What Once We Loved Page 17

  “You give bread in Shasta. You. The baker woman. We follow you. Maybe you have milk and place to sleep. Safe.”

  “Mothers have no milk,” the Yurok woman said. She was big-boned, but her cheeks sank in like an old empty squash.

  “Milk. Yes. I can get you some that's cooled. And you can stay the night here,” she said. “I…I'll have to think of something. Tomorrow.”

  That had been weeks ago. She'd gotten them some milk. They chewed on wind-dried meat, and then she'd ridden back to town, letting the mule Ink make his way to her mother's. Her mother would have some advice.

  Her dream drifted back, the part with the carpetbags and people buying tickets for a journey. She'd been on a trip too and realized then that she still was, would always be. And the pastor at the schoolhouse looking formal yet wearing earth-laden boots meant this, she was sure: that she had lessons to learn on her journey. Sometimes they were shared in sermons on a Sunday when expected. Sometimes they surprised, arriving on familiar soil seen in some new way. She got the lessons if she remained in service. “Are you in service?” her friend had said. These Indian women had offered her a way.

  Carrying the lantern beneath a harvest moon, she stabled the mule. “You're late, Daughter,” her mother said.

  “I had company. At Ruth's.” She told Elizabeth of the evening's happening.

  “You take out some bread in the morning,” Elizabeth said. “I can bake extra.”

  She'd been afraid they might just stay and told her mother as much.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Being a servant feels a little different when it's closer to home, don't it? Cant put the need out of your mind so easy.” Mazy nodded, dropped her eyes from her mothers. “No need to feel guilty. Even the Lord wanted time to himself. But he always returned to meeting needs where they arrived. That's what you've been given, Daughter. And isn't it time you stopped calling it ‘Ruth's place' and made it your own?”

  Mazy'd ridden back out in the morning. She brought in Jennifer and Mavis, her Ayrshires, and then herded in three of the Durhams. She separated the calves into one pen and their mothers into another, trying to ignore their bawling. She knew the babies would eventually accept that they could no longer suck. Her Ayrshire calves had already been weaned. After she skimmed the cream from the flat tins that cooled the previous night's milk, she fed some to the calves. She made sure they had rye hay, then poured the cream into the churn and brought the rest of the pale milk to the women.

  Then, thinking, she began loading the tins of whole milk from the cooling place at the creek. She couldn't just keep giving the Indians milk. She'd need some for the calves and had planned to use the rest of the skimmings for the pigs she hoped to purchase. And she still wondered if just giving them food for a while would make any real difference in their lives.

  She'd leaned over into the water to pull at the handle and lift up the heavy tin, then felt a hand take some of the weight from her.

  “Thank you,” she said, surprised to look into the eyes of the auntie who had accepted bread and cookies from her that one day in town. Two older girls fiddled with the butter churn, and Mazy signaled them to wait, that she'd show them in a minute while one of the women picked up the scythe near the barn and walked out into the tall grass and began cutting.

  “That'll be wasted effort,” Mazy said more to herself than anyone else. “The Durhams will stomp it down before it can be sheaved.”

  “We will take the cows to the trees,” one of the older boys said, having obviously overheard her. She nodded agreement. With a stick they began moving the large cows with still-sucking calves slowly away from where the Yurok woman worked. The way Ruths boys used to, Mazy thought.

  She heard a baby cry and told Sula to give it some of the skimmed milk. She watched the mother soak a cloth in it and dribble it into the baby's mouth. Such a simple thing; so essential, her husband might have said. They had found a way to meet essentials through mutual service.

  In town, Mazy carried in the milk from the cart while that lazy Charles Wilson watched. He was hatless, so the gouge out of his ear seemed accentuated. She always wondered how that really happened, but no one ever said.

  “You're just the kind of man I'd go fishing with,” Mazy told him, grunting with the effort to lift the milk tin by herself.

  “Why is that, my dear woman?” Charles said. He pushed his fingers into his vest, kept his bad foot raised onto a stool.

