These Is My Words (8 page)

As I cried I told him about little Clover and the rattlesnake and about Papa, then I told him about poor Mrs. Lawrence, and then I told him about dear Ulyssa and how I killed those men, and I never thought I could kill a person except I was so stricken at what was happening, and how the Indian man gave me back Rose from the horses, and how we struggled and lost everything. I told him how Mama lost her mind, and how Ernest lost his leg and I had to help hold him down while his blood gushed all over everyone, and how he squeezed my hand so hard it hurt for a week afterward but it wasn’t anything because my hand was still there and his leg wasn’t. I told how I saw Mr. Hoover get shot in the throat and look down surprised and pulled the arrow out of himself and with it came pieces of his innards before he fell to the ground, and how horrible it all was.

I cried into his chest and he held me while I cried and told me I was brave and strong. And then I cried more and told him I was not brave at all I was a craven coward and begged him not to let me end up like that woman I found. Please, I said, don’t let them get me, please.

He kept saying how brave I was, and how he wished he had soldiers as strong, and patting my shoulder real soft. And the next thing I knew, it was morning.

I have slept with a soldier all night, laying on top of him like he was a pile of blankets. Not just any one, either, but that Captain Jack Elliot who has my books and now he has my shame.

He shook me a little bit and said, Miss Sarah, I have to get out of here before folks wake up, and when I saw what had happened my mouth fell open like I was stunned. He put back on his slicker and I didn’t even know he had it off, and picked up his hat and shaped it a little from being squashed, then he turned back toward me and picked up my blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

I looked down under it and I was only wearing some long drawers and my old camisole, the one that is bursting full of me on the top and had come untied in the bargain, and what a fine sight I was, freezing cold and my hair all around my shoulders, and I started to cry again. I am ruined.

Sh-sh, he says. There’s no wrong done in a good cry, and I was beginning to wonder if you ever did. I would never hurt you, he says. And as long as no one knows, no one is ruined. Besides, it would be much more of a shame to be ruined by a rumor than by truth, and then he slipped out of my wagon and away in the foggy morning.

He is a puzzlement, for sure, and I don’t think he was laughing at me, but then I remember how coarse he is and I feel ruined.

January 5, 1882

It is Harland’s birthday and he is ten years old. He is a big boy and didn’t want me to hug him, but he didn’t mind at all if I made him a little sweet cake at dinner tonight.

For three days we have seen no sign of Indians, and no further attacks, not even a pat of butter stolen. Perhaps we are past their territory and they no longer intend to make war with us. There is a soldier who took a ball in the arm just like Papa, and I expected him to die only he got well just fine. A man from three wagons back, Mr. Raalle, who has an accent from a far away country called Norway, said that when a wound bleeds good, sometimes that washes dirt out of it and it heals better. I will think of that, since I remember Papa’s arm never did bleed and I’m sure that there is always plenty of dirt on the trail.

On top of everything else we have all been taken with the flux and some folks are sick unto death from it. I don’t feel terribly bad, but it is embarrassing.

January 6, 1882

Mama asked me to read from the Bible and I said fine but she wanted me to read starting in Joshua 2, and it is the story of Rahab the Harlot and how she saved Joshua and the spies and helped them hide in the walls of her house in Jericho and how forty thousand Children of Israel marched and blew trumpets and knocked down the walls but saved Rahab for her goodness. Well, I just could not stop my face from beaming red and every time I came to the word harlot it stuck in my throat like a bur, and Mama looked at me and said What ails you, Sarah? twice. So I added a lie to my sins and said it is just the flux making me run hot and cold and I went to bed early to wait for the Lord to smite me down and crumble my bones like the stones of Jericho.

January 7, 1882

We all seem to be better. Thank goodness for the blackberry bark. Poor Savannah was stricken first and has become well first, but she still is weak and dizzy often. Sergeant Miller, who is the man who almost killed Rose, says try boiling all your water before you drink or wash your face, it was what his Ma used to do, and the very next day after we started boiling water we began to get well. Some folks are doctoring their water with red chili sauce and some with herbs or tonics. All are trying their own way but this seems to work well.

