All the stars in the sky: the Santa Fe trail diary of Florrie Mack Ryder

by Megan McDonald

  She is called a cuentista, a keeper of stories. Abuelita knows many old tales from her own mama and grandmother, some funny, some frightening. Jem and I are improving our Spanish with each cuento she tells. Manny would be proud! We understand only half the words, but most of the meaning.

  It's impossible to tell if the stories are true. But her whispered voice alone could make night fall, or cause the moon to come up.

  Her stories makes me disappear. For a time.

  The first night was the story of two old women who rubbed themselves with magic powder, took three steps forward and three steps back, fell into a tub of water, and changed themselves into owls!

  Then it was the shepherd who was given the gift of understanding the language of the animals.

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  But the favorite, which Carlos and Juan ask for over and over, is the story of La Llorona, the Crying Woman. It reminds me of The River of Lost Souls.

  We gather round Abuelita. She lights a candle and pulls an empty chair within our circle, so we each may invite a guest to hear the story. (I can feel Papa with us.)

  The story goes, once there was a beautiful young woman who fell in love with a rich man's son. They had a baby, but they weren't married, so the young man's parents wanted to take the baby away from her. When she found out they were coming to steal away her baby, she ran down to the river with her child. They had dogs with them to help find her, and the dogs could be heard up and down the valley.

  As they came near, she threw herself into the river. The current was so strong, it ripped the baby from her arms and though she was saved, her baby drowned.

  To this day, La Llorona can still be heard wandering up and down the riverbank, moaning and sighing, calling out for her baby.

  Abuelita said that's why she's called the Crying Woman. And that's why children should never stay out after dark, or go near the river. La Llorona might think you're her child and snatch you!

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  Abuelita says if you don't believe the story, wander down to the river and listen for yourself. You'll hear Crying Woman moaning, OOOOOOOOO! EEEEEEEEEEE! OHHHHHHHHH!

  The moaning sent chills up my spine ... even though I know it's just a children's story. Poor Rosalita! Her eyes popped clean out of her head, and she chewed on the end of my apron most furiously.

  As soon as it was finished, Jem broke the spell with complaints of a stomachache. Too many tortillas, or too many scary stories? Abuelita gave him mint leaves to chew, which seemed to help.

  September 14

  Lupe has in the center of her kitchen a mola stone, and showed me how it's used for grinding corn and making tortillas. What a lot of trouble, but the final outcome is ohhh so good.

  First she soaks the corn till the husks fall off and tosses two handfuls into the hollow of the stone. Then she kneels and rubs the corn up and down, up and down, till it's ground into a paste finer than sand.

  Now she takes a small mound of the corn paste and

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  pats it out into tortillas. Slap, slap, slap. Like the children's hand clapping game.

  Next she throws a tortilla on the griddle, which she flips quick as a magic trick, and without burning hand or sleeve.

  I was most anxious to try, only to find my back ached from the grinding within minutes. My first attempt was more mud pie. How Rosalita and I did laugh over the sticky mess stuck to my fingers. Over and over I tried till finally I formed one worthy of putting on the griddle.

  Making tortillas is an art. I need plenty more practice. But the art of eating Lupe's tortillas takes no practice at all!

  September 19

  Little time to write . . . have been helping Lupe more and more at the General Store. She sees I'm lonesome. Often I amuse Rosalita while Lupe makes the trades, but today, I am a merchant! A real trader! A woman came to purchase a dress, but we could not agree on the price. She insisted that Mr. Ryder sold for less, but I'm sure she was mistaken. I told her if he let the

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  calico go for two bits, he should not have. She claimed she would wait for him, or Mr. Villarreal. I held firm, stating my price of dos media, for I am sure two and a half is its worth!

  After all was said and done, she left with her calico after all, at two and a half!

  September 23

  Mama should be on her way to us by now. No word as yet.

  October 15

  Diary! How my heart nearly stopped when I found you missing! I thought my life had surely ended, not knowing how to go on without you. All my pressed flowers have come tumbling out, which caused me to think of Louisa and Eliza. Wondering where they are, what they're doing this very minute.

