Between Earth & Sky (22 page)

“My head,” she said once. “It's like being filled with the wind, knowing all this.”

Two months she studied and mothered Anna. Oh, she took such care of her daughter at times, dressing and feeding her, playing and singing. A few times each week we would take two of the horses and ride out into the desert or along the river. She asked to do this even when it was bitterly cold or if there was snow on the ground.

Late one afternoon as we rode, the dark hulk of the mesa looming above us, the sky cold and dry, brittle as if it could be cut away like crystal, we heard a sound like the playing of a flute. It was far away but, like smoke, seemed to sift through us. “We need to turn back,” I said to Margaret.

Slowly she turned around on her horse to face me. “I love it. Don't you understand?” she asked, and rode off towards the strange music. I would not have been surprised to see her horse leave the ground, she was so fast. It was as if she vanished. Hours after I returned, she rode back through the darkness of a new moon, her hair matted from the wind, tangled and torn like an animal's. And I thought again, as she collapsed on the ground, undone with exhaustion, how she was possessed by some spirit, some animal spirit. She would have slept, slowly freezing, if not for José, who carried her to her bed.

Two days later I woke before the light came under the curtains, and even in the dark quiet I could feel what was changed. When I stepped out into the garden, a cold wind snapped me almost in two. I leaned against the doors to bolt them, and it was then that I felt the chilled stillness which filled the inside of the house.

Anna, still in her bed, felt it too, for she cried out, and this was my relief; that my daughter had not taken her child. Here was Anna in her bed, not blown across the mountains to some unknown desert, some foreign place. I carried Anna into her mother's room, where the simple shapes of the furniture lay like shadows, and slid my hands along the wall and the bed. The mattress was bare. When I lit a lantern, I saw she had taken her trunk and the bedding with her. Later I would find one of the horses and a wagon missing.

Today the cold finally broke. I should be grateful for the time I had with her, as I was for Josh and Patsy's brief stays, but Maggie, I am not. I wish she had never left California, and if she dies somewhere out in the open, I hope I do not learn of it.

Your Sister,

Abigail

June 12, 1902

Dear Maggie,

We had a quiet winter and spring, with few visitors—Miss Jenny Alden, Paula and José, who came almost daily to help me with the chores, and Teresa, who often spends the afternoon with us. Jenny Alden visits frequently, and twice during the winter she spent the night with us. I delight in her company, for it is a pleasure to exchange ideas with someone who is knowledgeable and thoughtful in all that she does. She brought with her a book by Rudyard Kipling and left it for me to read. Also, there are some papers she is compiling on Indian life from her own observations, which she wished me to read.

Pamela Porter, Annabelle Sloaner, and the others who once formed an intimate circle with me no longer visit here. I know it is because of Anna, but they will not say, any of them, when I ask why they have refused an invitation to dinner or for sewing and gossip. I do miss their company, but their absence has made me value Jenny Alden's company all the more, for she is forthright and honest about her opinions and does not allow any prejudice to stand in the way of friendship.

I look forward to my visits with Teresa with increasing gratitude. We ride or walk the short distances between our houses and talk of Anna, who is her delight, of gardening, the season, young people—of whom we have little understanding—and water, always the talk of water or drought, about which Teresa has many stories and predictions. She claims this summer the harvest will be plentiful and that the river will swell with water. This she says she knows from watching her burro and horse, for they cannot seem to get enough of running through the pasture. “God tells the animals,” she said yesterday as we watched her horse leap across a fallen tree, then rear back on its hind legs as if dancing.

I was sorry to hear of Sally Burton's passing last winter. Amy mentioned it in her letter and said the funeral was held in California, but she did not include any other details. If you know anything more about the circumstances of her death or about the family she left behind, please let me know. I only saw her once since we separated from the wagon train all those years ago, but she has been forever in my heart, as you are, Maggie. I still receive an occasional letter from Bea Manning. She has asked me more than once to meet her in San Francisco, where she travels to do business, and I suppose that someday I shall. It would be quite a reunion that we would have.

Your Sister,

Abigail

January 7, 1903

Dear Maggie,

It was a fine holiday, as full of people as I have had in years. George was here for a week-long visit, and Jenny Alden stayed with us for two nights. All of us attended church on Christmas Day, and it was the first time I have done so in years. Anna was dressed in white ruffles with a wide sash, and Jenny Alden had curled her hair so that it fell in ringlets. She made a pretty picture; even Pamela Porter and Annabelle Sloaner had to smile at her.

George has offered to return in the spring to help build a house for Paula and José here on my land. For several years now José has overseen the planting and cutting of alfalfa and corn. His wife still helps with Anna, and both of them have seen to the chores for me in the winter when I have needed their help. I have paid them, of course, but it is a small amount when compared with what they have given. The house and the piece of land surrounding it are only what they deserve, and as more of the work here becomes difficult for me, it will be necessary to have someone to take over the operations of the farm.

I still work at the school once or twice a week while Teresa cares for Anna. Recently, others have offered to relieve me of that responsibility, but I am not ready to give it up. It is as if those hours exist in a glass that I could carry to the window and, holding it to the sun, watch rainbows dance. Each loss of my life is forgotten, every trial disappears, as I listen to the children recite and watch them compose their lessons. Miss Alden has had her way, and so there is no separation between the white children and the Indians. For the most part it is a harmonious blend.

I have received a letter from Margaret postmarked Arizona. It is really just a note and difficult to decipher. Tell me what you understand of it. I am afraid her mental state is precarious. I have written back that she can come and live with me, as I imagine she is destitute. It is both my hope and my dread that she will do it.

