The Star Garden (13 page)

There were steaming bowls of hot cider, and boiled milk with vanilla, bottles of wines and other spirits I couldn’t guess at, and what looked like dozens of little goblets and silver cups at each place. A whole table of sweets waited behind Rudolfo, where candlelight danced across lacy tablecloths loaded with glistening brown Christmas puddings and sugared fruit, chocolates stacked on delicate plates, and sugar-rimmed compotes and bowls of punch. In the center, a place of honor, but looking so plain it was clearly out of place, sat Savannah’s little cake on a heavy crockery plate.

Everyone helped themselves to the foods laid out, and the gentlemen took great helpings of my pies and the beans with marrow bones. Each one proclaimed how they admired them, too. I smiled, but somehow that filled me less with pride than suspicion. In the next room, just loud enough to be a fine side dish, someone was playing a guitar and a fiddle, and everything seemed merry. It wasn’t long until the music stopped and the children, even Mary Pearl and Aubrey, were sent to another room, and then the cigars were lit again and the talk got quiet. It was pure business, but told in shaded words with smiles and gestures that I knew meant things to those present. I could see there was an old fuss-fight going between that fellow Madera and the one named Reyes.

The one thing they all agreed on was that they needed the railroad to cut down from the Southern Pacific lines south of Benson straight to Sonora. I asked that Mr. Doheny why they couldn’t use the switch rails near Charleston, but he only smiled and squinted his
eyes
at me as if I were a child too silly to care about such things. I asked the question again, facing Doheny but saying all the words in Spanish, then Doheny quit grinning. Everyone quit talking.

Rudolfo said, “Ah, my dear Señora Elliot. We are here to offer you a business proposition, with these most respected men. Changes are coming that will pour money through our hands”—he opened his hands toward me as if he were catching something flowing from the ceiling—“and some of it will land in yours! All we have to do,” he said, clenching his fists around his mystical riches, “is take it. Sarah, I have been buying land. From Cananea by Bacoachi to Arizpe in Sonora, now almost ten thousand acres is mine below the border. I’m going to connect my land there with my land here.”

Von Wangenheim looked from Rudolfo to the other men. “Frau Elliot,” he said, then drew a breath through his cigar, and spoke through the smoke as he exhaled it toward Doheny. “Herr Maldonado is making his point well, but you, I see, are a woman who speaks plainly. What we want, Frau Elliot, is to let you in. Share the profit with you in exchange for the unlimited use of your land.”

I didn’t answer, so he continued.

“We have already sent horsemen to this area to protect our interests. Soldiers in our cause, so to speak. You see, we are going to move a large quantity of supplies by road and rail south to Mexico, and we are ready to do so very soon.”

“Whether I join with you or not,” I added.

He smiled a bitter, thin slit of a smile. “Of course, we would covet your cooperation. You would be compensated for the use of your land.”

“Why do you need my land? Why don’t you cut through Maldonado’s?”

Rudolfo grinned at me under stony eyes.

“Tracks run best over flat terrain,” Von Wangenheim said. “The parcel of land owned by your family north of your house is a prime example. The west side of your southern parcel lies in a direct route to the lovely village of Arizpe.”

I stiffened my back. Arizpe had been in the newspapers as the scene of a terrible battle between copper miners and
Federates.
A hundred and fifty miners had died on the orders of the Cananea Copper Company. “That’s a fair piece,” I said. Three of the men laughed softly. Madera did not. I sipped my tea, and checked the eyes of each of them while I did. Albert got real stiff and quiet.

Doheny said to him, “You’re the one, mister. You give the word and the little lady will do as you say.”

Albert shook his head and nodded toward me. “It’s Sarah’s land you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Rudolfo held his glass of wine toward the light on the table next to him, and seemed to study the flame through the red liquid. “
Amiga mia,
I have told them you are
la mujer de negocios excelente.
You must not overlook that these generals and directors know more about situations in the government than you. It’s very far south of here, Dona Sarah. But there is a route from there to Tucson that could become
el camino de oro.
We are talking about much gold.”

