Elm Creek Quilts [10] The Quilter's Homecoming (35 page)

But Elizabeth saw the doubt in her eyes. John had known that Rosa’s mother waited for her daughter alone on the mesa on the days he traveled to the train station for the mail.

“Mami?” said Lupita fearfully.

With a start, Rosa turned to her daughters. “Marta, go and see if Miguel and Ana are still sleeping, would you, please?” she said. “Take Lupita with you.”

Reluctantly, Marta did as she was told. She had barely left the room when outside, the roadster roared up the gravel road and braked hard. With preternatural calm, Rosa folded her mother’s quilt, set it aside, and stood. She was on her feet when the door burst open and John stormed in.

“Where is that son of a bitch?” John’s sharp gaze scanned the room, alighting on Elizabeth for a moment before moving on. “I know he’s here.”

“No one else is here,” said Rosa. “Only Elizabeth.”

John shoved Rosa aside and strode into the kitchen. Elizabeth heard the table overturn, glass shatter. John appeared in the doorway, his eyes ablaze with fury. “I saw his car.”

“I drove it,” said Elizabeth quickly. “I work for the Jorgensens.”

“Did you come to help my dear wife plan the birthday party?” John addressed Elizabeth in a voice of acid. “Lupita turns five next week, did you know that?”

“I just came for the mail,” said Elizabeth steadily.

John threw her a look of contempt and strode off toward the children’s room in the back of the adobe. Rosa drew in a shaky breath at the sound of a child’s cry and gripped the back of the rocking chair so hard her knuckles turned white. Elizabeth put her arm around Rosa’s shoulders and was startled when Rosa flinched in pain. She knew at once that John had not stopped hitting his wife; he had only become more discreet about where he left bruises.

Without warning John returned. Rosa drew back but not quickly enough to evade his grasp. He seized her by the shoulders and shook her. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Rosa choked out. “He’s not here.”

Elizabeth tried to put herself between John and Rosa, but he knocked her to the floor. Instinctively she grabbed for the rocking chair as she fell, but her fingers slipped and her head struck the floor. Dazed, she tried to sit up, her head ringing with the sound of a fist striking flesh and Rosa crying out in pain. Then the door slammed, the roadster roared to life, and, but for Rosa’s gasps as she fought for breath, silence.

“Are you all right?” said Elizabeth as she clutched the arm of the rocking chair and shakily pulled herself to her feet.

Rosa’s face was a mess of tears and blood, but she nodded. “The children.” She fled to the back of the adobe and returned moments later to report that they were unharmed. “John’s going after Lars. I’m sure of it.”

“You shouldn’t be here when he returns,” said Elizabeth. “Gather the children and come with me. You can stay in the cabin with me and Henry.”

Rosa shook her head. “It’s not safe. We’ll have to pass John on the way.”

“Then take a room at the Grand Union Hotel. Carlos will look after you.”

“No,” said Rosa, suddenly calm. “I know a better place. A place my husband fears.”

The canyon. Elizabeth nodded. “Then take warm clothes and food. It looks like rain.”

“I have to warn Lars. John keeps a pistol in the car.”

“I’ll warn Lars.” Elizabeth hurried to the door, fully aware that John had a head start and a faster car. “Pack quickly. Take only what you need. John might double back at any time.”

Rosa did not need the warning. Before the door closed behind her, Elizabeth heard Rosa call to Marta and Lupita to wake the other children.

The overcast sky had turned steel gray, mottled with charcoal. As Elizabeth turned onto the main road back to the Jorgensen farm, a steady, cold drizzle began to fall, but she dared not slow the car. She tried to remember what work assignments Oscar had given the men at breakfast that morning. If Lars was alone in the garage, waiting impatiently for Elizabeth’s return as he usually did after her trips to the post office, he would have no chance. John would come upon him and kill him before Lars realized he was there. If Lars was in the pasture looking after the sheep or working in the orchard, he might see the roadster coming and have time to hide—but he would not know that he needed to hide.

Suddenly Elizabeth remembered. Lars was delivering the dried apricots to the packing house in Camarillo that day and was not expected back until close to suppertime. At that moment, he was probably driving the horse and wagon over the Norwegian Grade. Her relief at the realization that John would not cut down Lars in the garage was short-lived. John might lie in wait until Lars returned—or harm someone else when the object of his rage failed to appear.

She gunned the engine and raced for home.

She arrived at the Jorgensen farm in a driving rain stirred by strong gusts of wind from the west. The roadster was parked close to the house at the end of two rivers of mud the tires had cut through the front garden. John stood a few yards from the front door, brandishing a pistol and shouting up at the second-floor windows. Someone inside had drawn the curtains.

John spun around at the sound of her approach and leveled the pistol at Elizabeth. She slammed on the brake and flung herself down upon the seat just as the shot rang out. “Send him out,” she heard John yell. “Send him out now or her blood is on his hands.”

Elizabeth crouched out of sight, threw the car into reverse, and sped off blindly back the way she had come. Only when she reached the main road out of range of his pistol did she dare risk a glance over the dashboard. John had pursued her partway down the road, but he had given up. He shouted something unintelligible at her before turning and striding back to the house.

