What Once We Loved

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “Time enough for that, Ma,” Matthew told her.

  Lura wore a hat with a flounce rather than a bonnet, and Matthew touched the ruffle as he spoke, a gesture of affection, as Ruth saw it. But Lura jerked her head away from his hand.

  “Time enough for shenanigans, you ask me,” she said.

  “I haven't,” Matthew said, straightening his hat, pushing it forward and back on his head.

  “This is no time for courting,” Lura said. Ruth felt her face blush.

  “We're getting business done here, Lura,” Ruth said.

  “Business would be buying up supplies, settling on a land claim—”

  “Ma, one thing at a time,” Matthew said. “We'll be back before sunset.”

  They rode in silence, Ruth wanting to thank Matthew for his clarifying with Lura, but she found herself shy. Besides, she wanted to savor having found such a fine spot on her own. Well, with Carmines help. But it was good to have a place to choose, not one chosen for her or requiring Matthews intervention.

  Ruth watched Matthew check his fathers pocket watch. “Times more important than miles in this country,” Matthew said by way of explanation. He put the watch back. “On a map it looks like so many miles from here to there, but the underbrush in places or the winding trails makes it a longer journey than you'd think.”

  “How far north will you look for a place?” she asked.

  “Oh, it'll be within a day's ride of wherever you light,” he said.

  Now she'd find out if he really understood the limits she'd set on their “partnering” in coming north. The land would change their relationship. They were in the mordant stage, the land like the alum and tin that prepared wool yarn to accept dye. She hadn't thought of gathering wool or spinning for a long, long time. Not since Betha, her sister-in-law, had taken the time to show her how. They'd laughed together as Ruth's hands, that were capable of carving fine lithograph designs, fumbled with the alum. Betha had explained each step, then told her, “When the wool is ready, free of lanolin and soap, then it will accept the new color, each strand though different now, ready to become one color, Ruthie. Its not unlike a marriage. The strands are still themselves, but they've blended into one.”

  “How do you know if you'll get the color you want?”

  “Oh, Ruthie, that's the loveliest part. You can't go back. You can't ever get it to be what it once was. You know that going in. So you do what you can to prepare the wool. You choose what color you think you want. Imagine it in your mind, hold that image, that dream to guide you forward. Then I say a little good-bye to the fibers I hold in my hands, knowing they'll never be the same. But the new things I get will have grown out of what I had before. Then I just give my heart to it, to accepting that whatever arrives was just what was meant to be.”

  “What're you grinning about?” Matthew said, breaking into her memory.

  “All the different strands of color there are,” she said and kicked Koda to a trot.

  They splashed through a wide creek to enter Jacksonville. It proved to be a much smaller version of Shasta City though it bustled with miners and packers. The tip of a Chinese laborer s hat could be seen in the distance. And here, an Indian or two stood tall, prouder than those she saw scurrying in Shasta. Not just a woman or child either, but braves.

  As the Chinese man drew closer, Ruth made out a yoke across the mans back with two laundry baskets hanging from either end. A wide-faced man with a heavy body turned to stare, and as they passed him Matthew leaned to her and said, “Kanaka.”

  “Is that a tribe?”

  He shook his head. “Not Indians from here. They were brought here from the Sandwich Islands by Hudson's Bay people. Been here since ‘51, working the gold mines. Most of them stay at One Horse Town just west of Jacksonville. Along with the Chinese, Negroes, and a few whites. Sometimes you can hear their conch shells blow. I even saw one stout fellow play a flute with his nose.”

  “His nose?”

  Matthew nodded. “All that good breathing learned from diving for pearls in their homeland, they say.” Men turned to stare, and Ruth wasn't sure if it was because she wore pants, rode astride, or the mere fact she was a woman. She looked around. Flowers had been planted in a window box or two, so she knew she wasn't the only female in the place.

  They soon learned that the section of land Ruth admired could be bought, or at least a land patent applied for. Talk of the stage route coming north added to people's reluctance to set a price for property until they knew for sure if the value would go up or down. But all that mattered to Ruth was that the current titleholder might be willing to sell.

