maybe the killing will stop. Surely the Indian folks must want it to stop too. It seems to me that any time there are men making a war, somewhere there are women and children at home waiting and worrying.

There is a commotion going on down by Levin’s Gardens and restaurant. The Sixth Army Band is tuning up to start music, and they sound just awful. All those horns blaring away at each other like squalling geese, it is amazing how that noise could transform itself into music that all goes together in the right places. Every now and then they play a bit of a tune and then go back to blaring at each other.

Harland yanked my skirt and said, What are you staring at, Sarah? Who are you looking for?

I said, Just for Rudolfo and Celia.

And he said, They are behind us where they were a minute ago, you are looking the wrong way.

Then for the next hour or so, he kept accusing me of looking for someone in the crowds of people, but he is wrong, I am not. Finally, I told him to hush and quit tormenting me, couldn’t he see I had things on my mind? I am looking for us all a place to sit and eat, and to listen to the band. And for thieves who might steal our goods in the wagons. Besides, there are blue uniforms all around, and I thought I might recognize some of the soldiers we had fought along side of.

Then Harland pulled my arm and said, Hey, look, there’s Lieutenant Elliot.

Let me go, I said as he pointed. I was afraid he would draw Captain Elliot’s attention to us. Harland, I said, I didn’t see him and I don’t care to. I felt every nerve in my body stand on end when I caught sight of him, afraid he would come over and say something to me, but he only turned the other way, talking with some soldiers. That he didn’t see me was a relief at least.

Sarah, said Savannah, what ails you?

The heat, I said back, it is the heat, I’m afraid I will faint here in the street.

My goodness, she said, Just look at you, perspiring like that! Come in this shop quickly, and we’ll cool you down. So they were all fanning me and making me drink glasses of cool water for a while. Then we heard sounds of the band starting to play, and Harland wanted to go and was very impatient.

As the sun set and the air cooled, we sat under a shade booth covered over with a tarpaulin which didn’t shade us a bit, and listened to the band play. They were pretty good, but one horn player fainted from the heat, and they all sweated hard and looked like melted candies standing in a store window in the sun. Then General Crook gave a long and interesting speech, but April was fussing and wouldn’t sleep, so I didn’t hear it all. There were blue uniforms all around us, and some men with bandages on them, streaked with red. Finally, the sky filled with noise and bright sparkles as the fireworks went off. The wind blew the ashes from the explosions over onto us, and with it came the scent of black powder and burning fire. Melissa started to cry and hid in Mama’s arms. All around us the crowd cheered for the fireworks, and my family sat there motionless, stiff and silent. We smelled the powder and ashes and heard the crashing sounds and squealing from the people around. It chilled me to the bones.

June 19, 1885

Today being Sunday and the first time Harland or I have ever been near a real church house, we spent the morning in the Methodist church. Mama said later that the preacher was as good as any Baptist preacher she ever heard, and she was truly inspired. Savannah agreed with her, and said wasn’t it good to be in the house of the Lord, but she was used to more quiet and reverent preaching, and was not accustomed to so much condemnation and fear. Well, I was glad to be in the house of the Lord at first and hoped that some goodness will rub off on me from being near all that piety, but I felt my insides squirm when he began to preach about hell and the fate that awaits all those guilty of killing and savagery and drunkenness and lies and cheating and adultery. Drunkenness has never been a problem with me, and I don’t know what adultery means, but lies and killing I have done.

By the time he got to hollering repentance and grace and salvation and about how this is my last chance as God will not always strive with men, I was feeling about as low as a snake on the ground. Outside, where the colored folks had gathered to listen in, some woman with a high voice suddenly hollered Save Me Jesus! and about scared me to death so that I jumped up off my seat.

Then that preacher pointed at me and said, Come up here and repent Sister! You are called by the Holy Spirit to repent, and he is pricking your soul with your sins. All eyes were on me, the whole place turned and stared. In front of everyone, he yelled, Place your hands on the Bible and repent of your sins, sister. I supposed he wanted me to tell them out loud to everyone, and there were a lot of shocked faces in the seats around me, but some of the faces just seemed real interested, not repentant. I thought I was about to choke to death.

So I said, I killed some people.

And the preacher hollered, Lord forgive her! Who did you kill?

And I replied, Two bad white men and some Indians I don’t know how many, at least ten.

Suddenly he quit looking so full of the Holy Ghost and said You killed ten Indians?

I had to clear my throat to make a sound he could hear, but I said, Well, I ’spose I’m a pretty good shot. Then the whole place broke out laughing, and I felt real strange. When they got quiet, I said, And I told a lie. But then I caught sight of Rudolfo’s face, and how he looked at me with a sad kind of understanding in his eyes, and I remembered sweet Ruben and how much those two brothers loved each other. I was feeling very guilty and was going to admit that I lied about loving Ruben, but instead I said, Well, when my husband passed I only dyed my dresses black, not my petticoats, and that is a lie of mourning, so I’m sorry for it.

