The Star Garden (26 page)

“And school?”

“Some of it is better than I imagined. I like my composition and Latin classes.”

He smiled and clucked to his horse and moved ahead, not waiting for the rest I intended to say.

We followed an old wagon rut. New tracks cut north before we got to Rudolfo’s border, in a direction I speculate could meet the end of that rail spur. I turned my horse toward the next hill so I could see. Udell followed without asking what I had in mind doing. Below that hill, a wash had cut deep and filled with sand. During rain it drained into the Cienega but now it lay dry. Lizards slithered past, changing places from bush to bush at the fringes of sand. The sky faded to green in the east; we had but a couple of hours of light left. The hill itself formed part of the ridge that went up by my place and shifted into loose scrabble where the stage had wrecked, and another half mile up caught up with the stage road. Someone had cut a wide, even place down the side of the wash. We got off our saddles and eased the horses.

“I was going to go see the other side, but I reckon there’s no sense in following this,” I said. A flicker of light, bright as gold, caught my eye. A coin. I turned it in my hand, passed it to Udell. “What do you expect that says? Due-etch? It’s not a peso.”

He studied the coin. “Looks like Dutch but spelled odd. Hear something?”

The squeak of wheels echoed up the draw we stood in. We pulled our mounts deeper into the wash and hid, waiting around a bend. Until a month ago, I’d have just continued on my way, but it felt too risky of late. It didn’t take long, and I was glad we hadn’t poked along slow, because here came a long train of men pushing horses strung together on a tether straight down from one side of the new-cut road, through the bottom of the wash and back up the other side. No sooner had they got clear of the top than a heavy wagon followed by three more just like it rode right through their dust. Teams of twelve mules pulled each dray, and they made good time, straining against the loads, though their passage scarred deep ruts in the dirt up the sides.

“I can tell you where they’re headed,” he said. “Mexico.”

I said, “Those wagoners weren’t Mexicans. I heard them talking.” I’d heard something like that before, but couldn’t place it.

Udell still had that coin in his palm. He looked at it again, saying, “Those were like the ones I saw exchanged south of here a few weeks ago. Why would a bunch of Dutchmen be taking rifles to Mexico?”

“What makes you say rifles?” I said.

“Sarah, I did for the U.S. Army exactly what they are doing, carried hundreds of crates just like those—the very same size and shape—in Cuba. If those aren’t boxes of rifles, I’ll eat my boot.”

I’d not have been surprised to see Rudolfo gathering horses or cows for his new rancho in Cananea, nor wagons full of miners or farmhands. Yet rifles enough for an army? I shuddered with a feeling of recognition mixed with terror. “Springfields?”

He held out his hand to help me mount my horse. “I’ll tell you what I do know. If there isn’t already some kind of trouble in Mexico, there’s going to be soon. The mine strikes and the killings last summer were only the start. And it’s all coming right through our back forty. That means it could seep back up this way, too.”

I climbed on and took my reins.

“You have business here, amigos?” a voice said.

A man on a bay horse, his outfit glimmering with Mexican rondelles and tassels, waited halfway down the far wall of the wash. He had a Sharps across his lap and leaned over the piece lazily, as if he didn’t need to worry whether we understood the threat he made. He must have followed the wagons a mile back, staying out of the dust. We’d stepped out of our hiding place right in front of him without checking for more people coming.

Udell swung into his saddle and said, “No, sir. We were out for a pleasant evening ride and got knocked off the road by some mule teamsters. You look out for them, if you’re headed that direction. They’re not going to slow down for anybody. Good evening, mister.” He clucked to his horse and we headed for the side of the wash.

The click of that Sharps hammer nocked back on its spring stopped us. “I think you’ll wait here a while,” the stranger said. “You’ve got no business watching here.”

“Watching?” I said. “This is my land. You’re the one who should be answering about business.”

The Mexican laughed. “Señora, it’s just a little road through a little piece of land. No fence. Do you see a fence anywhere? I think it’s not your land. I think it’s Maldonado land.”

"Well, I think you should ask Rudolfo Maldonado about that,” I said. The man’s eyes widened at the sound of Rudolfo’s given name, as if he didn’t expect I’d know him.

Udell cleared his throat, trying to get my attention. “We’re headed home, mister. We mean no harm to you or anyone else. Out for a ride. Like you said, no fence. It’s just a little road across a little piece of land. We have no weapons, so you’ll oblige us and put away yours. We’ve got no intentions other than a nice evening ride. Now, we’ll be going home, and bid you farewell.”

