What Once We Loved (10 page)

Got herself a dairy.

That's what she'll marry.”

“Seth Forrester!”

“Hey, Seth's here!” shouted Ned. Elizabeth stepped aside to avoid
the stampede of children heading for Seth Forrester, wagon master, gambler, friend.

Elizabeth watched her daughter cross her arms, then drop them and stride out to meet the rider stepping off his horse. She put her arms around the tall man in a giant embrace.

“Or maybe I should have rhymed the last word with ‘lazy and said something like, ‘Some say she's crazy.' “

“You don't think that now, do you?” Mazy asked.

The big man bent and swept Sarah up into one arm and Jessie into the other. “You two pistols are packing extra lead,” he said, laughing.

“Cant be from Ruth's cooking,” Lura told him, fast-walking right up to him, wiping her hands on her apron.

“We do have extra venison and noodles. Though with that endorsement, you may want to pass,” Ruth offered.

“You didn't answer my question,” Mazy challenged. Elizabeth could hear lightness in her daughter's stuffy-nosed words.

“I've had jerky enough, but I suspect some of the folks in this wagon train would find a meal prepared by others' hands welcome indeed.” He set the little girls down. “And no, Mazy Bacon, I'm not one to call a woman following her heart crazy.”

Were they sparring friends or
spooning
as they used to call it in her days? Elizabeth wondered. These young people. Who could make sense of them? Well, old-fashioned hospitality was still available, and Elizabeth walked out toward the wagons with kerosene lamps casting yellow shadows on the faces of men, women, and children. “Welcome to California,” she said, speaking to the first woman she reached.

“You just survived the worst months of your lives, I'll bet,” Lura said, close behind Elizabeth.

“That's a certainty,” someone said. Tired and drawn faces nodded to Elizabeth as they busily unyoked oxen, keeping them inside the circle of wagons Seth Forrester had guided them into.

“You're among friends now. May still be foreigners in a foreign land,
but you got yourself some guides, folks who have made it. A year ago now, but we did it. Like you. Where you all from?” Elizabeth said.

“The States,” a man answered.

“The states of confusion and exhaustion, if you ask my wife,” added another.

“You'll be right at home here in Shasta City,” Lura told them. “You've joined a select group of folks, bewildered and weary.”

“Were from Missouri,” a woman told her, saying it with that soft “ah” sound at the end. “Most of us. A few from Ohio. Some from Kentucky.”

Elizabeth noticed the faint smell of licorice on the woman's breath and wondered if she imbibed in Sweet Cicely wine or had used the plant for a snake or spider bite. “You bring healing herbs with you?” she decided to ask. “My daughter Mazys growing such a garden, and any starts you got to share I know she'd appreciate. She'll share too, I'll ponder.”

“Traded some Cicely with Indians a ways back,” the woman told her. “They ate the seeds and said they'd use the roots to catch wild horses with.”

“That a fact. Wonder how that works?”

The woman shrugged. “Me, I chew the leaves. Keeps my stomach from churning up. It's been doing that plenty.”

“Does it? I like my spearmint for that,” Elizabeth said.

“Maybe we can make an exchange,” the woman offered.

“Love to. Be a big help.” Elizabeth noticed the woman's eyes lit up a bit. There was something refreshing about giving to another, however small the gift.

“Speaking of churning,” her eyes sought Mazy as she called out, “do you have some more cream, skimmed and cooled, Daughter? I'd be up to whipping up another batch. You folks think the taste of fresh cream after so many months without would take the grit from your teeth?” The murmur of agreement was all she needed. “I'll get right on it,”
Elizabeth said. As she walked she noticed that her step had a spring to it, and she was no longer tired.

