I must have been listening with a rather set expression, and Daddy must have seen me in the rear-view mirror, because he laughed and said, “Vicky, I can just see you thinking, ‘Mother and Daddy are sermonizing again.’ Well, we’re going to go on preaching, and,” Daddy’s voice grew more serious, “I expect you to listen.”
“I’m listening,” I kind of muttered.
Mother turned around and grinned at me. “I think it was Mark Twain who said, ‘When I was seventeen I thought my father was the stupidest man I’d ever met. When I was twenty-one it was amazing how much the old man had learned in those four years.’”
When we crossed into Utah the countryside again took on a character of its own. The earth was pinkish sand, with many more green things growing in it than in Arizona, and we saw river beds that actually had water in them. The rocks were eroded in graceful whorls and swirls, as though the wind had been dancing by, instead of blasting in from the Equator as it had seemed to do in the Arizona desert.
The campgrounds at Zion were down in the canyon, the way they were at Palo Duro, instead of up on the rim, like Grand Canyon, and it was very hot, up in the nineties. The campgrounds were in a grove of cottonwood trees, and around us we could see the great red cliffs with their strange formations rising up two thousand feet on each side. It was one of the nicest campsites we’d had, with good fireplaces with proper grates, and there were tiled bathrooms with cold showers—free ones. The showers were icily, shiveringly cold, and on that blazing hot day they felt marvelous.
For some reason we liked Zion Canyon better than Grand Canyon, partly, I suppose, because the campgrounds themselves were so much more beautiful. Grand Canyon was a desert canyon, pines the only trees. In Utah things were much greener; up on the mesas we actually saw green fields, and in Zion there were lots of trees, and there were lovely wild hanging gardens growing out of the rocks. And birds! The birds were singing like mad (on our whole trip the birds were a beautiful and persistent accompaniment). The birds and animals around the campgrounds seemed very secure and not a bit shy, like my skunk and Suzy’s deer at Palo Duro, and I loved seeing them, even though I didn’t give a hoot about collecting species, like Suzy. I guess I’m just an enjoyer. Maybe I’ll end up a beachcomber, since I don’t seem to have any talents.
Not far from us was a lovely little river, and after we’d got our jobs done, and Mother had spaghetti sauce simmering over a fire, we went for a swim. The water was shallow, but quite swift. Rob kept getting thrown about and having to be rescued, but he wasn’t a bit frightened and had a wonderful time. He’s a very brave little boy.
The people in the campsite next to us were an elderly couple in a small trailer. While Mother and I were getting dinner ready Daddy and John went exploring about the canyon, and Suzy and Rob made friends with the lady and gentleman in the trailer, and brought them over to talk to Mother and me. Their name was Williams, and they told us that they were planning to stay in Zion for two weeks, which was as long as the dollar permit entitled them to. Then they would go on, maybe to Bryce Canyon, and stay there for a while. Mr. Williams was retired, their children were grown and married, and they spent most of the year wandering from one beautiful place to another, following the weather around.
When Mrs. Williams realized that Mother was out of oregano for the spaghetti sauce, she insisted on going back into the trailer and getting some. After the campfire movie and lecture she invited us over for lemonade and showed us through the trailer. We’d never been in a trailer before, and we were thrilled. It was more like a doll’s house than anything else, everything tiny and compact and in its own place, little nooks for beds, a miniature kitchen, a corner for a tiny dining table and two benches. There was even a little cupboard with a toilet in it, but Mrs. Williams said they couldn’t use it in Zion because it wasn’t a trailer camp and didn’t have outlets for plumbing and electricity.
We were going to spend two nights in Zion because we were all still quite tired. Daddy said he thought we’d been feeling the altitude. So we slept late, and after a leisurely breakfast we went exploring. There were several guided hikes and these were fun and beautiful, if not as difficult as the ones at Mesa Verde and Grand Canyon. The ranger kept pointing out new insects and birds for Suzy, and told us how things manage to grow on the canyon walls: lichen forms on the rocks, and the lichen produces enough soil for ferns and grass, and so on, and all this is aided by occasional streams trickling out of the rocks. There’s one rock that’s even called Weeping Rock because it’s always dripping water.
