Between Earth & Sky (20 page)

Also, I have painted the nearby churches and one of the priests, along with a few of the Indian children. Most of the charcoal sketches are of the people who live in this area. Señora Teresa has posed for me, and I made her portrait in oils for a gift. I like best to draw the children and some afternoons will sit at the school with my sketch pad while the students go about their lessons.

Pamela Porter and her husband came by last Sunday, and I accompanied them to church. I try to attend at least twice a month, but the long ride does not always seem worth it when I am alone. Instead I often choose to spend the morning with my paints or riding out towards the mesa. Sometimes I recite a verse or sing a hymn, my voice dwarfed by the long mesa and wide sky. It keeps me in mind of how small my place is here on this earth.

Your Sister,

Abigail

October 24, 1897

Dear Maggie,

I received a letter from George last month. It seems Wyoming is such a cattleman's dream, I do not know if I will ever get him back. He says the fields of grass go on forever and they are knee high. He is working hard for Mr. Dunn to establish the ranch, and I don't believe I will see him again for some time. “Go east for the winter, Mother,” he advises, stating his concerns for me staying here alone without visitors during the cold.

For the first time since Clayton's death, I dread being so much alone during the long winter months. Last March when it snowed, I was house bound for more than a week and saw no one. Amy says I must come east for Christmas, and perhaps I shall if I can make arrangements for the care of the animals. Meanwhile, I will bundle myself against the cold and, as I watch the first powder of snow appear, dream of pale-green shoots of alfalfa and corn and beyond them the bright flowering of the desert.

Your Sister,

Abigail

February 26, 1898

Dear Maggie,

We have had two snowfalls in the past week, the latest in the form of a blizzard. This morning I had to thaw out the kettle before I could use it, as the stove had gone cold during the night. I heat with coal, which I haul in sacks. It is a dirty heat. Perhaps before next winter I will purchase a gas stove and see how warm it keeps me.

I am in bed this week with a swollen jaw, my face wrapped in a poultice. As soon as the roads clear, I will find a way to ride to the nearest dentist's office and have him pull the tooth. Señora Teresa has offered to do it herself, claiming an uncommon strength and ability in such matters. So far I have preferred to wait out the blizzard, but if it goes on much longer I may succumb to her services.

In early December I rode to the city to take Pamela Porter to the train depot and visit the shops. There on the sidewalk as I left the dry goods store, I saw Dr. Mayfield. He was returning from a call, and so we only had a few minutes to converse. I knew him at once, as he was much unchanged, but I could scarcely believe he recognized me, I have grown so old. He thanked me for the painting of the mesa and was kind enough to remember George and Clayton. “You saved their lives,” I told him, and I do believe he blushed.

His wife, he told me, had passed away recently, and I saw how it pained him to speak of her. “Perhaps,” he said as he hurried away, “we could visit one another. I long for a trip through the desert. Life in town grows tiring. You are fortunate to live near the mountains.”

If he writes suggesting a visit, I would welcome him. I do not see the harm in our seeing one another all these years later. As we said goodbye, he squeezed my hand and said I was an independent lady and that all of his life he would admire me for that.

Am I an “independent lady”? I suppose I have lived my life as one, but I am not sure it has made my life any more enjoyable; perhaps interesting, but not more comfortable. It seems to me that I have spent much of my life alone. While it thrills me to ride up into the mountains or along the mesa, with no other human under the wide sky for as far as I can see, the days I spend closed in my house during a winter storm become monotonous. Diversion is most welcome when it comes, even if it is only Señora Teresa come to bring me herbs or some local man searching for a lost burro.

I suppose these are a widow's sentiments on a long winter's afternoon. As soon as the snow melts I will go out for a ride along the valley and stop to talk with any neighbor I chance to see. And with my tooth mended, I will return to the school, where I am certain they will have missed me.

Your Sister,

Abigail

July 2, 1898

Dearest Maggie,

Your descriptions of your grandchildren playing with little Ellen are precious. I have put all of it to memory by now and recite it to myself when I am sitting alone in the garden in the evening. Evening is the only time that I can enjoy the garden; the heat that blew across the land in May has settled over the desert, heavy and still. The irrigation ditch is low, and I doubt I will get another cutting of alfalfa. I am sure the fruit on our trees will be quite dry and tasteless.

Here is a letter from George. You can give it to Amy to read when you are done. He sounds ready to come back and settle down. I hope that he will. You are fortunate to be surrounded by your grandchildren, Maggie. Last night as I sat in front of the house gazing at the mesa, its dark, looming form against the sky, I thought of Clayton and how certain he was at one time that Amy, George, and Margaret would marry and settle nearby. He saw us both living into old age surrounded by the family we had brought west to raise. Now he is dead and the children scattered. I wonder what he would do if he were me, alone on the ranch.

But I know what he would do—see to the crops and the orchard, mend what is broken (this I cannot seem to do, and so the cabinet doors do not close properly and there is a cracked window pane), feed the chickens. Clayton would go on with his life here, as I have done, without any of the rest of us.

I remain your sister,

Abigail

May 4, 1898

Dear Mother,

Winter in Wyoming is not like winter in New Mexico. We have had several inches of snow on the ground since December, and there are many nights where it is twenty or more degrees below zero. There were a few warm days last week when the snow melted off the fields, but today it is cold again and there are flurries
.

Mr. Dunn plans to send up another few hundred cattle next month, and I will stay long enough to get the fencing done and help with the branding. New Mexico sure does look good to me after this winter, and you can count on seeing me before next fall. There are a number of ranches I know of in northern New Mexico, near the Colorado border, and I will find one to work at. I have thought of giving up cattle driving, as I feel so much older than when I started, but I don't know of anything that I could do better
.