Ruths head still spun with the rapid changes. She couldn't escape change, had to embrace it, grab it like the Giant Stride ring swinging her around a pole in the schoolyard, taking her ever wider and farther until her feet were nearly straight out with only the air and the grip of her hands keeping her lifted. The more children who grabbed adjoining rings, the faster they all went, wind pushing their laughter down their throats as smiles froze on their faces. She and her friends played at the Giant Stride so often their running feet had dug a pit into the ground around the pole. She had loved it. Once she decided to jump on.

Then there was the problem of getting off. Two choices. Each child could will themselves into the center, pull in tight as they held on and wait until the others slowed around. Many was the time she'd been hit by a ring let loose by another while she stood with one hand over her head at the center, her heart pounding, waiting.

Or the better second choice was to swing as far and fast as she could for as long as she could and then…to simply let go, to give herself fully to the wind's embrace. She'd fly through the air then, skirts and crinolines billowing out, barely softening the drop as she landed in a heap on the grass, far beyond the chaos of the Giant Stride pole. Relief and loss always greeted her there, watching the others still spinning. Once she'd broken her arm, and her father had chastised her for choosing a boy's game, one demanding both skill and strength. And risk, she told herself. It took some risk to go on the Giant Stride. But the pain was worth it.

She hadn't thought of the Giant Stride in years. Funny name for it, though today she felt as though she took a giant stride toward something new, something risky.

They'd ridden to a hacienda, she and Matthew, who had initially
been dead set against taking two jacks north—until his mother stepped into it. Then he was all in favor of it. They hadn't even asked Ruth if their presence in her plan appealed to her or not. The next thing she knew, everyone made decisions around her. Mazy bought up the Schmidtke cows—all but one—borrowing money from Seth Forrester to do it. Lura let the Wilsons know she was heading north and wouldn't be working at their store next week. Everything was settled almost before Elizabeth served the second batch of whipped cream to the new travelers.

Truth was, she needed help to go north. Suzanne's adventure in the mining towns told her what could happen if she didn't accept her limitations. Suzanne had put her children at risk performing songs and declamations before rowdy miners, rejecting marriage proposals from men she'd just met. Clayton had even cut his hand on one of Lura s sharpened knives. Ruth would have preferred just Matthew heading north with her and the children, not his whole family. Well, that wasn't true either. She enjoyed Mariah. It was Lura who troubled her.

She knew she'd have to talk with Lura about just exactly what part in this stock adventure she thought she had. The Schmidtkes were purchasing a jack, she knew that. But whether the Schmidtkes were buying mares, hers or someone else's, she didn't know. And she didn't know at all how she felt about Matthew. How on earth would she discuss so many tender topics with him? How could she afford not to?

His company wasn't all that unpleasant—without his mother to contend with. Except for that boisterous exchange they'd had before Lura arrived, he'd treated Ruth with nothing but dignity and respect. The shower he'd created for her had been as fine a gift as any of the jewels Zane Randolph had ever given her. She just didn't know what it meant. She didn't know what price she'd have to pay for accepting his kindness. But there was always a price, always some payback for experiencing joy.

Koda shied away from a cluster of dried leaves along the trail, and
Ruth returned her attention to the matter at hand. They rode beneath the wooden gateposts of the small ranch her Mexican friend had recommended. The jack they looked at was the color of the red dirt road and bore the name of Carmine.

“His name, it means vivid red,” the jack stock handler told them. “He leads like my mamas little dog.” The animal stood fifteen hands tall. He had one eye that wandered while the other one stayed straight. Ruth commented on that. The handler shrugged his shoulders. “5z. Each one is very special,” he said, emphasizing the word
very.
The handler led the jack around the paddock, and Carmine did trot easily to the rope. He performed the same when Ruth led him while she rode Koda.

“He's broke to ride?” Ruth asked.

“Si”

“Must be an easy rider,” Ruth told Matthew as she walked around the animal and patted his back.”

“Whys that?”

“No little tufts of gray from saddle sores where the hairs grown back in after being rubbed raw. Its what I always look for.”

