Light changes everything, p.27
Light Changes Everything, page 27
That statement filled me with a dread. Until that second I had never considered not seeing him again if I moved to Albuquerque. Never thought he’d not be here when I came home. I didn’t rightly know what to say, so I just waited. Remmy fell asleep. Was I smitten with Brody? Not at all. Did I feel desire? Only a little. I just plumb admired the man. Respected him. Felt comfortable with him like I would with a hug from my pa. What I felt was longing, just like longing for home. And when I was near him, I felt as if I’d come home. As if I needed him.
He went on, “It was because you wanted no part of it, could never give up that boy, that I knew you was the girl for me, if only you’d be convinced of it, too. It all came real clear to me in less than a shake.”
“I was proud of you for doing it. No one else even thought to get rid of his papers.” It was too clumsy with this baby on my shoulder to reach out, pat his arm, or any of the endearing things I felt I wanted to do.
“Paper burns.”
“Yes, it does,” I said.
“And so, are you? Convinced, I mean?” he asked in a whisper.
I asked, “That I am the girl for you? Or that you are the man for me?” When I’d thought the sentence in my head, it seemed sweet and charming, but the look of dismay and doubt on his face told me it was not. I wanted to swallow my words and change his expression.
“Well”—he started rolling his hat in his hands—“I reckon both.”
I took a deep breath. “I had only thought you were being brave when you asked me before, trying to save me from having a child without a pa’s name. But, yes. I hope I’m the girl for you. I pray you’re the man for me. I believe you don’t even know that the M in Remmy’s middle name stands for Merle. I feel a fondness for you that has grown every time I see you. I believe I’m well convinced, Brody. No fooling. I can’t imagine living without you.”
He clasped his hand to his face and kind of grunted like he was squelching a holler, and said, “Well, shoot,” then he scratched his ear and put his hat on his head and took it off again in about the length of a single breath.
I said, “Tell me about that ranch up north.”
“It’s got a little rock house that has a stairway to the ceiling in case you wanted to add on a second story. There’s no cookstove yet, but a good fireplace indoors. And fields of good grass, and a couple hundred miles of fence, but some’s falling down. The best thing is, there’s always water. Snows in the winter, if you don’t mind the cold.”
As he talked, I imagined the fine place we could build with the money lying on the kitchen table. And then I felt so troubled I began to weep. Brody was so honest and kind. He deserved to know I was capable of killing and cunning and thievery. When he asked me why I looked so sorry, I told him about the money, and how much I wanted it, including how much of it there was and that I’d wished Aubrey dead.
Brody’s face didn’t hide his disappointment. “What you fixing to do with it?”
I flexed my toes and felt how inside my boots one big toe was always swelled more than the other. Damaged forever by the venom it once had touched. There could be nothing Aubrey Hanna could give me that wasn’t poisoned. “Leave it there,” I said, surprising myself. “When we’re gone from here, Clover can give it back to them. I don’t want to touch it.” I felt as if I could breathe easier than I had in weeks. That glowing hot steam engine in my lights slowed and let out its whistle.
He nodded. “That’s the best thing.”
“When do you figure to head north?”
“Couple weeks. That’s enough time for you, isn’t it?”
* * *
It seemed like enough time, but just two days later, the new county sheriff, John Nelson, showed up with more papers from Aubrey and Rachel Hanna. Sad enough for me, I was rocking Remmy on the front porch when he rode up and I couldn’t hide. He tipped his hat and introduced himself. Even though I was afraid of him, I let him have a merry smile, hoping to warm his heart. He admired my baby and said good morning to Pa and Clover, who came running when they saw the stranger dismount at our porch. I let Pa do the talking, but I kept my ears open and eyed my line of escape should this fellow pull a gun or lay hands on my baby or me.
