The Star Garden (11 page)

I hurried toward the house with him fast on my heels, all the while thinking it was pure folly to have Chess and Gilbert both gone at the same time, and more folly still to want Udell here as much as I did. No telling which part of my heart wanted him here. Surely I’d only suggested it as any friend would do? And, of course, it was a suggestion with no hidden intent, a mere feather of a word. Nothing more. Why did the words between us carry so much weight they seemed to rattle on the floor to be tripped over?

“Sarah?” he said, breathing heavily. “Slow down. I came … I wanted to tell you something.” He caught my arm as I reached the front door. I pushed it open. Granny was not in the front room. He followed me toward the kitchen and said, “Ask something, that is.”

I turned to face him. I was panting. “Ask,” I said. At first I thought he was going to ply for another kiss. I waited for it. I felt the heat of him standing there, not a foot away.

The look on his face changed. “Sarah, I admire you so.” Udell was quiet for a minute, then he shook his head and said, “Just wondering what kind of pie that was you were going to make?”

“That was your important question?” I pulled the flour crock from its corner and hefted it to the table, grunting when I set it down. He sat and watched. He hadn’t offered to carry it like he usually did. As if things were different between us. “Suppose I’ll make a supper pie and a dessert pie,” I said, eyeing him carefully. I got the can of lard and turned a spoon in it, to make a good smooth lump. Then I put in half a spoon of salt. My hand shook and spilled the salt. He went to brush at it; his hand touched mine, and it felt as if he’d stung me. I couldn’t speak. He stood and put grains of salt over each our shoulders, but he was jumpy and jittery, clearing his throat, and wouldn’t look me in the eye.

For the next hour we did a strange and gentle dance, Udell and I, circling behind each other and around the kitchen table and Granny in her chair, with him kindling up the stove and fetching me water, me reaching for carrots one minute and butter the next. He shelled pecans and cracked a sugar cone into grains while I beat eggs. The room warmed and stirred as the pecans and sorghum whirled in a yellow bowl. When I got both pies in the oven, the carrots and flat beans and gravy bubbled in one pie soon as the sugar and pecans bubbled in the other. Outside, the sun lumbered toward the horizon and the room was bathed in a honey-colored light, dusted with flour. Rather than look like snow, it appeared as if we were covered with the pollen of a great, fragrant flower.

At supper, Udell said over and again how he loved that vegetable pie, and thought there was nothing better until he tasted the pecan. Then he had another piece of the savory followed by a second piece of the sweet. He groaned with delight. At last his eyes settled on mine and I thought he was going to say something but he didn’t. I got up to clear the dishes. For the longest time, he seemed to be frozen, and then I saw something that made me tremble, for his eyelids held a rim of tears, as if he’d looked at some dear old memory and seen in front of him only something harder and colder—me.

I collected the spoons and knives. Granny poured hot water into the wash pan. Something was as wrong as a mule wearing bloomers, and my insides felt like my dinner had turned to rocks. I said, “Granny, are you washing? Here’s the last.”

Keeping his voice low, Udell took hold of my hand as I reached in front of him for the final spoon, saying, “Let the dishes wait, and I’ll help you with them later.”

“No time like the present,” I said, and wiggled my hand loose.

He struck a match and lit two lamps, putting one on the shelf near me and carried the other to Granny and set it down over the washtub. Udell stared at the flame and said, “Sarah, I’m going to Colorado for a while. Aubrey’s gone to town to get me some papers and as soon as he gets back I’m going. He’ll help you out with anything you need. I should be back in three weeks.”

I started pumping rinse water. I held the pan wrong and water shot into a plate, dousing my apron. “What’s in Colorado that can’t wait until after Christmas?”

“A judge. And a vault. Frances’s mother died last Christmastime. Her mother’s will left everything to Frances and it hasn’t been changed even though she was gone. The woman didn’t like me much, so I swore to myself not to take her money, but it’s just sitting there, being eaten up by taxes and lawyers’ fees. I’ve been thinking long and hard about my life, and what I’d do over. It’s no good to go away from things. It’s better to go toward things. Do you know what I’m saying?”

“Doesn’t seem right to have to go for Christmas. Bank won’t even be open.” I tried to find a dry corner of my apron to wipe my hands with. “You’ve been acting like there was something on your mind. Why don’t you just say it clear?” I put a pat of lye soap in and filled the pan with hot water from the kettle always on the stove. I’ve been known to be stubborn and blind to things I didn’t want to see. I’ve been called hard and I’ve lived that way. Always having to do for my own like I was a man. I’d rather he’d say what he meant to say and get on down the road.