In the late afternoon we went back to the brook for a swim. Mother had a headache; she thought it was just too much sun and altitude, so she decided to stay in the tent and have a nap. We had a wonderful swim, came racing back through the campgrounds, and Suzy dashed into the tent to be the first to get dressed. In a second she backed out, finger to her lips, looking absolutely white.
Twelve
“What gives?” John called as he ran to catch up.
Suzy is seldom at a loss for words, but all she could do was croak, “D-d-daddy—” and point at the tent.
“’Smatter, Sue?” Daddy asked.
“In the t-tent,” Suzy gasped. “M-mother—”
All I could think of was that something terrible had happened to Mother, and I grabbed John’s arm.
Rob ducked into the tent under Daddy’s elbow, and I heard him give an excited shout. “Mother’s had a baby!”
Daddy’s voice came, low and startled, “Wha—a-at?”
And we heard Mother say sleepily, “Wallace?”
As John and I headed for the tent Suzy’s tongue was released. “There’s a baby in there with Mother!”
“Hunh?”
“I went in, and Mother was on the sleeping bag sound asleep, and there was a baby sleeping right beside her!”
We heard Rob asking, “Is it ours?”
Now we were all sticking our heads in the tent. Mother was sitting up on the sleeping bag, and right beside her was a baby, sleeping all through the sound and fury, its tiny thumb loosely in its mouth.
“Where did you get the baby?” Mother asked Daddy.
“That’s what I was just about to ask you,” Daddy said.
Mother looked down at the baby, couldn’t help smiling at it, then said, “Wallace, is this your idea of a joke?”
Daddy often looks dead serious when he’s joking, but there wasn’t a hidden twinkle anywhere this time. “Victoria, I’ve never seen this baby before in my life.”
“Is it ours?” Rob asked again.
Mother looked at all of us clustered in the doorway of the tent. “Where did you get the baby?”
Nobody answered.
“Who put the baby in the tent with me?”
Silence.
Mother started, “Now look, fun’s fun, but—”
Daddy broke in. “Victoria, we’ve all been swimming together. We haven’t been separated for a moment. Suzy ran ahead and into the tent, but she certainly didn’t have time to pick up a baby on the way.”
“Suzy?” Mother asked.
Suzy still sounded a little shaky, but now she was perfectly able to gabble. “I ran in to the tent, and there you were, sound asleep, and the baby right with you.”
“Then it must be ours,” Rob said.
The baby waked up and began to cry. Mother picked it up and patted its little bottom; it gave a hiccup and put its head on Mother’s shoulder.
Daddy stood looking down at them. “One thing’s certain. It’s too small to have got here by itself. Clear out for a minute, kids. I want to have a look at it.”
We stood huddled outside the tent until Daddy came out, announcing, “He’s a fine, healthy boy, about five or six months old. The first thing to do is ask at the tents and trailers around us if anybody’s lost a baby. It’s a little difficult to imagine anyone putting a baby in the wrong tent by mistake, but it’s possible. John, you and Rob go together, and Vicky and Suzy. John, that way. Vicky, over here. I
’ll take this section across the road. Mother’ll stay in the tent with the baby in case anybody comes looking for him.”
Suzy and I got back before the others. Nobody knew anything about a baby, and they looked at us as though we were kookie or trying to play some kind of trick on them. We went back to our tent and there was the baby lying on his back, cooing, gurgling, laughing, and trying to catch a dusty shaft of light that came in through the tent window and was shaken tantalizingly by tree shadows.
Suzy is almost as good with little children as she is with animals, so she sat down by the baby and began to play with it. It was really pretty to watch.
When the others came back they hadn’t had any luck in finding anyone who’d lost a baby, either.
“The poor mother must be frantic,” Mother said.
Daddy raised his eyebrows in an odd sort of way.
