Listen to the Mockingbird (4 page)

In the kitchen, I ladled some water into a pan, dipped a towel in it and held it to my head. After a time the pain gave way to numbness. I gave my face a good wash and went back outside.

Fanny was munching hay, still saddled, near the barn doors. I took the reins, thrust myself onto her back and set out for the cuevas, keeping her at a slow gait to appease the ache that drummed in my head each time her hooves hit the ground.

I had ducked to peer into the cave’s darkness when Tonio Bernini’s face suddenly appeared around a rock, just inches from mine.

“Pardon me,” I faltered, backing away.

“Good afternoon.” He stepped into the sun.

I backed two more steps then drew myself up. “Have you been up to the ranch today?”

He frowned and shook his head.

“Have you seen anyone? Anyone who doesn’t belong here?”

He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I expect I wouldn’t know whether someone belonged or not. Why?”

“No matter.” I leveled my gaze at him. “I’ve heard you are a priest.”

His eyes bored into mine, then strayed above my head. “Sorry. I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

I studied his face. It was full of something I could not read. “Beg pardon.” I turned to go.

“Have you need of a priest?”

“The boy—I thought it fitting to have a service. Sorry to have bothered you.” I moved toward where I’d left Fanny.

“As it happens, I do know the service.” I turned back. His face was almost empty now. “I was in seminary once.”

999

A clod of clay thunked the top of the narrow coffin.

The flute felt cold and heavy in my hand. My lips and fingers were wooden with the weight of the time that had passed since I last held it. The casket gleaned from scraps of wood seemed unutterably apart from the group gathered around it, and the wind-scoured range a cheerless place for a spirit to begin its journey toward the next world.

Thirteen of us clustered under an old scrub oak. When I counted, the number made my skin prickle as though someone had tread on my own grave. But I shook off the feeling, not much one for superstition. Thirteen, and not one of us had known the boy alive.

My eyes rested for a moment on Nacho’s bowed head. Next to him, on her knees but back straight, head thrust up, face wearing a profound sadness, was Herlinda. Mexican women have a gift for mourning. Their sons, Ruben and Julio, albeit a bit unsteady on their feet and smelling of whiskey, stood obediently, with eyes closed. The Lujan boys might have been a trifle rowdy from time to time, but they were good hands.

Homer Durkin, a rawboned man with slicked-down hair, had planted his feet apart, as if someone might try to knock him down. His head was hunched down between his shoulders, like one trying hard to show proper respect for the dead. At Homer’s elbow, Eliot Turk stood as tall as his scant frame would allow, dark face held high, eyes closed, looking peaceful as a monk in chapel. Buck Mason towered over Eliot, eyes staring blankly at the coffin, a battered felt hat grasped tightly as a lifeline and held to his heart. I always thought Buck wasn’t quite right in the head, but Nacho said he was strong and willing and that was good enough for me.

A small knot of Indian women clustered near, but not with, Herlinda. Two looked to have no more than twenty years between them; the third, mouth open showing absent teeth, was getting on. They swayed a little in unison, no doubt having a word with their own Great Spirit as we prayed to ours.

I glanced again at the casket, ineffably lonely perched next to its rocky grave; and once more wondered who had done this. Killings were common in these parts. Not a year went by without a dozen men meeting their Maker forthwith in a tavern brawl or a quarrel over water or grass. But most times the culprit was known. This one was like a riddle. It could be anyone, someone I knew, even someone on the ranch.

My eyes flicked back over the small group. There had been blood on that wretched face at my window, but the man had been fit enough to quickly get himself to safety.

Obviously, it could not be Nacho. Julio and Ruben shared the broad features of most Mexicans in the area, and I knew their faces too well not to recognize them. The man was dark but not Mexican. I was sure of that. Homer’s hair was red, and Buck’s complexion was fair. Eliot’s was dark, but his nose and mouth were delicate, almost like those of a woman, more like those of the boy killed. And that awful face was bloodied from a wound somewhere about the forehead.

Just the same, I scanned the men around the grave yet again. All looked to have scoured themselves with lye soap for the funeral. All had hair combed straight back, still looking damp. No sign of a fresh scar anywhere. No, that face belonged to no one here.

But was one of them part of some scheme that had led to this?

