Between Earth & Sky (18 page)

After an hour or two the market place had thoroughly confused us with its loud chaos—the shouts of those bargaining, the music of stringed instruments, singing and dancing, the screeches of a parrot, a donkey's brays. We wandered into a stall filled with picture frames of designs made of human hair, yellow, brown, red, black. It was a sight that nearly made me sick, and I thought of the two pale-blond locks of hair I have set in a frame, tucked away with my Bible.

Clayton took my hand as we left that place, and we walked away from the market towards another part of the town, looking for some quiet place to eat our lunch. It was there we happened upon a small gallery that sells coins, various collectors' items, paintings, and photographs. Several canvases were on display, one by our old friend Dr. Mayfield. Clayton pointed it out, his only comment being that he felt my paintings of the desert were quite superior and that I should submit them for display despite the fact that paintings by ladies are said not to belong in such places.

I have few illusions about my paintings. I have given some of them away as gifts, and so a few of them grace my friends' walls. But as I said to Clayton, I remain an amateur. “I'll send them myself, then,” Clayton commented as he took down the gallery's address. “Let them see what a homesteader's wife can do.”

It is early summer now, and the desert is still blossoming. I ride out with Clayton along the river to see that repairs are made to the acequia. Our alfalfa fields are planted, and there are numerous apples on our trees in the orchard; the season promises already to bring a good harvest.

We are in accord, Clayton and I, in all that we do. Alone now, the two of us on an evening might walk out to the orchard or along the roadside to watch the sun drop down behind the mountains. Some evenings we spend in the garden, exchanging thoughts. “God is here in the desert and in this valley,” Clayton said last night. “I would have given up on God had I not come here after the war.” And I remembered how much without hope he was when we first came to the valley, his back bent with paralysis from the mining accident.

We looked out where the mountains meet the sky, where the sun had just begun to touch the horizon. “The firmament, Abigail,” he said. “The living light of God.”

Your Sister,

Abigail

December 30, 1893

Dear Maggie,

I must write to thank you for your kind note and the book that you sent all wrapped in the prettiest paper. I am sorry not to have written before the holidays. Some days it seems I cannot stop long enough to think even of my loved ones, and when I've spent the day reading to the Indian children or riding through the valley, Virginia seems farther away than ever. In a sense, I am grateful, for when this present moment is filled to its wide brim, the past nearly ceases to exist. But I must be mindful of those far away who should be in my thoughts.

George arrived two days before Christmas, having traveled by train from the ranch he is working on in Colorado. Clayton is glad to have his son's company, and they have taken to riding out together each afternoon. They carry their guns with them on the pretext of hunting but do not bring back any game.

At night we sit by the stove and hear stories of cattle drives and roundups. One evening George persuaded Clayton to tell the story of our passage west, but Clayton is not a story teller and the journey sounded so dull by his telling of it and so short, you would think we did nothing but stare at the backs of our oxen for a few weeks.

“There was a child lost,” I said when he was finished. “Your son.” Then we both told George of the drowning, and I was surprised to hear how much Clayton could call back, each detail, how Josh's hair was nearly dried from the sun by the time the Indian quit trying to make him breathe, how I insisted on changing his wet clothes before we moved on with the train.

George Michael leaves in a few days for Colorado. Clayton and he are gone this afternoon, having ridden up to Señor López's to see about buying a horse. I wish that one of Amy's visits would overlap with George's. It has been years since they have seen one another, since before Amy's wedding. Tomorrow is the thirty-first, and I will sweep the entire house so that we can begin the New Year clean. Maggie, do not think because you have not heard from me these many months that I wish anything but the best for you and your family. Amy writes that Robert and his wife have had their first child and Irene now has a second. Soon you will have a whole host of grandchildren!

Your Sister,

Abigail

April 7, 1894

Dear Maggie,

I am writing you this letter upon Amy's insistence. I am past putting the losses of my life onto paper. As you know, Amy arrived with Everett last week for her father's funeral. George came three days ago and will stay the summer to help with the farming. It seems I have gotten my wish that they see one another again. He was fifty-four years old. The doctor has said it was his heart, which the injury to his back all those years ago had weakened.

He was buried on our land, beneath the pale-green cottonwoods. The leaves filter the sunlight so that it flickers across the ground in delicate patterns. It is a restful place. In some ways it seems I knew that our time together was limited, that he would leave me to get old alone. But still, when I saw him that morning—for he died in his sleep, with little sign except for a complaint about indigestion the night before—I could not stop myself from falling down beside him, from sobbing. It was Teresa who found me like that, a few hours later when she came to show me where a patch of wild onions grew.

I do not know what life holds for me—an older woman alone on her dwindling homestead, for I shall have to sell some of the acreage. George has promised to stay on to help me get things in order, but he will return to cattle ranching, which is what he loves. Amy will return east. I have written but received no answer from Margaret.

You have not yet written, but I know how the letter will read when I open it. And perhaps I should sell the land and return east with Amy. She argues this case in an admirable way several times a day. But, as you have commented over the years, I am stubborn beyond belief and seem to have gotten myself planted here in all this sand and dry heat, my roots running as deep as the cottonwoods. I cannot imagine looking out from my window and not seeing the mesa in the distance.