Also, Rose is much better and seems agreeable to be ridden today. I’m very pleased.

January 8, 1882

I have much to read and have discovered a peculiar box, packed underneath other boxes at the bottom in a corner of the wagon. It had a slick piece of something white and shiny and shaped like a long necked bird on the lid, and a tiny little hook and eyebolt to close it, and when I opened it I found some wonderous things. I was not sure what to make of the things at first, then I opened one little glass bottle, and smelled it to see if it was medicine, and lo and behold, I believe it is perfume. It is strong and sickly sweet, and I looked harder at the other things with a different understanding. One little jar has red chalky stuff inside and I touched it with my fingers and it stuck on but didn’t smell like much. There is a little paper wrapped bundle of sticks which break easy and leave marks on everything.

I have never seen the likes and so have put the things away. The perfume makes me suspicious and afraid I have gotten the wagon of a nasty woman. But, it doesn’t seem likely that a harlot would read so many books nor have studies of sermons, nor a Dictionary, which you say as dikshun-nerry. Maybe those things were given to a traveling preacher by a repentant dandywoman, as a sign she had given up her horrid life. At any rate, I can’t throw the things out, for someone else in the wagon train will pick it up from curiosity, and words will get back about who threw it out.

Had a dream last night of a good and bad feeling and thought someone’s arms were around my shoulders as I slept but woke and found nothing. I wondered if I am a fallen woman and have found that perfume as a sign. But then I think of all Mama’s sayings and Bible stories, and I think if I were that kind of woman I would have been glad to find the perfume and the little jar of rouge which I looked up in the Dictionary book and I know is face paint. No, I ’spose I am not that kind, but then why did I like the feeling of dreaming about those arms?

January 10, 1882

Two children, ages nine and eleven, died in one family of the flux. Their Mama is real poorly and will probably join them, but we are not stopping so she will not be buried near them and she is very sad at that. They are the Raalle family, whose Papa I talked to before. We are scared this is cholera but Sergeant Miller said no, he’s seen cholera and it is much worse. This is trail fever.

January 11, 1882

No one it seems has any idea about what I did that rainy night. I am glad. At least Captain Elliot has remained gentlemanly and not spread word around. That other fool soldier who thinks he is partners with Doc Holliday came around again and I told him if he didn’t leave me alone I was going to throw boiling water on him, and give the stew that made to my dog to eat. Bear got to his feet and growled just as if I had asked him to, and he won’t be back, I’m sure. Bear is a black dog big enough to pick his teeth with the likes of that boy.

Every morning for the last week I have found our two pails full of oats and the scraps of a sheaf of hay near my horses. And Rose looks all brushed and shiny. There are comb marks on her thick winter coat. It’s like someone is feeding them and tending Rose specially, but I don’t know who. I asked Albert did he get around early and tend my stock for me but he said no, and Ernest doesn’t get up before me regular. It is a puzzle but it makes my morning easy.

El Paso is in our sights and we will lay over in the town for two days and put up dry goods. Harland was pestering me today and wants to ride Rose, so I told him all right. He rode right alongside my wagon for a while and asked me the silliest questions. All about does Mama miss Papa, and is that why she is so addled, and did I think she loved Papa? Then he wanted to know would she marry again, and if she had someone to take Papa’s place maybe would she be right again and happy?

Well, I told him I don’t know, maybe if a fellow came along who was real good to her, she might. This made me feel sad, and I never thought about all that before. Sure Mama loved Papa, weren’t they always together, taking care of us?

Then he asked me a whole bunch of questions about how a fellow went courting, and what should he do, and what should he say, and what if the lady didn’t like him, what should he do then?

Well, I don’t know those things but I tried to tell him to just wash his face and hands and comb his hair, be an honest man and a good sport and kind hearted to her feelings, and if she doesn’t like him he has got to go slow, and bring her some flowers and such and tip his hat.

