I wonder if he’ll gentle down a little, now. He even helped me put April to bed tonight.
July 27, 1884
Today I stood for hours and hours under a big palo verde tree in the afternoon rain, and let the wind blow around me and wished the lightning would strike me down. My shoes were soaked through with mud from Jimmy’s grave, and I stared at the mud trying to figure. It made no sense, but I let the rain soak me through and I cried. And it wasn’t for Jimmy it was for me.
Most of what we think happened is from Ruben Maldonado tracking the signs of brush and dirt and broken branches later. Jimmy had been out rounding up some horses he let run in the east section of our land when his big old chestnut stallion stepped in a hole and lost his balance. There was cougar track nearby too, and maybe it scared the stallion. He threw Jimmy hard and we think he landed on a jagged tree stump because that’s where the trail of blood began. That alone would have been bad enough but his foot caught in the stirrup and he must have hollered real loud and the stallion took off running for home. He pulled Jimmy through the worst of our land until he was over the rocky ledge where he lost his footing and jostled enough to shake Jimmy’s foot out.
Standing in the garden I saw the horse come back looking wild eyed and rank, and put him in the corral without taking off the saddle.
I got on Rose’s back and hitched up my skirt in the waistband and hugged her with my legs. It wasn’t hard to follow the horses’ clumsy tracks, as I saw the direction he came from and the rocky ledge wasn’t far from the house. But it was real hard to look at Jimmy’s face, all cut and torn.
He moaned when I tried to move him. I rode back to the house and got a big blanket for him to lay on. I made a rope around her neck and made Rose pull Jimmy real gently back to the house. Baby April was crying inside. There was nothing I could do but let her cry, and I dropped off the rope and rode hell bent for Albert.
My family and our neighbors did all they could do for him. But his back was broken, some ribs were gone, and blood dribbled out his mouth without stopping for three days. Instead of making water he made blood pee too, and he had no feeling in his feet or legs at all, but he knew he was bad. I know he was in pain and it was hard for him to breathe and I stayed by his side without sleeping trying to comfort him.
Finally, on the fourth day everyone was so tired and knew the end was close. I sat staring at his broken body in our soft bed thinking but not thinking, the same thoughts running through my mind over and over. My beautiful life with Jimmy would soon be over and it had barely begun. Our sunrise was night. The next name entered in our little family Bible would be the last one.
I thought it was as sad as I could be at the time.
Savannah made me take a bath, and it felt good to be cleaned up although I felt hollowed out inside. I went back to the chair which had been my home all those days and sat nearby. Albert alone was by his side, standing over Jimmy, looking somber. Everyone else had gone out to the parlor and was eating some supper and talking soft about where to dig his grave.
Then Jimmy stirred and said to Albert, Tell her I love her, will you?
I began to let tears run down my face.
Albert said, You go ahead and tell her, Jimmy, she can hear you.
But Jimmy said, No, you have to write her and tell her I love her, please.
Albert said, Write her?
Then Jimmy said, Tell Miss Ruthanne I loved her always, and he let out a long breath and died.
December 1, 1884
If it wasn’t for the good neighbors we have in the Maldonados, I would have given up by now. I rise early and work the day through with my baby on my hip and go to bed with the sun and sleep hard the night through. I am tireder than I knew was possible. Sometimes one of the girls comes over and helps with April, and Estrellita is real good with her so that I can get a lot done. I am sure that the Lord’s way is right, but it is tedious and sorrowful.
I thought maybe I should see a doctor as there feels like this hard rock in my chest all the time. Mrs. Maldonado said, Aye, chikita, te corazón destrozado. They think I mourn for Jimmy and sometimes I do for the work he could do in a day.
I dyed my new clothes black, but only the outside ones. All my petticoats are white and pretty still. There is no sense mourning to the bone for a man who thought of me as a brood mare to get use from.
