by Nevada Barr
In the murky half-light of the loft above, a shape shifted and the faded red plaid of Karl’s shirt rose from the bales, the battered felt hat pulled low. For a moment, sympathetic gray eyes looked down on the grieving old man, then soundlessly ducked down behind the barrier of hay.
Sarah managed to show the guests to their rooms and get dinner on the table; then, exhausted to the point where she was shaking, she excused herself to pick at her own dinner in the comfort of her kitchen.
Mac joined her after supper. He knocked timidly. “Sarah, it’s Mac.”
“Come in, Mac.” She lifted her eyes from the congealed mess of stew on her plate and managed a weak smile. He sat down heavily opposite her, and for a while neither spoke.
The sounds of feet on the stairs, as the guests said their good nights and carried their candles up to bed, roused Mac from his thoughts.
“You go on back with Liam. I’ll stay on till Jensen gets a new boy.”
Sarah stared, openmouthed. “Mac! I can’t leave Imogene.” Confusion clouded her face, and tears welled up in her eyes.
“Jensen was going to put you out anyway. I was to tell you. Soon as he found somebody else. He’d always pretty much known Mr. Ebbitt never showed, but there weren’t no complaints and he was satisfied to leave things well enough alone. But your friend Harland Maydley make a stink. Said he’d go over Ralph’s head if he had to. Since the lease was signed by two women, it ain’t legal.”
“Karl could take over, couldn’t he? Sign a new lease or something?”
“And you’d stay on?” Mac gave her a long knowing look, and she bridled a little.
“It’s not that, Mac.”
“I wouldn’t be pointing the finger if it was. A woman could do a hell of a lot worse’n Karl. He don’t say much but he ain’t stupid. Some fellas don’t say much and you figure they’re just duller than a hoe, and when they do speak up, sure enough, they ain’t much sharper. But when Karl talks, he’s not just beating his gums.”
“It’s not that.”
“Not much company for you out here; there’d be folks your own age in town. Women.”
“I’ll stay. You’ll be here sometimes.”
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m too old for swamping, been too old for fifteen years. This’ll be my last winter. I don’t mind telling you, Miss Grelznik’s going’s took the heart out of it.” Sarah reached out for his hand and held it. “ ’Course, I’d be more’n happy to stay on here if you need me,” he added.
“No, don’t stay,” she said, a bit too quickly, and Mac looked both hurt and relieved.
The house was still, the fires burned down to embers. Mac sat alone in front of the hearth, the only one besides Sarah who was still awake.
Sarah had gone to bed and, warm under the wool, swathed in a heavy flannel nightdress, she lay staring at the ceiling. No shadows mottled the darkness, and even the square of the window was scarcely lighter than the wall. Restless, she threw off the covers and drew on her robe. With her face pressed against the glass, she looked out over the harsh lines of the Smoke Creek Desert. Under the overcast the stage was as black as ink, the outline of the privy barely discernible.
A long, eerie howl made her shiver. There was a moment of silence, deeper for having been so recently rent, then another cry. Sarah pressed her plans over her ears. Another quavering call went up into the night, this time close to the house. Snatching up her shawl from the bedpost, Sarah lit a kerosene lamp and tiptoed through the house and out the back door into the winter night. Pellets of snow stung her face and neck. She pulled the shawl over her head and squinted into the blackness. The howling came again and she shoved her fist into her mouth to choke off her own crying. Steadfastly she made her way out through the gate and to the clearing in the brush.
Moss Face perched on the freshly turned clods of the grave, his narrow face pointed at the blind sky.
“Moss Face,” Sarah called, stopping near the fence about fifty feet from the mound of dirt. “Come here.” The dog stopped his lament, looked at her, and whimpered. Pressing his chin down between his forepaws, he crept toward her on his belly. Sarah wouldn’t go any closer to the grave; she crouched down and stepped on the tail of her nightgown, wrapping the loose flannel over her cold toes. “Come here, little fella,” she coaxed, and the dog whined.
Wind gusted past the lamp chimney, making it throw an uncertain, dancing light. Just beyond its glow, a pale face appeared out of the darkness.
