The Star Garden (39 page)

“Where are Chess and Udell?” I asked him.

“Working.”

“Working? At what, in heaven’s name?”

Zachary came and took hold of my hand. He tugged me down and when I leaned forward he whispered in my ear, “Aunt Sarah, they are digging a grave.”

I bit into my finger so hard it left a mark. I couldn’t feel it. Watching Gilbert sleeping there, looking gently at rest instead of fevered and tormented with pain, he seemed so regular, so natural, except that he was still stretched out on the kitchen table.

Like a spark lighting dry brush, the thought came to me that I had to find Chess before Gilbert was gone. That quiet but rumbling desperation that I’d lived in for so many months suddenly drummed in my head. The air swirled with banging louder than cannonfire. My eyes saw everything at once and all around me creation flowed like a river of sights and sounds.

From the front porch, I heard water being poured. I stumbled off the last step and hurried toward the splashing at the outdoor pump. Udell was there with his shirt off, soaking wet, just wiping the last of the soap off his arms. “Udell,” I called, “where’s Chess?”

His somber face instantly changed, mirrored the panic I felt. “I don’t know, Sarah. We finished a while ago; he said he had something to do.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Did he go to the barn? Something with the saddle? I’ve got to find him.”

We both started walking when he said, “I thought he went down by the crick. Reckon he
might
have gone to the barn.”

“You go. Hurry,” I said. He went to the barn. I took off toward the stream. Breaking through shady brush where I usually hunted quail and dove, the shade and sound of water were wasted on me. My heart shouted,
Gilbert, stay alive until I get back, Wait for me, boy. Wait. “
Chess? Chess!” I yelled.

A cardinal startled me with his curlicue chirp. Coming as if he’d answered my call, the bright red bird swooped toward me, cut a couple of looping strides in the air and flew on, chirruping loudly. “Chess!” I waded across the flowing stream at a shallow spot to a mossy bank where I used to send the boys to fish to keep them out of my way, when they were smaller.

I saw a pair of old boots. “Chess, I’ve looked everywhere,” I said breathlessly, gasping. “Get on home. Gilbert needs you. The doctor says he’s turned a corner. Chess? Wake up, Chess.”

Chess was stretched out full, his head on Gilbert’s new saddle, his feet a few inches apart. His eyes were closed. A fly poked along on his lower lip. “Chess?” I knelt by him. I gritted my teeth together and touched his arm. It slid from his chest. His right hand had gripped something that let go. A brown vial with a cork in it rolled toward my feet. Dr. Pardee’s morphine. I took it up and squeezed it and beat on his chest, crying out, “Don’t you do this to me, old man! You rotten old cuss. Get up from there. Don’t you leave me like this. Chess! Don’t die, Chess. Oh, God, don’t let this be happening. I need you, Chess. Get up.”

“Sarah!” Udell’s voice called.

“Here,” I hollered back. “I’ve found him.” I put my head on Chess’s still warm body and listened until Udell came. “Why would he do this, Udell? Why? He knows I’d never blame him. Make him stop, Udell.”

Tears slid from his eyes, too, making a wet film on his face. “I didn’t know what he meant. One last thing to do. He didn’t say much while … while we dug. I thought he had a sick stomach.”

“Help me carry him to the house. I’ve got to see Gilbert one last time.”

“It’s a long piece, Sarah, I’ll get one of the boys …”

“Help me!” I ordered. Then I picked up Chess’s legs and waited. Udell nodded. He put the brown vial of pills in his pants pocket and took Chess under the arms, moving his head to where it rested easy, not hanging down. Charlie and Clover saw us and ran to help. We got him laid on the floor in the parlor. Dr. Pardee hurried in and bent over Chess’s still body.

“How’s Gilbert?” I said.

“Still here, Mama. He’s good,” Charlie said. “Did Grandpa Chess fall again?”

I told how we’d found him. Shocked looks painted every face. Charlie bent over his grandfather, patting him, and hearing a crinkling sound, he pulled a note from Chess’s breast pocket. “It says,” he said, “ ‘I never was so sorry. I can bear it no more. You will all be a sight better off, shed of a nuisance that’s outlived any good use or sense. I never loved any boys more than Charlie and Gilbert, so I’m gone to clear a path for my fellow. Lord love you, Sarah. You’re better than a daughter. Forgive this damned old fool.”

Dr. Pardee looked into Chess’s eyes, opening the lids carefully. He shook his head. “Strange,” he said.

