by Annie Boone
Harley shrugged. “What goes on in the house is up to you,” he said. “I handle the outside, you handle the inside.”
She had won, not only in terms of Oakley, but also with his final remark on the subject. He regarded the household as her domain, to be ruled according to her direction. He had not made that so clear before. Perhaps he had assumed that she knew it, or perhaps he had only now reached that determination. But it was a victory, nonetheless. An adornment she might be, but she had responsibilities of her own.
“Thank you,” she said smoothly. And then, because conversation at the table depended upon her, she asked him if he had heard anything more on the delivery of the piano.
“It’s coming in September,” he told her. “If it works out, I might order one for the theatre, once it’s built.”
“September! That’s marvelous. I’ll be able to practice in time for Christmas and we can sing carols. Do you sing, Harley?”
“All cattlemen sing,” he answered. “It soothes the beeves when we’re on the drive. As to how well I sing, well, that’s another matter.”
“I am sure you sing perfectly well,” she said as she rang the bell to summon Jane to bring in more coffee.
After their cups had been refilled, Hazel returned to the subject of the piano. “Would you object if we hosted Christmas here?” she asked. “Neither Clara’s home nor Minnie’s is spacious enough for everyone to fit.”
“If that’s what you want,” he said, “then invite them.”
“Constanza will want to be with her family, of course, for Christmas Day, but my sisters and I can do the cooking.”
She waited for him to object that he didn’t want his wife to work in the kitchen, but he did not. Perhaps he was allayed by the thought that if all the sisters were doing the cooking, it was a family activity more than a household task.
“I would like to decorate the parlor,” she said. “At home, we had evergreen garland over all the fireplaces, and an enormous tree in the parlor.”
“We have pine trees in Colorado,” he said indulgently. “I haven’t done any Christmasing at the ranch since Father died, but I reckon that maybe it’s time to start up again, now that there’s a woman in the house. I’ll see that there’s a tree for Christmas Eve. What about presents? You’ll be wanting to buy something for your sisters, I reckon?”
She had not thought of presents. For the past several years, presents at the Ellis Christmas had been much more humble in nature than in the days when jewels, paintings and finery had been typical gifts.
“Well, that would be very nice,” she said. “Thank you for thinking of it.”
“It’s not a stretch to think of Christmas and presents,” he said with a slight scowl. “You’re not married to a poor man. I expect it might be hard for your sisters now, doing without. Gavin and that sheep farm of his,” Harley shook his head in the cattleman’s disdain for sheep. “He won’t have extra money for some time until it’s profitable. Pete, well, no telling when he’ll strike.”
“Will he’ll strike it rich?”
Harley shrugged. “I believe he will. He gets enough silver out of it to live on. He just hasn’t struck the vein yet. In the meantime, your sister is likely making do on less than she’s used to. Maybe they’d like a new hat? I believe you ladies set a store by new hats.”
Hazel’s face glowed with delight. “Oh, Harley, if they could have new hats for Christmas, it would be perfect for them!” Impulsively, she placed her hand over his arm.
He looked down in surprise, then looked up at her. But he didn’t move his hand away. “It’s just hats,” he said.
But Hazel didn’t feel rebuffed. She left her hand on his arm a moment longer before removing it.
As she did so, she felt Harley’s eyes studying her with that unfathomable intensity which conveyed a curious force that she could not identify. But she was so aware of its potency that she could not raise her eyes to meet his.
10
When Oakley learned that she was to join Harley and Hazel in the dining room for the evening meal, her only reaction was to blink at the news. She said nothing more, and returned to her assignment for the day. But that evening, when she appeared in the dining room, prompted by Jane, she hesitated before sitting down.
Hazel gestured toward the chair to Harley’s left; Hazel sat on his right. Harley made no reference to Oakley’s presence. Jane came in with the platters to serve the meal, and when she spooned beets onto the girl’s plate, she asked, “Would you like more, Miss Oakley? I know you like beets.”