“Karl!” Sarah screamed, and lurched up, but the hem of her gown pulled her to her knees and the lamp fell from her hand. Its bowl shattered, and flames ran like liquid over the ground, whipping with a life of their own. “Karl! No!” Sarah covered her face and screamed again, stumbling back from the grave.
Strong hands caught her and held her. “It’s me. Don’t be afraid. I’m not a ghost. It’s me.” Sarah cringed and clung to the rough wool of the coat, burying her face in Karl’s vest. The fire winked out, the kerosene consumed. “You go back to bed, Sarah. I came out to get Moss Face.”
“Oh Lord, what have we gotten ourselves into?” Sarah cried.
“Hush! Do you want me to walk you to the house?”
“No. I’ll be all right.” Sarah’s voice was a bare thread of sound, almost lost in the wind.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Don’t come near the house. Kiss me.” They held each other for a moment, then Sarah said, “I’m going to hate sleeping alone again. Lord, but I’m going to hate it!” She turned and ran, without a backward look.
It was impossible to read the expression in the dark eyes that watched the young woman, hidden as they were by the night and the battered hat brim. The lanky figure slumped and muttered, “Lazarus Saunders, risen from the grave to help two ladies in distress.”
A blunt-fingered hand touched the hair under the hat brim delicately, like fingers probing a raw wound. The hair was cropped short, a ragged cut done in a hurry with Sarah’s sewing scissors. “The schoolteacher died of unnatural causes.”
The wide shoulders almost filled the faded plaid shirt, and the dirt-encrusted workboots were only slightly too large.
Moss Face whined, calling attention to himself.
“Can’t have you howling at the moon on a moonless night. It will be warmer in the barn.” A long arm scooped the coyote off the grave, and Moss Face nuzzled into the familiar smells of his master’s coat.
Ralph Jensen arrived on Wednesday’s stage, as promised. He was out of the coach as soon as the wheels stopped turning, and he marched into the house, leaving the other passenger to fend for himself.
“Mrs. Ebbitt!” He shouted, and Sarah appeared in the kitchen doorway.
“What is it?” The suddenness of the summons had frightened her. When Sarah recognized Jensen, all the color drained from her face. She looked as though she would faint and reached out and touched the bar to steady herself. “Mr. Jensen,” she managed. The words croaked out of a dry throat.
Ralph Jensen, his jowls permanently purpled by years of high living and his nose rubbed to a like hue by the weather, glowered down at her. Sarah waited, her hands clasped at her waist.
“You don’t bother meeting the coach?” he said after a baleful survey of her small person.
“Imogene always…” she began, and then said, “I will.”
Her gentle demeanor and the black of her mourning band unsettled Jensen. He exhaled with a bellow’s wheeze. “Lease is no good,” he said flatly. He pulled a much-folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “It’s not legal.”
Sarah glanced past him. “Where’s Mac?”
“I gave him the sack.”
Sarah looked at him with blank-faced reproach.
“He was getting too old. Drinking.”
“It was because of Imogene, then. Mac never drank too much before.”
“He knew there wasn’t any Mr. Ebbitt. He ought to’ve told me.”
Sarah said nothing.
“He
turned in his resignation for spring anyway. I just accepted it early, is all.” He closed the subject with a jerk of his chin. “He said something about your hired man taking over the lease. I’m not adverse to that, long as he’s sober and’ll keep the place up. I haven’t got men lining up for this place. Not in the middle of winter.”
Sarah eyed the new lease as Jensen pulled it from his coat pocket. She reached out for it, but Jensen held it back and she let her hand fall to her side. “Could you leave it?” she ventured. “I’ll have Karl sign it and we’ll send it to you.”
“I came on purpose to see him sign it himself. I don’t mind saying, Mrs. Ebbitt, you don’t have much credit with me on this score.”
Sarah took a deep breath to calm herself. “Karl’s outside,” she said. “I’ll get my coat.” And without offering him a seat or any refreshment, Sarah ducked back into the kitchen, checked the bread she was baking, and put on the jacket Imogene used to wear when hunting.