After a while, Sheriff Nelson said, “Young lady, you know I can’t advise you to break the law. The people of this county have placed a debt of trust in me, you see, to carry out the law. I’ve got to serve you these here papers. This here’s a court order signed by a judge.” He read from the page. “Mr. Aubrey Hanna has vouched that he is the bona fide father of an illegitimate child known here as Remington Prine, being less than one year of age.” The sheriff looked up. “If you had another place to live, say, out of this county, where I’m not obligated to see you again, nor testify what exactly happened to these here papers, it might not bother the voters too much.”
Pa said, “It might bother Mr. and Mrs. Hanna.”
I liked the way the sheriff thought a minute before he said anything. He pulled his hat back on and straightened it. “You say Mrs. Hanna is your daughter, sir?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Possibly she’ll be blessed with a child herself soon enough, and leave off this here.”
“That’d be my hope.”
“Yes, sir. Good day to you, sir. And miss or missus,” he said, tipping his hat to me. “Just hate to see families quarrel like this. Sure do.” With that, he mounted up. He turned his horse but stopped and took off his hat again. “Mr. and Mrs. Hanna are acoming this direction on Saturday. They’ll want me to come along so they can take possession of that baby. Probably won’t get here until after noon,” he said. “If I don’t see you, you take care now.” Then he rode toward Tucson.
Pa looked at me, his face sad and pulled down. “I’m sorry for Rachel, but she’s got a husband. I feel like it’s my duty to take care of you, Mary Pearl.”
“Yes, sir?”
“We need to have a family talk. You go get your aunt Sarah. I want to settle out some things. I have a half-day’s work to do. If you’ll take the baby with you, Clover and Zack can help me in the barn so we can finish that last load.”
“Papa, Brody asked me to marry him and move away.”
“I know that. He asked my permission. Made some promises.”
“Are you against it?”
“No. He’s all right. Just fetch the family and him, too, and let’s lay out everything we have got before us so no one is in the dark.”
I took up Remmy and laid him on my shoulder. He barely stirred. I set off walking.
Up the road came Brody and Gilbert, trying to get ahead of three ornery strays. The cows kept getting off the side of the road and wouldn’t turn around. For a moment or two, I just admired the way both men stuck in the saddle, whistling soft, cutting their horses this way and that, circling the steers like they’d been born in the saddles as part of the horse. I waved and once they got all the animals pointed in the same direction, back toward their corral, Gilbert followed them while Brody got down and came toward me, leading his horse.
“Brody,” I said, “I know we were going to wait to marry. What would you say if I told you I want to leave a week or two early? Get married right away?”
“I don’t mind if we marry this very day,” he said. “I just need time for a bath.”
“I don’t mind, either. But that’s too quick to get my family here. I’ll send Zack to the station to telegraph Rebeccah. Right now, I’ll take Remmy and say so long to the rest of the family who live down this road. Pa wants everyone to come and talk in a while. For the wedding, they can gather after morning chores tomorrow.”
“Climb up. I’ll carry you down there.”
“No, that’s all right. I’d feel better if you stayed behind me and watched over us where you can see if any polecats are nosing around. He could just as easy have been following that sheriff.”
Brody frowned. He took his gun belt out from his saddlebag and hung it on low, tying the holster to his thigh. “He’s looking for a case of lead poisoning.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“He might find it. You head up the road. I’ll just rest here a spell and watch.”
“Thank you.”
“We’re really getting hitched tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“M-mind if I give you a little kiss?”
I wrinkled my nose and smiled. “Nope. I don’t mind.”
Brody leaned toward me and planted a soft kiss on my cheek, as gentle as a butterfly. “It’s us against him and everything else,” he said. “Nothing before, none of it matters. I never in my life thought someone like you could think on me at all. I ain’t much of a prize. You’ve been to college and I ain’t never read a book.”
I touched his face tenderly. “I think on you plenty. I think how nice it’ll be to wake up beside you all the days of my life, that’s what I think. I’d go with you wherever you go, to the ends of the earth, Brody Cooperand.”