I chewed on that for a time, but it didn’t seem likely. The hands seldom left the ranch except on Saturday nights. And I’d often heard tell they wasted no time getting too drunk to do anything but lose their pay at poker. No, shootings hereabouts were done by one man in his cups or enraged to madness or a gang of outlaws bent on thieving.

Except this time.

And what about Tonio Bernini? His voice now telling the scripture was like warm, buttery rum. It half-coaxed me to believe there was a God; and that this poor, dead, unknown boy would soon be looking into His face. I could not imagine this man shooting a young boy in the back. Besides, he could hardly have expected me to search him, and I had found no gun.

At the “amen,” I raised the flute, closed my eyes and breathed into it the first bars of “Lo, How a Rose.” The notes were clumsy and thick. My vision blurred with tears—whether for the boy or for myself I could not say—but something seemed to ease in me and the hymn floated plaintively over the emptiness of the desert.

999

We had just finished after-supper cleanup when a horse clattered to a halt, and I opened my front door to find a round face, cheeks pinker than ever in the lamplight, bushy eyebrows high.

“Jamie!” A kernel of alarm stirred in my innards as it always did at anything unexpected. Jamie seldom came to the ranch. I always visited him in town.

He followed me to the kitchen, where I hesitated between the coffee and tea. Tea was terribly dear at three dollars a pound, and our stock was nearly depleted; but Jamie was just about my only real friend and he had a passion for tea, so I brought out the pot. The cook-stove was still warm. I took a dried horse-pie from the gunnysack, opened the iron door and chucked it onto the embers.

“Have you heard something?” I asked him. “Will the Confederacy take us on?”

“That they will, my girl. How else can they get to the Pacific? They’re in great need of a port; and our mining is no mean attraction, either. We do not go to them empty-handed. But I don’t look to hear from Wilbur for another week.” Jamie folded his plump hands on the plank table.

I tossed a careful measure of tea into the pot.

“Ah, Matty, I was hopin’ for tea. You spoil an old man.” He watched me watch the pot, and I must have looked as melancholy as I felt. “You seem glum, lass. Are things not going well?”

I told him of the murdered boy, feeling vaguely guilty that I hadn’t told him earlier.

“Sure enough an unfortunate happening,” Jamie said. “Wouldn’t let it worry me too much, though. Like as not some fool got a snootful of whiskey and decided he had some reason to hunt that Mexican kid down.”

“Zeke seemed to think it was my fault, somehow. He claims it wouldn’t have happened if I was a man. Says he aims to keep a closer eye on the ranch.”

“Ah, Zeke sometimes has suet for brains,” Jamie sighed. “I expect he only means to give you some protection.”

“He’s a mean-minded dolt! The last thing in the world I want is anything he would call protection.” I surprised both of us by slamming a fist onto the table, causing the teacups to jitter about in their saucers.

Jamie was eyeing me with obvious shock at my outburst. “Easy, girl,” he said as if I were a half-broke horse he wanted to gentle. “Easy. What has put such a burr under that lovely saddle?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, bringing the heel of my hand to my temple and holding it there. “I’m not myself today. But I don’t need Zeke’s help, Jamie. I’m perfectly safe…except…” I wouldn’t have left it like that if the funeral that morning hadn’t somehow kept me weary all day. I didn’t want to think about disagreeable things any more.

“Except what?”

“That day I stopped by to see you, when I got back to the ranch someone was in the barn. He hit me over the head, knocked me clean out.”

“Dear Jesus!” Jamie said, covering his mouth as if trying to prevent himself from saying more.

“No, no. It didn’t amount to much. I’m all right. Really. I figure it was just a drifter stealing tack. I surprised him so he conked me and took off.”

Jamie held my eyes as if trying to decide both whether that was true and whether I believed it. After bouncing the bowl of the teaspoon in front of him up and down on the table a few times, he asked, “How happy are you with this ranch, Matty?”

I stared at him. “Why?”

“It’s a business proposition I have for you.”

“That right?” The kettle was steaming; I got up to retrieve it.

“Fella come to see me this afternoon wants to buy your land.”