When she came out, Jensen was bent down behind the bar.
“You’ll find everything clean and in order, Mr. Jensen. Cleaner than we found it.”
Caught off guard, he banged his head on the counter as he straightened. He groped a moment for something to say, gave up, and was rude: “Let’s get on with it.”
Sarah hurried by him and led the way across the yard toward the small meadow. She paused a moment by the coach. “Liam,” she said in a shy voice, “will you tell the men they can go inside? There’s a fire lit and the food’s almost ready.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded.
In the crystal air the mountains shimmered close and unreal, the detail vivid and the colors rich, running the gamut from deep purple to white. Moss Face bounded out from under the porch to run ahead of Sarah and Ralph Jensen, leaping over the stiffened grass and darting at the heels of unimpressed horses.
Past the icehouse, halfway to the alkali flats, stood the windmill. On top of the platform, the bulky figure of Karl Saunders could be seen, his coat buttoned close and a battered felt hat pulled so low his ears were bent out under the brim. He labored in heavy gloves, his fingers thick and clumsy, hammering at the rusted bolts that held a damaged blade in place. A new one, silver-bright in the cold sunlight, glinted against one of the wooden uprights.
Sarah called up to him. “Karl? Mr. Jensen’s here with the lease. Says there’s no trouble.” She laid a hand on her throat, trying to still the quaver in her voice.
There was a clatter, loud in the still afternoon, as Karl fumbled and dropped the hammer onto the wooden platform where he knelt. With an odd, nervous gesture he put his hands to his head, as though pushing in invisible hairpins. Just as his fingers came into contact with the rough-cropped hair, Sarah cleared her throat loudly. “Karl!” she said distinctly. “Karl, we need your signature, he says he’s got to witness.”
The gloved hands fell suddenly, self-consciously, to the hammer and chisel.
“I ain’t coming down,” came the muffled reply as Karl went on working.
Sarah looked at Ralph Jensen and smiled apologetically. “Karl’s from New England,” she explained. “Karl, can you drop a rope or something? I’ll send it up.” She turned to Jensen. “Is that all right? Can I send it up and have Karl sign it?”
“Oh hell, yes. By all means, send the damn thing up.” He frisked himself for a cigar, found one, bit the end off, and spat it disgustedly at his feet. “Don’t forget to send the son of a bitch a pen,” he muttered under his breath.
“Need a pen,” Karl called.
“For Christ’s sake.” Ralph Jensen stalked off a couple of paces and back again. Sarah ran to the house for pen and ink while Karl battled with the weathered bolts. Jensen, completely ignored, booted Moss Face in the rump.
Sarah sent the ink and pen up in a little pail tied on to the rope, and a moment later it returned with the signed lease. Ralph Jensen checked it perfunctorily. “Pleasure doing business with you, Saunders.” He spat a bit of tobacco off his tongue and strode back toward the house.
Sarah served the men lunch as the clanking of Karl’s tools on the metal windmill sounded in the distance. She served a second meal an hour and fifteen minutes later, when the coach down from Fort Bidwell arrived. Liam and Ross traded passengers, except for Jensen, who was returning to Reno.
Sarah stood on the porch as the coaches loaded passengers and switched luggage from one rack to another, enduring the crush of strangers for Mr. Jensen’s benefit. Karl was nowhere to be seen; he’d finished with the windmill shortly before Ross rolled in, but hadn’t come into the house.
“You’re staying on?” Jensen asked her.
“Yes.”
“With Saunders?” His lip curled in a knowing leer.
Sarah looked up the hill toward the broken earth of the new-made grave and didn’t reply.
36
THE REST OF THE WINTER PASSED UNEVENTFULLY. SARAH MET THE incoming coaches as Imogene had done in the past. She’d watch them coming over the desert, and just before the wheels stopped turning she’d take a deep breath, pat her lips with the tips of her fingers, and say to herself, “They’re people just like me.”
Karl worked hard, and when there were no guests, he spent his evenings in by the fire and his nights with Sarah; when there were guests, he kept to himself in the tackroom.