After a long, awful stretch of silence, Udell said, “Sarah, I’ve been living in that tent, pretty much a failure, sitting on the mistakes of the past. Maybe trying to leave it all behind is the mistake of the present. I have ten days to claim that money, or it reverts to the bank. Frances’s mother had it set up in case I didn’t come back from Cuba. I’ve got to get to Denver before the end of the year.” He went across the room then, pumped water into my coffeepot, set it on the stove, then opened the stove door and prodded the coals back to life under it. “I have to build a new house.”

“You’re saying you plan to get this money for a house?”

“I came to ask you to go with me. We could hitch up in town on the way. Make a sort of honeymoon out of the trip. ‘Course, it will be cold, but if you’re coming I’d take a train. Otherwise I’ll pack a mule.”

The color of sunflowers that had dazzled the room an hour earlier was gone and winter gray filled the place. “It must be a lot of money.”

“Well, it pays off the mortgage and likely could put up a shack on it. Nothing fancy. Come along with me, we could see some country.”

“It’s Christmas. Charlie might come home.”

“If it weren’t urgent, I wouldn’t go. I aimed to ask for your hand. I can’t ask you to live in a tent, Sarah.”

“Udell, you don’t have to go on account of me. It’s the dead of winter.”

“It’s a lot of money.” He waited a long time, then said, “It’s a future.”

“Wait a minute. If you hadn’t come back from Cuba, why wouldn’t Aubrey inherit it?”

“He would if he’d go up there to get it. If I’m alive, it has to come to me first, and either way, the deadline is the thirty-first, but—” He stopped, then said, “It is Christmas. I didn’t mean to get you riled.”

“I’m not riled.”

“Suppose I’m mistaken, then.”

I took the coffee mill off the shelf and measured leftover beans roasted this morning into the chute. My hands trembled, so I held fast to the crank and steadied the machine against the table. I tried to laugh a little, but it came out cranky, and I said, “You sure you’re not going up there to hold up some bank? If you come back jingling, tongues are going to wag.”

He watched me fumbling with the grounds, spilling half of it, and took it timidly from my hands, refilling the funnel with beans and turning the crank.

I rubbed my forehead with the back of my wrist and tied the coffee bag while he ground the mill. He said, “Sometimes I don’t know if you make jokes because you aren’t really so angry or to hide that you’re ready to spit nails.”

“Take your pick.”

Udell took the lid off the coffeepot and dropped in the contents of the drawer. He said, “Will you wait for me, then?” with that warm look in his eyes that turns all the hardness in me soft. “You aren’t going to go and marry while I’m gone? There are other suitors?” His words sounded teasing, but his face looked sorely pained.

“Suitors, my hind foot. See if that coffee’s done. Give it a stir.”

Udell did as I ordered, but turned a somber expression to me. “Be straight up with me, Sarah. I thought you had some fond feeling toward me. You wouldn’t wait?”

“Wait? That’s what every man I’ve run across wants. They,
you,
gallivant around the countryside off on some mission or other, and I stay at this place and
wait.
Just wait and wait some more. Never knowing if you’re alive or dead, run over by a train or took off with a slack-jawed
señorita
from Coahuila.” I started to choke on the knot in my throat and tears rimmed up in my eyes. I hollered at him, “I’ve waited for men and I know what that brings me. No, Udell Hanna. I ain’t waiting for you nor any other two-legged jasper that wants to hang his spurs on my back door. I’m not waiting for no one, ever again.”

“Sarah, you are the confoundingest woman,” he said. “I believe you were mad before you knew what I was going to say.”

I stacked the plates noisily and said, “Well, I aim to be confounding. It’s one thing I claim right knowledge of.”

Granny stood abruptly. She said, “Too noisy in here. I’m going to bed.”

“G’night, Mama,” I said. Wiped my eyes quickly on my sleeve. Then I turned to Udell, who’d gotten stiff as a post right where he stood. “Go on to Colorado. Traipse through the mountains in the dead of winter. I’ll see you
if
you come back.” The coffeepot was boiling.