Doheny said, “Call it
El Dorado del Norte
if you wish. Hell, call it anything you want. Trick is, lady, it runs through your south lease.”

I heard shuffling around the room. Rudolfo said, “I need the lease, Sarah. You need cash. You have the best connection from Baca Loco to Pantano. I have gold.”

Rudolfo had wanted himself a governor’s chair last fall and I always thought he’d meant Phoenix, though territorial elections were not due for a couple of years. At last it dawned on me. It wasn’t Arizona but governorship of Sonora he’d been interested in. Never have been handy with shadows and slick smiles. It touched off sparks inside me I had to fight not to show. I said, “El Dorado? Isn’t that a fancy name for some burned-out cow pasture? And what about my mother’s land?”

“Ah,
si.
It is only a little track. Worth nothing. If you don’t wish to share in our venture then allow my friends to purchase a small section of land. We offer you a thousand dollars of American gold. In return for receiving this money, you will receive a hundred times over, into the future. You see what this will mean, my friend?
Tu familia?”

Friend? Like a rattler had just woke up under the floor and started shaking his tail, my insides fluttered and a keen wariness overtook me. Albert raised one eyebrow when I looked at him. Around the room, where doorways had seemed empty before, there were men all about, watching. Men in white uniforms like they were cooks and houseboys stared in at the group. They wore servants’ clothing, but they stood too ready to spring, and to a man they had hard, steely eyes, like coyotes, like they’d maybe been the very
caballeros
who’d killed the two men on Rudolfo’s land.
The padre
sipped his wine in the silence. A spot of light, reflected off the cup, showed a spider web of red lines and an old scar high on his left cheek.

Then Reyes said they had twenty-eight train cars loaded with goods, ready to pass this way, and for every one that passed I’d get another hundred dollars. While he talked, I wondered just how Rudolfo had gotten enough money to buy ten thousand acres in Sonora. My land didn’t extend halfway to Naco. But it did lie between here and Pantano’s place as a crow flies. He was going to good lengths for it, so what would he do for the rest of the passage of his Paso Dorado?

As if he heard me thinking, Rudolfo added, “I’ll fence the whole distance. For safety of your stock, you see.”

The varmint knew I had no stock roaming that range. My windmill stands guard over nothing but hungry coyotes and mangy javelinas. This was a test far beyond shaking foreign words at each other to see who’d flinch. These men were up to something I couldn’t put a name to, but it frightened me down to my core.

“What’s it all for, Rudolfo? The Southern Pacific doesn’t need this, really. Why do you men need a rail line to Mexico?”

Von Wangenheim talked about how the political future of Mexico was at stake. That Germany was behind everything they did, too. That we could count on his government for any support—and then he paused before adding—necessary. How we’d all band together for the good of the people who’d brought prosperity to Mexico. And then he said no one who’d come to this meeting could ever be apart from it again. A cold, hard iron formed itself in my back, and I breathed very lightly, just as if I were hunting and testing the wind lest I give some sign of my aim.

I thought about those men who’d chased down and killed the other two fellows. Now I knew who the murderers were, at least: part of this deal with these villains before me. It’s been in the paper now and then that revolutionaries planned on raising an army and taking back the Gadsden, then reannexing everything from the Pima County line back into Mexico. He was talking about starting a war. That meant politics and bullets, and governments taking land; the greedy and powerful always winning the lion’s share. This land was mine and I’d have no part of Porfirio Díaz taking it, nor ride with the men who plan to take it from him as soon as he did. Rudolfo had brought my family into his confederacy by trickery. We could be linked to these dark and dangerous men by attending this supper. Never mind we came out of sheer ignorance.

