Chess grinned again, Well, honey, maybe you can use this in your lighter moments, say for church or the opera. So I opened the box and inside was a little tiny pistol with two barrels like I had never seen before, and wavy white handles, and a silvery barrel and sights. It’s only two shots, he said, but likely in church that’s enough to get your point across, and then he and Jack and Mr. Arlington just laughed and laughed.
Pearl handles, said Jack, just the touch for the well-attired lady about town.
Jack! I’m no lady about town!
Put your feathers down, Jack said, That just means in social circles. Open the last one. It’s from me.
But you already gave me so much, I said. Well, then I opened the box and inside there was a paper wrapping, and under the paper was a bundle of cloth. It was an amazing color of dark red, with shining little fur that stood right up, and felt soft as a horse’s nose.
I stared kind of addle-headed into the box, and he said, Well, take it out, Sarah, see if you like it.
Oh, I like it, I said, I like it fine. But I couldn’t bring myself to lift it out of the box. I felt the cloth and whispered, What is it?
He looked odd at me, and came over and said again, Take it out and stand up and try it on, and he took my hand and raised me up, and lifted the thing from the box. Here, he said, It’s a cloak, nice and warm for the winter. We don’t get much winter but what we get is damned cold. Look, velvet on one side and black linen damask on the other, if you want it plain for some different dress. He draped the beautiful thing around my shoulders and arranged it, and fastened a big shiny soft cloth thing in the front. Sarah, do you like it? he asked. It’s real velvet, do you like it? Look in the glass there.
I stared hard at my reflection, and I touched the cloth and lifted it and looked at it close, feeling the softness.
Mr. Arlington was saying behind me, What kind of man gives his wife a scarlet cloak for Christmas?
Chess answered him back, Oh, it ain’t a bad color, that’s a fancy red. It’s what the snooty busy bodies in the Art Society call dove’s blood or some such nonsense.
Jack was standing at my side, watching me like a hawk. I tried to talk to him, but I moved my mouth and no sound came out.
It was a scarlet velvet thing. A cloak, he had said. Warm and soft and beautiful and amazing to see and made of scarlet velvet that feels like a horse’s nose. And there was no way he could have known I wanted something like that, for I didn’t know myself, it was just a long ago dream from a word on a lost page of a book now gone. Oh, Jack, I tried to say, tears ran down my face, and he began to look disappointed. Oh, Jack! I finally whispered out, and I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him close.
He seemed stunned, and said, Well, don’t cry, if you don’t like it.
Oh, leave her be, said Chess. Women love to cry over presents and letters and such. Of course she likes it, don’t you know anything by now boy?
I had to leave the room and go get my handkerchief, and as I walked, sniffing, I felt the heaviness of the cloak, and the way it swirled around me when I walked, and the soft, brushing sound the cloth seemed to hold in itself, like it whispered to me. I dug into my brown bag, and pulled out my Christmas gift for Jack. It was a sad old leather thing compared to what had been given to me.
And then Jack called out, Bring Pop’s gift in, when you come back, so I found the box of fancy cigars he had brought for his father, and I was holding both presents in my hands when I returned.
Jack, I said, I’m sorry, it isn’t much. I hadn’t felt stingy when I ordered the saddlebag, but it just seemed paltry now. I thought your old one was getting ragged, I said.
Jack took the bags from me and said, These are first rate, Mrs. Elliot. He leaned down then and kissed me real quick and sweet on the cheek. Oh, look, he said, somebody’s tuckered right out. There was April, leaning against the bottom of the Christmas tree, and looking precious in her new dress, fast asleep.
December 27, 1885
I am pregnant. I know I am. No one would believe me if I told them, and certainly only God could prove or disprove my claim. But last night the baby happened, and I am so sure I will count the days from today and prove myself right. There will be a baby the end of September, but I will tell no one yet. Oh, Jack, you will be a father, and this morning at breakfast I felt like I was glowing with secret pride for you, but I will not tell you either.