  “Section next to it ain't available,” the land agent told them. “No good for farming anyway less you want to scratch a field in between the pines.” He had a thick neck with layers of fat so that his chin seemed to just sit on his chest. “You can graze the timber. You got goats? Might need them for the brush. Didn't I see you earlier this spring with horses?” He squinted at Matthew. “Out near the MacDonalds' place, wasn't it?” Matthew nodded. “Yup, yup. I remember now. Why don't you set claim on that section then? MacDonalds and their kids moved on. There's more room there. Got the river and all and the view of those flat rocks.”

  “I like what I picked,” Ruth said.

  “Got a town and trees between those two sections,” he noted on the map. “Be hard to run both places.”

  Ruth bristled. “I'll run my own place. Mr. Schmidtke here is merely helping me…settle, bring my things north.”

  “Is he now,” the fat-necked man said. The wink he gave Matthew sent a flash of fire to Ruth's face.

  “I'll take the current owner's name, if you please,” Ruth said, grabbing and releasing her whip handle at her hip.

  The agent wrote the name on paper, dropping sand across the ink to dry it quickly. “Yes ma'am. Or is it miss?” he said, hanging on to the edge of the paper longer than needed as he handed it to Ruth.

  “It's Missis,” she told him, surprising even herself that she would seek safety in that fragile status.

  Tipton felt her stomach, stood sideways in the oval mirror. The letter she'd just read from Elizabeth lay folded beside the rose-flowered washbowl. There was no doubt about it. She was putting on weight. Chita was right, though she just could not believe yet in Chita's explanation. Still, last night, lying alone in her bed, she'd felt a movement inside of her, a strange fluttering as though a dragonfly had gotten captured inside. She'd sat right up in bed and called out Nehemiah's name before she remembered he wasn't there. He hadn't been there for several nights. Even when he wasn't out on the trail, he'd taken to sitting up in the big chair reading or “keeping the books,” he called it. When he came to bed—if he came to bed—she was already asleep. And he was up before she awakened in the morning.

  “Taking care of business,” he told her. Oddly, his eyes looked sad.

  At least she'd gotten Chita to agree to keep their secret. She'd threatened her with the loss of her employment if she breathed a word to Mr. Kossuth, not that she would have. The help didn't speak of such things. Or did they? Chita must have been teasing when she said she'd tell him. Tipton couldn't figure when people teased or not. Tyrellie had said that of her, that she took everything as though meant to damage her rather than the dance of give and take that happened between friends.

  But she and Chita were not friends. An employer could not become friends with her employee. It wasn't acceptable, not even here in California where anything seemed proper. Well, she'd been taught how things worked in her father's store back in Wisconsin. And her parents would never have had a conversation with a clerk about his health and certainly not about something so intimate as the state of his gastric juices.

  But this small bulge below her waist was more than gastric juice, and the noises it made were far from a sign of her hunger. She wished she could talk with Nehemiah about it.

  She imagined him riding through those tall redwoods, he called them, huge trees that towered and mad
e her feel smaller than an ant when she'd seen them the first time. Some of the mules were actually stashed in a barn formed out of a redwood hollow. How could a person feed themselves to fullness in a place where the land dominated, where the winds howled and massive trees disappeared into dark points at the face of the sky? This was a shadowed place—except when she walked on the shoreline.

  She looked for her wool shawl, found the plaid bonnet Nehemiah had given her shortly before he left, all the while trying to understand how this…thing could have happened.

  Her letter written to Elizabeth must have been so vague that the woman didn't have a whit of insight to give her when she wrote back. She just talked about the tree house and such and just before her closing said that marshmallow root boiled in butter might relieve gastric ulcers, if that's what she was having. Fennel works as a mild laxative, ifyouve need ofthat. She could just see Elizabeth grinning when she wrote that. Then she advised her to try rosemary and quoted the old saying that where rosemary flourishes, the woman dominates. Not that than ever been a flaw of yours, now, Tipton, hcking in domination. So I suspect your rosemary pUnt is Urge and fragrant. Chew on some and it might help. Then she'd advised her to get out and take the sea air, that she'd heard it was good for a person, no matter what ailed them. Dominate your life, Tipton, Elizabeth had finished.