  As it turns out, the rascal Jem stole my book and hid it from me. The scoundrel! Sakes alive, what a mean joke. He has me madder than a March hare. He'll get my attention now. And worse, if I find he's read a word of it.

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  October 20

  Jem and I have learned to play a game they have here in the streets called kanute

  (they say ka-noot). It's like the shell game we played at home, where you hide something under a few nutshells, then mix them up and try to guess where the something his hiding. Only here we play it with little sticks and pinto beans. How I love to beat the others at their own game! I'm quite good at the skill of "hand is quicker than the eye." Soon I had a pile of red beads (which I have to sit on to keep from being stolen), an apron full of pinon nuts, and other trinkets.

  If Mama could see me now, that would sure put a stop to my gambling days. I'm even getting a glimpse of how Mr. Ryder could lose everything.

  October 21

  In a fix over Jem.

  His arms now stick out a mile from under his sleeves. His hair is grown near as long as mine, but he won't go near a pair of scissors and refuses to wear shoes. His skin is still dark from the sun. I envy how

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  easily he speaks the Spanish tongue, but I'm afraid Mama won't recognize her own son.

  All that boy ever wants to do is play kanute. And when he's not gambling, he's cooking up some kind of trouble. So I've had to put an end to both our gambling days and start making Jem go to the Catholic church on Sunday. It's all I can do to get him to wash his neck and ears before attending. He has no problem playing his games of ball against the church wall all the day long. But never does he think to go inside.

  I took him to San Miguel, which is a church over 250 years old and beautiful. Its red earth tower, like the hand of God, points the way to Heaven, and glows red in the evening sun. A person can't but feel holy in such a place.

  We listen to the prayers, same as Mama's, and I pray to God some holiness rubs off on Jem. It's been ages since I've heard Jem recite his prayer about seeing the face of God. I dutifully asked Jem to tell me one good thing about the sermon, just like Mama used to do.

  His reply. "It was short."

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  October 22

  This morning, Lupe discovered me crouched behind a barrel of corn in back of the store, crying and falling all to pieces with worry about Mr. Ryder having gambled everything away. "Dios provida," she kept saying. God will provide. In between sobs, I told Lupe everything, in half-Spanish. She laughed out loud, and waved Mr. Villarreal over to us.

  How humiliating! I thought she hadn't understood my woes at all. Then when she explained to Mr. Villarreal, he threw back his head and laughed, too! Finally, Mr. Villarreal told me the truth about Mr. Ryder.

  He did not lose everything at gambling! He's arranged to buy us our own house. With a door and windows and a roof. A house for Mama to come home to! Lupe says she will take us to see it, should I not believe her!

  A real house!

  October 23

  We've seen the house, which looks like a mud-colored mushroom, but were it a pigsty, I wouldn't

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  care. It's ours! Ours! Nuestra casa (our house) sits under the shadow of la iglesia (the church). We have four rooms, including la cocina (the kitchen) and din
ing room, and plank ceilings. Did I mention a roof! A real roof over our heads. Forever and ever, amen.

  October 24. morning

  Jem and I decided: We'll sleep in the house by ourselves tonight -- on the earthen floor, with only a blanket to roll up in. Jem says it'll be just like being in our tent on the trail again.

  I think sometimes he misses it.

  Later

  Our first night in the house. I wish never to sleep anywhere else again.

  October 25

  We're to sprinkle the floor with water every day, and Lupe has shown us the grass matting we can put on the floor, which will please Mama greatly.

  I have put Jem to work! He helped me whitewash

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  the inside walls of the house which goes a long way to brighten our home. How it does rub off! Jem and I are covered in white, and look to each other like ghosts of ourselves.

  October 26

  Today we got yards of bright-colored fabric from Mr. Ryder's store, and Lupe has shown me how to tack the cloth up on the lower part of the wall so that the white does not rub off on us.

  It's beginning to look like a real house!