Udell held out the vial, saying, “How many did he take?”

Pardee took it from him, shook the pills into his hand and slowly worked them back into the bottle, counting. “I had twenty-two pills in there. They’re all here. He didn’t take any.” Pardee put the vial down and studied this new patient again, as if he still could use healing; he lifted Chess’s arms, inspected the fingernails, and put his hand against Chess’s still face, as if feeling for a temperature. “Whatever’s killed him, folks, looks to be nature. It wasn’t morphine. I’d attest to it in a courtroom.”

“But his letter—” Charlie said.

Pardee nodded. “I’m telling you this man did most certainly
not
die of morphine. All the pills are here. People think it’s a wives’ tale, but sounds to me like the man died of a broken heart. No one quite understands it—one of the mysteries of nature.”

The family got quiet. Dr. Pardee stared straight into my eyes. I remembered that he didn’t know the source of our problems. If he was the talkative kind, a family caught up in a feud could be branded as trash forever. I was not going to have Chess’s name in the territorial newspaper, in case I couldn’t trust this stranger. At last I said, “Chess was an old soldier, and the boy’s grandpa. Their papa was killed when they were shavers. His whole life was spent trying to protect us. We had that fracas with Mexican outlaws …”

I saw Savannah watching me. I know she would rather I told every bit of the truth, as unvarnished as peeled wood, no matter what it showed. Then, too, if I told everything, maybe Rudolfo would hang—I’d pay money to watch— but he could have bought and paid with railroad money for some judge to hold up anything he wants to do. I weighed the words and then chose among them as if I were picking a bouquet and only wanted particular flowers when I said, “He thought he let us down. Charlie and Gilbert, he’d helped raise, and then when he—when he couldn’t shoot straight—”

Pardee shook his head as if he knew exactly what I meant, and then sighed with a reassuring air. “Old soldiers just can hardly bear it when they outlast their stripes. You folks have had a tough go of it.”

“Mama?” a soft voice said.

I looked to Charlie, but he’d turned toward the kitchen. I raced through the door to Gilbert, thinking I’d heard the voice of a ghost. I called, “Son?”

Gilbert’s very much alive
eyes
fluttered, and he said, “Mama. I’m awfully thirsty.”

Well, this afternoon a rattling Mexican carreta, pulled by a donkey so small it looked to be a toy, stopped at our gate. A woman got out. The carreta driver pulled away, flicking at the animal with a string tied in a knot on the end hanging from a bent pole. It wasn’t long before I heard a knock on the door and footsteps coming to Gilbert’s room. I wasn’t all that surprised to see the flushed and dusty face of Charity James.

She tipped into the room. “I came soon as I could. I had to hire a man with a donkey. I’m sorry I smell awful. Mrs. Elliot? May I see him?”

I nodded.

She knelt by the bed and took Gilbert’s hand, brought it to her face and kissed his fingers. Then she spoke to the fingers as if they had ears. “I got here as fast as I could. I’ve been two days on the road to see you, my Sweet Boy, and I’m so glad you’ve stayed for me. Oh, Gilbert, I do care for you. I love you.” Tears rushed from her eyes as if she’d been holding them back during the long trip here. “I’m so very fond of you but it don’t do for me to tell you right out. I been praying for you and sending you my heart ever’ since I heard. Please keep on living, Gilbert, my dear, my sweet. Try hard.” Then she laid his hand carefully on his bed. “Mrs. Elliot? Mind if I stay in your barn or some other? I wouldn’t be a bother to you.” She stood. “I brought some dried apples and hardtack, so you don’t have to worry about me at all.”

“Well, honey, I won’t hear of it,” I said. “You’ll have a bed in the house. We’ll fix it up nice for you. You can take my bed. I’ll sleep somewhere else. Are you tired? You look plum ragged.”

She hadn’t taken her
eyes
off Gilbert. “No, ma’am. Not much. That is, now that I see he’s alive.”

I went to her and patted her arm and said, “You’re worn out. If you want to pull a bath, there’s a little room there with a pump and a tub and all. We’ll set you a place at supper. You wash up.”

The sun was setting when there came a racket that scared every horse on the place and jarred me plum out of my thoughts. My first thought was that the train was here already, had leapt its tracks and was heading straight for my parlor, just as I’d feared. In the yard, here came Harland in his horseless machine, with April sitting beside him, holding baby Tennyson. She held me tight for a second, the only greeting we needed then. Harland just stood there, looking haunted. I pointed April toward his room where Gilbert was in bed; she handed Tennyson to me, then ran to Gilbert’s side and nodded a quick hello to Charity. I followed just one step behind her. “Morris,” April whispered, “will be down tomorrow with the other children. I just couldn’t wait.”