  Tipton didn't dominate a thing in her life. Her husband was off on a long trip taking supplies into mountain towns; her employee acted as familiar as a friend. And now her body was doing things that totally confused her. Gastric ulcers? Indigestion? Hunger? Her arm ached, and she was breathing fast. She placed her tongue on the roof of her mouth to calm herself. Was she hungry? She checked. She had no hunger in her mouth, no hunger in her stomach. But in her heart, she starved.

  There was no denying it. A baby. She was pregnant, and she wasn't ready. She tried to let the idea settle in. It could fill her up. More likely, it would empty her and there'd be nothing left. Going away in her mind had not protected her from this. Had probably caused this.

  The wind howled against the house. Sand pitted against the boards, sounding like rain. Then it was calm, and she opened the shutter to the shoreline, the ships, and beyond. Funny how the weather could change so abruptly. The vagaries.

  Maybe it wasn't too late to change that baby's mind. Maybe if she took enough fennel or if she boiled enough marshmallow root she could cleanse herself of what she wasn't ready for. First a marriage she had just let happen and now this. Dominate your life, Elizabeth had said. Well, she would just do that, starting with finding a way to make this “baby thing” go away.

  Ruth wasn't sure what Matthew decided about the north piece he'd eyed. She'd taken the paper from the fat-necked agent and stomped out onto the boardwalk, seeking fresh air, leaving the two men inside. She wondered again how Suzanne had managed to find a good place in Shasta, wandering with her children and Pig as she had. Angels must have been watching over her that day, Ruth decided. She stood in front of Koda at the hitching rail and scratched at the horse's nose, keeping the paper from him, then took in a deep breath.

  The climate was hot but dry, not heavy with wet as in Missouri. Matthew's gray horse nickered, and Ruth turned to see Matthew standing behind her. He nodded with his hat across the dirt street. The sign read “Robinson Hotel.” Banjo music floated over them. “Tittle's Trading Post,' “ Matthew read the signs aloud. “ ‘Westgate and Little's Saloon and Bowling Alley.' Maybe we could get a little direction, since it seems Mr. Little knows which way the wind's blowing.”

  Ruth frowned. She wanted to do this alone, but the trip in had taken an hour, and who knew where the owner of her place just might be found?

  She started across the street aware that her arm touched Matthew's, his wide hand for just a moment at her elbow. She let it rest there, warmed by his presence, then she pulled away. A woman would be safer in a mining town if she was married. Well, she already was. Best she leave things at that. She stepped away from Matthew's hand. They dodged horse droppings on the dusty street.

  After asking a few customers, a man named Smith, whom they discovered was the owner of her parcel, left the saloon to come outside to talk with Ruth. He eyed her miner's pants and for just a moment, Ruth wondered if her wearing them might prove an obstacle for Smith.

  He wasn't really interested in selling, he told her, and kept glancing at Matthew as though wondering why he would “allow” this woman to do the talking and Smith was being asked to indulge her. He frowned at Ruth, kept looking at her. He probably thought her a little daft, wearing the pants; and Matthew her keeper, standing silent beside her. Well, so be it.

  Ruth negotiated well, she thought, countering Smith's reluctance to sell at all, and then appealing to his good nature by mentioning that she was raising her brothers children. She didn't fill in all the blanks, of course. He finally relented, having upped the price Ruth had offered by an uncomfortable amount.

  Ruth chastised herself when he did, remembering Lura telling her to “never tell your price until you get the seller to name his. You might get it for less than half of what you were willing to pay.”

  Finally, they came to an agreement and, after he handed the paper to Matthew, Smith said, “Sign right here, sir.”

  “It's my land to acquire,” she said.