Oakley grinned, assuming that Jane was joking. But later on in the meal, when Jane served the apple pie and again referred to her as ‘Miss’ Oakley, the girl’s green-blue eyes showed bewilderment.
“Oakley,” Hazel intervened, noticing the girl’s confusion, “Harley says that the piano is to be delivered next week.”
“I don’t expect she’s ever seen a piano,” Harley answered.
Hazel was annoyed that he spoke as if the child were somehow inanimate.
“Oakley, do you like to sing?”
“I sing to the cattle,” Oakley said.
“Yes, Harley has explained to me that cattlemen sing to the cattle during the drive, so that they won’t get upset.”
“Or stampede,” Oakley added. “That’s how Mrs. de la Rosa’s husband died. In a stampede.”
“Stampedes are scary things,” Harley acknowledged after chewing a piece of the pie. “One minute, everything is calm, then there’s a stirring. It may be nothing at all, but the cattle sense fear, and then they’re racing off. It’s a scary thing,” he repeated.
“You’ve been in a stampede?” Hazel asked, alarmed by this aspect of ranching that she hadn’t considered.
He nodded. “Most of us have. That’s why we do everything we can to avoid them and to keep the cattle peaceful. Animals sense things we don’t. Now sheep, sheep are just stupid,” he said. “I don’t know why your brother-in-law wanted to take up with sheep.”
“I believe it was because his cattle died in the April snowstorm,” Hazel said, her defense taking on a frigid tone, reminiscent of the devastating storm that had greeted Minnie upon her arrival in Colorado.
“Yeah, but sheep…” Harley shook his head and went on, “fencing in the land is just contrary to the West. Folks don’t like it. There’s been blood shed between cattlemen and shepherds.”
“I don’t understand why a man may not raise the animals of his choosing,” Hazel said.
“Cattle graze free. We brand our animals, we know what’s ours. Having fencing in the way, well. It’s in the way,” he said. “Cattle can’t graze like they did.”
“I can’t imagine that Colorado will be free grazing land forever,” Hazel objected. “Why, in Boston, such a concept would be unthinkable.”
“Colorado isn’t Boston,” Harley said. “Boston isn’t cattle country.”
“Will Colorado always be cattle country?” Hazel countered. “There are cattlemen and shepherds, there are miners and farmers. The railroads are here and there will be more as the state expands its population and its industry. Boston once had livestock on the Common.”
“Colorado is not like Boston.”
“No,” she said, nettled by his repetition of the obvious, “but Boston has evolved over the centuries. Bostonians were once pioneers, you must remember, fighting the tribes who lived on the land, struggling to raise crops in rocky soil, sailing and fishing for income. Now the city is very settled and established. But it was not always so, Harley. It will be the same for Colorado, mark my words.”
Then, realizing that the tone of the discussion was too fractious for a child, Hazel smiled at Oakley. “I see that we should add history to our lessons,” she said.
“Boston had Indians, just like us?” Oakley asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“The tribes weren’t the same,” Harley said.
“No,” Hazel agreed, giving him a level stare of warning, “but they wer
e just as fierce. Do you know about King Philip’s War?”
“Who’s King Philip?” Oakley asked. “That doesn’t sound like an Indian name.”
“His real name was Metacomet. He was the chief of the Wampanoag Tribe. In the earlier days of the colony, when the Pilgrims came, Metacomet’s father, Massosoit, and the English got along well. But that didn’t last, and war broke out. It was not like now, when there are forts in the West that can send soldiers who can come to the aid of the people who live here,” Hazel said, pointedly making a distinction between the danger endured by the early English settlers and the people of the frontier now, who had a strong and stable country at their backs to defend them. “The colonists had to depend upon themselves. The war was very bloody. . . and not at all a suitable topic for conversation at the table. But we shall begin learning about the history of our country tomorrow,” she agreed. “There is much to learn.”
After Oakley finished her dessert, she asked to be excused. Hazel gave permission. After she was gone, Harley spoke.