And I must ask myself what Clayton would want. He came to love this land the past twenty years. Last month, on a day when the weather was mild, we climbed the mesa. The piñons that cling to the crevices in the cliffs were a deep green against the purple and red rock. Clumps of sage brush and prickly pear covered the hillside. “In another month the cactus will be blooming,” Clayton commented, and told me he intended to ride back up there with me so I could paint them in their full color. I'll need to climb that mesa, Maggie, for both of us.

Your Sister,

Abigail

October 2, 1894

Dear Maggie,

You ask the same questions that Amy asks many times over: “How do you get along?” These have been difficult months, but you need not be uneasy about me. I have managed to keep the house and the better part of the ranch by selling off more of the outlying land. Of the fifty acres I have kept, twelve are close to the river, where the soil is rich and can be planted each summer in alfalfa. Another few acres are planted in apple trees, the very same ones that Amy and George set in with their father years ago. The remainder of the land is just the way we found it, dry sand and clay scattered with cacti and the sweetness of sage brush and a few juniper trees. I have replanted the grape arbor, and this summer the grapes hung in thick bunches from the trellis. There is an abundance here of everything, and so I have given away what I do not use to good friends and neighbors and the school.

Three days a week I travel the ten miles to the Methodist school, where I read to the younger children or correct the essays by older pupils. In the afternoons I teach the girls the fine art of embroidery, and when I bring my sketching paper and charcoal, those who have finished their work join me for a drawing lesson. They say that there are public schools now in some of the larger towns, but we are still dependent on our little mission school for any kind of education.

Miss jenny Alden is a source of pleasure for me. If I were younger and unmarried, I would strive to be more like her. She rides into the Indian villages and up into the mountains alone, equally at home and unafraid in any world she enters. She has learned to speak Spanish and the Indian language fluently, so she has no need of an interpreter. Some afternoons we two go together, and I marvel at her.

You must see, I am seldom alone, and when I am I enjoy the solitude of my garden, the company of the animals I care for, or a ride to the mesa. Here at the world's bright edge, now without Clayton, I carve out my life as on a precipice but sheltered from the wind, nourished by the sand and stone.

Your Sister,

Abigail

December 23, 1894

Dear Maggie,

Today we began the Christmas celebration at the school. We give the children candy, sing hymns, and decorate a tree with tiny gifts wrapped in tissue, hung from each branch. The children delight in the candies, ribbons, buttons, and other trinkets. I am fortunate to be kept busy with the activities at the school, for they give me little time to think on Clayton and the celebration we would be planning were he here.

The Indian tribes spend the holiday feasting and dancing. Long ago they were forced by the Spaniards to participate in Catholic rituals, but now they do so willingly, incorporating many of their own dances and superstitions into the celebrations. Some of the Indian children will stay through the holidays. They are really very sweet, shy and retiring. Their dark eyes are large and round. I do think they can learn just as a white child can.

Jenny Alden is an excellent teacher. Each day I am impressed again by her enthusiasm and energy. She is not much older than Amy and came here alone to be a missionary in this unsettled place. Her faith and dedication are inspirational. She believes that all people on this earth have the right and the need to be saved by Christ, and she intends to spread the doctrine as far as possible. She sees the Indians as a people needing instruction. Indeed, as she has pointed out, when approached with patience they learn to read as any other child does.

Miss Alden's suggestion that the Indian children be mixed with the white children met with disapproval. In fact, it is still the main topic at the sewing circles and in after-church conversations. Although I am in the minority, I must say that I understand Miss Alden's point. If assimilation and conversion are our objectives, then the Indian children must not be separated out or treated in any way as different from the others.

I will send you the letter I got from Margaret. It is really only a note, but the first thing I have received from her since she left. Pass it along to Amy when you have read it. As you will see, she mentions her father's death only briefly. I wonder if she feels some remorse that he is gone and she can no longer make amends. Perhaps she still hates him. Señora Teresa is afraid Ramon will take up gambling and thieving to get back the cattle that he lost. At times I hope they will return to live in the valley, where they might lead a more decent life, but that would be nearly impossible. Neither the Catholics nor the Protestants would accept their union. It would be easier if he were the Anglo and she merely the dark beauty who bewitched him. But as it is, disgrace will follow her.

Your Sister,

Abigail

Mama,

Got your letter about Daddy, but could not get there for the funeral. We lost most of the cattle we had bought to start the ranch and are trying to see what next. Ramon says you know we are married but you did not say it in your Utter. At least you could say that was good and not just the two of us running wild with no license. Finally I get what I want, to live like George, and better because I am boss of myself, but it is hard to keep from losing the cows. I speak Spanish all the time so sometimes English is hard for me to make out. Could you send me some money? We are low here from losing the cattle
.

Margaret

March 7, 1895

Dear Maggie,

I was pleased to hear that Susan will soon have her university degree. You are blessed to have four children, all so accomplished. George arrived for a visit in mid-February, and he left yesterday morning. He has been driving cattle north in the fall to Dodge City the last two years, where they are sold. This past September, he helped drive thousands of cattle. Part of the herd was lost during a large stampede and some of it lost to the river, but in all it was called a successful drive.

He is a young man now, Maggie, twenty-five, think of it. He was a mere boy when he left here. Now he has grown tall and has his father's dark hair. Next month he will leave on a cattle drive to Wyoming that will take him the better part of a year, and he may agree to stay on in Wyoming to help establish the ranch. He is to be one of the lead drivers and is quite proud of his position in this cattle drive, which he says will be larger and longer than any he has been on before.