Suzy had the baby up on her shoulder. “Oh, Daddy, he’s adorable! What are we going to do? He’s going to get hungry soon, and we don’t have a bottle or formula or anything.” As though on cue the baby began to cry, and Suzy said, “See? He’s hungry. There’s a family with quite a small baby across the campgrounds, and I bet they’d lend us a bottle if we explained.”
“Hold it, Suzy,” Daddy warned. “This is a baby, not a kitten, and the next step is for me to go to the Ranger Headquarters. Try to keep the baby happy while I’m gone. Want to come, Rob? John, get the fire going, please. Vicky, you help Mother start dinner.” Daddy and Rob got in the station wagon and drove off, with Rob calling out, “Suzy! Play Elephant’s Child for the baby!”
Suzy took the baby and sat on the picnic bench so he could watch John start the fire. Mr. and Mrs. Williams came out of their trailer and came over and clucked at him, and Mrs. Williams tch-tched, “How could any mother go off and leave her child that way?”
Suzy looked horrified. “You mean you think she left him on purpose?”
“Well, it looks that way, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Williams asked, tickling the baby under his chin. “Poor little tyke.”
“You mean you think his mother just dumped him? You mean she wanted to get rid of him?”
Suddenly I realized why Daddy had raised his eyebrows when Mother had talked about the baby’s mother being frantic. Mother was looking into the ice box, bringing out lettuce and tomatoes. Suzy asked passionately, “If his mother doesn’t want him couldn’t we keep him? Please? Please?”
Mother shut the ice box lid carefully. “Suzy, darling, this isn’t like the deer at Palo Duro.”
“I know, Mother, that’s exactly the point. It doesn’t matter if a baby isn’t housebroken. He wears diapers. And he wouldn’t be unhappy in the car. When Rob was a baby you know he always stopped crying whenever we took him for a ride—”
“Suzy!” Mother said. “Hold everything! Babies aren’t like stray animals, even when they appear unexpectedly in tents.”
“But—”
“Let me finish, please, Suzy. Children can’t just be disposed of by a whim. A home for a child is a very serious matter, both for the child and the people who take the child.”
I looked at Suzy and thought of Maggy. I guess it wasn’t just a whim that sent Maggy to us for two years. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t in on the arrangements, the talks with Maggy’s grandfather and the lawyers and Aunt Elena and all, that it seems so sort of casual to me. Certainly there wasn’t anything planned about Uncle Hal’s and Maggy’s father’s plane exploding in the middle of the air, and that’s what started it all. After that, finding a strange baby sleeping beside our mother in the tent didn’t seem so extraordinary, and it was going to take a lot to convince Suzy, being Suzy, that it wouldn’t be perfectly simple to add the baby to our family. I really don’t think that Suzy sees much difference between babies and animals, and after all our Mr. Rochester, beautiful Great Dane though he is, was a stray, and Suzy’s always coming home with a new kitten in her pocket. Mother and Daddy may fling up their hands in horror, but they usually end up by letting her keep them.
“In the first place, Suzy,” Mother went on, “the baby’s mother may not have abandoned him. This could perfectly well be some kind of mistake, and the poor mother may be looking frantically for her child. And even if she did abandon him we would never be allowed to keep him. He’d be made a ward of the state, and the court would assign him to foster parents or a children’s home. This is the law, Suzy.”
“But it’s cruel,” Suzy protested passionately, holding the baby closely to her. “Babies need to be loved. What do states or courts know about that! If you’re lost it’s better to be a kitten than a baby, for crying out loud! At least someone can bring a kitten in and give it milk and cuddle it. It doesn’t have to worry about states and courts.”
John was squatting by the fire, poking in little kindling twigs. “Look at all the kittens who aren’t found and rescued by Suzy Austin,” he said. “The kittens who’re put in a bag with a stone and drowned, or just left to fend for themselves. The law’s to protect babies, Suzy, not harm them.”
Suzy wasn’t going to give up that easily. “It’s not fair,” she muttered, brushing her lips gently against the soft fuzz on the baby’s head.