I happened to glance at Madera as he looked at me. He had a strangely sad look around the
eyes
for a moment. Then he turned a vicious stare toward Von Wangenheim that disappeared as quickly as it came, returning to his politician’s suave expression, aimed at Rudolfo. Rudolfo’s face proved there was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted. Somehow he needed me for it. The more desperate he was, the more I didn’t want any part of it.

Why was Albert saying nothing? I dared not look at him. He’d already made them think I was
La Mujer
of this family, the matriarch, though I never thought of myself that way. I took a deep breath, worked out the best excuse for a smile I could manage, and stood, causing every man in the room to leap to his feet. Very softly and very firmly, I said, “
Señor Maldonado, y los caballeros,
I say to you,
Feliz Navidad, adiós, y buenas noches.”

“
But Sarah,” Rudolfo said, “your answer? Perhaps if I explain again?”

The room bristled. Firelight danced from a thousand candles. The men’s fine clothing glowed. All was aflame except for the eyes of the
padre,
cold and hard above the scar on his cheek. I decided not to do them the favor of speaking anything but my own language. Last I heard, the Gadsden had a border yet. I looked Rudolfo square in the eyes. “The question is complete, and so is the answer. Good evening, señores.”

We were carried home with the same courtesy we’d arrived with, as if nothing more than a fine evening had passed. Mary Pearl and Aubrey were curious about what had happened in the “meeting,” but I told them it was nothing much, and they went back to making soft eyes at each other in the back seat. Beside me, Albert whispered and told me he’d been thinking the whole time about how to guard his house and his family from soldiers should a war break out with Mexico. I didn’t want him to know I believed the same thing, so I said, “Isn’t this just a feud between the Maldonados and us? What makes you think there’s going to be a war between the countries?”

“This is bigger than that. It ain’t going to go away, either.”

“I know it.”

“Might be better if we did have some soldiers around.”

“No, brother, I don’t think it would. You sure kept awful quiet in there.”

“Nothing much to say to a bunch of strangers. And it was your land they wanted. I couldn’t tell ‘em yes or no for you. You seemed to have a handle on it.”

“Still, I wished you’d-a spoke up. Might have added some oil to the fire.”

“Naw. You got it said. Them fellows heard every word, too. Better’n if I said ‘em.”

The carriage arrived at my front porch where Albert’s rig awaited our return, and Albert helped me down. He was just a minute going in to fetch Savannah. They left quickly with no more than a wave. We would certainly talk tomorrow.

From my porch I saw in the darkness the gleam of Mexican silver conchos on the rigs of three riders who had followed the coach. The riders waited on a hill with the moon to their side and signaled to the driver as he passed them. I wondered if the jinglings of their tack were the first drums of war. As I stared toward the sound in the deep night air, one by one they turned and followed the coach back to Maldonado’s hacienda.

Christmas morning Albert and Savannah’s family joined us at my home to have breakfast, sit around our spindly cholla-skeleton Christmas tree and sing carols and tell stories, and share our gifts with each other. We passed around food and a special treat, a crate of oranges, with a whole one for each person. I kept Charlie’s shirt in my lap, hoping the dogs would bark, the door would open, and in he’d walk, but as the sun rose and the smell of the roasting venison filled the place, he still hadn’t come.

Chess went out to tend the roasting venison while Savannah and the girls joined Granny and me in the kitchen to fix the big supper for the afternoon. First thing, Savannah pulled out a knife and cut us each a slice of a pumpkin bread she’d been up three hours making. Well, I poured us coffee and put on water to boil for more, and had a taste of that bread. It was bitter as an old root, and I looked from one face to the other, trying to swallow it.

Savannah’s eyes grew wide as she chewed. “It isn’t right!” she called. “Don’t eat this, it’ll poison you.”

“Land-o’-living!” hollered Granny.

“Savannah, what did you put in this?” I said.

