Pearl (12 page)
‘‘Charlie.’’ She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. ‘‘How do you figure things out so quickly?’’
‘‘Bartenders tend to learn to read people, that’s all. And your tone of voice said as much and more.’’
‘‘Oh. Well, we’ll see how it goes. Thanks in advance for making the box.’’
Four tables were occupied for supper, and Cimarron’s buttermilk pie brought accolades even from
the Frenchman,
as Opal had dubbed him.
Ruby returned to the kitchen feeling somewhat mollified and reassured only to find Cimarron and Enrique once again staring daggers at each other.
She started to say something, shook her head, and returned to the dining room with one sentence thrown over her shoulder. ‘‘You two figure some way to get along.’’
That night Ruby searched her Bible for verses to help her be able to overlook the extra man in her kitchen.
‘‘A soft answer turneth
away wrath.’’
No help, the wrath was hers.
‘‘Whatsoever ye
would that men should do, so ye even so to them.’’
She closed her eyes on that one.
‘‘Love one another as I have loved you.’’
She kept her finger in the page and thought back to the day. So topsy-turvy, laughing one minute and wanting to choke someone the next. Pulled one way and pushed another.
Father, I want all people who
walk through our doors to feel welcome, to feel as if they have come home
and can be both comforted and comfortable here. This is your house, and
we are your children, all of us. Please, please help me. Forgive me for my
impatience and for being so quick tempered. And thank you for the kittens.
Babies are such a special gift.
She reread the last verse again.
‘‘Love
one another as I have loved you.’’ I suppose you mean Belle too
. A soft sigh.
Thank you again
.
When she blew out the lamp, she could see the wisp of smoke in the moonlight streaming a square unto the floor. With the window open again for the first time since winter, she could even smell spring. She closed her eyes, thankfulness and a new resolve swelling in her heart.
Dear Miss Torvald,
Please forgive the great length of time since my last letter. I find it impossible to write when we are on patrol, and that has been almost constant these last weeks. The Apache are not biddable as the Sioux of the northern tribes. They do not believe they should be confined to the reservation. A more warlike group of people I have never known.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I treasure your letters. Two of them were waiting for me when I returned to the fort. Mail here is hit and miss, with emphasis on the latter. I’m glad to hear that Cimarron has put that terrible act behind her and is more herself. And Belle, well, Belle will be Belle and always taking care of Belle before all else.
It sounds like this winter has been relatively good for your hotel business. To think you have been in Little Missouri a year is unimaginable. How I wish I were there to help you all celebrate. You will have a celebration, won’t you?
Ruby paused in the reading. Celebration, anniversary, she’d not given such a thing even a thought. It wasn’t like the whole town—more accurately, the other inhabitants of the village— would rejoice with them. If they celebrated, it would have to be a private party for the hotel family. Now that was something else. Some family. Belle screeching about Cat. Milly mooning over the young private, Adam Stone, who’d left with the military when they vacated the cantonment. Cimarron snapping at Daisy over trivial matters. She herself wanting to strangle them all at times. Some family. Even Charlie had gotten up on the wrong side of the bed some of the short days and long nights of winter. And Belle, she’d caught her skimming again. She’d have to watch more closely, but what really rankled was that somehow Belle had turned it into Ruby’s fault. ‘‘I just made a mistake,’’ Belle had said, ‘‘and you act like it was deliberate.’’ Why did everything have to be a confrontation with Belle? Why couldn’t the woman be trusted?
Surely there was a better way to handle the cardroom—or perhaps she should close it all together. What a thought. Could she afford it?
Ruby was certain she had sugarcoated the local miscreants in the last letter. But then the captain knew the foibles of Little Missouri far better than she.
She returned to the letter.
You would be amazed at the difference in the land here compared to the badlands. Both have such stark beauty, but here there is more desert, with giant saguaro cacti’s arms reaching to the sky. Cacti is the plural of cactus, another of the many lessons I’ve learned here. One learns to stay away from the jumping cholla, a form of cactus that seems to throw its spines. The spines appear soft from a distance, but we are always digging them out of our horses’ legs if they venture too close. Denizens of the desert are fascinating. You would be delighted to see the long eyelashes of the jack rabbits. These rabbits are huge compared to the cottontails of Dakotah. They look almost like a dog when they stretch out in a full run. Please tell Opal that there are wild burros here that can be easily tamed once caught. One of the young recruits has made a pet of one, but of course everyone teases him unmercifully. Some of the older campaigners say donkey is as good as deer to eat, but when you are hungry enough, even rattlesnake tastes good.
Ruby felt her throat tighten. The thought of eating snake made her want to heave. Had he been that hungry?
Now that I have most likely offended all your sensibilities, I will finish. I am hoping and dreaming that someday I will return to Dakotah Territory and reacquaint myself with the friends I have made there. Since you have taught the girls to write, perhaps you could encourage them to write letters to some of my soldiers here. Many never hear from anyone at home, and letters mean so much. Thank you for making me one of those most envied. May our good Lord guide and keep you.
Captain Jeremiah McHenry, U.S. ARMY.
Ruby placed the letter on the table.
What a wonderful man
. She had enjoyed his company—rides to the river with Opal, quiet conversations on the porch.
A good friend. So unlike Mr. Harr—
‘‘Ruby, come quick.’’ Opal burst through the swinging door so hard it slammed back against the wall.
‘‘Now what?’’
‘‘You’ve got to see this.’’