“Not a good clue,” Matthew told her. “If you rub bacon grease on a saddle sore, the hair comes back in the same color.” She stared at him. “Just something I've always known,” he said. “We always kept bacon grease out in the barn, though Marians kittens got the most of it.”

“He has a white tuft on his left foreleg,” Ruth noted. “You suppose they didn't put bacon grease there?”

“We'll take him,” Matthew said. “Ma always liked red. He'll look good with your mares.” Ruth glanced at him from the corner of her eye. So, were they partners or not?

“I will keep him for you until you're ready to go,” the handler said. “You can trail him right from here. I will feed him a day or two more at my expense. Then I'll take your gold eagles when you pick him up.”

“Done,” Matthew said before Ruth could protest.

Ruth thought the time leading Carmine back to their own corral would have been well spent, them getting used to him and he the same with them. So much for that. Well, she had her Ewald, black as a cave hole.

“Means someone who is always powerful, Ewald does,” the freighter she bought him off of had told her. He smiled sheepishly after he said it, wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “It's my brother-in-laws name, Ewald. He is stubborn. So it was fitting. They're all stubborn,” he hastened to say.

“This jack going to give me trouble?” Ruth asked.

“No, no. He likes human company.” The jack lifted his head at that, and the man scratched between his ears.

“I'm company,” Ruth had said, settling the deal and beginning her grand adventure.

Ruth said little as she and Matthew rode back to Poverty Flat.

“Where's the second jack?” Lura asked as they unsaddled near Ewalds corral.

“We'll pick him up on our way out,” Matthew shouted back to his mother. “Saves us the feed for a day or two until we leave. I don't care how much that jack is supposed to like people,” Matthew told Ruth. Puffs of dust rose as he patted Ewalds rump. The children stood at his head. “Odds are good he can only tolerate so many at a time.”

“That appears to be the perfect opening for me,” Ruth said, clearing her throat.

Matthew turned to look at her.

“You kids run along now. We need to have a few words.”

“Had all day to talk,” Jason said.

“You listen to your auntie now,” Matthew said.

“I don't need your help to manage my children,” she said. Ruth nodded at Jason.

He pushed his brother and yelled to Mariah, “Let's play anteover one last time at the privy.” They took off, running behind the cabin.

Jason looked back over his shoulder, and Ruth urged him on with her eyes.

Matthew stared at her, and for a brief second, she wished the children hadn't gone. She heard her heart pound and wondered if Matthew could hear it too. Why was speaking up for herself so difficult?

“I wasn't intending to intrude,” he said. He put his foot up on the bottom rail beside Ewald and tipped his hat back so his face was fully exposed. Then he turned to face her, staring into her
eyes
as though no one else in the world existed. She felt weak to her toes.

He does that on purpose, controlling with his blue eyes.

“Sometimes boys'll listen to another man better than a woman,” he said.

“They need to learn to listen to me,” she said.

“True enough. That what you wanted to talk at me about?”

Ruth cleared her throat. “I wasn't wanting to talk
at
you at all.”

“Poor choice of words. One of my many failings,” he said.

“Nor to speak of your failings, as you put it.”

“I best be still,” he said with a smile. “I'm just digging myself deeper.”

Ruth took a breath.

“I didn't plan for your whole family to be going north with me,” she said. “It was my wish to manage for myself, my way of tending to the children. Then Jumper…and then I thought to give my heart to this new thing, a new way of making our way, with the jacks and all. And suddenly your mother and you and…everything's mixed up. I like things neat and tidy,” Ruth said. “So I need to know, about the jacks. Are we partners? Are you planning to buy some of my mares? What? And I need to know your intention about staying on. I mean, are you taking a claim or wanting to work for me?” She swallowed as his jaw dropped while she talked, hurried on. “Will you be buying an interest in my mares or buying some of your own? I can use the help in trailing them north, but after that I just need to know what your intentions are.
About the stock, I mean.” There. She'd said it. She turned away and brushed at dust on her pants.