“Just the regular. Flour. And mashed pumpkin, of course. Salt. Alum and soda. A teaspoon of … glorious heaven. I put in a teaspoon of sugar and a whole cup of salt.” She jumped from her chair and swished about the room, taking the bread from each woman’s hands. “Don’t eat another bite. Goodness sakes alive. I moved the sugar jar to be closer to the counter and washed out the salt cellar and left it … and then put the salt in a bowl with a blue ring on it just like the sugar jar. Whatever has possessed me?” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my!”

“What?” we all said at once.

“That cake I sent to Rudolfo’s. Did you taste it?”

“No. We left before they served sweets.”

“It was made the same way. They’ll all be sick.”

I grinned. “Are you sure?”

She looked pained. “Likely.”

“Oh well,” I said, “if they hadn’t got the
sense
not to eat a salt cake, they’d deserve it. Don’t worry. I’m sure there was plenty of other things.”

“I’ve just spent three hours boiling and mashing pumpkins to come up with this mess.”

Well, we all had a good laugh and started in making apple and pecan pies, light bread, boiling potatoes, carrots and greens, and corn bread for sage dressing. Every time any one of us went to measure the sugar or salt, we stuck a finger in the bowl and tasted it first, to be sure!

Two big surreys arrived before noon, and spilled out Harland and his children and April and Morris and theirs. True to his word, Harland had brought a crate containing a roast goose, baked yams, cinnamon rolls, and chocolate candy. April had salads and confits and fruit for two feasts. It was a great commotion of love and noise, this ever-growing brood of people who make up my family. As they were putting things in the kitchen, moving furniture around to make room for our bounty, I slipped out front and stared down the road for the hundredth time, hoping for a glimpse of Charlie, risking a fussing-at by Granny for wasting time watching a pot that wouldn’t boil. I put his shirt back in the chest to await his receiving it. The house felt lonesome. I know Charlie will leave home eventually for good, but for now, it still seemed to me that he belonged here on this day if no other.

We had cheese pies and oranges for lunch, holding off on the big feast for the end of the day. After that, all went out to play baseball; everyone except Savannah and Granny got into the game. As we lined up to hit the ball, I counted noses, then went through the house and caught Mary Pearl on the back porch by herself, frowning at the very air. I said, “First time I’ve seen you alone since Aubrey got home. What’s wrong, honey?” I said. “Are you ailing?”

“Aunt Sarah, Aubrey says he wants to buy a house for us in town.”

“That’s nice,” I said, trying to read her face.

“But he already said he’d buy me the Wainbridge ranch. He said he’d got it weeks ago so we could live there next to Mama and Papa.”

“Well, can’t you have both?” I said. “I’ve got a house in town, too.”

“Yes, but you don’t live there. Aubrey says a lawyer can’t make a living out here, that he has to be in town where people need him. I told him he could help out on the farm, and he just laughed. He laughed!”

“Oh, honey,” I said. What could I say, that he and his papa may both be filled with feathers, the way they’ll take off on a wild-goose chase over one thing and another?

“He wants to sell Wainbridge’s, for ‘capital’ he says, and buy some house close to the courthouse on Church Street.”

“It’s up to him to make a living for you,” I said. The words nearly caught in my throat. “If you’re going to marry the man, you have to live where he lives and works.”

“You haven’t ever lived clear away from Granny.”

“No, that’s true,” I said. Was I ready to live where Udell lived? Follow him if he got itchy feet like my pa and set out for greener pastures? Had I thought it out clearly? I patted her shoulder and said, “Why don’t you let it simmer for a while? Think on it and go see the house. Everyone I know ended up different than they expected. Fate, you know. It’ll settle in your mind.”

“What if it doesn’t settle? What if I hate it? I—I wanted to go to art school, and there aren’t any here, so I’ll have to go someplace else. He said he’d wait for me to go, maybe two years. Now he’s buying this house and it seems like it’s going too fast. What if I don’t want to live there?”