There is another hand, named Matt, who wants to go south, and we will most likely travel together, if he does not turn wild on me and insist on spending weeks in one of those towns. Some of them do that, they are so starved to know anything else besides the open range and horses and cattle. But I always did love that best
.

Your Son,

George

March 15, 1899

Dear Maggie,

Tell Amy not to worry; there is nothing more to do. One of Teresa's daughters, Paula, has offered to help me. She does not expect much payment for this, but I will give her what I can. She is married to José, whom I have hired for five years now to help with the harvest. They have two young children, and Paula is gentle with a baby. If Ramon is the father, as Margaret claims, then the child is Paula's niece.

There is really nothing that I need. Pamela Porter knit a blanket, sweater, and cap, and I have been furnished nicely by several other good neighbors and friends. Señora Teresa comes often to visit and makes much of the “bella bebé.” We are a couple of old women easily delighted by any accomplishment the wee thing manages.

Margaret disappeared a few weeks after the baby's arrival. She had asked me for money to pay for a train ticket to California, but I would not give it to her. She had no real plans, just the thought of getting away. It still amazes me that she could leave her infant daughter. Señora Teresa tells me that Ramon is working for a rancher in Mexico. She is afraid he is stealing cattle for this man and says Ramon hopes to marry the rancher's daughter. He seems to have no interest in the child. I suppose he could have his marriage to Margaret annulled with proper payment.

It is a warm spring, the river already flooding its banks with melted snow and ice rushing down from the mountains. The branches of the fruit trees are like pale-green feathers, the new leaves having just unfolded. I could not resist breaking off several to put in a vase so that I can watch the buds blossom. They sit in the back bedroom, in which I have set up an easel. As soon as they open I will do a painting of them, using a stretched canvas and the paints Amy sent me for Christmas.

Your Sister,

Abigail

May 24, 1899

Dear Maggie,

As I have written several times to Amy, I am in excellent health and Paula is quite reliable. I still find time for my work at the school and my sketching, and I attend church and social gatherings. Last year I harvested the apple trees myself, helped with the alfalfa, and managed a small garden. I see no reason for this year to be any different.

There is gossip, of course, but I hold my head quite high and refuse to acknowledge it. Three mornings a week I work with the advanced students at the mission school on their writing. I also teach drawing. I read the newspapers, the books Miss Alden lends me, whatever I can find. And when I do find myself with a free hour or more, I take out my sketch pad and pencils or I paint. Mr. Roosevelt came to our territory and is reported to have said that if New Mexico wants statehood, we can count on him to go back to Washington and do everything to help us. I am hopeful we will soon become a state.

As you can see, I am quite active, and as ever, my feet are firmly planted.

Yours,

Abigail

December 24, 1899

Dear Maggie,

It is nearly Christmas Day, and the ground has been frozen hard as bone since Thanksgiving. It has been a difficult winter already, the wind like a wedge against the house until the door remains shut most of the day, and I am a bent shape beside the stove, a cup of broth or tea in my hands. This is a holiday, and so I shall try not to be forlorn, but after writing that he would be back in time to spend Christmas with me, George has not posted a word.

Would that I were in Virginia with you and Amy, but then who would feed Elsie, the cow I recently purchased, or Ginger, a large brown dog who arrived here last fall, slinking around the place like a shadow. And of course, Anna is too young to travel, and as competent as Paula is, I could not leave any baby who has been placed into my care. There is nothing for me but to stay by the stove until it is again time to brace myself against the wind and milk Elsie. Fortunately, Teresa keeps me supplied with baked goods. She is known for the rolls and sweet bread she makes each holiday season. Ginger stays curled by the fire at my feet as I eat these delicacies. I do love her company.

In his letter George wrote that he had stopped in Colorado to visit a rancher he had worked with. While there, he was asked to accompany a posse on a roundup of some horse thieves. They chased those bandits nearly to the mountains before they caught them. I wrote to him suggesting that perhaps he could get on somewhere as a sheriff. It seems to me this would be steadier work than cattle ranching, and he might get to sleep in a bed more often. But I don't doubt it would be dangerous.

Yours,

Abigail

December 29, 1899

Dear Maggie,

George got here two days after Christmas. He came riding up on the prettiest horse I ever saw, almost pure black, with white feet and a white mark on its neck. The ranch he has been hired to run stretches out for nearly twenty miles north of here, near the Colorado line. There is a cabin provided for him, but it was evident that George preferred spending most nights, except the coldest, sleeping outside near the cattle.

“After fourteen years, I would think sleeping on the ground would lose its appeal,” I said to him. But he only explained to me again that he does it so that he can hear if the cattle run off. It would not surprise me if George slept that way without the cattle, for it has become so much a habit.

Yesterday I took George to town and bought him two more sets of clothes and a wool blanket. I have ordered him a new pair of leather boots, as the ones he wears have more holes than leather, and I have told him he will have to stay and visit me until they get here.

Your Sister,

Abigail

February 13, 1900

Dear Maggie,

George left the very last day of January. He had said he would leave by the fourteenth day, but that week we had a terrible blizzard, and with the wind blowing the snow up against everything, you could not make out a building two feet in front of you. The snow fell like this for three days, and then the wind wouldn't quit for ten. It was all kinds of silver when we went outside that next week, the sun gleaming across the snow, melting just enough of it to make a sparkling glaze.