Mother said, “Enjoy him for these few minutes, Suzy. Come on, Vicky, let’s get dinner ready. It’s so hot I think we’ll just have tuna and vegetable salad. We’ll only need to heat water for the dishes, so don’t worry too much about the fire, John.”
I sat at the table and diced celery and made carrot sticks, and Suzy bounced the baby until he was laughing happily and forgetting that he was hungry and away from his mother. But Suzy had tears in her eyes, and Suzy does not cry easily. She’s much the most spartan of all of us. Except where babies or animals are concerned.
The Williams went back to their trailer and the baby grew drowsy, so Mother took him back to the tent and put him down on one of the sleeping bags. “He’s really a very good baby,” she said as she came out. “I wound up Elephant’s Child and it put him right to sleep. Do you kids want to eat so you can go on over to the campfire program?”
Suzy said immediately, “I want to wait and see what’s going to happen about the baby.”
“Vic? John?”
We decided to stay, though John made Suzy furious by saying the only reason he was staying was to make sure we weren’t stuck with a sniveling brat. We had enough kids in the family already.
Suzy flounced away from John and turned to Mother. “Okay if I go in now and look at the baby?”
“Not now, Suzy. I don’t want him disturbed.”
“But I’ll be very quiet.”
“No, Suzy. Wait till he wakes up.”
The Williams’ said good bye and went off to the evening program, and we could see almost all the families from the tents and trailers strolling off in the direction of the amphitheater. The last of the sunlight shone against the red canyon walls. Then, as the sun went, the cliffs seemed to hold its glow, and then, very slowly, to fade.
The baby slept. Mother and John and I read. Suzy just sat and looked unhappy, until we heard the sound of motors, and up came a green Park truck, followed by our car. A ranger and a woman got out of the truck, and Daddy and Rob from the car. The woman had funny-colored red hair, a flowered silk dress, too short, and black patent leather pumps with high heels. The pumps were all run down and dirty and cracked, as though she’d been walking in strange places with them, and all in all it was a very peculiar costume for a campground. Her eyes looked red, as though she’d been crying, and she ran up to Mother, sort of limping.
“Where is he? What did you do with him?”
“He’s in the tent, asleep,” Mother said quietly.
The woman rushed over to the tent, fumbled at the entrance and didn’t seem to know how to get in. Mother unzipped the door for her, and the woman half fell in, and we could hear her cooing and crying and laughing over the baby.
Mother turned back towards the ranger questioningly, and he said, “She managed to get into the cany
on by one of the back roads, and then climbed down a good mile of cliff. How she did it with the baby and in that costume I’ll never know. Her feet are a mass of blisters as is.”
“How did you find her?” Mother asked.
“She evidently couldn’t face another climb—can’t say I blame her—and the ranger on duty at the gate was a little suspicious of her and called in just as I was talking to your husband, here.”
Suzy looked anxiously at the ranger. “She doesn’t really want the baby, then, does she? Can’t we keep him? Please?” Her voice quivered a little and she blinked hard to keep tears back.
The ranger was a very nice man (most rangers are) because he didn’t laugh at Suzy but answered her perfectly seriously. “She’s changed her mind about the baby, honey. She’s decided she does want him after all.”
“Why did she try to give him away, then?”
The ranger still answered her directly, and very kindly. “Life’s pretty rough for some people, honey. She doesn’t have a job, and she doesn’t have a husband, and she thought maybe the baby would be better off without her.”
“But she’s changed her mind?”
“That’s right.”
John asked, “But what happens—what does she do now?”
“We’ll put her in touch with some people at an agency where she can get help.”
The woman came out of the tent, then, holding the baby closely. She limped up to Mother. “I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” Mother said. “He’s a darling baby.”
“He’s never been a minute’s trouble,” the woman’s eyes filled. “He’s always been as good as gold. I just thought—” Her voice filled, and she swallowed hard several times the way you do when you’re trying hard not to cry in front of somebody.
The Moon by Night Page 12