“Well, I don’t know just what to say, honey, but you aren’t marrying a
house.
And he’s not a pair of pants, you’re marrying the lawyer that’s in ‘em. You’ll have to decide whether you want to wash and mend them the rest of your days, not me, nor anyone else. He’s the one to choose where he can make the best living for you. You talk this over with your folks?”

“Mama tells me I’m betrothed and that’s as good as married. Papa says that a mistake only half done is twice-easy fixed. Aubrey’s not a mistake. I love him, truly, but he
told
me he was buying the Wainbridge place. Next to Mama and Papa.”

I grasped her hands and turned them in mine. They were delicate, firm, and strong, but still white and unweathered except for a line of callus across the palms. I had seen those tender fingers put a steel blade into a fencepost from across the yard, and pull a trigger on wild game and coyotes. To me, she had everything a girl could want going for her, and no one ought to try to change the course of the river that was Mary Pearl except herself. I said, “I always took you for a girl who could think for herself. A man can sure turn your head, that’s a fact. You do what’s right for him
and for
you. That’s all.”

She sighed, fell against my shoulder and hugged me, and said, “When I think about him, I can’t think at all. It’s worse than being kicked in the head by a mule.”

I laughed. Then we went to see how the roast was doing. After a bit, Mary Pearl and I got into the baseball game. At my turn, I clipped a good lick on that raggedy ball with the board we used for a bat and took off for the rock that was the first base, hiking my skirts up so I could run. Albert yelled, “Shameful!” and everyone laughed at me.

Gilbert scooped up that ball and tossed it to Ezra, who was pitching, then hollered out, “She’s been practicing that swing on my back pockets since I was little, I tell you what.”

April laughed and called to him, “No, no. I got the worst of it!”

When Mary Pearl got her turn with the bat, she hit it a lick that nearly took Ezra right out of his shoes, but he caught it so she struck out. I couldn’t read her face but it seemed to me she didn’t care about getting out so much as knocking that ball into next year. Later, Ezra hit up a ball that Gilbert missed catching so Rebeccah and Mary Pearl both got to run to home plate. We had a fine game, what with no real teams and everyone winning.

Finally, Chess announced the venison roast was ready, and we descended on our feast like jackals. Thank goodness April had also brought dishes. I didn’t even have enough plates to go around. As we all settled down I counted all those folks and added up my riches, right there, like Udell said. We were a fine bunch, I’d say. Anyone who didn’t get full at that meal didn’t half try. When we were stuffed to the gills, we started in on the sweets.

Then the grown-ups and the babies slept, while the children ran loose as chickens. The sun was low on the hills to the west when I saw a movement in the east. Two people rode horseback, moving at a gentle pace as if their horses were tired. They pulled a pack animal behind them. It was a man and a woman.

We all turned and stared. Zachary muttered, “Say, looks like Mary and Joseph showed up late, Ezra,” but Albert heard him and snapped Zack’s ear with his fingertip for blaspheming.

Pretty soon, the man held up a hand and waved, then spurred his horse onward, holding his hat in one hand. Both of them came on a gallop. It was Charlie! Charlie and a woman.

I ran toward him and he hopped down. He was clean and shaven except for a mustache, and looked all a-glow. Tall and filled out good, too, as if he’d been eating well and had finally quit growing. “Mama, oh!” was all he got out, and gripped me in a bear hug that took the breath out of me. The woman’s horse caught up to us, then, and the rest of the family gathered.

Her clothes were simple, the kind Savannah wore. On her hands were light gloves, new and likely just bought for the trip, although she rode well accustomed to a saddle. Though most of her face was hidden under a stiff shawl, the chin I saw was firm and deeply cleft, and brown.

“Well, son,” I said, “introduce us.”

Charlie grinned, not the least embarrassed or shy, reached up and lifted the woman from the saddle as if she were a child. He held her hands in his for a moment longer than the lifting down took, and gave her a sincere look as if he were reassuring her this meeting would turn out all right. I remembered in that fleeting instant the time I first met Chess and what a scallywag he’d been to me. Charlie turned to me and said, “Mama, you remember Elsa, don’t you?”