“Pinkerton?” the man said.

Udell looked from me to the man. “No,” he said, “name’s Hanna. Don’t know a Pinkerton.”

The Mexican laughed and unnotched the rifle. “Let us all pay our respects to
el don.
Perhaps Señor Maldonado will want to offer you his hospitality. Perhaps not.” We rode ahead of the man to Rudolfo’s front yard. Then he motioned us into the house itself, where we waited at the doorway. I kept wondering if obeying every whim Rudolfo got under his hat was something in Udell’s character I had missed before. In a room full of men, our fancy-dressed escort spoke to Rudolfo in whispers while the both of them watched us.

None of the fellows in the room stood nor made any move as Udell and I stood in front of Rudolfo’s big desk like scolded children. I kept picturing the time Rudolfo’d been shot, and I helped him get dressed, union suit and all, and it helped me not feel so shaky in front of him now. He stared at me a long time, without any expression, ignoring Udell’s presence. After a bit he said, “I want to make this very clear to you, Sarah Elliot. From now on, anyone who sees your people on my land will shoot first and talk later.”

“I was on my own land,” I said. “Unless you’ve forged papers to steal that, too.

He didn’t so much as blink. “This man found you spying on my business. Now you accuse me of theft and fraud. These are very serious charges.”

Mighty fancy words he tossed out. I couldn’t think of anything to say, but I knew him enough to know that a long silence would make him squirm just like he had been trying to force me to do. So I waited. Someone behind us cleared his throat.

Udell fidgeted, too, and then when he couldn’t stand the silence anymore, he said, “We were out for an evening ride. Far as we knew, we were on Prine land. Don’t know how you can call that spying. This man of yours pulled us in here at gunpoint. We could call that kidnapping.”

Rudolfo looked at Udell with hatred. “I have in my possession signed and sealed government surveys. Documents, deeds, and records. The land is mine. The road is mine. The railroad tracks that will soon stop there are mine. Trespassers could get hurt. It will be too easy for people who aren’t on their own land to … be hurt.”

“Why, Rudolfo,” I said, “what are you up to, cutting through my place, there? All those mules? You must have bought a load of brand-new furniture for your new baby. Is that baby born yet? Not much longer, eh? Did you know you are also going to be a grandpa?
Abuelo ‘Dolfo.
Do you think he’ll call you
tata?”

“
Go home, Sarah Elliot,” Rudolfo said. His eyes glistened. Yet just as I might have felt afraid of him, I saw a wisp of sweat on his temple. I knew better than to back down from a cur’s threat at that moment. So I waited. I cocked my head at him and glared straight into his eyes, listening to a clock somewhere ticking. Fourteen seconds.

He blinked.

Then I turned to go. Udell followed me, silent. A man just coming into the room blocked my way and I nearly bumped him. He stood taller than Udell or Rudolfo or any other man in there. His hair was blond as new corn silk, with fair skin and golden-green eyes. I’d never seen a person that color before, and it startled me. “
Con permiso, “ I
said, and tugged at Udell’s sleeve. We made a hasty retreat to the border of my property.

Sunday morning, Udell came to my place before we got the dishes laid out for breakfast. He just opened the door and came in, too, without a knock. He was breathing hard. Finally, he said, “The garden’s salted.” He pulled a handful of coarse salt from his pocket and held it so I could see.

I felt tears of panic coming, so I turned from the sight. “Have some eggs and biscuits. We’ll come help you with it. It’s not tilled in, is it?”

“No.”

“This land is ninety percent alkali. We’ll save it. After breakfast.”

So on our only day of rest, the boys and Chess and I worked with Udell on our hands and knees, picking rock salt out of the topsoil, one grain at a time. Even Granny got down and helped, although Udell about had a conniption and told her to rest. By sundown, we were aching and tired, ready for a big supper and a bath, but no one had stopped to make it. We ate bread and apple butter sandwiches with canned beans and coffee before we all went our way. When the fellows went out to do the feed, Gil came back to the house looking sorry and worn.

He found the rest of my chickens dead in the pen. This time it wasn’t the heat. Maybe last time it wasn’t, either. Not one pullet had been left alive. My heart broke. Now we had to go out and build a bonfire to get rid of them, because we couldn’t risk one of the dogs getting poisoned from them. The clock chimed ten before we got cleaned up for bed. That was the first time it crossed my mind that I should have been back in town before that hour. It was Sunday.