I thought about Mrs. Hoover today, and I wished I had an inheritance and a house in Boston away from dust and Indians and snakes and trials. I wish my papa was here to help.
Wrote Ernest a letter and asked him to quit the Army and come live with me and make this ranch work for me, but it has been five weeks and no word yet from him.
January 6, 1885
Dear Sarah, got your letter. I hope you all are missing me as I am missing you. Tell Mama and everyone I am faithful to love them all and have been in a bad fix but made it through at last and kept my scalp. Truly Yours, E. Prine.
He didn’t mention coming home to help as I asked in my letter or anything. Seems it ain’t important, I ’spose.
Harland comes over and helps me some, and is a real hand, as he is a strapping big boy. He reads better than I do now and said he has passed the fifth grade test. And Miss Wakefield married Mr. Fish at the general store. He thinks it is funny and calls her Mrs. Trout.
February 9, 1885
Made April a little dress out of a scrap of gingham with a little sunbonnet to match. I wonder how I will raise her and what will become of her. I plan to help her learn to read, as I have learned myself with help from my Papa. I truly wish he was here to help my baby learn letters. What a rocky trail we have been over.
Jimmy’s big old bull he called Beaumont got out of the fence today and hooked poor old Bear with a horn before I got him shooed back inside. I was really scared, and thought what if the bull killed me and no one knew, who would find my baby? Bear is real sore and won’t eat. I made him a couple of blankets to lay on, on the porch near the kitchen door. I don’t find any blood on him, but he looks bad.
After I got all the chores done tonight I made coffee and sat in my rocker with April on my lap until she fell asleep. I wouldn’t be fit to keep company with a grizzly bear lately. My hands are raw and cracked open from being wet all the time and working in the cold, my hair had a tangle I couldn’t get out so I cut it loose and now there is a short place on one side, and I caught sight of my face reflected in the window while I was washing up from supper and I looked meaner than a scorpion.
February 10, 1885
I went to Mama’s and Albert’s to ask if they knew anything to help Bear. Savannah was hanging out her wash when I walked up and she asked me how I was. So I told her.
I said, Mostly I’m so blessed tired I could scream. I hate that Jimmy Reed. I hate that ranch and those God-forsaken horses and I hate chickens and weeds. I hate the cold in the winter and the blazing heat in the summer and the dust and the rain and the wind that never stops this time of year. I hate sweeping and sewing and ironing clothes. I hate washing diapers and I hated being a wife and of all these things I hate being a widow most. I wish I’d never laid eyes on that skunk Jimmy. I wish to goodness he’d never come here. I only thought I wanted to be a wife. I just wanted to be happy. There’s nothing happy in this.
Savannah’s mouth opened when I said all that and she just looked at me shocked. She said, Sarah, honey, you just need to pray for strength and courage. The Lord…
The Lord won’t do a blessed thing, I said. I am stuck with this mess and I’m going to work myself to death in another month of this.
Oh, Sarah, don’t say that, she said.
It’s true, Savannah, I said. I am plum fed up with all the work I have to do and it is all because of a worthless man, and any other man ever comes around me better be carrying a pistol with one more bullet than I’ve got or I’ll have the last word. Then I saw her face looked like she might cry. She was only asking about my health after all and I was purely rude and full of the devil today.
I didn’t mean to yell at you, I said, and I’m sorry. Even while I was saying I’m sorry I was still hollering. Then my baby started to cry.
I left Savannah on her porch looking red-faced and teary and marched myself home.
All day I fretted and worried and kicked the fence and bothered the horses until they were all skitterish. Then at sundown I rode Rose back to Savannah’s house and told her I was sorry again. She said she already forgave me, but I don’t know why she would. I don’t deserve it, hollering at her that way.
After all that fussing I still had too much to do, but I didn’t feel so purely mad, just worn out. Albert said to me before I left their house that he was coming over tomorrow to lend a hand for a few hours.
No, I told him. You have too much work of your own to do here.