He stirred the brew with a long wooden spoon, watching the grounds spin around. After a while he said, “If I’d thought it through, why, I could have made the trip a month ago. But this fall, with the fire and all—I’d forgotten the will until Aubrey got home and talked about it.”

I pulled two cups from the shelf and set them on the table.

Udell took hold of my arm. “Sarah, I’m coming back to you.”

I jerked my arm but he held fast. I said, “I’ve been told that before.” There were any number of ways a man could desert a woman. So far, I’ve known enough of that to last me the rest of my life.

“I’m telling you that, now. Look at me.”

“I’m fetching the coffee. Let loose my arm.”

He circled me with his arms. “I am coming back. I promise. Look at me.”

“I don’t want to.”

He sighed. “Well, you aren’t fighting too hard to get away, either.”

“I’m fed up with people leaving me.”

“I know,” he said, and kissed my forehead. “I know it. You angry enough I can get a kiss and keep both lips, or am I going to lose a hunk of one?” He pressed my back and hugged me close.

I said, “Oh, turn me loose, you.” But he didn’t. He laid a kiss square on my mouth. Still, much as I enjoyed that, I asked myself what could possess me to buckle under so easy. When he pulled away, I said, “You’re leaving tomorrow?”

“After chores.” He took a towel and lifted the coffeepot, pouring it partially on the table, but getting some in both cups. Then he dropped the towel on the puddle and sopped at it.

I passed him the first cup and we sat as if no strong words had passed between us. “You’re staining my dishcloth.” I hung it on its peg. “We’ll mind your cows.”

“Don’t suppose you’ll know if you want to marry by the time I get back?”

“You come back, first.”

“No harm in just going on being friends. Anyway, it’s all said, out in the open.”

“Can’t stand pussyfootin’ around when there’s a thing to be said.” We were quiet for a long while. My heart quivered with pain. Sometimes I wondered why it kept beating at all, it hurt so deeply, so often.

He said, “Anything I can bring? I’ll be passing through town coming back.”

“Sugar. That pie was the last of it and Granny likes it. Udell, do you think that’s all it comes down to, in the end? That a person is only the money they leave behind? How much or how little, that’s all there is?”

“That your impression of what I’m doing?”

“Someone else brought up the subject earlier. Never thought of my mama as a cipher.” I winced at my impatience with her.

“I believe your mama is richer than Solomon. She’s got you. What I don’t have is working cash to build me a farm.”

My throat grew tight. I said, “I wish you knew her before she got so addled.”

A smile worked its way around Udell’s mouth. He reached for my hand again and this time I gave it to him. “I am mightily fond of you, Mrs. Elliot,” Udell whispered.

I sipped the last of my coffee, then said, “It’s awful late to get home. You could take Charlie’s bed since he’s gone.” As if heaven conspired to make my point, a distant clap of thunder announced a light rainfall. “Granny’s a light sleeper,” I added.

Udell leaned toward me and placed a tiny, light kiss on my lips. In that small touch, so much more than the passionate one before, I could feel the stubble on his cheek in need of a fresh shave. I inhaled the smell of his skin mixed with coffee and a hint of soap and a faint whiff of sweat; the smell of a man. It would be a hard contest to decide which kiss I enjoyed more.

He went to tend his horse while I banked the coals in the stove and refilled the kettle so the steam would heat the room through the night. I carried coals in the scuttle to start Granny’s bedroom stove along with the ones in my room and Charlie’s. I set extra wood by Charlie’s stove, too, and turned up the lamp in there.

As I carried a last lamp to my room, Udell came in from outside. From the hallway, I watched him hang his damp hat and coat, watched him reach the doorway to Charlie’s room, hands outstretched in the near dark. He was only a shadow with the light behind him. “Good night, Mr. Hanna,” I whispered.

I saw him turn from the open bedroom door. He said, “Sweet dreams, to you, Mrs. Elliot.”

Neither of us took a step. The lamp grew heavier in my hands until I feared I’d drop it. We stood like statues, in the doorways of two rooms so far from each other he might as well already be in Denver. The lamplight sparkled in his eyes.

Come to me. Rush across this cold floor and take me in your arms. If I take one step would I fly wantonly to you? Would you be repulsed by such a show of vulgar desire? Or would you run to meet me, pinning me against the wall with passionate caresses?
The house was empty except for Granny snoring soundly behind a heavy door at the end bedroom. My feet took root. We stayed there, watching each other in the shadows.