I had a hundred reasons not to return to town. I declared I wouldn’t, but everyone put up such a fuss, giving reasons for me to go, that Monday I packed up as usual, just a day late. I felt plenty of guilt loading my books into the buggy. Nary a one had been opened. May as well have left them in town.

Since I’d miss the day of school, I decided to go to the land office first thing. I made a loop down to Udell’s place to check on the garden again. He was out watering it as I drove up, and the culprits must have thought they’d done all they needed, for it had been undisturbed during the night.

The second Tuesday of my schooling, at eight in the morning—an hour at home that usually saw me having made and cleaned up a full breakfast for anywhere from five to twenty people, fed chickens, gathered eggs, watered the stock, hauled water to the garden, weeded it, and put on beans to cook for supper, Mrs. Everly scolded me like a little child for not having made a maid’s cap. That woman surely needed some castor oil. There wasn’t a thing I could put my hands to that she didn’t have a hard word about. Alice McGinty made up for it by having some fun, and while I scratched my head and erased my third mistake on the same problem, I got to thinking how much studying mathematics resembled taking castor oil.

Wednesday I went with April to a tea, and to supper, and those were hours I should have spent with my eyes in my books. For the first time I worried whether I could get used to studying on a timetable instead of finding minutes for reading wherever they lay, weeks and days apart. I must study more and visit less, though I’ve already promised her I would look after the children Thursday while she and Morris go calling.

Friday, after Mrs. Everly’s morning scold, I went to the president’s office to request a move from Domestic Science to the science of biology or, hopefully, botany. I told him I own books on botanical studies myself, and that was a subject I was acquainted with and should not involve making a foolish headcap. The president said that if I couldn’t manage to learn the simple lessons of domestics, I’d be a complete failure in botany—a man’s subject.

I tried to make my stand, but he just kept saying how I, like each new student, was on a trial run. My teachers had held a meeting about me and they had discussed my future. No, he said. It was absolutely to my
educational
benefit to make a dang-blasted tussie-mussie mobcap! Then, to step back into Professor Brown’s classroom when half the lesson was gone, why that man was in a dander for another entire hour.

Professor Osterhaas gave us an assignment for next week, a theme on the nature of cosmic elements such as spring, dawn, or starlight. I have read plenty of pretty words over the years, but never in my life had to “reflect” on cosmic elements. Professor Fairhaven had grown as charming and pleasing as a man could be. Most of those young people had not heard of Homer, much less owned all his works like I did. When he asked a question, I knew the answers and found myself proud that my hand went up plenty of times.

My searching at the land office was useless. I couldn’t find any proof that Rudolfo had my land nor that the railroad had bought anything. Yet I’d seen those papers with my own
eyes.

By the end of the second week of school, I felt glad to head home, but I needed a packmule for all the books I carried. I spent the weekend on studies.

Every Monday from now on there will be an exam in mathematics. Tuesday, in Domestic Science we had a test on white sauce, nothing but pan gravy made with butter instead of drippings and so bland a hungry dog wouldn’t care for it. I put red pepper in mine. Mrs. Everly claimed I’d done a mortal sin. The students call our science teacher Brownie, behind his back. There’s no call to be disrespectful, I’d say.

Professor Osterhaas handed back my cosmic essay, then spent a while explaining how I hadn’t paid attention to my points of view. Lands, how many can a person own? My point of view is the one I have and no other, and I am lost like a bat in the sunlight here in this place. I found myself looking toward the little watch pinned to my blouse, and the Regulator hanging on the wall, wishing the time would evaporate so I could drive home.

April’s boy Vallary was waiting for me when I got to Harland’s, saying the baby was sick and April needed me to come. Instead of heading to the ranch, I spent the weekend with April and her family. Tennyson, still not as long as her name, snuggled feverish and quiet in my arms as if she were my own. By Sunday, as I got set to return to Harland’s house and set things right for school, Tenny seemed worse. April said she quit nursing, too, and so we put some hot packs on her bosom in case her milk backed up. I stayed all night, and Tennyson cried most of it. By the time we got the poor babe asleep, the children fed and dressed in the morning, I was ragged. I missed Domestics out of exhaustion.