  “Because I'd know anywhere you'd choose for fishing would be a place of easy catching. A man like you wouldn't want to do any hard labor. Even fishing.”

  “I've gout,” he whined. “Got to take care of myself. Don't want to be stepping into that cold spring out back, just to set in tins of milk. My mother wouldn't want me pushing myself,” Charles said. His mouth smiled, but his eyes stayed cold as a widow's hands in winter.

  “And you sure wouldn't want to distress your mama, now would you?” Mazy said.

  Adora stepped out of the doorway. “He does not distress me in the least, truth be known.” She patted his head, and he jerked away. She laughed, an awkward sound. “Charles's health puts pressure on him; still, he stays, so helpful. Such a sacrifice for him. Wouldn't have wanted to be tied down to a mercantile, now would you?” She smiled. “But who knows, maybe Nehemiah will take over this store when I pass. He's a good man.”

  Sacrifice? That word wasn't in Charles's vocabulary. Mazy wondered if Nehemiah knew of Adoras hopes for him and Tip ton returning someday. She hadn't heard that before.

  “We get so many requests for your butter, Mazy, especially from new arrivals. I hope this isn't just a one-time thing. We'd like to have you regular, wouldn't we, Charles?” Adora said.

  “Regular,” Charles said.

  “Lura always said buying from you made the most sense,” Adora told her.

  “I usually sell all my extra to Gus at the St. Charles,” Mazy told her. “And Washington's Market has been a steady contract. Just happens I promised Lura I'd bring you some before they left. Just today though. Don't count on it.”

  “But now with your added herd, you'll surely have enough,” Charles said. “That's a long journey back and forth to town each day.” His large head of tight little curls always made Mazy think of a drawing of Julius Caesar she'd once seen. Charles had a noble look if not a noble heart. “But that's right. You've taken the lease Miss Martin had and are staying on there. Finally separating from your mama. What I hear, your mama has interests of her own. So you'll be alone out there now with your dairying.”

  She usually didn't pay much attention to anything Charles Wilson said. But she wasn't sure what he was getting at about her mother; and she didn't like the prickles rising at her neck as she thought of Charles being the one to comment on her being out at Poverty Flat alone. Well, with the Indians there, she wasn't.

  “But why won't they milk them?” Mazy asked the Yurok woman with the black hair so thick it must have weighed as much as five pounds of coal.

  “They kick,” the woman said.

  “They kick. Well, yes the cows do sometimes, but you can tell when they're about to. If your arm is where it needs to be, by their back legs, you can avoid their kick, keep them from getting the bucket or you.”

  “I cut grass and bring in grain. I feed calves. We take cows to hills. Help with tins. Girls make butter.”

  Mazy had already offered to pay them a wage for their work. She didn't know if she had built enough housing for them. It would be cold soon, even in the daytime. Some of the children had slept up in the tree house.

  The women's help with the heavy work was welcomed. But it was help with the milking that would relieve her most and allow her to take the bull south and to meet the new demands she had. She guessed she could do without pigs for a while.

  But the women were afraid. Maybe she could get the children interested. After all, they'd climbed to that tree house without a hesitation. Her mother always said that fear was a way to remind herself to just take the next step
. “Most everything new is a little frightening the first time,” her mother said. “That's how courage is built. Don't see no babies giving up trying to walk just because they stub their nose a time or two.”

  And hadn't she stubbed her nose a time or two, Mazy thought. But there had always been a way to get back up, someone to help her do it. Just like now. These people arriving when they did had to be for a reason. She just didn't believe in coincidence anymore. It was all divine intervention.

  “Chopped-ear man riding in,” Sula told her, running out of breath.

  Mazy looked at the trail coming from Shasta. “Charles Wilson? Is it?”

  The child nodded, still catching her breath. “I tell him you are not here.”

  “No,” Mazy said, hesitating. “But tell him I'm busy cleaning out the privy. Can you do that?” The girl nodded. “And come get me just as soon as he's gone.”