“Elsa?” I said. The woman pulled back her shawl, revealing a delicate face I vaguely knew.

Mary Pearl squealed with delight, “Elsa!” and flew between her brothers. The two girls hugged each other and kissed each other’s cheeks again and again. Mary Pearl cried, “Elsa, my dearest, sweet friend!”

Elsa Maldonado. I stared at Charlie. My mouth dropped open and my heart felt as if it had stopped. Rudolfo’s oldest daughter should have been cloistered in the convent in town. Then I sighed with relief. Charlie was simply escorting her to her folks for a Christmas visit. Naturally they came by this way first.

The clothes Elsa wore were plain and featureless, but by no means were they a habit of any order. She was trim but buxom, and had a manner about her that made her seem ten years older than I knew she was. Plus, I sensed some fear or pain in her bearing that, now that I knew who she was, I was sure did not come from meeting us.

“Well, come on and have supper,” I said. “Sun’s going down and we’ve cooked the livelong day. There’s a feast for an army. You have to stop and eat, Elsa; let us get a look at you before you go on home.”

Elsa smiled, whispering, “Thank you, señora,” before she turned to Charlie. “I hope,” she said, and paused too long, I thought, before she continued, “I
am
home.”

“Mama,” Charlie said, “folks—everyone—I mean, Elsa and I were married in town before we left yesterday. We’d have gotten here sooner but we lost a horse. I knew you’d be looking for me at Christmas. I tell you, we spent a cold night down in that arroyo.” He laughed nervously.

Granny seemed to be studying her shoes. Chess let out a whistle and everyone kept silent for a long minute. Savannah’s girls all whirled in for the rescue, surrounding Elsa and Charlie and giggling, kissing, embracing the bunch, happy as birds in spring.

Charlie had married Elsa Maldonado, connecting us to Rudolfo in a way I never to my last breath would have imagined. It would be polite to congratulate my son and his new wife, all of seventeen or eighteen years old. It would be right to hug her and kiss her, myself, and welcome her to the family. What I should have done was to smile and cheer them, but what I did was only to look into Savannah’s
eyes
and say, “Does your father know about this?”

“Now, Mama,” Charlie started.

Elsa pushed through the circle made by Rachel, Rebeccah, and Mary Pearl and faced me squarely. “No, he does not. I tried to write to him, but his letters to me in reply were only orders to stay where I was. He would hear of no choice for me but the Sisters’ convent school. I—I had to leave there. I had to. I wanted to come home, but—”

Charlie interrupted her. “Anyway, it’s done, and legal. And that tough old padre in the mission was mad at her, but Elsa and I, we—” He turned his hat around in his hands, fiddled with the band around the crown, and smoothed it before he kept on, saying, “Well, we’ve known each other since we were kids.”

Granny said, “Just like Harland and Melissa. Only Melissa didn’t have a whippersnapper of a pa waiting to put a bullet through Harland for taking her away from him.”

Charlie grimaced, but seemed undaunted. He’d been an Arizona Ranger for several months, had lived in the desert heat by his wits and his guns. Not many people could make the fellow squirm. I felt a swell of pride in him that was outside the circumstance before us. I said, “The truth of it is, son, talk to Rudolfo if you please, but the Maldonado ranch is not a place to ride up to tonight with news of that sort. He’s got men stationed around, guarding, and watching for, well, strangers. They mightn’t recognize you. You two had best bunk here.”

“I aim to get his blessing,” Charlie said. “It was because of me he sent her there.”

Had Charlie made known to Rudolfo some affection toward his daughter that had angered him? And that I never noticed?

Chess grumbled. Then he hissed, “You’ll be more likely to get his buckshot.”

Charlie laughed, but the hard resolve I saw in his
eyes
made me know he wasn’t about to back down from any man standing.