What Once We Loved (30 page)

“I don't have much cash left,” she said quietly. She felt herself begin to sink back into that place where she stashed hope. She couldn't let it fade.

“I've got cash,” he said. “I'll hand it to you, slow like, or you let me give it to them. Don't let this offend you, Ruth. There's a time to take help.”

“Your mother'll think we're daft, paying twice for the same thing.”

“It's possible,” Matthew said. “But if she could see the look in their eyes and the quiver full of arrows there, and the rifles they could just as
easily point at us as shake in the air”—he nodded with his chin—”she'd think different. Just go slow, and well show them what you've got.”

There wasn't much choice, Ruth thought.

“I won't charge much interest,” Matthew told her.

He handed them a roll of bills. One of the braves grabbed for it. Then the steel-eyed one took it easily from the first.

“What's he saying now?”

“He wants to graze his horses there tonight.”

“Didn't I just pay to have them move on?”

“They'll move on.”

“It'll terrify the children,” she said. One of the braves leaned over to finger the whip at her hip. Hoping he couldn't smell her fear, she smiled as though she were at a tea party with kin.

“I'll tell them to bed down near the barn. I think it's wise, Ruth. I do.”

She could just see the children's eyes when they rode in followed by seven braves in full paint. “All right,” she said.

Matthew talked more with his hands, and then they turned into the trees toward the sloping ridge and the valley below.

“Could be we were just held up,” Ruth said.

“Oregon style,” Matthew answered.

“How much did you give them?”

“Not all that much,” Matthew told her. “Bought us some neigh-borliness, maybe. And you're now beholding to me for life. You'll have to give up your firstborn.”

“I've already done that,” she said quietly, her son's tiny face flashing through her mind.

“My mistake,” he said, chastened. “I was trying to ease things up. Let's just say I gave them enough so you and I will have another subject to talk over during the long winter nights.”

Ruth swallowed. His words touched a place in her she'd forgotten existed.

The stillness of the forest floor softened with fir needles, and fallen
leaves moist from recent snows made their horses' hooves thud as they rode. Ruth shook her head. She was down to her last gold eagle, had just paid ransom for her land.

They rode into the pine patch, down the slope to the house. This was her place of belonging. She'd found it. Not something she'd stumbled into and just stayed at as she had at Poverty Flat. But a place of her choosing when she was living free, aboveboard, no longer held hostage by Zane Randolph. She felt held hostage now.

She'd signaled quickly with her eyes when the boys came outside. They reined their horses to the house, and Matthew said, “Just keep it easy, boys. They're spending the night at the barn.”

“They'll steal the horses,” Jason said.

“No. They won't. We'll stay up watching. Take turns. But so far, they're doing just what they said.” The boys slipped back toward the door. Ruth got off her horse, pulled off the cinch saddle and blanket, and set them upright under the porch eave.

“Keeping these close,” she said. “Jason, water the horses. No quick moves. We'll stake them out in back. Let them eat at the grass there.”

“Should we offer them some biscuits?” Sarah asked.

“Horses don't eat bread,” Ned told her.

“Not the horses. Them?” Sarah said, nodding to the braves. “It's almost Christmas.”

“We're just gonna let them be,” Lura said. She gathered them like chicks to get them back inside.

“None of us will be the worse for wear if we just keep our heads,” Matthew said.

No worse for wear. Ruth almost believed that.

And then she saw the look in Jessie's
eyes.

12

Suzanne had almost forgotten about joy. How strange that was when she had a son named Sason whose very name meant joy. Even when she'd thought about the first-century Jews as Sister Esther read to her in the book of Acts, she'd forgotten about their joy. The joy of being with friends. The delight of eating together, of supporting each other while they waited. And then the Holy Spirit had touched them, and others who saw them accused them of being drunk! At nine-thirty in the morning! Why, they were just happy, ravenous with delight at the power they'd been given, the power of friendship and compassion and hope.

Then, it had come back to her, God's gift of joy, a thing she'd never conceived she could have again as a woman blind, a widow in mourning.

Oh, she certainly didn't speak in any unknown language as those disciples had. Unless words of endearment coupled with dreams about one's future lifting like bubbles from a bottle of champagne counted as strange language. But she felt the fullness of the joy just the same, feasting with friends and food and being loved beyond measure. She believed again that all could be accomplished with faith and power and a worthy focus.
Focus. Hearth. That which warms us, the center of our being.
And she'd felt that in a way she had never imagined she ever would again. She'd given her heart to it. She'd believed.

True joy had arrived before Christmas. It came in the form of a bawling bull attached to a very wet-smelling man and the embrace of a fond friend.

“Just give me a bed. To lay my head,” he'd rhymed.

“Seth Forrester?”

“None other.” Suzanne heard him stomp his feet. “And Mazy Bacon, too.”

“Mazy! So good to see you! However did you get away from all those cows?”

“May I help you?” Sterling Powder said. She hadn't heard him enter the hallway at all, but he was standing at Suzanne's left.

“These are our dear friends,” Suzanne told him, turning. “Sterling Powder, please meet Seth Forrester and Mrs. Bacon. Dear old friends.”

“Not so old,” Seth said. “Though I like the ‘dear' part.” She heard Seth groan, “You've grown a foot, Clayton.”

“Mr. Powder's been tutoring the boys,” she said. “And they're doing so well. Aren't you, Clayton?”

Mazy laughed. “Clayton just looked to see if he had more than two legs.”

“Did a bit of tutoring myself,” Seth said.

“Did you now?” Sterling Powder answered. Suzanne heard something unpleasant in his voice.