I wasn’t going to write any more, but it turned out to be such an eventful day. Since it was the first day without rain, even though the sky was still gray and heavy we toured Chess’ ranch. It is a big spread, and he has over a thousand head of beautiful cattle on hundreds and hundreds of acres. The house is so big, it is amazing, but it is small compared to the barn and the other buildings for storing equipment and such.
Chess told Jack, You know, you could come here and live with me. I sure wouldn’t mind you filling up the house with children, it’s too quiet all the time. But Jack just said he couldn’t do that, and he wouldn’t say why.
I wished he would tell me why, as that is a generous and kind thing for his father, but then I thought how I would never see my Mama and Albert and Savannah and Harland again, and when Chess asked me to convince Jack to stay in Texas, I said, No, our home is Arizona Territory. There’s too much blood spilt on that land to leave it. It costs to live there, and we’ve both paid a price.
I enjoy hearing Chess tell of his life and the lives of people Jack knows, for even though it is all strange to me, he has a way of telling it that is comforting and good. Jack told me in secret that his Papa was as rough and ornery as any outlaw, but if he is, it doesn’t show, and to me he seems refined and gentle.
Maybe Texas is just more civilized, I thought, but Chess said, No, just older. When Arizona gets older, he said, she’ll learn to put up her hair and let down her skirts and not be so wild. Then he said, That reminds me. Did Jack tell you about him being run out of the church?
I just looked stunned.
Jack laughed, and said real quiet, Thanks, Pop.
Chess started to laugh and laugh, and then he lit one of his cigars and offered Jack one, but Jack refused it. Well, Chess said, You know, Miss Sarah, when Jack was eleven years old, all the boys and girls in the Sunday School were going to do a recitation. There was going to be a big Jubilee for Missionary Day or some such, and they all were to memorize Bible verses to say. It got to be a real contest, with one saying “I can recite ten verses,” and the next saying “I can do twenty.”
I noticed Jack shaking his head and smiling that funny half smile of his, and he said You’re going to tell it aren’t you? to Chess.
Well, Chess said, Jacky there was never a dull boy, and didn’t brag one bit, but studied and memorized and studied some more. Each night I’d find him up with a lamp, reading that Bible.
I smiled and thought, Mama will be so glad to hear this story.
Chess caught my eyes and made that mischief-loaded grin that looks like Jack’s.
When the day came, there was a visiting missionary from China or somewhere, and pastors from three churches with Bibles open, ready to test the Sunday School. Girls went first, and the crowd applauded each one. Jacky kept changing places to be the last boy in line. When they finally got to Jack, they asked him how many verses he had ready, and he said, not just verses. So the missionary said, “A chapter?” And he said, “not just chapters, either,” he said right out loud he had memorized an entire book of the Bible. Then Chess started to laugh, I can still see that missionary lady’s face, and the way her mouth hung open before she fainted dead away on the platform!
Jack, I said, what did you say?
A whole book just like I said, he said to me.
Chess was laughing like he was going to choke, but he sputtered out, They never had any rules about it.
That’s right, said Jack. No one said you shouldn’t recite the Song of Solomon.
He got all the way, Chess gasped out, laughing, All the way to the tw
o breasts feeding in the lilies, and then he couldn’t even talk any more.
Now Jack was laughing too.
I stood up. This is too much, I said. Jack Elliot, there is nothing like that in the Bible.
Yes, there is too, he said, and he stood up and began to wave his arms as he spoke in a dramatic reciting way. Behold thou art fair, my love, thy two breasts like young roes that are twins which feed among the lilies. How much better is thy love than wine! Thy lips, O my love, drop with honeycomb, honey and milk are under thy tongue.
John Edward! I almost shouted. You should be ashamed!
What for? he said.
April, it’s time for bed, I told her.
She immediately started to cry. No, Mama.