He shook his head and covered his face, as if the blush pained him.
I whispered in his ear, “Reckon I could give you a little kiss, too?”
He smiled, staring hard at the desert ground, then gave a boyish little shrug.
I gave him a little buss on the cheek like he’d given me. Then I said, “I’m going to say good-bye to my aunt and my granny now.”
I walked away, and in a few steps I heard Brody shout, “Whoo-hoo!” and, turning around, saw his hat fly straight up in the air over his head. I grinned and waved at him. My heart felt as if it swelled into the sky with joy.
I hurried with my sleeping boy on my arm toward Aunt Sarah’s old place, stopped and told Charity to bring Gilbert in the morning, and then went further on to Udell Hanna’s, where Granny stayed with Aunt Sarah and Udell now that all the troubles were done. Udell had built Granny a special room which she liked very well, and that was as it should be. Aunt Sarah could tend her needs better than Pa, who was not a bad nurse when Ezra needed help, but he would have been embarrassed to give his ma a bath if she needed it.
I knocked on the door and hollered, “Hello!” and then just walked in and found Granny in the parlor. “Morning.” I was feeling every ounce of Remmy’s twenty pounds, and was happy he fell asleep in my arms so I could lay him across my lap to talk to my grandma.
“Ain’t you cold, girl?”
“No, Granny. I’ve walked all this way and I’m warmed through and through. I got something to tell you though.”
“I reckon you’re going to Kentucky with that boy.”
I stared at the sky through the window glass. There was no reason to correct her. Kentucky was just some distant place, far away, back in time, in the recesses of her great supper table set with all the pieces of her life. “I believe so.”
“It’s cold there.”
“I know. Better than roasting alive most of the year here. I met up with a jackrabbit the other day who asked me to please throw him in the fire so he could cool off.”
“It’s only April.”
“Yes’m.”
“When you leaving?”
“Couple of days. Wedding’s tomorrow.”
“You got my memories hid good?”
“I do. No one has seen them, although Rebeccah told me she was jealous and wished you’da given her something like it.”
“Secrets is heavy things. I gave her a gift by her not having to carry it. You’re the one toting the heavy load.”
I let out a chuckle. “I agree.”
“You a woman now.”
“Yes’m, I believe.” I listened to her rocking chair moving, memorizing the squeaks of it. “I’m gonna marry Brody Cooperand.”
“That’s fine, girl. He’s straight up and square all around.”
“Papa is coming with us. Ezra and Zachary, too, so I can take care of them as I always have. It seems like a good thing. Zack is already setting his sights on schooling, but until then, I’ll send away for mail-order books. Clover is gonna keep up the pecan farm.”
“That so?”
“I … I want you to come with me, too.”
“Ah, that’s no good. I’m too old for gallivanting. You got a new life to live and a new family to start. Taking care of the old, that’s not your job now. Kentucky’s a wild place. What town you heading fer?”
“Springerville.”
“Good farming there?”
“Yes’m. Brody thinks so. Ranching, too. They run cows up there mostly. He’s got a place between two mesas overlooking a settlement called Eagar. There’s plenty of people speak Spanish there, so I can talk to everybody. He’s going to set me up a room for my photographs.”
“Pish. You’re gonna be running after little ones and chickens too much for that, likely.”
“Maybe so. But I do want you to come. I’ll miss you so much. I can’t bear the thought—”
“That I’ll pass on while you’re gone? Listen, honey. That’s how it will always be. My ma and grandma passed without me being near. It’s a blessing if you get to hold your loved ones as they cross over, and don’t be thinking it’s not. But you see, you got all my wishes and dreams and thoughts with you. Anytime you miss me, you just open it and read a spell. That’ll likely bore you to sleep, but there I’ll be right beside you, just like when I first told it to you.”
“Ah, Granny.”
