Bittersweet

Mrs. Wells poked her head back through the canvas as the Conestoga rolled out of Round Hole. “What brought you around so sudden?” she demanded.

Lucy leaned close to her mother, making sure her little sister wouldn’t overhear. “Oh, Momma,” she whispered, “Mrs. Ebbitt told me poor Mr. Saunders was born less than a man-you know, from the waist down. Not like other men at all. She stays there with him so he won’t be alone. Isn’t that sad? She’s so good!”

Karl and Sarah stood together, watching the Wellses’ wagon roll off toward Oregon. “What got her out of bed?” Karl asked.

Sarah linked her arm through his and smiled. “I told her you weren’t man enough for the two of us.”

Karl laughed but said, “Be careful, Sarah.”

38

MATTHEW TURNED SIX AND GREW AN INCH. HE RANGED THROUGH the sage for a mile in every direction, the coyote at his heels, and ate like there was no tomorrow. Sarah seemed to grow along with her son. As he bloomed in the high desert air, she stood straighter and laughed more often, and her skin took on a warm tone.

Matthew continued to call her Momma, and the delight never palled for her. Often when he would call from another room she would pause before she answered, waiting to hear him shout “Momma!” again. Every night, Sarah read him some of the letters she’d sent him during the long years they’d been apart. Now when she cried over them, the little boy would twine his arms around her neck and pet her cheek until she was comforted.

Coby settled into life at the stop without a hitch, quiet and reserved, with a low-key sense of humor. Sarah, the child, and Karl all provided a sense of home, and he was content to stay.

Karl didn’t seem to age at all; the white streaks at his temples might have been a little wider or the crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes a little deeper. Some evenings, when Sarah was busy with her mending and Coby was whittling or playing solitaire by the fire, Karl gave Matthew his lessons, the two of them poring over the books brought from Reno. Karl would sit with his eyeglasses perched on his nose, the boy with his lips moving in painful concentration as they unraveled the mysteries of the alphabet together.

Matthew had an agile mind and learned quickly. His imagination was active, and with Coby, who was almost a boy himself, he would sit spellbound by the hour while Sarah read aloud from A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, and, by spring, The Three Musketeers. Matthew was so open and affectionate, so fearless in his play and cheerful about his chores, that it was a matter of concern when in late spring he grew cranky and sullen.

Sarah dumped the envelope of seeds into her palm and knelt by the neat rows she’d spent the morning hoeing. She’d shoveled manure and chopped straw for the garden and dug it under with a spade, but the desert earth turned up a pale, unpromising dusty brown. She pinched up a few seeds and was sprinkling them carefully along the furrow when her elbow was jostled and she spilled the lot.

“Matthew, that’s the third time you’ve bumped me. Stay back, you’re spoiling the garden.” He moved away a foot or so to crouch like an infant gargoyle on a row she’d already planted. “You’re on my lettuce. All the way back. Over there.” She pointed outside the garden fence. “If you want to watch, you can sit on that barrel. If you want to help, you’re going to have to go to the shed and get another trowel out of the toolbox like I told you.”

The boy watched her with round accusing eyes, his mouth pressed shut.

The anger went out of her for a moment and she dropped her hands in her lap. “What’s the matter with you lately, Mattie? Are you sick? Do you hurt anywhere?” She pulled off a glove and lay her hand on his brow. “You feel all right.” Matthew said nothing; his usually expressive face was still and the skin around his eyes dark and drawn. “You’re going to bed early tonight,” Sarah declared. “You’re so sleepy there’s circles under your eyes.”

“No.”

“Yes,” she insisted. “There’ll be no more about it.”

He didn’t argue but retreated to the barrel at a snail’s pace, scuffing his feet over her neatly turned rows. He sat there, immobile, while she finished the carrots and began on the onions. Moss Face trotted out from under the house to whine and bark for him to come down and play, but when Matthew would only hold him too tight and pet him, he ran off again.

The sun was low in the sky and the afternoon had lost its warmth when Sarah took off her gardening gloves and smock and shook the dirt from her dress. “Half done. I’ll finish tomorrow. Coby and Karl ought to be getting in. We don’t own that many cows. Besides, it’ll be dark soon. Looks like we’ve company coming, too.” She squinted into the slanting light. “Freighters. The front one looks to be Jerome Ja

Matthew’s sharp eyes fixed on the distance. “It’s Mr. Ja

“Then that must be Charley behind, eating dust. You’d almost think those two were yoked together.” She gathered up her tools. “Hon, would you run these over to the shed and put them away for me? I’d best get supper on the stove.”

An obstinate look came into his eyes and he wouldn’t look at her. Pushing his hands deep in his trouser pockets, he poked the toe of his shoe at an unfortunate beetle crawling by.

Sarah took a deep breath and blew it out through her nose. “Never mind. It’ll be faster to do it myself.” She dumped the trowel and gloves into her smock and gathered up the corners. Matthew ran after he as she hurried to the shed, and hovered by the door, anxious not to lose sight of her. “What’s got into you?” she said as she stumbled over him on her way out. He tagged behind her as she crossed the yard, following so close that he trod on her heels. With an exasperated sigh, she turned on him.

“Go on. Go play with Moss Face, air yourself off. The way you’ve been behaving lately, I can do without your help in the kitchen tonight.” Again the accusing look. “Go on now, you’re moping around. Run around some, maybe you’ll sleep better.” Still he hung about, never out of reach of her skirttail. She looked about for something to occupy him for a while.

“There.” She pointed to the eastern road. Karl and Coby rode half a mile out, coming into the stop from the opposite direction as the freightwagons. Shadows crossed the valley, black fingers reaching over the road and touching the mountains to the east.

“Run and meet Karl and Coby,” Sarah said to her son. “If you ask Karl nice, I bet he’ll give you a ride in.”

Matthew looked down the road. “It’ll be dark.” There was just the begi

“Not if you run. Scoot!” She swatted his behind and he took off as if all the devils in hell were after him, calling, “Karl! Coby! Karl!” at the top of his lungs before he had run as far as the gate.

The riders and the freightwagons arrived at the stop within minutes of each other, and Karl and Coby helped with the unhitching.

Jerome and Charley had started driving mule and rig over the desert early in the year, and now made a regular run. Round Hole had seen them several times a month since February. Both were in their forties, redfaced, round headed, and thick through the neck and shoulders. Jerome did most of the talking for the two of them; Charley seemed to be happy with the role of straight man and audience. They were immensely strong: one night, on a bet, the two of them had lifted an eight-year-old mule and its rider. They’d turned as blackfaced as storm clouds, and their necks had grown even thicker and redder, but they’d done it.

Matthew hung around the men, getting in the way, until Coby lifted him up onto the boxes in the back of one of the wagons, where he wouldn’t get stepped on. When they started to the house without him, he cried out so frantically that Karl swatted his behind. “Don’t scream like that, Matthew. Not unless you are really hurt. It’s like the little boy who cried ‘Wolf.’ Remember that story? I will always come at a run when you scream, so will your mother and Coby.”