At the doorway stood my little brother; the four of us made a strange mirroring of my daughter and her own little brother. He was gaunt and thin, and his clothes unpressed and shabby. I pressed Charity’s shoulder and she smiled admiringly at little Tennyson.

“Harland?” I asked. “Where are your boys?”

“With Morris. They’ll be along tomorrow.”

Tennyson fussed and squirmed in my arms as I went to April’s side. “Honey, you’d better feed her,” I said. “Just go sit in that chair.”

Her eyes darted back and forth. “Well, not in here. Anybody might come in.”

“It’s all right. It won’t bother Gilbert or the doctor, I’m sure.”

“Mama, she has to have perfect peace while she eats or she gets colicky. I’ll have to go to the book room. You tell everyone to stay out until I say so.”

“Sure,” I said. Heavens, as if a mother couldn’t nurse a baby in a house full of family.

“And Mama,” April said, “he’s going to be well. I know it. Little brothers like him are too special to … to go away.” Her face reddened. “We’ll talk later. Now, I have to compose myself. I have to be calm. We’ll only think of daisies and butterflies and perfect spring mornings while Tenny has her nummy.”

Charity and I exchanged glances as April left with the baby. But I saw my brother had gone, too, so I went after him.

“Harland?” I called. A few minutes went by before I found him on the front porch by Granny’s rocker. She was sleeping soundly. I whispered, “Want some coffee?” “Sure.”

“It’s cold, though. You all right?”

“I should never have taken the children to town. This would never have happened if I’d listened to you. I’d have been here to help. Blessing wouldn’t have been exposed to every disease that came down the pike.”

I couldn’t feel his pain anymore, I was too numbed with my own. I looked back toward the door where Gilbert lay dying. My voice came out dry as the desert on a June afternoon, with not a lick of feeling for him remaining. “Hush, now. You didn’t do anything wrong. A man has got to make a living to have some self-respect. I believe you did the best.”

“But…”

I brought the cold coffee and handed him a cup. I suddenly felt angry at him. “No one blamed you for Gilbert’s being shot. Stop leaning so blasted hard on me and stand on your own two feet.”

Harland looked shocked, then mad. Granny stirred between us. Then abruptly his face changed. “It’s getting late. You got any chores that need doing?”

“Feeding and watering, just like always.” I pictured his poor horses in town.

“Best somebody do ‘em,” he said, and he put the cup on the rail and went to my barn.

I had hung Gilbert’s new saddle in the barn hoping he would see it someday. We buried Chess at sunrise in the grave he had dug for Gilbert.

Gilbert’s fever broke last night and his breathing was good and sound. Dr. Pardee can barely quit smiling. Gil was still weak and had lost a washtub full of blood, most of it into a pan held by Rebeccah, and some on the kitchen floor, but he was sound enough to be moved into his own bed where he could sleep much more safely, not being so far from the floor and all. Pardee had performed a near miracle.

I went to Gilbert’s room and pulled up a chair next to Charity who sat watching over him. Rebeccah moved soundlessly around, tending things as if she had been a nurse her entire life. Gil’s cheeks were drawn but pink. Udell slipped quietly in and sat by me. He patted my knee. I turned to look down at him, and he reached for my face. I touched his arm, and then he took my hand and held on tight. I leaned into his shoulder and rested there. I didn’t shed a tear, though. My face was hard and unmoving, and my heart had turned to stone. I’ll cry no more in this lifetime, I expect.

Dr. Pardee left, saying Gilbert was mending and was in good hands. I tried to give him fifty dollars, but he said no, his fee would have been twenty-seven, after all the days he stayed with us, and since he didn’t have any change for the bills I gave him, he was obliged to take thirty, but if we needed him again, he’d come for free. I told him he was a fine man and a good doctor. He just smiled and left, tipping his hat as he climbed into his buggy. But I watched from the kitchen window as the buggy stopped in the yard. Pardee removed his tall hat and stepped out again, to say farewell to Rebeccah, who’d just come to the yard with a basketful of washed and folded linen bandages. They shared some words, nods, and lastly, timid smiles. As he drove away, he turned and waved discreetly to her, and she lifted a hand in response.