But he said there was no arguing, and then he laughed and said he’d arm wrestle me if I wanted but I might as well knuckle under as there was no changing his mind. Then they made me eat supper with them and spend the night snugged up on a pallet of warm quilts near the fire with April. Lord please forgive me for being so low down. There is only good in this house and the people in it.
February 22, 1885
Bear followed me to Albert’s today, just like always. He seems fine now and I am surely thankful and have prayed for him just like he was a person. Mama said that is foolish, as the Lord always watches over his animals, but I told her I needed Bear a lot more than the Lord did, and with all the angels in Heaven, surely there is no need for guarding against snakes and outlaws there. I prayed for Bear to get well and he did, so it must be the Lord agreed. She couldn’t argue with that, but said I was probably reading too much and my thoughts were getting turned a bit sideways.
March 1, 1885
Toobuddy is way too old for all the silly games he plays like a puppy, but he doesn’t know it, which is why I ignored him acting foolish at first and why now as I am writing this, there is another man probably dying in my bed. This afternoon I was washing up linens, when here comes that dog acting stranger than ever. He hunkered down on the ground and made the cryingest sound. Then he’d run around and around in a circle real tight, and jump up and do this all over again.
Bear went to him and sniffed him and acted suspicious, and barked a couple of times. Then Toobuddy charged up on the porch and nearly knocked me off my stool. I was mad because he jumped in the air and landed with one foot in the rinse water and got it dirty.
Get away, I hollered, you dirty dog! Then Bear started to bark and bark, and sniffed him again and barked more. Something was up, I knew, but I speak better Chinese than I do dog, so I finished hanging up my wash while I wondered what to do.
Finally, I decided I’d take a walk with them and see where that silly dog goes. Most likely he has run across a skunk or something. I checked on little April, and she was just down for her nap and fast asleep. Bear, I said, stay home, stay home. He went and sat by the front door, so I knew April would be safe enough even if she got scared that I was gone.
I picked up my rifle and put Jimmy’s long knife in my apron pocket, and went out to the yard, and immediately Toobuddy took off across the hill. I tried to follow but he was fast out of sight, then suddenly he would appear again and make that odd crying sound and go off running. Well, the faster I followed the faster he went, and as I stood up on the top of the hill west of our house, I saw him turning around at the base of the arroyo below and heading back for me. I knew if I went down the hill I’d never hear April cry, but I was pretty sure she would sleep, so I decided to head on down and take a look.
I thought I smelled a bear for a second, so I held my rifle ready and remembered to check the trees. As I went down the hill the smell got worse, but it changed from that bear smell to something else, the smell of a dead animal rotting. I began to think that stupid dog had led me to a deer carcass, when I heard a moan that sounded like a man.
I hurried through the brush, watching all around as it was thick and the smell was just awful and I was afraid of surprising a wounded animal. There at the foot of the sandy cliff, like he had ridden off hard without stopping, was a carcass all right, a big yellow horse, bloated up and rotting, with a saddle and bridle still on, and it looked picked at like the buzzards had been there already. I checked the trees around me and saw four of them big black ugly things sitting there, watching, looking like posted sentries of Hell.
Then I heard the moan again, and I walked carefully around the horse. A man was pinned underneath it, still alive. He was covered with mud and blood on his head and filthy dirty, and kept waving his hat weakly.
Mister! I called to him and he jumped.
Help, help me please, he said. I can’t get it off and the buzzards will eat me alive.
I said right away, I will do what I can.
I started to leave when he called out, Have you got water?
I’ll bring some, I promised, and get you out of there. Stay put, it ain’t far, I said, then I hurried fast all the way home without stopping to breathe, so that when I got there I was winded.