The only physical difference in the stop was an old clothesline running up the pole where the meat was stored. A bit of red calico, faded nearer to pink, was tied on for a flag. After a coach had discharged its passengers, sometimes Sarah would raise the flag. On those days Karl did not show, and she tended the customers alone. Liam once questioned Karl about it. “It lets me know if I have any creditors aboard,” Karl had answered with a slow smile. Liam had asked, too, about the woman, Imogene, whom he had never met, but neither Sarah nor Karl could be brought to speak of her.
Karl scratched his shoulders against the beam, unconsciously aping the movement of the horse in a stall next to him. Liam and his swamper, a quiet young Mexican whom Liam called Beaner, curried the tired horses and rubbed them down. Karl sat on a bale of hay against the wall, watching them work. His arms were folded and his long legs stretched out in front of him. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled halfway to the elbow, and his long underwear was pushed up to expose hard, stringy forearms baked leather-brown.
The masculine, horse-smelling tranquility of the shed was chased away by the sudden intrusion of sunlight and fresh air. Sarah threw open the wide door and ran in, flushed and breathless. “Karl, there’s been a letter from Mam!” She waved several sheets of paper until they cracked. “Sam’s dead and Matthew’s coming home. Listen.” She sat down beside him on the hay and spread the sheets on her knees, oblivious to the uncomfortable glances of Liam and the swamper. The two men mumbled quick excuses and left Karl alone with her as she began to read.
“ ‘Dear Sarah, there isn’t a way to come up on this slowly, so I’ll just put it as best I can. Sam passed away the day before yesterday. He’d had a lump on his neck big as a goose egg and it seemed to suck the life right out. Sam was a little man when he died, I could’ve lifted him in my two arms.’ ” Sarah stopped and pressed her palms against the page. “I never loved Sam. I wish I had now.” There were tears glimmering in her eyes and she took a deep uneven breath to steady herself. Karl held out his hand and Sarah laid hers in it for a moment. “I’m okay. I’ll go on. ‘He was buried in the churchyard. It was a nice funeral, too, and took the last of the money Sam had—he owed from trying to get the farm back on its feet. The land will be auctioned off Saturday next.
“ ‘Gracie’s young man sent for her finally and she’s gone out West. All I got is Lizbeth home now, and Walter and little Mattie. Maybe you’ll see Gracie. Is Oregon anywhere near Reno?’ ” Sarah smiled. “Mam’s got no notion how big the West is.” She went back to the letter. “There’s some about Pa; his cough’s no better and I guess some worse, from what she doesn’t say. Here’s the part: ‘I think Mattie sh
ould come out to be with you. You’re his Ma. He’s a good boy and I’d want to keep him by me but things aren’t like when your Pa was well. Mattie will be better off to come West. Lizbeth looks to be marrying soon and I’m feeling my age more. I’ve saved some money and the church managed a little and I’ve bought the ticket. I’ll put him on the train as soon as I can get things settled here—maybe three weeks.’ ” When Sarah looked up from the page, her eyes were shining even in the dim light of the shed. “Matthew’s going to be here. My son.” Cool tears of joy ran down her face.
No girl ever prepared for the coming of her lover with more care than that with which Sarah readied the house—the entire stop—for the coming of her son. Every day she tied her hair back in a clean rag and, with her sleeves rolled up and a wooden scrub bucket in hand, cleaned and polished. She rearranged Imogene’s old room half a dozen times and moved the schoolteacher’s clothes out of the closet and drawers. It was the first time they’d been disturbed since Imogene stopped needing them. Sarah consigned some to the mending heap to alter for herself, and some to the ragbag. One of Imogene’s summer skirts became curtains to replace the sun-bleached drapes. Sarah mixed whitewash and repaired and painted the chicken coop; she trimmed back the withered limbs of another group of doomed saplings, and watered the cottonwood posts around the spring. The fenceposts, with the perversity of nature, had begun to sprout, and a living fence circled the water.
Karl, Liam, and Beaner, and freighters on their regular runs through Round Hole, watched the whirlwind activity with bemused tolerance. To ease her load, Karl took over the cooking, withstanding the gibes of the men with quiet good humor.