“Yes sir. With little Chinese girls.”

“I'm sure,” Sterling said.

“He did. They learned very well,” Suzanne defended. “Maybe we can see them while you're here. You know where Mei-Ling lives. We haven't found Naomi—”

“Let me take your wet cloaks,” Esther offered.

Suzanne heard shuffling. “Clayton's voice is very deep, but he puts a few words together now. Can you get Clayton to say something, Mr. Powder?”

“He is not a circus dog, madam,” Sterling said.

“Of course not. I only meant… Well, I—”

“Perhaps I should retire now, leave you with your…friends,” Sterling said.

“As you wish,” Suzanne said.

“This one will soon be too heavy to carry around,” Mazy said. “You'll have to ride that old Pig, wont you, Sason?”

“Dog gone,” Sason said.

“He is?”

“I meant to write to you, Mazy. I…were so sorry…its so confusing. Pig just… ran off.”

“After Mr. Powder started here with his cats,” Esther said.

“Shall I take the boys back to the nursery?” Sterling offered.

“Yes…no, they've missed their friends…I'll tend to them later,” Suzanne said.

“It is their bedtime. They do need routine.”

“This once…” her voice faltered. “Well, yes, of course. They need their routine.”

“Come along, boys,” she heard Sterling say along with Mazy's smacking kisses on them. His footsteps echoed in the hallway, leaving behind that scent of rosewater he usually wore.

“I thought you were Pig, returned,” Suzanne said, reaching to put her arm around Mazy. “I've missed him so. I'm so sorry, Mazy.”

“Me, too,” Mazy said. “I hoped to see my old friend.” She sighed. “But animals can be…unpredictable.”

“I should have had Esther walk him. Or taken him out myself. I've thought of a hundred things I wished I'd done—”

“You're looking mighty chipper, Missy Esther,” Seth said. “They say it's the lengthening of the days that brings on the bloom in a garden. You're blooming well.”

“Weeds bloom too,” she said. He laughed. “But you always did know how to turn a girl's head,” Esther said. Suzanne could imagine her straightening the little cap that tied beneath her neck that everyone said she always wore. “Let me take your cloaks. Such a night it is.”

“I've got to put the bull up,” Mazy said. “Can I tie him in the backyard until morning?”

“Of course. Yes,” Suzanne said. “Your bull, Mazy? Your husband's brother never came and got it?”

“One and the same. Seth helped bring him south, and if nothing else, I'm to meet at last this elusive relative and maybe get some answers about who my husband really was. I almost got Charles to deliver him, but Seth offered to bring me south. So I took him up on it. He was pretty insistent. You must like Sacramento,” she said. “Unlike Pig, I guess.”

“I am so sorry,” Suzanne said. “I, we can't explain. I have posters out. But people…many are hungry…coyotes.

“Maybe someone found him and gave him a good barn to sleep in,” Seth said, “As likely as the other.”

“Pig never did like cats,” Mazy said.

“I'll get us some hot tea,” Esther said.

“Let me help as soon as I take care of Marvel,” Mazy told her.

“I'll do it, Mazy,” Seth said. “You go get dried off.”

Mazy thanked him, and Suzanne could hear her friend and Esther move down the hall.

And then Seth turned to her, to Suzanne. “I'm reaching for your lovely hand, Mrs. Cullver.”

“Suzanne,” she said. She smelled wet wool as he lifted her fingers and kissed the back of it, held it for just a moment longer than he should have, long enough for Suzanne to feel her heartbeat quicken.

“Hands still as soft as rose petals,” he said.

“That's because Esther takes such good care of me.”

“An enviable task,” he said.

The bull bellowed again, but Suzanne was sure Seth stared at her, could feel it almost, the warmth of his breath brushing her face. “You were the prettiest of the lot even then,” Seth said. “Way back on that trail. Here is my truth—you're a beauty, forsooth.”

“That is the most dreadfully beautiful poem I have ever heard,” Suzanne said.

“I'm out of practice,” he said. “No inspiration. But I have a feeling that's about to change.”

Ruth thought Jessies condition would be temporary, just one of those childhood things. She stayed hopeful while life moved on around her. At times, it reminded Ruth of waiting for Jessies return when Zane abducted the child, except here her daughter lay before her, dark shadows beneath her eyes. Still distant, almost gone.

The arrival of the braves had set it off, even though they'd settled themselves near the barn just as they'd said they would. They'd been peaceable. Jason and Ruth and Matthew and Mariah had taken turns watching the small fire flicker through the night in the center of the Takelmas' cluster. Then, in the morning, against Matthew's wishes, Lura marched out with a basket of baking powder biscuits.

“Men got to eat,” she said. “Harder to kill someone who's fed you or treated you human.”

Jessie watched, her eyes a glaze of terror. “Its all right,” Ruth said. “See, Lura's coming back.” She urged the girl to look out the window, then wished she hadn't. Jessie s breath came fast as a hard-run horse.

Ruth steered her from the curtain to the bed where Jessie shivered as though cold. Her face felt hot, and Ruth wondered if maybe the child had developed a fever.

By the time the braves mounted up and rode out, howling wildly as they passed the house, Ruth exhaled along with the others, as though they hadn't taken a breath all night. Ruth went outside and counted her horses. They were all there. Martha, the milk cow, too. Even the oxen. And in Lura's breadbasket, they'd left dried salmon and a handful of dark round roots that Ned said tasted sweet.

“Try one, Jess,” Ned told her, but the girl just grabbed Ruth's arms and held tight.