Then suddenly behind me there was a line of people all sobbing or sad looking, repenting and putting their hands on the Bible and swearing repentance and begging for grace and a second try. The colored folks outside were having a time, praising the Lord at the top of their lungs and shouting down the Holy Ghost that like to scared horses in three counties. Then there was some glorious singing like the roof would raise off, and it was truly a joyful noise unto the Lord as there was not a true musical note voiced among the entire congregation.

After church the children were all fussing and hungry and impatient. I felt kind of sick to my stomach and couldn’t eat dinner. Maybe that is the Holy Ghost working on my innards, but it feels more like a case of the scours.

June 25, 1885

It is purely hot. I told Albert it was the Devil giving us a little taste to remind us to be careful, and he laughed and asked me were my petticoats still white. Well, I have to admit they are, but now that I have repented for it, it doesn’t bother me too much. The Maldonado family has rebuilt now and gone back to their chores, and yet all seem to move slowly and painfully, as if the starch has gone out of them all. Rudolfo comes only one day a week now.

Mama said to me she misses Mr. Raalle most dearly, and she had begun to look forward to his visits as he was a good man. I wonder if she had grown sweet on him, as she seemed terribly pained that he died in so dreadful a way.

Harland has finished his lessons from Mrs. Fish, and is eager to return them to get more. He is teaching Melissa letters and numbers and how to add and subtract, and she does pretty well. She has started an embroidery sampler too.

Savannah and Albert are expecting again. Now she said it just as matter of fact, like it was not a surprise. Well, she is a good Mama and I am happy for them both to have a fine, big family.

Sometimes at night I lie in bed and just feel hollowed out. Part of the inside of me aches to have the kind of family that Albert and Savannah have, and to know someone in a tender way the way they do. It is real clear to me that they are precious in each other’s eyes. I think the only person that ever looked at me the way Albert does Savannah is Jack Elliot. What a fine set up that is! He is a sight harder to make heads or tails of than Albert. Captain Elliot has this recklessness about him, and a way of holding on that you don’t know he is holding on, and a way of laughing that is like he takes pleasure in the act of laughing itself. He is better to have around in a scrap than a trained wildcat, though.

Now and then, I lie awake thinking I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn’t have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless if they just made a mistake. And he’d have to be not too thin. Why, I remember hugging Ernest was like wrapping your arms around a fence post, and I love Ernest, but I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he’d have to be pretty stubborn. I don’t have any use for a man that isn’t stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander. Goodness, what am I saying? It’s not like I’d really want to hook up with Captain Elliot at all. Surely there’s got to be someone besides that ornery rascal who might want to court me.

June 28, 1885

I looked up on the hillside this morning and saw a rider coming this way. He pulled up at my well and began drawing a bucket up. I was standing out in the garden behind a tall row of beans and tomato vines, but I knew him before he turned around. Jack Elliot.

He took a long drink and went up to the door and knocked, then stuck his head inside and called Mrs. Reed? then peered around the place. I bent over and kept picking bugs off the plants. April was playing in the dirt nearby. My two dogs ran to him and frisked around, happy to see a familiar face, then started yelping too.

Mrs. Reed? he called again, and I had to stand up and face him or become a fool.

I called out hello, and he took off his hat. I could see he had something in his hands then, a little brown package, and a terrible strong smell of perfume was coming from it.

He said he’d picked it up in town, and brought it with him, but it must have been cracked in the box, because as he rode it began to smell stronger and stronger. He cocked his head and looked at me real odd, and said, Mrs. Reed, do you have a secret?

I tried to tell him it was nothing and just a special order, but the look on his face showed me he knew perfume when he smelled it.

Finally, he handed me the smelly package and said What is it, really?

So I explained to him that I made soaps and why I bought perfume, and how I couldn’t pick it up in town but at the station where no one would know. We laughed about it when he said at least he smelled better than one other time we had met.

Funny how when he laughs, he seems so nice and warm hearted, kind of like a feisty horse that you really love, full of energy and spirit but not meanness. It is only when he grins and gives me that look of mischief in his eyes that I know who he really is.

He said he came to make sure April and I were all right. And then he said he could see my garden needed water, and went to fill the bucket again. So I showed him how Jimmy had rigged up a system with a tub and a drain pipe so we could pour the well water directly into the tin tub, where it ran down a pipe and all the way to the garden, and there was a gate valve on that end, where I could fill a watering can again and again. When that was done, he went to look at my new crop of foals, and admired each one, and talked about maybe buying a horse from me.

At about that time, here came Harland up the road riding one of the huge draft horses. He called out to Captain Elliot and said everything was all set.

What does he mean? I said.

It turned out Captain Elliot had arranged to spend the night at Albert’s, and was here to pay a call on me.

Well, I told him, I am still not receiving callers.

Then he grinned and said he was not here on a social call it was strictly business, and he was here to do my bidding, mending fences or whatever needed doing. And, he said, he worked at a very reasonable rate but wouldn’t tell me what it was.