“I reckon those lessons you’re giving her are a good thing,” he said. “She ought to know about the United States.”
“There is much to know,” Hazel agreed urbanely, savoring the morsel of triumph that she felt by his acknowledgement. A thought occurred to her. “And not only one viewpoint. Eventually, I must tell her about the War between the North and the South. Your father fought on the Confederate side, and mine on the Union side.”
“My father didn’t hold with slavery,” Harley said. “He fought with Lee because he was a Virginian in birth. But he left that behind him. Owning folks and selling their kin is wrong. He felt strongly about that. It was one of the reasons he left.”
“Then you have family in Virginia?” she inquired. He had never mentioned them.
“I’ve never met them,” he answered, explaining with his reply why they were not spoken of. He did not know them.
“I suppose families don’t visit back and forth to Colorado the way they do back East,” she said forlornly. Would she ever see Mother and Father again? It did not seem likely.
“It’s a far piece,” he answered. Then, in a remark that surprised her, he added, “Maybe once the piano gets here, Boston won’t seem so far away.”
Hazel did not realize that the arrival of the piano was a matter not only for Wyatt interest, but for the town as well. On the morning when the train was to arrive, Harley suggested that she might want to join them at the train station. She was delighted by the suggestion.
Oakley was so surprised by the invitation that her expression changed from its usual placid equanimity to one of excitement. “I can come?” she repeated when Hazel told her that she needed to comb her hair so that she would look her best.
Oakley let Hazel brush the long blonde hair and braid it. She even let Hazel tie it with a blue ribbon instead of its usual piece of string.
Harley cast an assessing look over his wife. She returned the gaze calmly. She understood, without being told, that she was Mrs. Wyatt, and before the townspeople, Harley Wyatt’s wife must set the standard for style. She was wearing one of the new dresses that she had ordered at Harley’s insistence; it was a deep, foamy shade of green, with the faintest nuance of blue. The bustle was prominent in the back, the bodice was studded with jet beads, the sleeves were crisp, culminating in trim cuffs at the wrist. The hat was the same color as the dress, which was no easy feat, given the novelty of the hue.
He nodded. “This is why women wear dresses,” he said, “and men wear britches.”
It was a peculiar compliment, if a compliment it was. Oakley was in the room when he said it, and Hazel wondered if he had intended for her to hear the remark. She sighed. There was no way of knowing with Harley.
He helped Hazel into the wagon and, when Oakley would have scrambled into the back as usual, he held her with his hand on her shoulder. Only when Hazel was seated did he bend down to lift Oakley up. He had never done that before.
“How will the piano get to the ranch?” Oakley wanted to know.
“Alf Kendicott at the livery stable has a good-sized dray wagon he’ll let me use. The trick is going to be loading the piano onto the wagon. Alf has those big work horses of his and they’ll be able to pull it. I’ll have plenty of help, though. I sent some of the men on ahead, and they’ll help load it onto the wagon. You might have to give a recital once it gets here,” he said to Hazel. “Abel Markeli says he can tune it. He worked on pianos when he lived in Europe. He’s pretty dang excited about this, says he hasn’t touched a piano key in ten years.”
“Oh, but he can play it if he likes,” Hazel said, stricken at the thought of a man who had been deprived of a beloved musical instrument for so long.
“Maybe so, but not until we get it inside,” Harley cautioned. “It’ll come in a good-sized wooden box and we’ll leave it that way until it’s time to unload it here.”
When they arrived at the train station, Hazel wondered why there were so many people gathered, and she commented on the size of the crowd to Harley.
He laughed. “They’re waiting for the piano,” he said.
“The piano?” she repeated. “They’re waiting to see it? But surely . . . “
She stopped. Many of the people of Newton, unlike Oakley, had seen a piano. But it was part of the lives they had left behind them when they came West. Now they waited for a memory to take form again.
When the people saw the wagon approach, someone began to cheer, and then the crowd took up the cry, applauding as Harley helped Hazel down to the ground. He reached for Oakley, but the little girl, consumed with the crowd’s eagerness, had gotten down on her own power.
