Bittersweet

Matthew buried his face against Karl’s shoulder, and Karl held him close.

41

MONTHS PASSED, A YEAR, THEN TWO. MATTHEW THRIVED AND GREW; on his tenth birthday he was five feet tall. “I’ll be taller than Uncle David,” he boasted. His Uncle had neither visited nor written since the night he’d gotten drunk and smashed every glass in the place. There was still a dent in the wall where he’d rammed his knuckles. Somebody had scratched DAVID TOLSTONADGE under it, and the date, with a pocket knife.

The stages ran less frequently, and even with the decreased service, there were fewer passengers on each mudwagon. David’s predictions of railroad supremacy were fast coming true, but still no rails were being laid across the Smoke Creek or Black Rock Deserts. Freighters and, ever increasingly, cattle became the mainstay of the Saunderses’ business. They had increased the size of their herd and now ran two hundred and fifty head of cattle on the rangeland.

Coby’s responsibilities grew with the cattle ranching, and though he had enough money saved to buy a rig and a team, he stayed on as the Saunderses’ foreman. Each spring he took the wagon into Standish and hired enough hands to help with the branding, and again in late summer, when the cattle were driven to the railroad to be sold.

Maturity settled on Sarah like a handsome cloak. Her features, soft and vaguely undefined throughout her early twenties, firmed and took on substance. When she spoke, it was with the easy assurance of a woman who knew her job and did it well. She had taken on the task of raising pigs as well as chickens, and east of the barn, downwind of the house, she had built a pigsty.

Early in the summer of 1885, Jerome Ja

“Where’s everybody got to?” Jerome hollered. “Got Karl’s winter wood here. Need a hand unloading it if I’m going to get to Fish Springs today.”

“Coby and Matthew are out with the cattle.” Sarah stood and shook out her skirts. “There.” Beyond the spring, toward Reno, two black dots, barely discernible as horsemen, rode in the direction of the mountains. “Karl should be along directly. He’s around here somewhere. Karl!”

Karl came out from behind the shed, a blacksmith’s leather apron tied over his clothes. He’d grown even leaner and browner over the years. “Hello, Jerome. We haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.” The men shook hands warmly. “Where’s Charley? I hardly recognized you all by yourself.”

“Charley’s got a bad tooth. His face was swoll up like a pumpkin. That sawbones they got in Carson yanked it out for him, but he was still sicker’n a calf when I left. I done the Susanville, Standish, and back on my own.”

Sarah made a hammock out of the gu

After lunch the men sat in the shade on the porch, letting their meal digest, the wagoner packing his pipe. The house was cool inside, and a breeze came in through the open windows. Sarah hummed as she cleared up the dishes. The window over the sink faced east, the sun was directly overhead, and the shadows were small. The desert stretched, stark and clean, under a sky of perfect blue. In the distance two hawks circled on an updraft, tiny black specks over the northern curve of the hills. She watched them slide effortlessly toward the sun until they’d grown so small she could no longer see them.

Karl and Jerome came into sight around the corner of the house as she was starting on the flatwear. Jerome parked the wagon parallel to the fence, as close as he could get it. The back was piled high with cottonwood logs varying in length from eight to fifteen feet, the largest not much bigger around than a man’s thigh. The longer ones stuck out over the tail of the wagon. Both men climbed atop the pile and, one at either end, began heaving the logs over the fence. Puffs of dust shot up as they bounced on the hard dry earth. Karl counted as they worked: “One, two, heave…” and the logs swung off the wagon, hitting the new pile in a battering rhythm. In the kitchen, Sarah sang a little song softly to herself, trying to fit the tune to the pounding of the falling trunks. When the wagon was less than half-full, Karl jumped to the ground and stood behind, hefting the logs out of the wagon bed, then over the fence. He’d stopped counting, and the rhythm slowed, grew irregular, and Sarah sang to her own beat.

It was hot, heavy work, and after a while Jerome stripped down to his undershirt and rolled the sleeves above the elbow. “Hold it a minute, let me get squared away here,” he said, and sat down on the wagon seat to tuck the undershirt back around the belly.

Sweat streamed down Karl’s temples but he didn’t unbutton even his collar or take off the threadbare black woolen vest he always wore. He stood, hands on hips, looking out over the desert, catching his breath.

“Looks like the boys will be in sooner than I thought.”

Jerome followed Karl’s gaze. The two riders were still too far away to recognize. “The missus says Matthew’s riding with Coby.”

“That’s right. We got him an old mare last time we were cattle buying. She’s gentle as a pet-he climbs all over her and she just loves it. Coby is turning him into quite a horseman. He gave up on me.”

“You got no style.” Jerome gri

“I get there,” Karl returned mildly.

“Well”-Jerome puffed out his cheeks and heaved himself to his feet-“let’s get on with it.”

The load shifted as he put his weight on it and one of the logs, several feet longer than the others, shot sideways. The butt caught Karl in the stomach. He grunted and doubled over, then slid down around the log to fall back against the wheel of the wagon.

“Jesus Christ! Karl! You all right?” Jerome ran down the logs, catlike for all his girth. Karl’s eyes were glazed and wet, the color was fast draining from his face, and his head rolled drunkenly. “Sarah! Sarah!” Jerome shouted, and she looked up from her chores. “Get out here,” he cried. “It’s Karl.” He jumped to the ground and knelt by the injured man. “Easy, fella,” he said soothingly. “Easy now.”

Sarah ran from the kitchen, the dishrag still clasped in her hand. She dropped to the ground beside Jerome. A gout of blood covered Karl’s chin and stained the front of his shirt. His eyes were open but registered nothing. “Load shifted and a log shot out and caught him in the gut,” Jerome said. “Poor bastard went down like a two-dollar whore.”

Sarah touched the bloody jaw. “Did he hit his face when he fell?”

“No, ma’am. He vomited that up after. I was scared he was going to choke hisself to death, but he come out okay.”

“Let’s get him out flat,” Sarah said, and Jerome took him in his arms, easing him down. Karl screamed and his eyes rolled back in his head until only the whites showed. Sarah pressed her palm to her mouth, her fingers spread wide and rigid like a starfish.

“Better move him before he comes to. He ain’t going to feel it, at least,” the wagoner suggested.