Yes, I said, you have heard too much of this vulgar talk already. Jack Elliot, shame on you. Now come on, April, you are going to bed, and I will tell you a story and you will say your prayers and pray extra hard for your father’s soul. So I went to April’s room and stayed there until she went to sleep, too mad and too embarrassed at both those men to return. I wasn’t through with my bath when Jack let himself into the room.
I told him I would be done quick, but he said, real soft and warm, No, you won’t. He rolled up his sleeves. Then he began to recite words to me, words that sounded like the Bible but were full of love and longing and some beautiful girl hunting for her precious love, and the young man combing the village hunting for her too. As he talked, he picked up the sponge and ran it over my arms and shoulders, squeezing out the water and watching it drip down.
O my love, my fair one, he said, Arise and come away, and he lifted me up where I shivered and dripped in the cold air. He took a towel and dried me, not letting me take it, and said, As a rose among thorns, so is my love among all the daughters of the earth.
Then he started to unbutton his shirt, so I helped him.
He picked me up in his arms and swung me into bed, kissing me long and sweetly, and he whispered into my mouth, I am come into the garden, my sister, my spouse, I have gathered myrrh with spice, I have eaten my honeycomb, and he kissed me more and more. He kept mumbling words, and I heard him say, Open to me my beloved, my dove, for my head is filled with dew.
By that time, I no longer thought of him as a scoundrel.
January 11, 1886
I don’t know how but April has lost a shoe, and declares she can’t move without it, and she is sitting in a big chair in the dining room, wailing at the top of her lungs. I am confused whether to ignore her and let her think her crying gets her nowhere, or to paddle her behind and let her think her spoiled attitude will bring her grief.
These are the kinds of things I always wish I could ask my Mama. It does no good to ask Jack’s Papa as he adores April and when she was naughty he just laughed. She is never far from him when he is in the house, and is so willful I am embarrassed sometimes. It is probably a good thing that we will not live here in this beautiful house, as I surely do not want to raise up a houseful of spoiled, nasty children, and Chess seems to think, although I love him dearly, that it is his right to spoil Jack’s children if he pleases.
He spoils me too, and I have hardly done a lick of work this whole time except for some dish washing with Lupe. My hands are all soft in the palms for the first time I know of, and I am bound for some blisters when I get home, but Jack says it is nice, it is how a lady’s hands should feel. I think then that a lady is just someone rich enough to have someone carry her around, and not to have to split firewood and drive a wagon nor scrub and clean and haul water. But I just kept my thoughts to myself, as I know he would try to argue about it but I have learned that there are some arguments you can’t have with Jack because he doesn’t understand what I am saying no matter what.
I have something nice to take home, we have gone into town to a place I think it is called Photoengraveurs, and had a picture made of ourselves. We are all posed and stiff looking, leaning up against the iron positioners. I have got one of these to give to Mama. I hope she is pleased.
January 12, 1886
All are saddened today at our leaving. We hugged and kissed Chess more than once, and rode to the depot and said goodbye again. The train pulled in with a cloud of steam and noisy wheels, and we of course had to wait for the passengers getting off before we got on.
January 15, 1886
Jack is drowsing with his head leaned back against the seat, and whenever I get a chance to look at him without his eyes piercing mine back, I study his face. I still see a stranger sitting there. One I am getting used to, but not one I feel familiar with. There is much about him that pleases me and takes my breath away with kind attentions, and there is something in him that I feel I will never touch, a secret man inside, the one that I saw on horseback guiding the wagon train.
He woke when April patted his arm and said Papa, hold me.
Jack, I said, she is awfully spoiled.
I know, he said, but holding her isn’t the reason. And now is not a good time to un-spoil her, for the sake of the other passengers.
I nodded at him, he is right. We will have to ease her back into our usual life, and it will be better when we get home because that will be familiar surroundings. He said to me, with a hopeful look, In the spring, Pop is going to drive a small herd of cattle to us. Maybe just two or three hundred head.
What? I said. That’s a small herd? We don’t have land to run that many. There’s no grass there like in Texas.