  Sula signaled and the others disappeared into the trees, the boys taking the cows with them, the women moving into the cabin. Mazy went to put lime down the outhouse hole so the girl wouldn't be telling a lie. She didn't expect to hide out there long. She doubted he'd hang around with that kind of work waiting to be done. She imagined Charles riding up, staying mounted when he approached the child, dust spilling over onto the girl's bare feet.

  She couldn't do it. What if he decided Sula was a vagrant, a fish to be whisked away? She turned, felt her own heart start to pound faster, and marveled at the child's willingness to stand so small beside the man's horse, to not turn and run.

  In that moment, she knew she had been running long enough on this journey: from the past, from facing strong feelings, from her own fears.

  She was a strong woman, a capable woman, even if she did make mistakes, even if she did sometimes cause others pain, even if she did feel fearful at times. Just because she sometimes did less than she was capable of doing didn't make her a bad person. It just meant she was human, not someone unworthy or lower than dirt. Maybe she couldn't help all these Indian people. Maybe she couldn't mend her relationship with Ruth. Maybe she couldn't rewrite the past. But she could certainly learn something from the effort.

  And she could certainly stop the Charles Wilsons of the world from intimidating her into being a woman she wasn't. She went back to stand beside the child.

  10

  “I want you staying in close, Mrs. Kossuth,” Nehemiah told Tipton. “No more walking on the beach for a time without me please.”

  “Why?” Her eyes were innocent, but her heart pounded. Had he discovered that she'd been asking around at the Chinese doctor's for ways to “cleanse herself? “ She hoped not. She hadn't had any luck anyway. Those foreigners pretty much kept to themselves. It had occurred to her to approach one of the women who worked at the saloons, most seemed an unsavory sort who would know what she needed. But Lura said some of them were just banking in there, not doing the things people thought they were. Esty acted…chaste enough, the friend of Suzanne's who had opened her own millinery. She did have a flair for style, though nothing Tipton would have chosen to wear. So how would she find someone?

  Tipton swallowed. What would Elizabeth say if she knew…

  “Mrs. Kossuth? Tipton?”

  “I'm sorry. I was lost in thought,” she said. “Tell me again.”

  “Apparently the rumors you heard were not random,” Nehemiah said. Tipton tried to remember what rumors she had told him. “Much as I hate the rain, I'll be pleased come spring to have it return. Settle these miners by sending them back to work. Too much idle time.” He poked at the center of the newspaper, folded it. “And I cant understand what's holding up the forming of reservations. They were authorized to provide protection for the Indians, but nothings happening. So these people,” he poked again at the paper, “are being left for slaughter.”

  “What people?” she asked.

  “All of them. Tolowas, Wintus, Shastas, Hoopas, Karuks, all of the northern tribes that are left. So you just be staying close at home, all right, Mrs. Kossuth? At least until this latest upset subsides.”

  He obviously didn't want to tell her any details of “the latest,” which was probably just as well. But what would she do cooped up here?

  When he left to go to the warehouse, Tipton read the Herald. It was not a good decision. Someone had chosen to recount atrocities done by Indians to the white settlers in years past. Pack strings had been regularly attacked, mining camps ambushed and shot up. Unprovoked attacks by Indians on simple miners just seeking gold, not hurting anyone. She hadn't thought of Nehemiah being in danger from the Indians when he took supplies in, only that the weather had been a trial! Tipton wondered why Nehemiah never told her of his business trials. Maybe he was trying to protect her? That thought hadn't occurred to her; she had always attributed his warnings to her as his way of making her behave.

  It was the last thing Mazy Bacon needed that morning, Charles Wilson at her door. Just yesterday, she'd received a letter from the Sacramento lawyer saying Jeremy's brother expected her to bring Marvel, the cow brute, south. Now. Before spring. Before any more time lapsed.

  David had come back from his encounter with Zane Randolph more rattled than rested, telling her he thought he might have given Zane some direction for pursuing Ruth. She'd assured him Ruth would understand. “Her solicitor will most likely have to say something about where she is anyway. Maybe not detailed.”

  But David had not been easily calmed. Zane Randolph incited the worst in otherwise sound people.