“I won’t mind if you write in it some, too. Add some pages to it when you get a chance. You know, back in the days of your great-great-great-grandmother, a lady always kept a book. You should keep a book. Your aunt Sarah has kept a book since she was younger than you. How else would I know about all her secret wishes?”
“You mean, you read it?”
“’Course.”
“I thought you couldn’t read.”
“Well, that’s only sorta true. I can read when I want to enough.”
I grinned at her. “Granny, you’re a rascal.”
“When I want to be, I reckon. Now hug me and don’t break my old bones. I feel like I’m strung with spiderwebs, not a bit of iron left in me.”
“I believe there’s some iron left,” I said. “You’ve made me want to be a better person. I’ll never forget that.”
“Write some, too. You best do it or when I die I’ll come haunt you.”
“Ah, Granny!”
We both laughed. We both cried.
Aunt Sarah came out to the porch and handed me a large bundle full of pans and towels and a set of bed linens. She said, “I’ll drive you back home. You can’t carry all this and that little buster of a boy, too. I got a bone to pick with you, too. You know I’m not happy to be losing my best hand.”
“I know. But you’re running sheep now, more than horses. It only makes sense you give a job to a good sheep man.”
“Reckon so. You know I’ve always thought of you as my girl? More like me than my own daughter April has been. We’ll be there tomorrow morning for the happy day.”
“I’m not gone for good. We’ll visit, and our door will always be open. It’s only six hours by train. North to Holbrook and then east to Springerville. I’ll always love you, Aunt Sarah. And always be beholden to you, for giving me the schooling you did.”
The next morning, Brody and I held hands in Ma’s best parlor and pledged before my family to stand by each other all our days. I was surprised that he’d come with a gold band for my finger. He couldn’t have gotten to town and back so quickly, so he had to have bought it before now.
Aubrey’s father, Udell, begged forgiveness for his son’s actions, saying he and Aubrey’s mother had been separated for decades and he had nothing to do with the boy’s upbringing, and he would have liked to see him trained to know right and wrong. I don’t believe a person can ask or accept forgiveness for someone else, just like they can’t say someone else is sorry for what they did. But I told him I was forgiving everything and determined to be happy, and not to worry, but plan to visit us at our ranch.
We packed up our wagon that afternoon. We spent the night in it, on a little bunk, but so cold we wrapped up like blanket rolls and huddled together for warmth. Two burritos, side by side. Too cold to uncover, too embarrassed as well, knowing my family was just steps away, and even if we’d stayed in the house, it would have been in separate rooms for the same reason.
It was a frosty morning in that wagon on that hard bunk, and I turned to look toward Brody. My hair was all tangled over his face, and he swept it back, touching it like it was something new and rare. He said, “I thought I was dreaming. I wished for this morning so many times before now, it don’t hardly seem real.”
“I have to admit I never before expected to see you beside me in the morning. Not until that day you came to propose. I had to try on the idea several times before I thought it would fit.”
Then he wrapped one arm around me and pulled me close to him. “There ain’t nothing better in the whole world,” he said, “than to wake up next to you. The rest of my days, you’ll be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night. Being married to you is better than a cool drink of water.”
I smiled. That was the second longest speech I’d heard from him. I nestled into his arms and laid my face on his chest. “I can count on you. I trust you. That’s everything in the world to me. I have come to love you, Brody. Very much.”
He inhaled sharply and pulled me tight. “You do, really?”
“You think I’d have married you for less?”
“You can draw us up a brand and I’ll get it made for our stock.”
“I still want to hear you yodel.”
“Someday, I reckon. Maybe I’ll teach Remmy. Meanwhile, I’ll build you a home.”
“I’ll cook your suppers. And have your children.” I smiled.
He pulled his head back and raised his eyebrows with a grin. “That sounds like a fine bargain.” Then he kissed my forehead. I sighed. Felt like I should say something but I paused, waiting for him to speak. All he did was nod. After a long time, he said, “We need to get a move on and make some tracks, but there’s a little while until folks are up.”