The tea I was pouring into the china cup in front of Jamie sloshed past the saucer and onto the table as hope exploded inside me. If I could get enough for the ranch now…I strove to quell my eagerness, put the pot down and mopped up the spill. When I felt my voice would be steady, I asked, “At what price?”

“Now, I know it’s not as much as you would like, but I promised to present it to you fair-and-square-like. He’s offering about what you paid.”

The hope whooshed out of me. I set the cup down.

“I know, I know. You’ve put a lot of work in here, Matty. I told him that. I wouldn’t rule out his being willing to pay a bit more.”

I ran my finger along a board in the tabletop, finding a sticky place where honey had spilled. “I couldn’t possibly take less than I paid, Jamie. Fact is, I would need a good deal more.”

“Understood. You give me a figure, I’ll put it to him.”

“I don’t expect he would pay twice that. But in a few years the horses alone will be worth what I paid for the land.”

“Well, that may be true enough,” Jamie said, “if you aim to hold out here that long. But the fact is between now and a number of years down the road this here is a real good offer. Land values are dropping off pretty good, what with the war and all. There won’t be anything sold till it’s over. I’m not urging you, Matty. I just want you to understand how it is.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to wait.” I took a sip of tea. It was cool now and tasted like metal. “Who is it wants to buy?”

“Don’t know exactly. Fella come to see me said he was from Austin, Texas. Said he was representin’ a gentleman who come through here a couple months ago and saw some land he wanted to buy. Then he described your ranch, right down to the springs and the cuevas.”

Choking down a rush of foreboding, I gazed into my cup. A few stubborn leaves were floating on top.

My mouth went on chatting with Jamie. When he rose and kissed me on the cheek, I forced a smile and bade him goodbye.

999

Joel Tolhurst’s coffin was dark pine shiny with shellac. Thirty or forty of us had gathered around it to give him a proper send-off. We spoke about how fine Joel looked, which he didn’t.

I had brought as many wild spring blooms as I could carry wrapped in a damp bit of calico, and others had brought whatever they could find. Only old Mrs. Grady actually grew flowers with seed she got from back East; but her garden didn’t bloom till early summer, so Joel had to make do with the wild varieties. He had teetered between this world and the next for many days before deciding things looked better on the other side. A second funeral and all the thinking I had done after Jamie’s visit had weighted my spirits with lead.

Isabel stood across from me, small and prim, dwarfed even more by her enormous skirts, draped with black lace. Her ankles were no bigger than my wrists. This morning she had greeted me at the church looking like a toy sailboat about to capsize and asked me to pay her a visit after the burial.

I didn’t know her well; but when I was new in town and still staying at the boardinghouse, she had invited me for tea and introduced me to the six or seven youngsters who lived part of the time in the long wing that had been added to her house as a dormitory for the mission school. The children were a ragtag bunch, some Indian, some Mexican. Most wore their newly learned manners like a hair shirt, but I daresay their souls were a small price to pay for three meals a day.

When the praying was over, I tied Fanny to the back of Isabel’s little carriage and drove her back to her empty house. As we came to a stop, I realized she was trembling. A rivulet of tears grew to a torrent, sliding down her cheeks and spattering her lap.

“Oh, Isabel,” I said, putting my arms around her. “It’s awful, it must be truly awful, but the worst of it will pass. Really it will.”

She just kept shaking her head, staring straight ahead while the tears dripped from her chin.

“Come,” I said, helping her down from the wagon. “Will one of the boys put up your horse?” I lifted my chin in the direction of the dormitory.

“I’ve sent them away,” she said in a monotone.

I hesitated. “Well, make me a cup of coffee, then, while I do it.”

The brew was so weak it tasted like bathwater, but I wasn’t about to complain and Isabel didn’t seem to notice. She sat, took one sip, rose again immediately like a porcelain marionette and with quick little steps went to a black pine cabinet beside me. She withdrew a large bottle of Charlotte Fotheringill’s Vegetable Compound from the drawer and poured the contents into a large goblet.

“It does help my headache,” she said, not looking at me as she took up the glass. “This is the only piece of crystal I have left.” She raised it to her lips and downed the entire contents, then began to pace back and forth in the parlor where Joel had been stricken. The floor of pine planks, stained almost black, bowed and creaked under her every step. “You can’t know how awful it has been, Matilda.”