Your Sister,

Abigail

This is a post office box where you can write me, care of Joseph Lames. I want to know how Anna is and tell me everything. I am staying different places. There was some work but none now. I was trying to get out of California and a bad time there that I came here. I want somewhere to stay but there is nothing to do here not even laundry that I can find. 1 won't stay in one of those asylums. Oh Susan did and she said it was worse off. I need a horse and then I could ride the desert. Margaret

August 13, 1903

Dear Maggie,

Each summer seems to go by more quickly. If I live past seventy, I suppose I will blink my eyes and the harvest will be over. José managed all of the alfalfa cutting and harvesting this summer. He and Paula are content in their house, which George helped build this past spring. “The land could still be yours,” I told George one afternoon while he was here. “I would sign the deed over to you today if you wanted it.” But he is used to the wider spaces where they range cattle and says the mountains are too close here. Like Clayton and me, he wants to make his own way.

Anna continues to thrive. Paula tends to the child as if Anna were her own, and Teresa will often keep her for the better part of a day. I sometimes think she receives too much mothering, but I am just as guilty. Entire afternoons I spend with her in my lap, both of us napping. Perhaps I am getting old. Teresa insists I am still young. She herself turned sixty this past summer but still oversees the operations of her farm. Last month I found her in the heat repairing a break in the acequia. “Help me with the wood,” she called up to me, and so we were two nearly old women dragging a branch up out of the water.

It has been a dry month. There was little alfalfa in the last cutting, and since most of the water has gone to the alfalfa field, the apples are woody and tasteless. Amy has written that they will visit in October. She sent a photograph of Ellen, which is simply adorable. My hope is that George can get here, if only for a few days during their visit, as they have not seen one another since Clayton's death.

I spend much of my time painting the mountains and cliffs, Paula bent over a child in the yard, a vase of verbena. Are we to feel wise as old age approaches? I cannot imagine it.

Your Sister,

Abigail

January 15, 1904

Dear Maggie,

For nearly a month now, I have meant to respond to your Christmas greetings. As you have no doubt heard, George was here for three days during Amy and Everett's visit. I insisted on taking them up to the mesa, as the month of October was strung with clear, dry days. Amy and Everett were certain the trip would tire me, but it did not. Indeed, poor Everett had more difficulties than I did with staying on his horse. It was during that week in October when the world turns all shades of gold and red, so that it looks as if the land is on fire. The wide blue sky formed a brilliant contrast, which all afternoon I spent delineating in my mind so that sometime later I could paint it.

By the end of their visit Ellen followed me about the place quite merrily and wanted paints of her own whenever she saw me at my easel. I set her next to me with paper and charcoal, and she spent an hour or more at a time carefully marking lines. I do think she has a talent if Amy will indulge it.

Christmas was rather dreary, as a freezing rain fell all day. I am quite sure the ice damaged the fruit trees, and it may have killed the small ones, which I had José plant last fall. The mission school put on a pageant, for which I sewed all of the costumes. Jenny Alden has taught the children to sing beautifully.

While Amy was here, I took her to the school, and she was impressed with the changes that have been made. She said that in reading and writing it was as advanced as the schools back east. The friendship between her and Miss Alden was instantly made. If Amy had not met Everett and settled in Virginia, I can picture her working here, like Jenny Alden, forging a place for young minds in the wilderness.

Anna does well. We had a scare with her last month when she ran a fever for three days, but it appears she only had a cold. Please give Irene my best wishes on her latest arrival.

Your Sister,

Abigail

June 25, 1904

Dear Maggie,

The summer heat is upon us, and the season promises to be dry. Already the ditches are shallow. I have given over the alfalfa planting and harvesting mostly to José. I still tend to my flowers and a small vegetable garden and ride out to inspect the ditches and orchard, but José completes any repairs that must be made and helps with the fruit harvest.

The Reverend Brown and his sister have suggested that I allow them to find a more “suitable” home for Anna, “a good Spanish family.” They also offered to raise the child at the mission. I must remind myself that they are trying to be helpful, but she is my grandchild, and I am most capable of making decisions concerning her well-being.

Pamela Porter and Annabelle Sloaner, along with, I'm quite sure, all of the ladies of this valley, believe I have no business raising the child. What they would have me do with her is not clear, but as soon as I enter a room at school or at church where they stand conversing, they are outspoken about their feelings on racial intermingling and the ill that will come of it. Perhaps they fear she will marry one of their own grandchildren when she is grown. Just yesterday, Pamela Porter expressed that it all might seem more acceptable if I were more outwardly concerned, by which she meant more visibly repulsed by the child. I suppose then I could play the martyr.

I still plan to teach this fall at the mission school one morning each week. I attend church each Sunday I am able to make the trip, and I hold my head high.

I remain your sister,

Abigail

December 7, 1904

Dear Maggie,

As you may have heard, George and Margaret were both here for a visit in early November. George had written that he would come just as soon as the cattle drive was over and spend two or more weeks making repairs on the house. Margaret's visit was a surprise to both of us. She arrived late one morning, having arranged a ride with a stranger from the train station. I do not know where she got the money for the ticket, as she came with nothing.

For some time George has been critical of my handling of his younger sister, claiming I should not allow her to come and go, visiting the child when she desires. But she was quite enamored of little Anna, carrying her about the house, singing to her in Spanish, taking over the largest portion of her care, so how could I do as George wished and forbid her access to the child as long as she refused to take responsibility for raising her? He claimed I must take part of the blame for her vagabond life, for I have made it too easy for her to wander about.