Ruby tucked the letter in her apron pocket. She’d read it to the others later. Following Opal, who was now tiptoeing and making shushing motions into the pantry, she saw Cat lying in her box, three kittens nursing, the sun making their fur shimmer. Finding the limp form of the fourth kitten pushed away from the others had been a shock, and many tears had followed—not all of them Opal’s. But now these three days later, Opal had recovered from the death and was once again savoring the miracle of the new lives.
‘‘Aren’t they pretty?’’
Cat had not liked the box behind the stove, and was constantly trying to move the kittens. She once moved one of her kittens into a linen drawer before they caught her and put it back.
The first time Opal caught sight of Cat carrying a kitten in her mouth, she had let out a shriek that brought them all running. ‘‘She’s killing the kittens. Cat is killing her kittens.’’
Charlie had burst through the door first. ‘‘Opal, where, what?’’
‘‘There.’’ Opal stood in place, pointing at Cat who’d started up the stairs.
Charlie picked up Cat with one hand and the kitten with the other. ‘‘No, she just wants some privacy. Think I’ll try moving her box into the pantry.’’
‘‘Opal, you scared me out of three Sundays.’’ Cimarron leaned against the doorframe to the stores and ironing room, fanning herself to restoration.
‘‘Sorry. I was scared to touch her for fear she’d kill it.’’
‘‘That’s how cats carry their kittens. It’s not like she can walk with one in her paws.’’ Daisy plunked a flatiron on the stove. ‘‘You come help me iron the napkins, get your mind on something else.’’
After that, Cat seemed to settle into contented motherhood.
As they now stood in the pantry admiring the new mother with her babies, Ruby laid an arm around Opal’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘‘I’m going out to Mrs. Robertson’s. You want to come along?’’
‘‘How are you getting there?’’
‘‘Charlie’s driving us in Rand’s buckboard.’’
‘‘Sure, I’ll go. Can Milly come too?’’
‘‘No, I got something else to do,’’ Milly put in quickly.
‘‘What?’’
Ruby looked over to see Milly turn fourteen shades of red. No need to ask. She only blushed like that when something involved Private Adam Stone, even to writing letters. ‘‘Now Opal . . .’’
Opal looked up at her sister, disgust splashed all over her face. ‘‘I’d rather go with you any day than . . .’’ Opal returned to the pantry to sink down by the box and stroke Cat.
‘‘We’ll be leaving in just a few minutes, so you better wash your face and put on a clean apron.’’
The sigh that came made Ruby smile. One day Opal would understand how Milly felt, but she hoped that day would be a long time coming.
Meadowlarks showered the earth with their golden tones as they flew up ahead of the team. A crow announced their coming, and another answered. Charlie kept the team at a trot where the track permitted and kept them pulling where the mud in a gully tried to trap the wheels.
Ruby was glad he’d volunteered to drive. She figured she could do it herself but now realized there was more to it than met the eye.
A basket at her feet contained a burnt-sugar cake and a still warm loaf of bread.
She took off her straw hat and let the sun warm her face. If only she could have invited the others to come along and see, hear, and feel spring. The sun, the birdsongs, the breeze lifting the tendrils of hair that insisted on curling about her face, the perfume.
‘‘Charlie, what smells so good?’’
He inhaled, expanding his lungs to stretch his shirt. ‘‘Ah, that’s just green shoots of grass growing and leaves a’poppin’ and the sweet smell of good dirt as it comes to life again.’’
‘‘And you, my dear friend, are a poet.’’
‘‘Naw, Miss Ruby, I can’t rhyme nothing.’’
‘‘You see through artist’s eyes though.’’
‘‘What are artist’s eyes?’’ Opal leaned on the board that pretended to be the back of the seat, made of another board.
‘‘People who see the beauty in the ordinary.’’
‘‘You think this’’—Opal swept a hand wide to encompass all they could see—‘‘is ordinary?’’
‘‘What do you see?’’
‘‘Well, the sky goes on forever, and those white cotton clouds make the blue even bluer, and the green, it hurts your eyes it is so pretty.’’
‘‘See, you got ’em too.’’ Charlie tipped the brim of his bowler hat farther back on his head. ‘‘That’s what’s good about hard winters.’’
Ruby and Opal shared a mystified look and shrugged in perfect unity.
‘‘Sure, Charlie, we loved the hard winter. Near to froze my nose.’’ Opal let out a shout of laughter that set the crow to scolding. ‘‘I am a poet. Froze and nose.’’
‘‘Please, sir, explain yourself.’’
‘‘It’s easy, the colder and darker and longer the winter lasts, the more you dream of and look forward to and finally yell, ‘It’s spring, by cracky.’ Some folks even been known to go dancing on the hills. Not me, you understand, but some poet types.’’
Opal giggled, making Ruby chuckle. That made Charlie snort, which made Opal burst out in her contagious laugh, catching them all and setting the crow to flight, his caw sounding like a scolding for their noising up the prairie.
As they drove, Charlie pointed out Chimney Butte off to the west, the cows in the creek bottom, and the deer trail down to the river.
‘‘You sure see lots,’’ Opal said.
‘‘All in the training. Another year out here, and you’ll be surprised how much you’ve learned.’’
‘‘Maybe Mr. Rand will soon bring in that horse he promised, and then I can ride up here all the time.’’
‘‘Maybe you’ll be riding around Little Missouri and grateful for that,’’ her sister chimed in.
‘‘Ahh, Ruby.’’
‘‘Ahh, nothing. First you learn to ride really well, then we’ll see. And besides, his name is Mr. Harrison.’’