  “What?” Smith turned on Matthew. “You wasn't just letting her negotiate for practice? Well now. Well now,” he said as though for the first time aware of Ruth in her own right. He rubbed at his stubble beard. “How can I be sure you'll make the payment then? I've got to have some guarantee. I'm letting you have use of my place, my land I've cleared, my investment, and what're you offering me? A little cash? I don't even know you, anything about you. A woman alone, right?” He eyed Matthew who nodded.

  “With kids? What can I expect from such as you?”

  “My word,” Ruth said. “I've made it this far, all the way from Ohio. I keep my commitments. I'll sign a contract.” She still had some of her brother's estate money, but little after buying Carmine, tending to the children. The divorce filing had taken some. And if she used all the rest to increase the down payment, they'd have nothing to tide them over until she sold the yearlings come spring. “I could make semiannual payments instead of once a year.”

  “I don't know.” Smith pawed the side of his cheek.

  “I can make a higher down payment. Maybe a bred mare— Copperbottom strain.” She felt her hands grow wet, wondering if it all would just slip away.

  “We can find another spot for you, Ruth,” Matthew said. “There's no need to—”

  “How many?” Smith said, light gleaming in his whiskey-bathed eyes.

  “I don't know. Maybe…how many would you want?”

  He scratched his chin. “Three mares with foals. But I want standing foals and the mares bred back. And you feed ‘em through the winter. No sense my keeping ‘em alive.”

  “Two,” she said. “And no cash down then.” Ruth swallowed.

  “And your fellow cosigns for you.”

  “No! He's not my fellow. You have my word, my signature, too, if you'll hand me the agreement to sign. And three mares, then, with babies at their side. What more could you possibly want?”

  Smith sucked his lip. “I'm thinking this ain't such a good plan.” He scratched his reddish nose that led Ruth to think that he'd probably spend any cash he got at Littles Saloon until he only had a little left. “Naw, I think we should just count this up as an afternoon of jawing and let it go at that.”

  Ruth risked it all: “And a payoff in the spring. In full. Or I forfeit—”

  “Ruth! There ain't no need—”

  “In full?” Smith was suddenly acting as clever as a hungry coyote.

  “Or I forfeit it all.” Her heart pounded, her mind raced. She could sell the stud colts as geldings next spring, get them green-broke this winter. She could rent Carmine out to other farmers in the area for a fee. One or two might want to raise their own farm mule. Maybe she'd ha
ve to sell Carmine and wait to see if she had a good colt to raise up as a sire. Or she could take a job doing…laundry as Tipton once had. The yearling fillies could be sold to make the payment, all of them. She'd still have the mares to breed and her jack. It would set her back a full year, but she'd have the land. She'd have to count on last winter being “unusual” in truth and hope they had hay enough without needing tree moss. She couldn't afford to lose any mares or yearlings. It would take all her energy and the children's, too.

  She ought to talk with the boys and Sarah and Jessie. See if they were ready to take this on as a family venture. They'd understand, surely they would. Hadn't they found nurture in their land? Their land! It was already hers. She just had to take the risk. She just had to believe she could do this.

  “Every penny of the down and the three mares and any improvements made will be yours. I'll move on if I fail to pay you in full.”

  Smith dropped his hand from his face and grinned. “Oh, I'm a reasonable man. Tell you what. The cash down. Two mares with foals standing in May and you pay me in full then.”

  One didn't get what one wanted without a little struggle. Betha told her to imagine the color she wanted and then just believe. And Elizabeth said that believing in German meant “to belove.” Enough belief birthed love which birthed miracles. She'd count on that.

  Mazy loaded her milk tins and a ten-pound lard bucket now filled with milk onto the back of her cart. A Yurok Indian woman, a Shasta, and a Wintu worked beside her, helping her lift. It was a strange alliance, begun that night she'd seen the cabin light. They had been outside, leaning like weathered sheaves of wheat against the logs.

  The child answered, “They sell hair and head,” she lifted her own braid to emphasize, “in Shasta City. They give money to men who carry hair. Make marks and get coins.” She held up her fingers, counting to fifteen.

  Their faces looked thin as brown paper, eyes distant and lost. “I can't stop the…hunting. I'm only one person,” Mazy had said.