  David didn't bring up the milking, and she didn t either, deciding to let the subject just drift.

  And now this. Charles Wilson showing up. As if she didn't have enough trouble already. He stepped off his horse and winced. The last time, she'd managed to send him off by suggesting that she did have that privy to clean.

  “Mrs. Bacon,” he began. “What a lovely morning, isn't it? Brisk day.” He used the horse to steady himself, brushed at the heavy rubber rain gear, flashed the cape open to reveal his vest, green-striped as a melon, then rubbed his hands of the morning cool.

  The weather was so wretched, she'd have to invite him in to get warm.

  Maybe he really did have trouble with gout, Mazy thought, though she doubted it. His malady always appeared to serve him just when someone needed his brawn at his mother's store. Mazy looked at his wide face framed by tight blond curls. He stood just shorter than her, but had broad shoulders, a perfect physique but for the notch in his ear that now drew her attention.

  “Ah, Mrs. Bacon,” he said. His hand flicked at his ear. “You've made a fine place for yourself. All your little helpers nicely organized, I see.” Charles nodded toward the plank huts marked by wisps of chimney smoke disappearing through the trees.

  Mazy had used some of the money Seth had loaned her to buy the Durhams and pay for the lumber and their wages. She supposed they were spending it in town so people did know they were out there. Thank goodness she wasn't alone with the likes of Charles Wilson coming to call.

  “Whyever would my status interest you?” Mazy asked.

  “Will you never forgive my lapse in brotherly…well, filial love? I was in my own state of grief, uprooted from my home, my future, my father lost and all. Grief does unusual things to a soul. Changes a personality. You should know that.”

  Mazy felt her face turn hot. “When we needed you most, you took yourself far away. Leaving your mother and sister and the rest of us on that trail.”

  “My dear sister. Still, see how you've weathered. You re the stronger for it.” He swept his arms in a wide arc. “Got some little orphans to help with your cows and their mamas to do your cooking.”

  “I pay them,” she defended.

  “Oh, to be sure. You do good things, Mrs. Bacon. To be sure.” He turned back to her, lowered his voice. “You're more alluring now than ever. Nothing entices a man like the scent of a successful, generous woman.”

  Mazy's skin prickled as though spiders spread their legs over her arms and the back of
her neck. She remembered when Charles Wilson stood too close beside her at his family's mercantile back in Cassville. She'd shivered back then, too.

  “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Wilson? As you noted, I have much work to do. You're welcome to warm yourself at the barn before you head back.”

  “My mother suggested I ride out to engage you in negotiations about milk and butter on a more permanent basis. Seems the demand for such in Shasta City grows along with your herd. What with your Wintus churning up a storm, in the most positive ways, certainly, we thought we might get you to settle on a contracted amount instead of this somewhat inconsistent overflow. Difficult to do business without predictable products,” he said.

  “I'd forgotten,” she said. “You're not one of the remittance men, are you?”

  This time his sculpted features hardened. “I am not a remittance man, as you well know. Those are ‘kept men.' No one back in the States is paying me to keep away. My family took everything I might need back home and sold it.” His bitterness surprised her. She hadn't thought he cared much for his father's business, and Adoras comments earlier had seemed to confirm it.

  “You could always go back. Start again if you have a mind to.”

  “Ah, such passion, Mrs. Bacon, to have me out of your way. So enticing.”

  “Men can be thick as tree trunks,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Let us discuss our dairy needs then, shall we?”

  She hated doing business with Charles. But it was apparently going to be one of the compromises she'd have to make in this new venture she'd undertaken. Expanding her herd meant more milk, which required wider distribution. Gus Grotefend had rebuilt the Shasta Hotel and ordered up all his dairy supplies from her now. He urged her to consider cheesemaking, too. He'd been spending time at her mother's bakery… Was Gus courting her mother? Surely not.

  Back to business. She had an order in for more chickens and planned to get a goat or two in the spring to walk the butter churn treadmill, saving the children from that onerous task. They hadn't shown any interest in learning to milk yet, so she was totally on her own with that. And twenty cows two times a day took its toll in time.