I hitched Dan and Terry up to my little wagon. Then I went into my bedroom and pulled the old mattress from under the bed and put it in the back and got two horse blankets to put on it, because that fellow was so filthy. I filled buckets with water from the well, picked up a canteen and filled it, and got my rag bag of old, clean diapers and as big a rope as I could carry, then I woke up April. I took her to the outhouse quick and then to the wagon and plopped her between my knees and started off over the hills. Toobuddy had stayed with the man, and now Bear followed us and jumped into the back of the wagon to ride.
It was a terrible time to get through the brush with the rig instead of on foot, and we got so stove up at one point I had to get out and push them back and go round another way, but finally we got to the place where the man was pinned under that horse. I unhitched my team and put them up near the carcass, but they didn’t want to stay and I nearly got dragged away when they felt they were off the wagon as there was no brake to help hold them still.
I handed him the canteen and told him to drink slow, but he wasn’t going slow, he drank so hard I felt pity for anyone that thirsty. Then I looped the rope around the dead horse’s head, and then through the shank of the yoke, and tied the other end to the saddle stirrup that was sticking up all cockeyed like the rider had tumbled with the horse.
Then I started them going, and the man yelled. I called to him, If you holler you’ll scare them and they’ll bolt. Something started ticking in my head like a clock. I didn’t know what it was, but just this nervous edgy ticking, and I shook the reins, terrified that I was killing him by this. He was quiet, then, and dragging that horse made the smell just thick in the air so I thought for a moment I would choke.
April stayed in the wagon bed and watched, and called out, Nasty, Mama, stinky nasty!
When I got the horse moved I untied the rope from the stirrup but cut it off where it had touched the rotting head, then I tied up the team at a tree but didn’t hitch them so they can’t bolt with April in the wagon. I got the buckets and rags and a blanket and went to him. He smelled even worse, and looked to be pinned under there a couple of days, as he had wet himself and more, and his face was completely hidden in blood and mud, his hair smelled like rotted blood real bad. He laid there for a second, and I thought he had died, then only his lips moved.
I can’t feel my legs, he said, real weak and thin sounding. Maybe it’s just from lying here but I’m afraid my back’s broken.
That ticking in my head got louder and louder. April started to cry to get down, and I fussed at her to stay put and be good for me. I soaked rags in water and laid them on his bloody head. I’ve seen a broken back, I said, maybe your back’s not broken or you wouldn’t have felt any pain and hollered out. I’ll have to get you home before I can get you to a doctor. As I washed his face carefully, I could see he had a big open gash in his hair. When some of the dried blood came loose it started bleeding again, real
heavy. April was fussing.
Then he groaned with pain, and waved his hat toward the horse carcass and said, Please save my saddle bag. Don’t leave it, please.
It occurred to me this could be a very bad man I was tending, and I might be sorry. The horses whinnied and a buzzard flew down real bold and sat on a rock over us. I shooed at him with a diaper and kept on cleaning. The man took another drink and then took the diaper from me, and started wiping his own face and seemed a bit revived. Well, sir, I said to him, you have to get out of these clothes and get cleaned off, and I brought a blanket to wrap you in. I pulled off his boots and started to unbutton his shirt while he laid there.
He said, I can do this, you shouldn’t, miss. He was looking down at himself and the mess. Then he asked me if I had come alone.
No, I told him, my baby is in the wagon, but Albert has gone to Tucson so there is no one to help close by. Just at that moment he took my arm suddenly and I cringed at his dirty hand on me.
His eyes blinked several times and he said Miss Prine? Mrs. Reed, I mean? The ticking in my head stopped and I felt like a chime sounded.
Captain Elliot! I could hardly say the words. This man was in farmer’s clothes and was so dirty I would never have guessed. And he was hurt bad. Well, Captain, I said, I am a widow now and I have seen a good many nasty britches, but you do this if you can and I will get a blanket for you to lay on and clean off. I handed him the knife and he began to cut off his pants.
He shook his feet, and then groaned. My legs, he said, my legs hurt. It must have been all that weight of the horse crushing his legs, and now they were coming back and pained bad. He lay there for a minute, in so much pain I didn’t know what to do.