I know, he said, we’ll have to buy more land, and run up some fence on part of it, too, for a big corral. It will take a while, might be summertime before we see them, but he said he’d rather stake us now than wait ’til he dies. He’s too ornery to die anyway, so it’s a good thing. If he comes himself, he might stay a while.
That’s fine with me, I said, if he will just stop making April think it is funny when she is bad and throws a tantrum.
He took her in his arms, and then reached into his blouse and handed me an envelope. Here, he said. I had to get this from Pop because I had sent it to him to keep for me.
It was thick paper and written out in a long, lacy, rolling hand, with a golden stamp in one corner.
It’s a share in a silver mine, he said. One tenth. If I hadn’t been drunk I’d have had a half, but it’s yours now. You saw it that day, the Silverbell? Well, I won the share on a bet, I don’t work it or anything. And it pays anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars a month, which won’t make you rich but it is enough to hire a man permanently and pay for some things so you don’t have to work so hard all the time. Here’s the bank book, too. There’s enough for you to take on some more acreage.
But Jack, I said, aren’t you going to be there?
He just looked at me odd, and said, Sure, sometimes, but I’m not leaving the Army.
I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I am spoiled too, but I felt like throwing myself down on the seat and crying. That is fine to hire a man, but Jack won’t even live with me? What kind of way is that to be married? What will I do alone with some strange man on the place, what if he is a bad man?
Jack said, What’s the matter? Did you think I was going to brand cows every day?
Well, no, I said, you only brand once a summer when the calves are big enough. But I didn’t think I’d have to do it alone. You said you didn’t want me to live there alone. I knew I was about to cry, then, and turned my face from him. You said you’d never leave me, I said into the window glass.
I’m not leaving you, Sarah, was all he said, and we rode silently a long time, listening to each other breathe and not talking. April slept in his lap.
I know what it was. That Faulkner boy saluted him and made him remember how he liked being called sir by the other men. Nothing I do or say can compete with the admiration of a bunch of ragged soldiers. Even the Indians respect him, I have heard tell. But he will take a wife and leave her to fend for herself while he goes around riding and shouting commands. Well, that’s a fine thing. I am married again but I am still
alone. Only now I have had a few weeks to find out what it is like not to be alone, and so that only makes it feel worse.
Sarah, Jack said, what’s wrong?
I just kept looking out the window and said, Nothing.
That made him mad. I don’t care.
January 16, 1886
We were only a hundred miles or so from Tucson, in a bleak area without any trees. Overhead the sun shone brightly and reminded us we were far away from the rainy Texas Christmas. I was looking out the window thinking that we must be passing my brother Clover’s little grave somewhere nearby. Those days were long ago, but I leaned against the rumbling wall of the train car, and remembered all those times and I wondered if Ulyssa had married yet, or if she would, and if I would know Alice and Louisianna if I saw them. They must be near grown.
I was so far away in my head that it wasn’t until the train stopped out there in the middle of the desert that I looked around to see what was happening. There were riders on horses outside the doors of almost every car, and I heard shots and saw one of the riders fire into the air.
Jack stood up in front of me, and I saw just like that he had turned into that other man, the one who commanded men and burst into burning buildings. He grabbed April and looked deep in her face, and said Hide, Little Bitty, don’t move a muscle and don’t make a single sound no matter what.
April’s little face filled with terror, but she closed her mouth and didn’t start to cry, and I watched him settle her under my seat and take my cloak and fold it and lay it in on top of her. I took off my brooch, and looked around quickly, and pushed it between the back and the seat of the bench where the cushion hid it.
Sarah, hollered Jack, and he had come from the sleeping car and tossed me my big pistol just as a man burst in through the door waving a twelve gauge shotgun and with a rag tied over his nose. He pulled the trigger and a huge hole opened in the roof of the car. People all around shrieked with fear. Without taking another breath, Jack drew the gun he always wore and shot him. Passengers screamed again, and Jack went to the doorway, waiting for another robber to enter.