“You gonna give us a tune, ma’am?” asked one of the men. Hazel recognized him as one of the hands from the ranch.
“Once we get to the ranch,” she said impulsively, “I’ll be glad to play for anyone who cares to come and listen.”
“If you open the windows,” suggested another man, “we could dance in the yard.”
“Not with that mug in your hand, you won’t,” Harley declared. “If you trample my wife’s flowers, she won’t be so hospitable.”
He took Hazel by the arm in a gesture that, although proprietary, was also, she realized, something else. Together they stood on the platform, waiting for the train to arrive.
“Pete is planning to come by,” Harley said, scanning the crowd behind him. “I thought I’d see him.”
“Clara will be so happy to hear piano playing again.”
“Does she play also?”
“We all do.”
“Your other sister, she’s not coming?”
“She and Gavin are very busy with the sheep.”
Harley made a derisive snort, but refrained from commenting, for which Hazel was grateful. She was a trifle concerned about Minnie, who seemed to be despondent of late. Clara had noticed it too, and said that Gavin had even spoken to her about his concerns regarding his wife’s frame of mind. Gavin didn’t know about Mother or that she was in a facility for her nerves, but both Hazel and Clara were worried that Minnie, for reasons that were unclear, was suffering from melancholia. Perhaps the piano and the music would restore Minnie to a more cheerful frame of mind, Clara thought. But Hazel feared that it might have the opposite effect and instead, remind Minnie of all she had left behind when she came to Colorado.
11
The wagon, drawn by two big dray horses whose powerful haunches moved with muscular force, carried its precious cargo from the town to the Wyatt ranch. It was followed by a procession of townspeople who were intent upon seeing the piano once it was removed from its wooden box and brought into the ranch. The people were loaded onto wagons, determined to make a party of the newest arrival to town.
Oakley’s excitement knew no restraints and it was impossible for her to stay in the wagon with Hazel and Clara. She jumped out before they began to head back to the ranch, running up and down alongside the cargo, while Harley and Pete walked along
side the dray horses in case help was needed in keeping the box in place. That seemed unlikely, as the men had tied ropes around it so that it would not shift during transit.
“How well you drive this,” Clara complimented her sister’s hand on the reins.
“Juno and I are used to each other,” Hazel said. Harley had chosen well and horse and mistress had taken to each other. Her sidesaddle had arrived, and the riding outfit that she had ordered had also come. Hazel had resumed a favorite pastime from the years when the Ellis family kept horses, and it was not uncommon for her to accompany Harley on a ride over the Wyatt spread early in the morning when the sun had just risen. But for today, Juno was hitched to the wagon and Hazel was driving it.
“She’s a fine-looking animal. Much more attractive than that vile Jezebel,” Clara said. “I cannot think what possessed Peter to decide that a camel was the sort of mount that would suit his needs.”
Although the sisters had been concerned that Clara’s reaction to the presence of Jezebel the camel would set their tempestuous sister off in a fury, she had handled the discovery with some measure of calm. Pete seemed to know how to handle her, or else, Minnie had suggested, he was so smitten with her that she could not bear to make him think less of her. It was a formula that worked.
“We’re almost home!” Oakley raced up to the wagon to deliver the news, then raced away again like a messenger.
Clara looked to Hazel, an unspoken question on her lips.
“I don’t know who her father is,” Hazel said quietly. It was unlikely that they would be overheard amidst all the noise, but she was taking no chances.
“I think you do know,” Clara said. “She’s quite like him.”
“Yes.”
“She cannot go about in men’s clothing forever, Hazel,” Clara argued, seemingly more troubled by the girls’ unorthodox wardrobe than by the suspicions of an illegitimate parentage.
“I know that. The time will come. She doesn’t know yet, but it will. In the meantime, she is dining with us and I am teaching her lessons. In time,” Hazel repeated when Clara opened her mouth to present another objection, “in time.”