He wants to know does a fellow have to be real old, older than the lady, old as Albert, and how old was Mama and how old was Papa, and I said I didn’t know for sure, and he asked again but I can’t figure it. He got real quiet and thoughtful, and then after a while he rode off and I didn’t see him until we stopped for supper that evening. I ’spose he has found a little girl to spark and there will be no prairie flowers in Texas after this winter.

January 13, 1882

We are stuck here near El Paso and I am tired of this town and glad we will be pulling out tomorrow. Daytimes are pretty but the nights here are dreadful cold.

All the China folks’ names start with Sing which I think is nice and it is like their little bird talk. I have tried to get a handle on the words they say but when I do they laugh and I get embarrassed.

January 14, 1882

Well, I never saw the like. That rascal Harland has upset the applecart for sure. Tonight he came up before we stopped and said, Mama, can I invite a friend to supper, and will you ask Sarah to make a sweet cake again for company, and she just nodded like she does. Well, he took that for her answer, and made a big fuss about me hurrying and making a cake, which is a task in a campfire oven, and he like to drove Mama to distraction getting her to put on a different dress. Then he went and washed his own face without being told.

I could hardly wait to see the little girl in braids he would bring to our fireside. He kept saying Is it done, yet, is it done? Until we were about to scold him. Well, he runs off into the circle of wagons and pretty soon it is getting dark, and I was never so shocked in my life, here he comes back again pulling by the hand, Captain Jack Elliot.

It didn’t take much to see Captain Elliot has combed and trimmed his mustache and scrubbed his face and hands, and he comes up to our group and smiles big at me and nods to me and Mama and the rest. Harland is standing close by him and nudges him with his elbow, and Captain Elliot tips his hat.

Mama, says Harland real loud, this here’s Captain Elliot. I was getting a knot in my stomach. Well, Captain Elliot is a staring hard at me and his eyes are twinkling like he’s grinning to beat the band under that mustache. Then Harland grunts his throat real loud and out from behind Harland’s back comes a handful of drooping wildflowers, most without even a open blossom yet, and then he takes the Captain by the hand and leads him up to Mama. He stuffs those flowers in Captain Elliot’s hand and says, Mama! This here’s Captain Elliot, come to court you!

Captain Elliot’s mouth opened wide and his eyes quit twinkling. Albert said What? real loud, and Savannah dropped the plate of cornbread in the dirt, and Ernest just about burst his sides open laughing so hard he could choke to death.

Mama looked up, kind of surprised like, and tipped her head to the side. Then she says, so genteel almost as if she was a queen, Why, Captain, that is most kind of you, but you see, I am too recently widowed. I am not receiving suitors, and do not expect to in the future.

I thought Ernest was going to die of laughing and he rolled on the ground, then Mama turned to him real serious, and said, Ernest William Prine if you don’t get up and stop acting like a lunatic I will cut a switch and wear a hole through your britches this very instant. Sarah, she says, fix the good Captain a plate, and sit down, sir. I was thinking she was in her right mind, but then she says, Now, sir, are you with General Lee’s forces? I hear they are moving on through Pennsylvania. How is the fighting? Have you many losses?

I am looking at her and looking at him wearing that blue uniform and I catch eyes with Captain Elliot and see something strange in his face.

So this evening we pretended Captain Elliot was a Captain in the Confederate Army come to suit Mama, who knew she was a widow but didn’t see a blue uniform instead of grey, and knew she had children and a grandchild coming but not that she was old.

Harland is sadder than I have seen him since Papa died, and he doesn’t understand anything he has done. After some cake, he let me give him a hug, and I told him it will be all right but he should let folks do their own sparking and not meddle, it is like stirring up bees, no good is likely to come of it.

January 16, 1882

We have not had the displeasure of Captain Elliot’s presence in two days. Likely we are rid of him and his grinning and I’m sure he thinks we are a family of lunatics.

I am still finding feed every day left for my horses only it is less as it seems to be scarce for all. Albert still will not own up to lightening my load although I know it must be him. Found some track of boots near the horses and I’m going to watch for Albert to lay some steps nearby so I can compare.