Her hands shook so badly she almost could not shut off the engine. Her thoughts raced. Mrs. Jorgensen was likely inside with Mary Katherine and the girls, but where were the men? Where was Henry? Surely Mrs. Jorgensen had called the police, but they were miles away, too far to help them now. All she could do was pray that they arrived in time to stop John before he killed someone—and if that failed, that Rosa would have enough time to get away with the children.

She would have to make sure Rosa had enough time.

Swallowing hard, she sat up, started the engine, and set the car in motion, creeping forward until she reached the driveway’s narrowest point, thanking God for the downpour that drowned out the sound of the automobile. Slowly, so that she would not attract the attention of the madman shouting at the yellow farmhouse, she turned the wheel and maneuvered the car until it blocked access to the road. She shut down the engine again and crouched low in her seat, her gaze fixed on John, listening for sirens that did not come.

She almost screamed when the car door opened. “Slide over,” a man’s voice said in her ear.

It was Henry. Tears of relief filled her eyes as she flung her arms around him. “Where were you? Are you all right? Has he hurt anyone?”

“Not yet.” Henry returned her embrace, but then gently freed himself. “Darling, I’ve got to get closer.”

“What do you mean? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to drive around back and get the women and girls out through the kitchen door. Oscar and Marco are waiting around the corner of the house to jump John if necessary.”

“But he’s armed.”

“And sooner or later he’s going to realize the Jorgensen women aren’t, and he’s going to break down the door and hurt someone.” He kissed her quickly. “You’ve got to get out of the car.”

“Henry—”

He kissed her again, a long, hard, almost painful kiss, then half led, half carried her from the car. “Stay in the ditch,” he ordered as he slammed the door behind him and started the engine. “Keep your head down, no matter what.”

She screamed his name and ran after the car until her foot slipped in the mud and she came down hard on her ankle. Pain shot up her right leg and she staggered to a halt, watching as Henry sped toward John. At the sound of the automobile, John turned and fired. The car swerved, struck a rock, and flipped over on its side. Cursing, soaked with rain, John approached the car, weapon leveled at the driver’s door. Suddenly the door swung open and Henry dragged himself free of the wreckage. As John took aim, Henry ran at him, low and fast. A shot rang out as Henry tackled John and brought him to the ground.

“Henry!” Elizabeth screamed.

Limping, she ran toward the two still figures lying in the mud. From behind the house sprinted Oscar and one of the hired hands. Oscar fell to his knees beside Henry and rolled him onto his back; the other man pinned John to the muddy ground and kicked the gun away.

From behind the thunder came the scream of sirens.

1920

Isabel wanted to place the quilts in her daughter’s arms, to see Rosa’s face light up with happiness when she discovered how Isabel’s heart had changed, but she did not know when Rosa would come again to the mesa. Isabel’s message was too urgent to wait. She must insure that Rosa received the quilts soon, even if she would not see her mother again for a very long time.

Isabel rode on horseback to the Jorgensen farm, the quilts folded into a pack on the saddle behind her. No one would notice one lone woman among the throng of workers who had come for the apricot harvest.

She rode past the yellow farmhouse and over the hill to the cabin she had once called home. Many years had passed since she had last played on that front porch with her grandmother and baby sister, since she had last climbed the orange trees and picked the ripe, sweet fruit. Rosa had visited much more recently—of this, Isabel was certain. Where else could the young lovers have met? What better place than this, where Rosa knew her parents would never come?

Isabel dismounted and went inside, allowing herself only a moment’s regret over the state of the home her mother and grandmother had once kept with such pride. She carried the quilts into the bedroom she and her parents had once shared. There she spotted a crate pushed against the window, more than large enough to accommodate the quilts. She removed the lid and discovered Lars’s liquor stash. Disappointed, she replaced the lid. After all Lars had lost because of liquor, he should have smashed these bottles on the hard, dusty earth. When Lars drained the last of those bottles, would he then become the man her daughter needed? Could he ever be the man her daughter needed if the only reason he stopped drinking was because he had nothing left to drink?

Lars had so much left to prove before he would be worthy of her precious girl, her rose, but Isabel knew now she had been wrong not to allow him that chance. She only hoped it was not too late.

She went into her grandparents’ old bedroom, where she found a dusty steamer trunk at the foot of a rusty bedstead with a sagging mattress, added to the room after her family’s departure. Unbidden, images of her daughter embracing Lars upon the bed came to her, but she quickly closed her mind to such thoughts.

Inside the trunk she discovered an old blue-and-white checkered tablecloth and a candlewick bedspread, with ample room left over for the two quilts. She placed them gently inside and closed the lid. Either Rosa would discover them herself someday, or Lars would find them, recognize the initials Isabel had embroidered, and take them to Rosa.

Rosa would understand what the quilts meant, what Isabel could not say aloud.

Isabel could never tell her daughter to forsake her sacred wedding vows. Rosa had married a cruel man, the wrong man, but that made her promises before God no less binding. But when Rosa saw the quilt, the wedding quilt pieced from precious fabrics, she would know that Isabel would forgive her if she corrected a mistake made long ago, a mistake she never would have made if she had not feared losing her mother’s love.