  October 28

  Lupe gave me a small statue of the Madonna and Christ Child, which I set in a niche in the snowy walls. I keep a candle burning in this small altar, praying Mama home. It's been at least a month, if I counted days correctly. Mama should've been here by now. It's got to be cold in the mountains, and getting difficult to travel.

  They say it snows here -- I'm too hot to believe it. Today is hot enough to peel the hide off a Gila monster. And to think, the end of October!

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  Jem stayed close to home today, working steady on whittling spoons again. So good to see him occupied. He aims to make a set of four, one for each of us, which he hopes to have ready when Mama returns.

  Jem and I lay on the hearth with our heads in the empty fireplace -- the coolest spot in the house. The breeze coming from the chimney is like finding water on the prairie.

  It gave me the idea to place a pan of milk right there, to keep it cool for us. I thought nothing of it till this morning, when I heard an unusual rustling sound and tiptoed over to discover two huge rattlers in the fireplace, come for a drink of milk! Even the rattlesnakes find it warm for October.

  October 23

  The last of the roses mingle with the smell of red peppers drying outside the door. Mama and Mr. Ryder still not here. Jem never speaks of them.

  October 31

  Jem was roused by a noise and woke me in the middle of the night. Of all nights to let Mr. Biscuit stay with

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  Carlos and Juan! Sure enough, I heard the sound, too. Like an animal scratching at the walls of the house, a pack rat working at something. I lit a candle and the noise stopped at once.

  Not long after we blew out the candle, we heard the sound again. Again, I lit the candle and looked up and down the wall where we heard the queer noise, but I couldn't see a thing.

  Jem and I had been using a trunk from the storeroom for both a bench to sit on and a table to eat off of. The animal sounded like it might be right behind the trunk!

  I motioned to Jem to help me slide away the trunk from the wall. As soon as we slid the trunk from its place, we found a gaping hole in the wall of the house staring at us like a giant dark eye.

  Someone, or something, had been just outside, digging right through our wall to gain entrance to the house! Surely it had not been a thief. We had little to steal.

  Jem and I pushed the trunk back at once to cover the hole. He got his rifle and sat like a soldier on guard atop the trunk while I nailed the front door shut. Then I tied our two spoons to the latch string so we'd be sure to know if anyone tried to come into the

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  house. Jem and I sat on that trunk all night, without so much as two winks of sleep.

  This morning we hardly dared step outside. Sure enough, we saw footprints -- not of Indians or wild beasts, but of a large man with shoes, a barefooted man, and a burro.

  Not one but two ladrones, intruders, thieves, digging into our house!

  November 1

  I now hide a small sack beneath my apron, which holds a green moss agate Jem found for me, the white-hearts from Bent's Fort, a glittery pebble from the Pecos River, and three horse hairs wrapped around a chicken feather. It is a charm to keep away evil until Mr. Ryder returns with Mama.

  November 3

  Still no word from Mama. Jem and I keep ourselves busy trying not to fix on river drownings and spills from wagons. Jem whittles his spoons, and me, I dream of a garden where we'll raise beans and peppers, pumpkins and squash. And our own blue corn!

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  I sketched out a map of the garden.

  I had in mind to plant the cottonwood seeds today, but couldn't settle on a right spot. Can't help but fill with longing, wondering if Louisa and Eliza have planted theirs.

  November 7 Mama, where are you?

  November 8

  Something's happened to Mama. I can feel it.

  If only I had the fortune-teller to see the future.... it's been near two months and still no word. Every time a caravan arrives with traders come through the mountain pass, I beg for word of Mama, but get none. What if Mr. Ryder never made it to Mama? What if something's befallen them on the journey? Rivers. Blizzards. Falls. Drownings. It takes courage times a thousand just to keep from thinking the thoughts.

  Lupe says the name Santa Fe means "holy faith." She reminds me I must have holy faith that Mama will return.

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  November 9

  Every day now at sunset, like clockwork, I climb to the hilltop. From this height I can see the road that brought us here. The road that will bring Mama back.

  Today the clouds lined up over the red hills and light fell different on the sawtooth mountains, the stunted thorn tree, the sheep on the next mesa.

  In one golden moment I saw me a sunbow. I called it a sunbow because it looked just exactly like all the colors of the rainbow, but there's no rain anywhere for miles. The sky got so clear, I thought I could see the whole trail in an instant -- saying good bye to Caroline and Aunt Florence giving me the honey jar, Eliza and Louisa picking flowers, Mr. St. Clair sketching buffalo, the view from the bluffs at Council Grove, shooting stars and all.

  November 10

  Walked home from my hilltop lookout in some despair when I neared the house and heard sounds. A screaming, a crying, a wailing. I ran toward it.

  When I finally reached home, I busted through the door all in a dash. In a glance, a flash, a single second

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  that doesn't seem real to me now, my heart took in what my eyes couldn't trust. Mama!

  "Mama!" I shouted. "Papa! I mean Mr. Ryder."

  There was Mama sitting atop the old trunk, clutching a bundle in her arms. Mr. Ryder and Jem were there, too, gazing at the bundle. (J wondered, did Mr. Ryder hear me call him Papa?) The bundle was wrapped in my own quilt of nine blocks, the one I'd sewn for Missouri. And that bundle was squealing the living daylights out.

  Madre mia! The bundle was a baby! And that red faced, loud-mouth baby with a shock of brown hair on top was to be my very own sister.

  "Meet Cimarron," Mama said, and she smiled with new light in her eyes.

  There was so much laughing and crying and hugging and jumping up and down and carrying on, I'm sure they could've heard us all the way to Pecos.

  When all calmed down a mite and the baby stopped her squealing and I believed what my eyes were seeing, Jem and I asked Mama how it could be that she'd brought us a baby sister. "Was it a miracle from God?" Jem asked, and I felt proud just for him thinking it.

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  "I suppose it was," Mama said. "A milagro. Nothing short of a miracle."

  "May I hold her?" I asked Mama.

  She handed me the baby, and I rocked her in my arms. "Mama? Where, I mean how, I mean what on earth happened and how did this all come about?" />
  "In time," said Mama. "In time. We all have our stories to tell, and there's time enough for us now, Florrie. Don't you go worrying about a thing for one more minute. You've had enough worry to fill a wagon."

  While I was bouncing baby Cimarron, Mama walked all around the house, exclaiming over this and that, remarking all the while on what a home Jem and I had made, in a voice that was real warm-like. Her Missouri voice.

  In all the fuss, we forgot about Mr. Biscuit till he started howling like the wolves for some attention. Jem and I both were so filled with questions to ask and things to say, it's a wonder any of us heard a word of how we came to have Baby Cimarron in our lives. At last we got to hear the story.

  Just as Mama was thanking God for seeing them through the Raton Pass, they'd stopped to rest at an

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  area called Cimarron before pushing on to cross Ocate Creek. I couldn't hear the word "Cimarron" without thinking of Jem and his cinnamon candy trees. This all put me in mind of Louisa and Eliza back at Cimarron Crossing, and I couldn't help wishing them here, seeing this baby and hearing the story right along side me.

  Mama was remarking that Cimarron is a Spanish word for wild or unbroken. Mr. Ryder said it was most likely named for all the wild horses and untamed sheep you see roaming in those parts. As they were sitting having their boiled coffee and some hardtack, Mama heard a sound issuing from the reeds growing near the creek, and thought an animal had gotten itself hurt.

  Mr. Ryder took up his gun, and they went to have a look, and that's when Mama saw the baby all alone. Just floating there in the reeds without any clothes on, all skinny and hungry and scratched-up like, as if she'd sailed down the creek and got stuck in the reeds.

  The baby was crying all the time, sick as could be with stomach upset and terrible thirst. Her tiny hands and feet were near blue in color. Mama soaked them in warm water. Every day Mama gave her spearmint

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  and chamomile tea with camphor and castor oil, and a mustard poultice over her stomach, and all the while they worried it was the cholera. The men scouted the area for days, looking for the baby's family, but found no one. Mama and Mr. Ryder waited, for neither could bear to leave a helpless baby behind. At the same time, they did not want to take her from her rightful parents.